HELLAS.
Percy Bysshe Shelley
A Reprint of the original edition (1822) of “Hellas” was edited for the
Shelley Society in 1887 by Mr. Thomas J. Wise. In Shelley’s list of
Dramatis Personae the Phantom of Mahomet the Second is wanting.
Shelley’s list of Errata in edition 1822 was first printed in Mr. Buxton
Forman’s Library Edition of the Poems, 1876 (4 page 572). These errata
are silently corrected in the text.
1.
For Revenge and Wrong bring forth their kind, etc. (lines 728-729.)
‘“For” has no rhyme (unless “are” and “despair” are to be considered
such): it requires to rhyme with “hear.” From this defect of rhyme, and
other considerations, I (following Mr. Fleay) used to consider it almost
certain that “Fear” ought to replace “For”; and I gave “Fear” in my
edition of 1870...However, the word in the manuscript [“Williams
transcript”] is “For,” and Shelley’s list of errata leaves this
unaltered—so we must needs abide by it.’—Rossetti, “Complete Poetical
Works of P. B. S.”, edition 1878 (3 volumes), 2 page 456.
2.
Lines 729-732. This quatrain, as Dr. Garnett (“Letters of Shelley”,
1884, pages 166, 249) points out, is an expansion of the following lines
from the “Agamemmon” of Aeschylus (758-760), quoted by Shelley in a
letter to his wife, dated ‘Friday, August 10, 1821’:—
to dussebes—
meta men pleiona tiktei,
sphetera d’ eikota genna.
3.
Lines 1091-1093. This passage, from the words more bright to the close
of line 1093, is wanting in the editio princeps, 1822, its place being
supplied by asterisks. The lacuna in the text is due, no doubt, to the
timidity of Ollier, the publisher, whom Shelley had authorised to make
excisions from the notes. In “Poetical Works”, 1839, the lines, as they
appear in our text, are restored; in Galignani’s edition of “Coleridge,
Shelley, and Keats” (Paris, 1829), however, they had already appeared,
though with the substitution of wise for bright (line 1091), and of
unwithstood for unsubdued (line 1093). Galignani’s reading—native for
votive—in line 1095 is an evident misprint. In Ascham’s edition of
Shelley (2 volumes, fcp. 8vo., 1834), the passage is reprinted from
Galignani.
4.
The following list shows the places in which our text departs from the
punctuation of the editio princeps, 1822, and records in each instance
the pointing of that edition:—dreams 71; course. 125; mockery 150;
conqueror 212; streams 235; Moslems 275; West 305; moon, 347; harm, 394;
shame, 402; anger 408; descends 447; crime 454; banner. 461; Phanae,
470; blood 551; tyrant 557; Cydaris, 606; Heaven 636; Highness 638; man
738; sayest 738; One 768; mountains 831; dust 885; consummation? 902;
dream 921; may 923; death 935; clime. 1005; feast, 1025; horn, 1032;
Noon, 1045; death 1057; dowers 1094.