Though at the next door, we might meet,
Though she were true, when you met her,
And last, till you write your letter,
Yet she
Will be
False, ere I come, to two, or three."
Answer: These lines have been taken from Donne's love song: "Go, and Catch a Falling Star." In these lines, the poet speaks about the inconstancy of women in love.
According to the poet, it is impossible to find a constant woman in this world just as it is impossible to catch a falling star or to produce a human body from the root of the mandrake plant, or to find out where all the past years have gone, or who cleft the devil's foot, or hear mermaids singing, or avoid the sting of jealousy. A man may have power to see invisible things. But he will never find a woman who is both beautiful and true. The poet further says that if a man rides ten thousand days and nights and travels all over the world till his hair turn grey and if he on returning tells him all the wonderful things and happenings, he will not be able to swear an oath that he found during his travels a fair and faithful woman. If anybody tells the poet of a woman who is both "true and fair", he would go to her as on a pilgrimage to some holy shrine. Such a woman is really worthy of worship and adoration. But on second thought, the poet realizes that it would be futile to undertake
such a journey. The woman might have been faithful to one at a particular moment, but she can never remain faithful for long. By the time one writes a letter to her, she would have had two or three other lovers. That is, a woman's constancy in love is short-lived and, therefore, is not to be relied upon.
Through this extract, Donne expresses his satirical-cynical attitude towards womanhood. He thus breaks away from the Petrarchan tradition of woman worship.
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