Pisa. want of it took away a portion of the NOTE ON THE WITCH OF ardour that ought to have sustained him ATLAS, BY MRS. SHELLEY while writing. He was thrown on his WE spent the summer of 1820 at the own resources, and on the inspiration of Baths of San Giuliano, four miles from his own soul; and wrote because his These baths were of great use to mind overflowed, without the hope of Shelley in soothing his nervous irritability. being appreciated. I had not the most We made several excursions in the neigh- distant wish that he should truckle in bourhood. The country around is fertile, opinion, or submit his lofty aspirations and diversified and rendered picturesque for the human race to the low ambition by ranges of near hills and more distant and pride of the many; but I felt sure mountains. The peasantry are a hand- that, if his poems were more addressed to some intelligent race; and there was a the common feelings of men, his proper gladsome sunny heaven spread over us, rank among the writers of the day would that rendered home and every scene we be acknowledged, and that popularity visited cheerful and bright. During some as a poet would enable his countrymen of the hottest days of August, Shelley to do justice to his character and virtues, made a solitary journey on foot to the which in those days it was the mode to summit of Monte San Pellegrino-a attack with the most flagitious calumnies mountain of some height, on the top of and insulting abuse. which there is a chapel, the object, during things deeply cannot be doubted, though certain days of the year, of many pilgrim-he armed himself with the consciousness ages. The excursion delighted him while of acting from a lofty and heroic sense of it lasted; though he exerted himself too right. The truth burst from his heart much, and the effect was considerable sometimes in solitude, and he would lassitude and weakness on his return. write a few unfinished verses that showed During the expedition he conceived the idea, and wrote, in the three days immediately succeeding to his return, the Witch of Atlas. This poem is peculiarly characteristic of his tastes-wildly fanciful, full of brilliant imagery, and discarding human interest and passion, to revel in the fantastic ideas that his imagination suggested. The surpassing excellence of The Cenci had made me greatly desire that Shelley should increase his popularity by adopting subjects that would more suit the popular taste than a poem conceived in the abstract and dreamy spirit of the Witch of Atlas. It was not only that I wished him to acquire popularity as redounding to his fame; but I believed that he would obtain a greater mastery over his own powers, and greater happiness in his mind, if public applause crowned his endeavours. The few stanzas that precede the poem were addressed to me on my representing these ideas to him. Even now I believe that I was in the right. Shelley did not expect sympathy and approbation from the public; but the That he felt these that he felt the sting; among such I find the following: Alas! this is not what I thought Life was. I knew that there were crimes and evil men, The hearts of others. . . . And, when I believed that all this morbid feeling would vanish if the chord of sympathy between him and his countrymen were touched. But my persuasions were vain. the mind could not be bent from its natural inclination. Shelley shrunk instinctively from pourtraying human passion, with its mixture of good and evil, of disappointment and disquiet. Such opened again the wounds of his own heart; and he loved to shelter himself rather in the airiest flights of fancy, forgetting love and hate, and regret and lost hope, in such imaginations as borrowed their hues from sunrise or sunset, from the yellow moonshine or paly twi light, from the aspect of the far ocean or the shadows of the woods,-which celebrated the singing of the winds among the pines, the flow of a murmuring stream, and the thousand harmonious sounds which Nature creates in her solitudes. These are the materials which form the Witch of Atlas: it is a brilliant congregation of ideas such as his senses gathered, and his fancy coloured, during his rambles in the sunny land he so much loved. CEDIPUS TYRANNUS OR SWELLFOOT THE TYRANT A TRAGEDY IN TWO ACTS TRANSLATED FROM THE ORIGINAL DORIC "Choose Reform or civil war, When thro' thy streets, instead of hare with dogs, A CONSORT-QUEEN shall hunt a KING with hogs, Riding on the IONIAN MINOTAUR." ADVERTISEMENT THIS Tragedy is one of a triad, or system of three Plays (an arrangement according to which the Greeks were accustomed to connect their dramatic represen