y limbs, and from that suggestion comes the whole imaginative picture
of the dryad, the nymph of the woods.

95. _Facile chalk._ Jules exults in the facility with which the artist,
in any realm of art, manipulates his implements and his materials. His
especial enthusiasm is for marble, which he has come to regard as an
original, primitive substance, containing in itself all other
substances. It may be made to seem as light and clear as air, as
brilliant as diamonds. Sometimes as his chisel strikes, it seems to be
metal. Again it seems to be actual flesh and blood. At moments when the
sculptor works with swift intensity it seems to flush and glow like
flame.

181. _I am a painter_, etc. The poem by Lutwyche is professedly "slow,
involved, and mystical." But Jules gradually perceives the purport of
the words. Lutwyche's hate is to have its most hideous possible aspect
because it is to appear suddenly through Love's rose-braided mask.

272. _The Cornaro._ Catharine Cornaro was the wife of James, King of
Cyprus. After his death she was induced to abdicate in favor of the
Republic of Venice, which took possession of Cyprus in 1487. She was
assigned a palace and court at Asolo. She was generous, kind, just, and
deeply beloved. Her life seemed to hold all possible external conditions
of happiness. The song is further explained in lines 275-279.

306. _Ancona._ A lovely city in eastern Italy.

INTERLUDE II

1. _Bluphocks._ Browning's note on this character reads, "He maketh his
sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just
and on the unjust." (_Matthew_ v, 45.)

2. _Your Bishop's Intendant._ The Bishop's Superintendent (whose real
name is Maffeo) has charge of the estate the Bishop has just inherited
from his brother. The money Bluphocks has is the bribe given him by
Maffeo to destroy Pippa, who is really the heir to the estate. Maffeo
expects the Bishop to reward him well for this service.

11. _Prussia Improper._ "The arm of land bounded on the north by the
Baltic and on the south by Poland was long called 'Prussia Proper' to
distinguish it from the other provinces of the kingdom. Koenigsberg is
just over the boundary of Brandenberg." (Rolfe, _Select Poems of
Browning_.)

14. _Chaldee._ A Semitic dialect.

21. _Celarent_, _Darii_, _Ferio_. Coined words used in logic to
designate certain valid forms of syllogism.

24. _Posy._ A brief inscription or motto originally in verse, and
suitable f