-
I
From fairest
creatures we desire increase,
That
thereby beauty's rose might never die,
But as the riper should by time
decease,
His tender heir might bear his
memory:
But thou contracted to thine
own bright eyes,
Feed'st thy light's
flame with self-substantial fuel,
Making a famine where abundance lies,
Thy self thy foe, to thy sweet self too
cruel:
Thou that art now the world's
fresh ornament,
And only herald to the
gaudy spring,
Within thine own bud
buriest thy content,
And, tender churl,
mak'st waste in niggarding:
Pity the
world, or else this glutton be,
To eat
the world's due, by the grave and thee.
一
对天生的尤物我们要求蕃盛，
以便美
的玫瑰永
远不会枯死，但开透的花朵既要及时雕零，就应把
记忆
交给娇嫩的后嗣；但你，只和你自己的明眸定
情，把自己当燃料喂养眼中的火焰，和自己
作对，
待自己未免太狠，把一片丰沃的土地变成荒田。
你现在是大地的清新的点缀，
又是锦绣阳春的
唯一的前锋，为什么把富源葬送在嫩蕊里，温柔的
鄙夫，要吝啬，反而浪用？
可怜这个世界吧
，要不然，贪夫，就吞噬世界
的份，由你和坟墓。
II
When forty winters shall
besiege thy brow,
And dig deep trenches
in thy beauty's field,
Thy youth's
proud livery so gazed on now,
Will be a
totter'd weed of small worth held:
Then
being asked, where all thy beauty lies,
Where all the treasure of thy lusty
days;
To say, within thine own deep
sunken eyes,
Were an all-eating shame,
and thriftless praise.
How much more
praise deserv'd thy beauty's use,
If
thou couldst answer 'This fair child of mine
Shall sum my count, and make my old
excuse,'
Proving his beauty by
succession thine!
This were to be new
made when thou art old,
And see thy
blood warm when thou feel'st it cold.
二
当四十个冬天围攻你的朱颜，
在你美的园地挖
下深的战壕，你青春的华服，那么被人艳羡，将成
褴褛的败絮，谁也不要瞧：那时人若问起你的美在
何处，哪里是你那少
壮年华的宝藏，你说，“在我
这双深陷的眼眶里，是贪婪的羞耻，和无益的颂
扬。”
你的美的用途会更值得赞美，如果你能够说，
“我这宁馨小童将总结我的账
，宽恕我的老迈，”
证实他的美在继承你的血统！
这将使你在衰老的暮年更生，
并使你
垂冷的血
液感到重温。
III
Look in thy
glass and tell the face thou viewest
Now is the time that face should form
another;
Whose fresh repair if now thou
not renewest,
Thou dost beguile the
world, unbless some mother.
For where
is she so fair whose unear'd womb
Disdains the tillage of thy husbandry?
Or who is he so fond will be the tomb
Of his self-love, to stop posterity?
Thou art thy mother's glass and she in
thee
Calls back the lovely April of her
prime;
So thou through windows of thine
age shalt see,
Despite of wrinkles this thy golden
time.
But if thou live, remember'd not
to be,
Die single and thine image dies
with thee.
三
照照镜子，告诉你那镜中的脸庞，说现在这庞
儿应该另造一副；如果你不赶快为它重修殿堂，就
欺骗世界，剥掉母亲的幸福。
因为哪
里会有女人那么淑贞她那处女的胎不
愿被你耕种？
哪里有男人那么蠢，他竟甘心做自
己的坟墓，
绝自己的血统？
你是你母亲的镜子，
在你里面她唤回
她的盛年
的芳菲四月：同样，从你暮年的窗你将眺见——纵
皱纹
满脸——你这黄金的岁月。
但是你活着若不愿被人惦记，就独自死去，你
的肖像和你一起。
IV
Unthrifty loveliness, why dost thou
spend
Upon thy self thy beauty's
legacy?
Nature's bequest gives nothing,
but doth lend,
And being frank she
lends to those are free:
Then, beauteous niggard, why dost thou
abuse
The bounteous largess given thee
to give?
Profitless usurer, why dost
thou use
So great a sum of sums, yet
canst not live?
For having traffic with
thy self alone,
Thou of thy self thy
sweet self dost deceive:
Then how when
nature calls thee to be gone,
What
acceptable audit canst thou leave?
