Shakespeare Fans discussion

Sonnet 116

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 wandering barque,
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.

Each time I read this famous sonnet, I wonder what makes it so popular. The only two answers that I've come up with are (1) it's more accessible than many of the more obscure sonnets and (2) it tells us what we want to hear (ain't love grand).

But lots of sonnets, by Shakespeare and others, have those two traits, so there must be something else about this poem which appeals to so many readers. Maybe the rather rollicking rhythm? I quite like the way it marches merrily along--and it's one of the easiest of the sonnets to memorize, I've found. I also think the imagery, though not particularly innovative, befits the subject-matter and, well, just works. Who's not going to be charmed by those rosy lips and cheeks, even if beneath the grim sickle they lie.

Here's Juliet Stevenson reading the sonnet on YouTube:

https://youtu.be/cKyuzXwSolA

David wrote: "Each time I read this famous sonnet, I wonder what makes it so popular....

But lots of sonnets, by Shakespeare and others, have those two traits, so there must be something else about this poem which appeals to so many readers. Maybe the rather rollicking rhythm? ..."

Yes, I think the rhythm must have something to do with it, or the ease of the flow of words which lifts us along. I know when I finished the poem I was smiling, but I was smiling because the poem is such a statement of truth.

[I missed the last poem - the missing Muse! -- but I may be glad to be well out of it. Opaque indeed.]

S fans have recently been reading "Much Ado", with its interrupted marriage service. I learnt from Jonathan Bate that S's audience would have known it had to be interrupted, since in Elizabethan times none of the church sacraments could be enacted on stage. (This is the opposite of the modern hollywood romcom where a marriage scene seems to be an essential ingredient!) If you think about it, all S's marriages are off-stage -- Romeo and Juiet, Olivia and Sebastian.

I mention this since the first two lines reflect the opening of the traditional service,

"I require and charge you both, as ye will answer at the dreadful day of judgement, when the secrets of all hearts shall be disclosed, that if either of you know any impediment, why ye may not be lawfully joined together in Matrimony, ye do now confess it. For be ye well assured, that so many as are coupled together otherwise than God's Word doth allow are not joined together by God; neither is their Matrimony lawful."

Didn't know that sacraments couldn't be shown on stage--and had never noticed that there are no marriage ceremonies in Shakespeare's plays.

Martin, do you know when the text you quote dates from?

You mean J Bate? From his "Genius of S" I think. A recent book therefore.

Ah, I think you mean the Book of Common prayer. That was 1662, but the same texts were in use in S's time in the 16th early 17th centuries.

I suppose the Anglican Community ("Episcopalians") in America have something similar.

https://www.eskimo.com/~lhowell/bcp16...

Thanks, Martin. I'd never read the thing before--and boy, is it longer and more detailed than I ever thought it was (judging as I no doubt was from the world of movies).

I'm not convinced about Shakespeare being Catholic, nor Marlowe. I think we have to look at the evidence of the plays. Surely love-based morality isn't limited to Catholicism? In (Marlowe's) Dr Faustus the Pope gets boxed on the ears. Marlowe's 'Massacre at Paris' is also a huge explicit indictment of the (French Catholic) Duc de Guise for the massacre of the (Protestant) Huguenots. It doesn't add up.

I find most of the material in the TV series suspicious. Need a love-interest for our Will when he first arrives in London? Give Richard Burbage a beautiful sister and call her Alice!

Overall, I do not like how both the writer and the director have decided that everything about Shakespeare and London at the time should be so frenetic. Maybe it makes for higher ratings (I wouldn't know), but I find it off-putting. What I'd like to see is a more original take on the times, one that might even allow for a little sweetness and light.

Martin, have you abandoned the Sonnets? Say it ain't so!

David, I have requested our moderator (Candy) transfers this TNT stuff to a separate thread, after which things can continue as normal (with a bit more to add on this sonnet). Meanwhile treat it as a summer recess!

Good to know, Martin. I'm guessing that Candy has been very busy (she's not even visited Antony and Cleopatra, her favorite play).

David, I am out of my fracking mind...I have no time for laundry...fun...sociallizing...or participating here so far.


I have to never shifts at my job...I literally have not checked into this discussion until now...or read A&C posts.

I am so sorry...I don't want to let any of you down and I want to participate.


Unfortunately...we are short staffed at my work...and I am covering the short staff...

I'm trying but I barely have my laundry done@@@@!!!!


Oh dear!!!!!


Work and real world sucks!!!


I also have very sad news...the sensei at my buddhist temple has stage 4 cancer. We are all gobsmacked...and running around trying to compensate and keep things going at the church.


