[N. Matheson]

For context, this poem is part of a speech from an ongoing creative writing project I am working on set in a fantasy world. As a result, it uses much archaism and outdated writing formats to obtain a sense of antiquity. If you don't like that, well that's just how my setting works.

V2
… for in her lives
A panoply of whispers, charms, and smiles
More fierce than feminine, as whetted steel
In wanton war, she wields her beauty’s hilt.
Her wits out-legion all th’ embattled hosts
That soldiers trade their arms to beg for alms;
Or, like th’ envenomed dart, her burning kiss
Is drawn with dalliance upon her lips,
A mortal arrow fletched with groans and sighs
That from her scarlet bow is swiftly loosed.
Her velvet arms, those slender instruments,
Which fan perdition’s flame with ecstasy,
Claiming usury’s interest for her loan
Of pleasures brief, which she demands in pain
With ev’ry idle bliss repaid to her
Times three, with jagged woes and barbed regrets.

V1
… for in her lives
A panoply of whispers, charms, and smiles
More fierce than feminine, as whetted steel
In wanton war, she wields her beauty’s hilt;
Her wits out-legion such a force of arms,
That fortune’s gallant soldier turns to alms;
Or, like th’ envenomed dart, her burning kiss
Is drawn with dalliance upon her lips,
A mortal arrow fletched with groans and sighs,
That from her scarlet bow is swiftly loosed;
Her velvet arms, those slender instruments,
That fan perdition’s flame with ecstasy,
Make pain with paradise a mutual peer;
For th’ usury of pleasure shall be pain,
Where ev’ry idle bliss is paid to her
In thrice, with jagged woes and barbed regrets.

[Glenn Wright]

Hi, N.—

Your meter is flawless, and I like the alliteration. You do a nice job of presenting an extended comparison of the woman’s beauty to an arsenal of deadly weapons. I especially like the image of her kiss being an arrow fired from the bow of her mouth.

I had a few questions:

1. I don’t understand in line 6 how the soldier turns to “alms” (a charitable gift).

2. The word “drawn” in line 8 is ambiguous. I’m pretty sure that you mean it in the sense of “pulling back a bowstring,” and the image of a kiss turning her lips into a taut bowstring is clever, but it could also mean “painted or sketched on,” suggesting the insincerity of her kiss. Did you intend this?

3. In line 13 you personify “pain” as a peer of “paradise.” In the next line you change the image and make pain the exorbitant interest that the woman charges for the loan of pleasure. This requires a bit too much nimbleness on the reader’s part. Could you, perhaps, choose one of these images (I suggest the second one) and develop it over the last four lines?

Here’s an example:

Claiming usurious interest for her loan
Of fleeting pleasures, which she demands in pain
With ev’ry idle bliss paid back to her
Three times, with jagged woes and barbed regrets.

This eliminates the repetition of the word “pain” in adjacent lines, gets rid of the mixed metaphor, and clarifies the awkward expression “in thrice.”

Nice work!
Glenn

[N. Matheson]

Thank you so much!

1. The idea was her beauty as a weapon is enough to put a soldier out of work, so he'll be left begging for alms.

2. I did not, I am not an archer myself, so I merely used the terms to the best of my knowledge. I don't know if the ambiguity is a windfall or not, but if there's another word for drawn here, I'm not sure what it is.

3. The idea was that pain is made a peer of paradise, and is not naturally. But I do see the confusion, and while I love your idea, I'm struggling to get it to conform to the exact meter I'm using.

[Paula Fernandez]

Greetings N!

I have a love of archaisms myself and also an appreciation for the fantastical. This appears to be a character sketch, and I'm imagining it as an introduction to a more fully fleshed character with a name and a story arc. I think it would be easier to absorb it in the larger context, but since it is divorced from that here, I'm just processing it as a standalone poem.

My favorite bit is the loosing of a burning kiss from the bow of her lips. The extended metaphor there feels quite rich. Like Glenn, I appreciate the regularity of your meter and the bristling of the many different weapons you've drawn for her.

However, my overall impression is that I'm struggling with the syntax and just making sense here. The unbroken nesting of clause after clause is quite exhausting for me to read. For me, personally, I would like this broken into some distinct sentences each ended with periods. I realize that the semi-colons essentially function to do that, but I'd prefer periods. A nice period just gives the brain a place to rest for a second. But I may just be a lazy reader or not understand what you're doing here.

I also am just confused in places:

I struggled to imagine a panoply of fierce "whispers, charms, and smiles". How does one charm fiercely?

I'm not sure about wielding a hilt. Why not wielding her beauty's "blade"?

