Proserpine and Midas (3 page)

But--and this is sufficient for our purpose--every one knows what the Elgin Marbles have done for Keats and Shelley; and what inspirations were derived from their pilgrimages in classic lands by all the poets of this and the following generation, from Byron to Landor. Such experiences could not but react on the common conception of mythology. A knowledge of the great classical sculpture of Greece could not but invest with a new dignity and chastity the notions which so far had been nurtured on the Venus de' Medici and the Belvedere Apollo--even Shelley lived and possibly died under their spell. And 'returning to the nature which had inspired the ancient myths', the Romantic poets must have felt with a keener sense 'their exquisite vitality'. [Footnote: J. A, Symonds,
Studies of the Greek Poets
, ii, p. 258.] The whole tenor of English Romanticism may be said to have been affected thereby.

For English Romanticism--and this is one of its most distinctive merits--had no exclusiveness about it. It was too spontaneous, one would almost say, too unconscious, ever to be clannish. It grew, untrammelled by codes, uncrystallized into formulas, a living thing always, not a subject-matter for grandiloquent manifestoes and more or less dignified squabbles. It could therefore absorb and turn to account elements which seemed antagonistic to it in the more sophisticated forms it assumed in other literatures. Thus, whilst French Romanticism--in spite of what it may or may not have owed to Chenier--became often distinctly, deliberately, wilfully anti- classical, whilst for example [Footnote: As pointed out by Brunetiere,
Evolution de la Poesie lyrique
, ii, p. 147.] Victor Hugo in that all-comprehending
Legende des Siecles
could find room for the Hegira and for Zim-Zizimi, but did not consecrate a single line to the departed glories of mythical Greece, the Romantic poets of England may claim to have restored in freshness and purity the religion of antiquity. Indeed their voice was so convincing that even the great Christian chorus that broke out afresh in the Victorian era could not entirely drown it, and Elizabeth Barrett had an apologetic way of dismissing 'the dead Pan', and all the 'vain false gods of Hellas', with an acknowledgement of

your beauty which confesses Some chief Beauty conquering you.

This may be taken to have been the average attitude, in the forties, towards classical mythology. That twenty years before, at least in the Shelley circle, it was far less grudging, we now have definite proof.

Not only was Shelley prepared to admit, with the liberal opinion of the time, that ancient mythology 'was a system of nature concealed under the veil of allegory', a system in which 'a thousand fanciful fables contained a secret and mystic meaning': [Footnote: _Edinb. Rev._, July 1808.] he was prepared to go a considerable step farther, and claim that there was no essential difference between ancient mythology and the theology of the Christians, that both were interpretations, in more or less figurative language, of the great mysteries of being, and indeed that the earlier interpretation, precisely because it was more frankly figurative and poetical than the later one, was better fitted to stimulate and to allay the sense of wonder which ought to accompany a reverent and high-souled man throughout his life-career.

In the earlier phase of Shelley's thought, this identification of the ancient and the modern faiths was derogatory to both. The letter which he had written in 1812 for the edification of Lord Ellenborough revelled in the contemplation of a time 'when the Christian religion shall have faded from the earth, when its memory like that of Polytheism now shall remain, but remain only as the subject of ridicule and wonder'. But as time went on, Shelley's views became less purely negative. Instead of ruling the adversaries back to back out of court, he bethought himself of venturing a plea in favour of the older and weaker one. It may have been in 1817 that he contemplated an 'Essay in favour of polytheism'.[Footnote: Cf. our _Shelley's Prose in the Bodleian MSS_., 1910, p. 124.] He was then living on the fringe of a charmed circle of amateur and adventurous Hellenists who could have furthered the scheme. His great friend, Thomas Love Peacock, 'Greeky Peaky', was a personal acquaintance of Thomas Taylor 'the Platonist', alias 'Pagan Taylor'. And Taylor's translations and commentaries of Plato had been favourites of Shelley in his college days. Something at least of Taylor's queer mixture of flaming enthusiasm and tortuous ingenuity may be said to appear in the unexpected document we have now to examine.

It is a little draft of an Essay, which occurs, in Mrs. Shelley's handwriting, as an insertion in her Journal for the Italian period. The fragment--for it is no more--must be quoted in full. [Footnote: From the 'Boscombe' MSS. Unpublished.]

The necessity of a Belief in the Heathen Mythology to a Christian

If two facts are related not contradictory of equal probability & with equal evidence, if we believe one we must believe the other.

1st. There is as good proof of the Heathen Mythology as of the Christian Religion.

2ly. that they [do] not contradict one another.

