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Sonnet 116

Sonnet 116 by William Shakespeare is about ideal, eternal love that is constant and not affected by changes in circumstances or time. It uses the metaphors of a guiding star and an ever-fixed mark like a lighthouse to represent true love that remains steadfast. The poem asserts that real love is not subject to alteration and endures until death, implying love should be unconditional and everlasting.

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Kathryn Beatrice Vergara
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384 views3 pages

Sonnet 116

Sonnet 116 by William Shakespeare is about ideal, eternal love that is constant and not affected by changes in circumstances or time. It uses the metaphors of a guiding star and an ever-fixed mark like a lighthouse to represent true love that remains steadfast. The poem asserts that real love is not subject to alteration and endures until death, implying love should be unconditional and everlasting.

Uploaded by

Kathryn Beatrice Vergara
Copyright
© Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Hidalgo, Charmain 2p2 December 10, 10

Narvaez, Vianca

Robillos, Stephanie

Vergara, Kaye

STEPH: Listening to song “Perhaps Love”

KAYE: Before we start, we would like to ask you what LOVE is for you? Complete the statement:

“Perhaps love is...”

CHAM: Alright, let us read the Shakespeare’s Sonnet # 116, one of the 154 sonnets which deal with passage of
time, beauty, love and mortality.

-What do you think sonnet 116 is about?

VEEH: Let us read it then:

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.

1. Here is an interpretation of sonnet 116

SONNET 116 PARAPHRASED VERSION


Let me not to the marriage of true minds Let me not declare any reasons why two
Admit impediments. Love is not love True-minded people should not be married. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds, Which changes when it finds a change in circumstances,
Or bends with the remover to remove: Or bends from its firm stand even when a lover is unfaithful:
O no! it is an ever-fixed mark Oh no! it is a lighthouse
That looks on tempests and is never shaken; That sees storms but it never shaken;
It is the star to every wandering bark, Love is the guiding north star to every lost ship,
Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken. Whose value cannot be calculated, although its altitude can
be measured.
Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks Love is not at the mercy of Time, though physical beauty
Within his bending sickle's compass come: Comes within the compass of his sickle.
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks, Love does not alter with hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom. But, rather, it endures until the last day of life.
If this be error and upon me proved, If I am proved wrong about these thoughts on love
I never writ, nor no man ever loved. Then I recant all that I have written, and no man has ever
[truly] loved.

ANALYSIS
marriage...impediments (1-2): T.G. Tucker explains that the first two lines are a "manifest allusion to the words of the
Marriage Service: 'If any of you know cause or just impediment why these two persons should not be joined together in
holy matrimony'; cf. Much Ado 4.1.12. 'If either of you know any inward impediment why you should not be conjoined.'
Where minds are true - in possessing love in the real sense dwelt upon in the following lines - there can be no
'impediments' through change of circumstances, outward appearance, or temporary lapses in conduct." (Tucker, 192).

bends with the remover to remove (4): i.e., deviates ("bends") to alter its course ("remove") with the departure of the
lover.

ever-fixed mark (5): i.e., a lighthouse (mark = sea-mark). 


Compare Othello (5.2.305-7):

Be not afraid, though you do see me weapon'd;


Here is my journey's end, here is my butt,
And very sea-mark of my utmost sail.

the star to every wandering bark (7): i.e., the star that guides every lost ship (guiding star = Polaris).
Shakespeare again mentions Polaris (also known as "the north star") in Much Ado About Nothing (2.1.222) and Julius
Caesar (3.1.65).

Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken (8): The subject here is still the north star. The star's true value
can never truly be calculated, although its height can be measured.

Love's not Time's fool (9): i.e., love is not at the mercy of Time.
Within his bending sickle's compass come (10): i.e., physical beauty falls within the range ("compass") of Time's curved
blade. Note the comparison of Time to the Grim Reaper, the scythe-wielding personification of death.

edge of doom (12): i.e., Doomsday.


Compare 1 Henry IV (4.1.141):

Come, let us take a muster speedily:


Doomsday is near; die all, die merrily.

Sonnet 116 is about love in its most ideal form. It is praising the glories of lovers who have come to each other freely,
and enter into a relationship based on trust and understanding. The first four lines reveal the poet's pleasure in love that
is constant and strong, and will not "alter when it alteration finds." The following lines proclaim that true love is indeed
an "ever-fix'd mark" which will survive any crisis. In lines 7-8, the poet claims that we may be able to measure love to
some degree, but this does not mean we fully understand it. Love's actual worth cannot be known – it remains a
mystery. The remaining lines of the third quatrain (9-12), reaffirm the perfect nature of love that is unshakeable
throughout time and remains so "ev'n to the edge of doom", or death.

In the final couplet, the poet declares that, if he is mistaken about the constant, unmovable nature of perfect love, then
he must take back all his writings on love, truth, and faith. Moreover, he adds that, if he has in fact judged love
inappropriately, no man has ever really loved, in the ideal sense that the poet professes. The details of Sonnet 116 are
best described by Tucker Brooke in his acclaimed edition of Shakespeare's poems:

[In Sonnet 116] the chief pause in sense is after the twelfth line. Seventy-five per cent of the words are monosyllables;
only three contain more syllables than two; none belong in any degree to the vocabulary of 'poetic' diction. There is
nothing recondite, exotic, or metaphysical in the thought. There are three run-on lines, one pair of double-endings.
There is nothing to remark about the rhyming except the happy blending of open and closed vowels, and of liquids,
nasals, and stops; nothing to say about the harmony except to point out how the fluttering accents in the quatrains give
place in the couplet to the emphatic march of the almost unrelieved iambic feet. In short, the poet has employed one
hundred and ten of the simplest words in the language and the two simplest rhyme-schemes to produce a poem which
has about it no strangeness whatever except the strangeness of perfection. (Brooke, 234)

_______

Mabillard, Amanda. An Analysis of Shakespeare's Sonnet 116. Shakespeare Online. 2000. (day/month/year you accessed
the information) < http://www.shakespeare-online.com/sonnets/116detail.html >.

KAYE: So, after reading Sonnet 116, what do you think love is?/ How should we love?

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