Project Gutenberg's The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 4, by Lord Byron This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org Title: The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 4 Author: Lord Byron Editor: Ernest Hartley Coleridge Release Date: December 22, 2006 [EBook #20158] Language: English Character set encoding: UTF-8 *** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE WORKS OF LORD BYRON, VOLUME 4 *** Produced by Jonathan Ingram, David Cortesi and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net TRANSCRIBER'S NOTES This etext contains some multi-byte characters in UTF-8 format. The original work contained a few phrases or lines of Greek text. These are shown here as UTF characters followed by a Beta-code transliteration, for example: Οῖμοι [Greek: Oi~moi]. The original text also contains two characters not supported by UTF. In note [463], [=N] and [=S] represent letters N and S with a bar above. In a few places superscript letters are shown by carets: May 27^th^. An important feature of this edition is its copious footnotes. Footnotes indexed with letters (e.g. [c], [bf]) show variant forms of Byron's text from manuscripts and other sources. Footnotes indexed with arabic numbers (e.g. [17], [221]) are informational. Text in notes and elsewhere in square brackets is the work of editor E. H. Coleridge. Text not in brackets is by Byron himself. In the original, footnotes were printed at the foot of the page on which they were referenced, and their indices started over on each page. In this etext, footnotes have been collected at the ends of each major section, and have been consecutively numbered throughout. Within each block of footnotes are numbers in braces: {321}. These represent the page number on which following notes originally appeared. To find a note that was originally printed on page 27, search for {27}. In the work "Francesca di Rimini" the original printed lines of the Italian on facing pages opposite the matching lines of Byron's translation. In this etext, the lines of the Italian original have been collected following the translation. Two minor corrections were made in this etext, both in the note following the title of MANFRED: the year 1348 was corrected to 1834, and the word "Tschairowsky" was corrected to "Tschaikowsky." THE WORKS OF LORD BYRON. A NEW, REVISED AND ENLARGED EDITION, WITH ILLUSTRATIONS. Poetry. Vol. IV. EDITED BY ERNEST HARTLEY COLERIDGE, M.A., HON. F.R.S.L. LONDON: JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET. NEW YORK: CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS. 1901 PREFACE TO THE FOURTH VOLUME. The poems included in this volume consist of thirteen longer or more important works, written at various periods between June, 1816, and October, 1821; of eight occasional pieces (_Poems of July-September_, 1816), written in 1816; and of another collection of occasional pieces (_Poems_ 1816-1823), written at intervals between November, 1816, and September, 1823. Of this second group of minor poems five are now printed and published for the first time. The volume is not co-extensive with the work of the period. The third and fourth cantos of _Childe Harold_ (1816-1817), the first five cantos of _Don Juan_ (1818, 1819, 1820), _Sardanapalus_, _The Two Foscari_, _Cain_, and _Heaven and Earth_ (1821), form parts of other volumes, but, in spite of these notable exceptions, the fourth volume contains the work of the poet's maturity, which is and must ever remain famous. Byron was not content to write on one kind of subject, or to confine himself to one branch or species of poetry. He tracked the footsteps now of this master poet, now of another, far outstripping some of his models; soon spent in the pursuit of others. Even in his own lifetime, and in the heyday of his fame, his friendliest critics, who applauded him to the echo, perceived that the "manifold motions" of his versatile and unsleeping talent were not always sanctioned or blessed by his genius. Hence the unevenness of his work, the different values of this or that poem. But, even so, in width of compass, in variety of style, and in measure of success, his achievement was unparalleled. Take such poems as _Manfred_ or _Mazeppa_, which have left their mark on the literature of Europe; as _Beppo_, the _avant courrier_ of _Don Juan_, or the "inimitable" _Vision of Judgment_, which the "hungry generations" have not trodden down or despoiled of its freshness. Not one of these poems suggests or resembles the other, but each has its crowd of associations, a history and almost a literature of its own. The whole of this volume was written on foreign soil, in Switzerland or Italy, and, putting aside _The Dream_, _The Monody on the Death of Sheridan_, _The Irish Avatar_, and _The Blues_, the places, the persons and events, the _matériel_ of the volume as a whole, to say nothing of the style and metre of the poems, are derived from the history and the literature of Switzerland and Southern Europe. An unwilling, at times a vindictive exile, he did more than any other poet or writer of his age to familiarize his own countrymen with the scenery, the art and letters of the Continent, and, conversely, to make the existence of English literature, or, at least, the writings of one Englishman, known to Frenchmen and Italians; to the Teuton and the Slav. If he "taught us little" as prophet or moralist; as a guide to knowledge; as an educator of the general reader--"your British blackguard," as he was pleased to call him--his teaching and influence were "in widest commonalty spread." Questions with regard to his personality, his morals, his theological opinions, his qualifications as an artist, his grammar, his technique, and so forth, have, perhaps inevitably, absorbed the attention of friend and foe, and the one point on which all might agree has been overlooked, namely, the fact that he taught us a great deal which it is desirable and agreeable to know--which has passed into common knowledge through the medium of his poetry. It is true that he wrote his plays and poems at lightning speed, and that if he was at pains to correct some obvious blunders, he expended but little labour on picking his phrases or polishing his lines; but it is also true that he read widely and studied diligently, in order to prepare himself for an outpouring of verse, and that so far from being a superficial observer or inaccurate recorder, his authority is worth quoting in questions of fact and points of detail. The appreciation of poetry is a matter of taste, and still more of temperament. Readers cannot be coerced into admiration, or scolded into disapproval and contempt. But if they are willing or can be persuaded to read with some particularity and attention the writings of the illustrious dead, not entirely as partisans, or with the view to dethroning other "Monarchs of Parnassus," they will divine the secret of their fame, and will understand, perhaps recover, the "first rapture" of contemporaries. Byron sneered and carped at Southey as a "scribbler of all works." He was himself a reader of all works, and without some measure of book-learning and not a little research the force and significance of his various numbers are weakened or obliterated. It is with the hope of supplying this modicum of book-learning that the Introductions and notes in this and other volumes have been compiled. I desire to acknowledge, with thanks, the courteous response of Mons. J. Capré, Commandant of the Castle of Chillon, to a letter of inquiry with regard to the "Souterrains de Chillon." I have to express my gratitude to Sir Henry Irving, to Mr. Joseph Knight, and to Mr. F. E. Taylor, for valuable information concerning the stage representation of _Manfred_ and _Marino Faliero_. I am deeply indebted to Dr. Richard Garnett, C.B., and to my friend, Mr. Thomas Hutchinson, for assistance in many important particulars during the construction of the volume. I must also record my thanks to Mr. Oscar Browning, Mr. Josceline Courtenay, and other correspondents, for information and assistance in points of difficulty. I have consulted and derived valuable information from the following works: _The Prisoner of Chillon_, etc., by the late Professor Kölbing; _Mazeppa_, by Dr. Englaender; _Marino Faliero avanti il Dogado_ and _La Congiura_ (published in the _Nuovo Archivio Veneto_), by Signor Vittorio Lazzarino; and _Selections from the Poetry of Lord Byron_, by Dr. F. I. Carpenter of Chicago, U.S.A. I take the opportunity of expressing my acknowledgments to Miss K. Schlesinger, Miss De Alberti, and to Signor F. Bianco, for their able and zealous services in the preparation of portions of the volume. On behalf of the publisher I beg to acknowledge the kindness of Captain the Hon. F. L. King Noel, in sanctioning the examination and collation of the MS. of _Beppo_, now in his possession; and of Mrs. Horace Pym of Foxwold Chace, for permitting the portrait of Sheridan by Sir Joshua Reynolds to be reproduced for this volume. ERNEST HARTLEY COLERIDGE. _May_ 5, 1901. CONTENTS OF VOL. IV. Preface to Vol. IV. of the Poems The Prisoner of Chillon. Introduction to _The Prisoner of Chillon_ 3 Sonnet on Chillon 7 Advertisement 9 _The Prisoner of Chillon_ 13 Poems of July-September, 1816. The Dream. Introduction to _The Dream_ 31 _The Dream_. First published, _Prisoner of Chillon, etc._, 1816 33 Darkness. First published, _Prisoner of Chillon, etc._, 1816 42 Churchill's Grave. First published, _Prisoner of Chillon, etc._, 1816 45 Prometheus. First published, _Prisoner of Chillon, etc_., 1816 48 A Fragment. First published, _Letters and Journals_, 1830, ii. 36 51 Sonnet to Lake Leman, First published, _Prisoner of Chillon, etc._, 1816 53 Stanzas to Augusta. First published, _Prisoner of Chillon, etc._, 1816 54 Epistle to Augusta. First published, _Letters and Journals_, 1830, ii. 38-41 57 Lines on hearing that Lady Byron was Ill. First published, 1831 63 MONODY ON THE DEATH OF THE RIGHT HON. R. B. SHERIDAN. Introduction to _Monody, etc._ 69 _Monody on the Death of the Right Hon. R. B. Sheridan,_ Spoken at Drury Lane Theatre, London 71 Manfred: A Dramatic Poem. Introduction to _Manfred_ 79 _Manfred_ 85 The Lament of Tasso. Introduction to _The Lament of Tasso_ 139 Advertisement 141 _The Lament of Tasso_ 143 Beppo: A Venetian Story. Introduction to _Beppo_ 155 _Beppo_ 159 Ode on Venice. _Ode on Venice_ 193 Mazeppa. Introduction to _Mazeppa_ 201 Advertisement 205 _Mazeppa_ 207 The Prophecy of Dante. Introduction to _The Prophecy of Dante_ 237 Dedication 241 Preface 243 _The Prophecy of Dante_. Canto the First 247 Canto the Second 255 Canto the Third 261 Canto the Fourth 269 The Morgante Maggiore of Pulci. Introduction to _The Morgante Maggiore_ 279 Advertisement 283 _The Morgante Maggiore_. Canto the First 285 Francesca Of Rimini. Introduction to _Francesca of Rimini_ 313 _Francesco of Rimini_ 317 Marino Faliero, Doge of Venice: an Historical Tragedy. Introduction to _Marino Faliero_ 325 Preface 331 _Marino Faliero_ 345 Appendix 462 The Vision Of Judgment. Introduction to _The Vision of Judgment_ 475 Preface 481 _The Vision of Judgment_ 487 Poems 1816-1823. A very Mournful Ballad on the Siege and Conquest of Alhama. First published, _Childe Harold_, Canto IV., 1818 529 Sonetto di Vittorelli. Per Monaca 535 Translation from Vittorelli. On a Nun. First published, _Childe Harold_, Canto IV., 1818 535 On the Bust of Helen by Canova. First published, _Letters and Journals_, 1830, ii. 61 536 [Venice. A Fragment.] _MS. M_ 537 So we'll go no more a-roving. First published, _Letters and Journals_, 1830, ii. 79 538 [Lord Byron's Verses on Sam Rogers.] Question and Answer. First published, _Fraser's Magazine_, January, 1833, vol. vii. pp. 82-84 538 The Duel. _MS. M_ 542 Stanzas to the Po. First published, _Conversations of Lord Byron_, 1824 545 Sonnet on the Nuptials of the Marquis Antonio Cavalli with the Countess Clelia Rasponi of Ravenna. _MS. M_ 547 Sonnet to the Prince Regent. On the Repeal of Lord Edward Fitzgerald's Forfeiture. First published, _Letters and Journals_, ii. 234, 235 548 Stanzas. First published, _New Monthly Magazine_, 1832 549 Ode to a Lady whose Lover was killed by a Ball, which at the same time shivered a portrait next his heart. _MS. M._ 552 The Irish Avatar. First published, _Conversations of Lord Byron_, 1824 555 Stanzas written on the Road between Florence and Pisa. First published, _Letters and Journals_, 1830, ii. 566, not 562 Stanzas to a Hindoo Air. First published, _Works of Lord Byron_ 563 To ---- First published, _New Monthly Magazine_, 1833 564 To the Countess of Blessington. First published, _Letters and Journals_, 1830 565 Aristomanes. Canto First. _MS. D._ 566 The Blues: A Literary Eclogue. Introduction to _The Blues_ 569 _The Blues_. Eclogue the First 573 Eclogue the Second 580 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 1. Lord Byron, from an Engraving after a Drawing by G. H. Harlowe 2. The Prison of Bonivard 3. The Right Honourable Richard Brinsley Sheridan, from a Portrait in Oils by Sir Joshua Reynolds, P.R.A., in the Possession of Mrs. Horace Pym of Foxwold Chace 4. The Right Honourable John Hookham Frere, from a Mezzotint by W. W. Barney, after a Picture by John Hoppner, R.A. 5. Robert Southey, Poet Laureate, from a Drawing made in 1811 by John Downman, A.R.A., in the Possession of A. H. Hallam Murray, Esq. THE PRISONER OF CHILLON INTRODUCTION TO _THE PRISONER OF CHILLON_. The _Prisoner of Chillon_, says Moore (_Life_, p. 320), was written at Ouchy, near Lausanne, where Byron and Shelley "were detained two days in a small inn [Hôtel de l'Ancre, now d'Angleterre] by the weather." Byron's letter to Murray, dated June 27 (but? 28), 1816, does not precisely tally with Shelley's journal contained in a letter to Peacock, July 12, 1816 (_Prose Works of P. B. Shelley_, 1880, ii. 171, _sq._); but, if Shelley's first date, June 23, is correct, it follows that the two poets visited the Castle of Chillon on Wednesday, June 26, reached Ouchy on Thursday, June 27, and began their homeward voyage on Saturday, June 29 (Shelley misdates it June 30). On this reckoning the _Prisoner of Chillon_ was begun and finished between Thursday, June 27, and Saturday, June 29, 1816. Whenever or wherever begun, it was completed by July 10 (see _Memoir of John Murray_, 1891, i. 364), and was ready for transmission to England by July 25. The MS., in Claire's handwriting, was placed in Murray's hands on October 11, and the poem, with seven others, was published December 5, 1816. In a final note to the _Prisoner of Chillon_ (First Edition, 1816, p. 59), Byron confesses that when "the foregoing poem was composed he knew too little of the history of Bonnivard to do justice to his courage and virtues," and appends as a note to the "Sonnet on Chillon," "some account of his life ... furnished by the kindness of a citizen of that Republic," i.e. Geneva. The note, which is now entitled "Advertisement," is taken bodily from the pages of a work published in 1786 by the Swiss naturalist, Jean Senebier, who died in 1809. It was not Byron's way to invent imaginary authorities, but rather to give his references with some pride and particularity, and it is possible that this unacknowledged and hitherto unverified "account" was supplied by some literary acquaintance, who failed to explain that his information was common property. Be that as it may, Senebier's prose is in some respects as unhistorical as Byron's verse, and stands in need of some corrections and additions. François Bonivard (there is no contemporary authority for "Bonnivard") was born in 1493. In early youth (1510) he became by inheritance Prior of St. Victor, a monastery outside the walls of Geneva, and on reaching manhood (1514) he accepted the office and the benefice, "la dignité ecclésiastique de Prieur et de la Seigneurie temporelle de St. Victor." A lover of independence, a child of the later Renaissance, in a word, a Genevese, he threw in his lot with a band of ardent reformers and patriots, who were conspiring to shake off the yoke of Duke Charles III. of Savoy, and convert the city into a republic. Here is his own testimony: "Dès que j'eus commencé de lire l'histoire des nations, je me sentis entrainé par un goût prononcé pour les Républiques dont j'épousai toujours les intérêts." Hence, in a great measure, the unrelenting enmity of the duke, who not only ousted him from his priory, but caused him to be shut up for two years at Grolée, Gex, and Belley, and again, after he had been liberated on a second occasion, ordered him, a safe conduct notwithstanding, to be seized and confined in the Castle of Chillon. Here he remained from 1530 to February 1, 1536, when he was released by the Bernese. For the first two years he was lodged in a room near the governor's quarters, and was fairly comfortable; but a day came when the duke paid a visit to Chillon; and "then," he writes, "the captain thrust me into a cell lower than the lake, where I lived four years. I know not whether he did it by the duke's orders or of his own accord; but sure it is that I had so much leisure for walking, that I wore in the rock which was the pavement a track or little path, as it had been made with a hammer" (_Chroniques des Ligues_ de Stumpf, addition de Bonivard). After he had been liberated, "par la grace de Dieu donnee a Mess^rs^ de Berne," he returned to Geneva, and was made a member of the Council of the State, and awarded a house and a pension of two hundred crowns a year. A long life was before him, which he proceeded to spend in characteristic fashion, finely and honourably as scholar, author, and reformer, but with little self-regard or self-respect as a private citizen. He was married no less than four times, and not one of these alliances was altogether satisfactory or creditable. Determined "to warm both hands before the fire of life," he was prone to ignore the prejudices and even the decencies of his fellow-citizens, now incurring their displeasure, and now again, as one who had greatly testified for truth and freedom, being taken back into favour and forgiven. There was a deal of human nature in Bonivard, with the result that, at times, conduct fell short of pretension and principle. Estimates of his character differ widely. From the standpoint of Catholic orthodoxy, "C'était un fort mauvais sujet et un plus mauvais prêtre;" and even his captivity, infamous as it was, "ne peut rendre Bonivard intéressant" (_Notices Généalogiques sur les Famillies Genevoises_, par J. A. Galiffe, 1836, iii. 67, sq.); whilst an advocate and champion, the author of the _Preface_ to _Les Chroniques de Genève_ par François de Bonnivard, 1831, tom. i. pt. i. p. xli., avows that "aucun homme n'a fait preuve d'un plus beau caractère, d'un plus parfait désintéressement que l'illustre Prieur de St. Victor." Like other great men, he may have been guilty of "quelques égaremens du coeur, quelques concessions passagères aux dévices des sens," but "Peu importe à la postérité les irrégularités de leur vie privée" (p. xlviii.). But whatever may be the final verdict with regard to the morals, there can be no question as to the intellectual powers of the "Prisoner of Chillon." The publication of various MS. tracts, e.g. _Advis et Devis de l'ancienne et nouvelle Police de Genève_, 1865; _Advis et Devis des Lengnes_, etc., 1865, which were edited by the late J. J. Chaponnière, and, after his death, by M. Gustave Revilliod, has placed his reputation as historian, satirist, philosopher, beyond doubt or cavil. One quotation must suffice. He is contrasting the Protestants with the Catholics (_Advis et Devis de la Source de Lidolatrie_, Geneva, 1856, p. 159): "Et nous disons que les prebstres rongent les mortz et est vray; mais nous faisons bien pys, car nous rongeons les vifz. Quel profit revient aux paveures du dommage des prebstres? Nous nous ventons touttes les deux parties de prescher Christ cruciffie et disons vray, car nous le laissons cruciffie et nud en l'arbre de la croix, et jouons a beaux dez au pied dicelle croix, pour scavoir qui haura sa robe." For Bonivard's account of his second imprisonment, see _Les Chroniques de Genève_, tom. ii. part ii. pp. 571-577; see, too, _Notice sur François Bonivard_, ...par Le Docteur J. J. Chaponnière, Mémoires et Documents Publiés, par La Société d'Histoire, etc., de Genève, 1845, iv. 137-245; _Chillon Etude Historique_, par L. Vulliemin, Lausanne, 1851; _Revue des Deux Mondes_, Seconde Période, vol. 82, Août, 1869, pp. 682-709; "True Story of the Prisoner of Chillon," _Nineteenth Century_, May, 1900, No. 279, pp. 821-829, by A. van Amstel (Johannes Christiaan Neuman). _The Prisoner of Chillon_ was reviewed (together with the Third Canto of _Childe Harold_) by Sir Walter Scott (_Quarterly Review_, No. xxxi., October, 1816), and by Jeffrey (_Edinburgh Review_, No. liv., December, 1816). With the exception of the _Eclectic_ (March, 1817, N.S., vol. vii. pp. 298-304), the lesser reviews were unfavourable. For instance, the _Critical Review_ (December, 1816, Series V. vol. iv. pp. 567-581) detected the direct but unacknowledged influence of Wordsworth on thought and style; and the _Portfolio_ (No. vi. pp. 121-128), in an elaborate skit, entitled "Literary Frauds," assumed, and affected to prove, that the entire poem was a forgery, and belonged to the same category as _The Right Honourable Lord Byron's Pilgrimage to the Holy Land, etc._ For extracts from these and other reviews, see Kölbing, _Prisoner of Chillon, and Other Poems_, Weimar, 1896, excursus i. pp. 3-55. SONNET ON CHILLON Eternal Spirit of the chainless Mind![1] Brightest in dungeons, Liberty! thou art: For there thy habitation is the heart-- The heart which love of thee alone can bind; And when thy sons to fetters are consigned-- To fetters, and the damp vault's dayless gloom, Their country conquers with their martyrdom, And Freedom's fame finds wings on every wind. Chillon! thy prison is a holy place, And thy sad floor an altar--for 'twas trod, Until his very steps have left a trace Worn, as if thy cold pavement were a sod, By Bonnivard!--May none those marks efface! For they appeal from tyranny to God.[2] ADVERTISEMENT When this poem[a] was composed, I was not sufficiently aware of the history of Bonnivard, or I should have endeavoured to dignify the subject by an attempt to celebrate his courage and his virtues. With some account of his life I have been furnished, by the kindness of a citizen of that republic, which is still proud of the memory of a man worthy of the best age of ancient freedom:-- "François De Bonnivard, fils de Louis De Bonnivard, originaire de Seyssel et Seigneur de Lunes, naquit en 1496. Il fit ses études à Turin: en 1510 Jean Aimé de Bonnivard, son oncle, lui résigna le Prieuré de St. Victor, qui aboutissoit aux murs de Genève, et qui formait un bénéfice considérable.... "Ce grand homme--(Bonnivard mérite ce litre par la force de son âme, la droiture de son coeur, la noblesse de ses intentions, la sagesse de ses conseils, le courage de ses démarches, l'étendue de ses connaissances, et la vivacité de son esprit),--ce grand homme, qui excitera l'admiration de tous ceux qu'une vertu héroïque peut encore émouvoir, inspirera encore la plus vive reconnaissance dans les coeurs des Genevois qui aiment Genève. Bonnivard en fut toujours un des plus fermes appuis: pour assurer la liberté de notre République, il ne craignit pas de perdre souvent la sienne; il oublia son repos; il méprisa ses richesses; il ne négligea rien pour affermir le bonheur d'une patrie qu'il honora de son choix: dès ce moment il la chérit comme le plus zélé de ses citoyens; il la servit avec l'intrépidité d'un héros, et il écrivit son Histoire avec la naïveté d'un philosophe et la chaleur d'un patriote. "Il dit dans le commencement de son Histoire de Genève, que, _dès qu'il eut commencé de lire l'histoire des nations, il se sentit entraîné par son goût pour les Républiques, dont il épousa toujours les intérêts:_ c'est ce goût pour la liberté qui lui fit sans doute adopter Genève pour sa patrie.... "Bonnivard, encore jeune, s'annonça hautement comme le défenseur de Genève contre le Duc de Savoye et l'Evêque.... "En 1519, Bonnivard devient le martyr de sa patrie: Le Duc de Savoye étant entré dans Genève avec cinq cent hommes, Bonnivard craint le ressentiment du Duc; il voulut se retirer à Fribourg pour en éviter les suites; mais il fut trahi par deux hommes qui l'accompagnaient, et conduit par ordre du Prince à Grolée, où il resta prisonnier pendant deux ans. Bonnivard était malheureux dans ses voyages: comme ses malheurs n'avaient point ralenti son zèle pour Genève, il était toujours un ennemi redoutable pour ceux qui la menaçaient, et par conséquent il devait être exposé à leurs coups. Il fut rencontré en 1530 sur le Jura par des voleurs, qui le dépouillèrent, et qui le mirent encore entre les mains du Duc de Savoye: ce Prince le fit enfermer dans le Château de Chillon, où il resta sans être interrogé jusques en 1536; il fut alors delivré par les Bernois, qui s'emparèrent du Pays-de-Vaud. "Bonnivard, en sortant de sa captivité, eut le plaisir de trouver Genève libre et réformée: la République s'empressa de lui témoigner sa reconnaissance, et de le dédommager des maux qu'il avoit soufferts; elle le reçut Bourgeois de la ville au mois de Juin, 1536; elle lui donna la maison habitée autrefois par le Vicaire-Général, et elle lui assigna une pension de deux cent écus d'or tant qu'il séjournerait à Genève. Il fut admis dans le Conseil des Deux-Cent en 1537. "Bonnivard n'a pas fini d'être utile: après avoir travaillé à rendre Genève libre, il réussit à la rendre tolérante. Bonnivard engagea le Conseil à accorder [aux ecclésiastiques et aux paysans] un tems suffisant pour examiner les propositions qu'on leur faisait; il réussit par sa douceur: on prêche toujours le Christianisme avec succès quand on le prêche avec charité.... "Bonnivard fut savant: ses manuscrits, qui sont dans la bibliothèque publique, prouvent qu'il avait bien lu les auteurs classiques Latins, et qu'il avait approfondi la théologie et l'histoire. Ce grand homme aimait les sciences, et il croyait qu'elles pouvaient faire la gloire de Genève; aussi il ne négligea rien pour les fixer dans cette ville naissante; en 1551 il donna sa bibliothèque au public; elle fut le commencement de notre bibliothèque publique; et ces livres sont en partie les rares et belles éditions du quinzième siècle qu'on voit dans notre collection. Enfin, pendant la même année, ce bon patriote institua la République son héritière, à condition qu'elle employerait ses biens à entretenir le collège dont on projettait la fondation. "Il parait que Bonnivard mourut en 1570; mais on ne peut l'assurer, parcequ'il y a une lacune dans le Nécrologe depuis le mois de Juillet, 1570, jusques en 1571."--[_Histoire Littéraire de Genève_, par Jean Senebier (1741-1809), 1786, i. 131-137.] THE PRISONER OF CHILLON I. My hair is grey, but not with years, Nor grew it white In a single night,[3] As men's have grown from sudden fears: My limbs are bowed, though not with toil, But rusted with a vile repose,[b] For they have been a dungeon's spoil, And mine has been the fate of those To whom the goodly earth and air Are banned,[4] and barred--forbidden fare; 10 But this was for my father's faith I suffered chains and courted death; That father perished at the stake For tenets he would not forsake; And for the same his lineal race In darkness found a dwelling place; We were seven--who now are one,[5] Six in youth, and one in age, Finished as they had begun, Proud of Persecution's rage;[c] 20 One in fire, and two in field, Their belief with blood have sealed, Dying as their father died, For the God their foes denied;-- Three were in a dungeon cast, Of whom this wreck is left the last. II. There are seven pillars of Gothic mould,[6] In Chillon's dungeons deep and old, There are seven columns, massy and grey, Dim with a dull imprisoned ray, 30 A sunbeam which hath lost its way, And through the crevice and the cleft Of the thick wall is fallen and left; Creeping o'er the floor so damp, Like a marsh's meteor lamp:[7] And in each pillar there is a ring,[8] And in each ring there is a chain; That iron is a cankering thing, For in these limbs its teeth remain, With marks that will not wear away, 40 Till I have done with this new day, Which now is painful to these eyes, Which have not seen the sun so rise For years--I cannot count them o'er, I lost their long and heavy score When my last brother drooped and died, And I lay living by his side. III. They chained us each to a column stone, And we were three--yet, each alone; We could not move a single pace, 50 We could not see each other's face, But with that pale and livid light That made us strangers in our sight: And thus together--yet apart, Fettered in hand, but joined in heart,[d] 'Twas still some solace in the dearth Of the pure elements of earth, To hearken to each other's speech, And each turn comforter to each With some new hope, or legend old, 60 Or song heroically bold; But even these at length grew cold. Our voices took a dreary tone, An echo of the dungeon stone, A grating sound, not full and free, As they of yore were wont to be: It might be fancy--but to me They never sounded like our own. IV. I was the eldest of the three, And to uphold and cheer the rest 70 I ought to do--and did my best-- And each did well in his degree. The youngest, whom my father loved, Because our mother's brow was given To him, with eyes as blue as heaven-- For him my soul was sorely moved: And truly might it be distressed To see such bird in such a nest;[9] For he was beautiful as day-- (When day was beautiful to me 80 As to young eagles, being free)-- A polar day, which will not see[10] A sunset till its summer's gone, Its sleepless summer of long light, The snow-clad offspring of the sun: And thus he was as pure and bright, And in his natural spirit gay, With tears for nought but others' ills, And then they flowed like mountain rills, Unless he could assuage the woe 90 Which he abhorred to view below. V. The other was as pure of mind, But formed to combat with his kind; Strong in his frame, and of a mood Which 'gainst the world in war had stood, And perished in the foremost rank With joy:--but not in chains to pine: His spirit withered with their clank, I saw it silently decline-- And so perchance in sooth did mine: 100 But yet I forced it on to cheer Those relics of a home so dear. He was a hunter of the hills, Had followed there the deer and wolf; To him this dungeon was a gulf, And fettered feet the worst of ills. VI. Lake Leman lies by Chillon's walls: A thousand feet in depth below Its massy waters meet and flow; Thus much the fathom-line was sent 110 From Chillon's snow-white battlement,[11] Which round about the wave inthralls: A double dungeon wall and wave Have made--and like a living grave. Below the surface of the lake[12] The dark vault lies wherein we lay: We heard it ripple night and day; Sounding o'er our heads it knocked; And I have felt the winter's spray Wash through the bars when winds were high 120 And wanton in the happy sky; And then the very rock hath rocked, And I have felt it shake, unshocked,[13] Because I could have smiled to see The death that would have set me free. VII. I said my nearer brother pined, I said his mighty heart declined, He loathed and put away his food; It was not that 'twas coarse and rude, For we were used to hunter's fare, 130 And for the like had little care: The milk drawn from the mountain goat Was changed for water from the moat, Our bread was such as captives' tears Have moistened many a thousand years, Since man first pent his fellow men Like brutes within an iron den; But what were these to us or him? These wasted not his heart or limb; My brother's soul was of that mould 140 Which in a palace had grown cold, Had his free breathing been denied The range of the steep mountain's side;[14] But why delay the truth?--he died.[e] I saw, and could not hold his head, Nor reach his dying hand--nor dead,-- Though hard I strove, but strove in vain, To rend and gnash my bonds in twain.[f] He died--and they unlocked his chain, And scooped for him a shallow grave[15] 150 Even from the cold earth of our cave. I begged them, as a boon, to lay His corse in dust whereon the day Might shine--it was a foolish thought, But then within my brain it wrought,[16] That even in death his freeborn breast In such a dungeon could not rest. I might have spared my idle prayer-- They coldly laughed--and laid him there: The flat and turfless earth above 160 The being we so much did love; His empty chain above it leant, Such Murder's fitting monument! VIII. But he, the favourite and the flower, Most cherished since his natal hour, His mother's image in fair face, The infant love of all his race, His martyred father's dearest thought,[17] My latest care, for whom I sought To hoard my life, that his might be 170 Less wretched now, and one day free; He, too, who yet had held untired A spirit natural or inspired-- He, too, was struck, and day by day Was withered on the stalk away.[18] Oh, God! it is a fearful thing To see the human soul take wing In any shape, in any mood:[19] I've seen it rushing forth in blood, I've seen it on the breaking ocean 180 Strive with a swoln convulsive motion, I've seen the sick and ghastly bed Of Sin delirious with its dread: But these were horrors--this was woe Unmixed with such--but sure and slow: He faded, and so calm and meek, So softly worn, so sweetly weak, So tearless, yet so tender--kind, And grieved for those he left behind; With all the while a cheek whose bloom 190 Was as a mockery of the tomb, Whose tints as gently sunk away As a departing rainbow's ray; An eye of most transparent light, That almost made the dungeon bright; And not a word of murmur--not A groan o'er his untimely lot,-- A little talk of better days, A little hope my own to raise, For I was sunk in silence--lost 200 In this last loss, of all the most; And then the sighs he would suppress Of fainting Nature's feebleness, More slowly drawn, grew less and less: I listened, but I could not hear; I called, for I was wild with fear; I knew 'twas hopeless, but my dread Would not be thus admonished; I called, and thought I heard a sound-- I burst my chain with one strong bound, 210 And rushed to him:--I found him not, _I_ only stirred in this black spot, _I_ only lived, _I_ only drew The accursed breath of dungeon-dew; The last, the sole, the dearest link Between me and the eternal brink, Which bound me to my failing race, Was broken in this fatal place. One on the earth, and one beneath-- My brothers--both had ceased to breathe: 220 I took that hand which lay so still, Alas! my own was full as chill; I had not strength to stir, or strive, But felt that I was still alive-- A frantic feeling, when we know That what we love shall ne'er be so. I know not why I could not die,[20] I had no earthly hope--but faith, And that forbade a selfish death. 230 IX. What next befell me then and there I know not well--I never knew-- First came the loss of light, and air, And then of darkness too: I had no thought, no feeling--none-- Among the stones I stood a stone,[21] And was, scarce conscious what I wist, As shrubless crags within the mist; For all was blank, and bleak, and grey; It was not night--it was not day; 240 It was not even the dungeon-light, So hateful to my heavy sight, But vacancy absorbing space, And fixedness--without a place; There were no stars--no earth--no time-- No check--no change--no good--no crime-- But silence, and a stirless breath Which neither was of life nor death; A sea of stagnant idleness, Blind, boundless, mute, and motionless! 250 X. A light broke in upon my brain,-- It was the carol of a bird; It ceased, and then it came again, The sweetest song ear ever heard, And mine was thankful till my eyes Ran over with the glad surprise, And they that moment could not see I was the mate of misery; But then by dull degrees came back My senses to their wonted track; 260 I saw the dungeon walls and floor Close slowly round me as before, I saw the glimmer of the sun Creeping as it before had done, But through the crevice where it came That bird was perched, as fond and tame, And tamer than upon the tree; A lovely bird, with azure wings,[22] And song that said a thousand things, And seemed to say them all for me! 270 I never saw its like before, I ne'er shall see its likeness more: It seemed like me to want a mate, But was not half so desolate,[23] And it was come to love me when None lived to love me so again, And cheering from my dungeon's brink, Had brought me back to feel and think. I know not if it late were free, Or broke its cage to perch on mine, 280 But knowing well captivity, Sweet bird! I could not wish for thine! Or if it were, in wingéd guise, A visitant from Paradise; For--Heaven forgive that thought! the while Which made me both to weep and smile-- I sometimes deemed that it might be My brother's soul come down to me;[24] But then at last away it flew, And then 'twas mortal well I knew, 290 For he would never thus have flown-- And left me twice so doubly lone,-- Lone--as the corse within its shroud, Lone--as a solitary cloud,[25] A single cloud on a sunny day, While all the rest of heaven is clear, A frown upon the atmosphere, That hath no business to appear[26] When skies are blue, and earth is gay. XI. A kind of change came in my fate, 300 My keepers grew compassionate; I know not what had made them so, They were inured to sights of woe, But so it was:--my broken chain With links unfastened did remain, And it was liberty to stride Along my cell from side to side, And up and down, and then athwart, And tread it over every part; And round the pillars one by one, 310 Returning where my walk begun, Avoiding only, as I trod, My brothers' graves without a sod; For if I thought with heedless tread My step profaned their lowly bed, My breath came gaspingly and thick, And my crushed heart felt blind and sick. XII. I made a footing in the wall, It was not therefrom to escape, For I had buried one and all, 320 Who loved me in a human shape; And the whole earth would henceforth be A wider prison unto me:[27] No child--no sire--no kin had I, No partner in my misery; I thought of this, and I was glad, For thought of them had made me mad; But I was curious to ascend To my barred windows, and to bend Once more, upon the mountains high, 330 The quiet of a loving eye.[28] XIII. I saw them--and they were the same, They were not changed like me in frame; I saw their thousand years of snow On high--their wide long lake below,[g] And the blue Rhone in fullest flow;[29] I heard the torrents leap and gush O'er channelled rock and broken bush; I saw the white-walled distant town,[30] And whiter sails go skimming down; 340 And then there was a little isle,[31] Which in my very face did smile, The only one in view; A small green isle, it seemed no more,[32] Scarce broader than my dungeon floor, But in it there were three tall trees, And o'er it blew the mountain breeze, And by it there were waters flowing, And on it there were young flowers growing, Of gentle breath and hue. 350 The fish swam by the castle wall, And they seemed joyous each and all;[33] The eagle rode the rising blast, Methought he never flew so fast As then to me he seemed to fly; And then new tears came in my eye, And I felt troubled--and would fain I had not left my recent chain; And when I did descend again, The darkness of my dim abode 360 Fell on me as a heavy load; It was as is a new-dug grave, Closing o'er one we sought to save,-- And yet my glance, too much opprest, Had almost need of such a rest. XIV. It might be months, or years, or days-- I kept no count, I took no note-- I had no hope my eyes to raise, And clear them of their dreary mote; At last men came to set me free; 370 I asked not why, and recked not where; It was at length the same to me, Fettered or fetterless to be, I learned to love despair. And thus when they appeared at last, And all my bonds aside were cast, These heavy walls to me had grown A hermitage--and all my own![34] And half I felt as they were come To tear me from a second home: 380 With spiders I had friendship made, And watched them in their sullen trade, Had seen the mice by moonlight play, And why should I feel less than they? We were all inmates of one place, And I, the monarch of each race, Had power to kill--yet, strange to tell! In quiet we had learned to dwell;[h] My very chains and I grew friends, So much a long communion tends 390 To make us what we are:--even I Regained my freedom with a sigh. FOOTNOTES: [1] {7}[In the first draft, the sonnet opens thus-- "Belovéd Goddess of the chainless mind! Brightest in dungeons, Liberty! thou art, Thy palace is within the Freeman's heart, Whose soul the love of thee alone can bind; And when thy sons to fetters are consign'd-- To fetters, and the damp vault's dayless gloom, Thy joy is with them still, and unconfined, Their country conquers with their martyrdom." Ed. 1832.] [2] [Compare-- "I appeal from her [sc. Florence] to Thee." _Proph. of Dante_, Canto I. line 125.] [a] {8} _When the foregoing.... Some account of his life will be found in a note appended to the Sonnet on Chillon, with which I have been furnished, etc.--[Notes, The Prisoner of Chillon, etc._, 1816, p. 59.] [3] {13} Ludovico Sforza, and others.--The same is asserted of Marie Antoinette's, the wife of Louis the Sixteenth, though not in quite so short a period. Grief is said to have the same effect; to such, and not to fear, this change in _hers_ was to be attributed. [It has been said that the Queen's hair turned grey during the return from Varennes to Paris; but Carlyle (_French Revolution_, 1839, i. 182) notes that as early as May 4, 1789, on the occasion of the assembly of the States-General, "Her hair is already grey with many cares and crosses." Compare "Thy father's beard is turned white with the news" (Shakespeare, I _Henry IV_., act ii. sc. 4, line 345); and-- "For deadly fear can time outgo, And blanch at once the hair." _Marmion_, Canto I. stanza xxviii. lines 19, 20.] [b] _But with the inward waste of grief_.--[MS.] [4] [The _N. Engl. Dict_., art. "Ban," gives this passage as the earliest instance of the use of the verb "to ban" in the sense of "to interdict, to prohibit." Exception was taken to this use of the word in the _Crit. Rev_., 1817, Series V. vol. iv. p. 571.] [5] {14}[Compare the epitaph on the monument of Richard Lord Byron, in the chancel of Hucknall-Torkard Church, "Beneath in a vault is interred the body of Richard Lord Byron, who with the rest of his family, being seven brothers," etc. (Elze's _Life of Lord Byron_, p. 4, note 1). Compare, too, Churchill's _Prophecy of Famine_, lines 391, 392-- "Five brothers there I lost, in manhood's pride, Two in the field and three on gibbets died." The Bonivard of history had but two brothers, Amblard and another.] [c] _Braving rancour--chains--and rage_.--[MS.] [6] ["This is really so: the loop-holes that are partly stopped up are now but long crevices or clefts, but Bonivard, from the spot where he was chained, could, perhaps, never get an idea of the loveliness and variety of radiating light which the sunbeam shed at different hours of the day.... In the morning this light is of luminous and transparent shining, which the curves of the vaults send back all along the hall. Victor Hugo (_Le Rhin_, ... Hachette, 1876, I. iii. pp. 123-131) describes this ... 'Le phénomène de la grotto d'azur s'accomplit dans le souterrain de Chillon, et le lac de Genève n'y réussit pas moins bien que la Méditerranée.' During the afternoon the hall assumes a much deeper and warmer colouring, and the blue transparency of the morning disappears; but at eventide, after the sun has set behind the Jura, the scene changes to the deep glow of fire ..."--_Guide to the Castle of Chillon_, by A. Naef, architect, 1896, pp, 35, 36.] [7] {15}[Compare-- "One little marshy spark of flame." _Def. Trans_., Part I. sc. I. Kölbing notes six other allusions in Byron's works to the "will-o'-the-wisp," but omits the line in the "Incantation" (_Manfred_, act i. sc. I, line 195)-- "And the wisp on the morass," which the Italian translator would have rendered "bundle of straw" (see Letter to Hoppner, February 28, 1818, _Letters_, 1900, iv. 204, _note 2, et post_ p. 92, note 1).] [8] [This "...is not exactly so; the third column does not seem to have ever had a ring, but the traces of these rings are very visible in the two first columns from the entrance, although the rings have been removed; and on the three last we find the rings still riveted on the darkest side of the pillars where they face the rock, so that the unfortunate prisoners chained there were even bereft of light.... The fifth column is said to be the one to which Bonivard was chained during four years. Byron's name is carved on the southern side of the third column ... on the seventh tympanum, at about 1 metre 45 from the lower edge of the shaft." Much has been written for and against the authenticity of this inscription, which, according to M. Naef, the author of _Guide_, was carved by Byron himself, "with an antique ivory-mounted stiletto, which had been discovered in the duke's room."--_Guide, etc._, pp. 39-42. The inscription was _in situ_ as early as August 22, 1820, as Mr. Richard Edgcumbe points out (_Notes and Queries_, Series V. xi. 487).] [d] {16}--_pined in heart_.--[Editions 1816-1837.] [9] [Compare, for similarity of sound-- "Thou tree of covert and of rest For this young Bird that is distrest." _Song at the Feast of Brougham Castle,_ by W. Wordsworth, _Works,_ 1889, p. 364. Compare, too-- "She came into the cave, but it was merely To see her bird reposing in his nest." _Don Juan,_ Canto II. stanza clxviii. lines 3, 4.] [10] {17}[Compare-- "Those polar summers, _all_ sun, and some ice." _Don Juan_, Canto XII. stanza lxxii. line 8.] [11] {18} [Ruskin (_Modern Painters_, Part IV. chap. i. sect. 9, "Touching the Grand Style," 1888, iii. 8, 9) criticizes these five lines 107-111, and points out that, alike in respect of accuracy and inaccuracy of detail, they fulfil the conditions of poetry in contradistinction to history. "Instead," he concludes, "of finding, as we expected, the poetry distinguished from the history by the omission of details, we find it consisting entirely in the addition of details; and instead of it being characterized by regard only of the invariable, we find its whole power to consist in the clear expression of what is singular and particular!"] [12] The Château de Chillon is situated between Clarens and Villeneuve, which last is at one extremity of the Lake of Geneva. On its left are the entrances of the Rhone, and opposite are the heights of Meillerie and the range of Alps above Boveret and St. Gingo. Near it, on a hill behind, is a torrent: below it, washing its walls, the lake has been fathomed to the depth of 800 feet, French measure: within it are a range of dungeons, in which the early reformers, and subsequently prisoners of state, were confined. Across one of the vaults is a beam black with age, on which we were informed that the condemned were formerly executed. In the cells are seven pillars, or, rather, eight, one being half merged in the wall; in some of these are rings for the fetters and the fettered: in the pavement the steps of Bonnivard have left their traces. He was confined here several years. It is by this castle that Rousseau has fixed the catastrophe of his Héloïse, in the rescue of one of her children by Julie from the water; the shock of which, and the illness produced by the immersion, is the cause of her death. The château is large, and seen along the lake for a great distance. The walls are white. ["Le château de Chillon ... est situé dans le lac sur un rocher qui forme une presqu'isle, et autour du quel j'ai vu sonder à plus de cent cinquante brasses qui font près de huit cents pieds, sans trouver le fond. On a creusé dans ce rocher des caves et des cuisines au-dessous du niveau de l'eau, qu'on y introduit, quand on veut, par des robinets. C'est-là que fut détenu six ans prisonnier François Bonnivard ... homme d'un mérite rare, d'une droiture et d'une fermeté à toute épreuve, ami de la liberté, quoique Savoyard, et tolérant quoique prêtre," etc. (_La Nouvelle Héloïse_, par J. J. Rousseau, partie vi. Lettre 8, note (1); _Oeuvres complètes_, 1836, ii. 356, note 1). With Byron's description of Chillon, compare that of Shelley, contained in a letter to Peacock, dated July 12, 1816 (_Prose Works of P. B. Shelley_, 1880, ii. 171, sq.). The belief or tradition that Bonivard's prison is "below the surface of the lake," for which Shelley as well as Rousseau is responsible, but which Byron only records in verse, may be traced to a statement attributed to Bonivard himself, who says (_Mémoires, etc._, 1843, iv. 268) that the commandant thrust him "en unes croctes desquelles le fond estoit plus bas que le lac sur lequel Chillon estoit citue." As a matter of fact, "the level [of _les souterrains_] is now three metres higher than the level of the water, and even if we take off the difference arising from the fact that the level of the lake was once much higher, and that the floor of the halls has been raised, still the halls must originally have been built about two metres above the surface of the lake."