"A narrow compass! and yet there Dwelt all that 's good, and all that 's fair; Give me but what this riband bound, Take all the rest the sun goes round"
About this Quote
Waller takes a dangerously small object - a "riband" - and makes it a cosmology. The brag is audacious: within a narrow compass lives everything "good" and "fair", and the speaker is willing to trade the whole sun-circled world for whatever that ribbon encloses. It works because the hyperbole is not just romantic excess; its geometry is the point. Desire, in this conceit, is a kind of map-making: draw a boundary around the beloved (or the token that signifies her), and the universe shrinks to fit.
The subtext is courtly, even political. Waller wrote in a culture where proximity to power and beauty was negotiated through symbols, favors, and displayed wit. A ribbon is intimate but also public: it signals possession without stating it, devotion without demanding reciprocity. By fetishizing the boundary itself - "what this riband bound" - Waller suggests that love is less about the person than the claim, the sanctioned circle of access. That makes the line both gallant and faintly acquisitive.
Context sharpens the move. As a poet navigating volatile allegiances in 17th-century England, Waller knew the value of containment: what you can safely praise, what you can safely want. The ribbon becomes a socially acceptable container for obsession. The closing dare - "Take all the rest" - performs nonchalance while advertising total captivity. The speaker sounds free because he chooses his confinement.
The subtext is courtly, even political. Waller wrote in a culture where proximity to power and beauty was negotiated through symbols, favors, and displayed wit. A ribbon is intimate but also public: it signals possession without stating it, devotion without demanding reciprocity. By fetishizing the boundary itself - "what this riband bound" - Waller suggests that love is less about the person than the claim, the sanctioned circle of access. That makes the line both gallant and faintly acquisitive.
Context sharpens the move. As a poet navigating volatile allegiances in 17th-century England, Waller knew the value of containment: what you can safely praise, what you can safely want. The ribbon becomes a socially acceptable container for obsession. The closing dare - "Take all the rest" - performs nonchalance while advertising total captivity. The speaker sounds free because he chooses his confinement.
Quote Details
| Topic | Romantic |
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