{"collection":"myth-cosmogony","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_6447/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_6447","id":"gutenberg_6447","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/6447","summary":null,"tags":["Category: British Literature","Category: Mythology, Legends & Folklore","Category: Plays/Films/Dramas","Midas (Legendary character) -- Drama","Mythology, Classical -- Drama","Proserpina (Roman deity) -- Drama"],"text":"PROSERPINE\n&\nMIDAS\n\nTwo unpublished Mythological Dramas\n\nby\nMARY SHELLEY\n\nEdited with Introduction\nby\nA. KOSZUL\n\n\n\n\nPREFATORY NOTE.\n\n\nThe editor came across the unpublished texts included in this volume as\nearly as 1905. Perhaps he ought to apologize for delaying their\nappearance in print. The fact is he has long been afraid of overrating\ntheir intrinsic value. But as the great Shelley centenary year has\ncome, perhaps this little monument of his wife\u2019s collaboration may take\nits modest place among the tributes which will be paid to his memory.\nFor Mary Shelley\u2019s mythological dramas can at least claim to be the\nproper setting for some of the most beautiful lyrics of the poet, which\nso far have been read in undue isolation. And even as a literary sign\nof those times, as an example of that classical renaissance which the\nromantic period fostered, they may not be altogether negligible.\n\nThese biographical and literary points have been dealt with in an\nintroduction for which the kindest help was long ago received from the\nlate Dr. Garnett and the late Lord Abinger. Sir Walter Raleigh was also\namong the first to give both encouragement and guidance. My friends M.\nEmile Pons and Mr. Roger Ingpen have read the book in manuscript. The\nauthorities of the Bodleian Library and of the Clarendon Press have\nbeen as generously helpful as is their well-known wont. To all the\neditor wishes to record his acknowledgements and thanks.\n\nSTRASBOURG.\n\n\n\n\nINTRODUCTION.\n\n\nI.\n\n\u2018The compositions published in Mrs. Shelley\u2019s lifetime afford but an\ninadequate conception of the intense sensibility and mental vigour of\nthis extraordinary woman.\u2019\n\nThus wrote Dr. Garnett, in 1862 (Preface to his _Relics of Shelley_).\nThe words of praise may have sounded unexpectedly warm at that date.\nPerhaps the present volume will make the reader more willing to\nsubscribe, or less inclined to demur.\n\nMary Godwin in her younger days certainly possessed a fair share of\nthat nimbleness of invention which generally characterizes women of\nletters. Her favourite pastime as a child, she herself testifies[1],\nhad been to write stories. And a dearer pleasure had been\u2014to use her\nown characteristic abstract and elongated way of putting it\u2014\u2018the\nfollowing up trains of thought which had for their subject the\nformation of a succession of imaginary incidents\u2019. All readers of\nShelley\u2019s life remember how later on, as a girl of nineteen\u2014and a two\nyears\u2019 wife\u2014she was present, \u2018a devout but nearly silent listener\u2019, at\nthe long symposia held by her husband and Byron in Switzerland (June\n1816), and how the pondering over \u2018German horrors\u2019, and a common\nresolve to perpetrate ghost stories of their own, led her to imagine\nthat most unwomanly of all feminine romances, _Frankenstein_. The\nparadoxical effort was paradoxically successful, and, as publishers\u2019\nlists aver to this day, Frankenstein\u2019s monster has turned out to be the\nhardest-lived specimen of the \u2018raw-head-and-bloody-bones\u2019 school of\nromantic tales. So much, no doubt, to the credit of Mary Shelley. But\nmore creditable, surely, is the fact that she was not tempted, as\n\u2018Monk\u2019 Lewis had been, to persevere in those lugubrious themes.\n\nAlthough her publishers\u2014_et pour cause_\u2014insisted on styling her \u2018the\nauthor of Frankenstein\u2019, an entirely different vein appears in her\nlater productions. Indeed, a quiet reserve of tone, a slow, sober, and\nsedate bearing, are henceforth characteristic of all her literary\nattitudes. It is almost a case of running from one to the other\nextreme. The force of style which even adverse critics acknowledged in\n_Frankenstein_ was sometimes perilously akin to the most disputable\nkinds of romantic rant. But in the historical or society novels which\nfollowed, in the contributions which graced the \u2018Keepsakes\u2019 of the\nthirties, and even\u2014alas\u2014in the various prefaces and commentaries which\naccompanied the publication of so many poems of Shelley, his wife\nsuccumbed to an increasing habit of almost Victorian reticence and\ndignity. And those later novels and tales, though they sold well in\ntheir days and were kindly reviewed, can hardly boast of any reputation\nnow. Most of them are pervaded by a brooding spirit of melancholy of\nthe \u2018moping\u2019 rather than the \u2018musical\u2019 sort, and consequently rather\nineffective as an artistic motive. Students of Shelley occasionally\nscan those pages with a view to pick some obscure \u2018hints and\nindirections\u2019, some veiled reminiscences, in the stories of the\nadventures and misfortunes of _The Last Man_ or _Lodore_. And the books\nmay be good biography at times\u2014they are never life.\n\nAltogether there is a curious contrast between the two aspects,\nhitherto revealed, of Mary Shelley\u2019s literary activities. It is as if\nthe pulse which had been beating so wildly, so frantically, in\n_Frankenstein_ (1818), had lapsed, with _Valperga_ (1823) and the rest,\ninto an increasingly sluggish flow.\n\nThe following pages may be held to bridge the gap between those two\nextremes in a felicitous way. A more purely artistic mood, instinct\nwith the serene joy and clear warmth of Italian skies, combining a good\ndeal of youthful buoyancy with a sort of quiet and unpretending\nphilosophy, is here represented. And it is submitted that the little\nclassical fancies which Mrs. Shelley never ventured to publish are\nquite as worthy of consideration as her more ambitious prose works.\n\nFor one thing they give us the longest poetical effort of the writer.\nThe moon of _Epipsychidion_ never seems to have been thrilled with the\nmusic of the highest spheres. Yet there were times when Shelley\u2019s\ninspiration and example fired her into something more than her usual\ncalm and cold brilliancy.\n\nOne of those periods\u2014perhaps the happiest period in Mary\u2019s life\u2014was\nduring the early months in Italy of the English \u2018exiles\u2019. \u2018She never\nwas more strongly impelled to write than at this time; she felt her\npowers fresh and strong within her; all she wanted was some motive,\nsome suggestion to guide her in the choice of a subject.\u2019[2]\n\nShelley then expected her to try her hand at a drama, perhaps on the\nterrible story of the Cenci, or again on the catastrophes of Charles\nthe First. Her _Frankenstein_ was attracting more attention than had\never been granted to his own works. And Shelley, with that touching\nsimplicity which characterized his loving moments, showed the greatest\nconfidence in the literary career of his wife. He helped her and\nencouraged her in every way. He then translated for her Plato\u2019s\n_Symposium_. He led her on in her Latin and Italian studies. He wanted\nher\u2014probably as a sort of preliminary exercise before her flight into\ntragedy\u2014to translate Alfieri\u2019s _Myrrha_. \u2018Remember _Charles the First_,\nand do you be prepared to bring at least some of _Myrrha_ translated,\u2019\nhe wrote; \u2018remember, remember _Charles the First_ and _Myrrha_,\u2019 he\ninsisted; and he quoted, for her benefit, the presumptuous aphorism of\nGodwin, in _St. Leon_, \u2018There is nothing which the human mind can\nconceive which it may not execute\u2019.[3]\n\nBut in the year that followed these auspicious days, the strain and\nstress of her life proved more powerful on Mary Shelley than the\ninspiration of literature. The loss of her little girl Clara, at\nVenice, on the 24th of September 1818, was cruel enough. However, she\ntried hard not to show the \u2018pusillanimous disposition\u2019 which, Godwin\nassured his daughter, characterizes the persons \u2018that sink long under a\ncalamity of this nature\u2019.[4] But the death of her boy, William, at\nRome, on the 4th of June 1819, reduced her to a \u2018kind of despair\u2019.\nWhatever it could be to her husband, Italy no longer was for her a\n\u2018paradise of exiles\u2019. The flush and excitement of the early months, the\n\u2018first fine careless rapture\u2019, were for ever gone. \u2018I shall never\nrecover that blow,\u2019 Mary wrote on the 27th of June 1819; \u2018the thought\nnever leaves me for a single moment; everything on earth has lost its\ninterest for me,\u2019 This time her imperturbable father \u2019philosophized\u2019 in\nvain. With a more sympathetic and acuter intelligence of her case,\nLeigh Hunt insisted (July 1819) that she should try and give her\nparalysing sorrow some literary expression, \u2018strike her pen into\nsome... genial subject... and bring up a fountain of gentle tears for\nus\u2019. But the poor childless mother could only rehearse her\ncomplaint\u2014\u2018to have won, and thus cruelly to have lost\u2019 (4 August 1819).\nIn fact she had, on William\u2019s death, discontinued her diary.\n\nYet on the date just mentioned, as Shelley reached his twenty-seven\nyears, she plucked up courage and resumed the task. Shelley, however\nabsorbed by the creative ardour of his _Annus mirabilis_, could not but\nobserve that his wife\u2019s \u2018spirits continued wretchedly depressed\u2019 (5\nAugust 1819); and though masculine enough to resent the fact at times\nmore than pity it, he was human enough to persevere in that habit of\nco-operative reading and writing which is one of the finest traits of\nhis married life. \u2018I write in the morning,\u2019 his wife testifies, \u2018read\nLatin till 2, when we dine; then I read some English book, and two\ncantos of Dante with Shelley\u2019[5] \u2014a fair average, no doubt, of the\nhomely aspect of the great days which produced _The Cenci_ and\n_Prometheus_.\n\nOn the 12th November, in Florence, the birth of a second son, Percy\nFlorence Shelley, helped Mary out of her sense of bereavement.\nSubsequent letters still occasionally admit \u2018low spirits\u2019. But the\nentries in the Journal make it clear that the year 1819-20 was one of\nthe most pleasantly industrious of her life. Not Dante only, but a\nmotley series of books, great and small, ancient and modern, English\nand foreign, bespoke her attention. Not content with Latin, and the\nextemporized translations which Shelley could give her of Plato\u2019s\n_Republic_, she started Greek in 1820, and soon came to delight in it.\nAnd again she thought of original composition. \u2018Write\u2019, \u2018work,\u2019\u2014the\nwords now occur daily in her Journal. These must mainly refer to the\nlong historical novel, which she had planned, as early as 1819,[6]\nunder the title of _Castruccio_, _Prince of Lucca_, and which was not\npublished until 1823, as _Valperga_. It was indeed a laborious task.\nThe novel \u2018illustrative of the manners of the Middle Ages in Italy\u2019 had\nto be \u2018raked out of fifty old books\u2019, as Shelley said.[7]\n\nBut heavy as the undertaking must have been, it certainly did not\nengross all the activities of Shelley\u2019s wife in this period. And it\nseems highly probable that the two little mythological dramas which we\nhere publish belong to this same year 1820.\n\nThe evidence for this date is as follows. Shelley\u2019s lyrics, which these\ndramas include, were published by his wife (_Posthumous Poems_, 1824)\namong the \u2018poems written in 1820\u2019. Another composition, in blank verse,\ncuriously similar to Mary\u2019s own work, entitled _Orpheus_, has been\nallotted by Dr. Garnett (_Relics of Shelley_, 1862) to the same\ncategory.[8] Again, it may well be more than a coincidence, that the\nProserpine motive occurs in that passage from Dante\u2019s _Purgatorio_,\ncanto 28, on \u2018Matilda gathering flowers\u2019, which Shelley is known to\nhave translated shortly before Medwin\u2019s visit in the late autumn of\n1820.\n\n        O come, that I may hear\nThy song: like Proserpine, in Enna\u2019s glen,\nThou seemest to my fancy,\u2014singing here,\nAnd gathering flowers, as that fair maiden, when\nShe lost the spring and Ceres her more dear.[9]\n\n\nBut we have a far more important, because a direct, testimony in a\nmanuscript addition made by Thomas Medwin in the margin of a copy of\nhis _Life of Shelley_ (1847).[10] The passage is clearly\nintended\u2014though chronology is no more than any other exact science the\n\u2018forte\u2019 of that most tantalizing of biographers\u2014to refer to the year\n1820.\n\n\u2018Mrs. Shelley had at this time been writing some little Dramas on\nclassical subjects, one of which was the Rape of Proserpine, a very\ngraceful composition which she has never published. Shelley contributed\nto this the exquisite fable of Arethusa and the Invocation to\nCeres.\u2014Among the Nymphs gathering flowers on Enna were two whom she\ncalled Ino and Uno, names which I remember in the Dialogue were\nirresistibly ludicrous. She also wrote one on Midas, into which were\nintroduced by Shelley, in the Contest between Pan and Apollo, the\nSublime Effusion of the latter, and Pan\u2019s characterised Ode.