The Naked and the Nude
by Robert Graves
For me, the naked and the nude
(By lexicographers construed
As synonyms that should express
The same deficiency of dress
Or shelter) stand as wide apart
As love from lies, or truth from art.
Lovers without reproach will gaze
On bodies naked and ablaze;
The Hippocratic eye will see
In nakedness, anatomy;
And naked shines the Goddess when
She mounts her lion among men.
The nude are bold, the nude are sly
To hold each treasonable eye.
While draping by a showman's trick
Their dishabille in rhetoric,
They grin a mock-religious grin
Of scorn at those of naked skin.
The naked, therefore, who compete
Against the nude may know defeat;
Yet when they both together tread
The briary pastures of the dead,
By Gorgons with long whips pursued,
How naked go the sometime nude!
I don't understand this one. Maybe because it's late and I'm tired and Max has managed to piss me off. All I see are two nekkid women. And couldn't you for once pick a nekkid redhead to post instead of the same generic petite brunette ??? Whatever happened to variety is the spice of life ....
ReplyDeletexxx
Jeez, Louise!
DeleteDon't you know how hairist that sounds?
And how difficult it is, at the drop of a hat, to find an illustrative red-haired nude that's a pretty nude but not quite porn?
And no, not yet another willowy russian hanging winsomely on a birch tree?
This one I've added to the post is probably a Lyudmila or an Oksana too. Seems the biggest export of former soviet lands is pics of naked women.
As for the meaning of the poem, well I'm not going to explain it, maybe if you re-read it in daytime you'll get it.
Pithy statement/definitition:
ReplyDeleteThe difference between 'nude' and 'naked'.
Nude is naked with attitude.