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"[Alcaic Fragment]"

    • Archive Work ID: poems.lt03
    • Uniform Title: "[Alcaic Fragment]" [e-text]
    • First Line: O lachrymarum Fons, tenero sacros
    • Language: Latin
    • First Published: 1775
    • References: Starr/Hendrickson (eds.), Complete Poems (1966), 140-141 (with English prose translation); Lonsdale (ed.), Poems (1969), 308 (with English prose translation)
    • Summary: Written at Cambridge when Gray was about to join Richard West at the Inner Temple, where they intended to study law together. First published, untitled, in Mason's Memoirs (1775), section I, letter no. XIV. Mason is the only source for this letter, dated June 1738, in which Gray originally sent the poem to West.

    1 Manuscript:

      • [MS image]Archive MS ID: mss.0007 (Source: EAD/XML)
      • Title: [untitled]
      • Date: [1738?]
      • Physical Description: 1 page; autograph fair copy
      • Language: Latin
      • Location: GBR/1058/GRA/1, Commonplace Book, Vol. I, 90, College Library, Pembroke College, Cambridge, Cambridge, UK <http://www.pem.cam.ac.uk/>
      • Alternate Form: Microfilm copy available in Poetic Commonplace Books and Manuscripts of Thomas Gray, 1716-1771, from Pembroke College, Cambridge (1999), reel one
      • References: Smith (ed.), Index (1989), item GrT 5, 79; Poetic C. B., Pembroke College (1999), 21; Martin, Chronologie (1931), 137
      • Contents: Autograph fair copy, untitled but identified in the index at the end as "Tears, (Latin Alcaïc) fragment on them", in Gray's Commonplace Book, vol. I, 90.
      • Surrogates: Digital facsimile [JPEG] from original MS available online.

Contents

Manuscripts