To His Importunate Mistress

Peter de Vries makes me laugh with To His Importunate Mistress. I think this response to Marvell's poem is hilarious. This is like the exact opposite of Marvell's poem. The guy in the poem is saying that they should stop having sex. I just think this would be a hilarious conversation to listen to when a guy tells his hooker that they can't get it on anymore because he can't afford her anymore. The speaker makes a fairly valid argument that he would need to work another job in order to afford her, but his hooker still laughs at him for saying it. However, the speaker mentions his conscience at the end in saying, "His conscience may remain unriven." I think unriven here means that the man's conscience is not divided. He no longer wants his affair with this woman to be an exception to his good morals. I think he chooses not to make a point about his conscience because giving a hooker a talk about morals would not be all that effective. Deep down, I think the speaker wants to stop because he thinks it is not right to be doing this. Let's be real, how effective of an argument is morality to a hooker?