SONNET 18 Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?

Thou art more lovely and more temperate: Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May, And summer's lease hath all too short a date: Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines, And often is his gold complexion dimm'd; And every fair from fair sometime declines, By chance or nature's changing course untrimm'd; But thy eternal summer shall not fade Nor lose possession of that fair thou owest; Nor shall Death brag thou wander'st in his shade, When in eternal lines to time thou growest: So long as men can breathe or eyes can see, So long lives this and this gives life to thee. The iambic pentameter concerns assigning numeric values to the last word for each line to illustrate the rhyming relationship in the sonnet. For line 1, the last word is "day" For line 2, the last word is "temperate" They don't rhyme, so we assign numeric values of 1 to "day" and 2 to "temperate". For line 3, the last word is "May" For line 4, the last word is "date" Although they don't rhyme with each other, "May" rhymes with "day" from line 1. Since "day" was assigned a numeric value of 1, then May will also be 1. Notice that "date" rhymes with "temparate" from line 2. Since "temparate" was assigned a numeric value of 2, then "date" will also be 2. For line 5, the last word is "shines" For line 6, the last word is "dimm'd" They don't rhyme with each other and don't rhyme with any of the previous last words. The next numeric value available is 5 and we assign it to "shines". The next numeric value is 6 and we assign it to "dimm'd". For line 7, the last word is "declines" For line 8, the last word is "untrimm'd" Although they don't rhyme with each other, "declines" rhymes with "shines" from line 5. Since "shines" was assigned a numeric value of 5, then May will also be 5. Notice that "untrimm'd" rhymes with "dimm'd" from line 6. Since "dimm'd" was assigned a numeric value of 6, then "untrimm'd" will also be 6. For line 9, the last word is "fade" For line 10, the last word is "owest" They don't rhyme with each other and don't rhyme with any of the previous last words. So we assign numeric value 5 to "fade" and numeric value 6 to "owest". For line 11, the last word is "shade" For line 12, the last word is "growest" Although they don't rhyme with each other, "shade" rhymes with "fade" from line 9. Since "fade" was assigned a numeric value of 5, then "shade" will also be 5. Notice that "growest" rhymes with "owest" from line 10. Since "owest" was assigned a numeric value of 6, then "growest" will also be 6.

For line 13, the last word is "see" For line 14, the last word is "thee" These two do rhyme with each other but they don't rhyme with any other last word. The next numeric value available is 7 so we assign 7 to both "see" and "thee". Now that we have analyzed the entire sonnet, we can say say that the line by line iambic pentameter for this sonnet is as follows: 1,2,1,2,3,4,3,4,5,6,5,6,7,7
5 years ago

From Visions Francesco Petrarch (1304-1374)

Being one day at my window all alone, So manie strange things happened me to see, As much as it grieveth me to thinke thereon. At my right hand a hynde appeard to mee, So faire as mote the greatest god delite; Two eager dogs did her pursue in chace. Of which the one was blacke, the other white: With deadly force so in their cruell race They pincht the haunches of that gentle beast, That at the last, and in short time, I spide, Under a rocke, where she alas, opprest, Fell to the ground, and there untimely dide. Cruell death vanquishing so noble beautie Oft makes me wayle so hard a desire.

(Trans. Edmund Spenser)

It means that the writer questions comparing his lover to a summer day, since summer is short and doesn't last, and sometimes has bad weather, while on the other hand, his love will remain the same without the negative aspects of summer. He also says that his love for her will last for all eternity, if not in an afterlife, then with either the children they produce or with the lines of the sonnet itself, that will be read for years afterwards.