John Donne

The Indifferent

I CAN love both fair and brown;

Catalog of opposites

Donne pairs extremes—rich/poor, social/solitary, country/city. The rapid-fire contradictions show he doesn't care about any particular quality in a woman.

Her whom abundance melts, and her whom want betrays;
Her who loves loneness best, and her who masks and plays;
Her whom the country form'd, and whom the town;
Her who believes, and her who tries;
Her who still weeps with spongy eyes,

Spongy eyes vs. cork

Sponge absorbs water (constant weeping), cork repels it (never cries). The absurd physical metaphor makes emotional women sound like household objects.

And her who is dry cork, and never cries.
I can love her, and her, and you, and you;

The dealbreaker

After listing every type of woman he can love, the punchline: faithfulness is the one trait he rejects. The poem's entire argument hinges on this reversal.

I can love any, so she be not true.
Will no other vice content you?
Will it not serve your turn to do as did your mothers?
Or have you all old vices spent, and now would find out others?
Or doth a fear that men are true torment you?
O we are not, be not you so;
Let me—and do you—twenty know;
Rob me, but bind me not, and let me go.
Must I, who came to travel thorough you,

Travel thorough you

'Thorough' is through—he came to pass through her like a traveler, not settle down. The phrasing reduces the woman to terrain.

Grow your fix'd subject, because you are true?
Venus heard me sigh this song;
And by love's sweetest part, variety, she swore,
She heard not this till now; and that it should be so no more.
She went, examined, and return'd ere long,
And said, "Alas ! some two or three
Poor heretics in love there be,
Which think to stablish dangerous constancy.
But I have told them, 'Since you will be true,

Venus as enforcer

The goddess of love becomes a cosmic punisher of fidelity. She'll make faithful women suffer by pairing them with unfaithful men—Donne's joke about divine justice.

You shall be true to them who're false to you.' "
Source Wikipedia Poetry Foundation

Reading Notes

Donne's Libertine Persona

CONTEXT This is one of Donne's Elegies, written in the 1590s when he was a young law student at Lincoln's Inn, before he became a priest. These poems showcased his wit in London's literary scene—they were circulated in manuscript, not published, and their sexual frankness was part of the performance.

The speaker isn't arguing for promiscuity so much as mocking constancy. Stanza two frames fidelity as a bizarre new vice women have invented: "have you all old vices spent, and now would find out others?" The rhetorical questions pile up—"Will no other vice content you?"—treating faithfulness as an unreasonable demand. The comedy depends on reversing conventional morality: infidelity is normal, constancy is perverse.

Notice the economic language: "Rob me, but bind me not." He'll accept theft (sharing her affections) but not bondage (commitment). "Came to travel thorough you" reduces romance to a commercial transaction or a journey with a planned departure. This isn't heartbreak—it's a libertine's operating manual, performed with enough wit that the cynicism becomes entertaining.

The Venus Twist

Stanza three shifts from argument to mythological satire. Venus hears his song and agrees—then punishes the "poor heretics in love" who believe in constancy. The word "heretics" is deliberately provocative: Donne treats fidelity as a religious deviation, complete with divine punishment.

Venus swears "by love's sweetest part, variety"—the joke is that the goddess of love values promiscuity above all. Her solution is perfectly cruel: "Since you will be true, / You shall be true to them who're false to you." Faithful women will be cursed with unfaithful men. It's cosmic irony as romantic policy.

The poem ends with Venus enforcing inconstancy as natural law. Donne isn't confessing personal behavior—he's building an absurdist argument where the universe itself sides with libertines. The wit lies in how thoroughly he inverts conventional praise of fidelity, making constancy sound like a dangerous rebellion against nature and the gods.