Song: Love Armed (Cambridge (CIE) IGCSE English Literature): Revision Note

'Song: Love Armed'

Here you will find a detailed guide to Aphra Behn’s poem 'Song: Love Armed', from the Songs of Ourselves Volume 1 anthology. It includes:

• Overview: a line-by-line “translation” of the poem’s meanings and interpretations

• Writer’s methods: an exploration of Behn’s poetic choices and potential effects

• Understanding the text: an exploration of the themes and ideas within Behn’s poem

Overview

In order to answer an essay question on any poem, it is important to understand what it is about. This section includes:

• An overview of the poem

• A “translation” of the poem, section-by-section

• A commentary of each of these sections, outlining Behn’s intention and message

'Song: Love Armed' overview

Aphra Behn, a Restoration poet and dramatist, subverts traditional ideals of romantic love in her poem 'Song: Love Armed', taken from her 1676 revenge play Abdelazer; or, the Moor's Revenge. The play opens with this song playing. In the song (or poem), the speaker describes love as a destructive force by representing it as a warrior, gloating over the “bleeding hearts” he has conquered.

'Song: Love Armed' breakdown

Lines 1–2

Translation

• The poet uses personification (opens in a new tab) to describe ‘“Love” sitting in victory or “triumph”

• At the same time, its victims, represented by “bleeding hearts”, flow like blood around “him”

Behn’s intentions

• Behn’s poem begins with an extended metaphor (opens in a new tab)alluding to a classical, god-like figure:

  • The personification of “Love” helps portray it as a cold-hearted conqueror

  • The verb “sat” portrays “Love” as on a throne, looking upon his victories

•  Behn represents victims of love as wounded in the metaphor (opens in a new tab) “bleeding hearts”:

  • This is a play on the phrase “bleeding hearts”, connoting sentimentality

  • The verb “flowed” uses imagery (opens in a new tab) to describe many victims 

Lines 3–4

Translation

• The speaker refers to the “bleeding hearts”, the conquests of “Love”

• They say that “Love” is a surreal (“strange”) tyrant who enjoys bringing pain

Behn’s intentions

• Behn portrays the powerful impact of love, and suggests individuals who are not loved in return are subjected to abuse:

  • Behn describes unrequited love as gloating and sadistic through emotive language, “fresh pains” and “tyrannic power”

• Iambic tetrameter slows the speaker’s voice, creating a melodramatic effect:

  • This presents unrequited love negatively, and romantic love cynically

Lines 5–8

Translation

• The speaker describes their loved one with “bright eyes” that allowed love to throw (“hurled”) fiery looks which were delivered in “sport”, like a game or a competition

• Conversely, the ignored lover’s eyes show only desire, so much it would “undo” (unsettle) the world of love

Behn’s intentions

• Behn portrays unrequited love as one-sided and imbalanced:

  • The conjunction “But” separates two contrasting statements that describe the emotion seen in one’s eyes

• The description “bright eyes” alludes to the good looks of their loved one, and that ‘love’ uses this to create its “fire” which, in turn, burns anyone who looks upon him

• Behn’s metaphor is surreal, with phrases like "amorous world” exaggerating the mystical nature of love

Lines 9-12

Translation

• Stanza two begins with a continued list of how “Love” enjoys bringing pain:

  • The speaker says ‘Love” is proud of the pain “he” causes, and revels in the “cruelty” of the speaker’s loved one killing them with metaphorical “darts”

  • From the ignored speaker, however, “Love” gains their “sighs and tears”, “languishments” (despair), and “fears” 

Behn’s intentions

• The stark contrast between those that love and those that are loved continues in anaphora (opens in a new tab)alternating between “From me” and “From thee”

• Behn repeats the idea of “Love” as a conqueror taking things without thought:

  • The line “he took” is followed by the repeated pronoun “his”, which even refers to the speaker’s own “languishments and fears”, as if ‘he’ owns that too

  • Behn uses plurals, such as “fears”, to suggest multiple conquests

  • This subverts a typical allusion (opens in a new tab) of the Roman figure of love Cupid, the son of Venus (goddess of Love) and Mars, god of war

  • Cupid, a child who shoots arrows of love, appears here as a warrior

Lines 13–16

Translation

• The poem ends with a conclusion, “Thus”: the speaker and their loved one have made love into a “God” or a “deity” that has “armed” them both

• However, it is only the speaker’s “heart” that has been injured, while the heart of the one they love is the “victor” (he has won), and remains “free”