\u2019\n\nThis statement of Medwin finally settles the question. The \u2018friend\u2019 at\nwhose request, Mrs. Shelley says,[11] the lyrics were written by her\nhusband, was herself. And she was the author of the dramas.[12]\n\nThe manuscript (Bodleian Library, MS. Shelley, d. 2) looks like a cheap\nexercise-book, originally of 40, now of 36 leaves, 8 1/4 x 6 inches, in\nboards. The contents are the dramas here presented, written in a clear\nlegible hand\u2014the equable hand of Mrs. Shelley.[13] There are very few\nwords corrected or cancelled. It is obviously a fair copy. Mr. C. D.\nLocock, in his _Examination of the Shelley Manuscripts in the Bodleian\nLibrary_ (Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1903, pp. 24-25), has already\npointed out the valuable emendations of the \u2018received\u2019 text of\nShelley\u2019s lyrics which are found here. In fact the only mystery is why\nneither Shelley, nor Mary in the course of her long widowed years,\nshould have published these curious, and surely not contemptible,\nby-products of their co-operation in the fruitful year 1820.\n\n\nFootnotes\n\n\n [1] Preface to the 1831 edition of _Frankenstein_.\n\n\n [2] Mrs. Marshall, _The Life and Letters of Mary W. Shelley_, i. 216.\n\n\n [3] Letter from Padua, 22 September 1818.\n\n\n [4] 27 October 1818\n\n\n [5] Letter to Mrs. Hunt, 28 August 1819.\n\n\n [6] She had \u2018thought of it\u2019 at Marlow, as appears from her letter to\n Mrs. Gisborne, 30 June 1821 (in Mrs. Marshall, i. p. 291); but the\n materials for it were not found before the stay at Naples, and it was\n not actually begun \u2018till a year afterwards, at Pisa\u2019 (ibid.).\n\n\n [7] Letter to T. L. Peacock, November 1820.\n\n\n [8] Dr. Garnett, in his prefatory note, states that Orpheus \u2018exists\n only in a transcript by Mrs. Shelley, who has written in playful\n allusion to her toils as amanuensis _Aspetto fin che il diluvio cala,\n ed allora cerco di posare argine alle sue parole_\u2019. The poem is thus\n supposed to have been Shelley\u2019s attempt at improvisation, if not\n indeed a translation from the Italian of the \u2018improvvisatore\u2019 Sgricci.\n The Shelleys do not seem to have come to know and hear Sgricci before\n the end of December 1820. The Italian note after all has no very clear\n import. And Dr. Garnett in 1905 inclined to the view that _Orpheus_\n was the work not of Shelley, but of his wife. A comparison of that\n fragment and the dramas here published seems to me to suggest the same\n conclusion, though in both cases Mary Shelley must have been helped by\n her husband.\n\n\n [9] As published by Medwin, 1834 and 1847.\n\n\n [10] The copy, 2 vols., was sold at Sotheby\u2019s on the 6th December\n 1906: Mr. H. Buxton Forman (who was, I think, the buyer) published the\n contents in _The Life of Percy Bysshe Shelley, By Thomas Medwin, A New\n Edition printed from a copy copiously amended and extended by the\n Author_ . . . Milford, 1913. The passage here quoted appears on p. 27\n of the 2nd vol. of the 1847 edition (Forman ed., p. 252)\n\n\n [11] The Hymns of Pan and Apollo were first published by Mrs. Shelley\n in _the Posthumous Poems_, 1824, with a note saying that they had been\n \u2018written at the request of a friend to be inserted in a drama on the\n subject of Midas\u2019. _Arethusa_ appeared in the same volume, dated\n \u2018Pisa, 1820\u2019. Proserpine\u2019s song was not published before the first\n collected edition of 1839.\n\n\n [12] Not E. E. Williams (Buxton Forman, ed. 1882, vol. iv, p. 34). The\n manuscript of the poetical play composed about 1822 by the latter,\n \u2018The Promise\u2019, with Shelley\u2019s autograph poem (\u2018Night! with all thine\n eyes look down\u2019), was given to the Bodleian Library in 1914.\n\n\n [13] Shelley\u2019s lyrics are also in his wife\u2019s writing\u2014Mr. Locock is\n surely mistaken in assuming two different hands to this manuscript\n (_The Poems of Percy Bysshe Shelley_, Methuen, 1909, vol. iii, p.\n xix).\n\n\nII.\n\nFor indeed there is more than a personal interest attached to these\nwritings of Mrs. Shelley\u2019s. The fact that the same mind which had\nrevelled, a few years earlier, in the fantastical horrors of\nFrankenstein\u2019s abortive creation, could now dwell on the melancholy\nfate of Proserpine or the humorous disappointment of Midas, and delight\nin their subtle poetical or moral symbolism\u2014this fact has its\nsignificance. It is one of the earliest indications of the revival, in\nthe heart of Romanticism, of the old love of classical myths and\nclassical beauty.\n\nThe subject is a wide one, and cannot be adequately dealt with in this\nplace. But a few words may not be superfluous for a correct historical\nappreciation of Mrs. Shelley\u2019s attempt.\n\nHow deficient had been the sense of classical beauty in the so-called\nclassical age of English literature, is a trite consideration of\ncriticism. The treatment of mythology is particularly conclusive on\nthis point. Throughout the \u2018Augustan\u2019 era, mythology was approached as\na mere treasure-house of pleasant fancies, artificial decorations,\n\u2018motives\u2019, whether sumptuous or meretricious. Allusions to Jove and\nVenus, Mercury, Apollo, or Bacchus, are of course found in every other\npage of Dryden, Pope, Prior, Swift, Gay, and Parnell. But no fresh\npresentation, no loving interpretation, of the old myths occur\nanywhere. The immortal stories were then part and parcel of a sort of\npoetical curriculum through which the whole school must be taken by the\nstern masters Tradition and Propriety. There is little to be wondered\nat, if this matter of curriculum was treated by the more passive\nscholars as a matter of course, and by the sharper and less reverent\ndisciples as a matter of fun. Indeed, if any personality is then\nevinced in the adaptation of these old world themes, it is generally\nconnected with a more or less emphatic disparagement or grotesque\ndistortion of their real meaning.\n\nWhen Dryden, for example, makes use of the legend of Midas, in his\n_Wife of Bath\u2019s Tale_, he makes, not Midas\u2019s minister, but his queen,\ntell the mighty secret\u2014and thus secures another hit at woman\u2019s\nloquacity.\n\nPrior\u2019s _Female Pha\u00ebton_ is a younger sister, who, jealous of her\nelder\u2019s success, thus pleads with her \u2018mamma\u2019:\n\nI\u2019ll have my earl as well as she\n  Or know the reason why.\n\n\nAnd she wants to flaunt it accordingly.\n\nFinally,\n\nFondness prevailed; mamma gave way;\n  Kitty, at heart\u2019s desire,\n Obtained the chariot for a day,\n  And set the world on fire.\n\n\nPandora, in Parnell\u2019s _Hesiod or the Rise of Woman_, is only a\n\n        \u2018shining vengeance...\nA pleasing bosom-cheat, a specious ill\u2019\n\n\nsent by the gods upon earth to punish the race of Prometheus.\n\nThe most poetical fables of Greece are desecrated by Gay into mere\nminiatures for the decoration of his _Fan_.\n\nSimilar instances abound later on. When Armstrong brings in an\napostrophe to the Naiads, it is in the course of a _Poetical Essay on\nthe Art of Preserving Health_. And again, when Cowper stirs himself to\nintone an _Ode to Apollo_, it is in the same mock-heroic vein:\n\nPatron of all those luckless brains,\n  That to the wrong side leaning\nIndite much metre with much pains\n  And little or no meaning...\n\n\nEven in Gray\u2019s\u2014\u2018Pindaric Gray\u2019s\u2019\u2014treatment of classical themes, there\nis a sort of pervading _ennui_, or the forced appreciativeness of a\ngouty, disappointed man. The daughter of Jove to whom he dedicates his\nhymns too often is \u2018Adversity\u2019. And classical reminiscences have, even\nwith him, a dull musty tinge which recalls the antiquarian in his\nCambridge college-rooms rather than the visitor to Florence and Rome.\nFor one thing, his allusions are too many, and too transitory, to\nappear anything but artistic tricks and verse-making tools. The \u2018Aegean\ndeep\u2019, and \u2018Delphi\u2019s steep\u2019, and \u2018Meander\u2019s amber waves\u2019, and the\n\u2018rosy-crowned Loves\u2019, are too cursorily summoned, and dismissed, to\nsuggest that they have been brought in for their own sweet sakes.\n\nIt was thus with all the fine quintessences of ancient lore, with all\nthe pearl-like accretions of the faiths and fancies of the old world:\nthey were handled about freely as a kind of curious but not so very\nrare coins, which found no currency in the deeper thoughts of our\nmodern humanity, and could therefore be used as a mere badge of the\nlearning and taste of a literary \u2018coterie\u2019.\n\nThe very names of the ancient gods and heroes were in fact assuming\nthat abstract anaemic look which common nouns have in everyday\nlanguage. Thus, when Garrick, in his verses _Upon a Lady\u2019s Embroidery_,\nmentions \u2018Arachne\u2019, it is obvious that he does not expect the reader to\nthink of the daring challenger of Minerva\u2019s art, or the Princess of\nLydia, but just of a plain spider. And again, when Falconer, in his\nearly _Monody on the death of the Prince of Wales_, expresses a\nrhetorical wish\n\n\u2018to aid hoarse howling Boreas with his sighs,\u2019\n\n\nthat particular son of Astr\u00e6us, whose love for the nymph Orithyia was\nlong unsuccessful, because he could not \u2018sigh\u2019, is surely far from the\npoet\u2019s mind; and \u2018to swell the wind\u2019, or \u2018the gale\u2019, would have served\nhis turn quite as well, though less \u2018elegantly\u2019.\n\nEven Gibbon, with all his partiality for whatever was pre- or post-\nChristian, had indeed no better word than \u2018elegant\u2019 for the ancient\nmythologies of Greece and Rome, and he surely reflected no particularly\nadvanced opinion when he praised and damned, in one breath, \u2018the\npleasant and absurd system of Paganism.\u2019[1] No wonder if in his days,\nand for a long time after, the passionate giants of the Ages of Fable\nhad dwindled down to the pretty puppets with which the daughters of the\ngentry had to while away many a school hour.\n\nBut the days of this rhetorical\u2014or satirical, didactic\u2014or perfunctory,\ntreatment of classical themes were doomed. It is the glory of\nRomanticism to have opened \u2018magic casements\u2019 not only on \u2018the foam of\nperilous seas\u2019 in the West, but also on\n\n      the chambers of the East,\n The chambers of the Sun, that now\n  From ancient melody had ceased.[2]\n\n\nRomanticism, as a freshening up of all the sources of life, a general\nrejuvenescence of the soul, a ubiquitous visiting of the spirit of\ndelight and wonder, could not confine itself to the fields of mediaeval\nromance. Even the records of the Greek and Roman thought assumed a new\nbeauty; the classical sense was let free from its antiquarian trammels,\nand the perennial fanes resounded to the songs of a more impassioned\nworship.\n\nThe change, however, took some time. And it must be admitted that in\nEngland, especially, the Romantic movement was slow to go back to\nclassical themes. Winckelmann and Goethe, and Ch\u00e9nier\u2014the last, indeed,\npractically all unknown to his contemporaries\u2014had long rediscovered\nAntiquity, and felt its pulse anew, and praised its enduring power,\nwhen English poetry had little, if anything, to show in answer to the\nplaintive invocation of Blake to the Ancient Muses.\n\nThe first generation of English Romantics either shunned the subject\naltogether, or simply echoed Blake\u2019s isolated lines in isolated\npassages as regretful and almost as despondent. From Persia to Paraguay\nSouthey could wander and seek after exotic themes; his days could be\n\u2018passed among the dead\u2019\u2014but neither the classic lands nor the classic\nheroes ever seem to have detained him. Walter Scott\u2019s \u2018sphere of\nsensation may be almost exactly limited by the growth of heather\u2019, as\nRuskin says;[3] and when he came to Rome, his last illness prevented\nhim from any attempt he might have wished to make to enlarge his field\nof vision. Wordsworth was even less far-travelled, and his home-made\npoetry never thought of the \u2018Pagan\u2019 and his \u2018creed outworn\u2019, but as a\ndistinct _pis-aller_ in the way of inspiration.[4] And again, though\nColeridge has a few magnificent lines about them, he seems to have even\nless willingly than Wordsworth hearkened after\n\nThe intelligible forms of ancient poets,\nThe fair humanities of old religion.[5]\n\n\nIt was to be otherwise with the later English Romantic poets. They\nlived and worked at a time when the whole atmosphere and even the\nparaphernalia of literary composition had just undergone a considerable\nchange. After a period of comparative seclusion and self-concentration,\nEngland at the Peace of Amiens once more found its way to Europe\u2014and\nvice versa. And from our point of view this widening of prospects is\nespecially noticeable. For the classical revival in Romanticism appears\nto be closely connected with it.\n\nIt is an alluring subject to investigate. How the progress of\nscholarship, the recent \u2018finds\u2019 of archaeology, the extension of\ntravelling along Mediterranean shores, the political enthusiasms evoked\nby the stirrings of young Italy and young Greece, all combined to\nreawaken in the poetical imagination of the times the dormant memories\nof antiquity has not yet been told by the historians of literature.[6]\n\nBut\u2014and this is sufficient for our purpose\u2014every one knows what the\nElgin Marbles have done for Keats and Shelley; and what inspirations\nwere derived from their pilgrimages in classic lands by all the poets\nof this and the following generation, from Byron to Landor. Such\nexperiences could not but react on the common conception of mythology.