Shelley's Pythagorean Daemons

LAVELLE dd relers to as Shelley s “Pythagorean, or Bsranminical, existence.“ CX Shelley was no doubt encouraged in his vegetarianism by che example of John Frank Newton and his family and by his reading ax Y in Plutarch (both the Moralia and the Lwes), but by 26 November, Shelley’s Pythagorean Daemons in a letter to Hogg, he demonstrated his knowledge that Plutarch was drawing upon an even more venerable source: I have translated the two essays of Plutarch, ... [On the John J. Lavelle Eating of Flesh], which we read together. They are very excellent, I intend to comment upon them, and to reason in my preface concerning the Orphic and Pythagoric system of On 24 December 1812 Shelley wrote to Thomas “Clio” Rickman from Wales asking for a number of books. The letter included a list of classical writers whose works Shelley wanted in editions that combined the original with a translation, The name of Pythagoras is included.! Frederick L. Jones takes note of this request in his edition of the Letters, adding the observation that “Pythagoras left no writings.” * That is true enough, of course, and both Shelley and Rickman were doubtless aware of it, But the teachings of Pythagoras and his followers exerted considerable influence in the ancient world, and they were cited or described by writers such as Plato, Plutarch, and lamblichus. ‘The precepts of Pythagoras are outlined in the so-called “Golden Verses” of Pythagoras, best known in the Greek version recorded in the filth century, together with commentary, by Hierocies of Alexandria. Even the earliest editors of these verses were not convinced they had actually been written by Pythagoras, but for want of any other verifiable author the titles The Golden Verses of Pythagoras or. . . of the Pythagoreans were used interchangeably3 lt was probably the “Golden Verses” that Shelley sent for in 1812. Moreover, it is reasonably certain that Shelley eventually acquired, and was particularly influenced by, the French translation of the “Golden Verses” by Antoine Fabre d’Olivet, published in 1813 together with Fabre d’Olivet’s “Explanations” and a discourse on poetry.1 The clearest evidence of the influence of Pythagorean moral philosophy on Shelley can be scen in his interest in vegetarianism. Hogg tells us that “It was not until the spring of the year 1813 that he entered upon a full and exact course of vegetable diet.” This he 264 lt seems logical to suppose that Shelley, having encountered the philosophical arguments in support of vegetarianism presented by Plutarch, and, recognizing that they drew upon an older tradition, sent for “Pythagoras” at the end of 1812, in the form of the “Golden Verses,” in order to investigate what purported to be the purest survival of the Pythagorean precepts. For Shelley, Pythagoreanism evidently represented a very ancient authority for moral and philosophical principles which he found attractive. These precepts, including vegetarianism, could be regarded as both fundamental and “uncorrupted,” proceeding as they did from a time before the rise of the institutionalized revealed religions that he rejected. Moreover, they had acquired an aura of universality because of the supposition that the wisdam of Pythagoras (who was purportedly the first of the ancient mentors to call himself a philosopher: “lover of wisdom,” rather than sophist: “a wise man”) constituted a compendium of the most profound and arcane knowledge he had garnered from the masters of many ancient systems: And farther still, it is said, that he was the author of a compound divine philosophy and worship of the Gods; having learnt indeed some things from the followers of Orpheus, but others from the Egyptian priests; some from the Chaldaeans and Magi; some from the mysteries performed in Eleusis, in Imbrus, Samothracia, and Delos; and some also from those which are performed by the Celtae, and in Iberia.”

