Assisi Quotes

• "The dwarf with his hands on backwards", "slumped like half-filled sack"


  Lines 1-4 highlight the defects and suffering of the dwarf.

  
  

  The image "hands on backwards" conveys the extent of his appalling deformities, while the simile "half-filled sack" suggests by 'half-filled' and 'slumped' that he cannot support himself.

  
  

  The alliteration of the unpleasant sibilant sounds adds to the shock of the images.
• "three tiers of churches", "in honour of St Francis", "he had the advantage of not being dead yet"


  Lines 5-9 form a contras between the ugliness of the dwarf's situation and the beauty of the 'three tiers of churches'.

  
  

  The irony lies in the absurdity of an architecturally stunning church built at great expense, 'in honour' of a priest who devoted his life to the poor, especially since one of those he would have helped is begging outside the basilica.

  
  

  The irony takes on a darker tone in the final two lines of the verse, where the speaker makes clear that the only advantage that the dwarf has over St Francis is that he is still alive, through the final word 'yet' implies that it might not be for long.
• "A priest explained how clever it was of Giotto to makes his frescoes tell stories that would reveal to the illiterate the goodness of God and the suffering of His Son."


  The scene shifts to the priest explaining the point about Giotto's frescoes, though he is more interested in Giotto's artistic skills than in the Biblical message that Giotto was revealing to the illiterate.

  
  

  Here the speaker uses an angrily sarcastic tone as he highlights the superiority the priest feels while not noticing the dwarf, showing that the church is out of touch with the very people it is supposed to help.
• "I understood the explanation and the cleverness"


  The tone shifts again in the final 3 lines of the verse as the speaker scathingly attacks the priest's knowledge. Because the priest is demonstrating his pride in his ability to explain the frescoes, the speaker reviles him by the sarcastic tone of 'cleverness' - he doesn't actually mean that the man is clever, rather he means the opposite: that the priest is superficial and lacking in humanity.
• "A rush of tourists, clucking contentedly, fluttered after him as he scattered the grain of the Word."


  An extended metaphor is used, comparing the tourists to hens. The tourists are stupid in submissively following the priest, incapable of thinking for themselves. The metaphorical use of 'fluttered' suggests their indecisiveness and expressionless stupidity. As the tourists go pecking after the 'grain of the Word', the implication is that people just accept the teaching of the Church unthinkingly and uncritically.

  
  

  There's a deeper irony - 'grain' is a food image, and while it is being scattered for the tourists, food is denied to the dwarf.
• "It was they who has passed the ruined temple outside, whose eyes wept pus."


  The rhythm (weak/weak/strong) of "it was they who had passed" stresses the word 'they', thus clarifying that the speaker empathetically dissociates himself from the tourists who ignore the 'ruined temple outside', a metaphor that compares the dwarf to temple, a building for worship, to be respected and cherished, yet it is 'ruined', neglected, dilapidated.

  
  

  The wording 'ruined temple' is a reference to corinthians 3:16: 'your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you' - the tourists ignore the human 'ruined temple' in favour of the grandiose 'three tiers of churches' erected to the saint who chose to live as a beggar in spite of his position of social advantage, while the dwarf has no choice in his lifestyle, and his only 'advantage' is that of still being alive. However, it is a life of disability, invisibility, multi-layered suffering a poverty.

  The enjambment isolates the words 'wept pus' at the beginning of line 22, thereby shocking the reader by the repulsive nature of the image.
• "whose back was higher than his head, whose lopsided mouth said Grazie in a voice as sweet as a child's when she speaks to her mother or a bird's when it spoke to St Francis."


  By his use of the climactic list as well as the anaphora - 'who', 'whose', 'whose', - the speaker contrasts the sheer suffering and ugly appearance of the dwarf, whose 'eyes/wept pus', whose 'back is higher than his head', and who has a 'lopsided mouth'. The speaker uses contrast, along with the use of the list and anaphora, to compare once again the physical ugliness and disgusting appearance of the dwarf to St Francis in the first verse and to the child in the lines that follow.

  
  

  The speaker uses the list of the dwarf's repulsive features to stress how hideous he looks as well as anaphora of the relative pronoun 'whose' (making clear to whom these features belong). The use of enjambment then forces 'said Grazie in a voice as sweet' onto the next time, drawing attention to the way the dwarf's outward appearance contrasts with his kindness, politeness, and inner beauty.

  
  

  The comparison with a child evokes our sympathy and makes us aware of his anguish and helplessness. The final two lines refer back to St Francis, who was so kind that birds spoke to him.