I'd Rather Die Than be Your Love by Ada Gu

Parody of the pastoral: The Passionate Shepherd to His Love
I'd Rather Die Than be Your Love
By Ada Gu

Come live with thee and be thy love?
And be all but a wingless dove?
Freedom knocks and choices thrive
Why would I leave, my soul deprive
My life meant to soar to heights
Beyond thou measly, tasteless plights
Slowly will my thoughts surrender
And to failure I’ll grow tender
Roses hath thorns, their beauty lies
Their petals wither, fragrance dies
A cap askew, dress stained with soil
Embroidered with our blood and toil
Thou cannot make a gown from dreams
Or sew with non-existent seams
A shawl against the bitter cold,
The money from my mother’s gold
No belt with clasp to call thy own
No amber studs, no skills to hone
These pleasures hardly make me move
I’d rather die than be your love

With thee no time to dance and sing
Awake with dread each May morning
Freedom as a soaring, winged dove,
I would not trade this for thy love

This is a parody of the pastoral: The Passionate Shepherd to his Love. It is written in iamic petameter and the couplets rhyme. I was inspired by Sir Walter Raleigh's parody, but I decided to take it one step further. My parody imitates the pastoral less, but is more sarcastic and rebuking. I have never liked the The Passionate Shepherd to his Love. It is flowery, overly passionate and cause for mocking. I cannot imagine any woman who would be won over by the "Passionate Shepherd's" flattery. In my mind, the passionate shepherd is quite impoverished, and the idea of living with him would be quite repulsive, and literally a living hell of farmwork and the opposite of luxury. It ties in with my theme, as in this version, being the shepherd's love would mean buying into a life of labour and servitude, less fun than tedious. It would be like a cage or prison of which there was no escape.