I am a
Dilettante
curtain-lifter.
Shelley
MEPHISTOPHELES:
It is all magic, poor deluded fool!
She looks to every one like his first love. _395
FAUST:
Oh, what delight! what woe! I cannot turn
My looks from her sweet piteous countenance.
How strangely does a single blood-red line,
Not broader than the sharp edge of a knife,
Adorn her lovely neck!
MEPHISTOPHELES:
Ay, she can carry _400
Her head under her arm upon occasion;
Perseus has cut it off for her. These pleasures
End in delusion. --Gain this rising ground,
It is as airy here as in a. . .
And if I am not mightily deceived, _405
I see a theatre. --What may this mean?
ATTENDANT:
Quite a new piece, the last of seven, for 'tis
The custom now to represent that number.
'Tis written by a Dilettante, and
The actors who perform are Dilettanti; _410
Excuse me, gentlemen; but I must vanish.
I am a Dilettante curtain-lifter.
***
JUVENILIA.
QUEEN MAB.
A PHILOSOPHICAL POEM, WITH NOTES.
[An edition (250 copies) of "Queen Mab" was printed at London in the
summer of 1813 by Shelley himself, whose name, as author and printer,
appears on the title-page (see "Bibliographical List"). Of this edition
about seventy copies were privately distributed. Sections 1, 2, 8, and 9
were afterwards rehandled, and the intermediate sections here and there
revised and altered; and of this new text sections 1 and 2 were
published by Shelley in the "Alastor" volume of 1816, under the title,
"The Daemon of the World". The remainder lay unpublished till 1876, when
sections 8 and 9 were printed by Mr. H. Buxton Forman, C. B. , from a
printed copy of "Queen Mab" with Shelley's manuscript corrections. See
"The Shelley Library", pages 36-44, for a description of this copy,
which is in Mr. Forman's possession. Sources of the text are (1) the
editio princeps of 1813; (2) text (with some omissions) in the "Poetical
Works" of 1839, edited by Mrs. Shelley; (3) text (one line only wanting)
in the 2nd edition of the "Poetical Works", 1839 (same editor).
