In the case of the poem, the man has conquered his "virgin" mistress by making it "one man manned", or introduced to only one sexual partner (28). The pace of the poem picks up with the speaker still expressing his enjoyment. He can see her "gems", which may be referring to her breasts, which makes "his earthly soul.covet theirs", theirs being "gems" or "Atlanta's balls", which are available to all women (35,38,36). John Donne refers to the myth of Atalanta (a virgin) who was challenged to a footrace by Hippomenes for her hand in marriage. Every time that Hippomenes fell behind in the race he would through golden apples in Atalanta's direction to distract her, in order to win the race. Like the irresistible temptation of the apples, the speaker could not resist the tempting figure of the mistress. Near to the end of the poem, the man says "cast all, yea, this white linen hence, Here is no penance due to innocence" (45-46). The white robe could symbolise both the punishment of a sinner and the innocence of virginity. The speaker states, however, that no punishment is needed, because no sin has been committed, but there is less innocence, because the Mistress is no longer a virgin. .
At the end it is revealed that none of this ever happened. "To teach thee, I am naked first; why then What need'st thou have more covering than a naked man?" (47-48). The Mistress hasn't even taken off her girdle yet, she is fully dressed and no sexual act has taken place. The narrative of the poem all took place in the mind of the narrator and all the sexual allusions were created in his masculine psyche. The truth of the poem is that the male speaker undresses himself whilst he awaits his Mistress. He dreams of this fantasy to prepare himself for his Mistress, a virgin. One could argue that he is making his own "flesh upright" while laying in bed waiting on his Mistress (24). .
Throughout the poem, Donne has used words or lines that could be perceived in more than one way.
