'He who hath bent him o'er the dead
Ere the first day of death is fled,' &c.--
though the idea of actual sleep is not raised in this admirably
beautiful and admirably realistic description. Perhaps the poem, of all
others, in which the conception of death is associated with that of
sleep with the most poignant pathos, is that of Edgar Poe entitled _For
Annie_--
'Thank Heaven, the crisis,
The danger, is past,
And the lingering illness
Is over at last,
And the fever called living
Is conquered at last,' &c.--
where real death is spoken of throughout, in a series of exquisite and
thrilling images, as being real sleep. In Shelley's own edition of
_Adonais_, the lines which we are now considering are essentially
different. They run
'Till darkness and the law
Of mortal change shall fill the grave which is her maw.'
This is comparatively poor and rude. The change to the present reading
was introduced by Mrs. Shelley in her edition of Shelley's Poems in
1839. She gives no information as to her authority: but there can be no
doubt that at some time or other Shelley himself made the improvement.
See p. 33.
+Stanza 9,+ 1. i. _The quick Dreams._ With these words begins a passage
of some length, which is closely modelled upon the passage of Bion (p.
64), 'And around him the Loves are weeping,' &c.: modelled upon it, and
also systematically transposed from it. The transposition goes on the
same lines as that of Adonis into Adonais, and of the Cyprian into the
Uranian Aphrodite; i.e. the personal or fleshly Loves are spiritualized
into Dreams (musings, reveries, conceptions) and other faculties or
emotions of the mind. It is to be observed, moreover, that the trance of
Adonis attended by Cupids forms an incident in Keats's own poem of
_Endymion_, book ii--
'For on a silken couch of rosy pride,
In midst of all, there lay a sleeping youth
Of fondest beauty; fonder, in fair sooth,
Than sighs could fathom or contentment reach.
* * * * *
... Hard by
Stood serene Cupids, watching silently.
One, kneeling to a lyre, touched the strings,
Muffling to death the pathos with his wings,
And ever and anon uprose to look
At the youth's slumber; while another took
A willow-bough distilling odorous dew,
And shoot it on his hair; another flew
In through the woven roof, and fluttering-wise
Rained violets upon his sleeping eyes.'
1. 2. _The passion-winged ministers of thought._ The 'Dreams' are here
defined as being thoughts (or ministers of thought) winged with passion;
not mere abstract cogitations, but thoughts warm with the heart's blood,
emotional conceptions--such thoughts as subserve the purposes of poetry,
and enter into its structure: in a word, poetic thoughts.
1. 3. _Who were his flocks_, &c. These Dreams were in fact the very
thoughts of Adonais, as conveyed in his poems. He being dead, they
cannot assume new forms of beauty in any future poems, and cannot be
thus diffused from mind to mind, but they remain mourning round their
deceased herdsman, or master. It is possible that this image of a flock
and a herdsman is consequent upon the phrase in the Elegy of Moschus for
Bion--'Bion the herdsman is dead' (p. 65).
+Stanza 10,+ 1. 2. _And fans him with her moonlight wings._ See Bion (p.
65), 'and another, from behind him, with his wings is fanning Adonis.'
The epithet 'moonlight' may indicate either delicacy of colour, or faint
luminosity--rather the latter,
1. 6. _A tear some Dream has loosened from his brain._ I follow
Shelley's edition in printing Dream with a capital letter. I do not
however think this helpful to the right sense. The capitalized Dream
might appear to be one of those impersonated Dreams to whom these
stanzas relate: but in the present line the word 'dream' would be more
naturally construed as meaning simply 'thought, mental conception.'
1. 7. _Lost angel of a ruined paradise._ The ruined paradise is the
mind, now torpid in death, of Adonais. The 'Dream' which has been
speaking is a lost angel of this paradise, in the sense of being a
messenger or denizen of the mind of Adonais, incapacitated for
exercising any further action: indeed, the Dream forthwith fades, and is
for ever extinct.
