Immortality

Shakespeare frequently returns to the importance of his lover having his child, so as to preserve her beauty and charms. He tells her that her beauty will soon be robbed by time, that she must make a copy of herself with him, that it would be a tremendous waste if all her attributes were to die with her. He pleads directly with her to have his child in Sonnets 2, 3, 7, 8, 9, 11, 12, 13, 14, 16 and 17, and references to having a child appear indirectly in many other poems. Here's how he expresses it in Sonnet 9:

"Is it for fear to wet a widow's eye

That thou consum'st thyself in single life?

Ah, if thou issueless shalt hap to die,

The world will wail thee like a makeless wife;

The world will be thy widow and still weep,

That thou no form of thee hast left behind."

Shakespeare also appeals to her pride by confidently...