The sublime human character of
Jesus Christ was deformed by an imputed identification with a Power,
who tempted, betrayed, and punished the innocent beings who were
called into existence by His sole will; and for the period of a
thousand years, the spirit of this most just, wise, and benevolent of
men has been propitiated with myriads of hecatombs of those who
approached the nearest to His innocence and wisdom, sacrificed under
every aggravation of atrocity and variety of torture.
Jesus Christ was deformed by an imputed identification with a Power,
who tempted, betrayed, and punished the innocent beings who were
called into existence by His sole will; and for the period of a
thousand years, the spirit of this most just, wise, and benevolent of
men has been propitiated with myriads of hecatombs of those who
approached the nearest to His innocence and wisdom, sacrificed under
every aggravation of atrocity and variety of torture.
Shelley
I could easily have made the Jew a regular
conjuror, and the Phantom an ordinary ghost. I have preferred to
represent the Jew as disclaiming all pretension, or even belief, in
supernatural agency, and as tempting Mahmud to that state of mind in
which ideas may be supposed to assume the force of sensations through
the confusion of thought with the objects of thought, and the excess
of passion animating the creations of imagination.
It is a sort of natural magic, susceptible of being exercised in a
degree by any one who should have made himself master of the secret
associations of another's thoughts.
(7) THE CHORUS [L. 1060].
The final chorus is indistinct and obscure, as the event of the living
drama whose arrival it foretells. Prophecies of wars, and rumours of
wars, etc. , may safely be made by poet or prophet in any age, but to
anticipate however darkly a period of regeneration and happiness is a
more hazardous exercise of the faculty which bards possess or feign.
It will remind the reader 'magno NEC proximus intervallo' of Isaiah
and Virgil, whose ardent spirits overleaping the actual reign of evil
which we endure and bewail, already saw the possible and perhaps
approaching state of society in which the 'lion shall lie down with
the lamb,' and 'omnis feret omnia tellus. ' Let these great names be my
authority and my excuse.
(8) SATURN AND LOVE THEIR LONG REPOSE SHALL BURST [L. 1090].
Saturn and Love were among the deities of a real or imaginary state of
innocence and happiness. ALL those WHO FELL, or the Gods of Greece,
Asia, and Egypt; the ONE WHO ROSE, or Jesus Christ, at whose
appearance the idols of the Pagan World wore amerced of their worship;
and the MANY UNSUBDUED, or the monstrous objects of the idolatry of
China, India, the Antarctic islands, and the native tribes of America,
certainly have reigned over the understandings of men in conjunction
or in succession, during periods in which all we know of evil has been
in a state of portentous, and, until the revival of learning and the
arts, perpetually increasing, activity. The Grecian gods seem indeed
to have been personally more innocent, although it cannot be said,
that as far as temperance and chastity are concerned, they gave so
edifying an example as their successor.
The sublime human character of
Jesus Christ was deformed by an imputed identification with a Power,
who tempted, betrayed, and punished the innocent beings who were
called into existence by His sole will; and for the period of a
thousand years, the spirit of this most just, wise, and benevolent of
men has been propitiated with myriads of hecatombs of those who
approached the nearest to His innocence and wisdom, sacrificed under
every aggravation of atrocity and variety of torture. The horrors of
the Mexican, the Peruvian, and the Indian superstitions are well
known.
NOTE ON HELLAS, BY MRS. SHELLEY.
The South of Europe was in a state of great political excitement at
the beginning of the year 1821. The Spanish Revolution had been a
signal to Italy; secrete societies were formed; and, when Naples rose
to declare the Constitution, the call was responded to from Brundusium
to the foot of the Alps. To crush these attempts to obtain liberty,
early in 1821 the Austrians poured their armies into the Peninsula: at
first their coming rather seemed to add energy and resolution to a
people long enslaved. The Piedmontese asserted their freedom; Genoa
threw off the yoke of the King of Sardinia; and, as if in playful
imitation, the people of the little state of Massa and Carrara gave
the conge to their sovereign, and set up a republic.
Tuscany alone was perfectly tranquil. It was said that the Austrian
minister presented a list of sixty Carbonari to the Grand Duke, urging
their imprisonment; and the Grand Duke replied, 'I do not know whether
these sixty men are Carbonari, but I know, if I imprison them, I shall
directly have sixty thousand start up. ' But, though the Tuscans had no
desire to disturb the paternal government beneath whose shelter they
slumbered, they regarded the progress of the various Italian
revolutions with intense interest, and hatred for the Austrian was
warm in every bosom. But they had slender hopes; they knew that the
Neapolitans would offer no fit resistance to the regular German
troops, and that the overthrow of the constitution in Naples would act
as a decisive blow against all struggles for liberty in Italy.
