A statelier pyramis to her I'll rear
Than Rhodope's of Memphis ever was.

Clelia was a Roman girl, who, having been given as a hostage to Porsenna, escaped by swimming the Tiber on horseback. Cornelia is, of course, the mother of the Gracchi, and the Palmyrene is Zenobia. Agrippina, the granddaughter of Augustus, accompanied her husband Germanicus on his German campaigns.

Lines 71-80. Dwell with these, etc. This passage is not in the early editions, which read: Of Agrippina. Leave us: you may go.' The first part (Dwell with these which is higher')

was added in the 3d edition, the remainder in the 5th.

Line 84. She spoke and bowing waved. The early editions read: So saying, she bowed and waved,' etc.

Line 98. That whisper'd' Asses' ears' among the sedge. Tennyson follows Chaucer, who (Wife of Bath's Tale') makes Midas confide the secret of his asses' ears only to his wife. Chaucer professes to follow Ovid, but, according to the Latin poet, it was Midas's barber that could not keep the secret.

Line 101. This world was once a fluid haze of light, etc. It would be impossible to summarize the nebular hypothesis more concisely or precisely than the poet has done it here.

On the lecture as a whole, compare Prior, 'Alma':

She kindly talked, at least three hours,
Of plastic forms and mental powers,

Described our pre-existing station
Before this vile terrene creation:
And lest we should grow weary, Madam,
To cut things short, came down to Adam;
From thence, as fast as she was able,
She drowns the world and builds up Babel;
Thro' Syria, Persia, Greece, she goes,
And takes the Romans in the close.

Line 112. The Lycian custom. According to Herodotus, the Lycians differed from all other nations in taking their names from their mothers instead of their fathers, and in tracing their ancestry in the feminine rather than the masculine line.

Line 113. That lay at wine with Lar and Lucumo. That is, the Etruscan women, who, in the paintings at Volterra, are depicted as sharing the banquets with their husbands. 'Lar'

cumo

or Lars' was an honorary appellation in Etruria, equivalent to the English Lord; and‘Luwas a title given to the Etruscan princes and priests, like the Roman patricius. Line 144. Plato, Verulam. Compare The Palace of Art': Plato the wise, and largebrow'd Verulam.'

Line 149. And, last not least, she who had left her place. The early editions have: And she, tho' last not least, who left her place.'

Line 169. The slacken'd sail. The early editions have 'her' for the .'

Line 184. My vow binds me to speak, etc. The early editions read:

I am bound

To tell her. O, she has an iron will,

An axelike edge unturnable, etc.

Line 224. Bestrode my grandsire. To defend him. Compare Shakespeare, Comedy of Errors,' v. 1. 192: —

When I bestrid thee in the wars, and took
Deep scars to save thy life;

and 1 Henry IV.' v. 1. 122: 'Hal, if thou see me down in the battle, and bestride me, so; 't is a point of friendship.'

Line 240. Woman, if I might sit beside your feet. The early editions have: A woman,' etc. Line 285. I knew you at the first..

you, Florian. The early editions read:

to see

You are grown, and yet I knew you at the first.
I am very glad, and I am very vext
To see you, Florian.

Line 291. Then, a moment after. The early editions have: and a moment after.'

Line 303. April daffodilly. The Quarterly Review' (vol. 82, March, 1848) says that daffodils are not April guests, but "take the winds of March with beauty" [Winter's Tale,' iv. 4. 120]. Commenting on this in a letter to me, Tennyson said: Daffodils in the North of England belong as much to April as to March. I myself remember a man presenting me in the streets of Dublin the finest bunch of daffodils I almost ever saw on the 15th of April. It amused me at the time, for I had just been reading the Quarterly article.' I may add that ten days of Shakespeare's March properly belonged to April, as we now reckon it.

