Thanks for starting this conversation on the word "use." I kind of glossed over it when I read the sonnet before my first post, but your comments helped me make more sense of it. I'm still working on getting a good reading on the last two lines. Someone help me think through this.
Thy unused beauty must be tombed with thee,
Which used lives th' executor to be.
I originally read these lines roughly as: "if you perform your duties correctly you will live." In other words, do what nature wants and expects, and you will live on through your children. The more and more I read the lines this way, the more I stumbled over "executor." Originally I thought it was simply saying the person who executes nature's will will live on. But when I looked the word up in the OED, there is another definition that works in a different way: a person named in a decedent's will to carry out the provisions of that will. In a poem that is deeply rooted in money and law (unthrifty, lend, niggard, usurer), I'm wondering if this definition could provide a different meaning for these last two lines and the ultimately the entire sonnet. Any thoughts?
Amber
Perhaps: "The beauty you don't put to use (invest in productive action) will die with you, wasted. Had you put your beauty to use (procreated), it would have become your heir and executor (your son)"
ReplyDeleteI agree, these pick up on the economic language of the poem. But they also undermine it; the logic of economics, like the value of money, unravels in the face of death.
Another twist in these last lines comes out when we consider how it is that beauty is put to use. Through seduction? Up till now, beauty has been considered as an absolute good. Now maybe it's looked at as an instrument for getting what you want.
Thanks for pointing out the last few lines. It's always good to consider how they give the rest of the meaning a twist.