Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?

     Sonnet 18, often titled "Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?", is one of the best-known of William Shakespeares' 154 sonnets. Since I did not come across its arabic version which I have been searshing for so long, I managed to trasalate it myself. Thought most scholars now agree that the original subject of the poem, the beloved to whom the poet is writing, is a male, I translated it as if addressed to a female as it is commonly used to describe a woman. In this Sonnet, the poet compares his beloved to the summer season, and argues that his beloved is better. The poet also states that his beloved will live on forever through the words of the poem.


SONNET 18

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 his gold complexion dimm'd;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance or nature's changing course untrimm'd;

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 to time thou growest:

So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
So long lives this and this gives life to thee.

ترجمتي      
 هل لي بيوم صيفي أن أشبهك و أقول؟
أنك كنجم في السماء الصافية جميل
فرياح قوية تتمايل لها براعم أيار المحبوب
والصيف ضيف وراء الأفق قريبا سيجوب

فإن للشمس أحيانا حر لافح كاليحموم
كما تغيب أحوالا أخرى وراء الغيوم
ولعل كل جميل أخاذ يفقد بريقه و يزول
وعليه تأتي يد الزمان والمحن فمآله الأفول

لكن ورغم شدة الحر شبابك اليافع لن يذبل
وضوء جمالك الساطع الأخاذ لن يأفل
لن يظفر بك الموت وفي العتمة جمالك يغور
لأنك ستحيين إلى الأبد في شعري المسطور

مهما تعاقب الإنسان وعاش في هذا الوجود
فأنت في كلامي الموزون الخالد كتب لك الخلود