Published 1832, much revised for 1842. The changes are well discussed by P. F. Baum (Tennyson Sixty Years After, 1948, pp. 75–82). T. began such changes soon after 1832, as is clear from the copy presented to J. M. Heath (Fitzwilliam Museum), which has various intermediate alterations to the opening lines and elsewhere. T. wrote to Spedding in early March 1835 of ‘my old poems most of which I have so corrected (particularly Œnone) as to make them much less imperfect’ (Letters i 130–1; Mem. i 145). It was written 1830–32; the scenery was suggested by the Pyrenees, where according to T. part of it was written, summer 1830. Hallam asked T.’s sister Emily to send him ‘the concluding lines of Œnone. Existing manuscripts go no further than “I only saw great Here’s angry eyes [186] with the lines immediately following’ (26 May 1832; AHH, p. 583). T.’s note observes that Œnone was ‘married to Paris, and afterwards deserted by him for Helen. The sequel of the tale is poorly given in Quintus Calaber’ (which T. was to adapt in The Death of Œnone, III 220). The sources and classical allusions – in particular Ovid’s Heroides and Theocritus – have been comprehensively discussed by P. Turner (JEGP lxi (1962) 57–72), who subsumes previous commentators and on whom the following notes draw extensively. Culler (pp. 78–9) discusses ‘the traditional Renaissance interpretation of the myth’ and T.’s awareness of it; ‘Paris’s error is that in choosing any one of the goddesses over another he has shown a lack of harmony and balance.’ ‘The scene… has echoes of the temptation scenes in Paradise Lost and Paradise Regained, and, indeed, it is less a judgment scene than a temptation. It is a temptation to judge, as well as to judge wrong.’ D. Bush (Mythology and the Romantic Tradition, 1937, p. 204) describes the poem as an epyllion, or minor epic, in the manner of Theocritus. Some variants are selected from Huntington MS (HM 19501), ll. 54–124, which was originally part of T.Nbk 26. The early version in T.Nbk 23 (1830) is much briefer, and omits e.g. ll. 52–84. P. Gaskell reproduces and discusses eleven stages of the text of ll. 1–32, including five successive drafts in T.Nbk 26 (From Writer to Reader, 1978, pp. 118–41). This is supplemented by A. Day, The Library 6th Ser. ii (1980) 315–25, on two other stages of revision (Lincoln) throughout the poem. Day also noted the revised 1832, in T.’s hand, in the Ashley Library (British Library). The MS variants are innumerable and complex, beyond the scale of such an edition as this. See Appendix B (III 611) for a passage – not in blank verse – which contributed to Œnone. T. says: ‘I had an idiotic hatred of hyphens in those days, but though I printed such words as “glénríver,” “téndríltwine” I always gave them in reading their full two accents. Coleridge thought because of these hyphened words that I could not scan.’
There lies a vale in Ida, lovelier
Than all the valleys of Ionian hills.
The swimming vapour slopes athwart the glen,
Puts forth an arm, and creeps from pine to pine,
And loiters, slowly drawn. On either hand
The lawns and meadow-ledges midway down
Hang rich in flowers, and far below them roars
The long brook falling through the cloven ravine
In cataract after cataract to the sea.
Behind the valley topmost Gargarus
Stands up and takes the morning: but in front
The gorges, opening wide apart, reveal
Troas and Ilion’s columned citadel,
The crown of Troas.
Hither came at noon
Mournful Œnone, wandering forlorn
Of Paris, once her playmate on the hills.
Her cheek had lost the rose, and round her neck
Floated her hair or seemed to float in rest.
She, leaning on a fragment twined with vine,
Sang to the stillness, till the mountain-shade
Sloped downward to her seat from the upper cliff.
‘O mother Ida, many-fountained Ida,
Dear mother Ida, harken ere I die.
For now the noonday quiet holds the hill:
The grasshopper is silent in the grass:
The lizard, with his shadow on the stone,
Rests like a shadow, and the winds are dead.
The purple flower droops: the golden bee
Is lily-cradled: I alone awake.
