Coy Mistress Thesis
Love in To His Coy Mistress
In Andrew Marvell’s To His Coy Mistress the poem 's speaker attempts to persuade "his coy mistress" to have sex with him. As “he is aware of his imminent death as he is of hers”1 he wants his desire to be fulfilled here and now. Thus I introduce my thesis as follows: Andrew Marvell’s To His Coy Mistress argues that, in a world where death rules supreme and time is limited, life’s true meaning and purpose can only be found in physical (i.e. sexual) pleasure. My thesis is based on the analysis of the three sections which complete a logical argumentative pattern (“Had we . . .”, “But . . .”, “Now therefore . . .”)2
In the first section (l. 1- l. 20) the speaker tells his mistress what they could achieve in their relationship if they had time. It is a very traditional …show more content…
and religious view of love.
However, the subjunctive and conditional structures in the first section indicate: They do not have time. The coyness of the Lady is a crime. The result of these two points is that the speaker is not interested in spiritual or romantic but just in physical, sexual love immediately.
This “false vision of history-as-courtship”3 , “false vision of endless time and endless courtship”4 is shown in a satirical, cynical and ironic way. Marvell uses a lot of allusions to the bible illustrating the huge dimensions of “world enough and time” (l. 1). The image of “world enough” (l. 1) is shown by the “Indian Ganges” (l. 5), an exotic country which is far away from the “Humber” (l. 7) in England . The image of “time” (l. 1) is illustrated by the “Flood” (l. 8) and the “conversion of the Jews” (l. 10). According to the Bible-based Stuart chronology, the World was created in 4000 B.C. and the First Age ended with Noah’s Flood in 2344 B.C. Marvell was living in the Seventh Age of the World, some 4000 years after the Flood. The conversion of the Jews is a symbol of the Last Age, the apocalypse. This means
1 Rosalie L. Colie, My Echoing Song: Andrew Marvell’ s Poetry of Criticism (Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton UP, 1970) p. 54.
2 Andrew Marvell, The Complete Works Of Andrew Marvell (New York: AMS Press, 1966) l. 1/ 21/ 33. 3 Margarita Stocker, Apocalyptic Marvell (Sussex: The Harvester Press, 1986) p. 206. 4 Stocker 207
that the period of time from the “Flood” (l. 8) until “the conversion of the Jews” (l. 10) is extremely long. However, “To His Coy Mistress is an example of ironic allegory which implies the opposite of what it at first appears to argue.”5 Therefore, all these images of neverending courtships must be converted into images of immediate consummation of the speaker’s physical, sexual desires.
One can find a metaphor of these sexual desires in the abstract and philosophical term “vegetable” (l. 11), known as such to the educated man of Marvell’s day.
Its context is the doctrine of the three souls: the rational, which in man subsumes the other two; the sensitive, which men and animals have in common and which is the principle of motion and perception; and, finally, the lowest of the three, the vegetable soul, which is the only one that plants possess and which is the principle of generation and corruption, of augmentation and decay. 6
Hence his love is compared to vegetables and plants whose first value is growth. It means that his love gets bigger and bigger illustrated by the image of an “empire” (l. 12). Referring to my thesis stated at the beginning, the speaker here “compares his sexual potency (‘My . . . . Love’ here implying the tumescent penis) to the absolute power of the final Kingdom over all other Empires.”7 Again the speaker just thinks of the satisfaction of his own sexual lust.
Looking at the next lines one can discover a climax from “hundred years”(l. 13) to “thirty thousand” (l. 16) which demonstrates the periods of time the speaker would “praise” (l. 13) and “adore” (l. 15) the parts of her female body. Marvell misuses the terms “praise” (l. 13) and “adore” (l. 15) which are predominantly religious terms. “The adoration of ‘each breast’ (l. 15) suggests an apt image of a statuesque Madonna and a kneeling adorer”8 but “the enumeration of the lady’s charms reads like a parody of Canticles.”9 Again, Marvell uses irony as a stylistic device to express something completely different from what he says. If one knows that the whore’s name was written upon her forehead in order to identify her the whole religious and puritan situation of adoration changes its meaning. Everyone knows what whores do. Sex. Hence the speaker sits in front of the lady stares at her breasts and dreams of physical satisfaction.
