Rare handwritten Shakespeare sonnet found in Oxford, England

A rare handwritten copy of a Shakespeare sonnet was discovered in a library in Oxford, England.

Sonnet 116, first published in 1609, is a poem about the unchanging nature of love — “Love is not love/Which alters when it alteration finds.”

The new copy had not been spotted as Shakespeare’s despite being found centuries ago, likely because the famous opening “Let me not to the marriage of true minds/Admit impediments” is different.

The newly discovered version may represent a political change, perhaps by a composer who set the sonnet to music: England was wracked by civil wars in the 17th century, and the altered lines appear to praise political, rather than romantic, constancy.