The Sun Rising

John Donne

Busy old fool, unruly Sun,
Why dost thou thus,
Through windows and through curtains, call on us?
Must to thy motions lovers’ seasons run?
Saucy pedantic wretch, go chide
Late school-boys and sour ‘prentices,
Go tell court-huntsmen that the King will ride,
Call to country ants to harvest offices;
Love, all alike, no season knows, nor clime,
Nor hours, days, months, which are the rags of time.
SUMMARY:
Hey sun, you old, disruptive busybody, why are you shining past the windows
and closed curtains to pay an uninvited visit to me and my girlfriend?
Do lovers really have to structure their schedules around your movements
across the sky?
You rude, inflexible, and insensitive jerk, go scold boys who are late to school
and apprentices who are sulky about their early morning
Go tell the king's hunting party that the king is about to ride out on a hunt, and
urge lowly farm workers to start their harvesting duties.
Love, in all its forms, is above the influence of seasons and weather.
It is also above the influence of hours, days, and months, which, unlike love,
wear out like old rags as time passes.
 SUMMARY:

Why should you think your beams are so worshipped and strong?
Thy beams, so reverend and strong

Why shouldst thou think?

I could block them out by closing my eyes, except that I wouldn't want to stop
I could eclipse and cloud them with a wink, looking at my lover that long.

But that I would not lose her sight so long:

If her eyes have not blinded thine, Assuming that her eyes aren't so bright that they've blinded yours,

Look, and tomorrow late tell me, go check, and tomorrow evening tell me whether both the East Indies and West
Indies are where you left them, or whether they are right here next to me.
Whether both the Indias of spice and mine

Be there though left’st them, or lie here with me.

Ask to see the kings you saw yesterday, and you will hear that they are all lying
Ask for those kings whom thou saw’st yesterday, here in this bed.

And thou shalt hear, ‘All here in one bed lay.’


She’s all States, and all Princes I;
Nothing else is.
Princes do but play us; compared to this,
All honour’s mimic; all wealth alchemy.
Thou, Sun, are half as happy as we,
In that the world’s contracted thus;
Thine age asks ease, and since thy duties be
To warm the world, that’s done in warming us.
Shine here to us, and thou are everywhere;
This bed thy centre is, these walls thy sphere.
SUMMARY:
My lover is every country, and I am every prince. Nothing else exists.
Princes only pretend to be us; compared to our love, all honor is a cheap copy,
and all wealth is a futile attempt to attain riches.
You, sun, should be half as glad as we are that the whole world fits here in the
bedroom.
Your old age demands that you take it easy.
Because your job is to keep the world warm, you can do your job by keeping us
warm.
By shining here on us, you can shine everywhere;
this bed is your centre, and the bedroom walls are the outside boundaries of the
solar system.
 John Donne
• 1572 – 1631
• Metaphysical poet
• Born into a Catholic family (at a time when
Catholicism was illegal in England).
• He was the 3rd of six children – and
experienced 4 deaths in his family, including
both parents, by the time he was 10 years
old.
• He was unable to attend university because
he was Catholic.
• Converted to Anglican faith in 1590s, and
was made Dean of St Paul’s Cathedral in
1621 until his death in 1631
• Married Anne Moore in 1601, for 16 years,
and had 12 children with her; she died 5
days after giving birth to their 12 th child. He
mourned her deeply.
• Died in 1631, survived by only 6 of his 12
children.
Begins with an outburst – this draws the reader in – scolding the sun for waking Tone is disdainful – demonstrated in the diction:
speaker and lover. BUSY OLD FOOL, UNRULY, SAUCY PENDANTIC
FIGURE OF SPEECH: Apostrophe (the direct address of something unseen) WRETCH
This builds up to question of the sun’s purpose

