Poem 212 describes young women playing in water and decorating themselves with nature to the delight of the poet. It starts with the image of a girl’s bodice that is soaking wet. The suggestion here is of that soaked bodice clinging to the as of yet unmentioned bodies of the young women. The description of it being wet with “cooling water” suggests that these girls are in the water because of the heat, and as mentioned …show more content…
They both start with lists of adornments that bear a striking resemblance to the traditional adornments worn by women in love and then end with what the adorned ones do. In taking this form they link themselves to one another and likely a whole tradition of poems in this same format, the most traditional being a women wearing what the subjects of both poems pretend to wear and then going to meet their lovers. The contrast of the first poem is that they are young women only playing at dressing the part using the things that nature around them provides. This playfulness heightens the excitement and seduction with youth and innocence that still achieves the ultimate aim of seduction. The contrast of the second poem is even more stark, the women are not women but in fact ghouls playing at dressing the part using bits of decaying human bodies. The horror and disgust of the reader at the adornment of the fouls is heightened by its contrast to the loveliness and seductiveness of the woman in love hinted at by the references to typical adornment. When looked at together the two poems reveal how deftly these ancient poets could wield these poetic conventions to create such a spectrum of feeling within the same basic