\nA knowledge of the great classical sculpture of Greece could not but\ninvest with a new dignity and chastity the notions which so far had\nbeen nurtured on the Venus de\u2019 Medici and the Belvedere Apollo\u2014even\nShelley lived and possibly died under their spell. And \u2018returning to\nthe nature which had inspired the ancient myths\u2019, the Romantic poets\nmust have felt with a keener sense \u2018their exquisite vitality\u2019.[7] The\nwhole tenor of English Romanticism may be said to have been affected\nthereby.\n\nFor English Romanticism\u2014and this is one of its most distinctive\nmerits\u2014had no exclusiveness about it. It was too spontaneous, one would\nalmost say, too unconscious, ever to be clannish. It grew, untrammelled\nby codes, uncrystallized into formulas, a living thing always, not a\nsubject-matter for grandiloquent manifestoes and more or less dignified\nsquabbles. It could therefore absorb and turn to account elements which\nseemed antagonistic to it in the more sophisticated forms it assumed in\nother literatures. Thus, whilst French Romanticism\u2014in spite of what it\nmay or may not have owed to Ch\u00e9nier\u2014became often distinctly,\ndeliberately, wilfully anti-classical, whilst for example[8] Victor\nHugo in that all-comprehending _L\u00e9gende des Si\u00e8cles_ could find room\nfor the Hegira and for Zim-Zizimi, but did not consecrate a single line\nto the departed glories of mythical Greece, the Romantic poets of\nEngland may claim to have restored in freshness and purity the religion\nof antiquity. Indeed their voice was so convincing that even the great\nChristian chorus that broke out afresh in the Victorian era could not\nentirely drown it, and Elizabeth Barrett had an apologetic way of\ndismissing \u2018the dead Pan\u2019, and all the \u2018vain false gods of Hellas\u2019,\nwith an acknowledgement of\n\n        your beauty which confesses\nSome chief Beauty conquering you.\n\n\nThis may be taken to have been the average attitude, in the forties,\ntowards classical mythology. That twenty years before, at least in the\nShelley circle, it was far less grudging, we now have definite proof.\n\nNot only was Shelley prepared to admit, with the liberal opinion of the\ntime, that ancient mythology \u2018was a system of nature concealed under\nthe veil of allegory\u2019, a system in which a thousand fanciful fables\ncontained a secret and mystic meaning\u2019:[9] he was prepared to go a\nconsiderable step farther, and claim that there was no essential\ndifference between ancient mythology and the theology of the\nChristians, that both were interpretations, in more or less figurative\nlanguage, of the great mysteries of being, and indeed that the earlier\ninterpretation, precisely because it was more frankly figurative and\npoetical than the later one, was better fitted to stimulate and to\nallay the sense of wonder which ought to accompany a reverent and\nhigh-souled man throughout his life-career.\n\nIn the earlier phase of Shelley\u2019s thought, this identification of the\nancient and the modern faiths was derogatory to both. The letter which\nhe had written in 1812 for ihe edification of Lord Ellenborough\nrevelled in the contemplation of a time \u2018when the Christian religion\nshall have faded from the earth, when its memory like that of\nPolytheism now shall remain, but remain only as the subject of ridicule\nand wonder\u2019. But as time went on, Shelley\u2019s views became less purely\nnegative. Instead of ruling the adversaries back to back out of court,\nhe bethought himself of venturing a plea in favour of the older and\nweaker one. It may have been in 1817 that he contemplated an \u2018Essay in\nfavour of polytheism\u2019.[10] He was then living on the fringe of a\ncharmed circle of amateur and adventurous Hellenists who could have\nfurthered the scheme. His great friend, Thomas Love Peacock, \u2018Greeky\nPeaky\u2019, was a personal acquaintance of Thomas Taylor \u2018the Platonist\u2019,\nalias \u2018Pagan Taylor\u2019. And Taylor\u2019s translations and commentaries of\nPlato had been favourites of Shelley in his college days. Something at\nleast of Taylor\u2019s queer mixture of flaming enthusiasm and tortuous\ningenuity may be said to appear in the unexpected document we have now\nto examine.\n\nIt is a little draft of an Essay, which occurs, in Mrs. Shelley\u2019s\nhandwriting, as an insertion in her Journal for the Italian period. The\nfragment\u2014for it is no more\u2014must be quoted in full.[11]\n\nThe necessity of a Belief in the\nHeathen Mythology\nto a Christian\n\nIf two facts are related not contradictory of equal probability & with\nequal evidence, if we believe one we must believe the other.\n\n1st. There is as good proof of the Heathen Mythology as of the\nChristian Religion.\n\n2ly. that they [do] not contradict one another.\n\nCon[clusion]. If a man believes in one he must believe in both.\n\nExamination of the proofs of the Xtian religion\u2014the Bible & its\nauthors. The twelve stones that existed in the time of the writer prove\nthe miraculous passage of the river Jordan.[12] The immoveability of\nthe Island of Delos proves the accouchement of Latona[13] \u2014the Bible of\nthe Greek religion consists in Homer, Hesiod & the Fragments of Orpheus\n&c.\u2014All that came afterwards to be considered apocryphal\u2014Ovid =\nJosephus\u2014of each of these writers we may believe just what we cho[o]se.\n\nTo seek in these Poets for the creed & proofs of mythology which are as\nfollows\u2014Examination of these\u20141st with regard to proof\u20142 in\ncontradiction or conformity to the Bible\u2014various apparitions of God in\nthat Book [\u2014] Jupiter considered by himself\u2014his attributes\u2014disposition\n[\u2014] acts\u2014whether as God revealed himself as the Almighty to the\nPatriarchs & as Jehovah to the Jews he did not reveal himself as\nJupiter to the Greeks\u2014the possibility of various revelations\u2014that he\nrevealed himself to Cyrus.[14]\n\nThe inferior deities\u2014the sons of God & the Angels\u2014the difficulty of\nJupiter\u2019s children explained away\u2014the imagination of the poets\u2014of the\nprophets\u2014whether the circumstance of the sons of God living with\nwomen[15] being related in one sentence makes it more probable than the\ndetails of Greek\u2014Various messages of the Angels\u2014of the deities\u2014Abraham,\nLot or Tobit. Raphael [\u2014]Mercury to Priam[16] \u2014Calypso & Ulysses\u2014the\nangel wd then play the better part of the two whereas he now plays the\nworse. The ass of Balaam\u2014Oracles\u2014Prophets. The revelation of God as\nJupiter to the Greeks\u2014-a more successful revelation than that as\nJehovah to the Jews\u2014Power, wisdom, beauty, & obedience of the\nGreeks\u2014greater & of longer continuance\u2014than those of the Jews.\nJehovah\u2019s promises worse kept than Jupiter\u2019s\u2014the Jews or Prophets had\nnot a more consistent or decided notion concerning after life & the\nJudgements of God than the Greeks [\u2014] Angels disappear at one time in\nthe Bible & afterwards appear again. The revelation to the Greeks more\ncomplete than to the Jews\u2014prophesies of Christ by the heathens more\nincontrovertible than those of the Jews. The coming of X. a\nconfirmation of both religions. The cessation of oracles a proof of\nthis. The Xtians better off than any but the Jews as blind as the\nHeathens\u2014Much more conformable to an idea of [the] goodness of God that\nhe should have revealed himself to the Greeks than that he left them in\nignorance. Vergil & Ovid not truth of the heathen Mythology, but the\ninterpretation of a heathen\u2014as Milton\u2019s Paradise Lost is the\ninterpretation of a Christian religion of the Bible. The interpretation\nof the mythology of Vergil & the interpretation of the Bible by Milton\ncompared\u2014whether one is more inconsistent than the other\u2014In what they\nare contradictory. Prometheus desmotes quoted by Paul[17] [\u2014] all\nreligion false except that which is revealed\u2014revelation depends upon a\ncertain degree of civilization\u2014writing necessary\u2014no oral tradition to\nbe a part of faith\u2014the worship of the Sun no revelation\u2014Having lost the\nbooks [of] the Egyptians we have no knowledge of their peculiar\nrevelations. If the revelation of God to the Jews on Mt Sinai had been\nmore peculiar & impressive than some of those to the Greeks they wd not\nimmediately after have worshiped a calf\u2014A latitude in revelation\u2014How to\njudge of prophets\u2014the proof [of] the Jewish Prophets being prophets.\n\nThe only public revelation that Jehovah ever made of himself was on Mt\nSinai\u2014Every other depended upon the testimony of a very few & usually\nof a single individual\u2014We will first therefore consider the revelation\nof Mount Sinai. Taking the fact plainly it happened thus. The Jews were\ntold by a man whom they believed to have supernatural powers that they\nwere to prepare for that God wd reveal himself in three days on the\nmountain at the sound of a trumpet. On the 3rd day there was a cloud &\nlightning on the mountain & the voice of a trumpet extremely loud. The\npeople were ordered to stand round the foot of the mountain & not on\npain of death to infringe upon the bounds\u2014The man in whom they confided\nwent up the mountain & came down again bringing them word\n\nThe draft unfortunately leaves off here, and we are unable to know for\ncertain whether this Shelleyan paradox, greatly daring, meant to\nminimize the importance of the \u2018only public revelation\u2019 granted to the\nchosen people. But we have enough to understand the general trend of\nthe argument. It did not actually intend to sap the foundations of\nScriptural authority. But it was bold enough to risk a little shaking\nin order to prove that the Sacred Books of the Greeks and Romans did\nnot, after all, present us with a much more rickety structure. This was\na task of conciliation rather than destruction. And yet even this\nconservative view of the Shelleys\u2019 exegesis cannot\u2014and will not\u2014detract\nfrom the value of the above document. Surely, this curious theory of\nthe equal \u2018inspiration\u2019 of Polytheism and the Jewish or Christian\nreligions, whether it was invented or simply espoused by Mrs. Shelley,\nevinces in her\u2014for the time being at least\u2014a very considerable share of\nthat adventurous if somewhat uncritical alacrity of mind which carried\nthe poet through so many religious and political problems. It certainly\nvindicates her, more completely perhaps than anything hitherto\npublished, against the strictures of those who knew her chiefly or\nexclusively in later years, and could speak of her as a \u2018most\nconventional slave\u2019, who \u2018even affected the pious dodge\u2019, and \u2018was not\na suitable companion for the poet\u2019.[18] Mrs. Shelley\u2014at twenty-three\nyears of age\u2014had not yet run the full \u2018career of her humour\u2019; and her\nenthusiasm for classical mythology may well have, later on, gone the\nway of her admiration for Spinoza, whom she read with Shelley that\nwinter (1820-1), as Medwin notes,[19] and \u2018whose arguments she then\nthought irrefutable\u2014_tempora mutantur!_\u2019\n\nHowever that may be, the two little mythological dramas on _Proserpine_\nand _Midas_ assume, in the light of that enthusiasm, a special\ninterest. They stand\u2014or fall\u2014both as a literary, and to a certain\nextent as an intellectual effort. They are more than an attitude, and\nnot much less than an avowal. Not only do they claim our attention as\nthe single poetical work of any length which seems to have been\nundertaken by Mrs. Shelley; they are a unique and touching monument of\nthat intimate co-operation which at times, especially in the early\nyears in Italy, could make the union of \u2018the May\u2019 and \u2018the Elf\u2019 almost\nunreservedly delightful. It would undoubtedly be fatuous exaggeration\nto ascribe a very high place in literature to these little Ovidian\nfancies of Mrs. Shelley. The scenes, after all, are little better than\nadaptations\u2014fairly close adaptations\u2014of the Latin poet\u2019s well-known\ntales.\n\nEven _Proserpine_, though clearly the more successful of the two, both\nmore strongly knit as drama, and less uneven in style and\nversification, cannot for a moment compare with the far more original\ninterpretations of Tennyson, Swinburne, or Meredith.[20] But it is\nhardly fair to draw in the great names of the latter part of the\ncentury. The parallel would be more illuminating\u2014and the final award\npassed on Mrs. Shelley\u2019s attempt more favourable\u2014if we were to think of\na contemporary production like \u2018Barry Cornwall\u2019s\u2019 _Rape of Proserpine_,\nwhich, being published in 1820, it is just possible that the Shelleys\nshould have known. B. W. Procter\u2019s poem is also a dramatic \u2018scene\u2019,\nwritten \u2018in imitation of the mode originated by the Greek Tragic\nWriters\u2019. In fact those hallowed models seem to have left far fewer\ntraces in Barry Cornwall\u2019s verse than the Alexandrian\u2014or\npseudo-Alexandrian\u2014tradition of meretricious graces and coquettish\nfancies, which the eighteenth century had already run to death.