5 Bruce King, Marvell’s allegorical poetry (Cambridge/New York: Oleander Press, 1977) p. 67.
6 J.V. Cunningham, “Logic and Lyric”: ‘To his Coy Mistress’. Marvell: Modern Judgements. Ed. Michael Wilding (London: Macmillan, 1969) p. 159.
7 Stocker 215.
8 Michael Craze, The life and lyrics of Andrew Marvell (London: Macmillan, 1979) p. 316.
9 King 68.
2
In contrast to section one Marvell illustrates in section two (l.
21- l. 32) the real world. He stresses that the time the speaker and the Mistress live in is an empirical time following Francis Bacon’s philosophy. The memento mori theme is obvious and death is near. There is a sudden speed-up of time. Hence “the lovers do not have time to waste on protracted courtship rituals.”10 The logic of the lover’s argument is the logic of carpe diem: seize the day. It was a well-worn logic in the Renaissance, as it has been since the time of Horace.
Using images such as “time’s winged chariot” (l. 22), a classical allusion to the threatening Phoebus Apollo, which represents death or the sun measuring time, the speaker’s purpose is to frighten the Mistress with death. Another image of death used to evoke fear of the Mistress is the one of “deserts of vast eternity” (l. 24), which are characterized as “dry, barren Saharas of sand; the very opposite of the fertilising waters of the Ganges and the familiar tide of the Humber, which for Marvell spelt home.”11 This means that the afterlife of the Mistress shall be empty, dreary and infertile if they do not have sex in the current
Age.
The speaker imagines the body of the Mistress after death. It will be lost and “beauty shall no more be found” (l. 25). The repetition of the term “shall” (l. 25/ 26/ 27) lets the Mistress shudder because it expresses the certainty of a ghastly afterlife.
In addition, the image of “worms trying her long preserved virginity” (l. 27/ 28) is the most horrific and grotesque imagery of the poem. It means that the “worms” (l. 27) which stand for a phallus will penetrate into the “long preserved virginity” (l. 28) which symbolizes the vagina of the Mistress. The speaker uses this terrible image to shock his lady out of her coyness in order to have sex with him instead of having sexual intercourse with worms. As grotesque this image is there is another traditional meaning of it: “Indeed, worms devouring a woman’s sexual organs is a traditional representation of luxuria or lust.”12 Hence the speaker takes advantage of the Mistress’ fear. Evidently, the man treats the woman as an object or property. This is one of the strongest indications of the speaker’s interest in sex only, with no spirituality attached.
The next image takes one to another ambigious expression which is “quaint honor” (l. 29). But it is half as fastidious as it at first appears to be. Some Renaissance authors used queynte to denote the female pudendum. Thus, “ quaint honor (l. 29) and lust (l. 30) are used
10 Dennis Davison, The poetry of Andrew Marvell (London: Edward Arnold Publishers, 1964) p. 26. 11 Craze 318. 12 King 70.
3
by the speaker as puns on the female and male sexual organs.”13 Using a religious allusion this image gets a grotesque touch if one remembers the commital words of the Burial Service: “We commit their bodies to the ground; earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust.”14 As both the “quaint honor and the lust turn to dust/ into ashes” (l. 29/30) the speaker’s physical desires could not be satisfied in current life. Again the speaker just thinks of his own sexual pleasure.
One stays at the macabre imagery of the burial when the “grave” (l. 31) is characterized as a “fine and private place” (l. 31).
