Keats: Poems Published in 1820 Part 15

_stairs_, steps on which they sat to beg.

l. 125. _red-lin'd accounts_, vividly picturing their neat account-books, and at the same time, perhaps, suggesting the human blood for which their acc.u.mulation of wealth was responsible.

l. 130. _gainful cowardice._ A telling expression for the dread of loss which haunts so many wealthy people.

l. 133. _hawks . . . forests._ As a hawk pounces on its prey, so they fell on the trading-vessels which put into port.

ll. 133-4. _the untired . . . lies._ They were always ready for any dishonourable transaction by which money might be made.

l. 134. _ducats._ Italian pieces of money worth about 4_s._ 4_d._ Cf.

Shylock, _Merchant of Venice_, II. vii. 15, 'My ducats.'

l. 135. _Quick . . . away._ They would undertake to fleece unsuspecting strangers in their town.

PAGE 58. l. 137. _ledger-men._ As if they only lived in their account-books. Cf. l. 142.

l. 140. _Hot Egypt's pest_, the plague of Egypt.

ll. 145-52. As in _Lycidas_ Milton apologizes for the introduction of his attack on the Church, so Keats apologizes for the introduction of this outburst of indignation against cruel and dishonourable dealers, which he feels is unsuited to the tender and pitiful story.

l. 150. _ghittern_, an instrument like a guitar, strung with wire.

PAGE 59. ll. 153-60. Keats wants to make it clear that he is not trying to surpa.s.s Boccaccio, but to give him currency amongst English-speaking people.

l. 159. _stead thee_, do thee service.

l. 168. _olive-trees._ In which (through the oil they yield) a great part of the wealth of the Italians lies.

PAGE 60. l. 174. _Cut . . . bone._ This is not only a vivid way of describing the banishment of all their natural pity. It also, by the metaphor used, gives us a sort of premonitory shudder as at Lorenzo's death. Indeed, in that moment the murder is, to all intents and purposes, done. In stanza xxvii they are described as riding 'with their murder'd man'.

PAGE 61. ll. 187-8. _ere . . . eglantine._ The sun, drying up the dew drop by drop from the sweet-briar is pictured as pa.s.sing beads along a string, as the Roman Catholics do when they say their prayers.

PAGE 62. l. 209. _their . . . man._ Cf. l. 174, note. Notice the extraordinary vividness of the picture here--the quiet rural scene and the intrusion of human pa.s.sion with the reflection in the clear water of the pale murderers, sick with suspense, and the unsuspecting victim, full of glowing life.

l. 212. _bream_, a kind of fish found in lakes and deep water. Obviously Keats was not an angler.

_freshets_, little streams of fresh water.

PAGE 63. l. 217. Notice the reticence with which the mere fact of the murder is stated--no details given. Keats wants the prevailing feeling to be one of pity rather than of horror.

ll. 219-20. _Ah . . . loneliness._ We perpetually come upon this old belief--that the souls of the murdered cannot rest in peace. Cf.

_Hamlet_, I. v. 8, &c.

l. 221. _break-covert . . . sin._ The blood-hounds employed for tracking down a murderer will find him under any concealment, and never rest till he is found. So restless is the soul of the victim.

l. 222. _They . . . water._ That water which had reflected the three faces as they went across.

_tease_, torment.

l. 223. _convulsed spur_, they spurred their horses violently and uncertainly, scarce knowing what they did.

l. 224. _Each richer . . . murderer._ This is what they have gained by their deed--the guilt of murder--that is all.

l. 229. _stifling_: partly literal, since the widow's weed is close-wrapping and voluminous--partly metaphorical, since the acceptance of fate stifles complaint.

l. 230. _accursed bands._ So long as a man hopes he is not free, but at the mercy of continual imaginings and fresh disappointments. When hope is laid aside, fear and disappointment go with it.

PAGE 64. l. 241. _Selfishness, Love's cousin._ For the two aspects of love, as a selfish and unselfish pa.s.sion, see Blake's two poems, _Love seeketh only self to please_, and, _Love seeketh not itself to please_.

l. 242. _single breast_, one-thoughted, being full of love for Lorenzo.

PAGE 65. ll. 249 seq. Cf. Sh.e.l.ley's _Ode to the West Wind_.

l. 252. _roundelay_, a dance in a circle.

l. 259. _Striving . . . itself._ Her distrust of her brothers is shown in her effort not to betray her fears to them.

_dungeon climes._ Wherever it is, it is a prison which keeps him from her. Cf. _Hamlet_, II. ii. 250-4.

l. 262. _Hinnom's Vale_, the valley of Moloch's sacrifices, _Paradise Lost_, i. 392-405.

l. 264. _snowy shroud_, a truly prophetic dream.

PAGE 66. ll. 267 seq. These comparisons help us to realize her experience as sharp anguish, rousing her from the lethargy of despair, and endowing her for a brief s.p.a.ce with almost supernatural energy and willpower.

PAGE 67. l. 286. _palsied Druid._ The Druids, or priests of ancient Britain, are always pictured as old men with long beards. The conception of such an old man, tremblingly trying to get music from a broken harp, adds to the pathos and mystery of the vision.

l. 288. _Like . . . among._ Take this line word by word, and see how many different ideas go to create the incomparably ghostly effect.

ll. 289 seq. Horror is skilfully kept from this picture and only tragedy left. The horror is for the eyes of his murderers, not for his love.

l. 292. _unthread . . . woof._ His narration and explanation of what has gone before is pictured as the disentangling of woven threads.

l. 293. _darken'd._ In many senses, since their crime was (1) concealed from Isabella, (2) darkly evil, (3) done in the darkness of the wood.

PAGE 68. ll. 305 seq. The whole sound of this stanza is that of a faint and far-away echo.

l. 308. _knelling._ Every sound is like a death-bell to him.

PAGE 69. l. 316. _That paleness._ Her paleness showing her great love for him; and, moreover, indicating that they will soon be reunited.

l. 317. _bright abyss_, the bright hollow of heaven.

l. 322. _The atom . . . turmoil._ Every one must know the sensation of looking into the darkness, straining one's eyes, until the darkness itself seems to be composed of moving atoms. The experience with which Keats, in the next lines, compares it, is, we are told, a common experience in the early stages of consumption.

PAGE 70. l. 334. _school'd my infancy._ She was as a child in her ignorance of evil, and he has taught her the hard lesson that our misery is not always due to the dealings of a blind fate, but sometimes to the deliberate crime and cruelty of those whom we have trusted.

l. 344. _forest-hea.r.s.e._ To Isabella the whole forest is but the receptacle of her lover's corpse.