19. =charms=. Note here and elsewhere the mixture of science and
superstition.
21-33. The poet has given local color to the journey.
28. =Vespasian= was appointed general-in-chief against the insurgent
Jews in 67 A.D., and began the great siege of Jerusalem in 70 A.D. The
date of the poem and the length of time since Lazarus's return to
life may thus be estimated.
37-38. Note the vividness gained by making Karshish keep the
physician's point of view.
44. =falling-sickness ... cure=. Epilepsy. Karshish is already
admitting into his letter the story of Lazarus.
48. Not only spiders, but many other animals or parts of animals were
formerly used as medicines.
64-65. Karshish, still half ashamed of his interest in the marvellous
story he has to tell, first gives this as a pretext, and then, in the
next lines confesses.
171 ff. Belief in magic survived in some degree among the educated
until a century or two ago.
177. =Greek-fire=. A violently inflammable substance, supposed to
have been a compound of naphtha, sulphur, and nitre, which was hurled
against the enemy in battle. As it was first used in 673, in the siege
of Constantinople, Browning is guilty of an unimportant anachronism.
252-255. A good touch, to make the earthquake mean to Karshish an omen
of the gravest event within his ken.
268-269. Karshish, still unconvinced by the story of Lazarus,
naturally regards it as irreverent.
304-311. This comes to Karshish as an afterthought, a corollary to the
idea in the body of the poem.
How is the general style of the verse-letter maintained? What is
Karshish's mission in Judea? How does he show his devotion to his art?
Point out instances of local color. Are they in harmony with the main
current of the poem, or do they detract from the interest in the
story? Why does Karshish work up to his story so diffidently? Why has
the incident taken such hold upon him? What do you conceive to be his
character and worth as a man?
What of Lazarus? What change has been wrought in him? Is he in any way
unfitted for this life? To what does Karshish compare him, with his
sudden wealth of insight behind the veil of the next world? Which of
the two men is better fitted for the condition in which he is placed?
What religious significance does the story of Lazarus come to have to
Karshish? What parallel ideas do you find in Rabbi Ben Ezra and in
this poem? Compare George Eliot's story, _The Lifted Veil_.