crease his popularity by adopting subjects that would more suit the popular taste than a poem conceived in the abstract and dreamy spirit of the Witch of Atlas. It was not only that I wished him to acquire popularity as redounding to his fame; but I believed that he would obtain a greater mastery over his own powers, and greater happiness in his mind, if public applause crowned his endeavours. The few stanzas that precede the poem were addressed to me on my representing these ideas to him. Even now I believe that I was in the right. Shelley did not expect sympathy and approbation from the public; but the want of it took away a portion of the ardour that ought to have sustained him while writing. He was thrown on his own resources, and on the and inspiration of his own soul; wrote because his mind overflowed, without the hope of being appreciated. I had not the most distant wish that he should truckle in opinion, or submit his lofty aspirations for the human race to the low ambition and pride of the many; but I felt sure that, if his poems were more addressed to the common feelings of men, his proper rank among the writers of the day would be acknowledged, and that popularity as a poet would enable his countrymen to do justice to his character and virtues, which in those days it was the mode to attack with the most flagitious calumnies and insulting abuse. That he felt these things deeply cannot be doubted, though he armed himself with the consciousness of acting from a lofty and heroic sense of right. The truth burst from his heart sometimes in solitude, and he would write a few unfinished verses that showed that he felt the sting;

among such I find the follow-
ing:-

'Alas! this is not what I thought
Life was.

I knew that there were crimes
and evil men,

Misery and hate; nor did I hope
to pass

Untouched by suffering through
the rugged glen.

In mine own heart I saw as in a glass
And,
The hearts of others.
when

I went among my kind, with triple
brass

Of calm endurance my weak
breast I armed,

To bear scorn, fear, and hate-a
woful mass!'

I believed that all this morbid
feeling would vanish if the chord
of sympathy between him and
his countrymen were touched.
But my persuasions were vain,
the mind could not be bent from
its natural inclination. Shelley
shrunk instinctively from por-
traying human passion, with its
mixture of good and evil, of dis-
appointment and disquiet. Such
opened again the wounds of his
own heart; and he loved to shelter
himself rather in the airiest flights
of fancy, forgetting love and hate,
and regret and lost hope, in such
imaginations as borrowed their
hues from sunrise or sunset, from
the yellow moonshine or paly twi-
light, from the aspect of the far
ocean or the shadows of the woods,

-which celebrated the singing of the winds among the pines, the flow of a murmuring stream, and the thousand harmonious sounds which Nature creates in her solitudes. These are the materials which form the Witch of Atlas: it is a brilliant congregation of ideas such as his senses gathered, and his fancy coloured, during his rambles in the sunny land he so much loved.

OEDIPUS TYRANNUS

OR

SWELLFOOT THE TYRANT

A TRAGEDY IN TWO ACTS

TRANSLATED FROM THE ORIGINAL DORIC

'Choose Reform or Civil War,

When through thy streets, instead of hare with dogs,
A CONSORT-QUEEN shall hunt a KING with hogs,
Riding on the IONIAN MINOTAUR.'

[Begun at the Baths of San Giuliano, near Pisa, August 24, 1819; published anonymously by J. Johnston, Cheapside (imprint C. F. Seyfang), 1820. On a threat of prosecution the publisher surrendered the whole impression, seven copies-the total number sold-excepted. Oedipus does not appear in the first edition of the Poetical Works, 1839, but it was included by Mrs. Shelley in the second edition of that year. Our text is that of the editio princeps, 1820, save in three places, where the reading of ed. 1820 will be found at the foot of the page.]

ADVERTISEMENT

THIS Tragedy is one of a triad, or system of three Plays (an arrangement according to which the Greeks were accustomed to connect their dramatic representations), elucidating the wonderful and appalling fortunes of the SWELLFOOT dynasty. It was evidently written by some learned Theban, and, from its characteristic dulness, apparently before the duties on the importation of Attic salt had been repealed by the Boeotarchs. The tenderness with which he treats the PIGS proves him to have been a sus Boeotiae; possibly Epicuri de grege porcus; for, as the poet observes,

A fellow feeling makes us wondrous kind.'

No liberty has been taken with the translation of this remarkable piece of antiquity, except the suppressing a seditious and blasphemous Chorus of the Pigs and Bulls at the last Act. The word Hoydipouse (or more properly Oedipus) has been rendered literally SWELLFOOT, without its having been conceived necessary to determine whether a swelling of the hind or the fore feet of the Swinish Monarch is particularly indicated.

Should the remaining portions of this Tragedy be found, entitled, Swellfoot in Angaria, and Charité, the Translator might be tempted to give them to the leading Public.

SCENE I-A magnificent Temple, built of thigh-bones and death'sheads, and tiled with scalps. Over the Altar the statue of Famine, veiled; a number of Bours, Sows, and Sucking-Pigs, crowned with thistle, shamrock, and oak, sitting on the steps, and clinging round the Altar of the Temple.

