Doubt thou the stars are fire; Doubt that the sun doth move; Doubt truth to be a liar; But never doubt I love.

These lines appear in William Shakespeare’s tragedy *Hamlet*. They are written by Hamlet in a letter to Ophelia, read aloud by Polonius to King Claudius and Queen Gertrude as evidence that Hamlet’s strange behavior stems from lovesickness. The moment occurs early in the play, before Hamlet’s relationship with Ophelia is fully ruptured by court intrigue and Hamlet’s own feigned (or real) instability. The letter’s stylized, epigrammatic form contrasts with the political suspicion surrounding it, turning an intimate declaration into a piece of court “proof.”

The quatrain builds through escalating paradoxes: one may doubt the most seemingly certain features of the cosmos (stars as fire), accepted cosmology (the sun’s motion), and even the reliability of truth itself—yet Hamlet insists his love is beyond doubt. The rhetoric is both ardent and self-conscious, showing Hamlet’s wit in compressing philosophical skepticism into a lover’s vow. In the play’s larger frame, the lines gain irony: *Hamlet* is saturated with uncertainty, deception, and shifting appearances, and the letter’s absolute assurance sits uneasily beside the later breakdown of trust between Hamlet and Ophelia.

Doubt thou the stars are fire;
Doubt that the sun doth move;
Doubt truth to be a liar;
But never doubt I love.

O dear Ophelia, I am ill at these numbers; I have not art to reckon my groans: but that I love thee best, O most best, believe it. Adieu.

Thine evermore, most dear lady, whilst this machine is to him,
Hamlet.

1) “Doubt thou the stars are fire; / Doubt that the sun doth move; / Doubt truth to be a liar; / But never doubt I love.”
2) “Doubt thou the stars are fire, / Doubt that the sun doth move, / Doubt truth to be a liar, / But never doubt I love.”
3) “Doubt thou the stars are fire; doubt that the sun doth move; doubt truth to be a liar; but never doubt I love.”