evil has been in a state of portentous, and, until the revival of learning and the arts, perpetually increasing activity. The Grecian gods seem indeed to have been personally more innocent, although it cannot be said, that as far as temperance and chastity are concerned, they gave so edifying an example as their successor. The sublime human character of Jesus Christ was deformed by an imputed identification with a power who tempted, betrayed, and punished the innocent beings who were called into existence by his sole will; and for the period of a thousand years, the spirit of this most just, wise, and benevolent of men has been propitiated with myriads of hecatombs of those who approached the nearest to his innocence and wisdom, sacrificed under every aggravation of atrocity and variety of torture. The horrors of the Mexican, the Peruvian, and the Indian superstitions are well known. Page 317. HELLAS. The motto is the one which Shelley asked Peacock to have placed on two seals, one smaller and the other handsomer; the device a dove with outspread wings, and this motto round it.' Page 318. DEDICATION. Mavrocordato, a member of Shelley's Pisan circle of friends, of whom Shelley repeatedly wrote with enthusiam. He read Antigone with Mary, and the Agamemnon and Paradise Lost with Shelley. PREFACE. Goat-song, THE CENCI. Page 320. PROLOGUE. Dr. Garnett's note, on first publishing this fragment, gives all needed information about it. Mrs. Shelley informs us, in her Note on the Prometheus Unbound, that at the time of her husband's arrival in Italy, he meditated the production of three dramas. One of these was the Prometheus itself; the second, a drama on the subject of Tasso's madness; the third, one founded on the Book of Job; "of which," she adds, "he never abandoned the idea." That this was the case will be apparent from the following newlydiscovered fragment, which may have been, as I have on the whole preferred to describe it, an unfinished Prologue to Hellas, or perhaps the original sketch of that work, discarded for the existing more dramatic, but less ambitious version, for which the Pers of Eschylus evidently supplied the model. It written in the same book as the original MS. of Hellas, and so blended with this as to be only separable after a very minute examination. Few even of Shelley's rough drafts have proved more difficult to decipher or connect; numerons chasms will be observed which, with every diligence, it has proved impossible to fill up; the correct reading of many printed lines is far from certain; and the imperfection of some passages is such as to have occasioned their entire omission. Nevertheless, I am confident that the unpolished and mutilated remnant will be accepted as a worthy emanation of one of Shelley's sublimest moods, and a noble earnest of what he might have accomplished, could he have executed his original design of founding a drama on the Book of Job. Weak health, variable spirits, and, above all, the absence of encouragement, must be enumerated as chief among the causes which have deprived our literature of so magnificent a work. 66 Besides the evident in itation of the Book of Job, the resemblance of the first draft of Hellas to the machinery of Dryden's intended epic is to be noted. "He gives," says Johnson, summarizing Dryden's preface to his translation of Juvenal, an account of the design which he had once formed to write an epic poem on the actions either of Arthur or the Black Prince. He considered the epic as necessarily involving some kind of supernatural agency, and had imagined a new kind of contest between the guardian angels of kingdoms, of which he conceived that each might be represented zealous for his charge without any intended opposition to the purposes of the Supreme Being, of which all created minds must in part be ignorant. 444 This is the most reasonable scheme of celestial interposition that ever was formed." ' [The references to Eschylus below are to Paley's third edition, London, 1870.] Page 320. PROLOGUE. Line 69 giant Powers, cf. Dr. Garnett's note above. Line 87 Aurora, Greece. Line 99. Cf. EPIPSYCHIDION, note. Line 107. The familiar image of THE REVOLT OF ISLAM, I. Line 139. The doctrine of the Furies in PROMETHEUS UNBOUND. Line 146. A reminiscence of Lucretius, I. 64. Page 322. Chorus. Cf. Calderon, El Principe Constante, I. Line 46. Cf. ADONAIS, xix. 4. 