Chapter XVII: 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 men and a boy in girl's dress, who represented Maid Marian. Later it came to be associated with the May games, and other characters of the Robin Hood epic were introduced. It was abolished, with other village gaieties, by the Puritans, and though at the Restoration it was revived it never regained its former importance.

l. 34. _Gamelyn._ The hero of a tale (_The Tale of Gamelyn_) attributed to Chaucer, and given in some MSS. as _The Cook's Tale_ in _The Canterbury Tales_. The story of Orlando's ill-usage, prowess, and banishment, in _As You Like It_, Shakespeare derived from this source, and Keats is thinking of the merry life of the hero amongst the outlaws.

l. 36. '_grenè shawe_,' green wood.

PAGE 136. l. 53. _Lincoln green._ In the Middle Ages Lincoln was very famous for dyeing green cloth, and this green cloth was the characteristic garb of the forester and outlaw.

l. 62. _burden._ Cf. _Isabella_, l. 503.

NOTES ON 'TO AUTUMN'.

In a letter written to Reynolds from Winchester, in September, 1819, Keats says: 'How beautiful the season is now--How fine the air. A temperate sharpness about it. Really, without joking, chaste weather--Dian skies--I never liked stubble-fields so much as now--Aye better than the chilly green of the spring. Somehow, a stubble-field looks warm--in the same way that some pictures look warm. This struck me so much in my Sunday's walk that I composed upon it.' What he composed was the Ode _To Autumn_.

PAGE 137. ll. 1 seq. The extraordinary concentration and richness of this description reminds us of Keats's advice to Shelley--'Load every rift of your subject with ore.' The whole poem seems to be painted in tints of red, brown, and gold.

PAGE 138. ll. 12 seq. From the picture of an autumn day we proceed to the characteristic sights and occupations of autumn, personified in the spirit of the season.

l. 18. _swath_, the width of the sweep of the scythe.

ll. 23 seq. Now the sounds of autumn are added to complete the impression.

ll. 25-6. Compare letter quoted above.

PAGE 139. l. 28. _sallows_, trees or low shrubs of the willowy kind.

ll. 28-9. _borne . . . dies._ Notice how the cadence of the line fits the sense. It seems to rise and fall and rise and fall again.

NOTES ON ODE ON MELANCHOLY.

PAGE 140. l. 1. _Lethe._ See _Lamia_, i. 81, note.

l. 2. _Wolf's-bane_, aconite or hellebore--a poisonous plant.

l. 4. _nightshade_, a deadly poison.

_ruby . . . Proserpine._ Cf. Swinburne's _Garden of Proserpine_.

_Proserpine._ Cf. _Lamia_, i. 63, note.

l. 5. _yew-berries._ The yew, a dark funereal-looking tree, is constantly planted in churchyards.

l. 7. _your mournful Psyche._ See Introduction to the _Ode to Psyche_, p. 236.

PAGE 141. l. 12. _weeping cloud._ l. 14. _shroud._ Giving a touch of mystery and sadness to the otherwise light and tender picture.

l. 16. _on . . . sand-wave_, the iridescence sometimes seen on the ribbed sand left by the tide.

l. 21. _She_, i.e. Melancholy--now personified as a goddess. Compare this conception of melancholy with the passage in _Lamia_, i. 190-200. Cf. also Milton's personifications of Melancholy in _L'Allegro_ and _Il Penseroso_.

PAGE 142. l. 30. _cloudy_, mysteriously concealed, seen of few.