Day 11 – Shakespeare & Montaigne
Shakespeare: Sonnet 73
“That time of year thou mayst in me behold”
Context:
In this sonnet, Shakespeare meditates on aging and mortality, using images of
autumn, twilight, and dying fire. It is both a lament and a tender invitation:
love deepens when one sees how fleeting life is.
Extract (full sonnet):
That time of year thou mayst in me behold
When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang
Upon those boughs which shake against the cold,
Bare ruin’d choirs, where late the sweet birds sang.
In me thou see’st the twilight of such day
As after sunset fadeth in the west;
Which by and by black night doth take away,
Death’s second self, that seals up all in rest.
In me thou see’st the glowing of such fire
That on the ashes of his youth doth lie,
As the death-bed whereon it must expire,
Consum’d with that which it was nourish’d by.
This thou perceiv’st, which makes thy love more strong,
To love that well which thou must leave ere long.
Reflection prompts:
- Copy
the line “Bare ruin’d choirs, where late the sweet birds sang.”
- Which
image strikes you most — autumn trees, twilight, or fading fire?
- Compare
with Macbeth’s “Out, out, brief candle!” — both speak of mortality,
but one is bitter, the other tender.
Montaigne: Essays, Book I, Chapter 20
“That to Study Philosophy is to Learn to Die”
Context:
In one of his most famous essays, Montaigne reflects on how philosophy teaches
us to face death calmly. He draws on ancient wisdom (especially Cicero) but
gives it his own humane, personal tone.
Extract (~6 paragraphs, Cotton translation, public
domain):
“Let us rid death of its strangeness, let us frequent it,
let us get used to it. Let us have nothing so often in mind as death. At every
instant, let us consider: here is one step nearer. For among all the benefits
of philosophy, the one most important is that it prepares us to die.
“To philosophize is to learn how to die. Whoever has learned
how to die has unlearned how to be a slave. Knowing how to die delivers us from
all subjection and constraint. There is no evil in life for him who has rightly
understood that the privation of life is no evil.
“What do we fear in death? That we shall be no more? But if
we are not, what have we to fear? Things will concern us no more than when we
were not yet born.
“We trouble life by the care of death, and death by the care
of life. One torments us, the other frightens us. It is not against death that
we prepare ourselves — it is against ourselves. Death is only a moment; a very
short one.
“Let us learn to stand firm. Let us plant our feet upon the
truth. Let us look on death with a steady gaze, and we shall find that it is
only a part of the order of nature, and not the most grievous. Why should we
not go out of life as we came into it? We wept, we knew not why; we shall die,
we know not why.
“Life should be to us as a continual training, and our
greatest study should be to compose ourselves to it. The end of our race is
death, and ’tis the necessary object of our aim. If it affrights us, how is it
possible to go a step further without trembling?”
Reflection prompts:
- Copy
the phrase “To philosophize is to learn how to die.”
- Compare
Montaigne’s calm tone with Lear’s howl and Macbeth’s despair. Which way of
facing death feels more human to you?
- Shakespeare’s
sonnet says mortality makes love stronger; Montaigne says it makes life
freer. Do you feel these as complementary?
✨ Today’s resonance:
Shakespeare in autumn: twilight and fire fading, yet love deepened. Montaigne
in prose: philosophy as training for death, yet life steadied by that thought.
Both offer gentleness after the storms.
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