The Passionate Shepherd to His Love
Below are the two poems, “The Passionate Shepherd to His Love,” and “Nymph’s Reply”. The first poem is a proposal to an imaginary woman. The second poem is in response to this imaginary poem. See if you can determine from these two poems what the nature of the conversation is.
To do this assignment you will need to use this vocabulary.
- Alliteration: Repetition of consonant sounds. For example, “pleasures prove”
- Personification: Giving inhuman objects or animals human characteristics
- Assonance: Repetition of vowel sounds. For example, “me and be”
- End Rhyme: The rhyming of the end words
- Iambic Pentameter: An Iamb is the stressed/ unstressed sound in a word. Pentameter means that there are 5 feet, or 5 iambs in a line of poetry.
Please do the following:
- Highlight the passages that shows at least 2 or more of the literary devices in each poem. Tell us which device is being used and what it’s affect is.
- Summarize the poem and tell us what the author is suggesting.
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The Passionate Shepherd to His Love
Christopher Marlowe
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COME live with me and be my Love, |
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And we will all the pleasures prove |
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That hills and valleys, dale and field, |
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And all the craggy mountains yield. |
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There will we sit upon the rocks |
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And see the shepherds feed their flocks, |
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By shallow rivers, to whose falls |
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Melodious birds sing madrigals. |
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There will I make thee beds of roses |
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And a thousand fragrant posies, |
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A cap of flowers, and a kirtle |
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Embroider'd all with leaves of myrtle. |
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A gown made of the finest wool |
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Which from our pretty lambs we pull, |
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Fair linèd slippers for the cold, |
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With buckles of the purest gold. |
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A belt of straw and ivy buds |
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With coral clasps and amber studs: |
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And if these pleasures may thee move, |
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Come live with me and be my Love. |
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Thy silver dishes for thy meat |
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As precious as the gods do eat, |
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Shall on an ivory table be |
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Prepared each day for thee and me. |
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The shepherd swains shall dance and sing |
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For thy delight each May-morning: |
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If these delights thy mind may move, |
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Then live with me and be my Love. |
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The Nymph’s Reply to the Shepherd
If all the world and love were young,
And truth in every Shepherd’s tongue,
These pretty pleasures might me move,
To live with thee, and be thy love.
Time drives the flocks from field to fold,
When Rivers rage and Rocks grow cold,
And Philomel becometh dumb,
The rest complains of cares to come.
The flowers do fade, and wanton fields,
To wayward winter reckoning yields,
A honey tongue, a heart of gall,
Is fancy’s spring, but sorrow’s fall.
Thy gowns, thy shoes, thy beds of Roses,
Thy cap, thy kirtle, and thy posies
Soon break, soon wither, soon forgotten:
In folly ripe, in reason rotten.
Thy belt of straw and Ivy buds,
The Coral clasps and amber studs,
All these in me no means can move
To come to thee and be thy love.
But could youth last, and love still breed,
Had joys no date, nor age no need,
Then these delights my mind might move
To live with thee, and be thy love.
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Come live with me and be my love. This perfectly summarizes the poem. Marlowe is asking the nymph to live with him, and he described all that entails. He is also asking her to be his love. He is wooing her with tempting pleasures, all for one purpose, to persuade her to live with him and be his love.
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I found three literary devices in lines 17-19. The last words in line 17 and 18 rhymed, making the sentences end rhyme. An alliteration was used in line 18 with “coral clasps”. Finally, in line 19, personification was used when the author illustrated pleasures with the ability to move. These devices help in creating a more realistic and rhythmical tale.
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Each line through the sonnet rhymes with the following line. For example, kirtle and myrtle, wool and pull.
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Thee and me are a repetition of the vowel ‘e’.
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In this sonnet is about a shepherd trying to convince his love (whomever it may be) why she should come with him and be his love.
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I think the author is trying to make a point about how people offer many things in the name of love even when they can’t realistically provide them. Think about what the shepherd is offering, golden buckles and amber studs to name a few, and think about if a shepherd could really offer something like that.
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This poem is based on a proposal to an imaginary woman. Here the man or shepherd explains to her about the great things they will enjoy from, even the impossible ones, if they were together. The author probably suggests that love can become so powerful, even in the sense of controlling the way someone speaks.
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The Flowers Fade, and wanton Fields, shows alliteration with the consonant ‘f’.
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He goes to say that the gowns, shoes, cap, bed of roses, kirtle and posies will all break and wither. They are all doing something that they are not capable of doing on their own.
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Overall, in this sonnet this nymph is telling the shepherd that if all of the things he is saying were true then she would come with him. But she also sits that if they are not true then she will not come to be his love.
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The author is making a point about how even though the shepherd is offering so much to the nymph now in a short time his love will fade away. It’s probably meant to show how love can feel overwhelming at first but over time it will fade into nothing.
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This poem is a reply to the first poem. In this poem, the imaginary woman explains her reasons as to why she cannot accept the man’s proposal. The author probably suggests that certain men make many promises and talk the good talk to women, but never fulfill them.
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