Ine Lvidence vf he smaginain Stuart Curran is clearly right when he says Shelley’s conception of “a great work, embodying the discoveries of all ages, & harmonizing the contending creeds by which mankind have been ruled” is consistent with “the massive thrust of contemporary scholarship in syncretic mythology,” and when he asserts that this principle is Arians, the Lutherans, or Calvinists, if he were a Catholic. This belongs to the very essence of his cult. barriers, which hem in the nations, as it were, isolate them, and make them worse than enemies. The gods of the people pervasive in Shelley’s poetry. Pythagoreanism afforded such a syncretic system that had the merit of authority, by virtue of its antiquity, and did not suffer from the gratuitous surmises and linguistic contortions so evident in the works of Faber, Bryant, Davies, and others among the contemporary mythographers. ‘The Pythagoreans were traditionally concerned with profound truths rather than particular religious observances, and they made no A Pythagorean philosopher did not recognize in the least these formidable were in his eyes the same gods, and his cosmopolitan dogmas condemned no one to eternal damnation.!® Fabre d'Olivet, who considered himself a latter-day disciple of Pythagoras rather than a classicist or historian, assumed that the “cosmopolitan dogmas” of the Pythagoreans encompassed much of the lore of the ancient world. His “Examinations” include long secret of the fact that their master had learned vegetarianism from Orpheus and the concept of metempsychosis from the Egyptians. The assumption was that there existed an ancient body of knowledge that was the common heritage of wise men everywhere, excursions into the doctrines of the Zoroastrians, the Hindus, and that variations were not fundamentally significant, and that no sect could claim exclusive revelation or authority. James Rieger acutely observes that “Hogg later garbled the printed texts of his in the same school as Pythagoras.” 1! the Chinese (among others) in which he claims that these are not materially different from the doctrines of Pythagoras. Indeed he goes so far as to assert, quite casually, that Moses was “instructed Though it seems clear that Shelley was influenced by the “explanations” of Fabre d'Olivet, there was enough in the “Golden dead friend’s letters in order to disguise Shelley’s anticlericalism and his own youthful atheism. But when he substituted ‘Intol- Verses” themselves and in the commentary of Hierocles to furnish erance’ for ‘Christianity’ as the name of the poet's archenemy, he the did not so much distort as reveal the essence of the category.” ? “celestial” gods who deserved veneration: him with significant ideas that emerge in his works. First, there was notion that there were “divine” beings other than the One can imagine, then, how congenial Shelley would have found Fabre d’Olivet’s observations on Pythagorean tolerance: Rends aux Dieux immortels le cult consacré; Garde ensuite ta for: Révère la mémoire The Christian Religion, exclusive and severe, has changed all Des Héros brenfaiteurs, des Esprits demi-Dieux.!? our ideas ... by admitting only one sole doctrine in one unique church, this religion has necessarily confused tolerance Hierocles refers with indifference or coldness, and reserve with heresy or “Tlustrious Heroes,” and the “Demons of the Earth Doing Right hypocrisy; but in the spirit of polytheism these same things Things,” observing that “all the intelligent part of the creation take on another colour. A Christian philosopher could not, bears the image of their maker, God. ... And of these three sorts of without perjuring himself and commiting a frightful impiety, beings, the first takes in those which the verse calls immortal Gods, to these beings as the “Immortal Gods,” the bend the knee in China before Kong-T'se, nor ofler incense to the middle the illustrious Heroes, and the last the Daemons of the Chang-Ty nor to earth...” 19 The “immortal Gods” are reflections of their maker, Tien; he could homage to Krishna, nor present neither render, himself at in India, Benares as a “the supreme and best God,” and so one should not “extoll their worshipper of Vishnu; he could not even, although recognizing dignity above measure.” !4 In accordance with this exceedingly the same God as the Jews and Mussulmans, take part in their neoplatonic ceremonies, or what is still more, worship this God with the heroes”: “Sometimes we make a threefold division of this middle theory, there is a “middle” order of “illustrious

