I am having trouble understanding Elizabeth Browning's If thou must love me. If anyone could help me out, I would gladly appreciate it so much.

Knowing that perky breasts soon will sag, beautiful faces wrinkle, and lovely limbs lose their tan and tone, she wants to be loved for something else, something that will stand the tests of time. Any idea what that might be?



If thou must love me, let it be for nought
Except for love's sake only. Do not say
"I love her for her smile--her look--her way
Of speaking gently,--for a trick of thought
That falls in well with mine, and certes brought
A sense of pleasant ease on such a day"--
For these things in themselves, Beloved, may
Be changed, or change for thee,--and love, so wrought,
May be unwrought so. Neither love me for
Thine own dear pity's wiping my cheeks dry,--
A creature might forget to weep, who bore
Thy comfort long, and lose thy love thereby!
But love me for love's sake, that evermore
Thou mayst love on, through love's eternity.

its not what's on the outside

its not what's on the inside

there is little that stands the test of time....maybe nothing does

only love without reason or excuse

Interesting to compare this one by John Wilbye (1574-1638)

Love not me for comely grace,
For my pleasing eye or face,

Nor for any outward part:
No, nor for a constant heart!
For these may fail or turn to ill:
Should thou and I sever.

Keep, therefore, a true woman's eye,
And love me still, but know not why!
So hast thou the same reason still
To dote upon me ever.

It could almost be mistaken as a male chauvinist parody of the EBB sonnet, but was written long before!



Post Edited (09-24-04 10:29)

Aristotle says we must take a thing by its 'virtu', its inherent qualities, the qualities that make it itself. All intention, he maintains, must be toward the nature inherent in a thing, in this case the loved one herself. Take away our attraction to what we now hold dear, the extrinsic uses and accidental circumstances, and what occurs as their cause should be the center of the lover's affections. This is the opposite of the fruits/consequences, ends justifies the means, argument in ethical theory.

To "know not why" one does something is to act on this pure, "intuitive" relation to the thing itself.

for-ward,

Peter

Nice catch on John Wilbey, Ian. It would be deliciously wicked to discover that more of the Portuguese sonnets had been purloined from this gent. Very strange meter and rhyme scheme here, no? It was apparently intended to be sung, which may account for it.