Thy
unused beauty must be tombed with thee,
Which, used, lives th' executor to be.
四
俊俏的浪子，
为什么把你那份美的遗产在你自
己身上耗尽？
造化的馈赠非赐予，她只出赁；她慷慨，只赁
给宽宏大量的人。
那么，美丽的鄙夫，为
什么滥用那交给你转交
给别人的厚礼？
赔本的高利贷者，为什么浪用那么
一笔大款，
还不能过日子？
因为你既然只和自己做买卖，
就等于
欺骗你那
妩媚的自我。
这样，你将拿什么账目去交代，当造化唤你回
到她怀里长卧？
你未用过的美将同你进坟墓；用呢
，就活着去
执行你的遗嘱。
V
Those hours, that with gentle work did
frame
The lovely gaze where every eye
doth dwell,
Will play the tyrants to
the very same
And that unfair which
fairly doth excel;
For never-resting
time leads summer on
To hideous winter,
and confounds him there;
Sap checked
with frost, and lusty leaves quite gone,
Beauty o'er-snowed and bareness every
where:
Then were not summer's
distillation left,
A liquid prisoner
pent in walls of glass,
Beauty's effect
with beauty were bereft,
Nor it, nor no
remembrance what it was:
But flowers
distill'd, though they with winter meet,
Leese but their show; their substance
still lives
sweet.
五
那些时辰曾经用轻盈的细工织就这众目共注
的可爱明眸，终有天对它
摆出魔王的面孔，把绝代
佳丽剁成
龙锺的老丑：
因为不舍昼夜的时光把盛夏
带到狰狞的冬天去把它
结果；生机被严霜窒息，绿
叶又全下，白雪掩埋了美，满目是赤裸裸：那时候
如果夏天尚未经提炼，让它凝成香露锁在玻璃瓶
里，美和美的流泽将一起被
截断，美，和美的记忆
都无人再提起：但提炼过的花，纵和冬天抗衡，只
失掉颜色，却永远吐着清芬。
VI
Then let not winter's ragged hand
deface,
In thee thy summer, ere thou be
distilled:
Make sweet some vial;
treasure thou some place
With beauty's
treasure ere it be self-killed.
That
use is not forbidden usury,
Which
happies those that pay the willing loan;
That's for thy self to breed another
thee,
Or ten times happier, be it ten
for one;
Ten times thy self were
happier than thou art,
If ten of thine
ten times refigured thee:
Then what
could death do if thou shouldst depart,
Leaving thee living in posterity?
Be not self-willed, for thou art much
too fair
To be death's conquest and
make worms thine
heir.
六
那么，别让冬天嶙峋的手抹掉你的
夏天，在你
未经提炼之前：熏香一些瓶子；把你美的财宝藏在
宝
库里，趁它还未及消散。
这样的借贷并不是违禁取利，
既然它使那乐意
纳息的高兴；这是说你该为你另生一个你，或者，
一个生十，就十倍地幸运；十倍你自己
比你现在更
快乐，如果你有十个儿子来重现你：这样，即使你
长
辞，死将奈你何，既然你继续活在你的后裔里？
别任性：
你那么标致，
何必甘心做死的胜利品，
让蛆虫做子孙。
VII
Lo! in the orient when the gracious
light
Lifts up his burning head, each
under eye
Doth homage to his new-
appearing sight,
Serving with looks his
sacred majesty;
And having climbed the
steep-up heavenly hill,
Resembling
strong youth in his middle age,
Yet
mortal looks adore his beauty still,
Attending on his golden pilgrimage:
But when from
highmost pitch, with weary car,
Like
feeble age, he reeleth from the day,
The eyes, 'fore duteous, now converted
are
From his low tract, and look
another way:
So thou, thyself outgoing
in thy noon
Unlooked on diest unless
thou get a son.
七
看，当普照万物的太阳从东方抬起
了火红的
头，下界的眼睛都对他初升的景象表示敬仰，用目
光来
恭候他神圣的驾临；
然后他既登上了苍穹的极
峰，像精力饱满的
壮年，雄姿英发，万民的眼睛依
旧膜拜他的峥嵘，紧紧追随着他那疾驰的金驾。
但当他，像耄年
拖着尘倦的车轮，从绝顶颤巍
巍地离开了白天，
众目便一齐从他
下沉的足印移开
它们那原来恭顺的视线。
同样，你的灿烂的日中一消逝，你
就会悄悄死
去，如果没后嗣。
VIII
Music to hear, why
hear'st thou music sadly?