Pages 126 to 131

6

Line 319. The Danaid of a leaky vase. The allusion to the myth of the daughters of Danaus, condemned eternally to the hopeless task of filling a leaky vessel with water, seems a little pedantic here; but perhaps not more so than Melissa's reply. Both teacher and pupil are crammed with ancient lore.

Line 326. That we still may lead. The early editions have: that we may live to lead.'

Line 332. Tho', madam, you should answer. All the English editions down to 1890 point thus: Tho' madam you should answer,' etc. Even the small m in madam' (which in those editions is elsewhere printed with a capital) was not changed until 1884.

Line 333. If you came. The early editions have if e'er you came.'

Lines 347, 348. For half the day, etc. The early editions have: From room to room: in each we sat,' etc.

Lines 386-393. What think you, etc. The early editions have only the line, What think you of it, Florian? Will it hold'?'

Lines 419-426. Intent on her, etc. The early editions read thus:

Intent upon the Princess, where she sat
Among her grave Professors, scattering gems
Of Art and Science: only Lady Blanche,

A double-rouged and treble-wrinkled Dame,
With all her faded Autumns falsely brown, etc.

Line 402. But thou. The early editions have 'but come."

Lines 442, 443. Men hated learned women, etc. The early editions read: 'Men hated learned women: and to us came;' and three lines below:

That harm'd not: so we sat; and now when day
Droop'd, and the chapel tinkled, mixt with those, etc.

In the 6th line of the 'Song' that follows, the 3d edition has dropping moon' for 'dying

moon.

Line 67. God help her! The early editions have: God pardon her!' and below, the love of the Princess' for the heart of Ida.'

Line 75. Yet my mother still. The early editions have: only Lady Blanche' (the poet forgot who was speaking), and below, the Royal heart,' for her pupil's love.'

Line 90. To the sphere. That is, to the upper air. Milton, in Comus,' 241, calls Echo Sweet queen of parley, daughter of the sphere,' which has puzzled the commentators and given rise to sundry far-fetched explanations. In my opinion, daughter of the sphere' means daughter of the air; and the sphere-born harmonious sisters, Voice and Verse of the same poet (* At a Solemn Music,' 2) are the air-born sisters. The dictionaries do not recognize this meaning of sphere (equivalent to atmosphere), but it is a Grecism of a simple sort, and furnishes an easy explanation of these otherwise perplexing pas

sages.

Line 92. But in her own grand way: being herself. The early editions read: 'For being, and wise in knowing that she is,' etc.

Line 97. Hebes are they to hand ambrosia. The early reading is: They are Hebes meet to hand ambrosia,' etc.

Line 99. The Samian Herè. Juno, or the Greek Hera. The island Samos was one of her favorite seats.

Line 101. From the court. The early editions have: from out the court.'

Line 103. Balusters. The accent on the second syllable is peculiar.

Lines 109, 110. No fighting shadows, etc. These two lines are not in the early editions.

Line 114. I knock'd, and, bidden, enter'd found her there. The early editions have: I knock'd and bidden went in; I found,' etc. In the next line they have 'sally,' for 'move.' Line 118. As man's could be. The early editions have: As man could be,' connected of course with courteous' instead of phrase.' Line 120. Fabled nothing fair. Told no plausible falsehoods; or minted nothing false," as it reads in the early editions.

Line 126. True - we had limed ourselves. The early reading is: 'She said we had limed ourselves.'

Line 146. Some palace in our land. The early reading was A palace in our own land.' Line 153. That afternoon. The early editions have: In the afternoon.'

Milton, in the two instances in which he uses the word: Paradise Lost,' v. 355: On princes, when their rich retinue long;' and 'Paradise Regained,' ii. 419: What followers, what retinue canst thou gain?' and Shakespeare (the only instance in verse), Lear,' i. 4. 221: ‘But other of your insolent retinue.'

Line 203. As we ourself have been. 'Ourselves' in the early editions, as elsewhere in the poem. I shall not refer to the other instances.

