Mr. Locock has some interesting remarks on the metrical features of this complex ode. On the 10th line of Antistrophe 1a (line 86 of the ode)—Aghast she pass from the Earth’s disk—which exceeds by one foot the 10th lines of the two corresponding divisions, Strophe 1 and Antistrophe 1b, he observes happily enough that ‘Aghast may well have been intended to disappear.’ Mr. Locock does not seem to notice that the closing lines of these three answering sections—(1) hail, hail, all hail!—(2) Thou shalt be great—All hail!—(3) Art Thou of all these hopes.—O hail! increase by regular lengths—two, three, four iambi. Nor does he seem quite to grasp Shelley’s intention with regard to the rhyme scheme of the other triple group, Strophe 2, Antistrophe 2a, Antistrophe 2b. That of Strophe 2 may be thus expressed:—a-a-bc; d-d-bc; a-c-d; b-c. Between this and Antistrophe 2a (the second member of the group) there is a general correspondence with, in one particular, a subtle modification. The scheme now becomes a-a-bc; d-d-bc; a-c-b; d-c: i.e. the rhymes of lines 9 and 10 are transposed—God (line 9) answering to the halfway rhymes of lines 3 and 6, gawd and unawed, instead of (as in Strophe 2) to the rhyme-endings of lines 4 and 5; and, vice versa, fate (line 10) answering to desolate and state (lines 4 and 5), instead of to the halfway rhymes aforesaid. As to Antistrophe 2b, that follows Antistrophe 2a, so far as it goes; but after line 9 it breaks off suddenly, and closes with two lines corresponding in length and rhyme to the closing couplet of Antistrophe 1b, the section immediately preceding, which, however, belongs not to this group, but to the other. Mr. Locock speaks of line 124 as ‘a rhymeless line.’ Rhymeless it is not, for shore, its rhyme-termination, answers to bower and power, the halfway rhymes of lines 118 and 121 respectively. Why Mr. Locock should call line 12 an ‘unmetrical line,’ I cannot see. It is a decasyllabic line, with a trochee substituted for an iambus in the third foot—Around : me gleamed : many a : bright se : pulchre.
10.
THE TOWER OF FAMINE.—It is doubtful whether the following note is
Shelley’s or Mrs. Shelley’s: ‘At Pisa there still exists the prison of
Ugolino, which goes by the name of “La Torre della Fame”; in the
adjoining building the galley-slaves are confined. It is situated on the
Ponte al Mare on the Arno.’
11. GINEVRA, line 129: Through seas and winds, cities and wildernesses. The footnote omits Professor Dowden’s conjectural emendation—woods—for winds, the reading of edition 1824 here.
12. THE LADY OF THE SOUTH. Our text adopts Mr. Forman’s correction—drouth for drought—in line 3. This should have been recorded in a footnote.
13. HYMN TO MERCURY, line 609. The period at now is supported by the Harvard manuscript.
JUVENILIA.
QUEEN MAB.
1. Throughout this varied and eternal world Soul is the only element: the block That for uncounted ages has remained The moveless pillar of a mountain’s weight Is active, living spirit. (4, lines 139-143.) This punctuation was proposed in 1888 by Mr. J. R. Tutin (see “Notebook of the Shelley Society”, Part 1, page 21), and adopted by Dowden, “Poetical Works of Shelley”, Macmillan, 1890. The editio princeps (1813), which is followed by Forman (1892) and Woodberry (1893), has a comma after element and a full stop at remained.
2.
Guards…from a nation’s rage
Secure the crown, etc. (4, lines 173-176.)
So Mrs. Shelley (“Poetical Works”, 1839, both editions), Rossetti,
Forman, Dowden. The editio princeps reads Secures, which Woodberry
defends and retains.
3. 4, lines 203-220: omitted by Mrs. Shelley from the text of “Poetical Works”, 1839, 1st edition, but restored in the 2nd edition of 1839. See above, “Note on Queen Mab, by Mrs. Shelley”.