Consider ‘a fine and private place’ next. In such words a contemporary of Marvell’s might have enthused over what we call ‘a stately home’: an ancestral ‘place’ in the country or on the edge of a town; a ‘fine’ house, surrounded by ‘fine’ gardens and a ‘fine’ park; altogether as ‘private’ a place as any aristocratic couple could want for living and love-making. ‘But no couples, I think, make love in the grave’.15
The “grave “ (l. 31) cannot be compared to such a “fine and private place” (l. 31) described above. It is not fine but dark. It is not private but ghastly.The speaker uses quite a strange image of sex again because “embrace” (l. 32) here alludes to sexual intercourse. But everybody knows that sexual intercourse of carcasses is impossible. So, Marvell uses a conceit which expresses such immense power and fear. It is another macabre imagination which shall force the Mistress to have sex with him before death.
That is what the speaker’s intention is.
In section three (l. 33- 46) Marvell completes his strong logical pattern: “Had we . . . “, “But . . .”, “Now therefore . . .” (l. 1/ 21/ 33) and comes to an conclusion. The first word of section three: “Now” (l. 33) which is repeated two other times in this section (l. 37/ l. 38) emphasizes the main idea of this section. It is the famous carpe diem: seize the day theme of the seventeenth century. After the speaker has been successful in persuading the Coy Mistress into having sex with him he wants her here and “now” (l. 33/ 37/ 38). The speaker encourages the Mistress and himself to be active, to consummate love immediately and to challenge time. “The controlling idea of the final paragraph is to bring love- as- activism to its crisis in apocalyptic consummation, thereby making Time itself the agent of love’s fulfilment rather
13 King 70. 14 Craze 319. 15 Craze 319.
4
than its enemy.”16 In contrast to section one with its much-enduring and ultra-leisurely start, and in contrast to section two with its sardonic and slow character, Marvell uses three “while” clauses (l. 33/ 35/ 37) in the last section which drive the syntax forward and emphasize the dynamism and activism in this section.
This activism is absolutely necessary if one looks at the first image of this part. If one prefer the reading variant of the “hue” (l. 33) – “dew” (l. 34) rhyme, the lines “while the youthful hue sits on thy skin like morning dew” (l. 34/ 35) will symbolize another threatening image of time. “As the dew is drawn up quickly by the power of the sun, so ‘the youthful hew’ is transitory, fast fading. Time is a beast: Eat or be eaten.”17 The speaker wants to eat not to be eaten.
The Coy Mistress who is no longer coy wants to be eaten by the speaker, too. She is no longer coy when she says she is “willing” (l. 35). It means that the seduction of the speaker is successful. Her “willing soul transpires at every pore with instant fires” (l. 35/ 36). So, she burns with passion. All these “instant fires” (l. 36) symbolize her burning desire which needs to be satisfied by the love of the lyrical I. In contrast to the speaker’s intention she wants love from the depth of her “willing soul” ( l. 35) because she does not want to die as a virgin whereas the speaker is just interested in physical, sexual pleasure.
At this point the speaker changes his perspective of speaking. His direct “thy” (l. 34/ 35) changes into a unifying “us” (l. 37/ 41), “our” (l. 39/ 41/ 42/ 43/ 45) and “we” (l. 37/ 45/ 46). This unification is emphasized by images such as the one of the “amorous birds of prey” (l. 38) after the speaker has used a sexual connotation again. He encourages the Mistress to “sport” (l. 37) which means nothing else but having sexual intercourse. “ To sport like amorous birds of prey, and to devour time, conveys an impression of bestial sensuality. Intemperance dims the divine image within the soul and turns man into an animal.”18 This means that, if time is a beast, the speaker and the Mistress become wild animals or beasts as well. If one knows that raptors which are typical representatives of the “birds of prey” (l. 38) do not have sex in the nest but in the free fall this simile emphasizes sexual activism and dynamism again.
The speaker of the poem goes on persuading the lady to sexual intercourse. He uses the image of “one ball” (l. 42) which symbolizes a pefect shape and unity related to a classical allusion to Plato.
16 Stocker 222.
17 Ann E. Berthoff, The Resolved Soul: A Study of Marvell’ s Major Poems (Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton UP, 1970) p. 112.
