Sonnet 5
Those hours, that with gentle work did frame
time
nature
beauty
preservation
Those hours, that with gentle work did frame
The lovely gaze where every eye doth dwell,
Will play the tyrants to the very same
And that unfair which fairly doth excel:
For never-resting time leads summer on
To hideous winter and confounds him there;
Sap cheque'd with frost and lusty leaves quite gone,
Beauty o'ersnow'd and bareness every where:
Then, were not summer's distillation left,
A liquid prisoner pent in walls of glass,
Beauty's effect with beauty were bereft,
Nor it nor no remembrance what it was:
But flowers distill'd though they with winter meet,
Leese but their show; their substance still lives sweet.
What It Means
Time is the subject here. Time created the young man's beauty; time will also destroy it. Shakespeare introduces the image of winter: it will 'confound' summer's work, stripping the leaves and freezing the world. But there is a way to preserve the summer's gifts — distillation. Just as flowers can be captured in perfume and survive winter, beauty can be preserved in offspring. Nature itself offers a model for preservation.
Context
Fifth in the Procreation sequence. Sonnets 5 and 6 work as a pair — this one sets up the distillation metaphor, and Sonnet 6 develops it.
Buy the Arden edition of the Sonnets on Amazon →
As an Amazon Associate, ShakespeareGo earns from qualifying purchases.