Though liquefaction may suffice,
In silks, to beckon and entice
And humble nature with device;
Yet silkless beauty can compare
And tender glories just as rare
In shoulders smooth and bosoms bare.
Author notes
Response to Robert Herrick's "Upon Julia's Clothes":
Whenas in silks my Julia goes,
Then, then, methinks, how sweetly flows
That liquefaction of her clothes!
Next, when I cast mine eyes and see
That brave vibration each way free,
Oh how that glittering taketh me!
(http://oldpoetry.com/opoem/750-Robert-Herrick-Upon-Julia-s-Clothes)
A contest entry
- Parodies (serious or satirical) #62 by Winklings.
3970 points, ended April 6, 11 entries
Bronze trophy winner
• next poem in this contest, remove from contest
Please tell me what you think
Comments
1 - 14 of 14
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Half the fun
is in the chase. Herrick's poem is a sexual tease.
I am not sure of how I like the female significant other in my life. Perhaps Herrick has a clear-cut point in allowing our lustful imaginations to work over-time!
Short, sweet and well done. Touch of class, I would have thought. You have carried off a coup. Your irony is not lost on this reader. The two poems are very, very close. One is based upon the gentility of "expected" courtly expressions of love in verse.
How well mistresses were actually treated in the "good" old days, who knows. But the baring of breasts in magazines and bars, today, suggest that there has passed away, a beauty from the earth.
Perhaps Herrick used Elizabethan convention well but how he used his hands, who knows? I would love to accept the genteel boudoir scene than one of the bared bosom.
I admire your use of the verb 'humble' in context here.
It looks as if you took the easy way out, poet, but rather, you have been exceedingly poetic and definitive of the ironic stance.
Lyndon of the Winklings.
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Thank you. "Upon Julia's Clothes" is one of my all-time favorite poems by Herrick...made even more interesting by the fact that he lived most of his life as a reclusive clergyman in Devonshire, wrote extensively about his various mistresses (although "Julia" seems to occur most frequently), and, from all available evidence, lived a solitary and chaste life...no mistresses at all! Yet each of his poems sounds as if he has just spent hours contemplating "her."
If nothing else, his using "liquifaction," "vibration," and "glittering" within six tetrameter lines (which doesn't leave him all that many syllables to work with) is itself a tour de force.
Again, thanks for the reading and the gracious response. -
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I notice too smaller words
such as "brave". The word then was used for other meanings than "courageous". 'Brave New World'. 'Brave', here, is hard for me to translate to another synonym. Yet I know what Herrick means. I guess I'm thinking in early C17 English!
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Deeper than it seems
This parody is more a contrast of social preferences than of content. The situation in both is set up in the first three lines, smoothly rhymed. The form continues to match, but the content starts to separate with lines four, more in five, and entirely in the final line.
The gentility of earlier times boldens by degrees to a ninety-degree departure in the last line. Parody of course is free to do that, often with no reason or discernible result other than humour as in a take-off.
Not so, here. We know that in Herrick's day, the imagination was sufficient, kept private and thus, special. Today, as in the last line, we just see boobs.
Open any magazine, crack TV in later hours, there are no mysteries anymore.
I ask you: Haven't we lost something there? For me, the gentle quality of subtlety has been lost.
If such awareness was not a goal of this poem, it is a bonus!
Bravo!
Terry
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Lovely
A fine reponse. I was going to comment how, like "Just Rob's" Whitman encore, your entry skirts around parody without being parody. Just now it strikes me that I read but never really absorbed the contest title: "Parodies (serious or satirical)"... as soon as I saw the word parody I was off to the races, completely glossing over the subtitle, never considering that there was a non-satirical form of parody. I think the older I get the more glossing I tend to do. This should be when I'm slowing down to smell the roses. Anyway, good concise write in the same metrical cadence as the original.
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My poem is probably more pastiche (borrowing another poet's style, form, tone, subject, character) than parody. I tried to take my poem as seriously as Herrick might have taken his, just moved in a different direction.
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I've always like the Herrick poem and your version is also very romantic. Point well taken about different kinds of female beauty.
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Many thanks. I'm in awe of his ability to use words so precisely.
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Do like this parody you penned here - great poem to use - filled with such images too - awesome job you did.
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Many thanks. It's probably my favorite of Herrick's poetry--a poet who more than any other I know of shows us how to make much in few words.
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LOL ...
this is certainly an interesting take on his poem. I notice you picked a very short poem to parody.
Anyway, good job on what you have here.
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Thanks. Herrick is one of my favorites from the 17th century ... a most interesting person and a remarkable poet. The "Julia" poems show him at his best. Every word is crucial, and he manages to create marvelous effects in short compass. Just using both "vibrations" and "liquifaction" within a six-line poem is masterful.
Anyway, I thoroughly enjoyed the contest. -
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Yes. ;)
That's true.
For some reason everything I post today posts twice. It's irritating.
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Yes. ;)
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