Today I was
reading a poem which I studied during my graduation “Since There’s No Help” by
Michael Drayton. While reading this poem, I heard a song playing in my
neighbourhood. The song was “Breakup song” from the latest Bollywood movie “Ae Dil hai Mushkil”. I thought to
compare both the writers and their work.
Let’s first
know something about both the writers
Both the
works are written in an different era, for different generation and by
different generation poets.
Let’s first
see the poem and song and its analysis:-
Since there's no help,
come let us kiss and part - Michael Drayton
Since there's no help, come let us kiss and part.
Nay, I have done, you get no more of me;
And I am glad, yea glad with all my heart,
That thus so cleanly I myself can free.
Shake hands for ever, cancel all our vows,
And when we meet at any time again,
Be it not seen in either of our brows
That we one jot of former love retain.
Now at the last gasp of Love's latest breath,
When, his pulse failing, Passion speechless lies;
When Faith is kneeling by his bed of death,
And Innocence is closing up his eyes-
Now, if thou wouldst, when all have given him over,
From death to life thou might'st him yet recover!
The goodbye
kiss is always a painful event, but in some ways, it is a relief. Drayton captures both those feelings in this
sonnet.
In the first
eight lines, Drayton appears to be quite relieved to be windup this
relationship. Basically, he says,
"Since there's nothing we can do to stop this breakup, let's kiss, make an
end of it. We will not see one another.
I'm happy to be free. We can
shake hands, and when we meet again, it'll be like we have no love left for one
another. There will be no hint of it at all." That sounds great, honestly. But does it ever really happen that way?
"I am
glad, yea, glad with all my heart that thus so cleanly I myself can free."
From a
modern point of view, we can say that it’s a happy moment to be free from the
web of relations. But it seems that Drayton is trying hard to make himself
understand that he is happy about the breakup.
"Be it not seen in either of our brows
that we one jot of former love retain."
Is it really
possible to pretend that we don’t know a person with whom we were in
relationship once upon a time.
The last six
lines are at odds with the first eight.
The first
eight are the mind's explanation of the breakup.
So the poet
here pretends to be but he is not happy as such. It is true that it is not easy
to break up any relation and move on. Especially when you love someone. But from
modern time if we see then it is not suitable.
The contemporary
time allow one to be free from the conspicuous cobweb of relations.
Here is an audio clip of this song also.
Here in this
song we see the reality of the present time. It is age of quick patch-up and
quick break-up. In the people used to cry a lot when any relationship breaks,
but now when someone is breaking up people to go to parlour of a hair-wash. In the
present time we have many options to let our frustration fly away. We can block
people and delete their number.
The status
on the social media tells about our relations are we single or available or
committed. Its so easy we can change our relation status whenever we like.
Of course this
song reflects the present time of society and it seems very funny but that is
the reality.
We can also
go deep into it and can see that the meaning of love is somewhere lost in this
present time. Somewhere there is a need to understand love and life.
We can also
see a theme of Necessity V/S Absurdity here. Michael Drayton highlights the
necessity of relation and love, while Amitabh Bhattacharya highlights the
absurdity of relation and love.
Both the
poem and the song reflect the reality of their time. The message given in the
both the works are realistic. It is always hard to break any relation and
pretend that everything is okay. But to keep a hopeless hope that everything
will be fine is also sometimes stupid. We have to move on and focus on
something else, rather than crying for the rotten relation.
“Change is the law of
life. And those who look only to the past or the present are certain to miss
the future.” ― John F. Kennedy
The best
thing to do is to “Go with the flow”. Accept whatever comes with the flow.
Hope you
enjoyed reading!!!!
Please give
your observations and suggestions.
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