Sonnet 116in modern English, side by side

Often read at weddings, this sonnet is the speaker's definition of true love: constant, unshakable, and immune to time. It is less a story than a declaration — and the final couplet stakes the poet's entire credibility on it.

Confused by a different line? Paste any Shakespeare — any play, any edition — and get it in modern English.

Matching colours pair each sentence with its translation. Hover (or tap) any word to light up the words that match it on the other side — archaic words show their meaning.

Let me not to the marriage of true minds

Admit impediments.

Let me never admit that there are obstacles to the marriage of two faithful minds.

Love is not love

Which alters when it alteration finds,

Or bends with the remover to remove:

Love isn't love if it changes when it finds the other person changed, or if it pulls away when the other pulls away.

O, no! it is an ever-fixed mark,5

That looks on tempests and is never shaken;

Oh no — love is a permanent seamark that faces down storms and is never shaken.

It is the star to every wandering bark,

Whose worth’s unknown, although his height be taken.

It is the star that guides every wandering ship: its height can be measured, but its true value is beyond calculating.

Love’s not Time’s fool, though rosy lips and cheeks

Within his bending sickle’s compass come;10

Love is not Time's fool, even though rosy lips and cheeks fall within the sweep of Time's curved sickle.

Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,

But bears it out even to the edge of doom.

Love does not alter with Time's brief hours and weeks — it holds out all the way to the edge of doomsday.

If this be error and upon me prov’d,

I never writ, nor no man ever lov’d.

If that is an error, and it can be proved against me, then I never wrote a word, and no one ever loved.

Famous lines in this scene

“Let me not to the marriage of true minds Admit impediments.” line 1

The opening echoes the church marriage service, where the priest asks anyone who knows an 'impediment' to the wedding to speak up. The speaker refuses to admit any obstacle to a 'marriage of true minds' — a union of souls rather than bodies — which is why the sonnet is read at weddings.

“Love is not love Which alters when it alteration finds,” line 2

The core definition: real love does not change just because the loved person changes — through age, distance, or fading beauty. If it 'alters,' it never was love at all. The tight wordplay (alters, alteration) acts out the idea: the word bends while its meaning holds firm.

“it is an ever-fixed mark, That looks on tempests and is never shaken;” line 5

Love as a seamark — a lighthouse or beacon that guides ships — standing unmoved while storms rage around it. Paired with the guiding star in the next lines, the image defines love by constancy: it does not avoid trouble ('tempests'); it simply refuses to be moved by it.

Confused by a different line? Paste any Shakespeare — any play, any edition — and get it in modern English.

Studying the language itself? Our Shakespearean English course teaches thou/thee, the verbs, and the meter — free through Unit 2. Or try the Shakespearean English translator.