The Passionate Shepherd to His Love: Symbols

Symbols are objects, characters, figures, and colors used to represent abstract ideas or concepts.

Myrtle

The myrtle tree has a symbolic meaning that goes back to Classical mythology, and specifically to the Greek goddess of love: Aphrodite (known as Venus to the Romans). In one story, Aphrodite traveled to the island of Cythera. Yet when she arrived, she noticed that she was naked. To make herself presentable, she plucked leaves from a myrtle tree and covered herself with them. This story explains how the myrtle tree became sacred to the goddess of love. Marlowe draws on this Classical tradition in “The Passionate Shepherd to His Love,” where the speaker promises to construct for his beloved “a kirtle / Embroidered all with leaves of Myrtle” (lines 11–12). The word “kirtle” is an old-fashioned term for what we now call a skirt, though a kirtle may be worn by men as well as women. The speaker’s vision of his beloved wearing a skirt covered in myrtle has a twofold significance. As an object designed to protect their modesty, the skirt symbolically recognizes the beloved’s purity and innocence. And yet, as a skirt made specifically of myrtle, sacred to the Greek goddess of love, this garment also symbolizes the erotic intention that underlies the speaker’s invitation.

Ivy

In the fifth stanza, the speaker promises to give his beloved a straw-fiber belt decked with ivy. Though brief, this reference to ivy powerfully symbolizes the speaker’s sexual desire. The symbolic association between ivy and sexuality goes back to Classical mythology, and specifically to the Greek god Dionysus (known as Bacchus to the Romans). Dionysus is principally known as the god of wine, fertility, and ecstatic religious as well as sexual pleasure. Visual depictions of Dionysus traditionally show him wreathed in ivy, which perhaps served as a reference to the vines of grapes from which wine is made. This close association between ivy and Dionysus has invested ivy with a strong symbolism of sexuality and ecstatic release. It’s precisely this symbolism the speaker of Marlowe’s poem invokes when he promises to give his beloved a belt studded with “ivy buds.” The fact that such an accessory would wrap around their waist offers further suggestion of the speaker’s erotic intent.

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