Monday, October 16, 2017

Shakespeare's Sonnet

One of the coolest characters in Toch Island Chronicles is Gregor's cat, Shakespeare. The reason he's so cool is that he's a real cat. My best friend's cat. This is Shakespeare:


Unlike humans, cats don't get offended by being portrayed in stories exactly as they are. Cats are not humble, and don't pretend to be. The Toch Island Shakespeare is 100% the same as the real-life Shakespeare. He looks just like this. He demands the same kind of attention. He fully knows his awesomeness.

Sadly, the real Shakespeare passed away a few months ago. And ever since, I've had an idea blossoming in my head. You see, he's Shakespeare's namesake--the person Shakespeare, that is. And that Shakespeare wrote sonnets. His most famous is Sonnet 18:

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 dimm'd;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance, or nature's changing course, untrimm'd;
But thy eternal summer shall not fade
Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow'st;
Nor shall Death brag thou wander'st 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.

If you're not familiar with the meaning of Sonnet 18, it's basically Shakespeare telling his love that she is more beautiful than a summer's day, than all of summer really--and not only that, she is unlike summer because summer will pass away, but she will not, because she has been immortalized in this very poem.

Kinda like Shakespeare the cat in my books.

So...I present "Shakespeare's Sonnet."

Shall I compare thee to the mythic beast?
Thou art more regal and more loved than they.
Their greatness reaches summit at thy least;
Thy greatness, words alone cannot convey.
A dragon's slay'd by mortal hands of knight,
A unicorn is but a horse with spire,
A griffin, nothing, lest he be in flight,
And phoenix dies and births from ash and fire.
But thy eternal magic shall not fade,
For it is registered forevermore.
Nor shall death brag thou wander'st in his shade,
When pages of a book contain thy lore.
So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
So long lives Toch, and Toch gives life to thee.



1 comment:

JesseHanson said...
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