Andrew Marvells To His Coy Mistress embodies a familiar theme, one of the great traditional commonplace of European literature

(qtd. in Young 39). It is the theme of carpe diem, introduced by the ancient Roman poet Quintus Horatius Flaccus: The carpe diem poem, whose label comes from a line of Horace and whose archetype for Renaissance poets was a lyric by Catullus, addresses the conflict of beauty and sensual desire on the one hand and the destructive force of time on the other. (Moldenhauer 190) In Marvells poem, the first person narrator tries to convince the mistress that she should enjoy life while she is young because she will not be able to do so later, when she is old or dead. Moreover, in To His Coy Mistress, this argument is used to persuade the young lady to make love with the first person narrator. Marvells To His Coy Mistress can be divided into three sections or stanzas, each strophe [] possessing its own distinctive grammar, imagery, and tone [] and each serving a precise logical function in the carpe diem argument (Moldenhauer 195). As Moldenhauer has pointed out [s]tructurally, the poem resembles a syllogism [] (195) composed by a major premise (Had we but), a minor premise (But) and a conclusion (Now therefore). A syllogism can be defined as a form of reasoning in which a conclusion is drawn from two propositions (premises) (Oxford Dictionary & Thesaurus). It is beyond doubt [t]hat Marvells poem embodies the carpe diem of Horace [] and especially of Catullus [] so Young (39), but as he points out, the question remaining is how this theme is reorganized by Marvells wit (Young 39). An answer to this question will be given by arguing that, in the poem To His Coy Mistress, Marvell transforms Horaces carpe diem theme in a logical syllogism. The opening first stanza of To His Coy Mistress is primarily a pastiche of Petrarchs traditional love poetry, in which the lover adores his mistress and sees in her a muse (Young 41). Marvells first argument begins with the words Had we but (1), which stand for the conjunction if. The first argument is therefore the first premise of the poems syllogism. In this first premise, Marvells persona imagines a world in which the mistress and he would have world enough, and time (1). In this imagery of an endless life, the persona would love the mistress ten years before the flood (8) and she would love him Till the conversion of the Jews (10), both of these dates evoking the end of the world. The Mistresss demand for Petrarchan love is clearly mocked in the next lines of the poem (13-16) by the exaggerated lengths of time the first person narrator claims he would praise his mistress. The persona mentions here the ladys eyes, forehead and breast but her remaining charms are reduced to the rest (16). In the first 1

stanza of Marvells To His Coy Mistress, the personas sexual desire is replaced by a vegetable love (11). In order to understand the meaning of the vegetable love, we must go back to Aristotle. He distinguished three spirits in mans nature. The highest spirit was the rational spirit, the middle spirit was called the sensitive spirit and the last of the three elements was the vegetative spirit, which the man shared with the plants (Moldenhauer 198). Marvells expression of a vegetable love has then to be understood as rudimentary love, something less than human and even less than bestial (Moldenhauer 198). Thus, in a world of endless time and space, the first person narrator could love her, praise her and wait for her Till the conversion of the Jews (10) and the mistress could preserve her virginity. But the subjunctive grammar of the poems first stanza reminds the unreality of this imaginary world. Every verb is in the conditional mood, which makes the personas first argument or premise ironic. The rhythm of this first stanza is slow and static, the imaginary world motionless. Marvells first argument is therefore an ironical rejection of the timeless life imagined by the persona. The second stanza and argument of To His Coy Mistress, which is introduced by the transitional term But in line 21, communicates the direct opposite of the blissful vision of a timeless world projected in the first stanza of the poem. It represents a shift in Marvells syllogism. The argument changes from supposition to reality. The second stanza also introduces a change in the verbal mood of the poem from subjunctive to indicative, its rhythm is even slower than in the first stanza. If the persona and his mistress had endless time in the first stanza, here it is time that possesses them (Moldenhauer 199). The speaker hears Times winged chariot hurrying near (22), a symbol for Apollos mythological car representing the passage of the day (Moldenhauer 199). The personas vegetable love is now reduced to an inert Desert[s] of vast eternity (24). In this stanza of the poem, the persona claims that there will be no more place for love in their grave. Once the lady dies, her beauty shall no more be found (25) and she will not be able to hear the speakers echoing song (27) anymore. In his second argument the speaker claims that if the mistress waits to long, time and death will come and it will be too late for loving. The mistresss quaint honour (29) is identified with her marble vault (26) into which only the worms can enter. The speaker is presenting his mistress a choice between giv[ing] her virginity to him or allow it to become worm fodder [] (Brackett 400). The persona of Marvells To His Coy Mistress assumes that only these two possibilities exist.

In the third stanza of the poem, Marvells final argument is so constructed as to leave no other possible conclusion but sexual act as solution for mastering time. Having told her mistress what they could have done under other circumstances and what time will do to them in the future, the persona now tries to convince her of what they can do in the very present. The speaker assumes that the mistresss willing soul transpires (35) and by doing so he attributes passion to her. Thus, as they both feel passion, they should roll all [their] strength and all / [their] sweetness up into one ball (41-42). The opening words of this last stanza, Now therefore (33) signal a necessary synthesis or resolution [] (Moldenhauer 202) of the argument. The language is seductive, the verbs are now in the present tense and the mood is imperative. As Moldenhauer points out this grammatical change has a clear psychological purpose [] insofar as the present tense affords release from the dreamlike conditional of the first strophe and the terrifying future of the second (202). While in the first two stanzas of the poem the personal pronouns are singular, in the third stanza the persona uses primarily the first person plural pronouns us, we and our. This grammatical union represents the erotic union Marvells speaker wishes. Here, the verbs are mostly in an active tone and the impression of movement, fusion and life is very strong. The conclusion drawn by the persona is the very devise of the carpe diem theme. As the mistress and he cannot stop time and make [their] sun / Stand still (45), as death is inevitable, they have to enjoy the present by acting with passion and make [the sun] run (46). Following Brody, Marvells To His Coy Mistress must be read as [] the parodic deconstruction of a cluster of inherited forms the lovers complaint, the blazon, the carpe diem exercise [] (74). Marvells triadic progressions (Brody 53), are embodied in the poems three stanzas, in the three conditions of mans nature (rational, sensitive, vegetable) and in the three stages of the argument. They form a parallel between the verbal content and the thematic structure of the poem [] (Brody 53) and between the three stanzas and the three arguments of the syllogism. In the first twenty lines of the poem, which represent the first stanza and the major premise introduced by the words Had we but (1), the subject imagines the possibility of having enough time and space and tell the Mistress how he would wait for her and love her and that he could take An hundred years to look at her eyes and Two hundred to adore each breast (13-15). But soon (in the second stanza, the minor premise, which begins with the transition But) the persona hears [t]imes winged chariot coming near (21-22) and the fantasy is replaced by the reality of their mortality. The final stanza 3

of Marvells poem (the conclusion of his syllogism beginning with the words Now therefore (33)) represents the very motif of the carpe diem theme as the persona urges the Mistress to make the most of her present existence on earth. Marvells poem is not only a carpe diem poem. Much more it transforms the seize the day theme in a logical syllogism with two premises and a conclusion, which seems to be perfectly rational as the final stanza begins with the words Now therefore (33) and indicates this way a necessary [] resolution (Moldenhauer 202).