We have seen the rise and progress of reform. But the Holy Alliance
was alive and active in those days, and few could dream of the
peaceful triumph of liberty. It seemed then that the armed assertion
of freedom in the South of Europe was the only hope of the liberals,
as, if it prevailed, the nations of the north would imitate the
example. Happily the reverse has proved the fact.
conjuror, and the Phantom an ordinary ghost. I have preferred to
represent the Jew as disclaiming all pretension, or even belief, in
supernatural agency, and as tempting Mahmud to that state of mind in
which ideas may be supposed to assume the force of sensations through
the confusion of thought with the objects of thought, and the excess
of passion animating the creations of imagination.
It is a sort of natural magic, susceptible of being exercised in a
degree by any one who should have made himself master of the secret
associations of another's thoughts.
(7) THE CHORUS [L. 1060].
The final chorus is indistinct and obscure, as the event of the living
drama whose arrival it foretells. Prophecies of wars, and rumours of
wars, etc. , may safely be made by poet or prophet in any age, but to
anticipate however darkly a period of regeneration and happiness is a
more hazardous exercise of the faculty which bards possess or feign.
It will remind the reader 'magno NEC proximus intervallo' of Isaiah
and Virgil, whose ardent spirits overleaping the actual reign of evil
which we endure and bewail, already saw the possible and perhaps
approaching state of society in which the 'lion shall lie down with
the lamb,' and 'omnis feret omnia tellus. ' Let these great names be my
authority and my excuse.
(8) SATURN AND LOVE THEIR LONG REPOSE SHALL BURST [L. 1090].
Saturn and Love were among the deities of a real or imaginary state of
innocence and happiness. ALL those WHO FELL, or the Gods of Greece,
Asia, and Egypt; the ONE WHO ROSE, or Jesus Christ, at whose
appearance the idols of the Pagan World wore amerced of their worship;
and the MANY UNSUBDUED, or the monstrous objects of the idolatry of
China, India, the Antarctic islands, and the native tribes of America,
certainly have reigned over the understandings of men in conjunction
or in succession, during periods in which all we know of evil has been
in a state of portentous, and, until the revival of learning and the
arts, perpetually increasing, activity. The Grecian gods seem indeed
to have been personally more innocent, although it cannot be said,
that as far as temperance and chastity are concerned, they gave so
edifying an example as their successor.
The sublime human character of
Jesus Christ was deformed by an imputed identification with a Power,
who tempted, betrayed, and punished the innocent beings who were
called into existence by His sole will; and for the period of a
thousand years, the spirit of this most just, wise, and benevolent of
men has been propitiated with myriads of hecatombs of those who
approached the nearest to His innocence and wisdom, sacrificed under
every aggravation of atrocity and variety of torture. The horrors of
the Mexican, the Peruvian, and the Indian superstitions are well
known.
NOTE ON HELLAS, BY MRS. SHELLEY.
The South of Europe was in a state of great political excitement at
the beginning of the year 1821. The Spanish Revolution had been a
signal to Italy; secrete societies were formed; and, when Naples rose
to declare the Constitution, the call was responded to from Brundusium
to the foot of the Alps. To crush these attempts to obtain liberty,
early in 1821 the Austrians poured their armies into the Peninsula: at
first their coming rather seemed to add energy and resolution to a
people long enslaved. The Piedmontese asserted their freedom; Genoa
threw off the yoke of the King of Sardinia; and, as if in playful
imitation, the people of the little state of Massa and Carrara gave
the conge to their sovereign, and set up a republic.
Tuscany alone was perfectly tranquil. It was said that the Austrian
minister presented a list of sixty Carbonari to the Grand Duke, urging
their imprisonment; and the Grand Duke replied, 'I do not know whether
these sixty men are Carbonari, but I know, if I imprison them, I shall
directly have sixty thousand start up. ' But, though the Tuscans had no
desire to disturb the paternal government beneath whose shelter they
slumbered, they regarded the progress of the various Italian
revolutions with intense interest, and hatred for the Austrian was
warm in every bosom. But they had slender hopes; they knew that the
Neapolitans would offer no fit resistance to the regular German
troops, and that the overthrow of the constitution in Naples would act
as a decisive blow against all struggles for liberty in Italy.
We have seen the rise and progress of reform. But the Holy Alliance
was alive and active in those days, and few could dream of the
peaceful triumph of liberty. It seemed then that the armed assertion
of freedom in the South of Europe was the only hope of the liberals,
as, if it prevailed, the nations of the north would imitate the
example. Happily the reverse has proved the fact.