My eyes are full of tears, my heart of love,
My heart is breaking, and my eyes are dim,
And I am all aweary of my life.
‘O mother Ida, many-fountained Ida,
Dear mother Ida, harken ere I die.
Hear me, O Earth, hear me, O Hills, O Caves
That house the cold crowned snake! O mountain brooks,
I am the daughter of a River-God,
Hear me, for I will speak, and build up all
My sorrow with my song, as yonder walls
Rose slowly to a music slowly breathed,
A cloud that gathered shape: for it may be
That, while I speak of it, a little while
My heart may wander from its deeper woe.
‘O mother Ida, many-fountained Ida,
Dear mother Ida, harken ere I die.
I waited underneath the dawning hills,
Aloft the mountain lawn was dewy-dark,
And dewy dark aloft the mountain pine:
Beautiful Paris, evil-hearted Paris,
Leading a jet-black goat white-horned, white-hooved,
Came up from reedy Simois all alone.
‘O mother Ida, harken ere I die.
Far-off the torrent called me from the cleft:
Far up the solitary morning smote
The streaks of virgin snow. With down-dropt eyes
I sat alone: white-breasted like a star
Fronting the dawn he moved; a leopard skin
Drooped from his shoulder, but his sunny hair
Clustered about his temples like a God’s:
And his cheek brightened as the foam-bow brightens
When the wind blows the foam, and all my heart
Went forth to embrace him coming ere he came.
‘Dear mother Ida, harken ere I die.
He smiled, and opening out his milk-white palm
Disclosed a fruit of pure Hesperian gold,
That smelt ambrosially, and while I looked
And listened, the full-flowing river of speech
Came down upon my heart.
‘“My own Œnone,
Beautiful-browed Œnone, my own soul,
Behold this fruit, whose gleaming rind ingraven
‘For the most fair,’ would seem to award it thine,
As lovelier than whatever Oread haunt
The knolls of Ida, loveliest in all grace
Of movement, and the charm of married brows.”
‘Dear mother Ida, harken ere I die.
He prest the blossom of his lips to mine,
And added “This was cast upon the board,
When all the full-faced presence of the Gods
Ranged in the halls of Peleus; whereupon
Rose feud, with question unto whom’twere due:
But light-foot Iris brought it yester-eve,
Delivering, that to me, by common voice
Elected umpire, Herè comes today,
Pallas and Aphroditè, claiming each
This meed of fairest. Thou, within the cave
Behind yon whispering tuft of oldest pine,
Mayst well behold them unbeheld, unheard
Hear all, and see thy Paris judge of Gods.”
‘Dear mother Ida, harken ere I die.
It was the deep midnoon: one silvery cloud
Had lost his way between the piney sides
Of this long glen. Then to the bower they came,
Naked they came to that smooth-swarded bower,
And at their feet the crocus brake like fire,
Violet, amaracus, and asphodel,
Lotos and lilies: and a wind arose,
And overhead the wandering ivy and vine,
This way and that, in many a wild festoon
Ran riot, garlanding the gnarlèd boughs
With bunch and berry and flower through and through.
‘O mother Ida, harken ere I die.
On the tree-tops a crested peacock lit,
And o’er him flowed a golden cloud, and leaned
Upon him, slowly dropping fragrant dew.
Then first I heard the voice of her, to whom
Coming through Heaven, like a light that grows
Larger and clearer, with one mind the Gods
Rise up for reverence. She to Paris made
Proffer of royal power, ample rule
Unquestioned, overflowing revenue
Wherewith to embellish state, “from many a vale
And river-sundered champaign clothed with corn,
Or laboured mine undrainable of ore.
Honour,” she said, “and homage, tax and toll,
From many an inland town and haven large,
Mast-thronged beneath her shadowing citadel
In glassy bays among her tallest towers.”
‘O mother Ida, harken ere I die.
