Sonnet 1

We want good-looking folks to breed themselves
so that the beauty of their faces never dies;
though time will cause their bodies to be shelved,
an heir would carry on their hot design.
But you, without a partner still in life,
are burning up your beauty needlessly;
you make yourself a foe, you forge your strife,
by carving out a famine from a feast.
You—the world's unwilted ornament
in full display of its flamboyant spring—
will die: and leave your graceful bud unspent
with all this minginess and dallying.
Show pity to the world, do not consume
in life and to your grave what it is due.
William Shakespeare (1564-1616)
('Translation' by Prontobard (2023))