argument is that “kirtle” (l. 11) could refer to either a
woman’s gown or a man’s tunic. However, Marlowe
uses the fi rst sense in HERO AND LEANDER, and the sec-
ond would have been in decline by his time. Moreover,
among them, Sir WALTER RALEIGH’s “The NYMPH’S REPLY
TO THE SHEPHERD” and John Donne’s “Bait” poem, with-
out exception, depict the speaker as male and the one
to whom the invitation is extended as female.
The lyric’s opening line, “Come live with me and be
my love,” places it within a tradition of “invitation”
poems that extends back at least as far as Theocritus
and VIRGIL. The speaker indicates that by living together,
the pair will be able to enjoy all of the pleasures that
country living can provide. The following four STANZAs
describe a series of these rural delights. First, the pair
will sit on the banks of a river where they can watch the
shepherds feeding their fl ocks and hear birds singing
along with the sound of a waterfall. Next, the speaker
offers to provide beds of roses and other fragrant fl ow-
ers, a fl ower-bedecked cap and shepherd’s smock
embroidered with a myrtle pattern, a lambs-wool gown,
warm slippers with gold buckles, and a belt of straw
and ivy with coral clasps and amber studs. The initial
invitation is then repeated: If you fi nd such pleasures
moving, “Come live with me and be my love.” The fi nal
stanza adds one more pleasure, that of being enter-
tained by the singing and dancing of the shepherds on
May mornings, and it again repeats the invitation to
“live with me, and be my love.” The repetition of the
invitation in stanzas 5 and 6 is often seen as a textual
problem, perhaps indicating that the text in England’s
Helicon incorporates alternate endings. However, it has
also been suggested that while stanza 5 makes the invi-
tation contingent on being moved by the pleasure of
actually having or experiencing the things described,
stanza 6 focuses on enjoying the very idea of such
delights (“thy mind may move”). In this interpretation,
what will be shared is a way of looking at life.
Marlowe leaves open the question of his shepherd’s
attitude and intentions. The poem may be read as a
love poem, with the speaker attempting to persuade
someone he hopes to live with to live with him. Or one
may see it as it a seduction poem. Such is the argument
of Raleigh’s “The Nymph’s Reply to the Shepherd” (fi rst
printed immediately after Marlowe’s poem in England’s
Helicon), whose female speaker points out that “every
shepherd’s tongue” may not speak the truth. The initial
verb come may also be read as a command. Allusions to
the poem in Elizabethan drama plays almost invariably
suggest that the threat of force lies behind the invita-
tion to “come live with me.” The wealthy and powerful
speaker of the invitation will offer wealth and pleasure,
but it is an offer that one cannot refuse. However, this
veiled threat is not found in the early poetry that
alludes to or imitates Marlowe’s poem, and it is not
evident within “The Passionate Shepherd” itself.
During the late 16th century, PASTORAL had become
primarily a way of fi guratively talking about the values
and tensions of courtly society. The language of Mar-
lowe’s poem refl ects this convention. The clothing
described is more ornate and costly than what real
shepherds would wear, and while “madrigals” might
be used merely to mean “songs,” an actual MADRIGAL as
sung at court is far more elaborate than the natural
songs of birds. The speaker’s language thus embodies
the perspective of courtly society. It may also suggest
that the simplicity of rural life and even of nature itself
is improved by art, an idea frequently argued during
the Renaissance.
FURTHER READING
Brown, Georgia E. “Marlowe’s Poems and Classicism.” In
The Cambridge Companion to Christopher Marlowe, edited
by Patrick Cheney, 106–126. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 2004.
Cheney, Patrick, and Brian J. Striar. The Collected Poems of
Christopher Marlowe. New York: Oxford University Press,
2006.
Forsythe, R. S. “ ‘The Passionate Shepherd’ and English
Poetry.” PMLA 40 (1925): 693–742.
Kinney, Arthur F. “Reading Marlowe’s Lyric.” In Approaches
to Teaching Shorter Elizabethan Poetry, edited by Patrick
Cheney and Anne Lake Prescott, 220–225. New York:
MLA, 2000.
Sternfeld, Frederick W., and Mary Joiner Chan. “Come
Live with Me and Be My Love.” Comparative Literature 22
(1970): 173–187.
Bruce E. BrandtPASSUS Most commonly associated with WILLIAM
LANGLAND’s medieval DREAM VISION PIERS PLOWMAN, the
passus is a portion of or a division within a literary310 PASSUS