90. 'spilth.' "When our vaults have wept With drunken spilth of wine." -Timon of Athens, Act II. sc. ii. Compare the formation of our old word 'tilth,' meaning 'earth.' 94. 'Deeds.' Opportunities for deeds. Cp. Bk. vI., l. 1— "The thought of Eglamor's least like a thought.” 98. 'learning save that.' Learning in this life what errors to avoid, so that he may really use the next. 107. 'Elys.' See note on Bk. II., 1. 68. 113. 'that holds the moon.' Wordsworth ("If thou indeed derive") speaks of stars "which seem Humbly to hang, like twinkling winter lamps, 117. 'Tush!' Seems to mean that such pure and humble love is nothing compared with the kind about to be pictured. 123. Nuocera holds.' Nocera Inferiore, over twenty miles south of Naples. Frederick II. planted a colony of Saracens there, and this fact may have given the place its older name, Nocera dei Pagani. (Encyc. Brit.) 124. 'the morse.' The walrus. 128. 'birdskin robes.' "There came forth the same fair apparitions which they had encountered upon the island, but decked now in feather-robes, and plumes of every imaginable hue.” (Kingsley's Westward Ho!) 129. 'mollitious.' Lat. mollis, 'soft.' 130. 'that devils built!' What is the reference? 132. 'Dandolo.' The Venetians, under Enrico Dandolo, promised to provide the French with ships and provisions for the fourth Crusade on condition of receiving payment of 85,000 marks. When all was ready, it was found that more than a third of that sum could not be paid up, and in lieu of it the Doge cunningly secured the services of the crusaders against the Byzantine Empire. Their help, rendered with no good grace, enabled him, followed as he was by Innocent III.'s excommunication, to take Constantinople, which was given over to plunder, the temples being despoiled of their cups, crucifixes, and reliquaries (1204). Dandolo was blind, but his 'hundred years' are not mentioned by contemporary writers. (Sismondi's Hist. des Rép. Ital., ch. xiv. ; Milman's Latin Christianity, Bk. IX., ch. vii. ; Gibbon's Decline and Fall, ch. lx.; Mrs Oliphant's Makers of Venice.) It is difficult to say what kind of happiness Dandolo represents. F 136. 'sardius.' Or 'sard' (from Sardis). A variety of quartz, with a deep-red colour. 141. 'fragments of a whole.' The fragments and points, or essential elements, are the interests of real life (1. 140), in which Sordello has never allowed himself to move and have his being. These are at once the rungs of the ladder by which men must mount to the platform happiness, and the material out of which, through their influence upon the soul, happiness is wrought. 'Deeds' are means to an end, yet they combine to form the end. Cp. Bk. II., 1. 395; Bk. vI., 1. 26 f. 200. 'My own concern.' That this is the meaning of the passage, which is by itself ambiguous, appears from Bk. IV., 1. 263 f. 204-221. But he will yet have a share, how. ever small, in the real world's life. Ll. 204-221. Sordello now cries out for the least bit of the actual world's life. "Here I am, hidden in this wood, with tender branches meeting about my neck and laying their moist touch upon mine eyelids; while outside this leafy screen moves the great pageant of to-day's human history, never to be repeated. Here I am, as good as buried, petted with the idea that dreaming among nature's works is better than trying my power upon men, and the pageant is fleeting past. But I will have a place in it! Now it is noon: ere night let me have some effect upon it. Let me, in whatever way, satisfy this yearning to mix in the world's affairs, however little it may be possible for me to do. From what I may yet accomplish men will form a faint idea of what I might have been had I used my life aright, as a blasted bud feebly represents what the full flower might have been; but, if I remain thus idle here, none will know anything of my powers at all-I shall be like the bulb lying hidden and dormant in the grasp of the mummy Taurello sent 221. 'Taurello sent.' We may understand 'to Goito.' Ll. 221-260. As if in answer to his desire, he is summoned to Verona to celebrate the expected nuptials of Palma and Count Richard Boniface. "Taurello?" Naddo suddenly said, leaning over Sor- 221-228. dello's shoulder. "It was Palma who sent me to fetch Naddo summons him to you; and, believe me, you cannot be sorrier to hear her Verona, message than I am to deliver it: I am to take you back with me. I am sorry, I say, to come for you; for what are the gaudy shows of Verona to the heart of a poet? -a few blades of grass are enough to meditate upon. What's the news? Well, where the marsh was, mists are rising like spouts of hell broken loose. Oh! tidings of the world, you mean? I suspect you won't be pleased to hear them. The father of our Patroness divides his wealth between Ecelin