Sonnet 16

The speaker urges the young man to use procreation—'a mightier way' than verse—to defeat time, because children living in the world are more powerful evidence of beauty than painted or written images.

Original

Modern

1 But wherefore do not you a mightier way

But why don't you pursue a mightier way

2 Make war upon this bloody tyrant Time?

To wage war on time, that bloody tyrant?

3 And fortify yourself in your decay

And fortify yourself against your decay

4 With means more blessed than my barren rhyme?

With means more powerful than my sterile verse?

'Barren' = sterile, unfruitful; may punfully refer to the speaker's own childlessness.

5 Now stand you on the top of happy hours,

Now you stand at the peak of your youth,

6 And many maiden gardens yet unset,

And many young women waiting to be married,

Maiden gardens = young women; unset = not yet married or pregnant.

7 With virtuous wish would bear you living flowers,

Who would gladly bear your children—living flowers—

'Living flowers' = children, who are the blooms/fruit of procreation.

8 Much liker than your painted counterfeit:

Much more real than any painted portrait,

'Counterfeit' = imitation, portrait; 'painted' suggests Shakespeare's verse/art vs. living children.

Volta The volta shifts from reproaching the young man for not using procreation to a paradoxical truth: only by 'giving away' yourself—through reproducing—can you keep yourself alive forever.

9 So should the lines of life that life repair

So should your bloodline preserve the life that time destroys,

'Lines of life' = genealogical descent, bloodline; pun on 'lines' (verse) vs. genetic lines.

Wordplay

lines = poetic lines of verse
lines = genealogical descent, family bloodline
'life repair' = restore, regenerate, make eternal

10 Which this (Time’s pencil) or my pupil pen

Which neither time's hand nor my apprentice pen

'Time's pencil' = Time as artist of decay; 'pupil pen' = the speaker's apprentice-level verse.

11 Neither in inward worth nor outward fair

Neither in inner beauty nor outer appearance

12 Can make you live yourself in eyes of men.

Can make you live eternally in the world's eyes.

13 To give away yourself, keeps yourself still,

The central paradox of the procreation sequence: self-preservation through self-surrender.

By giving yourself away, you keep yourself alive,

Paradox: self-sacrifice (reproduction) = self-preservation.

14 And you must live drawn by your own sweet skill.

And you must live through the skill of your own making.

'Sweet skill' = the young man's own ability to attract a partner and reproduce.

The Hierarchy of Preservation

Sonnet 16 establishes a clear ranking: living children > portraits/paintings > verse. The speaker devalues his own art, calling it 'barren,' in order to argue that biological reproduction is the only truly effective immortality strategy. This is crucial to understanding the three-sonnet sequence (15–17): sonnets 15 and 16 argue for procreation; sonnet 17 pivots by suggesting verse can work, setting up sonnets 18–28's grand argument that poetry is immortality's supreme tool.

The Paradox of Giving and Keeping

Lines 13–14 contain the emotional core of the procreation argument: the paradox that self-sacrifice is self-preservation. By giving yourself away (through reproducing), you keep yourself alive forever. This paradox will echo through the rest of the sequence, but Shakespeare will flip it: giving yourself to the poem—allowing the poet to capture you in verse—is how you truly persist. The young man must learn this lesson in reverse.

If this happened today

Imagine someone who could revolutionize their field but instead just posts about it on social media. The speaker is saying: why waste time with my Instagram caption when you could build something real? Your real children, living and thriving, will prove your beauty more powerfully than any poem ever could.

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