“What was once a kind of erotic, playful love poem,” Professor Shapiro said, had “been repurposed to speak to people in the midst of a civil war — in which their loved ones are fighting and dying.”
Consider the opening lines of “Sonnet 116”:
Let me not to the marriage of true minds
admit impediments; love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds …
The nod to “marriage” might be why it’s a favorite at weddings, said Prof. Michael Dobson, the director of the Shakespeare Institute in Stratford-upon-Avon, who was not involved in the discovery. But the commitment to loving someone forever, just as they are, also resonates.
“It makes an implausible vow of eternal constancy, which is what marriages are all about,” said Professor Dobson, who has “love’s not time’s fool” etched into his wedding band.
The opening of the variation reads as much more righteous — almost scolding — instead of musing.
Self blinding error seize all those minds
Who with false appellations call that love
Which alters when it alterations finds …
Practically, the additional lines were added to create more singable verses, according to Oxford. But in the context of the civil wars, the Oxford release said, “the additional lines could also be read as an appeal toward religious and political loyalty.”
Could the self-blinding error have been the push to leave the monarchy behind? Are the parliamentarians the minds who were making such false appeals?
