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Rossetti Archive Textual Transcription

Document Title: The Staff and Scrip (fragmentary fair copy, corrected: Humanities Research Center, U. of Texas)
Author: Dante Gabriel Rossetti
Date of Composition: 1856
Type of Manuscript: partial manuscript copy, corrected
Scribe: DGR

The full Rossetti Archive record for this transcribed document is available.

Image of page [1] page: [1]
Manuscript Addition: 7
Editorial Description: leaf number at upper left
more about The Staff and Scrip
The Staff and Scrip

(derived from the “Gesta Romanorum”)
  • “How should I your true love know
  • From another one?
  • By his cockle-hat & staff
  • And his sandal-shoon.”
  • “Who owns these lands?” the Pilgrim said.
  • “Stranger, Queen Blanchelys.”
  • “And who has thus harried them?” he said.
  • “It was Duke Luke did this:
  • God's ban be his!”
  • The Pilgrim said: “Where is your house?
  • I'll rest there, with your will.”
  • “Ye've but to climb these blackened boughs,
  • And ye'll see it over the hill,
  • 10 For it burns still.”
Deleted Text
  • He stood and prayed within himself.
  • “Friend, bring me to your queen.”
  • “Nay, ye shall seek her out yourself:
  • Duke Luke may there have been,
  • Knocked, and gone in.”
Image of page [2] page: [2]
Manuscript Addition: 3
Editorial Description: leaf number at upper left
  • Point me at least the path “Which way road to seek your queen?” said he.
  • “ Not so, lest Nay, nay, but with some wound
  • Thou come 'lt fly back hither, it may be,
  • And by thy blood i'the ground
  • 20My place be found.”
  • So be it“Friend, stay in peace. God keep thy head,
  • And mine, where I will go;
  • For he is here and there;” he said.
  • He passed the hillside, slow,
  • And stood below.
Deleted Text
  • By smouldering meadows he walked on
  • The corpses, black and charr'd,
  • Lay in their blood; and where the sun
  • Had dried it afterward,
  • 30The soil was hard.
  • None met him. From these plains the foe
  • Had passed. With heel and hoof,
  • His strength had touched the land, & now
  • About the palace-roof
  • Hovered aloof.
Image of page [3] page: [3]
Manuscript Addition: 9
Editorial Description: leaf number at upper left
  • The stairs before the palace-gate
  • Shone in the sun like glass;
  • But in the hall there was no state.
  • They saw him, what he was:
  • 40And let him pass.
  • No vassal sued for slips of palm:
  • No woman there, of one
  • Far distant, asked with boding qualm.
  • An aged priest alone
  • Spoke benison
  • O Father, lead me to your queen:
  • But take my shrift from me
  • First, lest my soul depart unclean.
  • “Son, in hoc nomine
  • 50 Absolvo te—”
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  • Right so, he knew that he saw weep
  • Each night throughout some dream
  • The queen's own face, confused in sleep
  • With visages supreme
  • Not known to him:—
Electronic Archive Edition: 1
Source File: 1-1851.texms2.rad.xml
Copyright: © Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center, University of Texas at Austin.