Laura’s transition from near-death back to life is reminiscent of Jesus’s death and resurrection in the New Testament of the Christian Bible. After his sacrificing himself and being crucified, Jesus is buried, only to rise again three days later. In a similar fashion, Laura nearly dies, only to be given new life. The difference here is that Lizzie, not Laura, is the one who sacrifices herself.

Wormwood is a bitter tasting plant. It is often used to make vermouth, absinthe and other tempting adult beverages. Given that context, this metaphor conveys the idea that temptations lead to bitterness.

A “gibe” is a taunt or sneer. The word “dogged” is interesting because it describes the way in which the goblins pursue Lizzie, but it also underscores the animal quality of the goblins.

The colors Rossetti uses to describe Lizzie are important. White and gold symbolize purity and divinity. Angels are often depicted in these colors, draped in white robes and graced by a floating golden halo above their heads. Lizzie is depicted this way because of her continued purity, even when confronted with temptations of the goblins and their delicious but wicked fruit.

It is crucial that Lizzie does not eat the fruit. By not doing so, she maintains the purity of her soul, even as the goblins besmirch her with the juice of their wicked fruits. This decision marks the climax and turning point of the story. By weathering the storm of temptation, Lizzie will put herself in a position to heal Laura.

Rossetti makes clear the allegorical connection between the goblins and Satan, or the devil. When Lizzie denies their advances, the goblins take on a demonic, “evil” look and begin “lashing their tails.” The goblins are akin to the tempting serpent from the biblical story of the Garden of Eden. Lizzie, unlike Adam and Eve, does not accept the fruit.

The diction here—“grunting and snarling”—serves to underscore the animal brutality of the goblins. The goblins represent the animal side of human nature, which is generally controlled and suppressed in civilized society. Rossetti wants us to understand that a great deal of violence and sexuality can be found in that animal side.

The verb “to parley” means to speak, specifically in the discussion of terms. Lizzie and the goblins are locked in negotiation. Lizzie wants the goblins’ fruit in order to heal Laura. The goblins want to defile Lizzie.

Eating the biblical fruit of knowledge in the Garden of Eden is too much of a burden for Adam and Eve, causing them shame and mortality. The same is true of the goblin fruit, which “no man can carry.” Laura tried to, but paid the price: mortality, unquenchable desire, and lost innocence.

Unlike Laura, Lizzie recalls the cautionary tale of Jeanie and thus enters into the goblin market with a greater degree of wariness.

In the preceding thirty lines, Rossetti gives us a familiar description of the goblins and their fruit. In some cases, the language is identical to that used to depict Laura’s encounter early in the poem. These descriptions immerse us again in the scene of the market.

A “pannier” is a picnic basket. It is a French word, typical of Rossetti’s willfully high style of diction.

The narrator ends the story with a concrete moral: familial love is the key to resisting temptation and preserving one’s life.

In order to plunge into the territory of the goblins, Lizzie must focus her senses and attune herself to the strange environment. She must “beg[in] to listen and look” in ways she has not needed to before. This mission will push Lizzie to the edge of her abilities and test her character in new ways.

Lizzie put herself in danger for her sister’s sake. This language and action once again evokes Christ imagery. In the Bible, Jesus ventures into the wilderness where he is tempted by the devil in order to prove that he is the one true son of god. He “braves” this task for the “sake” of his disciples and all of mankind. His ability to resist temptation allows him to defeat the devil and go on to redeem the sins of humanity. Lizzie’s sacrifice for her sister is able to redeem Laura’s sins in much the same way.

The noun “rime” literally refers to frost, a symptom of winter’s descent. Figuratively, a rime is a poem or tale. This second, figurative definition is put to use here as well, for the words and lines themselves are the rime about the rime.

Lizzie’s speech when she returns from her trial with the goblins mimics the Eucharist, a Christian ceremony in which wine and bread are consecrated and then eaten to symbolize or embody Jesus’s Last Supper. In this ceremony, the priest will repeat Christ’s words, “take this, eat, this is my body broken for you; take this, drink, this is my blood.” Lizzie’s “eat me, drink me” command invokes these words and compares her to this religious figure.

