“Endymion” now claims our attention. I believe that no better criticism of “Endymion” has ever been written than that which Shelley supplied in a letter dated in September 1819. Certainly no criticism which is equally short is also equally good. I therefore extract it here, and shall have little to say about the poem which is not potentially condensed into Shelley’s brief utterance. “I have read Keats’s poem,” he wrote: “much praise is due to me for having read it, the author’s intention appearing to be that no person should possibly get to the end of it. Yet it is full of some of the highest and the finest gleams of poetry; indeed, everything seems to be viewed by the mind of a poet which is described in it. I think if he had printed about fifty pages of fragments from it I should have been led to admire Keats as a poet more than I ought, of which there is now no danger.” In July 1820 Shelley wrote to Keats himself on the subject, furnishing almost the only addendum which could have been needed to the preceding remarks: “I have lately read your ‘Endymion’ again, and even with a new sense of the treasures of poetry it contains, though treasures poured forth with indistinct profusion.” As Shelley shared with Gifford the conviction that it is difficult to read “Endymion” from book 1, line 1, to book 4, line 1003, and as human nature has not changed essentially since the time of that pre-eminent poet and that rather less eminent critic, I daresay that there are at this day several Keats-enthusiasts who know in foro conscientiæ, though they may not avow in public, that they have left “Endymion” unread, or only partially read. Others have perused it, but have found in it so much “indistinct profusion” that they also remain after a while with rather a vague impression of the course of the story; although they agree with Gifford, and even exceed him in the assurance, that “it seems to be mythological, and probably relates to the loves of Diana and Endymion.” As the poem is an extremely important one in relation to the life-work of Keats, I think it may not be out of place if I here give a succinct account of what the narrative really amounts to. This may be all the more desirable as Keats has not followed the convenient if prosaic practice of several other epic poets by prefixing to the several books of his long poem an “argument” of their respective contents.
Book 1. On a lawn within a forest upon a slope of Mount Latmos was held one morning a festival to Pan. The young huntsman-chieftain Endymion attended, but his demeanour betrayed a secret preoccupation and trouble. After the rites were over, his sister Peona addressed him, and gradually won him to open his heart to her. He told her that at a certain spot by the river, one of his favourite haunts, he had lately seen a sudden efflorescence of dittany and poppies (the flowers sacred to Diana). He fell asleep there, and had a dream or vision of entering the gates of heaven, seeing the moon in transcendent splendour, and then being accosted by a woman or goddess lovely beyond words, who pressed his hand. He seemed to faint, and to be upborne into the upper regions of the sky, where he gave the beauty a rapturous kiss, and then they both paused upon a mountain-side. Next he dreamed that he fell asleep. This was the prelude to his actual waking out of the vision. Ever since he had retained a mysterious sense that the dream had not been all a dream. This was confirmed by various incidents of obscure suggestion, and especially by his hearing in a cavern the words (we have read them already, beslavered by the “human serpentry” of criticism, but they remain delicious words none the less)—
“Endymion, the cave is secreter
Than the isle of Delos. Echo hence shall stir
No sighs but sigh-warm kisses, or light noise
Of thy combing hand, the while it travelling cloys
And trembles through my labyrinthine hair.”
As nothing further, however, had happened, Endymion promised Peona that he would henceforth cease to live a life of feverish expectation, and would resume the calm tenor of his days.
Book 2.—Endymion’s promise had not been strictly fulfilled; he was still restless and craving. One day he plucked a rosebud: it suddenly blossomed, and a butterfly emerged from it, with strangely-charactered wings. He pursued the butterfly, which led him to a fountain by a cavern, and then disappeared. A naiad thereupon addressed him, saying that he must wander far before he could be reunited to his mystic fair one. He then appealed to the moon-goddess for some aid, was rapt into a dizzy vision as if he were sailing through heaven in her car, and heard a voice from the cavern bidding him descend into the entrails of the earth. He eagerly obeyed, and passed through a region of twilight dimness starred with gems, until he reached a natural temple enshrining a statue of Diana. An awful sense of solitude weighed upon him, and he implored the goddess to restore him to his earthly home. A profusion of flowers budded forth before his feet, followed by music as he resumed his journey. At last he came to a verdant space, peopled with slumbering Cupids. Here in a beautiful chamber he found Adonis lying tranced on a couch, attended by other Cupids.[18] One of them gave him wine and fruit, and explained to him the winter-sleep and summer-life of Adonis; and at this moment Adonis woke up from his trance, and Venus came to solace him with love. Venus spoke soothingly also to Endymion, telling him that she knew of his love for some one of the immortals, but who this was she had failed to fathom. She promised that one day he should be blessed, and with Adonis she then rose heavenward in her car. The earth closed, and Endymion gladly pursued his way through caves, jewels, and water-springs. Cybele passed on her lion-drawn chariot. The diamond path ended in middle air; Endymion invoked Jupiter, an eagle swooped and bore him down through darkness into a mossy jasmine-bower. With a sense of ecstasy, chequered by an unsatisfied longing for his unknown love, Endymion prepared himself to sleep:
“And, just into the air
Stretching his indolent arms, he took, O bliss!
A naked waist. ‘Fair Cupid, whence is this?’
A well-known voice sighed, ‘Sweetest, here am I!’”
