Courtesy of Gabrielle Dean:

Sonnet paraphrases

Italicized words are the ones I had to look up. [Brackets] indicate words or ideas that I had to imagine and insert; they are implied but are not stated in the text itself, or they might indicate a secondary meaning of a particular word. Red lines are my “translations.” You do NOT have to do your paraphrases exactly this way; I just wanted to give you an example.

Sonnet 18

Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?

Shall I compare you to a summer's day?

Thou art more lovely and more temperate:

You are prettier and more moderate/gentler/milder

Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,

[After all] strong winds shake the cute buds of flowers and trees in May

And summer's lease hath all too short a date:

And summer only lasts a little while

Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,

Sometimes the sun is too hot

And often is his gold complexion dimmed,

And often the sun's gold brightness is faded [when it is cloudy]

And every fair from fair sometime declines,

And everything that is fair [beautiful] sometimes deviates from beauty; everything that is fair [blond]sometimes deviates from blondness; everything that is fair [warm and sunny weather] sometimes deviates fromsunny warmth, i.e. the sun's arc “declines,” or sinks

By chance, or nature's changing course untrimmed:

Because either luck or the changing of the seasons “untrims” it, i.e. removes the pretty decorations

But thy eternal summer shall not fade,

But your youth/golden warmth is permanent and will not fade

Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow'st,

Or lose the beauty that you possess

Nor shall death brag thou wand'rest in his shade,

And Death [personified] will not brag that you are wandering around in his domain, i.e. you will not die

When in eternal lines to time thou grow'st,

As long as you grow/live in eternal lines of poetry that are dedicated to time and are “in time,” i.e. in meter

So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,

As long as human beings breathe or eyes can see

So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

This poem will live; and this poem gives life to you, i.e. because you have been written about, you are immortal

Sonnet 55

Not marble, nor the gilded monuments

Neither marble [statues] or the gold-decorated monuments

Of princes shall outlive this powerful rhyme,

Of princes will outlive this powerful rhyme, i.e. this sonnet

But you shall shine more bright in these contents

Rather, you will be more beautiful/celebrated in this sonnet

Than unswept stone, besmeared with sluttish time.

Than the stone [of those monuments and statues] that are uncared for and get dirty over time

When wasteful war shall statues overturn,

In wars, which “lays waste,” i.e. makes ruins, statues will be overturned

And broils root out the work of masonry,

And tumults/quarrels/turmoils will make masonry, i.e. buildings made of bricks or stones, fall down

Nor Mars his sword, nor war's quick fire shall burn:

[Then] not even Mars [the god of war] or the fires of war will burn

The living record of your memory.

[This sonnet which is] a “living,” i.e. eternal document recording your life.

'Gainst death, and all-oblivious enmity

Against death, and hostilities that would create forgetfulness [i.e., you would be forgotten]

Shall you pace forth, your praise shall still find room,

You will successfully walk away from, and you will continue to be praised

Even in the eyes of all posterity

By all those who come after you

That wear this world out to the ending doom.

To the end of this world.

So till the judgment that your self arise,

So until Judgment Day when you rise again

You live in this, and dwell in lovers' eyes.

You will be immortal in this sonnet, for you will live on in the eyes [minds] of lovers who read it.