Delicious Torment

[GreenEyedGirl]

"Thou art to me a delicious torment."
Ralph Walso Emerson

In cleaning my room, I came across some old love notes, and sat my butt down to reread them. This line caught my eye, again, and memories flooded.
The writer of this note was an artist, and moody as hell, but damn he wrote good love notes.
As a woman, this appeals to me, being someone's delicious torment.
Just a wonderful description.
But is being a "delicious torment" a good thing? Have you ever had some one who tortured your soul by their being?

 

[Dillinger]

There are different types of "delicious torment" I think - one is purely sexual and can indeed be a good thing.

As far as love goes... I guess it comes down to how much is delicious and how much is torment. The prase itself "delicious torment" to me... taken by itself and out of context of the essay by Emerson is one which makes torment sound appealing because it is modified by "delicious." To me this is evocative of waiting for one's love, being apart and waiting to be together again... the memories and feelings are delicious, yet the being apart is tormenting. The waiting is a toment, yet one knows soon they will be together again... delicious!

This is the type of torment I would relish because it would mean that I was in love. Being in love is wonderful (when it is returned as well) - whatever small torments there might be. I'd rather those tormented moments than not being in love at all.

Now read the words in the context Emerson placed them:

" If I was sure of thee, sure of thy capacity, sure to match my mood with thine, I should never think again of trifles in relation to thy comings and goings. I am not very wise; my moods are quite attainable; and I respect thy genius; it is to me as yet unfathomed; yet dare I not presume in thee a perfect intelligence of me, and so thou art to me a delicious torment. Thine ever, or never."

-- Emerson

Friendship
from Essays: First Series (1841)
by Ralph Waldo Emerson

A ruddy drop of manly blood
The surging sea outweighs,
The world uncertain comes and goes,
The lover rooted stays.
I fancied he was fled,
And, after many a year,
Glowed unexhausted kindliness
Like daily sunrise there.
My careful heart was free again, --
O friend, my bosom said,
Through thee alone the sky is arched,
Through thee the rose is red,
All things through thee take nobler form,
And look beyond the earth,
And is the mill-round of our fate
A sun-path in thy worth.
Me too thy nobleness has taught
To master my despair;
The fountains of my hidden life
Are through thy friendship fair.

 

[Quiet_Cool]

Every woman is a delicious torment...is that a good thing? Who knows? Does it matter?

 

[Wiggles]

Delicious Torment.

Yes, it's a very good thing. It's one of those things that makes us feel alive.

I've had many delicious torments, life is sweet.

 

[GreenEyedGirl]

Dilly, thanks for finding the poem. Taking the line out of the poem does alter its context, but I think it is a valid question in context or out. "Thine ever, or never" that's pretty absolute. But still an emotion that can be equated with love.

And I think it does matter if your lover is a delicious torment to you or no. It also matters if that love lasts, or spurts out.

 

[Dillinger]

It also matters if that love lasts, or spurts out.

Love Comes in Spurts
(Richard Hell and the Voidoids)

I was a child
who wanted love that was wild
though tight as slow motion
but crazed with devotion

insane with devotion
a whole other notion
I was fourteen and a half
and it wasn't no laugh

Love comes in spurts (oh no it hurts)
Love comes in spurts (it hurts)
Love comes in spurts (oh no, cuz)
Love comes in spurts (it always hurts)

I just can't get wise
to those tragical lies
though I now know the facts
they still cut like an axe

cuz love comes in spurts
in dangerous flirts
and it murders your heart
they didn't tell you that part

Love comes in spurts
Love comes in spurts
Love comes in spurts
Love comes in spurts

Love comes in spurts
Love comes in spurts
Love comes in spurts
Love comes in spurts

 

[Olivianna]

In terms of the day-to-day workings of a relationship (i.e. not just sex), I would have to say that I prefer 'huggable teddy bear' to 'delicious torment'. After a series of college and post-college relationships which could aptly be characterized as 'delicious torment', among other things, I have found that I prefer to know that I will be having a yummy cookie every day, rather than being left to wonder if one day it will be jalapeno and another will be chocolate chocolate chip. Consistency; I guess that is what I am getting it.
This is quite subjective though, right? It all depends upon how we each define 'torment'.

 

[riff]

Reminds me of the song "Delicious Demon" by the Sugarcubes.

 

[Hamletmaschine]

All women are torments. Not all torments are delicious.

Emerson seems to find the 'she loves me, she loves me not' conundrum to be a delicious torment. I do not. If I want to know how she feels about me, I'll ask her. It's a simple yes or no question, after all. If she can't answer it, then she can get back to me when she's made up her mind.

Like Dilly, I feel that the 'delicious torment' begins when you are in the throes of love, when every waking moment is spent waiting for the next time when you can be with your beloved, when you are frustrated by how pitifully inadequate your efforts to show your love seem to you. And then there's the sexual spin on it, too.

 

[riff]

No. No. No.

All women are not torments once you accept the fact that you cannot always bend them to their will. Like cats.

Don't let it get to you!

mmmmmmuuuuuuurrrrrrrr

 

[GreenEyedGirl]

All women are not torments once you accept the fact that you cannot always bend them to their will. Like cats.

I may have never heard a more true statement.
But the same can be said of men, I would just rather liken them to wolves, or ocelots, or even dolphins than cats. men are not very feline, although they do enjoy a good petting every now and again (or so I have heard).




So maybe delicious torment does not fit into the sphere of the every day love, pehaps it should be quarantined into sex. I like what Dilly and Hamlet say, that it begins in the very first throes of love and attraction, when pheremones rule your body. Hmmm... your pheremones fighting your "common sense" maybe?

I don't know, but the phrase still appeals to me in a less than good way.