--_Guide_, etc., pp. 28, 29.] [13] {19}[The "real Bonivard" might have indulged in and, perhaps, prided himself on this feeble and irritating _paronomasy_; but nothing can be less in keeping with the bearing and behaviour of the tragic and sententious Bonivard of the legend.] [14] [Compare-- "...I'm a forester and breather Of the steep mountain-tops." _Werner_, act iv. sc. 1.] [e] _But why withhold the blow?--he died_. [MS.] [f] {20}_To break or bite_----.--[MS.] [15] [Compare "With the aid of Suleiman's ataghan and my own sabre, we scooped a shallow grave upon the spot which Darvell had indicated" (_A fragment of a Novel by Byron, Letters,_ 1899, iii. Appendix IX. p. 452).] [16] [Compare-- "And to be wroth with one we love Doth work like madness in the brain." _Christabel_, by S. T. Coleridge, part ii. lines 412, 413.] [17] [It is said that his parents handed him over to the care of his uncle, Jean-Aimé Bonivard, when he was still an infant, and it is denied that his father was "literally put to death."] [18] {21}[Kölbing quotes parallel uses of the same expression in _Werner_, act iv. sc. 1; Churchill's _The Times_, line 341, etc.; but does not give the original-- "But earthlier happy is the rose distill'd, Than that which, withering on the virgin-thorn," etc. _Midsummer Night's Dream_, act i. sc. i, lines 76, 77.] [19] [Compare-- "The first, last look of Death revealed." _The Giaour_, line 89, note 2. Byron was a connoisseur of the incidents and by-play of "sudden death," so much so that Goethe was under the impression that he had been guilty of a venial murder (see his review of _Manfred_ in his paper _Kunst and Alterthum_, _Letters_, 1901, v. 506, 507). A year after these lines were written, when he was at Rome (Letter to Murray, May 30, 1817), he saw three robbers guillotined, and observed himself and them from a psychological standpoint. "The ghastly bed of Sin" (lines 182, 183) may be a reminiscence of the death-bed of Lord Falkland (_English Bards_, etc., lines 680-686; _Poetical Works_, 1898, i. 351, note 2).] [20] {22}[Compare-- "And yet I could not die." _Ancient Mariner_, Part IV. line 262.] [21] {23}[Compare-- "I wept not; so all stone I felt within." Dante's _Inferno_, xxxiii. 47 (Cary's translation).] [22] {24}[Compare "Song by Glycine"-- "A sunny shaft did I behold, From sky to earth it slanted; And poised therein a bird so bold-- Sweet bird, thou wert enchanted," etc. _Zapolya_, by S. T. Coleridge, act ii. sc. 1.] [23] [Compare-- "When Ruth was left half desolate, Her Father took another Mate." _Ruth_, by W. Wordsworth, _Works_, 1889, p. 121.] [24] ["The souls of the blessed are supposed by some of the Mahommedans to animate green birds in the groves of Paradise."--Note to Southey's _Thalaba_, bk. xi. stanza 5, line 13.] [25] {25}[Compare-- "I wandered lonely as a cloud." _Works_ of W. Wordsworth, 1889, p. 205.] [26] [Compare-- "Yet some did think that he had little business here." _Ibid_., p. 183. Compare, too, _The Dream_, line 166, _vide post_, p. 39-- "What business had they there at such a time?"] [27] {26}[Compare-- "He sighed, and turned his eyes, because he knew 'Twas but a larger jail he had in view." Dryden, _Palamon and Arcite_, bk. i. lines 216, 217. Compare, too-- "An exile---- Who has the whole world for a dungeon strong." _Prophecy of Dante_, iv. 131, 132.] [28] [Compare-- "The harvest of a quiet eye." _A Poet's Epitaph_, line 51, _Works_ of W. Wordsworth, 1889, p. 116.] [g] _I saw them with their lake below,_ _And their three thousand years of snow_.--[MS.] [29] [This, according to Ruskin's canon, may be a poetical inaccuracy. The Rhone is blue below the lake at Geneva, but "les embouchures" at Villeneuve are muddy and discoloured.] [30] [Villeneuve.] [31] Between the entrances of the Rhone and Villeneuve, not far from Chillon, is a very small island [Ile de Paix]; the only one I could perceive in my voyage round and over the lake, within its circumference. It contains a few trees (I think not above three), and from its singleness and diminutive size has a peculiar effect upon the view. [32] {27}[Compare-- "Of Silver How, and Grasmere's peaceful lake, And one green island." _Works_ of W. Wordsworth, 1889, p. 220.] [33] [Compare the Ancient Mariner on the water-snakes-- "O happy living things! no tongue Their beauty might declare," _Ancient Mariner_, Part IV. lines 282, 283. There is, too, in these lines (352-354), as in many others, an echo of Wordsworth. In the _Song at the Feast of Brougham Castle_ it is told how the "two undying fish" of Bowscale Tarn, and the "eagle lord of land and sea" ministered to the shepherd-lord. It was no wonder that the critics of 1816 animadverted on Byron's "communion" with the Lakers. "He could not," writes a Critical Reviewer (Series V. vol. iv. pp. 567-581), "carry many volumes on his tour, but among the few, we will venture to predict, are found the two volumes of poems lately republished by Mr. Wordsworth.... Such is the effect of reading and enjoying the poetry of Mr. W., to whose system (ridiculed alike by those who could not, and who would not understand it) Lord Byron, it is evident, has become a tardy convert, and of whose merits in the poems on our table we have a silent but unequivocal acknowledgment."] [34] {28}[Compare the well-known lines in Lovelace's "To Althea--From Prison"-- "Minds innocent and quiet take That for an hermitage."] [h] Here follows in the MS.-- _Nor stew I of my subjects one_-- / _hath so little_ \ _What sovereign_ < > _done?_ \ _yet so much hath_ / POEMS OF JULY-SEPTEMBER, 1816. THE DREAM. INTRODUCTION TO _THE DREAM_ _The Dream_, which was written at Diodati in July, 1816 (probably towards the end of the month; see letters to Murray and Rogers, dated July 22 and July 29), is a retrospect and an apology. It consists of an opening stanza, or section, on the psychology of dreams, followed by some episodes or dissolving views, which purport to be the successive stages of a dream. Stanzas ii. and iii. are descriptive of Annesley Park and Hall, and detail two incidents of Byron's boyish passion for his neighbour and distant cousin, Mary Anne Chaworth. The first scene takes place on the top of "Diadem Hill," the "cape" or rounded spur of the long ridge of Howatt Hill, which lies about half a mile to the south-east of the hall. The time is the late summer or early autumn of 1803. The "Sun of Love" has not yet declined, and the "one beloved face" is still shining on him; but he is beginning to realize that "her sighs are not for him," that she is out of his reach. The second scene, which belongs to the following year, 1804, is laid in the "antique oratory" (not, as Moore explains, another name for the hall, but "a small room built over the porch, or principal entrance of the hall, and looking into the courtyard"), and depicts the final parting. His doom has been pronounced, and his first impulse is to pen some passionate reproach, but his heart fails him at the sight of the "Lady of his Love," serene and smiling, and he bids her farewell with smiles on his lips, but grief unutterable in his heart. Stanza iv. recalls an incident of his Eastern travels--a halt at noonday by a fountain on the route from Smyrna to Ephesus (March 14, 1810), "the heads of camels were seen peeping above the tall reeds" (see _Travels in Albania_, 1858, ii. 59.). The next episode (stanza v.) depicts an imaginary scene, suggested, perhaps, by some rumour or more definite assurance, and often present to his "inward eye"--the "one beloved," the mother of a happy family, but herself a forsaken and unhappy wife. He passes on (stanza vi.) to his marriage in 1815, his bride "gentle" and "fair," but _not_ the "one beloved,"--to the wedding day, when he stood before an altar, "like one forlorn," confused by the sudden vision of the past fulfilled with Love the "indestructible"! In stanza vii. he records and analyzes the "sickness of the soul," the so-called "phrenzy" which had overtaken and changed the "Lady of his Love;" and, finally (stanza viii.), he lays bare the desolation of his heart, depicting himself as at enmity with mankind, but submissive to Nature, the "Spirit of the Universe," if, haply, there may be "reserved a blessing" even for him, the rejected and the outlaw. Moore says (_Life_, p. 321) that _The Dream_ cost its author "many a tear in writing"--being, indeed, the most mournful as well as picturesque "story of a wandering life" that ever came from the pen and heart of man. In his _Real Lord Byron_ (i. 284) Mr. Cordy Jeaffreson maintains that _The Dream_ "has no autobiographical value.... A dream it was, as false as dreams usually are." The character of the poet, as well as the poem itself, suggests another criticism. Byron suffered or enjoyed vivid dreams, and, as poets will, shaped his dreams, consciously and of set purpose, to the furtherance of his art, but nothing concerning himself interested him or awoke the slumbering chord which was not based on actual fact. If the meeting on the "cape crowned with a peculiar diadem," and the final interview in the "antique oratory" had never happened or happened otherwise; if he had not "quivered" during the wedding service at Seaham; if a vision of Annesley and Mary Chaworth had not flashed into his soul,--he would have taken no pleasure in devising these incidents and details, and weaving them into a fictitious narrative. He took himself too seriously to invent and dwell lovingly on the acts and sufferings of an imaginary Byron. The Dream is "picturesque" because the accidents of the scenes are dealt with not historically, but artistically, are omitted or supplied according to poetical licence; but the record is neither false, nor imaginary, nor unusual. On the other hand, the composition and publication of the poem must be set down, if not to malice and revenge, at least to the preoccupancy of chagrin and remorse, which compelled him to take the world into his confidence, cost what it might to his own self-respect, or the peace of mind and happiness of others. For an elaborate description of Annesley Hall and Park, written with a view to illustrate _The Dream_, see "A Byronian Ramble," Part II., the _Athenæum_, August 30, 1834. See, too, an interesting quotation from Sir Richard Phillips' unfinished _Personal Tour through the United Kingdom_, published in the _Mirror_, 1828, vol. xii. p. 286; _Abbotsford and Newstead Abbey_, by Washington Irving, 1835, p. 191, _seq._; _The House and Grave of Byron_, 1855; and an article in _Lippincott's Magazine_, 1876, vol. xviii. pp. 637, _seq._ THE DREAM I. Our life is twofold: Sleep hath its own world, A boundary between the things misnamed Death and existence: Sleep hath its own world, And a wide realm of wild reality, And dreams in their developement have breath, And tears, and tortures, and the touch of Joy; They leave a weight upon our waking thoughts, They take a weight from off our waking toils, They do divide our being;[35] they become A portion of ourselves as of our time, 10 And look like heralds of Eternity; They pass like spirits of the past,--they speak Like Sibyls of the future; they have power-- The tyranny of pleasure and of pain; They make us what we were not--what they will, And shake us with the vision that's gone by,[36] The dread of vanished shadows--Are they so? Is not the past all shadow?--What are they? Creations of the mind?--The mind can make Substance, and people planets of its own 20 With beings brighter than have been, and give A breath to forms which can outlive all flesh.[37] I would recall a vision which I dreamed Perchance in sleep--for in itself a thought, A slumbering thought, is capable of years, And curdles a long life into one hour.[38] II. I saw two beings in the hues of youth Standing upon a hill, a gentle hill, Green and of mild declivity, the last As 'twere the cape of a long ridge of such, 30 Save that there was no sea to lave its base, But a most living landscape, and the wave Of woods and cornfields, and the abodes of men Scattered at intervals, and wreathing smoke Arising from such rustic roofs;--the hill Was crowned with a peculiar diadem Of trees, in circular array, so fixed, Not by the sport of nature, but of man: These two, a maiden and a youth, were there Gazing--the one on all that was beneath 40 Fair as herself--but the Boy gazed on her; And both were young, and one was beautiful: And both were young--yet not alike in youth. As the sweet moon on the horizon's verge, The Maid was on the eve of Womanhood; The Boy had fewer summers, but his heart Had far outgrown his years, and to his eye There was but one belovéd face on earth, And that was shining on him: he had looked Upon it till it could not pass away; 50 He had no breath, no being, but in hers; She was his voice; he did not speak to her, But trembled on her words; she was his sight,[i][39] For his eye followed hers, and saw with hers, Which coloured all his objects:--he had ceased To live within himself; she was his life, The ocean to the river of his thoughts,[40] Which terminated all: upon a tone, A touch of hers, his blood would ebb and flow,[41] And his cheek change tempestuously--his heart 60 Unknowing of its cause of agony. But she in these fond feelings had no share: Her sighs were not for him; to her he was Even as a brother--but no more; 'twas much, For brotherless she was, save in the name Her infant friendship had bestowed on him; Herself the solitary scion left Of a time-honoured race.[42]--It was a name Which pleased him, and yet pleased him not--and why? Time taught him a deep answer--when she loved 70 Another: even _now_ she loved another, And on the summit of that hill she stood Looking afar if yet her lover's steed[43] Kept pace with her expectancy, and flew. III. A change came o'er the spirit of my dream. There was an ancient mansion, and before Its walls there was a steed caparisoned: Within an antique Oratory stood The Boy of whom I spake;--he was alone,[44] And pale, and pacing to and fro: anon 80 He sate him down, and seized a pen, and traced Words which I could not guess of; then he leaned His bowed head on his hands, and shook as 'twere With a convulsion--then arose again, And with his teeth and quivering hands did tear What he had written, but he shed no tears. And he did calm himself, and fix his brow Into a kind of quiet: as he paused, The Lady of his love re-entered there; She was serene and smiling then, and yet 90 She knew she was by him beloved--she knew, For quickly comes such knowledge,[45] that his heart Was darkened with her shadow, and she saw That he was wretched, but she saw not all. He rose, and with a cold and gentle grasp He took her hand; a moment o'er his face A tablet of unutterable thoughts Was traced, and then it faded, as it came; He dropped the hand he held, and with slow steps Retired, but not as bidding her adieu, 100 For they did part with mutual smiles; he passed From out the massy gate of that old Hall, And mounting on his steed he went his way; And ne'er repassed that hoary threshold more.[46] IV. A change came o'er the spirit of my dream. The Boy was sprung to manhood: in the wilds Of fiery climes he made himself a home, And his Soul drank their sunbeams: he was girt With strange and dusky aspects; he was not Himself like what he had been; on the sea 110 And on the shore he was a wanderer; There was a mass of many images Crowded like waves upon me, but he was A part of all; and in the last he lay Reposing from the noontide sultriness, Couched among fallen columns, in the shade Of ruined walls that had survived the names Of those who reared them; by his sleeping side Stood camels grazing, and some goodly steeds Were fastened near a fountain; and a man 120 Clad in a flowing garb did watch the while, While many of his tribe slumbered around: And they were canopied by the blue sky, So cloudless, clear, and purely beautiful, That God alone was to be seen in Heaven.[47] V. A change came o'er the spirit of my dream. The Lady of his love was wed with One Who did not love her better:--in her home, A thousand leagues from his,--her native home, She dwelt, begirt with growing Infancy, 130 Daughters and sons of Beauty,--but behold! Upon her face there was the tint of grief, The settled shadow of an inward strife, And an unquiet drooping of the eye, As if its lid were charged with unshed tears.[48] What could her grief be?--she had all she loved, And he who had so loved her was not there To trouble with bad hopes, or evil wish, Or ill-repressed affliction, her pure thoughts. What could her grief be?--she had loved him not, 140 Nor given him cause to deem himself beloved, Nor could he be a part of that which preyed Upon her mind--a spectre of the past. VI. A change came o'er the spirit of my dream. The Wanderer was returned.--I saw him stand Before an Altar--with a gentle bride; Her face was fair, but was not that which made The Starlight[49] of his Boyhood;--as he stood Even at the altar, o'er his brow there came The self-same aspect, and the quivering shock[50] 150 That in the antique Oratory shook His bosom in its solitude; and then-- As in that hour--a moment o'er his face The tablet of unutterable thoughts Was traced,--and then it faded as it came, And he stood calm and quiet, and he spoke The fitting vows, but heard not his own words, And all things reeled around him; he could see Not that which was, nor that which should have been-- But the old mansion, and the accustomed hall, 160 And the remembered chambers, and the place, The day, the hour, the sunshine, and the shade, All things pertaining to that place and hour And her who was his destiny, came back And thrust themselves between him and the light: What business had they there at such a time? VII. A change came o'er the spirit of my dream. The Lady of his love;--Oh! she was changed As by the sickness of the soul; her mind Had wandered from its dwelling, and her eyes 170 They had not their own lustre, but the look Which is not of the earth; she was become The Queen of a fantastic realm; her thoughts Were combinations of disjointed things; And forms, impalpable and unperceived Of others' sight, familiar were to hers. And this the world calls frenzy; but the wise Have a far deeper madness--and the glance Of melancholy is a fearful gift; What is it but the telescope of truth? 180 Which strips the distance of its fantasies, And brings life near in utter nakedness, Making the cold reality too real![j][51] VIII. A change came o'er the spirit of my dream. The Wanderer was alone as heretofore, The beings which surrounded him were gone, Or were at war with him; he was a mark For blight and desolation, compassed round With Hatred and Contention; Pain was mixed In all which was served up to him, until, 190 Like to the Pontic monarch of old days,[52] He fed on poisons, and they had no power, But were a kind of nutriment; he lived Through that which had been death to many men, And made him friends of mountains:[53] with the stars And the quick Spirit of the Universe[54] He held his dialogues; and they did teach To him the magic of their mysteries; To him the book of Night was opened wide, And voices from the deep abyss revealed[55] 200 A marvel and a secret--Be it so. IX. My dream was past; it had no further change. It was of a strange order, that the doom Of these two creatures should be thus traced out Almost like a reality--the one To end in madness--both in misery. _July_, 1816. [First published, _The Prisoner of Chillon_, etc., 1816.] DARKNESS.[k][56] I had a dream, which was not all a dream. The bright sun was extinguished, and the stars Did wander darkling in the eternal space, Rayless, and pathless, and the icy Earth Swung blind and blackening in the moonless air; Morn came and went--and came, and brought no day, And men forgot their passions in the dread Of this their desolation; and all hearts Were chilled into a selfish prayer for light: And they did live by watchfires--and the thrones, 10 The palaces of crownéd kings--the huts, The habitations of all things which dwell, Were burnt for beacons; cities were consumed, And men were gathered round their blazing homes To look once more into each other's face; Happy were those who dwelt within the eye Of the volcanos, and their mountain-torch: A fearful hope was all the World contained; Forests were set on fire--but hour by hour They fell and faded--and the crackling trunks 20 Extinguished with a crash--and all was black. The brows of men by the despairing light Wore an unearthly aspect, as by fits The flashes fell upon them; some lay down And hid their eyes and wept; and some did rest Their chins upon their clenchéd hands, and smiled; And others hurried to and fro, and fed Their funeral piles with fuel, and looked up With mad disquietude on the dull sky, The pall of a past World; and then again 30 With curses cast them down upon the dust, And gnashed their teeth and howled: the wild birds shrieked, And, terrified, did flutter on the ground, And flap their useless wings; the wildest brutes Came tame and tremulous; and vipers crawled And twined themselves among the multitude, Hissing, but stingless--they were slain for food: And War, which for a moment was no more, Did glut himself again:--a meal was bought With blood, and each sate sullenly apart 40 Gorging himself in gloom: no Love was left; All earth was but one thought--and that was Death, Immediate and inglorious; and the pang Of famine fed upon all entrails--men Died, and their bones were tombless as their flesh; The meagre by the meagre were devoured, Even dogs assailed their masters, all save one, And he was faithful to a corse, and kept The birds and beasts and famished men at bay, Till hunger clung them,[57] or the dropping dead 50 Lured their lank jaws; himself sought out no food, But with a piteous and perpetual moan, And a quick desolate cry, licking the hand Which answered not with a caress--he died. The crowd was famished by degrees; but two Of an enormous city did survive, And they were enemies: they met beside The dying embers of an altar-place Where had been heaped a mass of holy things For an unholy usage; they raked up, 60 And shivering scraped with their cold skeleton hands The feeble ashes, and their feeble breath Blew for a little life, and made a flame Which was a mockery; then they lifted up Their eyes as it grew lighter, and beheld[58] Each other's aspects--saw, and shrieked, and died-- Even of their mutual hideousness they died, Unknowing who he was upon whose brow Famine had written Fiend. The World was void, The populous and the powerful was a lump, 70 Seasonless, herbless, treeless, manless, lifeless-- A lump of death--a chaos of hard clay. The rivers, lakes, and ocean all stood still, And nothing stirred within their silent depths; Ships sailorless lay rotting on the sea, And their masts fell down piecemeal: as they dropped They slept on the abyss without a surge-- The waves were dead; the tides were in their grave, The Moon, their mistress, had expired before; The winds were withered in the stagnant air, 80 And the clouds perished; Darkness had no need Of aid from them--She was the Universe. Diodati, _July_, 1816. [First published, _Prisoner of Chillon_, etc., 1816.] CHURCHILL'S GRAVE,[59] A FACT LITERALLY RENDERED.[60] I stood beside the grave of him who blazed The Comet of a season, and I saw The humblest of all sepulchres, and gazed With not the less of sorrow and of awe On that neglected turf and quiet stone, With name no clearer than the names unknown, Which lay unread around it; and I asked The Gardener of that ground, why it might be That for this plant strangers his memory tasked, Through the thick deaths of half a century; 10 And thus he answered--"Well, I do not know Why frequent travellers turn to pilgrims so; He died before my day of Sextonship, And I had not the digging of this grave." And is this all? I thought,--and do we rip The veil of Immortality, and crave I know not what of honour and of light Through unborn ages, to endure this blight? So soon, and so successless? As I said,[61] The Architect of all on which we tread, 20 For Earth is but a tombstone, did essay To extricate remembrance from the clay, Whose minglings might confuse a Newton's thought, Were it not that all life must end in one, Of which we are but dreamers;--as he caught As 'twere the twilight of a former Sun,[62] Thus spoke he,--"I believe the man of whom You wot, who lies in this selected[63] tomb, Was a most famous writer in his day, And therefore travellers step from out their way 30 To pay him honour,--and myself whate'er Your honour pleases:"--then most pleased I shook[l] From out my pocket's avaricious nook Some certain coins of silver, which as 'twere Perforce I gave this man, though I could spare So much but inconveniently:--Ye smile, I see ye, ye profane ones! all the while, Because my homely phrase the truth would tell. You are the fools, not I--for I did dwell With a deep thought, and with a softened eye, 40 On that old Sexton's natural homily, In which there was Obscurity and Fame,-- The Glory and the Nothing of a Name. Diodati, 1816. [First published, _Prisoner of Chillon_, etc., 1816.] PROMETHEUS.[64] I. Titan! to whose immortal eyes The sufferings of mortality, Seen in their sad reality, Were not as things that gods despise; What was thy pity's recompense?[65] A silent suffering, and intense; The rock, the vulture, and the chain, All that the proud can feel of pain, The agony they do not show, The suffocating sense of woe, 10 Which speaks but in its loneliness, And then is jealous lest the sky Should have a listener, nor will sigh Until its voice is echoless. II. Titan! to thee the strife was given Between the suffering and the will, Which torture where they cannot kill; And the inexorable Heaven,[66] And the deaf tyranny of Fate, The ruling principle of Hate, 20 Which for its pleasure doth create[67] The things it may annihilate, Refused thee even the boon to die:[68] The wretched gift Eternity Was thine--and thou hast borne it well. All that the Thunderer wrung from thee Was but the menace which flung back On him the torments of thy rack; The fate thou didst so well foresee,[69] But would not to appease him tell; 30 And in thy Silence was his Sentence, And in his Soul a vain repentance, And evil dread so ill dissembled, That in his hand the lightnings trembled. III. Thy Godlike crime was to be kind,[70] To render with thy precepts less The sum of human wretchedness, And strengthen Man with his own mind; But baffled as thou wert from high, Still in thy patient energy, 40 In the endurance, and repulse Of thine impenetrable Spirit, Which Earth and Heaven could not convulse, A mighty lesson we inherit: Thou art a symbol and a sign To Mortals of their fate and force; Like thee, Man is in part divine,[71] A troubled stream from a pure source; And Man in portions can foresee His own funereal destiny; 50 His wretchedness, and his resistance, And his sad unallied existence: To which his Spirit may oppose Itself--an equal to all woes--[m][72] And a firm will, and a deep sense, Which even in torture can descry Its own concentered recompense, Triumphant where it dares defy, And making Death a Victory. Diodati, _July_, 1816. [First published, _Prisoner of Chillon_, etc., 1816.] A FRAGMENT.[73] Could I remount the river of my years To the first fountain of our smiles and tears, I would not trace again the stream of hours Between their outworn banks of withered flowers, But bid it flow as now--until it glides Into the number of the nameless tides. * * * * * What is this Death?--a quiet of the heart? The whole of that of which we are a part? For Life is but a vision--what I see Of all which lives alone is Life to me, 10 And being so--the absent are the dead, Who haunt us from tranquillity, and spread A dreary shroud around us, and invest With sad remembrancers our hours of rest. The absent are the dead--for they are cold, And ne'er can be what once we did behold; And they are changed, and cheerless,--or if yet The unforgotten do not all forget, Since thus divided--equal must it be If the deep barrier be of earth, or sea; 20 It may be both--but one day end it must In the dark union of insensate dust. The under-earth inhabitants--are they But mingled millions decomposed to clay? The ashes of a thousand ages spread Wherever Man has trodden or shall tread? Or do they in their silent cities dwell Each in his incommunicative cell? Or have they their own language? and a sense Of breathless being?--darkened and intense 30 As Midnight in her solitude?--Oh Earth! Where are the past?--and wherefore had they birth? The dead are thy inheritors--and we But bubbles on thy surface; and the key Of thy profundity is in the Grave, The ebon portal of thy peopled cave, Where I would walk in spirit, and behold[74] Our elements resolved to things untold, And fathom hidden wonders, and explore The essence of great bosoms now no more. 40 * * * * * Diodati, _July_, 1816. [First published, _Letters and Journals_, 1830, ii. 36.] SONNET TO LAKE LEMAN. Rousseau--Voltaire--our Gibbon--and De Staël-- Leman![75] these names are worthy of thy shore, Thy shore of names like these! wert thou no more, Their memory thy remembrance would recall: To them thy banks were lovely as to all, But they have made them lovelier, for the lore Of mighty minds doth hallow in the core Of human hearts the ruin of a wall Where dwelt the wise and wondrous; but by _thee_ How much more, Lake of Beauty! do we feel, In sweetly gliding o'er thy crystal sea,[76] The wild glow of that not ungentle zeal, Which of the Heirs of Immortality Is proud, and makes the breath of Glory real! Diodati, _July_, 1816. [First published, _Prisoner of Chillon_, etc., 1816.] STANZAS TO AUGUSTA.[n][77] I. Though the day of my Destiny's over, And the star of my Fate hath declined,[o] Thy soft heart refused to discover The faults which so many could find; Though thy Soul with my grief was acquainted, It shrunk not to share it with me, And the Love which my Spirit hath painted[p] It never hath found but in _Thee_. II. Then when Nature around me is smiling,[78] The last smile which answers to mine, I do not believe it beguiling,[q] Because it reminds me of thine; And when winds are at war with the ocean, As the breasts I believed in with me,[r] If their billows excite an emotion, It is that they bear me from _Thee._ III. Though the rock of my last Hope is shivered,[s] And its fragments are sunk in the wave, Though I feel that my soul is delivered To Pain--it shall not be its slave. There is many a pang to pursue me: They may crush, but they shall not contemn; They may torture, but shall not subdue me; 'Tis of _Thee_ that I think--not of them.[t] IV. Though human, thou didst not deceive me, Though woman, thou didst not forsake, Though loved, thou forborest to grieve me, Though slandered, thou never couldst shake;[u][79] Though trusted, thou didst not disclaim me, Though parted, it was not to fly, Though watchful, 'twas not to defame me, Nor, mute, that the world might belie.[v] V. Yet I blame not the World, nor despise it, Nor the war of the many with one; If my Soul was not fitted to prize it, 'Twas folly not sooner to shun:[80] And if dearly that error hath cost me, And more than I once could foresee, I have found that, whatever it lost me,[w] It could not deprive me of _Thee_. VI. From the wreck of the past, which hath perished,[x] Thus much I at least may recall, It hath taught me that what I most cherished Deserved to be dearest of all: In the Desert a fountain is springing,[y][81] In the wide waste there still is a tree, And a bird in the solitude singing, Which speaks to my spirit of _Thee_.[82] _July_ 24, 1816. [First published, _Prisoner of Chillon_, etc., 1816.] EPISTLE TO AUGUSTA.[83] I. My Sister! my sweet Sister! if a name Dearer and purer were, it should be thine. Mountains and seas divide us, but I claim No tears, but tenderness to answer mine: Go where I will, to me thou art the same-- A loved regret which I would not resign.[z] There yet are two things in my destiny,-- A world to roam through, and a home with thee.[84] II. The first were nothing--had I still the last, It were the haven of my happiness; But other claims and other ties thou hast,[aa] And mine is not the wish to make them less. A strange doom is thy father's son's, and past[ab] Recalling, as it lies beyond redress; Reversed for him our grandsire's[85] fate of yore,-- He had no rest at sea, nor I on shore. III. If my inheritance of storms hath been In other elements, and on the rocks Of perils, overlooked or unforeseen, I have sustained my share of worldly shocks, The fault was mine; nor do I seek to screen My errors with defensive paradox;[ac] I have been cunning in mine overthrow, The careful pilot of my proper woe. IV. Mine were my faults, and mine be their reward. My whole life was a contest, since the day That gave me being, gave me that which marred The gift,--a fate, or will, that walked astray;[86] And I at times have found the struggle hard, And thought of shaking off my bonds of clay: But now I fain would for a time survive, If but to see what next can well arrive. V. Kingdoms and Empires in my little day I have outlived, and yet I am not old; And when I look on this, the petty spray Of my own years of trouble, which have rolled Like a wild bay of breakers, melts away: Something--I know not what--does still uphold A spirit of slight patience;--not in vain, Even for its own sake, do we purchase Pain. VI. Perhaps the workings of defiance stir Within me--or, perhaps, a cold despair Brought on when ills habitually recur,-- Perhaps a kinder clime, or purer air, (For even to this may change of soul refer,[ad] And with light armour we may learn to bear,) Have taught me a strange quiet, which was not The chief companion of a calmer lot.[ae] VII. I feel almost at times as I have felt In happy childhood; trees, and flowers, and brooks, Which do remember me of where I dwelt, Ere my young mind was sacrificed to books,[af] Come as of yore upon me, and can melt My heart with recognition of their looks; And even at moments I could think I see Some living thing to love--but none like thee.[ag] VIII. Here are the Alpine landscapes which create A fund for contemplation;--to admire Is a brief feeling of a trivial date; But something worthier do such scenes inspire: Here to be lonely is not desolate,[87] For much I view which I could most desire, And, above all, a Lake I can behold Lovelier, not dearer, than our own of old.[88] IX. Oh that thou wert but with me!--but I grow The fool of my own wishes, and forget The solitude which I have vaunted so Has lost its praise in this but one regret; There may be others which I less may show;-- I am not of the plaintive mood, and yet I feel an ebb in my philosophy, And the tide rising in my altered eye.[ah] X. I did remind thee of our own dear Lake, By the old Hall which may be mine no more. _Leman's_ is fair; but think not I forsake The sweet remembrance of a dearer shore: Sad havoc Time must with my memory make, Ere that or thou can fade these eyes before; Though, like all things which I have loved, they are Resigned for ever, or divided far. XI. The world is all before me; I but ask Of Nature that with which she will comply-- It is but in her Summer's sun to bask, To mingle with the quiet of her sky, To see her gentle face without a mask, And never gaze on it with apathy. She was my early friend, and now shall be My sister--till I look again on thee. XII. I can reduce all feelings but this one; And that I would not;--for at length I see Such scenes as those wherein my life begun--[89] The earliest--even the only paths for me--[ai] Had I but sooner learnt the crowd to shun, I had been better than I now can be; The Passions which have torn me would have slept; _I_ had not suffered, and _thou_ hadst not wept. XIII. With false Ambition what had I to do? Little with Love, and least of all with Fame; And yet they came unsought, and with me grew, And made me all which they can make--a Name. Yet this was not the end I did pursue; Surely I once beheld a nobler aim. But all is over--I am one the more To baffled millions which have gone before. XIV. And for the future, this world's future may[aj] From me demand but little of my care; I have outlived myself by many a day;[ak] Having survived so many things that were; My years have been no slumber, but the prey Of ceaseless vigils; for I had the share Of life which might have filled a century,[90] Before its fourth in time had passed me by. XV. And for the remnant which may be to come[al] I am content; and for the past I feel Not thankless,--for within the crowded sum Of struggles, Happiness at times would steal, And for the present, I would not benumb My feelings farther.--Nor shall I conceal That with all this I still can look around, And worship Nature with a thought profound. XVI. For thee, my own sweet sister, in thy heart I know myself secure, as thou in mine; We were and are--I am, even as thou art--[am] Beings who ne'er each other can resign; It is the same, together or apart, From Life's commencement to its slow decline We are entwined--let Death come slow or fast,[an] The tie which bound the first endures the last! [First published, _Letters and Journals,_ 1830, ii. 38-41.] LINES ON HEARING THAT LADY BYRON WAS ILL.[91] And thou wert sad--yet I was not with thee; And thou wert sick, and yet I was not near; Methought that Joy and Health alone could be Where I was _not_--and pain and sorrow here! And is it thus?--it is as I foretold, And shall be more so; for the mind recoils Upon itself, and the wrecked heart lies cold, While Heaviness collects the shattered spoils. It is not in the storm nor in the strife We feel benumbed, and wish to be no more, But in the after-silence on the shore, When all is lost, except a little life. I am too well avenged!--but 'twas my right; Whate'er my sins might be, _thou_ wert not sent To be the Nemesis who should requite--[92] Nor did Heaven choose so near an instrument. Mercy is for the merciful!--if thou Hast been of such, 'twill be accorded now. Thy nights are banished from the realms of sleep:--[93] Yes! they may flatter thee, but thou shall feel A hollow agony which will not heal, For thou art pillowed on a curse too deep; Thou hast sown in my sorrow, and must reap The bitter harvest in a woe as real! I have had many foes, but none like thee; For 'gainst the rest myself I could defend, And be avenged, or turn them into friend; But thou in safe implacability Hadst nought to dread--in thy own weakness shielded, And in my love, which hath but too much yielded, And spared, for thy sake, some I should not spare; And thus upon the world--trust in thy truth, And the wild fame of my ungoverned youth-- On things that were not, and on things that are-- Even upon such a basis hast thou built A monument, whose cement hath been guilt! The moral Clytemnestra of thy lord,[94] And hewed down, with an unsuspected sword, Fame, peace, and hope--and all the better life Which, but for this cold treason of thy heart, Might still have risen from out the grave of strife, And found a nobler duty than to part. But of thy virtues didst thou make a vice, Trafficking with them in a purpose cold, For present anger, and for future gold-- And buying others' grief at any price.[95] And thus once entered into crooked ways, The early truth, which was thy proper praise,[96] Did not still walk beside thee--but at times, And with a breast unknowing its own crimes, Deceit, averments incompatible, Equivocations, and the thoughts which dwell In Janus-spirits--the significant eye Which learns to lie with silence--the pretext[97] Of prudence, with advantages annexed-- The acquiescence in all things which tend, No matter how, to the desired end-- All found a place in thy philosophy. The means were worthy, and the end is won-- I would not do by thee as thou hast done! _September, 1816._ [First published, _New Monthly Magazine_, August, 1832, vol. xxxv. pp. 142, 143.] FOOTNOTES: [35] {33}[Compare-- "Come, blessed barrier between day and day." [36] [Compare-- "...the night's dismay Saddened and stunned the coming day." _The Pains of Sleep_, lines 33, 34, by S. T. Coleridge, _Poetical Works_, 1893, p. 170.] [37] {34}[Compare _Childe Harold_, Canto III. stanza vi. lines 1-4, note, _Poetical Works_, 1899, ii. 219.] [38] [Compare-- "With us acts are exempt from time, and we Can crowd eternity into an hour." _Cain_, act i. sc. 1] [i] {35} ----_she was his sight,_ _For never did he turn his glance until_ _Her own had led by gazing on an object._--[MS.] [39] {35}[Compare-- "Thou art my life, my love, my heart, The very eyes of me." _To Anthea, etc._, by Robert Herrick.] [40] [Compare-- "...the river of your love, Must in the ocean of your affection To me, be swallowed up." Massinger's _Unnatural Combat_, act iii. sc. 4.] [41] [Compare-- "The hot blood ebbed and flowed again." _Parisina_, line 226, _Poetical Works_, 1900, iii. 515.] [42] ["Annesley Lordship is owned by Miss Chaworth, a minor heiress of the Chaworth family."--Throsby's _Thoroton's History of Nottinghamshire_, 1797, ii. 270.] [43] ["Moore, commenting on this (_Life_, p. 28), tells us that the image of the lover's steed was suggested by the Nottingham race-ground ... nine miles off, and ... lying in a hollow, and totally hidden from view.... Mary Chaworth, in fact, was looking for her lover's steed along the road as it winds up the common from Hucknall."-"A Byronian Ramble," _Athenæum_, No. 357, August 30, 1834.] [44] {36}[Moore (_Life_, p. 28) regards "the antique oratory," as a poetical equivalent for Annesley Hall; but _vide ante_, the Introduction to _The Dream_, p. 31.] [45] [Compare-- "Love by the object loved is soon discerned." _Story of Rimini_, by Leigh Hunt, Canto III. ed. 1844, p. 22. The line does not occur in the first edition, published early in 1816, or, presumably, in the MS. read by Byron in the preceding year. (See Letter to Murray, November 4, 1815.)] [46] {37}[Byron once again revisited Annesley Hall in the autumn of 1808 (see his lines, "Well, thou art happy," and "To a Lady," etc., _Poetical Works_, 1898, i. 277, 282, note 1); but it is possible that he avoided the "massy gate" ("arched over and surmounted by a clock and cupola") of set purpose, and entered by another way. He would not lightly or gladly have taken a liberty with the actual prosaic facts in a matter which so nearly concerned his personal emotions (_vide ante_, the Introduction to _The Dream_, p. 31).] [47] ["This is true _keeping_--an Eastern picture perfect in its foreground, and distance, and sky, and no part of which is so dwelt upon or laboured as to obscure the principal figure."--Sir Walter Scott, _Quarterly Review_, No. xxxi. "Byron's Dream" is the subject of a well-known picture by Sir Charles Eastlake.] [48] {38}[Compare-- "Then Cythna turned to me and from her eyes Which swam with unshed tears," etc. Shelly's _Revolt of Islam_ ("Laon and Cythna"), Canto XII. stanza xxii. lines 2, 3, _Poetical Works_, 1829, p. 48.] [49] [An old servant of the Chaworth family, Mary Marsden, told Washington Irving (_Abbotsford and Newstead Abbey_, 1835, p. 204) that Byron used to call Mary Chaworth "his bright morning star of Annesley." Compare the well-known lines-- "She was a form of Life and Light, That, seen, became a part of sight; And rose, where'er I turned mine eye, The Morning-star of Memory!" _The Giaour_, lines 1127-1130, _Poetical Works_, 1900, iii. 136, 137.] [50] ["This touching picture agrees closely, in many of its circumstances, with Lord Byron's own prose account of the wedding in his Memoranda; in which he describes himself as waking, on the morning of his marriage, with the most melancholy reflections, on seeing his wedding-suit spread out before him. In the same mood, he wandered about the grounds alone, till he was summoned for the ceremony, and joined, for the first time on that day, his bride and her family. He knelt down--he repeated the words after the clergyman; but a mist was before his eyes--his thoughts were elsewhere: and he was but awakened by the congratulations of the bystanders to find that he was--married."--_Life_, p. 272. Medwin, too, makes Byron say (_Conversations, etc._, 1824, p. 46) that he "trembled like a leaf, made the wrong responses, and after the ceremony called her (the bride) Miss Milbanke." All that can be said of Moore's recollection of the "memoranda," or Medwin's repetition of so-called conversations (reprinted almost _verbatim_ in _Life, Writings, Opinions, etc._, 1825, ii. 227, _seq._, as "Recollections of the Lately Destroyed Manuscript," etc.), is that they tend to show that Byron meant _The Dream_ to be taken literally as a record of actual events. He would not have forgotten by July, 1816, circumstances of great import which had taken place in December, 1815: and he's either lying of malice prepense or telling "an ower true tale."] [j] {40} ----_the glance_ _Of melancholy is a fearful gift;_ _For it becomes the telescope of truth,_ _And shows us all things naked as they are_.--[MS.] [51] [Compare-- "Who loves, raves--'tis youth's frenzy--but the cure Is bitterer still, as charm by charm unwinds Which robed our idols, and we see too sure Nor Worth nor Beauty dwells from out the mind's Ideal shape of such." _Childe Harold_, Canto IV. stanza cxxiii. lines 1-5, _Poetical Works_, 1899, ii. 420.] [52] Mithridates of Pontus. [Mithridates, King of Pontus (B.C. 120-63), surnamed Eupator, succeeded to the throne when he was only eleven years of age. He is said to have safeguarded himself against the designs of his enemies by drugging himself with antidotes against poison, and so effectively that, when he was an old man, he could not poison himself, even when he was minded to do so--"ut ne volens quidem senex veneno mori potuerit."