Thus in alternate uproar and sad peace,
Amazed were those Titans utterly.
O leave them, Muse! O leave them to their woes;
For thou art weak to sing such tumults dire:
A solitary sorrow best befits
Thy lips, and antheming a lonely grief.
Leave them, O Muse! for thou anon wilt find
Many a fallen old Divinity
Wandering in vain about bewildered shores.
Meantime touch piously the Delphic harp, 10
And not a wind of heaven but will breathe
In aid soft warble from the Dorian flute;
For lo! 'tis for the Father of all verse.
Flush every thing that hath a vermeil hue,
Let the rose glow intense and warm the air,
And let the clouds of even and of morn
Float in voluptuous fleeces o'er the hills;
Let the red wine within the goblet boil,
Cold as a bubbling well; let faint-lipp'd shells,
On sands, or in great deeps, vermilion turn 20
Through all their labyrinths; and let the maid
Blush keenly, as with some warm kiss surpris'd.
Chief isle of the embowered Cyclades,
Rejoice, O Delos, with thine olives green,
And poplars, and lawn-shading palms, and beech,
In which the Zephyr breathes the loudest song,
And hazels thick, dark-stemm'd beneath the shade:
Apollo is once more the golden theme!
Where was he, when the Giant of the Sun
Stood bright, amid the sorrow of his peers? 30
Together had he left his mother fair
And his twin-sister sleeping in their bower,
And in the morning twilight wandered forth
Beside the osiers of a rivulet,
Full ankle-deep in lilies of the vale.
The nightingale had ceas'd, and a few stars
Were lingering in the heavens, while the thrush
Began calm-throated. Throughout all the isle
There was no covert, no retired cave
Unhaunted by the murmurous noise of waves, 40
Though scarcely heard in many a green recess.
He listen'd, and he wept, and his bright tears
Went trickling down the golden bow he held.
Thus with half-shut suffused eyes he stood,
While from beneath some cumbrous boughs hard by
With solemn step an awful Goddess came,
And there was purport in her looks for him,
Which he with eager guess began to read
Perplex'd, the while melodiously he said:
"How cam'st thou over the unfooted sea? 50
Or hath that antique mien and robed form
Mov'd in these vales invisible till now?
Sure I have heard those vestments sweeping o'er
The fallen leaves, when I have sat alone
In cool mid-forest. Surely I have traced
The rustle of those ample skirts about
These grassy solitudes, and seen the flowers
Lift up their heads, as still the whisper pass'd.
Goddess! I have beheld those eyes before,
And their eternal calm, and all that face, 60
Or I have dream'd."--"Yes," said the supreme shape,
"Thou hast dream'd of me; and awaking up
Didst find a lyre all golden by thy side,
Whose strings touch'd by thy fingers, all the vast
Unwearied ear of the whole universe
Listen'd in pain and pleasure at the birth
Of such new tuneful wonder. Is't not strange
That thou shouldst weep, so gifted? Tell me, youth,
What sorrow thou canst feel; for I am sad
When thou dost shed a tear: explain thy griefs 70
To one who in this lonely isle hath been
The watcher of thy sleep and hours of life,
From the young day when first thy infant hand
Pluck'd witless the weak flowers, till thine arm
Could bend that bow heroic to all times.
Show thy heart's secret to an ancient Power
Who hath forsaken old and sacred thrones
For prophecies of thee, and for the sake
Of loveliness new born."--Apollo then,
With sudden scrutiny and gloomless eyes, 80
Thus answer'd, while his white melodious throat
Throbb'd with the syllables.--"Mnemosyne!
Thy name is on my tongue, I know not how;
Why should I tell thee what thou so well seest?
Why should I strive to show what from thy lips
Would come no mystery? For me, dark, dark,
And painful vile oblivion seals my eyes:
I strive to search wherefore I am so sad,
Until a melancholy numbs my limbs;
And then upon the grass I sit, and moan, 90
Like one who once had wings.--O why should I
Feel curs'd and thwarted, when the liegeless air
Yields to my step aspirant? why should I
Spurn the green turf as hateful to my feet?
Goddess benign, point forth some unknown thing:
Are there not other regions than this isle?
What are the stars? There is the sun, the sun!
And the most patient brilliance of the moon!
And stars by thousands! Point me out the way
To any one particular beauteous star, 100
And I will flit into it with my lyre,
And make its silvery splendour pant with bliss.
I have heard the cloudy thunder: Where is power?
Whose hand, whose essence, what divinity
Makes this alarum in the elements,
While I here idle listen on the shores
In fearless yet in aching ignorance?
O tell me, lonely Goddess, by thy harp,
That waileth every morn and eventide,
Tell me why thus I rave, about these groves! 110
Mute thou remainest--Mute! yet I can read
A wondrous lesson in thy silent face:
Knowledge enormous makes a God of me.
Names, deeds, gray legends, dire events, rebellions,
Majesties, sovran voices, agonies,
Creations and destroyings, all at once
Pour into the wide hollows of my brain,
And deify me, as if some blithe wine
Or bright elixir peerless I had drunk,
And so become immortal."--Thus the God, 120
While his enkindled eyes, with level glance
Beneath his white soft temples, stedfast kept
Trembling with light upon Mnemosyne.
Soon wild commotions shook him, and made flush
All the immortal fairness of his limbs;
Most like the struggle at the gate of death;
Or liker still to one who should take leave
Of pale immortal death, and with a pang
As hot as death's is chill, with fierce convulse
Die into life: so young Apollo anguish'd: 130
His very hair, his golden tresses famed
Kept undulation round his eager neck.
During the pain Mnemosyne upheld
Her arms as one who prophesied.--At length
Apollo shriek'd;--and lo! from all his limbs
Celestial * * * * *
* * * * * * *
THE END.
NOTE.
PAGE 184, l. 310. over-foolish, Giant-Gods? _MS._: over-foolish giant,
Gods? _1820._
NOTES.
ADVERTISEMENT.
PAGE 2. See Introduction to _Hyperion_, p. 245.
INTRODUCTION TO LAMIA.
_Lamia_, like _Endymion_, is written in the heroic couplet, but the
difference in style is very marked. The influence of Dryden's
narrative-poems (his translations from Boccaccio and Chaucer) is clearly
traceable in the metre, style, and construction of the later poem. Like
Dryden, Keats now makes frequent use of the Alexandrine, or 6-foot line,
and of the triplet. He has also restrained the exuberance of his
language and gained force, whilst in imaginative power and felicity of
diction he surpasses anything of which Dryden was capable. The flaws in
his style are mainly due to carelessness in the rimes and some
questionable coining of words. He also occasionally lapses into the
vulgarity and triviality which marred certain of his early poems.
The best he gained from his study of Dryden's _Fables_, a debt perhaps
to Chaucer rather than to Dryden, was a notable advance in constructive
power. In _Lamia_ he shows a very much greater sense of proportion and
power of selection than in his earlier work. There is, as it were, more
light and shade.
Thus we find that whenever the occasion demands it his style rises to
supreme force and beauty. The metamorphosis of the serpent, the entry
of Lamia and Lycius into Corinth, the building by Lamia of the Fairy
Hall, and her final withering under the eye of Apollonius--these are the
most important points in the story, and the passages in which they are
described are also the most striking in the poem.
The allegorical meaning of the story seems to be, that it is fatal to
attempt to separate the sensuous and emotional life from the life of
reason. Philosophy alone is cold and destructive, but the pleasures of
the senses alone are unreal and unsatisfying. The man who attempts such
a divorce between the two parts of his nature will fail miserably as did
Lycius, who, unable permanently to exclude reason, was compelled to face
the death of his illusions, and could not, himself, survive them.
Of the poem Keats himself says, writing to his brother in September,
1819: 'I have been reading over a part of a short poem I have composed
lately, called _Lamia_, and I am certain there is that sort of fire in
it that must take hold of people some way; give them either pleasant or
unpleasant sensation--what they want is a sensation of some sort.' But
to the greatest of Keats's critics, Charles Lamb, the poem appealed
somewhat differently, for he writes, 'More exuberantly rich in imagery
and painting [than _Isabella_] is the story of _Lamia_. It is of as
gorgeous stuff as ever romance was composed of,' and, after enumerating
the most striking pictures in the poem, he adds, '[these] are all that
fairy-land can do for us.' _Lamia_ struck his imagination, but his heart
was given to _Isabella_.
NOTES ON LAMIA.
PART I.
PAGE 3. ll. 1-6. _before the faery broods . . . lawns_, i.e. before
mediaeval fairy-lore had superseded classical mythology.
l. 2. _Satyr_, a horned and goat-legged demi-god of the woods.
l. 5. _Dryads_, wood-nymphs, who lived in trees. The life of each
terminated with that of the tree over which she presided. Cf. Landor's
'Hamadryad'.
l. 5. _Fauns._ The Roman name corresponding to the Greek Satyr.
l. 7. _Hermes_, or Mercury, the messenger of the Gods. He is always
represented with winged shoes, a winged helmet, and a winged staff,
bound about with living serpents.
PAGE 4. l. 15. _Tritons_, sea-gods, half-man, half-fish. Cf. Wordsworth,
'Or hear old Triton blow his wreathed horn' (Sonnet--'The World is too
much with us').
l. 19. _unknown to any Muse_, beyond the imagination of any poet.
PAGE 5. l. 28. _passion new._ He has often before been to earth on
similar errands. Cf. _ever-smitten_, l. 7, also ll. 80-93.
l. 42. _dove-footed._ Cf. note on l. 7.
PAGE 6. l. 46. _cirque-couchant_, lying twisted into a circle. Cf.
_wreathed tomb_, l. 38.
l. 47. _gordian_, knotted, from the famous knot in the harness of
Gordius, King of Phrygia, which only the conqueror of the world was to
be able to untie. Alexander cut it with his sword. Cf. _Henry V_, I. i.
46.
l. 58. _Ariadne's tiar._ Ariadne was a nymph beloved of Bacchus, the god
of wine. He gave her a crown of seven stars, which, after her death, was
made into a constellation. Keats has, no doubt, in his mind Titian's
picture of Bacchus and Ariadne in the National Gallery. Cf. _Ode to
Sorrow_, _Endymion_.
PAGE 7. l. 63. _As Proserpine . . . air._ Proserpine, gathering flowers
in the Vale of Enna, in Sicily, was carried off by Pluto, the king of
the underworld, to be his queen. Cf. _Winter's Tale_, IV. iii, and
_Paradise Lost_, iv. 268, known to be a favourite passage with Keats.
l. 75. _his throbbing . . . moan._ Cf. _Hyperion_, iii. 81.
l. 77. _as morning breaks_, the freshness and splendour of the youthful
god.
PAGE 8. l. 78. _Phoebean dart_, a ray of the sun, Phoebus being the god
of the sun.
l. 80. _Too gentle Hermes._ Cf. l. 28 and note.
l. 81. _not delay'd_: classical construction. See Introduction to
Hyperion.
