Assisi

Question 1

Grazie in a voice as sweet
as a child’s when she speaks to her mother
or a bird’s when it spoke
to St Francis.

Answer 1

Shows how the begger has more inner beauty than outer beauty

Question 2

clucking contentedly,

Answer 2

He’s comparing the tourists to chickens

Question 3

him as he scattered

the grain of the Word.

Answer 3

Shows how the priest is leading the tourists like he’s hurding chickens

Question 4

It was they who had passed
the ruined temple outside, whose eyes
wept pus,

Answer 4

Suggest that the body is a temple and if the begger wept pus he might have a infection behind his eyes

Question 5

priest explained
how clever it was of Giotto
to make his frescoes tell stories
 I understood
the explanation and
the cleverness.

Answer 5

Shows how the priest is trying to not let the tourists see the begger and how McCaig understands the use of this

Question 6

outside the three tiers of churches built
in honour of St Francis, brother
of the poor,

Answer 6

Helps show the hypocrisy of the church

Question 7

The dwarf with his hands on backwards
sat, slumped like 
a half-filled sack
on tiny twisted legs from which
sawdust might run,

Answer 7

Helps to visualise how the dwarf would’ve looked