The exact words
What the sonnet says
Sonnet 116 is an argument about what real love is, made mostly by saying what it is not. It opens with words that echo the Church of England marriage service, which asks whether anyone knows any “impediment” to the marriage: “Let me not to the marriage of true minds / Admit impediments.” The speaker refuses to accept that anything can stand in the way of two faithful minds.
Then comes the definition: “love is not love / Which alters when it alteration finds, / Or bends with the remover to remove.” Love that changes when the other person changes, or that pulls away when the other person pulls away, is not love at all. Real love is “an ever-fixed mark / That looks on tempests and is never shaken,” like a lighthouse or seamark in a storm, and “the star to every wand’ring bark,” the star by which lost ships steer.
Love and time
The third quatrain takes on the great enemy of love in Shakespeare’s sonnets: time. “Love’s not Time’s fool, though rosy lips and cheeks / Within his bending sickle’s compass come.” Youthful beauty falls to time’s sickle, but love does not. It “alters not with his brief hours and weeks, / But bears it out even to the edge of doom,” lasting until Judgment Day.
The final couplet stakes everything on the claim: “If this be error and upon me proved, / I never writ, nor no man ever loved.” If I am wrong, then I never wrote anything and no one has ever loved, which is obviously absurd.
Reading it at a wedding
The sonnet is a natural fit for weddings because it is about constancy rather than romance, about love surviving age and storms. Read slowly, it takes about 45 seconds. Pause after “love is not love” in line two, since the sentence runs over the line break, and give the final couplet its own breath. Couples who like the history may enjoy knowing that the poem was probably written to a young man, not for a wedding.
What people get wrong
A poem written for a wedding.
It is a private love sonnet, probably addressed to a young man, about love that stays constant. It borrows wedding language from the marriage service, which is why it fits weddings so well.
Timeline
- 1590sShakespeare writes sonnets that circulate privately among friends.
- 1609Shake-speares Sonnets, a collection of 154 poems, is published by Thomas Thorpe. Sonnet 116 is among them.
- TodaySonnet 116 is one of the most popular readings at weddings in the English-speaking world.
Use it in a speech
Questions people ask
What does “Let me not to the marriage of true minds admit impediments” mean?
“Let me not admit that anything can stand in the way of the union of two faithful minds.” “Impediments” echoes the marriage service, which asks if anyone knows of an impediment to the marriage.
What does “love is not love which alters when it alteration finds” mean?
Love that changes when the loved person changes, or when circumstances change, is not real love.
Why is Sonnet 116 read at weddings?
It describes love as constant through time, age and hardship, and it uses language from the marriage service. It takes about 45 seconds to read aloud.
What is the “ever-fixed mark”?
A seamark or lighthouse that guides ships and stays steady in storms. Shakespeare also compares love to the star that sailors navigate by.
Cite this quote
These cite the original source directly, so you can use them in an essay or paper. Always check your teacher's required style.