SpokenVerse | Sonnet 65 - Since brass, nor stone.. by William Shakespeare (read by Tom O'Bedlam) @SpokenVerse | Uploaded March 2013 | Updated October 2024, 3 hours ago.
Portraits from the same era as Shakespeare - mostly from a website called Grand Ladies
gogmsite.net
The "Rainbow" portrait of Queen Elizabeth 1st by Isaac Oliver was painted in 1600.
How fashions change! In Elizabethan times on a warm day it wasn't unusual for a lady to wear a dress that exposed her nipples. She wouldn't have shown her legs though - that was considered indecent. A wide, floor -length dress called a farthingale was in fashion - it had an iron framework. This might have been to protect her reputation and virtue - or hide her pregnancy - maybe that's why Queen Elizabeth took to wearing them. A would-be lover would have needed more than her consent - he would have needed co-operation and assistance to undress her.
For men a slim figure wasn't fashionable. Those who didn't have a natural pot-belly would wear padding - a peascod doublet - to make them look well-fed. This sort of thing:
farm2.static.flickr.com/1295/807992653_2fa8c199ca.jpg
And yes, we all know this might have been written to a young man. If that's so then it probably was not a love-poem in the sense we understand it today - it's more likely an homage to his patron. A man could admire a young man's beauty is those days without any sexual significance. It's a boring topic and it's been done to death.
Since brass, nor stone, nor earth, nor boundless sea,
But sad mortality o'ersways 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 wrackful 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.
Portraits from the same era as Shakespeare - mostly from a website called Grand Ladies
gogmsite.net
The "Rainbow" portrait of Queen Elizabeth 1st by Isaac Oliver was painted in 1600.
How fashions change! In Elizabethan times on a warm day it wasn't unusual for a lady to wear a dress that exposed her nipples. She wouldn't have shown her legs though - that was considered indecent. A wide, floor -length dress called a farthingale was in fashion - it had an iron framework. This might have been to protect her reputation and virtue - or hide her pregnancy - maybe that's why Queen Elizabeth took to wearing them. A would-be lover would have needed more than her consent - he would have needed co-operation and assistance to undress her.
For men a slim figure wasn't fashionable. Those who didn't have a natural pot-belly would wear padding - a peascod doublet - to make them look well-fed. This sort of thing:
farm2.static.flickr.com/1295/807992653_2fa8c199ca.jpg
And yes, we all know this might have been written to a young man. If that's so then it probably was not a love-poem in the sense we understand it today - it's more likely an homage to his patron. A man could admire a young man's beauty is those days without any sexual significance. It's a boring topic and it's been done to death.
Since brass, nor stone, nor earth, nor boundless sea,
But sad mortality o'ersways 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 wrackful 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.
