Commentary on To his Coy Mistress

The poem is divided into three clearly defined section parts:

The way the lovers could behave if they had all the time in the world (ll.1-20)
Reminder that life is short and that death will bring an end to lovemaking (ll.21-32).
The need to make the most of the brief time available (ll.33-46).

Part one

The poem starts with a conditional: ‘Had we but...Time'. The implication is that the lovers do not, setting the poem at the opposite extreme from Donne's The Sunne Rising, which boldly asserts that the lovers control their own time, and the sun is their servant. Marvell's verbs go into the conditional tense: ‘would sit', ‘should'st ... find', ‘should ... refuse ... grow ... whatever'. So although his suggestions seem positive enough, they are an illusion.

The suggestions are, of course, comic absurdities. This is the form of Metaphysical wit that Marvell uses for his conceits. He would be willing to go back almost to the beginning of time in the Bible and ‘Love you ten years before the Flood', a reference to Noah's flood (Genesis 7:17-24). She, on the other hand, could delay her response ‘till the Conversion of the Jews', an idea which Marvell uses to symbolise an unknown future timescale. His love could be ‘vegetable': which will keep growing and reproducing itself - slowly. The fact that it is one of the lower forms of life is part of the irony. As is the fact that we are irresistably reminded through his image of the speaker's (actually almost immediate) erection.

Marvell parodies the Elizabethan love convention of listing the mistress's bodily parts, and praising each one separately – eyes, forehead, breasts – by giving absurd amounts of time to be spent in praising each part. He slyly hints at ‘the rest'. Each shall have an ‘age', referring to Greek mythology in which human history could be divided into ‘ages': gold, silver, bronze (see The Golden Age).

Part two

This is a powerful section on time and death. The carpe diem (‘seize the day') theme is strong, as it is in Marlowe's The Passionate Shepherd, or more genteelly in Robert Herrick's Gather ye Rosebuds. The tempo and mood suddenly change. ‘Times winged Charriott' sounds quite military, in pursuit of the lovers. With the prospect of ‘Desarts of vast Eternity', the vegetable image is replaced by total barrenness. This leads on to talk of dust, to which her ‘quaint Honour' will be reduced. ‘Quaint' contains a play on words. In the seventeenth century it meant proud and also ‘whimsical', as it does today; it may also be a pun on ‘queynt', which in the medieval period, referred to a woman's sexual organs. Her ‘Virginity' in death will be as barren: it has produced nothing but a facade. The reality of the grave confronts us as bleakly as it does in Shakespeare's tragedy Hamlet or some of the Jacobean dramas that followed.

Part three

Having mocked the Elizabethans in Section 1, then agreed with them in Section 2, Marvell follows their advice in Section 3. The Latin carpe diem (‘seize the day') motif is echoed in such violent phrases as ‘like ... birds of prey', ‘our Time devour' and ‘tear our Pleasures'. The sense of struggle is strong: either time controls us, or we it. So there comes the defiant ‘yet we will make him [the sun] run', echoing Donne's poem, a defiance which, we feel, stems from the frustration at his inability to make love to his lady.

Investigating To his Coy Mistress

Compare Marvell's To his Coy Mistress with Donne's The Sunne Rising
- What are the biggest similarities and differences?
How does Marvell convey
- the idea of time almost stopping?
- the idea of time rushing along?
Do you think this is a very masculine poem?
- What suggests it is so?
If you were the one being addressed by Marvell, would you be persuaded or put off?
Is the poem meant to be persuasive?