--Justinus, _Hist._, lib. xxxvii. cap. ii. According to Medwin (_Conversations_, p. 148), Byron made use of the same illustration in speaking of Polidori's death (April, 1821), which was probably occasioned by "poison administered to himself" (see _Letters_, 1899, iii. 285).] [53] {41}[Compare-- "Where rose the mountains, there to him were friends." _Childe Harold_, Canto III. stanza xiii. line 1. "...and to me High mountains are a feeling." _Ibid._, stanza lxxii. lines 2,3, _Poetical Works_, 1899, ii. 223, 261.] [54] [Compare-- "Ye Spirits of the unbounded Universe!" _Manfred_, act i. sc. 1, line 29, _vide post_, p. 86.] [55] [Compare _Manfred_, act ii. sc. 2, lines 79-91; and _ibid._, act iii. sc. 1, lines 34-39; and sc. 4, lines 112-117, _vide post_, pp. 105, 121, 135.] [k] {42}In the original MS. _A Dream_. [56] [Sir Walter Scott (_Quarterly Review_, October, 1816, vol. xvi. p. 204) did not take kindly to _Darkness_. He regarded the "framing of such phantasms" as "a dangerous employment for the exalted and teeming imagination of such a poet as Lord Byron. The waste of boundless space into which they lead the poet, the neglect of precision which such themes may render habitual, make them in respect to poetry what mysticism is to religion." Poetry of this kind, which recalled "the wild, unbridled, and fiery imagination of Coleridge," was a novel and untoward experiment on the part of an author whose "peculiar art" it was "to show the reader where his purpose tends." The resemblance to Coleridge is general rather than particular. It is improbable that Scott had ever read _Limbo_ (first published in _Sibylline Leaves_, 1817), an attempt to depict the "mere horror of blank nought-at-all;" but it is possible that he had in his mind the following lines (384-390) from _Religious Musings_, in which "the final destruction is impersonated" (see Coleridge's note) in the "red-eyed Fiend:"-- "For who of woman born may paint the hour, When seized in his mid course, the Sun shall wane, Making the noon ghastly! Who of woman born May image in the workings of his thought, How the black-visaged, red-eyed Fiend outstretched Beneath the unsteady feet of Nature groans In feverous slumbers?" _Poetical Works_, 1893, p. 60. Another and a less easily detected source of inspiration has been traced (see an article on Campbell's _Last Man_, in the _London Magazine and Review_, 1825, New Series, i. 588, seq.) to a forgotten but once popular novel entitled _The Last Man, or Omegarus and Syderia, a Romance in Futurity_ (two vols. 1806). Kölbing (_Prisoner of Chillon_, etc., pp. 136-140) adduces numerous quotations in support of this contention. The following may serve as samples: "As soon as the earth had lost with the moon her guardian star, her decay became more rapid.... Some, in their madness, destroyed the instruments of husbandry, others in deep despair summoned death to their relief. Men began to look on each other with eyes of enmity" (i. 105). "The sun exhibited signs of decay, its surface turned pale, and its beams were frigid. The northern nations dreaded perishing by intense cold ... and fled to the torrid zone to court the sun's beneficial rays" (i. 120). "The reign of Time was over, ages of Eternity were going to begin; but at the same moment Hell shrieked with rage, and the sun and stars were extinguished. The gloomy night of chaos enveloped the world, plaintive sounds issued from mountains, rocks, and caverns,--Nature wept, and a doleful voice was heard exclaiming in the air, 'The human race is no more!'"(ii. 197). It is difficult to believe that Byron had not read, and more or less consciously turned to account, the imagery of this novel; but it is needless to add that any charge of plagiarism falls to the ground. Thanks to a sensitive and appreciative ear and a retentive memory, Byron's verse is interfused with manifold strains, but, so far as _Darkness_ is concerned, his debt to Coleridge or the author of _Omegarus and Syderia_ is neither more nor less legitimate than the debt to Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and Joel, which a writer in the _Imperial Magazine_ (1828, x. 699), with solemn upbraidings, lays to his charge. The duty of acknowledging such debts is, indeed, "a duty of imperfect obligation." The well-known lines in Tennyson's _Locksley Hall_-- "Heard the heavens fill with shouting, and there rained a ghastly dew From the nations' airy navies grappling in the central blue!" is surely an echo of an earlier prophecy from the pen of the author of _Omegarus and Syderia_: "In the center the heavens were seen darkened by legions of armed vessels, making war on each other!... The soldiers fell in frightful numbers.... Their blood stained the soft verdure of the trees, and their scattered bleeding limbs covered the fields and the roofs of the labourers' cottages" (i. 68). But such "conveyings" are honourable to the purloiner. See, too, the story of the battle between the Vulture-cavalry and the Sky-gnats, in Lucian's _Veræ Historiæ_, i. 16.] [57] {44} ["If thou speak'st false, Upon the next tree shalt thou hang alive, Till famine cling thee." _Macbeth_, act V. sc. 5, lines 38-40. Fruit is said to be "clung" when the skin shrivels, and a corpse when the face becomes wasted and gaunt.] [58] {45}[So, too, Vathek and Nouronihar, in the Hall of Eblis, waited "in direful suspense the moment which should render them to each other ... objects of terror."--_Vathek_, by W. Beckford, 1887, p. 185.] [59] [Charles Churchill was born in February, 1731, and died at Boulogne, November 4, 1764. The body was brought to Dover and buried in the churchyard attached to the demolished church of St. Martin-le-Grand ("a small deserted cemetery in an obscure lane behind [i.e. above] the market"). See note by Charles De la Pryme, _Notes and Queries_, 1854, Series I. vol. x. p. 378. There is a tablet to his memory on the south wall of St. Mary's Church, and the present headstone in the graveyard (it was a "plain headstone" in 1816) bears the following inscription:-- "1764. Here lie the remains of the celebrated C. Churchill. 'Life to the last enjoy'd, here Churchill lies.'" Churchill had been one of Byron's earlier models, and the following lines from _The Candidate_, which suggested the epitaph (lines 145-154), were, doubtless, familiar to him:-- "Let one poor sprig of Bay around my head Bloom whilst I live, and point me out when dead; Let it (may Heav'n indulgent grant that prayer) Be planted on my grave, nor wither there; And when, on travel bound, some rhyming guest Roams through the churchyard, whilst his dinner's drest, Let it hold up this comment to his eyes; Life to the last enjoy'd, _here_ Churchill lies; Whilst (O, what joy that pleasing flatt'ry gives) Reading my Works he cries--_here_ Churchill lives." Byron spent Sunday, April 25, 1816, at Dover. He was to sail that night for Ostend, and, to while away the time, "turned to Pilgrim" and thought out, perhaps began to write, the lines which were finished three months later at the Campagne Diodati. "The Grave of Churchill," writes Scott (_Quarterly Review_, October, 1816), "might have called from Lord Byron a deeper commemoration; for, though they generally differed in character and genius, there was a resemblance between their history and character.... both these poets held themselves above the opinion of the world, and both were followed by the fame and popularity which they seemed to despise. The writings of both exhibit an inborn, though sometimes ill-regulated, generosity of mind, and a spirit of proud independence, frequently pushed to extremes. Both carried their hatred of hypocrisy beyond the verge of prudence, and indulged their vein of satire to the borders of licentiousness." Save for the affectation of a style which did not belong to him, and which in his heart he despised, Byron's commemoration of Churchill does not lack depth or seriousness. It was the parallel between their lives and temperaments which awoke reflection and sympathy, and prompted this "natural homily." Perhaps, too, the shadow of impending exile had suggested to his imagination that further parallel which Scott deprecated, and deprecated in vain, "death in the flower of his age, and in a foreign land."] [60] {46}[On the sheet containing the original draft of these lines Lord Byron has written, "The following poem (as most that I have endeavoured to write) is founded on a fact; and this detail is an attempt at a serious imitation of the style of a great poet--its beauties and its defects: I say the _style_; for the thoughts I claim as my own. In this, if there be anything ridiculous, let it be attributed to me, at least as much as to Mr. Wordsworth: of whom there can exist few greater admirers than myself. I have blended what I would deem to be the beauties as well as defects of his style; and it ought to be remembered, that, in such things, whether there be praise or dispraise, there is always what is called a compliment, however unintentional." There is, as Scott points out, a much closer resemblance to Southey's "_English Eclogues,_ in which moral truths are expressed, to use the poet's own language, 'in an almost colloquial plainness of language,' and an air of quaint and original expression assumed, to render the sentiment at once impressive and _piquant_."] [61] {47}[Compare-- "The under-earth inhabitants--are they But mingled millions decomposed to clay?" _A Fragment_, lines 23, 24, _vide post_, p. 52. It is difficult to "extricate" the meaning of lines 19-25, but, perhaps, they are intended to convey a hope of immortality. "As I was speaking, the sexton (the architect) tried to answer my question by taxing his memory with regard to the occupants of the several tombs. He might well be puzzled, for 'Earth is but a tombstone,' covering an amalgam of dead bodies, and, unless in another life soul were separated from soul, as on earth body is distinct from body, Newton himself, who disclosed 'the turnpike-road through the unpaved stars' (_Don Juan_, Canto X. stanza ii. line 4), would fail to assign its proper personality to any given lump of clay."] [62] {48}[Compare-- "But here [i.e. in 'the realm of death'] all is So shadowy and so full of twilight, that It speaks of a day past." _Cain_, act ii. sc. 2. [63] ["Selected," that is, by "frequent travellers" (_vide supra_, line 12).] [l] ----_then most pleased, I shook_ _My inmost pocket's most retired nook,_ _And out fell five and sixpence_.--[MS.] [64] [Byron was a lover and worshipper of Prometheus as a boy. His first English exercise at Harrow was a paraphrase of a chorus of the _Prometheus Vinctus_ of Æschylus, line 528, _sq._ (see _Poetical Works_, 1898, i. 14). Referring to a criticism on _Manfred_ (_Edinburgh Review_, vol xxviii. p. 431) he writes (October 12, 1817, _Letters_, 1900, iv. 174): "The _Prometheus_, if not exactly in my plan, has always been so much in my head, that I can easily conceive its influence over all or any thing that I have written." The conception of an immortal sufferer at once beneficent and defiant, appealed alike to his passions and his convictions, and awoke a peculiar enthusiasm. His poems abound with allusions to the hero and the legend. Compare the first draft of stanza xvi. of the _Ode to Napoleon Buonaparte_ (_Poetical Works_, 1900, iii. 312, var. ii.); _The Prophecy of Dante_, iv. 10, seq.; the _Irish Avatar_, stanza xii. line 2, etc.] [65] {49}[Compare-- Τοιαῦτ' ἐπηύρου τοῦ φιλανθρώπου τρόπου [Greek: Toiau~t' e)pêy/rou tou~ philanthrô/pou tro/pou] _P. V._, line 28. Compare, too-- Θνητὸυς δ' ἐν οἴ.κtῳ προθέμενος, τούτου τυχεῖν [Greek: Thnêto\us d' e)n oi)/.ktô| prothe/menos, tou/tou tychei~n] Οὐκ ἠξιώθην αὐτὸς [Greek: Ou)k ê)xiô/thên au)to\ς] Ibid., lines 241, 242.] [66] [Compare-- Διὸς γὰρ δυσπαραίτητοι φρένες. [Greek: Dio\s ga\r dysparai/têtoi phre/nes.] Ibid., line 34. Compare, too-- ...γιγνώσκονθ' ὅτι [Greek: ...gignô/skonth' o(/ti] Τὸ τῆς ἀνάγκης ἐστ' ἀδήριτον σθένος [Greek: To\ tê~s a)na/nkês e)st' a)dê/riton sthe/nos] Ibid., line 105.] [67] {50}[Compare-- "The maker--call him Which name thou wilt; he makes but to destroy." _Cain_, act i. sc. 1. Compare, too-- "And the Omnipotent, who makes and crushes." _Heaven and Earth_, Part I. sc. 3.] [68] [Compare-- Ὄτῳ θανεῖν μέν ἐστιν οὐ πεπρωμένον [Greek: O)/tô| thanei~n me/n e)stin ou) peprôme/non] _P. V._, line 754.] [69][Compare-- ...πάντα προὐξεπίσταμαι [Greek: ...pa/nta prou)xepi/stamai] Σκεθρῶς τά μέλλοντα [Greek: Skethrô~s ta/ me/llonta] Ibid., lines 101, 102.] [70] [Compare-- Θνητοῖς δ' ἀήγων αὐτὸς εὑρόμην πόνους. [Greek: Thnêtoi~s d' a)ê/gôn au)to\s eu(ro/mên po/nous.] Ibid., line 269.] [71] {51}[Compare-- "But we, who name ourselves its sovereigns, we, Half dust, half deity." _Manfred_, act i. sc. 2, lines 39, 40, _vide post_, p. 95.] [m] ----_and equal to all woes_.--[Editions 1832, etc.] [72] [The edition of 1832 and subsequent issues read "and equal." It is clear that the earlier reading, "an equal," is correct. The spirit opposed by the spirit is an equal, etc. The spirit can also oppose to "its own funereal destiny" a firm will, etc.] [73] [_A Fragment_, which remained unpublished till 1830, was written at the same time as _Churchill's Grave_ (July, 1816), and is closely allied to it in purport and in sentiment. It is a questioning of Death! O Death, _what_ is thy sting? There is an analogy between exile end death. As Churchill lay in his forgotten grave at Dover, one of "many millions decomposed to clay," so he the absent is dead to the absent, and the absent are dead to him. And what are the dead? the aggregate of nothingness? or are they a multitude of atoms having neither part nor lot one with the other? There is no solution but in the grave. Death alone can unriddle death. The poet's questioning spirit would plunge into the abyss to bring back the answer.] [74] {52}[Compare-- "'Tis said thou holdest converse with the things Which are forbidden to the search of man; That with the dwellers of the dark abodes, The many evil and unheavenly spirits Which walk the valley of the Shade of Death, Thou communest." _Manfred_, act iii. sc. 1, lines 34, seq., _vide post_, p. 121.] [75] {53}Geneva, Ferney, Copet, Lausanne. [For Rousseau, see _Poetical Works_, 1899, ii. 277, note 1, 300, 301, note 18; for Voltaire and Gibbon, _vide ibid._, pp. 306, 307, note 22; and for De Staël, see _Letters_, 1898, ii. 223, note 1. Byron, writing to Moore, January 2, 1821, declares, on the authority of Monk Lewis, "who was too great a bore ever to lie," that Madame de Staël alleged this sonnet, "in which she was named with Voltaire, Rousseau, etc.," as a reason for changing her opinion about him--"she could not help it through decency" (_Letters_, 1901, v. 213). It is difficult to believe that Madame de Staël was ashamed of her companions, or was sincere in disclaiming the compliment, though, as might have been expected, the sonnet excited some disapprobation in England. A writer in the _Gentleman's Magazine_ (February, 1818, vol. 88, p. 122) relieved his feelings by a "Retort Addressed to the Thames"-- "Restor'd to my dear native Thames' bank, My soul disgusted spurns a Byron's lay,-- * * * * * Leman may idly boast her Staël, Rousseau, Gibbon, Voltaire, whom Truth and Justice shun-- * * * * * Whilst meekly shines midst Fulham's bowers the sun O'er Sherlock's and o'er Porteus' honour'd graves, Where Thames Britannia's choicest meads exulting laves."] [76] [Compare-- "Lake Leman woos me with its crystal face." _Childe Harold_, Canto III. stanza lxviii. line 1, _Poetical Works_, 1899, ii. 257.] [n] {54}_Stanzas To_----.--[Editions 1816-1830.] "Though the Day."--[MS. in Mrs. Leigh's handwriting.] [77] [The "Stanzas to Augusta" were written in July, at the Campagne Diodati, near Geneva. "Be careful," he says, "in printing the stanzas beginning, 'Though the day of my Destiny's,' etc., which I think well of as a composition."--Letter to Murray, October 5, 1816, _Letters_, 1899, iii. 371.] [o] _Though the days of my Glory are over,_ _And the Sun of my fame has declined._--[Dillon MS.] [p] ----_had painted._--[MS.] [78] [Compare-- "Dear Nature is the kindest mother still!... To me by day or night she ever smiled." _Childe Harold_, Canto II. stanza xxxvii. lines 1, 7, _Poetical Works_, 1899, ii. 122.] [q] _I will not_----.--[MS. erased.] [r] {55}_As the breasts I reposed in with me._--[MS.] [s] _Though the rock of my young hope is shivered,_ _And its fragments lie sunk in the wave._--[MS. erased.] [t] _There is many a pang to pursue me,_ _And many a peril to stem;_ _They may torture, but shall not subdue me;_ _They may crush, but they shall not contemn._--[MS. erased.] _And I think not of thee but of them._--[MS. erased.] [u] _Though tempted_----.--[MS.] [79] [Compare _Childe Harold,_ Canto III. stanzas liii., lv., _Poetical Works,_ 1899, ii. 247, 248, note 1.] [v] _Though watchful, 'twas but to reclaim me,_ _Nor, silent, to sanction a lie._--[MS.] [80] {56}[Compare-- "Had I but sooner learnt the crowd to shun, I had been better than I now can be." _Epistle to Augusta_, stanza xii. lines 5, 6, _vide post_, p. 61. Compare, too-- "But soon he knew himself the most unfit Of men to herd with Man." _Childe Harold_, Canto III. stanza xii. lines 1, 2, _Poetical Works_, 1899, ii. 223.] [w] _And more than I then could foresee._ _I have met but the fate that hath crost me._--[MS.] [x] _In the wreck of the past_--[MS.] [y] _In the Desert there still are sweet waters,_ _In the wild waste a sheltering tree._--[MS.] [81] [Byron often made use of this illustration. Compare-- "My Peri! ever welcome here! Sweet, as the desert fountain's wave." _The Bride of Abydos_, Canto I. lines 151, 152, _Poetical Works_, 1900, iii. 163.] [82] [For Hobhouse's parody of these stanzas, see _Letters_, 1900, iv. 73,74.] [83] {57}[These stanzas--"than which," says the _Quarterly Review_ for January, 1831, "there is nothing, perhaps, more mournfully and desolately beautiful in the whole range of Lord Byron's poetry," were also written at Diodati, and sent home to be published, if Mrs. Leigh should consent. She decided against publication, and the "Epistle" was not printed till 1830. Her first impulse was to withhold her consent to the publication of the "Stanzas to Augusta," as well as the "Epistle," and to say, "Whatever is addressed to me do not publish," but on second thoughts she decided that "the _least objectionable_ line will be _to let them be published_."--See her letters to Murray, November 1, 8, 1816, _Letters_, 1899, iii. 366, note 1.] [z] _Go where thou wilt thou art to me the same_-- _A loud regret which I would not resign_.--[MS.] [84] [Compare-- "Oh! that the Desert were my dwelling-place, With one fair Spirit for my minister!" _Childe Harold_, Canto IV. stanza clxxvii. lines 1, 2, _Poetical Works_, 1899, ii. 456.] [aa] _But other cares_----.--[MS.] [ab] _A strange doom hath been ours, but that is past_.--[MS.] [85] ["Admiral Byron was remarkable for never making a voyage without a tempest. He was known to the sailors by the facetious name of 'Foul-weather Jack' [or 'Hardy Byron']. "'But, though it were tempest-toss'd, Still his bark could not be lost.' He returned safely from the wreck of the _Wager_ (in Anson's voyage), and many years after circumnavigated the world, as commander of a similar expedition" (Moore). Admiral the Hon. John Byron (1723-1786), next brother to William, fifth Lord Byron, published his _Narrative_ of his shipwreck in the _Wager_ in 1768, and his _Voyage round the World_ in the _Dolphin_, in 1767 (_Letters_, 1898, i. 3).] [ac] {58} _I am not yet o'erwhelmed that I shall ever lean_ _A thought upon such Hope as daily mocks_.--[MS. erased.] [86] [For Byron's belief in predestination, compare _Childe Harold_, Canto I. stanza lxxxiii. line 9, _Poetical Works_, 1899, ii. 74, note 1.] [ad] {59}_For to all such may change of soul refer_.--[MS.] [ae] _Have hardened me to this--but I can see_ _Things which I still can love--but none like thee_.--[MS. erased.] [af] {_Before I had to study far more useless books_.--[MS. erased,] {_Ere my young mind was fettered down to books_. [ag] _Some living things_-----.--[MS.] [87] [Compare-- "Then stirs the feeling infinite, so felt In solitude, when we are _least_ alone." _Childe Harold_, Canto III. stanza xc. lines 1, 2, _Poetical Works_, 1899, ii. 272] [88] {60}[For a description of the lake at Newstead, see _Don Juan_, Canto XIII. stanza lvii.] [ah] _And think of such things with a childish eye._--[MS.] [89] {61}[Compare-- "He who first met the Highland's swelling blue, Will love each peak, that shows a kindred hue, Hail in each crag a friend's familiar face, And clasp the mountain in his mind's embrace." _The Island_, Canto II. stanza xii. lines 9-12. His "friends are mountains." He comes back to them as to a "holier land," where he may find not happiness, but peace. Moore was inclined to attribute Byron's "love of mountain prospects" in his childhood to the "after-result of his imaginative recollections of that period," but (as Wilson, commenting on Moore, suggests) it is easier to believe that the "high instincts" of the "poetic child" did not wait for association to consecrate the vision (_Life_, p. 8).] [ai] _The earliest were the only paths for me._ _The earliest were the paths and meant for me._--[MS. erased.] [aj] _Yet could I but expunge from out the book_ _Of my existence all that was entwined._--[MS. erased.] [ak] _My life has been too long--if in a day_ _I have survived_----.--[MS. erased.] [90] {62}[Byron often insists on this compression of life into a yet briefer span than even mortality allows. Compare-- "He, who grown aged in this world of woe, In deeds, not years, piercing the depths of life," etc. _Childe Harold_, Canto III. stanza v. lines 1, 2, _Poetical Works_, 1899, ii. 218, note 1. Compare, too-- "My life is not dated by years-- There are moments which act as a plough," etc. _Lines to the Countess of Blessington_, stanza 4.] [al] _And for the remnants_----.--[MS.] [am] _Whate'er betide_----.--[MS.] [an] _We have been and we shall be_----.--[MS. erased.] [91] {63}["These verses," says John Wright (ed. 1832, x. 207), "of which the opening lines (1-6) are given in Moore's _Notices_, etc. (1830, ii. 36), were written immediately after the failure of the negotiation ... [i.e. the intervention] of Madame de Staël, who had persuaded Byron 'to write a letter to a friend in England, declaring himself still willing to be reconciled to Lady Byron' (_Life_, p. 321), but were not intended for the public eye." The verses were written in September, and it is evident that since the composition of _The Dream_ in July, another "change had come over" his spirit, and that the mild and courteous depreciation of his wife as "a gentle bride," etc., had given place to passionate reproach and bitter reviling. The failure of Madame de Staël's negotiations must have been to some extent anticipated, and it is more reasonable to suppose that it was a rumour or report of the "one serious calumny" of Shelley's letter of September 29, 1816, which provoked him to fury, and drove him into the open maledictions of _The Incantation_ (published together with the _Prisoner of Chillon_, but afterwards incorporated with _Manfred_, act i. sc. 1, _vide post_, p. 91), and the suppressed "lines," written, so he told Lady Blessington (_Conversations, etc._, 1834, p. 79) "on reading in a newspaper" that Lady Byron had been ill.] [92] [Compare-- " ... that unnatural retribution--just, Had it but been from hands less near." _Childe Harold_, Canto IV. stanza cxxxii. lines 6, 7, _Poetical Works_, 1899, ii. 427.] [93] {64}[Compare-- "Though thy slumber may be deep, Yet thy Spirit shall not sleep. * * * * * Nor to slumber nor to die, Shall be in thy destiny." _The Incantation_, lines 201, 202, 254, 255, _Manfred_, act i. sc. 1, _vide post_, pp. 92, 93.] [94] [Compare "I suppose now I shall never be able to shake off my sables in public imagination, more particularly since my moral ... [Clytemnestra?] clove down my fame" (Letter to Moore, March 10, 1817, _Letters_, 1900, iv. 72). The same expression, "my _moral_ Clytemnestra," is applied to his wife in a letter to Lord Blessington, dated April 6, 1823. It may be noted that it was in April, 1823, that Byron presented a copy of the "Lines," etc., to Lady Blessington (_Conversations, etc._, 1834, p. 79).] [95] {65}[Compare-- "By thy delight in others' pain." _Manfred_, act i. sc. i, line 248, _vide post_, p. 93.] [96] [Compare-- " ... but that high Soul secured the heart, And panted for the truth it could not hear." _A Sketch_, lines 18, 19, _Poetical Works_, 1900, iii. 541.] [97] [Compare _Childe Harold_, Canto IV. stanza cxxxvi. lines 6-9, _Poetical Works_, 1899, ii. 430.] MONODY ON THE DEATH OF THE RIGHT HON. R. B. SHERIDAN. INTRODUCTION TO _MONODY ON THE DEATH OF THE RIGHT HON. R. B. SHERIDAN._ When Moore was engaged on the Life of Sheridan, Byron gave him some advice. "Never mind," he says, "the angry lies of the humbug Whigs. Recollect that he was an Irishman and a clever fellow, and that we have had some very pleasant days with him. Don't forget that he was at school at Harrow, where, in my time, we used to show his name--R. B. Sheridan, 1765--as an honour to the walls. Depend upon it that there were worse folks going, of that gang, than ever Sheridan was" (Letter to Moore, September 19, 1818, _Letters_, 1900, iv. 261). It does not appear that Byron had any acquaintance with Sheridan when he wrote the one unrejected Address which was spoken at the opening of Drury Lane Theatre, October 10, 1812, but that he met him for the first time at a dinner which Rogers gave to Byron and Moore, on or before June 1, 1813. Thenceforward, as long as he remained in England (see his letter to Rogers, April 16, 1816, _Letters,_ 1899, iii 281, note 1), he was often in his company, "sitting late, drinking late," not, of course, on terms of equality and friendship (for Sheridan was past sixty, and Byron more than thirty years younger), but of the closest and pleasantest intimacy. To judge from the tone of the letter to Moore (_vide supra_) and of numerous entries in his diaries, during Sheridan's life and after his death, he was at pains not to pass judgment on a man whom he greatly admired and sincerely pitied, and whom he felt that he had no right to despise. Body and soul, Byron was of different stuff from Sheridan, and if he "had lived to his age," he would have passed over "the red-hot ploughshares" of life and conduct, not unscathed, but stoutly and unconsumed. So much easier is it to live down character than to live through temperament. Richard Brinsley Sheridan (born October 30, 1751) died July 7, 1816. _The Monody_ was written at the Campagne Diodati, on July 17, at the request of Douglas Kinnaird. "I did as well as I could," says Byron; "but where I have not my choice I pretend to answer for nothing" (Letter to Murray, September 29, 1816, _Letters_, 1899, iii. 366). He told Lady Blessington, however, that his "feelings were never more excited than while writing it, and that every word came direct from the heart" (_Conversations, etc._, p. 241). The MS., in the handwriting of Claire, is headed, "Written at the request of D. Kinnaird, Esq., Monody on R. B. Sheridan. Intended to be spoken at Dy. L^e.^ T. Diodati, Lake of Geneva, July 18^th^, 1816. Byron." The first edition was entitled _Monody on the Death of the Right Honourable R.B. Sheridan_. Written at the request of a Friend. To be spoken at Drury Lane Theatre, London. Printed for John Murray, Albemarle Street, 1816. It was spoken by Mrs. Davison at Drury Lane Theatre, September 7, and published September 9, 1816. When the _Monody_ arrived at Diodati Byron fell foul of the title-page: "'The request of a Friend:'-- 'Obliged by Hunger and request of friends.' "I will request you to expunge that same, unless you please to add, 'by a person of quality, or of wit and honour about town.' Merely say, 'written to be spoken at D[rury] L[ane]'" (Letter to Murray, September 30, 1816, _Letters,_ 1899, iii. 367). The first edition had been issued, and no alteration could be made, but the title-page of a "New Edition," 1817, reads, "_Monody, etc._ Spoken at Drury Lane Theatre. By Lord Byron."] MONODY ON THE DEATH OF THE RIGHT HON. R. B. SHERIDAN, SPOKEN AT DRURY-LANE THEATRE, LONDON. When the last sunshine of expiring Day In Summer's twilight weeps itself away, Who hath not felt the softness of the hour Sink on the heart, as dew along the flower? With a pure feeling which absorbs and awes While Nature makes that melancholy pause-- Her breathing moment on the bridge where Time Of light and darkness forms an arch sublime-- Who hath not shared that calm, so still and deep, The voiceless thought which would not speak but weep, 10 A holy concord, and a bright regret, A glorious sympathy with suns that set?[98] 'Tis not harsh sorrow, but a tenderer woe, Nameless, but dear to gentle hearts below, Felt without bitterness--but full and clear, A sweet dejection--a transparent tear, Unmixed with worldly grief or selfish stain-- Shed without shame, and secret without pain. Even as the tenderness that hour instils When Summer's day declines along the hills, 20 So feels the fulness of our heart and eyes When all of Genius which can perish dies. A mighty Spirit is eclipsed--a Power Hath passed from day to darkness--to whose hour Of light no likeness is bequeathed--no name, Focus at once of all the rays of Fame! The flash of Wit--the bright Intelligence, The beam of Song--the blaze of Eloquence, Set with their Sun, but still have left behind The enduring produce of immortal Mind; 30 Fruits of a genial morn, and glorious noon, A deathless part of him who died too soon. But small that portion of the wondrous whole, These sparkling segments of that circling Soul, Which all embraced, and lightened over all, To cheer--to pierce--to please--or to appal. From the charmed council to the festive board, Of human feelings the unbounded lord; In whose acclaim the loftiest voices vied, The praised--the proud--who made his praise their pride. 40 When the loud cry of trampled Hindostan Arose to Heaven in her appeal from Man, His was the thunder--his the avenging rod, The wrath--the delegated voice of God! Which shook the nations through his lips, and blazed Till vanquished senates trembled as they praised.[99] And here, oh! here, where yet all young and warm, The gay creations of his spirit charm,[100] The matchless dialogue--the deathless wit, Which knew not what it was to intermit; 50 The glowing portraits, fresh from life, that bring Home to our hearts the truth from which they spring; These wondrous beings of his fancy, wrought To fulness by the fiat of his thought, Here in their first abode you still may meet, Bright with the hues of his Promethean heat; A Halo of the light of other days, Which still the splendour of its orb betrays. But should there be to whom the fatal blight Of failing Wisdom yields a base delight, 60 Men who exult when minds of heavenly tone Jar in the music which was born their own, Still let them pause--ah! little do they know That what to them seemed Vice might be but Woe. Hard is his fate on whom the public gaze Is fixed for ever to detract or praise; Repose denies her requiem to his name, And Folly loves the martyrdom of Fame. The secret Enemy whose sleepless eye Stands sentinel--accuser--judge--and spy. 70 The foe, the fool, the jealous, and the vain, The envious who but breathe in other's pain-- Behold the host! delighting to deprave, Who track the steps of Glory to the grave, Watch every fault that daring Genius owes Half to the ardour which its birth bestows, Distort the truth, accumulate the lie, And pile the Pyramid of Calumny! These are his portion--but if joined to these Gaunt Poverty should league with deep Disease, 80 If the high Spirit must forget to soar, And stoop to strive with Misery at the door,[101] To soothe Indignity--and face to face Meet sordid Rage, and wrestle with Disgrace, To find in Hope but the renewed caress, The serpent-fold of further Faithlessness:-- If such may be the Ills which men assail, What marvel if at last the mightiest fail? Breasts to whom all the strength of feeling given Bear hearts electric-charged with fire from Heaven, 90 Black with the rude collision, inly torn, By clouds surrounded, and on whirlwinds borne, Driven o'er the lowering atmosphere that nurst Thoughts which have turned to thunder--scorch, and burst.[ao] But far from us and from our mimic scene Such things should be--if such have ever been; Ours be the gentler wish, the kinder task, To give the tribute Glory need not ask, To mourn the vanished beam, and add our mite Of praise in payment of a long delight. 100 Ye Orators! whom yet our councils yield, Mourn for the veteran Hero of your field! The worthy rival of the wondrous _Three!_[102] Whose words were sparks of Immortality! Ye Bards! to whom the Drama's Muse is dear, He was your Master--emulate him _here_! Ye men of wit and social eloquence![103] He was your brother--bear his ashes hence! While Powers of mind almost of boundless range,[104] Complete in kind, as various in their change, 110 While Eloquence--Wit--Poesy--and Mirth, That humbler Harmonist of care on Earth, Survive within our souls--while lives our sense Of pride in Merit's proud pre-eminence, Long shall we seek his likeness--long in vain, And turn to all of him which may remain, Sighing that Nature formed but one such man, And broke the die--in moulding Sheridan![105] FOOTNOTES: [98] {71}[Compare-- "As 'twere the twilight of a former Sun." _Churchill's Grave,_ line 26, _vide ante,_ p. 48.] [99] {72}[Sheridan's first speech on behalf of the Begum of Oude was delivered February 7, 1787. After having spoken for five hours and forty minutes he sat down, "not merely amidst cheering, but amidst the loud clapping of hands, in which the Lords below the bar and the strangers in the Gallery joined" (_Critical ... Essays,_ by T. B. Macaulay, 1843, iii. 443). So great was the excitement that Pitt moved the adjournment of the House. The next year, during the trial of Warren Hastings, he took part in the debates on June 3,6,10,13, 1788. "The conduct of the part of the case relating to the Princesses of Oude was intrusted to Sheridan. The curiosity of the public to hear him was unbounded.... It was said that fifty guineas had been paid for a single ticket. Sheridan, when he concluded, contrived ... to sink back, as if exhausted, into the arms of Burke, who hugged him with the energy of generous admiration" (_ibid.,_iii 451, 452).] [100] [_The Rivals, The Scheming Lieutenant_, and _The Duenna_ were played for the first time at Covent Garden, January 17, May 2, and November 21, 1775. _A Trip to Scarborough_ and the _School for Scandal_ were brought out at Drury Lane, February 24 and May 8, 1777; the _Critic_, October 29, 1779; and _Pizarro_, May 24, 1799.] [101] {73}[Only a few days before his death, Sheridan wrote thus to Rogers: "I am absolutely undone and broken-hearted. They are going to put the carpets out of window, and break into Mrs. S.'s room and _take me_. For God's sake let me see you!" (Moore's _Life of Sheridan_, 1825, ii. 455). The extent and duration of Sheridan's destitution at the time of his last illness and death have been the subject of controversy. The statements in Moore's _Life_ (1825) moved George IV. to send for Croker and dictate a long and circumstantial harangue, to the effect that Sheridan and his wife were starving, and that their immediate necessities were relieved by the (then) Prince Regent's agent, Taylor Vaughan (Croker's _Correspondence and Diaries_, 1884, i. 288-312). Mr. Fraser Rae, in his _Life of Sheridan_ (1896, ii. 284), traverses the king's apology in almost every particular, and quotes a letter from Charles Sheridan to his half-brother Tom, dated July 16, 1816, in which he says that his father "almost slumbered into death, and that the reports ... in the newspapers (_vide_, e.g., _Morning Chronicle_, July, 1816) of the privations and want of comforts were unfounded." Moore's sentiments were also expressed in "some verses" (_Lines on the Death of SH--R--D--N_), which were published in the newspapers, and are reprinted in the _Life_, 1825, ii. 462, and _Poetical Works_, 1850, p. 400-- "How proud they can press to the funeral array Of one whom they shunned in his sickness and sorrow! How bailiffs may seize his last blanket to-day, Whose pall shall be held up by nobles to-morrow. * * * * * Was _this_, then, the fate of that high-gifted man, The pride of the palace, the bower, and the hall, The orator--dramatist--minstrel, who ran Through each mode of the lyre, and was master of all?"] [ao] {74} _Abandoned by the skies, whose teams have nurst_ _Their very thunders, lighten--scorch, and burst_.--[MS.] [102] {75}Fox--Pitt--Burke. ["I heard Sheridan only once, and that briefly; but I liked his voice, his manner, and his wit: he is the only one of them I ever wished to hear at greater length."--_Detached Thoughts_, 1821, _Letters_, 1901, v. 413.] [103] ["In society I have met Sheridan frequently: he was superb!... I have seen him cut up Whitbread, quiz Madame de Staël, annihilate Colman, and do little less by some others ... of good fame and abilities.... I have met him in all places and parties, ... and always found him very convivial and delightful."--_Ibid_., pp. 413, 414.] [104] ["The other night we were all delivering our respective and various opinions on him, ... and mine was this:--'Whatever Sheridan has done or chosen to do has been, _par excellence_, always the _best_ of its kind. He has written the _best_ comedy (_School for Scandal_), the _best_ drama (in my mind, far before that St. Giles's lampoon, the _Beggars Opera_), the best farce (the _Critic_--it is only too good for a farce), and the best Address ('Monologue on Garrick'), and, to crown all, delivered the very best Oration (the famous Begum Speech) ever conceived or heard in this country.'"--_Journal_, December 17, 1813, _Letters_, 1898, ii. 377.] [105] [It has often been pointed out (_e.g. Notes and Queries_, 1855, Series I. xi. 472) that this fine metaphor may be traced to Ariosto's _Orlando Furioso_. The subject is Zerbino, the son of the King of Scotland-- "Non è vu si bello in tante altre persone: Natura il fece e poi ruppe la stampa." Canto X. stanza lxxxiv. lines 5, 6.] MANFRED: A DRAMATIC POEM. "There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, Than are dreamt of in your philosophy." [_Hamlet,_ Act i. Scene 5, Lines 166, 167. [_Manfred_, a choral tragedy in three acts, was performed at Covent Garden Theatre, October 29-November 14, 1834 [Denvil (afterwards known as "Manfred" Denvil) took the part of "Manfred," and Miss Ellen Tree (afterwards Mrs. Charles Kean) played "The Witch of the Alps"]; at Drury Lane Theatre, October 10, 1863-64 [Phelps played "Manfred," Miss Rosa Le Clercq "The Phantom of Astarte," and Miss Heath "The Witch of the Alps"]; at the Prince's Theatre, Manchester, March 27-April 20, 1867 [Charles Calvert played "Manfred"]; and again, in 1867, under the same management, at the Royal Alexandra Theatre, Liverpool; and at the Princess's Theatre Royal, London, August 16, 1873 [Charles Dillon played "Manfred;" music by Sir Henry Bishop, as in 1834]. _Overtures, etc._ "Music to Byron's _Manfred_" (overture and incidental music and choruses), by R. Schumann, 1850. "Incidental Music," composed, in 1897, by Sir Alexander Campbell Mackenzie (at the request of Sir Henry Irving); heard (in part only) at a concert in Queen's Hall, May, 1899. "_Manfred_ Symphony" (four tableaux after the Poem by Byron), composed by Tschaikowsky, 1885; first heard in London, autumn, 1898.] INTRODUCTION TO _MANFRED_ Byron passed four months and three weeks in Switzerland. He arrived at the Hôtel d'Angleterre at Sécheron, on Saturday, May 25, and he left the Campagne Diodati for Italy on Sunday, October 6, 1816. Within that period he wrote the greater part of the Third Canto of _Childe Harold_, he began and finished the _Prisoner of Chillon_, its seven attendant poems, and the _Monody_ on the death of Sheridan, and he began _Manfred_. A note to the "Incantation" (_Manfred_, act i. sc. 1, lines 192-261), which was begun in July and published together with the _Prisoner of Chillon_, December 5, 1816, records the existence of "an unfinished Witch Drama" (First Edition, p. 46); but, apart from this, the first announcement of his new work is contained in a letter to Murray, dated Venice, February 15, 1817 (_Letters_, 1900, iv. 52). "I forgot," he writes, "to mention to you that a kind of Poem in dialogue (in blank verse) or drama ... begun last summer in Switzerland, is finished; it is in three acts; but of a very wild, metaphysical, and inexplicable kind." The letter is imperfect, but some pages of "extracts" which were forwarded under the same cover have been preserved. Ten days later (February 25) he reverts to these "extracts," and on February 28 he despatches a fair copy of the first act. On March 9 he remits the third and final act of his "dramatic poem" (a definition adopted as a second title), but under reserve as to publication, and with a strict injunction to Murray "to submit it to Mr. G[ifford] and to whomsoever you please besides." It is certain that this third act was written at Venice (Letter to Murray, April 14), and it may be taken for granted that the composition of the first two acts belongs to the tour in the Bernese Alps (September 17-29), or to the last days at Diodati (September 30 to October 5, 1816), when the _estro_ (see Letter to Murray, January 2, 1817) was upon him, when his "Passions slept," and, in spite of all that had come and gone and could not go, his spirit was uplifted by the "majesty and the power and the glory" of Nature. Gifford's verdict on the first act was that it was "wonderfully poetical" and "merited publication," but, as Byron had foreseen, he did not "by any means like" the third act. It was, as its author admitted (Letter to Murray, April 14) "damnably bad," and savoured of the "dregs of a fever," for which the Carnival (Letter to Murray, February 28) or, more probably, the climate and insanitary "palaces" of Venice were responsible. Some weeks went by before there was either leisure or inclination for the task of correction, but at Rome the _estro_ returned in full force, and on May 5 a "new third act of _Manfred_--the greater part rewritten," was sent by post to England. _Manfred, a Dramatic Poem_, was published June 16, 1817. _Manfred_ was criticized by Jeffrey in the _Edinburgh Review_ (No. lvi., August, 1817, vol. 28, pp. 418-431), and by John Wilson in the _Edinburgh Monthly Magazine_ (afterwards _Blackwood's, etc._) (June, 1817, i. 289-295). Jeffrey, as Byron remarked (Letter to Murray, October 12, 1817), was "very kind," and Wilson, whose article "had all the air of being a poet's," was eloquent in its praises. But there was a fly in the ointment. "A suggestion" had been thrown out, "in an ingenious paper in a late number of the _Edinburgh Magazine_ [signed H. M. (John Wilson), July, 1817], that the general conception of this piece, and much of what is excellent in the manner of its execution, have been borrowed from the _Tragical History of Dr. Faustus_ of Marlow (_sic_);" and from this contention Jeffrey dissented. A note to a second paper on Marlowe's _Edward II_. (_Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine_, October, 1817) offered explanations, and echoed Jeffrey's exaltation of _Manfred_ above _Dr. Faustus_; but the mischief had been done. Byron was evidently perplexed and distressed, not by the papers in _Blackwood_, which he never saw, but by Jeffrey's remonstrance in his favour; and in the letter of October 12 he is at pains to trace the "evolution" of _Manfred_. "I never read," he writes, "and do not know that I ever saw the _Faustus_ of Marlow;" and, again, "As to the _Faustus_ of Marlow, I never read, never saw, nor heard of it." "I heard Mr. Lewis translate verbally some scenes of Goethe's _Faust_ ... last summer" (see, too, Letter to Rogers, April 4, 1817), which is all I know of the history of that magical personage; and as to the germs of _Manfred_, they may be found in the Journal which I sent to Mrs. Leigh ... when I went over first the Dent, etc., ... shortly before I left Switzerland. I have the whole scene of _Manfred_ before me." Again, three years later he writes (_à propos_ of Goethe's review of _Manfred_, which first appeared in print in his paper _Kunst und Alterthum_, June, 1820, and is republished in Goethe's _Sämmtliche Werke_ ... Stuttgart, 1874, xiii. 640-642; see _Letters_, 1901, v. Appendix II. "Goethe and Byron," pp. 503-521): "His _Faust_ I never read, for I don't know German; but Matthew Monk Lewis (_sic_), in 1816, at Coligny, translated most of it to me _viva voce_, and I was naturally much struck with it; but it was the _Staubach_ (_sic_) and the _Jungfrau_, and something else, much more than Faustus, that made me write _Manfred_. The first scene, however, and that of Faustus are very similar" (Letter to Murray, June 7, 1820, _Letters_, 1901, v. 36). Medwin (_Conversations, etc._, pp. 210, 211), who of course had not seen the letters to Murray of 1817 or 1820, puts much the same story into Byron's mouth. Now, with regard to the originality of _Manfred_, it may be taken for granted that Byron knew nothing about the "Faust-legend," or the "Faust-cycle." He solemnly denies that he had ever read Marlowe's _Faustus_, or the selections from the play in Lamb's _Specimens, etc._ (see Medwin's _Conversations, etc._, pp. 208, 209, and a hitherto unpublished Preface to _Werner_, vol. v.), and it is highly improbable that he knew anything of Calderon's _El Mágico Prodigioso_, which Shelley translated in 1822, or of "the beggarly elements" of the legend in Hroswitha's _Lapsus et Conversio Theophrasti Vice-domini_. But Byron's _Manfred_ is "in the succession" of scholars who have reached the limits of natural and legitimate science, and who essay the supernatural in order to penetrate and comprehend the "hidden things of darkness." A predecessor, if not a progenitor, he must have had, and there can be no doubt whatever that the primary conception of the character, though by no means the inspiration of the poem, is to be traced to the "Monk's" oral rendering of Goethe's _Faust_, which he gave in return for his "bread and salt" at Diodati. Neither Jeffrey nor Wilson mentioned _Faust_, but the writer of the notice in the _Critical Review_ (June, 1817, series v. vol. 5, pp. 622-629) avowed that "this scene (the first) is a gross plagiary from a great poet whom Lord Byron has imitated on former occasions without comprehending. Goethe's _Faust_ begins in the same way;" and Goethe himself, in a letter to his friend Knebel, October, 1817, and again in his review in _Kunst und Alterthum_, June, 1820, emphasizes whilst he justifies and applauds the use which Byron had made of his work. "This singular intellectual poet has taken my _Faustus_ to himself, and extracted from it the strangest nourishment for his hypochondriac humour. He has made use of the impelling principles in his own way, for his own purposes, so that no one of them remains the same; and it is particularly on this account that I cannot enough admire his genius." Afterwards (see record of a conversation with Herman Fürst von Pückler, September 14, 1826, _Letters_, v. 511) Goethe somewhat modified his views, but even then it interested him to trace the unconscious transformation which Byron had made of his Mephistopheles. It is, perhaps, enough to say that the link between _Manfred_ and _Faust_ is formal, not spiritual. The problem which Goethe raised but did not solve, his counterfeit presentment of the eternal issue between soul and sense, between innocence and renunciation on the one side, and achievement and satisfaction on the other, was not the struggle which Byron experienced in himself or desired to depict in his mysterious hierarch of the powers of nature. "It was the _Staubach_ and the _Jungfrau_, and something else," not the influence of _Faust_ on a receptive listener, which called up a new theme, and struck out a fresh well-spring of the imagination. The _motif_ of _Manfred_ is remorse--eternal suffering for inexpiable crime. The sufferer is for ever buoyed up with the hope that there is relief somewhere in nature, beyond nature, above nature, and experience replies with an everlasting No! As the sunshine enhances sorrow, so Nature, by the force of contrast, reveals and enhances guilt. _Manfred_ is no echo of another's questioning, no expression of a general world-weariness on the part of the time-spirit, but a personal outcry: "De profundis clamavi!" No doubt, apart from this main purport and essence of his song, his sensitive spirit responded to other and fainter influences. There are "points of resemblance," as Jeffrey pointed out and Byron proudly admitted, between _Manfred_ and the _Prometheus_ of Æschylus. Plainly, here and there, "the tone and pitch of the composition," and "the victim in the more solemn parts," are Æschylean. Again, with regard to the supernatural, there was the stimulus of the conversation of the Shelleys and of Lewis, brimful of magic and ghost-lore; and lastly, there was the glamour of _Christabel_, "the wild and original" poem which had taken Byron captive, and was often in his thoughts and on his lips. It was no wonder that the fuel kindled and burst into a flame. For the text of Goethe's review of _Manfred_, and Hoppner's translation of that review, and an account of Goethe's relation with Byron, drawn from Professor A. Brandl's _Goethes Verhältniss zu Byron (Goethe-Jahrbuch, Zwanzigster Band_, 1899), and other sources, see _Letters_, 1901, v. Appendix II. pp. 503-521. For contemporary and other notices of _Manfred_, in addition to those already mentioned, see _Eclectic Review_, July, 1817, New Series, vol. viii. pp. 62-66; _Gentleman's Magazine_, July, 1817, vol. 87, pp. 45-47; _Monthly Review_, July, 1817, Enlarged Series, vol. 83, pp. 300-307; _Dublin University Magazine_, April, 1874, vol. 83, pp. 502-508, etc. DRAMATIS PERSONÆ. Manfred. Chamois Hunter. Abbot of St. Maurice. Manuel. Herman. Witch of the Alps. Arimanes. Nemesis. The Destinies. Spirits, etc. _The Scene of the Drama is amongst the Higher Alps--partly in the Castle of Manfred, and partly in the Mountains._ MANFRED.