Section 3 Summary

Sonnet 17 : The poet says no one would believe his verse about her beauty unless her child could bear witness to the beauty of her eyes and her many graces. The poet offers immortality, both in his verses and through having his child.

Sonnet 18: Shakespeare's compares his love to a summer's day, but says unlike the fair summer day that will only last twenty-four hours, she will be immortalized in his lines of poetry.

Sonnet 19: The sonneteer challenges time to ravage his beloved, as is inevitable, but says it doesn't matter because his love in his verse will "ever live long."

Sonnet 20: The poet says "the master mistress of my passion" has the face of a woman, with a woman's gentle heart but without a woman's "shifting change" or "false fashion." Shakespeare says his beloved was first created as a woman but nature "fell a-doting" as the work...