By the God who made thee such, By the starving and the cramming Of fasts and feasts! by thy dread self, O Famine! Be what thou art not! In voice faint and low [Whilst the Veiled Figure has been chanting this strophe, MAMMON, DAKRY, LAOCTONOS, and SWELLFOOT, have surrounded IONA TAURINA, who, with her hands folded on her breast, and her eyes lifted to Heaven, stands, as with saint-like resignation, to wait the issue of the business, in perfect confidence of her innocence. [PURGANAX, after unsealing the GREEN BAG, is gravely about to pour the liquor upon her head, when suddenly the whole expression of her figure and countenance changes; she snatches it from his hand with a loud laugh of triumph, and empties it over SWELLFOOT and his whole Court, who are instantly changed into a number of filthy and ugly animals, and rush out of the Temple. The image of FAMINE then arises with a tremendous sound, the PIGS begin scrambling for the loaves, and are tripped up by the skulls; all those who EAT the loaves are turned into BULLS, and arrange themselves quietly behind the altar. The image of FAMINE sinks through a chasm in the earth, and a MINOTAUR rises. Minotaur. I am the Ionian Minotaur, the mightiest Of all Europa's taurine progeny I am the old traditional Man-Bull; 105 And from my ancestors having been Ionian, I am called fon, which, by interpretation, Is JOHN; in plain_Theban, that is to say, My name's JOHN BULL; I am a famous hunter, Or double ditch about the new enclosures; 115 Iona Taurina. (During this speech she has been putting on boots and spurs, and a hunting-cap, buckishly cocked on one side, and tucking up her hair, she leaps nimbly on his back.) Hoa! hoa! tallyho! tallyho! ho! ho! Come, let us hunt these ugly badgers down, Your steps as swift as greyhounds', and your cries Through forest, furze, and bog, and den, and desert, Full Chorus of IONA and the SWINE. Through rain, hail, and snow, Tallyho! tallyho! Through pond, ditch, and slough, Wind them, and find them, Like the Devil behind them, Tallyho! tallyho! 120 125 130 135 [Exeunt, in full cry; IONA driving on the SWINE, with the empty GREEN BAG. THE END. NOTE ON OEDIPUS TYRANNUS, BY MRS. SHELLEY IN the brief journal I kept in those days, I find recorded, in August, 1820, Shelley 'begins Swellfoot the Tyrant, suggested by the pigs at the fair of San Giuliano.' This was the period of Queen Caroline's landing in England, and the struggles made by George IV to get rid of her claims; which failing, Lord Castlereagh placed the Green Bag' on the table of the House of Commons, demanding in the King's name that an inquiry should be instituted into his wife's conduct. These circumstances were the theme of all conversation among the English. We were then at the Baths of San Giuliano. A friend came to visit us on the day when a fair was held in the square, beneath our windows: Shelley read to us his Ode to Liberty; and was riotously accompanied by the grunting of a quantity of pigs brought for sale to the fair. He compared it to the 'chorus of frogs' in the satiric drama of Aristophanes; and, it being an hour of merriment, and one ludicrous association suggesting another, he imagined a political-satirical drama on the circumstances of the day, to which the pigs would serve as chorus— and Swellfoot was begun. When finished, it was transmitted to England, printed, and published anonymously; but stifled at the very dawn of its existence by the Society for the Suppression of Vice, who threatened to prosecute it, if not immediately withdrawn. The friend who had taken the trouble of bringing it out, of course did not think it worth the annoyance and expense of a contest, and it was laid aside. Hesitation of whether it would do honour to Shelley prevented my publishing it at first. But I cannot bring myself to keep back anything he ever wrote; for each word is fraught with the peculiar views and sentiments which he believed to be beneficial to the human race, and the bright light of poetry irradiates every thought. The world has a right to the entire compositions of such a man; for it does not live and thrive by the outworn lesson of the dullard or the hypo crite, but by the original free thoughts of men of genius, who aspire to pluck bright truth 'from the pale-faced moon; Or dive into the bottom of the deep Where fathom-line could never touch the ground, And pluck up drowned' truth. Even those who may dissent from his opinions will consider that he was a man of genius, and that the world will take more interest in his slightest word than in the waters of Lethe which are so eagerly prescribed as medicinal for all its wrongs and woe. This drama, however, must not be judged for more than was meant. It is a mere plaything of the imagination; which even may not excite smiles among many, who will not see wit in those combinations of thought which were full of the ridiculous to the author. But, like everything he wrote, it breathes that deep sympathy for the sorrows of humanity, and indignation against its oppressors, which make it worthy of his name. EPIPSYCHIDION VERSES ADDRESSED TO THE NOBLE AND UNFORTUNATE LADY, EMILIA V— NOW IMPRISONED IN THE CONVENT OF L'anima amante si slancia fuori del creato, e si crea nell' infinito un Mondo tutto per essa, diverso assai da questo oscuro e pauroso baratro. HER OWN WORDS. [Epipsychidion was composed at Pisa, Jan., Feb., 1821, and published without the author's name, in the following summer, by C. & J. Ollier, London. The poem was included by Mrs. Shelley in the Poetical Works, 1839, both edd. Amongst the Shelley MSS. in the Bodleian is a first draft of Epipsychidion, consisting of three versions, more or less complete, of the Preface [Advertisement], a version in ink and pencil, much cancelled, of the last eighty lines of the poem, and some additional lines which did not appear in print' (Examination of the Shelley MSS. in the Bodleian Library, by C. D. Locock. Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1903, p. 3). This draft, the writing of which is 'extraordinarily confused and illegible,' has been carefully deciphered and printed by Mr. Locock in the volume named above. Our text follows that of the editio princeps, 1821.] ADVERTISEMENT THE Writer of the following | lines died at Florence, as he was preparing for a voyage to one of the wildest of the Sporades, which he had bought, and where he had fitted up the ruins of an old building, and where it was his hope to have realised a scheme of life, suited perhaps to that happier and better world of which he is now an inhabitant, but hardly practicable in this. His life was singular; less on account of the romantic vicissitudes which diversified it, than the ideal tinge which it received from his own character and feelings. The present Poem, like the Vita Nuova of Dante, is sufficiently intelligible to a certain class of readers without a matter-of-fact history of the cir cumstances to which it relates; and to a certain other class it must ever remain incomprehen a sible, from a defect of a common organ of perception for the ideas of which it treats. Not but that gran vergogna sarebbe colui, che rimasse cosa sotto veste di figura, o di colore rettorico: e domandato non sapesse denudare le sue parole da cotal veste, in guisa che avessero verace intendimento. The present poem appears to have been intended by the Writer as the dedication to some longer one. The stanza on the opposite page1 is almost a literal translation from Dante's famous Canzone Voi, ch' intendendo, il terzo ciel movete, etc. The presumptuous application of My Song, I fear that thou wilt find but few Whence, if by misadventure, chance should bring EPIPSYCHIDION SWEET Spirit! Sister of that orphan one, 1i.e. the nine lines which follow, beginning, 'My Song, I fear,' etc.-ED. S. 5 Poor captive bird! who, from thy narrow cage, 5 ΤΟ High, spirit-winged Heart! who dost for ever Lie shattered; and thy panting, wounded breast Seraph of Heaven! too gentle to be human, Of light, and love, and immortality! Thou Moon beyond the clouds! Thou living Form With those clear drops, which start like sacred dew I never thought before my death to see. I love thee; though the world by no thin name 20 25 30 35 40 Would we two had been twins of the same mother! 45 Or, that the name my heart lent to another These names, though dear, could paint not, as is due, 50 |