Sonnet 68: Thus Is His Cheek the Map of Days Outworn

SONNETCAST – William Shakespeare's Sonnets Recited, Revealed, Relived

Sonnet 68 continues the argument from Sonnet 67 and shifts the focus of Shakespeare's opprobrium from the fashion for heavy make-up to that for wearing wigs, a practice by him equally abhorred.

Unlike Sonnet 67, Sonnet 68 seems to be virtually devoid of any puns or double meanings that would resonate with us, and so although these two sonnets come as a closely linked pair in which the general note of dismay struck previously with Sonnet 66 continues to reverberate all the way through, Sonnet 68 nevertheless presents an entity of its own that in some respects appears to contrast, so as not to say contradict, Sonnet 67: if Sonnet 67 gave us an at least underlying sense of unease about the young man's own conduct, Sonnet 68 does nothing of the sort and simply holds him up as a flawless example of natural beauty.