References: Starr/Hendrickson (eds.), Complete Poems (1966), 144-145 (with English prose translation); Lonsdale (ed.), Poems (1969), 310-312 (with English prose translation)
Summary: Written at Rome in the Spring of 1740 while on the Grand Tour with Horace Walpole. First published, untitled but referred to in a footnote as "Ad C. Favonium Zephyrinum", in Mason'sMemoirs (1775), section II, letter no. XXI. Mason is the only source for this letter, dated May 1740, in which Gray originally sent the poem to West (Favonius). MS translation into English by Thomas Wharton.
References: Smith (ed.), Index (1989), 79; Crum (ed.), First-Line Index (1969), vol. II, 668, item O754; Nelson (ed.), Union First Line Index. Mar. 2010. Folger Shakespeare Library. 19 March 2010. <http://firstlines.folger.edu/detail.php?id=76914>
Contents: Transcript in the hand of John Phillipps (f. 43), followed by an English translation headed "Translation" (ff. 43v-44r), in a volume of collected verse, copied from manuscripts, printed editions and newspapers, by John Phillipps of the Middle Temple and Exeter College, Oxford, 1776-1804 (Summary Catalogue, 45759).
Surrogates: Digital facsimile [JPEG] from original MS available online.
Contents: Transcript in an unidentified neat and legible hand, entitled "Ode to Caius Favonius Zephyrinus" (p. 7) ("Ode II." [p. 9]). The poem is part of a section called "Latin Pieces", which is separately paginated and has its own table of contents (p. 24), in a volume entitled Gray's Poems. The book carries the bookplate of Gray's friend and biographer William Mason.