One Hundred Love Sonnets: XVII (Sonnet 17) by Pablo Neruda

One Hundred Love Sonnets:“ XVII, also called ”I Don’t Love You As If You Were a Rose“ is a poem by Chilean poet Pablo Neruda and it talks about the nature of love, and where love resides. It is considered to be one of the most famous love sonnets by a 20th-century poet. In this article, we’ll look at the analysis, meaning, explanation, and historical context of this sonnet. Let’s get started. 

One Hundred Love Sonnets: XVII by Pablo Neruda

I don’t love you as if you were a rose of salt, topaz,   
or arrow of carnations that propagate fire:   
I love you as one loves certain obscure things,   
secretly, between the shadow and the soul.

I love you as the plant that doesn’t bloom but carries   
the light of those flowers, hidden, within itself,   
and thanks to your love the tight aroma that arose   
from the earth lives dimly in my body.

I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where,   
I love you directly without problems or pride:
I love you like this because I don’t know any other way to love,
except in this form in which I am not nor are you,   
so close that your hand upon my chest is mine,   
so close that your eyes close with my dreams.

No te amo como si fueras rosa (Spanish Version)

No te amo como si fueras rosa de sal, topacio
o flecha de claveles que propagan el fuego:
te amo como se aman ciertas cosas oscuras,
secretamente, entre la sombra y el alma.

Te amo como la planta que no florece y lleva
dentro de sí, escondida, la luz de aquellas flores,
y gracias a tu amor vive oscuro en mi cuerpo
el apretado aroma que ascendió de la tierra.

Te amo sin saber como, ni cuándo, ni de dónde,
Te amo directamente sin problemas ni orgullo:
así te amo porque no sé amar de otra manera,
sino así de este modo en que no soy ni eres,
tan cerca que tu mano sobre mi pecho es mía,
tan cerca que se cierran tus ojos con mi sueño.  

Meaning of the Sonnet

One Hundred Love Sonnets: XVII by Pablo Neruda is about the nature of love, and the type of love the speaker has for a certain person. Neruda does not say who he is talking about in the poem, but he is certainly a very important person in his life. So what is his love like? 

The most important thing to understand here is that Neruda’s love is not something that one can see, but only feel the effects of. It is not something tangible or explainable. Neruda does not call his love beautiful but says that every beautiful thing is because of love. 

The type of love described in this poem is a metaphysical love that is very difficult to understand or grasp. It does not depend on benefits, lust, or desire. It is the purest form of love that just exist as life does. According to Neruda, this is a love that does not reside in the mind or the heart, but where life exists. 

Apart from the type of love, Neruda also says that this love is innate; he does not know how or why he loves the person this way, but he just is aware of the love. Like we do not know why we breathe or live, but we just do, similarly, this love just exists without any reason. 

The love he has for the person is beyond our physical bodies. It is something completely different. Something so powerful that keeps the lovers close to each other despite being far away. Since this love is where life is, love connects the lives of two lovers. 

Stanza by Stanza analysis

I don’t love you as if you were a rose of salt, topaz,

or arrow of carnations that propagate fire:

I love you as one loves certain obscure things,

secretly, between the shadow and the soul.

The first stanza of the poem is about the nature of love and where it exists. Neruda says that his love for this person is not something physical that people can see. Unlike a rose of salt or topaz or carnations that can be touched and seen, his love is something unexplainable. It is like the idea of a flower instead of a flower. 

He says that his love exists in a place between shadow and the soul, a metaphysical address that no one can ever locate. While one cannot find exactly where this place is, we know that shadows and souls are everywhere. Hence love resides everywhere.

I love you as the plant that doesn’t bloom but carries

the light of those flowers, hidden, within itself,

and thanks to your love the tight aroma that arose

from the earth lives dimly in my body.

The second stanza talks about the power of love and its effect on him. While his love is not like a flower that blooms, but like the stem of the plant that nourishes the flower and makes it bloom. In the same way, all the beautiful physical things in his life, including every great experience are not what his love for the person is, but it is because of this love that he gets those experiences. 

I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where,

I love you directly without problems or pride:

I love you like this because I don’t know any other way

    to love,

except in this form in which I am not nor are you,

so close that your hand upon my chest is mine,

so close that your eyes close with my dreams.

The final poem is the expression of this love without understanding it. Neruda says that he just loves this person without any other feelings. He does not know how, when, or from where this love comes from. He just knows it is the purest form of love, without any problems or pride. 

He says that he does not know any other way of loving, that this love is innate. But he does know that love exists in a form that is not physical, but something different. This love seems to connect both of them and make them one. 

Theme and Literary Devices of the Poem

There are a lot of literary devices in the poem. Let’s take a look at some of the important literary devices in the poem, along with the theme. 

Theme: The poem’s theme is love, affection, and the nature of love. The poem explores the complex nature of deep love that one has for someone that one cannot explain. 

Tone: The tone of the poem is expressive, affectionate, and passionate. The poet is tender with the expression of love, but at the same time, quite passionate. 

Metaphor: There are many examples of metaphors in this sonnet. “Rose of salt,” “arrow of carnations,” and “between the shadow and the soul” represent everywhere.

Imagery: The poet uses terms like flowers, rose, etc to create imagery in the reader’s mind. 

Rhyming scheme: This is a free-verse sonnet meaning that there is no defined rhyming scheme 

Type: It is an unstructured sonnet, meaning that it does not follow the Petrarchan or Shakespearean sonnet format.

Context and History of the Poem

While most of Neruda’s poems were based on politics, he also wrote about love. Some of these love poems were considered too controversial owing to their erotic nature. You will rarely find the name of the poet associated with love, rather, he was deeply involved in politics and other governmental controversies. 

When we look at the personal life of Neruda, we see that he took his time finding the love of his life. Neruda married three times. While the first and second marriages were not fruitful and he barely wrote anything for them, it was his third wife, Matilde Urrutia, who became the muse of his life. 

It is said that Matilde was his mistress while he was still married to his second wife. We do not know much about that, but what we do know is that he dedicated a lot of poems to Matilde, including this one. The third time’s the charm and Neruda found the love of his life, with whom he was married till his death in 1973. 

Read some more great sonnet analysis? Take a look at another love sonnet; She Walks in Beauty by Lord Byron