kind, calling those which constantly inhabit the heavens, angels; of Apollo,” and compared hin with" Escutaprus those of the earth, heroes; and those which are at equal distance with “Hercules, Theseus, ... Plato, &c.' 20 The company is still from both, demons... .” 1% Shelley’s Prometheus clearly belongs to rather this middle order, of which Hierocles says “they sublimate and Hierocles were imposed upon it we would have Pythagoras and impressive, and we can sce that LASKICpios) ata if the distinction of raise up our minds from the animal to the divine life.” 16 He was Plato, the historical figures, as “Demons of the Earth,” and the rest an gods would fall into the “middle” order (to which Prometheus, Orconsisted of giving man the wherewithal to better himself (fire, pheus, and others might be added), In any case, the commentators language, etc.). on Pythagorean doctrine were agreed that there were some mortals earth-dwelling hero whose transgression against the Perhaps the most interesting category comprises “those men who had special insight into fundamental truths by virtue of an which excell others in virtue,” who are “The Demons of the Earth inferior sort of divinity, and that these men demonstrated their Doing Right Things.” Hierocles comments that “By demons here, “daemonic” quality which signifies knowing and learned, he [Pythagoras] means the teachings. souls of men adorn’d with truth and virtue ... they which are by That Shelley aspired the example of their lives and their to be one of those who “preserve the rank’d among the divine beings, such as resemble demons, angels elements of virtue and rules of truth ... for the common good of and illustrious heroes.” In order to render these individuals the posterity” is clear from his remark to Godwin that “I will publish honor due to them, we are obliged “Po do right things, ... that is, nothing that shall not conduce to virtue, and therefore my to obey the precepts which they have left to us, to esteem their publications so far as they do influence shall influence to good.” ?1 sentences as authentick as laws, and to follow the same course of Shelley was chastened by Godwin’s dismissal of this determination life, the participation of which they were so far from envying us, as youthful hubris, but there was consolation to be found in Fabre that d'Olivet.22 In his “Discourse upon the Essence and Form of Poetry they carefully made it their endeavour to preserve the elements of virtue and rules of truth in lasting monuments, as an Among the Principal Peoples of the Earth,” Fabre d'Olivet asimmortal and fatherly legacy for the common good of posterity.” 17 Pythagoras was clearly assumed by his followers to belong to this serted that poets were uniquely qualified to exert an improving influence upon humanity: category. According to lamblichus, “Such ... was their reverence for Pythagoras, that they numbered him with the Gods, as a Poetry was not at all in its origin what it became later, a certain beneficent and most philanthropic daemon.” 1% Unlike simple accomplishment, regarded by those who profess to be Hierocles, Iamblichus made no distinction between “Illustrious savants as even rather frivolous; it was the language of the Heroes” and “Demons of the Earth” in his outline of Pythagorean gods, par excellence, that of the prophets, the ministers of the cosmology, and he notes that: altars, the preceptors and the legislators of the world.25 some indeed celebrated him as the Pythian, but others as the Shelley echoes this latter observation in his own Defence of Poetry Hyperborean Apollo. Some again considered him as Paeon, when he observes that “Poets, according to the circumstances of but others as one of the daemons that inhabit the moon; and the age and nation in which they appeared, were others celebrated him as one of the Olympian Gods, who, in earlier epochs of the world, legislators or prophets... .” Of course order to benefit and correct the mortal life, appeared to the his conclusion that “Poets are the unacknowledged legislators of men of those times in a human form, in order that he might the world” assumes that any supposed deterioration had affected extend to them the salutary light of felicity and philosophy." called, in the the perceptions of the auditors, and not, necessarily, the language of the poet.*4 This was a little too much for Thomas ‘Taylor, who pointed out in a note that Pythagoras “was a terrestrial hero belonging to the series In the face of adverse criticism of his poems on the grounds of obscurity, Shelley could take comfort from Fabre d’Olivet’s

