In these notes Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley and Percy Bysshe Shelley are referred to by their initials. Some of the several verse passages that have eluded identification may have been written by MWS herself.
Let no man seek … Him or his children: these words are spoken by Adam to the archangel Michael in Paradise Lost, xi. 770–2, after Michael has shown him a vision of the deluge that will destroy the human race except for Noah and his family. This epigraph is apposite not only because The Last Man tells the story of the destruction of humanity but also because it too is presented as a foretelling of things to come.
We visited the so called Elysian Fields and Avernus: as discussed in the Introduction, the Shelleys, with Claire Clairmont, made this visit on the date stated by the narrator here: 8 December 1818. See MWS’s Journal, i. 242.
Lazzeroni: the name given by the Spanish to the Neapolitan lower classes. Here it means simply ‘servant’.
hypaethric: roofless (usually used of architecture).
Di mie tenere … o mio nobil tesoro?: this passage has been identified by Phyllis Zimmerman as coming from Petrarch’s sonnet 322 ‘Mai non vedranno le mie luci ascuitte’ (‘Some Lines of Italian Poetry in the Introduction to The Last Man’, Notes and Queries, 235 (1990), 31–2). It is probably quoted from memory, as there are mistakes in the Italian. The literal meaning is: ‘From my tender beginnings a very different outcome I hoped to show you; and what hard fate was so envious of us, O my noble treasure?’ In this context the lines are addressed in imagination to PBS.
Guido‘s saints: the painter Guido Reni (1575—1642), of whom MWS wrote from Rome to Leigh Hunt: ‘Guido would be a great favourite of yours’ (6 Apr. 1819).
Man but a rush against: ‘Man but a rush against Othello’s breast | And he retires’, Shakespeare, Othello, v. ii. 270–1.
the witch Urania spared the locks of Sampson: Lionel represents himself as the virile Sampson in thrall to a female, but in his case she is not the Delilah of Judges 16 but Urania, the heavenly muse of Paradise Lost, vii. 1–40. Unlike Delilah, Urania will not betray the man who submits to her.
Speak—What door is opened?: from PBS’s translation of The Cyclops of Euripides (published by MWS in the Posthumous Poems of 1824), line 504.
the lilies … neither do they spin: ‘Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin: And yet I say unto you, That even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these’—(Matt. 6: 28–9). Cf. Luke 12: 27.
In this dear work of youthful revelry: from PBS’s translation of the Homeric ‘Hymn to Mercury’ (published in the Posthumous Poems of 1824), line 698.
Un dia … pena: ‘One day calls to the next | and thus cry calls to cry | and sorrow to sorrow and links them together.’
A violet by a mossy stone … in the sky: lines 5–8 of Wordsworth’s Lucy poem ‘She dwelt among th’untrodden ways’.
vail to: submit to.
as on the hyacinth ας is engraved: the Greek word is probably a misprint for Gr. αι. According to Ovid, Metamorphosis x. 214–16, the hyacinth sprang from the blood of Apollo’s lover Hyacinthus. The word αι (‘alas’) is supposed to be inscribed on its petals; hence ‘That sanguine flower inscribed with woe’ in Milton’s ‘Lycidas’, line 106. Cf. PBS’s fragmentary translation of Moschus’s ‘Elegy on the Death of Bion’: ‘and thou, O hyacinth, | Utter thy legend now—yet more, dumb flower, | Than ah! alas!’
Haidee … Ionian island: in Byron’s Don Juan, Canto 2, Haidèe succours the half-drowned Juan and they fall in love.
Nathelesse … and did not eat: from PBS’s translation of the Homeric ‘Hymn to Mercury’, lines 167–8, 70 (‘morsels sweet’). MWS has changed the person from third to first to suit her context.
Curius-like: Manius Curius Dentatus, three times consul in the early part of the third cent. BC, was, according to Sir Paul Harvey’s Oxford Companion to Classical Literature, ‘famous as a type of ancient Roman virtue and frugality’.
per non turba quel bel viso sereno: de Palacio, Mary Shelley et son oeuvre, 34, identifies this as verse 6 of sonnet 236 in Petrarch’s Canzoniere. As in the other passages of Italian quoted, there is at least one mistake. The literal meaning is, ‘not to upset that quiet, beautiful face’.
Pareamo … parte si remembra: ‘We seem to have gathered together here the most distinguished selection from among mortals.’ De Palacio, p. 31, identifies the source as Ariosto’s Orlando Furioso, vi. xlvii. 2–3, and remarks that, adapted for the present context and possibly quoted from memory, the lines are ‘singulièrement incorrectes’.