5
18 King 71.
Strength and sweetness presumably refer to masculinity and femininity. Seventeenth century poets liked to imagine lovers as two hemispheres which make up a world; behind the image is that of Plato’s spherical lovers who are divided into halves (‘sorted by pairs’) when they descend into the material world, the ball being the symbol of their original perfect unity. Here the ball is, ironically, the physical posture of the two people joined in sexual intercourse.19
Thus, it is evident that the speaker’s thoughts only occupy with sex rather than with real love. He wants to be united just in a physical (i.e. sexual) sense.
The “pleasures” (l. 43) connected to the words “strife” (l. 43) and “iron” (l. 44) express that love is not just sweet and romantic. Love is “rough” (l. 43) and violence is apparent. Love is a fight. Love is a battle. The “rough strife” (l. 43) symbolizes the speaker’s plans and motions of love making. In conventional love poetry the woman’s gates are those of an enclosed city or fortress. Here the “gates” (l. 44) are an allusion to the woman’s sexual organs. “ ‘The Iron gates of Life’, ferrea claustra vitae, are to be their exit up in the sky, their way of escape from this life.”20 This means that “the iron gates of life” (l. 44) are ambigious. They are the gates of life and the gates of death. Probably the second version is the more suitable here because “the plea to tear one’s pleasures through the gates of Life is thus an invitation to sexual ecstasy, and glances at the commonplace of the sexual climax as a form of ‘dying’.”21
The last image occupies with the challenge of time. Emphasizing this fight against time Marvell uses a biblical allusion. When Joshua demands that the sun shall stand still that Israel can fight against its enemies God makes the sun stand still. But, coming back to the poem, “we cannot make our sun stand still” (l. 45/ 46) then means that one does not have the power of God. Thus, one cannot stop time. Hence there is one thing left the speaker and the Mistress can do: They can hasten and accelerate time what the last words “we will make him run” (l. 46) emphasize. “But our life lasts only for a moment: Therefore, in order to live, we must seize the moment as it flies.”22 For this reason the speaker encourages the Mistress to
19King 72. 20 Craze 325. 21 King 72. 22 French Fogle, Marvell’ s “tough reasonableness”and the Coy Mistress: Tercentary Essays in Honor
6
of Andrew Marvell. Ed. Kenneth Friedenreich (Hamden, Connecticut: The Shoe String Press, 1977) p. 129. struggle against time, to be active, to live intensely and to have sex with him as sexual pleasure is the only true meaning of life.
As a result the seduction of the coy mistress is succesful. The physical (i.e. sexual) desires of the speaker are satisfied. But what about their fight against time? They have not beaten time because they cannot.They escape from the real world as sex is a form of dying. They have invented an own world for themselves.
7
Bibliography: Primary text: Marvell, Andrews. The Complete Works Of Andrew Marvell. New York: AMS Press, 1966 Secondary literature: Berthoff, Ann E.. The Resolved Soul: A Study of Marvell’s Major Poems. New Jersey:
Princeton UP, 1970.
Colie, Rosalie L.. “My Echoing Song”: Andrew Marvell’s Poetry of Criticism. New Jersey: Princeton UP, 1970.
Craze, Michael. The life and lyrics of Andrew Marvell. London: Macmillan, 1979. Cunningham, J.V. “Logic and Lyric: ‘To his Coy Mistress’.” Marvell: Modern Judgements.
Ed. Michael Wilding. London: Macmillan, 1969.
Davison, Dennis. The Poetry of Andrew Marvell. London: Edward Arnold Publishers Ltd., 1964.
Fogle, French. “Marvell’s ‘tough reasonableness’ and the Coy Mistress”. Tercentary Essays in Honor of Andrew Marvell. Ed. Kenneth Friedenreich. Hamden, Connecticut: The Shoe String Press, Inc., 1977.
King, Bruce. Marvell’s allegorical poetry. Cambridge/ New York: Oleander Press, 1977. Stocker, Margarita. Apocalyptic Marvell. Sussex: The Harvester Press, 1986.
