Porphyria's Lover

In "Porphyria's Lover," we overhear the title character speaking of how he murdered his beloved Porphyria. You take it from here, but be sure to try to explain the last line.

The poem starts off almost sweet. This woman, Porphyria, loves the man, the speaker. He watches her as she enters the place, locking up behind her, and then sheds her clothing that had grown wet from the storm outdoors. “Withdrew the dripping cloak and shawl,//And laid her soiled gloves by, untied//Her hat and let her damp hair fall” She even released her hair, which from what I know of this time period these two must be intimate considering most ladies would never do such a thing in male company. He does not answer her when she calls, but she seemed unphased and just places his arm about her waist. The speaker says she’s too weak to do the things she wishes or he expects her to want. “Too weak, for all her heart’s endeavor” With what she is doing to him, however, it would seem she expects him to be weak as well. She loved him, “worshipped” him even. He wanted her to be his though, “That moment she was mine, mine, fair,//Perfectly pure and good” So he killed her. “In one long yellow string I wound//Three times her little throat around,//And strangled her” He didn’t regret it, not at all and swears she didn’t feel it, “No pain felt she;//I am quite sure she felt no pain.” Then he shifted her body to sit with him. I feel he might be an invalid or nearing death himself perhaps. She obviously trusted and loved this man, and he loved her as well, but he loved her so much he wanted to keep her with him forever. But there has come no punishment, no angel in the night to deliver either him nor her from each other. He is happy about this. “And all night long we have not stirred,//And yet god has not said a word.”

The Duchess

Characterize the Duchess, and then tell us how the way he sees her differs from the way you see her.

The Duchess is portrayed as a sweet woman. She took compliments all too well, even things that weren’t always intended as compliments per say. “Sir, ‘twas not//Her husband’s presence only, called that spot//Oh joy into the Duchess’ cheek” Her husband felt she was too easily made happy by little things. It almost seems that he thought she was simple and flighty.

“Too easily impressed; she liked whate’er
She looked on, and her looks went everywhere.
Sir, ‘twas all one! My favor at her breast,
The dropping of the daylight in the West,
The bough of cherries some officious fool
Broke in the orchard for her, the white mule
She rode with round the terrace- all and each
Would draw from her alike the approving speech”

He didn’t find this at all fair, of course. The Duke felt that his Duchess took the gifts of other men to be equal to the gift of being wed to him and his “nine-hundred-years-old name”. He hated this so much that he “gave commands” and “the smiles stopped altogether” which leads one to wonder what exactly he has done to his first wife now that she’s passed.

Fra Lippo Lippi

How does Lippi talk himself out of this rather sticky situation?

Lippo is caught out on the streets where it’s thought he shouldn’t actually be. I’m assuming it might have something to do with it being past midnight and his location, “And here you catch me at an alley’s end//Where sportive ladies leave their doors ajar?” “Sportive ladies” sounds like a nice way of suggesting they were prostitutes. I’m not sure the legality of these things at the time as the only indication of Lippo being in the wrong is that he’s caught by the men on rounds. He explains that he is a monk from Carmine, which doesn’t seem to quite do the job of getting him free. We see he is still being held when he continues on into his high friendships, “Aha, you know your betters! Then you’ll take//your hand away that’s fiddling on my throat,//And please to know me likewise.” Mentioning his acquaintance seemed to be the trick of it though, “Who am I?//Why, one, sir, who is lodging with a friend//Three streets off-he’s a certain…how d’ye call?//Master-a…Cosimo of the Medici” Saying precisely where the man lives to further the truth of it. This seemed to get the men to ease off of him so he in turn mocked them, “Remember and tell me, the day that you’re hanged,//How you affected such a gullet’s gripe!” “Zooks, are we pilchards, that they sweep the streets//And count fair prize what comes into this net?” “He’s Judas to a tittle, that man is!” Though he then says he’s not angry and regales them with his stories of life. I think the story telling also took them far off the subject of his unknown doings about in that hour and place, but really he was fine before it.”