Death's second self that seals up all in rest.'' (II. 5-8)
This is the second quatrain of Shakespeare's sonnet 73 beginning "That time of year thou mayst in me behold." The poet stands on the western sky of his life. He is past the vitality and vigour that becomes a youth. He is like an autumnal or wintry tree with a few yellow leaves or none at all hanging on the branches which shake against the cold and which stand out sharp and gaunt. The poet is past his prime. He is a decrepit man. He compares his decrepitude to twilight. After the sun sinks below_ the western horizon, faint light remains of the day. Darkness descends on earth and will soon devour it. The poet too is in the twilight of his life. The light of youth is fast fading away and will soon be devoured by black night (metonymically sleep ), brother of death. Shakespeare identifies death and sleep. He uses the ambiguous image of enclosing in a coffin or of stitching up the eyes of a hawk. A man places a seal on an envelope or something else to prevent unauthorised opening. Likewise, death closes somebody in a coffin. Shakespeare might also have used the metaphor (image) of a falconer. Just as a falconer sews up the eyes of a falcon to control its flight, so also sleep closes everything up in repose, as in a coffin. The poet thinks death will soon shut him up in eternal repose. ·
■ Comment: The image here, though ambiguous, is apt and poetic. Macbeth (in Shakespeare’s’ Macbeth) uses the same metaphor in 111. ii. 46-47
come seeking night, Scarf up the tender eye of pitiful day." "The word rest means death as an end which is as much desired as feared." ( The Arden Shakespeare)
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