One Cannot Defy Death
Poetry Explication
It is impossible to ignore the transient quality seen in all aspects of life. One cannot deny that the leaves of autumn will wilt away due to the cold winter breeze, that the torching emotions of a love stuck youth will alter with every breath, and that the dark, threatening night can easily be replaced by a blanket of yellow light. Thomas Nashe’s lyrical poem “Adieu, Farewell Earth’s Bliss” from Summer’s Last Will and Testament warns the reader of the deceptive forms of happiness and reminds one that the world is full of uncertainties and the only certainty in life is the promise of death.
Nashe’s poetic form does not however follow its’ meaning of uncertainty and change. By this I mean that the poem is in an unchanging form, six stanzas with exactly six syllables per line. Each line has six feet and the poem is in iambic trimester, “The six-syllable line glides from a regular iambic pattern into a triple movement-accented, unaccented, accented and back again as if both were its mode of being and neither had precedence over the other”(Cunningham 1). Sung in the Nashe’s play Summers Last Will and Testament, it holds true to a circular meter. The rhyming scheme follows an aabbccdeeffccd… pattern, in which the third and second to last lines in every stanza rhyme and the last two lines “I am sick, I must die. / Lord, have mercy on us!” are repeated in every stanza to emphasize the inexplicable and inescapable reality of death. Death is ever present and one cannot ignore it. Each line in the poem is end-stopped and each stanza seems to be a poem in and of itself. Uncertainty and conversion are missing in the form of a poem which discusses these ideas to “death.”
“Adieu, Farewell Earth’s Bliss” is also commonly titled as “Litany in the Time of Plague.” The poem is actually a repetitive chant or prayer that was recited in the streets of London during the plague outbreak. The word “adieu” is often synonymous with farewell, but adieu is a direct translation from the French phrase “a dieu vous commant,” meaning I commend you God. Shortened to adieu, the phrase means “to God.” The word “bliss” is commonly defined as the state of happiness, but Merriam-Webster defines bliss as the joy of heaven and states that it is often associated with thoughts of afterlife. Taking these definitions into consideration, the title would then address God and dismiss earth’s superficial happiness to embrace the eternal joys of the afterlife. The speaker in the poem is directly addressing God and letting go of his impermanent attachments to the living world and submitting to the certainty of death. Given the cultural context, the speaker who is dying of the bubonic plague is reassessing his life and realizing that everything valued in life becomes obsolete when death beckons. In the speaker’s inability to escape death, he almost welcomes it.
At the beginning of the poem, the reader is immediately informed that the world is uncertain. The first stanza advises the reader against the natural urge to value revelry because it can easily be overshadowed by the prospect of death. Nashe’s tone shifts in each stanza from caution to submission and defeat. The speaker of the poem has accepted that his death will soon come, “I am sick, I must die”(Line 6) because he asks the Lord to have mercy on a man who has wasted his life valuing the inconsequential. The second stanza emphasizes that wealth cannot buy one out death, “gold cannot buy you health”(Line 9). The first evident reference to the plague is seen with “The plague full swift goes by;” warning the reader that no matter the amount of gold one has, they cannot avoid the sudden sweep of sickness and ultimately death.
Beauty is discussed in the third stanza and Nashe goes to great lengths to prove that no beauty can avoid its destiny to end when death overcomes life (Line 16-17). Even the beauty of a young queen and the most striking woman in the world, “queens have died young and fair; / dust hath closed Helen’s eye”(Line18-19) must come to an end because “all things to end are made” (Line 11). To value beauty in life is to value the second hand of a clock, momentarily significant, but doomed to end just as soon as it has begun
Strength too is unimportant in matters of death. Death is the inescapable consequence that everyone must pay for having ever lived. Death does not excuse those that are brave and strong; it is impartial. Even “Hector brave” who was young and strong had to endure life in all its uncertainties in order to posses his true happiness in death(Line 23). The fifth stanza reminds the reader that those who are intelligent and witty cannot avoid death either because “Hell’s executioner/ hath no ears” and cannot be swayed by clever pleas. ( Line 31). All those who live are only certain of one thing, the fact that they must die.
In the final stanza, Nashe wants us to dismiss these transient pleasures that bring us superficial happiness. All the things one values in life: joy, wealth, beauty, strength and wit, are all pleasures that do not provide true happiness. Instead, when one “haste[s], therefore, each degree” and steps along the path of life and submits to death in order to “welcome destiny”, true happiness is found with the glimpse of afterlife(Line 36-37). John Dryden discussed these ideas in The Explicator, “”Adieu, Farwell Earth’s Bliss” is a “progression” through the deceptive sources of happiness—gold, beauty, strength, and wit” (Dryden 1). Revelry, wealth, beauty, strength and with are forms of momentary happiness and true happiness and certainty can only be found with the promise of death. One must accelerate and pass each stage in life to welcome eternal happiness in heaven because “ Heaven is our heritage / Earth but a player’s stage” (38-39). The article “Logic and Lyric” in the journal of Modern Philology states, “that human happiness does not consists in carnal pleasures; that man’s happiness does not consist in glory; that man’s happiness does not consist in wealth; that happiness does not consist in worldly power….that man’s ultimate happiness is not in this life, for if there is ultimate happiness in life, it will certainly be lost, at least by death” (Cunningham 1). The speaker is asking for mercy from the lord because he has mistaken these deceptive forms of contentment for the true happiness that is found in Heaven.
“Adieu, Farwell Earth’s Bliss” is a poem which dismisses the uncertain pleasures of life to embrace the certainty and eternal happiness of death. Nashe wants his readers to see the world for what it truly is, merely a “player’s stage” before attaining the only true source of certainty and happiness, death.
Works Cited
Cummingham, J.V.. “Logic an Lyric”. Modern Philology, Vol. 51, No. 1 (Aug., 1953), pp. 39-
41 Published by: The University of Chicago Press Stable. 7 February, 2010.
.
Dryden, John. “Nashe’s the Song (“Adieu, Farwell Earth’s Bliss”)”. The Explicator,
Vol. 31(1973). 7 February, 2010. < http://www.questia.com/ googleScholar.qst?docId=95874461>.