tations), elucidating the wonderful and appalling fortunes of the SWELLFOOT dynasty. It was evidently written by some learned Theban, and, from its characteristic dulness, apparently before the duties on the importation of Attic salt had been repealed by the Bootarchs. The tenderness with which he treats the PIGS proves him to have been a sus Baoticæ; possibly Epicuri de grege porcus; for, as the poet observes, "A fellow feeling makes us wond'rous kind." No liberty has been taken with the translation of this remarkable piece of antiquity, except the suppressing a seditious and blasphemous Chorus of the Pigs and Bulls at the last act. The word Hoydipouse (or more properly Edipus), has been rendered literally SWELLFOOT, without its having been conceived necessary to determine whether a swelling of the hind or the fore feet of the Swinish Monarch is particularly indicated. Should the remaining portions of this Tragedy be found, entitled, "Swellfoot in Angaria," and Charité," the Translator might be tempted to give them to the reading Public. Which should be given to cleaner Pigs than you? The Swine.-Semichorus I. If 'twere your kingly will What should we yield to thee? I have heard your Laureate sing, Under your mighty ancestors, we pigs Were bless'd as nightingales on myrtle sprigs, dew, Bishops and deacons, and the entire army Or grasshoppers that live on noonday Of their Eleusis, hail! The Swine. Eigh! eigh! eigh! eigh! Swellfoot. Ha! what are ye, Who, crowned with leaves devoted to the Furies, Cling round this sacred shrine? Swine. Aigh! aigh! aigh! Ever propitiate her reluctant will Swine. Ugh! ugh! ugh! From bones, and rags, and scraps of shoe-leather, 1 See Universal History for an account of the number of people who died, and the immense consumption of garlic by the wretched Egyptians, who made a sepulchre for the name as well as the bodies of their tyrants. And sung, old annals tell, as sweetly too, But now our styes are fallen in, we catch The murrain and the mange, the scab and itch; Sometimes your royal dogs tear down our thatch, And then we seek the shelter of a ditch; Hog-wash or grains, or ruta baga, none Has yet been ours since your reign begun. First Sow. I could almost eat my litter. I suck, but no milk will come from Second Pig. Our skin and our bones would be bitter. The Boars. We fight for this rag of greasy rug, Though a trough of wash would be fitter. Semichorus. Happier swine were they than we, Which in your royal bosom hold their revels, And sink us in the waves of thy com- Alas! the Pigs are an unhappy nation! bristles Zephaniah. Your sacred Majesty, he has the dropsy;— We shall find pints of hydatids in's He has not half an inch of wholesome fat To bind your mortar with, or fill our He'll serve instead of riot money, when colons With rich blood, or make brawn out of our gristles, In policy-ask else your royal Solons You ought to give us hog-wash and clean straw, Our murmuring troops bivouac in And January winds, after a day carrion. Now, Solomon, I'll sell you in a lump And styes well thatched; besides it is The whole kit of them. Swellfoot. This is sedition, and rank I could not give blasphemy! Ho! there, my guards! Guard. Enter a GUARD. Your sacred Majesty. Swellfoot. the way, Why, your Majesty, Kill them out of That shall be price enough, and let me hear Swellfoot. Call in the Jews, Solomon Their everlasting grunts and whines no Hinted at in his charge to the Theban Do the troops mutiny?—decimate some Mammon. Why it was I who spoke And these dull swine of Thebes bust their descent that oracle, And whether I was dead drunk or From the free Minotaur. You know I cannot well remember; nor, in truth, Call themselves Bulls, though thus deThe oracle itself! Purganax. The words went thus:--"Boeotia, choose reform or civil war! When through thy streets, instead of hare with dogs, A Consort Queen shall hunt a King with hogs, Riding on the Ionian Minotaur." generate, And everything relating to a bull They think their strength consists in Now there were danger in the precedent Mammon. Now if the oracle had If Queen Iona- This sad alternative, it must arrive, Or Lesbian liquor to declare these words, Purganax. I have taken good care That shall not be. I struck the crust o' the earth With this enchanted rod, and Hell lay And from a cavern full of ugly shapes, sent To agitate Io, and which Ezekiel? mentions That the Lord whistled for out of the Of utmost Ethiopia, to torment stings, Each able to make a thousand wounds, Immedicable; from his convex eyes And trumpets all his falsehood to the Like other beetles he is fed on dung— Or hypocrites who, from assuming virtue, |