Song to Celia

by Ben Jonson

"To Celia" is a mini love song of sorts. The speaker talks about how he doesn't need a real drink, only a cup that has been kissed by the woman he loves. (It sort of reminds us of that song from Harry Potter: "Oh, come and stir my cauldron, / And if you do it right, / I'll boil you up some hot, strong love / To keep you warm tonight." Or maybe that's just us.) Anyway…The speaker thinks that Celia's so angelic or special that she can, potentially; keep a wreath of flowers from withering. If "To Celia" is about love, however, it is also about how, sometimes, the things we love can also let us down, if only a little bit. After all, Celia does return the speakers wreath.

The speaker describes courtship and love as a type of drinking. His description of love is slightly less idealized by his resort to a metaphor that has a lot to do with taverns and bodily necessity.

“Drink to me only with thine eyes And I will pledge with mine” (1-2)

The opening lines of the poem have a lot of interesting rhymes. The first vowels of both "eyes" and "mine" rhyme, which suggests that the speaker's and Celia's eyes are somehow connected or identical. Something similar is expressed with the rhyme on "thine" and "mine."

“Or leave a kiss within the cupAnd I'll not ask for wine” (3-4)

  The fact that the speaker only needs a kiss suggests he is trading a bodily need (for a drink or beverage) for something more emotional (a kiss, or a sign of love from Celia). This dynamic between mortal and divine, earthly and non-earthly, material and spiritual, dominates this poem in particular, and the collection from which it comes, The Forest, more generally.

“The thirst that from the soul doth riseDoth ask a drink divine” (5-6)

The speaker implies that his love for Celia is like a kind of spiritual "thirst." This suggests that love is like drinking a beverage. Is it just us, or does that not sound too romantic? In fact, it clashes with the poem's attempts to elevate the spiritual (love, the soul) over the material (wine, nectar, etc.).

While "To Celia" doesn't really talk about death in any direct way, it does glance at the sad fact that things die. Think about it: the speaker sends the woman he admires a "rosy wreath" because he wants to see if she has the power to keep it from wilting and dying. The speaker also frequently compares the earthly or mortal realm with more divine, immortal things, suggesting that it's difficult to talk about one without the other.

The speaker contrasts mortal things with immortal things in this poem, and ultimately suggests that what we may think is mortal turns out to possess qualities associated with the divine. The speaker's interest in immortality speaks to an underlying fear or obsession with mortality.

“I sent thee late a rosy wreath, Not so much honoring thee As giving it a hope that there It could not withered be” (9-12)

The speaker sends Celia a wreath in order to see if she can prevent it form withering. "Be" and "thee" rhyme, and "wreath" almost rhymes (the vowel sounds rhyme at least). These sound connections seem to emphasize the speaker's hope that Celia can somehow infuse her own life into the (dead, and hence mortal) leaves and flowers of the wreath. The poem's sounds enact what the speaker wants to happen.

“But thou thereon didst only breathe, And sent'st it back to me; Since when it grows, and smells, I swear" (13-15)

The wreath appears to have become immortal since it still "grows," even though it is necessary to kill the leaves and flowers in order to make a wreath. The fact that Celia's breath seems responsible for the wreath's strange immortality recalls, however faintly, God's breathing of life into Adam (according to the Judeo-Christian tradition, the first human being).

“But might I of Jove's nectar sup, I would not change for thine” (7-8)

The speaker appears to choose the mortal (Celia) over the immortal (Jove's "nectar"), but these categories are also hopelessly confused in this poem. The speaker describes love as a "drink divine" and suggests that Celia is some type of angelic being. And whenever we try to map mortal and immortal in this poem, similar confusions result.