When Elizabethan poets, most of them male, took up the subject of love, they drew on poetic and metaphoric conventions developed by Italian poets of the fourteenth-century such as Petrarch and Dante. Among those conventions were the Petrarchan conceit or comparision that described the contrary feelings of the lover (as Sir Philip Sidney put it in his Sonnet 6, "living deaths, dear wounds, fair storms, and freezing fires") and the blazon, the description of the beloved cataloguing her fair parts by comparison usually to something from nature. The metaphoric material for the blazon, that is, the things to which the beloved female's body were compared, came from a stock of images in the Song of Songs (or Solomon), a biblical collection of love poems. While some of these images fell out of use (e.g., "Your teeth are like a flock of shorn ewes that have come up from the washing, all of which bear twins, and not one among them is bereaved"), many of them are still current in poetry today and were overused to the point of nausea in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Many feminist literary scholars have pointed out that the effect of the blazon is violent, a kind of dismemberment of the female who is almost always silent in the love poems of the Renaissance. The blazon also has the effect of overvaluing women for physical characteristics that are short-lived.

Edmund Spenser's "Sonnet 64," from his sonnet sequence (that is, collection of fourteen-line poems in iambic pentameter), the Amoretti, written for his fiancee in the 1590s, displays these overworked comparisons:

 

Coming to kiss her lips, (such grace I found)

Me seemed I smelled a garden of sweet flowers:

That dainty odors from them threw around

For damsels fit to deck their lovers bowers.

Her lips did smell like unto Gilly flowers,

Her ruddy cheeks like unto Roses red:

Her snowy brows like budded Bellamoures,

Her lovely eyes like Pinks but newly spread.

Her goodly bosom like a Strawberry bed,

Her neck like to a bunch of Collambines:

Her brest like lillies, ere their leaves be shed,

Her nipples like young blossomed Jessamines.

Such fragrant flowers doe give most odorous smell

But her sweet odor did them all excell.

Shakespeare addressed both male and female lovers in his sonnet sequence, published in 1609. In the two examples that follow, he turns the conventions of the blazon inside out. Sonnet 20 is addressed to a male:

 

A woman's face, with Nature's own hand painted,

Hast thou, the master mistress of my passion;

A woman's gentle heart, but not acquainted

With shifting change, as is false women's fashion;

An eye more bright than theirs, less false in rolling,

Gilding the object whereupon it gazeth;

A man in hue all hues in his controlling,

Which steals men's eyes and women's souls amazeth.

And for a woman wert thou first created

Till Nature as she wrought thee fell a-doting,

And by addition me of thee defeated,

By adding one thing to my purpose nothing.

But since she pricked thee out for women's pleasure,

Mine be thy love, and thy love's use their treasure.

 

Sonnet 130 is addressed to a woman, sometimes called "the Dark Lady." While there has been much speculation about her identity (most recently, she has been identified with Aemilia Lanyer), there is nothing conclusive to link any woman or man with the lovers Shakespeare addresses.

 

My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun;

Coral is far more red than her lips' red;

If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;

If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.

I have seen roses damasked, red and white,

But no such roses see I in her cheeks,

And in some perfumes is there more delight

Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.

I love to hear her speak, yet well I know

That music hath a far more pleasing sound.

I grant I never saw a goddess go;

My mistress when she walks treads on the ground.

And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare

As any she belied with false compare

Thomas Campion's 1617 lyric "There Is a Garden in Her Face" makes use of the flower and garden imagery of the Song of Songs while alluding to the "cries of London" genre that mimics the calls of city street merchants. Here the female beloved is given a voice (or, at least, lips), but only to sell herself.

 

There is a garden in her face,

Where roses and white lilies grow,

A heavenly paradise is that place,

Wherein all pleasant fruits do flow.

There cherries grow, which none may buy

Till "Cherry ripe!" themselves do cry.

 

Those cherries fairly do enclose

Of orient pearl a double row;

Which when her lovely laughter shows,

They look like rosebuds filled with snow.

Yet them nor peer nor prince can buy,

Till "Cherry ripe!" themselves do cry.

 

Her eyes like angels watch them still;

Her brows like bended bows do stand,

Threatening with piercing frowns to kill

All that attempt with eye or hand

Those sacred cherries to come nigh,

Till "Cherry ripe!" themselves do cry.

Robert Herrick, who published one volume of poems in 1648, wrote many of his poems to imaginary mistresses like "Julia." In "On the Nipples of Julia's Breast," the woman becomes not just a body, but a body part.

 

Have ye beheld (with much delight)

A red rose peeping through a white?

Or else a cherry (double graced)

Within a lily center-placed?

Or ever marked the pretty beam

A strawberry shows half drowned in cream?

Or seen rich rubies blushing through

A pure smooth pearl, and orient too?

So like to this, nay all the rest,

Is each neat niplet of her breast.

 

Herrick's "To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time," draws on carpe diem ("seize the day") conventions that, when used in the context of love poetry written by men, advise a woman to submit to the lover's pleas before she's old and undesirable.

 

Gather ye rosebuds while ye may,

Old time is still a-flying;

And this same flower that smiles today

Tomorrow will be dying

 

The glorious lamp of heaven, the sun,

The higher he's a-getting,

The sooner will his race be run,

And nearer he's to setting.

 

That age is best which is the first,

When youth and blood are warmer;

But being spent, the worse, and worst

Times still succeed the former.

 

Then be not coy, but use your time,

And, while ye may, go marry;

For, having lost but once your prime,

Ye may forever tarry.

Andrew Marvell's "To His Coy Mistress" (1681) brings together carpe diem conventions with a kind of antiblazon.

