Mankind desires eternal happiness as if they were living in heaven. As a result, we buy artificial objects to get closer to that ideal realm of pleasure. However, once we die, we realize that death takes away everything that is worldly, thus leaving us thinking that everything we bought was all in vain, which leaves us full of regret. In the poem Thou Blind Man’s Mark, Sir Philip Sidney uses alliteration and repetition to convey the irony of how we are ashamed of submitting to our worldly desires, yet we continue to crave for “worthless [wares]” to make our lives temporarily content, triggering us to come to a realization that we can never escape from this spiral of greed. Using alliteration, the speaker emphasizes to us that we had a choice to succumb to our desires by telling us that we are fools for getting ourselves trapped into the “web of will.” Although we do realize that this was because we made the decision to choose with “causeless care,” it was already too late once we willingly entrapped ourselves into the spider’s web, left to be stuck in temptation until we are devoured by our sins. Through this, the speaker makes it clear to us that once we had a taste of greed, a deadly sin, we are drunk and addicted from this fake satisfaction it gives us until we die. The fact that we are mortal proves that we are prone to falling into…show more content… The speaker is ashamed for blindly desiring for the superficiality of this world, which shows through the repetition of the words “desires” and “too long.” Even though he realized that his mind should be directed towards “higher things,” he was “too long asleep,” blinded by his desires. The speaker emphasizes that we do not realize how much our worldly desires blind us until it’s too late. All of our cravings go “in vain” when we realize that they only bring ruin as the “smoky fire” consumes us greedy
