[Footnote 2: The Latin factus ‘ad unguem’.
For Crichton, a half-mythical figure, see Tytler’s
‘Life’ of him.]
[Footnote 3: 1851. Of different ages, like
twin-sisters throve.]
[Footnote 4: 1853. To breathe, to wake.]
[Footnote 5: 1872. Have.]
[Footnote 6: The reference is to the ‘Acme’
and ‘Septimius’ of Catullus, xliv.—
Hoc ut dixit,
Amor, sinistram, ut ante,
Dextram sternuit approbationem.]
[Footnote 7: 1851. That like a copper beech.]
[Footnote 8: 1851.
garden-isles; and now we ran
By ripply shallows.]
[Footnote 9: 1851. The rainy isles.]
[Footnote 10: Cf. Byron, ‘Don Juan’,
i., xcvii.:—
The seal a sunflower—’elle
vous suit partout’.]
[Footnote 11: ‘Cf’. Milton,
‘Par. Lost’, iv., 268-9:—
Not that fair field Of Enna where Proserpine
gathering flowers ... Was gather’d.]
[Footnote 12: 1851.
“Go Sir!” Again they shrieked
the burthen “Him!”
Again with hands of wild rejection “Go!
Girl, get you in” to her—and
in one month, etc.]
[Footnote 13: 1851.
I read and wish’d to crush the race
of man,
And fled by night; turn’d once upon
the hills;
Her taper glimmer’d in the lake;
and then
I left the place, etc.]
First published in 1842, reprinted in all the subsequent
editions of the poems but with no alterations in the
text, except that in eighth line from the end “my”
was substituted for “mine” in 1846.
Tennyson informed a friend that it was not from the
‘Acta Sanctorum’, but from Hone’s
‘Every-Day Book’, vol. i., pp. 35-36, that
he got the material for this poem, and a comparison
with the narrative in Hone and the poem seems to show
that this was the case.
It is not easy to identify the St. Simeon Stylites
of Hone’s narrative and Tennyson’s poem,
whether he is to be identified with St. Simeon the
Elder, of whom there are three memoirs given in the
‘Acta Sanctorum’, tom. i., 5th January,
261-286, or with St. Simeon Stylites, Junior, of whom
there is an elaborate biography in Greek by Nicephorus
printed with a Latin translation and notes in the
‘Acta Sanctorum’, tom. v., 24th May, 298-401.
It seems clear that whoever compiled the account popularised
by Hone had read both and amalgamated them. The
main lines in the story of both saints are exactly
the same. Both stood on columns, both tortured
themselves in the same ways, both wrought miracles,
and both died at their posts of penance. St.
Simeon the Elder was born at Sisan in Syria about
A.D. 390, and was buried at Antioch in A.D. 459 or
460. The Simeon the Younger was born at Antioch
A. D. 521 and died in A.D. 592. His life, which
is of singular interest, is much more elaborately
related.
