Fame…

This is an interesting sonnet by Shakespeare… it has a most current resonance, the idea of fame being such a fleeting and transitory thing, how those riding highest can be cast aside and forgotten, and sink into anonymity. In these days of X-factor, Pop-Idol, and all the other rags-to-riches entertainments, this poem rings very true!

Sonnet XXV

Let those who are in favour with their stars
Of public honour and proud titles boast,
Whilst I, whom fortune of such triumph bars
Unlook’d for joy in that I honour most.
Great princes’ favourites their fair leaves spread
But as the marigold at the sun’s eye,
And in themselves their pride lies buried,
For at a frown they in their glory die.
The painful warrior famoused for fight,
After a thousand victories once foiled,
Is from the book of honour razed quite,
And all the rest forgot for which he toiled:
Then happy I, that love and am beloved,
Where I may not remove nor be removed.