_Star of Lethe._ Hermes is so called because he had to lead the souls of
the dead to Hades, where was Lethe, the river of forgetfulness. Lamb
comments: '. . . Hermes, the _Star of Lethe_, as he is called by one of
those prodigal phrases which Mr. Keats abounds in, which are each a poem
in a word, and which in this instance lays open to us at once, like a
picture, all the dim regions and their habitants, and the sudden coming
of a celestial among them.'
l. 91. The line dances along like a leaf before the wind.
l. 92. Miltonic construction and phraseology.
PAGE 9. l. 98. _weary tendrils_, tired with holding up the boughs, heavy
with fruit.
l. 103. _Silenus_, the nurse and teacher of Bacchus--a demigod of the
woods.
PAGE 10. l. 115. _Circean._ Circe was the great enchantress who turned
the followers of Ulysses into swine. Cf. _Comus_, ll. 46-54, and
_Odyssey_, x.
PAGE 11. l. 132. _swoon'd serpent._ Evidently, in the exercise of her
magic, power had gone out of her.
l. 133. _lythe_, quick-acting.
_Caducean charm._ Caduceus was the name of Hermes' staff of wondrous
powers, the touch of which, evidently, was powerful to give the serpent
human form.
l. 136. _like a moon in wane._ Cf. the picture of Cynthia, _Endymion_,
iii. 72 sq.
l. 138. _like a flower . . . hour._ Perhaps a reminiscence of Milton's
'at shut of evening flowers.' _Paradise Lost_, ix. 278.
PAGE 12. l. 148. _besprent_, sprinkled.
l. 158. _brede_, embroidery. Cf. _Ode on a Grecian Urn_, v. 1.
PAGE 13. l. 178. _rack._ Cf. _The Tempest_, IV. i. 156, 'leave not a
rack behind.' _Hyperion_, i. 302, note.
l. 180. This gives us a feeling of weakness and weariness as well as
measuring the distance.
PAGE 14. l. 184. Cf. Wordsworth:
And then my heart with pleasure fills
And dances with the daffodils.
ll. 191-200. Cf. _Ode on Melancholy_, where Keats tells us that
melancholy lives with Beauty, joy, pleasure, and delight. Lamia can
separate the elements and give beauty and pleasure unalloyed.
l. 195. _Intrigue with the specious chaos_, enter on an understanding
with the fair-looking confusion of joy and pain.
l. 198. _unshent_, unreproached.
PAGE 15. l. 207. _Nereids_, sea-nymphs.
l. 208. _Thetis_, one of the sea deities.
l. 210. _glutinous_, referring to the sticky substance which oozes from
the pine-trunk. Cf. _Comus_, l. 917, 'smeared with gums of glutinous
heat.'
l. 211. Cf. l. 63, note.
l. 212. _Mulciber_, Vulcan, the smith of the Gods. His fall from Heaven
is described by Milton, _Paradise Lost_, i. 739-42.
_piazzian_, forming covered walks supported by pillars, a word coined by
Keats.
PAGE 16. l. 236. _In the calm'd . . . shades._ In consideration of
Plato's mystic and imaginative philosophy.
PAGE 17. l. 248. Refers to the story of Orpheus' attempt to rescue his
wife Eurydice from Hades. With his exquisite music he charmed Cerberus,
the fierce dog who guarded hell-gates, into submission, and won Pluto's
consent that he should lead Eurydice back to the upper world on one
condition--that he would not look back to see that she was following.
When he was almost at the gates, love and curiosity overpowered him, and
he looked back--to see Eurydice fall back into Hades whence he now might
never win her.
PAGE 18. l. 262. _thy far wishes_, your wishes when you are far off.
l. 265. _Pleiad._ The Pleiades are seven stars making a constellation.
Cf. Walt Whitman, 'On the beach at night.'
ll. 266-7. _keep in tune Thy spheres._ Refers to the music which the
heavenly bodies were supposed to make as they moved round the earth. Cf.
_Merchant of Venice_, V. i. 60.
PAGE 20. l. 294. _new lips._ Cf. l. 191.
l. 297. _Into another_, i.e. into the trance of passion from which he
only wakes to die.
PAGE 21. l. 320. _Adonian feast._ Adonis was a beautiful youth beloved
of Venus. He was killed by a wild boar when hunting, and Venus then had
him borne to Elysium, where he sleeps pillowed on flowers. Cf.
_Endymion_, ii. 387.
PAGE 22. l. 329. _Peris_, in Persian story fairies, descended from the
fallen angels.
ll. 330-2. The vulgarity of these lines we may attribute partly to the
influence of Leigh Hunt, who himself wrote of
The two divinest things the world has got--
A lovely woman and a rural spot.
It was an influence which Keats, with the development of his own
character and genius, was rapidly outgrowing.
l. 333. _Pyrrha's pebbles._ There is a legend that, after the flood,
Deucalion and Pyrrha cast stones behind them which became men, thus
re-peopling the world.
PAGE 23. ll. 350-4. Keats brings the very atmosphere of a dream about us
in these lines, and makes us hear the murmur of the city as something
remote from the chief actors.
l. 352. _lewd_, ignorant. The original meaning of the word which came
later to mean dissolute.
PAGE 24. l. 360. _corniced shade._ Cf. _Eve of St. Agnes_, ix,
'Buttress'd from moonlight.'
ll. 363-77. Note the feeling of fate in the first appearance of
Apollonius.
PAGE 25. l. 377. _dreams._ Lycius is conscious that it is an illusion
even whilst he yields himself up to it.
l. 386. _Aeolian._ Aeolus was the god of the winds.
PAGE 26. l. 394. _flitter-winged._ Imagining the poem winging its way
along like a bird. _Flitter_, cf. flittermouse = bat.
PART II.
PAGE 27. ll. 1-9. Again a passage unworthy of Keats's genius. Perhaps
the attempt to be light, like his seventeenth-century model, Dryden, led
him for the moment to adopt something of the cynicism of that age about
love.
ll. 7-9. i.e. If Lycius had lived longer his experience might have
either contradicted or corroborated this saying.
PAGE 28. l. 27. _Deafening_, in the unusual sense of making inaudible.
ll. 27-8. _came a thrill Of trumpets._ From the first moment that the
outside world makes its claim felt there is no happiness for the man
who, like Lycius, is living a life of selfish pleasure.
PAGE 29. l. 39. _passing bell._ Either the bell rung for a condemned man
the night before his execution, or the bell rung when a man was dying
that men might pray for the departing soul.
PAGE 31. ll. 72-4. _Besides . . . new._ An indication of the selfish
nature of Lycius's love.
l. 80. _serpent._ See how skilfully this allusion is introduced and our
attention called to it by his very denial that it applies to Lamia.
PAGE 32. l. 97. _I neglect the holy rite._ It is her duty to burn
incense and tend the sepulchres of her dead kindred.
PAGE 33. l. 107. _blushing._ We see in the glow of the sunset a
reflection of the blush of the bride.
PAGE 34. ll. 122-3. _sole perhaps . . . roof._ Notice that Keats only
says 'perhaps', but it gives a trembling unreality at once to the magic
palace. Cf. Coleridge's _Kubla Khan_:
With music loud and long
I would build that dome in air.
PAGE 36. l. 155. _demesne_, dwelling. More commonly a domain.
_Hyperion_, i. 298. _Sonnet_--'On first looking into Chapman's Homer.'
PAGE 38. l. 187. _Ceres' horn._ Ceres was the goddess of harvest, the
mother of Proserpine (_Lamia_, i. 63, note). Her horn is filled with the
fruits of the earth, and is symbolic of plenty.
PAGE 39. l. 200. _vowel'd undersong_, in contrast to the harsh, guttural
and consonantal sound of Teutonic languages.
PAGE 40. l. 213. _meridian_, mid-day. Bacchus was supreme, as is the sun
at mid-day.
ll. 215-29. Cf. _The Winter's Tale_, IV. iv. 73, &c., where Perdita
gives to each guest suitable flowers. Cf. also Ophelia's flowers,
_Hamlet_, IV. v. 175, etc.
l. 217. _osier'd gold._ The gold was woven into baskets, as though it
were osiers.
l. 224. _willow_, the weeping willow, so-called because its branches
with their long leaves droop to the ground, like dropping tears. It has
always been sacred to deserted or unhappy lovers. Cf. _Othello_, IV.
iii. 24 seq.
_adder's tongue._ For was she not a serpent?
l. 226. _thyrsus._ A rod wreathed with ivy and crowned with a fir-cone,
used by Bacchus and his followers.
l. 228. _spear-grass . . . thistle._ Because of what he is about to do.
PAGE 41. ll. 229-38. Not to be taken as a serious expression of Keats's
view of life. Rather he is looking at it, at this moment, through the
eyes of the chief actors in his drama, and feeling with them.
PAGE 43. l. 263. Notice the horror of the deadly hush and the sudden
fading of the flowers.
l. 266. _step by step_, prepares us for the thought of the silence as a
horrid presence.
ll. 274-5. _to illume the deep-recessed vision._ We at once see her dull
and sunken eyes.
PAGE 45. l. 301. _perceant_, piercing--a Spenserian word.
INTRODUCTION TO ISABELLA AND THE EVE OF ST. AGNES
In _Lamia_ and _Hyperion_, as in _Endymion_, we find Keats inspired by
classic story, though the inspiration in each case came to him through
Elizabethan writers. Here, on the other hand, mediaeval legend is his
inspiration; the 'faery broods' have driven 'nymph and satyr from the
prosperous woods'. Akin to the Greeks as he was in spirit, in his
instinctive personification of the lovely manifestations of nature, his
style and method were really more naturally suited to the portrayal of
mediaeval scenes, where he found the richness and warmth of colour in
which his soul delighted.
The story of _Isabella_ he took from Boccaccio, an Italian writer of the
fourteenth century, whose _Decameron_, a collection of one hundred
stories, has been a store-house of plots for English writers. By
Boccaccio the tale is very shortly and simply told, being evidently
interesting to him mainly for its plot. Keats was attracted to it not so
much by the action as by the passion involved, so that his enlargement
of it means little elaboration of incident, but very much more dwelling
on the psychological aspect. That is to say, he does not care so much
what happens, as what the personages of the poem think and feel.
Thus we see that the main incident of the story, the murder of Lorenzo,
is passed over in a line--'Thus was Lorenzo slain and buried in,' the
next line, 'There, in that forest, did his great love cease,' bringing
us back at once from the physical reality of the murder to the thought
of his love, which is to Keats the central fact of the story.
In the delineation of Isabella, her first tender passion of love, her
agony of apprehension giving way to dull despair, her sudden wakening to
a brief period of frenzied action, described in stanzas of incomparable
dramatic force, and the 'peace' which followed when she
Forgot the stars, the moon, the sun,
And she forgot the blue above the trees,
And she forgot the dells where waters run,
And she forgot the chilly autumn breeze;
She had no knowledge when the day was done,
And the new morn she saw not--
culminating in the piteous death 'too lone and incomplete'--in the
delineation of all this Keats shows supreme power and insight.
