The Complete Works of William Shakespeare In Plain and Simple English (Translated)

by William Shakespeare

  That no matter what you do, he won’t think badly of you.

  That god forbid that made me first your slave,

  I should in thought control your times of pleasure,

  Or at your hand the account of hours to crave,

  Being your vassal, bound to stay your leisure!

  O, let me suffer, being at your beck,

  The imprison'd absence of your liberty;

  And patience, tame to sufferance, bide each cheque,

  Without accusing you of injury.

  Be where you list, your charter is so strong

  That you yourself may privilege your time

  To what you will; to you it doth belong

  Yourself to pardon of self-doing crime.

  I am to wait, though waiting so be hell;

  Not blame your pleasure, be it ill or well.

  May the god that decided to make me your slave

  Never allow me to think about having control over when you see me,

  Or to ask for an accounting of how you spend your hours.

  I am your slave, and so I must wait for you to decide to see me!

  Oh, let me suffer quietly, while being at your call,

  In a prison-like absence while you are free to do as you please.

  Give me the patience to endure and suffer each rebuke

  Without accusing you of hurting me.

  You can be where you wish—your privilege is so strong

  That you, yourself, may control your time

  And do whatever you want. It is your right

  To forgive yourself of any selfish crime.

  I am to wait, although waiting is like hell,

  And not blame you for doing as you please, whether it’s for bad or good.

  If there be nothing new, but that which is

  Hath been before, how are our brains beguiled,

  Which, labouring for invention, bear amiss

  The second burden of a former child!

  O, that record could with a backward look,

  Even of five hundred courses of the sun,

  Show me your image in some antique book,

  Since mind at first in character was done!

  That I might see what the old world could say

  To this composed wonder of your frame;

  Whether we are mended, or whether better they,

  Or whether revolution be the same.

  O, sure I am, the wits of former days

  To subjects worse have given admiring praise.

  If there is nothing new and if everything that is

  Has been before, then our brains are being tricked

  When, working to write something new, we only

  Write what has been written before!

  Oh, if I could look back over the record

  To even five hundred years ago,

  I wonder if I’d find the likeness of you in an old book,

  Written when letters were first formed!

  Then I could see what the writers in the past would say

  About the beauty of your body,

  And whether we write better now, or whether they did,

  Or if it’s really just about the same.

  I am fairly certain that the poets of olden days

  Gave high praise to subjects less deserving than you.

  Like as the waves make towards the pebbled shore,

  So do our minutes hasten to their end;

  Each changing place with that which goes before,

  In sequent toil all forwards do contend.

  Nativity, once in the main of light,

  Crawls to maturity, wherewith being crown'd,

  Crooked elipses 'gainst his glory fight,

  And Time that gave doth now his gift confound.

  Time doth transfix the flourish set on youth

  And delves the parallels in beauty's brow,

  Feeds on the rarities of nature's truth,

  And nothing stands but for his scythe to mow:

  And yet to times in hope my verse shall stand,

  Praising thy worth, despite his cruel hand.

  In the same way waves make their way toward the pebbled shore,

  The minutes we have hurry to their end,

  Each one changing place with the one before it,

  As all work together to move forward in a sequence.

  Birth, once in the spotlight,

  Crawls toward old age, where—once it is crowned—

  Faces a crooked path as it fights its way to glory.

  Time, having given its gift, now destroys it.

  It sharply pierces the decoration of youth

  And digs furrows in beauty’s forehead;

  It feeds on the exceptional specimens of nature—

  Nothing exists that its scythe will not mow down:

  Still, it is my hope that my poems will survive

  And praise your worth, despite Time’s cruel hand.

  Is it thy will thy image should keep open

  My heavy eyelids to the weary night?

  Dost thou desire my slumbers should be broken,

  While shadows like to thee do mock my sight?

  Is it thy spirit that thou send'st from thee

  So far from home into my deeds to pry,

  To find out shames and idle hours in me,

  The scope and tenor of thy jealousy?

  O, no! thy love, though much, is not so great:

  It is my love that keeps mine eye awake;

  Mine own true love that doth my rest defeat,

  To play the watchman ever for thy sake:

  For thee watch I whilst thou dost wake elsewhere,

  From me far off, with others all too near.

  Is it your intent that your image should keep

  My heavy eyelids open during the weary night?

  Do you desire me to lose sleep,

  While visions of you ridicule me?

  Is it your spirit that you send to me

  While you are far from home to see what I am up to?

  To find out things I might be embarrased about during my idle hours?

  Is this due to the depth and substance of your jealousy?