Still she spake on and still she spake of power,
“Which in all action is the end of all;
Power fitted to the season; wisdom-bred
And throned of wisdom – from all neighbour crowns
Alliance and allegiance, till thy hand
Fail from the sceptre-staff. Such boon from me,
From me, Heaven’s Queen, Paris, to thee king-born,
A shepherd all thy life but yet king-born,
Should come most welcome, seeing men, in power
Only, are likest gods, who have attained
Rest in a happy place and quiet seats
Above the thunder, with undying bliss
In knowledge of their own supremacy.”
‘Dear mother Ida, harken ere I die.
She ceased, and Paris held the costly fruit
Out at arm’s-length, so much the thought of power
Flattered his spirit; but Pallas where she stood
Somewhat apart, her clear and bared limbs
O’erthwarted with the brazen-headed spear
Upon her pearly shoulder leaning cold,
The while, above, her full and earnest eye
Over her snow-cold breast and angry cheek
Kept watch, waiting decision, made reply.
‘“Self-reverence, self-knowledge, self-control,
These three alone lead life to sovereign power.
Yet not for power (power of herself
Would come uncalled for) but to live by law,
Acting the law we live by without fear;
And, because right is right, to follow right
Were wisdom in the scorn of consequence.”
‘Dear mother Ida, harken ere I die.
Again she said: “I woo thee not with gifts.
Sequel of guerdon could not alter me
To fairer. Judge thou me by what I am,
So shalt thou find me fairest.
Yet, indeed,
If gazing on divinity disrobed
Thy mortal eyes are frail to judge of fair,
Unbiased by self-profit, oh! rest thee sure
That I shall love thee well and cleave to thee,
So that my vigour, wedded to thy blood,
Shall strike within thy pulses, like a God’s,
To push thee forward through a life of shocks,
Dangers, and deeds, until endurance grow
Sinewed with action, and the full-grown will,
Circled through all experiences, pure law,
Commeasure perfect freedom.”
‘Here she ceased,
And Paris pondered, and I cried, “O Paris,
Give it to Pallas!” but he heard me not,
Or hearing would not hear me, woe is me!
‘O mother Ida, many-fountained Ida,
Dear mother Ida, harken ere I die.
Idalian Aphroditè beautiful,
Fresh as the foam, new-bathed in Paphian wells,
With rosy slender fingers backward drew
From her warm brows and bosom her deep hair
Ambrosial, golden round her lucid throat
And shoulder: from the violets her light foot
Shone rosy-white, and o’er her rounded form
Between the shadows of the vine-bunches
Floated the glowing sunlights, as she moved.
‘Dear mother Ida, harken ere I die.
She with a subtle smile in her mild eyes,
The herald of her triumph, drawing nigh
Half-whispered in his ear, “I promise thee
The fairest and most loving wife in Greece,”
She spoke and laughed: I shut my sight for fear:
But when I looked, Paris had raised his arm,
And I beheld great Herè’s angry eyes,
As she withdrew into the golden cloud,
And I was left alone within the bower;
And from that time to this I am alone,
And I shall be alone until I die.
‘Yet, mother Ida, harken ere I die.
Fairest – why fairest wife? am I not fair?
My love hath told me so a thousand times.
Methinks I must be fair, for yesterday,
When I past by, a wild and wanton pard,
Eyed like the evening star, with playful tail
Crouched fawning in the weed. Most loving is she?
Ah me, my mountain shepherd, that my arms
Were wound about thee, and my hot lips prest
Close, close to thine in that quick-falling dew
Of fruitful kisses, thick as Autumn rains
Flash in the pools of whirling Simois.
‘O mother, hear me yet before I die.
They came, they cut away my tallest pines,
My tall dark pines, that plumed the craggy ledge
High over the blue gorge, and all between
The snowy peak and snow-white cataract
Fostered the callow eaglet – from beneath
Whose thick mysterious boughs in the dark morn
The panther’s roar came muffled, while I sat
Low in the valley. Never, never more
Shall lone Œnone see the morning mist
Sweep through them; never see them overlaid
With narrow moon-lit slips of silver cloud,
Between the loud stream and the trembling stars.
‘O mother, hear me yet before I die.