The lovers indulged their passion in kisses and caresses; he urgent to know who she might be, and she confessing herself a goddess hitherto awful in loveless chastity, but not naming herself, though perhaps her avowals were sufficiently indicative,[19] and she promised to exalt him ere long to Olympus. The rapturous interview ended with the sleep of Endymion, and awaking he found himself alone. He strayed out, and reached an enormous grotto. Two springs of water gushed forth—the springs of Arethusa and Alpheus, whose loves found voice in words. Endymion, sending up a prayer for their union, stepped forward and found himself beneath the sea.
Book 3. Soothed by a moonbeam which greeted him through the waters, Endymion pursued his course. Upon a rock within the sea he encountered an old, old man, with wand and book. The ancient man started up as from a trance, declaring that he should now be young again and happy. This was Glaucus, who imparted to Endymion the story of his ill-omened love for Scylla (it is told at considerable length, but need not be detailed here), the witchcraft of Circe which had doomed him to a ghastly marine life of a thousand years, and how, after a shipwreck, he came into possession of a book of magic, which revealed to him that at some far-off day a youth should make his appearance and break the accursed spell. In Endymion, Glaucus recognized the predicted youth. Glaucus then led Endymion to an edifice in which he had preserved the corpse of Scylla, and thousands of other corpses, being those of lovers who had been shipwrecked during his many cycles of sea-dwelling doom. Glaucus tore his scroll into fragments, bound his cloak round Endymion, and waved his wand nine times. He then instructed Endymion to unwind a tangled thread, read the markings on a shell, break the wand against a lyre, and strew the fragments of the scroll upon Glaucus himself, and upon the dead bodies. As the final act was performed, Glaucus resumed his youth, and Scylla and the drowned lovers returned to life. The whole joyous company then rushed off, and paid their devotions to Neptune in his palace. Cupid and Venus were also present here; and the goddess of love spoke words of comfort to Endymion, assuring him that his long expectancy would soon find its full reward. She had by this time probed the secret of Diana, but she refrained from naming that deity to Endymion. She invited him and his bride to pass a portion of their honeymoon in Cythera,[20] with Adonis and Cupid. A stupendous festival in Neptune’s palace succeeded. Endymion finally sank down in a trance; Nereids conveyed him up to a forest by a lake; and as he floated earthwards he heard in dream words promising that his goddess would soon waft him up into heaven. He awoke in the sylvan scene.
Book 4. The first sound that Endymion heard was a female voice; the wail of a damsel who had followed Bacchus from the banks of the Ganges, and who longed to be at home again, if only to die there. Unseen himself, he saw a beautiful girl, who lay bemoaning her loveless lot. He at once felt that, if he adored his unknown goddess, he loved also his Indian Bacchante. He sprang forward and declared his passion.[21] She, after chaunting her long journeyings in the train of Bacchus, explained that, being sick-hearted and weary, she had strayed away in the forest, and was now but the votary of sorrow. Endymion continued to woo her with sweet words and hot: he heard a dismal voice, “Woe to Endymion!” echoing through the forest. Mercury descended and touched the ground with his wand, and two winged horses sprang out of the earth. Endymion seated his Bacchante upon one horse and mounted the other; they flew upward, eagle-high. In the air they passed Sleep, who had heard a report that a mortal was to wed a daughter of Jove, and who desired to hearken to the marriage ditties before he returned to his cave. The influence of Sleep made the winged horses drowse, and also Endymion and the Bacchante. Endymion then dreamed of being in heaven, the mate of gods and goddesses, Diana among them. In dream he sprang towards Diana, and so awoke; but awake he still saw the same vision. Diana was there in heaven; his Bacchante was beside him lying on the horse’s pinions. He kissed the Bacchante, and almost in the same breath protested to Diana his unshaken constancy. The Bacchante then awoke. Endymion, dazed in mind with his divided allegiance, urged her to be gone, and the winged horses resumed their flight. They advanced towards the galaxy, the moon peeped out of the sky, the Bacchante faded away in the moonbeams. Her steed dropped down to the earth; while the one which bore Endymion continued mounting upwards, and he again fell into a sort of trance. He heard not the celestial messengers bespeaking guests to Diana’s wedding. The winged horse then carried Endymion down to a hill-top. Here once more he found his beautiful Indian, and for her sake forswore all præterhuman passion. She, however, declared to him that a divine terror forbade her to be his. His sister Peona now re-appeared. She rallied him and the Bacchante on their love and melancholy, both equally obvious, and bade him attend at night a festival to Diana, whom the soothsayers had pronounced to be in a mood peculiarly propitious. Endymion announced his resolution to abandon the world, and live an eremitic life: Peona and the fair Indian should both be his sisters. The Indian vowed lifelong chastity, devoted to Diana. Both the women then retired. The day passed over Endymion motionless and mute. At eventide he walked towards the temple: he heeded not the hymning to Diana. Peona, companioned by the Indian damsel, accosted him. He replied, “Sister, I would have command, if it were heaven’s will, on our sad fate.” The Indian replied that this he should assuredly have; as she spoke she changed semblance, and stood revealed as Diana herself. She laid upon her own fears and upon fate the blame of past delays, and told Endymion that it had also been fitting that he should be spiritualized out of mortality by some unlooked-for change. As Endymion kneeled and kissed her hands, they both vanished away. The last words of the poem are—
“Peona went
Home through the gloomy wood in wonderment:”