Sonnet 12 bristly beard," "violet past prime," and "sable curls all silver'd o'er with white." One last image to take note of is the fact that the only way to defy time is by creating new virtues and beauties. And to do this, Shakespeare tells the young man, is by creating descendants. This fact is shown in the volta, the last two lines of the sonnet, when Shakespeare says, "And nothing 'gainst time's scythe can make defence, / Save breed to brave him when he takes thee hence." Sonnet 12 follows the structure of a typical Shakespearean sonnet. It consists of 14
Sonnet 41 that the loss of his mistress did not hurt him badly, because he did not love her, trying not to blame the youth but blaming him still. Sonnet 41 continues the saga with desperate attempts to excuse the youth's behavior, eventually admitting his hurt. In the last of the three (42) the speaker continues his trend of self-deception exemplified in sonnet 41. There are many allusions and textual references in this sonnet taken from other Shakespeare works. They have been helpful in understanding the context and creating our "modern" interpretation of the sonnet. Sonnet 41, lines 5-8: <poem> "Gentle thou