 

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

Of Humber would complain. I would

Love you ten years before the flood,

And you should, if you please, refuse

Till the conversion of the Jews.

My vegetable love should grow

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.

But at my back I always hear

Time's winged 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 honor turn to dust,

And into ashes all my lust:

The grave's a fine a 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

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.

Let us roll all our strength and all

Our sweetness up into one ball,

And tear our pleasures with rough strife

Thorough the iron gates of life:

Thus, though we cannot make our sun

Stand still, yet we will make him run.

Aphra Behn was both noted and notorious in her day as a poet, playwright, and sometime spy. No doubt her notoriety arose not only because of her gender but for her openness in speaking of love with the same frankness as many male poets. "The Disappointment," published in 1680, turns the tables on the male lover-poet. Here Lysander courts Cloris--both traditional names for imaginary shepherd and shepherdess lovers in the pastoral poetic tradition.

 

One day the amorous Lysander,

By an impatient passion swayed,

Surprised fair Cloris, that loved maid,

Who could defend herself no longer.

All things did with his love conspire:

The gilded planet of the day,

In his gay chariot drawn by fire,

Was now descending to the sea,

And left no light to guide the world,

But what from Cloris' brighter eyes was hurled.

 

In a lone thicket made for love,

Silent as a yielding maid's consent,

She with a charming languishment

Permits his force, yet gently strove:

Her hands his bosom softly meet,

But not to put him back designed,

Rather to draw 'em on inclined;

Whilst he lay trembling at her feet,

Resistance 'tis in vain to show;

She wants the power to say, "Ah! What d'ye do?"

 

Her bright eyes sweet, and yet severe,

Where love and shame confusedly strive,

Fresh vigor to Lysander give;

And breathing faintly in his ear

She cried, "Cease, cease . . . your vain desire,

Or I'll call out . . . What would you do?

My dearer honor even to you

I cannot, must not give. . . . Retire,

Or take this life, whose chiefest part

I gave you with the conquest of my heart."

 

But he, as much unused to fear

As he was capable of love,

The blessed minutes to improve,

Kisses her mouth, her neck, her hair:

Each touch her new desire alarms.

His burning trembling hand he pressed

Upon her swelling snowy breast,

While she lay panting in his arms:

All her unguarded beauties lie

The spoils and trophies of the enemy.

 

And now without respect or fear

He seeks the object of his vows

(His love no modesty allows),

By swift degrees advancing . . . where

His daring hand that altar seized

Where gods of love do sacrifice:

That awful throne, that paradise

Where rage is calmed and anger pleased:

That fountain where delight still flows,

And gives the universal world repose.

 

Her balmy lips encountering his,

Their bodies, as their souls, are joined,

Where both in transports unconfined

Extend themselves upon the moss.

Cloris half dead and breathless lay;

Her soft eyes cast a humid light,

Such as divides the day and night,

Or falling stars whose fires decay;

And now no signs of life she shows,

But what in short-breathed sighs returns and goes.

 

He saw how at her length she lay;

He saw her rising bosom bare;

Her loose thin robes, through which appear

A shape designed for love and play,

Abandoned by her pride and shame.

She does her softest joys dispence,

Offering her virgin innocence

A victim to love's sacred flame,

While the o'er-ravished shepherd lies

Unable to perform the sacrifice.

 

Ready to taste a thousand joys,

The too transported hapless swain

Found the vast pleasure turned to pain;

Pleasure which too much love destroys:

The willing garments by he laid,

And heaven all opened to his view;

Mad to possess, himself he threw

On the defenceless lovely maid.

But oh! what envying god conspires

To snatch his power, yet leave him the desire?

 

Nature's support (without whose aid

She can no human being give),

Itself now wants the art to live;

Faintness its slackened nerves invade:

In vain the enraged youth essayed

To call its fleeting vigour back;

No motion 'twill from motion take.

Excess of love, his love betrayed:

In vain he toils, in vain commands;

The insensible fell weeping in his hand.

 

In this so amorous cruel strife,

Where love and fate were too severe,

The poor Lysander in despair

Renounced his reason with his life:

Now all the brisk and active fire

That should the nobler part inflame

Served to increase his rage and shame,

And left no spark for new desire;

Not all her naked charms could move

Or calm that rage that had debauched his love.

 

Cloris returning from the trance

Which love and soft desire had bred,

Her timorous hand she gently laid

(Or guided by design or chance)

Upon that fabulous Priapus,

That potent god, as poets feign;

But never did young shepherdess,

Gathering of fern upon the plain,

More nimbly draw her fingers back,

Finding beneath the verdant leaves a snake,

 

Than Cloris her fair hand withdrew,

Finding that god of her desires

Disarmed of all his awful fires,

And cold as flowers bathed in the morning dew.

Who can the nymph's confusion guess?

The blood forsook the hinder place,

And strewed with blushes all her face,

Which both disdain and shame expressed;

And from Lysander's arms she fled,

Leaving him fainting on the gloomy bed.

 

Like lightning through the grove she hies,

Or Daphne from the Delphic god:

No print upon the grassy road

She leaves, to instruct pursuing eyes.

The wind that wantoned in her hair

And with her ruffled garments played

Discovered in the flying maid

All that the gods e'er made, if fair.

So Venus, when her love was slain,

With fear and haste flew o'er the fatal plain.

 

The nymph's resentments none but I

Can well imagine or condole;

But none can guess Lysander's soul

But those who swayed his destiny.

His silent griefs swell up to storms,

And not one god his fury spares:

He cursed his birth, his fate, his stars;

But more the shepherdess's charms,

Whose soft bewitching influence

Had damned him to the hell of impotence.

 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Unit 7