The Passionate Shepherd to His Love

IntroductionAuthor
Read the poem
Paraphrase
Pastoral poem
Vocabulary
Diction
Structure analysis
Imagery
Speaker, listener
Tone
Conclusion
Reflection

The Passionate Shepherd to His Love

Christopher Marlowe

The Author

Christopher Marlowe

1.

15641593 (about 29 years old)

He was an English dramatist and poet. Probably the greatest
English dramatist before Shakespeare.
Education: Marlowe was educated at Cambridge and he went
to London in 1587, where he became an actor and dramatist
for the Lord Admiral's Company.
Plays: His most important plays are the two parts of
Tamburlaine the Great (c. 1587), Dr. Faustus (c. 1588), The
Jew of Malta (c. 1589), and Edward II (c. 1592).
Marlowe's dramas: his dreams have heroic themes, usually
centering on a great personality who is destroyed by his own
passion and ambition.
The use of the language: The poetic beauty and dignity of his
language raise them to the level of high art.
Marlowe death: In 1593, Marlowe was stabbed in a barroom
brawl by a drinking companion.

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Paraphrase
Come live with me and be my love. We will
try all the pleasure offered by valleys, roves,
woods and mountains.
I want us to sit upon the rocks with shallow
rivers falling under our feet, seeing those
shepherds far away feeding their sheep,
and hearing birds sing beautifully around us.
And I will use roses to make beds
decorated with a thousand sweet-smelling
posies for you to lie. I will weave a flower
cap, and make you kirtle fringed with myrtle
leaves.

We pull out of the finest wool from our lambs

to make a pretty gown. And a pair of highqualited slippers will be made for you, to keep
you from being cold. On the slippers I will put
buckles, which was made of purest gold.
Also, I will make you a belt of straw and ivy
buds with coral clasps and amber studs. If
these pleasure may touch your heart, come
live with me and be my love.
The young shepherd shall dance and sing in
each May morning to delight you, and if you
may be touched by these delights, then live
with me and be my love.

Pastoral Poem

Definition
a poetic kind that concerns itself with simple life of country folk
and describes that life in stylized, idealized terms.

Characteristics

1)The people in the pastoral poem are usually

shepherds,

although they maybe be fishermen or other rustics who lead

an outdoor life and are involved in tending to basic human
needs in a simplified society.

2) The world of the poem is one of simplicity, music, and

love. The world is always spring, usually May. Nature
seems endlessly green and the future entirely golden.
Difficulty, frustration, disappointment, and obligation
do not belong in this world at all; it is blissfully free of
problems.
3) Shepherds sing instead of tending sheep, and they
make love and play music instead of having to watch
out for wolves in the night.
4) Besides, the language of pastoral is informal and
fairly simple, although always a bit more
sophisticated than that of real shepherds with real
problems and real sheep.

Vocabularypastoral description

Grove (n.)-a small group of trees. Ex: a grove of birch

trees
Madrigal / mdrgl/ (n.) a song for several singers,
usually without musical instruments, popular in the 16th
century
Posy (n.)- a small bunch of flowers
Kirtle (n.)-to decorate fabric with a pattern of stitches
usually using colored thread: Ex: an embroidered blouse
Shepherd (n.) - a person whose job is to take care of
sheep.
Myrtle / m3 tl; AmE m3 rtl/ noun [U, C] a bush with shiny
leaves, pink or white flowers and bluish-black berries

Lined (n.) -(of clothes) having a lining (a layer of material used

to cover the inside surface of sth.: a pair of leather gloves with fur
linings ) inside them. Ex: a lined skirt

Buckle-(n.) a piece of metal or plastic used for joining the ends of

a belt or for fastening a strap on a bag, shoe, etc

Bud (PLANT PART) noun [C]-a small part of a plant, that

develops into a flower or leaf

Coral (n.) [U]- a rock-like substance, formed in the sea by groups

of particular types of small animal, that is often used in jewelry

Clasp (v.) [T] - to hold someone or something firmly in your

hands or arms

Amber (n.)- a hard transparent yellowishbrown substance which was formed in ancient
times from the liquid of trees and is used in
jewellery
Stud (JEWELLERY ) (n.)- [C]
a small piece of metal jewellery that is put
through a part of your body such as your ear
or nose
Swain (n.)- youths

Diction

Roses, flowers, leaves, lambs, straw, ivy, coral (stanza 3~5)

1.) The poet uses these words to describe the pleasant
environment and the happiness of the shepherd.
2.) These words which the poet chooses here are all related
to natural things and this is also the style of pastoral poems.
Besides, there are two words Prove(line 2) and Kirtle(line
11) that the poet chooses instead of Try and Gown in order to
rhyme with Love(line 1) and Myrtle(line 12).

