Song Meaning
The narrator issues an urgent call to action: "Fair Amoret is gone astray— / Pursue and seek her, ev'ry lover." This sets up a chase, but the description of Amoret quickly reveals the pursuit is less about finding a lost soul and more about understanding a complex, perhaps frustrating, object of affection. The dominant tone is one of exasperated observation, a lover trying to decode a woman whose every move is a calculated performance.
The central tension lies in Amoret's studied artifice. She is simultaneously "Coquette and coy," her "air" a product of "studied" effort, yet she strives to appear "neglected" and "unaffected." This paradox is the engine of her allure and the source of the narrator's bewilderment. The lyrics highlight her deliberate, almost exhausting, performance of naturalness, where "artful care" is employed to seem "careless."
The most striking craft element is the repeated emphasis on the duality of her actions and intentions. Her eyes "dart ev'ry glance" with "skill," yet she'd have observers believe they "wound by chance," when "certain aim and art direct" them. This deliberate misdirection, the gap between appearance and reality, is her defining characteristic. The final stanza drives this home: she "likes herself, yet others hates / For that which in herself she prizes," ultimately becoming "the thing that she despises" through her own judgmental gaze.
This writing is effective because it captures the maddening, yet captivating, nature of someone who wields their charm as a weapon, constantly shifting their presentation to maintain control. The narrator's detailed dissection of her contradictory behaviors—her feigned indifference, her calculated glances, her self-loathing projected outward—makes the reader feel privy to the intricate, frustrating game Amoret plays, and perhaps understand why such a figure would inspire a "hue and cry."
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