Shakespeare's Sonnets (1923) Yale/Text/Sonnet 59
59
If there be nothing new, but that which is
Hath been before, how are our brains beguil'd,
Which, labouring for invention, bear amiss
The second burden of a former child! 4
O, that record could with a backward look,
Even of five hundred courses of the sun,
Show me your image in some antique book,
Since mind at first in character was done! 8
That I might see what the old world could say
To this composed wonder of your frame;
Whether we are mended, or whe'r better they,
Or whether revolution be the same. 12
O, sure I am, the wits of former days
To subjects worse have given admiring praise.
3 labouring for invention: striving for originality
5 record: memory
8 in character: in letters
10 composed wonder: wonderful composition
11 mended: advanced beyond our predecessors
whe'r: whether
12 whether revolution be the same: whether all things come round again