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The Nymph's Reply to the Shepherd Summary & Analysis
by Walter Raleigh

The Nymph's Reply to the Shepherd Summary & Analysis
by Walter Raleigh

  • Intro
  • Summary
  • Themes
  • Line-by-Line
    Explanations
  • Symbols
  • Poetic
    Devices
  • Vocabulary &
    References
  • Form, Meter, &
    Rhyme Scheme
  • Speaker
  • Setting
  • Context
  • Resources
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The Full Text of “The Nymph's Reply to the Shepherd”

1If all the world and love were young,

2And truth in every Shepherd’s tongue,

3These pretty pleasures might me move,

4To live with thee, and be thy love.

5Time drives the flocks from field to fold,

6When Rivers rage and Rocks grow cold,

7And Philomel becometh dumb,

8The rest complains of cares to come.

9The flowers do fade, and wanton fields,

10To wayward winter reckoning yields,

11A honey tongue, a heart of gall,

12Is fancy’s spring, but sorrow’s fall.

13Thy gowns, thy shoes, thy beds of Roses,

14Thy cap, thy kirtle, and thy posies

15Soon break, soon wither, soon forgotten:

16In folly ripe, in reason rotten.

17Thy belt of straw and Ivy buds,

18The Coral clasps and amber studs,

19All these in me no means can move

20To come to thee and be thy love.

21But could youth last, and love still breed,

22Had joys no date, nor age no need,

23Then these delights my mind might move

24To live with thee, and be thy love.

  • “The Nymph's Reply to the Shepherd” Introduction

    • Written by Walter Raleigh in 1600, "The Nymph's Reply to the Shepherd" is a parody of Christopher Marlowe's "The Passionate Shepherd to His Love." In Marlowe's poem, a shepherd propositions a young woman to be his "Love," offering her a happy, carefree life in the idyllic countryside. To sweeten the deal, he also promises her luxurious gifts (such as gowns of the finest wool, gold-clasped slippers, and so on). In Raleigh's poem, the young woman (now described as a nymph) gives her a reply: an emphatic, resounding no! In her view, the shepherd's vision is totally unrealistic, conveniently glossing over how nothing—not youth, love, nor "pretty" gifts—can escape the destructive forces of time.

  • “The Nymph's Reply to the Shepherd” Summary

    • If the world and love could stay young forever, and if what shepherds promise young women were true, then all the lovely things you're offering might convince me to live with you and be your lover.

      But, in reality, time pushes the sheep from the field into their enclosures, rivers crash violently, and rocks become cold. Philomel, the mythical young woman turned by the gods into a nightingale, stops singing, and that silence foreshadows future difficulties.

      Flowers wither and the bountiful, wild fields grow bare in when winter comes along. Sweet words and keen affection seem appealing, like springtime, but lead to melancholy and decay.

      All the fancy dresses, shoes, roses, garlands, skirts, and bouquets you offered me will soon enough break apart, wither and die, and ultimately be forgotten. When we are foolish and young we think things will be great forever, but we soon learn how things go bad.

      That belt you promised, the one made of straw and ivy, with coral fasteners and precious stones—none of these objects can make me want to join you and be your lover.

      If youth and love could last forever, if happiness had no expiration date and old age didn't have to claim us all, then your sweet promises might convince me to live with you as your lover.

  • “The Nymph's Reply to the Shepherd” Themes

    • Theme Time and Decay

      Time and Decay

      "The Nymph's Reply to the Shepherd" is Walter Ralegh’s response to a poem by his contemporary writer Christopher Marlowe. In Marlowe’s original poem, a shepherd propositions a young woman, promising her a joyful, carefree life in the beautiful countryside if she’ll “come live with [him] and be [his] love.” In Ralegh's witty reply, the woman (depicted as a nymph, a mythological forest spirit) rejects the shepherd, telling him he has failed to recognize that time will eventually destroy all the treasures he offers her—even and especially his love. In essence, then, "The Nymph's Reply" is a reality check that undermines the shepherd's naïve (or perhaps deliberately misleading) idealism, arguing that time ultimately conquers all of life’s pleasures.

      Responding to the shepherd’s original promises, the speaker acknowledges that the world is full of beauty and that youthful love indeed offers "joys." The speaker namechecks all the love-tokens the shepherd promises to her in the earlier poem, "all" the "pleasures" of life: an idyllic natural environment to call home, beds of roses and garlands of flowers, luxurious "gowns" made of soft lamb's wool, pretty jewelry made of precious "Coral" and "amber."

