Decadence, Debauchery And All Things Inbetween

As retold and translated by Simon Armitage

Side note: I genuinely love this sonnet more than any within the Fair Youth sequence, somehow it beats Sonnet 116 ("Let me not to the marriage of true minds"). In the simplest of terms imagine being told off, rebuked even for just not having children. The implication that in not having children his lover is sabotaging himself and being foolish in not planning for the future is just so funny to me. I think the whole procreation section (sonnets 1 - 17) just amuses me, boiled down in a nutshell we have 17 sonnets all saying “you’re beautiful, please have children, please, get a wife and have children, children are great for passing down legacies and beauty…truth and beauty will die with you if you don’t have children, have you considered that not having children is selfish and a moral failure? If you loved me you’d have children” I know it’s deeper than that and there are some interesting views and arguments to be dissected better but i haven’t got time for that

And as the seasons and ages pass by our moss covered headstones lean closer together?