He dismisses the preaching of one Paulus as
untenable.
"As certain also of your own poets have said": this motto hints that
Paul's speech at Athens (Acts 17.22-28) suggests and justifies
Browning's conception of such Greek poets as Cleon seeking "the
Lord, if haply they might feel after him." Paul's quotation, "For
we are also his offspring," is from the "Phoenomena" by Aratus, a
Greek poet of his own town of Tarsus.
1. Sprinkled isles: probably the Sporades, so named because they
were scattered, and in opposition to the Cyclades, which formed a
circle around Delos.
51. Phare: light-house. The French authority, Allard, says that
though there is no mention in classical writings of any light-house
in Greece proper, it is probable that there was one at the port of
Athens as well as at other points in Greece. There were certainly
several along both shores of the Hellespont, besides the famous
father of all light-houses, on the island of Pharos, near
Alexandria. Hence the French name for light-house, phare.
53. Poecile: the portico at Athens painted with battle pictures by
Polygnotus the Thasian.
60. Combined the moods: in Greek music the scales were called moods
or modes, and were subject to great variation in the arrangement of
tones and semitones.
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