[21]\nAnd, more damnable still, the poetical essence of the legend, the\nidentification of Proserpine\u2019s twofold existence with the grand\nalternation of nature\u2019s seasons, has been entirely neglected by the\nauthor. Surely his work, though published, is quite as deservedly\nobscure as Mrs. Shelley\u2019s derelict manuscript. _Midas_ has the\nprivilege, if it be one, of not challenging any obvious comparison. The\nsubject, since Lyly\u2019s and Dryden\u2019s days, has hardly attracted the\nattention of the poets. It was so eminently fit for the lighter kinds\nof presentation that the agile bibliographer who aimed at completeness\nwould have to go through a fairly long list of masques,[22] comic\noperas, or \u2018burlettas\u2019, all dealing with the ludicrous misfortunes of\nthe Phrygian king. But an examination of these would be sheer pedantry\nin this place. Here again Mrs. Shelley has stuck to her Latin source as\nclosely as she could.[23] She has made a gallant attempt to connect the\ntwo stories with which Midas has ever since Ovid\u2019s days been\nassociated, and a distinct\u2014indeed a too perceptible\u2014effort to press out\na moral meaning in this, as she had easily extricated a cosmological\nmeaning in the other tale.\n\nPerhaps we have said too much to introduce these two little\nunpretending poetical dramas. They might indeed have been allowed to\nspeak for themselves. A new frame often makes a new face; and some of\nthe best known and most exquisite of Shelley\u2019s lyrics, when restored to\nthe surroundings for which the poet intended them, needed no other\nset-off to appeal to the reader with a fresh charm of quiet classical\ngrace and beauty. But the charm will operate all the more unfailingly,\nif we remember that this clear classical mood was by no means such a\ncommon element in the literary atmosphere of the times\u2014not even a\npermanent element in the authors\u2019 lives. We have here none of the\nfeverish ecstasy that lifts _Prometheus_ and _Hellas_ far above the\nordinary range of philosophical or political poetry. But Shelley\u2019s\nencouragement, probably his guidance and supervision, have raised his\nwife\u2019s inspiration to a place considerably higher than that of\n_Frankenstein_ or _Valperga_. With all their faults these pages reflect\nsome of that irradiation which Shelley cast around his own life\u2014the\nirradiation of a dream beauteous and generous, beauteous in its\ntheology (or its substitute for theology) and generous even in its\nsatire of human weaknesses.\n\n\nFootnotes\n\n\n [1] Essay on the Study of Literature, \u00a7 56.\n\n\n [2] Blake, _Poetical Sketches_, 1783.\n\n\n [3] _Modern Painters_, iii. 317\n\n\n [4] _Sonnet_ \u2018The world is too much with us\u2019; cf. _The Excursion_, iv.\n 851-57.\n\n\n [5] _The Piccolomini_, II, iv.\n\n\n [6] At least as far as England is concerned. For France, cf. Canat, _a\n renaissance de la Gr\u00e8ce antique_, Hachette, Paris, 1911.\n\n\n [7] J. A, Symonds, _Studies of the Greek Poets_, ii, p. 258.\n\n\n [8] As pointed out by Bruneti\u00e8re, _\u00c9volution de la Po\u00e9sie lyrique_,\n ii, p. 147.\n\n\n [9] _Edinb. Rev._, July 1808.\n\n\n [10] Cf. our _Shelley\u2019s Prose in the Bodleian MSS_., 1910, p. 124.\n\n\n [11] From the \u2018Boscombe\u2019 MSS. Unpublished.\n\n\n [12] Josh. iv. 8.\u2014These notes are _not_ Shelley\u2019s.\n\n\n [13] _Theogn_. 5 foll.; Homer\u2019s _Hymn to Apollo_, i. 25.\n\n\n [14] Probably Xenophon, _Cyrop_. VIII. vii. 2.\n\n\n [15] Gen. vi.\n\n\n [16] _Iliad_, xxiv.\n\n\n [17] Shelley may refer to the proverbial phrase \u2018to kick against the\n pricks\u2019 (Acts xxvi. 14), which, however, is found in Pindar and\n Euripides as well as in Aeschylus (_Prom._ 323).\n\n\n [18] Trelawny\u2019s letter, 3 April 1870; in Mr. H. Buxton Forman\u2019s\n edition, 1910, p. 229.\n\n\n [19] I. e. ed. H. Buxton Forman, p. 253.\n\n\n [20] _Demeter and Persephone_, 1889; _The Garden of Proserpine_, 1866;\n _The Appeasement of Demeter_, 1888.\n\n\n [21] To adduce an example\u2014in what is probably not an easily accessible\n book to-day: Proserpine, distributing her flowers, thus addresses one\n of her nymphs:\n        For this lily,\nWhere can it hang but at Cyane\u2019s breast!\nAnd yet \u2019twill wither on so white a bed,\nIf flowers have sense for envy.\n\n\n [22] There is one by poor Christopher Smart.\n\n\n [23] Perhaps her somewhat wearying second act, on the effects of the\n gold-transmuting gift, would have been shorter, if Ovid (_Metam._ xi.\n 108-30) had not himself gone into such details on the subject.\n\n\n\n\nMYTHOLOGICAL DRAMAS.\n\n\nUnless otherwise pointed out\u2014by brackets, or in the notes\u2014the text,\nspelling, and punctuation of the MS. have been strictly adhered to.\n\n\n\n\nPROSERPINE.\n\n\nA DRAMA IN TWO ACTS.\n\nDRAMATIS PERSONAE\n\n\nCERES.\nPROSERPINE.\nINO, EUNOE Nymphs attendant upon Proserpine.\nIRIS.\nARETHUSA, Naiad of a Spring.\n\nShades from Hell, among which Ascalaphus.\n\n\nScene; the plain of Enna, in Sicily.\n\n\n\n\nPROSERPINE.\n\n\nACT I.\n\n_Scene; a beautiful plain, shadowed on one side by an overhanging rock,\non the other a chesnut wood. Etna at a distance._\n\n\nEnter Ceres, Proserpine, Ino and Eunoe.\n\n\nPROSERPINA.\nDear Mother, leave me not! I love to rest\nUnder the shadow of that hanging cave\nAnd listen to your tales. Your Proserpine\nEntreats you stay; sit on this shady bank,\nAnd as I twine a wreathe tell once again\nThe combat of the Titans and the Gods;\nOr how the Python fell beneath the dart\nOf dread Apollo; or of Daphne\u2019s change,\u2014\nThat coyest Grecian maid, whose pointed leaves\nNow shade her lover\u2019s brow. And I the while\nGathering the starry flowers of this fair plain\nWill weave a chaplet, Mother, for thy hair.\nBut without thee, the plain I think is vacant,\nIts[1] blossoms fade,\u2014its tall fresh grasses droop,\nNodding their heads like dull things half asleep;\u2014\nGo not, dear Mother, from your Proserpine.\n\nCERES.\nMy lovely child, it is high Jove\u2019s command:\u2014\nThe golden self-moved seats surround his throne,\nThe nectar is poured out by Ganymede,\nAnd the ambrosia fills the golden baskets;\nThey drink, for Bacchus is already there,\nBut none will eat till I dispense the food.\nI must away\u2014dear Proserpine, farewel!\u2014\nEunoe can tell thee how the giants fell;\nOr dark-eyed Ino sing the saddest change\nOf Syrinx or of Daphne, or the doom\nOf impious Prometheus, and the boy\nOf fair Pandora, Mother of mankind.\nThis only charge I leave thee and thy nymphs,\u2014\nDepart not from each other; be thou circled\nBy that fair guard, and then no earth-born Power\nWould tempt my wrath, and steal thee from their sight[.]\nBut wandering alone, by feint or force,\nYou might be lost, and I might never know\nThy hapless fate. Farewel, sweet daughter mine,\nRemember my commands.\n\nPROSERPINA.\n\u2014Mother, farewel!\nClimb the bright sky with rapid wings; and swift\nAs a beam shot from great Apollo\u2019s bow\nRebounds from the calm mirror of the sea\nBack to his quiver in the Sun, do thou\nReturn again to thy loved Proserpine.\n\n(_Exit Ceres_.)\n\n\nAnd now, dear Nymphs, while the hot sun is high\nDarting his influence right upon the plain,\nLet us all sit beneath the narrow shade\nThat noontide Etna casts.\u2014And, Ino, sweet,\nCome hither; and while idling thus we rest,\nRepeat in verses sweet the tale which says\nHow great Prometheus from Apollo\u2019s car\nStole heaven\u2019s fire\u2014a God-like gift for Man!\nOr the more pleasing tale of Aphrodite;\nHow she arose from the salt Ocean\u2019s foam,\nAnd sailing in her pearly shell, arrived\nOn Cyprus sunny shore, where myrtles[2] bloomed\nAnd sweetest flowers, to welcome Beauty\u2019s Queen;\nAnd ready harnessed on the golden sands\nStood milk-white doves linked to a sea-shell car,\nWith which she scaled the heavens, and took her seat\nAmong the admiring Gods.\n\nEUNOE.\n                Proserpine\u2019s tale\nIs sweeter far than Ino\u2019s sweetest aong.\n\n\nPROSERPINA.\nIno, you knew erewhile a River-God,\nWho loved you well and did you oft entice\nTo his transparent waves and flower-strewn banks.\nHe loved high poesy and wove sweet sounds,\nAnd would sing to you as you sat reclined\nOn the fresh grass beside his shady cave,\nFrom which clear waters bubbled, dancing forth,\nAnd spreading freshness in the noontide air.\nWhen you returned you would enchant our ears\nWith tales and songs which did entice the fauns,[3]\nWith Pan their King from their green haunts, to hear.\nTell me one now, for like the God himself,\nTender they were and fanciful, and wrapt\nThe hearer in sweet dreams of shady groves,\nBlue skies, and clearest, pebble-paved streams.\n\nINO.\nI will repeat the tale which most I loved;\nWhich tells how lily-crowned Arethusa,\nYour favourite Nymph, quitted her native Greece,\nFlying the liquid God Alpheus, who followed,\nCleaving the desarts of the pathless deep,\nAnd rose in Sicily, where now she flows\nThe clearest spring of Enna\u2019s gifted plain.\n\n(By Shelley)[4]\n\n\n        Arethusa arose\n        From her couch of snows,\n    In the Acroceraunian mountains,\u2014\n        From cloud, and from crag,\n        With many a jag,\n    Shepherding her bright fountains.\n        She leapt down the rocks\n        With her rainbow locks,\n    Streaming among the streams,\u2014\n        Her steps paved with green\n        The downward ravine,\n    Which slopes to the Western gleams:\u2014\n        And gliding and springing,\n        She went, ever singing\n    In murmurs as soft as sleep;\n        The Earth seemed to love her\n        And Heaven smiled above her,\n    As she lingered towards the deep.\n\n        Then Alpheus bold\n        On his glacier cold,\n    With his trident the mountains strook;\n        And opened a chasm\n        In the rocks;\u2014with the spasm\n    All Erymanthus shook.\n        And the black south wind\n        It unsealed behind\n    The urns of the silent snow,\n        And earthquake and thunder\n        Did rend in sunder\n    The bars of the springs below:\u2014\n        And the beard and the hair\n        Of the river God were\n    Seen through the torrent\u2019s sweep\n        As he followed the light\n        Of the fleet nymph\u2019s flight\n    To the brink of the Dorian deep.\n\n        Oh, save me! oh, guide me!\n        And bid the deep hide me,\n    For he grasps me now by the hair!\n        The loud ocean heard,\n        To its blue depth stirred,\n    And divided at her prayer[,]\n        And under the water\n        The Earth\u2019s white daughter\n    Fled like a sunny beam,\n        Behind her descended\n        Her billows unblended\n    With the brackish Dorian stream:\u2014\n        Like a gloomy stain\n        On the Emerald main\n    Alpheus rushed behind,\n        As an eagle pursueing\n        A dove to its ruin,\n    Down the streams of the cloudy wind.\n\n\n        Under the bowers\n        Where the Ocean Powers\n    Sit on their pearled thrones,\n        Through the coral woods\n        Of the weltering floods,\n    Over heaps of unvalued stones;\n        Through the dim beams,\n        Which amid the streams\n    Weave a network of coloured light,\n        And under the caves,\n        Where the shadowy waves\n    Are as green as the forest\u2019s[5] night:\u2014\n        Outspeeding the shark,\n        And the sword fish dark,\n    Under the Ocean foam,[6]\n        And up through the rifts\n        Of the mountain clifts,\n    They passed to their Dorian Home.\n\n\n        And now from their fountains\n        In Enna\u2019s mountains,\n    Down one vale where the morning basks,\n        Like friends once parted,\n        Grown single hearted\n    They ply their watery tasks.\n        At sunrise they leap\n        From their cradles steep\n    In the cave of the shelving hill[,\u2014]\n        At noontide they flow\n        Through the woods below\n    And the meadows of asphodel,\u2014\n        And at night they sleep\n        In the rocking deep\n    Beneath the Ortygian shore;\u2014\n        Like spirits that lie\n        In the azure sky,\n    When they love, but live no more.\n\n\nPROSERPINA.\nThanks, Ino dear, you have beguiled an hour\nWith poesy that might make pause to list\nThe nightingale in her sweet evening song.\nBut now no more of ease and idleness,\nThe sun stoops to the west, and Enna\u2019s plain\nIs overshadowed by the growing form\nOf giant Etna:\u2014Nymphs, let us arise,\nAnd cull the sweetest flowers of the field,\nAnd with swift fingers twine a blooming wreathe\nFor my dear Mother\u2019s rich and waving hair.\n\nEUNOE.\nViolets blue and white anemonies\nBloom on the plain,\u2014but I will climb the brow\nOf that o\u2019erhanging hill, to gather thence\nThat loveliest rose, it will adorn thy crown;\nIno, guard Proserpine till my return.\n\n(_Exit_.)\n\n\nINO.\nHow lovely is this plain!\u2014Nor Grecian vale,\nNor bright Ausonia\u2019s ilex bearing shores,\nThe myrtle bowers of Aphrodite\u2019s sweet isle,\nOr Naxos burthened with the luscious vine,\nCan boast such fertile or such verdant fields\nAs these, which young Spring sprinkles with her stars;\u2014\nNor Crete which boasts fair Amalthea\u2019s horn\nCan be compared with the bright golden[7] fields\nOf Ceres, Queen of plenteous Sicily.\n\nPROSERPINA.\nSweet Ino, well I know the love you bear\nMy dearest Mother prompts your partial voice,\nAnd that love makes you doubly dear to me.\nBut you are idling,\u2014look[,] my lap is full\nOf sweetest flowers;\u2014haste to gather more,\nThat before sunset we may make our crown.\nLast night as we strayed through that glade, methought\nThe wind that swept my cheek bore on its wings\nThe scent of fragrant violets, hid\nBeneath the straggling underwood; Haste, sweet,\nTo gather them; fear not\u2014I will not stray.