assertion that a poet-preceptor such as the author of “The Golden the source of the threefold emanation. He noted that attempts to Verses” did not employ allegory (or “symbols,” in the case of characterize the several “attributes” and “faculties” of the “Universal Being” had resulted in a multiplicity of deities. But he also gave a great deal of attention to the inscrutable nature of the Pythagoras) merely to keep esoteric truths from becoming the common property of the uninitiated: “Supreme God”: the poetic inspiration being once received by the poet and his soul finding itself transported to the intelligible world, all the ideas which then come to him are universal and in consequence allegorical.25 But Fabre d’Olivet lamented that such a style, in which universals take precedence over accidentals as a matter of course, had fallen prey to a passion for realism and historical precision. He offered the example of ancient “allegorical history”: This history, confined to the memory of men or preserved Before Moses, none of the theocratic legislators had thought it well to present for the adoration of the people, the Supreme God, unique and uncreated in His unfathomable universality. The Indian Brahmans ... never permit themselves, even in this day ... to utter the name of God, principle of All. They are content to meditate upon its essence in silence and to offer sacrifices to its sublimest emanations. The Chinese sages act the same with regard to the Primal Cause, that must be neither named nor defined; the followers of Zoroaster, who believe that the two universal principles of good and evil, among the sacerdotal archives of the temples in detached Ormuzd and Ahriman, emanate from this ineffable Cause, are fragments of poetry, considered things only from the moral content to designate it under the name of Eternity.27 side, was never occupied with individuals, but saw only the masses; that is to say, peoples, corporations, sects, doctrines, The same, he says, was true of the Egyptians and of “Orpheus, even arts and sciences, as so many particular beings that it designated by a generic name. ... The adventures of all were their disciple.” He goes on to observe that “the principal tenets of the mysteries, those upon which reposed all others, were the Unity accumulated upon the head of one alone. [t was the moral of God and the homogeneity of Nature.”: thing whose course was examined, whose birth, progress, or downfall was described. ... The moderns would mock that allegorical manner of the ancients, if they could believe it possible .... How approve of what is unknown? Man approves of only what he likes; he always believes he knows all that he ought to like.?6 The “Demons of the Pythagoras, were Earth responsible Now the unity of God resides in His essence so that the vulgar can never in any way either conceive or understand. His infinity consists in His perfections, His faculties, His attributes, of which the vulgar can, according to the measure of their understanding, grasp some feeble emanations, and draw nearer to Him by detaching them from the universality—that Doing to Right truths that Things,” are including timeless is, by particularizing and personifying them.* and universal, according to Fabre d’Olivet, and their teachings were In his own works, Shelley was obviously caught between the embodied in allegory dictated by a special sort of insight. If Shelley allegorizing instinct of the poet and a desire to elucidate fundamental truths without debasing them. If he chose to follow the example of the most venerable custodians of those truths, he could not reasonably ignore the primal creative force, nor could he avoid assigning identities of some sort to its several manifestations. But he had no wish to reduce ineffable forces to domestic familiarity by saw himself as one of them, he would have to be prepared for criticism from those who expected unambiguous poetry that was clearly relevant to contemporary circumstances. In addition to his speculations on the character of the terrestrial daemons, Fabre d’Olivet imparted some significant reflections on

the “vulgar” device of assigning them conventional names, Hence the references such as that in “Mont Blanc” to the “Power” “dwells apart in its tranquillity, LE] that / Remote, serene, and inaccessible” (ll. 96-97), or in the Prologue to Hellas to a Destiny who is “mailed in the omnipotence / Of Him who sends thee forth .. .” (Il. 134-135). Of course the clearest example of the compromise is in Prometheus Unbound. When Asia entreats Demogorgon to identify the primal creative power and “Utter his name," Demogorgon will only reply “He reigns” (11.1v.29, 31). When asked his identity by Jupiter, Demogorgon replies: “Eternity. Demand no direr name.” (111.1.52). This is the term Fabre d’Olivet says the Zoroastrians applied to the “ineffable Cause”; Shelley uses it to identify the daemonic force that represents its power. When Asia asks whom Demogorgon has initially referred to as “God” and then refused to name, he explains that “I spoke but as ye speak, / For Jove is the supreme of living things.” (H.iv.112-113). Demogorgon had offered to answer any questions put to him, and he had tried to convey the supremacy of the ultimate power of which he is a daemonic emanation by using the most appropriate conventional term. But even that is not adequate, for universals can never be satisfactorily represented by terms generated in the world of time and circumstance. When Demogorgon asserts that “the deep truth is imageless,” he may be replying like a Pythagorean and not, as Pulos says, “like a sceptic.” 