Line 207. To lift the woman's fallen divinity. The early editions have: To uplift,' etc.

Line 215. Breathes full East._Breathes the proud and defiant spirit of the Eastern queen. Dawson takes it to refer (as it may, incidentally) to the dry and unpleasant east-winds prevalent in England.'

Line 216. On that which leans to you. In regard to what suits your purpose, or favors your theories.

Line 246. The one POU STO. Alluding to the oft-quoted saying of Archimedes, Give me where I may stand, and I will move the world' (δὸς ποῦ στῶ, καὶ κόσμον κινήσω).

Line 250. By frail successors. The early editions have: 'Of frail successors.'

Line 256. If that same poet-princess, etc. The early editions read: If that strange maiden could,' etc.

Line 262. Gynaceum. The portion of the Greek house where the women had their quar

ters.

Line 285. Diotima. A wise woman of Mantinea, whom Socrates, in Plato's 'Symposium,' calls his instructress.

Line 293. Those monstrous males that carve the living hound, etc. Referring to vivisection, and the assertion that dogs have sometimes been fed with the fragments of the dissecting-room. The poet was one of the signers of the petition to Parliament against vivisection. Compare The Children's Hospital':

I could think he was one of those who would break their jests on the dead,

And mangle the living dog that had loved him and fawned at his kneeDrenched with the hellish oorali - that ever such things should be!

Line 298. Encarnalize. Make carnal, sensualize; apparently the poet's own coinage, but since used by Hartley Coleridge, Canon Farrar, and others.

Line 316. We rode a league beyond, etc. The early editions read:

Elysium, and have nothing to do with Troy or perhaps they rather refer to the Islands of the Blest (Pindar, Olymp. 2d).' Built to the sun' must then mean simply rising sunward, lofty.'

Over

Line 331. Fair Corinna's triumph. Pindar, the bearded Victor of ten thousand hymns.'

Line 337. With Psyche, with Melissa Florian, I. The early edition read: With Psyche, Florian with the other, and I,' etc.

The Song that follows was suggested by the bugle music of the boatmen on Lake Killarney; and Mrs. Anne Thackeray Ritchie (Records of Tennyson, etc.' 1892) says: Here is a reminiscence of Tennyson's about the echo at Killarney, where he said to the boatman, When I last was here I heard eight echoes, and now I only hear one." To which the man, who had heard people quoting the bugle song, replied, Why, you must be the gentleman that brought all the money to the place."

66

It may be noted that some of the most musical lines in the song are composed entirely of monosyllables.

Part IV. Line 1. The nebulous star we call the Sun. Dawson says: The Princess, with the accuracy taught only recently by the spectroscope, calls the sun a nebulous star;' but the expression implies no more than was taught by the nebular hypothesis of Laplace, to which reference has been made by Psyche above. This is the hypothesis' of the next line.

Line 17. Fruit, blossom, viand, amber wine, and gold. The early editions have: Fruit, viand, blossom, and amber wine and gold.'

6

was

Line 21. Tears, idle tears, etc. Mrs. Anne Thackeray Ritchie says (Records of Tennyson, etc.): One of my family remembers hearing Tennyson say that" Tears, idle Tears suggested by Tintern Abbey: who shall say by what mysterious wonder of beauty and regret, by what sense of the “ transient with the abiding "?"

Line 47. Cram our ears with wool. No doubt suggested by the story of Ulysses stopping the ears of his companions with wax, that they might not hear the song of the Sirens.

Line 50. A true occasion lost. The early editions have: 'gone' for 'lost;' and the next two lines read thus:

But trim our sails, and let the old proverb serve While down the streams that buoy each separate craft, etc.

One might not guess the old proverb' here.

Line 59. Kex. A provincial word for the dry stalks of hemlock; here put for any wild growth springing up in the crevices of the mosaic pavement and breaking the beautiful work.

