To His Coy Mistress by Andrew Marvell
01 Had we but world enough and time,
02 This coyness, lady, were no crime.
03 We would sit down, and think which way
04 To walk, and pass our long love’s day.
05 Thou by the Indian Ganges’ side
06 Shouldst rubies find; I by the tide
07 Of Humber would complain. I would
08 Love you ten years before the flood,
09 And you should, if you please, refuse
10 Till the conversion of the Jews.
11 My vegetable love should grow
12 Vaster than empires and more slow;
13 An hundred years should go to praise
14 Thine eyes, and on thy forehead gaze;
15 Two hundred to adore each breast,
16 But thirty thousand to the rest;
17 An age at least to every part,
18 And the last age should show your heart.
19 For, lady, you deserve this state,
20 Nor would I love at lower rate.
21 But at my back I always hear
22 Time’s wingèd chariot hurrying near;
23 And yonder all before us lie
24 Deserts of vast eternity.
25 Thy beauty shall no more be found;
26 Nor, in thy marble vault, shall sound
27 My echoing song; then worms shall try
28 That long-preserved virginity,
29 And your quaint honour turn to dust,
30 And into ashes all my lust;
31 The grave’s a fine and private place,
32 But none, I think, do there embrace.
33 Now therefore, while the youthful hue
34 Sits on thy skin like morning dew,
35 And while thy willing soul transpires
36 At every pore with instant fires,
37 Now let us sport us while we may,
38 And now, like amorous birds of prey,
39 Rather at once our time devour
40 Than languish in his slow-chapped power.
41 Let us roll all our strength and all
42 Our sweetness up into one ball,
43 And tear our pleasures with rough strife
44 Through the iron gates of life:
45 Thus, though we cannot make our sun
46 Stand still, yet we will make him run.
I chose this poem because I love that Marvell practically subverts the expectations of Petrarchan love poetry and how he achieves it. Petrarch was an Italian poet who also had immense influence on English love poetry, so much so that it defined a whole subgenre of poetry. A Petrarchan understanding of love is a kind of frustrated love, women are typically portrayed as almost heavenly and unattainable, yet they are desired and chased after which causes frustration.
In this poem, Marvell manages to point at these tropes and deconstruct them.
To His Coy Mistress can be divided into three parts:
Part I: Lines 1-20
Part II: Lines 21-32
Part III: Lines 33-46
Part I: Lines 1-20
If you take a closer look at the first part, you can see that the main focus lies on the subject of the chase. The speaker talks in great detail about everything he would do to woo his lady, if only there was enough time. Unfortunately, there is not enough time.
07 […] I would
08 Love you ten years before the flood,
09 And you should, if you please, refuse
10 Till the conversion of the Jews.
Marvell does not hesitate to exaggerate, in fact his use hyperbole is rather striking. A footnote in the edition of the poem I used*, explains that the conversion of the Jews was expected before the Last Judgement: the end of the world. Thus, Marvell manages to get to the heart of the matter: It is impossible to have more time than until the end of the world. Ideally, this courtship would be given, quite literally, all the time in the world. In this manner the speaker keeps praising his mistress and insists that in an ideal world she would deserve the kind of treatment he describes until line 20.
Part II: Lines 21-32
There is a stark contrast between Part I and II. Here, the speaker describes the reality that time is a limited resource, which goes by very quickly and will in the end lead to death. It is at this point that Marvell describes how his love’s beauty would diminish due to time progressing. Furthermore, the poet also explicitly mentions the mistress’ virginity, which – during a normal courtship – would remain intact until the consummation of a marriage. Instead, the poem puts into drastic terms how the mistress’ virginity would in fact be taken by worms, consuming her body upon her death due to time hurrying by. One crucial point can be found in line 30.
30 And into ashes all my lust;
By directly linking the speaker’s lust – or the lack thereof – with his mistress’ virginity, one is led to wonder whether he truly meant that his interest of love is deserving of all the courtship that he claimed she deserved in line 19. Moreover, the poem only mentions the disastrous effects time has on the mistress, her beauty and her virginity. Where are the effects of time pm the speaker? It is only his lust that suffers.
Part III: Lines 33-46
The speaker draws a conclusion from his previous assessments in this part of the poem. He concludes that due to limited time, a proper courtship is impossible.
37 Now let us sport us while we may,
38 And now, like amorous birds of prey,
39 Rather at once our time devour
40 Than languish in his slow-chapped power.
Marvell uses words like devour, and the comparison to “amorous birds of prey” is especially striking. These birds are not typically associated with love, but they are efficient at hunting their prey. By using such a simile, Marvell creates a very concrete image in the reader’s mind. All pretence of a normal courtship is gone. One likely interpretation of these lines suggests that the speaker is talking about having sex with his mistress. This appears to be the logical conclusion to the three-part structure of the poem. In fact, its structure can be distilled into a classical philosophical argument:
Premise A: If there was enough time, the courtship would deserve as much time as possible.
Premise B: Time is very limited and death is a looming threat.
Conclusion: Therefore, it is necessary to skip this coy form of courtship and get straight to ‘the good part’ before death.
It becomes clear that the speaker has no intention to uphold his promises of courting his mistress. One could even argue that the speaker tries to coax his mistress into giving in. While he is not necessarily forceful in a physical manner, reminding her that she will die and that worms will eat her body before she turns to dust does not appear particularly gentle either. This possible interpretation would truly be a perversion of the Petrarchan understanding of love.
It can be argued that Marvell ridicules Petrachan love poetry with this poem by highlighting how pointless it is to pursue unattainable love. His message is that life is short and we better enjoy it while it lasts. This can be summarised in the concept of ‘carpe diem’. The Latin phrase, meaning ‘seize the day’, highlights the pursuit of pleasure because there is only limited time.
Reading this poem again while keeping this interpretation in mind really shows how masterfully Marvell manages to subvert the Petrarchan concept of love.
*Marvell, Andrew. “To His Coy Mistress.” The Norton Anthology of English Literature. 7th ed., Abrams, M. H., and Stephen Greenblatt. New York: Norton & Company, 2000. 1691-1692