272. Line 128. Cf. Eschylus, Persæ, 178. Line 133. Ahasuerus, the Wandering Jew. Line 177. Cf. PROMETHEUS UNBOUND, II. i. 156. Line 189. A reminiscence of PROMETHEUS UNBOUND, III. i. Line 192. Cf. Plato, Republic, VI. Line 195. Cf. Bacon, Essays, Of Empire. Line 209. The theory here stated is the or dinary belief of transmigration. Line 211 A power, Christ. Line 224. The reference is to the Cross of Constantine. Line 230. Cf. Milton, Ode on the Nativity, xix.-xxi. Line 266. Cf. PROLOGUE, 172. Line 307. Cf. Eschylus, Persæ, 207–212. Line 476. Cf. Eschylus, Persa, 355-432, espe cially line 486 with 410, 494 with 408, 503 with 393, 505 with 420. Line 587. Cf. ODE TO LIBERTY, xiii. 3–7. Line 591. Santons, a sect of enthusiasts inspired by divine love and regarded as saints. Line 696. The main metaphysical idea of the poem, the primacy of thought and its sole reality, begins here. Line 701. Cf. PROLOGUE, 9. Line 711. Cf. PROLOGUE, 121. Line 729. Cf. Eschylus, Agamemnon, 734–735. Shelley quotes the passage in a letter to his wife, August 10, 1821. Lines 767-806 The speech develops the philosophical theory alluded to above, line 696, and is variously reminiscent of Shakspere (as are other passages of the drama) in style and diction. Line 771. Cf. PROLOGUE, 19. Lines 814-841. Cf. Gibbon, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, ch. 68. Line 852-854. Cf. PROLOGUE, 161. Line 860. The Phantom is possibly suggested by the figure of Darius in the Persa. The passage has analogies with PROMETHEUS UNBOUND, I. Line 906. The familiar image from Plato, Symposium, 195. Line 925. Cf. THE CENCI, III. i. 247, and note. Line 943. Cf. PROMETHEUS UNBOUND, IV. 444. Line 985. The reference is to the Shield of Arthur, Spenser, Faërie Queene, Bk. I. passim. Line 989. The Retreat of the Ten Thousand under Xenophon, told in the Anabasis. Line 1030 Evening land. Here and in the following lines, America appears to furnish the elements of the idealized new age, which soon changes imaginatively into a glorification of a newly arisen ideal Greece. Line 1060 Chorus. Cf. Virgil, Eclogues, iv. and Byron's Isles of Greece. Page 340. To. Cf. PETER BELL THE THIRD, V. i. note. 342. TO MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT GODWIN, i. 3 fear, Rossetti suggests yearn to amend a plainly corrupt passage. 344. TO WORDSWORTH, cf. PETER BELL THE THIRD, IV. ix. note. 345. LINES. If the poem refers to Harriet it is dated a year too early. 345. THE SUNSET, line 4. Cf. EPIPSYCHIDION, note. Line 22. Forman conjectures I never saw the sunrise? we will wake, substituting a melodramatic for a natural effect. 346. HYMN TO INTELLECTUAL BEAUTY, cf. EPIPSYCHIDION, note. Mrs. Shelley's note is as follows: He spent the summer on the shores of the Lake of Geneva. The Hymn to Intellectual Beauty was conceived during his voyage round the Lake with Lord Byron. He occupied himself during this voyage by reading the Nouvelle Heloise for the first time. The reading it on the very spot where the scenes are laid, added to the interest; and he was at once surprised and charmed by the passionate eloquence and earnest enthralling interest that pervades this work. There was something in the character of Saint-Preux, in his abnegation of self, and in the worship he paid to Love, that coincided with Shelley's own disposition; and, though differing in many of the views, and shocked by others, yet the effect of the whole Ackermann was fascinating and delightful.' refers to Spenser's Hymns as a source, but without plausibility. Cf. THE ZUCCA. Stanza i. 1. Cf. THE REVOLT OF ISLAM, VI. xxxviii. 1. Stanza iv. 1. Self-esteem, the use of Self-esteem and Self-contempt as measures of happiness and misery is constant from the earliest verse to ADONAIS, and is characteristic of his moral ideal. Cf. PROMETHEUS UNBOUND, passim. Stanza v. Cf. THE REVOLT OF ISLAM, DEDICATION, iii.