ABSTRACT
These dozen lines nearly fill p. 95 rev. of Nbk 14. Despite some gaps and uncertain readings, on the whole the draft is legible. As lines 1–2 and 3–12 are written in different inks and with different nibs, the draft appears to have been composed at two separate times. This gap in composition is consistent with what appears to be two phases in the development of the text. Lines 1 and 2 incorporate a self-quotation, a truncated version of four lines in L&C (no. 143). In Canto Sixth of the earlier poem, Laon, in order to search for food, leaves his sister Cythna in the ruin where they have taken refuge from battle and consummated their love. Reaching a village, he encounters an infernal scene of slaughter which has left only one inhabitant alive, a mad woman who claims to embody the plague 502and who abruptly kisses him in order to spread the disease, before revealing her history: ‘My name is Pestilence—this bosom dry, Once fed two babes—a sister and a brother— When I came home, one in the blood did lie Of three death-wounds—the flames had eat the other! Since then I have no longer been a mother, But I am Pestilence;—hither and thither I flit about, that I may slay and smother: — All lips which I have kissed must surely wither, But Death's—if thou art he, we'll go to work together! (2767–75)
