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To His Coy Mistress Activity (AutoRecovered)

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Blackpink Is The Revolution

The speaker tries to convince his mistress to have sex with him now rather than wait. He acknowledges that traditionally women had to obey men, and lists what he finds beautiful about her physically. While he would love her for eternity in a perfect world, time is running out as shown by references to biblical events. He worries that if they don't act now, when he dies she will just be dust and worms will consume her. Mocking traditional notions of honor, he uses imagery of flying and tearing through gates to persuade her that they should enjoy each other fully before time runs out.

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To His Coy Mistress Activity (AutoRecovered)

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Blackpink Is The Revolution
15 views2 pages
The speaker tries to convince his mistress to have sex with him now rather than wait. He acknowledges that traditionally women had to obey men, and lists what he finds beautiful about her physically. While he would love her for eternity in a perfect world, time is running out as shown by references to biblical events. He worries that if they don't act now, when he dies she will just be dust and worms will consume her. Mocking traditional notions of honor, he uses imagery of flying and tearing through gates to persuade her that they should enjoy each other fully before time runs out.

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To His Coy Mistress activity (AutoRecovered)

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The speaker tries to convince his mistress to have sex with him now rather than wait. He acknowledges that traditionally women had to obey men, and lists what he finds beautiful about her physically. While he would love her for eternity in a perfect world, time is running out as shown by references to biblical events. He worries that if they don't act now, when he dies she will just be dust and worms will consume her. Mocking traditional notions of honor, he uses imagery of flying and tearing through gates to persuade her that they should enjoy each other fully before time runs out.

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15 views2 pages

To His Coy Mistress Activity (AutoRecovered)

Uploaded by

Blackpink Is The Revolution
The speaker tries to convince his mistress to have sex with him now rather than wait. He acknowledges that traditionally women had to obey men, and lists what he finds beautiful about her physically. While he would love her for eternity in a perfect world, time is running out as shown by references to biblical events. He worries that if they don't act now, when he dies she will just be dust and worms will consume her. Mocking traditional notions of honor, he uses imagery of flying and tearing through gates to persuade her that they should enjoy each other fully before time runs out.

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To His Coy Mistress – questions to prompt deeper thinking.

TO HIS COY MISTRESS


BY ANDREW MARVELL

Had we but world enough and time,


This coyness, lady, were no crime.
We would sit down, and think which way
To walk, and pass our long love’s day.
Thou by the Indian Ganges’ side
Shouldst rubies find; I by the tide
Of Humber would complain. I would
Love you ten years before the flood,
And you should, if you please, refuse
Till the conversion of the Jews.
My vegetable love should grow
Vaster than empires and more slow;
An hundred years should go to praise
Thine eyes, and on thy forehead gaze;
Two hundred to adore each breast,
But thirty thousand to the rest;
An age at least to every part,
And the last age should show your heart.
For, lady, you deserve this state,
Nor would I love at lower rate.
  
     But at my back I always hear
Time’s wingèd chariot hurrying near;
And yonder all before us lie
Deserts of vast eternity.
Thy beauty shall no more be found;
Nor, in thy marble vault, shall sound
My echoing song; then worms shall try
That long-preserved virginity,
And your quaint honour turn to dust,
And into ashes all my lust;
The grave’s a fine and private place,
But none, I think, do there embrace.
    
   Now therefore, while the youthful hue
Sits on thy skin like morning dew,
And while thy willing soul transpires
At every pore with instant fires,
Now let us sport us while we may,
And now, like amorous birds of prey,
Rather at once our time devour
Than languish in his slow-chapped power.
Let us roll all our strength and all
Our sweetness up into one ball,
And tear our pleasures with rough strife
Through the iron gates of life:
Thus, though we cannot make our sun
Stand still, yet we will make him run.

1. What traditional gender expectations governed the courtship process in that era?
- That the women must obey the men (by class, if the men were a higher class the
women)

2. What does the speaker most admire about his mistress? Quote
- Her Body, her appearance (to have … with her)
- “Two hundred to adore each breast”

3. What biblical events do ‘the flood’ and the conversion of the Jews’ refer to? What is the
speaker implying he would be prepared to do for his mistress, in a perfect world?
- I’d Love you for eternity if there was a perfect world, but time is running out

4. Explain the following images:; ‘vegetable love’ ‘winged chariot’; ‘deserts of vast eternity’;
‘marble vault’; ‘worms’
- The love grows
- Time flies time is running out
- Give in because she won’t get … when he dies
- Tomb
- My … or worms

5. What irks the speaker about the conventional expectations of courting? Quote in support
- Takes time, but there’s no time left
- “And your quaint honour turn to dust”

6. What tone do you hear in ‘quaint honour’? What does he mean by it?
- Mockery

7. Find a simile, quote it and explain what it contributes to the meaning.


- And now, like amorous birds of prey,
- Together we can be powerful until death like the birds of prey

8. Sum up the shifts in tactics used by the speaker to achieve his goal. What do you think of
them?
1. In the first part the speaker admiring the mistress, world love her forever
2. But time doesn’t allowed that, I must have you now or time will be up
3.

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