explain a passage from A FLORENTINE TRAGEDY by Oscar Wilde

[princehamlet]

Oh! spin
Some robe which, dyed in purple, sorrow might wear for her own comforting: or some long-fringed cloth in which a new-born and unwelcome babe might wail unheeded; or a dainty sheet which, delicately perfumed with sweet herbs,might serve to wrap a dead man.( end of page 5)

[LitNetIsGreat]

Hi, I'm curious why you are reading this unfinished piece. Are you just reading through the collected works?

Well I had to read over the play as I have forgotten it mostly, but if you read it, it is clear that Simone doesn't give a damn what his wife Bianca works on as he is going to get a big price (100,000) for a robe "A hundred thousand! Said you a hundred thousand?...A hundred thousand! My brain is dazed. I shall be richer far Than all the other merchants. I will buy Vineyards and lands and gardens. Every loom From Milan down to Sicily shall be mine, And mine the pearls that the Arabian seas Store in their silent caverns." So when his wife asks him what she should work on he doesn't care:

Oh! spin
Some robe which, dyed in purple, sorrow might wear for her own comforting: or some long-fringed cloth in which a new-born and unwelcome babe might wail unheeded; or a dainty sheet which, delicately perfumed with sweet herbs, might serve to wrap a dead man. Spin what you will; I care not, I.

I don't think it needs much interpretation really if you just read about the context of the line. I think it is possible though that in the line 'in which a new-born and unwelcomed bad might wail unheeded" Wilde is either referencing (or just stealing) from Shakespeare in Lear - 'when we are born we cry that we are come to this great stage of fools" in a throwaway manner. I don't know, maybe not, it just struck me as similar and Wilde likes to borrow ideas!

[princehamlet]

HI,Neely, thanks for your answer, but i am somehow confused about the phrase ' sorrow might wear for her own comforting'.
And about your curiosity, as Robert Ross said that only the opening of the play was disappeared, and he (Ross) recommend to the the poet and dramatist, Mr. Thomas Sturge Moore to write an opening scene to complete it. and as he said the achievement is particularly remarkable.

[LitNetIsGreat]

Well he is just being a bit dramatic or poetic. Wilde liked the colour purple and l so I think the line in question "Oh! spin/Some robe which, dyed in purple, sorrow might wear for her own comforting" he is just personifying sorrow in an off-hand way in that he doesn't care what she does or how much it costs. For example look at the opening lines to his poem Endymion shows how highly he values purple as a rich colour:

THE apple trees are hung with gold,
And birds are loud in Arcady,
The sheep lie bleating in the fold,
The wild goat runs across the wold,
But yesterday his love he told,
I know he will come back to me.
O rising moon! O Lady moon!
Be you my lover’s sentinel,
You cannot choose but know him well,
For he is shod with purple shoon,
You cannot choose but know my love,
For he a shepherd’s crook doth bear,
And he is soft as any dove,
And brown and curly is his hair.

Or the first stanza or Serenade:

THE western wind is blowing fair
Across the dark Ægean sea,
And at the secret marble stair
My Tyrian galley waits for thee.
Come down! the purple sail is spread,
The watchman sleeps within the town,
O leave thy lily-flowered bed,
O Lady mine come down, come down!

He's just taking the idea of the richess of purple because he doesn't care what she does as he is getting a lot of money tomorrow and 'sorrow' can even be comforted by such a rich colour. That's the idea I think anyway.