SONNET LXXXI

Or I shall live your epitaph to make,

Or you survive when I in earth am rotten,
From hence your memory death cannot take,
Although in me each part will be forgotten.
Your name from hence immortal life shall have,
Though I, once gone, to all the world must die:
The earth can yield me but a common grave,
When you entombed in men's eyes shall lie.
Your monument shall be my gentle verse,
Which eyes not yet created shall o'er-read;
And tongues to be your being shall rehearse,
When all the breathers of this world are dead;
You still shall live, such virtue hath my pen,
Where breath most breathes, even in the mouths of men.

This and sonnets 49, 63 and 77 belong to a goup of 'climacteric sonnets', all of them
significant in that they look forward mentally to a time when the love between poet
and youth will have altered perhaps beyond recognition, and either one or the other
will no longer be present to record the history of their commitment to each other. All
will have come to an end. The sonnet therefore interrupts the rival poet(s)
sequence, but to numerologists and those interested in fateful numbers and dates,
the number 81, being nine squared, is far too important to miss.

It is worthy of note also that this sonnet countermands the superiority of the
supposed rival with its confident claim that it will survive beyond the present age
and speak aloud to ages yet unborn. Despite his humility the poet claims immortality
for his verse, and eyes yet not created shall read and admire it. We as readers
cannot fail to be conscious of the fact that we are the 'eyes not yet created' and the
'tongues to be', and the consciousness of this knowledge adds a further eerie
dimension to our understanding of the poem.

Equally worthy of note is that none of the commentators regard this sonnet as
having any numerological significance. SB perhaps considers such matters as
beneath notice; GBE notes that it interrupts the 'rival poet(s)' sequence, and that its
confident tone associates it with 18 (the reverse of 81, although he does not
mention this); KDJ remarks that it is one after 80 or four score, a figure associated
with extreme old age (she does mention the climacteric numbers in her
introduction); JK passes by on the other side as it were; and HV concerns herself
strictly with verbal echoes and parallellisms.

However I reproduce below part of the OED entry for 'climacteric' and 'climacterical',
the latter at least giving an entry for 1590. The subject was throughout the period of
considerable concern. The fact that Elizabeth survived her grand climacteric (her
63rd year, 1596) was a matter of some import. The 'sad augurs' must have thought
it most unlikely that she would survive, but in the end had to 'mock their own
presage'. They had already predicted dire calamity for 1588, a year which was
exactly seventy years after Martin Luther had defied the Pope, an event which
marked the end of a cycle of human affairs. And seventy years was exactly the span
of the Babylonian Captivity (See Daniel and Revelations). The concern with precise
numerical factors, hidden meanings, and fateful dates was widespread. Climacteric
dates were based largely on the mysterious numbers 7, 9 and 11.

The point here is however that the sonnet is placed deliberately at this juncture,
halting the rival poet sequence, and in a sense overturning that sequence. It is done
deliberately so, of that there can be no doubt, for the other critical numbers are
similarly observed. We cannot ascribe to mere chance the choosing of subject
matter for 12 & 60; 49, 63, 77, & 81; and, to a lesser extent, 37, 38, 52, 76,
104,126 and 154. They all seem to have been set there with deliberate purpose,
even though, through the dark backward and abysm of time, we can no longer
discern exactly what that purpose was. But mere chance would not have placed such
sonnets at such points, and they no doubt hold the key to some lock, of which
unfortunately both lock and key have long since been thrown away.

The OED entry for climacteric:

B. n.

1. A critical stage in human life; a point at which the person was supposed to be
specially liable to change in health or fortune. According to some, all the years
denoted by multiples of 7 (7, 14, 21, etc.) were climacterics: others admitted only
the odd multiples of 7 (7, 21, 35, etc.); some included also the multiples of 9. grand
(†great) climacteric (sometimes simply the climacteric): the 63rd year of life (63 = 7
× 9), supposed to be specially critical. (According to some, the 81st year (81 = 9 ×
9) was also a grand climacteric.) The phrase appears to have been taken
immediately from Spanish.
1634 Sir T. Herbert Trav. 158 This false Prophet (sore against his will) died in his
sixtie third yeare (his great Clymatericke). c1645 Howell Lett. I. iii. xi, It is a
common+custom amongst the Spaniard, when he hath pass'd his gran
climacteric+to make a voluntary resignation of offices. 1697 Dryden Virgil Ded., I
began this Work in my great Climacterique. 1712 Addison Spect. No. 295 31, I am
turned of my great Climacteric. 1728 Morgan Algiers II. iv. 293 He lived to see one
of those critical and reputed dangerous Periods of Human Life, Called the Gran
Climacterics, dying in his sixty third Year. 1742 Fielding Jos. Andrews iv. vii, When
they arrive at this period [15 yrs.], and have now passed their second climateric.
1823 Byron Juan x. xlvii, Her climacteric teased her like her teens.

