Analyzes      In the first four lines of the poem their meeting takes place. In line 1      it is indicated that some time has passed since their last meeting.      The woman calls herself bitch and this shows that one part of her is      hostile and defensive. The bitch's first reaction is to growl at the man.      She tells herself to keep quiet and not to make a scene, but when the      woman is nice to him, in line 5, the bitch starts barking. The woman      explains that he is not a trespasser or an enemy now.              The word now is very important here. As he is not an enemy now, it is indicated that he was an enemy in the past when they had a relationship and your loved ones are not supposed to be your enemies. From this we can assume that their relationship was not very good. Now he is just someone from the past, someone she used to know and they are very formal towards each other. In line 8, she says to the bitch "Where are your manners" and this is something you say to dogs or people, when you think that they do not behave properly.    In line 10 and 11 the tone of the poem changes. The man is nice to her and the bitch changes her attitude, she weakens. She softens and falls back into old habits and feelings and wants to be close to him again. In line 13 the woman tries to keep a distance between them. She threatens with "a taste of the choke-chain" and the bitch inside her obeys reluctantly. "After all, I am her mistress. She is basically loyal." The woman can control the bitch and her own feelings. Being the mistress of the bitch could be compared to being the mistress of a dog.    In the next ten lines the bitch remembers the past, which does not seem very nice to the reader. She used to act like a dog, waiting for its master, listening for his steps and then come running to obey and please him, lying at his feet and adoring him. She used to wait obediently and devotedly for him to notice and care about her. He treated her like a dog, ordering her to fetch things and only noticed her when he felt like it, and then he just played with her and her feelings.    But the bitch chooses to remember the good times better than the bad ones. She thinks back at when he was nice to her, although it was "careless kindnesses". He was not really paying her any attention, only when he was in a good mood or had been drinking. In line 28 the woman states that "It's nice to know you are doing so well" and after that she starts making excuses for him leaving her. She puts herself down and explains that he could not have taken her with him, because she was not good enough. Here you can hear the echo of his words. Even though she is the one stating this, it is clear that these are his words to begin with, words that she have probably been told numerous times. She is nothing compared to his new friends, who are very neat and tidy, taking care of their appearance.    Finally, after some polite parting phrases, the woman leaves and is forced to drag the bitch away from him "by the scruff", just like you do with a disobedient dog.    The main-thread of the poem is dog-like behaviour. Here, the bitch is a symbol that represents the woman's feelings and she hides the bitch and her feelings from the man. A bitch can be either a female dog or a woman. When a woman is referred to as a bitch, it is not a positive word. It is associated with an unpleasant, nagging woman and that could be the reason why she hides the bitch from him, because she knows that the bitch (and her emotions) would annoy him. "Where are your manners?" the woman asks the bitch, she might be asking herself this because she does not want to give in to what she is feeling, or she might be worried that her feelings will shine through to the man. Maria Fröjd and Ulrika Josefsson