How strongly does my passion grow,
Divided equally twixt two?
This rhetorical question posed in the first two lines of the poem immediately works to shake the audience’s expectations of the poem. Right from the opening, reader’s will be confronted by an issue not commonly addressed in conventional Cavalier, pastoral lyrics, namely a plurality of love. By breaking generic conventions, Aphra Behn allows herself space to explore the imaginative “what-if’s” usually marginalized in pastoral lyric poetry.
Because of these two lines, the poem can shift from discussing a man’s passionate desire and pursuit of a woman, to questioning the nature of love itself by asking fundamental questions, such as this one. In these two lines, what Behn is really asking is this: “Is it possible for me to love two, and if so, how am I to divide my love equally between each?”
When my Alexis present is,
Then I for Damon sigh and mourn:
Here, the speaker provides a striking example of what occurs when one love is split, without doubling, between two people. Strikingly, Behn suggests that splitting one’s love results in the impossibility of full presence. Although there in the flesh with one lover, the speaker remains abstracted away, mourning the absence of the other lover: “Alexis present is,” but Damon is not, and thus the speaker sits stretched between two worlds.
Not only is the speaker stretched between worlds, but she also feels the implications of what it means to be claimed as an object by multiple men. In some ways, having been conquered by one lover opens up the possibility of being conquered yet again, weakened by the absence of the other.
But which, O Cupid, wilt thou take?
If Damon's, all my hopes are crossed;
Or that of my Alexis, I am lost.
Just as the poem begins with a question, so too does it end. This time though, the speaker’s question is not rhetorical, it does not set the tone or complicate the poem’s genre, but rather operates as a plea, illustrating the speaker’s frustration with her situation. When Behn questions, “But which, O Cupid, wilt thou take?” she really answers the question posed at the beginning of the poem: the speaker has discovered that it is indeed impossible to share one love between two people equally.
In addition to admitting this impossibility though, one should also note that the speaker leaves us in a fit of indecisiveness. Confusion has set in on all fronts, and just as the speaker is “lost” without Alexis, the poem itself seems lost without a clear generic path to follow. In this way, the poem’s innovation stands also as its limit; once the speaker calls upon Cupid in defeat, the poem dissimulates and closes on the speaker “languish[ing]” in indecision.
