The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Part 71

69.

To those she saw most beautiful, she gave Strange panacea in a crystal bowl:-- They drank in their deep sleep of that sweet wave, _595 And lived thenceforward as if some control, Mightier than life, were in them; and the grave Of such, when death oppressed the weary soul, Was as a green and overarching bower Lit by the gems of many a starry flower. _600

70.

For on the night when they were buried, she Restored the embalmers' ruining, and shook The light out of the funeral lamps, to be A mimic day within that deathy nook; And she unwound the woven imagery _605 Of second childhood's swaddling bands, and took The coffin, its last cradle, from its niche, And threw it with contempt into a ditch.

71.

And there the body lay, age after age.

Mute, breathing, beating, warm, and undecaying, _610 Like one asleep in a green hermitage, With gentle smiles about its eyelids playing, And living in its dreams beyond the rage Of death or life; while they were still arraying In liveries ever new, the rapid, blind _615 And fleeting generations of mankind.

72.

And she would write strange dreams upon the brain Of those who were less beautiful, and make All harsh and crooked purposes more vain Than in the desert is the serpent's wake _620 Which the sand covers--all his evil gain The miser in such dreams would rise and shake Into a beggar's lap;--the lying scribe Would his own lies betray without a bribe.

73.

The priests would write an explanation full, _625 Translating hieroglyphics into Greek, How the G.o.d Apis really was a bull, And nothing more; and bid the herald stick The same against the temple doors, and pull The old cant down; they licensed all to speak _630 Whate'er they thought of hawks, and cats, and geese, By pastoral letters to each diocese.

74.

The king would dress an ape up in his crown And robes, and seat him on his glorious seat, And on the right hand of the sunlike throne _635 Would place a gaudy mock-bird to repeat The chatterings of the monkey.--Every one Of the p.r.o.ne courtiers crawled to kiss the feet Of their great Emperor, when the morning came, And kissed--alas, how many kiss the same! _640

75.

The soldiers dreamed that they were blacksmiths, and Walked out of quarters in somnambulism; Round the red anvils you might see them stand Like Cyclopses in Vulcan's sooty abysm, Beating their swords to ploughshares;--in a band _645 The gaolers sent those of the liberal schism Free through the streets of Memphis, much, I wis, To the annoyance of king Amasis.

76.

And timid lovers who had been so coy, They hardly knew whether they loved or not, _650 Would rise out of their rest, and take sweet joy, To the fulfilment of their inmost thought; And when next day the maiden and the boy Met one another, both, like sinners caught, Blushed at the thing which each believed was done _655 Only in fancy--till the tenth moon shone;

77.

And then the Witch would let them take no ill: Of many thousand schemes which lovers find, The Witch found one,--and so they took their fill Of happiness in marriage warm and kind. _660 Friends who, by practice of some envious skill, Were torn apart--a wide wound, mind from mind!-- She did unite again with visions clear Of deep affection and of truth sincere.

80.

These were the pranks she played among the cities _665 Of mortal men, and what she did to Sprites And G.o.ds, entangling them in her sweet ditties To do her will, and show their subtle sleights, I will declare another time; for it is A tale more fit for the weird winter nights _670 Than for these garish summer days, when we Scarcely believe much more than we can see.

NOTES: _2 dead]deaf cj. A.C. Bradley, who cps. "Adonais" 317.

_65 first was transcript, B.; was first edition 1824.

_84 Temple's transcript, B.; tempest's edition 1824.

_165 was its transcript, B.; is its edition 1824.

_184 envied so all ma.n.u.scripts and editions; envious cj. James Thomson ('B. V.').

_262 upon so all ma.n.u.scripts and editions: thereon cj. Rossetti.

_333 swelled lightly edition 1824, B.; lightly swelled editions 1839; swelling lightly with its full growth transcript.

_339 lightenings B., editions 1839; lightnings edition 1824, transcript.

_422 Its transcript; His edition 1824, B.

_424 Thamondocana transcript, B.; Thamondocona edition 1824.

_442 wind's transcript, B.; winds' edition 1834.

_493 where transcript, B.; when edition 1824.

_596 thenceforward B.; thence forth edition 1824; henceforward transcript.

_599 Was as a B.; Was a edition 1824.

_601 night when transcript; night that edition 1824, B.

_612 smiles transcript, B.; sleep edition 1824.

NOTE ON THE WITCH OF ATLAS, BY MRS. Sh.e.l.lEY.

We spent the summer of 1820 at the Baths of San Giuliano, four miles from Pisa. These baths were of great use to Sh.e.l.ley in soothing his nervous irritability. We made several excursions in the neighbourhood.

The country around is fertile, and diversified and rendered picturesque by ranges of near hills and more distant mountains. The peasantry are a handsome intelligent race; and there was a gladsome sunny heaven spread over us, that rendered home and every scene we visited cheerful and bright. During some of the hottest days of August, Sh.e.l.ley made a solitary journey on foot to the summit of Monte San Pellegrino--a mountain of some height, on the top of which there is a chapel, the object, during certain days of the year, of many pilgrimages. The excursion delighted him while it lasted; though he exerted himself too much, and the effect was considerable la.s.situde and weakness on his return. During the expedition he conceived the idea, and wrote, in the three days immediately succeeding to his return, the "Witch of Atlas". This poem is peculiarly characteristic of his tastes--wildly fanciful, full of brilliant imagery, and discarding human interest and pa.s.sion, to revel in the fantastic ideas that his imagination suggested.

