the power of the #7

The number 49 was regarded by the Elizabethans as an important, even critical number, being the seventh multiple of seven. Seventh sons were looked upon with special awe, the seventh son of a seventh son even more so. They were thought to have special healing powers. A quack in James I time was prosecuted for claiming to cure 'the evil' by the Touch, but it was discovered that his father had had only six sons. (Shakespeare's England, Oxford 1916, I.427.) Elizabeth's survival past the grand climacteric, the 63rd year of her life, was thought to be almost miraculous.

One therefore expects that this sonnet would have some special significance, given that Shakespeare seems to have taken great care over the numerical arrangement of the sequence. Nos. 12 and 60 both relate to clocks, and the total number of sonnets dedicated to the youth is 126, exactly double the grand climacteric number (63). In fact the most striking fact is that this sonnet, 49, and 63, both begin with the same words, and both look to the future, and to the farewell sonnet No 126.