I wish that somewhere in the ruined folds,
Among the fragments tumbled from the glens,
Or the dry thickets, I could meet with her
The Abominable, that uninvited came
Into the fair Peleian banquet-hall,
And cast the golden fruit upon the board,
And bred this change; that I might speak my mind,
And tell her to her face how much I hate
Her presence, hated both of Gods and men.
‘O mother, hear me yet before I die.
Hath he not sworn his love a thousand times,
In this green valley, under this green hill,
Even on this hand, and sitting on this stone?
Sealed it with kisses? watered it with tears?
O happy tears, and how unlike to these!
O happy Heaven, how canst thou see my face?
O happy earth, how canst thou bear my weight?
O death, death, death, thou ever-floating cloud,
There are enough unhappy on this earth,
Pass by the happy souls, that love to live:
I pray thee, pass before my light of life,
And shadow all my soul, that I may die.
Thou weighest heavy on the heart within,
Weigh heavy on my eyelids: let me die.
‘O mother, hear me yet before I die.
I will not die alone, for fiery thoughts
Do shape themselves within me, more and more,
Whereof I catch the issue, as I hear
Dead sounds at night come from the inmost hills,
Like footsteps upon wool. I dimly see
My far-off doubtful purpose, as a mother
Conjectures of the features of her child
Ere it is born: her child! – a shudder comes
Across me: never child be born of me,
Unblest, to vex me with his father’s eyes!
‘O mother, hear me yet before I die.
Hear me, O earth. I will not die alone,
Lest their shrill happy laughter come to me
Walking the cold and starless road of Death
Uncomforted, leaving my ancient love
With the Greek woman. I will rise and go
Down into Troy, and ere the stars come forth
Talk with the wild Cassandra, for she says
A fire dances before her, and a sound
Rings ever in her ears of armèd men.
What this may be I know not, but I know
That, wheresoe’er I am by night and day,
All earth and air seem only burning fire.’
¶164. 1–14] 1842; |
There is a dale in Ida, lovelier Than any in old Ionia, beautiful With emerald slopes of sunny sward, that lean |
Above the loud glenriver, which hath worn A path through steepdown granite walls below Mantled with flowering tendriltwine. In front The cedarshadowy valleys open wide. |
|
Far-seen, high over all the Godbuilt wall And many a snowycolumned range divine, Mounted with awful sculptures – men and Gods, The work of Gods – bright on the darkblue sky The windy citadel of Ilion |
|
Shone, like the crown of Troas. Hither came 1832 |
1. Ida: the mountain on the south of the Troas. Paris describes the scene of the Judgment: Est locus in mediis nemorosae vallibus Idae… (Ovid, Heroides xvi 53–8). T.’s opening paragraphs follow the pastoral love-lament: hopeless lover, loved one, setting.
10. Gargarus: ‘the highest part of Mount Ida’; T. compares Virgil’s Georgics i 103: Ipsa suas mirantur Gargara messes.
16–17] 1-842; … playmate. Round her neck,/Her neck all marblewhite and marblecold, 1832. forlorn of: Spenserian and Miltonic.
17–18. P. Turner suggests that this associates Œnone ominously with Cassandra: diffusis comis (Heroides v 114); and with Dido: aut videt aut vidisse putat (Aeneid vi 454).
19. fragment… vine] 1842; vine-entwinèd stone 1832.
20. -shade] 1842; -shadow 1832.
20–1. As in Virgil’s Eclogues i 83: maioresque cadunt altis de montibus umbrae.
22. T. remarks that ‘this sort of refrain is found in Theocritus’. mother: because of Theocritus ix 15; in the source of ‘many-fountained’ (Iliad xiv 283), Ida is ‘mother of wild beasts’; hence the pard and panther later. ere I die: a traditional feature of the pastoral love-poem.
24] 1842; not 1832. In Eversley, T. quotes Callimachus, Lavacrum Palladis
72: µεσαµβρινὴ δ’ εἰ̑χ’ ὄρος ἡσυχία (‘and noontide quiet held all the hill’). And yet when John Churton Collins originally suggested this, T. wrote in the margin: ‘not known to me’ (Cornhill, Jan. 1880, Lincoln).