Winter is a classic poetic symbol for old age and death. Jeanie’s improper actions brought on an “early winter,” which aged her prematurely.

While these commands, “suck,” “kiss,” “hug,” could be read for their sexual connotations, the Christian imagery that dominates the end of this poem encourages us to read these words as indicative of religious love instead. At the end of the poem, Laura’s love for the divine Lizzie replaces her longing for the fruit, a symbol of erotic desire. In this way, the poem offers a solution to resisting desire: love and faith in God.

According to Victorian expectations, a woman’s function was to get married. Jeanie’s indulgence in the goblin’s fruit can be read as a metaphor for having sex before marriage. In this reading, she dies as a result of her moral misstep.

Lizzie understands the grave cost of the fruit. To buy the fruit would require her to pay with her very life. As much as Lizzie loves her sister, such a cost is simply too great.

At this time, the adjective “odorous” meant sweet-smelling or pleasantly fragrant.

The adjective “cankerous” means of cankers, as in “diseased” or “decaying.” The noun “care” in this context means “trouble” or “grief.” So, the “cankerous care” refers to Laura’s ailment as a result of having eaten of the Goblins’ fruit.

The adjective “pellucid” means transparent or clear. These grapes are figured as the most perfect form of their kind.

Daisies are flowers that symbolize innocence and purity. That they do not grow on Jeanie’s grave suggests that she was what Victorian audiences would have called a “fallen woman,” a woman who sacrificed her innocence and fell from the grace of God. The barren grave could also be symbolic of unhallowed ground, a burial site that is not graced by God.

Jeanie’s story is used to teach Laura a lesson. After Jeanie ate the goblin fruit, she began to “grow grey.” This greyness symbolizes old age and eventual death. The fruit causes Jeanie to die, much like how the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge condemned the biblical Adam and Eve to mortality. As we will see with Laura, eating the fruit forces the girl out of the timeless world of childhood into the limited time of adulthood; it starts the clock that counts down to death.

The noun “noonlight” means the light of the sun at noon, or the brightest or clearest light of the day.

Laura is decaying and aging at a rapid rate as a result of having eaten the goblin fruit. This alludes to the biblical story of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden in the Book of Genesis. Before eating the fruit, the two are immortal; after eating it, they become mortal.

The adjective “baulked” means “stopped” or “prevented.” Laura is tormented by her overwhelming and unquenchable desire for the goblin fruit. She is so tormented that she begins to act like the goblins. She “gnash[es] her teeth” in an aggressive, animalistic, goblin-like manner. She is paying the price for her reckless pursuit of pleasure.

Characterizing the orchard “unknown” suggests a connection between these fruits and the biblical story of the fruit on the Tree of Knowledge in the Garden of Eden. The fruit on this tree in Eden was meant to be “unknown” to man, in much the same way that these fruits were meant to be unknown to Laura. Eating the fruit can be seen as Laura indulging in forbidden temptation and therefore the cause of her coming misfortune.

The “tree of life” is an archetype that appears in the mythos of many cultures. The tree connects earth with heaven, and offers continuous life. The figure of Laura’s “tree of life droop[ing]” indicates her fading health as a result of having eaten the goblin fruit.

This phrase is an allusion to Psalm 81:16 in the Bible, which states: “He should have fed them also with the finest of the wheat, and, ‘With honey out of the rock should I have satisfied thee.’” The traditional interpretation of this Psalm is that God is not to blame for one’s sinfulness. He allows humans to feel lust but also gave them heads to counsel themselves out of lust. In other words, sinners are their own enemies and are the only ones to blame for their misfortune.

Because Laura does not have money to buy the fruit she pays with a lock of her hair. Metaphorically, this means she is paying with her body. In the Victorian era, locks of hair were exchanged between lovers as a symbol of their commitments to each other. However, Laura trades her hair to indulge in sweet fruit rather than to secure a marriage to a loved one. This payment suggests that the poem is a metaphor for the dangers of sacrificing chastity in order to give in to temptation.

