Read Ebook: Proserpine and Midas by Shelley Mary Wollstonecraft

Font size: 10 px 15 px 20 px 25 px 30 px 35 px

Background color: BlackWhiteGrayLight GrayDark GrayDim Gray

Text color: BlackWhiteGrayLight GrayDark GrayDim Gray

Apply/Save settings

Ebook has 163 lines and 20871 words, and 4 pages

This may be taken to have been the average attitude, in the forties, towards classical mythology. That twenty years before, at least in the Shelley circle, it was far less grudging, we now have definite proof.

Not only was Shelley prepared to admit, with the liberal opinion of the time, that ancient mythology 'was a system of nature concealed under the veil of allegory', a system in which a thousand fanciful fables contained a secret and mystic meaning': he was prepared to go a considerable step farther, and claim that there was no essential difference between ancient mythology and the theology of the Christians, that both were interpretations, in more or less figurative language, of the great mysteries of being, and indeed that the earlier interpretation, precisely because it was more frankly figurative and poetical than the later one, was better fitted to stimulate and to allay the sense of wonder which ought to accompany a reverent and high-souled man throughout his life-career.

In the earlier phase of Shelley's thought, this identification of the ancient and the modern faiths was derogatory to both. The letter which he had written in 1812 for ihe edification of Lord Ellenborough revelled in the contemplation of a time 'when the Christian religion shall have faded from the earth, when its memory like that of Polytheism now shall remain, but remain only as the subject of ridicule and wonder'. But as time went on, Shelley's views became less purely negative. Instead of ruling the adversaries back to back out of court, he bethought himself of venturing a plea in favour of the older and weaker one. It may have been in 1817 that he contemplated an 'Essay in favour of polytheism'. He was then living on the fringe of a charmed circle of amateur and adventurous Hellenists who could have furthered the scheme. His great friend, Thomas Love Peacock, 'Greeky Peaky', was a personal acquaintance of Thomas Taylor 'the Platonist', alias 'Pagan Taylor'. And Taylor's translations and commentaries of Plato had been favourites of Shelley in his college days. Something at least of Taylor's queer mixture of flaming enthusiasm and tortuous ingenuity may be said to appear in the unexpected document we have now to examine.

It is a little draft of an Essay, which occurs, in Mrs. Shelley's handwriting, as an insertion in her Journal for the Italian period. The fragment--for it is no more--must be quoted in full.

The necessity of a Belief in the Heathen Mythology to a Christian

If two facts are related not contradictory of equal probability & with equal evidence, if we believe one we must believe the other.

Con. If a man believes in one he must believe in both.

To seek in these Poets for the creed & proofs of mythology which are as follows--Examination of these--1st with regard to proof--2 in contradiction or conformity to the Bible--various apparitions of God in that Book Jupiter considered by himself--his attributes--disposition acts--whether as God revealed himself as the Almighty to the Patriarchs & as Jehovah to the Jews he did not reveal himself as Jupiter to the Greeks--the possibility of various revelations--that he revealed himself to Cyrus.

The only public revelation that Jehovah ever made of himself was on Mt Sinai--Every other depended upon the testimony of a very few & usually of a single individual--We will first therefore consider the revelation of Mount Sinai. Taking the fact plainly it happened thus. The Jews were told by a man whom they believed to have supernatural powers that they were to prepare for that God wd reveal himself in three days on the mountain at the sound of a trumpet. On the 3rd day there was a cloud & lightning on the mountain & the voice of a trumpet extremely loud. The people were ordered to stand round the foot of the mountain & not on pain of death to infringe upon the bounds--The man in whom they confided went up the mountain & came down again bringing them word

Footnotes

Essay on the Study of Literature, ? 56.

From the 'Boscombe' MSS. Unpublished.

Gen. vi.

Shelley may refer to the proverbial phrase 'to kick against the pricks' , which, however, is found in Pindar and Euripides as well as in Aeschylus .

Trelawny's letter, 3 April 1870; in Mr. H. Buxton Forman's edition, 1910, p. 229.

To adduce an example--in what is probably not an easily accessible book to-day: Proserpine, distributing her flowers, thus addresses one of her nymphs: For this lily, Where can it hang but at Cyane's breast! And yet 'twill wither on so white a bed, If flowers have sense for envy.

