When I read this for the first time, I can’t understand the whole text because it has conflicting ideas like
the word “concupiscent”, I look in the dictionary and the meaning of it is lust or strong sexual desire and the word
“wenches” which means young woman or prostitute according to the dictionary. The words “concupiscent”,
“wenches” are in literal or denotations. From the first four lines, I can say that the poet or writer of this describes
the man and woman who are in the middle of pleasurable things or they are courting each other, then the
following lines the words “dawdle”, “bring flowers” shows courtship. In addition, the allusion in this stanza is
the word “kitchen” because kitchen is a place where we cook, and when we cook, we consider what is healthy.
It reveals men and women are starting their love and because they are young and have ‘strength’ to do what
they want. However, the line “Let be be finale of seem” (7) shows let be their reality and the word seem makes
it more complicated to understand. I think the word “seem” describes the reality unclearly, that is not the real
appearance of reality, then at the end of the first stanza, “The only emperor is the emperor of ice cream.” (8),
“ice cream” is the allusion for temporary things in our lives because it melts easily. Because ice cream melts
easily, it should be eaten quickly. Therefore, the phrase “the only emperor is the emperor of ice cream” means
that the “emperor” is someone who can control his empire or only himself temporarily.
Then, the following stanza has ambiguities and tension because from the lines, “Take from the dresser
of deal / Lacking the three glass knobs, that sheet / On which she embroidered fantails once (9-11) a ‘woman’
takes a “sheet” which has embroidered fantails and line nine to ten describes that she is poor because of the
word “lacking”, she doesn’t have enough money to fix the “glass knobs”. These lines describe the life of a woman.
Then the following line says “And spread it so as to cover her face” , if I interpret this as it is and not on the
context, I would say she uses the sheet as her veil but because of the lines “If her horny feet protrude, they
come”/ “To show how cold she is, and dumb” (13-14) shows that the “sheet” which has embroidered fantails
(bird) , this bird was used to describe her life as useless but has a beautiful appearance in terms of symbolism
and allusion. She uses the sheet with embroidered fantails over her dead body to cover. Her dead body was not
described directly, the writer uses words to describe it to come up with one meaning. The phrase ‘horny feet’
means smooth brain, or stupid person who can’t use the brain and the words “cold and dumb” means a dead
body. Then the author says “let the lamp affix its beam” (15), the lamp means “light” which has to be stuck with
its beam. He let people find out the truth and be with it, the reality is that the only emperor is someone who can
control temporary things such as pleasure, happiness etc., but we don’t have control in death, that’s why the
author compared life to ice cream.
Although the text has ambiguities and complicated words and phrases, there’s one thing to understand:
we experience and encounter temporary things and we have control over how we live but we should not waste
the opportunity because we also experience death which we do not have control over. The author shows the
transition of life is like his poem, it can be described briefly in two stanzas, but with complicated meanings and
ambiguities which he uses to successfully convey the message.