  Oh, no. Your love for me, though deep, is not that deep:

  It is my love for you that keeps me awake at night,

  My own true love that will not let me sleep.

  I play the constant watchman for your sake:

  For you, I watch while you wake somewhere else

  Far away from me, with someone else too near.

  Sin of self-love possesseth all mine eye

  And all my soul and all my every part;

  And for this sin there is no remedy,

  It is so grounded inward in my heart.

  Methinks no face so gracious is as mine,

  No shape so true, no truth of such account;

  And for myself mine own worth do define,

  As I all other in all worths surmount.

  But when my glass shows me myself indeed,

  Beated and chopp'd with tann'd antiquity,

  Mine own self-love quite contrary I read;

  Self so self-loving were iniquity.

  'Tis thee, myself, that for myself I praise,

  Painting my age with beauty of thy days.

  The sin of self-love takes possession of my eyes,

  And all of my soul and every part of me.

  There is no remedy for this sin—

  It is so deeply established in my heart.

  I think that no face is so pleasing as mine,

  No body so well proportioned, no virtue so accountable.

  And so for myself I define my worth,

  Which exceeds the worth of others, by far.

  But when I look into my mirror and see

  How beaten, broken and aged with time and sun I am,

  My self-love shifts and I feel the opposite:

  To love myself would be simply wicked.

  It’s you I praise when I praise myself,

 
; Beautifying my age with your youth.

  Against my love shall be, as I am now,

  With Time's injurious hand crush'd and o'er-worn;

  When hours have drain'd his blood and fill'd his brow

  With lines and wrinkles; when his youthful morn

  Hath travell'd on to age's steepy night,

  And all those beauties whereof now he's king

  Are vanishing or vanish'd out of sight,

  Stealing away the treasure of his spring;

  For such a time do I now fortify

  Against confounding age's cruel knife,

  That he shall never cut from memory

  My sweet love's beauty, though my lover's life:

  His beauty shall in these black lines be seen,

  And they shall live, and he in them still green.

  In anticipation of the time when my love will be as I am now—

  Crushed and worn-out by Time’s damaging hand—

  When hours have weakened his blood and filled his forehead

  With lines and wrinkles, and when his youthful morning

  Has traveled into the steep night of old age,

  And all of those beauties in which he is now in command

  Are vanishing or have vanished out of sight,

  Stealing away the treasure of his youth—

  In anticipation of that time I am trying to strengthen

  Him against the destructive edge of age’s cruel knife

  So that he will never be cut from memory.

  My sweet love’s beauty will remain even if time takes his life:

  His beauty will be seen in these black, inked lines,

  And as long as these lines exist, he will remain young.

  When I have seen by Time's fell hand defaced

  The rich proud cost of outworn buried age;

  When sometime lofty towers I see down-razed

  And brass eternal slave to mortal rage;

  When I have seen the hungry ocean gain

  Advantage on the kingdom of the shore,

  And the firm soil win of the watery main,

  Increasing store with loss and loss with store;

  When I have seen such interchange of state,

  Or state itself confounded to decay;

  Ruin hath taught me thus to ruminate,

  That Time will come and take my love away.

  This thought is as a death, which cannot choose

  But weep to have that which it fears to lose.

  Now that I have seen Time’s cruel hand disfigure

  The expensive and proud monuments of men buried long ago;

  And now that I have seen high towers torn to the ground,

  And brass that was supposed to be eternal ruined by human rage;

  Now that I have seen the hungry ocean gain advantage

  And overtake the kingdom of the shore,

  And firm soil overtake the water,

  So that each one’s increase is the other’s loss;

  Now that I have seen everything changing into something else,

  Or being destroyed or left to decay,

  I have learned to think about the fact

  That Time will come and take my love away.

  This thought feels like death, and I cannot help

  But weep about what I have and fear to lose.

  Since brass, nor stone, nor earth, nor boundless sea,

  But sad mortality o'er-sways their power,

  How with this rage shall beauty hold a plea,

  Whose action is no stronger than a flower?

  O, how shall summer's honey breath hold out

  Against the wreckful siege of battering days,

  When rocks impregnable are not so stout,

  Nor gates of steel so strong, but Time decays?

  O fearful meditation! where, alack,

  Shall Time's best jewel from Time's chest lie hid?

  Or what strong hand can hold his swift foot back?

  Or who his spoil of beauty can forbid?

  O, none, unless this miracle have might,

  That in black ink my love may still shine bright.