In the conception, too, of the tragic loneliness of Lorenzo's ghost we
feel that nothing could be changed, added, or taken away.
Not quite equally happy are the descriptions of the cruel brothers, and
of Lorenzo as the young lover. There is a tendency to exaggerate both
their inhumanity and his gentleness, for purposes of contrast, which
weakens where it would give strength.
_The Eve of St. Agnes_, founded on a popular mediaeval legend, not being
a tragedy like _Isabella_, cannot be expected to rival it in depth and
intensity; but in every other poetic quality it equals, where it does
not surpass, the former poem.
To be specially noted is the skilful use which Keats here makes of
contrast--between the cruel cold without and the warm love within; the
palsied age of the Bedesman and Angela, and the eager youth of Porphyro
and Madeline; the noise and revel and the hush of Madeline's bedroom,
and, as Mr. Colvin has pointed out, in the moonlight which, chill and
sepulchral when it strikes elsewhere, to Madeline is as a halo of glory,
an angelic light.
A mysterious charm is given to the poem by the way in which Keats endows
inanimate things with a sort of half-conscious life. The knights and
ladies of stone arouse the bedesman's shuddering sympathy when he thinks
of the cold they must be enduring; 'the carven angels' '_star'd_'
'_eager-eyed_' from the roof of the chapel, and the scutcheon in
Madeline's window '_blush'd_ with blood of queens and kings'.
Keats's characteristic method of description--the way in which, by his
masterly choice of significant detail, he gives us the whole feeling of
the situation, is here seen in its perfection. In stanza 1 each line is
a picture and each picture contributes to the whole effect of painful
chill. The silence of the sheep, the old man's breath visible in the
frosty air,--these are things which many people would not notice, but it
is such little things that make the whole scene real to us.
There is another method of description, quite as beautiful in its way,
which Coleridge adopted with magic effect in _Christabel_. This is to
use the power of suggestion, to say very little, but that little of a
kind to awaken the reader's imagination and make him complete the
picture. For example, we are told of Christabel--
Her gentle limbs did she undress
And lay down in her loveliness.
Compare this with stanza xxvi of _The Eve of St. Agnes_.
That Keats was a master of both ways of obtaining a romantic effect is
shown by his _La Belle Dame Sans Merci_, considered by some people his
masterpiece, where the rich detail of _The Eve of St. Agnes_ is replaced
by reserve and suggestion.
As the poem was not included in the volume published in 1820, it is
given here.
LA BELLE DAME SANS MERCI.
Oh what can ail thee Knight at arms
Alone and palely loitering?
The sedge has withered from the Lake
And no birds sing.
Oh what can ail thee Knight at arms
So haggard, and so woe begone?
The Squirrel's granary is full
And the harvest's done.
I see a lily on thy brow
With anguish moist and fever dew,
And on thy cheeks a fading rose
Fast withereth too.
I met a Lady in the Meads
Full beautiful, a faery's child,
Her hair was long, her foot was light
And her eyes were wild.
I made a garland for her head,
And bracelets too, and fragrant zone,
She look'd at me as she did love
And made sweet moan.
I set her on my pacing steed,
And nothing else saw all day long,
For sidelong would she bend and sing
A Faery's song.
She found me roots of relish sweet,
And honey wild and manna dew,
And sure in language strange she said
I love thee true.
She took me to her elfin grot,
And there she wept and sigh'd full sore,
And there I shut her wild, wild eyes
With kisses four.
And there she lulled me asleep,
And there I dream'd, Ah! Woe betide!
The latest dream I ever dreamt
On the cold hill side.
I saw pale Kings, and Princes too,
Pale warriors, death pale were they all;
They cried, La belle dame sans merci,
Thee hath in thrall.
I saw their starv'd lips in the gloam
With horrid warning gaped wide,
And I awoke, and found me here
On the cold hill's side.
And this is why I sojourn here
Alone and palely loitering;
Though the sedge is withered from the Lake
And no birds sing. . ..
NOTES ON ISABELLA.
_Metre._ The _ottava rima_ of the Italians, the natural outcome of
Keats's turning to Italy for his story. This stanza had been used by
Chaucer and the Elizabethans, and recently by Hookham Frere in _The
Monks and the Giants_ and by Byron in _Don Juan_. Compare Keats's use of
the form with that of either of his contemporaries, and notice how he
avoids the epigrammatic close, telling in satire and mock-heroic, but
inappropriate to a serious and romantic poem.
PAGE 49. l. 2. _palmer_, pilgrim. As the pilgrim seeks for a shrine
where, through the patron saint, he may worship God, so Lorenzo needs a
woman to worship, through whom he may worship Love.
PAGE 50. l. 21. _constant as her vespers_, as often as she said her
evening-prayers.
PAGE 51. l. 34. _within . . . domain_, where it should, naturally, have
been rosy.
PAGE 52. l. 46. _Fever'd . . . bridge._ Made his sense of her worth more
passionate.
ll. 51-2. _wed To every symbol._ Able to read every sign.
PAGE 53. l. 62. _fear_, make afraid. So used by Shakespeare: e.g. 'Fear
boys with bugs,' _Taming of the Shrew_, I. ii. 211.
l. 64. _shrive_, confess. As the pilgrim cannot be at peace till he has
confessed his sins and received absolution, so Lorenzo feels the
necessity of confessing his love.
PAGE 54. ll. 81-2. _before the dusk . . . veil._ A vivid picture of the
twilight time, after sunset, but before it is dark enough for the stars
to shine brightly.
ll. 83-4. The repetition of the same words helps us to feel the
unchanging nature of their devotion and joy in one another.
PAGE 55. l. 91. _in fee_, in payment for their trouble.
l. 95. _Theseus' spouse._ Ariadne, who was deserted by Theseus after
having saved his life and left her home for him. _Odyssey_, xi. 321-5.
l. 99. _Dido._ Queen of Carthage, whom Aeneas, in his wanderings, wooed
and would have married, but the Gods bade him leave her.
_silent . . . undergrove._ When Aeneas saw Dido in Hades, amongst those
who had died for love, he spoke to her pityingly. But she answered him
not a word, turning from him into the grove to Lychaeus, her former
husband, who comforted her. Vergil, _Aeneid_, Bk. VI, l. 450 ff.
l. 103. _almsmen_, receivers of alms, since they take honey from the
flowers.
PAGE 56. l. 107. _swelt_, faint. Cf. Chaucer, _Troilus and Cressida_,
iii. 347.
l. 109. _proud-quiver'd_, proudly girt with quivers of arrows.
l. 112. _rich-ored driftings._ The sand of the river in which gold was
to be found.
PAGE 57. l. 124. _lazar_, leper, or any wretched beggar; from the
parable of Dives and Lazarus.
_stairs_, steps on which they sat to beg.
l. 125. _red-lin'd accounts_, vividly picturing their neat
account-books, and at the same time, perhaps, suggesting the human blood
for which their accumulation of wealth was responsible.
l. 130. _gainful cowardice._ A telling expression for the dread of loss
which haunts so many wealthy people.
l. 133. _hawks . . . forests._ As a hawk pounces on its prey, so they
fell on the trading-vessels which put into port.
ll. 133-4. _the untired . . . lies._ They were always ready for any
dishonourable transaction by which money might be made.
l. 134. _ducats._ Italian pieces of money worth about 4_s._ 4_d._ Cf.
Shylock, _Merchant of Venice_, II. vii. 15, 'My ducats.'
l. 135. _Quick . . . away._ They would undertake to fleece unsuspecting
strangers in their town.
PAGE 58. l. 137. _ledger-men._ As if they only lived in their
account-books. Cf. l. 142.
l. 140. _Hot Egypt's pest_, the plague of Egypt.
ll. 145-52. As in _Lycidas_ Milton apologizes for the introduction of
his attack on the Church, so Keats apologizes for the introduction of
this outburst of indignation against cruel and dishonourable dealers,
which he feels is unsuited to the tender and pitiful story.
l. 150. _ghittern_, an instrument like a guitar, strung with wire.
PAGE 59. ll. 153-60. Keats wants to make it clear that he is not trying
to surpass Boccaccio, but to give him currency amongst English-speaking
people.
l. 159. _stead thee_, do thee service.
l. 168. _olive-trees._ In which (through the oil they yield) a great
part of the wealth of the Italians lies.
PAGE 60. l. 174. _Cut . . . bone._ This is not only a vivid way of
describing the banishment of all their natural pity. It also, by the
metaphor used, gives us a sort of premonitory shudder as at Lorenzo's
death. Indeed, in that moment the murder is, to all intents and
purposes, done. In stanza xxvii they are described as riding 'with their
murder'd man'.
PAGE 61. ll. 187-8. _ere . . . eglantine._ The sun, drying up the dew
drop by drop from the sweet-briar is pictured as passing beads along a
string, as the Roman Catholics do when they say their prayers.
PAGE 62. l. 209. _their . . . man._ Cf. l. 174, note. Notice the
extraordinary vividness of the picture here--the quiet rural scene and
the intrusion of human passion with the reflection in the clear water of
the pale murderers, sick with suspense, and the unsuspecting victim,
full of glowing life.
l. 212. _bream_, a kind of fish found in lakes and deep water. Obviously
Keats was not an angler.
_freshets_, little streams of fresh water.
PAGE 63. l. 217. Notice the reticence with which the mere fact of the
murder is stated--no details given. Keats wants the prevailing feeling
to be one of pity rather than of horror.
ll. 219-20. _Ah . . . loneliness._ We perpetually come upon this old
belief--that the souls of the murdered cannot rest in peace. Cf.
_Hamlet_, I. v. 8, &c.
l. 221. _break-covert . . . sin._ The blood-hounds employed for tracking
down a murderer will find him under any concealment, and never rest till
he is found. So restless is the soul of the victim.
l. 222. _They . . . water._ That water which had reflected the three
faces as they went across.
_tease_, torment.
l. 223. _convulsed spur_, they spurred their horses violently and
uncertainly, scarce knowing what they did.
l. 224. _Each richer . . . murderer._ This is what they have gained by
their deed--the guilt of murder--that is all.
l. 229. _stifling_: partly literal, since the widow's weed is
close-wrapping and voluminous--partly metaphorical, since the acceptance
of fate stifles complaint.
l. 230. _accursed bands._ So long as a man hopes he is not free, but at
the mercy of continual imaginings and fresh disappointments. When hope
is laid aside, fear and disappointment go with it.
PAGE 64. l. 241. _Selfishness, Love's cousin._ For the two aspects of
love, as a selfish and unselfish passion, see Blake's two poems, _Love
seeketh only self to please_, and, _Love seeketh not itself to please_.
l. 242. _single breast_, one-thoughted, being full of love for Lorenzo.
PAGE 65. ll. 249 seq. Cf. Shelley's _Ode to the West Wind_.
l. 252. _roundelay_, a dance in a circle.
l. 259. _Striving . . . itself._ Her distrust of her brothers is shown
in her effort not to betray her fears to them.