-v. Stanza vii. 12. The line is, perhaps, the simplest and noblest statement of Shelley's ideal of his own life. Page 347. MONT BLANC, i. The metaphysical intention of the symbol should be remembered as a part of the entire poem and as differentiating its scope from that of Coleridge on the same subject. Line 79. But for such faith, the Boscombe MS. reads In such a faith, which yields the only intelligible meaning. The faith of Shelley's poetic age in the power of nature over human life could hardly find more startling statement than in the next two lines. Line 96. This is an anticipation of the conception imaginatively defined in Demogorgon (cf. lines 139-141 below). This poem and the preceding HYMN are forerunners of the main lines of thought in the PROMETHEUS UN BOUND. Page 352. To CONSTANTIA. The poem, as a whole, is a forerunner of PROMETHEUS UNBOUND, in its imagery of music as a power of motion in stanza iv., and in its diction (e. g. iii. 2) as well as in its lyrical rapture. The reminiscences of Plato and Lucretius in stanza ii. 7 and 11 are obvious. In the Harvard MS. the last stanza is first, but this may represent rather the order of composition than of true arrangement; certainly it belongs last, as it is the climax of emotion. Page 353. TO THE LORD CHANCELLOR, i. 4. The star-chamber. iv. 3 cowl, cf. Dante, Inferno, XXIII. xvi. 1. The close of the curse is characteristic of Shelley's moral ideal. In a similar way he brings his political odes, several of which are odes of agitation, such as ODE WRITTEN OCTOBER, 1819, and the ODE TO NAPLES to an end in counsels of love, forgiveness, and brotherhood after the storm of execration or of incitement had been exhausted in the earlier part. Page 354. TO WILLIAM SHELLEY. Mrs. Shelley adds to her note: When afterward this child died at Rome, he wrote, apropos of the English burying-ground in that city. "This spot is the repository of a sacred loss, of which the yearnings of a parent's heart are now prophetic; he is rendered immortal by love as his memory is by death. My beloved child lies buried here. I envy death the body far less than the oppressors the minds of those whom they have torn from me. The one can kill only the body, the other crushes the affections.' Stanza iv. Cf. ROSALIND AND HELEN, 894901. Page 358. ON A FADED VIOLET. Cf. To SOPHIA, Head-note. Stanza i. In the later edition of Mrs. Shelley this stanza reads: The colour from the flower is gone Which like thy sweet eyes smiled on me; In the next stanza she also reads withered for Page 358. LINES WRITTEN AMONG THE EUGANEAN HILLS. Line 175 songs. Forman conjectures sons, which destroys the highly imaginative unity of the figure and substitutes a mere mixed metaphor therefor. Byron is referred to. Line 220. Cf. EDIPUS TYRANNUS, II. 60. Line 319. Cf. THE REVOLT OF ISLAM, II. xxx. 2. Line 344. Cf. EPIPSYCHIDION, note. Page 362. INVOCATION TO MISERY. The story referred to in the Head-note was first told by Medwin. He writes, 'Had she [Mrs. Shelley] been able to disentangle the threads of the mystery, she would have attributed his feelings to more than purely physical causes. Among the verses which she had probably never seen till they appeared in print was the Invocation to Misery, an idea taken from Shakespeare making love to Misery, betokening his soul lacerated to rawness by the tragic event above detailed the death of his unknown adorer.' Life, i. 330, 331. He refers to a story, previously told by him in The Angler in Wales, ii. 194, related by Shelley to him and Byron, that 'the night before his departure from London in 1814 [1816], he received a visit from a married lady, young, handsome, and of noble connections, and whose disappearance from the world of fashion, in which she moved, may furnish to those curious in such inquiries a clue to her identity; and he goes on to describe how, in spite of Shelley's entreaty and unknown to him, this lady followed him to the continent, kept near him, and at Naples, in this year, met him, told her wandering devotion, and there died (Life, i. 324-329). Medwin ascribes to this incident the next poem, and also the lines ON A FADED VIOLET. Rossetti (i. 90) says he is assured on good authority' that Medwin's connecting MISERY with these events is not