1. 8. _With no stain._ Leaving no trace behind. The rhyme has entailed
the use of the word 'stain,' which is otherwise a little arbitrary in
this connexion.
1. 9. _She faded, like a cloud which had outwept its rain._ A rain-cloud
which has fully discharged its rain would no longer constitute a
cloud--it would be dispersed and gone. The image is therefore a very
exact one for the Dream which, having accomplished its function and its
life, now ceases to be. There appears to be a further parallel
intended--between the Dream whose existence closes in a _tear_, and the
rain-cloud which has discharged its _rain_: this is of less moment, and
verges upon a conceit. This passage in _Adonais_ is not without some
analogy to one in Keats's _Endymion_ (quoted on p. 42)--
'Therein
A melancholy spirit well might win
Oblivion, and melt out his essence fine
Into the winds.'
Stanza 11+ 11. 1, 2. _One from a lucid urn of starry dew Washed his
light limbs, as if embalming them._ See the passage from Bion (p. 64),
'One in a golden vessel bears water, and another laves the wound.' The
expression 'starry dew' is rather peculiar: the dew may originally have
'starred' the grass, but, when collected into an urn, it must have lost
this property: perhaps we should rather understand, nocturnal dew upon
which the stars had been shining. It is difficult to see how the act of
washing the limbs could simulate the process of embalming.
1. 3. _Another clipt her profuse locks._ See Bion (p. 64), 'clipping
their locks for Adonis.' 'Profuse' is here accented on the first
syllable; although indeed the line can be read with the accent, as is
usual, on the second syllable.
11. 3-5. _And threw The wreath upon him like an anadem Which frozen
tears instead of pearls begem._ The wreath is the lock of hair--perhaps
a plait or curl, for otherwise the term wreath is rather wide of the
mark. The idea that the tears shed by this Dream herself (or perhaps
other Dreams) upon the lock are 'frozen,' and thus stand in lieu of
pearls upon an anadem or circlet, seems strained, and indeed
incongruous: one might wish it away.
11. 6, 7. _Another in her wilful grief would break Her bow and wingèd
reeds._ Follows Bion closely--'And one upon his shafts, another on his
bow, is treading' (p. 64). This is perfectly appropriate for the Loves,
or Cupids: not equally so for the Dreams, for it is not so apparent what
concern they have with bows and arrows. These may however be 'winged
thoughts' or 'winged words'--[Greek: epea pteroenta]. Mr. Andrew Lang
observes (Introduction to his Theocritus volume), 'In one or other of
the sixteen Pompeian pictures of Venus and Adonis, the Loves are
breaking their bows and arrows for grief, as in the hymn of Bion.'
11. 7, 8. _As if to stem A greater loss with one which was more weak._
'To stem a loss' is a very lax phrase--and more especially 'to stem a
loss with another loss.' 'To stem a torrent--or, the current of a
river,' is a well-known expression, indicating one sort of material
force in opposition to another. Hence we come to the figurative
expression, 'to stem the torrent of his grief,' &c. Shelley seems to
have yielded to a certain analogy in the sentiment, and also to the
convenience of a rhyme, and thus to have permitted himself a phrase
which is neither English nor consistent with sense. Line 8 seems to me
extremely feeble throughout.
1. 9. _And dull the barbèd fire against his frozen cheek._ The
construction runs--'Another would break, &c., and [would] dull, &c.' The
term 'the barbèd fire' represents of course 'the winged reeds,' or
arrows: actual reeds or arrows are now transmuted into flame-tipped
arrows (conformable to the spiritual or immaterial quality of the
Dreams): the fire is to be quenched against the frost of the death-cold
cheek of Adonais. 'Frozen tears--frozen cheek:' Shelley would scarcely,
I apprehend, have allowed this repetition, but for some inadvertence. I
am free to acknowledge that I think the whole of this stanza bad. Its
_raison d'être_ is a figurative but perfectly appropriate and
straightforward passage in Bion: Shelley has attempted to turn that into
a still more figurative passage suitable for _Adonais_, with a result
anything but happy. He fails to make it either straightforward or
appropriate, and declines into the super-subtle or wiredrawn.
