Andrew Marvell’s to His Coy Mistress

Marvells To his Coy Mistress Author(s) Walter A. Sedelow, Jr. Source modernistic phrase noes, Vol. 71, No. 1 (Jan. , 1956), pp. 6-8 Published by The Johns Hopkins University Press Stable URL http//www. jstor. org/ per humankindent/3043707 . Accessed 29/12/2010 1837 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your borrowing of JSTORs c each and Conditions of Use, available at . http//www. jstor. org/page/info/about/policies/terms. jsp.JSTORs Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless you have obtained prior permission, you whitethorn not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use. Please edge the publisher regarding all further use of this work. Publisher contact tuition may be obtained at . http//www. jstor. org/action/showPublisher? publisherCode=jhup. . Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same right of stolon publication notice that appears on the screen or printed page of such transmission.JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to join on productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, satisfy contact emailprotected org. The Johns Hopkins University Press is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and ext polish off access to Modern Language Notes. http//www. jstor. org Marvells To His Coy Mistress f for tightness on Reflecting the measure of Marvells laurels we poetic organization, may find it bidic that the final,climactic lines in his mostwidelyacclaimedlyricremainformostreadersand critics essentiallydisjoined from the poem as a whole, and from their origin as well. AlthoughTillyard chose To his Coy Mistress as his allusionforthe typeof a highlyorganized( plotted) lyric, Marvells 2 demonstrated and Wallerstein and Tuve 3 have elaborately yoke images,the concluding Christian symbolic usage of traditional appears neverto have been loselyrelatedto the centralsignificance of the poem,nor to its scriptural source. T. S. Eliot, for example,in discussionof the poem never mentionsthe conhis distinguished for cluding lines,much less theircentralsignificance the whole,and 5 nor Macdonald has caughtthe 6 Margoliouth it appearsthat uncomplete source of the images. Bradbrookand Thomas noted7 that make but beyond our sun / kiosk still derivesfromJoshua and Jericho, that theirexplicationis this that the lovers are not Joshuas,they are gods, for though they cannot controlTime, yet . . it is whereby merely thatsuppliesthemotive powerof existence theirenergy Time is created. Whatthis does not do is showthat we will make him vagabond is also Old Testamentand that when seen against the of context its sourcein the Psalms we findnew essentialmeaningfor the coupletin the poe m and forthe poem in the couplet. 8 on The modelforAddisonsOde ( The spaciousfirmament high), Psalm 19 ( The heavensdeclarethe gloryof God ) reads in verses 4-6 (King JamesVersion) Their i. e. , the heavens line is gone out through all the earth, 1E.M. W. Tillyard, Poetry rate and Oblique (London, 1934), p. 198. Ruth C. Wallerstein, Studies in Seventeenth Century Poetic (Madison, 1950). Rosemund Tuve, Elizabethan and Metaphysical Imagery (Chicago, 1947). 4 T. S. Eliot, Selected Essays (New York, 1950), pp. 251-263 also, in Andrew Marvell . . . Tercentenary Tributes, ed. W. H. Bagguley (London, 1922), pp. 63-78. 6 H. M. Margoliouth, ed. , The Poems and earn of Andrew Marvell, 2 vol. (Oxford, 1927). 6 Hugh Macdonald, ed. , The Poems of Andrew Marvell (London, 1952). 7M.C. Bradbrook and M. G. Lloyd Thomas, Andrew Marvell (Cambridge, Eng. , 1940), p. 44. 8 Margoliouth indicated (p. v) that he would not include inessential annotations, and perhaps the Joshua aspect of the image is obv ious, but not so for the rest, for all Bradbrook and Thomas suggest here is Donnes The Sunne Rising, with which the parallel is comparatively loose. 