ROSALIND AND HELEN.
Percy Bysshe Shelley
1.
A sound from there, etc. (line 63.)
Rossetti’s cj., there for thee, is adopted by all modern editors.
2.
And down my cheeks the quick tears fell, etc. (line 366.)
The word fell is Rossetti’s cj. (to rhyme with tell, line 369) for ran
1819, 1839).
3.
Lines 405-409. The syntax here does not hang together, and Shelley may
have been thinking of this passage amongst others when, on September 6,
1819, he wrote to Ollier:—‘In the “Rosalind and Helen” I see there are
some few errors, which are so much the worse because they are errors in
the sense.’ The obscurity, however, may have been, in part at least,
designed: Rosalind grows incoherent before breaking off abruptly. No
satisfactory emendation has been proposed.
4.
Where weary meteor lamps repose, etc. (line 551.)
With Woodberry I regard Where, his cj. for When (1819, 1839), as
necessary for the sense.
5.
With which they drag from mines of gore, etc. (line 711.)
Rossetti proposes yore for gore here, or, as an alternative, rivers of
gore, etc. If yore be right, Shelley’s meaning is: ‘With which from of
old they drag,’ etc. But cf. Note (3) above.
6.
Where, like twin vultures, etc. (line 932.)
Where is Woodberry’s reading for When (1819, 1839). Forman suggests
Where but does not print it.
7.
Lines 1093-1096. The editio princeps (1819) punctuates:—
Hung in dense flocks beneath the dome,
That ivory dome, whose azure night
With golden stars, like heaven, was bright
O’er the split cedar’s pointed flame;
8.
Lines 1168-1170. Sunk (line 1170) must be taken as a transitive in this
passage, the grammar of which is defended by Mr. Swinburne.
9.
Whilst animal life many long years
Had rescue from a chasm of tears; (lines 1208-9.)
Forman substitutes rescue for rescued (1819, 1839)—a highly probable
cj. adopted by Dowden, but rejected by Woodberry. The sense is: ‘Whilst
my life, surviving by the physical functions merely, thus escaped during
many years from hopeless weeping.’