Simple poem(شعر ساده)
Simple poem(شعر ساده)
Sonnets 116
Summary and analysis
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-fixèd mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wand'ring 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.
This is not for educational purposes, but Sonnet 116 by Wiliam Shakespeare - if you have ever TRULY been in love, you can relate to.When the whole world tells you otherwise, if you experience true love, it will never change - nothing and nobody can change it. It can with stand all trials and tribulations. It can with stand a third party ....that looks on tempests and is never shaken- it is a beacon that is worth more than anything on earth...that makes you giddy and silly...it never changes with time - it is constant - no matter how much of time is spent apart - it never changes...it is everlasting.
And for those of you studying this poem, wait till you TRULY grow up and fall in love...it applies to life's love...and you will relate to it. From someone who has been through hell and back for love...and is still in love.
| Posted on 2010-04-01 | by a guest
I cant believe with the readings i have done on this particular sonnet that no one got it right! My god! This is ridiculous.Clearly, people got the obvious out of the poem. Yes, Shakespeare is talking about the constant of love. However, the is an essential part of the poem missed completely. Shakespeare here is talking about the constancy of LOVE amidst an affair. He refused to admit obstacles in his marriage to a fellow in-love true mind partner.It would not be love if it is easily altered when an alterations is presented.Or bends with a remover---one will assume, the 'other woman'. Oh no, Love is for his true mind partner is marriage is ever fixed.So much fixed that if a tepest aka the other woman appear, love is unshaken.This unshaken love is a guide/shinning star to the poor wandering bark. (bark as in a cheater, a dog) Whose worth is unknown, because his worth is that he loves her constant. Although his height in her esteem is taken,his love is not fooled by time. Time will not trick love, Love will not be a fool, and lead to forget his love.Though the tempest with rosy lips and cheeks lures,and his love is bended like a sickle, compass comes. Love, the shinning star comes back to guide the wandering bark.Love does not only not alter is these brief hours and weeks of affair or temptations,Love bears out in the edge of doom. When the affair is found perhaps? And if LOVE is not a fixed mark, with alters not when alteration finds, which guides the wandering dog, and ultimately compass his back to his truest marriage partner, then I, Shakespeare-- have not written nor man on earth ever loved! x 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-fixèd mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wand'ring 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
| Posted on 2009-12-20 | by a guest
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I think that Shakespeare suspected at times that he was himself a fiction, a "quintessence of dust", and that his fine gifts and aspirations were being gently mocked. So, indeed, "this error" could be upon him proved. The ghost of unreality, of inconsequence, is the one he most needs to vanquish.
He wasn't making any slant rhymes. In his day "loved" and "proved" were pronounced alike, with the double "o" sound that "proved" has retained. A word like "day" would be pronounced like "die", and "say" like "sigh". Anthony Burgess wrote that if you want to hear how people sounded in Shakespeare's day you should talk to a Boston cabdriver.
Shakespeare likes to tease sometimes. The phrase, "though his height be taken", is a wink as good as a nod.
| Posted on 2009-12-12 | by a guest
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‘Let me not to the marriage of true minds admit impediments.’ - In this line he seems to be saying that he doesn’t wish to ever have to admit to Love (the marriage of true minds) that he himself may not love perfectly, hence ‘admit impediments’.
He then goes on to describe what true love is ...
‘Love is not love which alters when it alteration finds’ - Love won’t change even when alteration finds it or it finds alteration in another.
‘Or bends with the remover to remove’ - Is strong and holds on through trials.
‘O no, it is an ever-fixè’d mark’ - It can never leave you. Once you have loved you are changed (marked...perhaps either by joy or pain. This is such an honest and true statement because once you’ve encountered love of that kind and opened yourself to it you are never the same, you ‘re changed by that intensity)
‘That looks on tempests and is never shaken’ - Regardless of the criticism, difficulties, etc... that may come, love doesn’t let go.
‘It is the star to every wand'ring bark,’ - It is a guide to everyone who is lost for direction & purpose.
‘Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.’ - This is saying that although the world looks at someone and judges them by what they see (height be taken), nobody really knows how wonderful that person is except the one who loves them, the one who looks deeper.
‘Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle's compass come;’ - Time doesn’t control love, or stop love, or change love - love is not his fool....even though he may get the better of our looks and youth.
‘Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,’ - Love doesn’t change as time counts down. To me this also points out how fast time passes when you’re with the person you love....there’s just never enough time.
‘But bears it out even to the edge of doom’ - Love stays true even to the very last breath.
