Elegy XIX To His Mistress Going to Bed

'Elegy: To His Mistress Going to Bed': John Donne

John Donne was born in London in 1572. His family were Roman Catholic during a time when the King outlawed the religion. His great uncle, Thomas More, was hanged in 1574 for being a Catholic priest. Donne's father, John, died when he was four but left the family with enough funds to have John well-educated in the classics.

His mother, Elizabeth Heywood, remarried a wealthy physician, John Syminge, within a few months of his father’s death. Syminge’s business interests allowed Donne to attend Oxford. Despite studying for the usual three years, he was unable to earn a degree as he was Catholic at the time. Although members of his close family were imprisoned, exiled and hanged for their beliefs, Donne initially became secular and then converted to Anglicanism.

After blowing much of his inheritance on travelling Continental Europe and womanising, Donne began working for a society of barristers in London. A quick learner, he was soon appointed secretary to Lord Thomas Egerton, the lord keeper of England. His political career was ended by his secret marriage to Anne More, the 17-year-old daughter of Egerton’s brother-in-law. He was dismissed from his job and temporarily thrown into jail.

Donne did not hold down another regular job until King James I forcefully ordained him about 12 years later. During this era of poverty, he continued to write poetry that his friends shared and copied among themselves.

Donne took his holy orders in 1615. His wife, Anne, died in childbirth in 1617. He was grief-stricken and never remarried. His focus became his religious career. By 1621, he had been elected Dean of St Paul’s. Donne then became the most renowned cleric of his age.

Having been an appreciated but ribald poet, Donne then became famous for his religious oratory and prose. He died of stomach cancer in 1631, leaving behind a legacy of over 160 sermons and a wide range of paradoxical poems, from the sacrilegious to the romantic.

'To His Mistress Going to Bed': summary

John Donne's 'To His Mistress Going to Bed' is considered a classic of the Western canon. Let's take a look at a quick overview.

'To His Mistress Going to Bed': meaning

'To His Mistress Going to Bed' is a pretty detailed verbal striptease delivered in the form of a metaphysical poem. The speaker addresses a new lover whom he wants to undress for him if she would like to. A useful way to summarise the meaning of this poem is by paraphrasing it in more concise and modern English.

The speaker compares himself to a woman in labour who needs release from labour by 'labouring', and invites his new lover to help him with this. He also likens his frustrating situation to a soldier growing tired of waiting for a battle with a foe.

Having set the scene, he suggests how she might remove her girdle, 'breastplate' and unlace herself. He makes a favourable comparison between the fairness of her body, and the earth, and goes on to suggest that she also remove her busk and dress.

The speaker continues his list of items that he would like her to take off, including a diadem, a coronet, and finally, her shoes. His mistress is then compared to an angel of Mohammed’s paradise and a good rather than an evil angel in white. This distinction is apparently easily determined by his physical reaction to her.

He asks for her permission for his hands to explore her as if she were a new continent. Two paradoxes are introduced with the ideas that their bond sets him free and that his freely roaming hands would create a seal between them.

The benefits of nakedness are enthusiastically highlighted. He tweaks the legend of the goddess Atalanta’s golden apples to infer that women use external decoration as red herrings for foolish men. He suggests that women are mystic books hiding behind their decorative covers.

He asks that she be as at ease with him as she would be with a midwife if she were in labour. The last persuasion is a question that addresses equality. Getting naked first, he cheekily suggests that if he doesn’t need clothes, why does she?

'To His Mistress Going to Bed': themes

Several layers of themes are in this poem. We can take a look at a key theme that is also a conceit.

Theme: the battle of the sexes

Donne never addresses this directly, but his use of battle and foe metaphors and references to his mistress’ 'breastplate', which is traditionally a type of armour, all allude to this power dynamic. Initially, the speaker fairly directly refers to the battle of foes and likens his state to one of a warrior tired of waiting for the fight that he can’t yet engage in. This directly compares sexual tension to that of the tension before the battle.

What is alluded to with this metaphor is the battle of the sexes, where women and men are pitted against each other as foes in the battle for dominance.

Women of the 17th century who wore dresses did not wear armoured 'breastplates' that needed to be 'unlaced'. This would more likely have been a stay, the precursor to the corset. In the era in which Donne lived, women of the class who wore coronets did not have much say in whom they married or slept with. They were usually wed for their family’s political or economic gain. Similarly to women of all classes, they were often married before they were 18 and were likely to die young during one of a long series of births. They had very little agency.

Donne cedes all women and therefore his mistress power by inferring that it is their choice to reveal themselves rather than something that is dictated.

Finally, he, whilst pretty naked, asks why a woman would need clothes when he does not. This is a physical inversion of the abstract power balance of the times. It results in a convincing and humorous argument that also highlights his acute awareness of the power imbalances of his time.

'To His Mistress Going to Bed': literary devices

Conceit is often the main literary device used by Donne. Donne uses several layers of conceits in 'To His Mistress Going to Bed'.

Conceit: his human lover compared to both heavenly and earthly treasures

Donne compares his lover to the sky, an angel of paradise, a mystic book, an Empire, precious stones and a newly discovered continent. This combination of the human body, the earth, the spiritual and the cosmic is characteristic of Neoplatonism, where the human microcosm is viewed as a replica of the universal macrocosm.

Conceit: labour

This is a pretty layered and elaborate conceit. Donne initially likens his sexual tension to the experience of labour, not a very traditionally masculine thing to do. He asks his mistress to help him out with the 'labour' needed to release his 'labour'. He then inverts this conceit and suggests that his mistress is like a woman in labour, and he should be viewed as the midwife.

Wordplay

Donne is witty and his words are frequently multi-layered. Within the labour as an extended metaphor for sexual tension, he links sex to virtue in a few ways. Firstly, he does this by connecting sex to the labour of childbirth, which was a much-valued phenomenon at the time. It was also considered a virtue by the Church.

Secondly, his wordplay links a woman’s labour (childbirth) to a man’s labour (work). Both were considered virtues. He also twice implies that sex would be mutual labour that would ease their individual labours.

Another example of wordplay is second half of the line:

This line can be read in two ways. All his joys are due to her, and she is due all the joy, presumably courtesy of him.