In John Donne’s poem “A Valediction Forbidding Mourning,” a man is saying goodbye to his significant other as he prepares to leave. He is attempting to soften the blow of their separation by using metaphysical conceits, comparing their love to the most unlikely examples. Some of the examples used consisted of a noble man’s death, the planets, and a drawing compass. Although this poem is stated to be one of the “great poems of mutual love” (Beliles), it seems really to be an excuse for the narrator to abandon his supposed love. Not only does he leave her, but also, he wants her to wait attentively for his arrival back, like a household pet awaiting her master. To this day, love is about compromise and sacrifice, and if the narrator really does love this woman, he wouldn’t leave her to begin with.
Of course, there comes a time in some relationships when a couple will have to endure a separation from each other. An example of this could be a husband or wife leaving for the army. This is very common today due to the war in Iraq. In this situation, the partner has no choice but to leave his or her love. In cases like these the only thing that the couple could do is stay strong and wait patiently for their love to arrive home. However, there are times when a partner actually has a choice not to leave his or her significant love. In the poem, the narrator also faced the dilemma of going or staying with his wife, but in the end the narrator made the choice to leave his wife.
We know that the narrator had a choice in leaving his wife from the very beginning of the poem. In stanza 1, it states, “As virtuous men pass mildly away, / And whisper to their souls to go, /Whilst some of their sad friends do say / The breath goes now, and some say, No:” (Donne l. 1-4) the narrator is speaking about the noble men who die, and their friends’ reaction to their death. Noble men accept their death and do not try to escape it. Some of their friends say his time has come to die while the others say it is not. So what this stanza means for their love is that his significant other must accept his leaving just like one must accept death. Death is something that has to happen. People can not decide on whether or not they want to die and just live forever. It is inescapable. For him to compare his departure to something as unavoidable as death proves how much he really wants to leave her.
Another reason the narrator attempts to convince his love that his leaving is for the best, is that the separation will strengthen their relationship. He mentions this theory in stanza 6 when he writes “Though I must go, endure not yet /A breach, but an expansion, /Like gold to aery thinness beat.”(Donne l. 22-24); he is claiming that their souls will be together no matter what, and no matter how far they may divide. In a way, he is testing their love with the belief that it is strong enough to survive this temporary separation. Although they will be farther apart from each other he believes that it will make them closer just from knowing that the other is remaining faithful. The narrator also compares their love to something that one would not usually relate to love in this stanza. He uses the example of gold being beaten thin so that it expands, just as their love expands, instead of breaking.
A breakup however, could be the result in this separation. When I first read the poem, I thought the narrator was attempting to break off a relationship with someone and was endeavoring to persuade them to take it gently, giving them false pretensions that they will one day get back together. I know this after reading stanza 8 when the poem reads, “And though it in the centre sit, / Yet when the other far doth roam, / It leans and hearkens after it, / And grows erect, as that comes home.” (Donne l. 29-32) What this stanza is saying exactly is that she must remain at home patiently while he “roams” around and she must be excited once he comes home. I feel that this is an excuse to justify this possibly disastrous separation just as the last metaphor in the poem, which is a drawing compass.
The compass making a circle is a very important symbol in this poem. It is located in the seventh stanza which states “If they be two, they are two so/ as stiff twin compasses are two; / Thy soul, the fixed foot, makes no show / To move, but doth, if th’ other do.” (Donne l. 25-28) The fixed foot of the compass stays in the center while the moving foot journeys in a circle around the fixed one. No matter how far the moving foot may go, the axis keeps them connected. The “axis” in this metaphor symbolizes their love keeping them together. The narrator could be using this metaphor to show that he felt their love was bigger than anything. But, it could also mean that the narrator is a very good liar. One may not be able to tell if he is authentic about the compass or about the poem in general.
The narrator’s use of the example of a circle to describe their love did not seem genuine. If their love is so divine, why would he leave her? Why would anyone want to leave perfection? Also, if the narrator was so sure that their love was so godlike, then he would not have to persuade his lover to remain faithful while he is away. He tries to accomplish this in stanza 9, “Such wilt thou be to me, who must like th’ other foot, obliquely run; thy firmness makes my circle just, and makes me end where I begun” (Donne l. 33-36). The main purpose of his stanza is to keep his object of affection from cuckolding him. He is instilling a threat by telling her if she wants him to come back home she had better remain faithful. He further asserts that not only does he want her to remain faithful to him, but he also wants her to wait anxiously for his arrival. The narrator disputes in stanza 8, “It leans and hearkens after it, and grows erect, as that comes home” (Donne l. 31-32). If the narrator wants to ensure that his love remains faithful, he should remain at home.
Love is about compromise and sacrifice like I stated earlier. The narrator should have sacrificed his journey for his love. This not only goes for the narrator of this poem, but for all relationships in general. Donne’s valediction is a beautifully written poem, but I just believe that his motives for writing it were not meaningful. I believe that a relationship should and can be compared to a drawing compass. A relationship should also be based on trust as well and if there were trust in this relationship, the narrator would not have to persuade his wife to remain faithful. Maybe the narrator and his love’s relationship was not as perfect and divine as he may have claimed in his poem, but I still feel that this type of virtue is very attainable.
Works Cited
Beliles, David Buck. Theoretically-Informed Criticism of Donne’s Love Poetry: Towards A Pluralist Hermeneutics of Faith. New York: Peter Lang Publishing, Inc., 1999.
Donne, John. “A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning.” Keith’s Favorite Poems. 22 Sept. 2006 < http:// www.eecs.harvard.edu/~keith/poems/valediction.html .
