“To His Coy Mistress”
Andrew Marvell’s “To His Coy Mistress” describes how a man tries to persuade a lady, “His Coy Mistress”, to love him, this time in the act of having sex. As opposed to Shakespeare’s heartfelt words on true love, Marvell wittily makes use of the Courtly Love poetry, so popular in medieval times, to come up with a tongue in cheek poem, undoubtedly portraying love in a mockingly humorous way.
Courtly Love poetry originated in Europe during the 11th century and spread quickly to France, Germany and England. It is a semi-religious philosophy of love in which a noble woman is placed upon an exalted pedestal and a knight ennobles himself in her service. It involved the knight complementing her physical features in an exaggerated way.
Marvell entitles the poem ‘To His Coy Mistress’ as a deliberate method of distancing himself from the overly eager character in the poem who is desperately trying to seduce his mistress.
He begins by saying that, if he had the time, he would take great pleasure in courting his mistress and no matter how far apart in the world the two were, their love would strongly bind them together, claiming that the two lovers could flirt over a distance as great as that between the Indian Ganges and England’s river Humber.
Had we but world enough, and time This coyness, Lady, were no crime….
Thou by the Indian Ganges’ side
Shouldst rubies find: I by the tide
Of humber would complain…
The poet creates a beautiful setting as a way of promoting his feelings of lust for the lady, using the exotic Indian Ganges and the finding of rubies by the sea in his efforts to woe the coy woman. These lines are an example of how Marvell has made use of the Courtly Love format in writing this poem. He then uses a series of hyperbolic phrases, exaggerating time as opposed to distance, stating that if he lived forever, he would be forever steeped in admiration at the beauty his lover possesses.
‘… I would
Love you ten years before the flood,
And you should, if you please, refuse
Till the conversion of the Jews;’
He would not complain about waiting to reveal his love and would even wait until the conversion of the Jews. He is describing the expanse of time that is needed to praise his beloved and her parts, as in courtly love.
Marvell’s use of the sexual joke, ‘My vegetable love should grow’ indicates to us that this poem was written primarily for amusement.
Because time keeps going, with or without them, they must be active participants and not just the static spectator. Otherwise, the fate Marvell relates to would become their reality,
“But at my back I always hear
Time’s winged chariot hurrying near
And yonder all before us lie
Deserts of vast eternity.
He is aware that as every second passes them by, ‘Time’s winged chariot’ (death) is getting closer, and as the poet describes, when it hits, “Thy beauty shall no more be found”. He is urging his coy mistress to make use of her beauty while she can, as there are no rewards for being beautiful in the nothingness of the ‘deserts of vast eternity’, when her life has ended. This belief clashes with those carried by Shakespeare in Sonnet 116, where love stretches beyond the reaches of life and will never perish. One point that the two poets do agree on however is the fact that physical beauty does not stay with us forever, but fades with time.
Telling his coy mistress that her beauty will desert her at death is not enough for Marvell, and he continues on, becoming deeply entangled in tales of the shocking imagery of the lady’s body after her death,
‘…then worms shall try
That long-preserved virginity,
And your greater honour turn to dust,
And into ashes all my lust:’
After death, the woman’s corpse will be left to the worms. All the trouble she went to in preserving her virginity throughout her life has come to nothing.
These sharp words create alarming imagery that would stick in anyone’s mind for a long time after hearing them. His shock tactics create a sense of urgency, presenting his lover with her last chance to seize the day before it is too late.
In the final section of the poem, Marvell’s tone softens. He becomes enthusiastic and gentler, trying to persuade his mistress that to perform the act of love is a wise and appropriate thing to do at this point in time,
‘Now therefore, while the youthful hue
Sits on my skin like morning dew,
And while thy willing soul transpires
With every pore with instant fires,’
The poet is highlighting the perfection of this woman’s physical beauty through the definition of fresh moist skin, he is telling her that she is ripe and now is the time. He is convinced that behind her shy cover up, her “willing soul” is burning for her to lose her virginity.
He wants them to passionately have fun together, like “amorous birds of prey”. This double entendre leaves little to the imagination, barely disguising the sexual act. In the concluding lines he asks passionately “let us roll all our strength and all our sweetness into one ball”…to spend the rest of time with her making the sun run. We might not be able to freeze time, but we can make it race, and the man in the poem is convinced that if he lures the mistress to succumb to his charms, he will be neck and neck with time to the end.
Times winged chariot hurrying hear’
Immediately the first section is reversed and inverted, stating that this is not reality and that death, times winged chariot, is catching up with them. And that after death, ‘And yonder all before us lie, Deserts of vast eternity.’ There is nothing, giving an agnostic view that there is no heaven or hell.
The next line, ‘Thy beauty shall no more be found’, saying that you will be beautiful when alive but when dead no one would be able to see that beauty.
