About the Author:
William Shakespeare (1564 – 1616) was active in the years after Catholicism became illegal in England. Part of the case that he was a secret Catholic ties Shakespeare to Saint Thomas More. In Shakespeare’s official plays, More is almost written out, but Shakespeare and other authors collaborated on a play about Saint Thomas More in which Shakespeare crafts beautiful and wise lines for the saint to speak. Here Shakespeare speaks of the immortality we may find in having children.
O! that you were your self; but, love, you are
No longer yours, than you your self here live:
Against this coming end you should prepare,
And your sweet semblance to some other give:
So should that beauty which you hold in lease
Find no determination; then you were
Yourself again, after yourself’s decease,
When your sweet issue your sweet form should bear.
Who lets so fair a house fall to decay,
Which husbandry in honour might uphold,
Against the stormy gusts of winter’s day
And barren rage of death’s eternal cold?
O! none but unthrifts. Dear my love, you know,
You had a father: let your son say so.
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