There is one by poor Christopher Smart.

Perhaps her somewhat wearying second act, on the effects of the gold-transmuting gift, would have been shorter, if Ovid had not himself gone into such details on the subject.

MYTHOLOGICAL DRAMAS.

Unless otherwise pointed out--by brackets, or in the notes--the text, spelling, and punctuation of the MS. have been strictly adhered to.

PROSERPINE.

A DRAMA IN TWO ACTS.

DRAMATIS PERSONAE

CERES. PROSERPINE. INO, EUNOE Nymphs attendant upon Proserpine. IRIS. ARETHUSA, Naiad of a Spring.

Shades from Hell, among which Ascalaphus.

Scene; the plain of Enna, in Sicily.

PROSERPINE.

Enter Ceres, Proserpine, Ino and Eunoe.

PROSERPINA. Dear Mother, leave me not! I love to rest Under the shadow of that hanging cave And listen to your tales. Your Proserpine Entreats you stay; sit on this shady bank, And as I twine a wreathe tell once again The combat of the Titans and the Gods; Or how the Python fell beneath the dart Of dread Apollo; or of Daphne's change,-- That coyest Grecian maid, whose pointed leaves Now shade her lover's brow. And I the while Gathering the starry flowers of this fair plain Will weave a chaplet, Mother, for thy hair. But without thee, the plain I think is vacant, Its blossoms fade,--its tall fresh grasses droop, Nodding their heads like dull things half asleep;-- Go not, dear Mother, from your Proserpine.

PROSERPINA. --Mother, farewel! Climb the bright sky with rapid wings; and swift As a beam shot from great Apollo's bow Rebounds from the calm mirror of the sea Back to his quiver in the Sun, do thou Return again to thy loved Proserpine.

And now, dear Nymphs, while the hot sun is high Darting his influence right upon the plain, Let us all sit beneath the narrow shade That noontide Etna casts.--And, Ino, sweet, Come hither; and while idling thus we rest, Repeat in verses sweet the tale which says How great Prometheus from Apollo's car Stole heaven's fire--a God-like gift for Man! Or the more pleasing tale of Aphrodite; How she arose from the salt Ocean's foam, And sailing in her pearly shell, arrived On Cyprus sunny shore, where myrtles bloomed And sweetest flowers, to welcome Beauty's Queen; And ready harnessed on the golden sands Stood milk-white doves linked to a sea-shell car, With which she scaled the heavens, and took her seat Among the admiring Gods.

EUNOE. Proserpine's tale Is sweeter far than Ino's sweetest aong.

PROSERPINA. Ino, you knew erewhile a River-God, Who loved you well and did you oft entice To his transparent waves and flower-strewn banks. He loved high poesy and wove sweet sounds, And would sing to you as you sat reclined On the fresh grass beside his shady cave, From which clear waters bubbled, dancing forth, And spreading freshness in the noontide air. When you returned you would enchant our ears With tales and songs which did entice the fauns, With Pan their King from their green haunts, to hear. Tell me one now, for like the God himself, Tender they were and fanciful, and wrapt The hearer in sweet dreams of shady groves, Blue skies, and clearest, pebble-paved streams.

INO. I will repeat the tale which most I loved; Which tells how lily-crowned Arethusa, Your favourite Nymph, quitted her native Greece, Flying the liquid God Alpheus, who followed, Cleaving the desarts of the pathless deep, And rose in Sicily, where now she flows The clearest spring of Enna's gifted plain.

Arethusa arose From her couch of snows, In the Acroceraunian mountains,-- From cloud, and from crag, With many a jag, Shepherding her bright fountains. She leapt down the rocks With her rainbow locks, Streaming among the streams,-- Her steps paved with green The downward ravine, Which slopes to the Western gleams:-- And gliding and springing, She went, ever singing In murmurs as soft as sleep; The Earth seemed to love her And Heaven smiled above her, As she lingered towards the deep.

Then Alpheus bold On his glacier cold, With his trident the mountains strook; And opened a chasm In the rocks;--with the spasm All Erymanthus shook. And the black south wind It unsealed behind The urns of the silent snow, And earthquake and thunder Did rend in sunder The bars of the springs below:-- And the beard and the hair Of the river God were Seen through the torrent's sweep As he followed the light Of the fleet nymph's flight To the brink of the Dorian deep.