[106] ACT 1. SCENE 1.--Manfred _alone_.--_Scene, a Gothic Gallery._[107]-- _Time, Midnight._ _Man_. The lamp must be replenished, but even then It will not burn so long as I must watch: My slumbers--if I slumber--are not sleep, But a continuance, of enduring thought, Which then I can resist not: in my heart There is a vigil, and these eyes but close To look within; and yet I live, and bear The aspect and the form of breathing men. But Grief should be the Instructor of the wise; Sorrow is Knowledge: they who know the most 10 Must mourn the deepest o'er the fatal truth, The Tree of Knowledge is not that of Life. Philosophy and science, and the springs[108] Of Wonder, and the wisdom of the World, I have essayed, and in my mind there is A power to make these subject to itself-- But they avail not: I have done men good, And I have met with good even among men-- But this availed not: I have had my foes, And none have baffled, many fallen before me-- 20 But this availed not:--Good--or evil--life-- Powers, passions--all I see in other beings, Have been to me as rain unto the sands, Since that all-nameless hour. I have no dread, And feel the curse to have no natural fear, Nor fluttering throb, that beats with hopes or wishes, Or lurking love of something on the earth. Now to my task.-- Mysterious Agency! Ye Spirits of the unbounded Universe![ap] Whom I have sought in darkness and in light-- 30 Ye, who do compass earth about, and dwell In subtler essence--ye, to whom the tops Of mountains inaccessible are haunts,[aq] And Earth's and Ocean's caves familiar things-- I call upon ye by the written charm[109] Which gives me power upon you--Rise! Appear! [A pause. They come not yet.--Now by the voice of him Who is the first among you[110]--by this sign, Which makes you tremble--by the claims of him Who is undying,--Rise! Appear!----Appear! 40 [A pause. If it be so.--Spirits of Earth and Air, Ye shall not so elude me! By a power, Deeper than all yet urged, a tyrant-spell, Which had its birthplace in a star condemned, The burning wreck of a demolished world, A wandering hell in the eternal Space; By the strong curse which is upon my Soul,[111] The thought which is within me and around me, I do compel ye to my will.--Appear! [_A star is seen at the darker end of the gallery: it is stationary; and a voice is heard singing._] First Spirit. Mortal! to thy bidding bowed, 50 From my mansion in the cloud, Which the breath of Twilight builds, And the Summer's sunset gilds With the azure and vermilion, Which is mixed for my pavilion;[ar] Though thy quest may be forbidden, On a star-beam I have ridden, To thine adjuration bowed: Mortal--be thy wish avowed! _Voice of the_ Second Spirit. Mont Blanc is the Monarch of mountains; 60 They crowned him long ago On a throne of rocks, in a robe of clouds, With a Diadem of snow. Around his waist are forests braced, The Avalanche in his hand; But ere it fall, that thundering ball Must pause for my command. The Glacier's cold and restless mass Moves onward day by day; But I am he who bids it pass, 70 Or with its ice delay.[as] I am the Spirit of the place, Could make the mountain bow And quiver to his caverned base-- And what with me would'st _Thou?_ _Voice of the_ Third Spirit. In the blue depth of the waters, Where the wave hath no strife, Where the Wind is a stranger, And the Sea-snake hath life, Where the Mermaid is decking 80 Her green hair with shells, Like the storm on the surface Came the sound of thy spells; O'er my calm Hall of Coral The deep Echo rolled-- To the Spirit of Ocean Thy wishes unfold! FOURTH SPIRIT. Where the slumbering Earthquake Lies pillowed on fire, And the lakes of bitumen 90 Rise boilingly higher; Where the roots of the Andes Strike deep in the earth, As their summits to heaven Shoot soaringly forth; I have quitted my birthplace, Thy bidding to bide-- Thy spell hath subdued me, Thy will be my guide! FIFTH SPIRIT. I am the Rider of the wind, 100 The Stirrer of the storm; The hurricane I left behind Is yet with lightning warm; To speed to thee, o'er shore and sea I swept upon the blast: The fleet I met sailed well--and yet 'Twill sink ere night be past. SIXTH SPIRIT. My dwelling is the shadow of the Night, Why doth thy magic torture me with light? SEVENTH SPIRIT. The Star which rules thy destiny no 110 Was ruled, ere earth began, by me: It was a World as fresh and fair As e'er revolved round Sun in air; Its course was free and regular, Space bosomed not a lovelier star. The Hour arrived--and it became A wandering mass of shapeless flame, A pathless Comet, and a curse, The menace of the Universe; Still rolling on with innate force, 120 Without a sphere, without a course, A bright deformity on high, The monster of the upper sky! And Thou! beneath its influence born-- Thou worm! whom I obey and scorn-- Forced by a Power (which is not thine, And lent thee but to make thee mine) For this brief moment to descend, Where these weak Spirits round thee bend And parley with a thing like thee-- 130 What would'st thou, Child of Clay! with me?[112] _The_ SEVEN SPIRITS. Earth--ocean--air--night--mountains--winds--thy Star, Are at thy beck and bidding, Child of Clay! Before thee at thy quest their Spirits are-- What would'st thou with us, Son of mortals--say? _Man_. Forgetfulness---- _First Spirit_. Of what--of whom--and why? _Man_. Of that which is within me; read it there-- Ye know it--and I cannot utter it. _Spirit_. We can but give thee that which we possess: Ask of us subjects, sovereignty, the power 140 O'er earth--the whole, or portion--or a sign Which shall control the elements, whereof We are the dominators,--each and all, These shall be thine. _Man_. Oblivion--self-oblivion! Can ye not wring from out the hidden realms Ye offer so profusely--what I ask? _Spirit_. It is not in our essence, in our skill; But--thou may'st die. _Man_. Will Death bestow it on me? _Spirit_. We are immortal, and do not forget; We are eternal; and to us the past 150 Is, as the future, present. Art thou answered? _Man_. Ye mock me--but the Power which brought ye here Hath made you mine. Slaves, scoff not at my will! The Mind--the Spirit--the Promethean spark,[at] The lightning of my being, is as bright, Pervading, and far darting as your own, And shall not yield to yours, though cooped in clay! Answer, or I will teach you what I am.[au] _Spirit_. We answer--as we answered; our reply Is even in thine own words. _Man_. Why say ye so? 160 _Spirit_. If, as thou say'st, thine essence be as ours, We have replied in telling thee, the thing Mortals call death hath nought to do with us. _Man_. I then have called ye from your realms in vain; Ye cannot, or ye will not, aid me. _Spirit_. Say--[113] What we possess we offer; it is thine: Bethink ere thou dismiss us; ask again; Kingdom, and sway, and strength, and length of days-- _Man_. Accurséd! what have I to do with days? They are too long already.--Hence--begone! 170 _Spirit_. Yet pause: being here, our will would do thee service; Bethink thee, is there then no other gift Which we can make not worthless in thine eyes? _Man._ No, none: yet stay--one moment, ere we part, I would behold ye face to face. I hear Your voices, sweet and melancholy sounds, As Music on the waters;[114] and I see The steady aspect of a clear large Star; But nothing more. Approach me as ye are, Or one--or all--in your accustomed forms. 180 _Spirit_. We have no forms, beyond the elements Of which we are the mind and principle: But choose a form--in that we will appear. _Man_. I have no choice; there is no form on earth Hideous or beautiful to me. Let him, Who is most powerful of ye, take such aspect As unto him may seem most fitting--Come! _Seventh Spirit (appearing in the shape of a beautiful female figure)_.[115] Behold! _Man_. Oh God! if it be thus, and _thou_[116] Art not a madness and a mockery, I yet might be most happy. I will clasp thee, 190 And we again will be---- [_The figure vanishes._ My heart is crushed! [MANFRED _falls senseless_. (_A voice is heard in the Incantation which follows._)[117] When the Moon is on the wave, And the glow-worm in the grass, And the meteor on the grave, And the wisp on the morass;[118] When the falling stars are shooting, And the answered owls are hooting, And the silent leaves are still In the shadow of the hill, Shall my soul be upon thine, 200 With a power and with a sign. Though thy slumber may be deep, Yet thy Spirit shall not sleep; There are shades which will not vanish, There are thoughts thou canst not banish; By a Power to thee unknown, Thou canst never be alone; Thou art wrapt as with a shroud, Thou art gathered in a cloud; And for ever shalt thou dwell 210 In the spirit of this spell. Though thou seest me not pass by, Thou shalt feel me with thine eye As a thing that, though unseen, Must be near thee, and hath been; And when in that secret dread Thou hast turned around thy head, Thou shalt marvel I am not As thy shadow on the spot, And the power which thou dost feel 220 Shall be what thou must conceal. And a magic voice and verse Hath baptized thee with a curse; And a Spirit of the air Hath begirt thee with a snare; In the wind there is a voice Shall forbid thee to rejoice; And to thee shall Night deny All the quiet of her sky; And the day shall have a sun, 230 Which shall make thee wish it done. From thy false tears I did distil An essence which hath strength to kill; From thy own heart I then did wring The black blood in its blackest spring; From thy own smile I snatched the snake, For there it coiled as in a brake; From thy own lip I drew the charm Which gave all these their chiefest harm; In proving every poison known, 240 I found the strongest was thine own. By the cold breast and serpent smile, By thy unfathomed gulfs of guile, By that most seeming virtuous eye, By thy shut soul's hypocrisy; By the perfection of thine art Which passed for human thine own heart; By thy delight in others' pain, And by thy brotherhood of Cain, I call upon thee! and compel[av] 250 Thyself to be thy proper Hell! And on thy head I pour the vial Which doth devote thee to this trial; Nor to slumber, nor to die, Shall be in thy destiny; Though thy death shall still seem near To thy wish, but as a fear; Lo! the spell now works around thee, And the clankless chain hath bound thee; O'er thy heart and brain together 260 Hath the word been passed--now wither! SCENE II.--_The Mountain of the Jungfrau_.-- _Time, Morning_.--MANFRED _alone upon the cliffs._ _Man_. The spirits I have raised abandon me, The spells which I have studied baffle me, The remedy I recked of tortured me I lean no more on superhuman aid; It hath no power upon the past, and for The future, till the past be gulfed in darkness, It is not of my search.--My Mother Earth![119] And thou fresh-breaking Day, and you, ye Mountains, Why are ye beautiful? I cannot love ye. And thou, the bright Eye of the Universe, 10 That openest over all, and unto all Art a delight--thou shin'st not on my heart. And you, ye crags, upon whose extreme edge I stand, and on the torrent's brink beneath Behold the tall pines dwindled as to shrubs In dizziness of distance; when a leap, A stir, a motion, even a breath, would bring My breast upon its rocky bosom's bed To rest for ever--wherefore do I pause? I feel the impulse--yet I do not plunge; 20 I see the peril--yet do not recede; And my brain reels--and yet my foot is firm: There is a power upon me which withholds, And makes it my fatality to live,-- If it be life to wear within myself This barrenness of Spirit, and to be My own Soul's sepulchre, for I have ceased To justify my deeds unto myself-- The last infirmity of evil. Aye, Thou winged and cloud-cleaving minister, 30 [_An Eagle passes._ Whose happy flight is highest into heaven, Well may'st thou swoop so near me--I should be Thy prey, and gorge thine eaglets; thou art gone Where the eye cannot follow thee; but thine Yet pierces downward, onward, or above, With a pervading vision.--Beautiful! How beautiful is all this visible world![120] How glorious in its action and itself! But we, who name ourselves its sovereigns, we, Half dust, half deity, alike unfit 40 To sink or soar, with our mixed essence make A conflict of its elements, and breathe The breath of degradation and of pride, Contending with low wants and lofty will, Till our Mortality predominates, And men are--what they name not to themselves, And trust not to each other. Hark! the note, [_The Shepherd's pipe in the distance is heard._ The natural music of the mountain reed-- For here the patriarchal days are not A pastoral fable--pipes in the liberal air, 50 Mixed with the sweet bells of the sauntering herd;[121] My soul would drink those echoes. Oh, that I were The viewless spirit of a lovely sound, A living voice, a breathing harmony, A bodiless enjoyment[122]--born and dying With the blest tone which made me! _Enter from below a_ CHAMOIS HUNTER. _Chamois Hunter_. Even so This way the Chamois leapt: her nimble feet Have baffled me; my gains to-day will scarce Repay my break-neck travail.--What is here? Who seems not of my trade, and yet hath reached 60 A height which none even of our mountaineers, Save our best hunters, may attain: his garb Is goodly, his mien manly, and his air Proud as a free-born peasant's, at this distance: I will approach him nearer. _Man_. (_not perceiving the other_). To be thus-- Grey-haired with anguish, like these blasted pines, Wrecks of a single winter, barkless, branchless,[123] A blighted trunk upon a curséd root, Which but supplies a feeling to Decay-- And to be thus, eternally but thus, 70 Having been otherwise! Now furrowed o'er With wrinkles, ploughed by moments, not by years And hours, all tortured into ages--hours Which I outlive!--Ye toppling crags of ice! Ye Avalanches, whom a breath draws down In mountainous o'erwhelming, come and crush me! I hear ye momently above, beneath, Crash with a frequent conflict;[124] but ye pass, And only fall on things that still would live; On the young flourishing forest, or the hut 80 And hamlet of the harmless villager. _C. Hun_. The mists begin to rise from up the valley; I'll warn him to descend, or he may chance To lose at once his way and life together. _Man_. The mists boil up around the glaciers; clouds Rise curling fast beneath me, white and sulphury, Like foam from the roused ocean of deep Hell,[aw] Whose every wave breaks on a living shore, Heaped with the damned like pebbles.--I am giddy.[125] _C. Hun_. I must approach him cautiously; if near, 90 A sudden step will startle him, and he Seems tottering already. _Man_. Mountains have fallen, Leaving a gap in the clouds, and with the shock Rocking their Alpine brethren; filling up The ripe green valleys with Destruction's splinters; Damming the rivers with a sudden dash, Which crushed the waters into mist, and made Their fountains find another channel--thus, Thus, in its old age, did Mount Rosenberg--[126] Why stood I not beneath it? _C. Hun_. Friend! have a care, 100 Your next step may be fatal!--for the love Of Him who made you, stand not on that brink! _Man_. (_not hearing him_). Such would have been for me a fitting tomb; My bones had then been quiet in their depth; They had not then been strewn upon the rocks For the wind's pastime--as thus--thus they shall be-- In this one plunge.--Farewell, ye opening Heavens! Look not upon me thus reproachfully-- You were not meant for me--Earth! take these atoms! [_As_ MANFRED _is in act to spring from the cliff, the_ CHAMOIS HUNTER _seizes and retains him with a sudden grasp._ _C. Hun_. Hold, madman!--though aweary of thy life, 110 Stain not our pure vales with thy guilty blood: Away with me----I will not quit my hold. _Man_. I am most sick at heart--nay, grasp me not-- I am all feebleness--the mountains whirl Spinning around me----I grow blind----What art thou? _C. Hun_. I'll answer that anon.--Away with me---- The clouds grow thicker----there--now lean on me-- Place your foot here--here, take this staff, and cling A moment to that shrub--now give me your hand, And hold fast by my girdle--softly--well-- 120 The Chalet will be gained within an hour: Come on, we'll quickly find a surer footing, And something like a pathway, which the torrent Hath washed since winter.--Come,'tis bravely done-- You should have been a hunter.--Follow me. [_As they descend the rocks with difficulty, the scene closes._ ACT II. SCENE I.--_A Cottage among the Bernese Alps_.-- MANFRED _and the_ CHAMOIS HUNTER. _C. Hun_. No--no--yet pause--thou must not yet go forth; Thy mind and body are alike unfit To trust each other, for some hours, at least; When thou art better, I will be thy guide-- But whither? _Man_. It imports not: I do know My route full well, and need no further guidance. _C. Hun_. Thy garb and gait bespeak thee of high lineage-- One of the many chiefs, whose castled crags Look o'er the lower valleys--which of these May call thee lord? I only know their portals; 10 My way of life leads me but rarely down To bask by the huge hearths of those old halls, Carousing with the vassals; but the paths, Which step from out our mountains to their doors, I know from childhood--which of these is thine? _Man_. No matter. _C. Hun_. Well, Sir, pardon me the question, And be of better cheer. Come, taste my wine; 'Tis of an ancient vintage; many a day 'T has thawed my veins among our glaciers, now Let it do thus for thine--Come, pledge me fairly! 20 _Man_. Away, away! there's blood upon the brim! Will it then never--never sink in the earth? _C. Hun_. What dost thou mean? thy senses wander from thee. _Man_. I say 'tis blood--my blood! the pure warm stream Which ran in the veins of my fathers, and in ours When we were in our youth, and had one heart, And loved each other as we should not love,[127] And this was shed: but still it rises up, Colouring the clouds, that shut me out from Heaven, Where thou art not--and I shall never be. 30 _C. Hun_. Man of strange words, and some half-maddening sin,[ax] Which makes thee people vacancy, whate'er Thy dread and sufferance be, there's comfort yet-- The aid of holy men, and heavenly patience---- _Man_. Patience--and patience! Hence--that word was made For brutes of burthen, not for birds of prey! Preach it to mortals of a dust like thine,-- I am not of thine order. _C. Hun_. Thanks to Heaven! I would not be of thine for the free fame Of William Tell; but whatsoe'er thine ill, 40 It must be borne, and these wild starts are useless. _Man_. Do I not bear it?--Look on me--I live. _C. Hun._ This is convulsion, and no healthful life. _Man_. I tell thee, man! I have lived many years, Many long years, but they are nothing now To those which I must number: ages--ages-- Space and eternity--and consciousness, With the fierce thirst of death--and still unslaked! _C. Hun_. Why on thy brow the seal of middle age Hath scarce been set; I am thine elder far. 50 _Man_. Think'st thou existence doth depend on time?[128] It doth; but actions are our epochs: mine Have made my days and nights imperishable, Endless, and all alike, as sands on the shore, Innumerable atoms; and one desert, Barren and cold, on which the wild waves break, But nothing rests, save carcasses and wrecks, Rocks, and the salt-surf weeds of bitterness. _C. Hun_. Alas! he's mad--but yet I must not leave him. _Man_. I would I were--for then the things I see 60 Would be but a distempered dream. _C. Hun_. What is it That thou dost see, or think thou look'st upon? _Man_. Myself, and thee--a peasant of the Alps-- Thy humble virtues, hospitable home, And spirit patient, pious, proud, and free; Thy self-respect, grafted on innocent thoughts; Thy days of health, and nights of sleep; thy toils, By danger dignified, yet guiltless; hopes Of cheerful old age and a quiet grave, With cross and garland over its green turf, 70 And thy grandchildren's love for epitaph! This do I see--and then I look within-- It matters not--my Soul was scorched already! _C. Hun_. And would'st thou then exchange thy lot for mine? _Man_. No, friend! I would not wrong thee, nor exchange My lot with living being: I can bear-- However wretchedly, 'tis still to bear-- In life what others could not brook to dream, But perish in their slumber. _C. Hun_. And with this-- This cautious feeling for another's pain, 80 Canst thou be black with evil?--say not so. Can one of gentle thoughts have wreaked revenge Upon his enemies? _Man_. Oh! no, no, no! My injuries came down on those who loved me-- On those whom I best loved: I never quelled An enemy, save in my just defence-- But my embrace was fatal. _C. Hun_. Heaven give thee rest! And Penitence restore thee to thyself; My prayers shall be for thee. _Man_. I need them not, But can endure thy pity. I depart-- 90 'Tis time--farewell!--Here's gold, and thanks for thee-- No words--it is thy due.--Follow me not-- I know my path--the mountain peril's past: And once again I charge thee, follow not! [_Exit_ MANFRED. SCENE II.--_A lower Valley in the Alps.--A Cataract_. _Enter_ MANFRED. It is not noon--the Sunbow's rays[129] still arch The torrent with the many hues of heaven, And roll the sheeted silver's waving column O'er the crag's headlong perpendicular, And fling its lines of foaming light along, And to and fro, like the pale courser's tail, The Giant steed, to be bestrode by Death, As told in the Apocalypse.[130] No eyes But mine now drink this sight of loveliness; I should be sole in this sweet solitude, 10 And with the Spirit of the place divide The homage of these waters.--I will call her. [MANFRED _takes some of the water into the palm of his hand and flings it into the air, muttering the ajuration. After a pause, the_ WITCH OF THE ALPS _rises beneath the arch of the sunbow of the torrent._ Beautiful Spirit! with thy hair of light, And dazzling eyes of glory, in whose form The charms of Earth's least mortal daughters grow To an unearthly stature, in an essence Of purer elements; while the hues of youth,-- Carnationed like a sleeping Infant's cheek, Rocked by the beating of her mother's heart, Or the rose tints, which Summer's twilight leaves 20 Upon the lofty Glacier's virgin snow, The blush of earth embracing with her Heaven,-- Tinge thy celestial aspect, and make tame The beauties of the Sunbow which bends o'er thee. Beautiful Spirit! in thy calm clear brow, Wherein is glassed serenity of Soul,[ay] Which of itself shows immortality, I read that thou wilt pardon to a Son Of Earth, whom the abstruser powers permit At times to commune with them--if that he 30 Avail him of his spells--to call thee thus, And gaze on thee a moment. _Witch_. Son of Earth! I know thee, and the Powers which give thee power! I know thee for a man of many thoughts, And deeds of good and ill, extreme in both, Fatal and fated in thy sufferings. I have expected this--what would'st thou with me? _Man_. To look upon thy beauty--nothing further. The face of the earth hath maddened me, and I Take refuge in her mysteries, and pierce 40 To the abodes of those who govern her-- But they can nothing aid me. I have sought From them what they could not bestow, and now I search no further. _Witch_. What could be the quest Which is not in the power of the most powerful, The rulers of the invisible? _Man_. A boon;-- But why should I repeat it? 'twere in vain. _Witch_. I know not that; let thy lips utter it. _Man_. Well, though it torture me, 'tis but the same; My pang shall find a voice. From my youth upwards 50 My Spirit walked not with the souls of men, Nor looked upon the earth with human eyes; The thirst of their ambition was not mine, The aim of their existence was not mine; My joys--my griefs--my passions--and my powers, Made me a stranger; though I wore the form, I had no sympathy with breathing flesh, Nor midst the Creatures of Clay that girded me Was there but One who--but of her anon. I said with men, and with the thoughts of men, 60 I held but slight communion; but instead, My joy was in the wilderness,--to breathe The difficult air of the iced mountain's top,[131] Where the birds dare not build--nor insect's wing Flit o'er the herbless granite; or to plunge Into the torrent, and to roll along On the swift whirl of the new-breaking wave Of river-stream, or Ocean, in their flow.[132] In these my early strength exulted; or To follow through the night the moving moon,[133] 70 The stars and their development; or catch The dazzling lightnings till my eyes grew dim; Or to look, list'ning, on the scattered leaves, While Autumn winds were at their evening song. These were my pastimes, and to be alone; For if the beings, of whom I was one,-- Hating to be so,--crossed me in my path, I felt myself degraded back to them, And was all clay again. And then I dived, In my lone wanderings, to the caves of Death, 80 Searching its cause in its effect; and drew From withered bones, and skulls, and heaped up dust Conclusions most forbidden.[134] Then I passed-- The nights of years in sciences untaught, Save in the old-time; and with time and toil, And terrible ordeal, and such penance As in itself hath power upon the air, And spirits that do compass air and earth, Space, and the peopled Infinite, I made Mine eyes familiar with Eternity, 90 Such as, before me, did the Magi, and He who from out their fountain-dwellings raised Eros and Anteros,[135] at Gadara, As I do thee;--and with my knowledge grew The thirst of knowledge, and the power and joy Of this most bright intelligence, until---- _Witch_. Proceed. _Man_. Oh! I but thus prolonged my words, Boasting these idle attributes, because As I approach the core of my heart's grief-- But--to my task. I have not named to thee 100 Father or mother, mistress, friend, or being, With whom I wore the chain of human ties; If I had such, they seemed not such to me-- Yet there was One---- _Witch_. Spare not thyself--proceed. _Man_. She was like me in lineaments--her eyes-- Her hair--her features--all, to the very tone Even of her voice, they said were like to mine; But softened all, and tempered into beauty: She had the same lone thoughts and wanderings, The quest of hidden knowledge, and a mind 110 To comprehend the Universe: nor these Alone, but with them gentler powers than mine, Pity, and smiles, and tears--which I had not; And tenderness--but that I had for her; Humility--and that I never had. Her faults were mine--her virtues were her own-- I loved her, and destroyed her! _Witch_. With thy hand? _Man_. Not with my hand, but heart, which broke her heart; It gazed on mine, and withered. I have shed Blood, but not hers--and yet her blood was shed; 120 I saw--and could not stanch it. _Witch_. And for this-- A being of the race thou dost despise-- The order, which thine own would rise above, Mingling with us and ours,--thou dost forego The gifts of our great knowledge, and shrink'st back To recreant mortality----Away! _Man_. Daughter of Air! I tell thee, since that hour-- But words are breath--look on me in my sleep, Or watch my watchings--Come and sit by me! My solitude is solitude no more, 130 But peopled with the Furies;--I have gnashed My teeth in darkness till returning morn, Then cursed myself till sunset;--I have prayed For madness as a blessing--'tis denied me. I have affronted Death--but in the war Of elements the waters shrunk from me,[136] And fatal things passed harmless; the cold hand Of an all-pitiless Demon held me back, Back by a single hair, which would not break. In Fantasy, Imagination, all 140 The affluence of my soul--which one day was A Croesus in creation--I plunged deep, But, like an ebbing wave, it dashed me back Into the gulf of my unfathomed thought. I plunged amidst Mankind--Forgetfulness[137] I sought in all, save where 'tis to be found-- And that I have to learn--my Sciences, My long pursued and superhuman art, Is mortal here: I dwell in my despair-- And live--and live for ever.[az] _Witch_. It may be 150 That I can aid thee. _Man_. To do this thy power Must wake the dead, or lay me low with them. Do so--in any shape--in any hour-- With any torture--so it be the last. _Witch_. That is not in my province; but if thou Wilt swear obedience to my will, and do My bidding, it may help thee to thy wishes. _Man_. I will not swear--Obey! and whom? the Spirits Whose presence I command, and be the slave Of those who served me--Never! _Witch_. Is this all? 160 Hast thou no gentler answer?--Yet bethink thee, And pause ere thou rejectest. _Man_. I have said it. _Witch_. Enough! I may retire then--say! _Man_. Retire! [_The_ WITCH _disappears._ _Man_. (_alone_). We are the fools of Time and Terror: Days Steal on us, and steal from us; yet we live, Loathing our life, and dreading still to die. In all the days of this detested yoke-- This vital weight upon the struggling heart, Which sinks with sorrow, or beats quick with pain, Or joy that ends in agony or faintness-- 170 In all the days of past and future--for In life there is no present--we can number How few--how less than few--wherein the soul Forbears to pant for death, and yet draws back As from a stream in winter, though the chill[ba] Be but a moment's. I have one resource Still in my science--I can call the dead, And ask them what it is we dread to be: The sternest answer can but be the Grave, And that is nothing: if they answer not-- 180 The buried Prophet answered to the Hag Of Endor; and the Spartan Monarch drew From the Byzantine maid's unsleeping spirit An answer and his destiny--he slew That which he loved, unknowing what he slew, And died unpardoned--though he called in aid The Phyxian Jove, and in Phigalia roused The Arcadian Evocators to compel The indignant shadow to depose her wrath, Or fix her term of vengeance--she replied 190 In words of dubious import, but fulfilled.[138] If I had never lived, that which I love Had still been living; had I never loved, That which I love would still be beautiful, Happy and giving happiness. What is she? What is she now?--a sufferer for my sins-- A thing I dare not think upon--or nothing. Within few hours I shall not call in vain-- Yet in this hour I dread the thing I dare: Until this hour I never shrunk to gaze 200 On spirit, good or evil--now I tremble, And feel a strange cold thaw upon my heart. But I can act even what I most abhor, And champion human fears.--The night approaches. [_Exit._ SCENE III.--_The summit of the Jungfrau Mountain._ _Enter_ FIRST DESTINY. The Moon is rising broad, and round, and bright; And here on snows, where never human foot[139] Of common mortal trod, we nightly tread, And leave no traces: o'er the savage sea, The glassy ocean of the mountain ice, We skim its rugged breakers, which put on The aspect of a tumbling tempest's foam, Frozen in a moment[140]--a dead Whirlpool's image: And this most steep fantastic pinnacle, The fretwork of some earthquake--where the clouds 10 Pause to repose themselves in passing by-- Is sacred to our revels, or our vigils; Here do I wait my sisters, on our way To the Hall of Arimanes--for to-night Is our great festival[141]--'tis strange they come not. _A Voice without, singing._ The Captive Usurper, Hurled down from the throne, Lay buried in torpor, Forgotten and lone; I broke through his slumbers, 20 I shivered his chain, I leagued him with numbers-- He's Tyrant again! With the blood of a million he'll answer my care, With a Nation's destruction--his flight and despair![142] _Second Voice, without._ The Ship sailed on, the Ship sailed fast, But I left not a sail, and I left not a mast; There is not a plank of the hull or the deck, And there is not a wretch to lament o'er his wreck; Save one, whom I held, as he swam, by the hair, 30 And he was a subject well worthy my care; A traitor on land, and a pirate at sea--[143] But I saved him to wreak further havoc for me! FIRST DESTINY, _answering._ The City lies sleeping; The morn, to deplore it, May dawn on it weeping: Sullenly, slowly, The black plague flew o'er it-- Thousands lie lowly; Tens of thousands shall perish; 40 The living shall fly from The sick they should cherish; But nothing can vanquish The touch that they die from. Sorrow and anguish, And evil and dread, Envelope a nation; The blest are the dead, Who see not the sight Of their own desolation; 50 This work of a night-- This wreck of a realm--this deed of my doing-- For ages I've done, and shall still be renewing! _Enter the_ SECOND _and_ THIRD DESTINIES. _The Three._ Our hands contain the hearts of men, Our footsteps are their graves; We only give to take again The Spirits of our slaves! _First Des_. Welcome!--Where's Nemesis? _Second Des_. At some great work; But what I know not, for my hands were full. _Third Des_. Behold she cometh. _Enter_ NEMESIS. _First Des_. Say, where hast thou been? 60 My Sisters and thyself are slow to-night. _Nem_. I was detained repairing shattered thrones-- Marrying fools, restoring dynasties-- Avenging men upon their enemies, And making them repent their own revenge; Goading the wise to madness; from the dull Shaping out oracles to rule the world Afresh--for they were waxing out of date, And mortals dared to ponder for themselves, To weigh kings in the balance--and to speak 70 Of Freedom, the forbidden fruit.--Away! We have outstayed the hour--mount we our clouds! [_Exeunt._ SCENE IV.--_The Hall of Arimanes._[144]--_Arimanes on his Throne, a Globe of Fire,[145] surrounded by the Spirits._ _Hymn of the_ SPIRITS. Hail to our Master!--Prince of Earth and Air! Who walks the clouds and waters--in his hand The sceptre of the Elements, which tear Themselves to chaos at his high command! He breatheth--and a tempest shakes the sea; He speaketh--and the clouds reply in thunder; He gazeth--from his glance the sunbeams flee; He moveth--Earthquakes rend the world asunder. Beneath his footsteps the Volcanoes rise; His shadow is the Pestilence: his path 10 The comets herald through the crackling skies;[bb] And Planets turn to ashes at his wrath. To him War offers daily sacrifice; To him Death pays his tribute; Life is his, With all its Infinite of agonies-- And his the Spirit of whatever is! _Enter the_ DESTINIES _and_ NEMESIS. _First Des_. Glory to Arimanes! on the earth His power increaseth--both my sisters did His bidding, nor did I neglect my duty! _Second Des_. Glory to Arimanes! we who bow 20 The necks of men, bow down before his throne! _Third Des_. Glory to Arimanes! we await His nod! _Nem_. Sovereign of Sovereigns! we are thine, And all that liveth, more or less, is ours, And most things wholly so; still to increase Our power, increasing thine, demands our care, And we are vigilant. Thy late commands Have been fulfilled to the utmost. _Enter_ MANFRED. _A Spirit_. What is here? A mortal!--Thou most rash and fatal wretch, Bow down and worship! _Second Spirit_. I do know the man-- 30 A Magian of great power, and fearful skill! _Third Spirit_. Bow down and worship, slave!--What, know'st thou not Thine and our Sovereign?--Tremble, and obey! _All the Spirits_. Prostrate thyself, and thy condemnéd clay, Child of the Earth! or dread the worst. _Man_. I know it; And yet ye see I kneel not. _Fourth Spirit_. 'Twill be taught thee. _Man_. 'Tis taught already;--many a night on the earth, On the bare ground, have I bowed down my face, And strewed my head with ashes; I have known The fulness of humiliation--for 40 I sunk before my vain despair, and knelt To my own desolation. _Fifth Spirit_. Dost thou dare Refuse to Arimanes on his throne What the whole earth accords, beholding not The terror of his Glory?--Crouch! I say. _Man_. Bid _him_ bow down to that which is above him, The overruling Infinite--the Maker Who made him not for worship--let him kneel, And we will kneel together. _The Spirits_. Crush the worm! Tear him in pieces!-- _First Des_. Hence! Avaunt!--he's mine. 50 Prince of the Powers invisible! This man Is of no common order, as his port And presence here denote: his sufferings Have been of an immortal nature--like Our own; his knowledge, and his powers and will, As far as is compatible with clay, Which clogs the ethereal essence, have been such As clay hath seldom borne; his aspirations Have been beyond the dwellers of the earth, And they have only taught him what we know-- 60 That knowledge is not happiness, and science[146] But an exchange of ignorance for that Which is another kind of ignorance. This is not all--the passions, attributes Of Earth and Heaven, from which no power, nor being, Nor breath from the worm upwards is exempt, Have pierced his heart; and in their consequence Made him a thing--which--I who pity not, Yet pardon those who pity. He is mine-- And thine it may be; be it so, or not-- 70 No other Spirit in this region hath A soul like his--or power upon his soul. _Nem_. What doth he here then? _First Des_. Let _him_ answer that. _Man_. Ye know what I have known; and without power I could not be amongst ye: but there are Powers deeper still beyond--I come in quest Of such, to answer unto what I seek. _Nem_. What would'st thou? _Man_. _Thou_ canst not reply to me. Call up the dead--my question is for them. _Nem_. Great Arimanes, doth thy will avouch 80 The wishes of this mortal? _Ari_. Yea. _Nem_. Whom wouldst thou Uncharnel? _Man_. One without a tomb--call up Astarte.[147] NEMESIS. Shadow! or Spirit! Whatever thou art, Which still doth inherit[bc] The whole or a part Of the form of thy birth, Of the mould of thy clay, Which returned to the earth, 90 Re-appear to the day! Bear what thou borest, The heart and the form, And the aspect thou worest Redeem from the worm. Appear!--Appear!--Appear! Who sent thee there requires thee here! [_The Phantom of_ ASTARTE _rises and stands in the midst_. _Man_. Can this be death? there's bloom upon her cheek; But now I see it is no living hue, But a strange hectic--like the unnatural red 100 Which Autumn plants upon the perished leaf.[148] It is the same! Oh, God! that I should dread To look upon the same--Astarte!--No, I cannot speak to her--but bid her speak-- Forgive me or condemn me. NEMESIS. By the Power which hath broken The grave which enthralled thee, Speak to him who hath spoken. Or those who have called thee! _Man_. She is silent, And in that silence I am more than answered. 110 _Nem_. My power extends no further. Prince of Air! It rests with thee alone--command her voice. _Ari_. Spirit--obey this sceptre! _Nem_. Silent still! She is not of our order, but belongs To the other powers. Mortal! thy quest is vain, And we are baffled also. _Man_. Hear me, hear me-- Astarte! my belovéd! speak to me: I have so much endured--so much endure-- Look on me! the grave hath not changed thee more Than I am changed for thee. Thou lovedst me 120 Too much, as I loved thee: we were not made To torture thus each other--though it were The deadliest sin to love as we have loved. Say that thou loath'st me not--that I do bear This punishment for both--that thou wilt be One of the blesséd--and that I shall die; For hitherto all hateful things conspire To bind me in existence--in a life Which makes me shrink from Immortality-- A future like the past. I cannot rest. 130 I know not what I ask, nor what I seek: I feel but what thou art, and what I am; And I would hear yet once before I perish The voice which was my music--Speak to me! For I have called on thee in the still night, Startled the slumbering birds from the hushed boughs, And woke the mountain wolves, and made the caves Acquainted with thy vainly echoed name, Which answered me--many things answered me-- Spirits and men--but thou wert silent all. 140 Yet speak to me! I have outwatched the stars, And gazed o'er heaven in vain in search of thee. Speak to me! I have wandered o'er the earth, And never found thy likeness--Speak to me! Look on the fiends around--they feel for me: I fear them not, and feel for thee alone. Speak to me! though it be in wrath;--but say-- I reck not what--but let me hear thee once-- This once--once more! _Phantom of Astarte_. Manfred! _Man_. Say on, say on-- I live but in the sound--it is thy voice! 150 _Phan_. Manfred! To-morrow ends thine earthly ills. Farewell! _Man_. Yet one word more--am I forgiven? _Phan_. Farewell! _Man_. Say, shall we meet again? _Phan_. Farewell! _Man_. One word for mercy! Say thou lovest me. _Phan_. Manfred! [_The Spirit of_ ASTARTE _disappears_. _Nem_. She's gone, and will not be recalled: Her words will be fulfilled. Return to the earth. _A Spirit_. He is convulsed--This is to be a mortal, And seek the things beyond mortality. _Another Spirit_. Yet, see, he mastereth himself, and makes His torture tributary to his will.[149] 160 Had he been one of us, he would have made An awful Spirit. _Nem_. Hast thou further question Of our great Sovereign, or his worshippers? _Man_. None. _Nem_. Then for a time farewell. _Man_. We meet then! Where? On the earth?-- Even as thou wilt: and for the grace accorded I now depart a debtor. Fare ye well! [_Exit_ MANFRED. (_Scene closes_.) ACT III. SCENE I.--_A Hall in the Castle of Manfred_.[150] MANFRED _and_ HERMAN. _Man_. What is the hour? _Her_. It wants but one till sunset, And promises a lovely twilight. _Man_. Say, Are all things so disposed of in the tower As I directed? _Her_. All, my Lord, are ready: Here is the key and casket.[151] _Man_. It is well: Thou mayst retire. [_Exit_ HERMAN. _Man_. (_alone_). There is a calm upon me-- Inexplicable stillness! which till now Did not belong to what I knew of life. If that I did not know Philosophy To be of all our vanities the motliest, 10 The merest word that ever fooled the ear From out the schoolman's jargon, I should deem The golden secret, the sought "Kalon," found,[152] And seated in my soul. It will not last, But it is well to have known it, though but once: It hath enlarged my thoughts with a new sense, And I within my tablets would note down That there is such a feeling. Who is there? _Re-enter_ HERMAN. _Her_. My Lord, the Abbot of St. Maurice craves[153] To greet your presence. _Enter the_ ABBOT OF ST. MAURICE. _Abbot_. Peace be with Count Manfred! 20 _Man_. Thanks, holy father! welcome to these walls; Thy presence honours them, and blesseth those Who dwell within them. _Abbot_. Would it were so, Count!-- But I would fain confer with thee alone. _Man_. Herman, retire.--What would my reverend guest? _Abbot_. Thus, without prelude:--Age and zeal--my office-- And good intent must plead my privilege; Our near, though not acquainted neighbourhood, May also be my herald. Rumours strange, And of unholy nature, are abroad, 30 And busy with thy name--a noble name For centuries: may he who bears it now Transmit it unimpaired! _Man_. Proceed,--I listen. _Abbot_. 'Tis said thou holdest converse with the things Which are forbidden to the search of man; That with the dwellers of the dark abodes, The many evil and unheavenly spirits Which walk the valley of the Shade of Death, Thou communest. I know that with mankind, Thy fellows in creation, thou dost rarely 40 Exchange thy thoughts, and that thy solitude Is as an Anchorite's--were it but holy. _Man_. And what are they who do avouch these things? _Abbot_. My pious brethren--the scaréd peasantry-- Even thy own vassals--who do look on thee With most unquiet eyes. Thy life's in peril! _Man_. Take it. _Abbot_. I come to save, and not destroy: I would not pry into thy secret soul; But if these things be sooth, there still is time For penitence and pity: reconcile thee 50 With the true church, and through the church to Heaven. _Man_. I hear thee. This is my reply--whate'er I may have been, or am, doth rest between Heaven and myself--I shall not choose a mortal To be my mediator--Have I sinned Against your ordinances? prove and punish![154] _Abbot_. My son! I did not speak of punishment,[155] But penitence and pardon;--with thyself The choice of such remains--and for the last, Our institutions and our strong belief 60 Have given me power to smooth the path from sin To higher hope and better thoughts; the first I leave to Heaven,--"Vengeance is mine alone!" So saith the Lord, and with all humbleness His servant echoes back the awful word. _Man_. Old man! there is no power in holy men, Nor charm in prayer, nor purifying form Of penitence, nor outward look, nor fast, Nor agony--nor, greater than all these, The innate tortures of that deep Despair, 70 Which is Remorse without the fear of Hell, But all in all sufficient to itself Would make a hell of Heaven--can exorcise From out the unbounded spirit the quick sense Of its own sins--wrongs--sufferance--and revenge Upon itself; there is no future pang Can deal that justice on the self--condemned He deals on his own soul. _Abbot_. All this is well; For this will pass away, and be succeeded By an auspicious hope, which shall look up 80 With calm assurafice to that blessed place, Which all who seek may win, whatever be Their earthly errors, so they be atoned: And the commencement of atonement is The sense of its necessity. Say on-- And all our church can teach thee shall be taught; And all we can absolve thee shall be pardoned. _Man_. When Rome's sixth Emperor[156] was near his last, The victim of a self-inflicted wound, To shun the torments of a public death[bd] 90 From senates once his slaves, a certain soldier, With show of loyal pity, would have stanched The gushing throat with his officious robe; The dying Roman thrust him back, and said-- Some empire still in his expiring glance-- "It is too late--is this fidelity?" _Abbot_. And what of this? _Man_. I answer with the Roman-- "It is too late!" _Abbot_. It never can be so, To reconcile thyself with thy own soul, And thy own soul with Heaven. Hast thou no hope? 100 'Tis strange--even those who do despair above, Yet shape themselves some fantasy on earth, To which frail twig they cling, like drowning men. _Man_. Aye--father! I have had those early visions, And noble aspirations in my youth, To make my own the mind of other men, The enlightener of nations; and to rise I knew not whither--it might be to fall; But fall, even as the mountain-cataract, Which having leapt from its more dazzling height, 110 Even in the foaming strength of its abyss, (Which casts up misty columns that become Clouds raining from the re-ascended skies,)[157] Lies low but mighty still.