John Donne

Love's Usury

FOR every hour that thou wilt spare me now,
{{gap|3em}}I will allow,

Usury's math

Classic loan shark terms—borrow one hour of freedom now, pay back twenty hours of suffering later. Donne's treating Love like a Renaissance moneylender charging 2000% interest.

Usurious god of love, twenty to thee,
When with my brown my gray hairs equal be.
Till then, Love, let my body range, and let
Me travel, sojourn, snatch, plot, have, forget,

The bachelor's checklist

Six rapid-fire verbs of casual sex tourism. 'Relict' means leftover—he wants to recycle last year's fling without emotional attachment.

Resume my last year's relict; think that yet
{{gap|3em}}We'd never met.
Let me think any rival's letter mine,
{{gap|3em}}And at next nine

Midnight promises

He wants to show up at midnight for one woman while pretending another woman's love letter was meant for him. The 'mistake' with the maid is deliberate—sleep with the servant, blame traffic to the lady.

Keep midnight's promise; mistake by the way
The maid, and tell the lady of that delay;
Only let me love none; no, not the sport
From country grass to confitures of court,
Or city's <i>quelque-choses</i>; let not report
{{gap|3em}}My mind transport.
This bargain's good; if when I'm old, I be
{{gap|3em}}Inflamed by thee,
If thine own honour, or my shame and pain,
Thou covet most, at that age thou shalt gain.
Do thy will then; then subject and degree
And fruit of love, Love, I submit to thee.
Spare me till then; I'll bear it, though she be
{{gap|3em}}One that love me.
Source Wikipedia Poetry Foundation

Reading Notes

The Bargain

CONTEXT Donne wrote this in the 1590s as a young law student at Lincoln's Inn, before his secret marriage destroyed his career. The Inns of Court were basically fraternity houses for ambitious young men—lots of drinking, theater-going, and calculated debauchery.

The poem is structured as a legal contract with Cupid. Donne offers a deal: let me sleep around without emotional consequences until my hair goes gray (>"When with my brown my gray hairs equal be"), and then I'll submit to twenty hours of love-torment for every hour of freedom now. The usury metaphor is precise—moneylending at interest was technically illegal for Christians but widely practiced. Donne's casting Love as a loan shark who'll eventually collect with interest.

The key demand is >"Only let me love none"—he wants physical affairs without attachment. Notice he's not asking for celibacy. He wants to >"travel, sojourn, snatch, plot, have, forget" but never feel anything. The sport he's rejecting isn't sex itself but emotional investment, whether with country girls, court ladies, or city women. Even hearing reports about a woman shouldn't >"transport" (carry away) his mind.

The final stanza reveals the trap: when he's old and actually inflamed with love, Cupid wins either way—either Donne's honor is destroyed or he suffers shame and pain. The last line's twist is brilliant: even if a woman loves him back now, he'll bear it—endure it like a burden. Mutual love is the disaster he's trying to avoid.

Donne's Tone Problem

This poem is hard to read now because the speaker is aggressively unpleasant. He wants to juggle multiple women (>"think any rival's letter mine"), lie about why he's late (>"tell the lady of that delay"), and feel nothing. The catalog of verbs—snatch, plot, have, forget—reads like a pickup artist's playbook.

But Donne's likely performing a type: the witty rake, the intellectual libertine. The Inns of Court had a whole genre of cynical love poetry where cleverness mattered more than sincerity. The poem's showing off—look how I can turn promiscuity into a theological-economic argument with subject and degree and fruit of love like I'm parsing contract law.

The self-awareness shows in that final couplet. After 22 lines of demanding consequence-free sex, he admits the worst thing that could happen: someone might actually love him, and he'd have to bear it. The verb choice is perfect—not 'enjoy' or 'return' but bear, like carrying a weight. For all his swagger, he knows he's asking for something inhuman: a body that ranges without a heart that feels.