Please HELP!

0 hi, 02br
00i actually joined EnglishForward.com because i came across a post that was discussed in detail on Browning's 'My Last Duchess' by Mr. Pedantic. i found it very helpful, and i have my fingers crossed that you will be able to help me again. 02br
00I am reading (for my english class obviously!) Browning's 'Fra Lippo Lippi'. and though i understand the main theme of the poem. there are a few lines i cannot fully grasp. i would be very grateful if you could explain what the following lines mean. 02br
02br
001. ...Thus yellow does for white 02br
00 When what you put for yellow's simply black, 02br
00 And any sort of meaning looks intense 02br
00 When all beside itself means and looks nought. 02br
00 (lines 201 - 204) 02br
02br
002. I'm my own master, paint now as I please - 02br
00 Having a friend, you see, in the Corner-house! 02br
00 Lord, it's fast holding by the rings in front - 02br
00 Those great rings serve more purpose than just 02br
00 To plant flags in, or tie up a horse! 02br
00 (lines 226-230. what does the 'rings' mean?!) 02br
02br
003. ...The old mill-horse, out at grass 02br
00 After hard years, throws up his stiff heels so, 02br
00 Although the miller does not preach to him 02br
00 The only good of grass is to make chaff. 02br
00 What would men have? Do they like grass or no - 02br
00 May they or mayn't they? ... 02br
00 (lines 254-259) 02br
02br
004. I didn't understand the last portion of the poem as well. The painting in Sant' Ambrogio's he describes in the end. and the lines after that (365-392) 02br
02br
00i am posting the poem as well. 02br
02br
00 Fra Lippo Lippi - Robert Browning. 02br
001 I am poor brother Lippo, by your leave! 02br
002 You need not clap your torches to my face. 02br
003 Zooks, what's to blame? you think you see a monk! 02br
004 What, 'tis past midnight, and you go the rounds, 02br
005 And here you catch me at an alley's end 02br
006 Where sportive ladies leave their doors ajar? 02br
007 The Carmine's my cloister: hunt it up, 02br
008 Do,--harry out, if you must show your zeal, 02br
009 Whatever rat, there, haps on his wrong hole, 02br
0010 And nip each softling of a wee white mouse, 02br
0011 Weke, weke, that's crept to keep him company! 02br
0012 Aha, you know your betters! Then, you'll take 02br
0013 Your hand away that's fiddling on my throat, 02br
0014 And please to know me likewise. Who am I? 02br
0015 Why, one, sir, who is lodging with a friend 02br
0016 Three streets off--he's a certain . . . how d'ye call? 02br
0017 Master--a ...Cosimo of the Medici, 02br
0018 I' the house that caps the corner. Boh! you were best! 02br
0019 Remember and tell me, the day you're hanged, 02br
0020 How you affected such a gullet's-gripe! 02br
0021 But you, sir, it concerns you that your knaves 02br
0022 Pick up a manner nor discredit you: 02br
0023 Zooks, are we pilchards, that they sweep the streets 02br
0024 And count fair price what comes into their net? 02br
0025 He's Judas to a tittle, that man is! 02br
0026 Just such a face! Why, sir, you make amends. 02br
0027 Lord, I'm not angry! Bid your hang-dogs go 02br
0028 Drink out this quarter-florin to the health 02br
0029 Of the munificent House that harbours me 02br
0030 (And many more beside, lads! more beside!) 02br
0031 And all's come square again. I'd like his face-- 02br
0032 His, elbowing on his comrade in the door 02br
0033 With the pike and lantern,--for the slave that holds 02br
0034 John Baptist's head a-dangle by the hair 02br
0035 With one hand ("Look you, now," as who should say) 02br
0036 And his weapon in the other, yet unwiped! 02br
0037 It's not your chance to have a bit of chalk, 02br
0038 A wood-coal or the like? or you should see! 02br
0039 Yes, I'm the painter, since you style me so. 02br
0040 What, brother Lippo's doings, up and down, 02br
0041 You know them and they take you? like enough! 02br