--But this is past, My thoughts mistook themselves. _Abbot_. And wherefore so? _Man_.I could not tame my nature down; for he Must serve who fain would sway; and soothe, and sue, And watch all time, and pry into all place, And be a living Lie, who would become A mighty thing amongst the mean--and such 120 The mass are; I disdained to mingle with A herd, though to be leader--and of wolves, The lion is alone, and so am I. _Abbot_. And why not live and act with other men? _Man_. Because my nature was averse from life; And yet not cruel; for I would not make, But find a desolation. Like the Wind, The red-hot breath of the most lone Simoom,[158] Which dwells but in the desert, and sweeps o'er The barren sands which bear no shrubs to blast, 130 And revels o'er their wild and arid waves, And seeketh not, so that it is not sought, But being met is deadly,--such hath been The course of my existence; but there came Things in my path which are no more. _Abbot_. Alas! I 'gin to fear that thou art past all aid From me and from my calling; yet so young, I still would---- _Man_. Look on me! there is an order Of mortals on the earth, who do become Old in their youth, and die ere middle age,[159] 140 Without the violence of warlike death; Some perishing of pleasure--some of study-- Some worn with toil, some of mere weariness,-- Some of disease--and some insanity-- And some of withered, or of broken hearts; For this last is a malady which slays More than are numbered in the lists of Fate, Taking all shapes, and bearing many names. Look upon me! for even of all these things Have I partaken; and of all these things, 150 One were enough; then wonder not that I Am what I am, but that I ever was, Or having been, that I am still on earth. _Abbot_. Yet, hear me still-- _Man_. Old man! I do respect Thine order, and revere thine years; I deem Thy purpose pious, but it is in vain: Think me not churlish; I would spare thyself, Far more than me, in shunning at this time All further colloquy--and so--farewell. [Exit MANFRED. _Abbot_. This should have been a noble creature: he 160 Hath all the energy which would have made A goodly frame of glorious elements, Had they been wisely mingled; as it is, It is an awful chaos--Light and Darkness-- And mind and dust--and passions and pure thoughts Mixed, and contending without end or order,-- All dormant or destructive. He will perish-- And yet he must not--I will try once more, For such are worth redemption; and my duty Is to dare all things for a righteous end. 170 I'll follow him--but cautiously, though surely. [Exit ABBOT. SCENE II.--_Another Chamber_. MANFRED _and_ HERMAN. _Her_. My lord, you bade me wait on you at sunset: He sinks behind the mountain. _Man_. Doth he so? I will look on him. [MANFRED _advances to the Window of the Hall_. Glorious Orb! the idol[160] Of early nature, and the vigorous race Of undiseased mankind, the giant sons[161] Of the embrace of Angels, with a sex More beautiful than they, which did draw down The erring Spirits who can ne'er return.-- Most glorious Orb! that wert a worship, ere The mystery of thy making was revealed! 10 Thou earliest minister of the Almighty, Which gladdened, on their mountain tops, the hearts Of the Chaldean shepherds, till they poured[162] Themselves in orisons! Thou material God! And representative of the Unknown-- Who chose thee for his shadow! Thou chief Star! Centre of many stars! which mak'st our earth Endurable and temperest the hues And hearts of all who walk within thy rays! Sire of the seasons! Monarch of the climes, 20 And those who dwell in them! for near or far, Our inborn spirits have a tint of thee Even as our outward aspects;--thou dost rise, And shine, and set in glory. Fare thee well! I ne'er shall see thee more. As my first glance Of love and wonder was for thee, then take My latest look: thou wilt not beam on one To whom the gifts of life and warmth have been Of a more fatal nature. He is gone-- I follow. [_Exit_ MANFRED. SCENE III.--_The Mountains_--_The Castle of Manfred at some distance_--_A Terrace before a Tower_.--_Time, Twilight_. HERMAN, MANUEL, _and other dependants of_ MANFRED. _Her_. 'Tis strange enough! night after night, for years, He hath pursued long vigils in this tower, Without a witness. I have been within it,-- So have we all been oft-times; but from it, Or its contents, it were impossible To draw conclusions absolute, of aught His studies tend to. To be sure, there is One chamber where none enter: I would give The fee of what I have to come these three years, To pore upon its mysteries. _Manuel_. 'Twere dangerous; 10 Content thyself with what thou know'st already. _Her_. Ah! Manuel! thou art elderly and wise, And couldst say much; thou hast dwelt within the castle-- How many years is't? _Manuel_. Ere Count Manfred's birth, I served his father, whom he nought resembles. _Her_. There be more sons in like predicament! But wherein do they differ? _Manuel_. I speak not Of features or of form, but mind and habits; Count Sigismund was proud, but gay and free,-- A warrior and a reveller; he dwelt not 20 With books and solitude, nor made the night A gloomy vigil, but a festal time, Merrier than day; he did not walk the rocks And forests like a wolf, nor turn aside From men and their delights. _Her_. Beshrew the hour, But those were jocund times! I would that such Would visit the old walls again; they look As if they had forgotten them. _Manuel_. These walls Must change their chieftain first. Oh! I have seen Some strange things in them, Herman.[be] _Her_. Come, be friendly; 30 Relate me some to while away our watch: I've heard thee darkly speak of an event Which happened hereabouts, by this same tower. _Manuel_. That was a night indeed! I do remember 'Twas twilight, as it may be now, and such Another evening:--yon red cloud, which rests On Eigher's pinnacle,[163] so rested then,-- So like that it might be the same; the wind Was faint and gusty, and the mountain snows Began to glitter with the climbing moon; 40 Count Manfred was, as now, within his tower,-- How occupied, we knew not, but with him The sole companion of his wanderings And watchings--her, whom of all earthly things That lived, the only thing he seemed to love,-- As he, indeed, by blood was bound to do, The Lady Astarte, his----[164] Hush! who comes here? _Enter the_ ABBOT. _Abbot_. Where is your master? _Her_. Yonder in the tower. _Abbot_. I must speak with him. _Manuel_. 'Tis impossible; He is most private, and must not be thus 50 Intruded on. _Abbot_. Upon myself I take The forfeit of my fault, if fault there be-- But I must see him. _Her_. Thou hast seen him once his eve already. _Abbot_. Herman! I command thee,[bf] Knock, and apprize the Count of my approach. _Her_. We dare not. _Abbot_. Then it seems I must be herald Of my own purpose. _Manuel_. Reverend father, stop-- I pray you pause. _Abbot_. Why so? _Manuel_. But step this way, And I will tell you further. [_Exeunt_. SCENE IV.--_Interior of the Tower_. MANFRED _alone_. The stars are forth, the moon above the tops Of the snow-shining mountains.--Beautiful! I linger yet with Nature, for the Night[165] Hath been to me a more familiar face Than that of man; and in her starry shade Of dim and solitary loveliness, I learned the language of another world. I do remember me, that in my youth, When I was wandering,--upon such a night I stood within the Coliseum's wall,[166] 10 'Midst the chief relics of almighty Rome; The trees which grew along the broken arches Waved dark in the blue midnight, and the stars Shone through the rents of ruin; from afar The watch-dog bayed beyond the Tiber; and More near from out the Cæsars' palace came The owl's long cry, and, interruptedly,[167] Of distant sentinels the fitful song Begun and died upon the gentle wind.[168] Some cypresses beyond the time-worn breach 20 Appeared to skirt the horizon, yet they stood Within a bowshot. Where the Cæsars dwelt, And dwell the tuneless birds of night, amidst A grove which springs through levelled battlements, And twines its roots with the imperial hearths, Ivy usurps the laurel's place of growth; But the gladiators' bloody Circus stands, A noble wreck in ruinous perfection, While Cæsar's chambers, and the Augustan halls, Grovel on earth in indistinct decay.-- 30 And thou didst shine, thou rolling Moon, upon All this, and cast a wide and tender light, Which softened down the hoar austerity Of rugged desolation, and filled up, As 'twere anew, the gaps of centuries; Leaving that beautiful which still was so, And making that which was not--till the place Became religion, and the heart ran o'er With silent worship of the Great of old,-- The dead, but sceptred, Sovereigns, who still rule 40 Our spirits from their urns. 'Twas such a night! 'Tis strange that I recall it at this time; But I have found our thoughts take wildest flight Even at the moment when they should array Themselves in pensive order. _Enter the_ ABBOT. _Abbot_. My good Lord! I crave a second grace for this approach; But yet let not my humble zeal offend By its abruptness--all it hath of ill Recoils on me; its good in the effect May light upon your head--could I say _heart_-- 50 Could I touch _that_, with words or prayers, I should Recall a noble spirit which hath wandered, But is not yet all lost. _Man_. Thou know'st me not; My days are numbered, and my deeds recorded: Retire, or 'twill be dangerous--Away! _Abbot_. Thou dost not mean to menace me? _Man_. Not I! I simply tell thee peril is at hand, And would preserve thee. _Abbot_. What dost thou mean? _Man_. Look there! What dost thou see? _Abbot_. Nothing. _Man_. Look there, I say, And steadfastly;--now tell me what thou seest? 60 _Abbot_. That which should shake me,--but I fear it not: I see a dusk and awful figure rise, Like an infernal god, from out the earth; His face wrapt in a mantle, and his form Robed as with angry clouds: he stands between Thyself and me--but I do fear him not. _Man_. Thou hast no cause--he shall not harm thee--but His sight may shock thine old limbs into palsy. I say to thee--Retire! _Abbot_. And I reply-- Never--till I have battled with this fiend:-- 70 What doth he here? _Man_. Why--aye--what doth he here? I did not send for him,--he is unbidden. _Abbot_. Alas! lost Mortal! what with guests like these Hast thou to do? I tremble for thy sake: Why doth he gaze on thee, and thou on him? Ah! he unveils his aspect: on his brow The thunder-scars are graven; from his eye[169] Glares forth the immortality of Hell-- Avaunt!-- _Man_. Pronounce--what is thy mission? _Spirit_. Come! _Abbot_. What art thou, unknown being? answer!--speak! 80 _Spirit_. The genius of this mortal.--Come!'tis time. _Man_. I am prepared for all things, but deny The Power which summons me. Who sent thee here? _Spirit_. Thou'lt know anon--Come! come! _Man_. I have commanded Things of an essence greater far than thine, And striven with thy masters. Get thee hence! _Spirit_. Mortal! thine hour is come--Away! I say. _Man_. I knew, and know my hour is come, but not To render up my soul to such as thee: Away! I'll die as I have lived--alone. 90 _Spirit_. Then I must summon up my brethren.--Rise![bg] [_Other Spirits rise._ _Abbot_. Avaunt! ye evil ones!--Avaunt! I say,-- Ye have no power where Piety hath power, And I do charge ye in the name-- _Spirit_. Old man! We know ourselves, our mission, and thine order; Waste not thy holy words on idle uses, It were in vain: this man is forfeited. Once more--I summon him--Away! Away! _Man_. I do defy ye,--though I feel my soul Is ebbing from me, yet I do defy ye; 100 Nor will I hence, while I have earthly breath To breathe my scorn upon ye--earthly strength To wrestle, though with spirits; what ye take Shall be ta'en limb by limb. _Spirit_. Reluctant mortal! Is this the Magian who would so pervade The world invisible, and make himself Almost our equal? Can it be that thou Art thus in love with life? the very life Which made thee wretched? _Man_. Thou false fiend, thou liest! My life is in its last hour,--_that_ I know, 110 Nor would redeem a moment of that hour; I do not combat against Death, but thee And thy surrounding angels; my past power Was purchased by no compact with thy crew, But by superior science--penance, daring, And length of watching, strength of mind, and skill In knowledge of our Fathers--when the earth Saw men and spirits walking side by side, And gave ye no supremacy: I stand Upon my strength--I do defy--deny-- 120 Spurn back, and scorn ye!-- _Spirit_. But thy many crimes Have made thee-- _Man_. What are they to such as thee? Must crimes be punished but by other crimes, And greater criminals?--Back to thy hell! Thou hast no power upon me, _that_ I feel; Thou never shalt possess me, _that_ I know: What I have done is done; I bear within A torture which could nothing gain from thine: The Mind which is immortal makes itself Requital for its good or evil thoughts,-- 130 Is its own origin of ill and end-- And its own place and time:[170] its innate sense, When stripped of this mortality, derives No colour from the fleeting things without, But is absorbed in sufferance or in joy, Born from the knowledge of its own desert. _Thou_ didst not tempt me, and thou couldst not tempt me; I have not been thy dupe, nor am thy prey-- But was my own destroyer, and will be My own hereafter.--Back, ye baffled fiends! 140 The hand of Death is on me--but not yours! [_The Demons disappear._ _Abbot_. Alas! how pale thou art--thy lips are white-- And thy breast heaves--and in thy gasping throat The accents rattle: Give thy prayers to Heaven-- Pray--albeit but in thought,--but die not thus. _Man_. 'Tis over--my dull eyes can fix thee not; But all things swim around me, and the earth Heaves as it were beneath me. Fare thee well-- Give me thy hand. _Abbot_. Cold--cold--even to the heart-- But yet one prayer--Alas! how fares it with thee? 150 _Man_. Old man! 'tis not so difficult to die.[171] [MANFRED _expires._ _Abbot_. He's gone--his soul hath ta'en its earthless flight; Whither? I dread to think--but he is gone.[172] FOOTNOTES: [106] {86}[The MS. of _Manfred_, now in Mr. Murray's possession, is in Lord Byron's handwriting. A note is prefixed: "The scene of the drama is amongst the higher Alps, partly in the Castle of Manfred, and partly in the mountains." The date, March 18, 1817, is in John Murray's handwriting.] [107] [So, too, Faust is discovered "in a high--vaulted narrow Gothic chamber."] [108] [Compare _Faust,_ act i. sc. 1-- "Alas! I have explored Philosophy, and Law, and Medicine, And over deep Divinity have pored, Studying with ardent and laborious zeal." Anster's Faust, 1883, p. 88.] [ap] {86} _Eternal Agency!_ _Ye spirits of the immortal Universe!_--[MS. M.] [aq] _Of inaccessible mountains are the haunts_.--[MS. M.] [109] [_Faust_ contemplates the sign of the macrocosm, and makes use of the sign of the Spirit of the Earth. _Manfred's_ written charm may have been "Abraxas," which comprehended the Greek numerals 365, and expressed the all-pervading spirits of the Universe.] [110] [The Prince of the Spirits is Arimanes, _vide post,_ act ii. sc. 4, line 1, _seq._] [111] {87}[Compare _Childe Harold,_ Canto I. stanza lxxxiii. lines 8, 9.] [ar] _Which is fit for my pavilion_.--[MS. M.] [as] _Or makes its ice delay_.--[MS. M.] [112] {89}[Compare "Creatures of clay, I receive you into mine empire."--_Vathek,_ 1887, p. 179.] [at] {90}_The Mind which is my Spirit--the high Soul._--[MS. erased.] [au] _Answer--or I will teach ye._--[MS. M.] [113] [So the MS., in which the word "say" clearly forms part of the _Spirit's_ speech.] [114] {91}[Compare "Stanzas for Music," i. 3, _Poetical Works,_ 1900, iii 435.] [115] [It is evident that the female figure is not that of Astarte, but of the subject of the "Incantation."] [116] [The italics are not indicated in the MS.] [117] N.B.--Here follows the "Incantation," which being already transcribed and (I suppose) published I do not transcribe again at present, because you can insert it in MS. here--as it belongs to this place: with its conclusion the 1st Scene closes. [The "Incantation" was first published in "_The Prisoner of Chillon and Other Poems_. London: Printed for John Murray, Albemarle Street, 1816." Immediately below the title is a note: "The following Poem was a Chorus in an unpublished Witch Drama, which was begun some years ago."] [118] {92}[Manfred was done into Italian by a translator "who was unable to find in the dictionaries ... any other signification of the 'wisp' of this line than 'a bundle of straw.'" Byron offered him two hundred francs if he would destroy the MS., and engage to withhold his hand from all past or future poems. He at first refused; but, finding that the alternative was to be a horsewhipping, accepted the money, and signed the agreement.--_Life_, p. 375, note.] [av] {93}_I do adjure thee to this spell._--[MS. M.] [119] {94}[Compare-- ὦ δῖος αἰθὴρ, κ.τ.λ. [Greek: ô~) di~os ai)thê\r, k.t.l.] Æschylus, _Prometheus Vinctus,_ lines 88-91.] [120] {95}[Compare Hamlet's speech to Rosencrantz and Guildenstern (_Hamlet,_ act ii. sc. 2, lines 286, _sq._).] [121] [The germs of this and of several other passages in _Manfred_ may be found, as Lord Byron stated, in the Journal of his Swiss tour, which he transmitted to his sister. "Sept. 19, 1816.--Arrived at a lake in the very nipple of the bosom of the Mountain; left our quadrupeds with a Shepherd, and ascended further; came to some snow in patches, upon which my forehead's perspiration fell like rain, making the same dints as in a sieve; the chill of the wind and the snow turned me giddy, but I scrambled on and upwards. Hobhouse went to the highest _pinnacle._ ... The whole of the Mountain superb. A Shepherd on a very steep and high cliff playing upon his _pipe_; very different from _Arcadia,_ (where I saw the pastors with a long Musquet instead of a Crook, and pistols in their Girdles).... The music of the Cows' bells (for their wealth, like the Patriarchs', is cattle) in the pastures, (which reach to a height far above any mountains in Britain), and the Shepherds' shouting to us from crag to crag, and playing on their reeds where the steeps appeared almost inaccessible, with the surrounding scenery, realized all that I have ever heard or imagined of a pastoral existence:--much more so than Greece or Asia Minor, for there we are a little too much of the sabre and musquet order; and if there is a Crook in one hand, you are sure to see a gun in the other:--but this was pure and unmixed--solitary, savage, and patriarchal.... As we went, they played the 'Ranz des Vaches' and other airs, by way of farewell. I have lately repeopled my mind with Nature" (_Letters_, 1899, in. 354, 355).] [122] {96}[Compare-- "Like an unbodied joy, whose race is just begun." _To a Skylark_, by P. B. Shelley, stanza iii. line 5.] [123] ["Passed _whole woods of withered pines, all withered_; trunks stripped and barkless, branches lifeless; done by a _single winter_,--their appearance reminded me of me and my family" (_Letters_, 1899, iii. 360).] [124] {97}["Ascended the Wengen mountain.... Heard the Avalanches falling every five minutes nearly--as if God was pelting the Devil down from Heaven with snow balls" (_Letters_, 1899, in. 359).] [aw] _Like foam from the round ocean of old Hell_.--[MS. M.] [125] ["The clouds rose from the opposite valley, curling up perpendicular precipices like the foam of the Ocean of Hell, during a Spring-tide--it was white, and sulphury, and immeasurably deep in appearance. The side we ascended was (of course) not of so precipitous a nature; but on arriving at the summit, we looked down the other side upon a boiling sea of cloud, dashing against the crags on which we stood (these crags on one side quite perpendicular) ... In passing the masses of snow, I made a snowball and pelted Hobhouse with it" (_ibid_, pp. 359. 360).] [126] [The fall of the Rossberg took place September 2, 1806. "A huge mass of conglomerate rock, 1000 feet broad and 100 feet thick, detached itself from the face of the mountain (Rossberg or Rufiberg, near Goldau, south of Lake Zug), and slipped down into the valley below, overwhelming the villages of Goldau, Busingen, and Rothen, and part of Lowertz. More than four hundred and fifty human beings perished, and whole herds of cattle were swept away. Five minutes sufficed to complete the work of destruction. The inhabitants were first roused by a loud and grating sound like thunder ... and beheld the valleys shrouded in a cloud of dust; when it had cleared away they found the face of nature changed."--_Handbook of Switzerland,_ Part 1. pp 58, 59.] [127] {99}[The critics of the day either affected to ignore or severely censured (e.g. writers in the _Critical_, _European_, and _Gentleman's_ Magazines) the allusions to an incestuous passion between Manfred and Astarte. Shelley, in a letter to Mrs. Gisborne, November 16, 1819, commenting on Calderon's _Los Cabellos de Absalon,_ discusses the question from an ethical as well as critical point of view: "The incest scene between Amon and Tamar is perfectly tremendous. Well may Calderon say, in the person of the former-- Si sangre sin fuego hiere Qua fara sangre con fuego.' Incest is, like many other incorrect things, a very poetical circumstance. It may be the defiance of everything for the sake of another which clothes itself in the glory of the highest heroism, or it may be that cynical rage which, confounding the good and the bad in existing opinions, breaks through them for the purpose of rioting in selfishness and antipathy."--_Works of P. B. Shelley,_ 1880, iv. 142.] [ax] {100} ----_and some insaner sin_.--[MS. erased.] [128] [Compare _Childe Harold,_ Canto III. stanza v. lines 1, 2.] [129] {102}This iris is formed by the rays of the sun over the lower part of the Alpine torrents; it is exactly like a rainbow come down to pay a visit, and so close that you may walk into it: this effect lasts till noon. ["Before ascending the mountain, went to the torrent (7 in the morning) again; the Sun upon it forming a _rainbow_ of the lower part of all colours, but principally purple and gold; the bow moving as you move; I never saw anything like this; it is only in the Sunshine" (_Letters_, 1899, iii, 359).] [130] ["Arrived at the foot of the Mountain (the Yung frau, i.e. the Maiden); Glaciers; torrents; one of these torrents _nine hundred feet_ in height of visible descent ... heard an Avalanche fall, like thunder; saw Glacier--enormous. Storm came on, thunder, lightning, hail; all in perfection, and beautiful.... The torrent is in shape curving over the rock, like the _tail_ of a white horse streaming in the wind, such as it might be conceived would be that of the '_pale_ horse' on which _Death_ is mounted in the Apocalypse. It is neither mist nor water, but a something between both; it's immense height ... gives it a wave, a curve, a spreading here, a condensation there, wonderful and indescribable" (ibid., pp. 357, 358).] [ay] {103}_Wherein seems glassed_----.--[MS. of extract, February 15, 1817.] [131] {104}[Compare _Childe Harold_, Canto III. stanza lxxii. lines 2, 3, note 2.] [132] [Compare _Childe Harold_, Canto IV. stanza clxxxiv. line 3, note 2.] [133] [Compare-- "The moving moon went up the sky." _The Ancient Mariner_, Part IV. line 263. Compare, too-- "The climbing moon." Act iii. sc. 3, line 40.] [134] {105}[Compare _Childe Harold_, Canto II. stanzas v.-xi.] [135] The philosopher Jamblicus. The story of the raising of Eros and Anteros may be found in his life by Eunapius. It is well told. ["It is reported of him," says Eunapius, "that while he and his scholars were bathing in the hot baths of Gadara, in Syria, a dispute arising concerning the baths, he, smiling, ordered his disciples to ask the inhabitants by what names the two lesser springs, that were fairer than the rest, were called. To which the inhabitants replied, that 'the one was called Love, and the other Love's Contrary, but for what reason they knew not.' Upon which Iamblichus, who chanced to be sitting on the fountain's edge where the stream flowed out, put his hand on the water, and, having uttered a few words, called up from the depths of the fountain a fair-skinned lad, not over-tall, whose golden locks fell in sunny curls over his breast and back, so that he looked like one fresh from the bath; and then, going to the other spring, and doing as he had done before, called up another Amoretto like the first, save that his long-flowing locks now seemed black, now shot with sunny gleams. Whereupon both the Amoretti nestled and clung round Iamblichus as if they had been his own children ... after this his disciples asked him no more questions."--Eunapii Sardiani _Vitæ Philosophorum et Sophistarum_ (28, 29), _Philostratorum_, etc., _Opera_, Paris, 1829, p. 459, lines 20-50.] [136] {107}[There may be some allusion here to "the squall off Meillerie" on the Lake of Geneva (see Letter to Murray, June 27, 1816, _Letters,_ 1899, iii. 333).] [137] [Compare the concluding sentence of the Journal in Switzerland (_ibid.,_ p. 364).] [az] _And live--and live for ever_.--[Specimen sheet.] [ba] {108}_As from a bath_--.--[MS, erased.] [138] The story of Pausanias, king of Sparta, (who commanded the Greeks at the battle of Platea, and afterwards perished for an attempt to betray the Lacedæmonians), and Cleonice, is told in Plutarch's life of Cimon; and in the Laconics of Pausanias the sophist in his description of Greece. [The following is the passage from Plutarch: "It is related that when Pausanias was at Byzantium, he cast his eyes upon a young virgin named Cleonice, of a noble family there, and insisted on having her for a mistress. The parents, intimidated by his power, were under the hard necessity of giving up their daughter. The young woman begged that the light might be taken out of his apartment, that she might go to his bed in secresy and silence. When she entered he was asleep, and she unfortunately stumbled upon the candlestick, and threw it down. The noise waked him suddenly, and he, in his confusion, thinking it was an enemy coming to assassinate him, unsheathed a dagger that lay by him, and plunged it into the virgin's heart. After this he could never rest. Her image appeared to him every night, and with a menacing tone repeated this heroic verse-- 'Go to the fate which pride and lust prepare!' The allies, highly incensed at this infamous action, joined Cimon to besiege him in Byzantium. But he found means to escape thence; and, as he was still haunted by the spectre, he is said to have applied to a temple at Heraclea, where the _manes_ of the dead were consulted. There he invoked the spirit of Cleonice, and entreated her pardon. She appeared, and told him 'he would soon be delivered from all his troubles, after his return to Sparta:' in which, it seems, his death was enigmatically foretold." "Thus," adds the translator in a note, "we find that it was a custom in the pagan as well as in the Hebrew theology to conjure up the spirits of the dead, and that the witch of Endor was not the only witch in the world."--Langhorne's _Plutarch_, 1838, p. 339. The same story is told in the _Periegesis Græcæ_, lib. iii. cap. xvii., but Pausanias adds, "This was the deed from the guilt of which Pausanias could never fly, though he employed all-various purifications, received the deprecations of Jupiter Phyxius, and went to Phigalea to the Arcadian evocators of souls."--_Descr. of Greece_ (translated by T. Taylor), 1794, i. 304, 305.] [139] {109}[Compare-- "But I have seen the soaring Jungfrau rear Her never-trodden snow." _Childe Harold_, Canto IV. stanza lxxiii. lines 6, 7. Byron did not know, or ignored, the fact that the Jungfrau was first ascended in 1811, by the brothers Meyer, of Aarau.] [140] {110}[Compare-- "And who commanded (and the silence came) Here let the billows stiffen and have rest? * * * * * Motionless torrents! silent cataracts." _Hymn before Sunrise, etc.,_ by S.T. Coleridge, lines 47, 48, 53. "Arrived at the Grindenwald; dined, mounted again, and rode to the higher Glacier--twilight, but distinct--very fine Glacier, like _a frozen hurricane_" (Letters, 1899, iii. 360).] [141] [The idea of the Witches' Festival may have been derived from the Walpurgisnacht on the Brocken.] [142] [Compare-- "Freedom ne'er shall want an heir; * * * * * When once more her hosts assemble, Tyrants shall believe and tremble-- Smile they at this idle threat? Crimson tears will follow yet." _Ode from the French,_ v. 8, 11-14. _Poetical Works,_ 1900, iii. 435. Compare, too, _Napoleon's Farewell_, stanza 3, ibid., p. 428. The "Voice" prophesies that St. Helena will prove a second Elba, and that Napoleon will "live to fight another day."] [143] {111}[Byron may have had in his mind Thomas Lord Cochrane (1775-1860), "who had done brilliant service in his successive commands--the _Speedy_, _Pallas_, _Impérieuse_, and the flotilla of fire-ships at Basque Roads in 1809." In his Diary, March 10, 1814, he speaks of him as "the stock-jobbing hoaxer" (_Letters_, 1898, ii. 396, note 1).] [144] {112}[Arimanes, the Aherman of _Vathek_, the Arimanius of Greek and Latin writers, is the Ahriman (or Angra Mainyu, "who is all death," the spirit of evil, the counter-creator) of the _Zend-Avesta_, "Fargard," i. 5 (translated by James Darmesteter, 1895, p. 4). Byron may have got the form Arimanius (_vide_ Steph., _Thesaurus_) from D'Herbelot, and changed it to Arimanes.] [145] [The "formidable Eblis" sat on a globe of fire--"in his hand ... he swayed the iron sceptre that causes ... all the powers of the abyss to tremble."--_Vathek_, by William Beckford, 1887, p. 178.] [bb] {112}_The comets herald through the burning skies_.--[Alternative reading in MS.] [146] {114}[Compare-- "Sorrow is Knowledge." Act I. sc. 1, line 10, _vide ante_, p. 85. Compare, too-- "Well didst thou speak, Athena's wisest son! 'All that we know is, nothing can be known.'" _Childe Harold_, Canto II. stanza vii. lines 1, 2, _Poetical Works_, 1899, ii. 103.] [147] {115}[Astarte is the classical form (_vide_ Cicero, _De Naturâ Deorum_, iii. 23, and Lucian, _De Syriâ Deâ_, iv.) of Milton's "Moonéd Ashtaroth, Heaven's queen and mother both." Cicero says that she was married to Adonis, alluding, no doubt, to the myth of the Phoenician Astoreth, who was at once the bride and mother of Tammuz or Adonis.] [bc] {116}_Or dost Qy?_--[Marginal reading in MS.] [148] [Compare-- " ... illume With hectic light, the Hesperus of the dead, Of her consuming cheek the autumnal leaf-like red." _Childe Harold_, Canto IV. stanza cii. lines 7-9.] [149] {118}[Compare-- " ... a firm will, and a deep sense, Which even in torture can descry Its own concentered recompense." _Prometheus_, iii. 55-57, _vide ante_, p. 51.] [150] {119}[On September 22, 1816 (_Letters_, 1899, iii. 357, note 2), Byron rode from Neuhaus, at the Interlaken end of Lake Thun, to the Staubbach. On the way between Matten and Müllinen, not far from the village of Wilderswyl, he passed the baronial Castle of Unspunnen, the traditional castle of Manfred. It is "but a square tower, with flanking round turrets, rising picturesquely above the surrounding brushwood." On the same day and near the same spot he "passed a rock; inscription--two brothers--one murdered the other; just the place for it." Here, according to the Countess Guiccioli, was "the origin of _Manfred_." It is somewhat singular that, on the appearance of _Manfred_, a paper was published in the June number of the _Edinburgh Monthly Magazine_, 1817, vol. i. pp. 270-273, entitled, "Sketch of a Tradition related by a Monk in Switzerland." The narrator, who signs himself P. F., professes to have heard the story in the autumn of 1816 from one of the fathers "of Capuchin Friars, not far from Altorf." It is the story of the love of two brothers for a lady with whom they had "passed their infancy." She becomes the wife of the elder brother, and, later, inspires the younger brother with a passion against which he struggles in vain. The fate of the elder brother is shrouded in mystery. The lady wastes away, and her paramour is found dead "in the same pass in which he had met his sister among the mountains." The excuse for retelling the story is that there appeared to be "a striking coincidence in some characteristic features between Lord Byron's drama and the Swiss tradition."] [151] [The "revised version" makes no further mention of the "key and casket;" but in the first draft (_vide infra_, p. 122) they were used by Manfred in calling up Astaroth (_Selections from Byron_, New York, 1900, p. 370).] [152] {120}[Byron may have had in his mind a sentence in a letter of C. Cassius to Cicero (_Epist.,_ xv. 19), in which he says, "It is difficult to persuade men that goodness is desirable for its own sake (τὸ καλὸν δἰ αὐτὸ αἱρετὸν [Greek: to\ kalo\n di) au)to\ ai(reto\n]); and yet it is true, and may be proved, that pleasure and calm are won by virtue, justice, in a word by goodness (τῷ καλῷ [Greek: tô~| kalô~|])."] [153] St. Maurice is in the Rhone valley, some sixteen miles from Villeneuve. The abbey (now occupied by Augustinian monks) was founded in the fourth century, and endowed by Sigismund, King of Burgundy. [154] {121}[Thus far the text stands as originally written. The rest of the scene as given in the first MS. is as follows:-- _Abbot_. Then, hear and tremble! For the headstrong wretch Who in the mail of innate hardihood Would shield himself, and battle for his sins, There is the stake on earth--and beyond earth Eternal-- _Man_. Charity, most reverend father, Becomes thy lips so much more than this menace, That I would call thee back to it: but say, What would'st thou with me? _Abbot_. It may be there are Things that would shake thee--but I keep them back, And give thee till to-morrow to repent. 10 Then if thou dost not all devote thyself To penance, and with gift of all thy lands To the Monastery---- _Man_. I understand thee,--well! _Abbot_. Expect no mercy; I have warned thee. _Man_. (_opening the casket_). Stop-- There is a gift for thee within this casket. [MANFRED _opens the casket, strikes a light, and burns some incense._ Ho! Ashtaroth! _The_ DEMON ASHTAROTH _appears, singing as follows:--_ The raven sits On the Raven-stone,[*] And his black wing flits O'er the milk--white bone; 20 To and fro, as the night--winds blow, The carcass of the assassin swings; And there alone, on the Raven-stone, The raven flaps his dusky wings. The fetters creak--and his ebon beak Croaks to the close of the hollow sound; And this is the tune, by the light of the Moon, To which the Witches dance their round-- Merrily--merrily--cheerily--cheerily-- Merrily--merrily--speeds the ball: 30 The dead in their shrouds, and the Demons in clouds, Flock to the Witches' Carnival. _Abbot_. I fear thee not--hence--hence-- Avaunt thee, evil One!--help, ho! without there! _Man_. Convey this man to the Shreckhorn--to its peak-- To its extremest peak--watch with him there From now till sunrise; let him gaze, and know He ne'er again will be so near to Heaven. But harm him not; and, when the morrow breaks, Set him down safe in his cell--away with him! 40 _Ash_. Had I not better bring his brethren too, Convent and all, to bear him company? _Man_. No, this will serve for the present. Take him up. _Ash_. Come, Friar! now an exorcism or two, And we shall fly the lighter. ASHTAROTH _disappears with the_ ABBOT, _singing as follows:_-- A prodigal son, and a maid undone,[§] And a widow re-wedded within the year; And a worldly monk, and a pregnant nun, Are things which every day appear. MANFRED _alone._ _Man_. Why would this fool break in on me, and force 50 My art to pranks fantastical?--no matter, It was not of my seeking. My heart sickens, And weighs a fixed foreboding on my soul. But it is calm--calm as a sullen sea After the hurricane; the winds are still, But the cold waves swell high and heavily, And there is danger in them. Such a rest Is no repose. My life hath been a combat, And every thought a wound, till I am scarred In the immortal part of me.--What now?] 60 [*] "Raven-stone (Rabenstein), a translation of the German word for the gibbet, which in Germany and Switzerland is permanent, and made of stone." [Compare _Werner,_ act ii. sc. 2. Compare, too, Anster's _Faust,_ 1883, p. 306.] [§] _A prodigal son--and a pregnant nun, nun,_ _And a widow re-wedded within the year--_ _And a calf at grass--and a priest at mass._ _Are things which every day appear_.--[MS. erased.] [155] {122}[A supplementary MS. supplies the text for the remainder of the scene.] [156] {124}[For the death of Nero, "Rome's sixth Emperor," _vide_ _C. Suet. Tranq_., lib. vi. cap. xlix.] [bd] / _not loss of life, but_ \ _To shun_ < > _public death_--[MS. M.] \ _the torments of a_ / [157] [A reminiscence of the clouds of spray from the Fall of the Staubbach, which, in certain aspects, appear to be springing upwards from the bed of the waterfall.] [158] {125}[Compare _The Giaour,_ lines 282-284. Compare, too, _Don Juan,_ Canto IV. stanza lvii. line 8.] [159] [Here, as in so many other passages of _Manfred,_ Byron is recording his own feelings and forebodings. The same note is struck in the melancholy letters of the autumn of 1811. See, for example, the letter to Dallas, October 11, "It seems as though I were to experience in my youth the greatest misery of age," etc. (_Letters,_ 1898, ii. 52).] [160] {126}["Pray, was Manfred's speech to _the Sun_ still retained in Act third? I hope so: it was one of the best in the thing, and better than the Colosseum."--Letter to Murray, July 9, 1817, _Letters_, 1900, iv. 147. Compare Byron's early rendering of "Ossian's Address to the Sun 'in Carthon.'"--_Poetical Works_, 1898, i. 229.] [161] {127} "And it came to pass, that the _Sons of God_ saw the daughters of men, that they were fair," etc.--"There were giants in the earth in those days; and also after that, when the _Sons of God_ came in unto the daughters of men, and they bare children to them, the same became mighty men which were of old, men of renown."--_Genesis_, ch. vi. verses 2 and 4. [162] [For the "Chaldeans" and "mountain-tops," see _Childe Harold_, Canto III, stanza xiv. line i, and stanza xci. lines 1-3.] [be] {129}_Some strange things in these far years_.--[MS. M.] [163] [The Grosse Eiger is a few miles to the south of the Castle of Unspunnen.] [164] The remainder of the act in its original shape, ran thus-- _Her_. Look--look--the tower-- The tower's on fire. Oh, heavens and earth! what sound, What dreadful sound is that? [_A crash like thunder_. _Manuel_. Help, help, there!--to the rescue of the Count,-- The Count's in danger,--what ho! there! approach! [_The Servants, Vassals, and Peasantry approach stupifed with terror_. If there be any of you who have heart And love of human kind, and will to aid Those in distress--pause not--but follow me-- The portal's open, follow. [MANUEL _goes in_. _Her_. Come--who follows? What, none of ye?--ye recreants! shiver then 10 Without. I will not see old Manuel risk His few remaining years unaided. [HERMAN _goes in_. _Vassal_. Hark!-- No--all is silent--not a breath--the flame Which shot forth such a blaze is also gone: What may this mean? Let's enter! _Peasant_. Faith, not I,-- Not but, if one, or two, or more, will join, I then will stay behind; but, for my part, I do not see precisely to what end. _Vassal_. Cease your vain prating--come. _Manuel_ (_speaking within_). 'Tis all in vain-- He's dead. _Her_. (_within_). Not so--even now methought he moved; 20 But it is dark--so bear him gently out-- Softly--how cold he is! take care of his temples In winding down the staircase. _Re-enter_ MANUEL _and_ HERMAN, _bearing_ MANFRED _in their arms_. _Manuel_. Hie to the castle, some of ye, and bring What aid you can. Saddle the barb, and speed For the leech to the city--quick! some water there! _Her_. His cheek is black--but there is a faint beat Still lingering about the heart. Some water. [_They sprinkle_ MANFRED _with water: after a pause, he gives some signs of life_. _Manuel_. He seems to strive to speak--come--cheerly, Count! He moves his lips--canst hear him! I am old, 30 And cannot catch faint sounds. [HERMAN _inclining his head and listening_. _Her_. I hear a word Or two--but indistinctly--what is next? What's to be done? let's bear him to the castle. [MANFRED _motions with his hand not to remove him_. _Manuel_. He disapproves--and 'twere of no avail-- He changes rapidly. _Her_. 'Twill soon be over. _Manuel_. Oh! what a death is this! that I should live To shake my gray hairs over the last chief Of the house of Sigismund.--And such a death! Alone--we know not how--unshrived--untended-- With strange accompaniments and fearful signs-- 40 I shudder at the sight--but must not leave him. _Manfred_ (_speaking faintly and slowly_). Old man! 'tis not so difficult to die. [MANFRED, _having said this, expires_. _Her_. His eyes are fixed and lifeless.--He is gone.-- _Manuel_. Close them.--My old hand quivers.--He departs-- Whither? I dread to think--but he is gone! End of Act Third, and of the poem."] [bf] {131}_Sirrah! I command thee_.--[MS.] [165] [Compare _Childe Harold_, Canto III. stanza lxxxvi. line 1; stanza lxxxix. lines 1, 2; and stanza xc. lines 1, 2.] [166] ["Drove at midnight to see the Coliseum by moonlight: but what can I say of the Coliseum? It must be _seen_; to describe it I should have thought impossible, if I had not read _Manfred_.... His [Byron's] description is the very thing itself; but what cannot he do on such a subject, when his pen is like the wand of Moses, whose touch can produce waters even from the barren rock?"--Matthews's _Diary of an Invalid_, 1820, pp. 158, 159. (Compare _Childe Harold_, Canto IV. stanzas cxxviii.-cxxxi.)] [167] {132}[Compare _Childe Harold_, Canto IV. stanzas cvi.-cix.] [168] [For "begun," compare _Don Juan_, Canto II. stanza clxvii. line 1.] [169] {133}[Compare-- " ... but his face Deep scars of thunder had intrenched." _Paradise Lost_, i. 600.] [bg] _Summons_----.-[MS. M.] [170] {135} ["The mind is its own place, and in itself Can make a Heaven of Hell, a Hell of Heaven." _Paradise Lost_, i. 254, 255.] [171] {136}[In the first edition (p. 75), this line was left out at Gifford's suggestion (_Memoirs, etc.,_ 1891, i. 387). Byron was indignant, and wrote to Murray, August 12, 1817 (_Letters,_ 1900, iv. 157), "You have destroyed the whole effect and moral of the poem, by omitting the last line of Manfred's speaking."] [172] [For Goethes translation of the following passages in _Manfred_, viz (i) Manfred's soliloquy, act 1. sc. 1, line 1 _seq._; (ii) "The Incantation." act i. sc. 1, lines 192-261; (iii)Manfred's soliloquy, act ii, sc. 2 lines 164-204; (iv.) the duologue between Manfred and Astarte, act ii. sc. 4, lines 116-155; (v) a couplet, "For the night hath been to me," etc., act iii. sc. 4, lines 3, 4;--see Professor A. Brandl's _Goethe-Jahrbuch._ 1899, and Goethe's _Werke,_ 1874, iii. 201, as quoted in Appendix II., _Letters,_ 1901. v. 503-514.] THE LAMENT OF TASSO. INTRODUCTION TO _THE LAMENT OF TASSO_. The MS. of the _Lament of Tasso_ is dated April 20, 1817. It was despatched from Florence April 23, and reached England May 12 (see _Memoir of John Murray_, 1891, i. 384). Proofs reached Byron June 7, and the poem was published July 17, 1817. "It was," he writes (April 26), "written in consequence of my having been lately in Ferrara." Again, writing from Rome (May 5, 1817), he asks if the MS. has arrived, and adds, "I look upon it as a 'These be good rhymes,' as Pope's papa said to him when he was a boy" (_Letters_, 1900, iv. 112-115). Two months later he reverted to the theme of Tasso's ill-treatment at the hands of Duke Alphonso, in the memorable stanzas xxxv.-xxxix. of the Fourth Canto of _Childe Harold_ (_Poetical Works_, 1899, ii. 354-359; and for examination of the circumstances of Tasso's imprisonment in the Hospital of Sant' Anna, _vide ibid._, pp. 355, 356, note 1). Notices of the _Lament of Tasso_ appeared in the _Gentleman's Magazine_, August, 1817, vol. 87, pp. 150, 151; in _The Scot's Magazine_, August, 1817, N.S., vol. i. pp. 48, 49; and a eulogistic but uncritical review in _Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine_, November, 1817, vol. ii. pp. 142-144. ADVERTISEMENT At Ferrara, in the Library, are preserved the original MSS. of Tasso's Gierusalemme[173] and of Guarini's Pastor Fido, with letters of Tasso, one from Titian to Ariosto, and the inkstand and chair, the tomb and the house, of the latter. But, as misfortune has a greater interest for posterity, and little or none for the cotemporary, the cell where Tasso was confined in the hospital of St. Anna attracts a more fixed attention than the residence or the monument of Ariosto--at least it had this effect on me. There are two inscriptions, one on the outer gate, the second over the cell itself, inviting, unnecessarily, the wonder and the indignation of the spectator. Ferrara is much decayed and depopulated: the castle still exists entire; and I saw the court where Parisina and Hugo were beheaded, according to the annal of Gibbon.[174] THE LAMENT OF TASSO.[175] I. Long years!--It tries the thrilling frame to bear And eagle-spirit of a Child of Song-- Long years of outrage--calumny--and wrong; Imputed madness, prisoned solitude,[176] And the Mind's canker in its savage mood, When the impatient thirst of light and air Parches the heart; and the abhorred grate, Marring the sunbeams with its hideous shade, Works through the throbbing eyeball to the brain, With a hot sense of heaviness and pain; 10 And bare, at once, Captivity displayed Stands scoffing through the never-opened gate, Which nothing through its bars admits, save day, And tasteless food, which I have eat alone Till its unsocial bitterness is gone; And I can banquet like a beast of prey, Sullen and lonely, couching in the cave Which is my lair, and--it may be--my grave. All this hath somewhat worn me, and may wear, But must be borne. I stoop not to despair; 20 For I have battled with mine agony, And made me wings wherewith to overfly The narrow circus of my dungeon wall, And freed the Holy Sepulchre from thrall; And revelled among men and things divine, And poured my spirit over Palestine,[177] In honour of the sacred war for Him, The God who was on earth and is in Heaven, For He has strengthened me in heart and limb. That through this sufferance I might be forgiven, 30 I have employed my penance to record How Salem's shrine was won, and how adored. II. But this is o'er--my pleasant task is done:--[178] My long-sustaining Friend of many years! If I do blot thy final page with tears,[179] Know, that my sorrows have wrung from me none. But Thou, my young creation! my Soul's child! Which ever playing round me came and smiled, And wooed me from myself with thy sweet sight, Thou too art gone--and so is my delight: 40 And therefore do I weep and inly bleed With this last bruise upon a broken reed. Thou too art ended--what is left me now? For I have anguish yet to bear--and how? I know not that--but in the innate force Of my own spirit shall be found resource. I have not sunk, for I had no remorse, Nor cause for such: they called me mad--and why? Oh Leonora! wilt not thou reply?