The Eve of St. Agnes Lies and Deceit Quotes

Madeline is still in the ballroom at this point, but she isn't exactly tearing up the dance floor. Instead, she's totally preoccupied with her anticipation of what's going to go down later. She's described, in the middle of all the drama of the party, as "amort," which is a funny word. It literally means dead, which makes sense because Madeline's not noticing all the activity around her, but it's also a really strong way to express what could have been written as "preoccupied." Also, think about the fact that "amort" is also one T more than "amor." And what has her "all amort"? It's because she's been "hoodwink'd" by "fancy"—that is, that her own imagination is putting the whammy on her.

Porphyro's just told Angela his plan to get to Madeline, and Angela is totally not on board. She's been thinking all along that Porphyro's a good, decent guy, and so she's been helpful to him, but the minute she hears his "stratagem" it's like he's transformed in front of her. It definitely gets you thinking about the divide between what Porphyro seems to be and what he really is.

R Kelly: not the only guy trapped in a closet. As part of his "stratagem," Porphyro has Angela hide him a closet in Madeline's bedroom so that he can look at her while he himself is not being looked at. The funny thing is, all the while he's staring at her sleeping body, Madeline herself is locked up tight inside her dream and envisioning him, so in a way she's actually the one who's "seeing" him while she herself is "unespied."

These lines are referencing one of the nastier episodes of ancient mythology (and that's saying something). The "tongueless nightingale" refers to Philomel, a woman who was raped by her brother-in-law Tereus, who then cut out her tongue to prevent her from reporting his crime. There's good evidence to suggest that Madeline and Porphyro have sex in stanza 36, and plenty of critics interpret it as a rape, given Keats's emphasis on Porphyro's artifice and name-dropping of a famous mythological rape.

Like many women before her, Madeline is facing the harsh truth that the man of your dreams is better than the man of your reality. She's woken up from her "wakeful swoon" and found that the real-life version of Porphyro doesn't exactly measure up to the one she was envisioning. At the moment when Madeline joins the land of the living, Porphyro, who's been consistently described as hot and fire-y, is rendered "pallid, chill, and drear." Madeline echoes Angela, who earlier said to Porphyro, "Thou canst not surely be the same that thou didst seem" (144).

Porphyro's just told Madeline that she's not dreaming, and she's not taking the news too well. She feels as though she's been tricked, and actually uses herself some of the language that's been used before by other people to describe her. Madeline says she's been "deceived," as did Angela in stanza 14, and describes herself as a vulnerable dove, as did the speaker in stanza 22. Angela, though, thought that Madeline was being "deceived" because she was buying into this hokey ritual that Angela didn't think was going to work. Here, Madeline thinks she's been "deceived" specifically by Porphyro.