+Stanza 12,+ 1. 1. _Another Splendour._ Another luminous Dream.
1. 2. _That mouth whence it was wont to draw the breath,_ &c. Adonais
(Keats), as a poet, is here figured as if he were a singer; consequently
we are referred to his 'mouth' as the vehicle of his thoughts or poetic
imaginings--not to his hand which recorded them.
1. 3. _To pierce the guarded wit._ To obtain entry into the otherwise
unready minds of others--the hearers (or readers) of the poet.
11. 5, 6. _The damp death Quenched its caress upon his icy lips._ This
phrase is not very clear. I understand it to mean--The damps of death
[upon the visage of Adonais] quenched the caress of the Splendour [or
Dream] imprinted on his icy lips. It might however be contended that the
term 'the damp death' is used as an energetic synonym for the
'Splendour' itself. In this case the sense of the whole passage may be
amplified thus: The Splendour, in imprinting its caress upon the icy
lips of Adonais, had its caress quenched by the cold, and was itself
converted into dampness and deathliness: it was no longer a luminous
Splendour, but a vaporous and clammy form of death. The assumption that
'the damp death' stands as a synonym for the 'Splendour' obtains some
confirmation from the succeeding phrase about the '_dying_ meteor'--for
this certainly seems used as a simile for the 'Splendour.'
1. 7. _'And, as a dying meteor,'_ &c. The dying meteor, in this simile,
must represent the Splendour; the wreath of moonlight vapour stands for
the pale limbs of Adonais; the cold night may in a general way symbolize
the night of death.
1. 9. _It flushed through his pale limbs, and passed to its eclipse._
The Splendour flushed through the limbs of Adonais, and so became
eclipsed,--faded into nothingness. This terminates the episode of the
'quick Dreams,' beginning with stanza 9.
+Stanza 13,+ 1. 1. _And others came,--Desires and Adorations,_ &c. This
passage is the first in which Shelley has direct recourse, no longer to
the Elegy of Bion for Adonis, but to the Elegy of Moschus for Bion. As
he had spiritualized the impersonations of Bion, so he now spiritualizes
those of Moschus. The Sicilian lyrist gives us (see p. 65) Apollo,
Satyrs, Priapi, Panes, and Fountain-fairies. Shelley gives us Desires,
Adorations, Persuasions, Destinies, Splendours, Glooms, Hopes, Fears,
Phantasies, Sorrow, Sighs, and Pleasure. All these 'lament Adonais'
(stanza 14): they are such emotional or abstract beings as 'he had
loved, and moulded into thought from shape and hue and odour and sweet
sound.' The adjectival epithets are worth noting for their poetic
felicity: wingèd Persuasions (again hinting at [Greek: epea pteroenta]),
veiled Destinies, glimmering Hopes and Fears, twilight Phantasies.
1. 6. _And Pleasure, blind with tears_, &c. The Rev. Stopford Brooke, in
an eloquent Lecture delivered to the Shelley Society in June, 1889,
dwelt at some length upon the singular mythopoeic gift of the poet.
These two lines are an instance in point, of a very condensed kind.
Pleasure, heart-struck at the death of Adonais, has abrogated her own
nature, and has become blinded with tears; her eyes can therefore serve
no longer to guide her steps. Her smile too is dying, but not yet dead;
it emits a faint gleam which, in default of eyes, serves to distinguish
the path. If one regards this as a mere image, it may be allowed to
approach close to a conceit; but it suggests a series of incidents and
figurative details which may rather count as a compendious myth.
1. 8. _Came in slow pomp:--the moving pomp might seem._ The repetition
of the word 'pomp' gives a certain poverty to the sound of this line; it
can hardly, I think, have been deliberately intended. In other respects
this stanza is one of the most melodious in the poem.