29 Obviously not all of Shelley’s allegorical devices were deliberately inscrutable. Shelley’s Prometheus and Jupiter are essentially the Prometheus and Zeus of Aeschylus, except that they have become more abstract representations of humanity and tyranny respectively. But to pursue the case of Demogorgon, we can see that Shelley has deliberately chosen the name for its atmosphere of inscrutability and obscurity. Peacock’s note on a line in Canto VI of Rhododaphne summarizes the qualities associated with the name: He> was of the* Earth, en P Power ofÍ We the Genius seni Earth, an and the e Sovereign the Terrestrial Daemons. ... This awful Power was so sacred among the Arcadians, that it was held impious to pronounce his name.... The silence of mythologists concerning him, can only be attributed to their veneration for his “dreaded AME? 00 ‘To identify Demogorgon and understand Shelley's choice of the name, we have only to look further in the “Golden Verses.” The condition of man depicted in the “Golden Verses” is almost precisely that represented by Prometheus in Prometheus Unbound: Man, wretched man, thou shalt be taught to know, Who hears within himself the inborn cause of woe. Unhappy race! that never yet could tell How near their good and happiness they dwell. Depriv’d of sense, they neither hear nor see; Fetter’d in vice, they seek not to be free, But stupid to their own sad fate agree. Like pond’rous rolling stones, oppress’d with ill, The weight that loads ’em makes ’em roll on still, Bereft of choice, and freedom of the will! This statement depicts mankind as shackled by Blake’s “mindforged manacles,” and it is followed by an injunction that both points to the course that will liberate Shelley’s Prometheus and characterizes his Demogorgon: For native strife in every bosom reigns, And secretly an impious war maintains; Provoke not this, but let the combat cease, And ev’ry yielding passion sue for peace. Would’st thou, great Jove, thou father of mankind, Reveal the Daemon for that task assign’d, The wretched race an end of woes would find.3? Demogorgon would appear to be the “Daemon” whose appointed task it is to liberate mankind, as represented by Prometheus, from the circumstances so aptly described by these lines from the “Golden Verses.” Moreover, it would seem that Shelley’s “Daemon of the World” shares these characteristics with Demogorgon, and that, as Cameron says, “Demogorgon and the Daemon of the world, in short, are the same,” though it does not follow that “the Daemon is clearly necessity.” 33 According to Fabre d’Olivet, the Pythagoreans considered the accidental circumstances of a person’s birth and social environ-

A ILE AAOE dj Kran wear een ment “the consequences of an anterior order, severe and irresistifollows ble, called operation of Necessity upon human aflairs. One could assume, as Fortune or Necessity.” To this he adds a second that Power (or “Will") can indehnnely contravene the Shelley did, that tyranny was inevitably destined to be replaced ingredient: with a more enlightened dispensation governed by love, and that Pythagoras opposed to this restrained nature, a free Nature, the transition could be impeded or accelerated, but not precluded, which, acting upon by the exercise of will. forced things as upon brute matter, modifies them and draws as it wills, good or bad results. This ‘The agency representing human power or will could not be second nature was called Power or Will: it is this which rules called daemonic in the same sense as Necessity, for it characterizes the life of man, and which directs his conduct according to the activity originating elements furnished him by the first. Necessity and Power are, “Golden according to Pythagoras, the two opposed motives of the conjunction with Necessity to produce enlightenment and progress. sublunary world where man is relegated. These two motives But that is only possible when reason is employed productively Verses,” it on is the material intelligence plane. According or “reason” that to the acts in draw their force from a superior cause that the ancients under the proper guidance; otherwise: “Deprived of sense, they named neither hear nor see; / Fetter’d in vice, they seck not to be free, . . .” Nemesis, the fundamental decree, that we name Guidance for the proper use of reason is precisely what is furnished Providence. . . #1 in the gnomic exhortations of the “Golden Verses,” even at the Fabre d’Olivet goes on to distinguish between Necessity, or level of dietary regulations: “Destiny” (effect) and Providence (cause), and complains that Abstain, I warn, from meats unclean and foul, these have been confounded. It could be that Shelley confounded them as well. But it might also be that Shelley meant to depict So keep thy body pure, so free thy soul; both Necessity (“the mightiest daemon”) and Demogorgon / The So rightly judge; thy reason, so maintain; Daemon of the World as independent agencies, the first superior to Reason which heav’n did for