Implies that the sun’s Busy old fool, unruly Sun,

behaviour is sneaky and like
an old gossip, peeking
through curtains
Pedantic: finicky, fussy,
implies the sun’s insistence
on waking up is forceful and
inconvenient.
Chide: reprimand
Why dost thou thus,
Through windows and through curtains, call on us?
Must to thy motions lovers’ seasons run?
Saucy pedantic wretch, go chide
Late school-boys and sour ‘prentices,
Go tell court-huntsmen that the King will ride,
Call to country ants to harvest offices;
Love, all alike, no season knows, nor clime,
Nor hours, days, months, which are the rags of time.
Questions whether lovers’ time lines
should follow the sun’s time frames,
separating the world into two distinct
parts – the lovers’ and the reset of the
world’s space.
The world is split into those whose
livelihoods depend on the daylight
hours, and those to whom time does
not matter – lovers.
ALL kinds of love knows no boundaries
of time; and is not confined to
productive hours.
Tone of disdain is further emphasised
by referring to the sun’s task of
marking the passage of time as ‘rags’ –
cloth worth discarding as rubbish
The sun believes that its
beams are strong and
should be worshipped –
and the speaker questions
the reasons for it.
The late Renaissance era
filled with exploration –
places such as India and
South Africa were
considered exotic, holding
riches for those brave
enough to travel to them.
His lover is described as a
treasure(making the speaker
a king) which surpasses
these riches.
Thy beams, so reverend and strong
Why shouldst thou think?
I could eclipse and cloud them with a wink,
But that I would not lose her sight so long:
If her eyes have not blinded thine,
Look, and tomorrow late tell me,
Whether both the Indias of spice and mine
Be there though left’st them, or lie here with me.
Ask for those kings whom thou saw’st yesterday,
And thou shalt hear, ‘All here in one bed lay.’
Direct address to the second person (the Sun),
second person pronouns ‘thy’ and ‘thou’ –
Further use of Apostrophe. This stanza shows
why the speaker is hostile towards the sun.
Speakers reasons for not worshipping the sun:
He is able to shut his eyes and block the sun
out completely (but would rather not lose sight
of his love, and so will tolerate the sun)
The speaker’s lover’s eyes are so beautiful they
have the power to blind the sun
IRONY: the speaker is disdainful of the sun
marking the passage of time, but asks it to
return ‘tomorrow late’ with his answer of
whether the biggest treasure is still in India or
with the speaker in his bed.
Kings who considered themselves wealthy the
day before would agree that the speaker is now
the wealthiest, as he has his treasure in his bed
with him. This implies that material wealth has
no bearing on a man’s ‘richness’.
Structure: The opening line has “she” and “I” as the words starting and ending – this implies that the whole world exists
between these two words – between the lovers themselves; nothing else can exist outside of this space.
The speaker believes he
is every prince because of
the value of his treasure –
everything else is a
mimicry of wealth; the
princes only pretend to
be wealthy
The lovers’ bed is the
center of the universe,
and with the sun coming
through their window,
the Sun’s duty is
complete – the whole
earth/world is the room
the lovers are in.
She’s all States, and all Princes I;
Nothing else is.
Princes do but play us; compared to this,
All honour’s mimic; all wealth alchemy.
Thou, Sun, are half as happy as we, Pronouns: Second person pronoun –
directly addresses the sun.
In that the world’s contracted thus;
Thine age asks ease, and since thy duties be
The Sun’s duties are to warm the world, but
To warm the world, that’s done in warming us.
the whole world is warmed with the lovers
Shine here to us, and thou are everywhere;
This bed thy centre is, these walls thy sphere.
TONE: Arrogant. The lovers believe that the world is restricted to them alone, the sun exists
for them alone.
TONE
▪ Conversational and familiar. Arrogance
The poem addresses a second person (the
Sun) and by extension, the third person
(the reader).
FORM
▪ The three regular stanzas of “The Sun
Rising” are each ten lines long and follow a
line-stress pattern of 4255445555—lines
one, five, and six are metered in iambic
tetrameter, line two is in dimeter, and lines
three, four, and seven through ten are in
pentameter. The rhyme scheme in each
stanza is ABBACDCDEE.