SONNET 13 FATHER: O! that you were your self; but, love, you are

O! that you were your self; but, love, you are
No longer yours, than you your self here live:
Against this coming end you should prepare,
And your sweet semblance to some other give:
So should that beauty which you hold in lease
Find no determination; then you were
Yourself again, after yourself's decease,
When your sweet issue your sweet form should bear.
Who lets so fair a house fall to decay,
Which husbandry in honour might uphold,
Against the stormy gusts of winter's day
And barren rage of death's eternal cold?
   O! none but unthrifts. Dear my love, you know,
   You had a father: let your son say so.


Mnemonic Image

FATHER

Memory Passage

Death places his SEAL upon TIME, assuming the role of the FATHER of Time, showing meaning in the ASTRONOMY of the stars, the figures of which move upon the STAGE in a poor COUNTERFEIT of reality. Death places it all into a TOMB for the duration of the zero SUMMER until is reborn like the PHOENIX with a new FACE.

Idiosyncratic Abstract:



Couplet Imagery

O! none but unthrifts. Dear my love, you know,
   You had a father: let your son say so.

The vocative O at the beginning and provocative O at the end. The sound of the sucker-punch to the gut. O. The poet invoking heaven by the O. The woman and her sweet O.

O*vaginal orifice. In R&J, the nurse puns on expressions of misery: 'For Juliet's sake . . . rise and stand. Why should you fall into so deep an O?' (cf. rise, stand). Another instance has been detected in the play: see medlar; Dekker evidently registered at least one, since his Satiromastix I.i.17 borrows the joke along with much else from R&J (Intro, p.3). In MVlWIV.i.45, 'the focative case' evokes the vagina (case for fucking), and grammatical puns continue when William describes its invocational use: 'O - vocativo, O - Nowadays commentators find many more instances than are admitted here. But representation of the Globe Theatre as a 'wooden O' (H5 Prol.13) both affirms Shakespeare's ease with 'O' symbolism and cautions about vaginal overloading - though the zealot might urge the sexual transactions of the stage: 'New plays and maidenheads are near akin' (TNK Prol.l). See boar, pen. 2. representing orgasmic gasps and sighs. See die, groan 3.

- Shakespeare's Sexual Language, Gordon Williams

Note that unthrift was more damning in the 14th century. Could those undertones still be resonate in the 16th?

unthrifty (adj.)
late 14c., "unprofitable, useless," from un- (1) "not" + thrifty (adj.), or else from Middle English noun unthrift "profligacy," late 14c., earlier "evil practice, wicked act" (c. 1300). 

- https://www.etymonline.com/word/unthrifty

O!... Son say so!

Q1

O! that you were your self; but, love, you are
No longer yours, than you your self here live:
Against this coming end you should prepare,
And your sweet semblance to some other give:

O you once were the true blue, the one original Rose, but love, sweet love, you are no longer in possession of that what you once were. Any more than that beauty lives in this language. You are fading even as this sonnet unfolds. By the couplet, you will be dead. Give the semblance. Worship the semblance! All hail the Semblance. If you keep it solely in your possession any longer, you will wither and rot just along with your dying self.

Look at the psych on the first line enjambment:

O that you were yourself...  but, love.... you ARE!

You are yourself, my love, what was I saying, you will live forever and there's no need to pass your beauty on...

But then, the second line: NO! No longer yours. You are no loger the self you once were. O No!



Q2

So should that beauty which you hold in lease
Find no determination; then you were
Yourself again, after yourself's decease,
When your sweet issue your sweet form should bear.

O So O So Son Say So O. So Should the Mighty Semblance which you are only leasing, not owning, for who can truly hold the Semblance, the One Original Rose, the Platonic Form emanating? But O so if you do not find a place in which to give it, then you beceome your self and that semblance dies with you.

Q3

Who lets so fair a house fall to decay,
Which husbandry in honour might uphold,
Against the stormy gusts of winter's day
And barren rage of death's eternal cold?

Whoooo? Ooo ooo? A quatrain as a question. Who ruins the house? Who allows it to fall into decay? What's wrong with your penis? Why do not keep it up? What sort of person would not keep up with the upkeep, not practice good hygienic husbandry? You know: keep the carpet swept and the chimney clear, flush the pipes and oil all the locks and hinges of your house body, of your Semblance? Moisturize your dry bones unit you belive the have skin again.

You should make sure all is ship shape for the stormy gusts and if you think they are bad, wait until you feel the barren rage, the childless rage, of death's eternal cold.

C

O! none but unthrifts. Dear my love, you know,
   You had a father: let your son say so.

Oooooooo OOOooooooo OOoooo ! It is you! You are the one who is going to suffer the stormy gusts, the barren rage and the eternal cold. And you know, you should know, becaue your father prepared himself by reproducing in you. Time to pass the rotting carcass of the buck before it starts to stink up the place. You had a Dad, now let your issue say the same for you. 

You, Terrible One, why did you rude so upon me?