Sonnet 116

1. Let me not to the marriage of true minds

2. Admit impediments, love is not love

3. Which alters when it alteration finds,

4. Or bends with the remover to remove.

5. O no, it is an ever fixed mark

6. That looks on tempests and is never shaken;

7. It is the star to every wandering bark,

8. Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.

9. Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks

10. Within his bending sickle's compass come,

11. Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,

12. But bears it out even to the edge of doom:

13. If this be error and upon me proved,

14. I never writ, nor no man ever loved.

Love Unchanged

Dedication: To Elizabeth

Commenting on the constancy of true love and the expression that despite what his love has done and what comes between them.

1st Quatrain: (1-4)

On the true nature and constancy of love (or the submission to "remover" to "remove"). Love is fixed (as the star in the next quatrain)

2nd Quatrain: (5-8)

Comparison to a start that remains strong in the midst of a storm and is ever the beacon to guide us. Line 8 reflects the irony of Henry be something of unmeasured worth though he is a real boy whose physical attributes such as height can be measured.

3rd Quatrain: (9-12)

The brief hours and weeks of Line 11 I believe are a reference to Henry who through poetic license is probably arguing for Henry to be slightly younger than he is for the sake of eliciting sympathy and compassion but who is very much still a young child as will be seen

couplet (13-14),

Again this sonnet is an attempt at gaining forgiveness from Elizabeth. I believe hence the extra subtleness of his references to Henry. He probably shouldn't have even mentioned the subject but he probably couldn't resist.


Commentary:

Arguing for constancy as necessary for true love, the poet again plays on the constancy of his argument and its true devotion as we have seen. This sonnet’s meaning should be much more readily understandable in terms of the huge difference the poet has with his subject. It is not a hyperbolic and meaningless expression of love with more minor difficulties between lovers. Reflecting on Henry as the young boy “whose worth unknown, although his height be taken”. Another indication of that the chronology is as claimed.

The reference to tempests in line 6 is very likely a deliberate reference to Shakespeare's play The Tempest, as I believe the play was an allegorical reference to the artificial tempest Elizabeth created by safely sheltering her son in a metaphorical harbor. But also very likely a play on the name Shake-Speare with the past participle "shaken". While line 9 again reflecting father Time as deliberate effort of reminding of his own fatherhood.

While line 7 is a naval navigation reference and another indication of Shakespeare's knowledge and interest in nautical navigation. He would likely have also been familiar with Richard Eden's translation of Martín Cortés de Albacar's The Arte of Navigation. Which many commentators have seemingly pointed out.

This sonnet's expression of loyalty and love harks back to 123. Also reminiscent of Paul’s letter to the Corinthians (I Corinthians 13) as scholars have pointed out. Of course the Bible was of great importance to Shakespeare. The connection of Oxford’s own Bible to the works of Shakespeare has been exhibited by Roger Stritmatter in his Phd dissertation.

Again Vendler argues that the sonnet is a rebuttal. I see it as an argument, though subtle, for the poet’s larger purpose.


The message of this poem is that “though I wish to prove my love, even a lifetime is too short a period. But I am trying to prove my love by bestowing on your life an eternity”. This sonnet is a slightly different and much more subtle argument that it is Oxford’s expression of love for Elizabeth which motivates him to do what he does. And though others including Elizabeth herself find his actions misguided or wrong he finishes with the notion that he never writ, nor no man ever loved. This refutation accomplishes two things, saying of course it must be true as I certainly have written and I have loved like no man has loved. But it also says perhaps that if he is false there is a way potentially that he, Oxford never wrote and that no man truly does love.


Note:

There is actually no 116 in the publication it was printed erroneously as 119.


Also in regard to Shakespeare's nautical knowledge, I suspect that it is actually a likely better way to date the plays and poems than is currently believed as this was a field that was undergoing great changes at the time and Shakespeare's usage and knowledge seems to me to have not kept pace. Even though expert he may have been. And Oxford's writings largely missed the changes brought on largely at Gresham College. And it might also be noted that there is even much speculation regarding Shakespeare's familiarity with Mercator. Though the quote and anachronism from Twelfth Night (III, ii), "Face into more lines than is in the new map with the augmentation of the Indies" suggests that Shakespeare was familiar with Edward Wright's map Hydrographiae Descriptio published in Richard Hakluyt "Principal Navigations".


But perhaps most importantly Oxford's link to navigation and exploration was through his own ship the Edward Bonaventure (built in 1582 for merchant in Levant Company and designed by Mathew Baker and built by John Addey) and through his involvement in Martin Frobisher's expeditions to Canada. He was likely in the heart of Elizabethan seafaring ( see 13.05).


Speaking of Twelfth Night and anachronisms, in act III, scene iii, the line "In the south suburbs at the Elephant" may very well have referenced the Olipant Inn in Southwark (seen towards the bottom on the other side of the Thames on this John Norden map). This was known as a rather notorious and lewd section of Town.