The love of friends

We have heard from Aristotle and Socrates on this blog already, so now it's Shakespeare's turn! 

Here, in Sonnet 116, Shakespeare shares his point of view on love. Love, he says, is constant, and does not fade with time. It is a guiding star to lost ships that is not susceptible to storms, rather looks on “tempests and is never shaken”. 

Most critics agree, this is a poem about romantic love (a direct address to the author’s mistress) but we can apply the same sentiment to the enduring love shared between friends.

As we have learnt from different people across the globe, the love they have for their best friends can withstand any number of trials and tribulations. No matter how many years spent apart, or how many miles between them, their love continues to “the edge of doom.”

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-fixed mark

That looks on tempests and is never shaken;

It is the star to every wandering 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.