In Andrew Marvell’s To His Coy Mistress the poem 's speaker attempts to persuade "his coy mistress" to have sex with him. As “he is aware of his imminent death as he is of hers”1 he wants his desire to be fulfilled here and now. Thus I introduce my thesis as follows: Andrew Marvell’s To His Coy Mistress argues that, in a world where death rules supreme and time is limited, life’s true meaning and purpose can only be found in physical (i.e. sexual) pleasure. My thesis is based on the analysis of the three sections which complete a logical argumentative pattern (“Had we . . .”, “But . . .”, “Now therefore . . .”)2
In the first section (l. 1- l. 20) the speaker tells his mistress what they could achieve in their relationship if they had time. It is a very traditional …show more content…
and religious view of love.
However, the subjunctive and conditional structures in the first section indicate: They do not have time. The coyness of the Lady is a crime. The result of these two points is that the speaker is not interested in spiritual or romantic but just in physical, sexual love immediately.
This “false vision of history-as-courtship”3 , “false vision of endless time and endless courtship”4 is shown in a satirical, cynical and ironic way. Marvell uses a lot of allusions to the bible illustrating the huge dimensions of “world enough and time” (l. 1). The image of “world enough” (l. 1) is shown by the “Indian Ganges” (l. 5), an exotic country which is far away from the “Humber” (l. 7) in England . The image of “time” (l. 1) is illustrated by the “Flood” (l. 8) and the “conversion of the Jews” (l. 10). According to the Bible-based Stuart chronology, the World was created in 4000 B.C. and the First Age ended with Noah’s Flood in 2344 B.C. Marvell was living in the Seventh Age of the World, some 4000 years after the Flood. The conversion of the Jews is a symbol of the Last Age, the apocalypse. This means
1 Rosalie L. Colie, My Echoing Song: Andrew Marvell’ s Poetry of Criticism (Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton UP, 1970) p. 54.
2 Andrew Marvell, The Complete Works Of Andrew Marvell (New York: AMS Press, 1966) l. 1/ 21/ 33. 3 Margarita Stocker, Apocalyptic Marvell (Sussex: The Harvester Press, 1986) p. 206. 4 Stocker 207
that the period of time from the “Flood” (l. 8) until “the conversion of the Jews” (l. 10) is extremely long. However, “To His Coy Mistress is an example of ironic allegory which implies the opposite of what it at first appears to argue.”5 Therefore, all these images of neverending courtships must be converted into images of immediate consummation of the speaker’s physical, sexual desires.
One can find a metaphor of these sexual desires in the abstract and philosophical term “vegetable” (l. 11), known as such to the educated man of Marvell’s day.
Its context is the doctrine of the three souls: the rational, which in man subsumes the other two; the sensitive, which men and animals have in common and which is the principle of motion and perception; and, finally, the lowest of the three, the vegetable soul, which is the only one that plants possess and which is the principle of generation and corruption, of augmentation and decay. 6
Hence his love is compared to vegetables and plants whose first value is growth. It means that his love gets bigger and bigger illustrated by the image of an “empire” (l. 12). Referring to my thesis stated at the beginning, the speaker here “compares his sexual potency (‘My . . . . Love’ here implying the tumescent penis) to the absolute power of the final Kingdom over all other Empires.”7 Again the speaker just thinks of the satisfaction of his own sexual lust.
Looking at the next lines one can discover a climax from “hundred years”(l. 13) to “thirty thousand” (l. 16) which demonstrates the periods of time the speaker would “praise” (l. 13) and “adore” (l. 15) the parts of her female body. Marvell misuses the terms “praise” (l. 13) and “adore” (l. 15) which are predominantly religious terms. “The adoration of ‘each breast’ (l. 15) suggests an apt image of a statuesque Madonna and a kneeling adorer”8 but “the enumeration of the lady’s charms reads like a parody of Canticles.”9 Again, Marvell uses irony as a stylistic device to express something completely different from what he says. If one knows that the whore’s name was written upon her forehead in order to identify her the whole religious and puritan situation of adoration changes its meaning. Everyone knows what whores do. Sex. Hence the speaker sits in front of the lady stares at her breasts and dreams of physical satisfaction.
