In this sonnet, Let me not to the marriage of true minds, Shakespeare defines true love and true lover.
I Quatrain
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.
Meaning
- Let me not – I don’t want
- Marriage – Union
- True minds –
- Impediments – Obstacle; hindrance
Paraphrase
Let me not admit impediments to the marriage of true minds.
II Quatrain
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.
III Quatrain
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.
IV Quatrain
If this be error and upon me prov’d,
I never writ, nor no man ever lov’d.