Ken. Of the same category is the verb to ken, in the eighty-sixth line of Section II (page 397); and we should, perhaps, also note in this connection faery, in the thirtieth line of the same Section (page 396). Comment. Not having at hand any information concerning the somewhat peculiar use of this word in Ginevra, I merely note it as unusual in modern English. It is in line 5 (page 104). Depend. This verb in its primitive sense, as used in the Sonnet to the Nile (Volume III, page 411), is also peculiar in modern English; but Shelley uses it in the same sense in Section IV of Queen Mab, line 10 (page 411). Many-mingling-In regard to a line which is common to Queen Mab and the second part of The Damon of the World, namely Now to the sweet and many-mingling sounds, it was pointed out, both in the third volume (page 371) and at page 449 of this volume, that many mingling stood without a hyphen in Shelley's edition of Queen Mab. Internal evidence is sufficient to mark this as an oversight; but the fact that the words are used to imply diversity of combination is further borne out by the occurrence of the term many-mingling (with the hyphen) in the early poem Falsehood and Vice (line 60) printed by Shelley in the Notes to Queen Mab, page 470 of this volume. Sill. The word sill, as it occurs in the seventy-ninth stanza of the Hymn to Mercury, page 176 of this volume, is employed in a manner that is remarkably ingenious, and yet, as far as I can judge, strictly correct. It appears to be meant simply as an equivalent for seat, thus answering completely to the sense of the Greek; but to meet with it in a place so essentially modern as Shelley's version of this Hymn is something of a surprise: thy sill Is highest in heaven among the sons of Jove... Mr. John W. Hales, with whom I have had some correspondence on certain points such as this, regards sill as being here a various spelling of sell, which is certainly a good old word for seat, generally, but not always, a saddle. As sill (base or foundation) becomes interchangeable with sell when compounded with ground, so as to yield the forms ground-sill, ground-sell, and groundsel, the distinction between the two words would not be very clearly marked to most poetic minds, and certainly not to Shelley's. Mr. Hales points out that in Halliwell's Dictionary of Archaic and Provincial Words, the word sylle for seat is cited from an early manuscript. Apropos of the interchangeableness of e and i, the same gentleman has pointed out to me that upriste is used as a noun for uprising, by Chaucer: this is a more reasonable derivation for Shelley's uprest than that given at page 406 of the first volume. 108 A Woodman whose rough heart was out of tune... IV II Ah! faint are her limbs, and her footstep is weary,... IV 1 In this Index of first lines are in- ... quite as distinct as the first lines of Alas! good friend, what profit can you see All touch, all eye, all ear, ... ... Ambition, power, and avarice, now have hurl'd Among the guests who often staid ... ... An old, mad, blind, despised, and dying king,— ... And that I walk thus proudly crowned withal ... III 187 IV 121 ... : 32 Bear witness, Erin! when thine injured isle... *Bright clouds float in heaven, Bright wanderer, fair coquette of heaven,... I 50 ... ... |