John Donne Takes the Conceit in an Entirely Different Direction - This

The Bait John Donne takes the conceit in an entirely different direction - this fast & loose & frisky invitation to go skinny-dipping in the river, etc., - a much more enticing invitation than that of Marlowe's shepherd, if you ask me. I've always thought Donne, or the early Donne anyway, is the sexiest of poets. The juiciest of all is that poem on his mistress going to bed, the one with the lines -

License my roving hands, and let them go Before, behind, between, above, below. O, my America, my new found land, My kingdom, safeliest when with one man manned, My mine of precious stones, my empery; How blest am I in this discovering thee! To enter in these bonds, is to be free; Then, where my hand is set, my seal shall be. Full nakedness! All joys are due to thee; As souls unbodied, bodies unclothed must be To taste whole joys.

Mercy! 'The Bait' is pretty sexy too, all that scintillating stuff about enamoured fish making love to her underwater - like that memorable old Japanese erotic print/netsuke of a woman in the clasp of an octopus - is both titillating and charmingly silly. Once again, clever Donne worships a woman out of her petticoats, and the appeal is not subject to Raleigh's critique, for he promises nothing more than a really fun day of loving and playing on the bank. (Donne's too clever for the lot of them - I expect anyone writing a response to or a parody of Donne would find himself anatomized in one of his wonderfully scathing satires).

The big metaphor of her as a baited hook is proverbial, but Donne seems to think he can get the bait off that hook and get away, or else that he will be happily caught.

Come live with me, and be my love, Or treacherously poor fish beset, And we will some new pleasures prove With strangling snare, or windowy Of golden sands, and crystal brooks, net. With silken lines, and silver hooks. Let coarse bold hands from slimy nest There will the river whispering run The bedded fish in banks out-wrest; Warm'd by thy eyes, more than the Or curious traitors, sleave-silk sun; flies, And there th'enamour'd fish will Bewitch poor fishes' wand'ring eyes. stay, Begging themselves they may betray. For thee, thou need'st no such deceit, When thou wilt swim in that live For thou thyself art thine own bait: bath, That fish, that is not catch'd Each fish, which every channel hath, thereby, Will amorously to thee swim, Alas, is wiser far than I. Gladder to catch thee, than thou him. -- John Donne If thou, to be so seen, be'st loth, By sun or moon, thou darken'st both, And if myself have leave to see, I need not their light, having thee.

Let others freeze with angling reeds, And cut their legs with shells and weeds,