Part 15 (1/2)
_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.