I almost had to pull my car over today because I felt so emotional. I am sorry...I will pull it together and be here with you all.


Lets remember how remarkable it is that we love Shakespeare a and life and the great fun we have here discussing this literature.

I love you all and am so grateful!!!!!!

Sorry to hear about the life-problems, Candy, but the break from sonnet posting and reading has been useful for me at least. There is nothing to apologise for.

But I wanted to say a bit more on this sonnet:

"Love's not Time's fool."

These four syllables seem to encapsulate the sonnets in toto. Compare it with Romeo's "O, I am fortune's fool!" and the Duke's

merely, thou art death's fool;
For him thou labour'st by thy flight to shun
And yet runn'st toward him still.

(Measure for measure). The fool, like S, is an entertainer, but unlike S belongs to one person, by whom he is kept for amusement. Romeo entertains Fortune, Claudio, if fearful of death, entertains Death. Love, if inconstant, entertains Time, who laughs at the way it changes. But true love is not Time's fool, because it does not change with time.

Some years back there was a thread to choose one's favourite S quote, and this was mine.

"Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken"

The original spelling brings out the euphony of worth/higth :

"Whoſe worths vnknowne, although his higth be taken"

The fixed mark, that might be something on shore, crystallises into a star, which, like Keats' "bright star" looks at us,

. . . in lone splendour hung aloft the night
And watching, with eternal lids apart,
Like nature's patient, sleepless Eremite,
The moving waters at their priestlike task
Of pure ablution round earth's human shores . . .

But is taking its height measuring its angle above the boat?

See

http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~mos...

The sextant was a later invention, and before accurate clocks, 17th century voyagers could not get a position from the stars alone -- just a measure of latitude.

"Compass", to describe the sweep of death's scythe, both in scope and shape, also reminds us of a north-seeking navigational instrument. All these meanings of "compass" were in use in the 16th/17th centuries.

And what does it mean, to value a star? Are we to think of horse trading, where you measure the height in "hands", then quote a price?

The whole poem gives the sense of journey or pilgrimage. "The edge of doom" suggests arriving at the top of an impassable cliff.

Yes Candy, please don't worry about your literary orphans here in cyberspace. "Fortune brings in some boats that are not steer'd," as our bardic friend puts it (in Cymbeline). We miss your guidance and enthusiasm, but we'll manage to muddle through.

In the meantime, try not to get too discouraged. Isn't there some Zen proverb that says something like 'after the enlightenment, the laundry'?

Thanks Martin for the insight on "Love's not Fortune's fool." You're right: it does nicely encapsulate the entire sequence of sonnets.

"It is the star to every wandering barque,
Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken"

This poem relates quite aptly to Antony and Cleopatra where a trio, a triumviratee is so central to arguing on how one might run the world....or what is important is a stable unit in design, poetry, life, marriage.

The idea of contancy versus mutability.


The star and the "wandering barque: refer to navigation and directionality. "height taken" refers to using three points to record and test for distance or location. Could be measuring a star's location. In navigation here is wikipedia to describe a "three point fix" (which is what I believe is the value of three in Shakespeare

" A visual fix can be made by using any sighting device with a bearing indicator. Two or more objects of known position are sighted, and the bearings recorded. Bearing lines are then plotted on a chart through the locations of the sighted items. The intersection of these lines is then the current position of the vessel.

Usually, a fix is where two or more position lines intersect at any given time. If three position lines can be obtained, the resulting "cocked hat", where the 3 lines do not intersect at the same point, but create a triangle, gives the navigator an indication of the accuracy.

The most accurate fixes occur when the position lines are at right angles to each other."


Perhaps I will share a movie review I wrote just published in the monthly bulletin of The Buddhist Temple of Chicago. I am literally discussing verticality and navigation...and a boat, what a coincidence!

I'll post it below....

I’m With Stupa by Candy Minx

Movie Night: All Is Lost, August 22 2017

A stupa is a Buddhist artifact that combines aesthetics, sculpture, symbolism and celestial content. A stupa’s architectural symbolism is to spaciality as what myth is to verbality. Myth comes from the word “mu” which means “to speak silently.” Mute or mu, or the Greek word muein means to close the eyes or mueo to initiate silently. The stupa contains an ecosystem of information that is transmitted through history, construction, design, location and spiritual significance rather than words. Stupas can be found throughout Asian countries including Thailand, Japan and India. Stupas have pre-Buddhist origins as they were sometimes a mound covering the remains of sages, nuns or “muni”, ancient ascetics who performed acts of austerity.

