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Sonnet 116 Paraphrase
William Shakespeare
Paraphase
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.
Quatrain 1
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.
Love is love when it is unconditional
Paraphase
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.
Quatrain 2
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 akin to a Light house
Paraphase
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.
Quatrain 3
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.
Growing Old with one's beloved
Sonnet 116 - a reading
Paraphase
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.
Couplet
If this be error and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.