  Since neither brass, nor stone, nor earth, nor boundless seas

  Are powerful enough to withstand being taken over by mortality,

  How could beauty possibly stand a chance,

  When it is no stronger than a flower?

  How will the sweet breath of summer hold out

  Against the destructive hold of battering days,

  When even the hardest rocks are not sturdy enough,

  And gates of steel are not strong enough to avoid being decayed by Time?

  Oh, these thoughts make me fearful! Where, tell me,

  Can Time’s best jewel be hidden from Time?

  What hand is strong enough to hold back Time?

  Who can forbid that he spoil beauty?

  No one can, unless by a strong miracle

  My love shines bright in these black, inked lines.

  Tired with all these, for restful death I cry,

  As, to behold desert a beggar born,

  And needy nothing trimm'd in jollity,

  And purest faith unhappily forsworn,

  And guilded honour shamefully misplaced,

  And maiden virtue rudely strumpeted,

  And right perfection wrongfully disgraced,

  And strength by limping sway disabled,

  And art made tongue-tied by authority,

  And folly doctor-like controlling skill,

  And simple truth miscall'd simplicity,

  And captive good attending captain ill:

  Tired with all these, from these would I be gone,

  Save that, to die, I leave my love alone.

  Tired of all of this, I wish for a restful death.

  I’m tired of seeing deserving people become beggars,

  And unworthy people dressed up in fine clothes,

  And vows made in faith broken,

  And gold-plated honors given to shameful people,

  And virtuous maidens violently made into whores,

  And people who are right wrongfully humiliated,

  And the strong disabled by the weak that hold power,

  And art censored by authority,

  And fools controlling those with knowledge like doctors control the ill,

  And common sense misnamed as foolishness,

  And good held captive to evil.

  I am tired of all of this and would go

  Except that—if I die—I would have to leave my love alone.

  Ah! wherefore with infection should he live,

  And with his presence grace impiety,

  That sin by him advantage should achieve

  And lace itself with his society?

  Why should false painting imitate his cheek

  And steal dead seeing of his living hue?

  Why should poor beauty indirectly seek

  Roses of shadow, since his rose is true?

  Why should he live, now Nature bankrupt is,

  Beggar'd of blood to blush through lively veins?

  For she hath no exchequer now but his,

  And, proud of many, lives upon his gains.

  O, him she stores, to show what wealth she had

  In days long since, before these last so bad.

  Why should he live with rottenness

  And grace wickedness with his presence

  So that sinners can take advantage of him

  And make themselves look better by being in his company?

  Why should inadequate portrait painters paint his likeness

  And steal lifeless images of his living complexion?

  Why should those not as beautiful as him seek

  To be images of a rose, when he is the authentic rose?

  And why should he live, now that Nature is so spent

  That she has to beg for blood to blush living veins?

  She has no resources now except for his,

  And—swelling with the many sh
e needs to provide for—she borrows his gains.

  Oh, she keeps him in store to show what wealth she once had

  In days long gone, before these recent bad days arrived.

  Thus is his cheek the map of days outworn,

  When beauty lived and died as flowers do now,

  Before the bastard signs of fair were born,

  Or durst inhabit on a living brow;

  Before the golden tresses of the dead,

  The right of sepulchres, were shorn away,

  To live a second life on second head;

  Ere beauty's dead fleece made another gay:

  In him those holy antique hours are seen,

  Without all ornament, itself and true,

  Making no summer of another's green,

  Robbing no old to dress his beauty new;

  And him as for a map doth Nature store,

  To show false Art what beauty was of yore.

  So, in his face is the image of how things were in former days,

  When beauty lived and died as easily as flowers do now.

  This was before the inferior signs of beauty originated,

  And before they inhabited a living forehead.

  This was before the golden hair of the dead,

  Which rightfully belongs in the grave, was cut off

  To live again on another head.

  It was before beauty’s dead hair made another pretty.

  In him, those sacred old days can be seen

  Without uneccesary decoration—authentic and true—

  Not taking another’s youth to look youthful,

  And not robbing from the old to make his beauty new.

  Nature keeps his image in storage

  So she can show false Art what beauty used to be.

  Those parts of thee that the world's eye doth view

  Want nothing that the thought of hearts can mend;

  All tongues, the voice of souls, give thee that due,

  Uttering bare truth, even so as foes commend.

  Thy outward thus with outward praise is crown'd;

  But those same tongues that give thee so thine own

  In other accents do this praise confound

  By seeing farther than the eye hath shown.

  They look into the beauty of thy mind,

  And that, in guess, they measure by thy deeds;

  Then, churls, their thoughts, although their eyes were kind,