A stupa is an object made to stand up vertically from the ground with architectural details not only marking a location but representing directions of the earth, seasons, the pole star and both the moon and the sun. A stupa is built in several sections with it’s square base placed into the ground with each side marking a direction of north, south, east, and west. The design of a stupa has constant characteristics of centrality, axiality astronomical movements and orientation. The prime essence of a stupa is verticality. Verticality has symbols aligning the stupa in other visual motifs and imagery such as the tree of life, the mast of a ship, a mountain, a pillar, Cosmic Person, a crucifix, a wheel spoke, vajra, ladder/lattice and the smoke that rises from a fire. Janinism, Buddhism and Hinduism all share design symbols of the stupa. Buddhist art-historian Adrian Snodgrass describes the ritual surrounding the construction of a stupa as “the ritual orients and delimits space and in so doing renders it meaningful. It creates special order from disorder, cosmos out of chaos. It sacrileges space, establishing a sacred area, in the midst of profane environs. The periphery of the square separates a frame area, a space with form, from an amorphous surrounding; it marks out a defined, and therefore knowable, space, from an indefinite and inconceivable extension; it specifies a relevant area, a field of ritual operation, from an irrelevant space.” Snodgrass continues, “ The ritual of site demarcation and orientation is to be understood in this context of significance. By means of the ritual the builder identifies the center of his structure with the axis of the universe, by measuring out from the centre he repeats by analogy the process of cosmogony. The space he delineates is a reflected likeness of the total cosmos, its area made meaningful by way of its connection with the supra-physical realms located along the axis that centers it.”

Not only does the stupa represent a marker for location and time but it is also a figurative representation of the Buddha. The square base of the stupa represents the crossed legs of the meditating Buddha and the circular top of the stupa represents the head of the Buddha. What does this design begin to tell us about who or what is Buddha? And what is the purpose of designing a sacred object that marks seasons, the moon and the sun and represents the Buddha? A stupa is a Buddhist building and it’s simple symbology can give us insight into more complicated forms like towns, tombs, palaces and temples. I love to do volunteer work in sacred spaces in part because of studying the the construction of stupas. The logic behind a stupa offers insight into directionality, and practical operations in a church or temple. One of the possibilities of doing service in a sacred building is the design helps expedite (upaya) comprehension and experience.

A boat also has a design that derives and relates to nature, location, verticality, time and astronomical movements aligning some of it’s symbology in literature with a stupa. I grew up on boats and as a kid I used to catch salmon and crabs to bring home to feed our family. No matter how much fun it is to to be out on the ocean or a lake to sail, or swim or fish, my family always instilled a serious attitude towards the practical side of boating and the design and outfitting of a boat. The ocean is beautiful but it is also dangerous. The next selection for movie night is a Robert Redford film called All Is Lost. Remember the root of the word of myth being “mu” mentioned earlier? Mu means to speak silently. This Redford movie filmed in 2013 is basically a contemporary silent film. Redford is outstanding and every bit as profound and monumental as Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton. Redford brings a similar pathos to his clown living alone on the ocean on his expensive sailboat. Is he stupid or entitled or full of grace? The premise of the film is that for some unknown reason to the audience Redford is sailing alone in the Indian Ocean and we meet him the day his boat has been rammed and seriously damaged by a shipping container. In the same way that Keaton or Chaplin captivated their audiences with brilliant physical work and the pure charisma of their personas, Robert Redford does the same here. It’s difficult to believe only one actor in a limited setting can produce so much angst, passion and fear in an audience but this film does so. Both a boat and a stupa are like proto-gps units. The idea of location and direction are powerful survival needs and their different designs depend and contain ways for the human to navigate and live with directionality. They are both a literal manifestation of the Dharma path and powerful symbolic objects of the Dharma path. The stupa is literally and metaphorically the embodiment of the Buddha. A boat is literally and metaphorically the embodiment of the human. I hope you will join us exploring how a boat can symbolize the human body, the womb of the Great Mother, a journey, a moving home and the human condition in an unlikely adventure story.

From here:
https://buddhisttemplechicago.files.w...

Hmmm...here I am back at this sonnet so many years later.

Something I wished I had asked or thought about....

what does "marriage of true minds" mean.

I feel like it is not a marriage of two people in love but he is using love as a metaphor for something else. Rather than his words supporting the idea of human love and marriage....its the other way around.

I stick with my idea of this being a poem about the seriousness of navigation. Of journey. That journey may or may not include marriage. But could be philosophy, science...as "true minds."

I am still fascinated by the rule against performing a marriage on stage. That is so interesting.