Epipsychidion

The work was subtitled: Verses addressed to the noble and unfortunate Lady Emilia V—, now imprisoned in the convent of —.

In a letter of 18 June 1822, Shelley described the work: The Epipsychidion I cannot look at; the person whom it celebrates was a cloud instead of a Juno; and poor Ixion starts from the Centaur that was the offspring of his own embrace.

I think one is always in love with something or other; the error, and I confess it is not easy for spirits cased in flesh and blood to avoid it, consists in seeking in a mortal image the likeness of what is, perhaps, eternal.

[2]Epipsychidion was composed at Pisa, in January and February 1821, and was published anonymously in 1821 by Charles and James Ollier, London.

[3] Shelley informed his publisher Charles Ollier that he wanted Epipsychidion to be circulated only to the sunetoi, the initiated, the cognoscenti, the enlightened, the "esoteric few".