Common Senses
Here the Five Senses incarnate as five fleshy temptresses.
translation: It is said the Five Senses are gifts for Man to take;/ They give themselves shamelessly, for your use./ Affection for these ladies, your Servants, must not cloud Manly discernment,/ Lest they seduce you and reduce you to cupidity, rapaciousness, lust.
See their gifts, framed by naked lady-parts: a mirror for gazing and fruits to taste, music for hearkening, blossoms for inhaling and soft, round shoulders for touching.
Beware, Masculine Intellect! Remember, even as you indulge, that the Female is cunning and untrustworthy.
Let’s ask the allegorical girls their side of the metaphor. They look to be a merry bunch. They tell a different story, a story of enslavement … to a narrow-minded, nasty-minded narcissist.