MULTIMEDIA-ENGLISH
Sonnet 116 in Sense & Sensibility (William Shakespeare)
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Video page URL
https://multimedia-english.com/videos/esl/sonnet-116-in-sense-sensibility-william-shakespeare-3908
Description

Shakespeare's sonnets are a collection of 154 sonnets, dealing with themes such as the passage of time, love, beauty and mortality.


Here you can read the complete sonnet:


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.

Transcript

- Who's reading Shakespeare's sonnets?
- Marianne is reading them out.
- An wich are your favourites?
- Mine is 116.
- "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...". How does it continue?
- "O no! it is an ever-fixed mark. That looks on tempests..."
- Is it tempests?... I'll find it. It's strange you are reading these. I carry them with me always.

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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.

Explanations

Here you can read the original sonnet, in old English:


Let me not to the marriage of true mindes
Admit impediments,loue is not loue
Which alters when it alteration findes,
Or bends with the remouer to remoue.
O no,it is an euer fixed marke
That lookes on tempeſts and is neuer ſhaken;
It is the ſtar to euery wandring barke,
Whoſe worths vnknowne,although his higth be                                                                                 
taken.
Lou's not Times foole,though roſie lips and cheeks
Within his bending ſickles compaſſe come,
Loue alters not with his breefe houres and weekes,
But beares it out euen to the edge of doome:
   If this be error and vpon me proued,
   I neuer writ,nor no man euer loued.

Meaning

Essentially, this sonnet presents the extreme ideal of romantic love: it never changes, it never fades, it outlasts death and admits no flaw. What is more, it insists that this ideal is the only love that can be called “true”.