Nguyen 1

Khoa Nguyen

Engl 100

Mrs. Carr

15 April, 2013

“To His Coy Mistress” – A Paraphrasing Challenge

Andrew Marvell is an English poet who lived in the early seventeenth century. He is also

considered as one of the greatest poets of the 17th century. One of his notable works is a poem called “To

His Coy Mistress,” in which a speaker addresses a lady who is, apparently, pretending to reject this man’s

sexual advances.

In the first stanza, that man says that if only they had enough world and time, the fact that the

lady is pretending to be shy would be no problem. They could spend hours and hours to sit down and

think about where to stroll along; and together, they would pass their lengthy days of love. She would

find rubies by the Indian Ganges’ side, while he would bemoan by the river side of Humber. He would

love her ten years before the Flood (i.e., in Noah’s story); and “please” he asks, she should reject him till

the conversion of the Jews. His love would grow slowly like vegetables, yet be greater than empires.

Anyway, he says, he would spend a hundred years to admire her eyes and gaze on her forehead, two

hundred years to praise each breast, and 30 thousand years to adore the remainder. He would spend at

least a year to worship every other part of her body; and on his last age, she should show him her heart.

He confirms that she indeed deserves that dignity; and he cannot love her less than the best he actually

can.

In the second stanza, he states that he always hears, however, the time flying fast behind his back.

He also sees the enormous and endless sand of immortality. He thinks her beauty is one of a kind and

cannot be found. In the next lines, his words seem to be more strong and violent. He warns her that in her

grave, the echoes of his song cannot be heard. And then the worms might attempt to try her virginity that

she has long been retaining. He says her pride will deteriorate into dust, and his sexual desires will also

disappear. However private and beautiful her grave is, no one would like to embrace in it.

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In the last stanza, he persuades her that as long as the colors of youth are still dominate on her

skin, the same as morning dew, as long as she still knows that all of her pores are passionate; let them

make love while they can, like mating birds of prey. He would rather devour the time together than be

eaten by the power of time. Next, he describes the action of sex likerolling all their stamina and sweetness

into one, feeling the pleasure with their violent fight. All of this energy could even run through the gate of

life.

In the last two lines, his words are more calm and gentle. The man ends his seductive words by

telling her that although they cannot create their own sun, which can be a metaphor of time, they can still

make it move. If they cannot control time, they cannot let it control them either.