Selected Poems by Alfred, Lord Tennyson

‘Alas! for this gray shadow, once a man—’ – The colour grey (cf. ‘grey-eyed morn’ for example) and the idea of a shadow existence are both found in Mariana and The Lady of Shalott .

‘So glorious in his beauty and thy choice,’ – ‘thy’ = Aurora, the Dawn who chose Tithonus as her husband.

‘Who madest him thy chosen, that he seem'd/To his great heart none other than a God!’ – Probably intended to invoke the god-like feelings associated with being in love, and feeling loved.

‘I ask'd thee, "Give me immortality."/Then didst thou grant mine asking with a smile,’ – Tennyson changes the original story, in which Aurora petitions Zeus for Tithonus to be immortal. Her smile, here, is somewhat enigmatic – could she have foreseen the tragedy of granting Tithonus immortality but not eternal youth? Did she deceive him, in fact, to enjoy his love for a few fleeting years, careless of the rest?

‘But thy strong Hours indignant work'd their wills,’ – Tithonus does seem to blame Aurora for his condition.

‘And beat me down and marr'd and wasted me,/And tho' they could not end me, left me maim'd’ – The combination of ‘marr’d’ and ‘maim’d’ is effective.

‘Immortal age beside immortal youth,’ – a deft antithesis which epitomises Tithonus’ tragedy.

‘And all I was in ashes.’ – This is reminiscent of the burial service – ‘ashes to ashes’ – which, ironically, Tithonus will never receive. There is also a sense in which all the fire of his passion as a young man has now burnt away into ashes.

‘…the silver star, thy guide,’ – the morning star (Venus or Lucifer) said to herald the dawn.

‘Why should a man desire in any way/To vary from the kindly race of men,’ – ‘kindly’ implies both goodness, but also activities appropriate to our ‘kind.’ We should not seek to be superhuman.

‘Or pass beyond the goal of ordinance’ = what is ordained for us.