Con[clusion]. If a man believes in one he must believe in both.

Examination of the proofs of the Xtian religion--the Bible & its authors. The twelve stones that existed in the time of the writer prove the miraculous passage of the river Jordan. [Footnote: Josh. iv. 8.--These notes are
not
Shelley's.] The immoveability of the Island of Delos proves the accouchement of Latona [Footnote:
Theogn
. 5 foll.; Homer's
Hymn to Apollo
, i. 25.]--the Bible of the Greek religion consists in Homer, Hesiod & the Fragments of Orpheus &c.--All that came afterwards to be considered apocryphal--Ovid = Josephus--of each of these writers we may believe just what we cho[o]se.

To seek in these Poets for the creed & proofs of mythology which are as follows--Examination of these--1st with regard to proof--2 in contradiction or conformity to the Bible--various apparitions of God in that Book [--] Jupiter considered by himself--his attributes-- disposition [--] acts--whether as God revealed himself as the Almighty to the Patriarchs & as Jehovah to the Jews he did not reveal himself as Jupiter to the Greeks--the possibility of various revelations--that he revealed himself to Cyrus. [Footnote: Probably Xenophon,
Cyrop
. VIII. vii. 2.]

The inferior deities--the sons of God & the Angels--the difficulty of Jupiter's children explained away--the imagination of the poets--of the prophets--whether the circumstance of the sons of God living with women [Footnote: Gen. vi.] being related in one sentence makes it more probable than the details of Greek--Various messages of the Angels--of the deities--Abraham, Lot or Tobit. Raphael [--]Mercury to Priam [Footnote:
Iliad
, xxiv.]--Calypso & Ulysses--the angel wd then play the better part of the two whereas he now plays the worse. The ass of Balaam--Oracles--Prophets. The revelation of God as Jupiter to the Greeks---a more successful revelation than that as Jehovah to the Jews--Power, wisdom, beauty, & obedience of the Greeks--greater & of longer continuance--than those of the Jews. Jehovah's promises worse kept than Jupiter's--the Jews or Prophets had not a more consistent or decided notion concerning after life & the Judgements of God than the Greeks [--] Angels disappear at one time in the Bible & afterwards appear again. The revelation to the Greeks more complete than to the Jews--prophesies of Christ by the heathens more incontrovertible than those of the Jews. The coming of X. a confirmation of both religions. The cessation of oracles a proof of this. The Xtians better off than any but the Jews as blind as the Heathens--Much more conformable to an idea of [the] goodness of God that he should have revealed himself to the Greeks than that he left them in ignorance. Vergil & Ovid not truth of the heathen Mythology, but the interpretation of a heathen-- as Milton's Paradise Lost is the interpretation of a Christian religion of the Bible. The interpretation of the mythology of Vergil & the interpretation of the Bible by Milton compared--whether one is more inconsistent than the other--In what they are contradictory. Prometheus desmotes quoted by Paul [Footnote: Shelley may refer to the proverbial phrase 'to kick against the pricks' (Acts xxvi. 14), which, however, is found in Pindar and Euripides as well as in Aeschylus (
Prom.
323).] [--] all religion false except that which is revealed-- revelation depends upon a certain degree of civilization--writing necessary--no oral tradition to be a part of faith--the worship of the Sun no revelation--Having lost the books [of] the Egyptians we have no knowledge of their peculiar revelations. If the revelation of God to the Jews on Mt Sinai had been more peculiar & impressive than some of those to the Greeks they wd not immediately after have worshiped a calf--A latitude in revelation--How to judge of prophets--the proof [of] the Jewish Prophets being prophets.

The only public revelation that Jehovah ever made of himself was on Mt Sinai--Every other depended upon the testimony of a very few & usually of a single individual--We will first therefore consider the revelation of Mount Sinai. Taking the fact plainly it happened thus. The Jews were told by a man whom they believed to have supernatural powers that they were to prepare for that God wd reveal himself in three days on the mountain at the sound of a trumpet. On the 3rd day there was a cloud & lightning on the mountain & the voice of a trumpet extremely loud. The people were ordered to stand round the foot of the mountain & not on pain of death to infringe upon the bounds--The man in whom they confided went up the mountain & came down again bringing them word