25–9. Based on Virgil’s Eclogues ii 8– 13, where cicadis suggested the cicala of 1832. The antithesis, rests/awake, is from Theocritus ii 38–9; and the lizard, from vii 21–3. Alongside John Churton Collins’s suggestion of Theocritus, T. wrote: ‘from nature in the south of France’ (Cornhill, Jan. 1880, Lincoln).
27] 1883; |
Sleeps like a shadow, and the scarletwinged Cicala in the noonday leapeth not Along the water-rounded granite-rock. 1832; |
Rests like a shadow, and the cicala sleeps 1842–82. T. says: ‘In these lines describing a perfect stillness, I did not like the jump, “Rests like a shadow – and the cicala sleeps”. Moreover, in the heat of noon the cicala is generally at its loudest, though I have read that, in extreme heat, it is silent. Some one (I forget who) found them silent at noon on the slopes of Etna.’ 1832 note: ‘In the Pyrenees, where part of this poem was written, I saw a very beautiful species of Cicala, which had scarlet wings spotted with black. Probably nothing of the kind exists in Mount Ida.’ T. emended J. M. Heath’s copy of 1832 (Fitzwilliam Museum) to:
… and the garrulous
Cicala ceaseth now to burst the brake
With thick dry clamour chafed from griding wings.
28. flower droops] 1832, 1883; flowers droop 1842–82 (‘misprint’, T.).
30. T. denied the influence of 2 Henry VI II iii 17: ‘Mine eyes are full of tears, my heart of grief’.
35–8. Echoing Aeschylus, Prometheus Vinctus 88–91; and Shelley, Prometheus Unbound I 25–9.
37. The claim made by Ovid’s Œnone, Heroides v 9–10.
38–41. Suggested by Ovid’s Œnone, who boasts that Apollo was her first lover (as in T.; ll. 61–2, 1832 text) – Apollo, Troiae munitor (Heroides v 139). For the building of Troy, cp. Tithonus 62–3: ‘Like that strange song I heard Apollo sing,/While Ilion like a mist rose into towers.’ Also Ilion, Ilion (1 281) throughout. H.T. compares Heroides xvi 182.
46] 1842; not 1832. the dawning hills: Paradise Lost vi 528.
50. With the apple of l. 65, the traditional rustic gifts of the pastoral; a goat, Theocritus iii 34–6.
51. Simois: one of the two rivers of the plain of Troy.
53–6] 1842; |
I sate alone: the goldensandalled morn Rosehued the scornful hills: I sate alone With downdropt eyes: whitebreasted… 1832. |
T. emended ll. 53–4 in J. M. Heath’s copy of 1832:
I sate alone: the torrent in the cleft
Called me: far up, far on the rosy glows
O’er trackless woods smote all the snowy streaks,
Smote all the scarrèd spurs. I sat alone
Huntington MS of ll. 54–6 shows T.’s uncertainty:
Far up the lonely morning lit the streaks
Of virgin snow; with downdropt eyes I sat:
I heard a voice: white-breasted…
56. Cp. the Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite 89–90; and Theocritus ii 79. T. uses details from Theocritus and Virgil, but changes from the first meeting to the last.
57. moved] 1842; came 1832. The leopard skin is from Iliad iii 17.
58] 1842; From his white shoulder drooped: his sunny hair 1832.
59–62. Based on Catullus lxiv 270– 8, the arrival of the gods (cp. below) at a wedding.
60. foam-bow: ‘the rainbow in the cataract’ (T.).
61–2] 1842; … and I called out,
‘Welcome Apollo, welcome home Apollo,
Apollo, my Apollo, loved Apollo.’ 1832
Kemble wrote to T., ?Jan. 1833 (Letters i 85–6): ‘let me ask whether Ovid or you are in the right? You seem to know something about Œnone; was it the strength of character that made her burn Troy which enabled her to call Paris “her Apollo”? he knowing all things.’ Letters notes that T. replaced the lines, though Ovid was in fact his authority.
