PAGE 113. l. 2. _foster-child._ The child of its maker, but preserved and cared for by these foster-parents. l. 7. _Tempe_ was a famous glen in Thessaly. _Arcady._ Arcadia, a very mountainous country, the centre of the Peloponnese, was the last stronghold of the aboriginal Greeks. The people were largely shepherds and goatherds, and Pan was a local Arcadian god till the Persian wars (c. 400 B.C.). In late Greek and in Roman pastoral poetry, as in modern literature, Arcadia is a sort of ideal land of poetic shepherds. PAGE 114. ll. 17-18. _Bold . . . goal._ The one thing denied to the figures--actual life. But Keats quickly turns to their rich compensations. PAGE 115. ll. 28-30. _All . . . tongue._ Cf. Shelley's _To a Skylark_: Thou lovest--but ne'er knew love's sad satiety. ll. 31 seq. Keats is now looking at the other side of the urn. This verse strongly recalls certain parts of the frieze of the Parthenon (British Museum). PAGE 116. l. 41. _Attic_, Greek. _brede_, embroidery. Cf. _Lamia_, i. 159. Here used of carving. l. 44. _tease us out of thought._ Make us think till thought is lost in mystery. INTRODUCTION TO THE ODE TO PSYCHE. In one of his long journal-letters to his brother George, Keats writes, at the beginning of May, 1819: 'The following poem--the last I have written--is the first and the only one with which I have taken even moderate pains. I have for the most part dashed off my lines in a hurry. This I have done leisurely--I think it reads the more richly for it, and will I hope encourage me to write other things in even a more peaceable and healthy spirit. You must recollect that Psyche was not embodied as a goddess before the time of Apuleius the Platonist, who lived after the Augustan age, and consequently the goddess was never worshipped or sacrificed to with any of the ancient fervour, and perhaps never thought of in the old religion--I am more orthodox than to let a heathen goddess be so neglected.' _The Ode to Psyche_ follows. The story of Psyche may be best told in the words of William Morris in the 'argument' to 'the story of Cupid and Psyche' in his _Earthly Paradise_: 'Psyche, a king's daughter, by her exceeding beauty caused the people to forget Venus; therefore the goddess would fain have destroyed her: nevertheless she became the bride of Love, yet in an unhappy moment lost him by her own fault, and wandering through the world suffered many evils at the hands of Venus, for whom she must accomplish fearful tasks. But the gods and all nature helped her, and in process of time she was re-united to Love, forgiven by Venus, and made immortal by the Father of gods and men.' Psyche is supposed to symbolize the human soul made immortal through love. NOTES ON THE ODE TO PSYCHE. PAGE 117. l. 2. _sweet . . . dear._ Cf. _Lycidas_, 'Bitter constraint and sad occasion dear.'