A Prayer of Love

Aphra Behn was one of the first professional female writers, famous primarily as a dramatist. She has some poetry to her name, including a three stanza piece called, “On Her Loving Two Equally.” Like the other love poems and songs I've written about this month, it's in first person, but that's where the similarities end. This poem has two characteristics that set it apart. First, the speaker is torn between two suitors, not serenading one. Second, the speaker is a woman.

The two men in question are Damon and Alexis. The first stanza suggests neither could have caught her eye without the other, and the second stanza says when she's with one of them, she thinks about the other. There's no indication she loves one more than another, as the poem starts off with the lines,

How strongly does my passion flow,
Divided equally twixt two? (1-2)

The speaker never tells us much about either man, save putting them in contrast with one another: the only reason Damon had managed to subdue her heart (3) is Alexis had already done some wooing (4). Alexis couldn't prove his love (5) without Damon's aid (6). The two are both in competition and indebted to each other. The speaker gives no indication to the forms of their relationships, how they met, how they fell in love, or how Damon or Alexis see, or even know about, each other.

There's any number of things that could be read into Behn's vagaries. The poem could be about how love...

• ...is fickle, as she has to decide between two men. She invokes cupid's aid at the very end.
• ...is something beyond control, even something divine or supernatural. She calls cupid “though mighty winged god” (13).
• ...is blind. She's willing to go either way. She just wants someone else to make the decision for her.

But being vague about the men is the least of her creative endeavor. The last three lines indicate she's in a dilemma that will have negative consequences:

But which, O Cupid, wilt thou take?If Damon, all my hopes are crossed;Or that of my Alexis, I am lost. (16-18)

If she ends up with Alexis, she’ll be denied her hopes. If Damon, she’ll be lost. Or maybe it means that being with Damon will ensure her hopes will be gained. If Alexis, she will find herself, but there’s little in the text to suggest that.

There are only a few things the poem makes sure: she loves two men equally, she can't make up her mind, and so she turns elsewhere, well aware of the consequences.

Behn's poem, in the end, is a prayer, and a prayer, regardless of your belief system, is an appeal to something beyond your own faculties and abilities. People pray to divinity because they need or want something they can't get on their own, and so seek the favor of another who can, who (depending on your belief system) may not even need you. In the end, I think love itself is like that, and I think that is part of the issue the poem is addressing. The kind of romantic, passionate love the speaker of the poem is dealing with isn't the kind to be divided and shared. It's personal and meant for a single other person. Love like this is asking someone else to do for you what you can't do for yourself.

It's like Waller's “Go Lovely Rose”: doing everything that you can, and then putting your faith and your heart in the hands of another.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Works Cited

Behn, Aphra. "On Her Loving Two Equally." The Norton Introduction to Literature. 11th ed. Ed. Kelly J. Mays. W.W. Norton, 2013. 860-861. Print.