The surpa.s.sing excellence of "The Cenci" had made me greatly desire that Sh.e.l.ley should increase his popularity by adopting subjects that would more suit the popular taste than a poem conceived in the abstract and dreamy spirit of the "Witch of Atlas". It was not only that I wished him to acquire popularity as redounding to his fame; but I believed that he would obtain a greater mastery over his own powers, and greater happiness in his mind, if public applause crowned his endeavours. The few stanzas that precede the poem were addressed to me on my representing these ideas to him. Even now I believe that I was in the right. Sh.e.l.ley did not expect sympathy and approbation from the public; but the want of it took away a portion of the ardour that ought to have sustained him while writing. He was thrown on his own resources, and on the inspiration of his own soul; and wrote because his mind overflowed, without the hope of being appreciated. I had not the most distant wish that he should truckle in opinion, or submit his lofty aspirations for the human race to the low ambition and pride of the many; but I felt sure that, if his poems were more addressed to the common feelings of men, his proper rank among the writers of the day would be acknowledged, and that popularity as a poet would enable his countrymen to do justice to his character and virtues, which in those days it was the mode to attack with the most flagitious calumnies and insulting abuse. That he felt these things deeply cannot be doubted, though he armed himself with the consciousness of acting from a lofty and heroic sense of right. The truth burst from his heart sometimes in solitude, and he would writes few unfinished verses that showed that he felt the sting; among such I find the following:--

'Alas! this is not what I thought Life was.

I knew that there were crimes and evil men, Misery and hate; nor did I hope to pa.s.s Untouched by suffering through the rugged glen.

In mine own heart I saw as in a gla.s.s The hearts of others...And, when I went among my kind, with triple bra.s.s Of calm endurance my weak breast I armed, To bear scorn, fear, and hate--a woful ma.s.s!'

I believed that all this morbid feeling would vanish if the chord of sympathy between him and his countrymen were touched. But my persuasions were vain, the mind could not be bent from its natural inclination. Sh.e.l.ley shrunk instinctively from portraying human pa.s.sion, with its mixture of good and evil, of disappointment and disquiet. Such opened again the wounds of his own heart; and he loved to shelter himself rather in the airiest flights of fancy, forgetting love and hate, and regret and lost hope, in such imaginations as borrowed their hues from sunrise or sunset, from the yellow moons.h.i.+ne or paly twilight, from the aspect of the far ocean or the shadows of the woods,--which celebrated the singing of the winds among the pines, the flow of a murmuring stream, and the thousand harmonious sounds which Nature creates in her solitudes. These are the materials which form the "Witch of Atlas": it is a brilliant congregation of ideas such as his senses gathered, and his fancy coloured, during his rambles in the sunny land he so much loved.

OEDIPUS TYRANNUS

OR

SWELLFOOT THE TYRANT.

A TRAGEDY IN TWO ACTS

TRANSLATED FROM THE ORIGINAL DORIC.

'Choose Reform or Civil War, When through thy streets, instead of hare with dogs, A CONSORT-QUEEN shall hunt a king with hogs, Riding on the IONIAN MINOTAUR.'

[Begun at the Baths of San Giuliano, near Pisa, August 24, 1819; published anonymously by J. Johnston, Cheapside (imprint C.F.

Seyfang), 1820. On a threat of prosecution the publisher surrendered the whole impression, seven copies--the total number sold--excepted.

"Oedipus" does not appear in the first edition of the "Poetical Works", 1839, but it was included by Mrs. Sh.e.l.ley in the second edition of that year. Our text is that of the editio princeps, 1820, save in three places, where the reading of edition 1820 will be found in the notes.]

ADVERTIs.e.m.e.nT.

This Tragedy is one of a triad, or system of three Plays (an arrangement according to which the Greeks were accustomed to connect their dramatic representations), elucidating the wonderful and appalling fortunes of the SWELLFOOT dynasty. It was evidently written by some LEARNED THEBAN, and, from its characteristic dulness, apparently before the duties on the importation of ATTIC SALT had been repealed by the Boeotarchs. The tenderness with which he treats the PIGS proves him to have been a sus Boeotiae; possibly Epicuri de grege porcus; for, as the poet observes,

'A fellow feeling makes us wondrous kind.'

No liberty has been taken with the translation of this remarkable piece of antiquity, except the suppressing a seditious and blasphemous Chorus of the Pigs and Bulls at the last Act. The work Hoydipouse (or more properly Oedipus) has been rendered literally SWELLFOOT, without its having been conceived necessary to determine whether a swelling of the hind or the fore feet of the Swinish Monarch is particularly indicated.

Should the remaining portions of this Tragedy be found, ent.i.tled, "Swellfoot in Angaria", and "Charite", the Translator might be tempted to give them to the reading Public.

DRAMATIS PERSONAE.

TYRANT SWELLFOOT, KING OF THEBES.

IONA TAURINA, HIS QUEEN.

MAMMON, ARCH-PRIEST OF FAMINE.

PURGANAX, DAKRY, LAOCTONOS--WIZARDS, MINISTERS OF SWELLFOOT.

THE GADFLY.

THE LEECH.