0042 I saw the proper twinkle in your eye-- 02br
0043 'Tell you, I liked your looks at very first. 02br
0044 Let's sit and set things straight now, hip to haunch. 02br
0045 Here's spring come, and the nights one makes up bands 02br
0046 To roam the town and sing out carnival, 02br
0047 And I've been three weeks shut within my mew, 02br
0048 A-painting for the great man, saints and saints 02br
0049 And saints again. I could not paint all night-- 02br
0050 Ouf! I leaned out of window for fresh air. 02br
0051 There came a hurry of feet and little feet, 02br
0052 A sweep of lute strings, laughs, and whifts of song, -- 02br
0053 Flower o' the broom, 02br
0054 Take away love, and our earth is a tomb! 02br
0055 Flower o' the quince, 02br
0056 I let Lisa go, and what good is life since? 02br
0057 Flower o' the thyme--and so on. Round they went. 02br
0058 Scarce had they turned the corner when a titter 02br
0059 Like the skipping of rabbits by moonlight,--three slim shapes, 02br
0060 And a face that looked up . . . zooks, sir, flesh and blood, 02br
0061 That's all I'm made of! Into shreds it went, 02br
0062 Curtain and counterpane and coverlet, 02br
0063 All the bed-furniture--a dozen knots, 02br
0064 There was a ladder! Down I let myself, 02br
0065 Hands and feet, scrambling somehow, and so dropped, 02br
0066 And after them. I came up with the fun 02br
0067 Hard by Saint Laurence, hail fellow, well met,-- 02br
0068 Flower o' the rose, 02br
0069 If I've been merry, what matter who knows? 02br
0070 And so as I was stealing back again 02br
0071 To get to bed and have a bit of sleep 02br
0072 Ere I rise up to-morrow and go work 02br
0073 On Jerome knocking at his poor old *** 02br
0074 With his great round stone to subdue the flesh, 02br
0075 You snap me of the sudden. Ah, I see! 02br
0076 Though your eye twinkles still, you shake your head-- 02br
0077 Mine's shaved-01del00a monk, you say02del00-the sting 's in that! 02br
0078 If Master Cosimo announced himself, 02br
0079 Mum's the word naturally; but a monk! 02br
0080 Come, what am I a beast for? tell us, now! 02br
0081 I was a baby when my mother died 02br
0082 And father died and left me in the street. 02br
0083 I starved there, God knows how, a year or two 02br
0084 On fig-skins, melon-parings, rinds and shucks, 02br
0085 Refuse and rubbish. One fine frosty day, 02br
0086 My stomach being empty as your hat, 02br
0087 The wind doubled me up and down I went. 02br
0088 Old Aunt Lapaccia trussed me with one hand, 02br
0089 (Its fellow was a stinger as I knew) 02br
0090 And so along the wall, over the bridge, 02br
0091 By the straight cut to the convent. Six words there, 02br
0092 While I stood munching my first bread that month: 02br
0093 "So, boy, you're minded," quoth the good fat father 02br
0094 Wiping his own mouth, 'twas refection-time,-- 02br
0095 "To quit this very miserable world? 02br
0096 Will you renounce" . . . "the mouthful of bread?" thought I; 02br
0097 By no means! Brief, they made a monk of me; 02br
0098 I did renounce the world, its pride and greed, 02br
0099 Palace, farm, villa, shop, and banking-house, 02br
00100 Trash, such as these poor devils of Medici 02br
00101 Have given their hearts to--all at eight years old. 02br
00102 Well, sir, I found in time, you may be sure, 02br
00103 'Twas not for nothing--the good bellyful, 02br
00104 The warm serge and the rope that goes all round, 02br
00105 And day-long blessed idleness beside! 02br
00106 "Let's see what the urchin's fit for"--that came next. 02br
00107 Not overmuch their way, I must confess. 02br
00108 Such a to-do! They tried me with their books: 02br
00109 Lord, they'd have taught me Latin in pure waste! 02br
00110 Flower o' the clove. 02br
00111 All the Latin I construe is, "amo" I love! 02br
00112 But, mind you, when a boy starves in the streets 02br
00113 Eight years together, as my fortune was, 02br
