“in the orient when the gracious light”
'Orient' means the east — the quarter of the sky where the sun rises. The word carried connotations of splendor and newness in Elizabethan English, making it a grander synonym for 'east' in verse. The opening image frames the whole sonnet: the sun rising in the east will arc across the sky and set in the west, mapping youth, middle age, and old age onto a single day.
“having climb'd the steep-up heavenly hill”
The four opening lines build a single extended metaphor: the sun's daily arc across the sky is a sacred journey from dawn to dusk. The sun is personified as a young man ('strong youth in his middle age') making a strenuous ascent up a 'heavenly hill,' then proceeding on a 'golden pilgrimage' — a journey to a holy place. The logic prepares for the turn at line 9: just as the world worships the sun on its upward climb but looks away when it descends, so it admires the youth's beauty now but will abandon him when he declines.
historical The sonnet formhistorical The procreation argument (Sonnets 1-17)“from highmost pitch, with weary car”
'Car' is an archaic word for chariot; 'the weary car' is the sun-god's chariot as it descends at the end of the day. Classical mythology imagined the sun as a god driving a chariot of fire across the sky: the Greek Helios, or his Roman counterpart Phoebus (Apollo), mounted a burning four-horse chariot at dawn and drove it from east to west. By afternoon the horses tire and the car tilts downward, which explained the sun's descent — the same moment the sonnet identifies with old age.
classical Phaethon and the chariot of the sun“highmost pitch”
'Pitch' is a falconry term for the highest point a hawk reaches before it stoops (dives) onto its prey. By extension it meant any peak or highest point. Here the sun has reached 'highmost pitch' — its noon zenith — and now begins its downward arc. The falconry image would have been immediately recognizable to Shakespeare's readers, for whom hawking was a common gentry sport.
“So thou, thyself outgoing in thy noon”
Line 97 is the volta — the turn at which the sonnet's sun-metaphor is applied directly to the young man: just as the world looks away from the declining sun, so the youth will be 'unlook'd on' once his beauty passes its noon. The final word 'son' in line 98 puns on 'sun': a literal male heir would be the new rising sun, inheriting the father's beauty and keeping the world's gaze on the family. The pun seals the whole argument — the only way to maintain the light is to produce another source of it.
historical The sonnet formhistorical The procreation argument (Sonnets 1-17)