Return to Shakespeare's Sonnet 5 |
2.
gaze: object of the gazes of others.
4.
unfair: make ugly. which fairly doth excell: which (now) excels in beauty.
6.
confounds: destroys.
9-10.
Then were not summer's distillation left / A liquid prisoner pent in walls of glass: i.e., then, if it weren't for the distillation of summer flowers into a perfume enclosed in a glass vial.
11-12.
Beauty's effect with beauty were bereft, / Nor it nor no remembrance what it was: i.e., both the effect of beauty (such as the adoring gaze of others) and beauty itself would be lost, nor would anyone remember what it was.
14.
Leese: lose.