I can't parse "Her wits out-legion such a force of arms,/ That fortune’s gallant soldier turns to alms;"

I take it to mean she's very witty. But I'm not sure who "fortune's gallant soldier" could be. Who is fortune and why does fortune have a soldier (gallant or otherwise)? Why does her being witty make him a beggar? Is he so gallant that he gives her all his money? Perhaps.

I guess I think maybe this got carried away with clever images and strong meter and lost a little bit of a grip on meaning.

[N. Matheson]

1. I can understand the conflict of images, and it does read like an oxymoron. The idea was she has these feminine tools at her disposal but wields them like weapons.

2. I originally had that, but I felt that was overdoing the alliteration.

3. I'm personifying fortune here, the idea is that she can rival an entire legion and therefore soldiers are going to be left begging for alms when she puts them out of work.

[N. Matheson]

Originally Posted by Glenn Wright

Hi, N.—

Your meter is flawless, and I like the alliteration. You do a nice job of presenting an extended comparison of the woman’s beauty to an arsenal of deadly weapons. I especially like the image of her kiss being an arrow fired from the bow of her mouth.

I had a few questions:

1. I don’t understand in line 6 how the soldier turns to “alms” (a charitable gift).

2. The word “drawn” in line 8 is ambiguous. I’m pretty sure that you mean it in the sense of “pulling back a bowstring,” and the image of a kiss turning her lips into a taut bowstring is clever, but it could also mean “painted or sketched on,” suggesting the insincerity of her kiss. Did you intend this?

3. In line 13 you personify “pain” as a peer of “paradise.” In the next line you change the image and make pain the exorbitant interest that the woman charges for the loan of pleasure. This requires a bit too much nimbleness on the reader’s part. Could you, perhaps, choose one of these images (I suggest the second one) and develop it over the last four lines?

Here’s an example:

Claiming usurious interest for her loan
Of fleeting pleasures, which she demands in pain
With ev’ry idle bliss paid back to her
Three times, with jagged woes and barbed regrets.

This eliminates the repetition of the word “pain” in adjacent lines, gets rid of the mixed metaphor, and clarifies the awkward expression “in thrice.”

Nice work!
Glenn

I really do love this last suggestion, but the meter is jilted and I cannot make it work no matter what I try.

[Julie Steiner]

Clearly Glenn's and Paula's enthusiasm demonstrates that there is an audience for this sort of thing, but it just makes me think, "Gadzooks."

Nay, verily, 'tis not just the archaism, but the misogyny against the sexy, nefarious woman that doth make this trope not my demitasse of tisane. (This sort of thing reminds me of the poetry that a middle-aged stalker used to write for me when I was eighteen, accusing me of cruelty for not appreciating his tediously obsessive appreciation of my physical charms. Ugh. I must admit that after several weeks of having to put up with his wounded poetry slipped under my door every few days, the thought of his dropping dead did, indeed, start to have some appeal.)

If you're using archaism, you should comply with the old rules of restrictive clauses (introduced with "that") and nonrestrictive clauses (introduced with "which"). No comma should be used to set off a restrictive clause from the rest of the sentence, so you should delete the commas before the "that"s in Line 10 and Line 12. See https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/general_w..._vs_which.html

[N. Matheson]

Okay, that was a bit much. But I should stress that this isn't me writing my opinions, this is a poem from a narrative within a story, not my description and opinion of a character. This is a character voicing their opinion of another character.

[Julie Steiner]

Oh, yes, I saw your preface, and I understand that this passage is the argument of a character who is participating in a long, long tradition of la belle dame sans merci, which continues today in various forms, including gangsta rap's "Jezebel" and "Sapphire" stereotypes of sexually aggressive, emasculating women.

But another word for long, long traditions is "clichés."

Perhaps, in the context of your fantasy story, the woman is literally a witch, siren, fairy, etc. But the portrayal is still in conversation with a range of historical and contemporary portrayals of male helplessness before feminine power and wiles, that goes back to portrayals of Adam as just an innocent bystander in the Garden of Eden, unfairly punished for a sin that Eve committed and then implicated Adam in.

The violence of the weaponry images in your character's version brings the trope to a new level, but it's up to the individual reader to decide if that newness makes this old trope new enough to suit their taste. For me, the archaism just adds to my "Oh, this tired old trope again" reaction.

Other readers' reactions will vary, of course, and that's perfectly fine. I fully expect to be in the minority here. But I thought it might be useful to you to know that at least one reader is more than a bit tired of the heterosexual male victimhood narrative, which justifies violence against women as self-defense. And that tiredness makes me less inclined than usual to give the poem a fair hearing on its own merits.

[W T Clark]

Is the poem about a sexbon? It surely cannot be about a human, and certainly cannot be spoken by a human. Maybe it is spoken by an algorithm? Something with the capacity to collage the most misogynistic passages of Elizabethan songs together?