correct.' Lady Shelley says: 'Of this strange narrative it will be sufficient to say here that not the slightest allusion to it is to be found in any of the family documents' (Shelley Memorials, p. 92). Rossetti connects with the story Shelley's letter to Peacock, May, 1820, in which he refers to his health as affected by certain moral causes,' and also his letter to Ollier, December 15, 1819, in which he expresses his intention to write three other poems [besides JULIAN AND MADDALO] the scenes of which will be laid at Rome, Florence, and Naples, but the subjects of which will be all drawn from dreadful or beautiful realities, as that of this was.' Miss Clairmont asserted that she knew the lady's name and had seen her. At Naples there died a little girl who was to some extent in Shelley's charge, and of whom he wrote with feeling. Dowden (ii. 252, 253) suggests some connection between the two incidents. Page 367. ODE TO THE WEST WIND. Cf. THE REVOLT OF ISLAM, IX. xxi.-xxv. 369. AN ODE. Cf. STANZA, p. 436, and To THE LORD CHANCELLOR, xvi. 1, note. 370. THE INDIAN SERENADE. The most important variations of the text are ii. 3, and the champak's, iii. 7, press it to thine own again; and iii. 8, must break, from the Browning MS. ii. 3. The buchampaca, the flower of the dawn, whose vestal buds blow with the sun's first ray, and fade and die beneath his meridian beam, leaving only their odour to survive their transient blooms." Miss Owenson, The Missionary, ch. vi. p. 59; cf. also ch. vii. pp. 75, 76, and ALASTOR, 400, note. Page 371. LOVE'S PHILOSOPHY. A MS. sent to Miss Stacey December 29, 1820, gives two interesting variations: i. 7, In one spirit meet and; ii. 7, What is all this sweet work worth. These readings are adopted by Forman and Dowden. Other variations exist. Page 376. THE SENSITIVE PLANT, III. 66. The first edition, 1820, inserts the following: Their moss rotted off them, flake by flake, Till the thick stalk stuck like a murderer's stake, Where rags of loose flesh yet tremble on high, Infecting the winds that wander by. The stanza is cancelled in the Harvard MS. and omitted by Mrs. Shelley, 1839. It is included by Rossetti and Forman." Page 381. To A SKYLARK. The interesting Harvard MS. of this poem may be found in facsimile in the Harvard University Library Bibliographical Contributions, No. 35. Two emendations have been suggested; the transference of the semicolon, line 8, to the end of the previous line; and embodied for unbodied, line 15. Neither has been adopted by editors. Page 382. ODE TO LIBERTY. The poem is in the mood of PROMETHEUS UNBOUND, of which it is reminiscent. iii. 6. Cf. PROMETHEUS UNBOUND, II. iv. 49. v. 10. Cf. PROMETHEUS UNBOUND, III. iv. 199, note. vi. 1-4. Cf. EVENING: PONTE AL MARE, PISA, iii. 1-4. vii. 2. Shelley's note: 'See the Baccha of Euripides.' viii. 14 The Galilean serpent, Christianity in its mediæval forms. xii. 10 Anarch, Napoleon. xiii. 3-7. Cf. HELLAS, I. 587. xiii. 12-15 Twins, England and Spain; West, America; Impress conceal, the sense may be, impress us with your past which time cannot conceal. The passage is variously explained by Swinburne, Forman, and Rossetti. The suggested emendation of us for us, is not of itself sufficient to clarify the construction or meaning, but is possibly correct. Any explanation of the text appears unsatisfactory. xvii. 9 intercessor. Cf. PROMETHEUS UNBOUND, III. iii. 49-60; ODE TO NAPLES, 69. The idea is suggested by Plato's theories in the Phædrus and Symposium; and is much developed by Shelley. Cf. PRINCE ATHANASE, II. 106-113, note. Page 387. ARETHUSA. This and the following poem were written to be inserted in a drama entitled Proserpine, as the Hymns to Apollo and Pan were similarly written for a drama cailed Midas. Both dramas were the work of Williams. Zupitza describes the MSS. of these at length, with extracts, in Archiv für das Studium der neueren Sprachen und Literaturen, Band xciv. Heft 1. Stanza vi. 6 its for their is given by Zupitza as the reading of the Oxford MS. Page 389. HYMN OF PAN, cf. ARETHUSA, note. Stanza i. 5, 12. Zupitza gives listening my for listening to my, as the reading of the Oxford MS. Stanzas