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SONG OF TRIUMPH

This poem, like the preceding “Latin Hymn,” is found in the tale “Epimanes.” The title is from the context. The earliest text, the manuscript (A), has been chosen exceptionally for use here. In all later versions Poe changed the third and fourth lines to read:

and in B and C repeated the first four lines at the end.

Surely the changes were made to please Mrs. Grundy, who might find the king's assertion of his own divinity shocking. But the change spoils the point of the “Song of Triumph,” which is intentionally bathetic but in character for the monarch in whose mouth Poe put it. The Seleucid kings, like their predecessor Alexander the Great, claimed divinity, and more than one assumed the title Theos. The official style of Antiochus IV was Basileus Antiochus Theos Epiphanes: “King Antiochus, divine, illustrious” or “god manifest.” Augustus Caesar permitted himself to be worshiped, but never when he was present. Antiochus IV, like his fellow madman Caligula, is represented here as having no such scruples. The texts are like those listed for the “Latin Hymn.”