The Passionate Shepherd to His Love
Christopher Marlowe
Come live with me and be my love,
And we will all the pleasures prove
That valleys, groves, hills, and fields,
Woods or steepy mountain yields.
And we will sit upon the rocks,
Seeing the shepherds feed their flocks,
By shallow rivers to whose falls
Melodious birds sing madrigals.
And I will make thee beds of roses
And a thousand fragrant posies,
A cap of flowers, and a kirtle
Embroidered all with leaves of myrtle;
A gown made of the finest wool
Which from our pretty lambs we pull;
Fair lined slippers for the cold,
With buckles of th purest gold;
A belt of straw and ivy buds,
With coral clasps and amber studs:
And if these pleasures may thee move,
Come live with me and be my love.
The shepherds' swains shall dance and sing
For thy delight each May morning:
If these delights thy mind may move,
Then live with me and be my love.
The Passionate Shepherd to His Love | Introduction
Christopher Marlowe’s “The Passionate Shepherd to His Love” fits perfectly into the poetic genre of the period. Poets of the Elizabethan age used poetry as a way to express their wit and talent. It is likely that Marlowe’s poem would have been passed around among his friends long before its publication in 1599 in England, six years after the poet’s death. Few Elizabethan poets published their own work, especially one as young as Marlowe, and so it is fairly certain that the poem was well-known long before its publication. The composition date is thought to be about 1588, and probably it generated many responses well before its publication nearly a dozen years later. Among these responses was Sir Walter Raleigh’s “The Nymph’s Reply to the Shepherd” (date unknown, but thought to be about 1592), which provides the woman’s response to Marlowe’s shepherd. Marlowe’s poem also inspired several other notable works that were similar in tone and content, including John Donne’s “The Bait” (1633), which also relies upon wit and sexuality to entertain the reader.
“The Passionate Shepherd to His Love” is written in the pastoral tradition that originated with Theocritus in Greece during the third century b.c. The pastoral tradition is characterized by a state of contentment and of innocent and romantic love. Rural country folk are presented in an idealized natural setting, while they contemplate their perfect and peaceful world that is absent the worries and issues of crowded city life. As was common of Elizabethan poets, Marlowe plays with the traditional pastoral formula. He introduces sexuality and includes images that make the shepherd’s plea seem ridiculous rather than ideal.
The speaker in “The Passionate Shepherd to His Love” is a shepherd, who pledges to do the impossible if only the female object of his desires will accept his pleas. The poem is static in time, with no history or clearly defined future. Only the present matters. There is never any suggestion that the poet is asking the woman for a long-term commitment; there is no offer of marriage nor does he offer a long-term future together. Instead, he asks her to come and live with him and seek pleasure in the moment. The use of “passionate” in the title suggests strong emotions, but may also refer to an ardent desire to possess the woman sexually, since there is never any declaration of love. The shepherd makes a number of elaborate promises that are generally improbable and occasionally impossible. The woman’s response is never heard, and she is not present in any way except as the object of the shepherd’s desire.
Prior to the composition of “The Passionate Shepherd to His Love,” early English Renaissance poetry had been most concerned with romantic love. These poems, which included poems by Sir Thomas Wyatt and Henry Howard, were traditional love poems, characterized by the pleas of a rejected suitor who would find solace in the soothing atmosphere of country life. Marlowe tweaked the traditional, transforming it into a more dynamic piece. As a result, Marlowe’s poem remains a long lasting and important example of the Elizabethan poet’s talent. “The Passionate Shepherd to His Love” is included in most literature anthologies published for academic use, including the seventh edition of the Norton Anthology of English Literature.
The Passionate Shepherd to His Love Summary
Stanza 1: Lines 1–4
In the first stanza of “The Passionate Shepherd to His Love,” Marlowe’s speaker, an unidentified shepherd, pleads with an unidentified woman that if she will come and live with him, then all pleasures will be theirs for the taking. The shepherd opens with the invitation: “Come live with me, and be my love.” He is not asking her to marry him but only to live with him. The offer is simply put, and his ease in offering it implies that the woman should just as easily agree. However, since the shepherd is forced to continue with a succession of promises, the reader can assume that the shepherd’s initial offer was not well received.
The shepherd promises the woman pleasures they will experience in all of the pastoral settings that nature can supply. Since he promises that the couple will experience these pleasures in a variety of locations, it appears his expectation is that the pleasures of the world are principally sexual. He is asking the woman to live with him, and for the Elizabethan poet, “Come live with me, and be my love” has the same connotations it would have for a twenty-first-century reader: the female is being invited to come and make love. “Valleys, groves, hills and fields, / Woods, or steepy mountains” are some of the places the shepherd suggests where the woman might yield to him, and where they might both find pleasure. The overt sexuality of this stanza is a departure from the traditional pastoral writings and romantic love poems of Marlowe’s contemporaries, which were not so bold.
Stanza 2: Lines 5–8
The second stanza suggests a time of year for the lovers’ activity, which is likely spring or summer, since they would be outdoors and the shepherd imagines it is pleasant enough to sit and watch the flocks being fed. He proposes that other shepherds will feed his flocks, since with his mistress by his side, he will now be an observer. The shepherd mentions listening to the “Melodious birds sing madrigals.” The singing of birds is often suggestive of spring, since the return of singing birds signals the advent of the new season. Because the first stanza makes clear that the shepherd wants the woman to become his lover, the shift in the second stanza to sitting upon rocks—“And we will sit upon the rocks”—suggests they might partake of the second stanza’s activities after they have made love.
This second stanza, if taken by itself, exemplifies the traditional pastoral theme of the restful shepherd watching his flocks, enjoying in quiet repose the countryside and all it offers. It is the idealization of the pastoral form, in which nature is benign and safe, filled with “shallow rivers” and “melodious birds.” In the early pastoral tradition, the shepherd would be alone, daydreaming about the woman he loves and whom he wishes to court. But in Marlowe’s poem, the introduction of sexual desire inserts the woman into the scene; she too will witness the flocks feeding and enjoy the peacefulness of country life. The isolation of the shepherd is thus removed in Marlowe’s poem.
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