SONNET 116 - LET ME NOT TO THE MARRIAGE OF TRUE MINDS

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.

The poem was written by Shakespeare and it belongs to a collection of sonnet (it is, in fact, number 116).

Having a look at the layout, the reader immediately understands that the sonnet follows the Elizabethan model. It is arranged, in fact, into three quatrains and a rhyming couplet.

This structure has the function of posing the main problem under three different aspects. In the first quatrain, the poet introduces the theme, stating that love can't be altered by any impediment or change. In the second quatrain, the writer relies heavily on metaphors, with the aim of clarifying the concept and adding that love is something that should improve men. Finally, in the third quatrain, Shakespeare states that love is everlasting and it doesn't go into a decline. Furthermore, in the rhyming couplet, the poet sends to the reader his message: he has proved what true love is, and he is sure of what he is declaring. If he turns out to be wrong, then he has never written about love, and nobody has ever loved as he has done. This statement makes the reader understand the certainty of the speaker and the deep knowledge that he has about love.

Shakespeare defines love not as something that "alters when it alteration finds, or bends with the remover to remove", but as something that is unchanging and is impossible to eliminate. This makes the reader understand that the love the poet is speaking of, is not simply a physical attraction (which can easily be satisfied and extinguished), but a psychological and mental connection, destined to last in time.

Love is also described as "an ever-fixed mark that looks on tempests and is never shaken", in fact, as we said before, a true feeling can't be extinguished, and even when it comes to a difficulty or it is put to a test, it doesn't surrender, but it keeps existing and it isn't even affected by that.

As far as the speaker is concerned, love turns out to be also "the star to every wandering bark, whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken". Analyzing this metaphor, the reader realizes that this feeling is seen also like something that leads men and that is a point of reference, whose worth can't be doubted, even if it is hard to reach its level. We can only try to improve ourselves if we slightly want to see it and comprehend what his nature is.

In the third quatrain, the author says that "Love's not Time's fool". This is another reference to the immortality of this emotion. Although time is able to lead the body to decay, it isn't able to kill this feeling that, if it is true, will last ‘till the doomsday.

It is noticeable the importance of the rhetorical level in quatrain 3. The authors wants to underline the corruptibility of the body in contrast with the eternal love; he uses the image of death that, with its sickle, brings away the beauty of the body, while love keeps existing and isn't altered as time goes by.  

If we have a look at the rhyme-scheme (ABAC-DEDE-FGFH-II), we note that the first and the third quatrains have the same rhyme-scheme. This creates a connection between the two stanzas; in fact, both of them show the long-lasting nature of the feeling and the impossibility of altering or removing it.