The adjective “succous” means “sweet” or “juicy.” It comes from the Latin succus for “juice.” Laura remembers the delicious, succulent goblin fruit and craves more. She despairs at the thought of never tasting that tasty but wicked fruit ever again.

This powerful metaphor for evil is one of the most quoted lines from this poem. "Hungry thirsty roots" and "fed" suggest overconsumption. In speculating "what" these fruits were eating, Lizzie suggests that they were indulging in something evil or suspect. This metaphor underscores a larger theme within the poem: that which one eats defines them and can taint them forever.

The adjective “iterated” indicates a pattern of alternation and repetition, of renewed or repeated action. The “iterated jingle” is “‘Come buy, come buy,’” with its back-and-forth diction.

The contrasting descriptions of the girls makes clear the different positions they are in. Lizzie, with her “placid” look, has not been soiled by the goblins and their wicked fruit. Laura has been soiled, and thus is described with the hellish simile “like a leaping flame.”

A “furze” is a spiny evergreen shrub with yellow flowers, growing abundantly on waste lands throughout Europe. This familiar plant is juxtaposed with the exotic fruit that the goblins are selling in order to emphasize the disconnection between Laura’s everyday life and the exciting world she has come in contact with.

The verb “purloin” means to steal under circumstances which involve a breach of trust. In using this verb, Laura claims that she could not take money from her sister Lizzie because it would not only be stealing but deceptive. Laura seems to acknowledge that her sister does not want her to buy or eat this fruit.

“Pretty Polly” is a murder ballad, a subgenre of the traditional ballad that tells stories of crime. In this ballad, a young woman named Polly is lured into the woods, where she is murdered and buried in a shallow grave. In some versions of the poem, a ship captain promises to marry her and then kills her when she becomes pregnant before the wedding. This reference should warn Laura of the danger these men pose to her. She proceeds nonetheless, either ignoring or misunderstanding their words.

Rossetti has maintained a continuing metaphor of the girls as birds. Lizzie in particular is bird-like in her purity. Unspoiled, she “warbl[es]” as birds do for the “bright day’s delight.” Her attraction to this brightness is pure and reveals her pure nature.

These fruits cannot be found in a typical market. This gives a supernatural undertone to the goblins and their merchandise; while they seem to sell familiar fruits, they are actually peddling malevolent magic.

The repetition in these lines gives a simple description of each goblin. Much like a child’s fairy tale or story, this type of repetition creates a singsong tone and an easy-to-understand setting. While this story takes on the tone and style of a children’s story, it can be read as a cautionary tale for adults with larger social implications.

Rossetti frequently crafts lists of similes like this in order to create a feeling of emphasis. Often the content of the similes is not as important as the tone. For example, in the image of “wands of ivory/Tipped with gold for awful kings,” the purpose and referent of the phrase “awful kings” is not clear. Ending the list of similes with the “awful kings,” however, injects an ominous tone into the otherwise tender scene.

In this context, the adjective “queer” means strange, odd, or peculiar. Notice that while Laura seems unaware of the danger these goblins pose to her, the narrator’s word choice hints to the reader that there might be something sinister about the goblins.

The verb “leering” means to look at something with an expression of slyness, malignity, or immodest desire. Leering connotes malicious intention or evil. The use of this verb further emphasizes the bad intentions of these goblins.

Throughout the poem, Rossetti uses the color of gold to signify goodness and purity. Although Laura has eaten of the goblin fruit, leaving her impure, the image of the two golden heads together indicates the redemptive power of sisterly love, which is one of the poem’s main themes.

In Christian theology, doves symbolize peace and heavenly harmony. Laura hears “doves’ in the voices of the goblins. However, the reader should not take this as a sign of the goblins’ internal goodness. This is instead a sign that Laura is blind to the dangers of these goblins. Much like Eve was tricked into believing the serpent was virtuous in the biblical story of the Garden of Eden, Laura is tricked into seeing the goblins as friendly.