5 Bruce King, Marvell’s allegorical poetry (Cambridge/New York: Oleander Press, 1977) p. 67.
6 J.V. Cunningham, “Logic and Lyric”: ‘To his Coy Mistress’. Marvell: Modern Judgements. Ed. Michael Wilding (London: Macmillan, 1969) p. 159.
7 Stocker 215.
8 Michael Craze, The life and lyrics of Andrew Marvell (London: Macmillan, 1979) p. 316.
9 King 68.
2
In contrast to section one Marvell illustrates in section two (l.
21- l. 32) the real world. He stresses that the time the speaker and the Mistress live in is an empirical time following Francis Bacon’s philosophy. The memento mori theme is obvious and death is near. There is a sudden speed-up of time. Hence “the lovers do not have time to waste on protracted courtship rituals.”10 The logic of the lover’s argument is the logic of carpe diem: seize the day. It was a well-worn logic in the Renaissance, as it has been since the time of Horace.
Using images such as “time’s winged chariot” (l. 22), a classical allusion to the threatening Phoebus Apollo, which represents death or the sun measuring time, the speaker’s purpose is to frighten the Mistress with death. Another image of death used to evoke fear of the Mistress is the one of “deserts of vast eternity” (l. 24), which are characterized as “dry, barren Saharas of sand; the very opposite of the fertilising waters of the Ganges and the familiar tide of the Humber, which for Marvell spelt home.”11 This means that the afterlife of the Mistress shall be empty, dreary and infertile if they do not have sex in the current
Age.
The speaker imagines the body of the Mistress after death. It will be lost and “beauty shall no more be found” (l. 25). The repetition of the term “shall” (l. 25/ 26/ 27) lets the Mistress shudder because it expresses the certainty of a ghastly afterlife.
In addition, the image of “worms trying her long preserved virginity” (l. 27/ 28) is the most horrific and grotesque imagery of the poem. It means that the “worms” (l. 27) which stand for a phallus will penetrate into the “long preserved virginity” (l. 28) which symbolizes the vagina of the Mistress. The speaker uses this terrible image to shock his lady out of her coyness in order to have sex with him instead of having sexual intercourse with worms. As grotesque this image is there is another traditional meaning of it: “Indeed, worms devouring a woman’s sexual organs is a traditional representation of luxuria or lust.”12 Hence the speaker takes advantage of the Mistress’ fear. Evidently, the man treats the woman as an object or property. This is one of the strongest indications of the speaker’s interest in sex only, with no spirituality attached.
The next image takes one to another ambigious expression which is “quaint honor” (l. 29). But it is half as fastidious as it at first appears to be. Some Renaissance authors used queynte to denote the female pudendum. Thus, “ quaint honor (l. 29) and lust (l. 30) are used
10 Dennis Davison, The poetry of Andrew Marvell (London: Edward Arnold Publishers, 1964) p. 26. 11 Craze 318. 12 King 70.
3
by the speaker as puns on the female and male sexual organs.”13 Using a religious allusion this image gets a grotesque touch if one remembers the commital words of the Burial Service: “We commit their bodies to the ground; earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust.”14 As both the “quaint honor and the lust turn to dust/ into ashes” (l. 29/30) the speaker’s physical desires could not be satisfied in current life. Again the speaker just thinks of his own sexual pleasure.
One stays at the macabre imagery of the burial when the “grave” (l. 31) is characterized as a “fine and private place” (l. 31).
