Pass Your Image On: Shakespeare’s Sonnet No. 3

Original

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 uneared 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 rememb’red not to be,

Die single, and thine image dies with thee.

Look in your mirror and tell me whose face you see.

This is the time when you should be having children!

If your image is not passed down, you rob the world of beauty and a woman of motherhood.

Where is the woman who finds marrying you and carrying your children repulsive?

Or where is the man who so craves his autonomy not to produce another generation?

You are your mother’s mirror, and your face calls back to the prime of her youth.

So, you, once old, will see your golden time in the image of your children.

But, if you continue, unmarried and childless, your image dies with you.