Page:Prose works, from the original editions (Volume 2).djvu/307

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page needs to be proofread.

designs. It is intolerable to think of your being buried at Livorno. The success assured by Mr. Reveley's talents requires another scene. You may have decided to take this summer to consider—and why not with us at Naples, rather than at Livorno?

I could address, with respect to Naples, the words of Polypheme in Theocritus, to all the friends I wish to see, and you especially:

[Greek: Exenthois, Galateia, kai exenthoisa lathoio,
Ôsper egô nun hôde kathêmenos, oikad' apeithein.

Most sincerely yours,

P. B. Shelley.


TO THOMAS LOVE PEACOCK.

Livorno, July, 1819.

My dear Peacock,

We still remain, and shall remain nearly two months longer, at Livorno. Our house is a melancholy one,[1] and only cheered by letters from England. I got your note, in which you speak of three letters having been sent to Naples, which I have written for. I have heard also from H——, who confirms the news of your success, an intelligence most grateful to me.

The object of the present letter is to ask a favour of you. I have written a tragedy, on the subject of a story well known in Italy, and, in my conception, eminently dramatic.[2] I have taken some pains to make my play fit for representation, and those who have already seen]

  1. We had lost our eldest, and, at that time, only child, the preceding month at Rome.—[Note by Mrs. Shelley.
  2. This refers of course (as the sequel shows still more fully) to The Cenci.—Ed.