62. Cp. Venus, in Who is it 12–13 (see ll. 213–15n below): ‘Whose coming ere she comes doth strike/On expectation.’ Also PL vi 768: ‘He onward came, farr off his coming shon’.
64. smiled… out] 1842; mildly smiling, in 1832.
65. A pastoral gift, as in Theocritus iii 10–11 (see l. 50n), but here the apple of Discord. For the Hesperian apples, see The Hesperides (I 461).
65–7] 1842; Close-held a golden apple, lightningbright
With changeful flashes, dropt with dew of Heaven
Ambrosially smelling. From his lip,
Curved crimson, the fullflowing… 1832
69. my] 1842; mine 1832. For the meeting eyebrows (as in l. 74), T. compares Theocritus viii 72–3, of a beautiful girl watching from a cave (cp. l. 85).
71–87] 1842; ‘For the most fair,’ in aftertime may breed
Deep evilwilledness of heaven and sere
Heartburning toward hallowèd Ilion;
And all the colour of my afterlife
Will be the shadow of today. Today
Here [Herè] and Pallas and the floating grace
Of laughterloving Aphrodite meet
In manyfolded Ida to receive
This meed of beauty, she to whom my hand
Award the palm. Within the green hillside,
Under yon whispering tuft of oldest pine,
Is an ingoing grotto, strown with spar
And ivymatted at the mouth, wherein
Thou unbeholden mayst behold, unheard 1832
Hn MS shows T.’s efforts; ll. 71 – 83:
… fair, hath bred dispute in Heaven
For Hermes brought it, telling that today
To me, chosen arbiter, would Herè come 1st reading;
… fair, perplexes Heaven with feud
For Hermes brought it, telling that today
(So much they do me honour) unto me
Selected arbiter, would Herè come 2nd reading
72. Oread: mountain-nymph.
76. Ominously recalling Bion’s Lament for Adonis 11–12: ‘The rose departs from his lip, and the kiss that Cypris shall never have so again, that kiss dies upon it and is gone.’ Cp. l. 17 above.
81. Iris: the messenger of the gods. T. translated Iliad xviii 202 as ‘light-foot Iris’, Achilles 1.
86. whispering… oldest] sobbing growth of twisted HnMS, to which T. reverted in emending J. M. Heath’s copy of 1832. whispering: Theocritus i 1.
91. sides] 1842; hills 1832. Cp. Thomson, Summer 1303–4: ‘Paris on the piny top/Of Ida’.
92] 1842; They came – all three – the Olympian goddesses: 1832.
93. that] 1842; the 1832. The setting is from Iliad xiv 346–51, where the cloud dropping dew (cp. ll. 103–4) envelops Herè (Hera) and not her peacock. Cp. PL iv 700–702, the bower of Adam and Eve: ‘underfoot the Violet, / Crocus, and Hyacinth with rich inlay/Broiderd the ground.’
94–7] 1842; Lustrous with lilyflower, violeteyed
Both white and blue, with lotetree-fruit thickset,
Shadowed with singing pine; and all the while,
Above, the overwandering ivy and vine 1832
T. emended J. M. Heath’s copy of 1832: ‘Lustrous with lily and myrtle – myriad-eyed/With violet-hues.’ HnMS of ll. 94–5 included further allusions to Milton:
That darkened all with violets underneath
Through which like fire the sudden crocus came,
Amaracus, immortal asphodel,
A. Day notes PL ix 1036–41.
like fire: T. spoke of the ‘flame-like petal… not only the colour’. This note was written alongside John Churton Collins’s remark that the comparison was not ‘original’ (Cornhill, Jan. 1880, Lincoln). Cp. ‘The ground-flame of the crocus’, The Progress of Spring 1 and n (I 517). H.T. compares Oedipus Coloneus 685.
97–9. Cp. Leigh Hunt, Rimini ii 137–8: ‘And still from tree to tree the early vines/Hung garlanding the way.’ T. jotted down phrases from Rimini in H.Nbk 4.
