Scoop and draw,

But beware lest he claw

Your limbs near his maw.

Cyclops. Ah me! my eyesight is parched up to cinders. Chorus. What a sweet paean! sing me that again! Cyclops. Ah me! indeed, what woe has fallen upon me! But, wretched nothings, think ye not to flee Out of this rock; I, standing at the outlet, Will bar the way and catch you as you pass. Chorus. What are you roaring out, Cyclops? Cyclops.

Chorus. For you are wicked.
Cyclops.

670

I perish! 675

And besides miserable.

Why then no one

Chorus. What, did you fall into the fire when drunk?
Cyclops. "Twas Nobody destroyed me.

Chorus.

Can be to blame.

Cyclops.

Who blinded me.
Chorus.

I say 'twas Nobody

Why then you are not blind.

Cyclops. I wish you were as blind as I am.

Chorus.

It cannot be that no one made you blind.

680

Nay,

Cyclops. You jeer me; where, I ask, is Nobody?

Chorus. Nowhere, O Cyclops.

Cyclops. It was that stranger ruined me :-the wretch 685 First gave me wine and then burned out my eye,

For wine is strong and hard to struggle with.

Have they escaped, or are they yet within?

Chorus. They stand under the darkness of the rock

And cling to it.

Cyclops.

At my right hand or left?

Chorus. Close on your right.

Cyclops.
Chorus.

You have them.

Cyclops.

690

Where?

Near the rock itself.

Oh, misfortune on misfortune!

I've cracked my skull.
Chorus.

Now they escape you there.

Not on that side.

Cyclops. Not there, although you say so.

Chorus.

Cyclops. Where then?

Chorus.

They creep about you on your left. 695 Cyclops. Ah! I am mocked! They jeer me in my ills. Chorus. Not there! he is a little there beyond you. Cyclops. Detested wretch! where are you?

Cyclops. What do you say? You proffer a new name, 700 Ulysses. My father named me so; and I have taken

693 So B.; Now they escape you there 1824.

A full revenge for your unnatural feast;

I should have done ill to have burned down Troy
And not revenged the murder of my comrades.

Cyclops. Ai! ai! the ancient oracle is accomplished;

It said that I should have my eyesight blinded
By your coming from Troy, yet it foretold
That you should pay the penalty for this

By wandering long over the homeless sea.

I

Ulysses. I bid thee weep-consider what I say;

go towards the shore to drive my ship

To mine own land, o'er the Sicilian wave.

Cyclops. Not so, if, whelming you with this huge stone,

I can crush you and all your men together;

I will descend upon the shore, though blind,

Groping my way adown the steep ravine.

Chorus. And we, the shipmates of Ulysses now,

Will serve our Bacchus all our happy lives.

EPIGRAMS

705

710

715

[These four Epigrams were published—nos. II and IV without title --by Mrs. Shelley, Poetical Works, 1839, 1st ed.]

I. TO STELLA

FROM THE GREEK OF PLATO

THOU wert the morning star among the living,
Ere thy fair light had fled ;-

Now, having died, thou art as Hesperus, giving
New splendour to the dead.

II.-KISSING HELENA

FROM THE GREEK OF PLATO

KISSING Helena, together

With my kiss, my soul beside it

Came to my lips, and there I kept it,-
For the poor thing had wandered thither,
To follow where the kiss should guide it,
Oh, cruel I, to intercept it!

III. SPIRIT OF PLATO

FROM THE GREEK

EAGLE! why soarest thou above that tomb?
To what sublime and star-ypaven home

Floatest thou?

5

5

Spirit of Plato-5 doth Boscombe MS.; does ed. 1839.

IV.-CIRCUMSTANCE

FROM THE GREEK

A MAN who was about to hang himself,
Finding a purse, then threw away his rope;
The owner, coming to reclaim his pelf,

The halter found, and used it. So is Hope
Changed for Despair-one laid upon the shelf,

We take the other. Under Heaven's high cope

Fortune is God-all you endure and do
Depends on circumstance as much as you.

FRAGMENT OF THE ELEGY ON THE DEATH OF ADONIS

FROM THE GREEK OF BION

[Published by Forman, P. W. of P. B. S., 1876.]

I MOURN Adonis dead-loveliest Adonis-
Dead, dead Adonis-and the Loves lament.
Sleep no more, Venus, wrapped in purple woof-
Wake violet-stolèd queen, and weave the crown
Of Death,-'tis Misery calls, for he is dead.

The lovely one lies wounded in the mountains,
His white thigh struck with the white tooth; he scarce
Yet breathes; and Venus hangs in agony there.
The dark blood wanders o'er his snowy limbs,
His eyes beneath their lids are lustreless,

The rose has fled from his wan lips, and there
That kiss is dead, which Venus gathers yet.

A deep, deep wound Adonis .

A deeper Venus bears upon her heart.
See, his beloved dogs are gathering round-
The Oread nymphs are weeping-Aphrodite

With hair unbound is wandering through the woods,
'Wildered, ungirt, unsandalled-the thorns pierce
Her hastening feet and drink her sacred blood.
Bitterly screaming out, she is driven on
Through the long vales; and her Assyrian boy,
Her love, her husband, calls-the purple blood
From his struck thigh stains her white navel now,
Her bosom, and her neck before like snow.