Consider ‘a fine and private place’ next. In such words a contemporary of Marvell’s might have enthused over what we call ‘a stately home’: an ancestral ‘place’ in the country or on the edge of a town; a ‘fine’ house, surrounded by ‘fine’ gardens and a ‘fine’ park; altogether as ‘private’ a place as any aristocratic couple could want for living and love-making. ‘But no couples, I think, make love in the grave’.15
The “grave “ (l. 31) cannot be compared to such a “fine and private place” (l. 31) described above. It is not fine but dark. It is not private but ghastly.The speaker uses quite a strange image of sex again because “embrace” (l. 32) here alludes to sexual intercourse. But everybody knows that sexual intercourse of carcasses is impossible. So, Marvell uses a conceit which expresses such immense power and fear. It is another macabre imagination which shall force the Mistress to have sex with him before death.
That is what the speaker’s intention is.
In section three (l. 33- 46) Marvell completes his strong logical pattern: “Had we . . . “, “But . . .”, “Now therefore . . .” (l. 1/ 21/ 33) and comes to an conclusion. The first word of section three: “Now” (l. 33) which is repeated two other times in this section (l. 37/ l. 38) emphasizes the main idea of this section. It is the famous carpe diem: seize the day theme of the seventeenth century. After the speaker has been successful in persuading the Coy Mistress into having sex with him he wants her here and “now” (l. 33/ 37/ 38). The speaker encourages the Mistress and himself to be active, to consummate love immediately and to challenge time. “The controlling idea of the final paragraph is to bring love- as- activism to its crisis in apocalyptic consummation, thereby making Time itself the agent of love’s fulfilment rather
13 King 70. 14 Craze 319. 15 Craze 319.
4
than its enemy.”16 In contrast to section one with its much-enduring and ultra-leisurely start, and in contrast to section two with its sardonic and slow character, Marvell uses three “while” clauses (l. 33/ 35/ 37) in the last section which drive the syntax forward and emphasize the dynamism and activism in this section.
This activism is absolutely necessary if one looks at the first image of this part. If one prefer the reading variant of the “hue” (l. 33) – “dew” (l. 34) rhyme, the lines “while the youthful hue sits on thy skin like morning dew” (l. 34/ 35) will symbolize another threatening image of time. “As the dew is drawn up quickly by the power of the sun, so ‘the youthful hew’ is transitory, fast fading. Time is a beast: Eat or be eaten.”17 The speaker wants to eat not to be eaten.
The Coy Mistress who is no longer coy wants to be eaten by the speaker, too. She is no longer coy when she says she is “willing” (l. 35). It means that the seduction of the speaker is successful. Her “willing soul transpires at every pore with instant fires” (l. 35/ 36). So, she burns with passion. All these “instant fires” (l. 36) symbolize her burning desire which needs to be satisfied by the love of the lyrical I. In contrast to the speaker’s intention she wants love from the depth of her “willing soul” ( l. 35) because she does not want to die as a virgin whereas the speaker is just interested in physical, sexual pleasure.
At this point the speaker changes his perspective of speaking. His direct “thy” (l. 34/ 35) changes into a unifying “us” (l. 37/ 41), “our” (l. 39/ 41/ 42/ 43/ 45) and “we” (l. 37/ 45/ 46). This unification is emphasized by images such as the one of the “amorous birds of prey” (l. 38) after the speaker has used a sexual connotation again. He encourages the Mistress to “sport” (l. 37) which means nothing else but having sexual intercourse. “ To sport like amorous birds of prey, and to devour time, conveys an impression of bestial sensuality. Intemperance dims the divine image within the soul and turns man into an animal.”18 This means that, if time is a beast, the speaker and the Mistress become wild animals or beasts as well. If one knows that raptors which are typical representatives of the “birds of prey” (l. 38) do not have sex in the nest but in the free fall this simile emphasizes sexual activism and dynamism again.
The speaker of the poem goes on persuading the lady to sexual intercourse. He uses the image of “one ball” (l. 42) which symbolizes a pefect shape and unity related to a classical allusion to Plato.
16 Stocker 222.
17 Ann E. Berthoff, The Resolved Soul: A Study of Marvell’ s Major Poems (Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton UP, 1970) p. 112.