and Alberic and goes into a convent; both sons are to wed Guelfs; Count Richard and Palma were betrothed a week ago at Verona, and no doubt what you are wanted for is to compose their wedding-chant before he storms Ferrara, after which event the nuptials will take place." Then Naddo, telling the story from its beginning, related how, when Taurello Salinguerra had left Ferrara, the Guelfs, emboldened by his absence, burned and pillaged the Ghibellin properties there; how Taurello suddenly returned and took vengeance on them; how Azzo of Este and Count Richard Boniface were doing their best to punish Taurello by storming Ferrara; and how Richard, after finishing the siege, would, by his marriage with Palma, which meant the absorption of the House of Romano, inaugurate a new and better rule. 228-248. Gives astound- 248-260. And lectures him on poetry "Now," added Naddo, "I will not presume to instruct you, my master, how to clothe these doings in poetic garb at Verona. What is your answer to Palma's call? again. You are coming at once? Surely you jest? To tell the truth, I hardly hoped you would agree so readily. Have you learned in this retired spot that there are thoughts too deep and fine for poetic treatment? It is in not remembering this that you poets err. You should describe things as they really are, and compare like with like; but Palma's neck, for example, you call pearl-white, which it is not, and the comparison makes an awkward impression just as a pearl itself, with a speck of genuine white upon it, has its own white turned to grey." 239. 'Then was told.' Cp. Bk. 1., ll. 149-187. Naddo (1. 239) knows nothing of the entrapment of Count Richard. This is strange, for it seems as though that very day Verona was loud with preparations for the journey of the League. Cp. Bk. 1., ll. 106-113, and elsewhere. It is possible, however, that, though Sordello went off at once with Naddo, he may have been in the city with Palma some time before the 'Verona night.' Does 'one more day' (1. 260) mean 'one day later'? 260. 'Curse the cicala!' The cicala (Lat. cicada, the Greek TÉTTIE), the tree - cricket. Naddo is annoyed by its note. Compare "The stunning cicala is shrill." -Up at a Villa-Down in the City. 260-273. Excited Verona appears once more. Ll. 260-303. Having gone back to carry Sordello through his boyhood and youth, Browning sets us down again where he began his hero's story. Verona appears once more in its excited state. Palma and Sordello sit as lovers in the secret chamber of the palace, and then behold from its window the city's preparations for the recapture of Ferrara. Now I make Verona appear once more. The streets, as you remember, were full of groups, excited by hearing how Taurello had swooped down on Azzo and Boniface. The world, men were convinced, was bound to be either positively benefited or positively injured by the issue of the effort they were making to relieve Ferrara; for the success of the Ghibellins in establishing themselves in it was just the kind of thing needed to bring Frederick to Lombardy, there to renew the old strife between Emperor and Pope, to rescue his feudatories from the power of the Guelf townsmen, and to restore such a power as Charlemagne had welded and Hildebrand had broken. Palma sit sweetness.' 284-303. In the palace Sordello and Palma sat together. They 273-283. spoke little, though in spite of the din in the market- Sordello and place they exchanged quick, low laughs. Some signifi- 'in linked cant sign of colour, eye, or lip would call forth an answer in rapid words, but for the most part they exchanged their sympathies through pressure of arm and fingers. So the night wore on till one of Palma's retinue burst in to report that Verona was about to declare formally its support of the Lombard League. When the two leaned from the window of the chamber a balcony lay black beneath them, but soon it was a-glare with battle. torches, and grey-haired men stood upon it and harangued the crowd, who thereupon surged to and fro and cried: "Haul forth the carroch! Sound the trumpets! Back from the bell and avoid the hammer's strokes! Let all it may concern know that the League is rising to work, and that Verona will not be the first to desert it on the morrow!" Now look over the cypresses to the east of the city and see if any beacon is alight. "Let Even the clang of the carroch's bell was overpowered by the people's shouts. "Hasten!" they cried. each soldier keep his time at the gateway and stand there armed, ready to march with Tiso Sampier through its eastern arch. Ferrara's succoured, Palma !" 261. 'appears Verona.' See Bk. 1., ll. 309-345. 262. 'the osprey's.' Taurello Salinguerra's. Bk. I., 1. 128 263. 'lynx and ounce.' Azzo and Boniface. Bk. I, 1. 166. Then watch the signs of |