e qui Ÿ un indovinello poich‚ tu

[blaising_fury]

Pansy, if you have declined Boot, Terry's smoking lessons and have in fact decided that the red cigarettes offend you, I would pay a decent sum to buy them back. I find that my stock-pile is more diminished than I had realised. If you would like a genuinely useful gift for your possible visit to Beauxbatons, I have something that may appeal to

Comments

[purepansy]

One hundred galleons, then.

[blaising_fury]

That would be for only the cigarettes, yes?

[purepansy]

You didn't mention purchasing anything else, so yes.

[blaising_fury]

I suppose a purchase from you, even one that would blacken my lungs, would be worth one hundred galleons. Particularly if you put my replacement gift to good use.

[gold_star]

I think your interpretation of Blake's outlook is entirely correct. He views himself, at least in this verse, as an outsider.

There are other times, however, in which he questions his role:

Am not I
A fly like thee?
Or art not thou
A man like me?

[blaising_fury]

Song 40. It would appear that the speaker does not trust himself or his perspective entirely; he often speaks in questions for this very reason. Echoes of this can be seen in other portions of Songs of Experience:

Does spring hide its joy//When buds and blossoms grow?//Does the Sower?//Sow by night?//Or the plowman in darkness plow?

Hmm, I just noticed that "plow", "sow", and "grow" do not really rhyme.

[gold_star]

I don't wonder if Blake's questions are self answering. Often he seems ironic, as though he believes his question rhetorical.

O! He gives to us his joy
That our grief he may destroy
Till our grief is fled and gone
He doth sit by us and moan.

[blaising_fury]

The answer to a rhetorical question is easily guessed. A more sensitive reader might feel stupid for having not picked up on the rhetorical aspect all along; luckily, I am often praised for my lack of sensitivity.

That is a joke, of course. I am Italian and am sensitive first and foremost.