More about the drownings, the cremations. Viareggio, 1822.
But let’s
back up a little. Trelawny had become Mary’s intermediary with government
officials—and with any number of others. She was naturally devastated by the
news of the drownings, and she and Jane Williams, a fresh widow from the same
disaster, became fast friends—though that would change (as we will see).
So Trelawny
met with local officials, learned the ordinances, made the arrangements for the
temporary burials in the sand, the exhumations, the cremations. Trelawny, the
great fabulist, told numerous versions of the story throughout the years—often
elevating his importance, his closeness with Shelley and Byron. Many years
later (1858) he would write an entire book about it—Recollections of the Last Days of Shelley and Byron. And twenty
years after that (and thus more than
a half-century after the deaths in 1822) he would write another version—Records of Shelley, Byron, and the Author
(1878).
In Livorno,
he says, he purchased a machine of iron
five feet long, two broad, with a proportionate rim entirely round it supported
by legs of two feet high—to burn the body in—and to remove the ashes. … I then
procured incense, honey, wine, salt, and sugar to burn with the body.[1]
He then delivers
a grim description of Bysshe’s body—noting that the quicklime had been inferior
and had not done any further damage to the corpse than the sea and its
inhabitants had done. But the damage was considerable. The squeamish should
definitely not read on:
… the body was in a state of putridity and
very offensive. Both the legs were separated at the knee joint—the thigh bones
bared and the flesh hanging loosely about them—the hands were off and the arm
bones protruding—the skull black and no flesh or features of the face
remaining. The clothes had in some degree protected the body—the flesh was of a
dingy blue.[2]
He tells us,
as well, that the volume of Keats found on his body—Lamia, Isabella & The Eve of St. Agnes—was incomplete, only the
leather cover remaining. Published in 1820, the volume contained some of Keats’
greatest works, including “Ode on a Grecian Urn” and “Ode on Melancholy.”
In several
ways I love that image. Shelley dying with Keats’ poems in his coat pocket, the
pages—the words of Keats—lost in the Gulf of Spezia, floating into the future.
The two poets, by the way, had met, had corresponded, exchanged poems. And in
1820, Shelley, learning of Keats’ tuberculosis, invited Keats to stay with him
and Mary. Whether you remain in England,
or journey to Italy, he wrote on July 27, believe that you carry with you my anxious wishes for your health
happiness & success ….[3]
Replying on
August 16, Keats politely declined, ending with this: I must express once more my deep sense of your kindness, adding my
sincere thanks and respects for Mrs. Shelley.[4]
The two were
never close. There was a class difference between them. And class was something
Shelley could not hide. Nor did he really want to.
And in the
summer of 1822, on the beach at Viareggio, Keats had been dead for more than a
year, and now Shelley had joined him. They would end up together in the
Protestant Cemetery in Rome.
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