Quotes from book
Sordello

Name: Sordello
Author: Robert Browning

Sordello is a narrative poem by the English poet Robert Browning. Worked on for seven years, and largely written between 1836 and 1840, it was published in March 1840. It consists of a fictionalised version of the life of Sordello da Goito, a 13th-century Lombard troubadour depicted in Canto VI of Dante Alighieri's Purgatorio.

“But, gathering in its ancient market-place,
Talked group with restless group; and not a face
But wrath made livid, for among them were
Death's staunch purveyors, such as have in care
To feast him. Fear had long since taken root
In every breast, and now these crushed its fruit,
The ripe hate, like a wine: to note the way
It worked while each grew drunk! men grave and grey
Stood, with shut eyelids, rocking to and fro.
Letting the silent luxury trickle slow
About the hollows where a heart should be;
But the young gulped with a delirious glee
Some foretaste of their first debauch in blood
At the fierce news”

Robert Browning book Sordello

Book the First
Sordello (1840)

“Deeds let escape are never to be done.”

Robert Browning book Sordello

Book the Third
Sordello (1840)

“[…]his back is fairly turned?
The pair of goodly palaces are burned,
The gardens ravaged, and your Guelf is drunk
A week with joy; the next, his laughter sunk
In sobs of blood, for he found, some strange way,
Old Salinguerra back again; I say
Old Salinguerra in the town once more
Uprooting, overturning, flame before
Blood fetlock-high beneath him; Azzo fled;
Who scaped the carnage followed; then the dead
Were pushed aside from Salinguerra's throne.
He ruled once more Ferrara, all alone.
Till Azzo, stunned awhile, revived, would pounce;
Coupled with Boniface, like lynx and ounce.”

Robert Browning book Sordello

Book the First
Sordello (1840)

“over zealous in the feat
And stumbling on a peril unaware.
Was captive, "trammelled in his proper snare,"
They phrase it, "taken by his own intrigue"”

Robert Browning book Sordello

Book the First
Sordello (1840)

“The hill-cat boasts some cunning of her own,
Some stealthy tricks to better beasts unknown
That quick with prey enough her hunger blunts
And feeds her fat while gaunt the lion hunts.”

Robert Browning book Sordello

Book the First
Sordello (1840)

“Have they fancies — slow, perchance,
Not at their beck, which indistinctly glance
Until by song each floating part be linked
To each, and all grow palpable, distinct?
He pondered this.”

Robert Browning book Sordello

Book the Second
Sordello (1840)

“Each a God's germ, but doomed remain a germ
In unexpanded infancy”

Robert Browning book Sordello

Book the Third
Sordello (1840)

“So men believe
And worship what they know not, nor receive
Delight from.”

Robert Browning book Sordello

Book the Second
Sordello (1840)

“Fear had long since taken root
In every breast, and now these crushed its fruit,
The ripe hate, like a wine”

Robert Browning book Sordello

Book the First
Sordello (1840)
Context: But, gathering in its ancient market-place,
Talked group with restless group; and not a face
But wrath made livid, for among them were
Death's staunch purveyors, such as have in care
To feast him. Fear had long since taken root
In every breast, and now these crushed its fruit,
The ripe hate, like a wine: to note the way
It worked while each grew drunk! men grave and grey
Stood, with shut eyelids, rocking to and fro.
Letting the silent luxury trickle slow
About the hollows where a heart should be;
But the young gulped with a delirious glee
Some foretaste of their first debauch in blood
At the fierce news