Which is the poison to poison her, prithee?
D. G. Rossetti's first water-color was an illustration of this poem, and bore beneath it this line.
Page 169. Cristina.
The Cristina of this poem is fashioned after Cristina Maria, daughter of Francis I., King of the Two Sicilies. She was born in 1806; was married in 1829 to Ferdinand VII. King of Spain; became Regent in 1833, on the death of the king; and in 1843 her daughter ascended the throne as Isabel II. Her life was given to intrigue, and to the use of tyrannical power. She was hated by those she ruled, and despised by them because of her personal character.
Page 175. A Toccata of Galuppi's.
Baldassere Galuppi was born near Venice in 1706, and died in Venice in 1785. He was in London for three or four years, and was a most prolific composer.
Page 176. You're wroth—can you slay your snake like Apollo?
In a volume of selections from his poem, revised by Browning himself, occurs the following note on this line, by the poet.
"A word on the line about Apollo the snake-slayer, which my friend Professor Colvin condemns, believing that the god of the Belvedere grasps no bow, but the ægis, as described in the 15th Iliad. Surely the text represents that portentous object (θοῦριν, δεινήν, ἀμφιδάσειαν, ἀριπρεπέ'—μαρμαρέην) as 'shaken violently' or 'held immovably' by both hands, not a single one, and that the left hand:—
ἀλλὰ σύ γ' ἐν χείρεσσι λάβ' αἰγίδα θυσανόεσσαν