44. Falling-sickness: epilepsy. Caesar's disease ("Julius Caesar,"
I. 2, 258).
45. There's a spider here: "The habits of the aranead here
described point very clearly to some one of the Wandering group,
which stalk their prey in the open field or in divers
lurking-places, and are distinguished by this habit from the other
great group, known as the Sedentary spiders, because they sit or
hang upon their webs and capture their prey by means of silken
snares. The next line is not determinative of the species, for
there is a great number of spiders any one of which might be
described as 'Sprinkled with mottles on an ash-gray back.' We have
a little Saltigrade or Jumping spider, known as the Zebra spider
(Epiblemum scenicum), which is found in Europe, and I believe also
in Syria. One often sees this species and its congeners upon the
ledges of rocks, the edges of tombstones, the walls of buildings,
and like situations, hunting their prey, which they secure by
jumping upon it. So common is the Zebra spider, that I might think
that Browning referred to it, if I were not in doubt whether he
would express the stripes of white upon its ash-gray abdomen by the
word 'mottles.' However, there arc other spiders belonging to the
same tribe (Saltigrades) that really are mottled. There are also
spiders known as the Lycosids or Wolf spiders or Ground spiders,
which are often of an ash-gray color, and marked with little whitish
spots after the manner of Browning's Syrian species. Perhaps the
poet had one of these in mind, at least he accurately describes
their manner of seeking prey. The next line is an interrupted one,
'Take five and drop them. . . .' Take five what? Five of these
ash-gray mottled spiders? Certainly. But what can be meant by the
expression 'drop them'? This opens up to us a strange chapter in
human superstition. It was long a prevalent idea that the spider in
various forms possessed some occult power of healing, and men
administered it internally or applied it externally as a cure for
many diseases. Pliny gives a number of such remedies. A certain
spider applied in a piece of cloth, or another one ('a white spider
with very elongated thin legs'), beaten up in oil is said by this
ancient writer upon Natural History to form an ointment for the
eyes. Similarly, 'the thick pulp of a spider's body, mixed with the
oil of roses, is used for the ears.' Sir Matthew Lister, who was
indeed the father of English araneology, is quoted in Dr. James's
Medical Dictionary as using the distilled water of boiled black
spiders as an excellent cure for wounds." (Dr. H. C. McCook in
Poet-lore, Nov., 1889.)
53. Gum-tragacanth: yielded by the leguminous shrub, Astragalus
tragacantha.
60. Zoar: the only one that was spared of the five cities of the
plain (Genesis 14. 2).
108. Lazarus . . . fifty years of age: in The Academy, Sept. 16,
1896, Dr. Richard Garnett says: "Browning commits an oversight, it
seems to me, in making Lazarus fifty years of age at the eve of the
siege of Jerusalem, circa 68 A. D." The miracle is supposed to have
been wrought about 33 A. D., and Lazarus would then have been only
fifteen, although according to tradition he was thirty when he was
raised from the dead, and lived only thirty years after. Upon this
Prof. Charles B. Wright comments in Poet-lore, April, 1897: "I
incline to think that the oversight is not Browning's. Let us stand
by the tradition and the resulting age of sixty-five. . . . Karshish
is simply stating his professional judgment. Lazarus is given an
age suited to his appearance--he seems a man of fifty. The years
have touched him lightly since 'heaven opened to his soul.'
. . . And that marvellous physical freshness deceives the very leech
himself."
177. Greek fire: used by the Byzantine Greeks in warfare, first
against the Saracens at the siege of Constantinople in 673 A. D.
Therefore an anachronism in this poem. Liquid fire was, however,
known to the ancients, as Assyrian bas-reliefs testify. Greek fire
was made possibly of naphtha, saltpetre, and sulphur, and was thrown
upon the enemy from copper tubes; or pledgets of tow were dipped in
it and attached to arrows.
281. Blue-flowering borage: (Borago officianalis). The ancients
deemed this plant one of the four "cordial flowers," for cheering
the spirits, the others being the rose, violet, and alkanet. Pliny
says it produces very exhilarating effects.