WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:00.630 align:middle line:90% 00:00:00.630 --> 00:00:05.190 align:middle line:84% The other would be a piazza piece. 00:00:05.190 --> 00:00:15.210 align:middle line:84% And the term piazza is known to half the country, 00:00:15.210 --> 00:00:16.400 align:middle line:90% and not everywhere. 00:00:16.400 --> 00:00:19.890 align:middle line:90% 00:00:19.890 --> 00:00:23.170 align:middle line:90% Richard Blackmer, the Maine man. 00:00:23.170 --> 00:00:27.165 align:middle line:84% The great critic from Maine who died about two years ago. 00:00:27.165 --> 00:00:30.720 align:middle line:90% 00:00:30.720 --> 00:00:38.970 align:middle line:84% Said that it was common, that phrase, in New England. 00:00:38.970 --> 00:00:42.660 align:middle line:84% I began to think it was not common, 00:00:42.660 --> 00:00:47.190 align:middle line:84% it wasn't universal-- that phrase piazza. 00:00:47.190 --> 00:00:51.900 align:middle line:84% Because a highly educated lady, and the wife 00:00:51.900 --> 00:00:56.070 align:middle line:84% of a very important professor, and then one of the-- 00:00:56.070 --> 00:01:02.070 align:middle line:90% 00:01:02.070 --> 00:01:12.600 align:middle line:84% Big Ten Conference-- came to me and asked me 00:01:12.600 --> 00:01:14.460 align:middle line:90% about that pizza piece. 00:01:14.460 --> 00:01:17.580 align:middle line:90% 00:01:17.580 --> 00:01:21.790 align:middle line:84% And it goes I kept a straight face. 00:01:21.790 --> 00:01:24.060 align:middle line:84% And I didn't dare to explain to her. 00:01:24.060 --> 00:01:27.030 align:middle line:90% 00:01:27.030 --> 00:01:30.930 align:middle line:90% But the piazza is a porch. 00:01:30.930 --> 00:01:34.650 align:middle line:84% Of course it's more than that in the Italian. 00:01:34.650 --> 00:01:40.920 align:middle line:84% In the Italian, it's a stone porch 00:01:40.920 --> 00:01:47.160 align:middle line:84% extending out into the weather with a roof over it, 00:01:47.160 --> 00:01:51.770 align:middle line:84% and a back to it, but not sidewalls. 00:01:51.770 --> 00:01:54.870 align:middle line:90% 00:01:54.870 --> 00:02:01.710 align:middle line:84% This is one on which there's a trellis, to which the roses are 00:02:01.710 --> 00:02:04.140 align:middle line:90% attached. 00:02:04.140 --> 00:02:10.590 align:middle line:84% And this is a dialogue between the person, 00:02:10.590 --> 00:02:16.140 align:middle line:84% and obviously a male that you'll have to identify. 00:02:16.140 --> 00:02:21.360 align:middle line:84% And the reply in the sestet of the person 00:02:21.360 --> 00:02:26.715 align:middle line:84% addressed, who is a young girl sitting on that piazza. 00:02:26.715 --> 00:02:30.230 align:middle line:90% 00:02:30.230 --> 00:02:36.260 align:middle line:84% I am a gentleman in a dust coat, trying to make you hear. 00:02:36.260 --> 00:02:41.120 align:middle line:84% Your ears are soft and small, and listen to an old man 00:02:41.120 --> 00:02:42.200 align:middle line:90% not at all. 00:02:42.200 --> 00:02:46.970 align:middle line:84% They want the young man's whispering and crying. 00:02:46.970 --> 00:02:51.800 align:middle line:84% But see the roses on your trellis dying. 00:02:51.800 --> 00:02:55.700 align:middle line:84% And hear the spectral singing of the moon. 00:02:55.700 --> 00:02:58.310 align:middle line:90% I must have my lovely lady soon. 00:02:58.310 --> 00:03:02.330 align:middle line:84% I am a lady, I am a gentleman in a dust coat trying. 