| 词汇 | a thing of beauty is a joy forever |
| 词源 | A thing of beauty is a joy forever. Not a proverb but from John Keats’s poem “Endymion,” which the poet based upon the legend of Endymion, the handsome shepherd of Greek mythol- ogy who was loved by the moon goddess Selena. The full line from the long poem, dedicated to poet Thomas Chatterton, goes: A thing of beauty is a joy for ever: Its loveliness increases; it will never Pass into nothingness; but still will keep A bower quiet for us, and a sleep Full of sweet dreams, and health, and quiet breathing. The poem was written in September 1818, the beginning of a year ending in September 1819 that became known as “The Great Year,” when Keats, only 24, wrote over a dozen master- pieces, including “La Belle Dame sans Merci,” “Ode to a Night- ingale,” and “ode on a grecian urn”. Yet for all this, he would later write to Fanny Brawne (Feb. 1820): “ ‘If I should die,’ said I to myself, ‘I have left no immortal work behind me—nothing to make my friends proud of my memory—but I have loved the principle of beauty in all things, and if I had time I would have made myself remembered.’ ” See death’s head moth. |
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