\n\nINO.\nNor fear that I shall loiter in my task.\n\n(_Exit_.)\n\n\n(By Shelley.)\n\n\nPROSERPINA.\n_(sings as she gathers her flowers.)_\n    Sacred Goddess, Mother Earth,\n        Thou from whose immortal bosom\n    Gods, and men, and beasts have birth,\n        Leaf, and blade, and bud, and blossom,\n  Breathe thine influence most divine\n  On thine own child Proserpine.\n\n    If with mists of evening dew\n        Thou dost nourish these young flowers\n    Till they grow in scent and hue\n        Fairest children of the hours[,]\n  Breathe thine influence most divine\n  On thine own child Proserpine.\n\n(she looks around.)\n\n\nMy nymphs have left me, neglecting the commands\nOf my dear Mother. Where can they have strayed?\nHer caution makes me fear to be alone;\u2014\nI\u2019ll pass that yawning cave and seek the spring\nOf Arethuse, where water-lilies bloom\nPerhaps the nymph now wakes tending her waves,\nShe loves me well and oft desires my stay,\u2014\nThe lilies shall adorn my mother\u2019s crown.\n\n(_Exit_.)\n\n\n(After a pause enter Eunoe.)\n\n\nEUNOE.\nI\u2019ve won my prize! look at this fragrant rose!\nBut where is Proserpine? Ino has strayed\nToo far I fear, and she will be fatigued,\nAs I am now, by my long toilsome search.\n\nEnter Ino.\n\n\nOh! you here, Wanderer! Where is Proserpine?\n\nINO.\nMy lap\u2019s heaped up with sweets; dear Proserpine,\nYou will not chide me now for idleness;\u2014\nLook here are all the treasures of the field,\u2014\nFirst these fresh violets, which crouched beneath\nA mossy rock, playing at hide and seek\nWith both the sight and sense through the high fern;\nStar-eyed narcissi & the drooping bells\nOf hyacinths; and purple polianthus,\nDelightful flowers are these; but where is she,\nThe loveliest of them all, our Mistress dear?\n\nEUNOE.\nI know not, even now I left her here,\nGuarded by you, oh Ino, while I climbed\nUp yonder steep for this most worthless rose:\u2014\nKnow you not where she is? Did you forget\nCeres\u2019 behest, and thus forsake her child?\n\nINO.\nChide not, unkind Eunoe, I but went\nDown that dark glade, where underneath the shade\nOf those high trees the sweetest violets grow,\u2014\nI went at her command. Alas! Alas!\nMy heart sinks down; I dread she may be lost;\u2014\nEunoe, climb the hill, search that ravine,\nWhose close, dark sides may hide her from our view:\u2014\nOh, dearest, haste! Is that her snow-white robe?\n\nEUNOE.\nNo;\u2014\u2019tis a faun[8] beside its sleeping Mother,\nBrowsing the grass;\u2014what will thy Mother say,\nDear Proserpine, what will bright Ceres feel,\nIf her return be welcomed not by thee?\n\nINO.\nThese are wild thoughts,\u2014& we are wrong to fear\nThat any ill can touch the child of heaven;\nShe is not lost,\u2014trust me, she has but strayed\nUp some steep mountain path, or in yon dell,\nOr to the rock where yellow wall-flowers grow,\nScaling with venturous step the narrow path\nWhich the goats fear to tread;\u2014she will return\nAnd mock our fears.\n\nEUNOE.\nThe sun now dips his beams\nIn the bright sea; Ceres descends at eve\nFrom Jove\u2019s high conclave; if her much-loved child\nShould meet her not in yonder golden field,\nWhere to the evening wind the ripe grain waves\nIts yellow head, how will her heart misgive.\nLet us adjure the Naiad of yon brook[,]\nShe may perchance have seen our Proserpine,\nAnd tell us to what distant field she\u2019s strayed:\u2014\nWait thou, dear Ino, here, while I repair\nTo the tree-shaded source of her swift stream.\n\n(_Exit_ Eunoe.)\n\n\nINO.\nWhy does my heart misgive? & scalding tears,\nThat should but mourn, now prophecy her loss?\nOh, Proserpine! Where\u2019er your luckless fate\nHas hurried you,\u2014to wastes of desart sand,\nOr black Cymmerian cave, or dread Hell,\nYet Ino still will follow! Look where Eunoe\nComes, with down cast eyes and faltering steps,\nI fear the worst;\u2014\n\nRe-enter Eunoe.\n\n\nHas she not then been seen?\n\nEUNOE.\nAlas, all hope is vanished! Hymera says\nShe slept the livelong day while the hot beams\nOf Ph\u0153bus drank her waves;\u2014nor did she wake\nUntil her reed-crowned head was wet with dew;\u2014\nIf she had passed her grot she slept the while.\n\nINO.\nAlas! Alas! I see the golden car,\nAnd hear the flapping of the dragons wings,\nCeres descends to Earth. I dare not stay,\nI dare not meet the sorrow of her look[,]\nThe angry glance of her severest eyes.\n\nEUNOE.\nQuick up the mountain! I will search the dell,\nShe must return, or I will never more.\n\n(_Exit_.)\n\n\nINO.\nAnd yet I will not fly, though I fear much\nHer angry frown and just reproach, yet shame\nShall quell this childish fear, all hope of safety\nFor her lost child rests but in her high power,\nAnd yet I tremble as I see her come.\n\nEnter Ceres.\n\n\nCERES.\nWhere is my daughter? have I aught to dread?\nWhere does she stray? Ino, you answer not;\u2014\nShe was aye wont to meet me in yon field,\u2014\nYour looks bode ill;\u2014I fear my child is lost.\n\nINO.\nEunoe now seeks her track among the woods;\nFear not, great Ceres, she has only strayed.\n\nCERES.\nAlas! My boding heart,\u2014I dread the worst.\nOh, careless nymphs! oh, heedless Proserpine!\nAnd did you leave her wandering by herself?\nShe is immortal,\u2014yet unusual fear\nRuns through my veins. Let all the woods be sought,\nLet every dryad, every gamesome faun[9]\nTell where they last beheld her snowy feet\nTread the soft, mossy paths of the wild wood.\nBut that I see the base of Etna firm\nI well might fear that she had fallen a prey\nTo Earth-born Typheus, who might have arisen\nAnd seized her as the fairest child of heaven,\nThat in his dreary caverns she lies bound;\nIt is not so: all is as safe and calm\nAs when I left my child. Oh, fatal day!\nEunoe does not return: in vain she seeks\nThrough the black woods and down the darksome glades,\nAnd night is hiding all things from our view.\nI will away, and on the highest top\nOf snowy Etna, kindle two clear flames.\nNight shall not hide her from my anxious search,\nNo moment will I rest, or sleep, or pause\nTill she returns, until I clasp again\nMy only loved one, my lost Proserpine.\n\nEND OF ACT FIRST.\n\n\n\n\nFootnotes\n\n\n [1] There is an apostrophe _on_ the s.\n\n [2] MS. _mytles._\n\n [3] MS. _fawns_\n\n [4] Inserted in a later hand, here as p. 18.\n\n [5] The intended place of the apostrophe is not clear.\n\n [6] MS. _Ocean\u2019 foam_ as if a genitive was meant; but cf. _Ocean foam_\n in the Song of Apollo (_Midas_).\n\n [7] MS. _the bright gold fields._\n\n [8] MS. _fawn._\n\n [9] MS. _fawn._\n\n\nACT II\n\nScene.\nThe Plain of Enna as before.\nEnter Ino & Eunoe.\n\n\nEUNOE.\nHow weary am I! and the hot sun flushes\nMy cheeks that else were white with fear and grief[.]\nE\u2019er since that fatal day, dear sister nymph,\nOn which we lost our lovely Proserpine,\nI have but wept and watched the livelong night\nAnd all the day have wandered through the woods[.]\n\nINO.\nHow all is changed since that unhappy eve!\nCeres forever weeps, seeking her child,\nAnd in her rage has struck the land with blight;\nTrinacria mourns with her;\u2014its fertile fields\nAre dry and barren, and all little brooks\nStruggling scarce creep within their altered banks;\nThe flowers that erst were wont with bended heads,\nTo gaze within the clear and glassy wave,\nHave died, unwatered by the failing stream.\u2014\nAnd yet their hue but mocks the deeper grief\nWhich is the fountain of these bitter tears.\nBut who is this, that with such eager looks\nHastens this way?\u2014\n\nEUNOE.\n\u2019Tis fairest Arethuse,\nA stranger naiad, yet you know her well.\n\nINO.\nMy eyes were blind with tears.\n\nEnter Arethusa.\n\n\nDear Arethuse,\nMethinks I read glad tidings in your eyes,\nYour smiles are the swift messengers that bear\nA tale of coming joy, which we, alas!\nCan answer but with tears, unless you bring\nTo our grief solace, Hope to our Despair.\nHave you found Proserpine? or know you where\nThe loved nymph wanders, hidden from our search?\n\nARETHUSE.\nWhere is corn-crowned Ceres? I have hastened\nTo ease her anxious heart.\n\nEUNOE.\nOh! dearest Naiad,\nHerald of joy! Now will great Ceres bless\nThy welcome coming & more welcome tale.\n\nINO.\nSince that unhappy day when Ceres lost\nHer much-loved child, she wanders through the isle;\nDark blight is showered from her looks of sorrow;\u2014\nAnd where tall corn and all seed-bearing grass\nRose from beneath her step, they wither now\nFading under the frown of her bent brows:\nThe springs decrease;\u2014the fields whose delicate green\nWas late her chief delight, now please alone,\nBecause they, withered, seem to share her grief.\n\nARETHUSE.\nUnhappy Goddess! how I pity thee!\n\nINO.\nAt night upon high Etna\u2019s topmost peak\nShe lights two flames, that shining through the isle\nLeave dark no wood, or cave, or mountain path,\nTheir sunlike splendour makes the moon-beams dim,\nAnd the bright stars are lost within their day.\nShe\u2019s in yon field,\u2014she comes towards this plain,\nHer loosened hair has fallen on her neck,\nUncircled by the coronal of grain:\u2014\nHer cheeks are wan,\u2014her step is faint & slow.\n\nEnter Ceres.\n\n\nCERES.\nI faint with weariness: a dreadful thirst\nPossesses me! Must I give up the search?\nOh! never, dearest Proserpine, until\nI once more clasp thee in my vacant arms!\nHelp me, dear Arethuse! fill some deep shell\nWith the clear waters of thine ice-cold spring,\nAnd bring it me;\u2014I faint with heat and thirst.\n\nARETHUSE.\nMy words are better than my freshest waves[:]\nI saw your Proserpine\u2014\n\nCERES.\nArethusa, where?\nTell me! my heart beats quick, & hope and fear\nCause my weak limbs to fail me.\u2014\n\nARETHUSE.\nSit, Goddess,\nUpon this mossy bank, beneath the shade\nOf this tall rock, and I will tell my tale.\nThe day you lost your child, I left my source.\nWith my Alpheus I had wandered down\nThe sloping shore into the sunbright sea;\nAnd at the coast we paused, watching the waves\nOf our mixed waters dance into the main:\u2014\nWhen suddenly I heard the thundering tread\nOf iron hoofed steeds trampling the ground,\nAnd a faint shriek that made my blood run cold.\nI saw the King of Hell in his black car,\nAnd in his arms he bore your fairest child,\nFair as the moon encircled by the night,\u2014\nBut that she strove, and cast her arms aloft,\nAnd cried, \u201cMy Mother!\u201d\u2014When she saw me near\nShe would have sprung from his detested arms,\nAnd with a tone of deepest grief, she cried,\n\u201cOh, Arethuse!\u201d I hastened at her call\u2014\nBut Pluto when he saw that aid was nigh,\nStruck furiously the green earth with his spear,\nWhich yawned,\u2014and down the deep Tartarian gulph\nHis black car rolled\u2014the green earth closed above.\n\nCERES.\n(_starting up_)\nIs this thy doom, great Jove? & shall Hell\u2019s king\nQuitting dark Tartarus, spread grief and tears\nAmong the dwellers of your bright abodes?\nThen let him seize the earth itself, the stars,\u2014\nAnd all your wide dominion be his prey!\u2014\nYour sister calls upon your love, great King!\nAs you are God I do demand your help!\u2014\nRestore my child, or let all heaven sink,\nAnd the fair world be chaos once again!\n\nINO.\nLook[!] in the East that loveliest bow is formed[;]\nHeaven\u2019s single-arched bridge, it touches now\nThe Earth, and \u2019mid the pathless wastes of heaven\nIt paves a way for Jove\u2019s fair Messenger;\u2014\nIris descends, and towards this field she comes.\n\nARETHUSE.\nSovereign of Harvests, \u2019tis the Messenger\nThat will bring joy to thee. Thine eyes light up\nWith sparkling hope, thy cheeks are pale with dread.\n\nEnter Iris.\n\n\nCERES.\nSpeak, heavenly Iris! let thy words be poured\nInto my drooping soul, like dews of eve\nOn a too long parched field.\u2014Where is my Proserpine?\n\nIRIS.\nSister of Heaven, as by Joves throne I stood\nThe voice of thy deep prayer arose,\u2014it filled\nThe heavenly courts with sorrow and dismay:\nThe Thunderer frowned, & heaven shook with dread\nI bear his will to thee, \u2019tis fixed by fate,\nNor prayer nor murmur e\u2019er can alter it.\nIf Proserpine while she has lived in hell\nHas not polluted by Tartarian food\nHer heavenly essence, then she may return,\nAnd wander without fear on Enna\u2019s plain,\nOr take her seat among the Gods above.\nIf she has touched the fruits of Erebus,\nShe never may return to upper air,\nBut doomed to dwell amidst the shades of death,\nThe wife of Pluto and the Queen of Hell.\n\nCERES.\nJoy treads upon the sluggish heels of care!\nThe child of heaven disdains Tartarian food.\nPluto[,] give up thy prey! restore my child!\n\nIRIS.\nSoon she will see again the sun of Heaven,\nBy gloomy shapes, inhabitants of Hell,\nAttended, and again behold the field\nOf Enna, the fair flowers & the streams,\nHer late delight,\u2014& more than all, her Mother.\n\nINO.\nOur much-loved, long-lost Mistress, do you come?\nAnd shall once more your nymphs attend your steps?\nWill you again irradiate this isle\u2014\nThat drooped when you were lost?[1] & once again\nTrinacria smile beneath your Mother\u2019s eye?\n\n(_Ceres and her companions are ranged on one side in eager expectation;\nfrom, the cave on the other, enter Proserpine, attended by various dark\n& gloomy shapes bearing torches; among which Ascalaphus. Ceres &\nProserpine embrace;\u2014her nymphs surround her._)\n\n\nCERES.\nWelcome, dear Proserpine! Welcome to light,\nTo this green earth and to your Mother\u2019s arms.