Download pdf - Marvell's Eyes and Tears

Transcript

This article was downloaded by: [Monash University Library]On: 05 October 2014, At: 01:01Publisher: RoutledgeInforma Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954Registered office: Mortimer House, 37-41 Mortimer Street, London W1T 3JH,UK

The ExplicatorPublication details, including instructions forauthors and subscription information:http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/vexp20

Marvell's Eyes and TearsEdgar F. Daniels aa Bowling Green State University , USAPublished online: 09 Jul 2010.

To cite this article: Edgar F. Daniels (1977) Marvell's Eyes and Tears, The Explicator,35:3, 8-8, DOI: 10.1080/00144940.1977.9939252

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00144940.1977.9939252

PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE

Taylor & Francis makes every effort to ensure the accuracy of all theinformation (the “Content”) contained in the publications on our platform.However, Taylor & Francis, our agents, and our licensors make norepresentations or warranties whatsoever as to the accuracy, completeness,or suitability for any purpose of the Content. Any opinions and viewsexpressed in this publication are the opinions and views of the authors, andare not the views of or endorsed by Taylor & Francis. The accuracy of theContent should not be relied upon and should be independently verified withprimary sources of information. Taylor and Francis shall not be liable for anylosses, actions, claims, proceedings, demands, costs, expenses, damages,and other liabilities whatsoever or howsoever caused arising directly orindirectly in connection with, in relation to or arising out of the use of theContent.

This article may be used for research, teaching, and private study purposes.Any substantial or systematic reproduction, redistribution, reselling, loan,

sub-licensing, systematic supply, or distribution in any form to anyone isexpressly forbidden. Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found athttp://www.tandfonline.com/page/terms-and-conditions

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Mon

ash

Uni

vers

ity L

ibra

ry]

at 0

1:01

05

Oct

ober

201

4

tall objects as the cloud (stanzas 4 and 5 ) , building up in the west, begins to obscure the sun; apparently a cumulonimbus cloud, it builds vertically (“rises upward always higher”), its sides expanding and contracting (“laboring”), its top flattening to the typical anvil shape of cumulonimbus storm clouds so that it seems to topple “round the dreary west” like a “looming bastion fringed with fire”as the obscured sun sheds its light only on the outlines of the cloud. At any rate, we can understand the poem and appreciate its effectiveness without tenuous suppositions about the state of the dead or about a heavenly city.

-RAYMOND G. MALBONE, State University of New York, Cortland

EYES AND TEARS

Now like two Clouds dissolving, drop, And at each Tear in distance stop: Now like two Fountains trickle down: Now like two floods o’return and drown.

-ANDREW MARVELL

Marvell’s EYES AND TEARS

Line 50 of Marvell’s Eyes and Tears is puzzling. In the preceding line the eyes have been called upon to “drop” like clouds and (in line 50) to stop “in distance” at each tear. OED (Distance, 9) identifies in distance as an obsolete idiom meaning “at- a distance.” Therefore we are to imagine the eyeclouds stopping at a distance at each tear. But what does that mean?

commanded, as indicated by the use of now at the beginning of each command. Actions two (trickle) and three (0 ’return and drown) establish the pattern of ever- increasing flow, from a trickle to a flood. Therefore we may look to the first command (in lines 49-50) to call for something less than a trickle, and this is conveyed by drop, in the meaning of “drip” (OED, 2). The tears are first to drip, then to trickle, then to flow profusely.

The meaning imposed by the context on line 50 has to be to the effect that the eyes are to stop between tears. But why “at a distance”? If the interval of space expressed by in distance might be read as an interval in time (as indeed it once was in musical terminology-OED, 4d), then line 50 would clearly be calling upon the eye- clouds to pause for a time after each tear.

Let us turn to the context. In the stanza, three successive and varying actions are

Can other readers fortify this reading-or find a better one?

-EDGAR F. DANIELS, Bowling Green State University

8

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Mon

ash

Uni

vers

ity L

ibra

ry]

at 0

1:01

05

Oct

ober

201

4


Recommended