Step 1: Read the passage carefully. I encourage you to read the text more than once to familiarize yourself with Shakespeare’s use of language and gain a full understanding of the poem. 

 

Step 2: In the comments section below, provide your interpretations and reflections about the sonnet. What do you think Shakespeare is trying to convey? Was he promoting love or condemning it? 

 

Step 3: Pick at least one line of the passage and adapt it from its original Shakespearean language  into your own modern words. Make sure the adapted text still retains the original intent in your modern adaptation. 

                                                                                                                                                        "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. 
O no! it is an ever-fixed 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 prov'd, 
I never writ, nor no man ever lov'd."

Step 2) The piece reflects Shakespeare's admiration towards the unbreakable bonds of true love; that which will not falter in the face of complications nor death itself.            Step 3) -"Love's not Time's fool, through rosy lips and cheeks Within his bending sickle's compass come;"  That is to say: "Love does not bend to Time's will! With merriness and glee, the power that is love can escape the degradation that usually comes from the ravages of time."