Sweets with
sweets war not, joy delights in joy:
Why lov'st thou that which thou
receiv'st not gladly,
Or else receiv'st
with pleasure thine annoy?
If the true concord of well-tuned
sounds,
By unions married, do offend
thine ear,
They do but sweetly chide
thee, who confounds
In singleness the
parts that thou shouldst bear.
Mark how
one string, sweet husband to another,
Strikes each in each by mutual
ordering;
Resembling sire and child and
happy mother,
Who, all in one, one
pleasing note do sing:
Whose speechless
song being many, seeming one,
Sings
this to thee: 'Thou single wilt prove none.'
IX
Is it for fear to wet a
widow's eye,
That thou consum'st thy
self in single life?
Ah! if thou
issueless shalt hap to die,
The world
will wail thee like a makeless wife;
The world will be thy widow and still
weep
That thou no form of thee hast
left behind,
When every private widow
well may keep
By children's eyes, her
husband's shape in mind:
Look what an
unthrift in the world doth spend
Shifts
but his place, for still the world enjoys it;
But beauty's waste hath in the world an
end,
And kept
unused the user so destroys it.
No love
toward others in that bosom sits
That
on himself such murd'rous shame commits.
X
For shame deny that thou
bear'st love to any,
Who for thy self
art so unprovident.
Grant, if thou
wilt, thou art beloved of many,
But
that thou none lov'st is most evident:
For thou art so possessed with
murderous hate,
That 'gainst thy self
thou stick'st not to conspire,
Seeking
that beauteous roof to ruinate
Which to
repair should be thy chief desire.
O!
change thy thought, that I may change my mind:
Shall hate be fairer lodged than gentle
love?
Be, as thy presence is, gracious
and kind,
Or to thyself at least kind-
hearted prove:
Make thee another self
for love of me,
That beauty still may
live in thine or thee.
XI
As
fast as thou shalt wane, so fast thou grow'st
In one of thine, from that which thou
departest;
And that fresh blood which
youngly thou bestow'st,
Thou mayst call thine when thou from
youth convertest.
Herein lives wisdom,
beauty, and increase;
Without this
folly, age, and cold decay:
If all were
minded so, the times should cease
And
threescore year would make the world away.
Let those whom nature hath not made for
store,
Harsh, featureless, and rude,
barrenly perish:
Look whom she best
endow'd, she gave the more;
Which
bounteous gift thou shouldst in bounty cherish:
She carv'd thee for her seal, and meant
thereby,
Thou shouldst print more, not
let that copy die.
XII
When
I do count the clock that tells the time,
And see the brave day sunk in hideous
night;
When I behold the violet past
prime,
And sable curls, all silvered
o'er with white;
When lofty trees I see
barren of leaves,
Which erst from heat
did canopy the herd,
And summer's green
all girded up in sheaves,
Borne on the
bier with white and bristly beard,
Then
of thy beauty do I question make,
That
thou among the wastes of time must go,
Since sweets and beauties
do themselves forsake
And die as fast
as they see others grow;
And nothing
'gainst Time's scythe can make defence
Save breed, to brave him when he takes
thee
hence.
XIII
O! that you were your self; but, love,
you are
No longer yours, than you your
self here live:
Against this coming end
you should prepare,
And your sweet
semblance to some other give:
So should
that beauty which you hold in lease
Find no determination; then you were
Yourself again, after yourself's
decease,
When your sweet issue your
sweet form should bear.
Who lets so
fair a house fall to decay,
Which
husbandry in honour might uphold,
Against the stormy gusts of winter's
day
And barren rage of death's eternal
cold?
O! none but unthrifts. Dear my
love, you know,
You had a father: let
your son say so.
XIV
Not
from the stars do I my judgement pluck;
And yet
methinks I have Astronomy,
But not to
tell of good or evil luck,
Of plagues,
of dearths, or seasons' quality;
Nor
can I fortune to brief minutes tell,
Pointing to each his thunder, rain and
wind,
Or say with princes if it shall
go well
By oft predict that I in heaven
find:
But from thine eyes my knowledge
I derive,
And, constant stars, in them
I read such art
As truth and beauty
shall together thrive,
If from thyself,
to store thou wouldst convert;
Or else
of thee this I prognosticate:
Thy end
is truth's and beauty's doom and date.