The draft unfortunately leaves off here, and we are unable to know for certain whether this Shelleyan paradox, greatly daring, meant to minimize the importance of the 'only public revelation' granted to the chosen people. But we have enough to understand the general trend of the argument. It did not actually intend to sap the foundations of Scriptural authority. But it was bold enough to risk a little shaking in order to prove that the Sacred Books of the Greeks and Romans did not, after all, present us with a much more rickety structure. This was a task of conciliation rather than destruction. And yet even this conservative view of the Shelleys' exegesis cannot--and will not-- detract from the value of the above document. Surely, this curious theory of the equal 'inspiration' of Polytheism and the Jewish or Christian religions, whether it was invented or simply espoused by Mrs. Shelley, evinces in her--for the time being at least--a very considerable share of that adventurous if somewhat uncritical alacrity of mind which carried the poet through so many religious and political problems. It certainly vindicates her, more completely perhaps than anything hitherto published, against the strictures of those who knew her chiefly or exclusively in later years, and could speak of her as a 'most conventional slave', who 'even affected the pious dodge', and 'was not a suitable companion for the poet'. [Footnote: Trelawny's letter, 3 April 1870; in Mr. H. Buxton Forman's edition, 1910, p. 229.] Mrs. Shelley--at twenty-three years of age--had not yet run the full 'career of her humour'; and her enthusiasm for classical mythology may well have, later on, gone the way of her admiration for Spinoza, whom she read with Shelley that winter (1820-1), as Medwin notes, [Footnote: I. e. ed. H. Buxton Forman, p. 253.] and 'whose arguments she then thought irrefutable--
tempora mutantur!
'

However that may be, the two little mythological dramas on
Proserpine
and
Midas
assume, in the light of that enthusiasm, a special interest. They stand--or fall--both as a literary, and to a certain extent as an intellectual effort. They are more than an attitude, and not much less than an avowal. Not only do they claim our attention as the single poetical work of any length which seems to have been undertaken by Mrs. Shelley; they are a unique and touching monument of that intimate co-operation which at times, especially in the early years in Italy, could make the union of 'the May' and 'the Elf' almost unreservedly delightful. It would undoubtedly be fatuous exaggeration to ascribe a very high place in literature to these little Ovidian fancies of Mrs. Shelley. The scenes, after all, are little better than adaptations--fairly close adaptations--of the Latin poet's well-known tales.

Even
Proserpine
, though clearly the more successful of the two, both more strongly knit as drama, and less uneven in style and versification, cannot for a moment compare with the far more original interpretations of Tennyson, Swinburne, or Meredith. [Footnote:
Demeter and Persephone
, 1889;
The Garden of Proserpine
, 1866; _The Appeasement of Demeter_, 1888.] But it is hardly fair to draw in the great names of the latter part of the century. The parallel would be more illuminating--and the final award passed on Mrs. Shelley's attempt more favourable--if we were to think of a contemporary production like 'Barry Cornwall's'
Rape of Proserpine
, which, being published in 1820, it is just possible that the Shelleys should have known. B. W. Procter's poem is also a dramatic 'scene', written 'in imitation of the mode originated by the Greek Tragic Writers'. In fact those hallowed models seem to have left far fewer traces in Barry Cornwall's verse than the Alexandrian--or pseudo-Alexandrian-- tradition of meretricious graces and coquettish fancies, which the eighteenth century had already run to death. [Footnote: To adduce an example--in what is probably not an easily accessible book to-day: Proserpine, distributing her flowers, thus addresses one of her nymphs:

For this lily, Where can it hang but at Cyane's breast! And yet 'twill wither on so white a bed, If flowers have sense for envy.]

And, more damnable still, the poetical essence of the legend, the identification of Proserpine's twofold existence with the grand alternation of nature's seasons, has been entirely neglected by the author. Surely his work, though published, is quite as deservedly obscure as Mrs. Shelley's derelict manuscript.
Midas
has the privilege, if it be one, of not challenging any obvious comparison. The subject, since Lyly's and Dryden's days, has hardly attracted the attention of the poets. It was so eminently fit for the lighter kinds of presentation that the agile bibliographer who aimed at completeness would have to go through a fairly long list of masques, [Footnote: There is one by poor Christopher Smart.] comic operas, or 'burlettas', all dealing with the ludicrous misfortunes of the Phrygian king. But an examination of these would be sheer pedantry in this place. Here again Mrs. Shelley has stuck to her Latin source as closely as she could. [Footnote: Perhaps her somewhat wearying second act, on the effects of the gold-transmuting gift, would have been shorter, if Ovid (
Metam.
xi. 108-30) had not himself gone into such details on the subject.] She has made a gallant attempt to connect the two stories with which Midas has ever since Ovid's days been associated, and a distinct--indeed a too perceptible--effort to press out a moral meaning in this, as she had easily extricated a cosmological meaning in the other tale.