101–8] 1842; |
On the treetops a golden glorious cloud Leaned, slowly dropping down ambrosial dew. How beautiful they were, too beautiful |
To look upon! but Paris was to me More lovelier than all the world beside. ‘O mother Ida, hearken ere I die. |
|
First spake the imperial Olympian With archèd eyebrow smiling sovranly, Fulleyèd Here. She to Paris made 1832 |
102. peacock: ‘sacred to Herè’ (T.).
108. Rise up: as in Iliad xv 86.
113] 1882; … mines… 1842–81; Or upland glebe wealthy in oil and wine – 1832.
114] 1842; Honour and homage, tribute, tax and toll, 1832.
In 1832, ll. 113–14 bring out more clearly the debt to Paradise Regained iii 257–60, noted by D. Bush (Major British Writers (1959) ii 387): ‘Fair Champain with less rivers interveind,/Then meeting joyn’d thir tribute to the Sea:/Fertil of corn the glebe, of oyl and wine,/With herds the pastures throng’d…’. The reminiscence is due to the similar situation, of tempting offers being made. Cp. The Palace of Art 79: ‘upland, prodigal in oil’; Hn MS of Œnone 113 has ‘Or upland prodigal of oil and wine’.
116. beneath] 1842; below 1832.
121] 1842;… season, measured by/ The height of the general feeling, wisdomborn 1832.
123–5] 1842;… allegiance evermore./Such boon from me Heaven’s Queen to thee kingborn, 1832.
126. but] 1842; and 1832.
127. power] 1842; this 1832.
127–31. Based, as T. says, on Lucretius’s account of the Epicurean gods, iii 18–24; and on Aeneid iv 379–80. With a reminiscence of PL vi 301: ‘Of Godlike Power: for likest Gods they seemd’.
131^2] The changeless calm of undisputed right,
The highest height and topmost strength of power.’ 1832
135. spirit] 1842; heart 1832.
137. O’erthwarted: T. says it was founded on the Chaucerian word ‘overthwart’, across, Troilus and Criseyde iii 685.
142–3. Ian Kennedy compares Wilhelm Meister’s Travels ch. x, on ‘the “reverence for oneself” which is at the heart of the educational philosophy of “the Three” and by which they assert that “man attains the highest elevation of which he is capable”’ (PQ lvii, 1978, 91).
143] 1842; Are the three hinges of the gates of Life,
That open into power, everyway
Without horizon, bound or shadow or cloud. 1832
145. Would] 1842; Will 1832.
148. Traditionally Pallas had offered Paris success in war, until (as D. Bush noted, Mythology and the Romantic Tradition, 1937, p. 206) the fifth–sixth-century writer Fulgentius made the offer that of wisdom.
150–64] 1842; |
Not as men value gold because it tricks And blazons outward Life with ornament, But rather as the miser, for itself. |
Good for selfgood doth half destroy selfgood. The means and end, like two coiled snakes, infect Each other, bound in one with hateful love. |
|
So both into the fountain and the stream A drop of poison falls. Come hearken to me, And look upon me and consider me, |
|
So shalt thou find me fairest, so endurance, Like to an athlete’s arm, shall still become Sinewed with motion, till thine active will |
|
(As the dark body of the Sun robed round With his own ever-emanating lights) Be flooded o’er with her own effluences, And thereby grow to freedom.’ 1832 |
There is an intermediate version of l. 163 in J. M. Heath’s copy of 1832, which T. emended:
Circled through all experience, narrowing up
From orb to orb, still nigher rest, remain
A polestar fixt in truth and so made one
With effort, wholly one herself, pure law,
151. Sequel of guerdon: ‘addition of reward’ (T.).
160–4. Paraphrasing Horace’s definition of a Stoic, Satires II vii 83–6.
162. 2 Henry IV IV i 172: ‘Insinewed to this action’.
165. and I cried] 1842; I cried out 1832.
166–7. The antithesis, heard/hear, is from Aeschylus, Prometheus Vinctus 448; Turner observes that it ‘carries the implication that Paris is in the same state of primitive animalism as the human race before Prometheus began to civilize it’.
170. beautiful] 1842; oceanborn 1832.
170–1. ‘Idalium and Paphos in Cyprus are sacred to Aphrodite’ (T.), who was born from the sea-foam.
