For the legend connected with the Eve of the Saint's anniversary, to which Keats refers, see st. vi.
_Metre._ That of the _Faerie Queene_.
PAGE 83. ll. 5-6. _told His rosary._ Cf. _Isabella_, ll. 87-8.
l. 8. _without a death._ The 'flight to heaven' obscures the simile of the incense, and his breath is thought of as a departing soul.
PAGE 84. l. 12. _meagre, barefoot, wan._ Such a compression of a description into three bare epithets is frequent in Keats's poetry. He shows his marvellous power in the unerring choice of adjective; and their enumeration in this way has, from its very simplicity, an extraordinary force.
l. 15. _purgatorial rails_, rails which enclose them in a place of torture.
l. 16. _dumb orat'ries._ The transference of the adjective from person to place helps to give us the mysterious sense of life in inanimate things. Cf. _Hyperion_, iii. 8; _Ode to a Nightingale_, l. 66.
l. 22. _already . . . rung._ He was dead to the world. But this hint should also prepare us for the conclusion of the poem.
PAGE 85. l. 31. _'gan to chide._ l. 32. _ready with their pride._ l. 34. _ever eager-eyed._ l. 36. _with hair . . . breasts._ As if trumpets, rooms, and carved angels were all alive. See Introduction, p. 212.
l. 37. _argent_, silver. They were all glittering with rich robes and arms.
PAGE 86. l. 56. _yearning . . . pain_, expressing all the exquisite beauty and pathos of the music; and moreover seeming to give it conscious life.
PAGE 87. l. 64. _danc'd_, conveying all her restlessness and impatience as well as the lightness of her step.
l. 70. _amort_, deadened, dull. Cf. _Taming of the Shrew_, IV. iii. 36, 'What sweeting! all amort.'
l. 71. See note on St. Agnes, p. 224.
l. 77. _Buttress'd from moonlight._ A picture of the castle and of the night, as well as of Porphyro's position.
PAGE 88. ll. 82 seq. Compare the situation of these lovers with that of Romeo and Juliet.
l. 90. _beldame_, old woman. Shakespeare generally uses the word in an uncomplimentary sense--'hag'--but it is not so used here. The word is used by Spenser in its derivative sense, 'Fair lady,' _Faerie Queene_, ii. 43.
PAGE 89. l. 110. _Brushing . . . plume._ This line both adds to our picture of Porphyro and vividly brings before us the character of the place he was entering--unsuited to the splendid cavalier.
l. 113. _Pale, lattic'd, chill._ Cf. l. 12, note.
l. 115. _by the holy loom_, on which the nuns spin. See l. 71 and note on St. Agnes, p. 224.
PAGE 90. l. 120. _Thou must . . . sieve._ Supposed to be one of the commonest signs of supernatural power. Cf. _Macbeth_, I. iii. 8.
l. 133. _brook_, check. An incorrect use of the word, which really means _bear_ or _permit_.
PAGE 92. ll. 155-6. _churchyard . . . toll._ Unconscious prophecy. Cf. _The Bedesman_, l. 22.
l. 168. _While . . . coverlet._ All the wonders of Madeline's imagination.
l. 171. _Since Merlin . . . debt._ Referring to the old legend that Merlin had for father an incubus or demon, and was himself a demon of evil, though his innate wickedness was driven out by baptism. Thus his 'debt' to the demon was his existence, which he paid when Vivien compassed his destruction by means of a spell which he had taught her. Keats refers to the storm which is said to have raged that night, which Tennyson also describes in _Merlin and Vivien_. The source whence the story came to Keats has not been ascertained.
PAGE 93. l. 173. _cates_, provisions. Cf. _Taming of the Shrew_, II. i. 187:--
Kate of Kate Hall--my super-dainty Kate,
For dainties are all cates.
We still use the verb 'to cater' as in l. 177.
l. 174. _tambour frame_, embroidery-frame.
l. 185. _espied_, spying. _Dim_, because it would be from a dark corner; also the spy would be but dimly visible to her old eyes.
l. 187. _silken . . . chaste._ Cf. ll. 12, 113.
l. 188. _covert_, hiding. Cf. _Isabella_, l. 221.
PAGE 94. l. 198. _fray'd_, frightened.
l. 203. _No uttered . . . betide._ Another of the conditions of the vision was evidently silence.
PAGE 95. ll. 208 seq. Compare Coleridge's description of Christabel's room: _Christabel_, i. 175-83.
l.
