Times wingéd chariot (Diagnosis)

“That line which had so haunted him lately, about “Times wingéd chariot,” relapsed into the region of pure aesthetics, now that in his case the wings apparently to be refurled.”[i]

“Times wingéd chariot” is a phrase from the poem “To His Coy Mistress” by the English author and politician Andrew Marvell (1621-1678). The poem includes the aphorism carpe diem which describes Paul Dorrances belief in this situation – that he has the power to capture each day's full potential. The doctors tell him that he has no cancer and can live to be an old man and his joy is intensified by the anxiety he felt when he felt faced with imminent death.

The poem is about loving a woman so much that one human life span does not offer enough time to enjoy the love fully: love dies when the human body since there is no chance to embrace after dying.

During the time Paul Dorrance is waiting for the diagnosis, cancer or not, he might have thought that his life will not be long enough to get the chance to love a woman as much as he wanted to. But still one question remains: when does he start to consider having Eleanor Welwood as his wife?

Connecting the situation to the poem “To His Coy Mistress” one could argue that Dorrance starts contemplating about it during the time of waiting for a diagnosis. Likewise he maybe only desires to love, no matter whom.

To his coy mistress

Had we but world enough and time,

This coyness, lady, were no crime.

We would sit down, and think which way

To walk, and pass our long love’s day.

Thou by the Indian Ganges’ side

Shouldst rubies find; I by the tide

Of Humber would complain. I would

Love you ten years before the flood,

And you should, if you please, refuse

Till the conversion of the Jews.

My vegetable love should grow

Vaster than empires and more slow;

An hundred years should go to praise

Thine eyes, and on thy forehead gaze;

Two hundred to adore each breast,

But thirty thousand to the rest;

An age at least to every part,

And the last age should show your heart.

For, lady, you deserve this state,

Nor would I love at lower rate.

But at my back I always hear

Time’s wingèd chariot hurrying near;

And yonder all before us lie

Deserts of vast eternity.

Thy beauty shall no more be found;

Nor, in thy marble vault, shall sound

My echoing song; then worms shall try

That long-preserved virginity,

And your quaint honour turn to dust,

And into ashes all my lust;

The grave’s a fine and private place,

But none, I think, do there embrace.

Now therefore, while the youthful hue

Sits on thy skin like morning dew,

And while thy willing soul transpires

At every pore with instant fires,

Now let us sport us while we may,

And now, like amorous birds of prey,

Rather at once our time devour

Than languish in his slow-chapped power.

Let us roll all our strength and all

Our sweetness up into one ball,

And tear our pleasures with rough strife

Through the iron gates of life:

Thus, though we cannot make our sun

Stand still, yet we will make him run.[ii]

For further readings:

To his Coy Mistress

[i] Wharton, Edith; Robinson, Roxana (2007): The New York stories of Edith Wharton. New York, NY: New York Review Books (New York Review Books classics). p. 382.

[ii] To his Coy Mistress. Online verfügbar unter https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/44688/to-his-coy-mistress, zuletzt geprüft am 15.06.2018.