The Passionate Pilgrime#Poem I by William Shakespeare (1564-1616)

Love's Deceptive Game

Shakespeare plays with the tension between knowing a lover lies and choosing to believe them anyway.

WHen my Love swears that she is made of truth,

I do beleeve her (though I know she lies)

That she might thinke me some untutor'd youth,

Unskilful in the worlds false forgeries.

Thus vainly thinking that she thinkes me young,

Although I know my yeares be past the best:

I smiling, credite her false speaking toung,

Outfacing faults in Love, with loves ill rest.

But wherefore sayes my Love that she is young?

And wherefore say not I, that I am old?

O, Loves best habite is a soothing toung,

And Age (in Love) loves not to have yeares told.

Therefore Ile lye with Love, and Love with me,

Since that our faults in Love thus smother'd be.

Two Loves I have, of Comfort and Despaire,

Lover's Psychological Complexity

Internal conflict between two spiritual 'loves'—one comforting, one destructive. Suggests psychological fragmentation.

That like two Spirits do suggest me still:

My better Angell is a Man (right faire)

My worser spirite a woman (colour'd ill.)

To winne me soone to hell, my female evil

Tempteth my better Angel from my side,

And would corrupt my Saint to be a Devil,

Wooing his purity with her faire pride.

And whether that my Angel be turnde feend,

Suspect I may (yet not directly tell)

For being both to me; both to each friend,

I guesse one Angel in anothers hell:

The truth I shall not know, but live in doubt,

Till my bad angel fire my good one out.

Did not the heavenly Rhetoricke of thine eye,

'Gainst whom the world could not hold argument,

Perswade my heart to this false perjurie:

Vows for thee broke deserve not punishment.

A woman I forswore: But I will prove

Thou being a Goddess, I forswore not thee:

My vow was earthly, thou a heavenly love,

Thy grace being gain'd, cures all disgrace in me.

Rhetorical Wordplay

Shakespeare uses legal language to 'prove' his oath-breaking isn't really breaking an oath. Clever linguistic manipulation.

My vow was breath, and breath a vapor is;

Then thou fair Sun, that on this earth doth shine,

Exhale this vapor vow, in thee it is:

If broken, then it is no fault of mine.

If by me broke, what foole is not so wise

To breake an Oath, to win a Paradise?

Sweet Cytherea, sitting by a Brook,

Mythological Seduction Scene

Classic mythological trope of Venus attempting to seduce the resistant Adonis. Note the power dynamics.

With young Adonis, lovely, fresh and green,

Did court the Lad with many a lovely look,

Such looks as none could look but beauties queen:

She told him stories to delight his ears;

She shew'd him favours, to allure his eye;

To win his heart, she toucht him here and there,

Touches so soft still conquer chastity.

But whether unripe years did want conceit,

Or he refus'd to take her figured proffer,

The tender nibler would not touch the bait,

But smile and jeast at every gentle offer:

Then fell she on her backe, fair queen, and toward

He rose and ran away, ah foole too froward.

If Love make me forsworn, how shall I swere to love?

O never faith could hold, if not to beauty vowed:

Tho to my self forsworn, to thee Ile constant prove,

Those thoghts to me like Okes, to thee like Osiers bowed.

Studdy his byas leaves, & makes his book thine eyes,

Where all those pleasures live, that Art can comprehend:

If knowledge be the mark, to know thee shall suffice;

Well learned is that toung that well can thee commend,

All ignorant that soul that sees thee without wonder,

Which is to me some praise, that I thy parts admyre:

Thine eye Jove's lightning seems, thy voice his dreadful thunder,

Which (not to anger bent) is musick and sweet fire.

Celestial as thou art, O do not love that wrong,

To sing heavens praise with such an earthly toung.

Scarce had the Sunne dried up the dewy morn,

And scarce the herd gone to the hedge for shade,

When Cytherea (all in love forlorne)

A longing tariance for Adonis made

Under an Osyer growing by a brooke,

A brooke, where Adon us'd to coole his spleene:

Hot was the day, she hotter that did looke

For his approch, that often there had beene.

Anon he comes, and throws his Mantle by,

And stood stark naked on the brook's green brim:

The Sunne look'd on the world with glorious eye,

Yet not so wistly, as this Queen on him:

He spying her, bounc'd in (whereas he stood)

Oh Jove (quoth she) why was not I a flood?

Fair is my Love, but not so fair as fickle,

Mild as a Dove, but neither true nor trusty,

Brighter than glasse, and yet as glasse is brittle,

Softer than waxe, and yet as iron rusty:

A little pale, with damaske die to grace her,

None fairer, nor none falser to deface her.

Her lips to mine how often hath she joined,

Between each kisse her othes of true love swearing:

How many tales to please me hath she coined,

Dreading my love, the losse whereof still fearing;

Yet in the mids of all her pure protestings,

Her faith, her othes, her teares, and all were jestings.

She burnt with love, as straw with fire flameth,

She burnt out love, as soon as straw out burneth:

She fram'd the love, and yet she foyld the framing,

She bad love last, and yet she fell a turning.

Was this a lover, or a Letcher whether?