Cincinnatus-like: Lucius Quinctius Cincinnatus (?519—438 BC) left his farm to fight the Romans’ enemy the Aequi, being made dictator for that purpose. He defeated the enemy and resigned his dictatorship in sixteen days, then returned to his farm. He became the prototype of the citizen-soldier who serves his country and then returns to private life. George washington, for example, was widely regarded as a cincinnatus-figure, in Europe as well as in the united states.
the erection of a national gallery: the National Gallery was founded in 1824, when parliament voted an appropriation to purchase part of the Angerstein Collection. There was, however, no building for the new institution, and the paintings were at first viewed at Angerstein’s house. The original building, designed by William Wilkins, opened in 1838.
To be once in doubt … resolved: Othello m. iii. 183–4.
the unscaleable tower of Vathek: both Shelleys read Vathek (1787 for 1786) by William Beckford in 1815. At the beginning of the novel the Caliph Vathek, a ‘Gothic’ hero-villain of insatiable appetites, builds an enormous tower in imitation of Nimrod’s tower of Babel.
shirt of Nessus: this proverbial shirt, poisoned with the blood of the dying centaur Nessus, was the cause of the death of Hercules. It killed the hero by clinging to his flesh.
all the operas of Mozart were called into service: MWS, a great lover of Mozart, took advantage of her return to London to attend performances of his music. In June 1824, for example, she heard a benefit performance by Italian singers in a programme consisting entirely of Mozart, with selections from Don Giovanni and The Marriage of Figaro, among other works. However, the scene described here is more like the private performances she attended in the Novello household, such as one she described to Leigh Hunt, where ‘airs from Figaro—Cosi fan tutti and D.G. [Don Giovanni] had their turn until the singers were quite exhausted’ (letter dated 20 Oct. 1823). MWS first casts Raymond as Don Giovanni, with the words ‘Taci ingiusto core’ (‘Be silent, unjust heart!’) sung by the betrayed Donna Elvira, obviously a surrogate for Perdita. Then she has Idris, singing the words of the Countess who feels herself betrayed by her husband in Figaro, once more express Perdita’s feelings.
For O, you stood beside me … of the dawn: from Coleridge’s version of Schiller’s The Death of Wallenstein (published 1800), v. i. 63–6. MWS has changed ‘he’ to ‘you’ to suit her context.
The funeral note … without resurrection: Byron’s Werner; or, The Inheritance (1822), III. iii. 8–9 [395—6].
there are many mansions in my father’s house: ‘In my father’s house are many mansions’, John 14: 2.
Dost thou think … cakes and ale?: Shakespeare, Twelfth Night, II. iii. 783–4.
I rushed to her defence …: this episode seems based on stanzas 92–6 of Byron’s Don Juan, where, during the massacre following the siege of Ismail, Don Juan rescues a 10-year-old Muslim girl from attacking Cossacks.
Her dear heart’s confessor—a heart within that heart: on Shelley’s gravestone the words cor cordium are inscribed.
Lord Byron’s Fourth Canto of Childe Harolde: these are lines 1232–3, the last lines of the so-called ‘Forgiveness Curse’. ‘Will’ should be ‘and’; there are no commas in the original.
Shakespeare’s Sonnets: Sonnet 2, line 2. The original reads ‘dig’ and ‘thy’.
the aziolo: cf. PBS’s poem ‘The Aziola’, first published by MWS in The Keepsake for 1829: ‘’Tis nothing but a little downy owl.’
the Golden City: also the site of warfare in PBS’s The Revolt of Islam (1817/18).
Calderon de la Barca: La Vida es Sueno, III. vi: ‘Each stone is a pyramid, and every flower a monument, each building is a lofty mausoleum, and every soldier a living skeleton.’
hero of unwritten story: in The Mask of Anarchy by PBS, the Men of England are ‘heroes of unwritten story’.
the temple of Universal Janus was shut: when the Roman Empire was at war, the door of the Temple of Janus was left open; in time of peace, the door was shut.
See an ingenious Essay … 1822: Sampson Arnold Mackey: The Mythological Astronomy Demonstrated, by Restoring to Their Fables and Symbols Their Original Meanings (Norwich, 1822). A copy is in the British Library, class mark 5406 aa. 36.
a black sun arose: ‘the sun became black as sackcloth of hair’, Rev. 6: 12.
shook lions into civil streets: Shakespeare, Antony and Cleopatra, v. ii. 16.
Elton’s translation of Hesiod’s Works: corresponding to lines 321–2, 325–8, with some minor variations. The lines omitted are: ‘He smites with barrenness the marriage bed, | And generations moulder with the dead.’ Charles Abraham Elton, The Works and Days of Hesiod, Translated from the Greek into English Verse (London: Lackington, Allen, 1812).
