PRINCE ATHANASE[1]
A FRAGMENT
[Written at Marlow in 1817, towards the close of the year; first published in Posthumous Poems, 1824. Part I is dated by Mrs. Shelley, 'December, 1817,' the remainder, 'Marlow, 1817.' The verses were probably rehandled in Italy during the following year. Sources of the text are (1) Posth. Poems, 1824; (2) Poetical Works, 1839, edd. 1st and 2nd; (3) a much-tortured draft amongst the Bodleian MSS., collated by Mr. C. D. Locock. For (1) and (2) Mrs. Shelley is responsible. Our text (enlarged by about thirty lines from the Bodleian MS.) follows for the most part the P. W., 1839; verbal exceptions are pointed out in the footnotes. See also the Editor's Notes at the end of this volume, and Mr. Locock's Examination of the Shelley MSS. in the Bodleian Library, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1903.]
PART I
There was a youth, who, as with toil and travel,
Had grown quite weak and gray before his time;
Nor any could the restless griefs unravel
Which burned within him, withering up his prime
And goading him, like fiends, from land to land. 5
Not his the load of any secret crime,
For nought of ill his heart could understand,
But pity and wild sorrow for the same:—
Not his the thirst for glory or command,
Baffled with blast of hope-consuming shame; 10
Nor evil joys which fire the vulgar breast,
And quench in speedy smoke its feeble flame,
Had left within his soul their dark unrest:
Nor what religion fables of the grave
Feared he,—Philosophy's accepted guest. 15
For none than he a purer heart could have,
Or that loved good more for itself alone;
Of nought in heaven or earth was he the slave.
- ↑ The idea Shelley had formed of Prince Athanase was a good deal modelled on Alastor. In the first sketch of the poem, he named it Pandemos and Urania. Athanase seeks through the world the One whom he may love. He meets, in the ship in which he is embarked, a lady who appears to him to embody his ideal of love and beauty. But she proves to be Pandemos, or the earthly and unworthy Venus; who, after disappointing his cherished dreams and hopes, deserts him. Athanase, crushed by sorrow, pines and dies.'On his deathbed, the lady who can really reply to his soul comes and kisses his lips' (The Deathbed of Athanase). The poet describes her [in the words of the final fragment, p. 164]. This slender note is all we have to aid our imagination in shaping out the form of the poem, such as its author imagined.[Mrs. Shelley's Note.]
