beg

Synonyms: beggard, beggards, beggars, beggar

“beg” indicates the supplication for the favor of sexual requitement of one sexual partner of the other. “Beggar”, the noun, is far more prevalent than “to beg”, the verb, transitive or intransitive. This accords with the fact that in her sexual relationship with her male lover she was the beggar most always, he having been it only in that brief period of first acquaintance until he succeeded in seducing her. Synonym symbols used in the poetry are: beseech, entreat, implore, crave, ask, pray, petition. Webster’s gives a very interesting little resume of the specific meanings of each of these terms and I feel quite sure that Emily studied them, since she applied them in their correct sense, so intelligently. The situation of her as the “beggar” is one of the most important ones in her sexology; it is based chiefly on that moment in the sexual act when male ejaculation reached its high point of imminence and vagina made the attempt of changing from fondling service to the swift aggression that would lead to the leap on the glans. Perhaps I make a mistake in using the term “leap”, since in most cases it was an attempt of a smooth slipping onto the glans, as the physiological condition would suggest, and the very symbol “beg” makes clear. The “hands beseeching thrown” in poem 201, or “shape my hands petition’s way” in poem 293, indicate that she was consciously aware of the uteral contraction’s role in this transition.