Also, 'climacterical'

1. = climacteric A. 1; esp. applied to the ‘grand climacteric’ or 63rd year of life; see
prec. B. 1.
1590 L. Lloyd Dial Daies Oct. 25 Georgius Castriotus+died upon this day in his
climatericall year 63. 1602 W. Vaughan Nat. Direct. 47 These they name
climacterical or stayrie yeares, for then they saw great alterations. Now, a
climactericall yeare is euery seauenth yeare. 1609 C. Butler Fem. Mon. ii. (1623) Eij,
This Climactericall number of nine times seven. 1611 Cotgr., L'an climactère, the
climatericall yeare. 1693 W. Freke Sel. Ess. iv. 23 Who but one that has more Fancy
than Judgment would mind the Climacterical Years? 1839 De Quincey Wordsworth in
Tait's Mag. 10/1 An elderly man, who confessed to having passed the grand
climacterical year (9 multiplied into 7) of 63.

For those interested in vocabulary usage, it is noticeable that the use of the word
'shall' in this sonnet is extreme, underlining the fact that it is a sonnet that looks to
the future, both to death, and to immortality, the absence of death. The word occurs
seven times here, and only sixty times in the sonnets as a whole, a rate of use that
would lead us to expect the word about once in every three sonnets. It therefore
exceeds the average rate of use here by a factor of about twenty.

The other most noticeable vocabulary feature is the interplay between 'I' and 'you',
the words or their close relatives occuring almost alternately, with the juxtaposition
in some lines of 'the world at large', 'other eyes', 'other tongues'. Thus the sequence
runs - I, you, your, me, your, I, me, you, your, others, others, your, others, you, my,
others - the whole giving a pleasing sense of symmetry.

Another sequence which strikes the eye of the mind is the alternation between life
and death and their respective trappings . This sequence gives - live, Epitaph,
survive, rotten, memory, death, take, forgotten, life, gone, die, grave, entombed, lie,
monument, created, to be, being, breathers, dead, live, virtue (= life force), breath,
breathes. Only towards the end do the life-enhancing words begin to predominate. I
do not believe for a moment that any poem is ever constructed solely on the
principle of observing such patterns, but the unconscious mind probably helps to
shape the underlying thought, and brings into play all the disparate elements. The
poet only begins after the event to realise what a wonderfully dense and complex
structure has been created.
 THE 1609 QUARTO VERSION

OR I fhall liue your Epitaph to make,

Or you ſuruiue when I in earth am rotten,
From hence your memory death cannot take,
Although in me each part will be forgotten.
Your name from hence immortall life ſhall haue,
Though I ( once gone) to all the world muſt dye,
The earth can yeeld me but a common graue,
When you intombed in mens eyes ſhall lye,
Your monument ſhall be my gentle verſe,
Which eyes not yet created ſhall ore-read,
And toungs to be, your beeing ſhall rehearſe,
When all the breathers of this world are dead,
You ſtill ſhal liue (ſuch vertue hath my Pen)
Where breath moſt breaths,euen in the mouths
of men.

COMMENTARY

1. Or I shall live your epitaph to make,

Or ... or = whether ... or. Usually the meaning is 'either ... or', but in this case
both the sense and the sequel require another meaning. Hence: 'Whatever
happens, whether you or I die first, death will not obliterate your memory
because etc.' The interpretation, that since one of the two events is sure to
happen, therefore the statement is banal, seems to miss the point. For this is
not a philosophical proposition of the type 'if not a then b', but a
consideration of what might follow in either event, and to boot a perfectly
normal and heartfelt human concern 'What will happen when either of us two
lovers predeceases the other?'
epitaph = an inscription on a grave or monument. The word is from the
Greek, and was originally applied to a funeral oration. SB stresses the Greek
origin, giving the derivation - epi = on, and taphos = tomb, grave. Strictly
speaking the word is derived from epitaphion, being the neuter of the
adjective and applied to a speech given as the oration over a tomb. (See
OED). The most famous example is that of Pericles over the fallen dead in the
first year of the Peloponnesian War, although the word itself is not used
there. (Thucydides.II.36 on). One must question how much of this
Shakespeare might have known, given his 'small Latin and less Greek', or,
supposing him to know it, how much it was relevant to him in this poem. He
may have had the more English custom in mind, that of writing an epitaph in
verse, and publicising it, as Ben Jonson did, for example, for his son. (See
below). In any case the word had the more general meaning of an inscription
on a tomb, and figuratively that of a commemoration of a dead person. Here
in the context of the sonnets already written in praise of the youth, and those
declared as a monument for the ages yet to come, the most likely epitaph
would be the collection of sonnets written with the youth as inspiration, this
one included.

Ben Jonson ON MY FIRST SONNE

Farewell, thou child of my right hand and joy;

My sin was too much hope of thee, loved boy,
Seven years thou wert lent to me, and I thee pay
Exacted by thy fate, on the just day.
O, could I lose all father now. For why
Will man lament the state he should envy?
To have so soone scaped world and flesh's rage,
And, if no other misery, yet age?
Rest in soft peace, and, asked, say here doth lie
BEN. JONSON his best piece of poetrie.
 For whose sake henceforth, all his vows be such,
As what he loves may never like too much.