‘If this be error and upon me proved,I never writ, nor no man ever loved.’ - He is saying that if his summation of love is wrong and proved wrong by his own failure to submit to his stated insight of love, then he never wrote (which he obviously did, so he must be pretty confident in his conclusions) and no man ever loved...saying I think, that if you haven't loved so strongly as described, then you can’t claim to have truly loved (this is a strong statement to make and I don’t necessarily believe this one point to be true, but nonetheless it’s a perfectly beautiful poem and is no doubt much more in-depth than I’ve portrayed it to be). Art like this deserves sincere contemplation and should never be discounted because we don’t understand it the first few times we read it. My explanation is hardly conclusive, but I hope it makes this poem a little clearer and more easy to appreciate to someone out there. Thanks!
| Posted on 2009-09-13 | by a guest
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I love Shakespeare. His works are just too good. This poem obviously speaks about true love and how it cannot be altered with time and space. Apart from that its just crap nonsense (epithetic adjective) and bull shit. I dont understand anything
| Posted on 2009-07-20 | by a guest
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in the first line it says that one must not just love by their minds but by heart also. the second to 4th line tells that in love, we must accept obstacles and love will not be true love if it is being altered by someone. in the 5th line says that love is an ever-fixed mark, meaning love is permanent. the 6th line tells that love is never destroyed though violent or bad situations occur. 7th line tells that love is like a star to every wandering boat. we all know that sailors used star as their guide for directions. so i conclude then that the 7th line tells that love gives direction to our lives and it is our guide. 8th line tells that love's value cannot be identified though we know how much we love someone. 9-11th line tells that love is strong and time is no match for true love. even the edge of doom/death cannot destroy love because love is eternal. the last line tells that if shakespeare is wrong about love he should not have written this sonnet and no man should have ever loved but because he wrote this, that means he is right about true love
| Posted on 2009-07-20 | by a guest
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Shakespeare was writing in a way very different than many who preceeded him. The Pastoralist poets had used love in their writing as something only available to the young and the beautiul ("To the Virgins to Make Much of Time" comes to mind). Their idea was that you had to make the most of your youth and beauty to get love because love would fade as beauty did. Shakespeare's sonnets were a refreshing disagreement with this. In this poem he claims that true love does not change, and cannot be changed by any circumstances. Another sonnet of his that contradicts the Pastoralist theme is number 130 in which he admits that his mistress is not the most lovely, that his love is realistic, and that this means he loves her truly, not superficially. i love this poem.
| Posted on 2009-04-24 | by a guest
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Clearly if Shakespeare claims to know all about love and is the direct perfectionist to do with his wording on love then why does he have a wife and a mistress when he cannot make up his mind who he loves. Clearly thats not true love, its more like pilegamy instead of claiming to have true love in the first place.
Garry Meston.
| Posted on 2009-02-25 | by a guest
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This shakespear crap is impossible to figure out.!:(
Theme
This poem is undoubtedly about love.
It describes love defeating change, time and even death. Love is an absolute.
.: :.
Tyler Vancuren
Paper 2
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 wand’ring 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.
William Shakespeare’s poem “Sonnet 116 is a sonnet in Shakespearean form. The subject of this poem is love and the main theme is that love endures. The poet-speaker is a man who is describing love with a stately tone. Judging by the knowledge the speaker has about love, it is probably safe to assume that he is a mature adult. Throughout the poem, the poet-speaker discusses how true love cannot have alterations, how love is comparable to a guide, and finally how it can withstand time itself.
The first stanza in this poem is a quatrain and its rhyme scheme is abab. Shakespeare uses alliteration, assonance, consonance, and repetition to develop this stanza, which, as a whole, states that love does not change. The first line contains an example of alliteration in the words “me,” “marriage,” and “minds.” In this line, he is referring to love as “the marriage of true minds.” He uses the alliteration of the “m” sound to draw attention to his view of love as being a type of marriage. The words “admit” and “impediments” in the second line are examples of both assonance and consonance because of the identical “i” and “m” sounds. These two words placed beside each other help give the poem a flow that makes it much more pleasing to the ear, not only because of the assonance and consonance, but also because the words almost rhyme with each other. The second, third, and fourth lines of this stanza contain repetition. “Love,” “alter,” and “remove” are repeated to put emphasis on the points that he is trying to make. He is saying that if a person is really in love he or she would not have to make changes in their lover to make themself happy, and that love cannot be taken back.