00:03:02.330 --> 00:03:04.940 align:middle line:90% 00:03:04.940 --> 00:03:08.900 align:middle line:84% I am a lady, young in beauty, waiting until my true love 00:03:08.900 --> 00:03:11.450 align:middle line:90% comes and then we kiss. 00:03:11.450 --> 00:03:14.540 align:middle line:84% With what gray man among the vines is this? 00:03:14.540 --> 00:03:18.470 align:middle line:84% Whose words are dry and faint as in a dream. 00:03:18.470 --> 00:03:22.010 align:middle line:84% Back from my trellis sir, before I scream. 00:03:22.010 --> 00:03:24.605 align:middle line:84% I am a lady, young in beauty, waiting. 00:03:24.605 --> 00:03:28.010 align:middle line:90% 00:03:28.010 --> 00:03:30.530 align:middle line:90% Well, no harm. 00:03:30.530 --> 00:03:32.630 align:middle line:90% No immediate harm comes. 00:03:32.630 --> 00:03:36.950 align:middle line:84% A date comes along presently, and they go to the movies 00:03:36.950 --> 00:03:37.775 align:middle line:90% after they kiss. 00:03:37.775 --> 00:03:41.200 align:middle line:90% 00:03:41.200 --> 00:03:45.970 align:middle line:90% But who is the gentleman? 00:03:45.970 --> 00:03:52.000 align:middle line:90% And well, this is honest truth. 00:03:52.000 --> 00:03:53.140 align:middle line:90% It doesn't happen now. 00:03:53.140 --> 00:03:55.960 align:middle line:84% It hasn't-- well it happened the last spring, 00:03:55.960 --> 00:03:58.600 align:middle line:90% about the 1st of June. 00:03:58.600 --> 00:04:02.230 align:middle line:84% And about four years before that, 00:04:02.230 --> 00:04:04.810 align:middle line:84% it was happening every June, that I 00:04:04.810 --> 00:04:07.420 align:middle line:84% would get to long distance telephone calls 00:04:07.420 --> 00:04:11.500 align:middle line:84% from certain colleges and universities. 00:04:11.500 --> 00:04:15.910 align:middle line:90% And they said, Dr. Ransom-- 00:04:15.910 --> 00:04:19.000 align:middle line:90% which I'm not. 00:04:19.000 --> 00:04:22.630 align:middle line:84% We've been studying a poem of yours that we like very much, 00:04:22.630 --> 00:04:26.920 align:middle line:84% and we don't agree about how it's interpreted. 00:04:26.920 --> 00:04:28.340 align:middle line:84% And I wonder if you would tell us. 00:04:28.340 --> 00:04:32.770 align:middle line:84% And usually they would say, the piazza piece. 00:04:32.770 --> 00:04:38.170 align:middle line:84% But I belong to a good strong union of college instructors, 00:04:38.170 --> 00:04:41.710 align:middle line:90% and I didn't want to be a scab. 00:04:41.710 --> 00:04:46.180 align:middle line:84% And I would always say, tell me how you interpret it? 00:04:46.180 --> 00:04:54.730 align:middle line:84% And so they would name-- they say a sentence or so. 00:04:54.730 --> 00:04:57.910 align:middle line:84% And I would say, well I think that's good, 00:04:57.910 --> 00:05:00.790 align:middle line:84% but that's not the whole matter of it. 00:05:00.790 --> 00:05:03.340 align:middle line:90% Could you add something there? 00:05:03.340 --> 00:05:08.530 align:middle line:84% And I probably didn't give them any information, 00:05:08.530 --> 00:05:13.720 align:middle line:84% because central would say, time is up. 00:05:13.720 --> 00:05:21.860 align:middle line:90% $1.85 more, please. 00:05:21.860 --> 00:05:23.900 align:middle line:84% Well that-- of course, in the sense, 00:05:23.900 --> 00:05:25.700 align:middle line:84% they don't ask me that question now. 00:05:25.700 --> 00:05:30.290 align:middle line:84% That's the old man with the scythe. 00:05:30.290 --> 00:05:32.270 align:middle line:90% That's old death. 00:05:32.270 --> 00:05:37.500 align:middle line:84% Who's given her, her first intimation of mortality. 00:05:37.500 --> 00:05:38.000 align:middle line:90%