Structure

Main Idea:
The shepherd makes a lot of things to send his love and in order
to show his passionate affection.
The poem is divided into three parts:
.stanza 1~stanza2
The speaker hopes his love to live with him and enjoy the beauty
of the nature.
.stanza 3~stanza 5
The speaker makes many things to please and persuade his love.
.stanza 6
The speaker says that everybody welcome his love if she
comes to live with him.

Rhyme:
The poem has a special term of rhyme. Every two
lines the rhyme is the same.
Repetition:
Come live with me and be my love (shown on stanza
1, 5, and 6, line 1)
The repetition of the sentences strengthens his
passion to his love. In readers part, we can
understand speakers intention much more clearly

Imagery--Functions

visual image:
1.sit upon the rocks...
2.seeing the shepherds feed their flocks by shallow
rivers
3.The shepherd swains shall dance and sing.

audio image:
melodious birds sing madrigals
Smell image:
a thousand fragrant posies

The Speaker & Listener

The speaker: the passionate shepherd

The shepherds personality:

1)sincere:
He makes many things such as beds of roses, fragrant
posies,flower cap,kirtle,gown,slippers(shown at stanza 2 and 3)
to show his sincerity for his love to the lady.
2)rich:
He is not an ordinary shepherd, instead, a rich shepherd. We
can find evidence at the bottom of stanza 4: Fair lined slippers
for the cold, with buckles of the purest gold.

Tone

Sincere
In stanza 3~5, the shepherd gives the one he adores lots of
things which are made by the shepherd, himself such as beds
of roses, fragrant posies, a cap of flowers and a gown,
slippers and a belt, and so on in order to show his sincerity to
his love.

Passionate
The shepherd repeats the sentence Come live with me and
be my love three times (stanza 1, 5, 6) with a view to
expressing his passion and affections to his love.

The
speaker&listener(continued)
The

Listener: whom the shepherd loves .

The ladys personality:

Nature-loving & tired of city life:
The shepherd offered natural scenery such as
valleys, groves, hills, fields, woods, steep mountains
(stanza 1,) rocks, and rivers (stanza 2) to persuade
the lady to come live with him. Our group thinks that
if the lady accept the shepherd, she may be nature
loving or tired of noisy city life. So that she can get
away with those troublesome stuffs and really relax
and enjoy her peaceful life with the shepherd.

Comparison between M & R

1.IntroductionCome
live with me
2.We will see flocks,
hear birds sing
3.Beds of roses, cap of
flowers etc.
4.Gown, slippers
5.Belt, coral clasps,
buckle
6. Conclusion-- Come
live with me

1.NO, only if,.

2.Winter drives the
flocks away, birds dumb
3.Flowers fade
4.Gown, shoes, belt,
cap, kirtle, posies wither
5.They can not move
me
6.If love/joy lasts
forever, yes, but

Conclusion

Through this poem, we can understand more

about the pastoral poem. The characteristics
of pastoral poem are unrealistic and fanciful,
and the main characters mentioned in this
kind of poem are usually shepherds,
sometimes fishermen. Also, the content of
pastoral poem are mostly related to nature
and we can find the evidences of this kind of
style (such as valleys, groves, hills, fields,
wood, and steepy mountain yields in the 1 st
stanza; rocks, flocks, rivers and birds in the
2nd stanza).

However, most parts in the poem are related

to the descriptions of the nature, but
somehow we readers can enjoy the poem by
understanding the deep affection the
shepherd wants to show. Compared with the
poem. To His Coy Mistress, people in 17th
century are much opener and they show their
affection more directly. From this poem, The
Passionate Shepherd to His Love, we can
understand the attitude of people in 16 th
century express their love with a gentle and
sincere tone.

Thanks for your attention!

Thanks for Alice to provide the pictures of myrtle
and clasps.

The Myrtle
Various plants of the
family Myrtaceae; :
a European shrub
having ovate or
lanceolate
evergreen leaves
and solitary axillary
white or rosy flowers
followed by black
berries

Clasps = Tendrils

A portion or the whole

of a leaf, stipule, or
stem that is modified
into a slender spirally
coiling sensitive organ
serving to attach a plant
(as a peavine or
grapevine) to its support
and to assist it in
climbing