Let Me Not to the Marriage of True Minds is the first line of Sonnet 116 by the great English dramatist and poet William Shakespeare. Shakespeare’s sonnets were printed in 1609, when the poet was already a well-established playwright. The dates of the poems are unknown. Shakespeare probably wrote the sonnets over a period of years. There are 154 sonnets in the sequence, though some scholars believe that a different author may have written Sonnets 153 and 154, those focused on Cupid, the Roman god of love. Only two of the sonnets appeared before 1609, in a book of poetry called The Passionate Pilgrim (1599). See Shakespeare, William.
Like almost all of Shakespeare’s sonnets, Sonnet 116 consists of three quatrains (four-line units) followed by a concluding couplet (two-line unit). Each quatrain has a rhyme scheme of abab, cdcd, efef, with the final couplet a rhyming one (gg).
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.
Sonnet 116 is one of the most famous sonnets written by Shakespeare. It is frequently quoted and, according to some critics, frequently misunderstood.
On the simplest level, the poem asserts the timelessness of love. Shakespeare often wrote on the theme of the destructiveness of time in his sonnets, as he did in this sonnet. But there are also more complex meanings here. Many critics have been drawn to the multiple meanings and pessimistic aspects of this sonnet. They feel the sonnet has been too easily read as a sentimental summary of love’s triumph over all.
The sonnet’s opening lines echo The Book of Common Prayer, the service book for the Church of England. The marriage service includes instruction “If either of you do know any impediment, why ye may not be lawfully joined in matrimony, …ye confess it.” Shakespeare borrows the wording and applies it to the more abstract concept of a marriage of minds. He then describes the qualities of “true” (uncorrupted) love. It does not change in response to change; it does not “remove” when its object is removed. It is the unmoving star to every “bark” (boat), whose true worth cannot be measured, despite navigators measuring its “height.”
Shakespeare depicts love as an unchangeable thing, unaffected by time. In this sense, the sonnet is a triumphant, positive defense of love. But Shakespeare also depicts a love so abstract that it exists beyond the “rosy lips and cheeks” of passing, human love. Love is not “Time’s fool”—it endures the ebb and flow of human life until the “edge of doom” (Judgment Day).
This unchanging love is idealized love. Many critics have argued that it is a love that does not exist and cannot be attained. The entire sonnet, while celebrating love, may therefore also be inspired by deep sadness at the impossibility of its fulfillment. Some critics have even suggested a level of sarcasm in Shakespeare’s writing. Others have seen a challenge in the final couplet, as if Shakespeare is daring others to refute what he himself secretly doubts. As with almost all the other sonnets, the possibility for numerous meanings only adds to the poem’s richness.
For more information about Shakespeare’s sonnets, see Shakespeare, William (Shakespeare’s poems). See also English literature (Elizabethan poetry); Poetry (Forms) (History) (Renaissance poetry).
