ShmoopTube

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Here's your shmoop du jour, brought to you by Retirement. You've put off learning golf

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for long enough.

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In line 4, "youth waneth by increasing" most nearly means

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And here are the potential answers...

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Okay, so now we have to figure out what a sentence means... a sentence containing the

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word "waneth." Interesting.

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As much as it may sound as if the speaker has a lisp...

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... this was actually a word in olden times that basically meant "wanes." As in... diminishes or declines.

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For example, "Our interest in carrying on a conversation with someone who uses the word

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"waneth"... waneth."

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All right, so which of our answer choices makes sense, given this tidbit of knowledge?

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"As more young people are sent into battle, more young people will die"...?

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Not really anything here about going into battle... so we can count this one among the fallen.

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"Personifications of Time and Age seek to kill young people before they grow old"...?

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In line 1, there's talk about Time AGING people... but not killing them. Time must have a good lawyer.

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"The longer a person lives, the less of his youth remains"...?

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Right-e-o. Youth waneth... so... youth diminishes... by increasing... as a person gets older.

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Option C is looking good, but let's see what D and E have to offer...

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"The stress of having children causes young people to age"...?

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Quite a jump here. No mention of children, so this one's bogus...

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"Aging causes a person's physical body to shrink"...?

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While your 4-foot-tall grandmother can certainly verify that this is true...

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...it isn't what this line is saying.

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So answer C is it.

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Now get going. You've got an early tee time... and you need to start golfeth.

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