Christopher Marlowe Poem and Sir Walter Raleigh's Response

Christopher Marlowe wrote a poem called "The Passionate Shepard to His Love", which is considered to be one of the most famous of Elizabethan lyric poems. He is considered second only to Shakespeare. Also, Sir Walter Raleigh wrote a reply to the Shepard's love poem. The Nymph uses symbols such as birds, flowers, and other things in nature to show the Shepard's affection while the nymph uses symbols such as ivy buds or amber studs to display, courteously, her dissatisfaction at his idea of love.

Marlowe tries to sell his love by making direct comparisons between his feelings and things around him in nature such as flowers, animals, and other types of natural objects. The Shepard tries to convince the nymph that he really loves her by expressing all these complex feelings but she can see through his attempt to win her over. The nymph tells him, "In folly ripe, in reason rotten". This basically means that the nymph knows what the Shepard is trying to do and really dislikes how he is going about it. For example, he says so many great things that he tries to overwhelm her with his fancy talk. Raleigh, on the contrary, is somewhat more up front throughout his poem. He says "Time drives the flocks from field to fold when rivers rage and rocks grow cold" (5-6). Raleigh is basically saying when all is finished, there are really no feelings. He is saying that there is nothing between the two of them and there never will be.

The Shepard tries to win his love over by telling her of the wonderful things they could have and how much he wants to be with her. The nymph replies with dissatisfaction towards the Shepard because she thinks he isn't being exactly real with her. The Shepard wants to show her all the beautiful things in nature, but the nymph replies as if she doesn't want to see these things, or at least not with him.