_dungeon climes._ Wherever it is, it is a prison which keeps him from
her. Cf. _Hamlet_, II. ii. 250-4.
l. 262. _Hinnom's Vale_, the valley of Moloch's sacrifices, _Paradise
Lost_, i. 392-405.
l. 264. _snowy shroud_, a truly prophetic dream.
PAGE 66. ll. 267 seq. These comparisons help us to realize her
experience as sharp anguish, rousing her from the lethargy of despair,
and endowing her for a brief space with almost supernatural energy and
willpower.
PAGE 67. l. 286. _palsied Druid._ The Druids, or priests of ancient
Britain, are always pictured as old men with long beards. The conception
of such an old man, tremblingly trying to get music from a broken harp,
adds to the pathos and mystery of the vision.
l. 288. _Like . . . among._ Take this line word by word, and see how
many different ideas go to create the incomparably ghostly effect.
ll. 289 seq. Horror is skilfully kept from this picture and only tragedy
left. The horror is for the eyes of his murderers, not for his love.
l. 292. _unthread . . . woof._ His narration and explanation of what has
gone before is pictured as the disentangling of woven threads.
l. 293. _darken'd._ In many senses, since their crime was (1) concealed
from Isabella, (2) darkly evil, (3) done in the darkness of the wood.
PAGE 68. ll. 305 seq. The whole sound of this stanza is that of a faint
and far-away echo.
l. 308. _knelling._ Every sound is like a death-bell to him.
PAGE 69. l. 316. _That paleness._ Her paleness showing her great love
for him; and, moreover, indicating that they will soon be reunited.
l. 317. _bright abyss_, the bright hollow of heaven.
l. 322. _The atom . . . turmoil._ Every one must know the sensation of
looking into the darkness, straining one's eyes, until the darkness
itself seems to be composed of moving atoms. The experience with which
Keats, in the next lines, compares it, is, we are told, a common
experience in the early stages of consumption.
PAGE 70. l. 334. _school'd my infancy._ She was as a child in her
ignorance of evil, and he has taught her the hard lesson that our misery
is not always due to the dealings of a blind fate, but sometimes to the
deliberate crime and cruelty of those whom we have trusted.
l. 344. _forest-hearse._ To Isabella the whole forest is but the
receptacle of her lover's corpse.
PAGE 71. l. 347. _champaign_, country. We can picture Isabel, as they
'creep' along, furtively glancing round, and then producing her knife
with a smile so terrible that the old nurse can only fear that she is
delirious, as her sudden vigour would also suggest.
PAGE 72. st. xlvi-xlviii. These are the stanzas of which Lamb says,
'there is nothing more awfully simple in diction, more nakedly grand and
moving in sentiment, in Dante, in Chaucer, or in Spenser'--and again,
after an appreciation of _Lamia_, whose fairy splendours are 'for
younger impressibilities', he reverts to them, saying: 'To _us_ an
ounce of feeling is worth a pound of fancy; and therefore we recur
again, with a warmer gratitude, to the story of Isabella and the pot of
basil, and those never-cloying stanzas which we have cited, and which we
think should disarm criticism, if it be not in its nature cruel; if it
would not deny to honey its sweetness, nor to roses redness, nor light
to the stars in Heaven; if it would not bay the moon out of the skies,
rather than acknowledge she is fair.'--_The New Times_, July 19, 1820.
l. 361. _fresh-thrown mould_, a corroboration of her fears. Mr. Colvin
has pointed out how the horror is throughout relieved by the beauty of
the images called up by the similes, e.g. 'a crystal well,' 'a native
lily of the dell.'
l. 370. _Her silk . . . phantasies_, i.e. which she had embroidered
fancifully for him.
PAGE 73. l. 385. _wormy circumstance_, ghastly detail. Keats envies the
un-self-conscious simplicity of the old ballad-writers in treating such
a theme as this, and bids the reader turn to Boccaccio, whose
description of the scene he cannot hope to rival. Boccaccio writes: 'Nor
had she dug long before she found the body of her hapless lover, whereon
as yet there was no trace of corruption or decay; and thus she saw
without any manner of doubt that her vision was true. And so, saddest of
women, knowing that she might not bewail him there, she would gladly, if
she could, have carried away the body and given it more honourable
sepulture elsewhere; but as she might not do so, she took a knife, and,
as best she could, severed the head from the trunk, and wrapped it in a
napkin and laid it in the lap of the maid; and having covered the rest
of the corpse with earth, she left the spot, having been seen by none,
and went home.'
PAGE 74. l. 393. _Perséan sword._ The sword of sharpness given to
Perseus by Hermes, with which he cut off the head of the Gorgon Medusa,
a monster with the head of a woman, and snaky locks, the sight of whom
turned those who looked on her into stone. Perseus escaped by looking
only at her reflection in his shield.
l. 406. _chilly_: tears, not passionate, but of cold despair.
PAGE 75. l. 410. _pluck'd in Araby._ Cf. Lady Macbeth, 'All the perfumes
of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand,' _Macbeth_, V. ii. 55.
l. 412. _serpent-pipe_, twisted pipe.
l. 416. _Sweet Basil_, a fragrant aromatic plant.
ll. 417-20. The repetition makes us feel the monotony of her days and
nights of grief.
PAGE 76. l. 432. _leafits_, leaflets, little leaves. An old botanical
term, but obsolete in Keats's time. Coleridge uses it in l. 65 of 'The
Nightingale' in _Lyrical Ballads_. In later editions he altered it to
'leaflets'.
l. 436. _Lethean_, in Hades, the dark underworld of the dead. Compare
the conception of melancholy in the _Ode on Melancholy_, where it is
said to neighbour joy. Contrast Stanza lxi.
l. 439. _cypress_, dark trees which in Italy are always planted in
cemeteries. They stand by Keats's own grave.
PAGE 77. l. 442. _Melpomene_, the Muse of tragedy.
l. 451. _Baälites of pelf_, worshippers of ill-gotten gains.
l. 453. _elf_, man. The word is used in this sense by Spenser in _The
Faerie Queene_.
PAGE 78. l. 467. _chapel-shrift_, confession. Cf. l. 64.
ll. 469-72. _And when . . . hair._ The pathos of this picture is
intensified by its suggestions of the wife- and mother-hood which Isabel
can now never know. Cf. st. xlvii, where the idea is still more
beautifully suggested.
PAGE 79. l. 475. _vile . . . spot._ The one touch of descriptive
horror--powerful in its reticence.
PAGE 80. l. 489. _on . . . things._ Her love and her hope is with the
dead rather than with the living.
l. 492. _lorn voice._ Cf. st. xxxv. She is approaching her lover. Note
that in each case the metaphor is of a stringed instrument.
l. 493. _Pilgrim in his wanderings._ Cf. st. i, 'a young palmer in
Love's eye.'
l. 503. _burthen_, refrain. Cf. _Tempest_, I. ii. Ariel's songs.
NOTES ON THE EVE OF ST. AGNES.
See Introduction to _Isabella_ and _The Eve of St. Agnes_, p. 212.
St. Agnes was a martyr of the Christian Church who was beheaded just
outside Rome in 304 because she refused to marry a Pagan, holding
herself to be a bride of Christ. She was only 13--so small and slender
that the smallest fetters they could find slipped over her little wrists
and fell to the ground. But they stripped, tortured, and killed her. A
week after her death her parents dreamed that they saw her in glory with
a white lamb, the sign of purity, beside her. Hence she is always
pictured with lambs (as her name signifies), and to the place of her
martyrdom two lambs are yearly taken on the anniversary and blessed.
Then their wool is cut off and woven by the nuns into the archbishop's
cloak, or pallium (see l. 70).
For the legend connected with the Eve of the Saint's anniversary, to
which Keats refers, see st. vi.
_Metre._ That of the _Faerie Queene_.
PAGE 83. ll. 5-6. _told His rosary._ Cf. _Isabella_, ll. 87-8.
l. 8. _without a death._ The 'flight to heaven' obscures the simile of
the incense, and his breath is thought of as a departing soul.
PAGE 84. l. 12. _meagre, barefoot, wan._ Such a compression of a
description into three bare epithets is frequent in Keats's poetry. He
shows his marvellous power in the unerring choice of adjective; and
their enumeration in this way has, from its very simplicity, an
extraordinary force.
l. 15. _purgatorial rails_, rails which enclose them in a place of
torture.
l. 16. _dumb orat'ries._ The transference of the adjective from person
to place helps to give us the mysterious sense of life in inanimate
things. Cf. _Hyperion_, iii. 8; _Ode to a Nightingale_, l. 66.
l. 22. _already . . . rung._ He was dead to the world. But this hint
should also prepare us for the conclusion of the poem.
PAGE 85. l. 31. _'gan to chide._ l. 32. _ready with their pride._ l. 34.
_ever eager-eyed._ l. 36. _with hair . . . breasts._ As if trumpets,
rooms, and carved angels were all alive. See Introduction, p. 212.
l. 37. _argent_, silver. They were all glittering with rich robes and
arms.
PAGE 86. l. 56. _yearning . . . pain_, expressing all the exquisite
beauty and pathos of the music; and moreover seeming to give it
conscious life.
PAGE 87. l. 64. _danc'd_, conveying all her restlessness and impatience
as well as the lightness of her step.
l. 70. _amort_, deadened, dull. Cf. _Taming of the Shrew_, IV. iii. 36,
'What sweeting! all amort.'
l. 71. See note on St. Agnes, p. 224.
l. 77. _Buttress'd from moonlight._ A picture of the castle and of the
night, as well as of Porphyro's position.
PAGE 88. ll. 82 seq. Compare the situation of these lovers with that of
Romeo and Juliet.
l. 90. _beldame_, old woman. Shakespeare generally uses the word in an
uncomplimentary sense--'hag'--but it is not so used here. The word is
used by Spenser in its derivative sense, 'Fair lady,' _Faerie Queene_,
ii. 43.
PAGE 89. l. 110. _Brushing . . . plume._ This line both adds to our
picture of Porphyro and vividly brings before us the character of the
place he was entering--unsuited to the splendid cavalier.
l. 113. _Pale, lattic'd, chill._ Cf. l. 12, note.
l. 115. _by the holy loom_, on which the nuns spin. See l. 71 and note
on St. Agnes, p. 224.
PAGE 90. l. 120. _Thou must . . . sieve._ Supposed to be one of the
commonest signs of supernatural power. Cf. _Macbeth_, I. iii. 8.
l. 133. _brook_, check. An incorrect use of the word, which really means
_bear_ or _permit_.
PAGE 92. ll. 155-6. _churchyard . . . toll._ Unconscious prophecy. Cf.
_The Bedesman_, l. 22.
l. 168. _While . . . coverlet._ All the wonders of Madeline's
imagination.
l. 171. _Since Merlin . . . debt._ Referring to the old legend that
Merlin had for father an incubus or demon, and was himself a demon of
evil, though his innate wickedness was driven out by baptism. Thus his
'debt' to the demon was his existence, which he paid when Vivien
compassed his destruction by means of a spell which he had taught her.