thy guide ordain, the second, Let that best reason ever hold the rein. both of which are subordinate to some greater determinant. That ultimate determining force, “the deep truth,” ts inscrutable. But there are various “daemonic” forces, which are In simply devices for characterizing certain aspects of the operation of original Greek somewhat Hierocles commentary on this passage, which differently, we may renders the find a clue to the supreme power at the material level. The daemons would thus Shelley’s representation of reason in his own gnomic works. (The resemble Platonic ideals, with innumerable accidental manifestalines, followed by the gloss, are given in the version of Dacier as tions in the real world. translated by Rowe): The greatest of the daemons would be Necessity, a collective term for the manifestations (effects) of the inexorable process of Abstain moreover with judgment from those meats which we change and development initiated by the primary creative power. have spoken of in the lustrations and solution of the soul. And But this daemon would be affected by the operations of another, consider all things, setting reason the best charioteer in the representing “Power” or “Will,” for human volition was by no uppermost place. means irrelevant in the Pythagorean system. (It might be added ... He adds moreover to this performance, the judgment of that the Pythagorean Necessity need not exclude that of Holbach, reason, which is able to bestow such care upon the lucid body for, as 1 have noted, the Pythagoreans were eminent syncretists.) as is suitable to the purity of the soul, wherefore he calls it Moreover, it need not be assumed that because Necessity and reason the charioteer, as that which was naturally framed for Power’ are two “opposed motives,” according to Fabre d’Olivet, it the regular guidance of the vehicle... .36

LOCALE Uy RO It seems reasonable to surmise that Shelley’s charioteers represent either reason or else direction that is rational in terms of human understanding, depending upon the context. But it is not necessary to assume, as Cameron does, that Shelley is being as consistent as we would like him to be when he refers to the charioteer in Hellas and in The Triumph of Life." In Hellas, Destiny is referred to as name to the daemon whose task it is to emancipate mankind, or invoking a name elicited somehow from the supreme power, would be of little use in itself, The daemon’s power can only be brought into play once man has accomplished his own purification. He does manifest himself to individuals, but collective purification is hardly to be hoped for. As Hierocles puts it: “The world’s eyeless charioteer,” (1. 711) and in The Revolt of Islam Shelley alludes to Necessity’s “sightless strength” (1. 3708). Each of God is always disposed to give what is good, but ... we then these appears to be a metaphorical assertion that Destiny and Necessity (its daemonic manifestation) do not operate in a pattern that is compatible with human rationality. In The Triumph of Life, however, the charioteer seems to be an allegorical representation of reason that borrows from the concept expressed in the “Golden Verses.” According to Hierocles, reason is “the best charioteer” for the mortal conveyance of that “lucid body” which is the aspiring human soul. It is logical that Shelley should provide him with four faces, for circumspection was one of the most important qualities stressed in the Pythagorean precepts. Retrospection was enjoined in that one should evaluate one’s actions after the fact, even to the point of not retiring without reviewing “ev'ry action of the former day.” 38 Introspection and prudence are likewise prescribed, which would add two faces to the charioteer that look sideways into present time. All of these kinds of vision are necessary in order for one to see the proper road to a future spiritual growth with any only receive it when we attend upon the divine bounty. For ‘tis inconsistent with the liberty of our wills, that good should be obtruded upon us whether we will or no. ... The prayer also desires ... that we may sec the dignity of our own essence, for this he means by the phrase what demon they are, which is the soul. ... ‘The prayer therefore proceeds on a supposition, that if all did but know who they are, and what demon they use, they would all be free from evil. But this will never be. . . 