Я ль буду автор Ваших эпитафий,
иль живы Вы, а я в земле сгнию,
Но смерти Вашу память не изгладить,
тогда как я во всех частях умру.
Останется бессмертным Ваше имя,
Тогда как я умру для мира весь,
И лягу в землю в общую могилу,
А Вам - в глазах живущих - мавзолей.
Мой добрый стих Вам станет монументом,
прочтется он грядущими в веках,
и будет Ваше имя незабвенно
на всех о нем читавших языках.
Бессмертны Вы (ручаюсь как поэт),
В устах людей живете Вы вовек.
SONNET 81
Or I shall live your epitaph to make,
Or you survive when I in earth am rotten;
From hence your memory death cannot take,
Although in me each part will be forgotten.
Your name from hence immortal life shall have,
Though I, once gone, to all the world must die:
The earth can yield me but a common grave,
When you entombed in men's eyes shall lie.
Your monument shall be my gentle verse,
Which eyes not yet created shall o'er-read,
And tongues to be your being shall rehearse,
When all the breathers of this world are dead;
You still shall live (such virtue hath my pen)
Where breath most breathes, even in the mouths of men.
NOTES
LXXXI. Self-depreciation here takes another form. Shakespeare himself must die and his personality be forgotten. Nevertheless his verse will be an enduring monument to his friend, whose praises will live in the mouths of unborn generations.
3. From hence. From these poems.
4. In me each part. Every part of me.
11. Your being shall rehearse. Shall tell of what you were.
12. The breathers of this world. This present generation.
14. Where breath most breathes. Though those who at present breathe must die, you shall still live in the intensity of life, in the very breath, of those who are yet unborn.