This is a little masterpiece in its vividness and condensation. The
passions of hate and jealousy have seldom been so well portrayed. The
time and place are probably France and the sixteenth or seventeenth
century. Berdoe has called attention in his _Browning
Cyclopædia_, to the number of fine antitheses in the second stanza.
Who are present in the scene? Who are to be the victims? Account for
the speaker's _patience_ in stanza iii. Point out the things that
show the intensity of her hate. Does she display any other feeling
than hate and jealousy?