The Nymph's Reply to the Shepherd

      "The Nymph's Reply to the Shepherd" by Sir Walter Raleigh is a reply to the proposals suggested in "The Passionate Shepherd to His Love" for his lover. The poem begins with a hypothetical statement; it starts off by the word "if". The audience can assume that the speaker is a female, given by the title. She says that if shepherds spoke nothing but the truth, then she could agree to fall in love with the speaker from the first poem and live with him. There is some alliteration in the first stanza in line 3 with "pretty pleasures" and "might me move". The first stanza states a typical "if... then", scenario; the second stanza introduces the problem with the first stanza. Marlowe's poem consists of a happy, beautiful countryside, but Raleigh's poem shows the ugliness of nature. He says that with time comes winter, and winter's weather is cold, while the "rivers rage." Line 7 contains an allusion to Greek mythology with Philomel, and she is referred to as the nightingale. So, in wintertime, even the birds are too stupid to sing their melodious songs. Raleigh's poem mirrors Marlowe's poems; if a stanza in Marlowe's poem contains heavy alliteration, then Raleigh's poem contains heavy alliteration as well. The second stanza of Raleigh's poem consists of cacophonous noises, indicating a harsh tone, but the view in Marlowe's stanza is one of happiness and content.
     The next stanza portrays all the imperfections of nature, epitomized by the coming of nature. The word "reckoning" used in line 10 embodies the speaker's thoughts on Marlowe's poem.  The speaker is suggesting that because nature has its springtime bounty and beauty, it deserves to be punished with the cruel weather of winter. Raleigh catches Marlowe's bluff with his poetic emptiness and the emptiness of the shepherd's promises, so the nymph is calling out the shepherd for these promises. Spring is associated with the rebirth or the renewal of nature, but the nymph only focuses on how short lived Spring is. In line 12, he uses the words spring and fall as opposites to each other. Fall is the season when the beautiful plants and life in Spring wither and die under the harsh conditions of the weather. The central message of line 11 and 12 is that favoring short term pleasures over long term duties only lead to sorrow, and humanity is so caught up in that short term fantasy that they do not think ahead of time to plan for the future; this inevitably only leads to disaster and heartache. The fourth stanza begins with a list describing clothes of women. In the next two lines, Raleigh disses Marlowe's gowns, caps, roses, etc. because in a matter of time, they will all become spoiled, especially the roses. Time will take its toll, and those objects will not be the same as they once were, so all of the Shepherd's promises are fake promises which he never intends to keep. The first two lines of the fifth stanza are still listing all the things that the shepherd promised, and the last two lines basically tell the shepherd that the nymph cannot live with him or love him because of his false promises. Finally, the last stanza is a big hypothetical statement again, just like the first stanza. She says that despite the fact that his promises are empty and aren't going to last, but if they did and they did not have to worry about the problems of reality, then MAYBE she would move in with him and love him. The poem ends there. a