Sonnet 116 Paraphrase

Allow me not to state reasons why two truly and rationally willing people

cannot marry each other. It is not love

if the feeling changes when it discovers changes in the situation,

Or shifts its firm relationship when one lover becomes unfaithful.

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.

Oh no! It is a lighthouse,

That oversees storms and never trembles from its foundation;

It is the star that guides all the wandering vessels

Its worth cannot be measured by any value or currency, but its intensity (height of emotion) can be calculated to an extent.

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 is not governed by time, even if physical beauty

will fade as time goes by

Love does not change with the limited period of togetherness

But endures until Death comes at the end of human life.

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 these thoughts of mine about love are disproven,

Then I renounce all that I have written, and no one has truly experienced loved ever in life.

If this be error and upon me proved,

I never writ, nor no man ever loved.