Verses on Various Occasions · Chapter
LVI: Corcyra explained
The speaker reflects on the ancient city of Corcyra, contemplating the rise and fall of its seafaring, strife-ridden civilization.
What happens
The speaker reflects on the ancient city of Corcyra, contemplating the rise and fall of its seafaring, strife-ridden civilization. Gazing from beneath an olive tree, he meditates on the enduring singularity of each human spirit—whether in light or gloom—and resolves to carry a solemn reverence for the past, as if walking among the dead.
Themes in this chapter
Time and Memory
The speaker contemplates the passage of time and the enduring memory of a lost civilization, pondering whether its history is truly spent or if its spirits live on in singular form.
Transience and Eternity
The contrast between the transient rise and decay of the city and the eternal, singular existence of each spirit is central to the poem's meditation.
Characters to notice
- Unknown
The speaker who sits beneath the olive tree and reflects on the lost city and its people.
Key passages
“I sat beneath an olive’s branches grey, And gazed upon the sight of a lost town, By sage and poet raised to long renown; Where dwelt a race that on the sea held sway, And, restless as its waters, forced a way For civil strife a hundred states to drown.”
I sat under a grey olive tree and looked at the ruins of a famous city, celebrated by wise men and poets, whose people were masters of the sea and, as restless as the waves, spread civil war to destroy many states.
The speaker describes the setting and the historical character of Corcyra's people.
“But is their being’s history spent and run, Whose spirits live in awful singleness, Each in its self-form’d sphere of light or gloom?”
But is the story of their existence truly over, when their spirits still live in a terrifying individuality, each in its own self-made realm of light or darkness?
The speaker questions whether the dead are truly gone, emphasizing the enduring singularity of each soul.
“Henceforth, while pondering the fierce deeds then done, Such reverence on me shall its seal impress As though I corpses saw, and walk’d the tomb.”
From now on, when I think of the violent acts committed there, I will be marked with a reverence as if I were seeing corpses and walking through a tomb.
The speaker resolves to carry a solemn, almost funereal respect for the past.