The beloved Shakespeare text that begins with “Let me not to the marriage of true minds admit impediments” is decidedly ambiguous in nature. The poet claims that love is ever fixed, never shaken, has a worth unknown, and unassailed by time and even death. However, the poem uses negative words like “no” and “not” throughout, almost as if the poet is implying a contrast between true love and the marriage of the true minds who the poet addresses.
This song views the text as a struggle between idealized love and the imperfect relationships witnessed by the poet. The music dwells in conflict that oscillates between anxiety and bliss. The final line of the sonnet becomes not only a statement of what love is but a question of if “no man ever loved.”
Text:
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-fixèd 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 proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.
Written for Adam Ewing and premiered by Adam Ewing and Toni Shreve on November 7th, 2025.