132. See the preceding quotation. 133. she. Some editions wrongly, indeed nonsensically, read he. Echo in Class. Dict. See the story of 191. 137. Kindling. Kindle is a favourite word with Shelley; see ll. 16, 78. 144. Other flowers too, not only the Hyacinth and the Narcissus, fade for grief. 145. He is thinking of the Ode to the Nightingale; see the quotation given in the note to 1. 18. 149. This is the reading of the Pisa Edition. The common texts put the comma after youth, not so well. 150. Comp. Æs. Agam. 49–54, of vultures hovering wildly over their desolated nest. 151. [What is the force of of here?] 152. See Introduction. 154. Comp. the famous passage in the Epitaph. Bionis, 106–11: “ αἰαὶ ταὶ μαλάχαι μὲν ἐπὴν κατὰ κᾶπον ὅλωνται ἄμμες δ' οἱ μεγάλοι καὶ καρτεροί, οἱ σοφοὶ ἄνδρες, 157. [Explain the airs.] 160. brere briar; here, thicket. “ καὶ σὺ μὲν ὧν σιγα πεπυκασμένος ἔσσεαι ἐν γᾷ, ταῖς Νύμφαισι δ ̓ ἔδοξεν ἀεὶ τὸν βόστρυχον ᾄδειν· 192. 172. [What is meant by this spirit tender?] 174. So "one that dwelt by the castled Rhine" called the flowers, 177. knows has the power of gathering knowledge. 179. sightless=invisible; so Macbeth, I. v. 50 vii. So viewless, Meas. for Meas. III. i. 124. 188. urge = follow closely, press fast after. See Hor. Od. "Urget diem nox et dies noctem.' 191. Mother, i. e. Urania; see above. 192. And allay with tears and sighs the wound at thy heart-a wound yet more grievous than that which slew Adonais. 193. So the Pisa edition. The common text omits with, which alters the sense entirely -into nonsense. 195. their sister, i. e. the echo who is mentioned in 1. 15 as singing over his songs to Urania and the others. 196. holy silence sacro silentio, Hor. Od. II. xiii. 29. The Latin phrase meant such a silence as was observed at the time of sacrifice, when men "favoured with their tongues." 199. Comp. Shelley's lines: "Swiftly walk over the western wave, 193. 208. See above, l. 14. Spirit of night," &c. 211. Comp Virg. Ecl. x. 48, 9: "Ah! te ne frigora lædant! Ah! tibi ne teneras glacies secet aspera plantas!" 213. they never could repel that would not be repelled, that for all the roughness she encountered was yet steadfast in her purpose to visit her perished darling (l. 46). 219. It is the opposite in Laodamia, 66-8. 225. Comp. above, l. 105. 227. Comp. Bion's Epitaph. Adonidis, 42: “ τοσσοῦτόν με φίλησον, ὅσον ζώει τὸ φίλημα.” 238. the unpastured dragon in his den the ferocious, savage critic; comp. l. 243, Unpastured unfed, Lat. impastus, as Æn. ix. 339 = "Impastus ceu plena leo per ovilia turbans Suadet enim vesana fames-manditque trahitque Molle pecus mutumque metu, fremit ore cruento." 240. mirror'd, not = reflected, but rather reflecting; strictly, mirror-furnished, bearing the shield in which folly saw its own face. 194. 245. obscene, Lat. obsceni, as in Æn. xii. 876. 250. He refers to Byron's English Bards and Scotch Reviewers. 259. Lighting up the earth so brightly that it is not possible to see the stars-scattering the clouds that cover the earth, &c. 262. Comp. Virg. Ecl. x. 19. 263. magic mantles. Comp. Arion's request to the sailors bent on murdering him, περιιδέειν αὐτὸν ἐν τῇ σκευῇ πάσῃ στάντα ἐν τοῖσι ἐδωλίοισι, ἀεῖσαι. (Herod. i. 24.) Milton speaks of a "poet, soaring on the high reason of his fancies, with his garland and singing robes about him." (Reason of Church Government.) See also the Tempest. 264. This name for Byron is suggested by the title of his "Romaunt"-Childe Harold's Pilgrimage. Byron was commonly identified with his Pilgrim ; in the 4th Canto he accepts the identification: see his letter to Hobhouse prefixed to that Canto. The visits here paid are purely figurative. Only Severn was actually with Keats at his death. 265. His fame makes a sort of vast splendid canopy over his head. 267. Shelley thought Byron of a more generous nature than he really was. Byron treated Keats' death as something of a jest ; see Don Juan, xi. 60: "John Keats-who was killed off by one critique If not intelligible-without Greek Contrived to talk about the gods of late, Much as they might have been supposed to speak. 'Tis strange the mind that fiery particle Should let itself be snuff'd out by an article." and his lines, Who killed John Keats? 269. Does he refer especially to the suppression of the insurrection of 1803, and Moore's lines on the fate of Robert Emmett, one of its leaders? See amongst the Irisk Melodies, Oh, breathe not his name, and When he who adores thee, and She is far from the land. (The lady referred to in the latter two songs was a daughter of Curran.) The "lyrist" is "sweetest" perhaps: but one cannot sympathize with "her saddest wrong." That rising of 1803 was utterly wild and foolish: and “marked by an act of peculiar atrocity." See Knight's Pop. Hist. of Eng. vii. 426—7, 2nd Ed. 271-96. With this picture of Shelley himself, comp. Alastor, passim ; see also Hymn to Intellectual Beauty. 