      These “delights,” the speaker concedes, do sound pretty tempting, and they all seem to fit in with a vision of giddy, youthful love. Among all these sensual treats, life could be wonderful—for a while, that is. But the shepherd’s promises, the speaker goes on, are misleading—not necessarily because he’s trying to deceive her (though he might be), but because he doesn’t understand that everything that exists, even love, will eventually fall prey to time.

      The speaker thus picks apart the shepherd's plan with devastating logic. She points out that flowers fade, fields become barren in winter, and that today's "fancy"—that is, the shepherd’s head-over-heels attraction and the naïve, possibly deceptive promises that come with it—soon becomes tomorrow's "sorrow."

      Even the shepherd’s gifts, which aren't subject to the natural rhythms of life and death, are doomed to "rot[]." That is, gowns, shoes, belts—whatever the shepherd offers—all will be wrecked sooner or later. The nymph thus cannot accept the shepherd's proposal: since the carefree days of youth are short-lived, and even love has an expiration date, she wants none of his absurd promises of everlasting bliss.

      The nymph "might" be tempted by the shepherd's offer, she says, but only "if all the world and love" could stay perpetually young—an obvious impossibility. The shepherd’s "honey tongue" thus tells only lies. All things come to an end, argues the poem, and any vision of the future (or of love) that doesn't acknowledge this brute fact is mere fantasy at best—and a cynical deception at worst.

  • Line-by-Line Explanation & Analysis of “The Nymph's Reply to the Shepherd”

    • Lines 1-4

      If all the world and love were young,
      And truth in every Shepherd’s tongue,
      These pretty pleasures might me move,
      To live with thee, and be thy love.

      A bit of context is essential before diving into this poem. "The Nymph's Reply to the Shepherd" is actually a reply to another poem: Christopher Marlowe's "The Passionate Shepherd to His Love." In that poem, a shepherd propositions a young woman (the nymph here), offering a vision of life together if she will choose to "be [his] love." This picture of the future is idealistic, a promise of luxury and happiness in the beautiful countryside. The shepherd also offers the nymph fine jewelry and clothing.

      In this poem, the nymph makes her answer clear: no dice! The poem thus hinges on that all-important first word: "If." The nymph is suggesting that she might consider the shepherd's offer if, and only if, it didn't depend on a lie, if the shepherd's "tongue"—that is, the words he says—contained actual "truth." If that were the case, she says here, then all his lovely promises and gifts might "move" her to be with him.

      The alliteration of these lines adds a playful, teasing rhythm. The crisp /t/ sounds of "truth" and "tongue" and the /p/ sounds of "pretty pleasures," in particular, add sharpness and bite to the nymph's speech, making her sound authoritative and dismissive.

    • Lines 5-8

      Time drives the flocks from field to fold,
      When Rivers rage and Rocks grow cold,
      And 
      Philomel
       becometh dumb,
      The rest complains of cares to come.

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    • Lines 9-10

      The flowers do fade, and wanton fields,
      To wayward winter reckoning yields,

    • Lines 11-12

      A honey tongue, a heart of gall,
      Is fancy’s spring, but sorrow’s fall.

    • Lines 13-16

      Thy gowns, thy shoes, thy beds of Roses,
      Thy cap, thy kirtle, and thy posies
      Soon break, soon wither, soon forgotten:
      In folly ripe, in reason rotten.

    • Lines 17-20

      Thy belt of straw and Ivy buds,
      The Coral clasps and amber studs,
      All these in me no means can move
      To come to thee and be thy love.

    • Lines 21-24

      But could youth last, and love still breed,
      Had joys no date, nor age no need,
      Then these delights my mind might move
      To live with thee, and be thy love.

  • “The Nymph's Reply to the Shepherd” Symbols

    • Symbol Flowers

      Flowers

      The shepherd's initial offer—the one presented in Marlowe's "The Passionate Shepherd to His Lover"—talks about flowers a lot. The shepherd himself knows the typical symbolism that comes with them: beauty, youthfulness, romantic love, and so on.

      But for the world-weary nymph who knows better than the shepherd, the flowers represent something totally different. Flowers, no matter how pretty, fade and die. Each bouquet that promises eternal love is really just a stark reminder that no such promise can ever be fulfilled! She isn't "moved" by the promise of flowers at all, seeing them as just another trick in the shepherd's attempt to seduce her. That's not to say he's being deliberately deceptive—he might not have realized what flowers really stand for: the fleeting nature of love and beauty.

