Sonnet 116

William Shakespeare – Sonnet 116 / Let me not to the Marriage of True Minds

Reference to the Context :

Stanza 1

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.

These passages from William Shakespeare's poem "Let Me Not to the Marriage of True Minds" are cited above. The definition of real love is provided by the poet in this poem. According to him, genuine love is constant and unchanging. The poem is a lovely sonnet about love. These are the first few sentences.

Shakespeare asserts in these lines that nothing can stand between two people who are loyal to one another and their union of thoughts. The word "marriage" in these lines denotes togetherness, companionship, and understanding. Instead of the marriage of bodies, it is the union of real minds. In other words, this union of two sincere souls is real love, and true love does not alter with the passage of time or external factors.

If a love alters when given the chance to do so, it is not pure love. True love, or spiritual love, does not yield to the authority of its destroyer. In these lines, the poet expresses the notion of true love, which never wanes or changes. It always lasts forever.

Stanza 2

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.

These passages from William Shakespeare's poem "Let Me Not to the Marriage of True Minds" are cited above. The poet describes the characteristics of real love in these lines. According to him, there can be no external obstacles preventing the union of sincere lovers. Love there endures forever, like the pole star and a lighthouse. It directs lovers in the same way as the Pole Star directs straying ships. It lasts forever and is everlasting.

The poet claims that real love is steady and unwavering in these lines. He connects the Pole star and a lighthouse to pure love. True love is not affected by obstacles and issues in life, just as the lighthouse endures while being exposed to storms at sea. The ships in the unexplored water use the Pole star as their unfailing compass. Also, true love directs partners through life. Like the whole worth and potential of the guiding star, the depth of real love can never be fully understood.

Both the pole star and perfect love are incomprehensible to us. They may be measured at their genuine height. In other words, we are unable to gauge the true impact that love has on a person's life.

Stanza 3

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.

These passages from William Shakespeare's poem "Let Me Not to the Marriage of True Minds" are cited above. The poet claims that real love is sturdy and constant in these lines. It is perpetual. True love is unaffected by time. These are the poem's last lines.

The poet claims that pure love is not a slave to time in this line. With time, nothing changes about it. Nevertheless, time is a destroyer of all things. Anything may be destroyed by it. It might diminish a person's outward appearance. True love, however, does not exist inside the grasp of time's sickle. True loves are unaffected by time. Here, time is represented by a farmer using a sickle to harvest his crops. In other words, genuine love is permanent and eternal, but physical beauty is transient, seasonal, and mortal.

Even on the awful day of judgment, it remains still. The poet expresses his unwavering belief in the constancy of real love. The poet expresses a claim in the couplet. He claims that if someone can disprove his opinion of genuine love, he will be forced to accept that he is not a poet. No one else in this planet possesses either. These phrases illustrate how perfect love is permanent and unchanging.