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寫信給女友，假如以這一句作結：「妳不用怕歲月的摧殘，也不用怕死亡的威脅；因為我的文字，能使妳長存世上。」她肯定會冷嘲：「你無病嘛？」唉，為甚麼我不是莎士比亞呢？
今天跟大家一起讀的 sonnet，同時表現了老莎（對，我們是老朋友了）柔情與豪氣的一面。開首的 Shall I compare thee to a summer's day? 可算是他百多首 sonnets 之中，最多人背得出的一句。但我認為，這詩的後半部，比前半出色的多。看片吧。
原文：
Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate.
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer's lease hath all too short a date.
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is its gold complexion dimmed.
Every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance, or nature's changing course untrimmed.
But thy eternal summer shall not fade,
Nor lose possession of that fair thou owest.
Nor shall death brag thou wander'st in his shade,
When in eternal lines in time thou growest.
So long as men can breath or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.
小弟試譯為現代英文：
Should I compare you to a summer's day? But you're even lovelier and more gentle. Summer's wind is too strong sometimes, and the sun too hot. And although summer is lovely, it is just too short.
Every beautiful thing will lose its beauty one day, either by chance or due to the unstoppable force of nature. But your eternal summer will not fade. Not even Death can undermine your beauty, because you will continue to live in my eternal words.
As long as men can breath or eyes can see, these words of mine will live on and give new life to you.
同樣粗疏的中譯：
該把你比作夏天的日子嗎？但你比夏日更可愛，更溫柔。夏天時而太大風，時而太炎熱；而且，夏季實在太短。
所有美麗的東西，都有退色的一天；這大概是大自然運作的方式吧，是無可避免。可是，你的夏日是永恆的，即使死亡也不能奪去你的美麗，因為我已把它紀錄下來。
只要世人還有一口氣，眼睛還看得見，這首詩就能存活下去，令你長存於世。