  • “The Nymph's Reply to the Shepherd” Poetic Devices & Figurative Language

    • Alliteration

      Alliteration appears in almost every line of the poem, filling it with music. Much of this alliteration actually echoes the alliteration that appears in Marlowe's poem, "The Passionate Shepherd to His Love," to which this poem responds. In a way, then, alliteration is a key tool with which this poem mocks the original.

      For example, "pretty pleasures" in this poem picks up on the /p/ sound in "pleasures prove" from Marlowe's. That crisp sound also makes the phrase itself seem "pretty" and "pleasant"—perhaps self-consciously so.

      While Marlowe's poem uses alliteration to suggest, beauty, natural abundance, and carefree joy, the nymph flips this on its head. In her poem, alliteration becomes part of her rejection of his offer. Here is the second stanza, for example:

      Time drives the flocks from field to fold,
      When Rivers rage and Rocks grow cold,
      And Philomel becometh dumb,
      The rest complains of cares to come.

      The alliteration here is showy and over-the-top, firmly deriding the shepherd's own poetic attempts. The /f/ sounds make the flocks' march from "field to fold"—which stands in for the onset of winter and, ultimately, death—seem inevitable. The gritty /r/ and sharp /c/ come across as violent and threatening, a far cry away from the idyllic vision of the countryside offered by the shepherd.

      The nymph saves some alliteration for her final rejection at the end of the poem. The four /m/ sounds in "my mind might move" make her "no" emphatic and final, showing that her mind is firmly made up.

    • Allusion

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    • Assonance

    • Caesura

    • Consonance

    • Juxtaposition

    • Metaphor

    • Metonymy

    • Personification

    • Repetition

  • “The Nymph's Reply to the Shepherd” Vocabulary

    Select any word below to get its definition in the context of the poem. The words are listed in the order in which they appear in the poem.

    • Move
    • Thee
    • Thy
    • Drives
    • Flocks
    • Fold
    • Philomel
    • Becometh
    • Dumb
    • Cares
    • Wanton
    • Wayward
    • Reckoning
    • Yields
    • Gall
    • Fancy
    • Cap
    • Kirtle
    • Posies
    • Folly
    • Reason
    • Clasps
    • Studs
    • Means
    Move

    • Persuade, convince.

  • Form, Meter, & Rhyme Scheme of “The Nymph's Reply to the Shepherd”

    • Form

      "The Nymph's Reply to the Shepherd" uses quatrains throughout, each consisting of two rhyming couplets.

      Everything about "The Nymph's Reply to the Shepherd" is designed to respond to—and parody—Christopher Marlowe's "The Passionate Shepherd to His Love." Raleigh's poem lifts multiple sections almost verbatim from the Marlowe. Copying so much of the shepherd's proposal, formally speaking, allows the nymph to construct a devastating rejection. Like a skilled debater, she starts with introductory remarks, then provides evidence as to why the shepherd has got it so wrong, before reiterating what she said at the start.

      "The Nymph's Reply" also relates to the long-running pastoral tradition, although this is mainly a product of parodying the Marlowe. The original is full of idyllic countryside imagery meant to entice the nymph—but here, those same images prove that all things are subject to the forces of time.

      Finally, this is also a dramatic monologue: the original poem wasn't written by a shepherd, and this wasn't composed by a nymph.

    • Meter

      "The Nymph's Reply to the Shepherd" takes its rhythms from Christopher Marlowe's "The Passionate Shepherd to His Love," using iambic tetrameter throughout. That means each line has four iambs, poetic feet with an unstressed-stressed syllable pattern.

      The first two lines provide a clear example of this meter at work:

      If all | the world | and love | were young,
      And truth | in ever- | y Shep- | herd’s tongue,

      For the most part, the poem sticks to this regular sound. The overall steadiness of the meter gives the poem a strong sense of momentum, which makes the nymph's rejection of the shepherd—and her reasoning—more forceful and convincing.

      There are some variations, though, with noticeable effects. Check out line 5:

      Time drives | the flocks | from field | to fold

      The first foot here is a spondee (two stressed syllables in one foot). This makes time seem all the more powerful!

