Upon first reading, I found this poem quite hard to understand. This would mainly have to do with the fact that there are so many metaphors throughout this poem, it seems at least one per sentence. Another factor that makes this poem quite confusing is the number of chronological changes, with almost each paragraph-styled stanza being in a different tense or talking about a different time to the previous one. The first stanza is set in the present, whereas the second and third stanzas are reminiscent of the past, with the second being about when Tithonus was in youth and at his prime; when he thought himself “none other than a God!”. The fourth stanza is not really set in specific time period, as it is a question about why whoever he is talking to wont take back the gift of immortality, with references to the past, “in days far off”.
One source of debate about this poem is to whom Tithonus, and the poem, is talking to. One argument is that Tithonus changes who he talks to throughout the play. In stanzas two and four for example, he is obviously talking to a god, as he is talking to the person/being that granted him immortality, and it says that “‘The Gods themselves cannot recall their gifts.'”, is this case the gift being immortality. As another example, stanza five is obviously addressed to his lover, though how they can be alive seems impossible; maybe he is talking to her memory. Another way of interpreting the poem that, I feel, answers these questions and makes the most sense, is that Tithonus only every speaks to one person, and that therefore the addressee of the poem is both a god and his lover. After some quick research, I found that Tithonus was the lover of Eos or Aurora, the goddess of the dawn. This would make sense as Eos, being a goddess, would be capable of giving him the gift of immortality, or would at least be able to ask a more powerful god to do it, and her being a goddess who renews herself every morning (at dawn) would have eternal youth and so makes it possible for Tithonus to be speaking to his lover in stanza five. This theory also helps to understand one of the lines in stanza two, “immortal age beside immortal youth”, with immortal age being a metaphor for Tithonus and immortal youth being a metaphor for Eos, which effectively creates a contrast between and juxtaposes the state of the two lovers, and shows the effect that the simple mistake of not being specific enough in a request or really knowing what you want can have.
The opening stanza is very good at portraying the main themes and motifs that recur throughout the poem; death, or the absense thereof, and the cycle of life
Narrative 