00114 Watching folk's faces to know who will fling 02br
00115 The bit of half-stripped grape-bunch he desires, 02br
00116 And who will curse or kick him for his pains,-- 02br
00117 Which gentleman processional and fine, 02br
00118 Holding a candle to the Sacrament, 02br
00119 Will wink and let him lift a plate and catch 02br
00120 The droppings of the wax to sell again, 02br
00121 Or holla for the Eight and have him whipped,-- 02br
00122 How say I?--nay, which dog bites, which lets drop 02br
00123 His bone from the heap of offal in the street,-- 02br
00124 Why, soul and sense of him grow sharp alike, 02br
00125 He learns the look of things, and none the less 02br
00126 For admonition from the hunger-pinch. 02br
00127 I had a store of such remarks, be sure, 02br
00128 Which, after I found leisure, turned to use. 02br
00129 I drew men's faces on my copy-books, 02br
00130 Scrawled them within the antiphonary's marge, 02br
00131 Joined legs and arms to the long music-notes, 02br
00132 Found eyes and nose and chin for A's and B's, 02br
00133 And made a string of pictures of the world 02br
00134 Betwixt the ins and outs of verb and noun, 02br
00135 On the wall, the bench, the door. The monks looked black. 02br
00136 "Nay," quoth the Prior, "turn him out, d'ye say? 02br
00137 In no wise. Lose a crow and catch a lark. 02br
00138 What if at last we get our man of parts, 02br
00139 We Carmelites, like those Camaldolese 02br
00140 And Preaching Friars, to do our church up fine 02br
00141 And put the front on it that ought to be!" 02br
00142 And hereupon he bade me daub away. 02br
00143 Thank you! my head being crammed, the walls a blank, 02br
00144 Never was such prompt disemburdening. 02br
00145 First, every sort of monk, the black and white, 02br
00146 I drew them, fat and lean: then, folk at church, 02br
00147 From good old gossips waiting to confess 02br
00148 Their cribs of barrel-droppings, candle-ends,-- 02br
00149 To the breathless fellow at the altar-foot, 02br
00150 Fresh from his murder, safe and sitting there 02br
00151 With the little children round him in a row 02br
00152 Of admiration, half for his beard and half 02br
00153 For that white anger of his victim's son 02br
00154 Shaking a fist at him with one fierce arm, 02br
00155 Signing himself with the other because of Christ 02br
00156 (Whose sad face on the cross sees only this 02br
00157 After the passion of a thousand years) 02br
00158 Till some poor girl, her apron o'er her head, 02br
00159 (Which the intense eyes looked through) came at eve 02br
00160 On tiptoe, said a word, dropped in a loaf, 02br
00161 Her pair of earrings and a bunch of flowers 02br
00162 (The brute took growling), prayed, and so was gone. 02br
00163 I painted all, then cried "'Tis ask and have; 02br
00164 Choose, for more's ready!"--laid the ladder flat, 02br
00165 And showed my covered bit of cloister-wall. 02br
00166 The monks closed in a circle and praised loud 02br
00167 Till checked, taught what to see and not to see, 02br
00168 Being simple bodies,--"That's the very man! 02br
00169 Look at the boy who stoops to pat the dog! 02br
00170 That woman's like the Prior's niece who comes 02br
00171 To care about his asthma: it's the life!" 02br
00172 But there my triumph's straw-fire flared and ***ed; 02br
00173 Their betters took their turn to see and say: 02br
00174 The Prior and the learned pulled a face 02br
00175 And stopped all that in no time. "How? what's here? 02br
00176 Quite from the mark of painting, bless us all! 02br
00177 Faces, arms, legs, and bodies like the true 02br
00178 As much as pea and pea! it's devil's-game! 02br
00179 Your business is not to catch men with show, 02br
00180 With homage to the perishable clay, 02br
00181 But lift them over it, ignore it all, 02br
00182 Make them forget there's such a thing as flesh. 02br
00183 Your business is to paint the souls of men-- 02br
