O MISTRESS mine, where are you roaming?
O stay and hear! your true-love’s coming
That can sing both high and low;
Trip no further, pretty sweeting,
Journeys end in lovers’ meeting— 5
Every wise man’s son doth know.
What is love? ’tis not hereafter;
Present mirth hath present laughter;
What’s to come is still unsure:
In delay there lies no plenty,— 10
Then come kiss me, Sweet-and-twenty,
Youth’s a stuff will not endure.
2006-07-20 02:08:34 · 7 answers · asked by draconic_eirein 2 in Education & Reference ➔ Homework Help
This is a song, to put it simply, where a man is wooing a woman.
He feels that she is not paying attention to him and so is trying to convince her that he is her own true love.
He is telling her not to keep looking around for a love in a different place, because he's right in front of her.
He is telling her not to delay, because we only have the present for certain. We don't know what the future will bring.
So the longer she delays the greater the chance that she will lose the sweetness of her youthful love with him.
In the film of the play, "Twelfth Night: or What You Will", directed by Trevor Nunn (absolutely wonderful director of Shakespeare--his Macbeth is the best I've seen) he has Feste the clown use it subtly to bring out the feelings between Maria and Sir Toby and to kind of encourage them to quit playing around with their feelings and do something about it. When Maria joins in with Feste there's a kind of unsaid sense that she feels her youth slipping by without love and that she does love Sir Toby.
2006-07-20 02:19:16 · answer #1 · answered by Anonymous · 1⤊ 0⤋
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RE:
O Mistress Mine by William Shakespeare... Can anyone explain this to me please?
O MISTRESS mine, where are you roaming?
O stay and hear! your true-love’s coming
That can sing both high and low;
Trip no further, pretty sweeting,
Journeys end in lovers’ meeting— 5
Every wise man’s son doth know.
What is love? ’tis not hereafter;
Present...
2015-08-14 13:42:37 · answer #2 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
O Mistress Mine
2016-10-06 04:47:07 · answer #3 · answered by ? 4 · 0⤊ 0⤋
"O mistress mine" and concerns men wooing their true loves. The second verse praises the experience of love: love is an act, to be acted upon; "tis not hereafter." The future, according to the song, is unsure, therefore, lovers should kiss for "youth's a stuff [which] will not endure."
2006-07-20 02:16:48 · answer #4 · answered by nkate14 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋
In the first stanza the speaker begins calling his lover to come near. He is wooing her with his voice, "that can sing both high and low". When she finally comes near he says, "trip no further" meaning "now that you're here stop searching for love!"
"Journeys end in lovers' meeting" is self explanitory.
In the second stanza he's encouraging her to stop putting off her love and her youthful urges because love, "'tis not hereafter." When he says "Present mirth hath present laughter" he's reminding her that the time to enjoy love and life is now, not later for "what's to come is still unsure/ In delay there lies no plenty." He says that she should love him now for who know's what the future will hold, because "Youth's a stuff will not endure" (you're only young once!)
2006-07-20 10:45:49 · answer #5 · answered by dboat 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋
is it actually written by Shakespeare
2016-12-11 21:00:12 · answer #6 · answered by Yasser 1 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Do your own project. It is considered cheating asking someone else for the answer.
2016-03-16 00:04:05 · answer #7 · answered by ? 4 · 0⤊ 0⤋