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Home » Shakespeare and True Love

Shakespeare and True Love

Shakespeare’s sonnets are a remarkable collection of poems and their essential theme is that of love. This particular sonnet stresses the constancy of true love. It is not fickle or changing, but is constant and true:

Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove :
O no ! it is an ever-fixed mark,
That looks on tempests, and is never shaken ;
It is the star to every wand’ring bark,
Whose worth’s unknown, although his height be taken.
Love’s not Time’s fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle’s compass come ;
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
If this be error, and upon me prov’d,I never writ, nor no man ever lov’d.

- Sonnet 116

Notes based on Arden edition of Shakespeare's sonnets

1.	Let me not	may I never ; I hope that I shall not.
2.	Admit impediments	allow anything to come between.
2.	Love is not love	apparent love is not love which alters etc.
4.	bends	turns, deviates.
5.	ever-fixed mark	a permanent beacon or signal for shipping. (pronounced ‘ever-fixed’)
7.	star	guiding star ; most readily identified with the Pole Star.
7.	wand’ring bark	lost ship.
8.	Whose worth’s unknown	the value of this ever-fixed star is beyond human measurement.
8.	his height be taken	the altitude may be scientifically measured.
9.	Time's fool	something mocked by Time, because Time has power over it.
9.	though rosy lips and cheeks	physical beauty.
10.	Within his bending sickle’s compass come	falls within the range of time’s sickle (an instrument which cuts down).
11.	his	Time's
12.	bears it out	sustains without giving way, ensures
12.	edge of doom	first onset of Doomsday, until the end of time.
13.	upon me prov'd	proved against me.

Love which is here today but gone tomorrow is not real. There is a difference between like and love. Our likes and dislikes tend to change rather quickly. Love, as spoken of in the sonnet, is constant. It does not alter when it meets some problem or difficulty.