4° It might be said that the daemon is a representation of the consequences of the soul’s transformation. We should also note that the daemon manifests himself individually, and perhaps idiosyncratically, according to the way in which an individual comes to understand his own nature: clarity. Of course if all of the charioteer's four sets of eyes are “banded,” as Shelley represents them, then men will proceed aimlessly: Now if we are at all interested in the society of divine men, we shall shew it by applying our selves to honest actions and intellectual disciplines, by which alone the soul of man is Like pond’rous rolling stones, oppress’d with ill, heal’d, freed from terrestrial labours, and translated into the The weight that loads ‘em makes "em roll on still, Bereft of choice, and freedom of the will.39 divine order. ... This being so, let us suppose that all would be freed from evil if their maker did shew to all the knowledge of his own Power and Will are exercised through reason or intelligence, and nature, and what demon they themselves use. But we find that when reason is disabled the inclinations of Necessity cannot be all are not at once deliver’d from evil, it follows therefore that modified by acts of will, he does not make this discovery to all, but to those only who of Shelley’s Daemon of the World is the power that enlightens and their own accord, endeavour to free themselves from evil, and uplifts man when his spirit has been cleansed of folly and vice. voluntarily fix their eye upon what is shewn by the intention Commentators on the “Golden Verses” emphasize that assigning a of contemplation. . . 41

Ihe Evidence of the Imagination I think it is entirely possible that “Intellectual Beauty” represented Shelley’s personal manifestation of the “Daemon of the World.” consequence Shelley feels that the cultivation of intellect at the expense of the savior and strength of suffering man” (1.817). Demogorgon is the passions has enabled him to perceive the beauty of creation: child of Jupiter as much as of Prometheus, for he is a representaof Prometheus’ “knowledge of his own nature,” whereby he embraces eternal love and accepts his role as “The tion of the ultimate fate of those who embrace either tyranny or Love, Hope, and Self-esteem, like clouds depart love. Shelley represented his own liberating daemon as a function And come, for some uncertain moments lent. of intellect, but he represented that of Prometheus as a function of Man were immortal, and omnipotent, love and self-sacrifice, activities which are not beyond the scope of Didst thou, unknown and awful as thou art, even the least “intellectual” segment of humanity. The Spirit of Keep with thy glorious train firm state within his heart. the Hour (the hour when mankind, represented by Prometheus, espouses love instead of hatred and egocentricity) provides a vision (11. 37-41) of the earth after Demogorgon, the daemon of emancipation, has Cultivation of intellect enables him to conquer “Doubt, chance, done his work (IILiv.99-204), It is a vision of social perfection that and mutability” and perceive the “harmonies of evening” and the is as euphoric, in its way, as the transcendental vision experienced “harmony” of autumn by the dreaming lanthe in “The Daemon of the World.” to which he refers in the “Hymn to Intellectual Beauty.” The harmony of creation is, of course, one of in If Prometheus could be regarded as an “illustrious hero” of the middle daemonic order, both allegorically representing mankind the principal doctrines of the Pythagoreans.* In “The Daemon of the World,” Shelley presents a dream-vision and, traditionally, assisting man, Shelley aspired to be a “Demon which of the Earth Doing Right Things,” in the company of Pythagoras a mortal is vouchsafed a sample of the daemon’s influence, his power to transport one to a realm of transcendent and Plato. He sought, like Prometheus, to be “The saviour and the perception. strength of suffering man,” even in the face of adverse criticism “boon” But usually he is careful to note that reserved for the the vision is a great “terrestrial heroes” (“wisest poets”), The dream furnishes a perfect example of the vision that actual spiritual purification might provide: For thou hast earned a mighty boon The truths which wisest poets see Dimly, thy mind may make to own, Rewarding its own majesty, Entranced in some diviner mood Of self-oblivious solitude. Custom, and Faith, and Power thou spurnest; and the sorrowful skepticism of sympathetic friends. His method was the timeless one of the ancient adepts as outlined by Fabre d'Olivet: It is well known that all of the eminent men, as many among the ancients as among the moderns, all the savants commendable for their labours or their learning, are agreed in regarding the precepts of Pythagoras as symbolical, that is, as containing figuratively, a very different meaning from that which they would seem to offer literall y 43 From hate and awe thy heart is free; Ardent and pure as day thou burnest, For dark and cold mortality By these methods, Shelley attempted to transmit the precepts of the ancient sages to his contemporaries, and he furnished them A living light, to cheer it long, with glimpses of the social and spiritual emancipation that could The watch-fires of the world among. (1, 84-95) be achieved by following those precepts. The reward promised in the “Golden Verses” is very much like the vision provided in “The In Prometheus Unbound, Demogorgon represents the inexorable Daemon of the World”:

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The Evidence of the Imagination SHELLEY'S PYTHAGOREAN DAEMONS ‘The spellings “daemon” and “demon” are used without distinction in connection then as well. See Kenneth N. Cameron, The Young Shelley: . Genesis ofa Radical (New York: Macmillan, 1950), p. 474. Lamblichus’ Life of Pythagoras or Pythagoric Life, Translated from the Greek by Thomas Taylor (London: A. J. Valpy, 1818), p. 110, 14. Herein cited as /amblichus. 16. 15. au Stuart Curran, Shelley's Annus Mirabilis: The Maturing of an Epic Vision 17. 18. lamblichus, p. 18. This is a repetition of a statement made concerning the disciples at Samos (p. 7) applied here to those in southern Italy. 19. Ibid., pp. 18-19. Ibid., pp. 4-5, 19. Letters, 1, 259 (24 February 1812). Among the Principal Peoples of the Earth, trans. Nayan Louise Redfield (New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1917), pp. 128-129. This is a 22. translation of Les Vers dorés de Pythagore, expliqués, et traduits pour la 24, 20. 21. 23. la forme de la poesie, chez les principaux peuples de la terre... (Paris: Würtz, 1813). A modern reprint of this work was produced in 1971 in the “Collection Delphica”- Editions de la Tête de Treuttel et Feuilles (Paris: Bernard Laville). A reprint of the Letters, 1, 261, 266. Fabre d’Olivet, pp. 30-31. The Complete Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley, ed. Roger Ingpen and Walter E. Peck (1926-1930; rpt. New York: Gordian Press, 1965), VII, 112, 140. All references to Shelley’s works, including line numbers for poems, are taken from this edition, hereafter referred to as Works. Fabre d'Olivet, p. 39. translation, excluding the “Discourse upon the Essence and Form of Poetry,” is 26. also available, with an introduction and a “biographical sketch” by 27. Ehud C. Sperling (New York: Samuel Weiser, Inc., 1975). Subsequent references to Fabre d’Olivet’s “Examinations” will be taken from the 1917 translation, which appears to be faithful to the original French. Fabre d'Olivet, p. 141. By 1810, Fabre d'Olivet had completed a 28. Ibid., pp. 130-131, 29 C. E. Pulos, The Deep Truth: A Study of Shelley's Scepticism (Lincoln: The Hebraic Tongue Restored, which he could not get published until 1815, It purported to correct the modern notion of ancient Hebrew by showing that the language of Moses was actually based on that of the ancient Egyptians, and it included the Cosmogony of Moses. This version of Genesis assumed Moses’ obligation to the The Halliford Edition of the Works of Thomas Love Peacock, ed. H. F. B. Brett-Smith and C. E. Jones (1924-1934; rpt. New York: AMS Press, Inc., 1967), VII, 94. Rowe, p. 44. 32. Ibid. 33. Kenneth Neill Cameron, Shelley: The Golden Years (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1974), p. 514. But Cameron is probably right when he asserts that “In The Daemon of the World the temple is described as “The temple of the mightiest daemon’ (208), namely, Ibid., pp. 114-115. This is Fabre d’Olivet’s translation of the “Golden Verses,” lines 1-3. Hierocles Upon the Golden Verses of the Pythagoreans (Glasgow: Rob. & And. Foulis, 1756), p. 58. This is Nicholas Rowe's version of Dacier's 34. French translation from the Greek, hereafter referred to as “Rowe.” 36. p. 134, for his rationale), and Rowe likewise omits it in his own rendering of the original into (rather inflated) English: 35. necessity.” Ibid., p. 320. Fabre d’Olivet, p. 143. Rowe, p. 44. | | Ibid., pp. 274, 284. Fabre d’Olivet explains that the soul is contined in a “gloomy body” of matter, but that it develops a “luminous body” as it becomes purified. Hierocles, he says, “called this body the subtle chariot of the soul, and said that the mortal body is only the gross exterior.” See Fabre d’Olivet, p. 277. 37. Shelley: The Golden Years, pp. 453-454. The heroes next demand thy just regard, 38. Rowe, p. 42. Renown'd on earth, and to the stars preferr'd, 39. To light and endless life their virtue’s sure reward. 40. Rowe, p. 44, Rowe, pp. 264-265. 41. Rowe, pp. 266, 270-271. (p. 39) | 31. Egyptian “mysteries” rather than divine revelation. It is interesting that, though “daimones” clearly appears in the Greek, Fabre d'Olivet does not use it in his translation (see Fabre d’Olivet, Ibid., p. 20. Ibid., pp. 129-130. University of Nebraska Press, 1962), p. 61. 30. work called 13. this edition. Ibid., p. 54. Ibid., p. 77. Ibid., p. 79. Ibid., pp. 79-82. (San Marino, Calif.: Huntington Library, 1975), pp. 43-44. James Rieger, The Mutiny Within: The Heresies of Percy Bysshe Shelley (New York: George Braziller, 1967), p. 32. Fabre d’Olivet, The Golden Verses of Pythagoras Explamed and Translated into French and Preceded by a Discourse upon the Essence and Form of Poetry premiere fois en vers eumolpiques français; précédés d'un discours sur l'essence et

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