Chapter 5

123.He gave to misery all he had, a tear. This is the pointing of the line in the MSS. and in all the early editions except that of Mathias, who seems to be responsible for the change (adopted by the recent editors, almost without exception) to,

"He gave to Misery (all he had) a tear."

This alters the meaning, mars the rhythm, and spoils the sentiment. If one does not see the difference at once, it would be useless to try to make him see it. Mitford, who ought to have known better, not only thrusts in the parenthesis, but quotes this from Pope's Homer as an illustration of it:

"His fame ('tis all the dead can have) shall live."

126.Mitford says thatOrin this line should beNor. Yes, if "draw" is an imperative, like "seek;" no, if it is an infinitive, in the same construction as "to disclose." That the latter was the construction the poet had in mind is evident from the form of the stanza in the Wrightson MS., where "seek" is repeated:

127.In trembling hope. Gray quotes Petrarch,Sonnet104: "paventosa speme." Cf. Lucan,Pharsalia, vii. 297: "Spe trepido;" Mallet,Funeral Hymn, 473:

"With trembling tenderness of hope and fear;"

and Beaumont,Psyche, xv. 314:

"Divided here twixt trembling hope and fear."

Hooker (Eccl. Pol.i.) defines hope as "a trembling expectation of things far removed."

The original manuscript title of this ode was "Noontide." It was first printed in Dodsley'sCollection, vol. ii. p. 271, under the title of "Ode."

1.The rosy-bosom'd Hours. Cf. Milton,Comus, 984: "The Graces and the rosy-bosom'd Hours;" and Thomson,Spring, 1007:

TheHoræ, or hours, according to the Homeric idea, were the goddesses of the seasons, the course of which was symbolically represented by "the dance of the Hours." They were often described, in connection with the Graces, Hebe, and Aphrodite, as accompanying with their dancing the songs of the Muses and the lyre of Apollo. Long after the time of Homer they continued to be regarded as the givers of the seasons, especially spring and autumn, or "Nature in her bloom and her maturity." At first there were only two Horæ, Thallo (or Spring) and Karpo (or Autumn); but later the number was three, like that of the Graces. In art they are represented as blooming maidens, bearing the products of the seasons.

2.Fair Venus' train. The Hours adorned Aphrodite (Venus) as she rose from the sea, and are often associated with her by Homer, Hesiod, and other classical writers. Wakefield remarks: "Venus is here employed, in conformity to the mythology of the Greeks, as the source of creation and beauty."

3.Long-expecting. Waiting long for the spring. Sometimes incorrectly printed "long-expected." Cf. Dryden,Astræa Redux, 132: "To flowers that in its womb expecting lie."

4.The purple year. Cf. thePervigilium Veneris, 13: "Ipsa gemmis purpurantem pingit annum floribus;" Pope,Pastorals, i. 28: "And lavish Nature paints the purple year;" and Mallet,Zephyr:"Gales that wake the purple year."

5.The Attic warbler. The nightingale, called "the Attic bird," either because it was so common in Attica, or from the old legend that Philomela (or, as some say, Procne), the daughter of a king of Attica, was changed into a nightingale. Cf. Milton's description of Athens (P. R.iv. 245):

Cf. Ovid,Hal.110: "Attica avis verna sub tempestate queratus;" and Propertius, ii. 16, 6: "Attica volucris."

Pours her throatis a metonymy. H. p. 85. Cf. Pope,Essay on Man, iii. 33: "Is it for thee the linnet pours her throat?"

6, 7.Cf. Thomson,Spring, 577:

9, 10.Cf. Milton,Comus, 989:

12.Cf. Milton,P. L.iv. 245: "Where the unpierc'd shade Imbrown'd the noontide bowers;" Pope,Eloisa, 170: "And breathes a browner horror on the woods;" Thomson,Castle of Indolence, i. 38: "Or Autumn's varied shades imbrown the walls."

