Sonnet 116
“Oh no! It is an ever-fixèd mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken”
I’m pretty cynical when it comes to ‘L’amour’ and I have excellent defences that sometimes work a little too well. In fact someone once said “I guess nothing gets past cold steel”. Harsh, I know, yet humbling. Although I don’t regret scoffing at someone who said that “‘Romeo and Juliet’ is the greatest love story ever told” because, lets be honest here, its story between a 13 year old and a 21 year old over the course of THREE days and FIVE people die! Now, ‘cold steel’ aside, today that’s illegal.
However, today is Valentines Day, celebrating a man who was martyred by Claudius II outside of Rome for helping christian couples wed. It has been speculated that the celebration of Valentines day, as we know it, originated with Chaucer. In his poem ‘Parliament of Foules’ he describes “for this was sent on Saynt Valentyne’s day / when every foul cometh there to choose his mate”. It wasn’t until this poem received widespread attention that the celebration of Valentines Day became popularised and commercialised and society saying we need to couple up, that its become what it is today. See, I told you I was cynical.
But I digress, ‘L’amour’ isn’t exactly my forte, however this Sonnet 116 by William Shakespeare is rather lovely. Its not surprising. He’s an excellent wordsmith. It is first and foremost about marriage, it reaffirms the vows already taken ‘Let me not to the marriage of true minds admit impediments’ the writer asks that if this be true love, there shouldn’t be a question of why two such people should be together. Love is unshakable and unyielding, in spite of the flaws of that other person ‘love is not love which alters when it alteration finds’. The course of true love is never smooth, its not easy, its hard work. Yet if the love between two people is strong enough ‘it is an ever-fixèd mark that looks on tempests and is never shaken’. Even if our time here on earth be brief, love makes life worth living; love is not to be embarked on lightly because no one can measure its worth ‘Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks, But bears it out even to the edge of doom’. As beautiful as those words are, I must give caution. It is not love if it’s about to destroy you or the other person, however do hold onto love even if the world is coming to an end. And right now, in 2021 it certainly feels that way. ‘If this be error and upon me prov’d, I never writ, nor no man ever lov’d’ I don’t need to translate that for you, its pretty clear I think. If love, not necessarily ‘true love’ but real love doesn’t exist? Well then, what’s the bloody point?! Love gets under your skin and into your bones, its the reason why we all exist. Tennyson once famously said ’Tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all’, so as much as I like being cynical, god damn it! I hate to admit it, but Shakespeare’s bloody right.