How to Write About Poetry

“I can love both a blonde or a brunette, a woman who is overwhelmed by her own wealth or a woman who cannot hide her poverty, a woman who prefers solitude or a woman who loves to attend parties and the theater, a woman who comes from the country or a woman who was born in the city, a woman who trusts me or a woman who tests me, a woman who is given to easy tears or a woman whose eyes have always been as dry of tears as a cork is dry of liquid. I can love any woman her – except a woman who will be ever faithful to a relationship with me.

“Can’t you be satisfied with faults other than fidelity? Why can’t you behave as the universally previous generation of women did? Have you just tried all the other sins of lovers until you grew tired of them and decided to try out fidelity for awhile? Is it possible that you are offering faithfulness because you are vexed by the idea that men desire it? Believe me when I say, “We desire no such thing!’ Therefore, you have no reason to be faithful on our account. Go ahead and steal my love, but do not try to tie me to you forever. Instead, let me be free to love others. Do you demand that I, who has suffered so much at your hands, become your loyal lover simply because you are loyal?”

The goddess of love heard these complaints of mine. She swore by the idea that people may take many partners (the most appealing and attractive aspect of love) hat she had never heard of this new fashion of female fidelity. She went on to promise that she would bring an end to it. She went out into the world to observe for herself and came back very shortly. She sighed, I did indeed find two or three women who sought such perilous fidelity. They are unbelievers in my religion of love. However, I have cursed them by saying, ‘”If you insist on fidelity, then I condemn you to fall in love only with men who will cheat on you.”