(Warning to the Public: this was done by two innocently -starved individuals)
After our 'critical' analysis, we had came to the conclusion that this poem contains a LOT of frustrations. To cite one instance, the first line is a sexual innuendo or an invitation to sate carnal desires.
"Come live with thee and be my love"
If you analyze it deeper, the Shepherd in this poem doesn't want commitment from the Nymph (whom the Poem is addressed to) rather, he only wants to 'live' with her which can mean a lot of things.
live 1 (lv)
v. lived, liv·ing, lives
v.intr.
1. To be alive; exist.
2. To continue to be alive: lived through a bad accident.
3. To support oneself; subsist: living on rice and fish; lives on a small inheritance.
4. To reside; dwell: lives on a farm.
5. To conduct one's life in a particular manner: lived frugally.
6. To pursue a positive, satisfying existence; enjoy life: those who truly live.
7. To remain in human memory: an event that lives on in our minds.
v.tr.
1. To spend or pass (one's life).
2. To go through; experience: lived a nightmare.
3. To practice in one's life: live one's beliefs.
Exploring further, the Shepherd wants to "live with" the nymph which can also mean that he wants to :
live with
To put up with; resign oneself to
Pasted from <http://www.thefreedictionary.com/live>
And to submit to his desires and wishes which would probably be his sexual fantasies. To fortify this , we had cite another string of lines in the said poem that denotes the need of the shepherd to have the nymph on his own bed.
"And we will all the pleasures prove
That valleys, groves, hills, and fields,
Woods, or steepy mountain yields"
In these lines we can see a series of symbolisms all pertaining to the Female Anatomy. We had always stereotyped ideal women as 'voluptous' in form. For us, these 'landscapes' (which are mostly curving in form) are pertaining to the various parts of the woman, particularly the curves or the contours of a woman's body. This idea made us arrive to the conclusion that the shepherd is fantasizing about the nymph's body.
"And we will sit upon rocks,
Seeing the shepherds feed their flocks,
By shallow rivers to whose falls
Melodious birds sing madrigals."
Next are these lines where we can see a very simple sexual image of the Shepherd having the Nymph for breakfast. To prove this, we had saw the connection of the word 'rocks' to hardness or to put bluntly, the Horniness of an individual and also keeping in mind that the persona in the poem is Male and so we have connected the word 'rock' to the words 'hard' and 'erect' which is a common slang used to describe the arousal of the penis.
"By shallow rivers to whose falls"
This line also shows us another sexual image of the Nymph. The shepherd refers these rivers as the Nymph's genital that overflows when aroused. To simplify this line, the shepherd dreams to feed on these "shallow rivers to whose ( the Nymph's) falls ".
"Melodious birds sing madrigals."
In this line, the Shepherd gives us an implication of how he beautiful the sound of the Nymph's moaning and his pained grunts would sound together (he used the word 'birds' which can be used for both the Shepherd and the Nymph) is Just like how the madrigal birds sing so beautifully. Plainly, he was indulged to the idea of he and the Nymph 'playing wonderful music together'.
"And I will make thee beds of roses
And a thousand fragrant poises,
A cap of flowers, and a kirtle
Embroidered all with leaves of myrtle;
A gown made of the finest wool
Which from our pretty lambs we pull;
Fair lined slippers for the cold,
With buckles of the purest gold;
A belt of straw and ivy buds,
With coral clasps and amber studs;"
In these stanzas, the shepherd is creating a genuine advertisement that he hopes would woo the Nymph to be 'his love'. Also, these lines tell us of the superficial things he might offer to the Nymph just to have her in his bed BUT this is an outright statement telling us that the Shepherd only wants the Nymph for her body not for love.(We just realized that this statement is slowly inclining to the Feminist Approach :) )
"And if these pleasures may thee move,
Come live with me, and be my love."
This lines mentioned above had fortified our stand that the Shepherd is Flirting with the Nymph.
"The shepherds's swains shall dance and sing
For thy delight each May morning:"
We have been speculating what the word' swain' might mean in this context and we have discovered some interesting details about the word's etymology.
Origin:
before 1150; Middle English swein servant < Old Norse sveinn boy,servant; cognate with Old English swān
We are not certain if the Shepherd is pertaining to himself as the' slave' to the Nymph or the Nymph being his handy-dandy sextoy but one thing is certain, the persona in the play wants a slave not an equal partner for life. For short, we can see the persona's repressed desires of having full dominance to the female he is fantasizing about.
"If these delights thy mind may move,
Then live with me and be my love"
These lines may sound romantic for starters but if we get to think deeper, we can tell that this is an OUTRIGHT invitation for sex. There is a bargaining going on in the last line, the word 'delight' can mean a lot of things but we had interpreted that the use of this word actually goes back to those superficial things he was bragging in the earlier lines.
I don't know about you guys but this is our Freudian interpretation. :)
I bet Sigmund Freud would be so proud right now wherever he is.
Kristine Monique Abao
Nadia Theresa Ciocon
BEEN3
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