idolatry, lies beneath the images of the harlot and of the unfaithful wife, in their many permutations. The poem moves back and forth from the woman to the city in such a way that the figurative and the literal blend together. The image of the city-woman in her abject state elicits both revulsion and pity. As we watch her, and the poet forces us to watch her, we are torn by ambivalent urges: we cannot bear to look but we cannot turn our eyes away. The more we look, the more we shame her by seeing