The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock Prufrock, taken as a whole, is quite a daunting work. However, when the plethora of allusions are broken down and revealed, it becomes slightly more manageable. Lines thirty-seven and thirty-eight allude to Andrew Marvell's To His Coy Mistress. Marvell's poetry is a poem of seduction. Through it, he attempts to convince his lady to sleep with him. He tells her that there's really no point in flirting, that in life as it is there's little time, don't waste time without going to bed with him. Prufrock is rather the antithesis of this plea. He spends his entire life postponing relationships with the world around him, especially relationships with women. Marvell has a very direct way of talking to his woman, indicative of a very direct relationship. Prufrock, on the other hand, has a much more tortuous language, and the fact that he represents the opposite of Marvell's feelings indicates that his relationships with women will be of the opposite nature. His relationships are, in fact, non-existent. He spends his entire life relating to women. This may be because he is afraid of not being able to trust women. This is alluded to in lines 124 and 125, in which it refers to the "song of the sirens". This is from the Song of John Donne, in which he laments the non-existence of a real woman by comparing her to a whole host of impossible ideas. In this poem, the speaker asks the recipient to teach him, if all these impossible things are truly possible, to hear the sirens' song. Prufrock seems to think they are possible but is somehow left out of it. Works consulted Blythe, Hal. "Eliot's The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock." Explainer v. 52, no. 3, p 170 Spring 1994. http://arts.ucsc.edulgdeadlagdllstella.html#eliot Smith, Gerald. "Eliot's The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock." Explainer v. 21, no. 2, 1962: #17.