SONNET NO. 18 — Short Questions 1. A summer's day: One day mas aay: ‘The expression refers to cither just one day in summer or all summer synecdochically. the post wishes ay tl Fepresenative ofthe entre season, Impressed by his Fiend’ youth and beauty, companies 1 describe adequacy by comparing i fo a summer's day. But he kos that the eee lcquate because while a summer day is both lovely and ominous, his friend's beauty is "ely and more equably tempered Tae eae: A lease is a legal contract by which something is allotted only for a certain duration the darter arnummer has been granted only om lease, Under summer's inadequate leasehold on the year sevens a ‘sur smer is very brief. Moreover, a summer's day can become either too hot because of the m or too Jim because of cloudy or foggy weather. The eye of heaven: As in Shakespeare's Sonnet No. 7 or in Marlowe's Tamburlaine (Part I). te eye of 'eaven is a commonplace metaphor for the sun shining in the sky. eGo complexion: The colour of the face is supposed to be reflecting the ‘humour’ i.e. the temperament of a human being, The gold complexion actually refers to the bright appearance of the sun 5. Every fair from fair sometime declines: The first ‘fair refers to beauty as a quality or property. ‘The second “fair” refers to either a beautiful thing or person possessing that property. It may also refer to a fair Condition or state of existence. Every beautiful thing decays sooner or later to become shorn of its beauty. 6. Nature's changing course: The course of nature constantly changes shapes and states of things by subjecting them to a process of decay. The vagaries of chance and the inexorability of the sequential progress of season show Nature's awful force. 7. Thy eternal summer shall not fade: This an Ovidian conceit of time versus poetry. The friend’s youthful beauty made eternal by the poet's eternal lines will never decay or perish. The implicit contrast is between the transient nature of summer in the world of Nature which is subject to time and death (cf. Sonnet No. 116), and the superior power of the poet’s deathless verse which defies time and confers immortality on the friend. 8. Nor shall Death brag: Death as boastful person always brags to vietimize all things. The ghosts of the dead are said to be wandering in Hades, the underworld kingdom of Pluto, the god of death in classical mythology. But death is not allowed to brag boastfully to have the poet’s friend wander about in his dark regions as a victim. 9. Eternal lines: The etemal lines of the poet’s verse preserve his friend's beauty and grafi it on time's ‘eternal span. The friend will defy and defeat time by becoming an organic part in its process. He keeps growing with the passage of time and thus remains alive.’As long as the human race will exist and as long as human sensibility -vill respond to beauty and poetry, the poet's verse will be read and appreciated by readers. The poet's deathless verse will confer immortality on his friend and his beauty. to. 18 has the usual Shakespearean structure — three quatrains and a couplet 10, Rhyme-scheme: Sonn with typical rhyme-scheme: abab eded, efef gg.