Read the fourth stanza from "mutability.” it is the same! —for, be it joy or sorrow, the path of its departure still is free: man’s yesterday may ne’er be like his morrow; nought may endure but mutability. what is emphasized by shelley’s metaphorical statement that "the path of its departure still is free”? no path is ever the same. time passes by very quickly. emotions are ever changing. all people feel joy and sorrow.

Mutability is a poem that was written by Percy Bysshe Shelley. Born in England in 1792, Shelley was son to a wealthy and titled family and he was expected to inherit not only the estate of his grandfather but also the title that would give him a seat in Parliament. However, being an atheist and even a heretic, Shelley was disowned and dedicated his life to writing after he was kicked out of Oxford University. The one characteristic that is important to understand of Shelley´s writings, was the constant undertone of dislike for the human being, his fragility and incapacity to remain constant, being always in the hands of fate and change. And from these feelings and perceptions is Mutability born. In general, Mutability is a poem dedicated to expressing Shelley´s reflections on humans, what he believed of the fragility and changeability of human life and the little importance that human actions have in reality because to him they are all ephimerous and easy to dissipate. Now, on the fourth stanza, Shelley particularly emphazises that unlike humans who are always tied to change, change itself cannot be stopped, no matter what a person does or the feelings that he/she may have at any given time. So in this stanza, Shelley is simply almost sarcastically trying to emphazise the unimportance of human life and any actions, emotions or feelings they may have because regardless, humans are always tied to the unstoppable power of mutation; of change.

C. Emotions are ever changing.

c, his tragic flaw to cause his downfall