well-educated men can achieve this spiritual love and happiness by saying that his “man”, a common servant, can feel the same pleasure if he can “endure the short scorn of bridegroom’s play.” By this he means that both Platonists and common men only find momentary animalistic pleasure by going through a wedding. In line 17 we once again get a sexual implication with the word “play.” If we re-interpret the whole question, we see that Donne is saying that the man will be rewarded with the happy outcome of amorous play if he goes through marriage. Whether the man or the Platonist marries for wither claimed pleasure, they will both end up disappointed with the results since neither one will lead them to the pleasure that is claimed to exist in love. In lines 18-22, Donne ridicules the Platonists by saying that they are just as false when they swear that the minds are what marry and that women have angelic minds as when they swear that they hear wonderful music in the “rude hoarse minstrelsy.” And in the last two lines Donne says that no man should hope to find a mind in a woman. If they find anything it would be sweetness and wittiness. But even if they do find these qualities in some women, they are still “mummy, possessed.” By this, Donne probably means that women, no matter what, are still mindless walking bodies. This line could also mean that once the sweet and witty woman is possessed, as in marriage, she proves to be the opposite. In this poem, John Donne expresses his utter belief that pure spiritual love does not exist. And those who claim to be in search of it are all fraudulent in their claims because all they really want is physical pleasure. And as is common in his literature, he also manages to include his idea that women are thoughtless, sex objects....