+Stanza 14+, 11. 3, 4. _Morning sought Her eastern watch-tower, and her
hair unbound_, &c. Whether Shelley wished the reader to attribute any
distinct naturalistic meaning to the 'hair' of Morning is a question
which may admit of some doubt. If he did so, the 'hair unbound' is
probably to be regarded as streaks of rain-cloud; these cloudlets ought
to fertilize the soil with their moisture; but, instead of that, they
merely dim the eyes of Morning, and dull the beginnings of day. In this
instance, and in many other instances ensuing, Shelley represents
natural powers or natural objects--morning, echo, flowers, &c.--as
suffering some interruption or decay of essence or function, in sympathy
with the stroke which has cut short the life of Adonais. It need hardly
be said that, in doing this, he only follows a host of predecessors. He
follows, for example, his special models Bion and Moschus. They probably
followed earlier models; but I have failed in attempting to trace how
far back beyond them this scheme of symbolism may have extended;
something of it can be found in Theocritus. The legend--doubtless a very
ancient one--that the sisters of Phaeton wept amber for his fall belongs
to the same order of ideas (as a learned friend suggests to me).
1. 8. _Pale Ocean_. As not only the real Keats, but also the figurative
Adonais, died in Rome, the ocean cannot be a feature in the immediate
scene; it lies in the not very remote distance, felt rather than visible
to sight. Of course too, Ocean (as well as Thunder and Winds) is
personated in this passage; he is a cosmic deity, lying pale in unquiet
slumber.
+Stanza 15+, 1. 1. _Lost Echo sits_, &c. Echo is introduced into both
the Grecian elegies, that of Moschus as well as that of Bion. Bion (p.
64) simply says that 'Echo resounds, "Adonis dead!"' But Moschus (p.
65), whom Shelley substantially follows, sets forth that 'Echo in the
rocks laments that thou [Bion] art silent, and no more she mimics thy
voice'; also, 'Echo, among the reeds, doth still feed upon thy songs.'
It will be observed that in this stanza Echo is a single personage--the
Nymph known to mythological fable: but in stanza 2 we had various
'Echoes,' spirits of minor account, who, in the paradise of Urania, were
occupied with the poems of Adonais.
11. 6-8. _His lips, more dear Than those for whose disdain she pined
away Into a shadow of all sounds._ Echo is, in mythology, a Nymph who
was in love with Narcissus. He, being enamoured of his own beautiful
countenance, paid no heed to Echo, who consequently 'pined away into a
shadow of all sounds.' In this expression one may discern a delicate
double meaning. (1) Echo pined away into (as the accustomed phrase goes)
'a mere shadow of her former self.' (2) Just as a solid body, lighted by
the sun, casts, as a necessary concomitant, a shadow of itself, so a
sound, emitted under the requisite conditions, casts an echo of itself;
echo is, in relation to sound, the same sort of thing as shadow in
relation to substance.
11. 8, 9. _A drear Murmur, between their songs, is all the woodmen
hear._ Echo will not now repeat the songs of the woodmen; she merely
murmurs some snatches of the 'remembered lay' of Adonais.
+Stanza 16+, 1. 1. _Grief made the young Spring wild._ This introduction
of Spring may be taken as implying that Shelley supposed Keats to have
died in the Spring: but in fact he died in the Winter--23 February. As
to this point see pp. 30 and 96.
11. 1-3. _And she threw down Her kindling buds, as if she Autumn were,
Or they dead leaves._ This corresponds to a certain extent with the
phrases in Bion, 'the flowers are withered up with grief,' and 'yea all
the flowers are faded' (p. 64); and in Moschus, 'and in sorrow for thy
fall the trees cast down their fruit, and all the flowers have faded'
(p. 65). It may be worth observing that Shelley says--'As if she Autumn
were, _or_ they dead leaves' (not '_and_ they dead leaves'). He
therefore seems to present the act of Spring from two separate points of
view: (1) She threw down the buds, as if she had been Autumn, whose
office it is to throw down, and not to cherish and develope; (2) she
threw down the buds as if they had been, not buds of the nascent year,
but such dead leaves of the olden year as still linger on the spray when
Spring arrives,
1. 4. _For whom should she have waked the sullen Year?_ The year,
beginning on 1 January, may in a certain sense be conceived as sleeping
until roused by the call of Spring. But more probably Shelley here
treats the year as beginning on 25 March--which date would witness its
awakening, and practically its first existence.
