enchain

At every approach of horseman, cart, or carriage, I turned fearfully, certain I should see some minister of injustice come to enchain us.

The passion that oozes out of this duet, ‘I adore you, I embrace you, I desire you, I enchain you’, is so frank and sensual it almost turns its audience - remember they are in the room too - into voyeurs, awkwardly witnessing the private interchange of two weirdly uninhibited strangers.

Writing his great Dictionary, Samuel Johnson was won round to this democratic state of affairs: ‘sounds are too volatile and subtile for legal restraints; to enchain syllables, and to lash the wind, are equally the undertakings of pride.’

In 1750, Samuel Johnson wrote that a good biography can “enchain the heart by an irresistible interest.”

Tie your knots, she sang again and again, enchain! — enchain! — enchain me!