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Up At A Villa–Down In The City
by
But bless you, it’s dear–it’s dear! fowls, wine, at double the rate.
They have clapped a new tax upon salt, and what oil pays passing
the gate
It’s a horror to think of. And so, the villa for me, not the city!
Beggars can scarcely be choosers: but still–ah, the pity, the pity!
Look, two and two go the priests, then the monks with cowls
and sandals,
And the penitents dressed in white shirts, a-holding the
yellow candles; 60
One, he carries a flag up straight, and another a cross with handles,
And the Duke’s guard brings up the rear, for the better prevention
of scandals:
Bang-whang-whang goes the drum, tootle-te-tootle the fife.
Oh, a day in the city square, there is no such pleasure in life!
NOTE
4. =Bacchus=. The Roman god of wine, frequently invoked in the garnishment of Latin and Italian speech.
42. =Pulcinello= is the Italian for clown or puppet, and the prototype of the English Punch.
48, =Dante=, =Boccaccio=, and =Petrarch=. Italy’s first three great authors. See a biographical dictionary or encyclopaedia for their dates and their works.
=St. Jerome= (340-420.) One of the fathers of the Roman, church. He prepared the Latin translation of the Bible known as the Vulgate.
48. =the skirts of St. Paul has reached=. Has done almost as well as St. Paul.
51. =Our Lady=. The image of the Virgin Mary. Observe our hero’s taste and his religions solemnity.
52. =seven swords=, etc. Representing the seven “legendary sorrows” of the Virgin. See Berdoe’s Browning Cyclopaedia, or Brewer’s Reader’s Handbook, or Dictionary of Phrase and Fable for the list.
UP AT A VILLA is one of the best humorous poems in the language. The hero’s desires and sorrows are so naive, his tastes so gravely held, that he provokes our sympathy as well as our laughter. One of the charms of the poem is the way in which he is made to testify, in spite of himself, to the beauties of the country (as in lines 7-9, 19-20, 22-25, 32-33, 36) and to the monotony or clanging emptiness of the city (as in lines 12-14, 38-54). Compare lines 8 and 82 with the picture in De Gustibus.