172. backward] 1842; upward 1832.
173. brows… deep] 1842; brow … dark 1832. Adapted from Mariana in the South 14, 1832 text: ‘From her warm brow and bosom down’.
174–6] 1842; Fragrant and thick, and on her head upbound
In a purple band: below her lucid neck
Shone ivorylike, and from the ground her foot
Gleamed rosywhite … 1832
T. emended ll. 174–5 in J. M. Heath’s copy of 1832:
Deep, fragrant. Dimpled was her chin – her throat
Shone pure, and from the all-flowering ground her foot
176–8. Cp. the Oread in Lucretius 188–90: ‘how the sun delights/To glance and shift about her slippery sides, /And rosy knees and supple roundedness.’
184] 1842; not 1832.
185–6] 1842; I only saw my Paris raise his arm:/I only saw great … 1832. 192–4. Using the pastoral convention of Theocritus vi 34–6 and Virgil’s Eclogues ii 25–6.
195–7. Based on Horace’s Odes I xx 9–12. Cp. Keats, Lamia i 49–50: ‘freckled like a pard,/Eyed like a peacock’. Turner remarks this as ‘bringing with it associations of illusory and evanescent love’.
203] 1842; ‘Dear mother Ida, hearken ere I die. 1832.
204–5. Suggested by Heroides v 41–2; but there, as Turner says, ‘Œnone’s only objection to the felling of the pines is that it provides transport for Paris and Helen’.
205. tall dark] 1884; dark tall 1832–83.
206] 1843; … gorge, or lower down/Filling greengulphèd Ida, all between 1832–42.
213–15. Adapted from Amy 54–6: ‘Like streaks of cloud by night/That overlay the stars in January/But cannot hide their light.’ Also from Who is it 14–16 (see l. 62n above): ‘the unrisen moon below/Dark firs, when creeping winds by night/Lay the long mist in streaks and bars.’
216–25] 1842; not 1832.
220. Eris, ‘the goddess of strife’ (T.).
225. Cp. Aeschylus, Eumenides 644: ὠ】 παντοµιση】 κνώδαλα, στύγη θεω̑ν,
226] 1842; ‘Oh! mother Ida, hearken ere I die.’ 1832.
233. A classical commonplace; cp. Odyssey xx 379.
241] 1842; ‘Yet, mother Ida, hear me ere I die. 1832.
246. The simile is from Theocritus v 50–1.
249–51] 1842; Ere it is born. I will not die alone. 1832.
252] 1842; ‘Dear mother Ida, hearken ere I die. 1832.
253–6. The association of Œnone and Dido (cp. l. 18) was, as Turner says, ‘inevitable, considering the similarity of their histories (both being deserted by Trojan lovers, and both committing suicide on funeral pyres)’. The image here is from Dido’s dream, Aeneid iv 465–8.
257. the Greek woman: Heroides v 117 etc.
259. Turner points out that ‘Ovid’s Œnone refers to Cassandra’s prophecy that Helen will be the ruin of Troy, but she is also perfectly aware … that the rape of Helen is going to cause a major war’; T. gives Œnone ‘some of Cassandra’s vague prophetic power … depriving her of any accurate knowledge’.
260. T. compares Aeschylus, Agamemnon 1256: παπαι̑, οἱ̑ον τò πρυ̑ ἐπέρχεται δέ µοι (‘Oh, oh! What fire! It comes upon me’).
260–4. Turner links fire as a traditional metaphor for love, with it as magic for bringing back the faithless lover (Theocritus ii 23–4 etc.); with Hecuba’s dream before the birth of Paris (Heroides xvi 43–50); and with the fires of Dido, including her funeral pyre (Aeneid iv 604–5, 661–2, 669–71).
264. John Churton Collins compared Webster, Duchess of Malfi IV ii 25–6: ‘Th’ heaven o’er my head seems made of molten brass,/The earth of flaming sulphur.’ Alongside this, T. wrote: ‘Nonsense’ (Cornhill, Jan. 1880, Lincoln).