Per Wikipedia: “Isabella and the Pot of Basil is a painting completed in 1868 by the English artist William Holman Hunt depicting a scene from John Keats’s poem ‘Isabella, or the Pot of Basil.’ It depicts the heroine Isabella caressing the basil pot in which she had buried the severed head of her murdered lover Lorenzo.” It’s the sad old story of the girl who is supposed to marry a rich man but she falls for a poor boy instead, so her brothers murder the poor boy and she digs him up and puts his head in a potted plant. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isabella,_or_the_Pot_of_Basil.]
I really wish I’d found this out before I put the caption on so many years ago because I definitely would swapped out “Jason” for “Basil.” I know the head in the pot is actually Lorenzo, but Basil is funnier.
19 Responses
Peeyew! That stinks, probably literally.
Basil! English pronunciation of course.
Like Faulty Towers.
Beautiful painting, nice rounded room feels cozy except for the potted head.
The potted plant probably makes a better boyfriend than Lorenzo would have anyway…
I’d say she’s obviously listening to her head. I think basil is a better name too.
I like Basil too. With the British pronunciation.
Love the little touch of the words stitched into the tapestry below the pot, LOL.
Jason was a blooming idiot.
Giggle
Basil must really like brains as a growth medium.
I’m trying to imagine the directions the painter gave the model. “Look like you’re embracing your lover’s severed head in a pot. Yes. Just like that.”
In Boccaccio’s Decmeron, she plants his heart in a copper pot and waters the basil with her tears. One day I will find the perfect copper pot and plant my basil in it. No tears though.
Doesn’t it grow back and he is restored to her somehow?
I actually own copper kettles. They’re old electric ones but they leak, so are naught but fancy dustcatchers.
Drainage.
I want the lantern. I have no luck with houseplants.
I remember reading a story in which the male character recalls the organ in a pot legend and several times thinks to himself, “Uh-oh, basil alert! Basil alert!”
Anyone recognize it?
Oh, never mind, I remembered. It’s Miles Vorkosigan’s clone-brother Mark, worrying about [Kareen Koudelka] his lover’s martial-arts-trained sisters in A CIVIL CAMPAIGN.
Jen: Your older readers have sight and hearing disabilities, but we need the snappy fun books that you write!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! We still like to laugh and it is after all the best medicine!!!!!
They always have flimsy mostly financial reasons why they can’t comply!!! I have read Agnes and the hit man 3 times in a paperback from a library sale—I may have red 2 other books that often besides Faking It. If you wound commit to having one electronic, and one new book minimum published in large print each year I think I could live until the money runs out!!!
My librarians cringe when
Hi, Roberta. I thought e-readers usually had a way to make the print larger. Check and see.