XV
When I consider every
thing that grows
Holds in perfection
but a little moment,
That this huge
stage presenteth nought but shows
Whereon the stars in secret influence
comment;
When I perceive that men as
plants increase,
Cheered and checked
even by the self-same sky,
Vaunt in
their youthful sap, at height decrease,
And wear their brave state out of
memory;
Then
the conceit of this inconstant stay
Sets you most rich in youth before my
sight,
Where wasteful Time debateth
with decay
To change your day of youth
to sullied night,
And all in war with
Time for love of you,
As he takes from
you, I engraft you new.
XVI
But wherefore do not you a mightier way
Make war upon this bloody tyrant, Time?
And fortify your self in your decay
With means more blessed than my barren
rhyme?
Now stand you on the top of
happy hours,
And many maiden gardens,
yet unset,
With virtuous wish would
bear you living flowers,
Much liker
than your painted counterfeit:
So
should the lines of life that life repair,
Which this, Time's pencil, or my pupil
pen,
Neither in inward worth nor
outward fair,
Can make you live your
self in eyes of men.
To give away
yourself, keeps yourself still,
And you
must live, drawn by your own sweet
skill.
XVII
Who will believe my
verse in time to come,
If it were
fill'd with your most high deserts?
Though yet heaven knows it is but as a
tomb
Which hides your life, and shows
not half your parts.
If I could write
the beauty of your eyes,
And in fresh
numbers number all your graces,
The age
to come would say 'This poet lies;
Such
heavenly touches ne'er touch'd earthly faces.'
So should my papers, yellow'd with
their age,
Be scorn'd, like old men of
less truth than tongue,
And your true
rights be term'd a poet's rage
And
stretched metre of an antique song:
But
were some child of yours alive that time,
You should live twice, in it, and in my
rhyme.
XVIII
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 dimmed,
And every fair from fair sometime
declines,
By chance, or nature's
changing course untrimmed:
But thy
eternal summer shall not fade,
Nor lose
possession of that fair thou ow'st,
Nor
shall death brag thou wander'st in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou
grow'st,
So long as men can breathe, or
eyes can see,
So long lives this, and
this gives life to thee.
XIX
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-liv'd phoenix, in her blood;
Make
glad and sorry seasons as thou fleet'st,
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:
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.
Yet, do thy worst old Time: despite thy
wrong,
My love
shall in my verse ever live young.
XX
A woman's face with nature's own hand
painted,
Hast thou, the master mistress
of my passion;
A woman's gentle heart,
but not acquainted
With shifting
change, as is false women's fashion:
An
eye more bright than theirs, less false in
rolling,
Gilding the object whereupon
it gazeth;
A man in hue all hues in his
controlling,
Which steals men's eyes
and women's souls amazeth.
And for a
woman wert thou first created;
Till
Nature, as she wrought thee, fell a-doting,
And by addition me of thee defeated,
By adding one thing to my purpose
nothing.
But since she prick'd thee out
for women's pleasure,
Mine be thy love
and thy love's use their
treasure.
XXI
So is it not with me as
with that Muse,
Stirred by a painted
beauty to his verse,
Who heaven itself
for ornament doth use
And every fair
with his fair doth rehearse,
Making a couplement of
proud compare
With sun and moon, with
earth and sea's rich gems,
With April's
first-born flowers, and all things rare,
That heaven's air in this huge rondure
hems.
O! let me, true in love, but
truly write,
And then believe me, my
love is as fair
As any mother's child,
though not so bright
As those gold
candles fixed in heaven's air:
Let them
say more that like of hearsay well;
I
will not praise that purpose not to sell.
XXII
My glass shall not
persuade me I am old,
So long as youth
and thou are of one date;
But when in
thee time's furrows I behold,
Then look
I death my days should expiate.
For all
that beauty that doth cover thee,
Is
but the seemly raiment of my heart,
Which in thy breast doth live, as thine
in me:
How can I then be elder than
thou art?
O! therefore love, be of
thyself so wary
As I, not for myself,
but for thee will;
Bearing thy heart,
which I will keep so chary