My song, I fear that thou wilt find but few Who fitly shall conceive thy reasoning, Of such hard matter dost thou entertain. Whence, if by misadventure chance should bring

Thee to base company, as chance may do, Quite unaware of what thou dost contain,

I prithee comfort thy sweet self again, My last delight; tell them that they are dull,

And bid them own that thou art beautiful.

Published (i-iv) by Garnett, 1862, with date, 1820; v with Epipsychidion, 1821.

GATHERING FLOWERS

PURGATORIO, xxviii. 1-51

Published by Medwin, The Angler in Wales, 1834, and Life of Shelley, 1847, and completed by Garnett, 1862. Medwin describes how he obtained the copy: I had also the advantage of reading Dante with him; he lamented that no adequate translation existed of the Divina Commedia, and though he thought highly of Carey's work, with which he said he had for the first time studied the original, praising the fidelity of the version, it by no means satisfied him. What he meant by an adequate translation was one in terza rima ; for, in Shelley's own words, he held it an essential justice to an author to render him in the same form. I asked him if he had never attempted this, and, looking among his papers, he showed, and gave me to copy, the following fragment from the Purgatorio, which leaves on the mind an inextinguishable regret that he had not completed

nay, more, that he did not employ himself in rendering other of the finest passages.'

AND earnest to explore within - around That divine wood whose thick green living woof

Tempered the young day to the sight, I wound

Up the green slope, beneath the forest's roof,

With slow soft steps leaving the mountain's steep;

And sought those inmost labyrinths' motionproof

Against the air, that, in that stillness deep

And solemn, struck upon my forehead bare The slow, soft stroke of a continuous

In which the

were

leaves tremblingly

All bent towards that part where earliest The sacred hill obscures the morning air.

Yet were they not so shaken from the rest,

But that the birds, perched on the utmost

spray,

Incessantly renewing their blithe quest,

'Thou seemest to my fancy, singing here And gathering flowers, as that fair maiden when

She lost the spring, and Ceres her, more dear.'

6

V

UGOLINO

INFERNO Xxxiii. 22-75 TRANSLATED BY MEDWIN AND CORRECTED BY SHELLEY

Medwin describes this joint composition: At Shelley's request and with his assistance, I attempted to give the Ugolino, which is valuable to the admirers of Shelley, on account of his numerous corrections, which almost indeed make it his own.'

The piece was first published in Medwin's Sketches in Hindoostan with other poems, 1821, and revised in the present form, with Shelley's part in italics, in Life of Shelley, 1847. Forman conjectures that he ascribes less to Shelley than was due. Shelley is said to have complained to Mrs. Shelley that Medwin had carried off some of his translations.

I dare not now through thy degraded state Own the delight thy strains inspire — in vain

I seek what once thou wert · we cannot

meet

As we were wont. Again, and yet again, Ponder my words: so the false Spirit shall fly

And leave to thee thy true integrity.

SCENES FROM THE MAGICO PRODIGIOSO

TRANSLATED FROM THE SPANISH OF CALDERON

Shelley's acquaintance with Spanish began apparently with reading Calderon in company with Mrs. Gisborne in August, 1819, and under Charles Clairmont's friendly tutoring in September of the same year. He wrote to Peacock in the former month:

6

Shelley (from Leghorn) to Peacock, August 22 (?), 1819: 'I have been reading Calderon in Spanish [with Mrs. Gisborne]. A kind of Shakespeare is this Calderon; and I have some thoughts, if I find that I cannot do anything better, of translating some of his plays;' and again in September: Charles Clairmont is now with us on his way to Vienna. He has spent a year or more in Spain, where he has learned Spanish, and I make him read Spanish all day long. It is a most powerful and expressive language, and I have already learned sufficient to read with great ease their poet Calderon. I have read about twelve of his plays. Some of them certainly deserve to be ranked amongst the grandest and most perfect productions of the human mind. He exceeds all modern dramatists, with the exception of Shakespeare, whom he resembles, however, in the depth of thought and subtlety of imagination of his writings, and in the rare power of interweaving delicate and powerful comic traits with the most tragical situations, without diminishing their interest. I rate him far above Beaumont and Fletcher.' Shelley translated these scenes in March, 1822, and they had not received his final correction. They were published by Mrs. Shelley, Posthumous Poems, 1824.

SCENE I. Enter CYPRIAN, dressed as a Student; CLARIN and Moscon as poor Scholars, with books.

CYPRIAN

In the sweet solitude of this calm place, This intricate wild wilderness of trees