isabella, or the Pot of Basil (1818) is a narrative poem by John Keats It tells the tale of a young woman sabella, or the Pot of Basil (1818) is a narrative poem by John Keats adapted from a story in Boccaccio's Decameron
(IV, 5). It tells the tale of a young woman whose family intend to
marry her to "some high noble and his olive trees", but who falls for
Lorenzo, one of her brothers' employees. When the brothers learn of
this, they murder Lorenzo and bury his body. His ghost informs Isabella
in a dream. She exhumes the body and buries the head in a pot of basil which she tends obsessively, while pining away.
antique metal button