\nYou are too beautiful for Pluto\u2019s Queen;\nIn the dark Stygian air your blooming cheeks\nHave lost their roseate tint, and your bright form\nHas faded in that night unfit for thee.\n\nPROSERPINA.\nThen I again behold thee, Mother dear:\u2014\nAgain I tread the flowery plain of Enna,\nAnd clasp thee, Arethuse, & you, my nymphs;\nI have escaped from hateful Tartarus,\nThe abode of furies and all loathed shapes\nThat thronged around me, making hell more black.\nOh! I could worship thee, light giving Sun,\nWho spreadest warmth and radiance o\u2019er the world.\nLook at[2] the branches of those chesnut trees,\nThat wave to the soft breezes, while their stems\nAre tinged with red by the sun\u2019s slanting rays.\nAnd the soft clouds that float \u2019twixt earth and sky.\nHow sweet are all these sights! There all is night!\nNo God like that (_pointing to the sun_)\nsmiles on the Elysian plains,\nThe air [is] windless, and all shapes are still.\n\nIRIS.\nAnd must I interpose in this deep joy,\nAnd sternly cloud your hopes? Oh! answer me,\nArt thou still, Proserpine, a child of light?\nOr hast thou dimmed thy attributes of Heaven\nBy such Tartarian food as must for ever\nCondemn thee to be Queen of Hell & Night?\n\nPROSERPINA.\nNo, Iris, no,\u2014I still am pure as thee:\nOffspring of light and air, I have no stain\nOf Hell. I am for ever thine, oh, Mother!\n\nCERES.\n(_to the shades from Hell_)\nBegone, foul visitants to upper air!\nBack to your dens! nor stain the sunny earth\nBy shadows thrown from forms so foul\u2014Crouch in!\nProserpine, child of light, is not your Queen!\n\n(_to the nymphs_)\n\n\nQuick bring my car,\u2014we will ascend to heaven,\nDeserting Earth, till by decree of Jove,\nEternal laws shall bind the King of Hell\nTo leave in peace the offspring of the sky.\n\nASCALAPHUS.\nStay, Ceres! By the dread decree of Jove\nYour child is doomed to be eternal Queen\nOf Tartarus,\u2014nor may she dare ascend\nThe sunbright regions of Olympian Jove,\nOr tread the green Earth \u2019mid attendant nymphs.\nProserpine, call to mind your walk last eve,\nWhen as you wandered in Elysian groves,\nThrough bowers for ever green, and mossy walks,\nWhere flowers never die, nor wind disturbs\nThe sacred calm, whose silence soothes the dead,\nNor interposing clouds, with dun wings, dim\nIts mild and silver light, you plucked its fruit,\nYou ate of a pomegranate\u2019s seeds\u2014\n\nCERES.\nBe silent,\nProphet of evil, hateful to the Gods!\nSweet Proserpine, my child, look upon me.\nYou shrink; your trembling form & pallid cheeks\nWould make his words seem true which are most false[.]\nThou didst not taste the food of Erebus;\u2014\nOffspring of Gods art thou,\u2014nor Hell, nor Jove\nShall tear thee from thy Mother\u2019s clasping arms.\n\nPROSERPINA.\nIf fate decrees, can we resist? farewel!\nOh! Mother, dearer to your child than light,\nThan all the forms of this sweet earth & sky,\nThough dear are these, and dear are my poor nymphs,\nWhom I must leave;\u2014oh! can immortals weep?\nAnd can a Goddess die as mortals do,\nOr live & reign where it is death to be?\nIno, dear Arethuse, again you lose\nYour hapless Proserpine, lost to herself\nWhen she quits you for gloomy Tartarus.\n\nCERES.\nIs there no help, great Jove? If she depart\nI will descend with her\u2014the Earth shall lose\nIts proud fertility, and Erebus\nShall bear my gifts throughout th\u2019 unchanging year.\nValued till now by thee, tyrant of Gods!\nMy harvests ripening by Tartarian fires\nShall feed the dead with Heaven\u2019s ambrosial food.\nWilt thou not then repent, brother unkind,\nViewing the barren earth with vain regret,\nThou didst not shew more mercy to my child?\n\nINO.\nWe will all leave the light and go with thee,\nIn Hell thou shalt be girt by Heaven-born nymphs,\nElysium shall be Enna,\u2014thou\u2019lt not mourn\nThy natal plain, which will have lost its worth\nHaving lost thee, its nursling and its Queen.\n\nARETHUSE.\nI will sink down with thee;\u2014my lily crown\nShall bloom in Erebus, portentous loss\nTo Earth, which by degrees will fade & fall\nIn envy of our happier lot in Hell;\u2014\nAnd the bright sun and the fresh winds of heaven\nShall light its depths and fan its stagnant air.\n\n(They cling round Proserpine; the Shades of Hell seperate and stand\nbetween them.)\n\n\nASCALAPHUS.\nDepart! She is our Queen! Ye may not come!\nHark to Jove\u2019s thunder! shrink away in fear\nFrom unknown forms, whose tyranny ye\u2019ll feel\nIn groans and tears if ye insult their power.\n\nIRIS.\nBehold Jove\u2019s balance hung in upper sky;\nThere are ye weighed,\u2014to that ye must submit.\n\nCERES.\nOh! Jove, have mercy on a Mother\u2019s prayer!\nShall it be nought to be akin to thee?\nAnd shall thy sister, Queen of fertile Earth,\nDerided be by these foul shapes of Hell?\nLook at the scales, they\u2019re poized with equal weights!\nWhat can this mean? Leave me not[,] Proserpine[,]\nCling to thy Mother\u2019s side! He shall not dare\nDivide the sucker from the parent stem.\n\n(_embraces her_)\n\n\nASCALAPHUS.\nHe is almighty! who shall set the bounds\nTo his high will? let him decide our plea!\nFate is with us, & Proserpine is ours!\n\n(He endeavours to part Ceres & Proserpine, the nymphs prevent him.)\n\n\nCERES.\nPeace, ominous bird of Hell & Night! Depart!\nNor with thy skriech disturb a Mother\u2019s grief,\nAvaunt! It is to Jove we pray, not thee.\n\nIRIS.\nThy fate, sweet Proserpine, is sealed by Jove,\nWhen Enna is starred by flowers, and the sun\nShoots his hot rays strait on the gladsome land,\nWhen Summer reigns, then thou shalt live on Earth,\nAnd tread these plains, or sporting with your nymphs,\nOr at your Mother\u2019s side, in peaceful joy.\nBut when hard frost congeals the bare, black ground,\nThe trees have lost their leaves, & painted birds\nWailing for food sail through the piercing air;\nThen you descend to deepest night and reign\nGreat Queen of Tartarus, \u2019mid[3] shadows dire,\nOffspring of Hell,\u2014or in the silent groves\nOf, fair Elysium through which Lethe runs,\nThe sleepy river; where the windless air\nIs never struck by flight or song of bird,\u2014\nBut all is calm and clear, bestowing rest,\nAfter the toil of life, to wretched men,\nWhom thus the Gods reward for sufferings\nGods cannot know; a throng of empty shades!\nThe endless circle of the year will bring\nJoy in its turn, and seperation sad;\nSix months to light and Earth,\u2014six months to Hell.\n\nPROSERPINA.\nDear Mother, let me kiss that tear which steals\nDown your pale cheek altered by care and grief.\nThis is not misery; \u2019tis but a slight change\nProm our late happy lot. Six months with thee,\nEach moment freighted with an age of love:\nAnd the six short months in saddest Tartarus\nShall pass in dreams of swift returning joy.\nSix months together we shall dwell on earth,\nSix months in dreams we shall companions be,\nJove\u2019s doom is void; we are forever joined.\n\nCERES.\nOh, fairest child! sweet summer visitor!\nThy looks cheer me, so shall they cheer this land\nWhich I will fly, thou gone. Nor seed of grass,\nOr corn shall grow, thou absent from the earth;\nBut all shall lie beneath in hateful night\nUntil at thy return, the fresh green springs,\nThe fields are covered o\u2019er with summer plants.\nAnd when thou goest the heavy grain will droop\nAnd die under my frown, scattering the seeds,\nThat will not reappear till your return.\nFarewel, sweet child, Queen of the nether world,\nThere shine as chaste Diana\u2019s silver car\nIslanded in the deep circumfluous night.\nGiver of fruits! for such thou shalt be styled,\nSweet Prophetess of Summer, coming forth\nFrom the slant shadow of the wintry earth,\nIn thy car drawn by snowy-breasted swallows!\nAnother kiss, & then again farewel!\nWinter in losing thee has lost its all,\nAnd will be doubly bare, & hoar, & drear,\nIts bleak winds whistling o\u2019er the cold pinched ground\nWhich neither flower or grass will decorate.\nAnd as my tears fall first, so shall the trees\nShed their changed leaves upon your six months tomb:\nThe clouded air will hide from Ph\u0153bus\u2019 eye\nThe dreadful change your absence operates.\nThus has black Pluto changed the reign of Jove,\nHe seizes half the Earth when he takes thee.\n\nTHE END\n\n\n\n\nFootnotes\n\n\n [1] MS. _this isle?\u2014That drooped when you were lost_\n\n [2] MS. Look at\u2014the branches.\n\n [3] MS. _mid_\n\n\n\n\nMIDAS.\n\nA DRAMA IN TWO ACTS.\n\nDRAMATIS PERSONAE\n\n\n_Immortals._\nAPOLLO.\nBACCHUS.\nPAN.\nSILENUS.\nTMOLUS, God of a Hill.\nFAUNS, &c.\n\n_Mortals._\nMIDAS, King of Phrygia.\nZOPYRION, his Prime-Minister.\nASPHALION, LACON, Courtiers.\nCOURTIERS, Attendants, Priests, &c.\n\n\nScene, Phrygia.\n\n\n\n\nMIDAS.\n\n\nACT I.\n\nScene; a rural spot; on one side, a bare Hill, on the other an Ilex\nwood; a stream with reeds on its banks.\n\n\nThe Curtain rises and discovers Tmolus seated on a throne of turf, on\nhis right hand Apollo with his lyre, attended by the Muses; on the\nleft, Pan, fauns, &c.\n\n\nEnter Midas and Zopyrion.\n\n\nMIDAS.\nThe Hours have oped the palace of the dawn\nAnd through the Eastern gates of Heaven, Aurora\nComes charioted on light, her wind-swift steeds,\nWinged with roseate clouds, strain up the steep.\nShe loosely holds the reins, her golden hair,\nIts strings outspread by the sweet morning breeze[,]\nBlinds the pale stars. Our rural tasks begin;\nThe young lambs bleat pent up within the fold,\nThe herds low in their stalls, & the blithe cock\nHalloos most loudly to his distant mates.\nBut who are these we see? these are not men,\nDivine of form & sple[n]didly arrayed,\nThey sit in solemn conclave. Is that Pan,\nOur Country God, surrounded by his Fauns?\nAnd who is he whose crown of gold & harp\nAre attributes of high Apollo?\n\nZOPYRION.\nBest\nYour majesty retire; we may offend.\n\nMIDAS.\nAye, and at the base thought the coward blood\nDeserts your trembling lips; but follow me.\nOh Gods! for such your bearing is, & sure\nNo mortal ever yet possessed the gold\nThat glitters on your silken robes; may one,\nWho, though a king, can boast of no descent\nMore noble than Deucalion\u2019s stone-formed men[,]\nMay I demand the cause for which you deign\nTo print upon this worthless Phrygian earth\nThe vestige of your gold-inwoven sandals,\nOr why that old white-headed man sits there\nUpon that grassy throne, & looks as he\nWere stationed umpire to some weighty cause[?]\n\nTMOLUS.\nGod Pan with his blithe pipe which the Fauns love\nHas challenged Ph\u0153bus of the golden lyre[,]\nSaying his Syrinx can give sweeter notes\nThan the stringed instrument Apollo boasts.\nI judge between the parties. Welcome, King,\nI am old Tmolus, God of that bare Hill,\nYou may remain and hear th\u2019 Immortals sing.\n\nMIDAS.\n[_aside_] My judgement is made up before I hear;\nPan is my guardian God, old-horned Pan,\nThe Phrygian\u2019s God who watches o\u2019er our flocks;\nNo harmony can equal his blithe pipe.\n\n(Shelley.)\n\n\nApollo (sings).\n\n\n  The sleepless Hours who watch me as I lie,\n    Curtained with star-enwoven tapestries,\n  From the broad moonlight of the sky,\n    Fanning the busy dreams from my dim eyes\n  Waken me when their Mother, the grey Dawn,\n  Tells them that dreams & that the moon is gone.\n\n\n  Then I arise, and climbing Heaven\u2019s blue dome,\n    I walk over the mountains & the waves,\n  Leaving my robe upon the Ocean foam,\u2014\n    My footsteps pave the clouds with fire; the caves\n  Are filled with my bright presence & the air\n  Leaves the green Earth to my embraces bare.\n\n\n  The sunbeams are my shafts with which I kill\n    Deceit, that loves the night & fears the day;\n  All men who do, or even imagine ill\n    Fly me, and from the glory of my ray\n  Good minds and open actions take new might\n  Until diminished by the reign of night.\n\n\n  I feed the clouds, the rainbows & the flowers\n    With their etherial colours; the moon\u2019s globe\n  And the pure stars in their eternal bowers\n    Are cinctured with my power as with a robe;\n  Whatever lamps on Earth or Heaven may shine\n  Are portions of one power, which is mine.\n\n\n  I stand at noon upon the peak of heaven,\n    Then with unwilling steps I wander down\n  Into the clouds of the Atlantic even\u2014\n    For grief that I depart they weep & frown [;]\n  What look is more delightful than the smile\n  With which I soothe them from the western isle [?]\n\n\n  I am the eye with which the Universe\n    Beholds itself & knows it is divine.\n  All harmony of instrument or verse,\n    All prophecy, all medecine is mine;\n  All light of art or nature;\u2014to my song\n  Victory and praise, in its own right, belong.\n\n(Shelley.)\n\n\nPan (sings).\n\n\n  From the forests and highlands\n    We come, we come;\n  From the river-girt islands\n    W[h]ere loud waves are dumb,\n      Listening my sweet pipings;\n  The wind in the reeds & the rushes,\n    The bees on the bells of thyme,\n  The birds on the myrtle bushes[,]\n    The cicale above in the lime[,]\n  And the lizards below in the grass,\n  Were as silent as ever old Tmolus was\n       Listening my sweet pipings.\n\n\n  Liquid Peneus was flowing,\n    And all dark Tempe lay\n  In Pelion\u2019s shadow, outgrowing\n    The light of the dying day\n      Speeded by my sweet pipings.\n  The Sileni, & Sylvans, & Fauns\n    And the nymphs of the woods & the waves\n  To the edge of the moist river-lawns,\n    And the brink of the dewy caves[,]\n  And all that did then attend & follow\n  Were silent with love, as you now, Apollo!\n      With envy of my sweet pipings.