As A.O. Scott relates in his review of the movie Shame, this poem, "as incisive an anatomy of erotic compulsion as exists in English, begins by evoking 'the expense of spirit in a waste of shame' and cycles through the rages and frustrations of lust before collapsing in exhausted fatalism." For full effect, ingest slowly by duly masticating.
The expense of spirit in a waste of shame
Is lust in action; and till action, lust
Is perjured, murderous, bloody, full of blame,
Savage, extreme, rude, cruel, not to trust;
Enjoy'd no sooner but despised straight;
Past reason hunted; and no sooner had,
Past reason hated, as a swallowed bait,
On purpose laid to make the taker mad:
Mad in pursuit, and in possession so;
Had, having, and in quest to have, extreme;
A bliss in proof, and proved, a very woe;
Before, a joy proposed; behind, a dream.
All this the world well knows; yet none knows well
To shun the heaven that leads men to this hell.
-William Shakespeare
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