Sonnet 116

                      Let me not to the marrriage of true minds

                      admit impediments.Love is not love

                      Which alters when it alteration finds,

                      Or bends with the remover to remove.

                      Oh no!It is an ever-fixed mark

                      That looks on tempesrs and is never shaken.

                      It is a star to every wandering bark,

                      Whose worth's un known 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 hiss berif hours and weeks,

                      But bears it out even to the edge of doom.

                        If this be error and upon me proved,

                        I never wirt,nor no man ever loved.

                                   一一六

                            我绝不承认两颗真心的结合

                            会有任何障碍；爱算不得真爱，

                            若是一看见人家改变便转舵，

                            或者一看见人家转弯便离开。

                            哦，决不！爱是亘古长明的塔灯，

                            它定晴望着风暴却兀不为动；

                            爱又是指引迷舟的一颗恒星，

                            你可量它多高，它所值却无穷。

                            爱不受时光的播弄，尽管红颜

                            和皓齿难免遭受时光的毒手；

                            爱并不因瞬息的改变而改变，

                            它巍然矗立直到末日的尽头。

                            我这话若说错，并不证明不确，

                            就算我没写诗，也没人真爱过。

诗歌赏析

     《十四行诗》在莎士比亚的全部品中占有非常重要的地位，诗集收有154首诗，大致认为作于1592年至1598年，1609年于伦敦首次出版。诗集分为两部分，第一部分为前126首，献给一个年轻的贵族，诗人的诗热烈歌颂了这位朋友的美貌以及他们的友情；第二部分为第127首至最后，献给一位女士，描写爱情。十四行诗是源于意大利民间的一种抒情短诗，文艺复兴初期时盛行于整个欧洲，其结构十分严谨，分为上下两部分，上段为八行，下段为六行，每行十一个音节，韵脚排列：abba abba,cdc ded。莎士比亚的十四行诗的结构却更严谨，他将十四个诗行分为两部分，第一部分为三个四行，第二部分为两行，每行十个音节，韵脚为：abab, cdcd,efef,gg。这样的格式后来被称为“莎士比亚式”或“伊丽莎白式”。对诗人而言，诗的结构越严谨就越难抒情，而莎士比亚的十四行诗却毫不拘谨，自由奔放，正如他的剧作天马行空，其诗歌的语言也富于想象，充满感情。

     这首116诗是写给这位年轻貌美的青年，并通过这首诗歌颂莎士比亚的“爱”的主题。爱情与友谊是诗人不断创作的灵感，在莎士比亚的眼里就是‘爱情诚可贵，友情价更高’，他爱这位美貌的青年，爱情与友谊需要经得起考验，诗人塑造了一个弃恶从善的社会秩序，他所期望的事抨击这些所谓的道德常理及旧理论体系，通过思想熏陶和理性引导努力达到一种美好社会境界。诗人强调爱情与友谊必须真诚、忠贞，不能三心二意、见风使舵，经得起考验的爱才是至死不渝的爱。正如原诗中所写：That looks on tempesrs and is   nevershaken.It is a star to every wandering bark,Whose worth's un known although his height be taken。而在诗的最后表达了诗人的爱情观点：Love alters not with hiss berif hours and weeks,

                      But bears it out even to the edge of doom.

                        If this be error and upon me proved,

                        I never wirt,nor no man ever loved。爱情不随短暂的岁月而改变，而是坚韧直至终老。不管风雨，陪你走到最后的人才是最爱你的人。这体现了诗人追求真善美的一面。

marriage...impediments (1-2): T.G. Tucker explains that the first two lines are a "manifest allusion to the words of the Marriage Service: 'If any of you know cause or just impediment why these two persons should not be joined together in holy matrimony'; cf. Much Ado 4.1.12. 'If either of you know any inward impediment why you should not be conjoined.' Where minds are true - in possessing love in the real sense dwelt upon in the following lines - there can be no 'impediments' through change of circumstances, outward appearance, or temporary lapses in conduct." (Tucker, p. 192). 

bends with the remover to remove (4): i.e., deviates ("bends") to alter its course ("remove") with the departure of the lover. 

ever-fixed mark (5): i.e., a lighthouse (mark = sea-mark).
Compare Othello (5.2.305-7):

Be not afraid, though you do see me weapon'd;
Here is my journey's end, here is my butt,
And very sea-mark of my utmost sail.

the star to every wandering bark (7): i.e., the star that guides every lost ship (guiding star = Polaris). Shakespeare again mentions Polaris (also known as "the north star") in Much Ado About Nothing (2.1.222) and Julius Caesar (3.1.65). 

Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken (8): The subject here is still the north star. The star's true value can never truly be calculated, although its height can be measured. 

Love's not Time's fool (9): i.e., love is not at the mercy of Time. 

Within his bending sickle's compass come (10): i.e., physical beauty falls within the range ("compass") of Time's curved blade. Note the comparison of Time to the Grim Reaper, the scythe-wielding personification of death. 

edge of doom (12): i.e., Doomsday. Compare 1 Henry IV (4.1.141):

Come, let us take a muster speedily:
Doomsday is near; die all, die merrily.

Sonnet 116 is about love in its most ideal form. The poet praises the glories of lovers who have come to each other freely, and enter into a relationship based on trust and understanding. The first four lines reveal the poet's pleasure in love that is constant and strong, and will not "alter when it alteration finds." The following lines proclaim that true love is indeed an "ever-fix'd mark" which will survive any crisis. In lines 7-8, the poet claims that we may be able to measure love to some degree, but this does not mean we fully understand it. Love's actual worth cannot be known – it remains a mystery. The remaining lines of the third quatrain (9-12), reaffirm the perfect nature of love that is unshakeable throughout time and remains so "ev'n to the edge of doom", or death. 

In the final couplet, the poet declares that, if he is mistaken about the constant, unmovable nature of perfect love, then he must take back all his writings on love, truth, and faith. Moreover, he adds that, if he has in fact judged love inappropriately, no man has ever really loved, in the ideal sense that the poet professes. The details of Sonnet 116 are best described by Tucker Brooke in his acclaimed edition of Shakespeare's poems: 

[In Sonnet 116] the chief pause in sense is after the twelfth line. Seventy-five per cent of the words are monosyllables; only three contain more syllables than two; none belong in any degree to the vocabulary of 'poetic' diction. There is nothing recondite, exotic, or metaphysical in the thought. There are three run-on lines, one pair of double-endings. There is nothing to remark about the rhyming except the happy blending of open and closed vowels, and of liquids, nasals, and stops; nothing to say about the harmony except to point out how the fluttering accents in the quatrains give place in the couplet to the emphatic march of the almost unrelieved iambic feet. In short, the poet has employed one hundred and ten of the simplest words in the language and the two simplest rhyme-schemes to produce a poem which has about it no strangeness whatever except the strangeness of perfection. (Brooke, p. 234)

cite this article: 
Shakespeare, William. Sonnet 116. Ed. Amanda Mabillard. Shakespeare Online. 8 Dec. 2012. < http://www.shakespeare-online.com/sonnets/116detail.html >. 

References: 
Shakespeare, William. Shakespeare's Sonnets. Ed. Tucker Brooke. London: Oxford UP: 1936. 
Smith, Hallett. The Tension of the Lyre. San Marino: Huntington Library, 1981.