Structure
- Introduction
- The silk-winding girl Pippa rises on New Year's Day, her only day off for the whole year. Her thoughts concern the people she dubs "Asolo's Four Happiest Ones":
- Ottima, the wife of the rich silk-mill owner Luca Gaddi (and her German paramour Sebald)
- Jules, a French art student, who is today marrying Phene, a beautiful woman he knows only through her fan letters
- Luigi, an Italian patriot who lives with his mother in the turret on the hill
- Monsignor, a cleric
- I.—Morning
- Pippa passes a shrubhouse on the hillside, where Sebald and Ottima are trying to justify to each other the murder of Ottima's elderly husband, Luca.
- A group of art students who are envious of Jules, led by Lutwyche, discuss a cruel practical joke they are hoping to play on him.
- II.—Noon
- Pippa enters Orcana valley, and passes the house of Jules and Phene, who have been tricked into marriage. (The song they overhear refers to Caterina Cornaro, the Queen of Cyprus.)
- The English vagabond Bluphocks watches Luigi's turret in the company of Austrian policemen. The Austrians' suspicions hinge on whether Luigi stays for the night or leaves.
- III.—Evening
- Pippa passes the turret on the hill. Luigi and his mother discuss his plan to assassinate an Austrian official. (The song they overhear, A king lived long ago (1835), was originally a separate poem by Browning.)
- Four poor girls sit on the steps of the cathedral and chatter. At the behest of Bluphocks, they greet Pippa as she goes by.
- IV.—Night
- Pippa passes the cathedral and palace. Inside, Monsignor negotiates with the Intendant, an assassin named Uguccio. The conversation turns to Pippa, the niece of the cardinal and true owner of the ecclesiastic's property, and Ugo's offer to remove her from Asolo.
- Pippa returns to her room.
Read more about this topic: Pippa Passes
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—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
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—Sydney J. Harris (1917–1986)
“The philosopher believes that the value of his philosophy lies in its totality, in its structure: posterity discovers it in the stones with which he built and with which other structures are subsequently built that are frequently better—and so, in the fact that that structure can be demolished and yet still possess value as material.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)