00184 Man's soul, and it's a fire, smoke . . . no, it's not . . . 02br
00185 It's vapour done up like a new-born babe-- 02br
00186 (In that shape when you die it leaves your mouth) 02br
00187 It's . . . well, what matters talking, it's the soul! 02br
00188 Give us no more of body than shows soul! 02br
00189 Here's Giotto, with his Saint a-praising God, 02br
00190 That sets us praising--why not stop with him? 02br
00191 Why put all thoughts of praise out of our head 02br
00192 With wonder at lines, colours, and what not? 02br
00193 Paint the soul, never mind the legs and arms! 02br
00194 Rub all out, try at it a second time. 02br
00195 Oh, that white smallish female with the breasts, 02br
00196 She's just my niece . . . Herodias, I would say,-- 02br
00197 Who went and danced and got men's heads cut off! 02br
00198 Have it all out!" Now, is this sense, I ask? 02br
00199 A fine way to paint soul, by painting body 02br
00200 So ill, the eye can't stop there, must go further 02br
00201 And can't fare worse! Thus, yellow does for white 02br
00202 When what you put for yellow's simply black, 02br
00203 And any sort of meaning looks intense 02br
00204 When all beside itself means and looks nought. 02br
00205 Why can't a painter lift each foot in turn, 02br
00206 Left foot and right foot, go a double step, 02br
00207 Make his flesh liker and his soul more like, 02br
00208 Both in their order? Take the prettiest face, 02br
00209 The Prior's niece . . . patron-saint--is it so pretty 02br
00210 You can't discover if it means hope, fear, 02br
00211 Sorrow or joy? won't beauty go with these? 02br
00212 Suppose I've made her eyes all right and blue, 02br
00213 Can't I take breath and try to add life's flash, 02br
00214 And then add soul and heighten them three-fold? 02br
00215 Or say there's beauty with no soul at all-- 02br
00216 (I never saw it-01del00put the case the same02del00) 02br
00217 If you get simple beauty and nought else, 02br
00218 You get about the best thing God invents: 02br
00219 That's somewhat: and you'll find the soul you have missed, 02br
00220 Within yourself, when you return him thanks. 02br
00221 "Rub all out!" Well, well, there's my life, in short, 02br
00222 And so the thing has gone on ever since. 02br
00223 I'm grown a man no doubt, I've broken bounds: 02br
00224 You should not take a fellow eight years old 02br
00225 And make him swear to never kiss the girls. 02br
00226 I'm my own master, paint now as I please-- 02br
00227 Having a friend, you see, in the Corner-house! 02br
00228 Lord, it's fast holding by the rings in front-- 02br
00229 Those great rings serve more purposes than just 02br
00230 To plant a flag in, or tie up a horse! 02br
00231 And yet the old schooling sticks, the old grave eyes 02br
00232 Are peeping o'er my shoulder as I work, 02br
00233 The heads shake still--"It's art's decline, my son! 02br
00234 You're not of the true painters, great and old; 02br
00235 Brother Angelico's the man, you'll find; 02br
00236 Brother Lorenzo stands his single peer: 02br
00237 *** on at flesh, you'll never make the third!" 02br
00238 Flower o' the pine, 02br
00239 You keep your mistr ... manners, and I'll stick to mine! 02br
00240 I'm not the third, then: bless us, they must know! 02br
00241 Don't you think they're the likeliest to know, 02br
00242 They with their Latin? So, I swallow my rage, 02br
00243 Clench my teeth, suck my lips in tight, and paint 02br
00244 To please them--sometimes do and sometimes don't; 02br
00245 For, doing most, there's pretty sure to come 02br
00246 A turn, some warm eve finds me at my saints-- 02br
00247 A laugh, a cry, the business of the world-- 02br
00248 (Flower o' the peach 02br
00249 Death for us all, and his own life for each!) 02br
00250 And my whole soul revolves, the cup runs over, 02br
00251 The world and life's too big to pass for a dream, 02br
00252 And I do these wild things in sheer despite, 02br
