One of the four full-length
Shakespeare love poems, this poem is written in seven-line stanzas and is
written in rhyme royal, just like another Shakespeare love poem, the Rape of
Lucrece. The rhyme royal rhyming scheme is (aba-bb-cc). This full length poem
is 394 lines long, and has 2579 words. so if you haven't read it yet and don't
have the time to do so, have a look at my summary below.
The poem tells the story of a young
maid who laments over her seduction by a persuasive, womanising young man. He eventually
dumps her and breaks her heart. The story begins with her weeping and wailing
by the river, and an old shepherd hears her and takes pity, and goes over to
console her. He finds her throwing love tokens into the river as she weeps, old
love letters (some written in blood) and jewellery, all given to her by the
same man. The shepherd notices that although she looks bedraggled, she is still
young and must have been pretty before she became in such a state.
She tells the story of how she was
an innocent and chaste young woman, not to be easily seduced by red-blooded
men. This young man had a reputation as a notorious womaniser, and the young
maid was wary to begin with. Eventually his charms and popularity seduced her.
Shakespeare goes on to describe the young man's many qualities, he was very
handsome, and had wit and charm and a twinkle in his eye. He had a
"subduing tongue" and could "make the weeper laugh, the laugher
weep" He gave her gifts and love tokens from his previous lovers to show
how much her loved fer, and she accepted them and almost believed her loved
her. Perhaps he did, it is not made clear in the poem, but soon the young maid
started to fall in love with the young man, even though she knew of his nature
as a womaniser and a cheater.
Eventually the young man started
becoming untrue and deep down she knew it, but she was so in love that it
blinded her and she ignored it. The young man eventually left her to pursue
other woman, and now the young woman is sad and alone.
Shakespeare explores two different
themes of the nature of love here, both are very dangerous. In this Shakespeare
love poem, there is firstly the power of love to blind all to sense. The young
maid was at the time a chaste and good young lady, and she knew that the young man
was a fickle seducer, but yet at the time she was blinded by love and it robbed
her of all reason.
Another theme is the cruelty of
love, how this young woman was cheated and dumped unkindly by this man.
Sometimes people have very little concern for other peoples feelings. This
could also be interpreted as a theme on how fickle men's hearts are. In this
poem, we are unsure whether the man really over loved the young maid or whether
he was just using her, but some lines portray him in a bad light. I particularly
like this very clever description near the end of the poem "...though our
drops this difference bore, His poison'd me, and mine did him restore."
This is my favourite line in the poem, and it describes how the seducing young
man's false tears tricked the young maid into falling in love with him, but her
real tears gave the young man strength and boosted his ego. The use of the word
poison almost gives an evil edge to the young man's motives I like this poem's
description of each character's flaws and qualities.The young maid's
description invokes pity in the reader "Her hair, nor loose nor tied in
formal plat... Hanging her pale and pined cheek beside", this description
makes her seem very plain in appearance, almost as if she could be pretty, but
has no strength or energy to care about her appearance. We could all learn from
Shakespeare's romantic writings here.
This in my opinion is one of the
best Shakespeare Love Poems to learn poetry from because of its simple themes
of the dangers of love. Many of you may be able to relate to the story of the
young maid in this poem, but if you're looking for clever description, this is
one of the best poems to look at.
Cluivee Lee is interested in
Shakespeare love poems, especially learning about them, discussing them, and
reading them.
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