Keats refers to the storm which is said to have raged that night, which
Tennyson also describes in _Merlin and Vivien_. The source whence the
story came to Keats has not been ascertained.
PAGE 93. l. 173. _cates_, provisions. Cf. _Taming of the Shrew_, II. i.
187:--
Kate of Kate Hall--my super-dainty Kate,
For dainties are all cates.
We still use the verb 'to cater' as in l. 177.
l. 174. _tambour frame_, embroidery-frame.
l. 185. _espied_, spying. _Dim_, because it would be from a dark corner;
also the spy would be but dimly visible to her old eyes.
l. 187. _silken . . . chaste._ Cf. ll. 12, 113.
l. 188. _covert_, hiding. Cf. _Isabella_, l. 221.
PAGE 94. l. 198. _fray'd_, frightened.
l. 203. _No uttered . . . betide._ Another of the conditions of the
vision was evidently silence.
PAGE 95. ll. 208 seq. Compare Coleridge's description of Christabel's
room: _Christabel_, i. 175-83.
l. 218. _gules_, blood-red.
PAGE 96. l. 226. _Vespers._ Cf. _Isabella_, l. 21, ll. 226-34. See
Introduction, p. 213.
l. 237. _poppied_, because of the sleep-giving property of the
poppy-heads.
l. 241. _Clasp'd . . . pray._ The sacredness of her beauty is felt here.
_missal_, prayer-book.
PAGE 97. l. 247. _To wake . . . tenderness._ He waited to hear, by the
sound of her breathing, that she was asleep.
l. 250. _Noiseless . . . wilderness._ We picture a man creeping over a
wide plain, fearing that any sound he makes will arouse some wild beast
or other frightful thing.
l. 257. _Morphean._ Morpheus was the god of sleep.
_amulet_, charm.
l. 258. _boisterous . . . festive._ Cf. ll. 12, 112, 187.
l. 261. _and . . . gone._ The cadence of this line is peculiarly adapted
to express a dying-away of sound.
PAGE 98. l. 266. _soother_, sweeter, more delightful. An incorrect use
of the word. Sooth really means truth.
l. 267. _tinct_, flavoured; usually applied to colour, not to taste.
l. 268. _argosy_, merchant-ship. Cf. _Merchant of Venice_, I. i. 9,
'Your argosies with portly sail.'
PAGE 99. l. 287. Before he desired a 'Morphean amulet'; now he wishes to
release his lady's eyes from the charm of sleep.
l. 288. _woofed phantasies._ Fancies confused as woven threads. Cf.
_Isabella_, l. 292.
l. 292. '_La belle . . . mercy._' This stirred Keats's imagination, and
he produced the wonderful, mystic ballad of this title (see p. 213).
l. 296. _affrayed_, frightened. Cf. l. 198.
PAGE 100. ll. 298-9. Cf. Donne's poem, _The Dream_:--
My dream thou brokest not, but continued'st it.
l. 300. _painful change_, his paleness.
l. 311. _pallid, chill, and drear._ Cf. ll. 12, 112, 187, 258.
PAGE 101. l. 323. _Love's alarum_, warning them to speed away.
l. 325. _flaw_, gust of wind. Cf. _Coriolanus_, V. iii. 74; _Hamlet_,
V. i. 239.
l. 333. _unpruned_, not trimmed.
PAGE 102. l. 343. _elfin-storm._ The beldame has suggested that he must
be 'liege-lord of all the elves and fays'.
l. 351. _o'er . . . moors._ A happy suggestion of a warmer clime.
PAGE 103. l. 355. _darkling._ Cf. _King Lear_, I. iv. 237: 'So out went
the candle and we were left darkling.' Cf. _Ode to a Nightingale_, l.
51.
l. 360. _And . . . floor._ There is the very sound of the wind in this
line.
PAGE 104. ll. 375-8. _Angela . . . cold._ The death of these two leaves
us with the thought of a young, bright world for the lovers to enjoy;
whilst at the same time it completes the contrast, which the first
introduction of the old bedesman suggested, between the old, the poor,
and the joyless, and the young, the rich, and the happy.
INTRODUCTION TO THE ODE TO A NIGHTINGALE, ODE ON A GRECIAN URN, ODE ON
MELANCHOLY, AND TO AUTUMN.
These four odes, which were all written in 1819, the first three in the
early months of that year, ought to be considered together, since the
same strain of thought runs through them all and, taken all together,
they seem to sum up Keats's philosophy.
In all of them the poet looks upon life as it is, and the eternal
principle of beauty, in the first three seeing them in sharp contrast;
in the last reconciling them, and leaving us content.
The first-written of the four, the _Ode to a Nightingale_, is the most
passionately human and personal of them all. For Keats wrote it soon
after the death of his brother Tom, whom he had loved devotedly and
himself nursed to the end. He was feeling keenly the tragedy of a world
'where youth grows pale, and spectre-thin, and dies', and the song of
the nightingale, heard in a friend's garden at Hampstead, made him long
to escape with it from this world of realities and sorrows to the world
of ideal beauty, which it seemed to him somehow to stand for and
suggest. He did not think of the nightingale as an individual bird, but
of its song, which had been beautiful for centuries and would continue
to be beautiful long after his generation had passed away; and the
thought of this undying loveliness he contrasted bitterly with our
feverishly sad and short life. When, by the power of imagination, he had
left the world behind him and was absorbed in the vision of beauty
roused by the bird's song, he longed for death rather than a return to
disillusionment.
So in the _Grecian Urn_ he contrasts unsatisfying human life with art,
which is everlastingly beautiful. The figures on the vase lack one thing
only--reality,--whilst on the other hand they are happy in not being
subject to trouble, change, or death. The thought is sad, yet Keats
closes this ode triumphantly, not, as in _The Nightingale_, on a note of
disappointment. The beauty of this Greek sculpture, truly felt, teaches
us that beauty at any rate is real and lasting, and that utter belief in
beauty is the one thing needful in life.
In the _Ode on Melancholy_ Keats, in a more bitter mood, finds the
presence, in a fleeting world, of eternal beauty the source of the
deepest melancholy. To encourage your melancholy mood, he tells us, do
not look on the things counted sad, but on the most beautiful, which are
only quickly-fading manifestations of the everlasting principle of
beauty. It is then, when a man most deeply loves the beautiful, when he
uses his capacities of joy to the utmost, that the full bitterness of
the contrast between the real and the ideal comes home to him and
crushes him. If he did not feel so much he would not suffer so much; if
he loved beauty less he would care less that he could not hold it long.
But in the ode _To Autumn_ Keats attains to the serenity he has been
seeking. In this unparalleled description of a richly beautiful autumn
day he conveys to us all the peace and comfort which his spirit
receives. He does not philosophize upon the spectacle or draw a moral
from it, but he shows us how in nature beauty is ever present. To the
momentary regret for spring he replies with praise of the present hour,
concluding with an exquisite description of the sounds of autumn--its
music, as beautiful as that of spring. Hitherto he has lamented the
insecurity of a man's hold upon the beautiful, though he has never
doubted the reality of beauty and the worth of its worship to man. Now,
under the influence of nature, he intuitively knows that beauty once
seen and grasped is man's possession for ever. He is in much the same
position that Wordsworth was when he declared that
Nature never did betray
The heart that loved her; 'tis her privilege,
Through all the years of this our life, to lead
From joy to joy: for she can so inform
The mind that is within us, so impress
With quietness and beauty, and so feed
With lofty thoughts, that neither evil tongues,
Rash judgments, nor the sneers of selfish men,
Nor greetings where no kindness is, nor all
The dreary intercourse of daily life,
Shall e'er prevail against us, or disturb
Our cheerful faith, that all which we behold
Is full of blessings.
This was not the last poem that Keats wrote, but it was the last which
he wrote in the fulness of his powers. We can scarcely help wishing
that, beautiful as were some of the productions of his last feverish
year of life, this perfect ode, expressing so serene and untroubled a
mood, might have been his last word to the world.
NOTES ON THE ODE TO A NIGHTINGALE.
In the early months of 1819 Keats was living with his friend Brown at
Hampstead (Wentworth Place). In April a nightingale built her nest in
the garden, and Brown writes: 'Keats felt a tranquil and continual joy
in her song; and one morning he took his chair from the breakfast table
to the grass-plot under a plum, where he sat for two or three hours.
When he came into the house I perceived he had some scraps of paper in
his hand, and these he was quietly thrusting behind the books. On
inquiry, I found those scraps, four or five in number, contained his
poetic feeling on the song of our nightingale. The writing was not well
legible, and it was difficult to arrange the stanza on so many scraps.
With his assistance I succeeded, and this was his _Ode to a
Nightingale_.'
PAGE 107. l. 4. _Lethe._ Cf. _Lamia_, i. 81, note.
l. 7. _Dryad._ Cf. _Lamia_, i. 5, note.
PAGE 108. l. 13. _Flora_, the goddess of flowers.
l. 14. _sunburnt mirth._ An instance of Keats's power of concentration.
The _people_ are not mentioned at all, yet this phrase conjures up a
picture of merry, laughing, sunburnt peasants, as surely as could a long
and elaborate description.
l. 15. _the warm South._ As if the wine brought all this with it.
l. 16. _Hippocrene_, the spring of the Muses on Mount Helicon.
l. 23. _The weariness . . . fret._ Cf. 'The fretful stir unprofitable
and the fever of the world' in Wordsworth's _Tintern Abbey_, which Keats
well knew.
PAGE 109. l. 26. _Where youth . . . dies._ See Introduction to the Odes,
p. 230.
l. 29. _Beauty . . . eyes._ Cf. _Ode on Melancholy_, 'Beauty that must
die.'
l. 32. _Not . . . pards._ Not wine, but poetry, shall give him release
from the cares of this world. Keats is again obviously thinking of
Titian's picture (Cf. _Lamia_, i. 58, note).
l. 40. Notice the balmy softness which is given to this line by the use
of long vowels and liquid consonants.
PAGE 110. ll. 41 seq. The dark, warm, sweet atmosphere seems to enfold
us. It would be hard to find a more fragrant passage.
l. 50. _The murmurous . . . eves._ We seem to hear them. Tennyson,
inspired by Keats, with more self-conscious art, uses somewhat similar
effects, e.g.:
The moan of doves in immemorial elms,
And murmuring of innumerable bees.
_The Princess_, vii.
l. 51. _Darkling._ Cf. _The Eve of St. Agnes_, l. 355, note.
l. 61. _Thou . . . Bird._ Because, so far as we are concerned, the
nightingale we heard years ago is the same as the one we hear to-night.
The next lines make it clear that this is what Keats means.
l. 64. _clown_, peasant.
l. 67. _alien corn._ Transference of the adjective from person to
surroundings. Cf. _Eve of St. Agnes_, l. 16; _Hyperion_, iii. 9.
ll. 69-70. _magic . . . forlorn._ Perhaps inspired by a picture of
Claude's, 'The Enchanted Castle,' of which Keats had written before in a
poetical epistle to his friend Reynolds--'The windows [look] as if
latch'd by Fays and Elves.'
