Virgins Beware of Andrew Marvell

To His Coy Mistress

Andrew Marvell’s famous poem “To His Coy Mistress” is about a man convincing a reluctant woman to have sex with him because their time on earth is short. At first glance, the poem is a witty and entertaining example of a “seize the day” argument: the speaker is so charming and persuasive that you want to jump into bed with him.

But some commentators are not convinced, arguing that the licentious speaker is the object of some implied mockery or disapproval. He is not a gentleman.

Andrew Marvell (source)

The young lady is “coy,” implying that she is reserved and has not welcomed the speaker’s initial attempts. The “mistress” in the title reminds us that the woman holds emotional power over the man, who treats her as someone worthy of adoration or worship. But her coyness causes frustration, and the lofty language of courtship soon changes into the earthy language of lust.

The poem starts:

Had we but world enough and time,
This coyness, lady, were no crime.

Suggesting that life ends at death, the speaker contradicts the widely held contemporary Christian view that time on earth is less important than the afterlife. Christians would have agreed to make much of time, but not to pursue brief physical pleasures. Their goal was eternity with God. If this seems like too much analysis for a couple of flippant lines, note that it’s the speaker himself who uses religious language and Christian ideas, reminding us of the standards he’s flouting. He mentions that the lady should “rubies find,” reminding us of Proverbs 31:10: “Who can find a virtuous woman? For her price is far above rubies.”

Yet it is the speaker himself who is searching for “rubies,” for material delights. The poor young lady is only trying to preserve her honour!

My vegetable love should grow
Vaster than empires and more slow;

“Vegetable” love probably refers to love that is capable only of growth, not sensation or rationality – his love is nothing but physical, as he goes on to praise her “eyes,” “forehead,” and “each breast.” As one commentator puts it, although the speaker’s praise of the lady’s attributes has barely progressed beneath her torso, “it is just as apparent that his main focus is both literally and figuratively lower.”

But at my back I always hear
Times winged chariot hurrying near:
And yonder all before us lie
Deserts of vast eternity

In a move most wouldn’t consider charming, the speaker threatens his mistress with a sexless eternity if she rejects his advances.

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,

Look, lady. Your virginity won’t last forever. It’s either me or the worms.

I’m not sure if any woman would be impressed by this coarse idea, which focuses on the lady’s flesh at the expense of her moral and intellectual qualities. The speaker goes on to call her honour “quaint,” a word richly resonant, as illustrated by the Oxford English Dictionary (the best English dictionary from the second-best English university).

“Quaint” can mean cunning, ingenious, elaborate, courtly, refined, fastidious, prim, proud, vain, curious, unusual. From one perspective, the lady has deftly preserved her honour. From the speaker’s perspective, she is haughty and unusual for doing so. And, as many have pointed out, the speaker plays with a Middle English pun (“queynte” = “cunt”).

At line 30, the speaker drops the pretence of love and courtship and frankly admits his “lust,” a word with overtones of sinful and lawless desire, reinforced by his suggestion that the couple should act like “amorous birds of prey.”

The start of the poem emphasised time and eternity. Near the end, the impatient, horny speaker accosts his mistress with words of urgency and immediacy: “now therefore… instant fires… now… while we may… and now… at once.” He wants them to “tear [their] pleasures with rough strife,” – a somewhat violent description in what is meant to be an attempt at seduction. (Although Camille Paglia wrote a whole book about the coupling of sex and violence in European literature, this poem escaped her attention.)

The poem’s last image is an ironic (possibly cynical) Biblical allusion:

Thus, though we cannot make our sun
Stand still, yet we will make him run.

Commentators often refer to Joshua 10:12, where Joshua commands the sun to stand still so that he has more daylight in which to hunt and destroy his enemies, but I also hear an allusion to Psalm 19, which describes the sun running to the west like a warrior darting across a battlefield. Maybe, then, the speaker’s intention is not romance, but hunting, capture, conquest.