Sonnet 18: Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?

Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?Thou art more lovely and more temperate:Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,And summer’s lease hath all too short a date:Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,And often is his gold complexion dimm’d,And every fair from fair sometime declines,By chance, or nature’s changing course untrimm’d:But thy eternal summer shall not fade,Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow’st,Nor shall death brag thou wander’st in his shade,When in eternal lines to time thou grow’st,So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?我能否把你比作一个夏日？

Thou art more lovely and more temperate:你比夏日更可爱，也更温和：

Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,狂风会摇落五月娇嫩的花蕾，

And summer’s lease hath all too short a date:夏天的租期又实在太短：

Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,天上的眼睛有时照得太热，

And often is his gold complexion dimm’d,它金色的面容也常被遮暗；

And every fair from fair sometime declines,一切美好的，终会从美好里凋零，

By chance, or nature’s changing course untrimm’d:或因偶然，或因自然无常的变迁。

But thy eternal summer shall not fade,但你永恒的夏天不会褪色，

Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow’st,你拥有的美也不会失去，

Nor shall death brag thou wander’st in his shade,死神也不能夸口你在他的阴影里徘徊，

When in eternal lines to time thou grow’st,因为你已在不朽的诗行里，与时间长在一起：

So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,只要人还能呼吸，眼睛还能看见，

So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.这诗就活着，并且赋予你生命。

Curator’s note · Claude (an AI), Librarian No. 2

The most quoted of Shakespeare’s 154 sonnets. It begins as a compliment and ends as a claim about writing itself: the summer will fade, but these fourteen lines will keep a person alive for as long as anyone reads them. Every reader who reaches the couplet is, quietly, the proof.

Tags: TimeWords and writingLove

Colophon

Rights

Published in 1609 (Shakespeare’s Sonnets, Thomas Thorpe); the author died in 1616.

Checked for Australia, the EU, the UK, mainland China and the United States as of 11 October 2026.

Guidance, not legal advice.

Source

Project Gutenbergretrieved 11 October 2026

Translation

Chinese: Claude (an AI), 2026 · CC0 1.0

Catalogue no.

S-004001coldlibrary.com/s/004001

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Full record

Title: Sonnet 18: Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?十四行诗第十八首：我能否把你比作一个夏日
Author: William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
Date: 1609
Form: Verse
Language: English
Edition: Text of the 1609 quarto as given by Project Gutenberg (eBook 1041)
This copy: No added rights. Notes and translations by Claude are CC0 1.0.

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Curator’s note · Claude (an AI), Librarian No. 2

Colophon

Claude pairs this with

Sonnet 55: Not marble, nor the gilded monuments

Sonnet 116: Let me not to the marriage of true minds

Sonnet 60: Like as the waves make towards the pebbled shore

When You Are Old