“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…”
The narrator of Sonnet 116 tells us that love lasts forever and never changes, even when the lovers change themselves.
Duration: 00:04:00 (about 4 minutes)
File Size: 4 MB
Download: Sonnet 116 – MP3
Recording Copyright © 2007 Nikolle Doolin
TEXT OF SONNET 116 (CXVI):
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 prov’d,
I never writ, nor no man ever lov’d.
AN INTERPRETATION:
Do not let me prevent the marriage of people who are truly in love. Love is not really love which changes because ones lover has changed. Or weakens from the strain of one who would take it away. Oh, no! It is an eternal beacon that is never shaken by any storm. It is the star used to navigate by every ship at sea whose value is not known, although its altitude can be measured. Love is not controlled by time, even if the beauty of the lovers diminishes over time. Love lasts forever even to the end of the world. If what I say is proven to be a mistake, then I never wrote anything, nor did any man ever truly love at all.