ii., iii. Cf. Virgil, Eclogues, vi. Page 388. THE QUESTION, ii. 7, cf. Coleridge, To a Young Friend, 37, the rock's collected tears.' The reading heaven-collected, Mrs. Shelley, 1824, adopted by Forman, is improbable in view of the citation, while the text is supported by the first issue of Hunt and the Harvard and Ollier MSS. Page 390. LETTER TO MARIA GISBORNE. Line 75. The boat and the hollow screw are the same. Line 77 Henry, Mr. Reveley, Mrs. Gisborne's son. Line 130.The Libecchio here howls like a chorus of fiends all day.' Shelley to Peacock, July 12, 1820. Line 185. Mrs. Gisborne read Calderon with him. Line 195. Cf. TIME, 7. Line 202. Cf. PETER BELL THE THIRD, V. i. 3, note. Line 226 Hogg, Thomas Jefferson Hogg, Shelley's friend, and biographer of his Oxford days. Line 233 Peacock, Thomas Love Peacock, the novelist. The play on the name in the next line is obvious. Line 250 Horace Smith, perhaps the wisest and best friend Shelley had. Line 313. Shelley's note: "Imepos, from which the river Himera was named, is, with some slight shade of difference, a synonym of Love.' Page 395. ODE TO NAPLES. The Oxford MS. is fully described by Zupitza. SHELLEY'S NOTES: Line 39. Homer and Virgil. Line 104. Exa, the island of Circe. Line 112. The viper was the armorial device of the Visconti, tyrants of Milan. Line 45. Zupitza gives sunbright for sunlit as the reading of the Oxford MS. Line 69. Cf. ODE TO LIBERTY, xvii. 9, note. Line 109. Cf. HELLAS, Shelley's notes, line 60. Page 401. GOOD-NIGHT. A version known as the Stacey MS. is followed by Rossetti. It varies from the text as follows: i. 1, Good-night? no, love! the night is ill ii. 1, How were the night without thee good iii. 1, The hearts that on each other beat 3, Have nights as good as they are sweet 4. But never say good-night This version is poetically inferior, and may or may not represent Shelley's final choice for publication. The matter being uncertain, it seems best to retain the better form, especially as it is the one that has grown familiar, and is well supported by the authority of the Harvard MS. as well as by the first editors, Hunt and Mrs. Shelley. Page 403. FROM THE ARABIC. Medwin gives Hamilton's Antar as the source of these lines, but the passage has not been identified. Page 403. To NIGHT, i. 1 o'er, the reading is from the Harvard MS. ii. 3. The image is familiar in Shelley's verse. Cf. ALASTOR, 337, note. Page 406. SONNET. Entitled in the Harvard MS., SONNET TO THE REPUBLIC OF BENEVENTO. Page 407. ANOTHER VERSION. From the Trelawny MS., of Williams's play. Page 407. EVENING: PONTE AL MARE, PISA, iv. 2. The Boscombe MS. reads cinereous for enormous, and is followed by Rossetti, Forman, and Dowden. Page 408. REMEMBRANCE. Another version, known as the Trelawny MS., gives the following variations: i. 2, 3, transpose. 5-7, As the earth when leaves are dead, As the night when sleep is sped, As the heart when joy is fled 8, alone, alone. ii. 2, her. 5, My heart to-day desires to-morrow. The text follows the Houghton MS., a copy written on a fly-leaf of ADONAIS by Shelley. Page 409. To EDWARD WILLIAMS. Rossetti gives the following letter from Shelley to Williams: My dear Williams: Looking over the portfolio in which my friend used to keep his verses, and in which those I sent you the other day were found, I have lit upon these; which, as they are too dismal for me to keep, I send you. If any of the stanzas should please you, you may read them to Jane, but to no one else. And yet, on second thoughts, I had rather you would not. Yours ever affectionately, P. B. S.' Williams notes in his journal, Saturday, January 26, 1822: S. sent us some beautiful but too melancholy lines (The Serpent is shut out from Paradise").' Byron named Shelley the Serpent. Page 415. THE ISLE. Garnett conjectures that this poem was intended for the FRAGMENTS OF AN UNFINISHED DRAMA. Page 415. A DIRGE, 6 strain, Rossetti's emendation for stain, given by all editors. Page 416. LINES WRITTEN IN THE BAY OF LERICI. The lines were written during the last weeks of Shelley's life, perhaps, as Garnett conjectures, about May 1, the last time that Shelley was at Lerici at the time of the full moon. Page 424. PRINCE ATHANASE. Cf. EPIPSYCHIDION, note. II. 2. Cf. THE REVOLT OF ISLAM, II. xxvii. 