Devouring Time
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A fourteen-line lyric poem.
Traditionally written in iambic pentameter—that
is, in lines ten syllables long.
Divided into four parts.
The first three parts are each four lines long, and
are known as quatrains, rhymed ABAB; the fourth
part is called the couplet, and is rhymed GG.
The volta (turn) is delayed until the final couplet.
The Shakespearean sonnet is often used to
develop a sequence of metaphors or ideas, one in
each quatrain, while the couplet offers either a
summary or a new take on the preceding images
or ideas.
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Devouring Time, blunt thou the lion's paws,
And make the earth devour her own sweet
brood;
Pluck the keen teeth from the fierce tiger's
jaws,
And burn the long-lived phoenix in her
blood;
Shakespeare uses animal imagery to highlight
time’s destructive effects on nature.
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Devouring Time, blunt thou the lion's paws,
The first quatrain starts with an apostrophe-an
address to something that is personified-to
"devouring Time," which comes from the proverb
"time devours all things." Time is set up as being
monstrous; Time is greedily eating up life. Lions
symbolize dominion, and they are often called the
"king of beasts." Time makes the lion's claws blunt,
in doing so Time is essentially stripping them of
what makes them a powerful animal.
Here Shakespeare’s use of personification depicts
Time as monstrous, destroying the fiercest as well
as the mildest things that can be found in nature.
The governing metaphor of Sonnet 19 is Time is a
destroyer.
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And make the earth devour her own sweet
brood;
Time makes Mother Nature eat/kill her
offspring. The earth devours her own children
in the sense that they all return to the dust
and ashes of which they were made. In Greek
mythology, Saturn, the old earth God, was
supposed to have eaten all of his children as
soon as they were born. (See the painting by
Goya).
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Pluck the keen teeth from the fierce tiger's jaws,
Tigers have long been seen as powerful animals
that inspire both fear and wonder. Time plucks
(pull/ pick out) the tiger's keen (sharp) teeth
from its jaw, which, like the lion, is part of what
makes the tiger a tiger. Rotten teeth were a sign
of age. Even the tiger, almost a fabulous animal
in Shakespeare's time, was subject to decay. His
fierceness was abated by the passage of time.
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And burn the long-lived phoenix in her blood;
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The phoenix is widely associated with
immortality; the bird gathers twigs from all over
and builds a nest, which catches fire and the
bird is consumed by the fire and from the fire's
ashes a new phoenix arises. Time does not allow
the phoenix to be reborn, instead it just dies in
the flames; Time takes away the phoenix's
immortality.
Compare this with the third quatrain in Sonnet
73
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Make glad and sorry seasons as thou fleets,
And do whate'er thou wilt, swift-footed Time,
To the wide world and all her fading sweets;
But I forbid thee one most heinous crime:
The second quatrain celebrates the paradox
of dying beauty.
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Make glad and sorry seasons as thou fleet'st,
Winter was a gloomy and miserable season.
Spring and summer were happy, autumn also,
but with a hint of the coming end, and of
slightly ambiguous beauty. Sibilance
(repetition of ‘s’) highlights the rapid nature
of time’s passing. The speaker observes that
seasons are both glad and sorry about the
swift passage of time.
as thou fleet'st = as you swiftly pass by.
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And do whate'er thou wilt, swift-footed Time,
The poet no longer thinks he can hold back
Time, and therefore rhetorically allows him
(it) to do whatever he wishes.
The use of personification reinforces the
quick passing of time; we imagine Time as
swiftly running away, too fast for us to catch
up with. There is a tone of resignation or
passivity.
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To the wide world and all her fading sweets;
her fading sweets = beautiful things of the
world which are doomed to fade and die.
Nature is submissive to Time; nature accepts
that Time is going to do whatever it wants to
do, and there is nothing nature can do about
it so nature is resigned to Time's whims.
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But I forbid thee one most heinous crime:
In a sense, the third quatrain starts here. This
is the poem’s volta, a line earlier than usual.
It introduces Time as committing a heinous
(shockingly evil) crime against the beloved
young man. The speaker takes on a dominate
voice when he forbids time from committing
this heinous crime.
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O, carve not with thy hours my love's fair brow,
Nor draw no lines there with thine antique pen;
Him in thy course untainted do allow
For beauty's pattern to succeeding men.
The speaker tells Time what the heinous crime is;
to draw lines (i.e. wrinkles) on the young man's
forehead, to make him appear older would be the
most heinous crime that Time could commit.
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O, carve not with thy hours my love's fair
brow
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Time is transformed into a sculptor who
defaces the young man’s beauty
The furrows, (lines and wrinkles, as in a
ploughed field), made by time in love's fair
brow, are symbolic of the ageing process.
The use of ‘carve’ equates hours with a knife
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Nor draw no lines there with thine antique pen;
The use of draw here and carve in the line above
almost imply that Time is a sculptor or artist. Perhaps
this is a suggestion of duplicity on the part of Time the only results of Time's artistry are death and
destruction. antique pen - all of times artefacts,
sickle, scythe, hourglass, clothing, could be described
as antique, since they are as old as time itself. But the
pen here, as well as being antique, also has the effect
of making people antique. Time as an artist creates
ugliness, instead of preserving beauty, which is
something that the speaker cannot allow to happen.
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Him in thy course untainted do allow
As you (Time) pass by on your course of
destruction, leave him, the lovely youth,
untouched and unharmed...
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For beauty's pattern to succeeding men.
So that he remains as a template (pattern)
from which future generations may know how
beauty was constructed. The idea of a pattern
or form or ideal by which material bodies
were derived is Neo-Platonic.
succeeding men = people of future
generations. to succeed is 'to follow on from'.
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Yet, do thy worst, old Time: despite thy
wrong,
My love shall in my verse ever live young.
The speaker seems to dare Time to do his
absolute worst on the young man, even
though it would be wrong for Time to do so.
The speaker dares Time, because he knows
that no matter what time does to his beloved,
the young man will remain beautiful in the
speaker's verse.
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Yet, do thy worst old Time: despite thy
wrong,
An abandonment of the prohibition made
above. Time cannot be stopped, whatever we
do. Therefore to succumb is the only remedy.
Immortality may be sought in other ways.
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My love shall in my verse ever live young.
Immortal youth can be achieved for my love
(the young man) through my verse. My love
could also refer to 'my love for him', which
would remain therefore forever fresh and
green. This latter meaning is perhaps the
predominant one, since the youth's eventual
decay is underscored by the description of
time's swift foot in this and other sonnets.