divided into twelve parts corresponding to the twelve
months of the year, according to the position of the moon when full.
Each of these parts had a sign by which it was known, and the sign of
the tenth was a fish-tailed goat, to which Keats refers as the Mermaid.
The word _zodiac_ comes from the Greek +zodion+, meaning
a little animal, since originally all the signs were animals.

INTRODUCTION TO ROBIN HOOD.

Early in 1818 John Hamilton Reynolds, a friend of Keats, sent him two
sonnets which he had written 'On Robin Hood'. Keats, in his letter of
thanks, after giving an appreciation of Reynolds's production, says: 'In
return for your Dish of Filberts, I have gathered a few Catkins, I hope
they'll look pretty.' Then follow these lines, entitled, 'To J. H. R. in
answer to his Robin Hood sonnets.' At the end he writes: 'I hope you
will like them--they are at least written in the spirit of outlawry.'

Robin Hood, the outlaw, was a popular hero of the Middle Ages. He was a
great poacher of deer, brave, chivalrous, generous, full of fun, and
absolutely without respect for law and order. He robbed the rich to give
to the poor, and waged ceaseless war against the wealthy prelates of the
church. Indeed, of his endless practical jokes, the majority were played
upon sheriffs and bishops. He lived, with his 'merry men', in Sherwood
Forest, where a hollow tree, said to be his 'larder', is still shown.

Innumerable ballads telling of his exploits were composed, the first
reference to which is in the second edition of Langland's _Piers
Plowman_, c. 1377. Many of these ballads still survive, but in all these
traditions it is quite impossible to disentangle fact from fiction.

NOTES ON ROBIN HOOD.

PAGE 133. l. 4. _pall._ Cf. _Isabella_, l. 268.

l. 9. _fleeces_, the leaves of the forest, cut from them by the wind as
the wool is shorn from the sheep's back.

PAGE 134. l. 13. _ivory shrill_, the shrill sound of the ivory horn.

ll. 15-18. Keats imagines some man who has not heard the laugh hearing
with bewilderment its echo in the depths of the forest.

l. 21. _seven stars_, Charles's Wain or the Big Bear.

l. 22. _polar ray_, the light of the Pole, or North, star.

l. 30. _pasture Trent_, the fields about the Trent, the river of
Nottingham, which runs by Sherwood forest.

PAGE 135. l. 33. _morris._ A dance in costume which, in the Tudor
period, formed a part of every village festivity. It was generally
danced by five