[180] I was indeed delirious in my heart 50 To lift my love so lofty as thou art; But still my frenzy was not of the mind: I knew my fault, and feel my punishment Not less because I suffer it unbent. That thou wert beautiful, and I not blind, Hath been the sin which shuts me from mankind; But let them go, or torture as they will, My heart can multiply thine image still; Successful Love may sate itself away; The wretched are the faithful; 't is their fate 60 To have all feeling, save the one, decay, And every passion into one dilate, As rapid rivers into Ocean pour; But ours is fathomless, and hath no shore. III. Above me, hark! the long and maniac cry Of minds and bodies in captivity. And hark! the lash and the increasing howl, And the half-inarticulate blasphemy! There be some here with worse than frenzy foul, Some who do still goad on the o'er-laboured mind, 70 And dim the little light that's left behind With needless torture, as their tyrant Will Is wound up to the lust of doing ill:[181] With these and with their victims am I classed, 'Mid sounds and sights like these long years have passed; 'Mid sights and sounds like these my life may close: So let it be--for then I shall repose. IV. I have been patient, let me be so yet; I had forgotten half I would forget, But it revives--Oh! would it were my lot 80 To be forgetful as I am forgot!-- Feel I not wroth with those who bade me dwell In this vast Lazar-house of many woes? Where laughter is not mirth, nor thought the mind, Nor words a language, nor ev'n men mankind; Where cries reply to curses, shrieks to blows, And each is tortured in his separate hell-- For we are crowded in our solitudes-- Many, but each divided by the wall, Which echoes Madness in her babbling moods; 90 While all can hear, none heed his neighbour's call-- None! save that One, the veriest wretch of all, Who was not made to be the mate of these, Nor bound between Distraction and Disease. Feel I not wroth with those who placed me here? Who have debased me in the minds of men, Debarring me the usage of my own, Blighting my life in best of its career, Branding my thoughts as things to shun and fear? Would I not pay them back these pangs again, 100 And teach them inward Sorrow's stifled groan? The struggle to be calm, and cold distress, Which undermines our Stoical success? No!--still too proud to be vindictive--I Have pardoned Princes' insults, and would die. Yes, Sister of my Sovereign! for thy sake I weed all bitterness from out my breast, It hath no business where _thou_ art a guest: Thy brother hates--but I can not detest; Thou pitiest not--but I can not forsake. 110 V. Look on a love which knows not to despair, But all unquenched is still my better part, Dwelling deep in my shut and silent heart, As dwells the gathered lightning in its cloud, Encompassed with its dark and rolling shroud, Till struck,--forth flies the all-ethereal dart! And thus at the collision of thy name The vivid thought still flashes through my frame, And for a moment all things as they were Flit by me;--they are gone--I am the same. 120 And yet my love without ambition grew; I knew thy state--my station--and I knew A Princess was no love-mate for a bard;[182] I told it not--I breathed it not[183]--it was Sufficient to itself, its own reward; And if my eyes revealed it, they, alas! Were punished by the silentness of thine, And yet I did not venture to repine. Thou wert to me a crystal-girded shrine, Worshipped at holy distance, and around 130 Hallowed and meekly kissed the saintly ground; Not for thou wert a Princess, but that Love Had robed thee with a glory, and arrayed Thy lineaments in beauty that dismayed-- Oh! not dismayed--but awed, like One above! And in that sweet severity[184] there was A something which all softness did surpass-- I know not how--thy Genius mastered mine-- My Star stood still before thee:--if it were Presumptuous thus to love without design, 140 That sad fatality hath cost me dear; But thou art dearest still, and I should be Fit for this cell, which wrongs me--but for _thee_. The very love which locked me to my chain Hath lightened half its weight; and for the rest, Though heavy, lent me vigour to sustain, And look to thee with undivided breast, And foil the ingenuity of Pain. VI. It is no marvel--from my very birth My soul was drunk with Love,--which did pervade 150 And mingle with whate'er I saw on earth: Of objects all inanimate I made Idols, and out of wild and lonely flowers, And rocks, whereby they grew, a Paradise, Where I did lay me down within the shade Of waving trees, and dreamed uncounted hours, Though I was chid for wandering; and the Wise Shook their white agéd heads o'er me, and said Of such materials wretched men were made, And such a truant boy would end in woe, 160 And that the only lesson was a blow;[185]-- And then they smote me, and I did not weep, But cursed them in my heart, and to my haunt Returned and wept alone, and dreamed again The visions which arise without a sleep. And with my years my soul began to pant With feelings of strange tumult and soft pain; And the whole heart exhaled into One Want, But undefined and wandering, till the day I found the thing I sought--and that was thee; 170 And then I lost my being, all to be Absorbed in thine;--the world was past away;-- _Thou_ didst annihilate the earth to me! VII. I loved all Solitude--but little thought To spend I know not what of life, remote From all communion with existence, save The maniac and his tyrant;--had I been Their fellow, many years ere this had seen My mind like theirs corrupted to its grave.[bh] But who hath seen me writhe, or heard me rave? 180 Perchance in such a cell we suffer more Than the wrecked sailor on his desert shore; The world is all before him--_mine_ is _here_, Scarce twice the space they must accord my bier. What though _he_ perish, he may lift his eye, And with a dying glance upbraid the sky; I will not raise my own in such reproof, Although 'tis clouded by my dungeon roof. VIII. Yet do I feel at times my mind decline,[186] But with a sense of its decay: I see 190 Unwonted lights along my prison shine, And a strange Demon,[187] who is vexing me With pilfering pranks and petty pains, below The feeling of the healthful and the free; But much to One, who long hath suffered so, Sickness of heart, and narrowness of place, And all that may be borne, or can debase. I thought mine enemies had been but Man, But Spirits may be leagued with them--all Earth Abandons--Heaven forgets me;--in the dearth 200 Of such defence the Powers of Evil can-- It may be--tempt me further,--and prevail Against the outworn creature they assail. Why in this furnace is my spirit proved, Like steel in tempering fire? because I loved? Because I loved what not to love, and see, Was more or less than mortal, and than me. IX. I once was quick in feeling--that is o'er;-- My scars are callous, or I should have dashed My brain against these bars, as the sun flashed 210 In mockery through them;--- If I bear and bore The much I have recounted, and the more Which hath no words,--'t is that I would not die And sanction with self-slaughter the dull lie Which snared me here, and with the brand of shame Stamp Madness deep into my memory, And woo Compassion to a blighted name, Sealing the sentence which my foes proclaim. No--it shall be immortal!--and I make A future temple of my present cell, 220 Which nations yet shall visit for my sake.[bi] While thou, Ferrara! when no longer dwell The ducal chiefs within thee, shall fall down, And crumbling piecemeal view thy hearthless halls, A Poet's wreath shall be thine only crown,-- A Poet's dungeon thy most far renown, While strangers wonder o'er thy unpeopled walls! And thou, Leonora!--thou--who wert ashamed That such as I could love--who blushed to hear To less than monarchs that thou couldst be dear, 230 Go! tell thy brother, that my heart, untamed By grief--years--weariness--and it may be A taint of that he would impute to me-- From long infection of a den like this, Where the mind rots congenial with the abyss,-- Adores thee still;--and add--that when the towers And battlements which guard his joyous hours Of banquet, dance, and revel, are forgot, Or left untended in a dull repose, This--this--shall be a consecrated spot! 240 But _Thou_--when all that Birth and Beauty throws Of magic round thee is extinct--shalt have One half the laurel which o'ershades my grave.[188] No power in death can tear our names apart, As none in life could rend thee from my heart.[bj] Yes, Leonora! it shall be our fate To be entwined[189] for ever--but too late![190] FOOTNOTES: [173] {141}[A MS. of the _Gerusalemme_ is preserved and exhibited at Sir John Soane's Museum in Lincoln's Inn Fields.] [174] [The original MS. of this poem is dated, "The Apennines, April 20, 1817."] [175] {143}[The MS. of the _Lament of Tasso_ corresponds, save in three lines where alternate readings are superscribed, _verbatim et literatim_ with the text. A letter dated August 21, 1817, from G. Polidori to John Murray, with reference to the translation of the _Lament_ into Italian, and a dedicatory letter (in Polidori's handwriting) to the Earl of Guilford, dated August 3, 1817, form part of the same volume.] [176] [In a letter written to his friend Scipio Gonzaga ("Di prizione in Sant' Anna, questo mese di mezzio l'anno 1579"), Tasso exclaims, "Ah, wretched me! I had designed to write, besides two epic poems of most noble argument, four tragedies, of which I had formed the plan. I had schemed, too, many works in prose, on subjects the most lofty, and most useful to human life; I had designed to unite philosophy with eloquence, in such a manner that there might remain of me an eternal memory in the world. Alas! I had expected to close my life with glory and renown; but now, oppressed by the burden of so many calamities, I have lost every prospect of reputation and of honour. The fear of perpetual imprisonment increases my melancholy; the indignities which I suffer augment it; and the squalor of my beard, my hair, and habit, the sordidness and filth, exceedingly annoy me. Sure am I, that, if she who so little has corresponded to my attachment--if she saw me in such a state, and in such affliction--she would have some compassion on me."--_Lettere di Torouato Tasso_, 1853, ii. 60.] [177] {144}[Compare-- "The second of a tenderer sadder mood, Shall pour his soul out o'er Jerusalem." _Prophecy of Dante_, Canto IV. lines 136, 137.] [178] [Tasso's imprisonment in the Hospital of Sant' Anna lasted from March, 1579, to July, 1586. The _Gerusalemme_ had been finished many years before. He sent the first four cantos to his friend Scipio Gonzaga, February 17, and the last three on October 4, 1575 (_Lettere di Torquato Tasso_, 1852, i. 55-117). A mutilated first edition was published in 1580 by "Orazio _alias_ Celio de' Malespini, avventuriere intrigante" (Solerti's _Vita, etc._, 1895, i. 329).] [179] [So, too, Gibbon was overtaken by a "sober melancholy" when he had finished the last line of the last page of the _Decline and Fall_ on the night of June 27, 1787.] [180] {145}[Not long after his imprisonment, Tasso appealed to the mercy of Alfonso, in a canzone of great beauty, ... and ... in another ode to the princesses, whose pity he invoked in the name of their own mother, who had herself known, if not the like horrors, the like solitude of imprisonment, and bitterness of soul, made a similar appeal. (See _Life of Tasso_, by John Black, 1810, ii. 64, 408.) Black prints the canzone in full; Solerti (_Vita, etc._, i. 316-318) gives selections.] [181] {146}["For nearly the first year of his confinement Tasso endured all the horrors of a solitary sordid cell, and was under the care of a gaoler whose chief virtue, although he was a poet and a man of letters, was a cruel obedience to the commands of his prince.... His name was Agostino Mosti.... Tasso says of him, in a letter to his sister, 'ed usa meco ogni sorte di rigore ed inumanità.'"--Hobhouse, _Historical Illustrations, etc_., 1818, pp. 20, 21, note 1. Tasso, in a letter to Angelo Grillo, dated June 16, 1584 (Letter 288, _Le Lettere, etc_., ii. 276), complains that Mosti did not interfere to prevent him being molested by the other inmates, disturbed in his studies, and treated disrespectfully by the governor's subordinates. In the letter to his sister Cornelia, from which Hobhouse quotes, the allusion is not to Mosti, but, according to Solerti, to the Cardinal Luigi d'Este. Elsewhere (Letter 133, _Lettere_, ii. 88, 89) Tasso describes Agostino Mosti as a rigorous and zealous Churchman, but far too cultivated and courteous a gentleman to have exercised any severity towards him _proprio motu_, or otherwise than in obedience to orders.] [182] {147}[It is highly improbable that Tasso openly indulged, or secretly nourished, a consuming passion for Leonora d'Este, and it is certain that the "Sister of his Sovereign" had nothing to do with his being shut up in the Hospital of Sant' Anna. That poet and princess had known each other for over thirteen years, that the princess was seven years older than the poet, and, in March, 1579, close upon forty-two years of age, are points to be considered; but the fact that she died in February, 1581, and that Tasso remained in confinement for five years longer, is a stronger argument against the truth of the legend. She was a beautiful woman, his patroness and benefactress, and the theme of sonnets and canzoni; but it was not for her "sweet sake" that Tasso lost either his wits or his liberty.] [183] Compare-- "I speak not, I trace not, I breathe not thy name." [184] {148}[Compare the following lines from the canzone entitled, "La Prima di Tre Sorelle Scritte a Madaroa Leonora d'Este ... 1567:"-- "E certo il primo dì che'l bel sereno Delia tua fronte agli occhi miei s'offerse E vidi armato spaziarvi Amore, Se non che riverenza allor converse, E Meraviglia in fredda selce il seno, Ivi pería con doppia morte il core; Ma parte degli strali, e dell' ardore Sentii pur anco entro 'l gelato marmo."] [185] {149}[Ariosto (_Sat._ 7, Terz. 53) complains that his father chased him "not with spurs only, but with darts and lances, to turn over old texts," etc.; but Tasso was a studious and dutiful boy, and, though he finally deserted the law for poetry, and "crossed" his father's wishes and intentions, he took his own course reluctantly, and without any breach of decorum. But, perhaps, the following translations from the _Rinaldo,_ which Black supplies in his footnotes (i. 41. 97), suggested this picture of a "poetic child" at variance with the authorities:-- "Now hasting thence a verdant mead he found, Where flowers of fragrant smell adorned the ground; Sweet was the scene, and here from human eyes Apart he sits, and thus he speaks mid sighs." Canto I. stanza xviii. "Thus have I sung in youth's aspiring days Rinaldo's pleasing plains and martial praise: While other studies slowly I pursued Ere twice revolved nine annual suns I viewed; Ungrateful studies, whence oppressed I groaned, A burden to myself and to the world unknown. * * * * * But this first-fruit of new awakened powers! Dear offspring of a few short studious hours! Thou infant volume child of fancy born Where Brenta's waves the sunny meads adorn." Canto XII. stanza xc.] [bh] {150}_My mind like theirs adapted to its grave_.--[MS.] [186] ["Nor do I lament," wrote Tasso, shortly after his confinement, "that my heart is deluged with almost constant misery, that my head is always heavy and often painful, that my sight and hearing are much impaired, and that all my frame is become spare and meagre; but, passing all this with a short sigh, what I would bewail is the infirmity of my mind.... My mind sleeps, not thinks; my fancy is chill, and forms no pictures; my negligent senses will no longer furnish the images of things; my hand is sluggish in writing, and my pen seems as if it shrunk from the office. I feel as if I were chained in all my operations, and as if I were overcome by an unwonted numbness and oppressive stupor."--_Opere_, Venice, 1738, viii. 258, 263.] [187] [In a letter to Maurizio Cataneo, dated December 25, 1585, Tasso gives an account of his sprite (_folletto_): "The little thief has stolen from me many crowns.... He puts all my books topsy-turvy (_mi mette tutti i libri sottosopra_), opens my chest and steals my keys, so that I can keep nothing." Again, December 30, with regard to his hallucinations he says, "Know then that in addition to the wonders of the Folletto ... I have many nocturnal alarms. For even when awake I have seemed to behold small flames in the air, and sometimes my eyes sparkle in such a manner, that I dread the loss of sight, and I have ... seen sparks issue from them."--Letters 454, 456, _Le Lettere_, 1853, ii. 475, 479.] [bi] {151} / _nations yet_ \ _Which_ < > _shall visit for my sake_.--[MS.] \ _after days_ / [188] {152}["Tasso, notwithstanding the criticisms of the Cruscanti, would have been crowned in the Capitol, but for his death," Reply to _Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine_ (Ravenna, March 15, 1820), _Letters_, 1900, iv. Appendix IX. p. 487.] [bj] / _wrench_ \ _As none in life could_ < > _thee from my heart_.--[MS.] \ _wring_ / [189] [Compare-- "From Life's commencement to its slow decline We are entwined." _Epistle to Augusta_, stanza xvi. lines 6, 7, _vide ante_, p. 62.] [190] [The Apennines, April 20, 1817.] BEPPO: A VENETIAN STORY. _Rosalind_. Farewell, Monsieur Traveller; Look, you lisp, and wear strange suits: disable all the benefits of your own country; be out of love with your Nativity, and almost chide God for making you that countenance you are; or I will scarce think you have swam in a _Gondola_. _As You Like It_, act iv, sc. I, lines 33-35. _Annotation of the Commentators_. That is, _been at Venice_, which was much visited by the young English gentlemen of those times, and was _then_ what _Paris_ is _now_--the seat of all dissoluteness.--S. A.[191] [The initials S. A. (Samuel Ayscough) are not attached to this note, but to another note on the same page (see _Dramatic Works_ of William Shakspeare, 1807, i. 242).] INTRODUCTION TO _BEPPO_ _BEPPO_ was written in the autumn (September 6--October 12, _Letters_, 1900, iv. 172) of 1817, whilst Byron was still engaged on the additional stanzas of the Fourth Canto of _Childe Harold_. His new poem, as he admitted from the first, was "after the excellent manner" of John Hookham Frere's _jeu d'esprit_, known as _Whistlecraft_ (_Prospectus and Specimen of an intended National Work_ by William and Robert Whistlecraft, London, 1818[192]), which must have reached him in the summer of 1817. Whether he divined the identity of "Whistlecraft" from the first, or whether his guess was an after-thought, he did not hesitate to take the water and shoot ahead of his unsuspecting rival. It was a case of plagiarism _in excelsis_, and the superiority of the imitation to the original must be set down to the genius of the plagiary, unaided by any profound study of Italian literature, or an acquaintance at first hand with the parents and inspirers of _Whistlecraft_. It is possible that he had read and forgotten some specimens of Pulci's _Morgante Maggiore_, which J. H. Merivale had printed in the _Monthly Magazine_ for 1806-1807, vol. xxi. pp. 304, 510, etc., and it is certain that he was familiar with his _Orlando in Roncesvalles_, published in 1814. He distinctly states that he had not seen W. S. Rose's[193] translation of Casti's _Animali Parlanti_ (first edition [anonymous], 1816), but, according to Pryse Gordon (_Personal Memoirs_, ii. 328), he had read the original. If we may trust Ugo Foscolo (see "Narrative and Romantic Poems of the Italians" in the _Quart. Rev_., April, 1819, vol. xxi. pp. 486-526), there is some evidence that Byron had read Forteguerri's _Ricciardetto_ (translated in 1819 by Sylvester (Douglas) Lord Glenbervie, and again, by John Herman Merivale, under the title of _The Two First Cantos of Richardetto_, 1820), but the parallel which he adduces (_vide post_, p. 166) is not very striking or convincing. On the other hand, after the poem was completed (March 25, 1818), he was under the impression that "Berni was the original of _all_ ... the father of that kind [i.e. the mock-heroic] of writing;" but there is nothing to show whether he had or had not read the _rifacimento_ of Orlando's _Innamorato_, or the more distinctively Bernesque _Capitoli_. Two years later (see Letter to Murray, February 21, 1820, _Letters_, 1900, iv. 407; and "Advertisement" to _Morgante Maggiore_) he had discovered that "Pulci was the parent of _Whistlecraft_, and the precursor and model of Berni," but, in 1817, he was only at the commencement of his studies. A time came long before the "year or two" of his promise (March 25, 1818) when he had learned to simulate the _vera imago_ of the Italian Muse, and was able not only to surpass his "immediate model," but to rival his model's forerunners and inspirers. In the meanwhile a tale based on a "Venetian anecdote" (perhaps an "episode" in the history of Colonel Fitzgerald and the Marchesa Castiglione,--see Letter to Moore, December 26, 1816, _Letters_, 1900, iv. 26) lent itself to "the excellent manner of Mr. Whistlecraft," and would show "the knowing ones," that is, Murray's advisers, Gifford, Croker, Frere, etc., that "he could write cheerfully," and "would repel the charge of monotony and mannerism." Eckermann, mindful of Goethe's hint that Byron had too much _empeiria_ (an excess of _mondanité_--a _this_-worldliness), found it hard to read _Beppo_ after _Macbeth_. "I felt," he says, "the predominance of a nefarious, empirical world, with which the mind which introduced it to us has in a certain measure associated itself" (_Conversations of Goethe, etc._, 1874, p. 175). But _Beppo_ must be taken at its own valuation. It is _A Venetian Story_, and the action takes place behind the scenes of "a comedy of Goldoni." A less subtle but a more apposite criticism may be borrowed from "Lord Byron's Combolio" (_sic_), _Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine_, 1822, xi. 162-165. "The story that's in it May be told in a minute; But _par parenthèse_ chatting, On this thing and that thing, Keeps the shuttlecock flying, And attention from dying." _Beppo, a Venetian Story_ (xcv. stanzas) was published February 28, 1818; and a fifth edition, consisting of xcix. stanzas, was issued May 4, 1818. Jeffrey, writing in the _Edinburgh Review_ (February, 1818, vol. xxix. pp. 302-310), is unconcerned with regard to _Whistlecraft_, or any earlier model, but observes "that the nearest approach to it [_Beppo_] is to be found in some of the tales and lighter pieces of Prior--a few stanzas here and there among the trash and burlesque of Peter Pindar, and in several passages of Mr. Moore, and the author of the facetious miscellany entitled the _Twopenny Post Bag_." Other notices, of a less appreciative kind, appeared in the _Monthly Review_, March, 1818, vol. 85, pp. 285-290; and in the _Eclectic Review_, N.S., June, 1818, vol. ix. pp. 555-557. BEPPO.[194] I. 'Tis known, at least it should be, that throughout All countries of the Catholic persuasion,[195] Some weeks before Shrove Tuesday comes about, The People take their fill of recreation, And buy repentance, ere they grow devout, However high their rank, or low their station, With fiddling, feasting, dancing, drinking, masquing, And other things which may be had for asking. II. The moment night with dusky mantle covers The skies (and the more duskily the better), The Time less liked by husbands than by lovers Begins, and Prudery flings aside her fetter; And Gaiety on restless tiptoe hovers, Giggling with all the gallants who beset her; And there are songs and quavers, roaring, humming, Guitars, and every other sort of strumming.[196] III. And there are dresses splendid, but fantastical, Masks of all times and nations, Turks and Jews, And harlequins and clowns, with feats gymnastical, Greeks, Romans, Yankee-doodles, and Hindoos; All kinds of dress, except the ecclesiastical, All people, as their fancies hit, may choose, But no one in these parts may quiz the Clergy,-- Therefore take heed, ye Freethinkers! I charge ye. IV. You'd better walk about begirt with briars, Instead of coat and smallclothes, than put on A single stitch reflecting upon friars, Although you swore it only was in fun; They'd haul you o'er the coals, and stir the fires Of Phlegethon with every mother's son, Nor say one mass to cool the cauldron's bubble That boiled your bones, unless you paid them double. V. But saving this, you may put on whate'er You like by way of doublet, cape, or cloak, Such as in Monmouth-street, or in Rag Fair, Would rig you out in seriousness or joke; And even in Italy such places are, With prettier name in softer accents spoke, For, bating Covent Garden, I can hit on No place that's called "Piazza" in Great Britain.[197] VI. This feast is named the Carnival, which being Interpreted, implies "farewell to flesh:" So called, because the name and thing agreeing, Through Lent they live on fish both salt and fresh. But why they usher Lent with so much glee in, Is more than I can tell, although I guess 'Tis as we take a glass with friends at parting, In the Stage-Coach or Packet, just at starting. VII. And thus they bid farewell to carnal dishes, And solid meats, and highly spiced ragouts, To live for forty days on ill-dressed fishes, Because they have no sauces to their stews; A thing which causes many "poohs" and "pishes," And several oaths (which would not suit the Muse), From travellers accustomed from a boy To eat their salmon, at the least, with soy; VIII. And therefore humbly I would recommend "The curious in fish-sauce," before they cross The sea, to bid their cook, or wife, or friend, Walk or ride to the Strand, and buy in gross (Or if set out beforehand, these may send By any means least liable to loss), Ketchup, Soy, Chili-vinegar, and Harvey, Or, by the Lord! a Lent will well nigh starve ye; IX. That is to say, if your religion's Roman, And you at Rome would do as Romans do, According to the proverb,--although no man, If foreign, is obliged to fast; and you, If Protestant, or sickly, or a woman, Would rather dine in sin on a ragout-- Dine and be d--d! I don't mean to be coarse, But that's the penalty, to say no worse. X. Of all the places where the Carnival Was most facetious in the days of yore, For dance, and song, and serenade, and ball, And Masque, and Mime, and Mystery, and more Than I have time to tell now, or at all, Venice the bell from every city bore,-- And at the moment when I fix my story, That sea-born city was in all her glory. XI. They've pretty faces yet, those same Venetians, Black eyes, arched brows, and sweet expressions still; Such as of old were copied from the Grecians, In ancient arts by moderns mimicked ill; And like so many Venuses of Titian's[198] (The best's at Florence--see it, if ye will,) They look when leaning over the balcony, Or stepped from out a picture by Giorgione,[199] XII. Whose tints are Truth and Beauty at their best; And when you to Manfrini's palace go,[200] That picture (howsoever fine the rest) Is loveliest to my mind of all the show; It may perhaps be also to _your_ zest, And that's the cause I rhyme upon it so: Tis but a portrait of his Son, and Wife, And self; but _such_ a Woman! Love in life![201] XIII. Love in full life and length, not love ideal, No, nor ideal beauty, that fine name, But something better still, so very real, That the sweet Model must have been the same; A thing that you would purchase, beg, or steal, Wer't not impossible, besides a shame: The face recalls some face, as 'twere with pain, You once have seen, but ne'er will see again; XIV. One of those forms which flit by us, when we Are young, and fix our eyes on every face; And, oh! the Loveliness at times we see In momentary gliding, the soft grace, The Youth, the Bloom, the Beauty which agree, In many a nameless being we retrace, Whose course and home we knew not, nor shall know, Like the lost Pleiad[202] seen no more below. XV. I said that like a picture by Giorgione Venetian women were, and so they _are_, Particularly seen from a balcony, (For beauty's sometimes best set off afar) And there, just like a heroine of Goldoni,[202A] They peep from out the blind, or o'er the bar; And truth to say, they're mostly very pretty, And rather like to show it, more's the pity! XVI. For glances beget ogles, ogles sighs, Sighs wishes, wishes words, and words a letter, Which flies on wings of light-heeled Mercuries, Who do such things because they know no better; And then, God knows what mischief may arise, When Love links two young people in one fetter, Vile assignations, and adulterous beds, Elopements, broken vows, and hearts, and heads. XVII. Shakspeare described the sex in Desdemona As very fair, but yet suspect in fame,[202B] And to this day from Venice to Verona Such matters may be probably the same, Except that since those times was never known a Husband whom mere suspicion could inflame To suffocate a wife no more than twenty, Because she had a "Cavalier Servente."[203] XVIII. Their jealousy (if they are ever jealous) Is of a fair complexion altogether, Not like that sooty devil of Othello's, Which smothers women in a bed of feather, But worthier of these much more jolly fellows, When weary of the matrimonial tether His head for such a wife no mortal bothers, But takes at once another, or _another's_. XIX. Didst ever see a Gondola? For fear You should not, I'll describe it you exactly: 'Tis a long covered boat that's common here, Carved at the prow, built lightly, but compactly, Rowed by two rowers, each call'd "Gondolier," It glides along the water looking blackly, Just like a coffin clapt in a canoe, Where none can make out what you say or do. XX. And up and down the long canals they go, And under the Rialto[204] shoot along, By night and day, all paces, swift or slow, And round the theatres, a sable throng, They wait in their dusk livery of woe,-- But not to them do woeful things belong, For sometimes they contain a deal of fun, Like mourning coaches when the funeral's done. XXI. But to my story.--'Twas some years ago, It may be thirty, forty, more or less, The Carnival was at its height, and so Were all kinds of buffoonery and dress; A certain lady went to see the show, Her real name I know not, nor can guess, And so we'll call her Laura, if you please, Because it slips into my verse with ease. XXII. She was not old, nor young, nor at the years Which certain people call a "_certain age_,"[205] Which yet the most uncertain age appears, Because I never heard, nor could engage A person yet by prayers, or bribes, or tears, To name, define by speech, or write on page, The period meant precisely by that word,-- Which surely is exceedingly absurd. XXIII. Laura was blooming still, had made the best Of Time, and Time returned the compliment, And treated her genteelly, so that, dressed, She looked extremely well where'er she went; A pretty woman is a welcome guest, And Laura's brow a frown had rarely bent; Indeed, she shone all smiles, and seemed to flatter Mankind with her black eyes for looking at her. XXIV. She was a married woman; 'tis convenient, Because in Christian countries 'tis a rule To view their little slips with eyes more lenient; Whereas if single ladies play the fool, (Unless within the period intervenient A well-timed wedding makes the scandal cool) I don't know how they ever can get over it, Except they manage never to discover it. XXV. Her husband sailed upon the Adriatic, And made some voyages, too, in other seas, And when he lay in Quarantine for pratique[206] (A forty days' precaution 'gainst disease), His wife would mount, at times, her highest attic, For thence she could discern the ship with ease: He was a merchant trading to Aleppo, His name Giuseppe, called more briefly, Beppo.[207] XXVI. He was a man as dusky as a Spaniard, Sunburnt with travel, yet a portly figure; Though coloured, as it were, within a tanyard, He was a person both of sense and vigour-- A better seaman never yet did man yard; And she, although her manners showed no rigour, Was deemed a woman of the strictest principle, So much as to be thought almost invincible.[208] XXVII. But several years elapsed since they had met; Some people thought the ship was lost, and some That he had somehow blundered into debt, And did not like the thought of steering home; And there were several offered any bet, Or that he would, or that he would not come; For most men (till by losing rendered sager) Will back their own opinions with a wager. XXVIII. 'Tis said that their last parting was pathetic, As partings often are, or ought to be, And their presentiment was quite prophetic, That they should never more each other see, (A sort of morbid feeling, half poetic, Which I have known occur in two or three,) When kneeling on the shore upon her sad knee He left this Adriatic Ariadne. XXIX. And Laura waited long, and wept a little, And thought of wearing weeds, as well she might; She almost lost all appetite for victual, And could not sleep with ease alone at night; She deemed the window-frames and shutters brittle Against a daring housebreaker or sprite, And so she thought it prudent to connect her With a vice-husband, _chiefly_ to _protect her_. XXX. She chose, (and what is there they will not choose, If only you will but oppose their choice?) Till Beppo should return from his long cruise, And bid once more her faithful heart rejoice, A man some women like, and yet abuse-- A Coxcomb was he by the public voice; A Count of wealth, they said as well as quality, And in his pleasures of great liberality.[bk] XXXI. And then he was a Count, and then he knew Music, and dancing, fiddling, French and Tuscan; The last not easy, be it known to you, For few Italians speak the right Etruscan. He was a critic upon operas, too, And knew all niceties of sock and buskin; And no Venetian audience could endure a Song, scene, or air, when he cried "seccatura!"[209] XXXII. His "bravo" was decisive, for that sound Hushed "Academie" sighed in silent awe; The fiddlers trembled as he looked around, For fear of some false note's detected flaw; The "Prima Donna's" tuneful heart would bound, Dreading the deep damnation of his "Bah!" Soprano, Basso, even the Contra-Alto, Wished him five fathom under the Rialto. XXXIII. He patronised the Improvisatori, Nay, could himself extemporise some stanzas, Wrote rhymes, sang songs, could also tell a story, Sold pictures, and was skilful in the dance as Italians can be, though in this their glory Must surely yield the palm to that which France has; In short, he was a perfect Cavaliero, And to his very valet seemed a hero.[210] XXXIV. Then he was faithful too, as well as amorous; So that no sort of female could complain, Although they're now and then a little clamorous, He never put the pretty souls in pain; His heart was one of those which most enamour us, Wax to receive, and marble to retain: He was a lover of the good old school, Who still become more constant as they cool. XXXV. No wonder such accomplishments should turn A female head, however sage and steady-- With scarce a hope that Beppo could return, In law he was almost as good as dead, he Nor sent, nor wrote, nor showed the least concern, And she had waited several years already: And really if a man won't let us know That he's alive, he's _dead_--or should be so. XXXVI. Besides, within the Alps, to every woman, (Although, God knows, it is a grievous sin,) 'Tis, I may say, permitted to have _two_ men; I can't tell who first brought the custom in, But "Cavalier Serventes" are quite common, And no one notices or cares a pin; An we may call this (not to say the worst) A _second_ marriage which corrupts the _first_. XXXVII. The word was formerly a "Cicisbeo,"[211] But _that_ is now grown vulgar and indecent; The Spaniards call the person a "_Cortejo_,"[212] For the same mode subsists in Spain, though recent; In short it reaches from the Po to Teio, And may perhaps at last be o'er the sea sent: But Heaven preserve Old England from such courses! Or what becomes of damage and divorces? XXXVIII.[213] However, I still think, with all due deference To the fair _single_ part of the creation, That married ladies should preserve the preference In _tête à tête_ or general conversation-- And this I say without peculiar reference To England, France, or any other nation-- Because they know the world, and are at ease, And being natural, naturally please. XXXIX. 'Tis true, your budding Miss is very charming, But shy and awkward at first coming out, So much alarmed, that she is quite alarming, All Giggle, Blush; half Pertness, and half Pout; And glancing at _Mamma_, for fear there's harm in What you, she, it, or they, may be about: The Nursery still lisps out in all they utter-- Besides, they always smell of bread and butter.[214] XL. But "Cavalier Servente" is the phrase Used in politest circles to express This supernumerary slave, who stays Close to the lady as a part of dress, Her word the only law which he obeys. His is no sinecure, as you may guess; Coach, servants, gondola, he goes to call, And carries fan and tippet, gloves and shawl. XLI. With all its sinful doings, I must say, That Italy's a pleasant place to me, Who love to see the Sun shine every day, And vines (not nailed to walls) from tree to tree Festooned, much like the back scene of a play, Or melodrame, which people flock to see, When the first act is ended by a dance In vineyards copied from the South of France. XLII. I like on Autumn evenings to ride out, Without being forced to bid my groom be sure My cloak is round his middle strapped about, Because the skies are not the most secure; I know too that, if stopped upon my route, Where the green alleys windingly allure, Reeling with _grapes_ red wagons choke the way,-- In England 'twould be dung, dust, or a dray. XLIII. I also like to dine on becaficas, To see the Sun set, sure he'll rise to-morrow, Not through a misty morning twinkling weak as A drunken man's dead eye in maudlin sorrow, But with all Heaven t'himself; the day will break as Beauteous as cloudless, nor be forced to borrow That sort of farthing candlelight which glimmers Where reeking London's smoky cauldron simmers. XLIV. I love the language, that soft bastard Latin,[215] Which melts like kisses from a female mouth, And sounds as if it should be writ on satin,[216] With syllables which breathe of the sweet South, And gentle liquids gliding all so pat in, That not a single accent seems uncouth, Like our harsh northern whistling, grunting guttural, Which we're obliged to hiss, and spit, and sputter all. XLV. I like the women too (forgive my folly!), From the rich peasant cheek of ruddy bronze,[bl] And large black eyes that flash on you a volley Of rays that say a thousand things at once, To the high Dama's brow, more melancholy, But clear, and with a wild and liquid glance, Heart on her lips, and soul within her eyes, Soft as her clime, and sunny as her skies.[bm] XLVI. Eve of the land which still is Paradise! Italian Beauty didst thou not inspire Raphael,[217] who died in thy embrace, and vies With all we know of Heaven, or can desire, In what he hath bequeathed us?--in what guise, Though flashing from the fervour of the Lyre, Would _words_ describe thy past and present glow, While yet Canova[218] can create below?[219] XLVII. "England! with all thy faults I love thee still,"[220] I said at Calais, and have not forgot it; I like to speak and lucubrate my fill; I like the government (but that is not it); I like the freedom of the press and quill; I like the Habeas Corpus (when we've got it); I like a Parliamentary debate, Particularly when 'tis not too late; XLVIII. I like the taxes, when they're not too many; I like a seacoal fire, when not too dear; I like a beef-steak, too, as well as any; Have no objection to a pot of beer; I like the weather,--when it is not rainy, That is, I like two months of every year. And so God save the Regent, Church, and King! Which means that I like all and every thing. XLIX. Our standing army, and disbanded seamen, Poor's rate, Reform, my own, the nation's debt, Our little riots just to show we're free men, Our trifling bankruptcies in the Gazette, Our cloudy climate, and our chilly women, All these I can forgive, and those forget, And greatly venerate our recent glories, And wish they were not owing to the Tories. L. But to my tale of Laura,--for I find Digression is a sin, that by degrees Becomes exceeding tedious to my mind, And, therefore, may the reader too displease-- The gentle reader, who may wax unkind, And caring little for the Author's ease, Insist on knowing what he means--a hard And hapless situation for a Bard. LI. Oh! that I had the art of easy writing What should be easy reading! could I scale Parnassus, where the Muses sit inditing Those pretty poems never known to fail, How quickly would I print (the world delighting) A Grecian, Syrian,[221] or _Ass_yrian tale; And sell you, mixed with western Sentimentalism, Some samples of the _finest Orientalism._ LII. But I am but a nameless sort of person, (A broken Dandy[222] lately on my travels) And take for rhyme, to hook my rambling verse on, The first that Walker's Lexicon unravels, And when I can't find that, I put a worse on, Not caring as I ought for critics' cavils; I've half a mind to tumble down to prose, But verse is more in fashion--so here goes! LIII. The Count and Laura made their new arrangement, Which lasted, as arrangements sometimes do, For half a dozen years without estrangement; They had their little differences, too; Those jealous whiffs, which never any change meant; In such affairs there probably are few Who have not had this pouting sort of squabble, From sinners of high station to the rabble. LIV. But, on the whole, they were a happy pair, As happy as unlawful love could make them; The gentleman was fond, the lady fair, Their chains so slight, 'twas not worth while to break them: The World beheld them with indulgent air; The pious only wished "the Devil take them!" He took them not; he very often waits, And leaves old sinners to be young ones' baits. LV. But they were young: Oh! what without our Youth Would Love be! What would Youth be without Love! Youth lends its joy, and sweetness, vigour, truth, Heart, soul, and all that seems as from above; But, languishing with years, it grows uncouth-- One of few things Experience don't improve; Which is, perhaps, the reason why old fellows Are always so preposterously jealous. LVI. It was the Carnival, as I have said Some six and thirty stanzas back, and so Laura the usual preparations made, Which you do when your mind's made up to go To-night to Mrs. Boehm's masquerade,[223] Spectator, or Partaker in the show; The only difference known between the cases Is--_here_, we have six weeks of "varnished faces." LVII. Laura, when dressed, was (as I sang before) A pretty woman as was ever seen, Fresh as the Angel o'er a new inn door, Or frontispiece of a new Magazine,[224] With all the fashions which the last month wore, Coloured, and silver paper leaved between That and the title-page, for fear the Press Should soil with parts of speech the parts of dress. LVIII. They went to the Ridotto;[225] 'tis a hall Where People dance, and sup, and dance again; Its proper name, perhaps, were a masqued ball, But that's of no importance to my strain; 'Tis (on a smaller scale) like our Vauxhall, Excepting that it can't be spoilt by rain; The company is "mixed" (the phrase I quote is As much as saying, they're below your notice); LIX. For a "mixed company" implies that, save Yourself and friends, and half a hundred more, Whom you may bow to without looking grave, The rest are but a vulgar set, the Bore Of public places, where they basely brave The fashionable stare of twenty score Of well-bred persons, called "_The World_;" but I, Although I know them, really don't know why. LX. This is the case in England; at least was During the dynasty of Dandies, now Perchance succeeded by some other class Of imitated Imitators:--how[bn] Irreparably soon decline, alas! The Demagogues of fashion: all below Is frail; how easily the world is lost By Love, or War, and, now and then,--by Frost! LXI. Crushed was Napoleon by the northern Thor, Who knocked his army down with icy hammer, Stopped by the _Elements_[226]--like a Whaler--or A blundering novice in his new French grammar; Good cause had he to doubt the chance of war, And as for Fortune--but I dare not d--n her, Because, were I to ponder to Infinity, The more I should believe in her Divinity.[227] LXII. She rules the present, past, and all to be yet, She gives us luck in lotteries, love, and marriage; I cannot say that she's done much for me yet; Not that I mean her bounties to disparage, We've not yet closed accounts, and we shall see yet How much she'll make amends for past miscarriage; Meantime the Goddess I'll no more importune, Unless to thank her when she's made my fortune. LXIII. To turn,--and to return;--the Devil take it! This story slips for ever through my fingers, Because, just as the stanza likes to make it, It needs must be--and so it rather lingers; This form of verse began, I can't well break it, But must keep time and tune like public singers; But if I once get through my present measure, I'll take another when I'm next at leisure. LXIV. They went to the Ridotto ('tis a place To which I mean to go myself to-morrow,[228] Just to divert my thoughts a little space Because I'm rather hippish, and may borrow Some spirits, guessing at what kind of face May lurk beneath each mask; and as my sorrow Slackens its pace sometimes, I'll make, or find, Something shall leave it half an hour behind.) LXV. Now Laura moves along the joyous crowd, Smiles in her eyes, and simpers on her lips; To some she whispers, others speaks aloud; To some she curtsies, and to some she dips, Complains of warmth, and this complaint avowed, Her lover brings the lemonade, she sips; She then surveys, condemns, but pities still Her dearest friends for being dressed so ill. LXVI. One has false curls, another too much paint, A third--where did she buy that frightful turban? A fourth's so pale she fears she's going to faint, A fifth's look's vulgar, dowdyish, and suburban, A sixth's white silk has got a yellow taint, A seventh's thin muslin surely will be her bane, And lo! an eighth appears,--"I'll see no more!" For fear, like Banquo's kings, they reach a score. LXVII. Meantime, while she was thus at others gazing, Others were levelling their looks at her; She heard the men's half-whispered mode of praising And, till 'twas done, determined not to stir; The women only thought it quite amazing That, at her time of life, so many were Admirers still,--but "Men are so debased, Those brazen Creatures always suit their taste." LXVIII. For my part, now, I ne'er could understand Why naughty women--but I won't discuss A thing which is a scandal to the land, I only don't see why it should be thus; And if I were but in a gown and band, Just to entitle me to make a fuss, I'd preach on this till Wilberforce and Romilly Should quote in their next speeches from my homily. LXIX. While Laura thus was seen, and seeing, smiling, Talking, she knew not why, and cared not what, So that her female friends, with envy broiling, Beheld her airs, and triumph, and all that; And well-dressed males still kept before her filing, And passing bowed and mingled with her chat; More than the rest one person seemed to stare With pertinacity that's rather rare. LXX. He was a Turk, the colour of mahogany; And Laura saw him, and at first was glad, Because the Turks so much admire philogyny,[bo] Although their usage of their wives is sad; 'Tis said they use no better than a dog any Poor woman, whom they purchase like a pad: They have a number, though they ne'er exhibit 'em, Four wives by law, and concubines "ad libitum." LXXI. They lock them up, and veil, and guard them daily, They scarcely can behold their male relations, So that their moments do not pass so gaily As is supposed the case with northern nations; Confinement, too, must make them look quite palely; And as the Turks abhor long conversations, Their days are either passed in doing nothing, Or bathing, nursing, making love, and clothing. LXXII. They cannot read, and so don't lisp in criticism; Nor write, and so they don't affect the Muse; Were never caught in epigram or witticism, Have no romances, sermons, plays, reviews,-- In Harams learning soon would make a pretty schism, But luckily these Beauties are no "Blues;" No bustling _Botherby_[229] have they to show 'em "That charming passage in the last new poem:" LXXIII. No solemn, antique gentleman of rhyme, Who having angled all his life for Fame, And getting but a nibble at a time, Still fussily keeps fishing on, the same Small "Triton of the minnows," the sublime Of Mediocrity, the furious tame, The Echo's echo, usher of the school Of female wits, boy bards--in short, a fool! LXXIV. A stalking oracle of awful phrase, The approving _"Good!"