2. Or you survive when I in earth am rotten,

As in Sonns. 71 & 74, the poet stresses the body's decay, a prospective fate
which he applies zealously to himself, not however to the beloved, who, as it
were, only dies by implication, and scarcely seems to rot. In any case the
youth will have immortal life through these poems.
3. From hence your memory death cannot take,
From hence = from this world, from these poems.
your memory death cannot take - a reversal of word order - 'Death cannot
take our memory of you away'. As in all these reversals, it is worth
considering what the alternative might mean. Here it would be 'The memory
of you, the knowledge of what you are and were, is not sufficiently strong to
take death away, to obliterate it altogether'. The meaning is not entirely
innapposite to the theme of the sonnet.
4. Although in me each part will be forgotten.
By contrast I will disappear completely and every part of me will be forgotten.
5. Your name from hence immortal life shall have,
your name - it is supremely ironic that the youth's name is never mentioned,
unless in some discreet and arcane way. The only immortality, such as it is,
which accrues to anyone from the poems, is to the poet himself, a point
probably not lost on the writer. The conceit was in any case a common one in
poetry. One suspects that a man who made no effort at all to publish his
plays when he was alive must have written with tongue in cheek when
claiming immortal life for the subject of his sonnets, however much it might
have suited the perceived relationship between lover and admired youth.

from hence = from this moment on (?); stemming from these verses (?).

6. Though I, once gone, to all the world must die:

to all the world must die = will die and be forgotten by all the world (while
you, by contrast, will be remembered).
7. The earth can yield me but a common grave,
yield = give me, supply me with. The use of the earth which is usually
synonymous with the world, is here suggestive of humble burial in the earth,
in a churchyard.
a common grave = a grave which is like that of all other men of the common
mould. Not necessarily a pauper's grave, but certainly an undistinguished one.
In fact Shakespeare lies buried in some style in Holy Trinity church, Stratford
on Avon, as a man of wealth and fame. But the exigencies of poetic style and
the stance of humility which any sonneteer worth his salt had to adopt in the
face of his beloved is enough to justify the self effacement which the line
implies. The contrast is between that of the common grave which has no
memorial, and that of the celebrated worthy whose memorial is his decorated
tomb, or his reputation, or poems written in his honour.
8. When you entombed in men's eyes shall lie.
entombed - many tombs in churches were elaborate, and had carved
alabaster or marble figures on top. They therefore were rather conspicuously
prominent, visible to the eyes of parishioners who came to worship on
Sundays and feast days. However the meaning here is more that of being
entombed gloriously in these verses, as the following line makes evident.
9. Your monument shall be my gentle verse,
The idea of verse being a perpetual monument dates back at least to classical
times. One of the earliest memorials in verse is that written by Simonides for
the Spartan dead at Thermopylae, circa 480 BC: Stranger, tell the Spartans
that we lie here, obedient to their laws. Monuments of a more traditional
kind, which are here hinted at, were to be found in abundance in churches
and cathedrals throughout the country. (See illustration opposite).

My gentle verse - perhaps it is gentle (mild) in contrast to the furious cruelty

of time. The word in Shakespeare's day often had a similar meaning to the
modern one, as the following examples show:

As sweet as balm, as soft as air, as gentle,-- AC.V.2.

 Her voice was ever soft,
Gentle, and low, an excellent thing in woman. KL.V.3.

But apart from that there was a strong leaning to its original meaning of 'well
born, belonging to a family of position in society' (OED.1.a.) Consequently
here it may be 'gentle verse' since only such would be fitting for a man in an
elevated social position such as that which the youth is implied to have held.

10. Which eyes not yet created shall o'er-read;

eyes not yet created ... tongues to be - future generations. They are
figuratively represented by the parts that are involved in reading and
declaiming the verses.
11. And tongues to be your being shall rehearse,
rehearse = repeat, recite publicly.
your being, = you, as described in these poems.
12. When all the breathers of this world are dead;
the breathers of this world = those who are alive now. You will still be alive
(through my verse) when all who are alive today are dead and gone.
13. You still shall live, such virtue hath my pen,
still = always, for evermore, continuously.
such virtue = such power and essential vitality. such virtue has my pen - the
poet temporarily lets slip the mask of modesty which he usually adopts in
relation to his own merit as a poet. It completely contraverts the humility
shown in the rival poet(s) sequence in the midst of which this sonnet is
placed.

Q's punctuation allows these two lines to be read as a continuation of line 12,
and it is at least as justifiable as that adopted here.

14. Where breath most breathes, even in the mouths of men.

Where breath most breathes - rather an odd phrase, but it condenses the fact
that breath is necessary for life, and also necessary for reciting poetry, so that
the beloved lives in the place where life is most vital, through the mouths of
men who recite his glory.