<P> The compass is also considered an important symbol in the first part of the poem . John Doebler identifies a compass as a symbol that drives the poem, "The first quatrain of this sonnet makes implied use of the compass emblem, a commonplace symbol for constancy during the period in which Shakespeare's sonnets were composed ." Doebler identifies certain images in the poem with a compass, "In the Renaissance the compass is usually associated with the making of a circle, the ancient symbol of eternity, but in sonnet 116 the emphasis is more upon the contrasting symbolism of the legs of the compass ." The two feet of the compass represent the differences between permanent aspects of love and temporary ones . These differences are explained as, "The physical lovers are caught in a changing world of time, but they are stabilized by spiritual love, which exists in a constant world of eternal ideals ." The sonnet uses imagery like this to create a clearer concept of love in the speaker's mind . </P> <P> In the third quatrain, "The remover who bends turns out to be the grim reaper, Time, with his bending sickle . What alters are Time's brief hours and weeks ..." and "Only the Day of Judgment (invoked from the sacramental liturgy of marriage) is the proper measure of love's time". The young man holds the value of beauty over that of love . When he comes to face the fact that the love he felt has changed and become less intense and, in fact, less felt, he changes his mind about this person he'd loved before because what he had felt in his heart wasn't true . That the object of his affection's beauty fell to "Time's Sickle" would not make his feelings change . This fact is supported by Helen Vendler as she wrote, "The second refutational passage, in the third quatrain, proposes indirectly a valuable alternative law, one approved by the poet - speaker, which we may label "the law of inverse constancy": the more inconstant are time's alterations (one an hour, one a week), the more constant is love's endurance, even to the edge of doom ". Vendler believes that if the love the young man felt was real it would still be there after the object of that love's beauty had long faded away, but he "has announced the waning of his own attachment to the speaker, dissolving the "marriage of true minds" " Shakespeare is arguing that if love is true it will stand against all tests of time and adversity, no manner of insignificant details such as the person's beauty fading could alter or dissolve "the marriage of two minds". </P> <P> The couplet of Sonnet 116 Shakespeare went about explaining in the inverse . He says the opposite of what it would be natural to say about love . For instance, instead of writing something to the effect of' I have written and men have loved', according to Nelson, Shakespeare chose to write, "I never writ, nor no man ever loved ." Nelson argues that "The existence of the poem itself gives good evidence that the poet has written . It is harder to see, however, how the mere existence of the poem could show that men have loved . In part, whether men have loved depends upon just what love is...Since the poem is concerned with the nature of love, there is a sense in which what the poem says about love, if true, in part determines whether or not men have loved ." Nelson quotes Ingram and Redpath who are in agreement with his statement when they paraphrase the couplet in an extended form: "If this is a judgment (or a heresy), and this can be proved against me, and by citing my own case in evidence, then I've never written anything, and no man's love has ever been real love ." " Vendler states "Therefore, if he himself is in error on the subject of what true love is, then no man has ever loved; certainly the young man (it is implied) has not loved, if he has not loved after the steady fashion urged by the speaker, without alteration, removals, or impediments". Each of these authorities agree in the essence of the Sonnet and its portrayal of what love really is and what it can withstand, for example, the test of time and the fading of physical attraction of the object of our love . The couplet is, therefore, that men have indeed loved both in true and honest affection (this being the most important part of the argument) as well as falsely in the illusions of beauty before just as Shakespeare has written before this sonnet . </P> <Ol> <Li> Jump up ^ Pooler, C (harles) Knox, ed. (1918). The Works of Shakespeare: Sonnets . The Arden Shakespeare (1st series). London: Methuen & Company . OCLC 4770201 . </Li> <Li> ^ Jump up to: Neely 1977 . </Li> <Li> Jump up ^ Booth 2000, p. 386 . </Li> <Li> Jump up ^ Landry 1967 . </Li> <Li> Jump up ^ Landry 1967, p. 98 . </Li> <Li> Jump up ^ Neely 1977, p. 83 . </Li> <Li> Jump up ^ Neely 1977, p. 89 . </Li> <Li> Jump up ^ Murphy 1982 . </Li> <Li> ^ Jump up to: Murphy 1982, p. 40 . </Li> <Li> Jump up ^ Vendler 1997 . </Li> <Li> ^ Jump up to: Erne 2000 . </Li> <Li> ^ Jump up to: Combellack 1982, p. 13 . </Li> <Li> Jump up ^ Trevor 2007 . </Li> <Li> ^ Jump up to: Doebler 1964 . </Li> <Li> Jump up ^ Vendler 1997, p. 490 . </Li> <Li> Jump up ^ Vendler 1997, p. 492 . </Li> <Li> Jump up ^ Vendler 1997, p. 493 . </Li> <Li> ^ Jump up to: Nelson & Cling 2000 . </Li> <Li> Jump up ^ Vendler 1997, p. 491 . </Li> </Ol>

What is the purpose of the final couplet in sonnet 116
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