The nightingale is also introduced into the Elegy of Moschus for
Bion; 'Ye nightingales that lament,' &c. (p. 65), and 'Nor
ever sang so sweet the nightingale on the cliffs.' Poets are
fond of speaking of the nightingale as being the hen-bird, and
Shelley follows this precedent. It is a fallacy, for the songster
is always the cock-bird.
1. 3. _Not so the eagle_, &c. The general statement in these lines is
that Albion wails for the death of Keats more melodiously than the
nightingale mourning for her lost mate, and more passionately than the
eagle robbed of her young. This statement has proved true enough in the
long run: when Shelley wrote, it was only prospectively or potentially
true, for the death of Keats excited no immediate widespread concern in
England. It should be observed that, by introducing Albion as a
figurative personage in his Elegy, Shelley disregards his emblematic
Grecian youth Adonais, and goes straight to the actual Englishman Keats.
This passage, taken as a whole, is related to that of Moschus (p. 65)
regarding the nightingale, the sea-bird, and the bird of Memnon; see
also the passage, 'and not for Sappho, but still for thee,' &c.
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