_ (by no means good in law) Humming like flies around the newest blaze, The bluest of bluebottles you e'er saw, Teasing with blame, excruciating with praise, Gorging the little fame he gets all raw,[bp] Translating tongues he knows not even by letter, And sweating plays so middling, bad were better. LXXV. One hates an author that's _all author_--fellows In foolscap uniforms turned up with ink, So very anxious, clever, fine, and jealous, One don't know what to say to them, or think, Unless to puff them with a pair of bellows; Of Coxcombry's worst coxcombs e'en the pink Are preferable to these shreds of paper, These unquenched snuffings of the midnight taper. LXXVI. Of these same we see several, and of others. Men of the world, who know the World like Men, Scott, Rogers, Moore, and all the better brothers, Who think of something else besides the pen; But for the children of the "Mighty Mother's," The would-be wits, and can't-be gentlemen, I leave them to their daily "tea is ready,"[230] Smug coterie, and literary lady. LXXVII. The poor dear Mussul_women_ whom I mention Have none of these instructive pleasant people, And _one_ would seem to them a new invention, Unknown as bells within a Turkish steeple; I think 'twould almost be worth while to pension (Though best-sown projects very often reap ill) A missionary author--just to preach Our Christian usage of the parts of speech. LXXVIII. No Chemistry for them unfolds her gases, No Metaphysics are let loose in lectures, No Circulating Library amasses Religious novels, moral tales, and strictures Upon the living manners, as they pass us; No Exhibition glares with annual pictures; They stare not on the stars from out their attics, Nor deal (thank God for that!) in Mathematics.[231] LXXIX. Why I thank God for that is no great matter, I have my reasons, you no doubt suppose, And as, perhaps, they would not highly flatter, I'll keep them for my life (to come) in prose; I fear I have a little turn for Satire, And yet methinks the older that one grows Inclines us more to laugh than scold, though Laughter Leaves us so doubly serious shortly after. LXXX.[232] Oh, Mirth and Innocence! Oh, Milk and Water! Ye happy mixtures of more happy days! In these sad centuries of sin and slaughter, Abominable Man no more allays His thirst with such pure beverage. No matter, I love you both, and both shall have my praise: Oh, for old Saturn's reign of sugar-candy!--- Meantime I drink to your return in brandy. LXXXI. Our Laura's Turk still kept his eyes upon her, Less in the Mussulman than Christian way, Which seems to say, "Madam, I do you honour, And while I please to stare, you'll please to stay." Could staring win a woman, this had won her, But Laura could not thus be led astray; She had stood fire too long and well, to boggle Even at this Stranger's most outlandish ogle. LXXXII. The morning now was on the point of breaking, A turn of time at which I would advise Ladies who have been dancing, or partaking In any other kind of exercise, To make their preparations for forsaking The ball-room ere the Sun begins to rise, Because when once the lamps and candles fail, His blushes make them look a little pale. LXXXIII. I've seen some balls and revels in my time, And stayed them over for some silly reason, And then I looked (I hope it was no crime) To see what lady best stood out the season; And though I've seen some thousands in their prime Lovely and pleasing, and who still may please on, I never saw but one (the stars withdrawn) Whose bloom could after dancing dare the Dawn. LXXXIV. The name of this Aurora I'll not mention, Although I might, for she was nought to me More than that patent work of God's invention, A charming woman, whom we like to see; But writing names would merit reprehension, Yet if you like to find out this fair _She,_ At the next London or Parisian ball You still may mark her cheek, out-blooming all. LXXXV. Laura, who knew it would not do at all To meet the daylight after seven hours' sitting Among three thousand people at a ball, To make her curtsey thought it right and fitting; The Count was at her elbow with her shawl, And they the room were on the point of quitting, When lo! those curséd Gondoliers had got Just in the very place where they _should not._ LXXXVI. In this they're like our coachmen, and the cause Is much the same--the crowd, and pulling, hauling, With blasphemies enough to break their jaws, They make a never intermitted bawling. At home, our Bow-street gem'men keep the laws, And here a sentry stands within your calling; But for all that, there is a deal of swearing, And nauseous words past mentioning or bearing. LXXXVII. The Count and Laura found their boat at last, And homeward floated o'er the silent tide, Discussing all the dances gone and past; The dancers and their dresses, too, beside; Some little scandals eke; but all aghast (As to their palace-stairs the rowers glide) Sate Laura by the side of her adorer,[bq] When lo! the Mussulman was there before her! LXXXVIII. "Sir," said the Count, with brow exceeding grave, "Your unexpected presence here will make It necessary for myself to crave Its import? But perhaps 'tis a mistake; I hope it is so; and, at once to waive All compliment, I hope so for _your_ sake; You understand my meaning, or you _shall._" "Sir," (quoth the Turk) "'tis no mistake at all: LXXXIX. "That Lady is _my wife!_" Much wonder paints The lady's changing cheek, as well it might; But where an Englishwoman sometimes faints, Italian females don't do so outright; They only call a little on their Saints, And then come to themselves, almost, or quite; Which saves much hartshorn, salts, and sprinkling faces, And cutting stays, as usual in such cases. XC. She said,--what could she say? Why, not a word; But the Count courteously invited in The Stranger, much appeased by what he heard: "Such things, perhaps, we'd best discuss within," Said he; "don't let us make ourselves absurd In public, by a scene, nor raise a din, For then the chief and only satisfaction Will be much quizzing on the whole transaction." XCI. They entered, and for Coffee called--it came, A beverage for Turks and Christians both, Although the way they make it's not the same. Now Laura, much recovered, or less loth To speak, cries "Beppo! what's your pagan name? Bless me! your beard is of amazing growth! And how came you to keep away so long? Are you not sensible 'twas very wrong? XCII. "And are you _really, truly,_ now a Turk? With any other women did you wive? Is't true they use their fingers for a fork? Well, that's the prettiest Shawl--as I'm alive! You'll give it me? They say you eat no pork. And how so many years did you contrive To--Bless me! did I ever? No, I never Saw a man grown so yellow! How's your liver? XCIII. "Beppo! that beard of yours becomes you not; It shall be shaved before you're a day older: Why do you wear it? Oh! I had forgot-- Pray don't you think the weather here is colder? How do I look? You shan't stir from this spot In that queer dress, for fear that some beholder Should find you out, and make the story known. How short your hair is! Lord! how grey it's grown!" XCIV. What answer Beppo made to these demands Is more than I know. He was cast away About where Troy stood once, and nothing stands; Became a slave of course, and for his pay Had bread and bastinadoes, till some bands Of pirates landing in a neighbouring bay, He joined the rogues and prospered, and became A renegade of indifferent fame. XCV. But he grew rich, and with his riches grew so Keen the desire to see his home again, He thought himself in duty bound to do so, And not be always thieving on the main; Lonely he felt, at times, as Robin Crusoe, And so he hired a vessel come from Spain, Bound for Corfu: she was a fine polacca, Manned with twelve hands, and laden with tobacco. XCVI. Himself, and much (heaven knows how gotten!) cash, He then embarked, with risk of life and limb, And got clear off, although the attempt was rash; _He_ said that _Providence_ protected him-- For my part, I say nothing--lest we clash In our opinions:--well--the ship was trim, Set sail, and kept her reckoning fairly on, Except three days of calm when off Cape Bonn.[233] XCVII. They reached the Island, he transferred his lading, And self and live stock to another bottom, And passed for a true Turkey-merchant, trading With goods of various names--but I've forgot 'em. However, he got off by this evading, Or else the people would perhaps have shot him; And thus at Venice landed to reclaim His wife, religion, house, and Christian name. XCVIII. His wife received, the Patriarch re-baptised him, (He made the Church a present, by the way;) He then threw off the garments which disguised him, And borrowed the Count's smallclothes for a day: His friends the more for his long absence prized him, Finding he'd wherewithal to make them gay, With dinners, where he oft became the laugh of them, For stories--but _I_ don't believe the half of them. XCIX. Whate'er his youth had suffered, his old age With wealth and talking made him some amends; Though Laura sometimes put him in a rage, I've heard the Count and he were always friends. My pen is at the bottom of a page, Which being finished, here the story ends: 'Tis to be wished it had been sooner done, But stories somehow lengthen when begun. FOOTNOTES: [191] {153}["Although I was in Italie only ix. days, I saw, in that little tyme, more liberty to sin than ever I heard tell of in our noble citie of London in ix. yeares."--_Schoolmaster_, bk. i. _ad fin_. By Roger Ascham.] [192] {155} ["I've often wish'd that I could write a book, Such as all English people might peruse; I never shall regret the pains it took, That's just the sort of fame that I should choose: To sail about the world like Captain Cook, I'd sling a cot up for my favourite Muse, And we'd take verses out to Demerara, To New South Wales, and up to Niagara. "Poets consume exciseable commodities, They raise the nation's spirit when victorious, They drive an export trade in whims and oddities, Making our commerce and revenue glorious; As an industrious and pains-taking body 'tis That Poets should be reckoned meritorious: And therefore I submissively propose To erect one Board for Verse and one for Prose. "Princes protecting Sciences and Art I've often seen in copper-plate and print; I never saw them elsewhere, for my part, And therefore I conclude there's nothing in't: But every body knows the Regent's heart; I trust he won't reject a well-meant hint; Each Board to have twelve members, with a seat To bring them in per ann. five hundred neat:-- "From Princes I descend to the Nobility: In former times all persons of high stations, Lords, Baronets, and Persons of gentility, Paid twenty guineas for the dedications; This practice was attended with utility; The patrons lived to future generations, The poets lived by their industrious earning,-- So men alive and dead could live by Learning. "Then twenty guineas was a little fortune; Now, we must starve unless the times should mend: Our poets now-a-days are deemed importune If their addresses are diffusely penned; Most fashionable authors make a short one To their own wife, or child, or private friend, To show their independence, I suppose; And that may do for Gentlemen like those. "Lastly, the common people I beseech-- Dear People! if you think my verses clever, Preserve with care your noble parts of speech, And take it as a maxim to endeavour To talk as your good mothers used to teach, And then these lines of mine may last for ever; And don't confound the language of the nation With long-tailed words in _osity_ and _ation_." Canto I. stanzas i.-vi.] [193] {156}[For some admirable stanzas in the metre and style of _Beppo_, by W.S. Rose, who passed the winter of 1817-18 in Venice, and who sent them to Byron from Albaro in the spring of 1818, see _Letters_, 1900 iv. 211-214, note 1.] [194] {159}[The MS. of _Beppo_, in Byron's handwriting, is now in the possession of Captain the Hon. F. L. King Noel. It is dated October 10, 1817.] [195] [The use of "persuasion" as a synonime for "religion," is, perhaps, of American descent. Thomas Jefferson, in his first inaugural address as President of U.S.A., speaks "of whatever state or persuasion, political or religious." At the beginning of the nineteenth century theological niceties were not regarded, and the great gulph between a religion and a sect or party was imperfectly discerned. Hence the solecism.] [196] [Compare the lines which Byron enclosed in a letter to Moore, dated December 24, 1816 (_Letters_, 1900, iv. 30)-- "But the Carnival's coming, Oh Thomas Moore, * * * * * Masking and humming, Fifing and drumming, Guitarring and strumming, Oh Thomas Moore."] [197] {160}[Monmouth Street, now absorbed in Shaftesbury Avenue (west side), was noted throughout the eighteenth century for the sale of second-hand clothes. Compare-- "Thames Street gives cheeses, Covent Garden fruits, Moorfields old books, and Monmouth Street old suits." Gay's _Trivia_, ii. 547, 548. Rag Fair or Rosemary Lane, now Royal Mint Street, was the Monmouth Street of the City. Compare-- "Where wave the tattered ensigns of Rag Fair." Pope's _Dunciad_, i. 29, _var_. The Arcade, or "Piazza," so called, which was built by Inigo Jones in 1652, ran along the whole of the north and east sides of the _Piazza_ or Square of Covent Garden. The Arcade on the north side is still described as the "Piazzas."--_London Past and Present_, by H. B. Wheatley, 1891, i. 461, ii. 554, iii. 145.] [198] {162}["At Florence I remained but a day.... What struck me most was ... the mistress of Titian, a portrait; a Venus of Titian in the Medici Gallery ..."--Letter to Murray, April 27, 1817, _Letters_, 1900, iv. 113. Compare, too, _Childe Harold_, Canto IV. stanza xlix. line i, _Poetical Works_, 1899, ii. 365, note 2.] [199] ["I know nothing of pictures myself, and care almost as little: but to me there are none like the Venetian--above all, Giorgione. I remember well his Judgment of Solomon in the Mareschalchi Gallery [in the Via Delle Asse, formerly celebrated for its pictures] in Bologna."--Letter to William Bankes, February 26, 1820, _Letters_, 1900, iv. 411.] [200] ["I also went over the Manfrini Palace, famous for its pictures. Among them, there is a portrait of Ariosto by Titian [now in the possession of the Earl of Rosebery], surpassing all my anticipations of the power of painting or human expression: it is the poetry of portrait, and the portrait of poetry. There was also one of some learned lady, centuries old, whose name I forget, but whose features must always be remembered. I never saw greater beauty, or sweetness, or wisdom:--it is the kind of face to go mad for, because it cannot walk out of its frame.... What struck me most in the general collection was the extreme resemblance of the style of the female faces in the mass of pictures, so many centuries or generations old, to those you see and meet every day amongst the existing Italians. The Queen of Cyprus and Giorgione's wife, particularly the latter, are Venetians as it were of yesterday; the same eyes and expression, and, to my mind, there is none finer,"--Letter to Murray, April 14, 1817, _Letters_, 1900, iv. 105. The picture which caught Byron's fancy was the so-called _Famiglia di Giorgione_, which was removed from the Manfrini Palace in 1856, and is now in the Palazzo Giovanelli. It represents "an almost nude woman, probably a gipsy, seated with a child in her lap, and a standing warrior gazing upon her, a storm breaking over the landscape."--_Handbook of Painting_, by Austen H. Layard, 1891, part ii. p. 553.] [201] {163}[According to Vasari and others, Giorgione (Giorgio Barbarelli, b. 1478) was never married. He died of the plague, A.D. 1511.] [202] {164} "Quæ septem dici, sex tanien esse solent."--Ovid., [_Fastorum_, lib. iv. line 170.] [202A] [Carlo Goldoni (1707-1793). His play, _Belisarius_, was first performed November 24, 1734; _Le Bourru Bienfaisant_, November 4, 1771. _La Bottega del Caffé_, _La Locandiera, etc_., still hold the stage. His _Mémoires_ were published in 1787.] [202B] ["Look to't: * * * * * In Venice they do let heaven see the pranks They dare not show their husbands; their best conscience Is not to leave't undone, but keep't unknown." _Othello_, act iii. sc. 3, lines 206-208.] [203] {165}[Compare-- "An English lady asked of an Italian, What were the actual and official duties Of the strange thing, some women set a value on, Which hovers oft about some married beauties, Called 'Cavalier Servente,' a Pygmalion Whose statues warm (I fear, alas! too true 't is) Beneath his art. The dame, pressed to disclose them, Said--'Lady, I beseech you to _suppose them_.'" _Don Juan_, Canto IX. stanza li. A critic, in the _Monthly Review_ (March, 1818, vol. lxxxv. p. 286), took Byron to task for omitting the _e_ in _Cavaliere_. In a letter to Murray, April 17, 1818, he shows that he is right, and takes his revenge on the editor (George Edward) Griffiths, and his "scribbler Mr. Hodgson."--_Letters_, 1900, iv. 226.] [204] ["An English abbreviation. Rialto is the name, not of the bridge, but of the island from which it is called; and the Venetians say, _Il ponti di Rialto_, as we say Westminster Bridge. In that island is the Exchange; and I have often walked there as on classic ground.... 'I Sopportichi,' says Sansovino, writing in 1580 [_Venetia_, 1581, p. 134], 'sono ogni giorno frequentati da i mercatanti Fiorentini, Genovesi, Milanesi, Spagnuoli, Turchi, e d'altre nationi diverse del mondo, i quali vi concorrono in tanta copia, che questa piazza è annoverata fra le prime dell' universo.' It was there that the Christian held discourse with the Jew; and Shylock refers to it when he says-- "'Signer Antonio, many a time and oft, In the Rialto you have rated me.' 'Andiamo a Rialto,'--' L'ora di Rialto,' were on every tongue; and continue so to the present day, as we learn from the Comedies of Goldoni, and particularly from his _Mercanti_."--Note to the _Brides of Venice_, Poems, by Samuel Rogers, 1852, ii. 88, 89. See, too, _Childe Harold_, Canto IV. stanza iv. line 6, _Poetical Works_, 1899, ii. 331.] [205] {166}[Compare "At the epoch called a certain age she found herself an old maid."--Jane Porter, _Thaddeus of Warsaw_ (1803), cap. xxxviii. (See _N. Eng. Dict_., art. "Certain.") Ugo Foscolo, in his article in the _Quarterly Review_, April, 1819, vol. xxi. pp. 486-556, quotes these lines in illustration of a stanza from Forteguerri's _Ricciardetto_, iv. 2-- Quando si giugne ad una certa età, Ch'io non voglio descrivervi qual è," etc.] [206] {167}[A clean bill of health after quarantine. Howell spells the word "pratic," and Milton "pratticke."] [207] Beppo is the "Joe" of the Italian Joseph. [208] {168}["The general state of morals here is much the same as in the Doges' time; a woman is virtuous (according to the code) who limits herself to her husband and one lover; those who have two, three, or more, are a little wild; but it is only those who are indiscriminately diffuse, and form a low connection ... who are considered as over-stepping the modesty of marriage.... There is no convincing a woman here, that she is in the smallest degree deviating from the rule of right, or the fitness of things, in having an _Amoroso._"--Letter to Murray, January 2, 1817, _Letters,_ 1900, iv. 40, 41.] [bk] {169} _A Count of wealth inferior to his quality,_ _Which somewhat limited his liberality_.--[MS.] [209]["Some of the Italians liked him [a famous improvisatore], others called his performance '_seccatura_' (a devilish good word, by the way), and all Milan was in controversy about him."--Letter to Moore, November 6, 1816, _Letters_, 1899, iii. 384.] [210] {170}[The saying, "Il n'y a point de héros pour son valet de chambre," is attributed to Maréchal (Nicholas) Catinat (1637-1712). His biographer speaks of presenting "_le héros en déshabillé_." (See his _Mémoires_, 1819, ii. 118.)] [211] {171}[The origin of the word is obscure. According to the _Vocab. della Crusca_, "cicisbeo" is an inversion of "bel cece," beautiful chick (pea). Pasqualino, cited by Diez, says it is derived from the French _chiche beau_.--_N. Eng. Dict._, art. "Cicisbeo."] [212] Cortejo is pronounced Corte_h_o, with an aspirate, according to the Arabesque guttural. It means what there is as yet no precise name for in England, though the practice is as common as in any tramontane country whatever. [213] [Stanzas xxxviii., xxxix., are not in the original MS.] [214] {172}[For the association of bread and butter with immaturity, compare, "Ye bread-and-butter rogues, do ye run from me?" (Beaumont and Fletcher, _The Humorous Lieutenant_, act iii. sc. 7). (See _N. Eng. Dict._, art. "Bread.")] [215] {173}[Compare-- " ... the Tuscan's siren tongue? That music in itself, whose sounds are song, The poetry of speech?" _Childe Harold,_ Canto IV. stanza lviii. lines 4-6, _Poetical Works,_ 1899, ii. 374, note i.] [216] _Sattin,_ eh? Query, I can't spell it.--[MS.] [bl] _From the tall peasant with her ruddy bronze_.--[MS.] [bm] _Like her own clime, all sun, and bloom, and skies_.--[MS.] [217] {174}[For the received accounts of the cause of Raphael's death, see his Lives. "Fidem matrimonii quidem dederat nepti cuidam Cardinal. Bibiani, sed partim Cardinalatûs spe lactatus partim pro seculi locique more, Romæ enim plerumque vixit, vagis amoribus delectatus, morbo hinc contracto, obiit A.C. 1520, ætat. 37."--Art. "Raphael," _apud_ Hofmann, _Lexicon Universale_. It would seem that Raphael was betrothed to Maria, daughter of Antonio Divizio da Bibiena, the nephew of Cardinal Bibiena (see his letter to his uncle Simone di Battista di Ciarla da Urbino, dated July 1, 1514), and it is a fact that a girl named Margarita, supposed to be his mistress, is mentioned in his will. But the "causes of his death," April 6, 1520, were a delicate constitution, overwork, and a malarial fever, caught during his researches among the ruins of ancient Rome" (_Raphael of Urbino_, by J. D. Passavant, 1872, pp. 140, 196, 197. See, too, _Raphael_, by E. Muntz, 1888).] [218] [Compare the lines enclosed in a letter to Murray, dated November 25, 1816-- "In this belovéd marble view, Above the works and thoughts of man, What Nature _could_ but _would not_ do, And Beauty and Canova can."] [219] ["(In talking thus, the writer, more especially Of women, would be understood to say, He speaks as a Spectator, not officially, And always, Reader, in a modest way; Perhaps, too, in no very great degree shall he Appear to have offended in this lay, Since, as all know, without the Sex, our Sonnets Would seem unfinished, like their untrimmed bonnets.) "(Signed) Printer's Devil."] [220] [_The Task_, by William Cowper, ii. 206. Compare _The Farewell_, line 27, by Charles Churchill-- "Be England what she will, With all her faults, she is my Country still."] [221] {175}[The allusion is to Gally Knight's _Ilderim,_ a Syrian Tale. See, too, Letter to Moore, March 25, 1817, _Letters,_ 1900, iv. 78: "Talking of tail, I wish you had not called it [_Lalla Rookh_] a '_Persian Tale_.' Say a 'Poem,' or 'Romance,' but not 'Tale.' I am very sorry that I called some of my own things 'Tales.' ... Besides, we have had Arabian, and Hindoo, and Turkish, and Assyrian Tales." _Beppo_, it must be remembered, was published anonymously, and in the concluding lines of the stanza the satire is probably directed against his own "Tales."] [222] {176}["The expressions '_blue-stocking_' and '_dandy_' may furnish matter for the learning of a commentator at some future period. At this moment every English reader will understand them. Our present ephemeral dandy is akin to the maccaroni of my earlier days. The first of these expressions has become classical, by Mrs. Hannah More's poem of '_Bas-Bleu_' and the other by the use of it in one of Lord Byron's poems. Though now become familiar and rather trite, their day may not be long. ' ... Cadentque Quæ nunc sunt in honore vocabula.'" --Translation of Forteguerri's _Ricciardetto_, by Lord Glenbervie, 1822 (note to stanza v.). Compare, too, a memorandum of 1820. "I liked the Dandies; they were always very civil to _me_, though in general they disliked literary people ... The truth is, that, though I gave up the business early, I had a tinge of Dandyism in my minority, and probably retained enough of it to conciliate the great ones at four-and-twenty."--_Letters_, 1901, v. 423.] [223] {177}[The _Morning Chronicle_ of June 17, 1817, reports at length "Mrs. Boehm's Grand Masquerade." "On Monday evening this distinguished lady of the _haut ton_ gave a splendid masquerade at her residence in St. James's Square." "The Dukes of Gloucester, Wellington, etc., were present in plain dress. Among the dominoes were the Duke and Duchess of Grafton, etc." Lady Caroline Lamb was among the guests.] [224] {178}[The reference is, probably, to the _Repository of Arts, Literature, Commerce, Manufactures, Fashions, and Politics_ (1809-1829), which was illustrated by coloured plates of dresses, "artistic" furniture, Gothic cottages, park lodges, etc.] [225] [For "Ridotto," see Letter to Moore, January 28, 1817, _Letters,_ 1900, iv. 49, note 1.] [bn] _Of Imited_ (_sic_) _Imitations, how soon! how._--[MS.] [226] ["When Brummell was obliged ... to retire to France, he knew no French; and having obtained a Grammar for the purposes of study, our friend Scrope Davies was asked what progress Brummell had made in French ... he responded, 'that Brummell had been stopped, like Buonaparte in Russia, by the _Elements_.' I have put this pun into _Beppo,_ which is 'a fair exchange and no robbery;' for Scrope made his fortune at several dinners (as he owned himself), by repeating occasionally, as his own, some of the buffooneries with which I had encountered him in the Morning."--_Detached Thoughts_, 1821, _Letters_, 1901, v. 422, 423.] [227] ["Like Sylla, I have always believed that all things depend upon Fortune, and nothing upon ourselves. I am not aware of any one thought or action, worthy of being called good to myself or others, which is not to be attributed to the Good Goddess--Fortune!"--_Ibid_., p. 451.] [228] "January 19th, 1818. To-morrow will be a Sunday, and full Ridotto."--[MS.] [bo] {181} ----_philoguny,_--[MS.] [229] {182}[Botherby is, of course, Sotheby. In the _English Bards_ (line 818) he is bracketed with Gifford and Macneil _honoris causti,_ but at this time (1817-18) Byron was "against" Sotheby, under the impression that he had sent him "an anonymous note ... accompanying a copy of the _Castle of Chillon,_ etc. [_sic_]." Sotheby affirmed that he had not written the note, but Byron, while formally accepting the disclaimer, refers to the firmness of his "former persuasion," and renews the attack with increased bitterness. "As to _Beppo,_ I will not alter or suppress a syllable for any man's pleasure but my own. If there are resemblances between Botherby and Sotheby, or Sotheby and Botherby, the fault is not mine, but in the person who resembles,--or the persons who trace a resemblance. _Who_ find out this resemblance? Mr. S.'s _friends._ _Who_ go about moaning over him and laughing? Mr. S.'s _friends"_ (Letters to Murray, April 17, 23, 1818, _Letters,_ 1900, iv. 226-230). A writer of satires is of necessity satirical, and Sotheby, like "Wordswords and Co.," made excellent "copy." If he had not written the "anonymous note," he was, from Byron's point of view, ridiculous and a bore, and "ready to hand" to be tossed up in rhyme as _Botherby._ (For a brief account of Sotheby, see _Poetical Works,_ i. 362, note 2.)] [bp] {183}_Gorging the slightest slice of Flattery raw_.--[MS. in a letter to Murray, April 11, 1818, _Letters_, 1900, iv. 218.] [230] {184}[So, too, elsewhere. Wordsworth and Coleridge had depreciated Voltaire, and Byron, _en revanche_, contrasts the "tea-drinking neutrality of morals" of the _school_, i.e. the Lake poets, with "their convenient treachery in politics" (see _Letters,_ 1901, v. 600).] [231] {184}["Lady Byron," her husband wrote, "would have made an excellent wrangler at Cambridge." Compare-- "Her favourite science was the mathematical." _Don Juan,_ Canto I. stanza xii. line 1.] [232] {185}[Stanza lxxx. is not in the original MS.] [bq] {186}_Sate Laura with a kind of comic horror_.--[MS.] [233] {189}[Cap Bon, or Ras Adden, is the northernmost point of Tunis.] ODE ON VENICE ODE ON VENICE[234] I. Oh Venice! Venice! when thy marble walls Are level with the waters, there shall be A cry of nations o'er thy sunken halls, A loud lament along the sweeping sea! If I, a northern wanderer, weep for thee, What should thy sons do?--anything but weep: And yet they only murmur in their sleep. In contrast with their fathers--as the slime, The dull green ooze of the receding deep, Is with the dashing of the spring-tide foam, 10 That drives the sailor shipless to his home, Are they to those that were; and thus they creep, Crouching and crab-like, through their sapping streets. Oh! agony--that centuries should reap No mellower harvest! Thirteen hundred years[235] Of wealth and glory turned to dust and tears; And every monument the stranger meets, Church, palace, pillar, as a mourner greets; And even the Lion all subdued appears,[236] And the harsh sound of the barbarian drum, 20 With dull and daily dissonance, repeats The echo of thy Tyrant's voice along The soft waves, once all musical to song, That heaved beneath the moonlight with the throng Of gondolas[237]--and to the busy hum Of cheerful creatures, whose most sinful deeds Were but the overbeating of the heart, And flow of too much happiness, which needs The aid of age to turn its course apart From the luxuriant and voluptuous flood 30 Of sweet sensations, battling with the blood. But these are better than the gloomy errors, The weeds of nations in their last decay, When Vice walks forth with her unsoftened terrors, And Mirth is madness, and but smiles to slay; And Hope is nothing but a false delay, The sick man's lightning half an hour ere Death, When Faintness, the last mortal birth of Pain, And apathy of limb, the dull beginning Of the cold staggering race which Death is winning, 40 Steals vein by vein and pulse by pulse away; Yet so relieving the o'er-tortured clay, To him appears renewal of his breath, And freedom the mere numbness of his chain; And then he talks of Life, and how again He feels his spirit soaring--albeit weak, And of the fresher air, which he would seek; And as he whispers knows not that he gasps, That his thin finger feels not what it clasps, And so the film comes o'er him--and the dizzy 50 Chamber swims round and round--and shadows busy, At which he vainly catches, flit and gleam, Till the last rattle chokes the strangled scream, And all is ice and blackness,--and the earth That which it was the moment ere our birth.[238] II. There is no hope for nations!--Search the page Of many thousand years--the daily scene, The flow and ebb of each recurring age, The everlasting _to be_ which _hath been_, Hath taught us nought or little: still we lean 60 On things that rot beneath our weight, and wear Our strength away in wrestling with the air; For't is our nature strikes us down: the beasts Slaughtered in hourly hecatombs for feasts Are of as high an order--they must go Even where their driver goads them, though to slaughter. Ye men, who pour your blood for kings as water, What have they given your children in return? A heritage of servitude and woes, A blindfold bondage, where your hire is blows. 70 What! do not yet the red-hot ploughshares burn,[239] O'er which you stumble in a false ordeal, And deem this proof of loyalty the _real_; Kissing the hand that guides you to your scars, And glorying as you tread the glowing bars? All that your Sires have left you, all that Time Bequeaths of free, and History of sublime, Spring from a different theme!--Ye see and read, Admire and sigh, and then succumb and bleed! Save the few spirits who, despite of all, 80 And worse than all, the sudden crimes engendered By the down-thundering of the prison-wall, And thirst to swallow the sweet waters tendered, Gushing from Freedom's fountains--when the crowd,[240] Maddened with centuries of drought, are loud, And trample on each other to obtain The cup which brings oblivion of a chain Heavy and sore,--in which long yoked they ploughed The sand,--or if there sprung the yellow grain, 'Twas not for them, their necks were too much bowed, 90 And their dead palates chewed the cud of pain:-- Yes! the few spirits--who, despite of deeds Which they abhor, confound not with the cause Those momentary starts from Nature's laws, Which, like the pestilence and earthquake, smite But for a term, then pass, and leave the earth With all her seasons to repair the blight With a few summers, and again put forth Cities and generations--fair, when free-- For, Tyranny, there blooms no bud for thee! 100 III. Glory and Empire! once upon these towers[241] With Freedom--godlike Triad! how you sate! The league of mightiest nations, in those hours When Venice was an envy, might abate, But did not quench, her spirit--in her fate All were enwrapped: the feasted monarchs knew And loved their hostess, nor could learn to hate, Although they humbled--with the kingly few The many felt, for from all days and climes She was the voyager's worship;--even her crimes 110 Were of the softer order, born of Love-- She drank no blood, nor fattened on the dead, But gladdened where her harmless conquests spread; For these restored the Cross, that from above Hallowed her sheltering banners, which incessant Flew between earth and the unholy Crescent,[242] Which, if it waned and dwindled, Earth may thank The city it has clothed in chains, which clank Now, creaking in the ears of those who owe The name of Freedom to her glorious struggles; 120 Yet she but shares with them a common woe, And called the "kingdom"[243] of a conquering foe,-- But knows what all--and, most of all, _we_ know-- With what set gilded terms a tyrant juggles! IV. The name of Commonwealth is past and gone O'er the three fractions of the groaning globe; Venice is crushed, and Holland deigns to own A sceptre, and endures the purple robe;[244] If the free Switzer yet bestrides alone His chainless mountains, 't is but for a time, 130 For Tyranny of late is cunning grown, And in its own good season tramples down The sparkles of our ashes. One great clime, Whose vigorous offspring by dividing ocean[245] Are kept apart and nursed in the devotion Of Freedom, which their fathers fought for, and Bequeathed--a heritage of heart and hand, And proud distinction from each other land, Whose sons must bow them at a Monarch's motion, As if his senseless sceptre were a wand 140 Full of the magic of exploded science-- Still one great clime, in full and free defiance, Yet rears her crest, unconquered and sublime, Above the far Atlantic!--She has taught Her Esau-brethren that the haughty flag, The floating fence of Albion's feebler crag,[246] May strike to those whose red right hands have bought Rights cheaply earned with blood.--Still, still, for ever Better, though each man's life-blood were a river, That it should flow, and overflow, than creep 150 Through thousand lazy channels in our veins, Dammed like the dull canal with locks and chains, And moving, as a sick man in his sleep, Three paces, and then faltering:--better be Where the extinguished Spartans still are free, In their proud charnel of Thermopylæ, Than stagnate in our marsh,--or o'er the deep Fly, and one current to the ocean add, One spirit to the souls our fathers had, One freeman more, America, to thee![247] 160 FOOTNOTES: [234] {193}[The _Ode on Venice_ (originally _Ode_) was completed by July 10, 1818 (_Letters_, 1900, iv. 245), but was published at the same time as _Mazeppa_ and _A Fragment_, June 28, 1819. The _motif_, a lamentation over the decay and degradation of Venice, re-echoes the sentiments expressed in the opening stanzas (i.-xix.) of the Fourth Canto of _Childe Harold_. A realistic description of the "Hour of Death" (lines 37-55), and a eulogy of the United States of America (lines 133-160), give distinction to the _Ode_.] [235] [Compare _Childe Harold_, Canto IV. stanza xiii. lines 4-6.] [236] [Compare _ibid._, stanza xi. lines 5-9.] [237] {194}[Compare _Childe Harold_, Canto IV. stanza iii lines 1-4.] [238] [Compare _The Prisoner of Chillon_, line 178, note 2, _vide ante_, p. 21.] [239] {195}[In contrasting Sheridan with Brougham, Byron speaks of "the red-hot ploughshares of public life."--_Diary_, March 10, 1814, _Letters_, 1898, ii. 397.] [240] [Compare-- "At last it [the mob] takes to weapons such as men Snatch when despair makes human hearts less pliant. Then comes 'the tug of war;'--'t will come again, I rather doubt; and I would fain say 'fie on't,' If I had not perceived that revolution Alone can save the earth from Hell's pollution." _Don Juan_, Canto VIII. stanza li. lines 3-8.] [241] {196}[Compare Lord Tennyson's stanzas-- "Of old sat Freedom on the heights."] [242] [Compare _Childe Harold_, Canto IV. stanza xiv. line 3, note 1, and line 6, _Poetical Works_, 1899, ii. 339, 340.] [243] {197}[In 1814 the Italian possessions of the Emperor of Austria were "constituted into separate and particular states, under the title of the kingdom of Venetian Lombardy."--Koch's _Europe_, p. 234.] [244] [The Prince of Orange ... was proclaimed Sovereign Prince of the Low Countries, December 1, 1813; and in the following year, August 13, 1814, on the condition that he should make a part of the Germanic Confederation, he received the title of King of the Netherlands.-_Ibid_., p. 233.] [245] [Compare "Oceano dissociabili," Hor., _Odes_, I. iii 22.] [246] [In October, 1812, the American sloop _Wasp_ captured the English brig _Frolic_; and December 29, 1812, the _Constitution_ compelled the frigate _Java_ to surrender. In the following year, February 24, 1813, the _Hornet_ met the _Peacock_ off the Demerara, and reduced her in fifteen minutes to a sinking condition. On June 28, 1814, the sloop-of-war _Wasp_ captured and burned the sloop _Reindeer_, and on September 11, 1814, the _Confiance_, commanded by Commodore Downie, and other vessels surrendered."--_History of America_, by Justin Winsor, 1888, vii. 380, _seq_.] [247] {198}[Byron repented, or feigned to repent, this somewhat provocative eulogy of the Great Republic: "Somebody has sent me some American abuse of _Mazeppa_ and 'the Ode;' in future I will compliment nothing but Canada, and desert to the English."--Letter to Murray, February 21, 1820, _Letters_, 1900, iv. 410. It is possible that the allusion is to an article, "Mazeppa and Don Juan," in the _Analectic Magazine_, November, 1819, vol. xiv, pp. 405-410.] MAZEPPA. INTRODUCTION TO _MAZEPPA_ _Mazeppa_, a legend of the Russian Ukraine, or frontier region, is based on the passage in Voltaire's _Charles XII_. prefixed as the "Advertisement" to the poem. Voltaire seems to have known very little about the man or his history, and Byron, though he draws largely on his imagination, was content to take his substratum of fact from Voltaire. The "true story of Mazeppa" is worth re-telling for its own sake, and lends a fresh interest and vitality to the legend. Ivan Stepanovitch Mazeppa (or Mazepa), born about the year 1645, was of Cossack origin, but appears to have belonged, by descent or creation, to the lesser nobility of the semi-Polish Volhynia. He began life (1660) as a page of honour in the Court of King John Casimir V. of Poland, where he studied Latin, and acquired the tongue and pen of eloquent statesmanship. Banished from the court on account of a quarrel, he withdrew to his mother's estate in Volhynia, and there, to beguile the time, made love to the wife of a neighbouring magnate, the _pane_ or Lord Falbowski. The intrigue was discovered, and to avenge his wrongs the outraged husband caused Mazeppa to be stripped to the skin, and bound to his own steed. The horse, lashed into madness, and terror-stricken by the discharge of a pistol, started off at a gallop, and rushing "thorough bush, thorough briar," carried his torn and bleeding rider into the courtyard of his own mansion! With regard to the sequel or issue of this episode, history is silent, but when the curtain rises again (A.D. 1674) Mazeppa is discovered in the character of writer-general or foreign secretary to Peter Doroshénko, hetman or president of the Western Ukraine, on the hither side of the Dniéper. From the service of Doroshénko, who came to an untimely end, he passed by a series of accidents into the employ of his rival, Samoïlovitch, hetman of the Eastern Ukraine, and, as his secretary or envoy, continued to attract the notice and to conciliate the good will of the (regent) Tzarina Sophia and her eminent _boyard_, Prince Basil Golitsyn. A time came (1687) when it served the interests of Russia to degrade Samoïlovitch, and raise Mazeppa to the post of hetman, and thenceforward, for twenty years and more, he held something like a regal sway over the whole of the Ukraine (a fertile "no-man's land," watered by the Dniéper and its tributaries), openly the loyal and zealous ally of his neighbour and suzerain, Peter the Great. How far this allegiance was genuine, or whether a secret preference for Poland, the land of his adoption, or a long-concealed impatience of Muscovite suzerainty would in any case have urged him to revolt, must remain doubtful, but it is certain that the immediate cause of a final reversal of the allegiance and a break with the Tsar was a second and still more fateful _affaire du coeur_. The hetman was upwards of sixty years of age, but, even so, he fell in love with his god-daughter, Matréna, who, in spite of difference of age and ecclesiastical kinship, not only returned his love, but, to escape the upbraidings and persecution of her mother, took refuge under his roof. Mazeppa sent the girl back to her home, but, as his love-letters testify, continued to woo her with the tenderest and most passionate solicitings; and, although she finally yielded to _force majeure_ and married another suitor, her parents nursed their revenge, and endeavoured to embroil the hetman with the Tsar. For a time their machinations failed, and Matréna's father, Kotchúbey, together with his friend Iskra, were executed with the Tsar's assent and approbation. Before long, however, Mazeppa, who had been for some time past in secret correspondence with the Swedes, signalized his defection from Peter by offering his services first to Stanislaus of Poland, and afterwards to Charles XII. of Sweden, who was meditating the invasion of Russia. "Pultowa's day," July 8, 1709, was the last of Mazeppa's power and influence, and in the following year (March 31, 1710), "he died of old age, perhaps of a broken heart," at Várnitza, a village near Bender, on the Dniester, whither he had accompanied the vanquished and fugitive Charles. Such was Mazeppa, a man destined to pass through the crowded scenes of history, and to take his stand among the greater heroes of romance. His deeds of daring, his intrigues and his treachery, have been and still are sung by the wandering minstrels of the Ukraine. His story has passed into literature. His ride forms the subject of an _Orientale_ (1829) by Victor Hugo, who treats Byron's theme symbolically; and the romance of his old age, his love for his god-daughter Matréna, with its tragical issue, the judicial murder of Kotchúbey and Iskra, are celebrated by the "Russian Byron" Pushkin, in his poem _Poltava_. He forms the subject of a novel, _Iwan Wizigin_, by Bulgarin, 1830, and of tragedies by I. Slowacki, 1840, and Rudolph von Gottschall. From literature Mazeppa has passed into art in the "symphonic poem" of Franz Lizt (1857); and, yet again, _pour comble de gloire_, _Mazeppa, or The Wild Horse of Tartary_, is the title of a "romantic drama," first played at the Royal Amphitheatre, Westminster Bridge, on Easter Monday, 1831; and revived at Astley's Theatre, when Adah Isaacs Menken appeared as "Mazeppa," October 3, 1864. (_Peter the Great_, by Eugene Schuyler, 1884, ii. 115, _seq_.; _Le Fils de Pierre Le Grand, Mazeppa, etc_., by Viscount E. Melchior de Vogüé, Paris, 1884; _Peter the Great_, by Oscar Browning, 1899, pp. 219-229.) Of the composition of Mazeppa we know nothing, except that on September 24, 1818, "it was still to finish" (_Letters_, 1900, iv. 264). It was published together with an _Ode_ (_Venice: An Ode_) and _A Fragment_ (see _Letters_, 1899, iii. Appendix IV. pp. 446-453), June 28, 1819. Notices of _Mazeppa_ appeared in _Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine_, July, 1819, vol. v. p. 429 (for _John Gilpin_ and _Mazeppa_, by William Maginn, _vide ibid_., pp. 434-439); the _Monthly Review_, July, 1819, vol. 89, pp. 309-321; and the _Eclectic Review_, August, 1819, vol. xii. pp. 147-156. ADVERTISEMENT. "Celui qui remplissait alors cette place était un gentilhomme Polonais, nominé Mazeppa, né dans le palatinat de Podolie: il avait été élevé page de Jean Casimir, et avait pris à sa cour quelque teinture des belles-lettres. Une intrigue qu'il eut dans sa jeunesse avec la femme d'un gentilhomme Polonais ayant été découverte, le mari le fit lier tout nu sur un cheval farouche, et le laissa aller en cet état. Le cheval, qui était du pays de l'Ukraine, y retourna, et y porta Mazeppa, demi-mort de fatigue et de faim. Quelques paysans le secoururent: il resta longtems parmi eux, et se signala dans plusieurs courses contre les Tartares. La supériorité de ses lumières lui donna une grande considération parmi les Cosaques: sa réputation s'augmentant de jour en jour, obligea le Czar à le faire Prince de l'Ukraine."--Voltaire, _Hist. de Charles XII_., 1772, p. 205. "Le roi, fuyant et poursuivi, eut son cheval tué sous lui; le Colonel Gieta, blessé, et perdant tout son sang, lui donna le sien. Ainsi on remit deux fois à cheval, dans la fuite,[br] ce conquérant qui n'avait pu y monter pendant la bataille."--p. 222. "Le roi alla par un autre chemin avec quelques cavaliers. Le carrosse, où il était, rompit dans la marche; on le remit à cheval. Pour comble de disgrâce, il s'égara pendant la nuit dans un bois; là, son courage ne pouvant plus suppléer, à ses forces épuisées, les douleurs de sa blessure devenues plus insupportables par la fatigue, son cheval étant tombé de lassitude, il se coucha quelques heures au pied d'un arbre, en danger d'être surpris à tout moment par les vainqueurs, qui le cherchaient de tous côtés."--p. 224. MAZEPPA I. 