The Passionate Shepherd to His Love

“The Passionate Shepherd to His Love” is a poem of seduction. During the English Renaissance, it was one of the most widely shared and popular poems. The speaker tries to seduce their “love” by describing a rural setting and lifestyle full of intense emotional and physical pleasure. The lifestyle promised is devoid of sin, sadness, and disappointment–only a few markers of a real-life relationship.

In the first stanza, the speaker tries to convince their significant other to come to the countryside and live a happy, idyllic life. The speaker attempts to woo the significant other by promising all sorts of luxuries. When the speaker states “And we will all the pleasures prove” (Line 2), the speaker is making the landscape and the relationship both sensual and innocent. They do this by focusing on the pleasure the couple will derive from nature simply by experiencing it. For example, the speaker imagines the couple “will sit upon the Rocks” (Line 5) and “By shallow Rivers” (Line 7). The speaker remains ignorant of the negative consequences— not only the couple’s actions if they abandon everything to pursue their romance, but also the negative consequences their pursuit and false promises may have on the relationship.

The speaker is attentive to the simplicities that compose rural life. They focus on “beds of Roses” (Line 9) and a “thousand fragrant posies” (Line 10). The speaker describes objects that bring them in direct contact with the significant other’s body. For example, the speaker promises a “kirtle” (Line 11). During the Middle Ages, both men and women wore kirtles, but eventually it became a garment worn only by women. Typically, women wore a kirtle over a chemise or smock that acted as a slip under a formal under garment. The speaker also promises a “gown made of the finest wool” (Line 13). These suggestions communicate the speaker’s underlying sexual desire. The speaker implies that they would like to take the place of these garments, which creates sexual tension in the poem.

During Marlowe’s time, sexual desire was often equated with sin and death. However, Marlowe’s poem strays from those associations. Instead, the poem embraces romantic love and sexual desire. It communicates that love and desire provide the same vitality and life-giving happiness as the simplistic joy found in nature. The countryside is portrayed as a utopia, the type of place where youth lasts forever and the inhabitants never experience sin, sorrow, or death. The speaker continues urging the significant other to live in the moment, pleading once again “Come live with me and be my love” (Line 20). Again, the speaker does not consider the consequences of completely abandoning responsibility, and the poem develops an idealized, narrow tone at this point.

The speaker segues the poem to its conclusion and repeats the word “delight” (Lines 22, 23) twice before the poem concludes. At the poem’s end, the speaker states, “Then live with me and be my love” (Line 24). Readers recognize that the speaker has probably failed to seduce the significant other. This significant other’s rejection formally appears in “The Nymph’s Reply” written by Sir Walter Raleigh.

“The Passionate Shepherd to His Love” also poses the juxtaposition between the city lifestyle and the country lifestyle during Marlowe’s time. For the speaker, maintaining the happiness and pleasure they derive from the countryside is important, for it is key to the success of their relationship. The speaker describes the landscape vividly and with intense emotion and feeling, describing “steepy mountain yields” (Line 4) and “Melodious birds” (Line 8), along with the natural materials that they will use to create riches for the significant other. The speaker’s passionate insistence that the significant other “Come live with me and be my love” (Line 1) implies that the significant other is not only resistant to the idea, but also from the city, the court, or a more urban setting. In contrast to the countryside, the cities of Marlowe’s time were dirty, polluted, gritty, and filled with political entanglements. Opening with the word “Come” (Line 1) communicates not only a plea, a beckoning, or a command, but also physical distance between the two lovers. Leading the beloved away from that toxic environment presumably opens them up to be free to love together.

The juxtaposition between city life and rural life fits the pastoral tradition Marlowe deploys in this poem. In the pastoral tradition, poets, writers, and artists emphasized the countryside’s peacefulness and innocence in comparison to the city’s gritty industrialization. The speaker’s presentation of the landscape and environment fits the pastoral tradition. Nonetheless, what the speaker fails to mention are the many difficulties of life as a shepherd or in a rural setting. What the speaker does communicate is the nobility associated with working in nature, an ideal the Romantics and Transcendentalists of future literary movements would fully embrace.

The speaker posits that they could watch “Shepherds feed their flocks” (Line 6) together. Again, the speaker embodies the ideal for pastoral poetry since shepherds and their work were common themes. The speaker overlooks the dirtiness, filth, and hard labor associated with shepherding. Instead, they depict the work as fulfilling. The speaker repeats the word “pleasures” (Line 2, Line 19) twice in the poem. This repetition implies that the pastoral life of a shepherd is not exhausting and more noble than living in the city and living separated from nature.