11. 5-7. _To Phoebus was not Hyacinth so dear, Nor to himself Narcissus,
as to both Thou, Adonais; wan they stand and sere_, &c. This passage
assimilates two sections in the Elegy of Moschus, p. 65: 'Now, thou
hyacinth, whisper the letters on thee graven, and add a deeper ai ai to
thy petals: he is dead, the beautiful singer.... Nor so much did
pleasant Lesbos mourn for Alcaeus,' &c. The passage of Shelley is rather
complicated in its significance, because it mixes up the personages
Hyacinthus and Narcissus with the flowers hyacinth and narcissus. The
beautiful youth Hyacinthus was dear to Phoebus; on his untimely death
(he was slain by a quoit which Phoebus threw, and which the jealous
Zephyrus blew aside so that it struck Hyacinthus on the head), the god
changed his blood into the flower hyacinth, which bears markings
interpreted by the Grecian fancy into the lettering [Greek: ai ai]
(alas, alas!). The beautiful youth Narcissus, contemplating himself in a
streamlet, became enamoured of his own face; and pining away, was
converted into the flower narcissus. This accounts for the lines, 'To
Phoebus was not Hyacinth so dear, nor to himself Narcissus.' But, when
we come to the sequence, 'as to both thou, Adonais.' we have to do, no
longer with the youths Hyacinthus and Narcissus, but with the flowers
hyacinth and narcissus: it is the flowers which (according to Shelley)
loved Adonais better than the youths were loved, the one by Phoebus and
the other by himself. These flowers--being some of the kindling buds
which Spring had thrown down--stand 'wan and sere.' (This last point is
rather the reverse of a phrase in Bion's Elegy, p. 64, 'The flowers
flush red for anguish.') It may perhaps be held that the transition from
the youths to the flowers, and from the emotions of Phoebus and of
Narcissus to those assigned to the flowers, is not very happily managed
by Shelley: it is artificial, and not free from confusion. As to the
hyacinth, the reader will readily perceive that a flower which bears
markings read off into [Greek: ai ai] (or [Greek: AI AI] seems more
correct) cannot be the same which we now call hyacinth. Ovid says that
in form the hyacinth resembles a lily, and that its colour is
'purpureus,' or deep red. John Martyn, who published in 1755 _The
Georgicks of Virgil with an English Translation_, has an elaborate note
on the subject. He concludes thus: 'I am pretty well satisfied that the
flower celebrated by the poets is what we now are acquainted with under
the name 'Lilium floribus reflexis,' or Martagon, and perhaps may be
that very species which we call Imperial Martagon. The flowers of most
sorts of martagons have many spots of a deeper colour: and sometimes I
have seen these spots run together in such a manner as to form the
letters AI in several places.' Shelley refers to the hyacinth in another
passage (_Prometheus Unbound_, act 2, sc. 1) which seems to indicate
that he regarded the antique hyacinth as being the same as the modern
hyacinth,--
'As the _blue bells_
Of hyacinth tell Apollo's written grief.'
1. 8. _Amid the faint companions of their youth._ In Shelley's edition
the words are 'Amid the drooping comrades,' &c. The change was made
under the same circumstances as noted on p. 105. Whether it is a change
for the better may admit of some question. The faint companions of the
youth of the hyacinth and the narcissus must be other flowers, such as
Spring had thrown down.
