Sonnet 6

The Case for Posterity

1 Then let not winter's ragged hand deface,
2 In thee thy summer, ere thou be distill'd:
3 Make sweet some vial; treasure thou some place
4 With beauty's treasure ere it be self-kill'd.
5 That use is not forbidden usury,
6 Which happies those that pay the willing loan;
7 That's for thy self to breed another thee,
8 Or ten times happier, be it ten for one;
9 Ten times thy self were happier than thou art,
10 If ten of thine ten times refigur'd thee:
11 Then what could death do if thou shouldst depart,
12 Leaving thee living in posterity?
13 Be not self-will'd, for thou art much too fair
14 To be death's conquest and make worms thine heir.

Notes

TLN 72archaic vocab
“ere thou be distill'd”
'Distill'd' means extracted as a concentrated essence, the way a perfumer distils rose petals into oil that preserves the rose's beauty through winter. The image runs directly from Sonnet 5, where the poet argued that beauty, like a flower, should be distilled into a vial before the cold destroys it. Here the call is urgent: act before winter comes.
historical The procreation argument (Sonnets 1-17)
TLN 73archaic vocab
“Make sweet some vial; treasure thou some place”
A 'vial' is a small glass vessel used in Elizabethan England to hold perfume or medicine. Here it is a metaphor for a woman's womb: the youth should fill some vial — that is, father a child — and so deposit beauty's treasure in a living container before it is destroyed. 'Treasure thou some place' means the same thing from the other angle: store your beauty somewhere safe.
historical The procreation argument (Sonnets 1-17)
TLN 75historical topical
“That use is not forbidden usury”
Usury — lending money at interest — was widely condemned in Elizabethan England, both by the Church as immoral and often by law as exploitative. The poet turns this loaded word on its head: there is a kind of 'use' (a financial term for the interest paid on a loan) that is not forbidden usury but a welcome return. That use is begetting children: you lend your beauty to life, and it pays back ten children who are 'ten times happier' than the one investment. The borrowing of financial language to argue for reproduction is characteristic of the early sonnets.
historical The procreation argument (Sonnets 1-17)
TLN 83archaic vocab
“Be not self-will'd, for thou art much too fair”
'Self-will'd' means stubbornly governed by one's own wishes, refusing counsel or instruction. The word carries a moral charge in Elizabethan usage: self-will was associated with pride and willful disregard of others' welfare. The couplet condemns the youth's refusal to reproduce not merely as waste but as a form of pride — and names the price: to make worms his heir, meaning that if he dies without children, the only inheritors of his beauty are the worms that consume his body.
historical The procreation argument (Sonnets 1-17)