Sonnet 116

   This sonnet is very concerned with the definition of real and true love.  The first two quatrains focus on how love is constant.  In the first line of the sonnet, the speaker says that the marriage of love should not be denied to anyone.  The rest of the quatrain explain that what true love is not.  True love does not change. It does not "alter when it alterations finds."  The second quatrain tells what is true love.  The first line claims that true love is an "ever-fixed mark."  In Shakespeare's time, and ever-fixed mark was a lighthouse.  A lighthouse can symbolize a never changing call to a better place.  Line seven is a metaphor comparing a star to love.  The start could be referring to the North Star that always points north.  The last line of the quatrain is the speaker claiming that we do not know love's true value, but we can imagine how great its value can be.  The last quatrain of the sonnet tells that love outlasts time, although time can destroy beauty. Even on the brink of death love endures.  In the last line of the last quatrain, "his" could be referring to Father Time.  The couplet of the sonnet attempts to prove the sonnet valid.  In the sonnet, the speaker claims that if this is not true, the speaker did not write the poem and man never loved.  Shakespeare uses the words "proved" and "writ" in the couplet.  Both these words are legal terms and he might have used them to make the couplet sound me absolute.