Note 331 — CANTO THE THIRD.
Reading edition
[For the association of "Fortune" and "Fame" with a star, compare stanza xi. lines 5, 6—
"Who can contemplate Fame through clouds unfold The star which rises o'er her steep," etc.?
And the allusion to Napoleon's "star," stanza xxxviii. line 9—
"Nor learn that tempted Fate will leave the loftiest Star."
Compare, too, the opening lines of the Stanzas to Augusta (July 24, 1816)—
"Though the day of my destiny's over, And the star of my fate has declined."
"Power" is symbolized as a star in Numb. xxiv. 17, "There shall come a star out of Jacob, and a Sceptre shall rise out of Israel;" and in the divine proclamation, "I am the root and the offspring of David, and the bright and morning star" (Rev. xxii. 16).
The inclusion of "life" among star similes may have been suggested by the astrological terms, "house of life" and "lord of the ascendant." Wordsworth, in his Ode (Intimations of Immortality, etc.) speaks of the soul as "our life's star." Mr. Tozer, who supplies most of these "comparisons," adds a line from Shelley's Adonais, 55. 8 (Pisa, 1821)—
"The soul of Adonais, like a star."]