      In the fourth stanza, the nymph argues that all the objects promised to her by the shepherd will sooner or later break, decay, and disintegrate. Fittingly enough, the meter nearly loses its way completely in line 15:

      Soon break, soon wither, soon forgotten:

      The weak syllable at the end emphasizes the transience of all things—not even good old iambic tetrameter can survive the test of time! It's also possible to read the repeated "soon[s]" as stressed, which makes this extra dramatic.

    • Rhyme Scheme

      "The Nymph's Reply to the Shepherd" uses rhyming couplets throughout, just like the poem it parodies, "The Passionate Shepherd to His Love." This provides a scheme of:

      AABB CCDD

      ...and so on. This poem copies Marlowe's in order to mock it and show the flaws in the shepherd's naive vision of the future. In fact, it's not just the rhyme scheme that's reproduced here, but many of the rhyme words themselves. Seven out of the twelve couplets appear in the original poem (though Raleigh turns "Madrigals" into "heart of gall"). It's clever, because the nymph literally uses the shepherd's own words against him, exposing his "honey tongue" for the fraud that it is.

  • “The Nymph's Reply to the Shepherd” Speaker

    • This poem is a dramatic monologue written in the voice of a nymph.

      In mythology, a nymph is a female forest spirit, but it can also mean a young woman. (It was also Elizabethan slang for a prostitute, but that seems unlikely here.) Perhaps if this speaker is an eternal spirit, then she is all the better placed to know first hand the way that time destroys everything sooner or later: she might have seen many shepherds come and go!

      The nymph effectively acts as the shepherd's counterpart. Where he offers carefree, youthful joy, she sees the transient nature of all things: people, objects, love, and so on. She cleverly subverts his offer, calling out for what it is—naive, idealistic, and possibly deceptive.

  • “The Nymph's Reply to the Shepherd” Setting

    • The poem takes its cues from Christopher Marlowe's "The Passionate Shepherd to His Love." Marlowe's poem is in the pastoral tradition, which stretches all the way back to the ancient Greeks. Pastoral poems portray an idyllic version of rural life; Marlowe's shepherd, for instance, promises beautiful countryside scenery, carefree days, and lasting love.

      But this poem subverts the original setting: peaceful rivers "rage," "rocks grow cold," flowers wither, and, ultimately, nothing can last. While Marlowe's poem offers a vision of the world that is based purely on spring/summer, Raleigh's emphasizes winter (e.g., line 10) and time's destructive forces.

  • Literary and Historical Context of “The Nymph's Reply to the Shepherd”

      Literary Context

      Walter Raleigh lived from 1552 till 1618 and was one of the most prominent figures of the Elizabethan age. Around 30 poems or so are attributed to Raleigh, with "The Nymph's Reply to the Shepherd" being by far the best known. Raleigh also wrote a number of works intended to flatter Queen Elizabeth, who was a great admirer of his.

      Raleigh belonged to a group of writers known as the School of Night, who were largely defined by their atheism and general skepticism. That skepticism is on full display in this poem, which takes issue with the idyllic vision of life presented in Christopher Marlowe's "The Passionate Shepherd to His Love." Indeed, this poem can only be fully appreciated in the context of the one that inspired it.

      Marlowe's poem (written the year before this one, in 1599) is in the pastoral tradition, which stretches back to the ancient Greeks. Pastorals present romantic pictures of rural existence, whereas Raleigh's nymph points out that such pictures are only brief, fleeting illusions. The fact that Raleigh was about a decade older than Marlowe no doubt influenced his own poem's more jaded, cynical outlook.

      Raleigh is one of many poets to have written a reply to Marlowe's poem. William Carlos Williams, for example, penned his own poem titled "Raleigh Was Right" almost 350 years after "The Nymph's Reply to the Shepherd" was written.

      Historical Context

      "The Nymph's Reply to the Shepherd" was written during the final years of Queen Elizabeth's reign over England, which lasted from 1558 until her death in 1603. This was an era of colonialist expansion and naval domination. The Elizabethan Age set the British Empire in motion, and Raleigh played a central role. Famous as an explorer and colonist, Raleigh took part in numerous raids, rebellions, and conflicts, including early British expeditions to the Americas.

      Raleigh was a favorite of Queen Elizabeth's and fought in numerous conflicts on her behalf, most notably during the uprising in Ireland. A few years before the composition of this poem, however, Raleigh fell out of favor with the Queen. Upon discovering that he had married one her maids of honor, Elizabeth imprisoned Raleigh in the Tower of London.

  • More “The Nymph's Reply to the Shepherd” Resources

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