On line 26, there is a caesura, (short pause) halfway through the line just after ‘My echoing song…’ as the next section uses even greater shocking imagery:
‘…then worms shall try
That long-preserved virginity,
And your greater honour turn to dust,
And into ashes all my lust:’
He is saying that after death no one will be able to get to you but the worms and that her honour in preserving her virginity is going to be worth nothing when she’s dead. Through use of penetrating words and displeasing imagery, he is able to shock his lover. And that, even though, death may be peaceful, ‘The grave’s a fine and private place, But none, I think do these embrace.’ no one will be able to love her when she’s dead.
So as to remove the seriousness from the last section, the final section uses delicate ironic understanding to persuade her that love is a positive thing.
In the final section the word therefore is used to make the act of love seem logical and right.
The first two lines state that:
‘Now therefore, while the youthful hue
Sits on my skin like morning dew,’
This shows that, through the definition of fresh moist skin, that the soul wants to come out. This is further shown in the next lines:
‘And while thy willing soul transpires
With every pore with instant fires,’
Again stating that inside her, her soul is burning for her to lose her virginity.
In the next line, ‘Now let us sport us while we may,’ the writer is stating that they should not wait to make love, but go for it now.
The line, ‘Our sweetness up into one ball,’ defines the ball as a perfect shape showing the perfection of love.
The penultimate lines, ‘And tear our pleasures like rough strife Through the iron gates of life;’ shows that he will break through any barriers to get to what they want.
And in the final line, ‘Thus, though we can not make our sun Stand still, yet we will make him run.’ once again stating that even though you can not stop time, you can make it race, and commit to love as quickly as possible.
Either you have sex with me or you die. This is a very strong
statement which, when said, has to get someone's attention; and that is exactly
what Andrew Marvell intends for the reader in this poem. He wants the undivided
attention of this mistress so that he can scare her and rush her into making a
decision the way he wants and in due time. Filled with time flavored symbolism,
this carpe diem poem, "To His Coy Mistress" by Andrew Marvell, exemplifies the
seize the day theme.
The cyclical, life symbolizing river, the water flowing by like time, is
the first place Marvell places the characters. And even though they are very
far apart, time still flows by for them both. As the water flows, this concept
begins to hint at the shortness of time, for them to have sex, the source of new
life. He then proceeds to claim that he could love her ten years before the
flood, something already ancient, and up to the end of the world, using the
juxtaposition of the two views of time enhance his argument and to convince
to accept his offer by telling her of his long-term commitment for her in the
short-term. This flood also symbolizes life in the fresh start of the new
covenant. Because time keeps going, with or without them, they must be active
participants and not just the static spectator. Otherwise, the fate Marvell
relates would become their reality.
Marvell's vegetable love is rather oxymoronic. Love is not normally
like the uncaring, thoughtless, and no communicating plant. And yet his love is
vegetable in that it is not adaptable. She is the water, food, and light for
his love; and as long as she is there, he will love her. She is evrerything
that supports his love, and if she is not there, his vegetable could not be
supported and would die. His idea of love seems to just be to say that he loves
her for the possibility that he can share carnal knowledge; however, this is why
he tries to convince her to seize the day. And because of this love he felt
they must take advantage of what time they have.
Next comes the threat of punishment if she happens to continue down her
dark path of stubborn unwillingness to engage with him. Suddenly the desert is
before them and beauty is gone forever. The life giving and symbolic water is
gone. She's dead and the worms are her only company. These worms are symbolic
of two different ideas. First they are phallic in shape and do stand as phallic
symbols. They are also another cyclical representation of time, in that they
are part of the cycle that will break her body down into soil, feed the trees,
feed an animal, etc. So he tries scare her and to force her into the decision
to seize the day.
Marvell then stresses the youth she still possess and his plan to save
them. He talks about her youthful hue and the morning (of life / youth) glow to
remind her what she needs to save from the imposing grip of her grave. He gets
very aggressive and speeds up the meter to add effect and urgency to his pleas.
Then he talks about birds of prey, Schmidt3 hurrying, and devouring to really
twist the proverbial knife and to convince her. After adoring her body for ages
and wading through innuendo, he says let us roll all our strength and all our
sweetness into one ball and says he wants to spend the rest of time with her
making the sun run.
Although the message in this poem is universal, throughout time,
Marvell's methods are unique for his time. The fact that he used death to
persuade a less than eager woman is not new. The way he does it, is. According
to Paul Brians, from the English Department at Washington State University,
Marvell's imagery of death is so powerful, that the poem transcends the cliched
'lines' of more frivolous writers to become a stirring meditation on the
importance of living fully during the brief span allotted us (Brians).
Andrew Marvell tries in this carpe diem poem, "To His Coy Mistress," to
use time and symbols to convince her to seize the day. He uses the river, the
worm and many direct references to time to express the urgency of the situation.
He then says that his love is vegetable and that this coy mistress is the only
one that can sustain this living love. Then he threatens death, gets aggressive,
and shows her that her youth is fleeting, and that if she does not change, she
will be miserable.
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