Tithonus Workbook Solution : ISC Rhapsody & Prism

The Poem in Detail

Lines 1 to 10

The poem begins with the speaker, Tithonus, bemoaning his immortality as he looks around the woods. He realises all things come to an end. The woods decay and fall i.e. the trees get old, decay and fall to the ground. The clouds dissolve into rain and disappear. Man fulfils his duties on the earth and then is buried under it. After having lived for many years, the swan dies. Tithonus alone is troubled by his immortality. His life is fading away, in the arms of Eos in the quiet eastern horizon i.e., the home of the Goddess Eos or Aurora. He calls himself “a white. hair’d shadow roaming like a dream” in the silent spaces of the East covered with layers of mist and the bright glory of the dawn. It means that he has grown frail and is wandering some where in the recesses of Eos’ palace.

Lines 11 to 31

Tithonus sadly recalls the days of his youth when he was truly a man “so glorious in his beauty”. The goddess Eos chose him because of his youth. Then he had thought of himself no less than a god. He had asked her to grant him immortality. She had granted him that gift with a smile. She had given it to him generously like wealthy men who do not bother about how they give gifts. But relentless time had done its work—it had beaten him down, deprived him of his strength and made him useless. Though Time could not end his life, it has maimed him to live in the company of Eos’ everlasting youth. He has an unending old age, and he lived in the company of Eos who has unending youth. All his beauty and glory are in ruins now. He asks Eos if her love can now make amends. He sees the tears of pity in her eyes and he asks her to take back her gift of immortality and to let him go. Following the universal pattern of existence that all should die is the best principle. It is wrong on the part of any man to desire an immortal life that is different from the one prescribed for the human race.

Lines 32 to 49

Some gentle breeze causes a break in the cloud through which Tithonus gets a glimpse of the earth, “dark world where he was born”. (At that time Tithonus was living in the sky with Eos.) Once more he sees Eos’ mysterious glimmer stealing from her pure brows and from her pure shoulders: he sees her bosom beating vigorously with a renewed heart; he sees her cheeks becoming more red in the darkness, and her sweet eyes brighten slowly near his own eyes. Before Eos’ eyes make the stars blind with her powerful light, her horses get ready to draw her chariot. They shake away the darkness from their loosened manes and make the twilight look like flakes of fire. That is, Tithonus sees her getting ready once more for her daily task of dissolving the darkness with her bright light. Tithonus says, “Look you are growing beautiful and you depart silently before you give an answer to my request”. She sheds tears of grief on his cheek for his miserable condition. Her tears create a fear in his mind, and he trembles lest the saying that he had heard long ago in the dark earth should be true, namely, that the gods cannot take back their gifts. If that saying be true, it would not be possible for Eos to take back from Tithonus the gift of immortality.

Lines 50 to 63

In a tone of lamentation, Tithonus recalls the days when he used to watch the bright outline forming around Eos and her dim curls brightening into sunny rings. He used to see the mystic change come over her. He used to feel his blood glow with her glow. He speaks of the warmth on his “Mouth, forehead, eyelids”: kisses which were gentler than the half-opened buds in April. He recalls the sweet vague words that she spoke while she kissed him, words which were as sweet as the song of Apollo while he built the towers of Troy.

Lines 64 to 76

Finally he asks her not to keep him with her forever. His nature can no longer harmonise with hers. His youth and the passion of his youth are now gone. Her pleasant shadows fall on him coldly. All her light has become dull to him. His old feet with wrinkles still remain cold when they receive her ever shining glimmer. Meanwhile he feels the warmth of the steam rising up from the fields around the happy men living on earth. He envies these men who have the privilege of dying. He envies still more those who are dead in their graves which are covered with grass. He appeals to Eos to release him from the sky and allow him to return to earth. If she grants his prayer, she who sees everything from above, could see him die and see his grave below. He, being made from the elements from the earth, would return to its soil and forget her empty domes. Meanwhile Eos would continue her daily journey every morning on her silvery chariot.