# To One in Custody explained — Poetry > Chapter companion for Poetry by Ambrose Bierce. ## What happens A direct and impassioned address to a villain who has long plied a terrible trade, preying on wives and widows. The speaker recounts years of witnessing prophetic signs of the villain's downfall and now declares that the final judgment has arrived, condemning the villain's body to prison and his soul to Hell. ## Themes in this chapter ### Justice and Revenge The speaker calls for the villain's punishment, demanding that mercy be deaf and intercession dumb, and rejoices in the villain's fall. ### Deception and Self-Deception The villain is accused of a long career of predatory deceit, preying on the vulnerable under a false sign of propriety. ## Key lines > Villain! for years you’ve plied your awful trade For wife, for widow and⁠—no, not for maid: Even you’ll confess in chastity one true Advantage⁠—its immunity from you. You villain! For years you have carried out your terrible work, targeting married women and widows, but not maids—you yourself would admit that chastity is one thing you cannot harm. _The speaker accuses the villain of a long career of seducing or exploiting married and widowed women, while acknowledging that virgins have been safe from him._ > About your hand, in clamorous appeal, As round the blade of Calmar, shriek and wheel, Like flights of Arctic seabirds, the forlorn Pale ghosts⁠—mothers and babes unborn. Around your hand, crying out for justice, like seabirds circling a sword, swirl the pitiful ghosts of mothers and unborn children. _The speaker invokes the image of the mythical sword of Calmar to describe the spectral victims clamoring around the villain's hand._ > Now, villain, now, I pray your time has come⁠— Mercy be deaf and intercession dumb! Now, villain, I pray your moment of reckoning has arrived—may no one show you mercy or speak on your behalf! _The speaker calls for the villain's punishment to be swift and without any possibility of clemency._ > No more, red-handed, in the path to life May you be found alurk with eager knife, Nor longer o’er the door to death display The sign, “For Ladies.” No longer may you be caught lurking on the path of life, knife in hand, nor hang a sign reading 'For Ladies' over the door to death. _The speaker condemns the villain's predatory behavior, using the metaphor of a murderer lying in wait and a grotesque sign advertising his deadly services to women._ > Lo! day after day For twenty years I’ve read on every wall A handwriting prophetic of your fall. And now the last dread syllable I spell That damns your body to a felon’s cell⁠— Your soul has long awaited you in Hell! For twenty years I have seen the writing on the wall predicting your downfall, and now I read the final, terrible word that condemns your body to prison—your soul has been waiting for you in Hell all along! _The speaker claims to have long foreseen the villain's fate and now declares that the prophecy is fulfilled: the villain's body goes to jail, and his soul is already damned._ ## Links - HTML: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/poetry_se/chapters/to-one-in-custody - Book: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/poetry_se - All chapters: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/poetry_se/chapters