Q&A Sonnet 116 / Shakespeare

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[I will post my questions in a comment to this. By the way, @Carleas, I could not do this on my phone, because the blue button was inaccessible - beyond the reach of haptics. However, the draft was available when I logged in on my laptop.]

Sonnet 116: Let me not to the marriage of true minds

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BY WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

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.

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The timeless beauty of love is that it is unmoved, fixed despite movement around it, ordering the restlessness of the soul, a mapped but unexplored frontier. So, it is a decision. I like that.

But here are my questions.

Woops, never mind. I answered my own questions.

Perhaps you have one?

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In the opening lines, the speaker expresses a commitment to the idea that impediments, alterations, or removals should not hinder true love. Life offers many impediments: We alter as we grow older, and loved ones are taken from us. But true love is constant and unchanging, unaffected by external circumstances, but rather adapts to take external circumstances in its stride.

Similarly, metaphors are used to describe love as a constant and unwavering guide, like a fixed star that remains steady despite the storms. The reference to a “wand’ring bark” suggests that love is a guiding star for lost or wandering allegorical sailors, providing direction and stability in the seas of life, the challenges we face, and undercurrents that threaten to change our course.

True love is not subject to the passage of time, despite the changes that may occur in our physical appearance (“rosy lips and cheeks”). The metaphor of time as a “bending sickle” suggests nature’s inevitable and relentless character. Yet, love endures beyond the transient nature of time, persisting until the very end because it does not cling to appearances, but sees the heart.

In the concluding couplet, the challenge is made to anyone to prove the poet wrong about the constancy of true love. If it is proven false, he declares that he has never written (poetry) and that no man has ever truly loved. It is spoken with a conviction in the enduring nature of genuine, unchanging love. It is this that defines human beings above all.

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@MagsJ you wanna play Jeopardy & guess what our questions are? :wink:

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@Bob what do you think “bends with the remover to remove” means? Who removes? Who bends? Removes what?

When I read “wand’ring bark,” I felt the speaker meant a lost wolf separated from its pack, calling out for them…much like the prodigal son ready to return. But… I learn at least one new thing every day…

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The word “bends” implies a yielding or giving way, suggesting flexibility or adaptability.
The “Remover” is one who takes actions to remove or end the relationship. This could refer to external circumstances, challenges, or even a person who attempts to break the bond.

The “wand’ring bark” is probably, as you suggested a Barque, because it complies with the metaphor.

But the Sonnet is a typical example of poetic licence, with love embraced in multiple metaphors, its power portrayed as a fixed star that is not influenced by what goes on down here. It is also the metaphor in the song Stern, auf den ich schaue (The Star, to whom I look): Stern, auf den ich schaue (The Star, to whom I look) (youtube.com)

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Thank you for sharing the German hymn.

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It’s inflexible and eternally guiding as if some stars’ luminescence may forever shine