In William Shakespeare’s Sonnet 116, the speaker says true love does not admit impediments.
The sonnet opens by defining love through what it refuses: “the marriage of true minds” should not be blocked by obstacles. Shakespeare then describes love as a fixed mark that survives storms and as a star guiding wandering ships, emphasizing constancy rather than changing emotion.
The word “impediments” belongs to the poem’s marriage vocabulary and echoes the language of wedding vows. It does not mean that lovers never face hardship; instead, the speaker argues that genuine love is not invalidated by external difficulties or by the passage of time.
Sonnet 116 is part of Shakespeare’s 154-sonnet sequence, first published in 1609. Its famous claim that love “alters not with his brief hours and weeks” is often quoted as an idealized definition of steadfast love, although the poem itself uses bold, absolute language that invites interpretation.