When he writes, “As the riper should by time decease, his tender heir might bear his memory” in his first sonnet, he recognizes that the physicality of the self, as well as the physicality of time, deceases, but his spirit has the possibility for immortality. He also addresses the passing of time in sonnet 20: “A woman’s gentle heart, but not acquainted with shifting change, as is false women’s fashion.” Shakespeare is seemingly implying that change would, and should, be inevitable. Shakespeare goes on to explicate his hopes that he won’t repeat the past, because, as time passes, so should he. He laments the past as he writes, “I summon up the remembrance of things past, I sigh the lack of many a thing I sought” (sonnet 30). Shakespeare identifies the passing of time as a universal truth, as is death, yet he recognizes the possibility of spiritual immortality.
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