Abon Hassan: Carl Maria von Weber’s Abu Hassan was first performed in Munich in 1811. MWS greatly admired Weber’s operas; she attended several performances of Der Freischütz in 1824, describing its music as ‘wild but often beautiful’ to Leigh Hunt on 22 August.
the ‘bower of flesh’: cf. Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet, III. ii. 81: ‘When thou didst bower the spirit of a fiend | in mortal paradise of such sweet flesh?’
the silver cord: ‘Or ever the silver cord be loosed’, Eccles. 12: 6.
crush a ‘butterfly on the wheel’: ‘Who breaks a butterfly upon a wheel?’, Pope, ‘Epistle to Dr Arbuthnot’, 308.
even as an arch-fiend, lightly over-leaped: cf. Paradise Lost, iv. 181–3: ‘Due entrance he [Satan] disdained, and, in contempt, | At one slight bound high overleaped all bound | Of hill or highest wall …’
the divine lover of Semele: Zeus.
Shakespeare’s Sonnets: Sonnet 29, lines 11–12.
la fortuna … no permanece jamas!: ‘Fortune, | importunate barbarous deity, | today a corpse and yesterday a flower, | never remaining the same!’
De Foe’s account, and … Arthur Mervyn: MWS read both Defoe’s Journal of the Plague Year (1722) and Arthur Mervyn: Memoirs of the Year 1793 (1799-1800), by Charles Brockden Brown, in 1817. Defoe’s historical novel chronicles the great bubonic plague epidemic of 1665; part of Brown’s takes place during a yellow fever epidemic in Philadelphia.
Coleridge’s translation of Schiller’s Wallenstein: v. i. 96–102.
Boccaccio, De Foe, and Browne: the Shelleys read The Decameron, with its famous preface about the plague, in Rome in August 1820. They read Sir Thomas Browne’s Religio Medici in March 1815. It may be, however, that ‘Browne’ is a slip for (Charles Brockden) ‘Brown’, mentioned in conjunction with Defoe in the previous chapter (see note); on the other hand, Sir Thomas Browne is also mentioned and quoted from in that chapter.
Pisando la tierra dura … es sobre su sepultura: ‘Man is constantly treading hard ground—and every step he. takes is over his grave.’
Wordsworth: ‘Resolution and Independence’, line 77. To suit her context, MWS has substituted ‘move’ for ‘moveth’ and ‘they’ for ‘it.’
Keats: ‘Sleep and Poetry’, lines 251–2. On 25 Nov. 1825 MWS wrote to Charles Oilier, whose firm had published Keats’s Poems of 1817 (as well as much of the work of PBS) but who was now Henry Colburn’s literary adviser, for ‘the first publication of Keats’s “Sleep and Poetry”.’
Andrew Marvell: ‘To His Coy Mistress’, lines 43–4. The original reads not ‘Snatching’ but ‘And tear’.
La Place: Pierre Simon, Marquis de LaPlace (1749-1827), was especially celebrated for his hypothesis of the nebular origin of the solar system.
The Cenci: (by PBS), in. ii. 9–11.
The Bride’s Tragedy, by T. L. Beddoes, Esq.: v. iv. 16–19. In the original (published 1822), line 19 reads ‘Trembling he hears the wrathful billows whoop …’ MWS wrote these lines out in her journal on 15 Dec. 1823—correctly except for the intentional addition of ‘I’m’ before the first word. Beddoes was one of the financial guarantors of the Posthumous Poems of 1824; he and MWS became acquainted in the spring of that year.
Virgil’s ever-growing Rumour: ‘Soon grows the Pygmee to Gygantic size; Her Feet on Earth, her Forehead in the Skies’, Aeneid, iv. 255–6 (Dryden’s translation).
Wordsworth: ‘The world is too much with us’, lines 13–14; but the first word of 13 is ‘Have’ and the first word of 14 is ‘Or’ in the poem.
Prior’s ‘Solomon’: Book 2, lines 362–3. MWS has changed ‘I’ to ‘we’ in both lines.
Cleveland’s Poems: from ‘An Elegie on The best of Men, and Meekest of Martyrs, CHARLES I’. This poem was long published as John Cleveland’s but is no longer considered his and remains unattributed. Its theme is consonant with the sympathy expressed for Charles I in Frankenstein (vol. 3, chap. 2). In addition to altering some incidentals, MWS has created the closure in the fourth line. The original reads: ‘Themselves close mourners at the Obsequie | Of this great Monarch?’ The elegy continues with further apocalyptic imagery appropriate to The Last Man, including: ‘Fed by some Plague which in blind Mists was hurled | To strew infection on the tainted World.’ For information about the source of this quotation, and for the one that ends Chapter 21, I am indebted to Mr W. H. Kelliher, Curator of Manuscripts at the British Library.
