NOTE TO FOURTH IMPRESSION

68. In all previous impressions this passage of Shelley was printed with the second and third lines thus:

Of the low voice of Love, almost unheard,

And dove-eyed Pity's murmured pain; and Music,

In this impression I return to the original text, having been convinced by critics that I did wrong to alter it. They approve of my other changes in punctuation, etc. As readers may wish to compare the whole passage, as it stands in Mrs. Shelley's first reprint, I give it below, including the four preceding lines, which supply the verb that completes the sentence (though it is not necessary to the understanding of the passage), and also. one line at the end, which carries on to the full stop:

And hither come, sped on the charmed winds,
Which meet from all the points of heaven, as bees
From every flower aërial Enna feeds,

At their known island-homes in Himera,
The echoes of the human world, which tell
Of the low voice of love, almost unheard,

And dove-eyed pity's murmured pain, and music,
Itself the echo of the heart, and all

40

That tempers or improves man's life, now free;
And lovely apparitions, dim at first,

Then radiant, as the mind, arising bright

50

From the embrace of beauty, whence the forms

Of which these are the phantoms, casts on them

The gathered rays which are reality,

Shall visit us, the progeny immortal

Of Painting, Sculpture, and rapt Poesy,
And arts, though unimagined, yet to be.

The wandering voices and the shadows these

Of all that man becomes, the mediators

Of that best worship, love, by him and us

Given and returned; swift shapes and sounds, which grow

60

More fair and soft as man grows wise and kind,

And veil by veil, evil and error fall:

Such virtue has the cave and place around.

It is believed that Mrs. Shelley in editing this text (Moxon, 1839) worked with the table of errata which Shelley had sent to his publisher for the correction of his first edition (1820). But the only changes made by her in this passage are, line 42, the diæresis over aerial, 55. rapt for wrapt, 56. though for tho', and 59. comma after worship.

NOTE TO FOURTH IMPRESSION

In the Bodleian Library there is a fair copy of the Prometheus in Shelley's own hand: the punctuation in this is deficient and of no assistance. Dr. Henry Bradley, who kindly allows me to quote from his letter, wrote thus to me, 'I read the passage something like this; the liberated spirit of man throughout the world awakes to countless activities of blessing. The "echoes" of all its voices--of the whisper of love, of the murmurs of pity, of music, of the utterance of "all that tempers or improves man's life"-and the "apparitions" of all its visible creations, shall visit us here Music is thought of as one of the voices conveying humanizing and ennobling influences; and then the thought is interposed that this voice, the echo of which is heard, is itself an echo of the heart.'--[This is of course from Shakespeare: It gives a very echo to the seat where love is throned.] That is, its value is not only in its beneficial influence, but in its revelation of the unexhausted wealth from which it issues.'

The word music, therefore, should not have a capital initial, since it ranges not with love and pity, but with their vocal utterances and Dr. Bradley objects to giving capitals to love and pity, because that tends to personify them more than is intended an objection which does not forbid the capitals to Painting, Sculpture, and Poesy; nor the capitals which I have given to Love and Beauty below, where they serve another purpose.

This is a long note, but my mistake made it necessary, and the passage deserves it. Its detail would be imperfect without two other remarks: First, that in Shelley's MS., referred to above, the word hither in line 40 is written thither. Hither is defensible, and may have been a correction, but it is very possibly an uncorrected misprint. The second remark is on the strange epithet dove-eyed in line 46. Dr. Bradley says that he thinks this word was invented by one Elijah Fenton. It is no doubt traceable to the Song of Solomon, Oculi tui columbarum, which our revisers now translate 'Thine eyes are as doves behind thy veil' (iv. 2 ; cp. v. 12): that is, they are like doves, not like doves' eyes. The unfortunate word can only be defended as meaning 'eyes that express the tenderness of the Dove', which the dove's eyes do not. N.B. The references to Marcus Aurelius in the Index are to the older Greek texts, and do not correspond with Gataker's revision, to which the references would be

173. iv. 23 (for 15)
181. vii. 59 (for 34)

289. xi. 18 (for 16)
350. vii. 13 (for 9)

The Title-page was designed by Mr. Emery Walker. The
drawing is from Michelangelo's Fresco of the Creation of Adam
in the Sistine Chapel.

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