276. Actaon-like. See Ovid's Metam. iii. 138 et seq. 195. 291. Comp. the Bacchic @úpoos. See Eur. Bacch. 80, ed. Dind. : “ ἀνὰ θύρσον τε τινάσσων κισσῷ τε στεφανωθεὶς 297. Comp. As you like it, II. i. 50, also Cowper's Task, The Garden, 108. 298. [What is meant by partial here ?] 306. His enemies pronounced him a very Cain; those who knew him better held far other views. 7-17. 307. This stanza means Leigh Hunt. 308. As was Priam's; see II. xxiv. 163. 310. Comp. Milton's Epit. on the admirable dramatick Poet William Shakspeare, 313. Leigh Hunt was Keats' earliest and chief poetical friend and adviser. 315. Shelley explains in his Preface why the true generous Severn is not introduced here. He did not know "the circumstances of the closing scene" till too late to celebrate Severn's conduct. 196, 321. Comp. extract from Byron to l. 267. See Preface to Endymion. 325. [Explain this line.] See Shelley's Preface, on the critics of his day. There too he singles out the special miscreant: "Miserable man! you, one of the meanest, have wantonly defaced one of the noblest specimens of the workmanship of God. Nor shall it be your excuse that, mur derer as you are, you have spoken daggers but used none." 343. Comp. Eur. Hippol. 190-8, Polyeid. Frag. 8: “ τίς οἶδεν εἰ τὸ ζῆν μέν ἐστι κατθανεῖν, τὸ κατθανεῖν δὲ ζῇν κάτω νομίζεται ; " (comp. Arist. Ran. 1022, and 1404.) See also Milton's Sonnet on the Religious Memory of Mrs Catharine Thomson. 197. 356. He can never become worldly, and mean, and heartless. [What is meant by slow here?] 358. in vain, i. e. without true wisdom and nobleness, not so as to be "a crown of glory." (Prov. xvi. 31.) 360. i. e. he cannot now outlive all noble impulses and enthusiasms. 362. See above, l. 120. 367. The reading morning of some editions is wrong. 370. See In Mem. xlvi. 373. Comp. Wordsworth's Ode on Intimations, &c. 120. 381. See Spenser's Hymn to Beauty, especially stanza 7, et seq. "The duller earth it quickneth with delight, Chaucer's Knight's Tale, 2156. 383. successions is here used in a concrete sense. 385. as, i. e. according as. 198. 395. there, i. e. in the region above the earth (1, 193) attained by the lofty-minded. 399. Chatterton. Coleridge also (see his Monody on the Death of Chatterton), and Wordsworth (see his Resolution and Independence), seem to have been deeply impressed by Chatterton's genius and fate. Keats dedicates his Endymion to his memory. Whatever the absolute merits of his writings, they are simply astonishing productions for a youth of sixteen. He was not eighteen when he ended his unhappy life (Born Nov. 20, 1752; Died Aug. 25, 1770). 401. Sidney. Born 1554, Died 1586. See Spenser's Astrophel, and also his Ruines of Time. 404. Lucan. Born 39, Died 65. He was scarcely "by his death approved." There was no escape for him; and after his infamous unfaithfulness to his fellow conspirators he deserved none. His Pharsalia, though farther advanced towards completion than Hyperion, is unfinished, above. 410. See Isaiah xiv. 9—10. 412. blind dark. So often the Lat. cæcus, Gr. túþdos. 414. These individual empires are scarcely consistent with the absorption spoken of 417-20. This seems to mean: Traverse the universe in fancy; see how vast it is, what a mere atom of it is this world of ours. 422, 23. I cannot explain these two lines. 199. 424. See Childe Harold, IV. lxxviii-clxxiv. 442. See Shelley's Preface: Keats "was buried in the romantic and lonely cemetery of the Protestants in that city, under the pyramid which is the tomb of Cestius, and the massy walls and towers, now mouldering and desolate, which formed the circuit of ancient Rome. The cemetery is an open space among the ruins, covered in winter with violets and daisies. It might make one in love with death to think that one should be buried in so sweet a place." 444. The Pyramid of Caius Cestius. See Murray's Rome. 447. Like flame, etc. i. e. in shape. 450. The cemetery had only lately been made. 453. If any wound is healed, or healing, do not renew it. 459. Shelley was to become it-"What Adonais is"-in a few months. 200. 462. Life is like some gaudy crystal canopy, through which the true colour of the skies above cannot be seen. 465. Rome's azure sky, &c. Nothing material can adequately express eternal beauty. The finest works of all the arts, and the exquisitest scenes of nature are but feeble representations of it. 472. "Out of the day and night A joy has taken flight." 474. There is terrible peril in mutual love, for the loved one may be lost; also in love which wins no response there is dire distress and pain. 480. Comp. Wordsworth's Ode on Intimations, &c. passim. 482-2. i. e. through all creation. 484 as each are, &c. He means: "" as they are, each one, &c." 485. the fire for which all thirst = the celestial fire, the light of eternity. 490. i. e. those who shrink from quitting the earth, from soaring up in thought at least empyrean. into the 495. The sign was soon answered. |