5
18 King 71.
Strength and sweetness presumably refer to masculinity and femininity. Seventeenth century poets liked to imagine lovers as two hemispheres which make up a world; behind the image is that of Plato’s spherical lovers who are divided into halves (‘sorted by pairs’) when they descend into the material world, the ball being the symbol of their original perfect unity. Here the ball is, ironically, the physical posture of the two people joined in sexual intercourse.19
Thus, it is evident that the speaker’s thoughts only occupy with sex rather than with real love. He wants to be united just in a physical (i.e. sexual) sense.
The “pleasures” (l. 43) connected to the words “strife” (l. 43) and “iron” (l. 44) express that love is not just sweet and romantic. Love is “rough” (l. 43) and violence is apparent. Love is a fight. Love is a battle. The “rough strife” (l. 43) symbolizes the speaker’s plans and motions of love making. In conventional love poetry the woman’s gates are those of an enclosed city or fortress. Here the “gates” (l. 44) are an allusion to the woman’s sexual organs. “ ‘The Iron gates of Life’, ferrea claustra vitae, are to be their exit up in the sky, their way of escape from this life.”20 This means that “the iron gates of life” (l. 44) are ambigious. They are the gates of life and the gates of death. Probably the second version is the more suitable here because “the plea to tear one’s pleasures through the gates of Life is thus an invitation to sexual ecstasy, and glances at the commonplace of the sexual climax as a form of ‘dying’.”21
The last image occupies with the challenge of time. Emphasizing this fight against time Marvell uses a biblical allusion. When Joshua demands that the sun shall stand still that Israel can fight against its enemies God makes the sun stand still. But, coming back to the poem, “we cannot make our sun stand still” (l. 45/ 46) then means that one does not have the power of God. Thus, one cannot stop time. Hence there is one thing left the speaker and the Mistress can do: They can hasten and accelerate time what the last words “we will make him run” (l. 46) emphasize. “But our life lasts only for a moment: Therefore, in order to live, we must seize the moment as it flies.”22 For this reason the speaker encourages the Mistress to
19King 72. 20 Craze 325. 21 King 72. 22 French Fogle, Marvell’ s “tough reasonableness”and the Coy Mistress: Tercentary Essays in Honor
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of Andrew Marvell. Ed. Kenneth Friedenreich (Hamden, Connecticut: The Shoe String Press, 1977) p. 129. struggle against time, to be active, to live intensely and to have sex with him as sexual pleasure is the only true meaning of life.
As a result the seduction of the coy mistress is succesful. The physical (i.e. sexual) desires of the speaker are satisfied. But what about their fight against time? They have not beaten time because they cannot.They escape from the real world as sex is a form of dying. They have invented an own world for themselves.
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Bibliography: Primary text: Marvell, Andrews. The Complete Works Of Andrew Marvell. New York: AMS Press, 1966 Secondary literature: Berthoff, Ann E.. The Resolved Soul: A Study of Marvell’s Major Poems. New Jersey:
Princeton UP, 1970.
Colie, Rosalie L.. “My Echoing Song”: Andrew Marvell’s Poetry of Criticism. New Jersey: Princeton UP, 1970.
Craze, Michael. The life and lyrics of Andrew Marvell. London: Macmillan, 1979. Cunningham, J.V. “Logic and Lyric: ‘To his Coy Mistress’.” Marvell: Modern Judgements.
Ed. Michael Wilding. London: Macmillan, 1969.
Davison, Dennis. The Poetry of Andrew Marvell. London: Edward Arnold Publishers Ltd., 1964.
Fogle, French. “Marvell’s ‘tough reasonableness’ and the Coy Mistress”. Tercentary Essays in Honor of Andrew Marvell. Ed. Kenneth Friedenreich. Hamden, Connecticut: The Shoe String Press, Inc., 1977.
King, Bruce. Marvell’s allegorical poetry. Cambridge/ New York: Oleander Press, 1977. Stocker, Margarita. Apocalyptic Marvell. Sussex: The Harvester Press, 1986.