Enter SWELLFOOT, in his Royal robes, without perceiving the PIGs. Swell foot. Thou supreme Goddess! by whose power divine These graceful limbs are clothed in proud array

[He contemplates himself with satisfaction.
Of gold and purple, and this kingly paunch
Swells like a sail before a favouring breeze,
And these most sacred nether promontories
Lie satisfied with layers of fat; and these
Boeotian cheeks, like Egypt's pyramid,
(Nor with less toil were their foundations laid)1,
Sustain the cone of my untroubled brain,
That point, the emblem of a pointless nothing!
Thou to whom Kings and laurelled Emperors,
Radical-butchers, Paper-money-millers,
Bishops and Deacons, and the entire army
Of those fat martyrs to the persecution
Of stifling turtle-soup, and brandy-devils,
Offer their secret vows! Thou plenteous Ceres
Of their Eleusis, hail!

The Swine. Eigh! eigh! eigh! eigh!
Swellfoot.

Ha! what are ye,

Who, crowned with leaves devoted to the Furies,
Cling round this sacred shrine ?

Swine. Aigh! aigh! aigh!

Swell foot.

What! ye that are

The very beasts that, offered at her altar

5

10

15

20

See Universal History for an account of the number of people who died, and the immense consumption of garlic by the wretched Egyptians, who made a sepulchre for the name as well as the bodies of their tyrants. [SHELLEY'S NOTE.]

SHELLEY

With blood and groans, salt-cake, and fat, and inwards,
Ever propitiate her reluctant will

When taxes are withheld?

Swine. Ugh! ugh! ugh!
Swell foot.

What! ye who grub

25

With filthy snouts my red potatoes up
In Allan's rushy bog? Who eat the oats
Up, from my cavalry in the Hebrides?

Who swill the hog-wash soup my cooks digest
From bones, and rags, and scraps of shoe-leather,
Which should be given to cleaner Pigs than you?

The Swine.-Semichorus I.

The same, alas! the same;
Though only now the name
Of Pig remains to me.

Semichorus II.

If 'twere your kingly will

Us wretched Swine to kill,

What should we yield to thee?

30

35

Swellfoot. Why, skin and bones, and some few hairs for mortar.

Chorus of Swine.

I have heard your Laureate sing,
That pity was a royal thing;

Under your mighty ancestors, we Pigs

Were bless'd as nightingales on myrtle sprigs,
Or grasshoppers that live on noonday dew,
And sung, old annals tell, as sweetly too;
But now our sties are fallen in, we catch

The murrain and the mange, the scab and itch;
Sometimes your royal dogs tear down our thatch,
And then we seek the shelter of a ditch;
Hog-wash or grains, or ruta-baga, none
Has yet been ours since your reign begun.

First Sow.

My Pigs, 'tis in vain to tug.

Second Sow.

I could almost eat my litter.

First Pig.

I suck, but no milk will come from the dug.

Second Pig.

Our skin and our bones would be bitter.

The Boars.

We fight for this rag of greasy rug,

Though a trough of wash would be fitter.

40

45

50

Semichorus.

Happier Swine were they than we,
Drowned in the Gadarean sea-

I wish that pity would drive out the devils,
Which in your royal bosom hold their revels,
And sink us in the waves of thy compassion!
Alas! the Pigs are an unhappy nation!
Now if your Majesty would have our bristles
To bind your mortar with, or fill our colons
With rich blood, or make brawn out of our gristles,
In policy-ask else your royal Solons-

You ought to give us hog-wash and clean straw,
And sties well thatched; besides it is the law!
Swellfoot. This is sedition, and rank blasphemy!
Ho! there, my guards!

Guard.

Enter a GUARD.

Your sacred Majesty.

Swellfoot. Call in the Jews, Solomon the court porkman, Moses the sow-gelder, and Zephaniah

The hog-butcher.

Guard.

They are in waiting, Sire.

Enter SOLOMON, MOSES, and ZEPHANIAH.

55

60

65

70

Swellfoot. Out with your knife, old Moses, and spay those Sows

[The PIGS run about in consternation.

That load the earth with Pigs; cut close and deep

Moral restraint I see has no effect,

Nor prostitution, nor our own example,
Starvation, typhus-fever, war, nor prison-

This was the art which the arch-priest of Famine
Hinted at in his charge to the Theban clergy-
Cut close and deep, good Moses.

Moses.

Keep the Boars quiet, else

Swellfoot.

Let your Majesty

Zephaniah, cut

That fat Hog's throat, the brute seems overfed;
Seditious hunks! to whine for want of grains.

Zephaniah. Your sacred Majesty, he has the dropsy ;

We shall find pints of hydatids in's liver,

He has not half an inch of wholesome fat

Upon his carious ribs

Swell foot.

"Tis all the same,

He'll serve instead of riot money, when

Our murmuring troops bivouac in Thebes' streets;
And January winds, after a day

Of butchering, will make them relish carrion.

Now, Solomon, I'll sell you in a lump

The whole kit of them.

Solomon.

Why, your Majesty,

59 thy ed. 1820; your ed. 1839.