Line 60. The beard-blown goat. As the poet explains, in his letter to Dawson, this refers to the wind blowing the beard on the height of the ruined pillar." The early editions read:

The starr'd mosaic, and the wild goat hang
Upon the pillar, and the wild fig-tree split, etc.

Line 61. The wild fig-tree. Often referred to by the Roman poets as rending asunder ruined buildings and monuments. Compare Martial (x. 2): Marmora Messalæ findit caprificus.' See also Juvenal, x. 147.

Ramage in his "Nooks and By-ways of Italy" (p. 69) is reminded of this passage by noticing a wild fig springing out of, and splitting a rock in the Apennines' (Dawson).

Line 65. Then to me. The first edition has: 'and then to me.'

Line 69. A death's-head at the wine. According to the Egyptian custom mentioned by Herodotus (i. 78): At their convivial banquets, among the wealthy classes, when they have finished supper, a man carries round in a coffin the image of a dead body carved in wood, made as like as possible in color and workmanship, and in size generally about one or two cubits in length; and showing this to each of the company, he says, "Look upon this, then drink and enjoy yourself; for when dead you will be like this."

.

Line 85. And her heart would rock the snowy cradle till I died. Compare Shakespeare, Venus and Adonis,' 1185:

-

Lo, in this hollow cradle take thy rest,

My throbbing heart shall rock thee day and night.

Line 88. The tender ash delays To clothe herself, when all the woods are green. This is botanically true, and is one of the many passages that show the poet's close observation of nature.

Line 100. Like the Ithacensian suitors in old time. That is, like the suitors of Penelope, who do not recognize the disguised Ulysses, and laugh in a constrained way, they know not why. Compare Odyssey,' xx. 347: oi 8' non valmi γελῴων ἀλλοτρίοισιν (literally, laughed with other men's jaws ').

Line 104. O Bulbul, any rose of Gulistan, etc. The love of the nightingale for the rose is a favorite theme with Saadi and his brother poets. Gulistan' is Persian for rose-garden, and Saadi takes it as the title of his book of poems.

The marsh-diver' (or water-rail) and the 'meadow-crake' (corn-crake, or land-rail) are unmusical birds. Wood (quoted by Dawson) says of the latter that its cry may be exactly imitated by drawing a quill or a piece of stick smartly over the large teeth of a comb, or by rubbing together two jagged strips of bone.'

Lines 115-124. Poor soul! etc. These ten lines are not in the early editions.

Line 121. Valkyrian hymns. Such as were sung by the Valkyrs, or Valkyrias, the choosers of the slain,' or fatal sisters of Odin in the Northern mythology.

Line 125. Would this same mock-love, etc. The early editions have: 'I would.'

Line 130. Owed to none. The early editions have: due to none.'

Line 137. Cyril, with whom the bell-mouth'd glass had wrought. The early editions have: Did Cyril;' and 'begin' for 'began' in the next line.

Line 196. Then a loftier form. The 1st edition has: and then.'

Line 202.How came you here?' I told him: 'I,' said he. The early editions read: I found the key in the doors: how came you here?'

Line 215. Or Psyche, she affirm'd not, or denied. The first reading was: Or Lady Psyche, affirm'd not, or denied.'

Line 236. But as the water-lily, etc. Critics have compared Wordsworth, Excursion,' book v., where Moral Truth is said to be

a thing

Subject, you deem, to vital accidents,
And, like the water-lily, lives and thrives,
Whose root is fix'd in stable earth, whose head
Floats on the tossing waves.

Tennyson, in his letter to Dawson, gives as the suggestion of this passage: Water-lilies in my own pond, seen on a gusty day with my own eyes. They did start and slide in the sudden puffs of wind, till caught and stayed by the tether of their own stalks-quite as true as Wordsworth's simile, and more in detail.' Dawson had said that Wordsworth's was the truer picture.'

Line 242. Musky-circled mazes. The early editions read: To thrid thro' all the musky mazes, wind,' etc.