According to Ruskin (Modern Painters, vol. iii. p. 241, Amer. ed.) there is no brown in nature. After remarking that Dante "does not acknowledge the existence of the colour ofbrownat all," he goes on to say: "But one day, just when I was puzzling myself about this, I happened to be sitting by one of our best living modern colourists, watching him at his work, when he said, suddenly and by mere accident, after we had been talking about other things, 'Do you know I have found that there is nobrownin nature? What we call brown is always a variety either of orange or purple. It never can be represented by umber, unless altered by contrast.' It is curious how far the significance of this remark extends, how exquisitely it illustrates and confirms the mediæval sense of hue," etc.

14.O'ercanopies the glade. Gray himself quotes Shakes.M. N. D.ii. 1: "A bank o'ercanopied with luscious woodbine."1Cf. Fletcher,Purple Island, i. 5, 30: "The beech shall yield a cool, safe canopy;" and Milton,Comus, 543: "a bank, With ivy canopied."

1The reading of the folio of 1623 is:

Dyce and some other modern editors read,

"Quite overcanopied with lush woodbine."

15.Rushy brink. Cf.Comus, 890: "By the rushy-fringed bank."

19, 20.These lines, as first printed, read:

22.The panting herds. Cf. Pope,Past.ii. 87: "To closer shades the panting flocks remove."

23.The peopled air. Cf. Walton,C. A.:"Now the wing'd people of the sky shall sing;" Beaumont,Psyche:"Every tree empeopled was with birds of softest throats."

24.The busy murmur. Cf. Milton,P. R.iv. 248: "bees' industrious murmur."

25.The insect youth. Perhaps suggested by a line in Green'sHermitage, quoted in a letter of Gray to Walpole: "From maggot-youth through change of state," etc. See on 31 below.

26.The honied spring. Cf. Milton,Il Pens.142: "the bee with honied thigh;" andLyc.140: "the honied showers."

"There has of late arisen," says Johnson in his Life of Gray, "a practice of giving to adjectives derived from substantives the termination of participles, such as thecultured plain, thedaisied bank;but I am sorry to see in the lines of a scholar like Gray thehoniedspring." But, as we have seen,honiedis found in Milton; and Shakespeare also uses it inHen. V.i. 1: "honey'd sentences."Mellitusis used by Cicero, Horace, and Catullus. The editor of an English dictionary, as Lord Grenville has remarked, ought to know "that the ready conversion of our substances into verbs, participles, and participial adjectives is of the very essence of our tongue, derived from its Saxon origin, and a main source of its energy and richness."

27.The liquid noon. Gray quotes Virgil,Geo.iv. 59: "Nare per aestatem liquidam."

30.Quick-glancing to the sun. Gray quotes Milton,P. L.vii. 405:

31.Gray here quotes Green,Grotto:"While insects from the threshold preach." In a letter to Walpole, he says: "I send you a bit of a thing for two reasons: first, because it is of one of your favourites, Mr. M. Green; and next, because I would do justice. The thought on which my second Ode turns [this Ode, afterwards placed first by Gray] is manifestly stole from hence; not that I knew it at the time, but having seen this many years before, to be sure it imprinted itself on my memory, and, forgetting the Author, I took it for my own." Then comes the quotation from Green'sGrotto. The passage referring to the insects is as follows:

47.Painted plumage. Cf. Pope,Windsor Forest, 118: "His painted wings; and Milton,P. L.vii. 433:

See also Virgil,Geo.iii. 243, andÆn.iv. 525: "pictaeque volucres;" and Phædrus,Fab.iii. 18: "pictisque plumis."

This ode first appeared in Dodsley'sCollection, vol. ii. p. 274, with some variations noticed below. Walpole, after the death of Gray, placed the china vase on a pedestal at Strawberry Hill, with a few lines of the ode for an inscription.

In a letter to Walpole, dated March 1, 1747, Gray refers to the subject of the ode in the following jocose strain: "As one ought to be particularly careful to avoid blunders in a compliment of condolence, it would be a sensible satisfaction to me (before I testify my sorrow, and the sincere part I take in your misfortune) to know for certain who it is I lament. I knew Zara and Selima (Selima, was it? or Fatima?), or rather I knew them both together; for I cannot justly say which was which. Then as to your handsome Cat, the name you distinguish her by, I am no less at a loss, as well knowing one's handsome cat is always the cat one likes best; or if one be alive and the other dead, it is usually the latter that is the handsomest. Besides, if the point were never so clear, I hope you do not think me so ill-bred or so imprudent as to forfeit all my interest in the survivor; oh no! I would rather seem to mistake, and imagine to be sure it must be the tabby one that had met with this sad accident. Till this affair is a little better determined, you will excuse me if I do not begin to cry,

Tempus inane peto, requiem spatiumque doloris.

