Christopher Marlowe goes on by offering her love tokens, again, taken from nature’s bounty.
“And I will make thee beds of roses,
And a thousand fragrant posies,
“A gown made of the finest wool,
Which from our pretty lambs we pull”
He promises the woman to give her beautiful flowers, and to make her extravagant clothing made out of wool and exotic vegetation. The roses symbolize romance and love, as well as showing that Marlowe is a romantic man.
“Fair lined slippers for the cold,
With buckles of the purest gold
A belt of straw and ivy buds,
With coral clasps and amber studs”
His claims of gold buckles, “coral clasps,” and “amber studs” to accentuate the woman’s clothing are too expensive for a shepherd to conceivably attain. However, since these tokens are from nature’s beauty, he, the poet may be symbolising with use of these objects and materials, the great wealth of love he has for her.
“A cap of flowers and a kirtle,
Embroidered all with leaves of myrtle.”
Also if a shepherd could afford such expensive items then why would he be making her hat of flowers, “a belt of straw and ivy buds”, and a gown embroidered “with leaves of myrtle.” I believe that it is the shepherd’s way of saying that he has a great wealth of love for the woman. Still, Marlowe adds more to tempt her; he suggests that if they get married, then all of nature itself would be happy.
“The shepherd swains shall dance and sing,
For thy delight each May-morning”
Christopher Marlowe may be saying that he would give the woman the world; he would do anything for her even if it demanded him controlling the creatures of nature. Marlowe has painted a wonderful fairytale life in order to tempt the woman to be his wife. Through the use of nature, the poet offers the woman all he owns; his heart and his love.
Yet, he only mentions the spring and summer seasons in his proposal because those are the two seasons when everything is alive, warm and growing. He personifies his love as warm and growing like nature’s beauty and bounty in spring and summer.
Andrew Marvel’s poem, “To His Coy Mistress” is a very interesting poem. It has the persuasiveness of a late night information commercial. However, in this instance, the poet does not want money or anything for his “product”: he wants a woman’s virginity. Information commercial have an advantage over Marvel. They not only persuade the woman with words but images of their products as well.
Marvel overcomes this obstacle in his use of descriptive imagery. He utilizes if not maximizes imagery to magnify his persuasiveness.
“Had we but World enough, and Time
This coyness Lady were no crime.”
This shows that Marvel is a victim of her reserved nature. He tries to pull some reserve psychology here to make her think that it is her fault for not having sex with him. In the first stanza, we see the Marvel begins to make a move. He begins to tell her all these sweet lines about how he could spend eternity with her.
“My vegetable Love should grow,
Vaster than Empires, and more slow”
In these lines the poet is trying to tell her how his love will grow like vegetable, more and more every time he sees her. He promises that he will love the woman until the end of time.
He goes on to say that he would indeed love her “Till the conversion of the Jews”, but the poet never directly says “forever”. Instead, he uses phrases that conjure images of eternity: “ten years before the Flood”; “An age at least to every part”. Marvel’s descriptive use of imagery makes forever seem an overused word that does not fully encapsulate the time he would spend waiting for her. A few lines later he continues to talk about his everlasting love. He begins to divide his love up between her body parts.
“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.”
Andrew Marvel promises to her that he will dedicate a hundred years to her eyes. Then he tells her that he would dedicate two hundred to each breast. Here we begin to see how his mind begins to shift toward sex. He begins to shift his thoughts from her eyes to her body. He is very easygoing about it. After the comment about her breasts he said, “but thirty thousand to the rest”. The poet is only out for one thing, and that is sex. He is trying to be suave about it, but in the next section we will see his patience giving out.
“But at my back I alwaies hear,
Times winged Charriot hurrying near”
“But” makes the transition from eternity to the present. Again Marvel makes himself the victim, first of the lady’s coyness and now of the death. With death soon knock on his door, the poet reminds his mistress of her inevitable death.
As we can see, the second stanza shows that the poet’s personality shifts. He goes from being the person, who was willing to spend eternity with his beloved to a person whose time is coming to an end fast. He says the time’s chariot is hurrying near. This second stanza is a little faster, and we can see that Marvel does not put as much thought into what he is saying.
“And yonder all before us lie,
Desarts 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 preserv’d Virginity:”
From this quote, he proceeds to tell her that they have eternity to be together, but her beauty will not last forever. He is starting to become less and less patient. Andrew Marvel then murmurs that the worms are going to take the woman’s virginity, which is followed up by him saying that his lust is going to the grave with her. Now he’s becoming pretty desperate. He has lost all his patience and any dignity that he had as a man.
“And your quaint Honour turn to dust;
And into ashes all my Lust.”
Before, he said the virginity that his mistress is trying to withhold from him will be lost if she waits too long. According to the poet, the woman is at the prime time of her youth and beauty today, but it will soon be “turn(ed) to dust.” The poet in stark contrast to their ripe youth uses this “dust” and the “deserts of eternity” that lie before them both. This second stanza somehow appeals to the girl’s immortality and youth.
Now we can see that the poet develops his words more and more until eventually by the third stanza he is pretty desperate.
In the third stanza, Marvel has lost all hope. He is now on the verge of the total desperation.
They should both be “like am’rous birds of prey” who do not deny their primal instincts. Amorous meaning erotic is the pivotal word of this excerpt and one of the most subtly descriptive passages in the entire poem. These words seem to be carefully and craftily chosen to epitomize the lust Marvel has for this woman; his desire for her to feel the same.
“At every pore with instant Fires,
Now let us sport us while we may;”
They should not hold back while they have time, which seems the underlying theme of this poem. The “fire” refers back to the second stanza that talked of dust and ashes.
The images invoked by the poet are by no means ordinary in their description. They rouse feelings of urgency and longing. From the grave where “none do there embrace” to totally “roll our strength into one ball” all conjure a vast array of emotion that Andrew Marvel feels.
This poem is indeed persuasive in nature but subtly so. The poet makes his argument with valid facts to support that argument. They will grow old and grey, while they watch their youth slip slowly away. There is no denying this.
“Thus, though we cannot make our Sun,
Stand still, yet we will make him run.”
In this final appeal, Andrew Marvel makes his young mistress a promise. One can almost see the smile on young man’s face as he craftily petitions a girl to sleep with him. These lines wrap up the rest of the poem. In these lines, Marvel tells the woman that sun will be up soon, but they can make it if they go now.
Throughout this poem, the poet loses his patience more and more, until eventually he is ready to go. His words go through a huge change. They start out by being very compassionate at the beginning of the poem to being very anxious at the end. The poem can be quite persuasive but would not be as affective as Christopher Marlowe’s “The Passionate Shepherd to his Love”.
For the conclusion, I prefer the poem of “The Passionate Shepherd to his Love” by Christopher Marlowe rather than “To His Coy Mistress” by Andrew Marvel. I enjoyed the peaceful mood in the poetry. It gives me the sense of relaxation. I think Christopher Marlowe in the poetry is a very romantic person, unlike Andrew Marvel. He is a dirty and negative man, who actually trying to persuade a woman to have sex with him rather than persuade her to have a happy life together. I think Marlowe has the right to dream of his ideal future, and I do believe his strong love for his lover would encourage him to achieve the goal.