The first line ‘Come live with me and be my love’ is a very direct opening, the Shepard is telling his love straight forwardly what exactly he wants and won’t be subtle in asking.
The stanza contains 4 stress syllables in each line, as do all the other stanzas in the poem. This helps the poet to keep the poem upbeat and in turn emphasizes the happiness that they could have together.
The poem is written in rhyming couplets and this helps to keep the poem flowing, there are 8 syllables in each line.
Stanza 2 talks about what the Shepard and his love could do together and refers to the wildlife.
The alliteration on the line ‘melodious birds sing madrigals’ helps the poet to project a tone of song, this keeps the tone joyful and again projects the happiness that lies in store.
In this stanza there contains an imagery again of the countryside, this is relevant as Christopher Marlowe had been brought up in London and was pretty much an Urban person, he had never lived in the countryside and yet he portrays a perfect countryside image.
This is pasteural idyllic, he is describing the perfect place yet it would certainly not be as he describes.
The activities that poet points out they could do together are ‘feed their flocks’ and ‘sit upon the rocks’; these are activities that are generally related to the countryside. E.g. ‘flocks’ give an imagery of sheep and sheep live in the countryside off of the land.
The poet uses the word ‘their’, this emphasizes that the Shepard and his love would be equal and share everything equally.
Stanza 3 talks about what the Shepard will make to please his love.
There is a lexical set of flowers ‘beds of roses’, ‘fragrant posies’, ‘flowers and a kirtle’ and ‘leaves of myrtle.’ This set gives a connotation of freshness, which gives an image of a new start and a chance for everything to be perfect.
The ‘fragrant posies’ appeal to his loves senses, a beautiful scent to surround her throughout the day.
The poet has already satisfied his loves sense of sight by creating beautiful images for her for example ‘shallow rivers’, and he has used ‘melodious birds sing madrigals’ to appeal to her sense of hearing. The poet is trying to appeal to all of the woman’s senses as a means of persuasion.
Stanza 4 talks about living off of the land and about the sort of clothes his love would wear.
‘Finest wool’, ‘purest gold’, these superlative adjectives are used by the poet to suggest that his love would only get the best.
In this stanza the sense of touch is also touched upon, ‘A gown made of the finest wool.’ This line suggests that she will be in comfort; the ‘finest wool’ gives a connotation of softness and gentleness.
The lexical set of clothes ‘gown’, ‘slippers’ and ‘buckles’ appeals to his loves superficial needs, the poet is trying to appeal to all parts of the woman’s mind and emphasising that her clothes will be made from only the finest natural materials is tempting to her, here again we have the tone of persuasion.
The poet talks about living off of the land ‘which from our pretty lambs we pull,’ the idea of doing this would seem new and exciting and as stanza 3 suggested, fresh, this again tempting his love.
Stanza 5 is also about living off of the land and the riches they could get from the land.
‘Belt of straw and ivy-buds’, ‘coral clasps’ and ‘amber studs’ relates to the jewellery that his love could wear. All women love jewellery and so here the poet is tempting his loves’ superficial side as he does in stanza 4.
In the last line of this stanza there is a repetition of the line ‘Come live with me and be my love.’ This repetition emphasizes his desire for her to live with him and re-suggests his appeal to her. This line is used in the first line of the poem and is used here again to register it newly in his woman’s mind.
The last stanza, stanza 6 contains alliteration in the first line ‘Shepard swains shall dance and sing,’ this alliteration gives a tone of a song as the last line in stanza 2 did, it keeps the poem joyful and happy.
‘If these delights thy mind may move,’ this line is a deliberate attempt to slow down the poem to emphasize that the poet is trying to appeal to her intellect too.
The poem ends with the line ‘then live with me and be my love,’ this is his final attempt to persuade his woman to live with him. The final repetition of this line is his last and final plea for her to come and live with him, he is saying that if she truly wants all of these glorious things then she knows what to do, she should come and live with him in the beauty of the countryside.
* Things I still need to work on are the poet’s intentions and more in depth analysis.
* I think I can best develop this by talking to other members of the group on their opinions and having more lessons of group work in class.