A “ratel” is a type of honey badger which would have been exotic to Victorian readers. Notice that the goblins are not only portrayed as animalistic but also exotic. They are so strange that they must be a combination of familiar and imaginary beasts.

A “wombat” is an Australian marsupial with rodent-like teeth and claws that burrows into the ground. The British empire began to colonize Australia in 1770 and began passing land rights laws in the 1830s. Rossetti’s mention of this strange exotic animal both paints the goblins as strange creatures and reveals the colonial backdrop of this poem. Written in 1859, “Goblin Market” could also be read as indicative of anxiety about Britain's growing colonial empire: these new places were so different from Europe that they might have seemed threatening to a Victorian mindset.

Notice how the depiction of the goblins shifts throughout the poem. They begin as mythological monsters, then become male goblins, then become “merchant men.” This progression advances the metaphorical reading of this poem as a Victorian allegory against sexual temptation and the preservation of one’s chastity. In this way, the goblins represent men tempting women into sexual deviance.

The adjective “dimpled” means plump, chubby, or fat. Generally dimples connote innocence, youth, or purity. Lizzie uses her “dimpled fingers” to shut out the dangerous noise of the goblins and their temptation, signifying that Lizzie is innocent and pure down to her fingers.

In referring to the fruit as “evil gifts,” Lizzie draws a connection between the fruit they are tempted with and the fruit Eve was tempted with. Satan’s fruit is the “evil gift” that caused man to fall from paradise.

Here, the narrator uses the verb “peep” rather than “look.” Peep means to look through a narrow space, such as half-shut eyes, a crack in a fence, or other type of small opening. It suggests a secret or stolen glance at something forbidden. It also casts the person who does the “peeping” as dangerously indulgent: they know they should not look, but do so anyway. The use of this verb tells the audience that Lizzie has warned Laura against looking at the goblins before, and perhaps that Laura has taken in this forbidden sight before.

The goblins are characterized as beastly and decrepit. The verb “hobbling” signifies moving in an uneven, clumsy, or otherwise graceless manner. It is generally used to connote old age or corruption. This depiction of the goblins sharply contrasts the innocent, golden depiction of the two girls: the goblins are corrupted while the girls are innocent.

A “copse,” or a “coppice,” is a thicket, grove, or growth of small trees, whereas a “dingle” is a dell or hollow shaded with trees. Little details like this help illustrate Lizzie’s journey back from the goblin market by showing the confusing variety of the landscape.

Lizzie’s moment of triumph reinforces the theme of the story: resisting temptation leads to righteousness. Notice too how the goblin men’s failure to make her indulge causes them all to abandon their fruit and vanish. Despite the terrible injuries and humiliation the goblin men put upon her, Lizzie stoically handles the abuse and defeats her tormentors.

The verb “to maul” has several meanings; however, two are particularly relevant here. First, the verb can mean to attack and injure someone in a way that damages skin, causing bloody injury. Second, this verb can also mean to touch, harm, or handle someone in a rough, sexual way. Such a word choice underscores the brutality of the goblin men with the young maid as they try to force her to submit to them.

This is a slightly altered form of the 12th-century English proverb “You can lead a horse to water, but you cannot make him drink.” Essentially, it means that you can give someone an opportunity, but you cannot force them to take it. The narrator draws on this saying but substitutes the number twenty to convey the magnitude of force the goblins apply to Lizzie, the proverbial horse in this scenario.

The adjective “beleaguered” means “besieged,” “invested,” or “beset” and conveys an image of someone or something being completely surrounded. In this case, Lizzie stands alone while the goblin hordes force themselves and their fruit upon her.

While this does mean that the orange fruit is located on top of the tree, the presence of the word “crown” in this section is another allusion to the biblical story of Jesus Christ. Similar to Jesus’s trial by temptation in the desert with the devil, Lizzie is tempted and assaulted by the goblin men. She becomes a kind of Christ figure, willing to be tempted and tortured for the love of her sister.

