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ACT IV

"At first he completed the drama in three acts. It was not till several months after, when at Florence, that he conceived that a fourth act, a sort of hymn of rejoicing in the fulfilment of the prophecies with regard to Prometheus, ought to be added to complete the composition." -From Mrs. Shelley's note.

It is strange that Sidney Lanier, a critic so generally discerning, should have written as follows of this fourth act: "Act IV is the most amazing piece of surplusage in literature; the catastrophe has been reached long ago in the third act, Jove is in eternal duress, Prometheus has been liberated and has gone with Asia and Panthea to his eternal paradise above the earth, and a final radiant picture of the reawakening of man and nature under the new régime has closed up the whole with the effect of a transformationscene. Yet, upon all this, Shelley drags in Act IV, which is simply leaden in action and color alongside of Act III, and in which the voices of unseen spirits, the chorus of Hours, Ione, Panthea, Demogorgon, the Earth and the Moon pelt each other with endless sweetish speeches that rain like ineffectual comfits in a carnival of silliness." The English Novel, pp. 103, 104.

William Michael Rossetti, on the other hand, finds it "difficult to speak highly enough of the fourth act so far as lyrical fervour and lambent play of imagination are concerned, both of them springing from ethical enthusiasm. It is the combination of these which makes this act the most surprising structure of lyrical faculty, sustained at an almost uniform pitch through a very considerable length of verse, that I know of in any literature. One ought perhaps to except certain passages, taken collectively, in Dante's Paradiso."

Certainly, if Lanier's criticism were to stand, it would become necessary to curtail some of Shakespeare's plays and Thackeray's novels, as concluding with other than structurally necessary passages. Though it is true that the essential dramatic action is ended with the third act of Prometheus, yet the drama itself is incomplete, for the movement has been directed toward a catastrophe so stupendous and revolutionary that the reader instinctively feels as Shelley felt the need of another act, both to give reality in celebrant music to the central idea of the entire drama, and to relieve overcharged emotions. If Act III had been allowed to remain as the concluding act, the finale would have been one of ungrateful and almost unconvincing abruptness, and the æsthetic result one of a surprise and joy so unrelieved as to be almost painful. The "silver lining" apparent in the coming of Fortinbras

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132

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after the catastrophe in Hamlet, hinting at the redemption of the tragic idea, and the exultant strains of Shelley's final act, serve alike one prime purpose, the making of both creations more artistically credible.

Panthea and Ione here serve the function of an interlinking and wonderingly interpretative chorus between the Spirit-songs and the duet of Earth and Moon, and again between these and the great injunctions of Demogorgon.

73-76. For the figure cf. Act I, Sc. 1, 1. 456; The Cenci, Act I, Sc. 2, 1. 14; Adonais, 1. 297; Hamlet, Act III, Sc. 2, 1. 250.

116. "dædal." See note on Mont Blanc, 1. 86. Cf. Act III, Sc. 1, 1. 26; Act IV, 1. 416.

121, 122. Contrast Lines Written among the Euganean Hills, ll. 1-8; 66-69.

192. Cf. Chaucer's Prologue to the Canterbury Tales, II. 267-268:

"His eyen twinkled in his heed aright,
As doon the sterres in the frosty night."

206-235. With this vision of the Moon cf. The Cloud, 11. 45-58.

213. "Regard." Are regarded as; appear.

214-217. Cf. The Cloud, ll. 21–24.

266–268. Cf. Shakespeare's King Henry V, Act II, Sc. 3, 1. 16.

281. "valueless." Invaluable.

319 sq. This spiritual coming together of Earth and Moon at once indicates the new and rapid growth of each under the law of love and satisfies the prediction of Asia in Act III, Sc. 4, ll. 394-398. The speakers are surely the Spirit of the Earth and the Spirit of the Moon. This is the new Earth of Act III, Sc. 4, the freed and rejuvenated spirit of Scene 3, not the old Earth of Act I. In this final act it has become "old enough" in its new life (cf. Asia's words in Act III, Sc. 4, 1. 399) for complete delight and triumph. Esthetically, this is a valuable study in interchanged metres, and the student should carefully examine the measures as corresponding to the presences and consciousnesses of Earth and Moon. Cf. Addison's famous ode, The Spacious Firmament on High, as exhibiting a brief moment of similar spiritual insight.

