Sonnet 60: Like as the Waves Make Towards the Pebbled Shore

SONNETCAST – William Shakespeare's Sonnets Recited, Revealed, Relived

For his quiet mediation on time in Sonnet 60, William Shakespeare once more borrows more or less directly from Ovid's Metamorphoses, a text we know he knew well and that influenced him greatly in the translation of his contemporary Arthur Golding. Its calm philosophical acceptance of mortality notwithstanding, it nevertheless infuses its reflective tone with an underlying anxiety about the drive towards finality that is inherent in our existence, and only just about manages to end on a concluding couplet that once more expresses Shakespeare's hope – as it is in this instance, rather than, as on previous occasions, unquestionable certainty – that his verse will be able to withstand the destructive force of decay.