"... Heigh ho! I feel (as you to be sure have done long since) that I have very little to say, at least in prose. Somebody will be the better for it; I do not mean you, but your Cat, feuë Mademoiselle Selime, whom I am about to immortalize for one week or fortnight, as follows: [the Ode follows, which we need not reprint here].

"There's a poem for you, it is rather too long for an Epitaph."

2.Cf. Lady M. W. Montagu,Town Eclogues:

3.The azure flowers that blow. Johnson and Wakefield find fault with this as redundant, but it is no more so than poetic usage allows. In theProgress of Poesy, i. 1, we have again: "The laughing flowers that round them blow." Cf.Comus, 992:

4.Tabby. For the derivation of this word from the Frenchtabis, a kind of silk, see Wb. In the first ed. the 5th line preceded the 4th.

6.The lake. In the mock-heroic vein that runs through the whole poem.

11.Jet. This word comes, through the French, from Gagai, a town in Lycia, where the mineral was first obtained.

14.Two angel forms. In the first ed. "two beauteous forms," which Mitford prefers to the present reading, "as the images ofangelandgeniiinterfere with each other, and bring different associations to the mind."

16.Tyrian hue. Explained by the "purple" in next line; an allusion to the famous Tyrian dye of the ancients. Cf. Pope,Windsor Forest, 142: "with fins of Tyrian dye."

17.Cf. Virgil,Geo.iv. 274:

See also Pope,Windsor Forest, 332: "His shining horns diffus'd a golden glow;"Temple of Fame, 253: "And lucid amber casts a golden gleam."

24.In the 1st ed. "What cat's a foe to fish?" and in the next line, "with eyes intent."

31.Eight times. Alluding to the proverbial "nine lives" of the cat.

34.No dolphin came. An allusion to the story of Arion, who when thrown overboard by the sailors for the sake of his wealth was borne safely to land by a dolphin.

No Nereid stirr'd. Cf. Milton,Lycidas, 50:

35, 36.The reading of 1st ed. is,

40.The 1st ed. has "Not all that strikes," etc.

42.Nor all that glisters gold. A favourite proverb with the old English poets. Cf. Chaucer,C. T.16430:

Spenser,F. Q.ii. 8, 14:

"Yet gold all is not, that doth golden seeme;"

Shakes.M. of V.ii. 7:

Dryden,Hind and Panther:

"All, as they say, that glitters is not gold."

Other examples might be given.Glistenis not found in Shakes. or Milton, but both useglisterseveral times. SeeW. T.iii. 2;Rich. II.iii. 3;T. A.ii. 1, etc.;Lycidas, 79;Comus, 219;P. L.iii. 550; iv. 645, 653, etc.

This, as Mason informs us, was the first English1production of Gray's that appeared in print. It was published, in folio, in 1747; and appeared again in Dodsley'sCollection, vol. ii. p. 267, without the name of the author.

1A Latin poem by him, a "Hymeneal" on the Prince of Wales's Marriage, had appeared in theCambridge Collectionin 1736.

Hazlitt (Lectures on English Poets) says of this Ode: "It is more mechanical and commonplace [than theElegy]; but it touches on certain strings about the heart, that vibrate in unison with it to our latest breath. No one ever passes by Windsor's 'stately heights,' or sees the distant spires of Eton College below, without thinking of Gray. He deserves that we should think of him; for he thought of others, and turned a trembling, ever-watchful ear to 'the still sad music of humanity.'"

The writer in theNorth American Review(vol. xcvi.), after referring to the publication of this Ode, which, "according to the custom of the time, was judiciously swathed in folio," adds:

"About this time Gray's portrait was painted, at Walpole's request; and on the paper which he is represented as holding, Walpole wrote the title of the Ode, with a line from Lucan:

'Nec licuit populis parvum te, Nile, videre.'

