Opportunity may knock only once, but temptation leans on the doorbell.
|
A mesmerizing presence from which I can not hide.
He twists my thoughts and kills my dreams
and steals my fragile mind.
He strips me clean of everything
and leaves me here to cope;
naked and alone am I with nothing left,
save hope.
|
|
Do you forget, enchantress, or recall
The world you fashioned once, and now forgo?
Where, Venus-like from Lethe and the abyss,
Might rise the abandoned bliss;
Where the mute Muses bide your summoning word;
Where darkling faun and daemon drowse unstirred,
Waiting the invocation of your kiss.Do You Forget, Enchantress?
Clark Ashton Smith
|
|
|
It is sometimes better not to struggle against temptation.
Either fly or yield at once.
F.H.Bradley
|
|
|
|
Encyclopedia Mythica
|
|
|
|
Intemperence in the guise of a beautiful sorceress.
Nuttall Encyclopedia
|
|
|
This is the one song everyone
would like to learn: the song
that is irresistible:
the song that forces men
to leap overboard in squadrons
even though they see beached skulls
SIREN SONG
Margaret Atwood
|
Interpretation and Meaning
Sleepeth or waketh thou, jolly shepherd?
Thy sheep be in the corn.
|
THE AWAKENING CONSCIENCE
Tate Collection
|
|
|
Drink of our Cup--of the red wine that burns in it,
All the wild shames that have crusted its mouth,
Passion that twists in it, Madness that churns in it,
Fever that yearns in it, Folly that turns in it,
THE CHALICE OF CIRCE
Muriel Stuart
|
|
|
An hundred years should go to praise
Thine eyes, and on thy forehead gaze;
Two hundred to adore each breast,
But thirty thousand to the rest;
An age at least to every part,
And the last age should show your heart.To His Coy Mistress
Andrew Marvell
|
|
"Will you walk into my parlor?" said the spider to the fly;
"'Tis the prettiest little parlor that ever you may spy.
The way into my parlor is up a winding stair,
And I have many curious things to show when you are there."
The Spider and the Fly
Mary Howitt
|
|
|
Mammon led them on
-
Mammon, the least erected Spirit that fell
From Heaven; for even in Heaven his looks and thoughts
Were always downward bent, admiring more
The riches of heaven's pavement, trodden gold,
Than aught divine or holy else enjoyed
In vision beatific. By him first
Men also, and by his suggestion taught,
Ransacked the centre, and with impious hands
Rifled the bowels of their mother Earth
For treasures better hid. Soon had his crew
Opened into the hill a spacious wound,
And digged out ribs of gold...
- Paradise Lost, Book i, 678-690
In other words---the demon of avarice.
|
"Now where did I put
that little riding crop?"
|