Paschal Moon: Fair-lined slippers

I’ve always had a penchant for Christopher Marlowe. In an age teeming with polymaths (Sidney, Jonson, Shakespeare, Spenser...), Marlowe stood out. Poet, playwright, drunkard, spy—he covered the full spectrum. His short life—29 years old when he was fatally stabbed in a barroom brawl—encompassed only six years of literary output, but he made those years count.

Today’s entry for National Poetry Month is Marlowe’s “The Passionate Shepherd to his Love”. It’s a pastoral poem, depicting an idealized countryside, and an idealized love. It’s the sort of thing that Dorothy Parker twisted around a rapier of cynicism.

Contrast the whole rural idyll thing with Sherlock Holmes’s view of country villages, stated most succinctly in “The Adventure of the Copper Beeches”, which was, “They always fill me with a certain horror. It is my belief, Watson, founded upon my experience, that the lowest and vilest alleys in London do not present a more dreadful record of sin than does the smiling and beautiful countryside.”

Well—whether you’re thinking dark deeds or just a roll in the hay, Marlowe’s got you covered.

“The Passionate Shepherd to his Love”

Come live with me and be my love,

And we will all the pleasures prove

That valleys, groves, hills, and fields,

Woods, or steepy mountain yields.

And we will sit upon rocks,

Seeing the shepherds feed their flocks,

By shallow rivers to whose falls

Melodious birds sing madrigals.

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;

And if these pleasures may thee move,

Come live with me, and be my love.

The shepherds's swains shall dance and sing

For thy delight each May morning:

If these delights thy mind may move,

Then live with me and be my love.