The poem met with very little attention until it was republished in 1751, with a few other of his Odes. Gray, in speaking of it to Walpole, in connection with the Ode to Spring, merely says that to him 'the latter seems not worse than the former.' But the former has always been the greater favourite—perhaps more from the matter than the manner. It is the expression of the memories, the thoughts, and the feelings which arise unbidden in the mind of the man as he looks once more on the scenes of his boyhood. He feels a new youth in the presence of those old joys. But the old friends are not there. Generations have come and gone, and an unknown race now frolic in boyish glee. His sad, prophetic eye cannot help looking into the future, and comparing these careless joys with the inevitable ills of life. Already he sees the fury passions in wait for their little victims. They seem present to him, like very demons. Our language contains no finer, more graphic personifications than these almost tangible shapes. Spenser is more circumstantial, Collins more vehement, but neither is more real. Though but outlines in miniature, they are as distinct as Dutch art. Every epithet is a lifelike picture; not a word could be changed without destroying the tone of the whole. At last the musing poet asks himself,Cui bono?Why thus borrow trouble from the future? Why summon so soon the coming locusts, to poison before their time the glad waters of youth?

So feeling and the want of feeling come together for once in the moral. The gay Roman satirist—the apostle of indifferentism—reaches the same goal, though he has travelled a different road. To Thaliarchus he says:

The same easy-going philosophy of life forms the key-note of the Ode to Leuconoë:

'Carpe diem, quam minimum credula postero;'

of that to Quinctius Hirpinus:

of that to Pompeius Grosphus:

And so with many others. 'Take no thought of the morrow.'"

Wakefield translates the Greek motto, "Man is an abundant subject of calamity."

2.That crown the watery glade. Cf. Pope,Windsor Forest, 128: "And lonely woodcocks haunt the watery glade."

4.Her Henry's holy shade. Henry the Sixth, founder of the college. Cf.The Bard, ii. 3: "the meek usurper's holy head;" Shakes.Rich. III.v. 1: "Holy King Henry;"Id.iv. 4: "When holy Harry died." The king, though never canonized, was regarded as a saint.

5.And ye. Ye "towers;" that is, of Windsor Castle. Cf. Thomson,Summer, 1412:

8.Whose turf, whose shade, whose flowers among. "That is, theturfof whoselawn, theshadeof whosegroves, theflowersof whose mead" (Wakefield). Cf.Hamlet, iii. 1: "The courtier's, soldier's, scholar's eye, tongue, sword."

In Anglo-Saxon and Early English prepositions were often placed after their objects. In the Elizabethan period the transposition of the weaker prepositions was not allowed, except in the compoundswhereto,herewith, etc. (cf. the Latinquocum,secum), but the longer forms were still, though rarely, transposed (seeShakes. Gr.203); and in more recent writers this latter license is extremely rare. Even the use of the preposition after the relative, which was very common in Shakespeare's day, is now avoided, except in colloquial style.

9.The hoary Thames. The river-god is pictured in the old classic fashion. Cf. Milton,Lycidas, 103: "Next Camus, reverend sire, went footing slow." See also quotation from Dryden in note on 21 below.

10.His silver-winding way. Cf. Thomson,Summer, 1425: "The matchless vale of Thames, Fair-winding up," etc.

12.Ah, fields belov'd in vain!Mitford remarks that this expression has been considered obscure, and adds the following explanation: "The poem is written in the character of one who contemplates this life as a scene of misfortune and sorrow, from whose fatal power the brief sunshine of youth is supposed to be exempt. The fields arebelovedas the scene of youthful pleasures, and as affording the promise of happiness to come; but this promise never was fulfilled. Fate, which dooms man to misery, soon overclouded these opening prospects of delight. That is in vain beloved which does not realize the expectations it held out. No fruit but that of disappointment has followed the blossoms of a thoughtless hope."

