The Passionate Shepherd to His Love  The Nymph's Reply to the Shepherd 

by Christopher Marlowe  by Sir Walter Raleigh 

1599  1600 

Come live with me and be my love,  If all the world and love were young, 
And we will all the pleasures prove  And truth in every shepherd's tongue, 
That valleys, groves, hills, and fields  These pretty pleasures might me move 
Woods or steepy mountain yields To live with thee and be thy love.

And we will sit upon the rocks,  Time drives the flocks from field to fold, 
Seeing the shepherds feed their flocks  When rivers rage and rocks grow cold; 
By shallow rivers to whose falls  And Philomel becometh dumb; 
Melodious birds sing madrigals. The rest complain of cares to come.

And I will make thee beds of roses  The flowers do fade, and wanton fields 
And a thousand fragrant posies,  To wayward winter reckoning yields; 
A cap of flower, and a kirtle  A honey tongue, a heart of gall, 
Embroidered all with leaves of myrtle; Is fancy's spring, but sorrow's fall.

A gown made of the finest wool  Thy gowns, thy shoes, thy bed of roses, 
Which from our pretty lambs we pull;  Thy cap, thy kirtle, and thy posies, 
Fair lined slippers for the cold  Soon break, soon wither, soon forgotten, 
With buckles of the purest gold; In folly ripe, in reason rotten.

A belt of straw and ivy buds,  Thy belt of straw and ivy buds, 
With coral clasps and amber studs;  Thy coral clasps and amber studs, 
And if these pleasures may thee move,  All these in me no means can move 
Come live with me and be my love. To come to thee and be thy love.

The shepherds' swains shall dance and sing  But could youth last and love still breed, 
For thy delight each May morning:  Had joys no date nor age no need, 
If these delights thy mind may move,  Then these delights my mind might move 
Then live with me and be my love. To live with thee and be thy love.

Background of the Poet

Born: February 26, 1564 Canterbury, England
Died: May 30, 1593 (aged 29) Deptford, England. He was stabbed in a barroom fight by a
drunken man.
Occupation: A great Dramatist, playwright, poet and translator of the Elizabethan era.
Literary movement: English Renaissance Theatre
"The Passionate Shepherd to His Love" is a poem composed by the
English writer Christopher Marlowe, likely within the early 1590s.
 It was one of the foremost prevalent and broadly examined poems of the English
Renaissance;  numerous  poets, such as Sir Walter Ralegh,  wrote  responses lauding, criticizing,
and  jabbing fun at it. Within the  poem, the speaker tries to entice somebody  whom
he alludes to essentially as his "love." In order to tempt this individual, he depicts a rustic  life
full of seriously arousing  pleasure—but unpolluted by sin or distress. The resulting scene  is
both excellent and idealized: in his endeavor to entice his "love," the shepherd takes off out
much of the complication and distress that show genuine relationships.

“The Passionate Shepherd to His Love” Themes

Love and Pleasure

"The Passionate Shepherd to His Love" is a poem of seduction.

In it, the speaker tries to persuade his audience to come to the country and be
his  partner. The speaker makes his case on the premise of the extravagances they
will  appreciate together  within the farmland, depicting it as a place of delight that's at
once arousing and  blameless. He needs his "love" to essentially sit on the rocks for
a  whereas and appreciate the scene, without stressing around their  obligations. In spite of the
fact that the joys the speaker depicts may be short lived, they are still wealthy and tempting.
  The reality  that the speaker uses “straw,” “ivy-buds,” “beds of roses,” and “fragrant
posies.” objects in a suggestive  fashion infers his underlying want: he appears to need to
require their  put  and caress his love to pay near and sensual consideration to the lover's body.
As its title  recommends, “The Passionate Shepherd to His Love” is hence a passionate lyric,
full of sexual  pressure. But, veering from conventions that relate sexuality with sin and death,
the poem depicts this sexuality as a guiltless. There appear to be no costs related with
the delights the speaker portrays in his seduction. Instep, the countryside is  displayed as
a  place of play and sheer delight, tune, and move. The speaker denies to
confess any issues,  inconveniences, or downsides into the world he envisions involving with his
“love.” Instep, he urges his  love to fair live within
the moment, enjoying the arousing joys he records for their own purpose,
without  stressing almost the results. Without a doubt, the speaker offers these delights as
an  elude from obligations  and results.
Nowadays, most if not all are being deceived by worldly kind of love. People are quick to
say that “I am in love to him/ her” when they can see that the person he is referring to is
wealthy enough to give her/him a luxurious life. Hence, love shouldn’t be based of things of this
world can offer. According to, Psalm, love is……
Of course, this isn't fundamentally a practical delineation of love, and a
few readers may feel that the lyric is as well idealized. In that vein, Sir Walter Ralegh,
a  modern of Marlowe,  straightforwardly objects to the speaker of “The Passionate Shepherd”
in his possess  poem “The Nymph’s Reply.” It's questionable that since the speaker of
Marlowe's poem does not recognize  any costs or issues related with love,
he fails to tempt the reader; this love is as well  idealize to be genuine or important. Even so,
the poem's speaker is immovable  in his contention:  love, basically, is delight, and is implied to
be delighted in  without blame.

Analysis of Poetic Devices in “The Passionate Shepherd to His Love”

Poetic and literary devices are the same, but a few are used only in poetry. Here is the analysis
of some of the poetic devices 0 used in this poem.

Stanza: A stanza is a poetic form of some lines. There are six stanzas in this poem, each having
four lines in it.

Quatrain: A quatrain is a four-lined stanza borrowed from Persian poetry.

Feminine Rhyme: It is a type of rhyme in which one or more unstressed syllables follow the
stressed syllables. The examples of feminine rhyme are, “love/prove” and “fields/yields.”

Repetition: There is a repetition of the line, “Come live with me, and be my love” which has
created musical quality in the poem.

Rhyme Scheme: The poem follows the ABAB rhyme scheme.

Iambic Tetrameter: It is a type of meter having four iambs per line. The poem follows iambic
tetrameter such as, “come live with me and be my ”

Reference: Christopher Marlowe (1564–93): : “The Passionate Shepherd to His Love”; “Hero
and Leander” (excerpt). (n.d.). Perspectives on Renaissance Poetry. doi:
10.5040/9781474218825.ch-006