7, note. II. 15. note. Cf. PROMETHEUS UNBOUND, I. 451, II. 103, story of the feast, the Symposium. II. 106-113. This is the original germ of the Spirit of the Earth in PROMETHEUS UNBOUND, not perhaps without some indebtedness to Coleridge, Ode on the Departing Year, iv. The same passage may also have been not without influence on Shelley's idea of the intercessors' (cf. PROMETHEUS UNBOUND, III. iii. 49-60; ODE TO NAPLES, 69; ODE TO LIBERTY, xvii. 9, note), and of the guardian angels of the PROLOGUE TO HELLAS. Shelley, however, entirely recreates the image in these several instances, and shows his highest original power in so doing. II. 118. Cf. Shelley, ON LOVE, under EPIPSYCHIDION, note. Page 431. TASSO. Garnett gives from the Boscombe MS. Shelley's notes for intended scenes of this drama: Scene when he reads the sonnet which he wrote to Leonora to herself as composed at the request of another. His disguising himself in the habit of a shepherd, and questioning his sister in that disguise concerning himself, and then unveiling himself.' Page 432. Rossetti identifies the passage in Sismondi (Paris, 1826), viii. 142-143. Page 435. LINES WRITTEN FOR PROMETHEUS UNBOUND. Cf. PROMETHEUS UNBOUND, IV. iv. 493. Page 436. LINES WRITTEN FOR EPIPSYCHIDION. Cf. EPIPSYCHIDION, note. Page 438. LINES WRITTEN FOR ADONAIS. Rossetti suggests, rightly, I think, that the first fragment refers to Moore, the lyre being the Irish harp, and he transposes the first and second fragments. In the latter green Paradise is Ireland. In the last fragment Rossetti is un able to find any human figure, and in this he also appears to be right. Page 446. GINEVRA. Garnett identified the source as L'Osservatore Fiorentino sugli edifizi della sua Patria, 1821, p. 119. In the story Ginevra revives. Cf. Hunt, A Legend of Flor ence. Page 449. THE BOAT ON THE SERCHIO, line 30. Cf. THE TRIUMPH OF LIFE, 18. Line 40. Cf. TRANSLATIONS FROM DANTE, V. 13. Page 450. THE ZUCCA. Cf. EPIPSYCHIDION, note, and FRAGMENTS OF AN UNFINISHED DRAMA, 127. Page 452. CHARLES THE FIRST. The Headnotes contain the history of the fragment. Page 466. FRAGMENTS OF AN UNFINISHED DRAMA. This poem is the most characteristic example of the last manner of Shelley in verse. It is shot through with reminiscences of his own work and with those of the poets he had long used as familiar masters and guides; the sentiment is as before; the material is not different; but over all, and pervading all, is a new charm, original, pure, and delicate, which makes the verse a new kind in English. This Page 470. THE TRIUMPH OF LIFE. poem, the last work of Shelley, is obviously Italian in suggestion and manner, and is obscure to the ordinary reader. It is a pure and mystical allegory, in which Shelley has blended many elements of his intellectual culture under an imaginative artistic form of the Renaissance rarely modernized. The meaning, however, is not obscure to one who will let his mind dwell on and penetrate the imagery, after becoming familiarized with Shelley's previous works. A few notes only, and those of an obvious kind, can be given here. Line 103 that, the charioteer. Line 133. The sense is broken. Line 190 grim Feature. Cf. Milton, Paradise Lost, x. 279. Line 255. Socrates: because he did not love. Line 261. Alexander and Aristotle. Line 283. The Roman Emperors. Line 290. The Papacy. Line 352. The last and most mystical of the eternal beings of Shelley's phantasy. Line 422. Mrs. Shelley's note: The favorite song, Stanco di pascolar le ecorelli, is a Brescian national air.' Line 472 him, Dante. Page 480. MINOR FRAGMENTS. The available information regarding these poems is given in the Head-notes. Page 491. TRANSLATIONS. The Head-notes contain the records of these compositions. The text of THE CYCLOPS has been examined by Swinburne, Essays and Studies, 201-211. In SCENES FROM THE FAUST OF GOETHE, a slight correction, joy for you, ii. 333 (p. 545), is made in accordance with Zupitza's suggestion. Page 546. JUVENILIA. The Head-notes include all that is known of the history of these pieces. |