00253 And play the fooleries you catch me at, 02br
00254 In pure rage! The old mill-horse, out at grass 02br
00255 After hard years, throws up his stiff heels so, 02br
00256 Although the miller does not preach to him 02br
00257 The only good of grass is to make chaff. 02br
00258 What would men have? Do they like grass or no-- 02br
00259 May they or mayn't they? all I want's the thing 02br
00260 Settled for ever one way. As it is, 02br
00261 You tell too many lies and hurt yourself: 02br
00262 You don't like what you only like too much, 02br
00263 You do like what, if given you at your word, 02br
00264 You find abundantly detestable. 02br
00265 For me, I think I speak as I was taught; 02br
00266 I always see the garden and God there 02br
00267 A-making man's wife: and, my lesson learned, 02br
00268 The value and significance of flesh, 02br
00269 I can't unlearn ten minutes afterwards. 02br
00270 You understand me: I'm a beast, I know. 02br
00271 But see, now--why, I see as certainly 02br
00272 As that the morning-star's about to shine, 02br
00273 What will hap some day. We've a youngster here 02br
00274 Comes to our convent, studies what I do, 02br
00275 Slouches and stares and lets no atom drop: 02br
00276 His name is Guidi-01del00he'll not mind the monks02del02br
00277 They call him Hulking Tom, he lets them talk-- 02br
00278 He picks my practice up--he'll paint apace. 02br
00279 I hope so--though I never live so long, 02br
00280 I know what's sure to follow. You be judge! 02br
00281 You speak no Latin more than I, belike; 02br
00282 However, you're my man, you've seen the world 02br
00283 --The beauty and the wonder and the power, 02br
00284 The shapes of things, their colours, lights and shades, 02br
00285 Changes, surprises,--and God made it all! 02br
00286 --For what? Do you feel thankful, ay or no, 02br
00287 For this fair town's face, yonder river's line, 02br
00288 The mountain round it and the sky above, 02br
00289 Much more the figures of man, woman, child, 02br
00290 These are the frame to? What's it all about? 02br
00291 To be passed over, despised? or dwelt upon, 02br
00292 Wondered at? oh, this last of course!--you say. 02br
00293 But why not do as well as say,--paint these 02br
00294 Just as they are, careless what comes of it? 02br
00295 God's works--paint any one, and count it crime 02br
00296 To let a truth slip. Don't object, "His works 02br
00297 Are here already; nature is complete: 02br
00298 Suppose you reproduce her--(which you can't) 02br
00299 There's no advantage! you must beat her, then." 02br
00300 For, don't you mark? we're made so that we love 02br
00301 First when we see them painted, things we have passed 02br
00302 Perhaps a hundred times nor cared to see; 02br
00303 And so they are better, painted--better to us, 02br
00304 Which is the same thing. Art was given for that; 02br
00305 God uses us to help each other so, 02br
00306 Lending our minds out. Have you noticed, now, 02br
00307 Your cullion's hanging face? A bit of chalk, 02br
00308 And trust me but you should, though! How much more, 02br
00309 If I drew higher things with the same truth! 02br
00310 That were to take the Prior's pulpit-place, 02br
00311 Interpret God to all of you! Oh, oh, 02br
00312 It makes me mad to see what men shall do 02br
00313 And we in our graves! This world's no blot for us, 02br
00314 Nor blank; it means intensely, and means good: 02br
00315 To find its meaning is my meat and drink. 02br
00316 "Ay, but you don't so instigate to prayer!" 02br
00317 Strikes in the Prior: "when your meaning's plain 02br
00318 It does not say to folk--remember matins, 02br
00319 Or, mind you fast next Friday!" Why, for this 02br
00320 What need of art at all? A skull and bones, 02br
00321 Two bits of stick nailed crosswise, or, what's best, 02br
00322 A bell to chime the hour with, does as well. 02br
