Sonnet 115

“Sonnet 115”
William Shakespeare

Those lines that I before have writ do lie,
Even those that said I could not love you dearer:
Yet then my judgment knew no reason why
My most full flames should afterwards burn clearer.
But reckoning time, whose million’d accidents
Creep in ‘twixt vows and change decrees of kings,
Tan sacred beauty, blunt the sharp’st intents,
Divert strong minds to the course of altering things;
Alas, why, fearing of time’s tyranny,
Might I not say “Now I love you best,”
When I was certain o’er incertainty
Love is a babe; then might I not say so,
To give full growth to that which still doth grow?

“Sonnet 115” is of course a Shakespearean sonnet, consisting of fourteen lines and having the rhyme scheme ababcdcdefef gg. The general summary of this particular sonnet is of a man who has told his lover that he could love her no more than he already did, but with the passing of time comes to realize that his love is constantly growing.

The first two lines tell the woman he loves that the words he once told her were a lie, even the ones where he said he could not love her more. “Yet then my judgment knew no reason why / My most full flame should afterwards burn clearer,” states that the man did not know how his love could grow any bigger (L 3-4). He continues in lines five through eight stating that he thought that the passing of time would inevitably alter the way they felt about each other under the events of the time and the given circumstances. Shakespeare then writes “Alas, why, fearing of times tyranny / Might I not then say, “Now I love you best,” / When I was certain o’er incertainty, / Crowning the present, doubting the rest,” he states that with the power of time he feels he should have said “I love you best now” because he was so certain of this feelings then even with the doubts he had (L 9-12). In the final two lines, the man in the sonnet states that it only made sense that he would say his love, like a baby was full grown, even though it continues to grow with time.

The constant theme through this sonnet is a popular Shakespearean theme, love. The man in the sonnet loves a woman and tells her that he could not love her more than he did at that moment in time, but writes that when he said it, it was a lie. The love he had for this woman continued to grow through out time even under unfortunate events and circumstances that made his heart heavy with doubt. One can believe that anyone can be so in love to the point where they say “I love you so much, I could not love you or anything more” but notice through time that with the relationship, their love also grows.

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