A.k.a. “Let me not to the marriage of true minds”
John’s related banter…
So today, we’re going to look at the history and the controversy surrounding Shakespeare’s sonnets. And we’ll look at three particular sonnets. They’re often known by their first line, but they’re also known by numbers, so we’re gonna look at sonnet 18 AKA “Shall I Compare Thee to a Summer’s Day?”, Sonnet 116: “Let Me Not to the Marriage of True Minds Admit Impediment”, and sonnet 130: “My Mistress’s Eyes are Nothing Like the Sun.”
crashcourse | Shakespeare’s Sonnets (Crash Course Literature 304)
Let me not to the marriage of true minds
(Unquoted remainder)
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.
John Green Reads Poetry 