Summary of Andrew Marvell's "The Fair Singer"

The Fair Singer

Andrew Marvell (1621-1678)

To make a final conquest of all me,

Love did compose so sweet an enemy,

In whom both beauties to my death agree,

Joining themselves in fatal harmony;

That while she with her eyes my heart does bind,

She with her voice might captivate my mind.

I could have fled from one but singly fair,

My disentangled soul itself might save,

Breaking the curled trammels of her hair.

But how should I avoid to be her slave,

Whose subtle art invisibly can wreath

My fetters of the very air I breathe?

It had been easy fighting in some plain,

Where victory might hang in equal choice,

But all resistance against her is vain,

Who has th’advantage both of eyes and voice,

And all my forces needs must be undone,

She having gained both the wind and sun.

                                                                Summary

Andrew describes a lover who is fatally and passionately attacked by a beautiful lady in a rhetorical manner. The speaker has created an imaginary battlefield where he is with his beloved. The lady’s magical eyes and voice are her weapon by which the poet is somehow hypnotized. Her eyes have cast a spell on the poet’s heart and is enslaved by her sweet singing. Here the scenario which the speaker wants to show us, is like that the speaker is the victim and his beloved lady as the enemy. He is so promised to his beloved that he can’t be released from the relationship. To love this lady is like he is in a situation of ‘final conquest’. Here the common theme is ‘love’ which is shown as ‘conquest’- where falling in love with the lady is a kind of defeat for the poet. According to the poet, he can be able to resist the lady with only one attraction, but not the two. The duality of body and soul is presented in a different manner where he praises the lady with mouthful words. She is so powerful to hypnotize the speaker because she appeals to both his physical side through her beauty, and his spiritual side through her singing. With the opening scenario of a battlefield has made the scene or situation paradoxical where the beloved is indicated as his enemy. The motto of this paradox is confirmed where he says, ‘so sweet an enemy’. He is in a thrall like situation which is more apparent by the words- ‘death’, ‘bind’, ‘captivate’ in the opening stanza. In the middle of the poem the speaker repeats the singer’s two magical powers which have cast a spell on him. His soul is entangled who can’t ignore the curly trammels of her hair. Her hair and the fettered air have enclosed the speaker like spider web from which he can’t escape. In the ending part he complains that the fight is not fair where the resistance is vain. Her two magical weapons are like sun and wind which can’t be ignored. According to him, physical battle is easier than battling both her beauty and voice.