Alas for Cytherea-the Loves mourn-
The lovely, the beloved is gone!-and now
Her sacred beauty vanishes away.

For Venus whilst Adonis lived was fair—

5

5

Alas! her loveliness is dead with him.

The oaks and mountains cry, Ai! ai! Adonis!

30

The springs their waters change to tears and weep

The flowers are withered up with grief.

23 his Rossetti, Dowden, Woodberry; her Boscombe MS., For

Ai! ai!

Echo resounds

Adonis is dead
Adonis dead.

Who will weep not thy dreadful woe, O Venus?
Soon as she saw and knew the mortal wound
Of her Adonis-saw the life-blood flow
From his fair thigh, now wasting,-wailing loud
She clasped him, and cried
'Stay, Adonis !
Stay, dearest one,

...

and mix my lips with thine-
Wake yet a while, Adonis-oh, but once,
That I may kiss thee now for the last time-
But for as long as one short kiss may live-
Oh, let thy breath flow from thy dying soul
Even to my mouth and heart, that I may suck
That...

FRAGMENT OF THE ELEGY ON THE DEATH

OF BION

FROM THE GREEK OF MOSCHUS

35

40

45

[Published from the Hunt MSS. by Forman, P. W. of P. B. S., 1876.] YE Dorian woods and waves, lament aloud,

Augment your tide, O streams, with fruitless tears,
For the beloved Bion is no more.

Let every tender herb and plant and flower,
From each dejected bud and drooping bloom,
Shed dews of liquid sorrow, and with breath
Of melancholy sweetness on the wind
Diffuse its languid love; let roses blush,
Anemones grow paler for the loss

Their dells have known; and thou, O hyacinth,
Utter thy legend now-yet more, dumb Hower,
Than Ah! alas!'-thine is no common grief-
Bion the [sweetest singer] is no more.

FROM THE GREEK OF MOSCHUS
[Published with Alastor, 1816.]

Τὰν ὅλα τὰν γλαυκὰν ὅταν ὧνεμος ἀτρέμα βάλλῃ-κ.τ.λ.
WHEN winds that move not its calm surface sweep
The azure sea, I love the land no more;
The smiles of the serene and tranquil deep
Tempt my unquiet mind.-But when the roar
Of Ocean's gray abyss resounds, and foam
Gathers upon the sea, and vast waves burst,
I turn from the drear aspect to the home
Of Earth and its deep woods, where, interspersed,
When winds blow loud, pines make sweet melody.
Whose house is some lone bark, whose toil the sea,

Death of Bion-2 tears] sorrow (as alternative) Hunt MS.

5

10

5

10

Whose prey the wandering fish, an evil lot
Has chosen.-But I my languid limbs will fling
Beneath the plane, where the brook's murmuring
Moves the calm spirit, but disturbs it not.

PAN, ECHO, AND THE SATYR

FROM THE GREEK OF MOSCHUS

[Published (without title) by Mrs. Shelley, Posthumous Poems, 1824. There is a draft amongst the Hunt MSS.]

PAN loved his neighbour Echo-but that child
Of Earth and Air pined for the Satyr leaping;
The Satyr loved with wasting madness wild

The bright nymph Lyda,-and so three went weeping.

As Pan loved Echo, Echo loved the Satyr,

The Satyr, Lyda; and so love consumed them.And thus to each-which was a woful matter

To bear what they inflicted Justice doomed them;
For, inasmuch as each might hate the lover,

Each, loving, so was hated.-Ye that love not
Be warned-in thought turn this example over,
That when ye love, the like return ye prove not.

FROM VERGIL'S TENTH ECLOGUE
[Vv. 1-26]

5

10

[Published by Rossetti, Complete P. W. of P. B. S., 1870, from the Boscombe MSS. now in the Bodleian. Mr. Locock (Examination, &c., 1903, pp. 47-50), as the result of his collation of the same MSS., gives a revised and expanded version which we print below.]

MELODIOUS Arethusa, o'er my verse

Shed thou once more the spirit of thy stream:
Who denies verse to Gallus? So, when thou
Glidest beneath the green and purple gleam

Of Syracusan waters, mayst thou flow
Unmingled with the bitter Doric dew!
Begin, and, whilst the goats are browsing now
The soft leaves, in our way let us pursue
The melancholy loves of Gallus. List!

We sing not to the dead: the wild woods knew
His sufferings, and their echoes.

Young Naiads, . . . in what far woodlands wild
Wandered ye when unworthy love possessed

Your Gallus? Not where Pindus is up-piled,
Nor where Parnassus' sacred mount, nor where
Aonian Aganippe expands . .

The laurels and the myrtle-copses dim.

The pine-encircled mountain, Maenalus,

Pan, Echo, &c.-6 so Hunt MS.; thus 1824.

5

10

15

11 So 1824; This lesson

timely in your thoughts turn over, The moral of this song in thought turn over (as alternatives) Hunt MS.