ANALYSIS OF To His Coy Mistress By Andrew

ANALYSIS OF: "To His Coy Mistress" By Andrew Marvell Made by: Ballarin Kristina Urban Carlotta

Analysis of the title To his coy Mistress • The reader can understand that the poem is addressed to the speaking voice’s “coy Mistress” thanks to the preposition “to”. • The possessive adjective “his” and the noun “Mistress” make the reader understand that the poem may deal with a love story between the poet and a woman. Indeed, the word “Mistress” evokes the idea of a passionate relationship where the man totally depends on the lady from the emotional and physical point of view. • In addition, the speaking voice connotes his lady as a “coy Mistress”, therefore the intelligent reader may be curious to find out what the poet is referring to.

Had we but world enough and time, This coyness, lady, were no crime. We would sit down, and think which way To walk, and pass our long love’s day. Thou by the Indian Ganges’ side Shouldst rubies find; I by the tide Of Humber would complain. I would Love you ten years before the flood, And you should, if you please, refuse Till the conversion of the Jews. My vegetable love should grow Vaster than empires and more slow; An hundred years should go to praise Thine eyes, and on thy forehead gaze; Two hundred to adore each breast, But thirty thousand to the rest; An age at least to every part, And the last age should show your heart. For, lady, you deserve this state, Nor would I love at lower rate. But at my back I always hear Time’s wingèd chariot hurrying near; And yonder all before us lie Deserts of vast eternity. Thy beauty shall no more be found; Nor, in thy marble vault, shall sound My echoing song; then worms shall try That long-preserved virginity, And your quaint honour turn to dust, And into ashes all my lust; The grave’s a fine and private place, But none, I think, do there embrace. Now therefore, while the youthful hue Sits on thy skin like morning dew, And while thy willing soul transpires At every pore with instant fires, Now let us sport us while we may, And now, like amorous birds of prey, Rather at once our time devour Than languish in his slow-chapped power. Let us roll all our strength and all Our sweetness up into one ball, And tear our pleasures with rough strife Through the iron gates of life: Thus, though we cannot make our sun Stand still, yet we will make him run. Structure of the poem • The reader notices that the poem consists of one stanza made up by 46 lines. • The rhyme scheme is AABBCCDDEEFF…, therefore the poem consists of rhyming couplets. • The reader can find out that the poem can be organized into two main sequences following the development of the argumentation: o from line 1 to 20 there is a first sequence characterized by the use of simple past and present conditional for verbs o while at line 21 there is the turning point in the argumentation and starts the second sequence. • The reader can also notice the recurring use of connective expression that unveils the argumentative structure: but, therefore, thus. .

Had we but world enough and time, This coyness, lady, were no crime. • Reading the first two lines the reader confirms what he has conjectured analyzing the title: the subject pronoun “we” used by the speaking voice to address to the Mistress, clearly proves that he considers himself bonded to the Lady. • The speaking voice’s statement will be thesis discussed in the poem: if they had enough ‘world’ and ‘time’ the mistress’ coyness wouldn’t be a crime; so coyness were a good quality only in an ideal condition. Saying that, the poet seems to accuse the Mistress of being too coy, while should be more confident and expansive.

5 We would sit down, and think which way To walk, and pass our long love’s day. Thou by the Indian Ganges’ side Shouldst rubies find; I by the tide Of Humber would complain. • From line 3 to 20, the poet goes on analyzing an hypothetical and ideal relationship where the two lovers had enough “time” and “world”. Indeed the poet uses the conditional “should” to illustrate the ideal relationship. At first he says they could reflect on the way to pass their “long love’s day” together, proving once again the reader’s conjecture about the speaking voice’s relationship with the Mistress. • At line 5, the poet starts creating the setting: he sets their love story in an imaginary land that to be a mix between England India, where she “by the Indian Ganges’ side” should find rubies and he “by the tide of Humber” would complain. The setting is an evident reference to the poet’s times, indeed, during 1650 England was starting to explore and discover the exotic east, and in particular India.

10 [. . ] I would Love you ten years before the flood, And you should, if you please, refuse Till the conversion of the Jews. • From line 7 to line 10 the speaking voice tells the Mistress “I would love you ten years before the Flood, and you should, if you please, refuse till the conversion of Jews”, outlining the setting using a religious imagery. “The Flood” refers to a Christian imagery, since it is an important episode of the Bible, that is Noah’s story; While the expression “the conversion of the Jews” doesn’t refer to something that has happened, and so it connotes the everlasting love of the speaking voice towards his Mistress. • Besides such lines may make the reader understand what the adjective “coy” refers to; in this hypothetical world, the speaking voice is so much affectionate to her that he will love her forever even if she doesn’t want to have any kind of sexual relationship. It follows that the adjective “coy” refers to the sexual refusal of the lady, who wants to wait before having a physical approach with her lover.

