love is a butt-shaft

i keep coming across this quote:
"They do not love that do not show their love. The course of true love never did run smooth. Love is a familiar. Love is a devil. There is no evil angel but Love." William Shakespeare

now, i don't know what clicheromanticlovequotes.com site control-effed "love" to list all of these quotes together under "william shakespeare" without so much as a line break probably due to limited web design skills, but judging by the way it's spread like wildfire in that exact order across the universe of facebook, i feel there has been a mixup. in case anyone is confused, they are 3 different quotes from 3 different plays with 3 different meaning in 3 very different contexts. they don't make sense grouped together. actually, the last quote isn't even supposed to make sense on it's own. they're also all from comedies, so the seriousness with which people seem to be taking these quotes is kind of amusing to me. to clarify:

They do not love that do not show their love. ~ Julia, The Two Gentlemen of Verona
Context: silly little girl gossips with her maid about the boy she likes, and even though she won't admit that she likes this boy (teehee), she still tries to coax the maid into saying the boy likes her, because honestly what do silly little girls like hearing more than that? so julia says that if a boy doesn't show that he likes you, by... i dunno, his face exploding into a bloody pulp of poetry every time he sees you then it must mean that he doesn't like you. or like like you. her maid responds, they love least that let men know their love. as in, pompous prattling idiots who dither on and on about how much they like like you are probably just pompous prattling idiots who dither. quote's not really about true love, and neither is the play, honestly. the boy ends up dropping julia like it's hot for some other pyt before intermission. at which point the maid should have sassed, ain't no boy who keeps his heart in his codpiece worth tears, gurl, shiet.

The course of true love never did run smooth. ~ Lysander, A Midsummer Night's Dream
Context: hermia's dad says she can't marry lysander because... he's her dad and he fucking said so. and he gives her 3 choices: 1) do what he says and ditch lysander for his man, demetrius, 2) become a nun, 3) die. lysander and hermia are dismayed. hermia especially. so lysander tries to console her, the course of true love never did run smooth. NO SHIT, SHERLOCK. she's looking at a nunnery or death, which either way means she's going to die a virgin, and you say the equivalent of "shit happens"? fail. spoiler #2, he takes her to the forest and then drops her like it's hot for some other pyt. to his credit, it has to do with magic. that's probably the most important lesson you could learn from this play: you can't fight magic. also someone turns into a donkey.

Love is a familiar. Love is a devil. There is no evil angel but Love. ~ Adriano de Armado, Love's Labour's Lost
Context: armado is a fucking idiot. i'm not insulting him, that's what he's supposed to be. shakespeare was most likely making fun of the king of spain and his armada. armada, armado, get it? the main event of love's labour's lost is the terrifically terrible love poetry from all of the male characters. that's how the play goes. the smitten men write hilariously bad poetry, and the women laugh at them. we are wise girls to mock our lovers so. armado's quote is not supposed to be profound or romantic. it's supposed to be nonsense, stupid nonsense, because armado is stupid and a spaniard and has a very loose grasp of the english language. in fact, those 3 gems lie within a full-on soliloquy's worth of his moronic genius, which also includes the line,cupid's butt-shaft is too hard for hercules' club." haaaaaaaaaa, that's what she said.

ah, shakespeare. what a romantic.