00323 I painted a Saint Laurence six months since 02br
00324 At Prato, splashed the fresco in fine style: 02br
00325 "How looks my painting, now the scaffold's down?" 02br
00326 I ask a brother: "Hugely," he returns-- 02br
00327 "Already not one phiz of your three slaves 02br
00328 Who turn the Deacon off his toasted side, 02br
00329 But's scratched and prodded to our heart's content, 02br
00330 The pious people have so eased their own 02br
00331 With coming to say prayers there in a rage: 02br
00332 We get on fast to see the bricks beneath. 02br
00333 Expect another job this time next year, 02br
00334 For pity and religion grow i' the crowd-- 02br
00335 Your painting serves its purpose!" Hang the fools! 02br
00336 01del00That is02del00-you'll not mistake an idle word 02br
00337 Spoke in a huff by a poor monk, God wot, 02br
00338 Tasting the air this spicy night which turns 02br
00339 The unaccustomed head like Chianti wine! 02br
00340 Oh, the church knows! don't misreport me, now! 02br
00341 It's natural a poor monk out of bounds 02br
00342 Should have his apt word to excuse himself: 02br
00343 And hearken how I plot to make amends. 02br
00344 I have bethought me: I shall paint a piece 02br
00345 ... There's for you! Give me six months, then go, see 02br
00346 Something in Sant' Ambrogio's! Bless the nuns! 02br
00347 They want a cast o' my office. I shall paint 02br
00348 God in the midst, Madonna and her babe, 02br
00349 Ringed by a bowery, flowery angel-brood, 02br
00350 Lilies and vestments and white faces, sweet 02br
00351 As puff on puff of grated orris-root 02br
00352 When ladies crowd to Church at midsummer. 02br
00353 And then i' the front, of course a saint or two-- 02br
00354 Saint John' because he saves the Florentines, 02br
00355 Saint Ambrose, who puts down in black and white 02br
00356 The convent's friends and gives them a long day, 02br
00357 And Job, I must have him there past mistake, 02br
00358 The man of Uz (and Us without the z, 02br
00359 Painters who need his patience). Well, all these 02br
00360 Secured at their devotion, up shall come 02br
00361 Out of a corner when you least expect, 02br
00362 As one by a dark stair into a great light, 02br
00363 Music and talking, who but Lippo! I!-- 02br
00364 Mazed, motionless, and moonstruck--I'm the man! 02br
00365 Back I shrink--what is this I see and hear? 02br
00366 I, caught up with my monk's-things by mistake, 02br
00367 My old serge gown and rope that goes all round, 02br
00368 I, in this presence, this pure company! 02br
00369 Where's a hole, where's a corner for escape? 02br
00370 Then steps a sweet angelic slip of a thing 02br
00371 Forward, puts out a soft palm--"Not so fast!" 02br
00372 01del00Addresses the celestial presence, "nay02del02br
00373 He made you and devised you, after all, 02br
00374 Though he's none of you! Could Saint John there draw-- 02br
00375 His camel-hair make up a painting brush? 02br
00376 We come to brother Lippo for all that, 02br
00377 Iste perfecit opus!" So, all smile-- 02br
00378 I shuffle sideways with my blushing face 02br
00379 Under the cover of a hundred wings 02br
00380 Thrown like a spread of kirtles when you're gay 02br
00381 And play hot cockles, all the doors being shut, 02br
00382 Till, wholly unexpected, in there pops 02br
00383 The hothead husband! Thus I scuttle off 02br
00384 To some safe bench behind, not letting go 02br
00385 The palm of her, the little lily thing 02br
00386 That spoke the good word for me in the nick, 02br
00387 Like the Prior's niece . . . Saint Lucy, I would say. 02br
00388 And so all's saved for me, and for the church 02br
00389 A pretty picture gained. Go, six months hence! 02br
00390 Your hand, sir, and good-bye: no lights, no lights! 02br
00391 The street's hushed, and I know my own way back, 02br
00392 Don't fear me! There's the grey beginning. Zooks! 02br
02br
00thanks a lot. i really appreciate it. 0-