1. 9. _With dew all turned to tears,--odour, to sighing ruth._ The dew
upon the hyacinth and narcissus is converted into tears: they exhale
sighs, instead of fragrance. All this is in rather a _falsetto_ tone. It
has some resemblance to the more simple and touching phrase in the Elegy
by Moschus (p. 65): 'Ye flowers, now in sad clusters breathe yourselves
away.'
+Stanza 17+, 1. 1. _Thy spirits sister, the lorn nightingale, Mourns not
her mate_, &c. The reason for calling the nightingale the sister of the
spirit of Keats (Adonais) does not perhaps go beyond this--that, as
the nightingale is a supreme songster among birds, so was Keats a
supreme songster among men. It is possible however--and one
willingly supposes so--that Shelley singled out the nightingale for
mention, in recognition of the consummate beauty of Keats's _Ode to
the Nightingale_, published in the same volume with _Hyperion_. The
epithet 'lorn' may also be noted in the same connexion; as Keats's
Ode terminates with a celebrated passage in which 'forlorn' is the
leading word (but not as an epithet for the nightingale itself)--
'Forlorn!--the very word is as a knell,' &c.
The nightingale is also introduced into the Elegy of Moschus for
Bion; 'Ye nightingales that lament,' &c. (p. 65), and 'Nor
ever sang so sweet the nightingale on the cliffs.' Poets are
fond of speaking of the nightingale as being the hen-bird, and
Shelley follows this precedent. It is a fallacy, for the songster
is always the cock-bird.
1. 3. _Not so the eagle_, &c. The general statement in these lines is
that Albion wails for the death of Keats more melodiously than the
nightingale mourning for her lost mate, and more passionately than the
eagle robbed of her young. This statement has proved true enough in the
long run: when Shelley wrote, it was only prospectively or potentially
true, for the death of Keats excited no immediate widespread concern in
England. It should be observed that, by introducing Albion as a
figurative personage in his Elegy, Shelley disregards his emblematic
Grecian youth Adonais, and goes straight to the actual Englishman Keats.
This passage, taken as a whole, is related to that of Moschus (p. 65)
regarding the nightingale, the sea-bird, and the bird of Memnon; see
also the passage, 'and not for Sappho, but still for thee,' &c.
11. 4, 5. _Could nourish in the sun's domain Her mighty youth with
morning._ This phrase seems to have some analogy to that of Milton in
his _Areopagitica_: 'Methinks I see in my mind a noble and puissant
nation rousing herself like a strong man after sleep and shaking her
invincible locks. Methinks I see her as an eagle muing her mighty youth,
and kindling her undazzled eyes at the full mid-day beam--purging and
unsealing her long-abused sight at the fountain itself of heavenly
radiance.'
11. 7, 8. _The curse of Cain Light on his head_, &c. An imprecation
against the critic of Keats's _Endymion_ in the _Quarterly Review_: see
especially p. 39, &c. The curse of Cain was that he should be 'a
fugitive and a vagabond,' as well as unsuccessful in tilling the soil.
Shelley probably pays no attention to these details, but simply means
'the curse of murder.'
+Stanza 18,+ 11. 1, 2. _Ah woe is me! Winter is come and gone, But grief
returns with the revolving year_, &c. See the passage in Moschus (p.
65): 'Ah me! when the mallows wither,' &c. The phrase in Bion has also a
certain but restricted analogy to this stanza: 'Thou must again bewail
him, again must weep for him another year' (p. 65). As to the phrase
'Winter is come and gone,' see the note (p. 111) on 'Grief made the
young Spring wild.'
1. 5. _Fresh leaves and flowers deck the dead Seasons' bier._ This
phrase is barely consistent with the statement (st. 16) as to Spring
throwing down her kindling buds. Perhaps, moreover, it was an error of
print to give 'Seasons' in the plural: 'Season's' (meaning winter) would
seem more accurate. A somewhat similar idea is conveyed in one of
Shelley's lyrics, _Autumn, a Dirge_, written in 1820:--
'And the Year
On the earth her death-bed, in a shroud of leaves dead,
Is lying.'