Sonnet 116 by William Shakespeare

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.
--William Shakespeare

I mostly associate this poem with Sense and Sensibility Though I can't find any mention of it in the book, so it must have been one of the things that earned Emma Thompson her Best Adapted Screenplay Oscar.

I'm not sure I entirely agree with the sentiment, though. Yes, true love should be unconditional, and should last through time and adversity...but at the same time, there are things that are too much to bear, and with enough time and distance, hearts can fall out of love, or heal from a hurt without having to be accused of never really loving in the first place.

Peter and I watched a bit of this movie the other day. We had just watched House, and Peter was looking him up on IMDb. We noticed that he had been in the Blackadder series with Rowan Atkinson, and had fun looking at goofy images of him from that time. Then Peter saw that he was Mr.Palmer in Sense and Sensibility. He asked me who that was, and I told him he's somebody's husband, who's always looking annoyed behind a newspaper. He wanted to hear him speaking with an English accent, so I fast forwarded to where they're all coming home from London, and Mrs. Palmer says "Just think, we can see his despicable house from the top of our hill. I shall have Gardener plant a tall hedge." and Mr. Palmer looks up from his newspaper and grumpily says, "You will do nothing of the sort!" Then, of course, we had to fast forward to the end, to see Edward return and explain himself -- Oh...It's just too romantic!