PAGE 112. l. 72. _Toll._ To him it has a deeply melancholy sound, and it
strikes the death-blow to his illusion.
l. 75. _plaintive._ It did not sound sad to Keats at first, but as it
dies away it takes colour from his own melancholy and sounds pathetic to
him. Cf. _Ode on Melancholy_: he finds both bliss and pain in the
contemplation of beauty.
ll. 76-8. _Past . . . glades._ The whole country speeds past our eyes in
these three lines.
NOTES ON THE ODE ON A GRECIAN URN.
This poem is not, apparently, inspired by any one actual vase, but by
many Greek sculptures, some seen in the British Museum, some known only
from engravings. Keats, in his imagination, combines them all into one
work of supreme beauty.
Perhaps Keats had some recollection of Wordsworth's sonnet 'Upon the
sight of a beautiful picture,' beginning 'Praised be the art.'
PAGE 113. l. 2. _foster-child._ The child of its maker, but preserved
and cared for by these foster-parents.
l. 7. _Tempe_ was a famous glen in Thessaly.
_Arcady._ Arcadia, a very mountainous country, the centre of the
Peloponnese, was the last stronghold of the aboriginal Greeks. The
people were largely shepherds and goatherds, and Pan was a local
Arcadian god till the Persian wars (c. 400 B.C.). In late Greek and in
Roman pastoral poetry, as in modern literature, Arcadia is a sort of
ideal land of poetic shepherds.
PAGE 114. ll. 17-18. _Bold . . . goal._ The one thing denied to the
figures--actual life. But Keats quickly turns to their rich
compensations.
PAGE 115. ll. 28-30. _All . . . tongue._ Cf. Shelley's _To a Skylark_:
Thou lovest--but ne'er knew love's sad satiety.
ll. 31 seq. Keats is now looking at the other side of the urn. This
verse strongly recalls certain parts of the frieze of the Parthenon
(British Museum).
PAGE 116. l. 41. _Attic_, Greek.
_brede_, embroidery. Cf. _Lamia_, i. 159. Here used of carving.
l. 44. _tease us out of thought._ Make us think till thought is lost in
mystery.
INTRODUCTION TO THE ODE TO PSYCHE.
In one of his long journal-letters to his brother George, Keats writes,
at the beginning of May, 1819: 'The following poem--the last I have
written--is the first and the only one with which I have taken even
moderate pains. I have for the most part dashed off my lines in a hurry.
This I have done leisurely--I think it reads the more richly for it, and
will I hope encourage me to write other things in even a more peaceable
and healthy spirit. You must recollect that Psyche was not embodied as a
goddess before the time of Apuleius the Platonist, who lived after the
Augustan age, and consequently the goddess was never worshipped or
sacrificed to with any of the ancient fervour, and perhaps never thought
of in the old religion--I am more orthodox than to let a heathen goddess
be so neglected.' _The Ode to Psyche_ follows.
The story of Psyche may be best told in the words of William Morris in
the 'argument' to 'the story of Cupid and Psyche' in his _Earthly
Paradise_:
'Psyche, a king's daughter, by her exceeding beauty caused the
people to forget Venus; therefore the goddess would fain have
destroyed her: nevertheless she became the bride of Love, yet
in an unhappy moment lost him by her own fault, and wandering
through the world suffered many evils at the hands of Venus,
for whom she must accomplish fearful tasks. But the gods and
all nature helped her, and in process of time she was
re-united to Love, forgiven by Venus, and made immortal by the
Father of gods and men.'
Psyche is supposed to symbolize the human soul made immortal through
love.
NOTES ON THE ODE TO PSYCHE.
PAGE 117. l. 2. _sweet . . . dear._ Cf. _Lycidas_, 'Bitter constraint
and sad occasion dear.'
l. 4. _soft-conched._ Metaphor of a sea-shell giving an impression of
exquisite colour and delicate form.
PAGE 118. l. 13. _'Mid . . . eyed._ Nature in its appeal to every sense.
In this line we have the essence of all that makes the beauty of flowers
satisfying and comforting.
l. 14. _Tyrian_, purple, from a certain dye made at Tyre.
l. 20. _aurorean._ Aurora is the goddess of dawn. Cf. _Hyperion_, i.
181.
l. 25. _Olympus._ Cf. _Lamia_, i. 9, note.
_hierarchy._ The orders of gods, with Jupiter as head.
l. 26. _Phoebe_, or Diana, goddess of the moon.
l. 27. _Vesper_, the evening star.
PAGE 119. l. 34. _oracle_, a sacred place where the god was supposed to
answer questions of vital import asked him by his worshippers.
l. 37. _fond believing_, foolishly credulous.
l. 41. _lucent fans_, luminous wings.
PAGE 120. l. 55. _fledge . . . steep._ Probably a recollection of what
he had seen in the Lakes, for on June 29, 1818, he writes to Tom from
Keswick of a waterfall which 'oozes out from a cleft in perpendicular
Rocks, all fledged with Ash and other beautiful trees'.
l. 57. _Dryads._ Cf. _Lamia_, l. 5, note.
INTRODUCTION TO FANCY.
This poem, although so much lighter in spirit, bears a certain relation
in thought to Keats's other odes. In the _Nightingale_ the tragedy of
this life made him long to escape, on the wings of imagination, to the
ideal world of beauty symbolized by the song of the bird. Here finding
all real things, even the most beautiful, pall upon him, he extols the
fancy, which can escape from reality and is not tied by place or season
in its search for new joys. This is, of course, only a passing mood, as
the extempore character of the poetry indicates. We see more of settled
conviction in the deeply-meditative _Ode to Autumn_, where he finds the
ideal in the rich and ever-changing real.
This poem is written in the four-accent metre employed by Milton in
_L'Allegro_ and _Il Penseroso_, and we can often detect a similarity of
cadence, and a resemblance in the scenes imagined.
NOTES ON FANCY.
PAGE 123. l. 16. _ingle_, chimney-nook.
PAGE 126. l. 81. _Ceres' daughter_, Proserpina. Cf. _Lamia_, i. 63,
note.
l. 82. _God of torment._ Pluto, who presides over the torments of the
souls in Hades.
PAGE 127. l. 85. _Hebe_, the cup-bearer of Jove.
l. 89. _And Jove grew languid._ Observe the fitting slowness of the
first half of the line, and the sudden leap forward of the second.
NOTES ON ODE
['BARDS OF PASSION AND OF MIRTH'].
PAGE 128. l. 1. _Bards_, poets and singers.
l. 8. _parle_, French _parler_. Cf. _Hamlet_, I. i. 62.
l. 12. _Dian's fawns._ Diana was the goddess of hunting.
INTRODUCTION TO LINES ON THE MERMAID TAVERN.
The Mermaid Tavern was an old inn in Bread Street, Cheapside. Tradition
says that the literary club there was established by Sir Walter Raleigh
in 1603. In any case it was, in Shakespeare's time, frequented by the
chief writers of the day, amongst them Ben Jonson, Beaumont, Fletcher,
Selden, Carew, Donne, and Shakespeare himself. Beaumont, in a poetical
epistle to Ben Jonson, writes:
What things have we seen
Done at the Mermaid! heard words that have been
So nimble and so full of subtle flame,
As if that any one from whence they came
Had meant to put his whole wit in a jest,
And has resolved to live a fool the rest
Of his dull life.
NOTES ON LINES ON THE MERMAID TAVERN.
PAGE 131. l. 10. _bold Robin Hood._ Cf. _Robin Hood_, p. 133.
l. 12. _bowse_, drink.
PAGE 132. ll. 16-17. _an astrologer's . . . story._ The astrologer would
record, on parchment, what he had seen in the heavens.
l. 22. _The Mermaid . . . Zodiac._ The zodiac was an imaginary belt
across the heavens within which the sun and planets were supposed to
move. It was divided into twelve parts corresponding to the twelve
months of the year, according to the position of the moon when full.
Each of these parts had a sign by which it was known, and the sign of
the tenth was a fish-tailed goat, to which Keats refers as the Mermaid.
The word _zodiac_ comes from the Greek +zôdion+, meaning
a little animal, since originally all the signs were animals.
INTRODUCTION TO ROBIN HOOD.
Early in 1818 John Hamilton Reynolds, a friend of Keats, sent him two
sonnets which he had written 'On Robin Hood'. Keats, in his letter of
thanks, after giving an appreciation of Reynolds's production, says: 'In
return for your Dish of Filberts, I have gathered a few Catkins, I hope
they'll look pretty.' Then follow these lines, entitled, 'To J. H. R. in
answer to his Robin Hood sonnets.' At the end he writes: 'I hope you
will like them--they are at least written in the spirit of outlawry.'
Robin Hood, the outlaw, was a popular hero of the Middle Ages. He was a
great poacher of deer, brave, chivalrous, generous, full of fun, and
absolutely without respect for law and order. He robbed the rich to give
to the poor, and waged ceaseless war against the wealthy prelates of the
church. Indeed, of his endless practical jokes, the majority were played
upon sheriffs and bishops. He lived, with his 'merry men', in Sherwood
Forest, where a hollow tree, said to be his 'larder', is still shown.
Innumerable ballads telling of his exploits were composed, the first
reference to which is in the second edition of Langland's _Piers
Plowman_, c. 1377. Many of these ballads still survive, but in all these
traditions it is quite impossible to disentangle fact from fiction.
NOTES ON ROBIN HOOD.
PAGE 133. l. 4. _pall._ Cf. _Isabella_, l. 268.
l. 9. _fleeces_, the leaves of the forest, cut from them by the wind as
the wool is shorn from the sheep's back.
PAGE 134. l. 13. _ivory shrill_, the shrill sound of the ivory horn.
ll. 15-18. Keats imagines some man who has not heard the laugh hearing
with bewilderment its echo in the depths of the forest.
l. 21. _seven stars_, Charles's Wain or the Big Bear.
l. 22. _polar ray_, the light of the Pole, or North, star.
l. 30. _pasture Trent_, the fields about the Trent, the river of
Nottingham, which runs by Sherwood forest.
PAGE 135. l. 33. _morris._ A dance in costume which, in the Tudor
period, formed a part of every village festivity. It was generally
danced by five men and a boy in girl's dress, who represented Maid
Marian. Later it came to be associated with the May games, and other
characters of the Robin Hood epic were introduced. It was abolished,
with other village gaieties, by the Puritans, and though at the
Restoration it was revived it never regained its former importance.
l. 34. _Gamelyn._ The hero of a tale (_The Tale of Gamelyn_) attributed
to Chaucer, and given in some MSS. as _The Cook's Tale_ in _The
Canterbury Tales_. The story of Orlando's ill-usage, prowess, and
banishment, in _As You Like It_, Shakespeare derived from this source,
and Keats is thinking of the merry life of the hero amongst the outlaws.
l. 36. '_grenè shawe_,' green wood.