\n\n\n  I sang of the dancing stars,\n    I sang of the daedal Earth\u2014-\n  And of heaven\u2014& the giant wars\u2014\n      And Love, & death, [&] birth,\n      And then I changed my pipings,\n  Singing how down the vale of Menalus,\n    I pursued a maiden & clasped a reed,\n  Gods and men, we are all deluded thus!\n    It breaks in our bosom & then we bleed!\n  All wept, as I think both ye now would\n  If envy or age had not frozen your blood,\n      At the sorrow of my sweet pipings.\n\n\nTMOLUS.\nPh\u0153bus, the palm is thine. The Fauns may dance\nTo the blithe tune of ever merry Pan;\nBut wisdom, beauty, & the power divine\nOf highest poesy lives within thy strain.\nNamed by the Gods the King of melody,\nReceive from my weak hands a second crown.\n\nPAN.\nOld Grey-beard, you say false! you think by this\nTo win Apollo with his sultry beams\nTo thaw your snowy head, & to renew\nThe worn out soil of your bare, ugly hill.\nI do appeal to Phrygian Midas here;\nLet him decide, he is no partial judge.\n\nMIDAS.\nImmortal Pan, to my poor, mortal ears\nYour sprightly song in melody outweighs\nHis drowsy tune; he put me fast asleep,\nAs my prime minister, Zopyrion, knows;\nBut your gay notes awoke me, & to you,\nIf I were Tmolus, would I give the prize.\n\nAPOLLO.\nAnd who art thou who dar\u2019st among the Gods\nMingle thy mortal voice? Insensate fool!\nDoes not the doom of Marsyas fill with dread\nThy impious soul? or would\u2019st thou also be\nAnother victim to my justest wrath?\nBut fear no more;\u2014thy punishment shall be\nBut as a symbol of thy blunted sense.\nHave asses\u2019 ears! and thus to the whole world\nWear thou the marks of what thou art,\nLet Pan himself blush at such a judge.[1]\n\n(_Exeunt all except_ Midas & Zopyrion.)\n\n\nMIDAS.\nWhat said he? is it true, Zopyrion?\nYet if it be; you must not look on me,\nBut shut your eyes, nor dare behold my shame.\nAh! here they are! two long, smooth asses[\u2019] ears!\nThey stick upright! Ah, I am sick with shame!\n\nZOPYRION.\nI cannot tell your Majesty my grief,\nOr how my soul\u2019s oppressed with the sad change\nThat has, alas! befallen your royal ears.\n\nMIDAS.\nA truce to your fine speeches now, Zopyrion;\nTo you it appertains to find some mode\nOf hiding my sad chance, if not you die.\n\nZOPYRION.\nGreat King, alas! my thoughts are dull & slow[;]\nPardon my folly, might they not be cut,\nRounded off handsomely, like human ears [?]\n\nMIDAS.\n(_feeling his ears_)\nThey\u2019re long & thick; I fear \u2019twould give me pain;\nAnd then if vengeful Ph\u0153bus should command\nAnother pair to grow\u2014that will not do.\n\nZOPYRION.\nYou wear a little crown of carved gold,\nWhich just appears to tell you are a king;\nIf that were large and had a cowl of silk,\nStudded with gems, which none would dare gainsay,\nThen might you\u2014\n\nMIDAS.\nNow you have it! friend,\nI will reward you with some princely gift.\nBut, hark! Zopyrion, not a word of this;\nIf to a single soul you tell my shame\nYou die. I\u2019ll to the palace the back way\nAnd manufacture my new diadem,\nThe which all other kings shall imitate\nAs if they also had my asses[\u2019] ears.\n\n(_Exit_.)\n\n\nZOPYRION.\n(_watching Midas off_)\nHe cannot hear me now, and I may laugh!\nI should have burst had he staid longer here.\nTwo long, smooth asses\u2019 ears that stick upright;\nOh, that Apollo had but made him bray!\nI\u2019ll to the palace; there I\u2019ll laugh my fill\nWith\u2014hold! What were the last words that Midas said?\nI may not speak\u2014not to my friends disclose\nThe strangest tale? ha! ha! and when I laugh\nI must not tell the cause? none know the truth?\nNone know King Midas has\u2014but who comes here?\nIt is Asphalion: he knows not this change;\nI must look grave & sad; for now a smile\nIf Midas knows it may prove capital.\nYet when I think of those\u2014oh! I shall die,\nIn either way, by silence or by speech.\n\nEnter Asphalion.\n\n\nASPHALION.\nKnow you, Zopyrion?\u2014\n\nZOPYRION.\nWhat[!] you know it too?\nThen I may laugh;\u2014oh, what relief is this!\nHow does he look, the courtiers gathering round?\nDoes he hang down his head, & his ears too?\nOh, I shall die! (_laughs._)\n\nASPHALION.\nHe is a queer old dog,\nYet not so laughable. \u2019Tis true, he\u2019s drunk,\nAnd sings and reels under the broad, green leaves,\nAnd hanging clusters of his crown of grapes.\u2014\n\nZOPYRION.\nA crown of grapes! but can that hide his ears[?]\n\nASPHALION.\nHis ears!\u2014Oh, no! they stick upright between.\nWhen Midas saw him\u2014\n\nZOPYRION.\nWhom then do you mean?\nDid you not say\u2014\n\nASPHALION.\nI spoke of old Silenus;\nWho having missed his way in these wild woods,\nAnd lost his tipsey company\u2014was found\nSucking the juicy clusters of the vines\nThat sprung where\u2019er he trod:\u2014and reeling on\nSome shepherds found him in yon ilex wood.\nThey brought him to the king, who honouring him\nFor Bacchus\u2019 sake, has gladly welcomed him,\nAnd will conduct him with solemnity\nTo the disconsolate Fauns from whom he\u2019s strayed.\nBut have you seen the new-fashioned diadem[2]\nThat Midas wears?\u2014\n\nZOPYRION.\nHa! he has got it on!\u2014\nKnow you the secret cause why with such care\nHe hides his royal head? you have not seen\u2014\n\nASPHALION.\nSeen what?\n\nZOPYRION.\nAh! then, no matter:\u2014 (_turns away agitated._)\nI dare not sneak or stay[;]\nIf I remain I shall discover all.\n\nASPHALION.\nI see the king has trusted to your care\nSome great state secret which you fain would hide.\nI am your friend, trust my fidelity,\nIf you\u2019re in doubt I\u2019ll be your counsellor.\n\nZOPYRION.\n(_with great importance._)\nSecret, Asphalion! How came you to know?\nIf my great master (which I do not say)\nShould think me a fit friend in whom to pour\nThe weighty secrets of his royal heart,\nShall I betray his trust? It is not so;\u2014\nI am a poor despised slave.\u2014No more!\nJoin we the festal band which will conduct\nSilenus to his woods again?\n\nASPHALION.\nMy friend,\nWherefore mistrust a faithful heart? Confide\nThe whole to me;\u2014I will be still as death.\n\nZOPYRION.\nAs death! you know not what you say; farewell[!]\nA little will I commune with my soul,\nAnd then I\u2019ll join you at the palace-gate.\n\nASPHALION.\nWill you then tell me?\u2014\n\nZOPYRION.\nCease to vex, my friend,\nYour soul and mine with false suspicion, (_aside_) Oh!\nI am choked! I\u2019d give full ten years of my life\nTo tell, to laugh\u2014& yet I dare not speak.\n\nASPHALION.\nZopyrion, remember that you hurt\nThe trusting bosom of a faithful friend\nBy your unjust concealment.\n\n(_Exit_.)\n\n\nZOPYRION.\nOh, he\u2019s gone!\nTo him I dare not speak, nor yet to Lacon;\nNo human ears may hear what must be told.\nI cannot keep it in, assuredly;\nI shall some night discuss it in my sleep.\nIt will not keep! Oh! greenest reeds that sway\nAnd nod your feathered heads beneath the sun,\nBe you depositaries of my soul,\nBe you my friends in this extremity[:]\nI shall not risk my head when I tell you\nThe fatal truth, the heart oppressing fact,\n\n(_stooping down & whispering_)\n\n\nThat royal Midas has got asses\u2019 ears.\nOh! how my soul\u2019s relieved! I feel so light!\nAlthough you cannot thank me for my trust,\nDear, faithful reeds, I love you tenderly;\nMute friends, ye helped me in my greatest need.\nFarewel! I know ye will be still as death;\nNor tell the passing winds or running waves\n\n(_stoops and whispers_)\n\n\nThat royal Midas has got asses\u2019 ears.\n\n(sees Bacchus, starts up in fear, & stands behind watching.)\n\n\nEnter Bacchus.\n\n\nBACCHUS.\nI have wandered many hours through the paths\nAnd wildernesses of that ilex wood,\nTracing where\u2019er I went my tipsey friend\nBy the red juice of grapes that stained the ground,\nAnd by the curling branches of the vines\nThat, springing where he trod, have curled around\nThe knotty trunks of those eternal trees.\nI too have lost my way; nor can I tell\nTo what barbarian land the wanderer\u2019s come.\nI hope no power contemptuous of mine\nHas hurt my foster-father;\u2014Who comes here?\n\u2019Tis he surrounded by a jocund throng\nOf priests and bacchant women, bearing spears\nBlunted with pine cones & with ivy wreathed,\nAnd here and there they cry, \u201cBacchus! Evoe!\u201d\nAs if the Nysian impulse just began.\nAnd who is he who with a stately crown\nOutshines the rest? He seems to be a king;\nBut were he even an ass on his hind legs\nHe shall have rich reward if he have saved\nAnd welcomed with due honour my old faun.\n\n(Enter Midas, Silenus & others, who fall back during the scene; Midas\nis always anxious about his crown, & Zopyrion gets behind him & tries\nto smother his laughter.)\n\n\nSILENUS.\n(_very drunk_) Again I find you, Bacchus, runaway!\nWelcome, my glorious boy! Another time\nStray not; or leave your poor old foster-father\nIn the wild mazes of a wood, in which\nI might have wandered many hundred years,\nHad not some merry fellows helped me out,\nAnd had not this king kindly welcomed me,\nI might have fared more ill than you erewhile\nIn Pentheus\u2019 prisons, that death fated rogue.\n\nBACCHUS.\n(_to Midas._) To you I owe great thanks & will reward\nYour hospitality. Tell me your name\nAnd what this country is.\n\nMIDAS.\nMy name is Midas\u2014\n\nTHE REEDS.\n(_nodding their heads_).\nMidas, the king, has the ears of an ass.\n\nMIDAS.\n(_turning round & seizing Zopyrion_).\nVillain, you lie! he dies who shall repeat\nThose traitrous words. Seize on Zopyrion!\n\nTHE REEDS.\nMidas, the king, has the ears of an ass.\n\nMIDAS.\nSearch through the crowd; it is a woman\u2019s voice\nThat dares belie her king, & makes her life\nA forfeit to his fury.\n\nASPHALION.\nThere is no woman here.\n\nBACCHUS.\nCalm yourself, Midas; none believe the tale,\nSome impious man or gamesome faun dares feign\nIn vile contempt of your most royal ears.\nOff with your crown, & shew the world the lie!\n\nMIDAS.\n(_holding his crown tight_)\nNever! What[!] shall a vile calumnious slave\nDictate the actions of a crowned king?\nZopyrion, this lie springs from you\u2014you perish!\n\nZOPYRION.\nI, say that Midas has got asses\u2019 ears?\nMay great Apollo strike me with his shaft\nIf to a single soul I ever told\nSo false, so foul a calumny!\n\nBACCHUS.\nMidas!\n\nTHE REEDS.\nMidas, the king, has the ears of an ass.\n\nBACCHUS.\nSilence! or by my Godhead I strike dead\nWho shall again insult the noble king.\nMidas, you are my friend, for you have saved\nAnd hospitably welcomed my old faun;\nChoose your reward, for here I swear your wish,\nWhatever it may be, shall be fulfilled.\n\nZOPYRION.\n(_aside_) Sure he will wish his asses\u2019 ears in Styx.\n\nMIDAS.\nWhat[!] may I choose from out the deep, rich mine\nOf human fancy, & the wildest thoughts\nThat passed till now unheeded through my brain,\nA wish, a hope, to be fulfilled by you?\nNature shall bend her laws at my command,\nAnd I possess as my reward one thing\nThat I have longed for with unceasing care.\n\nBACCHUS.\nPause, noble king, ere you express this wish[.]\nLet not an error or rash folly spoil\nMy benefaction; pause and then declare,\nFor what you ask shall be, as I have sworn.\n\nMIDAS.\nLet all I touch be gold, most glorious gold!\nLet me be rich! and where I stretch my hands,\n(That like Orion I could touch the stars!)\nBe radiant gold! God Bacchus, you have sworn,\nI claim your word,\u2014my ears are quite forgot!\n\nTHE REEDS.\nMidas, the king, has the ears of an ass.\n\nMIDAS.\nYou lie, & yet I care not\u2014\n\nZOPYRION.\n(_aside to Midas_) Yet might I\nBut have advised your Majesty, I would\nHave made one God undo the other\u2019s work\u2014\n\nMIDAS.\n(_aside to Zopyr_).\nAdvise yourself, my friend, or you may grow\nShorter by a head ere night.\u2014I am blessed,\nHappier than ever earthly man could boast.\nDo you fulfil your words?\n\nBACCHUS.\nYes, thoughtless man!\nAnd much I fear if you have not the ears\nYou have the judgement of an ass. Farewel!\nI found you rich & happy; & I leave you,\nThough you know it not, miserably poor.\nYour boon is granted,\u2014touch! make gold! Some here\nHelp carry old Silenus off, who sleeps\nThe divine sleep of heavy wine. Farewel!\n\nMIDAS.\nBacchus, divine, how shall I pay my thanks[?]\n\n(_Exeunt_.)\n\n\nEND OF FIRST ACT.\n\n\n\n\nFootnotes\n\n\n [1] A syllable here, a whole foot in the previous line, appear to be\n missing.\n\n [2] Another halting line. Cf. again, p. [47], 1. 3; p. [55], 1. 11; p.\n [59], 1.1; p. [61], 1. 1; p. [64], 1. 14.]\n\n\nACT II\n\nScene; a splendid apartment in the Palace of Midas.\n\n\nEnter Midas\n(with a golden rose in his hand).\n\n\nMIDAS.\nGold! glorious gold! I am made up of gold!\nI pluck a rose, a silly, fading rose,\nIts soft, pink petals change to yellow gold;\nIts stem, its leaves are gold\u2014and what before\nWas fit for a poor peasant\u2019s festal dress\nMay now adorn a Queen. I lift a stone,\nA heavy, useless mass, a slave would spurn,\nWhat is more valueless? \u2019Tis solid gold!\nA king might war on me to win the same.\nAnd as I pass my hand thus through the air,\nA little shower of sightless dust falls down\nA shower of gold. O, now I am a king!\nI\u2019ve spread my hands against my palace walls,\nI\u2019ve set high ladders up, that I may touch\nEach crevice and each cornice with my hands,\nAnd it will all be gold:\u2014a golden palace,\nSurrounded by a wood of golden trees,\nWhich will bear golden fruits.\u2014The very ground\nMy naked foot treads on is yellow gold,\nInvaluable gold! my dress is gold!\nNow I am great! Innumerable armies\nWait till my gold collects them round my throne;\nI see my standard made of woven gold.