A Dialogue between the Soul and the Body Freedom and Confinement Quotes

The soul complains more about its lack of freedom, but the body gets a little political rhetoric of its own in at the beginning of its first stanza. Plus, the soul was a little more coy about everything, complaining through metaphor and paradox about all the sad bodily stuff it endures. The body, on the other hand, comes right out and says it: the soul is a tyrant and it's keeping me in slavery.

It's interesting that the soul talks about "magic" instead of God or some other religious force. Maybe it's so disgusted with the reality of interacting with a body—pain! flu! sweat!—that it can't imagine anything spiritual locking it up in this madhouse. It must be some kind of sorcery.

And there's a touch of irony for ya. Because the soul would be happier without the body, it's not so secretly hoping for the grim reaper to come knocking. That's why diseases are bad but cures are worse: this opinionated amorphous blob can only get its freedom through death.