A Brief Panegyric on the Esthetics of Preservation

by Robert DeCandido

Sonnet 65

Since brass, nor stone, nor earth, nor boundless sea,
But sad mortality o'er-sways their power,
How with this rage shall beauty hold a plea,
Whose action is no stronger than a flower?
O, how shall summer's honey breath hold out
Against the wreckful siege of battering days,
When rocks impregnable are not so stout,
Nor gates of steel so strong, but time decays?
O fearful meditation! where, alack,
Shall Time's best jewel from Time's chest lie hid?
Or what strong hand can hold his swift foot back?
Or who his spoil of beauty can forbid?
O, none, unless this miracle have might,
That in black ink my love may still shine bright.
        William Shakespeare
I first used Sonnet 65 to introduce a talk on preservation to the local chapter of the Theater Library Association what seems like a lifetime ago. As I read it now the beauty and the complex irony of it seems to grow. Nowhere is it better said that what we do, those of us who would forbid Time's spoil, is futile and important and human and foolish and (dare I say it) even brave. It sometimes seems that what is most precious is also most fragile and fugitive. But Time does not uncreate it only changes. Summer fades but summer returns and Shakespeare's love is still shining bright in ink and on my computer screen. Whether it is ink or electrons what has lasted is the beauty. What better thing to spend your time trying to preserve?

To be candid, it was not the above musings that brought this sonnet to mind. It was that omnipotent Personage, the Kindly Managing Editor, who called to tell me that I was late for another deadline. Is it any wonder that I thought immediately of Time's swift foot? Rather than attempting to throw something together at the last minute I'll content myself with sharing the above with you.

This article first appeared in Conservation Administration News (CAN)
No. 46, July 1991 as the Feature "Out of the Question."

© 1991 by Robert DeCandido.

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