leylandandgoding

Of all the sonnets that concern Time, Sonnet 64 evokes the most absolute and chilling expression of Eternity. This is encapsulated in line 10, where state itself is confounded to decay. Here, state would seem to include the entire universe, including time itself. 

Sonnet 64 maps to the word ETERNITIE at the 64th letter of the Dedication. 

Sonnet 64

When I have seene by times fell hand defaced

The rich proud cost of outworne buried age,

When sometime loftie towers I see downe rased,

And brasse eternall slave to mortall rage. (4)

When I have seene the hungry Ocean gaine

Advantage on the Kingdome of the shoare,

And the firme soile win of the watry maine,

Increasing store with losse, and losse with store. (8)

When I have seene such interchange of state,

Or state it selfe confounded, to decay,

Ruine hath taught me thus to ruminate

That Time will come and take my love away. (12)

This thought is as a death which cannot choose

But weepe to have, that which it feares to loose.

Notes

Australian physicist Telford Conlon interprets line 10 as follows: …'state itself confounded to decay' is a universal generalisation. Not just particular states but state in general is confounded to decay, and in fact is an early statement of what became the second law of thermodynamics which didn't appear in its scientific form for another 250 years. It led to one German scientist in the 19th century, Clausius, to express it as 'the heat death of the universe'. 

Conlon, Telford. “Was Shakespeare a Scientist”, The Science Show, Australian Broadcasting Corporation, aired 29 July 2017. 

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