He’s basically say if the had lots of time they would sit down, think and talk about what they would do. There is also an example of alliteration in this stanza: ‘Long love’s’. Also in this stanza Marvell compares her to the river Ganges, saying he can imagine her being sat by the rive, as the river is beautiful and she is described to be too. Furthermore in the first stanza there is a quote which can be used to prove how much he loves her. ‘Love you ten years before the flood; and you should, if you please, refuse till the conversion of the Jews’
This quote basically means that he would love her for as long as he possibly could, and that he did 10 years before Noah’s flood, he is obviously saying that he if could he would love her forever, moreover that she could say no if she really wanted to, but he has said that he will love her until the Jews convert religion, which would probably never happen, so again just repeating the idea that he is going to love her forever. He describes the amount of love he has for as: ‘vaster than empires’ Which is very big. An important line in this poem is:
‘an hundred years should go to praise’ In this line he is practically making fun of Elizabethan poetry, and is saying that if he had the time, he would spend 100 years admiring and praising her. This is very over the top, just like Elizabethan poetry would have been at time. The last two lines are very powerful even though it’s only two lines, and he is saying that she deserves to be loved and that she receives all the love he can possibly give her. ‘For, lady, you deserve this state, nor would I love at lower rate. ‘
The second stanza of ‘The Flea’ moves on to speak more about the paradox, this is where he tries to make her believe that as now the flea has both of their bloods inside of it, that they are now practically married, so if she were to sleep with him she wouldn’t be going against God. During ‘To His Coy Mistress’ we don’t receive any indication of how she feels or any reaction, however Donne’s poem were we don’t only hear her opinion, but that of her parents as well. The opening line of the stanza says: ‘Oh stay, three lives in one flea spare’
This means that she is trying to leave, we don’t read exactly what she is saying or a voice of hers. But we do hear how she is reacting, we also find out as the stanza moves on that her parents do not want them to be together as he says: ‘Though parents grudge, and you, w’are met. ‘ The codicil of the stanza is about the women who tries to kill the flea, as he is based his whole argument around it, so if the flea then dies, so does his argument. Moreover these few lines prove that Donne is willing to doing absolutely anything, verbally, to achieve his goal.
We see this when he says: ‘Let not to this, selfe murder added bee, and sacrilege, three sinnes in killing three. ‘ Which basically means that if she tries to kill the flea she is then trying to kill a part of both of them, and because everything living is one of ‘God’s creatures’ she is thus killing the father, the son and the Holy Ghost. He is trying his very best to make her believe that she will be doing wrong. It’s almost as if she’s manipulating her, trying to make her feel guilty.
In stanza two, of ‘To His Coy Mistress’ the male voice of the poem turns all of his flattery on it’s head and drops a bomb shell by saying to her, we haven’t got that time that I was before talking about, and time is passing by quickly, like a chariot passing by, which he describes as: ‘But at my back I always hear time’s winged chariot hurrying near’ He then goes on to say ‘Deserts of vast eternity’ which means all they got ahead of them is time, but he can see the future, and he can see it as nothing.
It is almost as if he is trying to blame all of this upon her, just because she won’t sleep with him. Furthermore, in this stanza Marvell completely changes his attitude and begins to describe quite disturbing and worrying images – that will happen if they don’t sleep together. He does this by telling her that she won’t be beautiful forever, and as time will move on so will she, by getting older and ugly. He then says that when she’s ugly and old he wouldn’t want to sleep with her, so if she doesn’t take her ‘chance’ now while she is still looking youthful and beautiful she will miss her ‘chance’.
Another part of this stanza which is quite worrying is: ‘Nor, in thy marble vault, shall sound my echoing song; then shall try that long preserv’d virginity’ Marvell is saying here that when she is dead she would have obviously missed her chance with him, and because she wouldn’t let him take her virginity, the worms she will be buried with will. Him saying this could confuse the women because no women wants to think about that happening to her, so maybe she will begin to think that she has to sleep with him so that doesn’t happen to her.
He then moves on to say: ‘And into ashes all my lust’ Which means all honour is a waste of time so they might as well just do it now. The final two lines of the stanza basically sum up the point he has been trying to make all the way through the stanza and he says: ‘The grave’s a fine and private place, but none I think do there embrace’ This sentence is very horrible because he is trying to say to her that when you die your on your own and you can’t be with anyone.
In my opinion I think this stanza is enough to make any women feel uncomfortable around him and scared of him. She very well may just sleep with him because of the fact she is scared of him. In the final stanza of Donne’s poem ‘The Flea’ the women manages to kill the flea like she wanted to in the stanza before. She kills him with her nail and this is made clear in the opening line of the stanza: ‘Cruell and sodaine, has thou since purpled thy naile’. However, Donne does his very best to make her feel as guilty as possible, he does this by saying ‘blood of innocence?
‘ which basically means that Donne is trying to compare his women killing the flea to Jesus being killed without reason, again he brings in religion to back up his argument. He does this because she is a religious person, so doing this will have more of an effect on her. He also points out the fact that the only thing the flea ever did wrong was take blood – it didn’t actually do anything else wrong to her, so why kill it? It becomes clear that he said this as he says: ‘In what could this flea guilty bee, except in that drop which it suckt from thee? ‘ But I think that the flea represented more than that.
It represented the reason for them sleeping together, and if she killed the flea she would be consequently killing his argument, this would make the women feel as if she’s won and he has nothing left to argue for. Unfortunately for her, what she isn’t expecting is that Donne manages to turn the whole argument around and is on top again. One of the lines in this stanza shows that she doesn’t feel anything different now the flea is dead to when it was alive – ‘Find’st not thyself, nor mee the weaker now’ He also turns this around and uses it against her and is quite domineering in the fact that he is winning the argument.
The codicil of this stanza is: ‘Tis true, then learne how false, feares bee; just so much honor, when thou yeeld’st to mee, will wast, as this flea’s death tooke life from thee’ Those few lines are trying to fool the women as what Donne is basically saying is that because you do not feel any different after you have now killed the flea, you will not feel any different after sex, and you will still have the same beliefs and morals. I think with this final stanza Donne has won the argument, he may not have won her over to sleep with him. But his actual argument although exaggerated, are very convincing and believeable.
