tetrameter. In most lines, however, the final
unstressed syllable is omitted. Lines 5 and 6 in
stanzas 1 and 3, and line 6 in stanza 2, contain the
full four feet.
The exception to the tetrameter is in lines 8
and 9 of each stanza, which have only one foot.
These lines are trochaic monometer. These short
lines help to create the mocking tone of the
speaker as he confidently asserts the faithlessness
of all women.
The fact that the poem is in trochaic feet is a
useful reminder of how it should be read. For
example, in the first line of stanza 3, the first
foot, ‘‘If thou,’’ the emphasis is on the first syllable,
which reinforces the cynicism of the speaker, since
it suggests the unlikelihood of finding a woman
with the desired qualities. The same applies to
line 5 of stanza 3, which is trochaic throughout:
‘‘THOUGH she WERE true WHEN you MET
her’’ (emphasis capitalized).
The rhyme scheme of the poem may be
described asababccddd. This means that in
each stanza, line 1 rhymes with line 3; line 2 rhymes
with line 4; line 5 rhymes with line 6; and line 7
rhymes with lines 8 and 9. To the modern ear,
‘‘root’’ and ‘‘foot’’ (stanza 1, lines 2 and 4) may
sound like an imperfect rhyme, but sometimes over
the centuries the pronunciation of words changes.
In Donne’s time, the early seventeenth century, it
may well be that these two words rhymed
perfectly.
Quest and Journey Motifs
In this poem about the futile search for a woman
who has the qualities the male speaker desires, the
poet employs the motifs of quest and journey but he
uses them in ironic or mock fashion. These are
impossible quests and impossible journeys. The
quest is presented in terms of exploration, as if the
speaker is challenging his reader to go out and
discover new things in the world, such as the singing
of mermaids, or go on a quest to perform seemingly
magical feats employing natural phenomena that
have previously not been possible (and are not
likely ever to be possible). The journey motif
appears in stanza 2 with the image of the traveler
riding his horse and exploring, presumably, the
distant corners of the world. But the journey is
not in pursuit or discovery of some mythic beast
or kingdom but something much more mundane
but also (according to the cynical speaker) elusive:
the constancy, beauty, and purity of woman.
The quest or journey may metaphorically be an
outward one, but what the speaker and his invited
traveler are really in quest of is an inner, moral
quality that cannot be seen with the eye.Historical Context
Elizabethan Age
Although Donne is usually classified as a poet of the
early seventeenth century, and most of his poems
were not published until1633, he probably wrote
most of his love poems in the 1590s, the heyday
of Shakespeare and the Elizabethan Age. In fact,
Donne was born only eight years after William
Shakespeare, so it was the Elizabethan period that
shaped his early life and thought. Queen Elizabeth I
reigned in England from 1558 to 1603. She inherited
a relatively weak kingdom threatened by powerful
enemies in Europe, as well as trouble in Scotland
and Ireland, but she was one of England’s ablest
rulers, and she left the country strong and united.
The Elizabethan Age was a time of great develop-
ment and expansion for England. The nation
became a major European power and laid the
basis for its future maritime empire. Adventurous
English sailors explored Asia and North America,
and Sir Francis Drake circumnavigated the globe
from 1577 to 1580.
The leading power in Europe at the time
was Spain, which was a Roman Catholic coun-
try. Spain tried to invade England to overthrow
Elizabeth I, who had reestablished Protestan-
tism as the religion of the realm. But the Span-
ish Armada sent out by Spain’s Philip II in 1588
failed because of a storm, and never again was
Elizabeth’s kingdom so threatened. As a result,
in the 1590s, England enjoyed increasing stabil-
ity and prosperity.
In literature and music, the Elizabethan Age is
often considered the Golden Age of England.
Drama in particular flourished, not only the plays
of Shakespeare but alsothe work of Christopher
Marlowe, Thomas Kyd, Thomas Dekker, and the
early work of John Webster, Thomas Heywood,
and Thomas Middleton. The plays were performed
at large theaters in London. London was by far the
biggest city in England, with a population in 1605
of nearly 225,000. It is known that John Donne
frequently attended the theater in the 1590s, and he
must have seen works by many of these dramatists,
probably including many plays that are now lost.
Elizabethan poetry flourished in the work of
Sir Philip Sidney; Edmund Spenser; Sir ThomasSong