Marvell and Shakespeare

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             Marvell successfully recreates the myth of love as a symbol of eternal affection in the first part of "To His Coy Mistress". The narrator in this stanza proves to be the typical lover showering a woman with romantic remarks of his admiration for her; "My vegetable love should grow Vaster than empires and more slow;" This phrase sets-up a metaphorical imagery of a love growing slowly yet loyally in an adoring which is to last forever. In this metaphorical reality, years seem to pass as minutes and the man allocates hundreds of years to adore his love: "An hundred years should go to praise Thine eyes, and on thy forehead gaze; Two hundred to adore each breast, But thirty thousand to the rest;" This system of time refers to the myth of love being an entity that is never-ending.
             Although Shakespeare's Sonnet "18" does not directly mention love, its context is extremely similar to that of the first stanza in "To His Coy Mistress", as it involves strictly someone's adoration of someone else. The similarity can be seen in the use of a similar metaphorical reality where time has no boundries on the beauty in question. When the beautiful person is compared to a summer's day, they are explained as being highly superior, as "summer's lease hath too short a date". In this same manner, it is said that the "eternal summer" of the person adored shall not fade. "Nor shall Death brag thou wander'st in his shade, When in eternal lines to time thou grow'st:"; this phrase brings in a mention of death into the scene, which is implied to have no control over the beauty which is being adored, thus supporting the myth of an eternal love. .
             In the second stanza of "To His Coy Mistress", there is a transition from the metaphorical world of eternal love and beauty, into a reality of time's boundries. A significant factor of the first stanza was the use of the terms "should" and "would" establishing the fact that the imagery was indeed not reality but what should be or what could be.