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    Hellas: “Joy, once lost, is pain”
    Hellas: “Joy, once lost, is pain”
    Hellas: “Joy, once lost, is pain”
    Ebook78 pages47 minutes

    Hellas: “Joy, once lost, is pain”

    By Percy Bysshe Shelley

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    Shelley is one of the most revered figures in the English poetical landscape. Born on the 4th August 1792 he has, over the years, become rightly regarded as a major Romantic poet. Yet during his own lifetime little of his work was published. Publishers feared his radical views and possible charges against themselves for blasphemy and sedition. On 8th July 1822 a month before his 30th birthday, during a sudden storm, his tragic early death by drowning robbed our culture of many fine expected masterpieces. But in his short spell on earth he weaved much magic. Hellas is a verse drama that was to be the last published poem during the poet’s lifetime. It’s dedication by Shelley reads: Τo Ηis Εxcellency Prince Alexander Mavrocordato late secretary for foreign affairs to the Hospodar of Wallachia the drama of Hellas is inscribed as an imperfect token of the admiration, sympathy, and friendship of the author. Pisa, November 1, 1821. He indeed met Alexander Mavrocordato duing his stay in Pisa and the poem was written with a view to raising money for the Greek war of independence and celebrates the Greeks overpowering Turkish rule inspired by Aeschylus' Persae.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherCopyright Group
    Release dateJan 3, 2014
    ISBN9781783949182
    Hellas: “Joy, once lost, is pain”

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    • 5/5
      The greatest satire on social and political inequity, hence pointed at U.S. 2017. "Whence, thinkst thou, kings and parasites arose?/ Whence that unnatural line of droves, who heap/ Toil and unvanquishable penury/ On those who build their palaces, and bring/ Their daily bread?--From vice, black loathsome vice." Seems to me the Parasitic Party that runs the U.S. plans to pass the most parasitic budget, one inconceivable to all prior generations. But Shelley also consoles, no need for religious punishment of black vice: "There needeth not the hell that bigots frame/ To punish those who err: earth in itself/ Contains at once the evil and the cure."Shelley's most astonishing lines meant to console:"From kings, and priests, and statesmen, war arose,Whose safety is man's deep unbettered woe,Whose grandeur his debasement...""Yon populous city, rears its [Trumpster] towerAnd seems itself a city. Gloomy troops Of sentinels [security]...The Dweller thereCannot be free and happy; hearest thee notThe curses of the fatherless, the groansOf those who have no friend? He passes on:The King, the wearer of a gilded [throne/chain]That binds his soul to objectness, the foolWhom courtiers nickname monarch, whilst a slaveEven to basest appetites--that manHeeds not the shriek of penury; he smilesAt the deep curses which the destitute Mutter in secret, and a sullen joyPervades his heart when thousands groan..."The poet is not a fan of business:"Hence commerce springs, the venal interchangeOf all that human art or nature yield..Commerce! beneath whose poison-breathing shade*No solitary virtue dares to spring;But poverty and wealth with equal handScatter their withering curses...Commerce has set the mark of selfishness,The signet of its all-enslaving powerUpon a shining ore, called it gold...The iron rod of penury compelsHer wretched slave to bow and knee to wealth.""A life of horror from the blighty baneOf commerce: whilst the pestilence that springsFrom unenjoying sensualism, has filledAll human life with Hydra-headed woes."I read and taught this yearly from the Complete Works, vol I (NY: Gordian, 1968)in my English Lit Survey, semester 2, sophomore year. But 2017 makes its meaning precise.Shelley died at 29, sailing his custom-made craft past the islands in the Gulf of Spezia, which we saw on a lovely but darkening day. The house where he roomed is open for visitors at certain hours.His wife Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley created a monster, not human like the monster Shelley depicts in Queen Mab. With the Brontes, the Shelleys the most literary English family, although there are many others.

    Book preview

    Hellas - Percy Bysshe Shelley

    Hellas. A Lyrical Drama by Percy Bysshe Shelley

    A LYRICAL DRAMA.

    MANTIS EIM EZTHLON AGONUN. OEDIP. COLON.

    Hellas was composed at Pisa in the autumn of 1821, and dispatched to London, November 11. It was published, with the author's name, by C. & J. Ollier in the spring of 1822.

    Percy Bysshe Shelley is one of the most revered figures in the English poetical landscape.   Born on the 4th August 1792 he has, over the years, become rightly regarded as a major Romantic poet.  Yet during his own lifetime little of his work was published. Publishers feared his radical views and possible charges against themselves for blasphemy and sedition.  On 8th July 1822 a month before his 30th birthday, during a sudden storm, his tragic early death by drowning robbed our culture of many fine expected masterpieces. But in his short spell on earth he weaved much magic.  Among his many great works is Hellas, A lyrical drama.  Shelley’s words are alive with intent, meaning and emotion. A true poet for all our ages.

    TO HIS EXCELLENCY, PRINCE ALEXANDER MAVROCORDATO, LATE SECRETARY FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS TO THE HOSPODAR OF WALLACHIA, THE DRAMA OF HELLAS IS INSCRIBED AS AN IMPERFECT TOKEN OF THE ADMIRATION, SYMPATHY, AND FRIENDSHIP OF THE AUTHOR.

    Pisa, November 1, 1821.

    Index Of Contents

    PREFACE.

    PROLOGUE TO HELLAS

    DRAMATIS PERSONAE

    HELLAS

    NOTES

    PREFACE.

    The poem of Hellas, written at the suggestion of the events of the moment, is a mere improvise, and derives its interest (should it be found to possess any) solely from the intense sympathy which the Author feels with the cause he would celebrate.

    The subject, in its present state, is insusceptible of being treated otherwise than lyrically, and if I have called this poem a drama from the circumstance of its being composed in dialogue, the licence is not greater than that which has been assumed by other poets who have called their productions epics, only because they have been divided into twelve or twenty-four books.

    The Persae of Aeschylus afforded me the first model of my conception, although the decision of the glorious contest now waging in Greece being yet suspended forbids a catastrophe parallel to the

    return of Xerxes and the desolation of the Persians. I have, therefore, contented myself with exhibiting a series of lyric pictures, and with having wrought upon the curtain of futurity, which falls upon the unfinished scene, such figures of indistinct and visionary delineation as suggest the final triumph of the Greek cause as a portion of the cause of civilisation and social improvement.

    The drama (if drama it must be called) is, however, so inartificial that I doubt whether, if recited on the Thespian waggon to an Athenian village at the Dionysiaca, it would have obtained the prize of the goat. I shall bear with equanimity any punishment, greater than the loss of such a reward, which the Aristarchi of the hour may think fit to inflict.

    The only goat-song which I have yet attempted has, I confess, in spite of the unfavourable nature of the subject, received a greater and a more valuable portion of applause than I expected or than it

    deserved.

    Common fame is the only authority which I can allege for the details which form the basis of the poem, and I must trespass upon the forgiveness of my readers for the display of newspaper erudition to which I have been reduced. Undoubtedly, until the conclusion of the war, it will be impossible to obtain an account of it sufficiently authentic for historical materials; but poets have their privilege, and it is unquestionable that actions of the most exalted courage have been performed by the Greeks, that they have gained more than one naval victory, and that their defeat in Wallachia was signalized by circumstances of heroism more glorious even than victory.

    The apathy of the rulers of the civilised world

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