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Vsuresh Posted 14 years ago
Vocabulary

meaning

Hi
Please help me with this.
This is sonnet (Number) 55 by Shakespeare. It says a powerful rhyme can outlive gold or any other material or monument which kings and great men build with the wish that posterity will come to know about them.
Here time is referred to as sluttish, meaning it is whorish lewd and apathetic to the orderliness of the world. I am not clear on how I should interpret it. Please help.

Not marble nor the gilded monuments

Of princes shall outlive this pow'rful rhyme,

But you shall shine more bright in these conténts

Than unswept stone, besmeared with sluttish time.

When wasteful war shall statues overturn,

And broils root out the work of masonry,

Nor Mars his sword, nor war’s quick fire, shall burn

The living record of your memory.

'Gainst death and all oblivious enmity

Shall you pace forth; your praise shall still find room

Even in the eyes of all posterity

That wear this world out to the ending doom.

So till the judgment that yourself arise,

You live in this, and dwell in lovers' eyes.
  

Top answer

Than unswept stone, besmeared with sluttish time . Time corrodes, destroys and tarnishes everything, even the stones, especially if they are not cared for.

  • Than unswept stone, besmeared with sluttish time .
  • Time corrodes, destroys and tarnishes everything, even the stones, especially if they are not cared for.
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2 Answers
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Than unswept stone, besmeared with sluttish time.

Time corrodes, destroys and tarnishes everything, even the stones, especially if they are not cared for.
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Thank you, Alphecca Stars

Suresh

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