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The first quatrain introduces the theme with the image of reflected beauty, "Look in thy glass and tell the face thou viewest" (ll. 1). The audience, his lover and wife, is supposed to say that she sees the face of youth and beauty. "Now is the time that face should form another" (ll. 2). There is a double meaning here, now is the time one will be getting older. Now one will start to age and look like one's mother. It is also the time to have a child, and pass on one's beauty and youth. The speaker is also implying a sense of urgency, that if she is going to ever have children, it must be soon because now is the time "Whose fresh repair if now thou not renewest/Thou dust beguile the world, unbless some mother" (ll 3-4). Here the speaker, Shakespeare, is saying that if one does not have a child, then not only does one go against nature, but sins against one's mother who hoped to achieve immortality through her progeny. .
"For where is she so fair whose uneared womb/Disdains the tillage of thy husbandry?" (ll 5-6). Here Shakespeare creates an image relating to sex. He presents a new question to her, asking if she does not want children only because she does not like sex. This is also the first time that Shakespeare uses the pronoun 'she', which helps to strengthen the case that the audience is a woman. But with the next two lines, "Or who is he so fond will be the tomb/ Of his self-love, to stop posterity" (ll 7-8), Shakespeare now uses the pronoun 'he', which is the basis of the unclearness as to whether or not the audience is a woman. But if the reader looks beyond this simple pronoun, then the reader will notice that with these four lines together, Shakespeare is describing how natural it is for both men and women to want to have children. The two questions presented in these lines are meant to show that it is just as unlikely to find a wife who disdains having sex with her husband, as it is unlikely to find a man who would rather masturbate then want to make love to a real woman.