Queen Elizabeth I

I GRIEVE AND DARE NOT SHOW MY DISCONTENT

Like Queen Elizabeth’s other poems in this section, this poem deals with the restrictions and responsibilities of her life, especially her love life.

Often referenced as “On Monsieur’s Departure,” many believe that Elizabeth wrote this after negotiations for her marriage to the younger French prince (Francis, Duke of Anjou) ended. (He was a French Catholic—two strikes!) Even though he was 26 and she was 46, he was the only suitor she actually got to know.

QUEEN ELIZABETH I

I grieve, and dare not show my discontent;

I love, and yet am forced to seem to hate;I do, yet dare not say I ever meant,I seem stark mute but inwardly do prate. I am and not, I freeze and yet am burned, Since from myself another self I turned.

My care is like my shadow in the sun:Follows me flying, flies when I pursue it,Stands and lies by me, doth what I have done;His too familiar care doth make me rue it. No means I find to rid him from my breast, Till by the end of things it be suppressed.

Some gentler passion slide into my mind,For I am soft and made of melting snow;Or be more cruel, love, and so be kind.Let me or float or sink, be high or low. Or let me live with some more sweet content, Or die and so forget what love ere meant.

CONTENT

Unable to be with the person she loves or to be the person she truly is, Queen Elizabeth laments her state in life. She reveals herself as a fragile person begging for a

chance at real love.

Meter is primarily iambic pentameter, but lines 8, 10, and 15 break the pattern to highlight her troubled mind.

STRUCTURE

I grieve, and dare not show my discontent;I love, and yet am forced to seem to hate;I do, yet dare not say I ever meant,I seem stark mute but inwardly do prate. I am and not, I freeze and yet am burned, Since from myself another self I turned.

Poem is in first person, which creates sympathy for the speaker (the queen). The point of view (and the repetition of “I” also make the poem more personal.

The formal diction reveals the high status of the speaker. Caesuras create a saddened pace as the reader lingers on the speaker’s emotional state.The

contrast of vocabulary reflects the duality of her circumstances.

Syntax is comprised of a statement, followed by its contradiction that highlights the speaker’s conundrum.

This paradox shows how her state in life has caused her to create another version of herself—the one she must present to her subjects.

My care is like my shadow in the sun:Follows me flying, flies when I pursue it,Stands and lies by me, doth what I have done;His too familiar care doth make me rue it. No means I find to rid him from my breast, Till by the end of things it be suppressed.

Simile, which extends throughout the stanza, resembles her situation because her shadow is a reflection of herself and a reminder of what she cannot be.

“His,” the shadow, personifies the constant reminder of her unhappiness. Her “care” is her duty to the throne, which follows her in every aspect of her life.

Personification

Her death is the only state that will rid her of her “shadow.”

Some gentler passion slide into my mind,For I am soft and made of melting snow;Or be more cruel, love, and so be kind.Let me or float or sink, be high or low. Or let me live with some more sweet content, Or die and so forget what love ere meant.

The repetition of “or” reveals her lack of control over the situation. It also adds to the pleading, desperate tone of the poem. As a woman, she has desires and needs, but as the queen, she must suppress the “normal” side of herself and endure her life as it is.

The final tone is sorrowful as suffering and desired end are tragic.

Paradox indicates her tormented state.

The first two stanzas introduced and developed the situation whereas the final stanza pleads for a solution.

She wants to feel less emotionally for she hurts easily (“soft…melting snow.”

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WORKS CITED