This
statement of Shelley is certainly founded upon a passage in the letter
(see p. 22) addressed by Colonel Finch to Mr. Gisborne. Colonel Finch
said that Keats had reached Italy, 'nursing a deeply rooted disgust to
life and to the world, owing to having been infamously treated by the
very persons whom his generosity had rescued from want and woe.' The
Colonel's statement seems (as I have previously intimated) to be rather
haphazard; and Shelley's recast of it goes to a further extreme.
1. 68. _'Almost risked his own life'_ &c. The substance of the words in
inverted commas is contained in Colonel Finch's letter, but Shelley does
not cite verbatim.
* * * * *
+Stanza 1,+ 1. 1. _I weep for Adonais--he is dead._ Modelled on the
opening of Bion's Elegy for Adonis. See p. 63.
1. 3. _The frost which binds so dear a head_: sc. the frost of death.
11. 4, 5. _And thou, sad Hour,... rouse thy obscure compeers._ The
compeers are clearly the other Hours. Why they should be termed
'obscure' is not quite manifest. Perhaps Shelley means that the weal or
woe attaching to these Hours is obscure or uncertain; or perhaps that
they are comparatively obscure, undistinguished, as not being marked by
any such conspicuous event as the death of Adonais.
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