Paraphrase
A facsimile of the original printing of Sonnet 18.
The poem starts with a flattering question to the beloved—"Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?" The beloved is both "more lovely and more temperate" than a summer's day. The speaker lists some negative things about summer: it is short—"summer's lease hath all too short a date"—and sometimes the sun is too hot—"Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines." However, the beloved has beauty that will last forever, unlike the fleeting beauty of a summer's day. By putting his love's beauty into the form of poetry, the poet is preserving it forever. "So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see, So long lives this, and this gives life to thee." The lover's beauty will live on, through the poem which will last as long as it can be read.
[edit]The poem
(in modern spelling and punctuation)
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 dimmed,
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance, or nature's changing course, untrimmed.
But thy eternal summer shall not fade,
Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow'st,
Nor shall death brag thou wand'rest 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.
[edit]Context
The poem is part of the Fair Youth sequence (which comprises sonnets 1-126 in the accepted numbering stemming from the first edition in 1609). It is also the first of the cycle after the opening sequence now described as the Procreation sonnets, although some scholars see it as a part of the Procreation sonnets, as it still addresses the idea of reaching eternal life through the written word, a theme of sonnets 15-17. In this view, it can be seen as part of a transition to sonnet 20's time theme.[1] There are many theories about the identity of the 1609 Quarto's enigmatic dedicatee, Mr. W.H. Some scholars suggest that this poem may be expressing a hope that the Procreation sonnets despaired of: the hope of metaphorical procreation in a homosexual relationship.[2] Other scholars have pointed out that the order in which the sonnets are placed may have been the decision of publishers and not of Shakespeare. This introduces the possibility that Sonnet 18 was originally intended for a woman.[3]
[edit]Structure
Sonnet 18
A reading of Sonnet 18
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Sonnet 18 is a typical English or Shakespearean sonnet. It consists of three quatrains followed by a couplet, and has the characteristic rhyme scheme: abab cdcd efef gg. The poem carries the meaning of an Italian or Petrarchan Sonnet. Petrarchan sonnets typically discussed the love and beauty of a beloved, often an unattainable love, but not always.[4] It also contains a volta, or shift in the poem's subject matter, beginning with the third quatrain.[5]
Syllabic structure of a line of Sonnet 18[6]
Stress x / x / x / x / x /
Syllable Thou art more love- ly and more temp- pe- rate
[edit]Exegesis
"Complexion" in line six, can have two meanings: 1) The outward appearance of the face as compared with the sun ("the eye of heaven") in the previous line, or 2) the older sense of the word in relation to The four humours. In the time of Shakespeare, "complexion" carried both outward and inward meanings, as did the word "temperate" (externally, a weather condition; internally, a balance of humours). The second meaning of "complexion" would communicate that the beloved's inner, cheerful, and temperate disposition is sometimes blotted out like the sun on a cloudy day. The first meaning is more obvious, meaning of a negative change in his outward appearance.[7]
The word, "untrimmed" in line eight, can be taken two ways: First, in the sense of loss of decoration and frills, and second, in the sense of untrimmed sails on a ship. In the first interpretation, the poem reads that beautiful things naturally lose their fanciness over time. In the second, it reads that nature is a ship with sails not adjusted to wind changes in order to correct course. This, in combination with the words "nature's changing course", creates an oxymoron: the unchanging change of nature, or the fact that the only thing that does not change is change. This line in the poem creates a shift from the mutability of the first eight lines, into the eternity of the last six. Both change and eternity are then acknowledged and challenged by the final line.[4]
"Ow'st" in line ten can also carry two meanings equally common at the time: "ownest" and "owest". Many readers interpret it as "ownest", as do many Shakespearean glosses ("owe" in Shakespeare's day, was sometimes used as a synonym for "own"). However, "owest" delivers an interesting view on the text. It conveys the idea that beauty is something borrowed from nature—that it must be paid back as time progresses. In this interpretation, "fair" can be a pun on "fare", or the fare required by nature for life's journey.[8] Other scholars have pointed out that this borrowing and lending theme within the poem is true of both nature and humanity. Summer, for example, is said to have a "lease" with "all too short a date." This monetary theme is common in many of Shakespeare's sonnets, as it was an everyday theme in his budding capitalistic society.[9]
[edit]Notes

是莎士比亚对人生的一种态度。
出自《莎士比亚十四行诗》，这本诗集收录了莎士比亚的十四行诗共154首，本诗是第十八首，也是较为著名的一首。
莎士比亚十四行诗大约创作于1590年至1598年之间，此时正是十六世纪欧洲文艺复兴传到英国的时期，因此，莎士比亚的十四行诗不仅结构巧妙，语汇丰富，也同时反映了这一时期的人文主义思想，具有很强的时代背景。
总之，莎士比亚的十四行诗在英国诗歌史上具有很高的地位，当得起空前绝后的美称。
本诗运用了“五步抑扬格”，使得节奏鲜明，观点突出。

这首诗是莎士比亚献给一位“黑肤女性”（the dark lady）的（也有人认为，第1至126首十四行诗都是献给一位贵族男士的），也是公认的名篇。
这首诗既赞扬了诗人心目中的女性的美，又赞扬了诗篇的永恒，甚至我们也可以说，他是通过对这位女性友人美丽的赞美，来颂扬诗篇的美和永恒的，达到了一箭双雕的目的。诗人把女人的美静止化，即把美融进了诗篇，从而使美升华而永恒化。

莎翁的sonnet我读过并不多，不过我想sonnet18绝不能概括莎翁十四行的全貌，只是这一首恰好尤其出名，很多人只听过这一首。关于summer's day的比喻，也许在那个时代算是比较新颖的，我倒不是很喜欢这首...