To His Coy Mistress
BY ANDREW MARVELL
Had we but world enough and time, This coyness, lady, were no crime. We would sit down, and think which way To walk, and pass our long love’s day. Thou by the Indian Ganges’ side Shouldst rubies find; I by the tide
- Rubies were thought to help preserve virginity.
Of Humber would complain. I would
- the Humber River flows through Marvell's native town of Hull (i.e., on the other side of the world from the Ganges)
- "complain" implies plaintive lyrics of unavailing love.
Love you ten years before the flood, And you should, if you please, refuse Till the conversion of the Jews.
- this would occur at the end of recorded history, according to the Christian tradition.
My vegetable love should grow
- I.e., characterized by growth;
- in context, increasing without conscious nurturing. Vaster than empires and more slow; An hundred years should go to praise Thine eyes, and on thy forehead gaze; Two hundred to adore each breast, But thirty thousand to the rest; An age at least to every part, And the last age should show your heart. For, lady, you deserve this state, Nor would I love at lower rate.
- I.e., at any smaller amounts of time ("lower rate") than what I've just mentioned.
But at my back I always hear Time’s wingèd chariot hurrying near; And yonder all before us lie Deserts of vast eternity. 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, And your quaint honour turn to dust,
- Has several meanings, including fine, elegant, fastidious, oversubtle, and out of date.
- also, with a pun on the Middle English noun queynte, or female genitals.
And into ashes all my lust; The grave’s a fine and private place, But none, I think, do there embrace. Now therefore, while the youthful hue Sits on thy skin like morning dew, And while thy willing soul transpires
- transpires = breathes out = still alive.
At every pore with instant fires, 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.
- slow-chapped = slowly devouring.
Let us roll all our strength and all Our sweetness up into one ball, And tear our pleasures with rough strife Through the iron gates of life:
- The obscure “iron gates” suggests that the "ball" of line 42 has become a missile from a siege gun, battering its way into a citadel.
- One manuscript has "iron grates."
Thus, though we cannot make our sun Stand still, yet we will make him run.
- An allusion to the power of Zeus, the chief Greek god, who, to prolong his night with the mortal Alcmena, ordered the sun not to shine
- see Joshua 10.12-13.
Words
- unavailing — achieving little or nothing, ineffective.
- unavailing love.
- emend — to make corrections to a text.