2 Modern LaLnguageNotes And their words to the end of the field. In them hath he set a temple for the sun, Which is as a groom coming out of his chamber, And ejoiceth as a strong man to run a race. His going forth is from the end of the heaven, And his circuit unto the ends of it. Disregardingfor the nonce the apparentlyincidental,but by no betweenend of the world and correspondence means irrelevant, by the Indian Ganges side (when takenin antipodalconjunction with by the billow/ Of Humber), we noticethat in bothpsalm and withthe poemthe image of the sun as counterbalanceappearsin conjunction idea of the flak of the physicalphase of love.This double coincibut not likelyto be accidental, far moreconclusive, denceis, perhaps, is far and, moreimportant, more evidential the additionalmeaning of for the couplet and poem that a recogni tion the source provides, percept constituted of the evident, a it for,first, provides confirmation equivalent of intensity lovingin a brieftimethe thatwitha sufficient in experiencecan be achieved of slow-paced loving over a abundant eternity(and we may weight-lift that Time, the Sun, a strongman and would have to run long and hard to encompass runner hencea strong of the precise confirmation which see their accomplishment-for of below) second, the recognition Marvells sun as a bridegroom recalls us to the firstidea of the poem,for the bridemagnificently groom comingout of his chamber. . . who rejoicethas a strong lover-and man to run a race, is a splendidformforthe unhurried therebythe meaning of the third carve up is enhanced by an as withthe first foil and a generalsense of star contrast immediate is achievedby havingthe verylast line and last idea recall the first of third,the recognition the sun as a lines and firstidea further, self-confident strong and perhapseven saun teringly ) ( bridegroom to ) casual ( comingout of his chamber whois to be compelled run for developed the poemsthird brutality sustainsthe olfactory sensation of vigorous if paragraphfourth, the Sun (who createstime,and who by making also createsworld), if the Sun, mans point of view life possible,from bave to run hard, then he must create a would a powerful runner, vast amount of time and a vast amount of world indeed- world enough and time one would think,for afterwards all if he wont be of made to stand still (i. e. , to createan eternity time), this powerful runnerwill be made to run (i. e. , run hard) which is the next beat out thing (i. e. , to create a vast, if finite,time, and world), and VOL. LXXI, January 1956 7 s all that was asked for at least world enough and time, not infinityand eternity. Marvell may well have smiled as he thoughthow this runners goingforth from end of the heaven, And his circuituntothe / is the worldenough And ends of it -for all the worldmu stbe precisely thus the lovers sense of their iron straitsbecomesthe conditionof liberationtheycan forcethe sun to be his ownundoing. theirperfect Amherst College WALTER A. SEDELOW, JR. pope, Sheffield, Shakespeares and JuliusCaesar From 1721 through1724 pontiff energetically pursuedtwo tower taskshe prepared publication collected for the works JohnSheffield, of Duke of Buckingham,and the plays of Shakespeare.His correspondencereveals that he was preoccupiedby his column duties, for in at least two lettersof 1721 and 1722, to Jacob Tonson and JohnCaryll,he pondered botheditions progress in -clearly Sheffield and Shakespearewere at timesassociatedin his thoughts. It is my purposeto showthat,as a result,in his emendations Shakespeares of Julius Caesar Pope let his judgmentas editorbe influenced turns by of phraseand alterations Shakespearestext made by Sheffield in in his veryfreeadaptation,The Tragedyof Julius Caesar. Because Sheffield, all otherAugustan improvers of Shakelike spe are,considered himselfunder no obligationto followhis original closely,he did not consistently hold in the basic structure Shakeof speares dialogueand action often,in fact,he diverged wildlyfrom it.Obviously, onlythoseparts of Sheffields Caesar mostresembling Shakespearemay be consideredas having affected Popes decisions as editor,but a comparison them to parallel passages in Popes of edition of Shakespearesplay will reveal that Pope took five suggestionsfromthem. Three of these are verbal alterations, one is a debasement of a passage Pope considered and the fifth doubtful, transfers speechfromone character another. a to Of thetwelve doublecomparatives superlatives Shakespeares and in 1 Pope to Tonson, George Sherburn, The Early Career of Alexander Pope (Oxford, 1934), p. 307 Pope to Caryll, Works of Pope, ed. Elwin and Courthope (London, 1871-1889), vI, 280. S Modern Language Notes