Percy Bysshe Shelley

Epigrams

I.—TO STELLA
FROM THE GREEK OF PLATO

Morning star/Hesperus

Same celestial body—Venus appears as morning star before dawn, evening star after sunset. Stella becomes brighter in death because she's now among the illustrious dead rather than competing with the living.

Thou wert the morning star among the living,
Ere thy fair light had fled;—
Now, having died, thou art as Hesperus, giving
New splendour to the dead.
II.—KISSING HELENA
FROM THE GREEK OF PLATO
Kissing Helena, together
With my kiss, my soul beside it
Came to my lips, and there I kept it,—

Soul at lips

Ancient Greek belief that the soul could leave through the mouth during intense emotion. The speaker playfully claims his soul tried to escape into Helena during the kiss.

For the poor thing had wandered thither,
To follow where the kiss should guide it,
Oh, cruel I, to intercept it!
III.—SPIRIT OF PLATO
FROM THE GREEK
Eagle! why soarest thou above that tomb?
To what sublime and star-ypaven home
Floatest thou?—
I am the image of swift Plato's spirit,
Ascending heaven; Athens doth inherit
His corpse below.
IV. CIRCUMSTANCE
FROM THE GREEK
A Man who was about to hang himself,
Finding a purse, then threw away his rope;

Pelf/halter swap

**Pelf** = money (contemptuous term). **Halter** = noose. The suicidal man finds money and lives; the robbed man finds the rope and dies. Dark irony about how arbitrary fortune is.

The owner, coming to reclaim his pelf,
The halter found, and used it. So is Hope
Changed for Despair—one laid upon the shelf,
We take the other. Under Heaven's high cope
Fortune is God—all you endure and do

Fortune is God

Radical claim for 1819—chance, not Providence, rules human life. Shelley's atheism showing through the Greek source material.

Depends on circumstance as much as you.
I.—TO STELLA
FROM THE GREEK OF PLATO

Morning star/Hesperus

Same celestial body—Venus appears as morning star before dawn, evening star after sunset. Stella becomes brighter in death because she's now among the illustrious dead rather than competing with the living.

Thou wert the morning star among the living,
Ere thy fair light had fled;—
Now, having died, thou art as Hesperus, giving
New splendour to the dead.
II.—KISSING HELENA
FROM THE GREEK OF PLATO
Kissing Helena, together
With my kiss, my soul beside it
Came to my lips, and there I kept it,—

Soul at lips

Ancient Greek belief that the soul could leave through the mouth during intense emotion. The speaker playfully claims his soul tried to escape into Helena during the kiss.

For the poor thing had wandered thither,
To follow where the kiss should guide it,
Oh, cruel I, to intercept it!
III.—SPIRIT OF PLATO
FROM THE GREEK
Eagle! why soarest thou above that tomb?
To what sublime and star-ypaven home
Floatest thou?—
I am the image of swift Plato's spirit,
Ascending heaven; Athens doth inherit
His corpse below.
IV. CIRCUMSTANCE
FROM THE GREEK
A Man who was about to hang himself,
Finding a purse, then threw away his rope;

Pelf/halter swap

**Pelf** = money (contemptuous term). **Halter** = noose. The suicidal man finds money and lives; the robbed man finds the rope and dies. Dark irony about how arbitrary fortune is.

The owner, coming to reclaim his pelf,
The halter found, and used it. So is Hope
Changed for Despair—one laid upon the shelf,
We take the other. Under Heaven's high cope
Fortune is God—all you endure and do

Fortune is God

Radical claim for 1819—chance, not Providence, rules human life. Shelley's atheism showing through the Greek source material.

Depends on circumstance as much as you.
Source Wikipedia Poetry Foundation

Reading Notes

Translation as Trojan Horse

Shelley labels these "FROM THE GREEK" but he's smuggling his own philosophy inside classical forms. Plato never wrote the first two epigrams—they're from the *Greek Anthology*, misattributed for centuries. Shelley either didn't know or didn't care. The Plato name gave him cover to publish erotic and irreligious content.

The third epigram (the eagle) comes from a genuine ancient source about Plato's death. But notice what Shelley does: the eagle addresses Plato's ascending spirit while Athens keeps only the corpse. Body/soul dualism, yes, but also a dig at institutions that claim ownership of dead geniuses while missing their living spirit.

Epigram IV delivers the payload. That final couplet—"Fortune is God"—directly contradicts Christian Providence. In 1819 England, you couldn't publish that under your own name without consequences. But attributed to anonymous Greeks? Shelley gets away with philosophical atheism by ventriloquism.

The Rope/Purse Reversal

Circumstance works like a logic puzzle with a body count. Man A finds money, doesn't hang himself. Man B loses money, hangs himself with the abandoned rope. Neither chose their fate—they just encountered different objects in different order.

The poem's structure mirrors its argument. It starts mid-action ("A Man who was about to"), gives you the swap in two quick lines, then stops to interpret. That final couplet doesn't console—it's cold philosophy. "Fortune is God" means no divine plan, no justice, just timing and luck.

Shelley's contemporary readers would have expected a moral ("crime doesn't pay" or "God works mysteriously"). Instead: "as much as you." Your choices matter exactly as much as random circumstance—which is to say, they're only half the equation. For a Romantic poet supposedly all about individual genius and willpower, this is surprisingly fatalistic.