The second stanza of this poem is a quatrain with a rhyme scheme of cdcd. This stanza contains assonance, a very clever metaphor, and personification in stating that love is ever-lasting and can be used as a guide in life. The words “star” and “bark” in line eight of the poem contain assonance of the “a” sound. Shakespeare uses this assonance to bring attention to the metaphor he is using, which compares love to the North Star, which is a guide for barks, or ships. By following their hearts, people can use love as a guide to get them through life. Also, the North Star is relatively permanent, and Shakespeare says love is an “ever-fixed mark” in line five of the poem. Line eight refers to a star when it says “Whose worth’s unknown, although his height be taken.” Stars have no ownership nor a set gender, so this line contains personification. Shakespeare speaks of love as if it were human to express the importance of it.
The third stanza of this poem is another quatrain and its rhyme scheme is efef. Personification, assonance, and consonance help to get the point across that love is independent of time. In lines eight and nine, Shakespeare says “Love’s not Time’s fool, though rosy lips and cheeks within his bending sickle’s compass come.” Even though beauty fades with time, love does not. Shakespeare personifies time to help express that love does not operate on any specific clock. He even capitalizes “Time” as if it were a real person’s name. He also personifies death in line nine when he refers to the bending sickle, which would be the weapon of the infamous Grimm Reaper. Death can take away physical traits, but not true love. Assonance can be found in line eleven in the words “brief” and “week.” Shakespeare purposely includes this assonance to add to the rhythm of the poem while he expresses his view of love as not yielding to time or any other force. The use of the words “but” and “bear” in line twelve of the poem is an example of alliteration. Shakespeare uses these words to help express that love can survive anything on its own despite the pressures and influences of time.
The fourth and final stanza of this poem is a couplet with a rhyme scheme of gg. In this stanza, the poet-speaker boasts how confident he is in his opinion of love, suggesting that if his opinion is wrong, no one has ever loved. The end rhyme of these two lines is slant rhyme because “proved” and “loved” do not rhyme exactly. In line fourteen, the poet-speaker declares “I never writ, nor no man ever loved.” The words “never,” “no,” and “nor” are an example of alliteration. These negative words are used to strengthen the poet-speaker’s certainty of his opinion of love. Line fourteen also has internal rhyme. “Never” and “ever” are positioned before the word “loved”. Shakespeare uses this internal rhyme to make it clear that the speaker has full faith in his own words.
William Shakespeare’s poem “Sonnet 116 is an excellent poem. Using multiple literary tools, such as metaphors, personification, and internal rhyme, Shakespeare has created a masterpiece that describes love by what it is and is not. Because of the brilliant use of tools and flow in this poem, it will remain one of the best poems ever written.
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.
Notes
The line
It is the star to every wandering bark
is a reference to a barque which was a three masted sailing ship and to the fact that early navigation was primarily done with reference to the stars in the night sky.
Adding your comment:
· | Reply
Is the Bark worse than the Bite
...Love is not love
That alters when it alteration finds
Or bends with the remover to remove:
Oh no! it is an ever-fixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken
Shakespeare never wrote anything better or truer or more beautiful.
First Quatrain: "Let me not to the marriage of true minds"
In the first quatrain, the speaker of Shakespeare sonnet 116 refers to love as “the marriage of true minds,” and alludes to the biblical injunction from Matthew 19:6 heard at wedding ceremonies, “What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder.”
The speaker claims that love is ever steadfast and does not change even though some might think they see a reason for change. Also, real love cannot be disfigured in order to try to “remove it.”
The use of repetition “Love is not love,” “alters when it alteration finds,” and “bends with the remover to remove,” reinforces the idea of constancy on which the speaker is focusing throughout the sonnet.
Second Quatrain: "O, no! it is an ever-fixed mark"
In the second quatrain, the speaker metaphorically likens love to a polestar or the North Star, “an ever-fixed mark,” which serves as a guide for ships. This polestar is “an ever-fixed mark,” because even if the seas become rough and the ships are tossed about, the star itself remains unshaken, still capable of guiding the ship. And even though the distance of the polestar may be calculated by man, its value can never be determined.
The speaker, thus, is claiming that love has a kind of staying power that “stands unshaken midst the crash of breaking worlds,” as the great yogi/poet Paramahansa Yogananda said of man’s soul when it knows its union with the Oversoul. The speaker of sonnet 116 is likening love to the union of the individual soul with the Divine.
Third Quatrain: "Love ’s not Time’s fool, though rosy lips and cheeks"
In the third quatrain, the speaker addresses the issue of love regarding the passage of time. The speaker declares that time cannot undermine love, because “Love’s not Time’s fool.” Even though the body comes under time’s power to change, love is not changed by anything time can do: “Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks, / But bears it out even to the edge of doom.”
