ADONAIS
AN ELEGY ON THE DEATH OF JOHN KEATS,
AUTHOR OF ENDYMION, HYPERION, Etc.
Ἀστὴρ πρὶν μὲν ἔλαμπες ἐνὶ ζωοῑσιν Έῷος·
νῡν δὲ θανὼν λάμπεις Ἕσπερος ἐν φθιμένοις.—Plato.
[Adonais was composed at Pisa during the early days of June, 1821, and printed, with the author's name, at Pisa, 'with the types of Didot,' by July 13, 1821. Part of the impression was sent to the brothers Ollier for sale in London. An exact reprint of this Pisa edition (a few typographical errors only being corrected) was issued in 1829 by Gee & Bridges, Cambridge, at the instance of Arthur Hallam and Richard Monckton Milnes (Lord Houghton). The poem was included in Galignani's edition of Coleridge, Shelley and Keats, Paris, 1829, and by Mrs. Shelley in the Poetical Works of 1839. Mrs. Shelley's text presents three important variations from that of the ed. princeps. In 1876 an edition of the Adonais, with Introduction and Notes, was printed for private circulation by Mr. H. Buxton Forman, C.B. Ten years later a reprint 'in exact facsimile' of the Pisa edition was edited with a Bibliographical Introduction by Mr. T. J. Wise (Shelley Society Publications, 2nd Series, No. 1, Reeves & Turner, London, 1886). Our text is that of the ed. princeps, Pisa, 1821, modified by Mrs. Shelley's text of 1839. The readings of the ed. princeps, wherever superseded, are recorded in the footnotes. The Editor's Notes at the end of the volume should be consulted.]
PREFACE
Φάρμακον ἦλθε, Βίων, ποτὶ σὸν στόμα, φάρμακον εἶδες.
πῶς τευ τοῑς χείλεσσι ποτέδραμε, κοὐκ ἐγλυκάνθη;
τίς δὲ βροτὸς τοσσοῡτον ἀνἁμερος, ἢ κεράσαι τοι,
ἢ δοῡναι λαλέοντι τὸ φάρμακον; ἔκφυγεν ᾠδάν.
—Moschus, Epitaph. Bion.
It is my intention to subjoin to the London edition of this poem a criticism upon the claims of its lamented object to be classed among the writers of the highest genius who have adorned our age. My known repugnance to the narrow principles of taste on which several of his earlier compositions were modelled prove at least that I am an impartial judge. I consider the fragment of Hyperion as second to nothing that was ever produced by a writer of the same years.
John Keats died at Rome of a consumption, in his twenty-fourth year, on the ——— of ——— 1821; and was buried in the romantic and lonely cemetery of the Protestants in that city, under the pyramid which is the tomb of Cestius, and the massy walls and towers, now mouldering and desolate, which formed the circuit of ancient Rome. The cemetery is an open space among the ruins, covered in winter with violets and daisies. It might make one in love with death, to think that one should be buried in so sweet a place.
