Replies & Parodies

1896, H.J. Ford and Lancelot Speed, in “The Blue Poetry Book, 7th Edition” (page 135-36) (Illustration)

Ford, J, and Speed, Lancelot. “Passionate Shepherd to His Love.” The Blue Poetry Book, 7th Edition. 1896, p. 135-36.1

Replies & Parodies: This page is dedicated to the written responses, art responses/illustrations, musical responses/renditions, and other compositions of Christopher Marlowe’s “The Passionate Shepherd to His Love”/”Come Live With Me and Be My Love.” Each work is linked to where it can be read online, and if it is not available, there is a citation at the bottom of the page. There is also a SoundCloud playlist at the bottom of the page of all the available renditions/compositions.

Broken or outdated link? Let me know!

Written Responses:

17th Century

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MAD #18142

19th  Century

20th  Century

21st Century

Art Responses/Illustrations:

Musical Responses/Renditions:

Lyrical Inspiration: Other Compositions:

Above, you can listen to a compilation of compositions of Come Live With Me and Be My Love. The most interesting is “Drehpehsehtotylpers’hpmynehT” where the artist  Tillisoj used “The Nymph’s Reply to the Shepherd,” recited by Tillisoj and Nicole Payton. As you can tell after listening to some of these, they are all unique and evoke a different aspect of the poem.

Many composers and musicians have been inspired by Marlowe’s ballad. While some of these inspirations are taken from the poem itself without regard or knowledge of Corkine’s tune, others have written their own compositions to Marlowe’s ballad. One example is a composition by Dr. Thomas Augustine Arne (1710-1778), Come Live With Me And Be My Love. A Favorite Scotch Song. Sung by Miss Cately at the Rotunda.7 This tune was composed for the piano and voice. Thomas Arne was an English composer, chiefly of dramatic music and song.8 Less than a decade later, another composition by John Liptrot Hatton (1809-1886), an English musical composer, conductor, pianist and singer, was published in his Vocal Beauties: A Collection Songs and Ballads.9 This tune was also composed for the piano and voice. J.L. Hatton’s “Come Live With Me” was used in the 1941 movie “Come Live With Me”! (You can listen to the opening credits here; the singing starts at 0:57).

In about 1846 the composer William Sterndale Bennett, an English composer, pianist, conductor and music educator, set the poem to a four-part madrigal meant to be sung “with spirit.”10 Known composer and jazz musician George Shearing’s (1919-2011) “Live With Me and Be My Love” was published in his Songs and Sonnets (Shakespeare), which contained compositions adapted from Shakespeare songs and sonnets, for choir. In celebration of George Shearing’s 75th birthday, English composer and Choral conductor John Rutter wrote his Birthday Madrigals (1995) at the invitation of Brian Kay, conductor of the Cheltenham Bach Choir. The composition “Come Live With Me” was also a choir piece.

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“Come Live With Me”11

Christopher Marlowe’s “The Passionate Shepherd to His Love” or “Come Live With Me and Be My Love” also inspires works that cross over mediums and genres. In 1883, British composer Théophile Henri or “Theo” Marshals and Walter Crane, one of the most influential illustrators of the late Victorian period in England, came together to produce Pan Pipes, which coupled Marhsals’ music with the work of Christina Rossetti and the illustrations of Walter Crane. Pan Pipes is a collection of forty traditional English ballads. The compositions were meant for the piano.12 This book included “Come Live With Me” or, as it is labeled in the Table of Contents, The Passionate Shepherd.

1 Ford, J, and Speed, Lancelot. “Passionate Shepherd to His Love.” The Blue Poetry Book, 7th Edition. 1896, p. 135-36. 
2 Jacobs, Frank. “Passionate Shepherd to His Love.” Great Poems Rewritten to Reflect the Freaky, Greedy, Rotten World of Today, MAD #181, 1976.
3 Prima, Diane Di. “The Passionate Hipster to His Chick.” Earthling: Poems 1957-1959, compiled by Alan S. Marlowe, 1968, p. 2. 
4 Crane, Walter. “The Passionate Shepherd (H.E.W Image).” An Artist’s Reminiscences, The Macmillan Company, 1907, p. 187.
5 Marshals, Theophilus, Crane,Walter, Evans, Edmund, and Rogers, Bruce. Pan-pipes: A Book of Old Songs. George Routledge and Sons, 1883, The Visual Telling of Stories.
6 Jacobs, Frank. “Passionate Shepherd to His Love.” Great Poems Rewritten to Reflect the Freaky, Greedy, Rotten World of Today, MAD #181, 1976.
7 Arne, Dr. Thomas. Come Live With Me And Be My Love. A Favorite Scotch Song. Sung by Miss Cately at the Rotunda. Johns Hopkins University, Levy Sheet Music Collection, Box 065, Item 016.
8 “Thomas Arne”. Encyclopedia Britannica, 2016. 
9 Hatton, John Liptrot. Vocal Beauties. A Collection Songs and Ballads. The Lester S. Levy Collection of Sheet Music, part of Special Collections at the Milton S. Eisenhower Library of The Johns Hopkins University.
10 Bush, Geoffrey; Hurd, Michael, eds. “Come Live With Me.” Invitation to the Partsong, Stainer & Bell, 974, pp. 32-35.
11 National Gallery of Canada. Library and Archives, Crane, Walter, 1845-1915 and Dombowsky, Philip Illustrated books by Walter Crane. National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, 2007.
12 Marshals, Theophilus, Walter Crane, Edmund Evans, and Bruce Rogers. Pan-pipes: A Book of Old Songs. George Routledge and Sons, 1883, The Visual Telling of Stories. 

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