370-423. Literature contains no hymn of humanity more inspiring than this.

378. Cf. 1. 245.

406. Cf. Coleridge's Love, ll. 1–4:

"All thoughts, all passions, all delights,

Whatever stirs this mortal frame,

All are but ministers of Love,

And feed his sacred flame.'

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453. Cf. Hymn to Intellectual Beauty, 11. 59, 60. 473. "Mænad." See note on The Sensitive Plant, 1. 34. 474. " Agave." Daughter of Cadmus, founder of Thebes. 475. Cadmæan." See note on Ode to Liberty, 1. 92. 554 sq. Demogorgon's great utterance touches the root serenity that both conditions and is produced by discipline through Evil. The student will compare the Shakespeare of The Tempest and The Winter's Tale with the Shakespeare of Hamlet and Lear. Both sorrow and joy are now tempered and controlled to a music undespairing and unexultant, but strong and calm and kind. Shelley's own firmest belief in the manner of Man's redemption is here expressed. 147 The World's Wanderers.

In Forman's opinion a stanza is wanting, the last word of which should rhyme with "billow."

148 Song ("Rarely, rarely comest thou").

149

150

Though this lyric is usually grouped with the poems of 1821, there exists at Harvard an autograph MS. dated "Pisa, May, 1820."

19. Note the metrical means employed to induce the 'merry measure.”

38-9. Shelley disliked the ordinary forms and conventions of "society."

48. Cf. "When the lamp is shattered," 11. 21–4. 150 Song of Proserpine.

In Greek mythology Persephone (Roman, Proserpine) was the daughter of Zeus (Jupiter) and Demeter (Ceres). While gathering flowers on the plains of Enna, in Sicily, with Artemis and Athena, she was seized by Pluto, god of the dead, and carried off to become Queen of Hades. She was permitted, however, to return to her mother during a portion of each year, and symbolizes vegetable life. Her story is told by Hesiod and Ovid. Cf. Swinburne's Hymn to Proserpine.

151 Autumn: A Dirge.

10. Cf. Dirge for the Year, 1. 10.

152 The Question.

The sensuous beauty of this poem suggests comparison with Keats's Ode to a Nightingale.

1-8. Cf. Prometheus Unbound, II, 1, 1-12.

9.

wind-flowers." Anemones. (From aveμos, wind.) 10. "Arcturi."

So-called because ever-blooming. The constellation of Arcturus never sets.

9-32. Cf. the famous flower-passages in Spenser's Faerie Queene, Book III, Canto 6, stanza 45; Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream, Act II, Sc. 1, 11. 249-252; Keats's Ode to a Nightingale, stanza 5; Milton's Lycidas, ll. 142–151; Bacon's Essay Of Gardens.

13. "that tall flower." Probably the tulip.

21. "Our language has no line," says Palgrave, "modulated with more subtle sweetness."

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27. "sedge." Coarse grass or flags growing on the banks of lakes and rivers. Cf. Milton's Lycidas, l. 104. 153 Hymn of Apollo.

This and the succeeding Hymn were intended for use in a drama of Williams's. Apollo and Pan are contending before Tmolus for a prize in music. Apollo was the son of Zeus and Leto, and was the god of the sun, of divination, medicine, music, poetry, etc. (See 11. 30-34.) 154 Hymn of Pan.

The god Pan in Greek mythology was a son of Hermes and Callisto. He controlled the fields and woods, the flocks and the herds, and is traditionally represented as having horns and goat-like legs and feet. He was a master-musician, the inventor of "Pan's pipes," or the shepherd's flute. For circumstances of composition see note on Hymn of Apollo. Cf. Mrs. Browning's A Musical Instrument. 155 11. "Tmolus." The god of Mount Tmolus, in Lydia, father of Tantalus, and judge in a musical contest between Pan and Apollo.

