n Sea.

=244. Midland waters=. The Mediterranean Sea.

=245. Syrtes=. The ancient name of Gulf of Sidra, off North Africa,
the chief arm of the Mediterranean on the south, =soft Sicily=. Sicily
is noted for its delightful climate; hence the term, "soft Sicily."

=247. western straits=. Strait of Gibraltar.

=250. Iberians=. Inhabitants of the Iberian Peninsula, formed by
Portugal and Spain.

What atmosphere is given the poem by the first stanza? What quest is
to be begun, l. 10? What caused the "Scholar" to join himself to the
gipsies? What were his original intentions? Why, then, did he continue
with them till his death? Why would he avoid others than members of
the gipsy crew? Why his pensive air? To what truth does the author
suddenly awake? How does the Scholar-Gipsy yet live to him? Explain
fully lines 180-200. Note carefully the author's contrast between the
life led by the Scholar-Gipsy and our modern life. Which is better?
Why? Make an application of the figure of the Tyrian trader. Is it
apt? Why used by the poet? Discuss the verse form used. Is it adapted
to the theme of the poem? [203]

THYRSIS

A monody to commemorate the author's friend, Arthur Hugh Clough, who
died at Florence, 1861.

Throughout this poem there is reference to the preceding selection,
_The Scholar-Gipsy_, of which it is the companion piece, and, in a
sense, the sequel. It is one of the four great elegies in the English
language.

Thyrsis is a name common to both ancient and modern literature. In
the Idyls of Theocritus it is used as the name of a herdsman; in the
Eclogues of Vergil, of a shepherd; while in later writings it has come
to mean any rustic.

Arthur Hugh Clough (1819-1861), whose poetry is closely akin in spirit
to Arnold's, was a young man of genius and promise. He studied at both
Rugby and Oxford, where he and Arnold were intimately associated and
became fast friends. In 1869 his health began to fail, and two years
later he died in Florence, Italy, where he had gone in the hope of
being benefited by the climate.

Arnold, in a letter to his mother dated April, 1866, says of his poem:
"Tell dear old Edward [Arnold] that the diction of the Thyrsis was
modelled on that of Theocritus, whom I have been much reading during
the two years this poem has been forming itself, and that I meant the
diction to be so artless as to be almost heedless. However, there is
a mean which