Let the wenches dawdle in such dress
As they are used to wear, and let the boys
Bring flowers in last month's newspapers.
Let be be finale of seem.
The only emperor is the emperor of ice-cream.
--
"The Emperor of Ice Cream" - Commentary on this poem at Modern American Poetry (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign)Wallace Stevens
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In our own times, you see, an emperor came to the city of Rome, where there’s the temple of an emperor, where there’s a fisherman’s tomb. And so that pious and Christian emperor, wishing to beg for health, for salvation from the Lord, did not proceed to the temple of a proud emperor, but to the tomb of a fisherman, where he could imitate that fisherman in humility, so that he, being thus approached, might then obtain something from the Lord, which a haughty emperor would be quite unable to earn.
Augustine of Hippo
It has always been the prerogative of children and half-wits to point out that the emperor has no clothes. But the half-wit remains a half-wit, and the emperor remains an emperor.
Neil Gaiman
The enemies of Christ … could not bear his independence; his “Give the emperor that which is the emperor’s” showed a contempt for the affairs of state and its politics—for the moral order—that their self-respect would not let them tolerate.
John Carroll
Now that the Emperor has accepted the Potsdam Declaration, we must lay down our arms. Obeying the Emperor's order, we shall not fight. We must keep peace and order and we shall not make any trouble.
Seishiro Itagaki
Does the Emperor wear no clothes? Or are you simply imagining him naked?
Warren Ellis
Stevens, Wallace
Stevenson, Adlai
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