Q: I wonder by my troth, what thou, and I Did, till we lov’d? were we not wean’d till then
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These lines come from John Donne’s poem The Good-Morrow, one of his most famous metaphysical poems. Here, Donne begins by musing on what he and his lover were doing before they fell in love, as if their previous lives were insignificant or even childish compared to the intensity of their present connection. In more modern English, it could be paraphrased as:
I wonder, truly, what you and I were doing
Before we fell in love. Were we not yet “weaned,”
as if in infancy, until then?
Donne’s speaker suggests that life before love was like a state of immaturity or incomplete existence. The metaphor of being “weaned” implies that their lives were limited or simple before they experienced true love, as if they were only now awakening to something deeper and more meaningful.
In The Good-Morrow, Donne uses philosophical and even spiritual imagery to explore the transformative nature of love, presenting it as something that awakens the lovers to a new, fuller reality. The rest of the poem continues to explore this notion, celebrating a love that transcends the physical world and creates a complete, unified “world” within the lovers themselves.