Oh, save me! oh, guide me! And bid the deep hide me, For he grasps me now by the hair! The loud ocean heard, To its blue depth stirred, And divided at her prayer And under the water The Earth's white daughter Fled like a sunny beam, Behind her descended Her billows unblended With the brackish Dorian stream:-- Like a gloomy stain On the Emerald main Alpheus rushed behind, As an eagle pursueing A dove to its ruin, Down the streams of the cloudy wind.

Under the bowers Where the Ocean Powers Sit on their pearled thrones, Through the coral woods Of the weltering floods, Over heaps of unvalued stones; Through the dim beams, Which amid the streams Weave a network of coloured light, And under the caves, Where the shadowy waves Are as green as the forest's night:-- Outspeeding the shark, And the sword fish dark, Under the Ocean foam, And up through the rifts Of the mountain clifts, They passed to their Dorian Home.

And now from their fountains In Enna's mountains, Down one vale where the morning basks, Like friends once parted, Grown single hearted They ply their watery tasks. At sunrise they leap From their cradles steep In the cave of the shelving hill At noontide they flow Through the woods below And the meadows of asphodel,-- And at night they sleep In the rocking deep Beneath the Ortygian shore;-- Like spirits that lie In the azure sky, When they love, but live no more.

PROSERPINA. Thanks, Ino dear, you have beguiled an hour With poesy that might make pause to list The nightingale in her sweet evening song. But now no more of ease and idleness, The sun stoops to the west, and Enna's plain Is overshadowed by the growing form Of giant Etna:--Nymphs, let us arise, And cull the sweetest flowers of the field, And with swift fingers twine a blooming wreathe For my dear Mother's rich and waving hair.

EUNOE. Violets blue and white anemonies Bloom on the plain,--but I will climb the brow Of that o'erhanging hill, to gather thence That loveliest rose, it will adorn thy crown; Ino, guard Proserpine till my return.

INO. How lovely is this plain!--Nor Grecian vale, Nor bright Ausonia's ilex bearing shores, The myrtle bowers of Aphrodite's sweet isle, Or Naxos burthened with the luscious vine, Can boast such fertile or such verdant fields As these, which young Spring sprinkles with her stars;-- Nor Crete which boasts fair Amalthea's horn Can be compared with the bright golden fields Of Ceres, Queen of plenteous Sicily.

PROSERPINA. Sweet Ino, well I know the love you bear My dearest Mother prompts your partial voice, And that love makes you doubly dear to me. But you are idling,--look my lap is full Of sweetest flowers;--haste to gather more, That before sunset we may make our crown. Last night as we strayed through that glade, methought The wind that swept my cheek bore on its wings The scent of fragrant violets, hid Beneath the straggling underwood; Haste, sweet, To gather them; fear not--I will not stray.

INO. Nor fear that I shall loiter in my task.

If with mists of evening dew Thou dost nourish these young flowers Till they grow in scent and hue Fairest children of the hours Breathe thine influence most divine On thine own child Proserpine.

My nymphs have left me, neglecting the commands Of my dear Mother. Where can they have strayed? Her caution makes me fear to be alone;-- I'll pass that yawning cave and seek the spring Of Arethuse, where water-lilies bloom Perhaps the nymph now wakes tending her waves, She loves me well and oft desires my stay,-- The lilies shall adorn my mother's crown.

EUNOE. I've won my prize! look at this fragrant rose! But where is Proserpine? Ino has strayed Too far I fear, and she will be fatigued, As I am now, by my long toilsome search.

Enter Ino.

Oh! you here, Wanderer! Where is Proserpine?

INO. My lap's heaped up with sweets; dear Proserpine, You will not chide me now for idleness;-- Look here are all the treasures of the field,-- First these fresh violets, which crouched beneath A mossy rock, playing at hide and seek With both the sight and sense through the high fern; Star-eyed narcissi & the drooping bells Of hyacinths; and purple polianthus, Delightful flowers are these; but where is she, The loveliest of them all, our Mistress dear?

EUNOE. I know not, even now I left her here, Guarded by you, oh Ino, while I climbed Up yonder steep for this most worthless rose:-- Know you not where she is? Did you forget Ceres' behest, and thus forsake her child?

Share on: WhatsApp @Hash Facebook Tweet