A Man Young and Old: 6. His Memories
A Man Young and Old: 6. His Memories - meaning Summary
Hidden, Broken, Remembered Desire
The speaker recalls private memories of desire and humiliation, imagining himself and lovers as damaged, thorn-like bodies unseen by others. Classical allusion to Hector and Troy frames these recollections as ancient, shameful pleasures that persist despite the indifference of women around him. The poem compresses erotic memory, aging, and the wish to be hidden, suggesting a tension between public invisibility and vivid, painful private recollection.
Read Complete AnalysesWe should be hidden from their eyes, Being but holy shows And bodies broken like a thorn Whereon the bleak north blows, To think of buried Hector And that none living knows. The women take so little stock In what I do or say They'd sooner leave their cosseting To hear a jackass bray; My arms are like the twisted thorn And yet there beauty lay; The first of all the tribe lay there And did such pleasure take - She who had brought great Hector down And put all Troy to wreck - That she cried into this ear, 'Strike me if I shriek.'
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