\nWaving o\u2019er Asia\u2019s utmost Citadels,\nGuarded by myriads invincible.\nOr if the toil of war grows wearisome,\nI can buy Empires:\u2014India shall be mine,\nIts blooming beauties, gold-encrusted baths,\nIts aromatic groves and palaces,\nAll will be mine! Oh, Midas, ass-eared king!\nI love thee more than any words can tell,\nThat thus thy touch, thou man akin to Gods,\nCan change all earth to heaven,\u2014Olympian gold!\nFor what makes heaven different from earth!\nLook how my courtiers come! Magnificent!\nNone shall dare wait on me but those who bear\nAn empire on their backs in sheets of gold.\nOh, what a slave I was! my flocks & kine,\nMy vineyards & my corn were all my wealth\nAnd men esteemed me rich; but now Great Jove\nTranscends me but by lightning, and who knows\nIf my gold win not the Cyclopean Powers,\nAnd Vulcan, who must hate his father\u2019s rule,\nTo forge me bolts?\u2014and then\u2014but hush! they come.\n\nEnter Zopyrion, Asphalion, & Lacon.\n\n\nLACON.\nPardon us, mighty king\u2014\n\nMIDAS.\nWhat would ye, slaves?\nOh! I could buy you all with one slight touch\nOf my gold-making hand!\n\nASPHALION.\nRoyal Midas,\nWe humbly would petition for relief.\n\nMIDAS.\nRelief I Bring me your copper coin, your brass,\nOr what ye will\u2014ye\u2019ll speedily be rich.\n\nZOPYRION.\n\u2019Tis not for gold, but to be rid of gold,\nThat we intrude upon your Majesty.\nI fear that you will suffer by this gift,\nAs we do now. Look at our backs bent down\nWith the huge weight of the great cloaks of gold.\nPermit us to put on our shabby dress,\nOur poor despised garments of light wool:\u2014\nWe walk as porters underneath a load.\nPity, great king, our human weaknesses,\nNor force us to expire\u2014\n\nMIDAS.\nBegone, ye slaves!\nGo clothe your wretched limbs in ragged skins!\nTake an old carpet to wrap round your legs,\nA broad leaf for your feet\u2014ye shall not wear\nThat dress\u2014those golden sandals\u2014monarch like.\n\nASPHALION.\nIf you would have us walk a mile a day\nWe cannot thus\u2014already we are tired\nWith the huge weight of soles of solid gold.\n\nMIDAS.\nPitiful wretches! Earth-born, groveling dolts!\nBegone! nor dare reply to my just wrath!\nNever behold me more! or if you stay\nLet not a sigh, a shrug, a stoop betray\nWhat poor, weak, miserable men you are.\nNot as I\u2014I am a God! Look, dunce!\nI tread or leap beneath this load of gold!\n\n(_Jumps & stops suddenly_.)\n\n\nI\u2019ve hurt my back:\u2014this cloak is wondrous hard!\nNo more of this! my appetite would say\nThe hour is come for my noon-day repast.\n\nLACON.\nIt comes borne in by twenty lusty slaves,\nWho scarce can lift the mass of solid gold,\nThat lately was a table of light wood.\nHere is the heavy golden ewer & bowl,\nIn which, before you eat, you wash your hands.\n\nMIDAS.\n(_lifting up the ewer_)\nThis is to be a king! to touch pure gold!\nWould that by touching thee, Zopyrion,\nI could transmute thee to a golden man;\nA crowd of golden slaves to wait on me!\n\n(_Pours the water on his hands_.)\n\n\nBut how is this? the water that I touch\nFalls down a stream of yellow liquid gold,\nAnd hardens as it falls. I cannot wash\u2014\nPray Bacchus, I may drink! and the soft towel\nWith which I\u2019d wipe my hands transmutes itself\nInto a sheet of heavy gold.\u2014No more!\nI\u2019ll sit and eat:\u2014I have not tasted food\nFor many hours, I have been so wrapt\nIn golden dreams of all that I possess,\nI had not time to eat; now hunger calls\nAnd makes me feel, though not remote in power\nFrom the immortal Gods, that I need food,\nThe only remnant of mortality!\n\n(_In vain attempts to eat of several dishes_.)\n\n\nAlas! my fate! \u2019tis gold! this peach is gold!\nThis bread, these grapes & all I touch! this meat\nWhich by its scent quickened my appetite\nHas lost its scent, its taste,\u2014\u2019tis useless gold.\n\nZOPYRION.\n(_aside_) He\u2019d better now have followed my advice.\nHe starves by gold yet keeps his asses\u2019 ears.\n\nMIDAS.\nAsphalion, put that apple to my mouth;\nIf my hands touch it not perhaps I eat.\nAlas! I cannot bite! as it approached\nI felt its fragrance, thought it would be mine,\nBut by the touch of my life-killing lips\n\u2019Tis changed from a sweet fruit to tasteless gold,\nBacchus will not refresh me by his gifts,\nThe liquid wine congeals and flies my taste.\nGo, miserable slaves! Oh, wretched king!\nAway with food! Its sight now makes me sick.\nBring in my couch! I will sleep off my care,\nAnd when I wake I\u2019ll coin some remedy.\nI dare not bathe this sultry day, for fear\nI be enclosed in gold. Begone!\nI will to rest:\u2014oh, miserable king!\n\n(_Exeunt all but Midas. He lies down, turns restlessly for some time &\nthen rises_.)\n\n\nOh! fool! to wish to change all things to gold!\nBlind Ideot that I was! This bed is gold;\nAnd this hard, weighty pillow, late so soft,\nThat of itself invited me to rest,\nIs a hard lump, that if I sleep and turn\nI may beat out my brains against its sides.\nOh! what a wretched thing I am! how blind!\nI cannot eat, for all my food is gold;\nDrink flies my parched lips, and my hard couch\nIs worse than rock to my poor bruised sides.\nI cannot walk; the weight of my gold soles\nPulls me to earth:\u2014my back is broke beneath\nThese gorgeous garments\u2014 (_throws off his cloak_)\nLie there, golden cloak!\nThere on thy kindred earth, lie there and rot!\nI dare not touch my forehead with my palm\nFor fear my very flesh should turn to gold.\nOh! let me curse thee, vilest, yellow dirt!\nHere, on my knees, thy martyr lifts his voice,\nA poor, starved wretch who can touch nought but thee[,]\nWilt thou refresh me in the heat of noon?\nCanst thou be kindled for me when I\u2019m cold?\nMay all men, & the immortal Gods,\nHate & spurn thee as wretched I do now.\n\n(_Kicks the couch, & tries to throw down the pillow but cannot lift\nit_.)\n\n\nI\u2019d dash, thee to the earth, but that thy weight\nPreserves thee, abhorred, Tartarian Gold!\nBacchus, O pity, pardon, and restore me!\nWho waits?\n\nEnter Lacon.\n\n\nGo bid the priests that they prepare\nMost solemn song and richest sacrifise;\u2014\nWhich I may not dare touch, lest it should turn\nTo most unholy gold.\n\nLACON.\nPardon me, oh King,\nBut perhaps the God may give that you may eat,\nAnd yet your touch be magic.\n\nMIDAS.\nNo more, thou slave!\nGold is my fear, my bane, my death! I hate\nIts yellow glare, its aspect hard and cold.\nI would be rid of all.\u2014Go bid them haste.\n\n(_Exit_ Lacon.)\n\n\nOh, Bacchus I be propitious to their prayer!\nMake me a hind, clothe me in ragged skins\u2014\nAnd let my food be bread, unsavoury roots,\nBut take from me the frightful curse of gold.\nAm I not poor? Alas! how I am changed!\nPoorer than meanest slaves, my piles of wealth\nCannot buy for me one poor, wretched dish:\u2014\nIn summer heat I cannot bathe, nor wear\nA linen dress; the heavy, dull, hard metal\nClings to me till I pray for poverty.\n\nEnter Zopyrion, Asphalion & Lacon.\n\n\nZOPYRION.\nThe sacrifice is made, & the great God,\nPitying your ills, oh King, accepted it,\nWhilst his great oracle gave forth these words.\n\u201cLet poor king Midas bathe in the clear stream\n\u201cOf swift Pactolus, & to those waves tran[s]fer\n\u201cThe gold-transmuting power, which he repents.\u201d\n\nMIDAS.\nOh joy! Oh Bacchus, thanks for this to thee\nWill I each year offer three sucking lambs\u2014\nGames will I institute\u2014nor Pan himself\nShall have more honour than thy deity.\nHaste to the stream,\u2014I long to feel the cool\nAnd liquid touch of its divinest waves.\n\n(_Exeunt all except_ Zopyrion _and_ Asphalion.)\n\n\nASPHALION.\nOff with our golden sandals and our cloaks!\nOh, I shall ever hate the sight of gold!\nPoor, wealthy Midas runs as if from death\nTo rid him quick of this meta[l]lic curse.\n\nZOPYRION.\n(_aside_) I wonder if his asses[\u2019] ears are gold;\nWhat would I give to let the secret out?\nGold! that is trash, we have too much of it,\u2014\nBut I would give ten new born lambs to tell\nThis most portentous truth\u2014but I must choke.\n\nASPHALION.\nNow we shall tend our flocks and reap our corn\nAs we were wont, and not be killed by gold.\nGolden fleeces threatened our poor sheep,\nThe very showers as they fell from heaven\nCould not refresh the earth; the wind blew gold,\nAnd as we walked[1] the thick sharp-pointed atoms\nWounded our faces\u2014the navies would have sunk\u2014\n\nZOPYRION.\nAll strangers would have fled our gold-cursed shore,\nTill we had bound our wealthy king, that he\nMight leave the green and fertile earth unchanged;\u2014\nThen in deep misery he would have shook\nHis golden chains & starved.\n\nEnter Lacon.\n\n\nLACON.\nSluggards, how now I\nHave you not been to gaze upon the sight?\nTo see the noble king cast off the gift\nWhich he erewhile so earnestly did crave[?]\n\nASPHALION.\nI am so tired with the weight of gold\nI bore to-day I could not budge a foot\nTo see the finest sight Jove could display.\nBut tell us, Lacon, what he did and said.\n\nLACON.\nAlthough he\u2019d fain have run[,] his golden dress\nAnd heavy sandals made the poor king limp\nAs leaning upon mine and the high priest\u2019s arm,\nHe hastened to Pactolus. When he saw\nThe stream\u2014\u201cThanks to the Gods!\u201d he cried aloud\nIn joy; then having cast aside his robes\nHe leaped into the waves, and with his palm\nThrowing the waters high\u2014\u201cThis is not gold,\u201d\nHe cried, \u201cI\u2019m free, I have got rid of gold.\u201d\nAnd then he drank, and seizing with delight\nA little leaf that floated down the stream,\n\u201cThou art not gold,\u201d he said\u2014\n\nZOPYRION.\nBut all this time\u2014\nDid you behold?\u2014Did he take off his crown?\u2014\n\nLACON.\nNo:\u2014It was strange to see him as he plunged\nHold tight his crown with his left hand the while.\n\nZOPYRION.\n(_aside_) Alas, my fate! I thought they had been seen.\n\nLACON.\nHe ordered garments to the river side\nOf coarsest texture;\u2014those that erst he wore\nHe would not touch, for they were trimmed with gold.\n\nZOPYRION.\nAnd yet he did not throw away his crown?\n\nLACON.\nHe ever held it tight as if he thought\nSome charm attached to its remaining there.\nPerhaps he is right;\u2014know you, Zopyrion,\nIf that strange voice this morning spoke the truth?\n\nZOPYRION.\nNay guess;\u2014think of what passed & you can judge.\nI dare not\u2014I know nothing of his ears.\n\nLACON.\nI am resolved some night when he sleeps sound\nTo get a peep.\u2014No more,\u2019tis he that comes.\nHe has now lost the boon that Bacchus gave,\nHaving bestowed it on the limpid waves.\nNow over golden sands Pactolus runs,\nAnd as it flows creates a mine of wealth.\n\nEnter Midas, (with grapes in his hand).\n\n\nMIDAS.\nI see again the trees and smell the flowers\nWith colours lovelier than the rainbow\u2019s self;\nI see the gifts of rich-haired Ceres piled\nAnd eat. (_holding up the grapes_)\nThis is not yellow, dirty gold,\nBut blooms with precious tints, purple and green.\nI hate this palace and its golden floor,\nIts cornices and rafters all of gold:\u2014\nI\u2019ll build a little bower of freshest green,\nCanopied o\u2019er with leaves & floored with moss:\u2014\nI\u2019ll dress in skins;\u2014I\u2019ll drink from wooden cups\nAnd eat on wooden platters\u2014sleep on flock;\nNone but poor men shall dare attend on me.\nAll that is gold I\u2019ll banish from my court,\nGilding shall be high treason to my state,\nThe very name of gold shall be crime capital[.]\n\nZOPYRION.\nMay we not keep our coin?\n\nMIDAS.\nNo, Zopyrion,\nNone but the meanest peasants shall have gold.\nIt is a sordid, base and dirty thing:\u2014\nLook at the grass, the sky, the trees, the flowers,\nThese are Joves treasures & they are not gold:\u2014\nNow they are mine, I am no longer cursed.\u2014\nThe hapless river hates its golden sands,\nAs it rolls over them, having my gift;\u2014\nPoor harmless shores! they now are dirty gold.\nHow I detest it! Do not the Gods hate gold?\nNature displays the treasures that she loves,\nShe hides gold deep in the earth & piles above\nMountains & rocks to keep the monster down.\n\nASPHALION.\nThey say Apollo\u2019s sunny car is gold.\n\nMIDAS.\nAye, so it is for Gold belongs to him:\u2014\nBut Ph\u0153bus is my bitterest enemy,\nAnd what pertains to him he makes my bane.\n\nZOPYRION.\nWhat [!] will your Majesty tell the world?\u2014\n\nMIDAS.\nPeace, vile gossip! Asphalion, come you here.\nLook at those golden columns; those inlaid walls;\nThe ground, the trees, the flowers & precious food\nThat in my madness I did turn to gold:\u2014\nPull it all down, I hate its sight and touch;\nHeap up my cars & waggons with the load\nAnd yoke my kine to drag it to the sea:\nThen crowned with flowers, ivy & Bacchic vine,\nAnd singing hymns to the immortal Gods,\nWe will ascend ships freighted with the gold,\nAnd where no plummet\u2019s line can sound the depth\nOf greedy Ocean, we will throw it in,\nAll, all this frightful heap of yellow dirt.\nDown through the dark, blue waters it will sink,\nFrightening the green-haired Nereids from their sport\nAnd the strange Tritons\u2014the waves will close above\nAnd I, thank Bacchus, ne\u2019er shall see it more!\nAnd we will make all echoing heaven ring\nWith our loud hymns of thanks, & joyous pour\nLibations in the deep, and reach the land,\nRich, happy, free & great, that we have lost\nMan\u2019s curse, heart-bartering, soul-enchaining gold.\n\nFINIS.\n\n\n\n\nFootnotes\n\n\n [1] MS. _as he walked._","title":"Proserpine and Midas","tradition":"myth-cosmogony","translated_text":null,"word_count":17579}