Bad in the best, though excellent in neither.

Poetic Collaboration

Celebrates shared artistic passion—loving music and poetry as a form of intimate connection.

If Musicke and sweet Poetry agree,

As they must needs (the Sister and the Brother)

Then must the love be great twixt thee and me,

Because thou lov'st the one, and I the other.

Dowland to thee is deer, whose heavenly tuch

Upon the Lute, doth ravish human sense:

Spenser to me, whose deep Conceit is such,

As passing all Conceit, needs no Defence.

Thou lov'st to hear the sweet melodious sound,

That Phœbus Lute (the Queen of Musick) makes:

And I in deep Delight am chiefly drown'd,

When as himself to singing he betakes.

One God is God of both (as Poets faine)

One Knight loves both, and both in thee remaine.

Fair was the morn, when the fair Queen of love,

Paler for sorrow than her milk-white Dove,

For Adons sake, a youngster proud and wild,

Her stand she takes upon a steep up hill.

Anon Adonis comes with horn and hounds,

She silly Queen, with more than loves good will,

Forbad the boy he should not pass those grounds,

Once (quoth she) did I see a fair sweet youth

Here in these brakes, deep wounded with a Boar,

Deep in the thigh a spectacle of ruth,

See in my thigh, quoth she, here was the sore,

She shewed hers; he saw more wounds than one,

And blushing fled, and left her all alone.

Sweet rose, fair Flower, untimely pluckt, soon vaded,

Pluckt in the bud, and vaded in the spring.

Bright orient pearle, alacke too timely shaded,

Fair creature kill'd too soon by Deaths sharp sting:

Like a greene plumb that hangs upon a tree:

And falls (through wind) before the fall should be.

I weep for thee, and yet no cause I have,

For why, thou lefts me nothing in thy will.

And yet thou lefts me more than I did crave,

For why; I craved nothing of thee still:

O yes, dear friend, I pardon crave of thee,

Thy discontent thou didst bequeath to me.

Venus with Adonis sitting by her,

Under a Myrtle shade, began to wooe him,

She told the youngling how god Mars did try her,

And as he fell to her, she fell to him.

Even thus (quoth she) the warlike god embrac't me:

And then she clipt Adonis in her armes:

Even thus (qouth she) the warlike god unlac't me,

As if the boy should use like loving charmes:

Even thus (quoth she) he seized on my lips,

And with her lips on his did act the seizure:

And as she fetched breath, away he skips,

And would not take her meaning nor her pleasure.

Ah, that I had my Lady at this bay:

To kisse and clip me till I run away.

Crabbed age and youth cannot live together,

Temporal Contrast

Sharp contrast between youth's vitality and age's decline. Classic Renaissance meditation on time's passage.

Youth is full of pleasance, age is full of care,

Youth like summer morn, age like winter weather,

Youth like summer brave, Age like winter bare.

Youth is full of sport, Ages breath is short,

Youth is nimble, Age is lame,

Youth is hot and bold, Age is weak and cold,

Youth is wild, and Age is tame.

Age I do abhor thee, Youth I do adore thee,

O my love, my love is young.

Age I do defie thee. Oh sweet Shepheard hie thee;

For methinks thou stays too long.

Beauty's Transience

Repeated metaphors of fragility—glass, flowers, glosses—emphasize beauty's ephemeral nature.

Beauty is but a vain and doubtful Good,

A shining glosse, that vadeth sodainly,

A flower that dies, when first it gins to bud,

A brittle glasse, thats broken presently.

A doubtful good, a glosse, a glasse, a flower,

Lost, vaded, broken, dead within an houre.

And as goods lost, are seld or never found,

As vaded glosse no rubbing will refresh:

As flowers dead, lie withered on the ground,

As broken glasse no symant can redress.

So beauty blemisht once, for ever lost,

In spite of physick, painting, paine and cost.

Good night, good rest, ah neither be my share,

She bad good night, that kept my rest away,

And daft me to a cabben hangd with care;

To descant on the doubts of my decay.

Farewel (quoth she) and come againe to morrow

Farewel I could not, for I supt with sorrow.

Yet at my parting sweetly did she smile,

In scorn or friendship, nill I conster whether:

'T may be she joy'd to jeast at my exile,

'T may be again, to make me wander thither.

Wander (a word) for shadowes like my self,

As take the pain, but cannot plucke the pelfe.

Lord how mine eyes throw gazes to the East,

My heart doth charge the watch, the morning rise

Doth scite each moving scence from idle rest,

Not daring trust the office of mine eyes.

While Philomela sits and sings, I sit and mark,

And wish her layes were tuned like the Lark.

For she doth welcome day-light with her ditte,

And drives away dark-dreaming night:

The night so packt, I post unto my pretty,

Heart hath his hope, and eyes their wished sight,

Sorrow chang'd to solace, and solace mixt with sorrow,

For why, she sight, and bad me come to morrow.

Were I with her, the night would post too soon,

But now are minutes added to the houres.

To spite me now, each minute seems an hour,

Yet not for me, shine sun to succour flowers.

Pack night, peep day, good day of night now borrow

Short night to night, and length thy selfe to morrow.