66

13. Peneus." Or, Salembria, a river in Sicily.

14. "Tempe." A vale in Thessaly, separating Olympus from Ossa.

15. "Pelion." A mountain in Thessaly, fabled to have been piled on Ossa, another mountain, by the giants, and directed against Olympus.

16. "Sileni." Satyrs and followers of Bacchus. "Sylvans." Wood-spirits. "Fauns." Creatures of Latin mythology, resembling the Greek satyrs.

26. "dædal." See note on Mont Blanc, 1. 86.

30. "Mænalus." A mountain in Arcadia, the original seat of Pan.

156 Arethusa.

Arethusa was a fountain in Ortygia, near Sicily, and Alpheus a river in the ancient Peloponnesus, whose course was at times subterranean. The legend therefore arose that Alpheus, the river-god, became enamoured of the nymph Arethusa, while she bathed in the stream, and pursued her, whereupon she was changed by Artemis, or Diana, into the Ortygian fountain. Alpheus continued his pursuit under "earth and ocean." Cf. Milton's Arcades, 11. 29-31:

46

that renowned flood, so often sung,

Divine Alpheus, who by secret sluice,

Stole under seas to meet his Arethuse."

Cf. also Milton's Lycidas, 11. 85, 132; and Coleridge's Kubla
Khan:

"Where Alph, the sacred river, ran
Through caverns measureless to man
Down to a sunless sea."

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156 3. 'Acroceraunian." Acroceraunia was the ancient name of a promontory of Epirus.

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24. "Erymanthus." An Arcadian mountain in the Peloponnesus.

60. "unvalued."

1. 176:

Invaluable. Cf. Milton's Lycidas,

"And hears the unexpressive [inexpressible] nuptial song."

Cf. also Ode to Liberty, 1. 51; Prometheus Unbound, IV, 281, 378.

158 74. "Enna's." See note on Song of Proserpine. 158 The Cloud.

It was natural that Shelley's genius should take delight in things aerial, birds, balloons, lightning, stars, winds, clouds. The sympathy shown in this familiar lyric with the "being and becoming" of the cloud testifies to the immediacy of his nature-vision, to his kinship with Blake and Browning rather than with Bryant or even, in general, Wordsworth.

159 11, 12. Cf. Prometheus Unbound, IV, 181–4. 45. Cf. Letter to Maria Gisborne, 11. 69, 70:

160

161

when from the moist moon rains

The inmost shower of its white fire."

45 sq. Note the difference in thought between the clouddrawn picture of the moon and the mortal's melancholy fancy. Cf. To the Moon and The Waning Moon, and cf. also Sidney's admirable sonnet, "With how sad steps, O moon, thou climb'st the skies!"

52-4. Cf. Coleridge's "star-dogged Moon," Rime of the Ancient Mariner, 1. 212, and Wordsworth's A NightPiece, ll. 11-20.

81. "cenotaph." An empty tomb, intended as a memorial rather than as a grave.

161 To a Skylark.

See Introduction, pp. xliii, lviii, and Ixiv. "Here it was [at Casa Ricci], near bustling Leghorn, that Shelley and Mary, wandering on a beautiful summer evening ''mong the lanes whose myrtle-hedges were the bowers of fireflies,' heard the carolling of the skylark which inspired that spiritwinged song known to all lovers of English poetry a song vibrating still with such a keen and pure intensity." Dowden's Life, II, 331.

8. Some critics have held that the semicolon at the end of this line should be placed after line 7. This would be not only an unnecessary variation from the early editions but an indefensible one, the genius of the second stanza requiring a quick, exultant, ascending movement. The stress is palpably upon line 8 rather than line 7, since, as Professor Baynes points out, "in the opening verse of the poem the lark . . is already far up in the sky."

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