...lovely youth, When that shall vade, by verse distils your truth. Sonnets Sonnet 55 Not marble nor the gilded monuments Of princes shall outlive this powerful...shine more bright in these contents Than unswept stone besmeared with sluttish time. When wasteful war shall statues overturn, And broils root out the work...

...William Shakespeare exemplifies the conventionality of this topos of text as monument: Not marble nor the gilded monuments Of princes shall outlive this powerful...shine more bright in these contents Than unswept stone besmeared with sluttish time, (lines 6 As quoted in Jennifer Summit, "Monuments and Ruins: Spenser...

...ie, when you yourself will 128 Shakespeare's Sonnets 129 55 Not marble nor the gilded '"monuments'1 Of princes shall outlive this powerful rhyme, But...shine more bright in these contents Than unswept stone besmeared with sluttish time. 4 When wasteful war shall statues overturn, And broils root out the work...

...beauteous and lovely youth, When that shall fade, by verse distils your truth. LV. Not marble, nor the gilded monuments Of princes, shall outlive this powerful...The living record of your memory, 'Gainst death and all-oblivious enmity Shall you pace forth; your praise shall still find room, Even in the eyes of all...

...the male lover. 78. William Shakespeare used a similar conceit in his sonnet 55: Not marble, nor the gilded monuments Of princes, shall outlive this powerful...contents Than unswept stone besmear'd with sluttish time . . . 'Gainst death an all-oblivious enmity Shall you pace forth; your praise shall still find room...