Sonnet 104 William Shakespeare

Lines 1-3 To me, fair friend, you never can be old, For as you were when first your eye I eyed, Such seems your beauty still.

So basically… To me, dear friend you can never get old . You are still as beautiful as always. You are the same person I always knew. Life has not changed the good in you.

Before and After picture after a number of years

Lines 4-7 Three winters cold Have from the forests shook three summers' pride; Three beauteous springs to yellow autumn turned In process of the seasons have I seen;

3 years of cold winters have taken away the beauty that summer brings. 3 beautiful spring times changed to yellow autumn.

3 Winters have gone by and shook the forests

Lines 8-9 Three April pérfumes in three hot Junes burned, Since first I saw you fresh, which yet are green.

Spring has gone by and 3 hot Junes have burned since I first saw your young and innocent face. Nothing has changed.

3 Summers have brought pride

Lines 10-11 Ah yet doth beauty, like a dial hand, Steal from his figure, and no pace perceived;

Ah, but beauty, like the hand of a clock, creeps away from the person it’s attached to so slowly no one can see it.

Lines 12-13 So your sweet hue, which methinks still doth stand, Hath motion, and mine eye may be deceived.

In the same way, your sweet beauty, which seems to be standing still, is actually changing, and my eye may be deceived

Rhyming Couplet For fear of which, hear this, thou age unbred:* Ere you were born was beauty’s summer dead. * Apostrophe

In case it is, hear this, future generations: Before you were born, the greatest example of beauty was already dead.

You’ll never be old to me, beautiful friend, for your beauty seems just the same as it was when I first saw your lovely eyes. Since then, three cold winters have stripped the leaves off three proud summers; three beautiful springs have turned to three yellow autumns, all in the course of the seasons. Three Aprils, full of perfumed flowers, have all burned up into three hot Junes since the first day I saw you in your freshness—and you’re still fresh and green. Ah, but beauty, like the hand of a clock, creeps away from the person it’s attached to so slowly no one can see it. In the same way, your sweet beauty, which seems to be standing still, is actually changing, and my eye may be deceived. In case it is, hear this, future generations: Before you were born, the greatest example of beauty was already dead.