To His Coy Mistress
Andrew Marvell
In the first paragraph of To His Coy Mistress, Marvell seems to do a fairly good job at confessing his love for a beautiful woman. Marvell describes how he would go about trying to court this beautiful woman who has caught his eye. He says things such as: "My vegetable love should grow / Vaster than the empires and more slow;" (lines 11-12). Marvell also says: "For lady you deserve this state, / Nor would I love at a lower rate." (lines 19-20). While all the things Marvell claims he will do are quite romantic and sure signs of real love, those signs quickly vanish when looking back at the first couple lines: "Had we but world enough, and time, / This coyness, lady, were no crime." (lines 1-2). By saying this, Marvell essentially insults her by saying that he does not have the time to court her because time is fleeting and that not only is he growing older by the second, but she is as well. As with To The Virgins, to Make Much of Time and Song (Go, Lovely Rose) by Herrick and Waller, Marvell has used the concept of carpe diem as a means to persuade this woman to be with him immediately without knowing him well at all. Kermode and Walker from the Oxford University Press say,"Although the Lady is said to "deserve this State," the compliment is more than a little diminished when the speaker adds that he simply lacks the time for such elaborate wooing" (1990).
In the second paragraph of the poem, Marvell starts by exaggerating how time passes and how he constantly feels time going by swiftly. He says: "But at my back I always hear / Time's winged chariot hurrying near;" (lines 21-22). These lines are classic carpe diem references and Marvell places them strategically before he talks about his mistress: "Thy beauty shall no more be found; / Nor, in thy marble vault, shall sound / My echoing song; then worms shall try / That long-preserved virginity," (lines 25-28). Marvell tells his mistress that with time passing so quickly that her youth will escape her without much warning. He even goes as far as to say that if she keeps up her coy act that she will die without ever losing her virginity and that the worms in her grave will take her virginity in her tomb instead of him. Kermode and Walker comment,"It is also likely that most women would be put off rather than tempted by the charnel-house imagery of the poem's middle section where the seducer, sounding like a fire-and-brimstone preacher, warns that 'Worms shall try / That long preserv'd Virginity'" (1990). Marvell is therefore warning this woman that her ways will put her in a position where she will eventually not be desired and she will die alone without ever being obtained, especially in a sexual way.
The last paragraph of the poem is Marvell's final attempt at persuading his mistress to be with him. He explains to her that while they have their youth, they must use it as to not let it pass them by. Marvell says: "Now therefore, while the youthful hue / Sits on thy skin like morning dew,... / Now let us sport us while we may, / And now, like amorous birds of prey, / Rather at once our time devour / Than languish in his slow-chapped power... / And tear our pleasures with rough strife / Through the iron gates of life: / Thus, though we cannot make our sun / Stand still, yet we will make him run." (lines 33-46). Marvell makes running away with him quite extravagant as to persuade his mistress to be with him and his excuse for not wooing her is that he does not have time. He makes the claim that she does not have the time either and that she should take a risk, but if she does not take a risk that she is not living her life to its full potential. It is a very manipulative way to try and win a woman's heart. There is no love to be had here, only the need for immediate commitment solely because of how she looks.
Moldenhaur says about this poem,"We can return to it often, with undiminished enthusiasm--drawn not by symbolic intricacy, though it contains two or three extraordinary conceits..." (1968). It is true this poem has interesting ways of persuading. Marvell is very blunt in reply to his mistress's coyness and it makes him come off as agitated and desperate and by no means loving.
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