莎士比亚十四行诗翻译和解读

Sonnet 18

1. Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?

Could I compare you to the time/days of summer?

2. Thou art more lovely and more temperate:

You are more lovely and more gentle and mild than the days.

3. Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,

The wild wind shakes the favorite flowers of May.

4. And summer's lease hath all too short a date

And the duration of summer has a limited period of time.

5. Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,

Sometimes the sun shinning is too hot.

6. And often is his gold complexion dimmed,

And his gold skin of the face will be dimmed by the clouds.

7. And every fair from fair sometime declines,

Every beautiful thing and person will decline from previous state of beauty.

8. By chance, or nature's changing course untrimmed:

(the beauty) will be stripped of by chance or changes of season in the nature.

9. But thy eternal summer shall not fade,

But your summer exists forever and will not lose color/freshness or vigor.

10. Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow'st,

You will never lose your own beauty either.

11. Nor shall death brag thou wander'st in his shade,

The Death can’t boast that you wander in his shadow.

12. When in eternal lines to time thou grow'st,

You grow as time grows in the undying lines of my verse.

13. So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,

So long as men can live in the world with sight and breath,

14. So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

This poem will exist and you will live in it forever.

Formal features

14 lines

4 stanzas: 3 quatrains + 1 couplet

Rhythm & meter: 10 syllables (5 feet) each line, iambic pentameter

Rhyme scheme: abab cdcd efef gg

Structure:

1st – 2nd quatrains: an introduction to and development of a problem

3rd quatrain: a volta or a turn “突转”(a change in direction, thought, or emotion)

the couplet: a summary or conclusion

The theme:

The main theme is t he power of the speaker’s poem to defy time and last forever, carrying the beauty of the beloved down to future generations.

What is it about?

The speaker opens the poem with a question addressed to the beloved: “Shall I compare thee to

a summer’s day?” The next eleven lines are devoted to such a comparison. Summer: (Line 3: rough winds；4：too short；5. too hot；6. too dimmed；7&8. beautiful things will die) Sonnet 18 is the first poem in the sonnets not to explicitly encourage the young man to have children. The “procreation” sequence of the first 17 sonnets ended with the speaker’s realization that the young man might not need children to preserve his beauty; he could also live forever in this poem.

Figures of speech

In line (5 ) There is a Metaphor .

In line ( 5+6 ) There is a Personification .

( eye of Heaven shines ) : Eye of heaven = the sun

The sun became dark because dark of clouds .

In Line (9+10+12 ) There is a Hyperbole .

In Line ( 11 )There is a personification .

In Line ( 14 ) There is an Inverted order .

Analysis: （拓展）

The poem works at a rather curious level of achieving its objective through dispraise.

The summer's day is found to be lacking in so many respects (too short, too hot, too rough, and sometimes too dingy), but curiously enough one is left with the abiding impression that 'the lovely boy' is in fact like a summer's day at its best, fair, warm, sunny, temperate, one of the darling buds of May, and that all his beauty has been wonderfully highlighted by the comparison.

Sonnet 130

1. My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun;

My lady’s eyes aren’t like the sun at all.

2. Coral is far more red, than her lips red:

Coral is much redder than her lips.

3. If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;

If snow is white, then her breasts are brown.

4. If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.

If hair is as coarse as threads, then her hair is full of black threads.

5. I have seen roses damasked, red and white,

I have seen the pinkish, red and white roses.

6. But no such roses see I in her cheeks;

But I can see such kinds of roses in her cheeks.

7. And in some perfumes is there more delight

There is much tempting/attractive fragrance.

8. Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.

The fragrance is more attractive than her steamy, sweaty and unsavory smells.

9. I love to hear her speak, yet well I know

I like listening to her speaking, but I am also aware that

10. That music hath a far more pleasing sound:

The sound of music is much more favorable than her sound.

11. I grant I never saw a goddess go,

I admit that I never saw a goddess walking by.