The adjective “hoary” has several meanings, and nearly all of them apply in this extended simile. On one level, “hoary” simple means a white or gray coloring to one’s hair. The sea, then, has whitecaps. On another level, this adjective means “ancient, venerable from age, or time-honored,” and the ocean has often been considered an ancient, mysterious place deserving of respect. Both of these meanings derive from depictions of the Greek god of the sea, Poseidon, who is often characterized as hoary, or gray-haired, ancient, and deserving of respect.

In order to convey how aggressively the goblin men attack Lizzie, the narrator utilizes several similes. Here, the goblin assault is depicted as waves crashing “obstreperously” against Lizzie, the rock of “blue-veined stone.” The adverb “obstreperously” emphasizes the impact of the assault, because it means clamorously and noisily.

In this simile, Lizzie is depicted as a “blue-veined stone.” The color of her veins, and therefore blood, in this simile is important. Blue blood is an expression that characterizes old, noble, upper-class ancestry. This adds to the divine aspect of Lizzie as she bears the brunt of the goblin men’s aggression to save her sister.

While at the beginning of the poem the goblins are just monsters from folklore, now they are specified as “men.” This creates a connection between the tempting fruit and the masculine threat to chastity. In the Victorian era in which this was written, female sexuality was strictly regulated and restricted. A woman who exhibited desire or had extramarital sex was seen as a “fallen woman,” an unworthy deviant. To these two “maids” the most threatening temptation would be men and the carnal desire they trigger.

Throughout the poem, gold is a symbol for godliness and purity. In Christian imagery, golden halos are painted on saints and other holy people. Heaven is thought to be populated by angels so gloriously beautiful that they appear in a golden beam of light. The “golden hair” of these sisters shows that they are pure and that they belong in the Garden of Eden.

Notice the different reactions the two sisters have. While Lizzie actively resists her response to the call of the goblins, Laura engages her curiosity. This moment foreshadows that Laura will be the character who is more susceptible to the goblin’s temptations.

The metaphor “sound to eye” is a form of synesthesia, interpreting a stimulus generally experienced by a particular sense using another: hearing color, seeing sound, etc. This type of metaphor generally signifies an overloading of the senses, and in this context makes the fruit overwhelmingly sweet, brilliant, and tempting.

In Milton’s Paradise Lost, Satan tempts Eve to eat the apple by convincing her that the fruit will open her eyes to the wonderful things she cannot see. This metaphor that draws a connection between eating and sight suggests a connection between the fruit and knowledge, and and thus alludes to Milton’s account of the story of Adam and Eve.

In the Greek myth of Persephone, “pomegranates” are symbolic of damning temptation. Persephone, daughter of the harvest goddess Demeter, is kidnapped by Hades, the god of the underworld. After great protest from Demeter, Zeus and Hades agree to return Persephone to the land of the living on the condition that she does not eat anything in the underworld. However, Persephone is tempted into eating the seeds of a pomegranate and thus forced to spend half of every year in the underworld for the rest of eternity.

Given the religious symbolism of apples and the Christian imagery throughout the poem, the seemingly eternal nature of this fruit could be read as an allusion to the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge in the Garden of Eden.

After presenting the audience with a long catalogue of exotic fruit, the narrator says that all the fruit are “ripe together.” Since fruits have different seasons that in this time would have made them each unavailable during certain times of the year, the notion that the fruit would be “all ripe together” gives the fruit supernatural characteristics.

In Western Culture, “apples” allude to the story of Adam and Eve. In the Biblical story of Genesis, God grants Adam and Eve dominion over all of Eden, a paradisiacal garden where there is no time or strife. The only thing he forbids them from doing is eating from the Tree of Knowledge. When Satan tricks Eve into eating an apple from the tree, Adam and Eve are cast out of the garden and condemned to mortality.

In mythology, “goblins” are monstrous creatures that are generally grotesque, mischievous, evil, and greedy. Here, these creatures are cast specifically as fruit merchants who tempt the young maidens.

The noun “maids” refers to virginal or chaste women. The main characters of this poem are portrayed as innocent and under the threat of temptation. Setting up the poem in this way suggests a thematic undertone of both resisting temptation and preserving one’s chastity.