Is it for fear to wet a widow’s eye,
That thou consum’st thyself in single life?
Ah! if thou issueless shalt hap to die,
The world will wail thee like a makeless wife;
The world will be thy widow and still weep
That thou no form of thee hast left behind,
When every private widow well may keep
By children’s eyes, her husband’s shape in mind:
Look! what an unthrift in the world doth spend
Shifts but his place, for still the world enjoys it;
But beauty’s waste hath in the world an end,
And kept unused the user so destroys it.
No love toward others in that bosom sits
That on himself such murd’rous shame commits.
In plain English
Are you afraid of making a widow grieve, so you've chosen never to marry or have children? But if you die without an heir, the whole world will mourn you like a woman who's lost her husband—because you've left no one behind to remember you by.
When a private widow has children, she can see her dead husband's face in their eyes and features. But you'll leave nothing like that. When a wealthy person spends money, it just moves to someone else and the world still benefits; but beauty that's never used doesn't work that way—it simply vanishes, and by refusing to pass it on, you're destroying it.
This isn't love. Real love looks outward to others. What you're doing to yourself—hoarding your beauty and refusing to create life—is a kind of self-directed violence.