Elton’s translation of Hesiod: the quotation corresponds to Works and Days, lines 139–42, but in Elton lines 141–2 read: ‘Self-wandering through the noon, the night they glide, | Voiceless—a voice the power all-wise denied.’
God hath made him a little lower than the angels … and put all things under his feet: Ps. 8: 5—6, somewhat reworded.
Cleveland’s Poems: these are the last two lines of ‘CHRONOSTI-CHON Decollationis Regio Caroli Regis …’ No longer attributed to John Cleveland, this poem is thought to be the work of Major Payne Fisher.
We could not stall together | In the whole world: Antony and Cleopatra, v. i. 39–40.
Hic jacet: ‘Here lies’—the beginning of a Latin inscription on a tombstone.
What scene of death hath Roscius now to act?: 3 Henry VI, v. vi. 10.
Chorus in … Oedipus Coloneus: by Sophocles.
a. self-erected prophet: this episode derives from John Wilson’s drama The City of the Plague (Edinburgh, 1816), which MWS read on 27 May 1817.
In the great pool a swan’s nest: Shakespeare, Cymbeline, III. iv. 140. The original reads ‘a great pool’.
Henry, Emperor of Germany … Pope Leo’s gate: the Emperor Henry IV submitted to Pope Gregory VII (not to ‘Pope Leo’) at Canossa in 1077.
Shakespeare—Julius Caesar: I. iii. 30.
Parthian Pestilence: Book I, lines 81 ff. of Homer’s Iliad tells how Apollo killed the Argives with arrows of plague. The Parthians were famous archers in the ancient world, especially dreaded for their ‘Parthian shot’, which they delivered backwards while riding away on horseback.
a little lower … animals … dust: Hamlet, I. ii.
Mother of the world! … changeless Necessity!: ‘Necessity is the mother of the world’ occurs in PBS’s note to Queen Mab, Canto 6, line 171, quoting Holbach’s Systéme de la Nature. See K. N. Cameron, The Young Shelley: Genesis of a Radical (London: Victor Gollancz, 1950), 396 n. 69.
Elton’s translation of Hesiod’s ‘Shield of Hercules’: lines 206–8. In 208, ‘the’ should be ‘their’.
ipse dixit: (Lat.) ‘self-styled’.
the grasshopper is a burthen: ‘… and the grasshopper shall be a burden’, Eccles. 12: 5.
Haydn’s ‘New-Created World’: this episode can be regarded as a tribute to MWS’s friend the musician Vincent Novello. ‘He has made me a convert to Haydn’, she wrote to Leigh Hunt on 11 Dec. 1823. Novello, among his many works, scored Haydn’s Creation for the organ. In its introduction, after the creation of light, hell spirits sink into the abyss, and the chorus sings: ‘Despairing cursing rage attends their rapid fall. | A new-created world springs up at God’s command.’
icy Biz: Fr. la bise, meaning a cold wind.
Mary Wollstonecraft’s letters from Norway: from Letter 5 of letters Written During a Short Residence in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark (1796).
—Forests … And folding sunny spots of greenery: Coleridge, ‘Kubla Khan’, lines 10—11. ‘And folding’ is correct, from the 1816 version, which was the only one MWS could have read before Coleridge’s Poetical Works of 1828; it was changed to ‘Enfolding’ later.
Solomon’s Song: Song of Songs 2: 11–13.
a fountain … described by the younger Pliny: the younger Pliny was born in AD 61 or 62 and died in 113. The fountain or spring is described in a letter to Licinius Sura (letters, IV. xxx) and can still be seen in the grounds of the Villa Pliniana at Tarno on Lake Como. (For this identification I am indebted to Jeff New.)
When winds that move … and vast waves burst—: identified in the text as from ‘a translation of Moschus’s poem’, these two passages comprise lines I–6 of PBS’s ‘From the Greek of Moschus’, published in the Alastor volume of 1816.
If the dull substance of my flesh were thought: Shakespeare’s sonnet 44.
‘The Italian’: by Ann Radcliffe, published 1797, read by MWS in 1814. In volume II, chapter 6, Rome is eulogized much in the manner of Lionel Verney: ‘At intervals, indeed, the moon, as the clouds passed away, shewed, for a moment, some of those mighty monuments of Rome’s eternal name, those sacred ruins, those gigantic skeletons, which once enclosed a soul, whose energies governed a world!’
Corinna: Corinne, ou l’ltalie (1807), by Mme Germaine de Staël, was read by both MWS and PBS and mentioned by them numerous times during the period Jan.-June 1820. In it the beautiful poet Corinne, who improvises to the accompaniment of her lyre, is crowned with laurel in a ceremony on the Capitol.