Sonnet 62
Sin of self-love possesseth all mine eye
self-love
vanity
aging
identity
Sin of self-love possesseth all mine eye
And all my soul and all my every part;
And for this sin there is no remedy,
It is so grounded inward in my heart.
Methinks no face so gracious is as mine,
No shape so true, no truth of such account;
And for myself mine own worth do define,
As I all other in all worths surmount.
But when my glass shows me myself indeed,
Beated and chopp'd with tann'd antiquity,
Mine own self-love quite contrary I read;
Self so self-loving were iniquity.
'Tis thee, myself, that for myself I praise,
Painting my age with beauty of thy days.
What It Means
Shakespeare accuses himself of vanity — he's obsessed with his own face, thinks himself beautifully made, can't stop staring in the mirror. Then he looks in the actual mirror and sees an old, beaten face. The joke resolves itself: the self-love he felt was really love for the young man, whose beauty he has confused with his own. His 'self' is actually the young man, painted in his mind.
Context
Part of the Fair Youth sequence. The sonnet uses self-deprecating humor, but the philosophy underneath is serious: the beloved becomes part of your own identity.
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