Some years ago I was inclined to assign this poem to the year 1814, because Wordsworth himself gave it that date in one of the notes which he dictated to Miss Fenwick in 1843. I now assign it to the year 1816. Wordsworth gave it that date in the year 1837, and if written in 1814, I think it would have been included in the edition of 1815.
Dion, the Ode to Lycoris, and the translation of part of Virgil's Æneid, belong to a time when Wordsworth had reverted to the subjects of ancient classical literature while preparing his eldest son for the University.
Charles Lamb wrote thus to Dorothy Wordsworth in 1820:—"The story of Dion is divine—the genius of Plato falling on him like moonlight—the finest thing ever expressed." (The Letters of Charles Lamb, edited by Alfred Ainger, vol. ii. p. 56.)
I am indebted to the Headmaster of Fettes College, the Rev. W. A. Heard, for the following notes on the poem, with special reference to Plutarch. They reveal, as Mr. Heard remarks, "Wordsworth's method of work upon the authors he had read and studied, and show upon what a solid structure of fact he always wrote." It will be observed that he invariably appended to the title of this poem "(See Plutarch)."
"When Dion, the pupil of Plato, became the autocrat of Syracuse, it seemed as if the moment had come for the rule of a philosopher. But the gardens of the Academy knew nothing of the methods by which alone intrigue could be met and unscrupulousness baffled. The murder of Heracleides became a political necessity; but when this was conceded, the charm was once and for ever broken—the career was done. Plutarch's biography deals mainly with the external conditions, and is overlaid with so much historical detail that the personality of Dion stands out in insufficient relief. Wordsworth gives us a study of the internal struggle, showing us the failure of an ideal, not in its external aspect, but as closing the aspirations, and desolating the conscience, of a truly noble mind. He accepts Plutarch's general conception of the life, incorporating much of the details and adopting some of the language, but over and above the fresh emphasis he gives to critical moments, the imaginative insight with which all the detail is treated makes the poem an original presentation.
. . . . a swan-like grace
Of haughtiness without pretence.
ὑψηλὀς τῷ ἠθει καὶ μεγαλόφρων.—'He was lofty in his disposition and large-minded.' Again, Plutarch speaks of the "σεμνότης"—the 'still magnificence' of his nature, coupled with "τὸ γενναίον καἰ ἁπλότης," nobility and simplicity.
Softening their inbred dignity austere.