A STORY FROM BOCCACCIO. by John Keats

This is the opening stanza of Keats's narrative poem "Isabella; or, The Pot of Basil," which retells a tragic love story from Boccaccio's *Decameron*. It introduces Isabel and Lorenzo, two young lovers living in the same house, utterly absorbed in their feelings for one another. Even before any dramatic events unfold, Keats illustrates how their proximity brings both comfort and a bittersweet kind of pain.

The tone is tender and mournful from the very first word. Keats writes with the warmth of a storyteller who knows how the tale will end sadly, so even the sweetness of young love carries a hint of sorrow. There's a gentle, almost musical repetition ("They could not… They could not… They could not") that adds a sighing, inevitable quality to the stanza — as if the love between these two was both irresistible and destined to fail.

Keats composed "Isabella; or, The Pot of Basil" in 1818, taking inspiration from the fifth story of the fourth day in Boccaccio's *Decameron* (written around 1353). The original story tells of a merchant's daughter whose brothers kill her lover. Keats transforms it into 63 stanzas of Spenserian-influenced ottava rima, infusing the narrative with psychological depth, rich sensory details, and a Gothic atmosphere that the medieval version only hints at. This work emerged during an exceptionally productive time for Keats, alongside "The Eve of St. Agnes" and "Lamia." Although he later critiqued the poem as "mawkish," it has remained one of his most emotionally resonant pieces for readers and critics alike. The poem explores themes of Romantic medievalism, class critique, and the era's fascination with tragic love.