When in the chronicle of wasted time
I see descriptions of the fairest wights,
And beauty making beautiful old rhyme
In praise of ladies dead and lovely knights,
Then, in the blazon of sweet beauty’s best,
Of hand, of foot, of lip, of eye, of brow,
I see their antique pen would have express’d
Even such a beauty as you master now.
So all their praises are but prophecies
Of this our time, all you prefiguring;
And, for they look’d but with divining eyes,
They had not skill enough your worth to sing:
For we, which now behold these present days,
Have eyes to wonder, but lack tongues to praise.

As we close out March, I am looking toward next month, for I will be releasing my next book. It is a commentary on Shapeakear’s Macbeth along with annotations and illustrations. So, as we head into April, which is National Poetry Month and Shakespeare’s birth month, I thought it would be good to write about a Shakespeare sonnet. While Sonnet 106 is part of the Fair Youth series of sonnets and likely addressed to a particular person, I found elements of this sonnet fitting for time, progress, and modernity. Though we can enjoy the works of the past and learn from them, and though they progressed and foresaw much of what we see now, they were unable to see or describe what the modern world would look like, and we are unable to praise it for all the skill and beauty that we lost with modernity’s arrival.

In reading and reliving accounts of the past, it is easy to get swept away in the language old poets used to depict the lives and characters of the best people who came before us. But the chief of all they wrote, like a shield — perhaps reminiscent of Achilles’ shield — carved and epic and beautiful, even though their language is old and “wasted,” they could have also depicted the beauty of our present age. So they, looking towards the future, created that which would build up and bring forth the present age. And even they, with all their skill and imaging, could not imagine the wonder of today. But they are not alone. For though we behold these wonders with our own eyes and stand upon the ancient pens of beauty’s best, we are yet unable to speak of what we see and give these wonders their due credit. In our progress, we have lost the heart of what came before.

And with that, I hope you will join me in marveling at the skill and beauty found in Shakespeare’s Macbeth these following weeks! Blessings to you and yours,

~Madelyn Rose Craig