Love is a complex thing that causes even more complex situations and feelings, and very rarely are these feelings described properly. “A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning” by John Donne takes a look at love through the eyes of a narrator leaving his mistress, and the internal struggle going on within him. He does not want to leave her, and she certainly does not want him to leave, and so his valediction is telling her to not “mourn” him while he leaves. Donne talks about his love for her and reassures her that he will return through the flowery language he uses. Donne explores love and separation through images of gold, virtuous men, and the metaphysical image of a compass, which reveals that even in the hardest times, love can be strong and endure even the hardest of times.
Gold represents the value of Donne’s love, and how desirable it is for others. Donne takes great care in this analogy to show his love has the same value as gold, and the superiority of his love in comparison to the love of others. Donne reassures his mistress with this analogy, and makes sure she is aware of how great their love is. As the speaker talks about having to leave, Donne writes his lover,
Our two souls therefore, which are one,
Though I must go, endure not yet
A breach, but an expansion,
Like gold to airy thinness beat.
(Donne l. 20-24)
With these words, he compares their love to gold, and also tells her that “they are one.” Donne implies that their love is so great that it is like gold, and also that they are intertwined in a semi-spiritual union. In her critical essay on Donne’s valediction, Jennifer Bussey writes,
“Donne, however, takes the imagery a step further. Describing the malleability of gold, the poet compares gold’s ability to change shape and to extend with the lovers’ ability to bend to circumstance yet keep each other spiritually close by virtue of their deep bond…This analogy is well crafted because it works from every angle: both gold and love can be melted and merged… yet remain strong and essentially unchanged.”
She further expands on the analogy he is crafting by going into how gold can be changed, but yet it still remains the same. She compares this to Donne’s love, and how the narrator is saying that their love will never lose its value. The comparison to gold is first in the line “Like gold to airy thinness beat” (Donne l. 24), where Donne begins to compare his love to gold, and how their love of gold can be beaten to grow. He is saying to his mistress that their love is so valuable and that it is constantly expanding and growing as time passes. Ray G. Wright believes that Donne is implying that their love is superior that to others in his essay where he writes,
“Bringing to bear yet another argument against acting like inferior lovers, Donne next insists that his soul and the soul of his lover through a mystical union have become one. Thus, they do not experience a breach in parting but an expansion “like gold to airy thinness beat.” Actually, this argument is two-pronged, for it posits the superiority of Donne’s love in that he compares it to gold, the costliest metal, and it offers further support that perfect love does not weep at parting, for it cannot admit absence.”
Wright believes that the comparison to gold is Donne flaunting the superiority of his love due to their connection and how when gold is beat, it does not break but expands instead. With his analogy to gold, Donne professes that the love between him and his mistress is so great and superior to other loves, who might be compared to lesser metals.
The superiority of Donne’s love continues in his new comparison to “virtuous men” and their death. Donne remarks how these virtuous men do not fight death, but accept it instead. Beginning his valediction to his mistress, Donne writes,
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)
Donne, being such a romantic, opens up his letter with a metaphor about death with barely any context to reassure his lover. He is focusing on the idea that these virtuous men let their souls go as they die, as opposed to fighting the inevitable, and how they die so silently that not even their friends know if they are dead. Jennifer Bussey elaborates on this point in her essay, with her writing,
“The 1st stanza compares the dying of virtuous men to the speaker’s upcoming separation from his beloved… Donne’s purpose is to explain that the virtuous accept both death and separation calmly and without fear To emphasize the quietude of virtuous men’s deaths, Donne adds that death comes so imperceptibly that friends cannot tell if the last breath has actually gone.”
Bussey reinforces the idea that Donne is trying to communicate about the lovers parting silently, even if they are “dying.” He wants them to move on like a virtuous man on his deathbed so that not even their friends know what has occured. Another point Donne is trying to communicate is that it will be hard for them to part, and that they will “die” from the pain. Neither Donne nor his lover want to leave each other, but just like death, it must be accepted as a truth of the world. Peggy Nightingale elaborated on this analogy with,
“However, the comparison of lovers with a dying man carries, in addition to the suggestion that their parting will be a type of death, the suggestion of the lover’s climax, for which dying is, of course, a common euphemism. The lovers take parting like a dying man takes death, it is hard and the parting of the lovers will be a sort of death for them.”
Nightingale looks at Donne’s words and picks apart all the emotions that he is trying to express, but is not very good at doing so with his complicated metaphors.
Keeping with the theme of overly complex metaphors, the most famous of Donne’s is relating to the metaphysical image of a compass. Using the imagery of the compass, he describes how he is the traveling leg of the compass and his lover is the stationary leg. Donne writes,
As stiff twin compasses are two;
Thy soul, the fixed foot, makes no show
To move, but doth, if the other do.
(Donne l. 26-28)
Donne uses this image to describe how he may leave as the moving leg, but his lover will remain. By remaining strong as the fixed foot, it proves to Donne how strong their love is. Ray G. Wright describes the compass analogy, writing, “The apex of Donne’s argument is developed in the last four stanzas of the poem as he unfolds his famous compass conceit…The lady is the fixed foot of the compass; Donne is the moving foot. The firmer the fixed foot (the truer the lady’s love), the more just the circle of the moving foot.” With this, Wright states that the strength of the mistress’s love comes from her role in Donne’s compass. As the fixed foot, she needs to be firm in order to make the Donne’s circle more accurate and “just.” The firmness of her foot determines how true her love is, and Donne is asking her to prove this to him in his valediction. Continuing on with the metaphor for the compass, Donne further continues with,
Like th’ other foot, obliquely run;
Thy firmness makes my circle just,
And makes me end where I begun.
(Donne l. 34-36)
He continues to play on the idea of each of the lovers being a foot in a compass, but this time elaborating on his part in the metaphor. As Donne travels, he relies on his lover to remain “firm” so that the traveling foot can return to its original position, thus “ending where he begun.” This metaphor is complex and hard to understand, but Jeff Rosenblum managed to explain the last few lines of Donne’s valediction in his critical essay on the poem. He writes, “Even if the lovers retain their individual souls, they are divided only like the two parts of a compass used to describe a circle…When the compass draws a circle, one point remains stationary in the center but leans toward the other…the fixed point guarantees that its partner will complete its circuit. The narrator’s mistress should not mourn because, like the traveling leg of a compass, he may leave but he will always return to her.” Rosenblum elaborates on the idea presented by Donne, describing how one point stands unmoving while the other travels around it. The fixed leg, or the mistress, is necessary for the traveling leg, represented by Donne, to complete the circle. Thus, Donne relies on his mistress and reassures her that he needs her and relies on her as his “fixed foot” so that he can return to her at last.
The love that Donne describes in “A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning” is complex to say the least. Donne struggles with explaining his emotions to his lover, so he turns to metaphors and imagery in an attempt to express his thoughts. He uses gold to assure her of their love’s superiority, and the idea of dying a virtuous death to assure her that she should not mourn his absence, for he will return. To further hammer home his point, Donne compares the two of them to a compass to show how he needs her to complete their circle. Donne’s valediction to his lover is one of reassurance, to forbid her mourning and make sure she knows that he will return to her in the end. He sees his love as something just as valuable as gold, and he shows this by going for an orchestra of language as opposed to a simple band of words. Donne knows that his love is great, and, despite difficulties, he will return to her always and end where he began.
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