Meaning
A proverb asserting that genuine romantic love rarely proceeds without obstacles - separation, family opposition, mismatched ages, ranks or fortunes. Typically said to console or caution lovers facing setbacks: difficulty is the normal condition of love, not a sign that it is false. Commonly shortened to 'true love never runs smooth' and adapted wryly to non-romantic struggles such as projects, teams and mergers. Usually quoted verbatim, archaic 'did' and all; frequently clipped to 'true love never runs smooth' and parodied for comic effect. Tone ranges from consolatory to wry, rarely bitter. Regional use: Global English; British origin.
Origin
Lysander's line in Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream, Act 1, Scene 1: 'Ay me! for aught that I could ever read, / Could ever hear by tale or history, / The course of true love never did run smooth' - verified verbatim against the play text at shakespeare.mit.edu. Wikipedia dates the play's composition to 1594-96 and its first quarto to 1600 (Stationers' Register entry of 8 October 1600). Shakespeare frames the thought as inherited lore - Lysander presents it as what he has gathered from books, tales and histories - and the collocation true love is far older, recorded from the Old English period in the OED's factsheet. But no earlier English instance of the course-of-love formula was found in the references checked: Wiktionary and the Farlex and McGraw-Hill idiom guides all derive the phrase from this speech, and early proverb collections yielded no antedating. The exact wording is therefore credited to Shakespeare, though he presents it as old wisdom rather than invention.
Research Sources
References used to check this entry’s meaning, history, or documented forms.
Variants
- the course of true love never ran smoothly
- true love never runs smooth
Usage Examples
- Long-distance is hard, but the course of true love never did run smooth - you two will find a way through it.
- Her parents disapproved, his job took him abroad, and still they married; the course of true love never did run smooth.
- We assumed the merger would sail through, but the course of true love never did run smooth, even between old friends.