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Poetry · Poem

The Shadow

Ben JonsonEnglish RenaissancePoem
SOURCE TEXT · English original
FOLLOW a shadow, it still flies you;
Seem to fly it, it will pursue:
So court a mistress, she denies you;
Let her alone, she will court you.
Say, are not women truly, then,
Styled but the shadows of us men?

At morn and even, shades are longest;
At noon they are or short or none:
So men at weakest, they are strongest,
But grant us perfect, they’re not known.
Say, are not women truly, then,
Styled but the shadows of us men?
Cultural reading

Reading the poem

Taking a shadow that flees pursuit and pursues flight as its figure for courtship, the poem twice concludes in a refrain that women are styled the shadows of men.

Language notes

Text and edition

The English text follows the fixed historical witness in The Oxford Book of English Verse; no modern third-party translation is included.