Sonnet 116

Let me not to the marriage of true mindes

Admit impediments, love is not love

Which alters when it alteration findes,

Or bends with the remover to remove.

O no, it is an ever fixed marke

That lookes on tempests and is never shaken;

It is the star to every wandring barke,

Whose worths unknowne, although his hight be taken.

Love's not Times foole, though rosie lips and cheeks

Within his bending sickles compasse come,

Love alters not with his breefe houres and weekes,

But beares it out even to the edge of doome:

If this be error and upon me proved,

I never writ, nor no man ever loved.

Commentary

Address to his beloved

Changes to the original text: line 9, 'Lov's' changed to 'Loves'; line 8, 'higth' changed to 'hight';

In the first quatrain, the poet exhorts himself not to allow anything to get in the way (impediments) of the 'marriage of true minds', presumably his own and his beloved's, because love is not properly love if it alters when the situation alters, or tends to change (bends) when one party changes (remover to remove).

In the second quatrain, the poet insists that love is unchanging (an ever fixed mark), is not moved by storms and tempests, and is the star by which all boats (barkes) navigate, whose worth is unknown even though one may measure its position (his hight be taken).

In the third quatrain, the poet asserts that love is not Time's dupe (fool), though Time can make a rosy cheek disappear, love does not change, but is constant to the 'edge of doome'.

In the final couplet, the poet makes an avowal that if he is found to be in error in this matter, he never wrote, nor no man ever loved.

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