The Marriage of True Minds

B
1. “Marriage of true minds” refers to the union of two persons truly and deeply in love
with each other.
2. In the sonnet ‘Marriage of true minds’ Shakespeare refers to love as an ‘ever-fixed
mark’. He describes the quality of love as remaining unchanged forever. He means
that if someone is really and truly in love once, that love will remain forever, no
matter what challenges come in the way.
3. “Time’s fool” means something that does not stand the test of time. Time destroys
everything as it moves ahead. Life and beauty both are temporary. Both of them gets
lost with time. They become subject to decay, destruction and death. But deep,
spiritual and divine love is not time’s fool. It does not get destroyed as the time
changes. Real love remains forever, even after death.
4. In the second and third lines of the sonnet, Shakespeare declares that "Love is not
love which alters when it alteration finds." In other words, according to the speaker,
true love is love which does not alter or change according to circumstances, or
"alterations." One such alteration might be a change in the fortune of the person
one loves. If the person you love suddenly loses a job and becomes poorer, for
example, Shakespeare says that you should love that person regardless, with the
same intensity as you did before. If you stopped loving that person because they
became poorer, or loved them less intensely, these lines suggest that, what you felt
for that person was never true love. Another "alteration" might be a change in the
physical appearance of the person you love, for example, if the person one loves
faces an accident that diminishes the beauty, the love should remain the same if it is
real.
5. True love, according to the poet, stands firm against all external forces. No storm can
shake true love. It does not deviate, bends or shakes even if an exterior force should
try to ‘remove’ it.
6. William Shakespeare in his sonnet “Marriage of true minds” beautifully describes the
permanent nature of true love. According to him, love that is true remains constant
and unchanging through all difficulties. He cites a number of metaphors to present
love in its purest form that lasts forever. Some of the metaphors used to show love’s
fixed and permanent nature are that of remaining unshaken in tempest and as the
permanent pole star that guides lost ships.
7. According to Shakespeare, true love is constant and permanent like the Pole star. All
the stars in the sky move but the pole star remains permanently fixed. This fixed
nature of pole star guides lost ships in the uncharted ocean. Just like the Pole Star
that serves as a guide to ships, true love also guides lovers in life. Just like the value
and worth of the Pole star can never be truly measured, likewise, the value of true
love can never be truly measured.
8. The worth of love can never be measured in terms of price. In the second quartrain
of the poem, the word ‘worth’ has been used which means value. The value or worth
can be measured in terms of money, buying and selling. In these lines, Shakespeare
 perhaps suggests that one cannot buy love. These lines indicate that love is a
spiritual richness, not a material commodity.
9. The third quartrain of the sonnet deals with the effect of time on love. Shakespeare
asserts that love is not a slave of time. Love does not change with the destructive
effect that time brings such as ageing, decay, destruction and death. Infact, love
remains unchanged even till the doomsday (till the end of time) or when everything
ceases to exist.