Why so pale and wan, fond lover?
Prithee, why so pale?
Will, when looking well can’t move her,
Looking ill prevail?

These lines open Sir John Suckling’s short lyric “Why so pale and wan, fond lover?”, a witty Cavalier-era poem from the early Stuart period (reign of Charles I). Suckling (1609–1642), a courtier and poet known for urbane, skeptical love verse, wrote in a milieu that prized conversational elegance and irony over Petrarchan earnestness. The poem stages a teasing dialogue in which a speaker mocks a lovesick suitor’s theatrical melancholy—his pallor and sighing—suggesting that such displays are ineffective in winning a woman’s favor. The tone reflects a fashionable courtly attitude that treats romantic suffering as a kind of self-indulgent performance rather than noble devotion.

The speaker punctures the lover’s assumption that visible misery will soften his beloved. The rhetorical question—if looking well cannot move her, why would looking ill succeed?—turns conventional love-complaint poetry on its head. Suckling implies that self-pity and performative languor are not persuasive; they may even be counterproductive, revealing vanity or manipulation. More broadly, the poem exemplifies Cavalier wit: it favors clear-eyed pragmatism and social poise over the idealization of suffering. The lines also hint at an early modern skepticism about “love” as a rationalization for bad strategy—if the beloved is unmoved, the lover should change tactics or abandon the pursuit rather than dramatize defeat.