Pure? What does it mean?
The tongues of hell
Are dull, dull as the triple
Tongues of dull, fat CerberusCerberus a hound in Greek and Roman mythology that guards the gates of Hell (Hades), often represented with three heads
Who wheezes at the gate. Incapable
Of licking clean
The agueyaguey characterized by an acute fever, accompanied by shivering or shaking tendon, the sin, the sin.aguey In Plath's recorded reading of this poem, she adds four lines after this one: "O auto-da-fe! the purple men, / Gold-crusted, thick with spleen, / Sit with their hooks and crooks / and stoke the light." These lines do not appear in the original publication version (Poetry, August 1963) nor in The Collected Poems of Sylvia Plath (1966), where this text is taken.
The tinder cries.
The indelibleindelible permanent smell
Of a snuffed candle!
Love, love, the low smokes roll
From me like Isadora’s scarvesIsadora’s scarves American dancer Isadora Duncan (1877-1927) had a known longing for flowing scarves. She died in a freak car accident, most likely by strangulation, when her long scarf wrapped around her neck became caught in one of the wheel spokes of the traveling car., I’m in a fright
One scarf will catch and anchor in the wheel,
Such yellow sullen smokes
Make their own element. They will not rise,
But trundletrundle roll round the globe
Choking the aged and the meek,
The weak
HothouseHothouse a heated greenhouse where plants are bred baby in its crib,
The ghastly orchid
Hanging its hanging garden in the air,
Devilish leopard!
Radiation turned it white
And killed it in an hour.
Greasing the bodies of adulterers
Like HiroshimaHiroshima Japanese industrial city which was the first of two cities hit with an atomic bomb by the U.S. in August 1945 to end World War II. Many survivors of the attack later died of radiation burns or sickness. ash and eating in.
The sin. The sin.
Darling, all night
I have been flickering, off, on, off, on.
The sheets grow heavy as a lecher’slecher a person with strong sexual desires; lustful kiss.
Three days. Three nights.
Lemon water, chicken
Water, water make me retch.
I am too pure for you or anyone.
Your body
Hurts me as the world hurts God. I am a lantern——
My head a moon
Of Japanese paper, my gold beaten skin
Infinitely delicate and infinitely expensive.
Does not my heat astound you! And my light!
All by myself I am a huge camelliacamellia a plant native to Asia, with large flowers typically red or pink in color
Glowing and coming and going, flush on flush.
I think I am going up,
I think I may rise——
The beads of hot metal fly, and I love, I
Am a pure acetyleneacetylene a colorless, flammable gas that produces a high heat under pressure, used for torch welding and the cutting or purifying of metals
Virgin
Attended by roses,
By kisses, by cherubimcherubim plural of “cherub”; high-ranking angels mentioned in the Bible, often depicted in paintings as winged babies or toddlers.,
By whatever these pink things mean!
Not you, nor him
Nor him, nor him
(My selves dissolving, old whore petticoats)——
To Paradise.