Line 247. Bubbled the nightingale. Most aptly descriptive of the bird's warbling. Mrs. Anne Thackeray Ritchie says: Once, when Mr. Tennyson was in Yorkshire, so he told me, as he was walking at night in a friend's gar den, he heard a nightingale singing with such a frenzy of passion that it was unconscious of everything else, and not frightened though he came and stood quite close beside it; he could see its eye flashing, and feel the air bubble in his ear through the vibration.'

Line 249. Hook'd my ankle in a vine. The early editions have took' for 'hook'd.'

Line 255. The mystic fire on a mast-head. The electrical phenomenon known to Italian and other sailors as 'St. Elmo's fires.' Compare Longfellow, Golden Legend':

Last night I saw Saint Elmo's stars,
With their glimmering lanterns, all at play

The

On the tops of the masts and the tips of the spars, And I knew we should have foul weather to-day. Line 263. Wail'd about with mews. early editions have: clang'd about with mews.' Line 273. In old days. The early editions have: in the old days.'

Line 283. To me you froze. The early editions have: you froze to me."

Line 323. I came to tell you; found that you had gone. The early editions read: I judged it best to speak; but you had gone;' in line 325 tell for 'speak;' and in line 330 'the you merit' for 'some sense."

Line 343. We take it to ourself. editions have: assume it.'

Line 352. A Niobean daughter. has another allusion to Niobe in the Mail': 'the Niobe of swine,'

The early

The poet Walking to

Line 355. And on a sudden rush'd. The 1st edition has: ' ran in' for 'rush'd.'

Line 356. Out of breath, as one pursued. The early editions have: all out of breath, as pursued.'

Line 366. When the wild peasant rights himself, etc. Referring to the incendiary fires so common in the troubles with the English agricultural laborers some years before the poem was written. The early editions have and the rick' for 'the rick.'

Line 389. Render him up. The early editions have: 'deliver him up.'

Line 401. Regal compact. The 1st American edition misprints legal.'

Line 403. Zealous it should be. The early editions have: and willing it should be.'

Line 409. Vague brightness. The Quarterly Review,' (vol. 82), commenting on this, says: that no brightness can be more distinct than that of the moon;' but the purblind critic does not see that the poet describes it as it appears to the baby. The comparison is as true as it is apt.

Line 411. In most south. The early editions have: 'the inmost south;' and in the next line, the inmost north.' In line 417 they have: tho' you had been' for 'had you been.' It will be noticed that these changes, like many before and after, are made to get rid of an extra unaccented syllable in the measure. Tennyson uses this license' freely, to give variety to his verse (see Professor Hadley's criticism quoted in my edition of The Princess,' pp. 142-145). but he appears to have decided that in the early editions of the poem he had used it too often.

Line 426. Landskip. The earlier and better form of landscape.'

Line 430. My boyish dream. The early editions have: 'Mine old ideal.'

Line 450. At her feet. The early editions have: on the marble.'

Line 472. Fixt like a beacon tower above the waves, etc. Compare Enoch Arden':

Allured him as the beacon-blaze allures
The bird of passage, till he madly strikes
Against it, and beats out his weary life.

Line 473. The crimson-rolling eye. It is a red

revolving' light. In the next line the 1st edition has: wild sea-birds' for wild birds.' Line 490. We hold a great convention. The early editions read: We meet to elect new tutors.'

Line 510. You saved our life. The early editions have: You have saved; and in the following lines: the wholesome' for our good,' and tutors for 'servants.' Line 524. Your falsehood and yourself are hateful to us. The early editions have: your face' for yourself,' and 'loathsome' for 'hateful.'

Lines 537-550. While I listen'd, etc. The early editions read:

The voices murmuring; till upon my spirits Settled a gentle cloud of melancholy, Which I shook off, for I was young, and one To whom the shadow of all mischance but came, etc. Interlude. This was added in the 3d edition. There the song begins thus: