Sonnet 106
When in the chronicle of wasted time
beauty
history
prophecy
poetry
When in the chronicle of wasted time
I see descriptions of the fairest wights,
And beauty making beautiful old rhyme
In praise of ladies dead and lovely knights,
Then, in the blazon of sweet beauty's best,
Of hand, of foot, of lip, of eye, of brow,
I see their antique pen would have express'd
Even such a beauty as you master now.
So all their praises are but prophecies
Of this our time, all you prefiguring;
And, for they look'd but with divining eyes,
They had not skill enough your worth to sing:
For we, which now behold these present days,
Had eyes to wonder, but lack tongues to praise.
What It Means
Shakespeare reads old poems written about beautiful people — descriptions of eyes, hands, brows — and recognizes them as prophecies of the young man's face. The old poets were describing something they couldn't quite reach; they were prophets who couldn't see the thing they were foretelling. Now that the thing exists, their eyes don't work to praise it properly.
Context
Part of the Fair Youth sequence. The historical perspective — reading old poetry as prophecy — is unusual in the sequence.
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