Sonnet 77
Thy glass will show thee how thy beauties wear,
Thy dial how thy precious minutes waste;
The vacant leaves thy mind's imprint will bear,
And of this book, this learning mayst thou taste.
The wrinkles which thy glass will truly show
Of mouthed graves will give thee memory;
Thou by thy dial's shady stealth mayst know
Time's thievish progress to eternity.
Look what thy memory cannot contain,
Commit to these waste blanks, and thou shalt find
Those children nursed, delivered from thy brain,
To take a new acquaintance of thy mind.
These offices, so oft as thou wilt look,
Shall profit thee and much enrich thy book.
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Στον καθρέφτη θα ιδείς να ρεύουν οι ομορφιές σου
και στο ρολόι στιγμές να χάνονται ακριβές,
στ’ άδεια αυτά φύλλα τυπωμένες τις ιδέες σου
κι απ’ το βιβλίο αυτό θα διδαχτείς μαθές.
Οι ζάρες που πιστά ο καθρέφτης θα σου δείξει
θα σου θυμίσουν τάφων στόματα ανοιχτά
κι η σβέλτη σκιά της ώρας θέα θα σου ανοίξει
στα αιώνια βήματα του χρόνου τα κλεφτά.
Μα ό,τι η μνήμη δε μπορεί να συγκρατήσει
μπιστέψου το στην άσπρη ετούτην ερημιά,
τα τέκνα του μυαλού σου θα τα γαλουχήσει
να κάμεις νέα του πνεύματός σου γνωριμιά.
Αυτή σου η δούλεψη όποτε τον νου σου εγγίζει
θα σ’ ωφελεί και το βιβλίο σου θα πλουτίζει.
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Μετάφραση: Βασίλης Ρώτας
This is one of the sequence of climacteric sonnets, 49, 63, 77, 81, 126, 154, all of which deal with the demise of love, life, youth and beauty, either for the poet, or the beloved, or both. This one is less dramatic than the others, in that it finds an occasion for encouraging the youth to record his thoughts, for moral improvement at a later date, and does not insist that the final destruction is immanent or an object of all-pervasive fear and loathing. The tameness of the conclusion almost allows one to believe that, reading the divine offices, the breviary of former thoughts on mortality, in some quiet nook, could go on for ever and that no one need ever die.
http://www.shakespeares-sonnets.com/sonnet/77