13.Where once my careless childhood stray'd. Wakefield cites Thomson,Winter, 6:

15.That from ye blow. In Early Englishyeis nominative,youaccusative (objective). This distinction, though observed in our version of the Bible, was disregarded by Elizabethan writers (Shakes.Gr.236), as it has occasionally been by the poets even to our own day. Cf. Shakes.Hen. VIII.iii. 1: "The more shame for ye; holy men I thought ye;" Milton,Comus, 216: "I see ye visibly," etc. Dryden, in a couplet quoted by Guest, uses both forms in the same line:

19.Gray quotes Dryden,Fable on Pythag. Syst.:"And bees their honey redolent of spring."

21.Say, father Thames, etc. This invocation is taken from Green'sGrotto:

Cf. Dryden,Annus Mirabilis, st. 232: "Old father Thames raised up his reverend head."

Dr. Johnson, in his hypercritical comments on this Ode, says: "His supplication to Father Thames, to tell him who drives the hoop or tosses the ball, is useless and puerile. Father Thames has no better means of knowing than himself." To which Mitford replies by asking, "Are we by this rule to judge the following passage in the twentieth chapter ofRasselas?'As they were sitting together, the princess cast her eyes on the river that flowed before her: "Answer," said she, "great Father of Waters, thou that rollest thy floods through eighty nations, to the invocation of the daughter of thy native king. Tell me, if thou waterest, through all thy course, a single habitation from which thou dost not hear the murmurs of complaint."'"

23.Margent green. Cf.Comus, 232: "By slow Mæander's margent green."

24.Cf. Pope,Essay on Man, iii. 233: "To Virtue, in the paths of Pleasure, trod."

26.Thy glassy wave. Cf.Comus, 861: "Under the glassy, cool, translucent wave."

27.The captive linnet. The adjective is redundant and "proleptic," as the bird must be "enthralled" before it can be called "captive."

28.In the MS. this line reads, "To chase the hoop's illusive speed," which seems to us better than the revised form in the text.

30.Cf. Pope,Dunciad, iv. 592: "The senator at cricket urge the ball."

37.Cf. Cowley,Ode to Hobbes, iv. 7: "Till unknown regions it descries."

40.A fearful joy. Wakefield quotesMatt.xxviii. 8 andPsalmsii. 11. Cf. Virgil,Æn.i. 513:

See alsoLear, v. 3: "'Twixt two extremes of passion, joy and grief."

44.Cf. Pope,Eloisa, 209: "Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind;" andEssay on Man, iv. 168: "The soul's calm sunshine, and the heartfelt joy."

45.Buxom. Used here in its modern sense. It originally meant pliant, flexible, yielding (from A. S.búgan, to bow); then, gay, frolicsome, lively; and at last it became associated with the "cheerful comeliness" of vigorous health. Chaucer has "buxom to ther lawe," and Spenser(State of Ireland), "more tractable and buxome to his government." Cf. alsoF. Q.i. 11, 37: "the buxome aire;" an expression which Milton uses twice (P. L.ii. 842, v. 270). InL'Allegro, 24: "So buxom, blithe, and debonaire;" the only other instance in which he uses the word, it means sprightly or "free" (as in "Come thou goddess, fair and free," a few lines before). Cf. Shakes.Pericles, i. prologue:

The word occurs nowhere else in Shakes. exceptHen. V.iii. 6: "Of buxom valour;" that is, lively valour.

Dr. Johnson appears to have had in mind the original meaning ofbuxomin his comment on this passage: "His epithetbuxom healthis not elegant; he seems not to understand the word."

47.Lively cheer. Cf. Spenser,Shep. Kal.Apr.: "In either cheeke depeincten lively chere;" Milton,Ps.lxxxiv. 27: "With joy and gladsome cheer."

49.Wakefield quotes Milton,P. L.v. 3:

51.Regardless of their doom. Collins, in thefirst manuscriptof hisOde on the Death of Col. Ross, has

2Mitford gives the first line as "E'en now,regardlessof his doom;" and just below, on verse 61, he makes the line from Pope read, "The fury Passions from thatfloodbegan." We have verified his quotations as far as possible, and have corrected scores of errors in them. Quite likely there are some errors in those we have not been able to verify.

55.Yet see, etc. Mitford cites Broome,Ode on Melancholy:

and Otway,Alcibiades, v. 2: "Then enter, ye grim ministers of fate." See alsoProgress of Poesy, ii. 1: "Man's feeble race," etc.

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