# Time — Poetry character guide > Time in Poetry by William Shakespeare. **Role:** minor **First appearance:** 0027-sonnets ## Who they are Personified force of change and decay, referenced in the sonnets. ## In the story ### [Venus and Adonis](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/poetry_28_se/chapters/venus-and-adonis) Referenced by Venus as 'Wonder of time' in her lament for Adonis's mortality. ### [Chapter X](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/poetry_28_se/chapters/x) Time is implied through the imagery of untimely plucking and premature death. ### [I](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/poetry_28_se/chapters/i) Personified as the force that causes beauty to decay and die. ### [Sonnet III: The Mirror's Call to Procreation](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/poetry_28_se/chapters/iii) Implied as the force that brings wrinkles and the passage from prime to age. ### [Sonnet V](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/poetry_28_se/chapters/v) Personified as a tyrant that destroys beauty and leads summer into winter. ### [Sonnet XII](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/poetry_28_se/chapters/xii) Personified as a reaper with a scythe, Time is the central antagonist, threatening to destroy all beauty and youth. ### [Sonnet 13](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/poetry_28_se/chapters/xiii) Implied through references to mortality and the coming end. ### [Sonnet XV](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/poetry_28_se/chapters/xv) Personified as wasteful, warring against the beloved's youth and beauty. ### [Sonnet XVI](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/poetry_28_se/chapters/xvi) Personified as a bloody tyrant that the youth must war against. ### [XVIII](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/poetry_28_se/chapters/xviii) Referenced as the force that causes summer to end and beauty to fade, but is overcome by the eternal lines. ### [Sonnet XIX](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/poetry_28_se/chapters/xix) Personified as 'Devouring Time' and 'swift-footed Time', challenged by the poet. ### [Sonnet XXII](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/poetry_28_se/chapters/xxii) Personified as leaving furrows that signal mortality. ### [Sonnet 30](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/poetry_28_se/chapters/xxx) Referenced as 'dear time’s waste' and the cause of past sorrows. ### [Sonnet LV](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/poetry_28_se/chapters/lv) Personified as 'sluttish time' that besmears stone monuments. ### [LX](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/poetry_28_se/chapters/lx) Personified as a force that transfixes youth, delves wrinkles in beauty's brow, and feeds on nature's truths, but ultimately defied by the poet's verse. ### [Sonnet LXIII](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/poetry_28_se/chapters/lxiii) Personified as an injurious force that crushes and wears down the beloved. ### [Sonnet LXIV](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/poetry_28_se/chapters/lxiv) Personified as a destructive force that defaces monuments and erodes all things. ### [Sonnet LXV](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/poetry_28_se/chapters/lxv) Personified as a destructive force that decays even rocks and steel. ### [LXVIII](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/poetry_28_se/chapters/lxviii) Time is referenced through the 'map of days outworn' and the contrast between past and present. ### [Sonnet LXX](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/poetry_28_se/chapters/lxx) Time is personified as a wooer that tests the young man's worth. ### [Sonnet LXXIII](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/poetry_28_se/chapters/lxxiii) Implied as the force behind the seasonal decay, fading light, and consuming fire that mark the speaker's mortality. ### [LXXIV](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/poetry_28_se/chapters/lxxiv) Implied as the force that brings the 'fell arrest' of death. ### [Sonnet LXXVII](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/poetry_28_se/chapters/lxxvii) Personified as a thief stealing minutes and progressing toward eternity. ### [Sonnet 100](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/poetry_28_se/chapters/c) Time is personified as an adversary whose scythe and knife threaten the beloved's beauty. ### [Sonnet CIV: The Illusion of Unchanging Beauty](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/poetry_28_se/chapters/civ) Implied as the force that moves beauty imperceptibly, like a dial-hand. ### [Sonnet CVII](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/poetry_28_se/chapters/cvii) Time is implicitly referenced through the themes of mortality and the enduring monument of the poem. ### [Sonnet CXV](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/poetry_28_se/chapters/cxv) Personified as a tyrant whose accidents creep between vows and change decrees, tanning sacred beauty and altering intentions. ### [Sonnet CXVI](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/poetry_28_se/chapters/cxvi) Depicted as a destructive force with a bending sickle, yet unable to fool true love. ### [Sonnet CXXIII](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/poetry_28_se/chapters/cxxiii) Addressed directly as an adversary; the speaker defies Time's boast and scythe. ### [CXXIV](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/poetry_28_se/chapters/cxxiv) Depicted as having love or hate, and as a force that fools are subject to. ### [Sonnet CXXVI](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/poetry_28_se/chapters/cxxvi) Personified as having a fickle glass and sickle; subject to disgrace by Nature's skill. ### [A Lover's Complaint](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/poetry_28_se/chapters/a-lover-s-complaint) Referenced as having 'not scythed all that youth begun,' indicating the passage of time and its effect on beauty. ## Links - HTML: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/poetry_28_se/characters/time - Book: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/poetry_28_se - All characters: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/poetry_28_se/characters