Behn’s intentions

• Behn’s conclusive ending implies that love places all humans into an imaginary war

• By giving love so much attention, Behn summarises, we create a “God” of the concept, implying love holds too much power over humans:

  • This subverts traditional sentimental ideals of romantic love as sacred

• Behn is clear about unrequited love: it is a battle in which only one is hurt and there is only one winner

Writer's methods

Although this section is organised into form, structure, and language, it is worth remembering that all of these are considered “writer’s methods” in the CIE Literature for English poetry mark scheme. With this in mind, consider the poet’s choice of form (the way the poem looks or the type of poem it is), its structure (especially how it ends: is it cyclical or resolved?) and, of course, the language used to create effect and, thus, meaning.  

By focusing on the poet’s overarching ideas rather than identifying poetic techniques or translating quotes, you will gain far more marks. That is why all the analysis below is arranged by theme and includes Behn’s intentions in terms of her choices of:

• Form

• Structure

• Language

Form

The poem is written as a song, so it has two regular stanzas, each of eight lines, and follows a disciplined rhythm of alternating rhyming lines. 

Structure 

Behn’s poem is structured as two stanzas that generally follow a steady, slow-paced rhythm which presents the ideas in the poem as serious, as well as unsettling.  

Language 

Behn’s extended metaphor makes use of a classical allusion to present the idea of love as a powerful and tyrannical warrior who takes pleasure in causing heartbreak. 

Understanding the text

All the questions in the CIE Literature for English exam encourage an informed, personal response, which means that you should develop a sound understanding of the poem’s themes, main ideas, settings, situations and events. This will help you to explore the writer’s intentions and methods. This section has been divided into two main themes explored by Behn in 'Song: Love Armed’:

• Unrequited love

• Classical, traditional ideas of love

Unrequited love

• Aphra Behn wrote during the Restoration period, a time when literature began to explore realism and satire (opens in a new tab):

  • ‘Song: Love Armed’ subverts traditional notions of sentimental, romantic love, and icons such as Cupid, to present love as unkind and omnipotent

  • Love is satirised as a greedy, god-like tyrant, a more cynical and realistic portrayal of unrequited love than contemporary poems of perfect love

• Unrequited love, a common theme in poetry at the time, explores complex relationships, such as those found within the court of King Charles II and during the Restoration period more generally

• While Behn wrote at a time when female dramatists and poets were few, the Restoration period encouraged freedom from the Puritanism of previous years:

  • In Behn’s poetry, the speaker is almost always a female who expresses extreme emotions as a response to romantic and sexual relationships

  • In ‘Song: Love Armed’, the speaker repeatedly refers to their loved one as “he”, suggesting the speaker is female

Classical, traditional love

• Aphra Behn was called "The English Sappho", a comparison to Greek poet Sappho

• Contemporary poet, Katherine Philips, was another female British poet praised for their elaborate language and lyrical quality:

  • The poem ‘Song: Love Armed’ is an example of this: it employs sophisticated rhythm and rhyme in a disciplined structure that mimics classical poetry

• The poem makes an allusion to a mythological Roman “God” or “Deity” who controls humans as if in a game (“sport”), a common theme of seventeenth century literature: 

  • Military language such as “armed” and “victor” work alongside abstract nouns that have been capitalised, typical of classical literature 

For further advice and guidance on how to answer the poetry question, please see our detailed guides on Paper 1 Section A: what the question is asking (opens in a new tab) and how to get full marks (opens in a new tab). You will also find an example of a full, annotated model answer (opens in a new tab). 

It is important to remember that no marks are given for comments on any of the other poems studied in the anthology. Your response should concentrate only on the poem given.

Sources

https://www.cambridgeinternational.org/Images/646848-june-2023-examiner-report.pdf (opens in a new tab).

“English literature - Restoration, Poetry, Drama.” Britannica, 27 June 2025, https://www.britannica.com/art/English-literature/The-Restoration (opens in a new tab). Accessed 6 August 2025.

Owens, W. R., and Lizbeth Goodman, editors. Shakespeare, Aphra Behn and the Canon. Routledge, 1996.

“Cambridge IGCSE (9–1) 0992 Literature in English syllabus for examination in 2026.” Cambridge International Education, https://www.cambridgeinternational.org/Images/697264-2026-syllabus.pdf (opens in a new tab). Accessed 6 August 2025.

Songs of Ourselves: Volume 1: Cambridge Assessment International Education Anthology of Poetry in English. Cambridge University Press & Assessment, 2018.