English Standard Version
King James Version

¹Then the Lord said to Noah, Go into the ark, you and all your household, for I have seen that you are righteous before me in this generation. ²Take with you seven pairs of all clean animals, the male and his mate, and a pair of the animals that are not clean, the male and his mate, ³and seven pairs of the birds of the heavens also, male and female, to keep their offspring alive on the face of all the earth. ⁴For in seven days I will send rain on the earth forty days and forty nights, and every living thing that I have made I will blot out from the face of the ground. ⁵And Noah did all that the Lord had commanded him. ⁶Noah was six hundred years old when the flood of waters came upon the earth. ⁷And Noah and his sons and his wife and his sons' wives with him went into the ark to escape the waters of the flood. ⁸Of clean animals, and of animals that are not clean, and of birds, and of everything that creeps on the ground, ⁹two and two, male and female, went into the ark with Noah, as God had commanded Noah. ¹⁰And after seven days the waters of the flood came upon the earth. ¹¹In the six hundredth year of Noah's life, in the second month, on the seventeenth day of the month, on that day all the fountains of the great deep burst forth, and the windows of the heavens were opened. ¹²And rain fell upon the earth forty days and forty nights. ¹³On the very same day Noah and his sons, Shem and Ham and Japheth, and Noah's wife and the three wives of his sons with them entered the ark, ¹⁴they and every beast, according to its kind, and all the livestock according to their kinds, and every creeping thing that creeps on the earth, according to its kind, and every bird, according to its kind, every winged creature. ¹⁵They went into the ark with Noah, two and two of all flesh in which there was the breath of life. ¹⁶And those that entered, male and female of all flesh, went in as God had commanded him. And the Lord shut him in. ¹⁷The flood continued forty days on the earth. The waters increased and bore up the ark, and it rose high above the earth. ¹⁸The waters prevailed and increased greatly on the earth, and the ark floated on the face of the waters. ¹⁹And the waters prevailed so mightily on the earth that all the high mountains under the whole heaven were covered. ²⁰The waters prevailed above the mountains, covering them fifteen cubits deep. ²¹And all flesh died that moved on the earth, birds, livestock, beasts, all swarming creatures that swarm on the earth, and all mankind. ²²Everything on the dry land in whose nostrils was the breath of life died. ²³He blotted out every living thing that was on the face of the ground, man and animals and creeping things and birds of the heavens. They were blotted out from the earth. Only Noah was left, and those who were with him in the ark. ²⁴And the waters prevailed on the earth 150 days.

¹And the LORD said unto Noah, Come thou and all thy house into the ark; for thee have I seen righteous before me in this generation. ²Of every clean beast thou shalt take to thee by sevens, the male and his female: and of beasts that are not clean by two, the male and his female. ³Of fowls also of the air by sevens, the male and the female; to keep seed alive upon the face of all the earth. ⁴For yet seven days, and I will cause it to rain upon the earth forty days and forty nights; and every living substance that I have made will I destroy from off the face of the earth. ⁵And Noah did according unto all that the LORD commanded him. ⁶And Noah was six hundred years old when the flood of waters was upon the earth. ⁷And Noah went in, and his sons, and his wife, and his sons' wives with him, into the ark, because of the waters of the flood. ⁸Of clean beasts, and of beasts that are not clean, and of fowls, and of every thing that creepeth upon the earth, ⁹There went in two and two unto Noah into the ark, the male and the female, as God had commanded Noah. ¹⁰And it came to pass after seven days, that the waters of the flood were upon the earth. ¹¹In the six hundredth year of Noah's life, in the second month, the seventeenth day of the month, the same day were all the fountains of the great deep broken up, and the windows of heaven were opened. ¹²And the rain was upon the earth forty days and forty nights. ¹³In the selfsame day entered Noah, and Shem, and Ham, and Japheth, the sons of Noah, and Noah's wife, and the three wives of his sons with them, into the ark; ¹⁴They, and every beast after his kind, and all the cattle after their kind, and every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth after his kind, and every fowl after his kind, every bird of every sort. ¹⁵And they went in unto Noah into the ark, two and two of all flesh, wherein is the breath of life. ¹⁶And they that went in, went in male and female of all flesh, as God had commanded him: and the LORD shut him in. ¹⁷And the flood was forty days upon the earth; and the waters increased, and bare up the ark, and it was lift up above the earth. ¹⁸And the waters prevailed, and were increased greatly upon the earth; and the ark went upon the face of the waters. ¹⁹And the waters prevailed exceedingly upon the earth; and all the high hills, that were under the whole heaven, were covered. ²⁰Fifteen cubits upward did the waters prevail; and the mountains were covered. ²¹And all flesh died that moved upon the earth, both of fowl, and of cattle, and of beast, and of every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth, and every man: ²²All in whose nostrils was the breath of life, of all that was in the dry land, died. ²³And every living substance was destroyed which was upon the face of the ground, both man, and cattle, and the creeping things, and the fowl of the heaven; and they were destroyed from the earth: and Noah only remained alive, and they that were with him in the ark. ²⁴And the waters prevailed upon the earth an hundred and fifty days.

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