PAGE 136. l. 53. _Lincoln green._ In the Middle Ages Lincoln was very
famous for dyeing green cloth, and this green cloth was the
characteristic garb of the forester and outlaw.
l. 62. _burden._ Cf. _Isabella_, l. 503.
NOTES ON 'TO AUTUMN'.
In a letter written to Reynolds from Winchester, in September, 1819,
Keats says: 'How beautiful the season is now--How fine the air. A
temperate sharpness about it. Really, without joking, chaste
weather--Dian skies--I never liked stubble-fields so much as now--Aye
better than the chilly green of the spring. Somehow, a stubble-field
looks warm--in the same way that some pictures look warm. This struck me
so much in my Sunday's walk that I composed upon it.' What he composed
was the Ode _To Autumn_.
PAGE 137. ll. 1 seq. The extraordinary concentration and richness of
this description reminds us of Keats's advice to Shelley--'Load every
rift of your subject with ore.' The whole poem seems to be painted in
tints of red, brown, and gold.
PAGE 138. ll. 12 seq. From the picture of an autumn day we proceed to
the characteristic sights and occupations of autumn, personified in the
spirit of the season.
l. 18. _swath_, the width of the sweep of the scythe.
ll. 23 seq. Now the sounds of autumn are added to complete the
impression.
ll. 25-6. Compare letter quoted above.
PAGE 139. l. 28. _sallows_, trees or low shrubs of the willowy kind.
ll. 28-9. _borne . . . dies._ Notice how the cadence of the line fits
the sense. It seems to rise and fall and rise and fall again.
NOTES ON ODE ON MELANCHOLY.
PAGE 140. l. 1. _Lethe._ See _Lamia_, i. 81, note.
l. 2. _Wolf's-bane_, aconite or hellebore--a poisonous plant.
l. 4. _nightshade_, a deadly poison.
_ruby . . . Proserpine._ Cf. Swinburne's _Garden of Proserpine_.
_Proserpine._ Cf. _Lamia_, i. 63, note.
l. 5. _yew-berries._ The yew, a dark funereal-looking tree, is
constantly planted in churchyards.
l. 7. _your mournful Psyche._ See Introduction to the _Ode to Psyche_,
p. 236.
PAGE 141. l. 12. _weeping cloud._ l. 14. _shroud._ Giving a touch of
mystery and sadness to the otherwise light and tender picture.
l. 16. _on . . . sand-wave_, the iridescence sometimes seen on the
ribbed sand left by the tide.
l. 21. _She_, i.e. Melancholy--now personified as a goddess. Compare
this conception of melancholy with the passage in _Lamia_, i. 190-200.
Cf. also Milton's personifications of Melancholy in _L'Allegro_ and _Il
Penseroso_.
PAGE 142. l. 30. _cloudy_, mysteriously concealed, seen of few.
INTRODUCTION TO HYPERION.
This poem deals with the overthrow of the primaeval order of Gods by
Jupiter, son of Saturn the old king. There are many versions of the
fable in Greek mythology, and there are many sources from which it may
have come to Keats. At school he is said to have known the classical
dictionary by heart, but his inspiration is more likely to have been due
to his later reading of the Elizabethan poets, and their translations of
classic story. One thing is certain, that he did not confine himself to
any one authority, nor did he consider it necessary to be circumscribed
by authorities at all. He used, rather than followed, the Greek fable,
dealing freely with it and giving it his own interpretation.
The situation when the poem opens is as follows:--Saturn, king of the
gods, has been driven from Olympus down into a deep dell, by his son
Jupiter, who has seized and used his father's weapon, the thunderbolt. A
similar fate has overtaken nearly all his brethren, who are called by
Keats Titans and Giants indiscriminately, though in Greek mythology the
two races are quite distinct. These Titans are the children of Tellus
and Coelus, the earth and sky, thus representing, as it were, the first
birth of form and personality from formless nature. Before the
separation of earth and sky, Chaos, a confusion of the elements of all
things, had reigned supreme. One only of the Titans, Hyperion the
sun-god, still keeps his kingdom, and he is about to be superseded by
young Apollo, the god of light and song.
In the second book we hear Oceanus and Clymene his daughter tell how
both were defeated not by battle or violence, but by the irresistible
beauty of their dispossessors; and from this Oceanus deduces 'the
eternal law, that first in beauty should be first in might'. He recalls
the fact that Saturn himself was not the first ruler, but received his
kingdom from his parents, the earth and sky, and he prophesies that
progress will continue in the overthrow of Jove by a yet brighter and
better order. Enceladus is, however, furious at what he considers a
cowardly acceptance of their fate, and urges his brethren to resist.
In Book I we saw Hyperion, though still a god, distressed by portents,
and now in Book III we see the rise to divinity of his successor, the
young Apollo. The poem breaks off short at the moment of Apollo's
metamorphosis, and how Keats intended to complete it we can never know.
It is certain that he originally meant to write an epic in ten books,
and the publisher's remark[245:1] at the beginning of the 1820 volume
would lead us to think that he was in the same mind when he wrote the
poem. This statement, however, must be altogether discounted, as Keats,
in his copy of the poems, crossed it right out and wrote above, 'I had
no part in this; I was ill at the time.'
Moreover, the last sentence (from 'but' to 'proceeding') he bracketed,
writing below, 'This is a lie.'
This, together with other evidence external and internal, has led Dr. de
Sélincourt to the conclusion that Keats had modified his plan and, when
he was writing the poem, intended to conclude it in four books. Of the
probable contents of the one-and-half unwritten books Mr. de Sélincourt
writes: 'I conceive that Apollo, now conscious of his divinity, would
have gone to Olympus, heard from the lips of Jove of his newly-acquired
supremacy, and been called upon by the rebel three to secure the kingdom
that awaited him. He would have gone forth to meet Hyperion, who, struck
by the power of supreme beauty, would have found resistance impossible.
Critics have inclined to take for granted the supposition that an actual
battle was contemplated by Keats, but I do not believe that such was, at
least, his final intention. In the first place, he had the example of
Milton, whom he was studying very closely, to warn him of its dangers;
in the second, if Hyperion had been meant to fight he would hardly be
represented as already, before the battle, shorn of much of his
strength; thus making the victory of Apollo depend upon his enemy's
unnatural weakness and not upon his own strength. One may add that a
combat would have been completely alien to the whole idea of the poem as
Keats conceived it, and as, in fact, it is universally interpreted from
the speech of Oceanus in the second book. The resistance of Enceladus
and the Giants, themselves rebels against an order already established,
would have been dealt with summarily, and the poem would have closed
with a description of the new age which had been inaugurated by the
triumph of the Olympians, and, in particular, of Apollo the god of light
and song.'
The central idea, then, of the poem is that the new age triumphs over
the old by virtue of its acknowledged superiority--that intellectual
supremacy makes physical force feel its power and yield. Dignity and
moral conquest lies, for the conquered, in the capacity to recognize the
truth and look upon the inevitable undismayed.
Keats broke the poem off because it was too 'Miltonic', and it is easy
to see what he meant. Not only does the treatment of the subject recall
that of _Paradise Lost_, the council of the fallen gods bearing special
resemblance to that of the fallen angels in Book II of Milton's epic,
but in its style and syntax the influence of Milton is everywhere
apparent. It is to be seen in the restraint and concentration of the
language, which is in marked contrast to the wordiness of Keats's early
work, as well as in the constant use of classical constructions,[247:1]
Miltonic inversions[247:2] and repetitions,[247:3] and in occasional
reminiscences of actual lines and phrases in _Paradise Lost_.[247:4]
In _Hyperion_ we see, too, the influence of the study of Greek
sculpture upon Keats's mind and art. This study had taught him that the
highest beauty is not incompatible with definiteness of form and
clearness of detail. To his romantic appreciation of mystery was now
added an equal sense of the importance of simplicity, form, and
proportion, these being, from its nature, inevitable characteristics of
the art of sculpture. So we see that again and again the figures
described in _Hyperion_ are like great statues--clear-cut, massive, and
motionless. Such are the pictures of Saturn and Thea in Book I, and of
each of the group of Titans at the opening of Book II.
Striking too is Keats's very Greek identification of the gods with the
powers of Nature which they represent. It is this attitude of mind which
has led some people--Shelley and Landor among them--to declare Keats, in
spite of his ignorance of the language, the most truly Greek of all
English poets. Very beautiful instances of this are the sunset and
sunrise in Book I, when the departure of the sun-god and his return to
earth are so described that the pictures we see are of an evening and
morning sky, an angry sunset, and a grey and misty dawn.
But neither Miltonic nor Greek is Keats's marvellous treatment of nature
as he feels, and makes us feel, the magic of its mystery in such a
picture as that of the
tall oaks
Branch-charmèd by the earnest stars,
or of the
dismal cirque
Of Druid stones, upon a forlorn moor,
When the chill rain begins at shut of eve,
In dull November, and their chancel vault,
The heaven itself, is blinded throughout night.
This Keats, and Keats alone, could do; and his achievement is unique in
throwing all the glamour of romance over a fragment 'sublime as
Aeschylus'.
NOTES ON HYPERION.
BOOK I.
PAGE 145. ll. 2-3. By thus giving us a vivid picture of the changing
day--at morning, noon, and night--Keats makes us realize the terrible
loneliness and gloom of a place too deep to feel these changes.
l. 10. See how the sense is expressed in the cadence of the line.
PAGE 146. l. 11. _voiceless._ As if it felt and knew, and were
deliberately silent.
ll. 13, 14. Influence of Greek sculpture. See Introduction, p. 248.
l. 18. _nerveless . . . dead._ Cf. _Eve of St. Agnes_, l. 12, note.
l. 19. _realmless eyes._ The tragedy of his fall is felt in every
feature.
ll. 20, 21. _Earth, His ancient mother._ Tellus. See Introduction, p.
244.
PAGE 147. l. 27. _Amazon._ The Amazons were a warlike race of women of
whom many traditions exist. On the frieze of the Mausoleum (British
Museum) they are seen warring with the Centaurs.
l. 30. _Ixion's wheel._ For insolence to Jove, Ixion was tied to an
ever-revolving wheel in Hell.
l. 31. _Memphian sphinx._ Memphis was a town in Egypt near to which the
pyramids were built. A sphinx is a great stone image with human head and
breast and the body of a lion.
PAGE 148. ll. 60-3. The thunderbolts, being Jove's own weapons, are
unwilling to be used against their former master.
PAGE 149. l. 74. _branch-charmed . . . stars._ All the magic of the
still night is here.
ll. 76-8. _Save . . . wave._ See how the gust of wind comes and goes in
the rise and fall of these lines, which begin and end on the same sound.
PAGE 150. l. 86. See Introduction, p. 248.
l. 94. _aspen-malady_, trembling like the leaves of the aspen-poplar.
