This is a point open to a good deal
of discussion from both sides. Mr. Buxton Forman, who, as Editor of
Keats, had occasion to investigate the matter attentively, pronounces
decidedly in favour of Hunt.
+Stanza 36,+ 1. 1. _Our Adonais has drunk poison._ Founded on those
lines of Moschus which appear as a motto to Shelley's Elegy. See also p.
49.
1. 2. _What deaf and viperous murderer._ Deaf, because insensible to the
beauty of Keats's verse; and viperous, because poisonous and malignant.
The juxtaposition of the two epithets may probably be also partly
dependent on that passage in the Psalms (lviii. 4, 5) which has become
proverbial: 'They are as venomous as the poison of a serpent: even like
the deaf adder that stoppeth her ears; which refuseth to hear the voice
of the charmer, charm he never so wisely.'
1. 4. _The nameless worm._ A worm, as being one of the lowest forms of
life, is constantly used as a term implying contempt; but it may be
assumed that Shelley here uses 'worm' in its original sense, that of any
crawling creature, more especially of the snake kind. There would thus
be no departure from the previous epithet 'viperous.
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