Sonnet 116

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Sonnet 116 in the 1609 Quarto (where it is mis-numbered as 119)
Q1 Q2 Q3 C 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 wandering 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 proved, I never writ, nor no man ever loved. 4 8 12 14 —William Shakespeare[1]

William Shakespeare's sonnet 116 was first published in 1609. Its structure and form are a typical example of the Shakespearean sonnet.

The poet begins by stating he does not object to the "marriage of true minds", but maintains that love is not true if it changes with time; true love should be constant, regardless of difficulties. In the seventh line, the poet makes a nautical reference, alluding to love being much like the north star is to sailors. True love is, like the polar star, "ever-fixed". Love is "not Time's fool", though physical beauty is altered by it.

The movement of 116, like its tone, is careful, controlled, laborious…it defines and redefines its subject in each quatrain, and this subject becomes increasingly vulnerable.^[2]

It starts out as motionless and distant, remote, independent; then it moves to be "less remote, more tangible and earthbound";^[2] the final couplet brings a sense of "coming back down to earth". Ideal love is maintained as unchanging throughout the sonnet, and Shakespeare concludes in the final couplet that he is either correct in his estimation of love, or else that no man has ever truly loved.