15 My vegetable love should grow Vaster than empires and more slow; An hundred years should go to praise Thine eyes, and on thy forehead gaze; Two hundred to adore each breast, But thirty thousand to the rest; • The reader may have expected a mystical and romantic description, but it doesn’t live up to his expectations: religious references (‘Indian Ganges’ - where believers dive to purify themselves -, ‘the Flood’, ‘the conversation of the Jews’) are completely overpowered by laical references: for example at line 11 the poet connotes his love as ‘vegetable love’, highlighting the natural and concrete nature of love; in addition, at lines 13 -18, the contemplation (typically used to evoke the admiration towards something spiritual) refers to part of the body of the Mistress. Interesting to notice is the contrast between laical and spiritual references, which seems, also, to trace out the contrast between the spirituality of the Mistress (connotated as ‘coy’) and the lust of the speaking voice. • Going into depth the reader can understand that by saying “my vegetable love should grow vaster than empires and more slow’, the poet proves again his unlimited love towards her, since it seems to not have any borders. • In addition, he says also that he would admire her eyes and forehead for one hundred years, her breasts for two hundred years, the rest for thirty thousand years and that he would need one hundred years to admire each part of her body and at last he would see her heart. Such statement contains a lot of references to the Lady’s physical appearance, which is another confirmation that the speaking voice is telling about physical love.

20 An age at least to every part, And the last age should show your heart. For, lady, you deserve this state, Nor would I love at lower rate. Considering the statement ‘and the last age should show your heart’, the reader can notice that even if the contemplation of the Mistress’ heart is mentioned at last, in a key position, it would last an age like for ‘every part’ of her body: this device used by the poet brings to surface his conviction in the matter of spiritual love, it is important but passionate and sexual love seems to be more important. In conclusion, the poet praises her Lady saying she doesn’t deserve a less virtuous love.

25 30 But at my back I always hear Time’s wingèd chariot hurrying near; And yonder all before us lie Deserts of vast eternity. Thy beauty shall no more be found; Nor, in thy marble vault, shall sound My echoing song; then worms shall try That long-preserved virginity, And your quaint honour turn to dust, And into ashes all my lust; • At line 21 there is the turning point in the development of the argumentation: the poet brings the reader and his Mistress to reality, using the conjunction “but”. After the poet has described an ideal relationship set in an ideal ‘Arcadia’, he starts to convince the interlocutor of his initial thesis: coyness were a good quality only in an ideal condition, so in the real world his Mistress’ coyness is a crime. The argumentation advanced by the poet to convince his Mistress is the passage of time: it will bring all to ‘deserts of vast eternity’ so her beauty will perish and their passionate love will result wasted. • The awareness of the passage of time can be deduced also by the attempt to bring the Mistress back to reality and to not think they are living in an “imaginary world”. • To evoke the concreteness of the consequence of passage of time, the poet uses a very concrete language such as “marble vault” (line 26), “worms” (line 27), “dust” (line 29) and “ashes” (line 30) referring to their coming death and the wasted lust.

25 30 But at my back I always hear Time’s wingèd chariot hurrying near; And yonder all before us lie Deserts of vast eternity. Thy beauty shall no more be found; Nor, in thy marble vault, shall sound My echoing song; then worms shall try That long-preserved virginity, And your quaint honour turn to dust, And into ashes all my lust; The grave’s a fine and private place, But none, I think, do there embrace. The poet represents Time as a ‘winged chariot’, underlining motion and so, once again, the passage of time in juxtaposition with the immobility of death: immobility make the Beauty perish and impede actions, so ‘your quaint honour turn to dust and into ashes all my lust’. With a chiasmic arrangement (quaint honour – dust / ashes – lust), the poets manages to highlight the common end that both the Mistress’ coyness and the speaking voice’s lust will have. Therefore even the passionate relationship is destined to end: the poet himself states that the grave is “a fine and private place” but nobody “do there embrace” to indicate that when you die you cannot have any kind of physical approaches and you are condemned to immobility.

35 40 45 Now therefore, while the youthful hue Sits on thy skin like morning dew, And while thy willing soul transpires At every pore with instant fires, Now let us sport us while we may, And now, like amorous birds of prey, Rather at once our time devour Than languish in his slow-chapped power. Let us roll all our strength and all Our sweetness up into one ball, And tear our pleasures with rough strife Through the iron gates of life: Thus, though we cannot make our sun Stand still, yet we will make him run. • That’s why the poet invites her lady to love him physically at line 37: before ‘worms shall try that longpreserved virginity’ and before his youth and beauty will die, they should go along with their ‘instant fires’. • While “instant fires” reminds to passion and lust, the expression “morning dew” reminds to the freshness and youthfulness: both are used by the poet to connote his Mistress’ vitality and beauty. • The speaking voice encourages the young Lady to be like “amorous birds of prey” (line 38) which defeat time and don’t attend unarmed their death: in other words, he encourages her to follow her natural instinct. These lines seems to be a direct invitation: while in the previous lines the invitation to ‘sport us while we may’ was implied in the reflection on the condition of men (subdued to the laws of time), in these lines the poet invites the Mistress to join him directly. • In addition, the repetition of the sound “all” (roll, all, ball), that reproduces the rolling of the ball, and the image of the ball itself are useful to the poet to express the lovers’ union. • The last two lines seem to be an epigrammatic close since the poet manages to represent the strength of passion and time translating it in a metaphor that belongs to the sphere of nature: the Sun, like passion and time, can’t be stopped, men can only accept his motion and ‘make him run’.

Conclusion In conclusion, analyzing the text the reader can understand the poem belongs to the literary genre of “metaphysical poetry”, since there a lot of references to the body and therefore to physical love. Indeed the adjective “coy” refers to the lady’s purity, that seems to prevent the speaking voice from consuming his desired passionate relationship. The lady is the man’s central focus of his sexual passion; he doesn’t want to waste time, so he begs her to not wait too much before realizing his purpose, since time is a ‘winged chariot’ that doesn’t wait for anyone.