Sonnet 7

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The first nine lines of Sonnet 7 in the 1609 Quarto
Q1 Q2 Q3 C Lo, in the orient when the gracious light Lifts up his burning head, each under eye Doth homage to his new-appearing sight, Serving with looks his sacred majesty; And having climb’d the steep-up heavenly hill, Resembling strong youth in his middle age, Yet mortal looks adore his beauty still, Attending on his golden pilgrimage; But when from highmost pitch, with weary car, Like feeble age, he reeleth from the day, The eyes, ’fore duteous, now converted are From his low tract and look another way: So thou, thyself out-going in thy noon, Unlook’d on diest, unless thou get a son. 4 8 12 14 —William Shakespeare

Q1



Q2



Q3



C

Lo, in the orient when the gracious light
Lifts up his burning head, each under eye
Doth homage to his new-appearing sight,
Serving with looks his sacred majesty;
And having climb’d the steep-up heavenly hill,
Resembling strong youth in his middle age,
Yet mortal looks adore his beauty still,
Attending on his golden pilgrimage;
But when from highmost pitch, with weary car,
Like feeble age, he reeleth from the day,
The eyes, ’fore duteous, now converted are
From his low tract and look another way:
So thou, thyself out-going in thy noon,
Unlook’d on diest, unless thou get a son.

4



8



12

14

Sonnet 7 is one of 154 sonnets written by the English playwright and poet William Shakespeare. It is a procreation sonnet within the Fair Youth sequence.

Sonnet 7 is a typical English or Shakespearean sonnet. This type of sonnet consists of three quatrains followed by a couplet, and follows the form's rhyme scheme: abab cdcd efef gg. The sonnet is written in iambic pentameter, a type of metre based on five pairs of metrically weak/strong syllabic positions per line, as exemplified in line five (where "heavenly" is contracted to two syllables):

The next line presents a somewhat unusual metrical problem. It can be scanned regularly:

The problem arises with the words "strong youth". Both words have tonic stress, but that of "strong" is normally subordinated to that of "youth", allowing them comfortably to fill × / positions, not / ×. The scansion above would seem to suggest a contrastive accent placed upon "strong", which may not be appropriate as the more salient contrast is between youth and age. Probably the line should be scanned:

A reversal of the third ictus (as shown above) is normally preceded by at least a slight intonational break, which "strong youth" does not allow. Peter Groves calls this a "harsh mapping", and recommends that in performance "the best thing to do is to prolong the subordinated S-syllable [here, "strong"] ... the effect of this is to throw a degree of emphasis on it".