Sonnet 1 Sonnet 3 Sonnet 12 Sonnet 18 Sonnet 19 Sonnet 20 Sonnet 29 Sonnet 30 Sonnet 33 Sonnet 55 Sonnet 60 Sonnet 65 Sonnet 71 Sonnet 73 Sonnet 94 Sonnet 106 Sonnet 116 Sonnet 126 Sonnet 127 Sonnet 129 Sonnet 130 Sonnet 138 Sonnet 144 Sonnet 146 Sonnet 147

Sonnet 116

Original Text

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:

Modern English

Let me not stand in the way of the union of true minds by inventing objections. Love is not real love if it changes the moment it meets with change, or bends toward leaving whenever the other starts to leave:

Original Text

O, no! it is an ever-fixed mark, That looks on tempests and is never shaken; It is the star to every wandering bark, Whose worth’s unknown, although his height be taken.

Modern English

No — it is a fixed landmark that can never be moved, that faces out into storms and is never shaken; it is the star by which every lost ship steers, whose true worth no one can measure, though its height can be charted.

Original Text

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.

Modern English

Love is not time's puppet, even though rosy lips and cheeks fall within reach of his sweeping sickle; love does not change with the passing of brief hours and weeks, but holds its course straight to the edge of the world's end.

Original Text

If this be error and upon me prov’d, I never writ, nor no man ever lov’d.

Modern English

If I am wrong about this, and someone can prove it, then I never wrote a word, and no man has ever loved.

Shakespeare's Sonnets

Sonnet 116

Sonnet 116