Even though the “rosy lips and cheeks” change and whither with age, love remains until death for those who have a “marriage of true minds.”
Couplet: "If this be error, and upon me prov’d"
In the couplet, the speaker implies that he is so sure of what he has just dramatized about the nature of true love, that if anyone can prove him wrong, then he never wrote and no one ever loved. This assertion places his potential adversary in a very difficult position, for the reader knows he has written and also that others have loved.
The last time we ran a metaphysical poem [1], I went into a rather
detailed analysis of its construction, talking about the many conceits
used, how they fit into a logical sequence, and how the idea of logic
gave structure to the poem as a whole. Several readers wrote in to say
that they enjoyed that particular essay, and they'd like to see more of
the same on the Minstrels.
Of course, not all poems lend themselves to that sort of critical
dissection, and there are many which I believe should _not_ be analysed,
just read and enjoyed in themselves. (Several of you wrote to express
this latter point of view as well; you can't win, sometimes).
Nevertheless, I will be analysing today's poem in depth; I think it
offers a lot more to the reader who is willing to spend some time
inquiring into its meaning.
The Shakespeare of the sonnets is a very different person from the
playwright who gave us King Lear, The Tempest and A Midsummer Night's
Dream. In the plays he is the consummate craftsman, entertaining
audiences with masterpieces of dramatic effect while exploring human
character to a degree seen never before or since. The sonnets, though,
reveal a more thoughtful, introspective writer, a philosopher-poet
inquiring, especially, into the question of Time and its effect on human
affairs. But he's never coldly intellectual; his sonnets burn with
emotion and (unrequited?) love. And it's in this respect that I feel
that Shakespeare's sonnets are the definitive statement of the
metaphysical poet's art: he presages Donne and Marvell and their
'passionate intelligence' with remarkable accuracy.
'Let me not to the marriage of true minds' is about as metaphysical as a
poem can get; indeed, if I didn't know better, I would have credited it
to Donne. Its themes are the usual Shakespearean preoccupations: in his
commentary to 'Full many a glorious morning have I seen' [2], Martin
writes, "If you've read any of Shakespeare's sonnets, the sequence of
images is instantly familiar. Time triumphs over flesh, and Love over
all.".
This is the central idea of today's poem as well, but whereas in the
previous sonnet Shakespeare talks about the frailty of the flesh, here
he is more concerned with the constancy of Love.
Love (the 'marriage of true minds') does not weaken when the
circumstances that gave rise to it are changed - 'Love is not love /
Which alters when it alteration finds'. Nay, it is a constant, like a
star that glimmers fixed in the sky, far above the tempests that batter
the wandering bark [3]. And the navigator of life's ship can measure a
star's height to obtain a reading of his own position; thus the star
(Love) acts both as a symbol of constancy and as a beacon, guiding the
voyager onwards.
Nor is Love at the mercy of Time; although the external manifestations
of beauty ('rosy lips and cheeks') may fall within the arc of the GrimReaper's sickle, Love itself does not decay or crumble with the passage
of hours and weeks.
thomas.
[1] John Donne's Valediction, archived at poem #330 . John Donne is
a relatively recent discovery of mine; be warned, this list will be
seeing quite a bit of him in the near future!
[2] Sonnet XXXIII, at poem #219
[3] This is the familiar conceit of life being a voyage; 'bark' is just
a synonym for boat (usually, with an added implication of frailty).
[Aside]
Until I read today's sonnet, I would never ever have thought of using a
phrase as clunky as 'admit impediments' in a poem... it just goes to
show, I suppose.
Posted on Tuesday, March 07, 2000
18 comments: ( or Leave a comment )
> Let me not to the marriage of true minds (Sonnet CXVI)
oh, *lovely* poem, fond textbook nostalgia.
"The Shakespeare of the sonnets is a very different person from the
playwright who gave us King Lear, The Tempest and A Midsummer Night's
Dream." This poem certainly does change my perspective of Shakespeare.
Let me not to the marriage of true minds - it's really the most mind-blowing
poem of love that I've ever come across. How do I love thee, let me count
the ways...IT doesn't even compare to the master that was Shakespeare. So
many people search for love and get involved in relationships that
eventually fail and it's all because they don't really understand what love
actually means. I'd refer anyone to this poem if they ask for a definition
of LOVE. Great site, love your work too!
