Selected Poems by Alfred, Lord Tennyson
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TITHONUS
In the original story, Tithonus and Aurora (or Eos), the Goddess of Dawn, fell in love and wished to marry. To effect this, Aurora asked Zeus, King of the Gods, to grant Tithonus, who was mortal, eternal life. He did so, but withheld the gift of eternal youth, so that Tithonus aged, while his beloved remained young.
‘The woods decay, the woods decay and fall,’ – There is a strange trickery in the sound here: when repeating ‘the woods decay,’ the second ‘decay’ inevitably falls lower in tone, a cadence completed by the lower /au/sound in ‘fall.’
‘The vapours weep their burthen to the ground,’ – All these lines are marked by a strong falling cadence. ‘vapours’ are clouds weeping rain.
‘Man comes and tills the field and lies beneath,’ – Everything in nature tends towards death and dissolution.
‘Me only cruel immortality/Consumes;’ – the dramatic reversal of Tithonus’ situation is mimicked by the inverted syntax, the rising tone of the line, and the strong enjambment isolating ‘Consumes.’ It is a paradox that immortality could be associated with something being eaten and finished (‘consummated’).
‘I wither slowly in thine arms,/Here at the quiet limit of the world,’ – The phrase ‘quiet limit’ uses carefully crafted sound, with high, short vowels and unvoiced alveolar consonants /t/ and /l/.
‘A white-hair'd shadow roaming like a dream’ – ‘shadow’ and ‘dream’ both imply an existence that is divorced from real life. Tithonus is, in this sense, ‘imbowered’ as are Mariana and the Lady of Shalott.
‘The ever-silent spaces of the East,’ – Note Tennyson’s use of sibilance. Tithonus world is completely silent, and somehow beyond human comforts and desires.
In the original story, Tithonus and Aurora (or Eos), the Goddess of Dawn, fell in love and wished to marry. To effect this, Aurora asked Zeus, King of the Gods, to grant Tithonus, who was mortal, eternal life. He did so, but withheld the gift of eternal youth, so that Tithonus aged, while his beloved remained young.
‘The woods decay, the woods decay and fall,’ – There is a strange trickery in the sound here: when repeating ‘the woods decay,’ the second ‘decay’ inevitably falls lower in tone, a cadence completed by the lower /au/sound in ‘fall.’
‘The vapours weep their burthen to the ground,’ – All these lines are marked by a strong falling cadence. ‘vapours’ are clouds weeping rain.
‘Man comes and tills the field and lies beneath,’ – Everything in nature tends towards death and dissolution.
‘Me only cruel immortality/Consumes;’ – the dramatic reversal of Tithonus’ situation is mimicked by the inverted syntax, the rising tone of the line, and the strong enjambment isolating ‘Consumes.’ It is a paradox that immortality could be associated with something being eaten and finished (‘consummated’).
‘I wither slowly in thine arms,/Here at the quiet limit of the world,’ – The phrase ‘quiet limit’ uses carefully crafted sound, with high, short vowels and unvoiced alveolar consonants /t/ and /l/.
‘A white-hair'd shadow roaming like a dream’ – ‘shadow’ and ‘dream’ both imply an existence that is divorced from real life. Tithonus is, in this sense, ‘imbowered’ as are Mariana and the Lady of Shalott.
‘The ever-silent spaces of the East,’ – Note Tennyson’s use of sibilance. Tithonus world is completely silent, and somehow beyond human comforts and desires.
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