PAGE 151. ll. 98 seq. Cf. _King Lear_. Throughout the figure of
Saturn--the old man robbed of his kingdom--reminds us of Lear, and
sometimes we seem to detect actual reminiscences of Shakespeare's
treatment. Cf. _Hyperion_, i. 98; and _King Lear_, I. iv. 248-52.
l. 102. _front_, forehead.
l. 105. _nervous_, used in its original sense of powerful, sinewy.
ll. 107 seq. In Saturn's reign was the Golden Age.
PAGE 152. l. 125. _of ripe progress_, near at hand.
l. 129. _metropolitan_, around the chief city.
l. 131. _strings in hollow shells._ The first stringed instruments were
said to be made of tortoise-shells with strings stretched across.
PAGE 153. l. 145. _chaos._ The confusion of elements from which the
world was created. See _Paradise Lost_, i. 891-919.
l. 147. _rebel three._ Jove, Neptune, and Pluto.
PAGE 154. l. 152. _covert._ Cf. _Isabella_, l. 221; _Eve of St. Agnes_,
l. 188.
ll. 156-7. All the dignity and majesty of the goddess is in this
comparison.
PAGE 155. l. 171. _gloom-bird_, the owl, whose cry is supposed to
portend death. Cf. Milton's method of description, 'Not that fair
field,' etc. _Paradise Lost_, iv. 268.
l. 172. _familiar visiting_, ghostly apparition.
PAGE 157. ll. 205-8. Cf. the opening of the gates of heaven. _Paradise
Lost_, vii. 205-7.
ll. 213 seq. See Introduction, p. 248.
PAGE 158. l. 228. _effigies_, visions.
l. 230. _O . . . pools._ A picture of inimitable chilly horror.
l. 238. _fanes._ Cf. _Psyche_, l. 50.
PAGE 159. l. 246. _Tellus . . . robes_, the earth mantled by the salt
sea.
PAGE 160. ll. 274-7. _colure._ One of two great circles supposed to
intersect at right angles at the poles. The nadir is the lowest point in
the heavens and the zenith is the highest.
PAGE 161. ll. 279-80. _with labouring . . . centuries._ By studying the
sky for many hundreds of years wise men found there signs and symbols
which they read and interpreted.
PAGE 162. l. 298. _demesnes._ Cf. _Lamia_, ii. 155, note.
ll. 302-4. _all along . . . faint._ As in l. 286, the god and the
sunrise are indistinguishable to Keats. We see them both, and both in
one. See Introduction, p. 248.
l. 302. _rack_, a drifting mass of distant clouds. Cf. _Lamia_, i. 178,
and _Tempest_, IV. i. 156.
PAGE 163. ll. 311-12. _the powers . . . creating._ Coelus and Terra (or
Tellus), the sky and earth.
PAGE 164. l. 345. _Before . . . murmur._ Before the string is drawn
tight to let the arrow fly.
PAGE 165. l. 349. _region-whisper_, whisper from the wide air.
BOOK II.
PAGE 167. l. 4. _Cybele_, the wife of Saturn.
PAGE 168. l. 17. _stubborn'd_, made strong, a characteristic coinage of
Keats, after the Elizabethan manner; cf. _Romeo and Juliet_, IV. i. 16.
ll. 22 seq. Cf. i. 161.
l. 28. _gurge_, whirlpool.
PAGE 169. l. 35. _Of . . . moor_, suggested by Druid stones near
Keswick.
l. 37. _chancel vault._ As if they stood in a great temple domed by the
sky.
PAGE 171. l. 66. _Shadow'd_, literally and also metaphorically, in the
darkness of his wrath.
l. 70. _that second war._ An indication that Keats did not intend to
recount this 'second war'; it is not likely that he would have
forestalled its chief incident.
l. 78. _Ops_, the same as Cybele.
l. 79. _No shape distinguishable._ Cf. _Paradise Lost_, ii. 666-8.
PAGE 172. l. 97. _mortal_, making him mortal.
l. 98. _A disanointing poison_, taking away his kingship and his
godhead.
PAGE 173. ll. 116-17. _There is . . . voice._ Cf. i. 72-8. The
mysterious grandeur of the wind in the trees, whether in calm or storm.
PAGE 174. ll. 133-5. _that old . . . darkness._ Uranus was the same as
Coelus, the god of the sky. The 'book' is the sky, from which ancient
sages drew their lore. Cf. i. 277-80.
PAGE 175. l. 153. _palpable_, having material existence; literally,
touchable.
PAGE 176. l. 159. _unseen parent dear._ Coelus, since the air is
invisible.
l. 168. _no . . . grove._ 'Sophist and sage' suggests the philosophers
of ancient Greece.
l. 170. _locks not oozy._ Cf. _Lycidas_, l. 175, 'oozy locks'. This use
of the negative is a reminiscence of Milton.
ll. 171-2. _murmurs . . . sands._ In this description of the god's
utterance is the whole spirit of the element which he personifies.
PAGE 177. ll. 182-7. Wise as Saturn was, the greatness of his power had
prevented him from realizing that he was neither the beginning nor the
end, but a link in the chain of progress.
PAGE 178. ll. 203-5. In their hour of downfall a new dominion is
revealed to them--a dominion of the soul which rules so long as it is
not afraid to see and know.
l. 207. _though once chiefs._ Though Chaos and Darkness once had the
sovereignty. From Chaos and Darkness developed Heaven and Earth, and
from them the Titans in all their glory and power. Now from them
develops the new order of Gods, surpassing them in beauty as they
surpassed their parents.
PAGE 180. ll. 228-9. The key of the whole situation.
ll. 237-41. No fight has taken place. The god has seen his doom and
accepted the inevitable.
PAGE 181. l. 244. _poz'd_, settled, firm.
PAGE 183. l. 284. _Like . . . string._ In this expressive line we hear
the quick patter of the beads. Clymene has had much the same experience
as Oceanus, though she does not philosophize upon it. She has succumbed
to the beauty of her successor.
PAGE 184. ll. 300-7. We feel the great elemental nature of the Titans in
these powerful similes.
l. 310. _Giant-Gods?_ In the edition of 1820 printed 'giant, Gods?' Mr.
Forman suggested the above emendation, which has since been discovered
to be the true MS. reading.
PAGE 185. l. 328. _purge the ether_, clear the air.
l. 331. As if Jove's appearance of strength were a deception, masking
his real weakness.
PAGE 186. l. 339. Cf. i. 328-35, ii. 96.
ll. 346-56. As the silver wings of dawn preceded Hyperion's rising so
now a silver light heralds his approach.
PAGE 187. l. 357. See how the light breaks in with this line.
l. 366. _and made it terrible._ There is no joy in the light which
reveals such terrors.
PAGE 188. l. 374. _Memnon's image._ Memnon was a famous king of Egypt
who was killed in the Trojan war. His people erected a wonderful statue
to his memory, which uttered a melodious sound at dawn, when the sun
fell on it. At sunset it uttered a sad sound.
l. 375. _dusking East._ Since the light fades first from the eastern
sky.
BOOK III.
PAGE 191. l. 9. _bewildered shores._ The attribute of the wanderer
transferred to the shore. Cf. _Nightingale_, ll. 14, 67.
l. 10. _Delphic._ At Delphi worship was given to Apollo, the inventor
and god of music.
PAGE 192. l. 12. _Dorian._ There were several 'modes' in Greek music, of
which the chief were Dorian, Phrygian, and Lydian. Each was supposed to
possess certain definite ethical characteristics. Dorian music was
martial and manly. Cf. _Paradise Lost_, i. 549-53.
l. 13. _Father of all verse._ Apollo, the god of light and song.
ll. 18-19. _Let the red . . . well._ Cf. _Nightingale_, st. 2.
l. 19. _faint-lipp'd._ Cf. ii. 270, 'mouthed shell.'
l. 23. _Cyclades._ Islands in the Aegean sea, so called because they
surrounded Delos in a circle.
l. 24. _Delos_, the island where Apollo was born.
PAGE 193. l. 31. _mother fair_, Leto (Latona).
l. 32. _twin-sister_, Artemis (Diana).
l. 40. _murmurous . . . waves._ We hear their soft breaking.
PAGE 196. ll. 81-2. Cf. _Lamia_, i. 75.
l. 82. _Mnemosyne_, daughter of Coelus and Terra, and mother of the
Muses. Her name signifies Memory.
l. 86. Cf. _Samson Agonistes_, ll. 80-2.
l. 87. Cf. _Merchant of Venice_, I. i. 1-7.
l. 92. _liegeless_, independent--acknowledging no allegiance.
l. 93. _aspirant_, ascending. The air will not bear him up.
PAGE 197. l. 98. _patient . . . moon._ Cf. i. 353, 'patient stars.'
Their still, steady light.
l. 113. So Apollo reaches his divinity--by knowledge which includes
experience of human suffering--feeling 'the giant-agony of the world'.
PAGE 198. l. 114. _gray_, hoary with antiquity.
l. 128. _immortal death._ Cf. Swinburne's _Garden of Proserpine_, st. 7.
Who gathers all things mortal
With cold immortal hands.
PAGE 199. l. 136. Filled in, in pencil, in a transcript of _Hyperion_ by
Keats's friend Richard Woodhouse--
Glory dawn'd, he was a god.
FOOTNOTES:
[245:1] 'If any apology be thought necessary for the appearance of the
unfinished poem of Hyperion, the publishers beg to state that they alone
are responsible, as it was printed at their particular request, and
contrary to the wish of the author. The poem was intended to have been
of equal length with Endymion, but the reception given to that work
discouraged the author from proceeding.'
[247:1]
e.g. i. 56 Knows thee not, thus afflicted, for a god
i. 206 save what solemn tubes . . . gave
ii. 70 that second war
Not long delayed.
[247:2]
e.g. ii. 8 torrents hoarse
32 covert drear
i. 265 season due
286 plumes immense
[247:3]
e.g. i. 35 How beautiful . . . self
182 While sometimes . . . wondering men
ii. 116, 122 Such noise . . . pines.
[247:4] e.g. ii. 79 No shape distinguishable. Cf. _Paradise Lost_, ii.
667.
i. 2 breath of morn. Cf. _Paradise Lost_, iv. 641.
HENRY FROWDE, M.A.
PUBLISHER TO THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD
LONDON, EDINBURGH, NEW YORK, TORONTO AND MELBOURNE
* * * * * * *
TRANSCRIBER'S NOTES:
Line numbers are placed every ten lines. In the original, due to space
constraints, this is not always the case.
On page 237, the note for l. 25 refers to "_Lamia_, i. 9, note". There
is no such note.
The following words appear with and without hyphens. They have been left
as in the original.
bed-side bedside
church-yard churchyard
death-bell deathbell
demi-god demigod
no-where nowhere
re-united reunited
sun-rise sunrise
under-grove undergrove
under-song undersong
The following words have variations in spelling. They have been left as
in the original.
Æolian Aeolian
Amaz'd Amazed
branch-charmed Branch-charmèd
faery fairy
should'st shouldst
splendor splendour
The following words use an oe ligature in the poems but not in the notes
section.
Coeus
Coelus
Phoebe Phoebe's Phoebean
Phoenician