Get out the microscope, because we’re going through this poem line-by-line.
Lines 70-84
My bath must needs be left behind, alas!
One block, pure green as a pistachio-nut,
There's plenty jasper somewhere in the world—
And have I not Saint Praxed's ear to pray
Horses for ye, and brown Greek manuscripts,
And mistresses with great smooth marbly limbs?
—That's if ye carve my epitaph aright,
Choice Latin, picked phrase, Tully's every word,
No gaudy ware like Gandolf's second line—
Tully, my masters? Ulpian serves his need!
And then how I shall lie through centuries,
And hear the blessed mutter of the mass,
And see God made and eaten all day long,
And feel the steady candle-flame, and taste
Good strong thick stupefying incense-smoke!
- Speaking of jasper, the bishop is bummed out that he can't bring his own bathtub with him. Apparently it's carved out of a single block of jasper. Eat your heart out, jacuzzi tub owners.
- The bishop reminds his sons/nephews that he has a direct line to St. Praxed, so he can ask her to give horses and expensive manuscripts and good-looking mistresses to them. It looks like the old "do it because you love me" bit is not the way this bishop is choosing to go.
- Still, these guys can only get those awesome things if they carve his epitaph correctly.
- He wants a nice Latin phrase, something that "Tully" (Marcus Tullius Cicero) might have written. It's got to be better than Gandolf's, anyway. He used Ulpian (an inferior Roman writer), for Pete's sake.
- If they can't do any better than that, how is it going to be for him as he spends eternity in this church, experiencing mass after mass? (To "see God made and eaten" in line 82 refers to the act of communion.)
- The bishop's point here is that he will be totally embarrassed—for eternity—if he can't get a better epitaph than Gandolf's.