Kind regards,
Wesley Petersen
Tiny point
Thomas mentions "wandering bark" as a metaphor for a boat. Actually,
"bark" may (notice use of weasel word) be a failed spelling translation
to modern English to a "barque" (pronounced the same as "bark"), which
is a three masted sailing vessel, one of several common ship designs
for ocean-capable boats. English did not standardize spellings for
some words for some time and so apparently non-standard spellings would
appear at times. Indeed much of the heritage of modern American
English spellings stems from the efforts of Americans like Thomas
Jefferson trying to bring (what he regarded as) common sense and logic
to spelling and grammar which was random and illogical and encompassed
multiple accepted spellings for identical terms. Lots of "u" and
"que"s and such with which modern British English is rife are absent
from American English. The Elizabethian "wandering bark" may be either
an different spelling for "barque" or one that suffered Americanization
at some time subsequent to the Bard's penning it.
"Let me not...admit" Means I will not admit. Shakespeare is denying that
anything can come between true lovers (that is, be an impediment to their
love.)
-DB
Although "Time" is capitalized in line nine, and may therefore evoke the
Grim Reaper......when rosy lips and cheeks
"Within his bending sickle's compass come",
does it not more strongly evoke the arc motion of a sextant on the voyage of
life of the 'bark' (boat or ship symbolizing true love) of which the
physical attraction of youth forms a part, though not the whole?
Jan Maartens
Portland
Oregon
This is my favourite of Shakespeare's sonnets... I love the bit where he alludes to navigation and writes " Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken"...love is really unmeasurable despite our efforts to measure it and those measures guide us with their symbolism. Wow! I definitely have bardolatory! Kay
After much searching back and forth, I chose this as my reading for my
wedding (15+ years ago). When it was read, and the reader was concerned
because he "got stuck" with reading Shakespeare and was overly nervous, the
congregation sighed with recognition after only the first line. Some
sonnets, and lines from plays, carry such meaning that only a brief reminder
is enough to bring out a much deeper emotional response that most readers
would expect from themselves.
Liz Viall
The editions I have spell the word as barque, which is identified as a type
of sailing vessel, which ties in nicely to the allusion to navigation, and a
true reference point on a voyage from point A (birth) to B (death).
Liz Viall
May I suggest a reading to the first line. I hear in it the poet
chastising himself for not 'keeping the faith' in his love. I think
the stress falls on 'not' ... admit impediments' even though my lover
may 'alter' or 'remove'. The second 'not ' ('love is not love')
helps this idea along. And then he goes on to write the great almost
ecstatic description of what love is. GAT
Können sie das auf Deutsch übersetzen. ist schon schwer auf Englisch zu
lesen. Wir sollen das auch verstehen!!!
Danke
CBES
"If this be error and upon me proved" ..
What about that "upon me"? It sounds to me like a reference to
chivalrous combat in defense of honor. To prove something "to"
someone is only to present convincing arguments. But to prove it
"upon" them is to engage in combat or a duel, and to win, thereby
proving the truth of the claim by the valor of the battle.
Shakespeare, does not merely present an idea or theory: he announces
he's ready to fight for it.
-==-
Jack Repenning
Director, Software Product Architecture
w:c:
Those blessed enough to find this kind of true love have been given a rare
and precious gift.
I know! Shakespeare must have had this kind of love in his life too;
without the gift, no one can possibly understand it.
'Me' is that collection of attachments with which we label ourselves and,
consequently, everyone/thing else as well. 'I am tall', 'I am short' . male,
female, English, Chinese . I love seafood, trains, countryside - and on -
and on. All this is 'me'. All this is observed by 'I', the first person. We
all say 'I' no matter what we go on to describe. 'I' is the constant; 'me'
is everything else; changeable, temporary, subject to mood, company, etc.
So, "Let 'me' not to the marriage of true minds admit impediments. Love is
not love which alters when it alteration finds ." Methinks!
Sorry if this is all a bit late - only just discovered your site (and am
enjoying it too).
Bob Swan
Switzerland
I am just a high school graduate (Puerto Rico) and was lucky to have an English teacher from the U.S. who made it clear only English was to be spoken during her classroom hour. This is the best thing that ever happened to me wherein all other English teachers would explain everything in Spanish. At first everybody was scared but after a day of two everybody was so involved they were really relaxed and enjoying the class. We had never studied anything related to Shakespeare but because of her now we know. This sonnet 363 is my favorite as I had to memorize it for the class. I am so happy I found your site and will repeteadly use it from now on. Good job.....!!!!!