Latest / The Daily Poem / William Shakespeare’s “As fast as thou shalt wane...” (Sonnet 11)

Transcript

William Shakespeare’s “As fast as thou shalt wane...” (Sonnet 11) · The Daily Poem

• 0:00
  [music]
• 0:05
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome back to The Daily Poem, a podcast from Goldberry Studios.
• 0:09
  SPEAKER_00: I'm Sean Johnson, and today is Wednesday, October 7th, 2026.
• 0:13
  SPEAKER_00: Today's poem is by William Shakespeare.
• 0:16
  SPEAKER_00: It is sonnet number 11 in his sonnet sequence.
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_00: I'll read it once, offer a few comments, and read it one more time.
• 0:25
  SPEAKER_00: Sonnet 11.
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_00: As fast as thou shalt wane, so fast thou growest in one of thine from that which thou departest.
• 0:35
  SPEAKER_00: And that fresh blood which youngly thou bestowest,
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_00: thou mayst call thine when thou from youth convertest.
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_00: Herein lives wisdom, beauty, and increase, without this folly, age, and cold decay.
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_00: If all were minded so, the times should cease, and threescore year would make the world away.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_00: Let those whom nature hath not made for store, harsh, featureless, and rude, barrenly perish.
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_00: Look, Whom she best endowed, she gave the more.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_00: Which bountiest gift thou shouldst in bounty cherish?
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_00: She carved thee for her seal, and meant thereby thou shouldst print more, not let that copy die.
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_00: This is maybe in some ways another good autumnal poem.
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_00: This is a poem about, ostensibly, About the natural pattern of self-replacement.
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_00: As one life grows old and decays, it gives rise to new life.
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_00: But there's obviously more going on here.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_00: This is a love poem, but it's a love poem in the family way.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_00: The speaker is urging the beloved to welcome the
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_00: It might perhaps be the fear
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_00: of some that bearing children will diminish their beauty,
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_00: but the speaker here offers the inevitability of the diminishment of beauty
• 2:15
  SPEAKER_00: and says, Nature made you to recreate your beauty in others.
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_00: Even as it wanes in you, you can watch it wax in another and still call it yours.
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_00: Thou may callest thine what you see in another, in one of thine.
• 2:35
  SPEAKER_00: And as Benedict says in Much Ado About Nothing, the world must be peopled.
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_00: If everyone thought as you thought, 70 years would be an end to the whole project.
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_00: Let the ugly, harsh,
• 2:49
  SPEAKER_00: featureless,
• 2:49
  SPEAKER_00: and rude barrenly perish,
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_00: but you,
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_00: you are too beautiful not to have children because your children will be
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_00: so beautiful.
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_00: Nature herself has carved thee for her seal as a kind of signet ring
• 3:04
  SPEAKER_00: that can be pressed into wax over and over,
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_00: or you could also picture maybe a woodcut that can be re-inked and stamped again
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_00: and again.
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_00: Nature poured her care into crafting the ideal,
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_00: the epitome of natural beauty in you,
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_00: not that it might perish solitarily, but that it might recreate itself.
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_00: It's a good line.
• 3:31
  SPEAKER_00: Here's the poem one more time.
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_00: As fast as thou shalt wane,
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_00: so fast thou growest in one of thine,
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_00: from that which thou departest,
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_00: and that fresh blood which youngly thou bestowest,
• 3:44
  SPEAKER_00: thou mayst call thine when thou from youth convertest.
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_00: Herein lies wisdom, beauty, and increase, without this folly, age, and cold decay.
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_00: If all were minded so, the time should cease, and threescore year would make the world away.
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_00: Let those whom nature hath not made for store, Harsh, featureless, and rude, barrenly perish.
• 4:07
  SPEAKER_00: Look, whom she best endowed,
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_00: she gave the more, Which bounteous gift thou shouldst in bounty cherish.
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_00: She carved thee for her seal, And meant thereby thou shouldst print more, Not let that copy die.
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_00: This has been The Daily Poem.
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you for listening.
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_00: We'll be back tomorrow with another subscriber episode and here on the main channel on Friday.
• 4:35
  SPEAKER_00: In the meantime,
• 4:35
  SPEAKER_00: find us at dailypoempod.substack.com to listen to past episodes of The Daily Poem
• 4:41
  SPEAKER_00: or subscribe and become a supporter of the show.
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_00: If you have high school-aged children that you'd like to expose to
• 4:49
  SPEAKER_00: a My fellow Close Reads hosts,
• 4:53
  SPEAKER_00: David Kern and Heidi White,
• 4:55
  SPEAKER_00: will be hosting a one-day pre-conference at
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_00: the Searcy Institute National Conference this summer in Charleston,
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_00: South Carolina,
• 5:05
  SPEAKER_00: where we will spend a day teaching,
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_00: reading,
• 5:09
  SPEAKER_00: acting out, discussing all things Shakespeare with high school-age students.
• 5:15
  SPEAKER_00: So
• 5:23
  SPEAKER_00: if you are interested in classical education,
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_00: or if you just have that day open and live near Charleston,
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_00: South Carolina, maybe this is an opportunity that you want to look into.
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_00: You can find more information at searcyinstitute.org slash events.
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_00: We'd love to see you there.
• 5:39
  SPEAKER_00: For now, for all of us at Goldberry Studios, I'm Sean Johnson wishing you happy reading.