'Twas after dread Pultowa's day,[248] When Fortune left the royal Swede-- Around a slaughtered army lay, No more to combat and to bleed. The power and glory of the war, Faithless as their vain votaries, men, Had passed to the triumphant Czar, And Moscow's walls were safe again-- Until a day more dark and drear,[249] And a more memorable year, 10 Should give to slaughter and to shame A mightier host and haughtier name; A greater wreck, a deeper fall, A shock to one--a thunderbolt to all. II. Such was the hazard of the die; The wounded Charles was taught to fly[250] By day and night through field and flood, Stained with his own and subjects' blood; For thousands fell that flight to aid: And not a voice was heard to upbraid 20 Ambition in his humbled hour, When Truth had nought to dread from Power. His horse was slain, and Gieta gave His own--and died the Russians' slave. This, too, sinks after many a league Of well-sustained, but vain fatigue; And in the depth of forests darkling, The watch-fires in the distance sparkling-- The beacons of surrounding foes-- A King must lay his limbs at length. 30 Are these the laurels and repose For which the nations strain their strength? They laid him by a savage tree,[251] In outworn Nature's agony; His wounds were stiff, his limbs were stark; The heavy hour was chill and dark; The fever in his blood forbade A transient slumber's fitful aid: And thus it was; but yet through all, Kinglike the monarch bore his fall, 40 And made, in this extreme of ill, His pangs the vassals of his will: All silent and subdued were they. As once the nations round him lay. III. A band of chiefs!--alas! how few, Since but the fleeting of a day Had thinned it; but this wreck was true And chivalrous: upon the clay Each sate him down, all sad and mute, Beside his monarch and his steed; 50 For danger levels man and brute, And all are fellows in their need. Among the rest, Mazeppa made[252] His pillow in an old oak's shade-- Himself as rough, and scarce less old, The Ukraine's Hetman, calm and bold; But first, outspent with this long course, The Cossack prince rubbed down his horse, And made for him a leafy bed, And smoothed his fetlocks and his mane, 60 And slacked his girth, and stripped his rein, And joyed to see how well he fed; For until now he had the dread His wearied courser might refuse To browse beneath the midnight dews: But he was hardy as his lord, And little cared for bed and board; But spirited and docile too, Whate'er was to be done, would do. Shaggy and swift, and strong of limb, 70 All Tartar-like he carried him; Obeyed his voice, and came to call, And knew him in the midst of all: Though thousands were around,--and Night, Without a star, pursued her flight,-- That steed from sunset until dawn His chief would follow like a fawn. IV. This done, Mazeppa spread his cloak, And laid his lance beneath his oak, Felt if his arms in order good 80 The long day's march had well withstood-- If still the powder filled the pan, And flints unloosened kept their lock-- His sabre's hilt and scabbard felt, And whether they had chafed his belt; And next the venerable man, From out his havresack and can, Prepared and spread his slender stock; And to the Monarch and his men The whole or portion offered then 90 With far less of inquietude Than courtiers at a banquet would. And Charles of this his slender share With smiles partook a moment there, To force of cheer a greater show, And seem above both wounds and woe;-- And then he said--"Of all our band, Though firm of heart and strong of hand, In skirmish, march, or forage, none Can less have said or more have done 100 Than thee, Mazeppa! On the earth So fit a pair had never birth, Since Alexander's days till now, As thy Bucephalus and thou: All Scythia's fame to thine should yield For pricking on o'er flood and field." Mazeppa answered--"Ill betide The school wherein I learned to ride!" Quoth Charles--"Old Hetman, wherefore so, Since thou hast learned the art so well?" 110 Mazeppa said--"'Twere long to tell; And we have many a league to go, With every now and then a blow, And ten to one at least the foe, Before our steeds may graze at ease, Beyond the swift Borysthenes:[253] And, Sire, your limbs have need of rest, And I will be the sentinel Of this your troop."--"But I request," Said Sweden's monarch, "thou wilt tell 120 This tale of thine, and I may reap, Perchance, from this the boon of sleep; For at this moment from my eyes The hope of present slumber flies." "Well, Sire, with such a hope, I'll track My seventy years of memory back: I think 'twas in my twentieth spring,-- Aye 'twas,--when Casimir was king[254]-- John Casimir,--I was his page Six summers, in my earlier age:[255] 130 A learnéd monarch, faith! was he, And most unlike your Majesty; He made no wars, and did not gain New realms to lose them back again; And (save debates in Warsaw's diet) He reigned in most unseemly quiet; Not that he had no cares to vex; He loved the Muses and the Sex;[256] And sometimes these so froward are, They made him wish himself at war; 140 But soon his wrath being o'er, he took Another mistress--or new book: And then he gave prodigious fetes-- All Warsaw gathered round his gates To gaze upon his splendid court, And dames, and chiefs, of princely port. He was the Polish Solomon, So sung his poets, all but one, Who, being unpensioned, made a satire, And boasted that he could not flatter. 150 It was a court of jousts and mimes, Where every courtier tried at rhymes; Even I for once produced some verses, And signed my odes 'Despairing Thyrsis.' There was a certain Palatine,[257] A Count of far and high descent, Rich as a salt or silver mine;[258] And he was proud, ye may divine, As if from Heaven he had been sent; He had such wealth in blood and ore 160 As few could match beneath the throne; And he would gaze upon his store, And o'er his pedigree would pore, Until by some confusion led, Which almost looked like want of head, He thought their merits were his own. His wife was not of this opinion; His junior she by thirty years, Grew daily tired of his dominion; And, after wishes, hopes, and fears, 170 To Virtue a few farewell tears, A restless dream or two--some glances At Warsaw's youth--some songs, and dances, Awaited but the usual chances, Those happy accidents which render The coldest dames so very tender, To deck her Count with titles given, 'Tis said, as passports into Heaven; But, strange to say, they rarely boast Of these, who have deserved them most. 180 V. "I was a goodly stripling then; At seventy years I so may say, That there were few, or boys or men, Who, in my dawning time of day, Of vassal or of knight's degree, Could vie in vanities with me; For I had strength--youth--gaiety, A port, not like to this ye see, But smooth, as all is rugged now; For Time, and Care, and War, have ploughed 190 My very soul from out my brow; And thus I should be disavowed By all my kind and kin, could they Compare my day and yesterday; This change was wrought, too, long ere age Had ta'en my features for his page: With years, ye know, have not declined My strength--my courage--or my mind, Or at this hour I should not be Telling old tales beneath a tree, 200 With starless skies my canopy. But let me on: Theresa's[259] form-- Methinks it glides before me now, Between me and yon chestnut's bough, The memory is so quick and warm; And yet I find no words to tell The shape of her I loved so well: She had the Asiatic eye, Such as our Turkish neighbourhood Hath mingled with our Polish blood, 210 Dark as above us is the sky; But through it stole a tender light, Like the first moonrise of midnight; Large, dark, and swimming in the stream, Which seemed to melt to its own beam; All love, half languor, and half fire, Like saints that at the stake expire, And lift their raptured looks on high, As though it were a joy to die.[bs] A brow like a midsummer lake, 220 Transparent with the sun therein, When waves no murmur dare to make, And heaven beholds her face within. A cheek and lip--but why proceed? I loved her then, I love her still; And such as I am, love indeed In fierce extremes--in good and ill. But still we love even in our rage, And haunted to our very age With the vain shadow of the past,-- 230 As is Mazeppa to the last. VI. "We met--we gazed--I saw, and sighed; She did not speak, and yet replied; There are ten thousand tones and signs We hear and see, but none defines-- Involuntary sparks of thought, Which strike from out the heart o'erwrought, And form a strange intelligence, Alike mysterious and intense, Which link the burning chain that binds, 240 Without their will, young hearts and minds; Conveying, as the electric[260] wire, We know not how, the absorbing fire. I saw, and sighed--in silence wept, And still reluctant distance kept, Until I was made known to her, And we might then and there confer Without suspicion--then, even then, I longed, and was resolved to speak; But on my lips they died again, 250 The accents tremulous and weak, Until one hour.--There is a game, A frivolous and foolish play, Wherewith we while away the day; It is--I have forgot the name-- And we to this, it seems, were set, By some strange chance, which I forget: I recked not if I won or lost, It was enough for me to be So near to hear, and oh! to see 260 The being whom I loved the most. I watched her as a sentinel, (May ours this dark night watch as well!) Until I saw, and thus it was, That she was pensive, nor perceived Her occupation, nor was grieved Nor glad to lose or gain; but still Played on for hours, as if her will Yet bound her to the place, though not That hers might be the winning lot[bt]. 270 Then through my brain the thought did pass, Even as a flash of lightning there, That there was something in her air Which would not doom me to despair; And on the thought my words broke forth, All incoherent as they were; Their eloquence was little worth, But yet she listened--'tis enough-- Who listens once will listen twice; Her heart, be sure, is not of ice-- 280 And one refusal no rebuff. VII. "I loved, and was beloved again-- They tell me, Sire, you never knew Those gentle frailties; if 'tis true, I shorten all my joy or pain; To you 'twould seem absurd as vain; But all men are not born to reign, Or o'er their passions, or as you Thus o'er themselves and nations too. I am--or rather _was_--a Prince, 290 A chief of thousands, and could lead Them on where each would foremost bleed; But could not o'er myself evince The like control--But to resume: I loved, and was beloved again; In sooth, it is a happy doom, But yet where happiest ends in pain.-- We met in secret, and the hour Which led me to that lady's bower Was fiery Expectation's dower. 300 My days and nights were nothing--all Except that hour which doth recall, In the long lapse from youth to age, No other like itself: I'd give The Ukraine back again to live It o'er once more, and be a page, The happy page, who was the lord Of one soft heart, and his own sword, And had no other gem nor wealth, Save Nature's gift of Youth and Health. 310 We met in secret--doubly sweet[261], Some say, they find it so to meet; I know not that--I would have given My life but to have called her mine In the full view of Earth and Heaven; For I did oft and long repine That we could only meet by stealth. VIII. "For lovers there are many eyes, And such there were on us; the Devil On such occasions should be civil-- 320 The Devil!--I'm loth to do him wrong, It might be some untoward saint, Who would not be at rest too long, But to his pious bile gave vent-- But one fair night, some lurking spies Surprised and seized us both. The Count was something more than wroth-- I was unarmed; but if in steel, All cap-à-pie from head to heel, What 'gainst their numbers could I do? 330 'Twas near his castle, far away From city or from succour near, And almost on the break of day; I did not think to see another, My moments seemed reduced to few; And with one prayer to Mary Mother, And, it may be, a saint or two, As I resigned me to my fate, They led me to the castle gate: Theresa's doom I never knew, 340 Our lot was henceforth separate. An angry man, ye may opine, Was he, the proud Count Palatine; And he had reason good to be, But he was most enraged lest such An accident should chance to touch Upon his future pedigree; Nor less amazed, that such a blot His noble 'scutcheon should have got, While he was highest of his line; 350 Because unto himself he seemed The first of men, nor less he deemed In others' eyes, and most in mine. 'Sdeath! with a _page_--perchance a king Had reconciled him to the thing; But with a stripling of a page-- I felt--but cannot paint his rage. IX. "'Bring forth the horse!'--the horse was brought! In truth, he was a noble steed, A Tartar of the Ukraine breed, 360 Who looked as though the speed of thought Were in his limbs; but he was wild, Wild as the wild deer, and untaught, With spur and bridle undefiled-- 'Twas but a day he had been caught; And snorting, with erected mane, And struggling fiercely, but in vain, In the full foam of wrath and dread To me the desert-born was led: They bound me on, that menial throng, Upon his back with many a thong; 370 They loosed him with a sudden lash-- Away!--away!--and on we dash!-- Torrents less rapid and less rash. X. "Away!--away!--My breath was gone, I saw not where he hurried on: 'Twas scarcely yet the break of day, And on he foamed--away!--away! The last of human sounds which rose, As I was darted from my foes, 380 Was the wild shout of savage laughter, Which on the wind came roaring after A moment from that rabble rout: With sudden wrath I wrenched my head, And snapped the cord, which to the mane Had bound my neck in lieu of rein, And, writhing half my form about, Howled back my curse; but 'midst the tread, The thunder of my courser's speed, Perchance they did not hear nor heed: 390 It vexes me--for I would fain Have paid their insult back again. I paid it well in after days: There is not of that castle gate, Its drawbridge and portcullis' weight, Stone--bar--moat--bridge--or barrier left; Nor of its fields a blade of grass, Save what grows on a ridge of wall, Where stood the hearth-stone of the hall; And many a time ye there might pass, 400 Nor dream that e'er the fortress was. I saw its turrets in a blaze, Their crackling battlements all cleft, And the hot lead pour down like rain From off the scorched and blackening roof, Whose thickness was not vengeance-proof. They little thought that day of pain, When launched, as on the lightning's flash, They bade me to destruction dash, That one day I should come again, 410 With twice five thousand horse, to thank The Count for his uncourteous ride. They played me then a bitter prank, When, with the wild horse for my guide, They bound me to his foaming flank: At length I played them one as frank-- For Time at last sets all things even-- And if we do but watch the hour, There never yet was human power Which could evade, if unforgiven, 420 The patient search and vigil long Of him who treasures up a wrong. XI. "Away!--away!--my steed and I, Upon the pinions of the wind! All human dwellings left behind, We sped like meteors through the sky, When with its crackling sound the night[262] Is chequered with the Northern light. Town--village--none were on our track, But a wild plain of far extent, 430 And bounded by a forest black[263]; And, save the scarce seen battlement On distant heights of some strong hold, Against the Tartars built of old, No trace of man. The year before A Turkish army had marched o'er; And where the Spahi's hoof hath trod, The verdure flies the bloody sod: The sky was dull, and dim, and gray, And a low breeze crept moaning by-- 440 I could have answered with a sigh-- But fast we fled,--away!--away!-- And I could neither sigh nor pray; And my cold sweat-drops fell like rain Upon the courser's bristling mane; But, snorting still with rage and fear, He flew upon his far career: At times I almost thought, indeed, He must have slackened in his speed; But no--my bound and slender frame 450 Was nothing to his angry might, And merely like a spur became: Each motion which I made to free My swoln limbs from their agony Increased his fury and affright: I tried my voice,--'twas faint and low-- But yet he swerved as from a blow; And, starting to each accent, sprang As from a sudden trumpet's clang: Meantime my cords were wet with gore, 460 Which, oozing through my limbs, ran o'er; And in my tongue the thirst became A something fierier far than flame. XII. "We neared the wild wood--'twas so wide, I saw no bounds on either side: 'Twas studded with old sturdy trees, That bent not to the roughest breeze Which howls down from Siberia's waste, And strips the forest in its haste,-- But these were few and far between, 470 Set thick with shrubs more young and green, Luxuriant with their annual leaves, Ere strown by those autumnal eyes That nip the forest's foliage dead, Discoloured with a lifeless red[bu], Which stands thereon like stiffened gore Upon the slain when battle's o'er; And some long winter's night hath shed Its frost o'er every tombless head-- So cold and stark--the raven's beak 480 May peck unpierced each frozen cheek: 'Twas a wild waste of underwood, And here and there a chestnut stood, The strong oak, and the hardy pine; But far apart--and well it were, Or else a different lot were mine-- The boughs gave way, and did not tear My limbs; and I found strength to bear My wounds, already scarred with cold; My bonds forbade to loose my hold. 490 We rustled through the leaves like wind,-- Left shrubs, and trees, and wolves behind; By night I heard them on the track, Their troop came hard upon our back, With their long gallop, which can tire The hound's deep hate, and hunter's fire: Where'er we flew they followed on, Nor left us with the morning sun; Behind I saw them, scarce a rood, At day-break winding through the wood, 500 And through the night had heard their feet Their stealing, rustling step repeat. Oh! how I wished for spear or sword, At least to die amidst the horde, And perish--if it must be so-- At bay, destroying many a foe! When first my courser's race begun, I wished the goal already won; But now I doubted strength and speed: Vain doubt! his swift and savage breed 510 Had nerved him like the mountain-roe-- Nor faster falls the blinding snow Which whelms the peasant near the door Whose threshold he shall cross no more, Bewildered with the dazzling blast, Than through the forest-paths he passed-- Untired, untamed, and worse than wild-- All furious as a favoured child Balked of its wish; or--fiercer still-- A woman piqued--who has her will! 520 XIII. "The wood was passed; 'twas more than noon, But chill the air, although in June; Or it might be my veins ran cold-- Prolonged endurance tames the bold; And I was then not what I seem, But headlong as a wintry stream, And wore my feelings out before I well could count their causes o'er: And what with fury, fear, and wrath, The tortures which beset my path-- 530 Cold--hunger--sorrow--shame--distress-- Thus bound in Nature's nakedness; Sprung from a race whose rising blood When stirred beyond its calmer mood, And trodden hard upon, is like The rattle-snake's, in act to strike-- What marvel if this worn-out trunk Beneath its woes a moment sunk?[264] The earth gave way, the skies rolled round, I seemed to sink upon the ground; 540 But erred--for I was fastly bound. My heart turned sick, my brain grew sore, And throbbed awhile, then beat no more: The skies spun like a mighty wheel; I saw the trees like drunkards reel, And a slight flash sprang o'er my eyes, Which saw no farther. He who dies Can die no more than then I died, O'ertortured by that ghastly ride.[265] I felt the blackness come and go, 550 And strove to wake; but could not make My senses climb up from below: I felt as on a plank at sea, When all the waves that dash o'er thee, At the same time upheave and whelm, And hurl thee towards a desert realm. My undulating life was as The fancied lights that flitting pass Our shut eyes in deep midnight, when Fever begins upon the brain; 560 But soon it passed, with little pain, But a confusion worse than such: I own that I should deem it much, Dying, to feel the same again; And yet I do suppose we must Feel far more ere we turn to dust! No matter! I have bared my brow Full in Death's face--before--and now. XIV. "My thoughts came back. Where was I? Cold, And numb, and giddy: pulse by pulse 570 Life reassumed its lingering hold, And throb by throb,--till grown a pang Which for a moment would convulse, My blood reflowed, though thick and chill; My ear with uncouth noises rang, My heart began once more to thrill; My sight returned, though dim; alas! And thickened, as it were, with glass. Methought the dash of waves was nigh; There was a gleam too of the sky, 580 Studded with stars;--it is no dream; The wild horse swims the wilder stream! The bright broad river's gushing tide Sweeps, winding onward, far and wide, And we are half-way, struggling o'er To yon unknown and silent shore. The waters broke my hollow trance, And with a temporary strength My stiffened limbs were rebaptized. My courser's broad breast proudly braves, 590 And dashes off the ascending waves, And onward we advance! We reach the slippery shore at length, A haven I but little prized, For all behind was dark and drear, And all before was night and fear. How many hours of night or day[266] In those suspended pangs I lay, I could not tell; I scarcely knew If this were human breath I drew. 600 XV. "With glossy skin, and dripping mane, And reeling limbs, and reeking flank, The wild steed's sinewy nerves still strain Up the repelling bank. We gain the top: a boundless plain Spreads through the shadow of the night, And onward, onward, onward--seems, Like precipices in our dreams,[267] To stretch beyond the sight; And here and there a speck of white, 610 Or scattered spot of dusky green, In masses broke into the light, As rose the moon upon my right: But nought distinctly seen In the dim waste would indicate The omen of a cottage gate; No twinkling taper from afar Stood like a hospitable star; Not even an ignis-fatuus rose[268] To make him merry with my woes: 620 That very cheat had cheered me then! Although detected, welcome still, Reminding me, through every ill, Of the abodes of men. XVI. "Onward we went--but slack and slow; His savage force at length o'erspent, The drooping courser, faint and low, All feebly foaming went: A sickly infant had had power To guide him forward in that hour! 630 But, useless all to me, His new-born tameness nought availed-- My limbs were bound; my force had failed, Perchance, had they been free. With feeble effort still I tried To rend the bonds so starkly tied, But still it was in vain; My limbs were only wrung the more, And soon the idle strife gave o'er, Which but prolonged their pain. 640 The dizzy race seemed almost done, Although no goal was nearly won: Some streaks announced the coming sun-- How slow, alas! he came! Methought that mist of dawning gray Would never dapple into day, How heavily it rolled away! Before the eastern flame Rose crimson, and deposed the stars, And called the radiance from their cars,[bv] 650 And filled the earth, from his deep throne, With lonely lustre, all his own. XVII. "Uprose the sun; the mists were curled Back from the solitary world Which lay around--behind--before. What booted it to traverse o'er Plain--forest--river? Man nor brute, Nor dint of hoof, nor print of foot, Lay in the wild luxuriant soil-- No sign of travel, none of toil-- 660 The very air was mute: And not an insect's shrill small horn,[269] Nor matin bird's new voice was borne From herb nor thicket. Many a _werst,_ Panting as if his heart would burst, The weary brute still staggered on; And still we were--or seemed--alone: At length, while reeling on our way, Methought I heard a courser neigh, From out yon tuft of blackening firs. 670 Is it the wind those branches stirs?[270] No, no! from out the forest prance A trampling troop; I see them come! In one vast squadron they advance! I strove to cry--my lips were dumb! The steeds rush on in plunging pride; But where are they the reins to guide? A thousand horse, and none to ride! With flowing tail, and flying mane, Wide nostrils never stretched by pain, 680 Mouths bloodless to the bit or rein, And feet that iron never shod, And flanks unscarred by spur or rod, A thousand horse, the wild, the free, Like waves that follow o'er the sea, Came thickly thundering on, As if our faint approach to meet! The sight re-nerved my courser's feet, A moment staggering, feebly fleet, A moment, with a faint low neigh, 690 He answered, and then fell! With gasps and glazing eyes he lay, And reeking limbs immoveable, His first and last career is done! On came the troop--they saw him stoop, They saw me strangely bound along His back with many a bloody thong. They stop--they start--they snuff the air, Gallop a moment here and there, Approach, retire, wheel round and round, 700 Then plunging back with sudden bound, Headed by one black mighty steed, Who seemed the Patriarch of his breed, Without a single speck or hair Of white upon his shaggy hide; They snort--they foam--neigh--swerve aside, And backward to the forest fly, By instinct, from a human eye. They left me there to my despair, Linked to the dead and stiffening wretch, 710 Whose lifeless limbs beneath me stretch, Relieved from that unwonted weight, From whence I could not extricate Nor him nor me--and there we lay, The dying on the dead! I little deemed another day Would see my houseless, helpless head. "And there from morn to twilight bound, I felt the heavy hours toil round, With just enough of life to see 720 My last of suns go down on me, In hopeless certainty of, mind, That makes us feel at length resigned To that which our foreboding years Present the worst and last of fears: Inevitable--even a boon, Nor more unkind for coming soon, Yet shunned and dreaded with such care, As if it only were a snare That Prudence might escape: 730 At times both wished for and implored, At times sought with self-pointed sword, Yet still a dark and hideous close To even intolerable woes, And welcome in no shape. And, strange to say, the sons of pleasure, They who have revelled beyond measure In beauty, wassail, wine, and treasure, Die calm, or calmer, oft than he Whose heritage was Misery. 740 For he who hath in turn run through All that was beautiful and new, Hath nought to hope, and nought to leave; And, save the future, (which is viewed Not quite as men are base or good, But as their nerves may be endued,) With nought perhaps to grieve: The wretch still hopes his woes must end, And Death, whom he should deem his friend, Appears, to his distempered eyes, 750 Arrived to rob him of his prize, The tree of his new Paradise. To-morrow would have given him all, Repaid his pangs, repaired his fall; To-morrow would have been the first Of days no more deplored or curst, But bright, and long, and beckoning years, Seen dazzling through the mist of tears, Guerdon of many a painful hour; To-morrow would have given him power 760 To rule--to shine--to smite--to save-- And must it dawn upon his grave? XVIII. "The sun was sinking--still I lay Chained to the chill and stiffening steed! I thought to mingle there our clay;[271] And my dim eyes of death had need, No hope arose of being freed. I cast my last looks up the sky, And there between me and the sun[272] I saw the expecting raven fly, 770 Who scarce would wait till both should die, Ere his repast begun;[273] He flew, and perched, then flew once more, And each time nearer than before; I saw his wing through twilight flit, And once so near me he alit I could have smote, but lacked the strength; But the slight motion of my hand, And feeble scratching of the sand, The exerted throat's faint struggling noise, 780 Which scarcely could be called a voice, Together scared him off at length. I know no more--my latest dream Is something of a lovely star Which fixed my dull eyes from afar, And went and came with wandering beam, And of the cold--dull--swimming--dense Sensation of recurring sense, And then subsiding back to death, And then again a little breath, 790 A little thrill--a short suspense, An icy sickness curdling o'er My heart, and sparks that crossed my brain-- A gasp--a throb--a start of pain, A sigh--and nothing more. XIX. "I woke--where was I?--Do I see A human face look down on me? And doth a roof above me close? Do these limbs on a couch repose? Is this a chamber where I lie? 800 And is it mortal yon bright eye, That watches me with gentle glance? I closed my own again once more, As doubtful that my former trance Could not as yet be o'er. A slender girl, long-haired, and tall, Sate watching by the cottage wall. The sparkle of her eye I caught, Even with my first return of thought; For ever and anon she threw 810 A prying, pitying glance on me With her black eyes so wild and free: I gazed, and gazed, until I knew No vision it could be,-- But that I lived, and was released From adding to the vulture's feast: And when the Cossack maid beheld My heavy eyes at length unsealed, She smiled--and I essayed to speak, But failed--and she approached, and made 820 With lip and finger signs that said, I must not strive as yet to break The silence, till my strength should be Enough to leave my accents free; And then her hand on mine she laid, And smoothed the pillow for my head, And stole along on tiptoe tread, And gently oped the door, and spake In whispers--ne'er was voice so sweet![274] Even music followed her light feet. 830 But those she called were not awake, And she went forth; but, ere she passed, Another look on me she cast, Another sign she made, to say, That I had nought to fear, that all Were near, at my command or call, And she would not delay Her due return:--while she was gone, Methought I felt too much alone. XX. "She came with mother and with sire-- 840 What need of more?--I will not tire With long recital of the rest, Since I became the Cossack's guest. They found me senseless on the plain, They bore me to the nearest hut, They brought me into life again-- Me--one day o'er their realm to reign! Thus the vain fool who strove to glut His rage, refining on my pain, Sent me forth to the wilderness, 850 Bound--naked--bleeding--and alone, To pass the desert to a throne,-- What mortal his own doom may guess? Let none despond, let none despair! To-morrow the Borysthenes May see our coursers graze at ease Upon his Turkish bank,--and never Had I such welcome for a river As I shall yield when safely there.[275] Comrades, good night!"--The Hetman threw 860 His length beneath the oak-tree shade, With leafy couch already made-- A bed nor comfortless nor new To him, who took his rest whene'er The hour arrived, no matter where: His eyes the hastening slumbers steep. And if ye marvel Charles forgot To thank his tale, _he_ wondered not,-- The King had been an hour asleep! FOOTNOTES: [br] {205}_la suite_.--[MS. and First Edition.] [248] {207}[The Battle of Poltáva on the Vórskla took place July 8, 1709. "The Swedish troops (under Rehnskjöld) numbered only 12,500 men.... The Russian army was four times as numerous.... The Swedes seemed at first to get the advantage, ... but everywhere the were overpowered and surrounded--beaten in detail; and though for two hours they fought with the fierceness of despair, they were forced either to surrender or to flee.... Over 2800 officers and men were taken prisoners."--_Peter the Great_, by Eugene Schuyler, 1884, ii. 148, 149.] [249] [Napoleon began his retreat from Moscow, October 15, 1812. He was defeated at Vitepsk, November 14; Krasnoi, November 16-18; and at Beresina, November 25-29, 1812.] [250] ["It happened ... that during the operations of June 27-28, Charles was severely wounded in the foot. On the morning of June 28 he was riding close to the river ... when a ball struck him on the left heel, passed through his foot, and lodged close to the great toe.... On the night of July 7, 1709 ... Charles had the foot carefully dressed, while he wore a spurred boot on his sound foot, put on his uniform, and placed himself on a kind of litter, in which he was drawn before the lines of the array.... [After the battle, July 8] those who survived took refuge in flight, the King--whose litter had been smashed by a cannon-ball, and who was carried by the soldiers on crossed poles--going with them, and the Russians neglecting to pursue. In this manner they reached their former camp."--_Charles XII._, by Oscar Browning, 1899, pp. 213, 220, 224, sq. For an account of his flight southwards into Turkish territory, _vide post_, p. 233, note 1. The bivouack "under a savage tree" must have taken place on the night of the battle, at the first halt, between Poltáva and the junction of the Vórskla and Dniéper.] [251] {208}[Compare-- "Thus elms and thus the savage cherry grows." Dryden's _Georgics_, ii. 24.] [252] {209}[For some interesting particulars concerning the Hetman Mazeppa, see Barrow's _Memoir of the Life of Peter the Great_, 1832, pp. 181-202.] [253] {211}[The Dniéper.] [254] [John Casimir (1609-1672), Jesuit, cardinal, and king, was a Little-Polander, not to say a pro-Cossack, and suffered in consequence. At the time of his proclamation as King of Poland, November, 1649, Poland was threatened by an incursion of Cossacks. The immediate cause was, or was supposed to be, the ill treatment which [Bogdán Khmelnítzky] a Lithuanian had received at the hands of the Polish governor, Czaplinski. The governor, it was alleged, had carried off, ravished, and put to death Khmelnítzky's wife, and, not content with this outrage, had set fire to the house of the Cossack, "in which perished his infant son in his cradle." Others affirmed that the Cossack had begun the strife by causing the governor "to be publicly and ignominiously whipped," and that it was the Cossack's mill and not his house which he burnt. Be that as it may, Casimir, on being exhorted to take the field, declined, on the ground that the Poles "ought not to have set fire to Khmelnítzky's house." It is probably to this unpatriotic determination to look at both sides of the question that he earned the character of being an unwarlike prince. As a matter of fact, he fought and was victorious against the Cossacks and Tartars at Bereteskow and elsewhere. (See _Mod. Univ. Hist._, xxxiv. 203, 217; Puffend, _Hist. Gener._, 1732, iv. 328; and _Histoire des Kosaques_, par M. (Charles Louis) Le Sur, 1814, i. 321.)] [255] [A.D. 1660 or thereabouts.] [256] {212}[According to the editor of Voltaire's Works (_Oeuvres_, Beuchot, 1830, xix. 378, note 1), there was a report that Casimir, after his retirement to Paris in 1670, secretly married "_Marie Mignot, fille d'une blanchisseuse_;" and there are other tales of other loves, e.g. Ninon de Lenclos.] [257] [According to the biographers, Mazeppa's intrigue took place after he had been banished from the court of Warsaw, and had retired to his estate in Volhynia. The _pane_ [Lord] Falbowsky, the old husband of the young wife, was a neighbouring magnate. It was a case of "love in idlenesse."--_Vide ante_, "The Introduction to _Mazeppa_," p. 201.] [258] This comparison of a "_salt_ mine" may, perhaps, be permitted to a Pole, as the wealth of the country consists greatly in the salt mines. [259] {213}[It is improbable that Byron, when he wrote these lines, was thinking of Theresa Gamba, Countess Guiccioli. He met her for the first time "in the autumn of 1818, three days after her marriage," but it was not till April, 1819, that he made her acquaintance. (See _Life_, p. 393, and _Letters_, 1900, iv. 289.) The copy of _Mazeppa_ sent home to Murray is in the Countess Guiccioli's handwriting, but the assertion (see Byron's _Works_, 1832, xi. 178), that "it is impossible not to suspect that the Poet had some circumstances of his own personal history, when he portrayed the fair Polish _Theresa_, her faithful lover, and the jealous rage of the old Count Palatine," is open to question. It was Marianna Segati who had "large, black, Oriental eyes, with that peculiar expression in them which is seen rarely among _Europeans_ ... forehead remarkably good" (see lines 208-220); not Theresa Guiccioli, who was a "blonde," with a "brilliant complexion and blue eyes." (See Letters to Moore, November 17, 1816; and to Murray, May 6, 1819: _Letters_, 1900, iv. 8, 289, note 1.) Moreover, the "Maid of Athens" was called Theresa. Dr. D. Englaender, in his exhaustive monologue, _Lord Byron's Mazeppa_, pp. 48, sq., insists on the identity of the Theresa of the poem with the Countess Guiccioli, but from this contention the late Professor Kölbing (see _Englische Studien_, 1898, vol. xxiv. pp 448-458) dissents.] [bs] {214}_Until it proves a joy to die_.--[MS. erased.] [260] {215}[For the use of "electric" as a metaphor, compare _Parisina_, line 480, _Poetical Works_, 1900, iii. 524, note i.] [bt] {216} --_but not_ _For that which we had both forgot_.--[MS. erased.] [261] {217}[Compare-- "We loved, Sir, used to meet: How sad, and bad, and mad it was! But then how it was sweet!" _Confessions_, by Robert Browning.] [262] {220}[Compare-- "In sleep I heard the northern gleams; ... In rustling conflict through the skies, I heard, I saw the flashes drive." _The Complaint_, stanza i. lines 3, 5, 6. See, too, reference to _Hearne's Journey from Hudson's Bay, etc_., in prefatory note, _Works_ of W. Wordsworth, 1889, p. 86.] [263] [As Dr. Englaender points out (_Mazeppa_, 1897, p. 73), it is probable that Byron derived his general conception of the scenery of the Ukraine from passages in Voltaire's _Charles XII._, e.g.: "Depuis Grodno jusqu'au Borysthene, en tirant vers l'orient ce sont des marais, des déserts, des forêts immenses" (_Oeuvres_, 1829, xxiv. 170). The exquisite beauty of the virgin steppes, the long rich grass, the wild-flowers, the "diviner air," to which the Viscount de Vogüé testifies so eloquently in his _Mazeppa_, were not in the "mind's eye" of the poet or the historian.] [bu] {222} _And stains it with a lifeless red_.--[MS.] _Which clings to it like stiffened gore_.--[MS. erased.] [264] {223}[The thread on which the successive tropes or images are loosely strung seems to give if not to snap at this point. "Considering that Mazeppa was sprung of a race which in moments of excitement, when an enemy has stamped upon its vitals, springs up to repel the attack, it was only to be expected that he should sink beneath the blow--and sink he did." The conclusion is at variance with the premiss.] [265] {224}[Compare-- "'Alas,' said she, 'this ghastly ride, Dear Lady! it hath wildered you.'" _Christabel_, Part I. lines 216, 217.] [266] {225}[Compare-- "How long in that same fit I lay, I have not to declare." _Ancient Mariner,_ Part V. lines 393, 394.] [267] [Compare-- "From precipices of distempered sleep." Sonnet, "No more my visionary soul shall dwell," by S. T. Coleridge, attributed by Southey to Favell.--_Letters of S. T. Coleridge,_ 1895, i. 83; Southey's _Life and Correspondence,_ 1849, i. 224.] [268] {226}[Compare _Werner_, iii. 3-- "Burn still, Thou little light! Thou art my _ignis fatuus_. My stationary Will-o'-the-wisp!--So! So!" Compare, too, _Don Juan_, Canto XI. stanza xxvii. line 6, and Canto XV, stanza liv. line 6.] [bv] {227} _Rose crimson, and forebade the stars_ _To sparkle in their radiant cars_.--[MS, erased.] [269] [Compare-- "What time the gray-fly winds her sultry horn." _Lycidas,_ line 28.] [270] [Compare-- "Was it the wind through some hollow stone?" _Siege of Corinth,_ line 521, _Poetical Works,_ 1900, iii. 471, note 1.] [271] {230}[Compare-- "The Architect ... did essay To extricate remembrance from the clay, Whose minglings might confuse a Newton's thought." _Churchill's Grave_, lines 20-23 (_vide ante_, p. 47).] [272] [Compare-- " ... that strange shape drove suddenly Betwixt us and the Sun." _Ancient Mariner_, Part III. lines 175, 176.] [273] [_Vide infra_, line 816. The raven turns into a vulture a few lines further on. Compare-- "The scalps were in the wild dog's maw, The hair was tangled round his jaw: But close by the shore, on the edge of the gulf, There sat a vulture flapping a wolf." _Siege of Corinth_, lines 471-474, _Poetical Works_, 1900, iv. 468.] [274] {232}[Compare-- "Her eyes were eloquent, her words would pose, Although she told him, in good modern Greek, With an Ionian accent, low and sweet, That he was faint, and must not talk but eat. "Now Juan could not understand a word, Being no Grecian; but he had an ear, And her voice was the warble of a bird, So soft, so sweet, so delicately clear." _Don Juan_, Canto II. stanza cl. line 5 to stanza cli. line 4.] [275] {233}["By noon the battle (of Poltáva) was over.... Charles had been induced to return to the camp and rally the remainder of the army. In spite of his wounded foot, he had to ride, lying on the neck of his horse.... The retreat (down the Vórskla to the Dniéper) began towards evening.... On the afternoon of July 11 the Swedes arrived at the little town of Perevolótchna, at the mouth of the Vórskla, where there was a ferry across the Dniéper ... the king, Mazeppa, and about 1000 men crossed the Dniéper.... The king, with the Russian cavalry in hot pursuit, rode as fast as he could to the Bug, where half his escourt was captured, and he barely escaped. Thence he went to Bender, on the Dniester, and for five years remained the guest of Turkey."--_Peter the Great_, by Eugene Schuyler, 1884, ii. 149-151.] THE PROPHECY OF DANTE. "'Tis the sunset of life gives me mystical lore, And coming events cast their shadows before." Campbell, [_Lochiel's Warning_]. INTRODUCTION TO _THE PROPHECY OF DANTE_. The _Prophecy of Dante_ was written at Ravenna, during the month of June, 1819, "to gratify" the Countess Guiccioli. Before she left Venice in April she had received a promise from Byron to visit her at Ravenna. "Dante's tomb, the classical pinewood," and so forth, had afforded a pretext for the invitation to be given and accepted, and, at length, when she was, as she imagined, "at the point of death," he arrived, better late than never, "on the Festival of the _Corpus Domini_" which fell that year on the tenth of June (see her communication to Moore, _Life_, p. 399). Horses and books were left behind at Venice, but he could occupy his enforced leisure by "writing something on the subject of Dante" (_ibid_., p. 402). A heightened interest born of fuller knowledge, in Italian literature and Italian politics, lent zest to this labour of love, and, time and place conspiring, he composed "the best thing he ever wrote" (Letter to Murray, March 23, 1820, _Letters_, 1900, iv. 422), his _Vision_ (or _Prophecy_) _of Dante_. It would have been strange if Byron, who had sounded his _Lament_ over the sufferings of Tasso, and who had become _de facto_ if not _de jure_ a naturalized Italian, had forborne to associate his name and fame with the sacred memory of the "Gran padre Alighier." If there had been any truth in Friedrich Schlegel's pronouncement, in a lecture delivered at Vienna in 1814, "that at no time has the greatest and most national of all Italian poets ever been much the favourite of his countrymen," the reproach had become meaningless. As the sumptuous folio edition (4 vols.) of the _Divina Commedia_, published at Florence, 1817-19; a quarto edition (4 vols.) published at Rome, 1815-17; a folio edition (3 vols.) published at Bologna 1819-21, to which the Conte Giovanni Marchetti (_vide_ the Preface, _post_, p. 245) contributed his famous excursus on the allegory in the First Canto of the _Inferno_, and numerous other issues remain to testify, Dante's own countrymen were eager "to pay honours almost divine" to his memory. "The last age," writes Hobhouse, in 1817 (note 18 to Canto IV. of _Childe Harold's Pilgrimage_, _Poetical Works_, 1899, ii. 496), "seemed inclined to undervalue him.... The present generation ... has returned to the ancient worship, and the _Danteggiare_ of the northern Italians is thought even indiscreet by the more moderate Tuscans." Dante was in the air. As Byron wrote in his Diary (January 29, 1821), "Read Schlegel [probably in a translation published at Edinburgh, 1818]. Not a favourite! Why, they talk Dante, write Dante, and think and dream Dante at this moment (1821), to an excess which would be ridiculous, but that he deserves it." There was, too, another reason why he was minded to write a poem "on the subject of Dante." There was, at this time, a hope, if not a clear prospect, of political change--of throwing off the yoke of the Bourbon, of liberating Italy from the tyrant and the stranger. "Dante was the poet of liberty. Persecution, exile, the dread of a foreign grave, could not shake his principles" (Medwin, _Conversations_, 1824, p. 242). The _Prophecy_ was "intended for the Italians," intended to foreshadow as in a vision "liberty and the resurrection of Italy" (_ibid_., p. 241). As he rode at twilight through the pine forest, or along "the silent shore Which bounds Ravenna's immemorial wood," the undying past inspired him with a vision of the future, delayed, indeed, for a time, "the flame ending in smoke," but fulfilled after many days, a vision of a redeemed and united Italy. "The poem," he says, in the Preface, "may be considered as a metrical experiment." In _Beppo_, and the two first cantos of _Don Juan_, he had proved that the _ottava rima_ of the Italians, which Frere had been one of the first to transplant, might grow and flourish in an alien soil, and now, by way of a second venture, he proposed to acclimatize the _terza rima_. He was under the impression that Hayley, whom he had held up to ridicule as "for ever feeble, and for ever tame," had been the first and last to try the measure in English; but of Hayley's excellent translation of the three first cantos of the _Inferno_ (_vide post_, p. 244, note 1), praised but somewhat grudgingly praised by Southey, he had only seen an extract, and of earlier experiments he was altogether ignorant. As a matter of fact, many poets had already essayed, but timidly and without perseverance, to "come to the test in the metrification" of the _Divine Comedy_. Some twenty-seven lines, "the sole example in English literature of that period, of the use of _terza rima_, obviously copied from Dante" (_Complete Works of Chaucer_, by the Rev. W. Skeat, 1894, i. 76, 261), are imbedded in Chaucer's _Compleint to his Lady_. In the sixteenth century Sir Thomas Wyatt and Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey ("Description of the restless state of a lover"), "as novises newly sprung out of the schools of Dante, Ariosto, and Petrarch" (Puttenham's _Art of Poesie_, 1589, pp. 48-50); and later again, Daniel ("To the Lady Lucy, Countess of Bedford"), Ben Jonson, and Milton (_Psalms_ ii., vi.) afford specimens of _terza rima_. There was, too, one among Byron's contemporaries who had already made trial of the metre in his _Prince Athanase_ (1817) and _The Woodman and the Nightingale_ (1818), and who, shortly, in his _Ode to the West Wind_ (October, 1819, published 1820) was to prove that it was not impossible to write English poetry, if not in genuine _terza rima_, with its interchange of double rhymes, at least in what has been happily styled the "Byronic _terza rima_." It may, however, be taken for granted that, at any rate in June, 1819, these fragments of Shelley's were unknown to Byron. Long after Byron's day, but long years before his dream was realized, Mrs. Browning, in her _Casa Guidi Windows_ (1851), in the same metre, re-echoed the same aspiration (see her _Preface_), "that the future of Italy shall not be disinherited." (See for some of these instances of _terza rima_, _Englische Metrik_, von Dr. J. Schipper, 1888, ii. 896. See, too, _The Metre of Dante's Comedy discussed and exemplified_, by Alfred Forman and Harry Buxton Forman, 1878, p. 7.) The MS. of the _Prophecy of Dante_, together with the Preface, was forwarded to Murray, March 14, 1820; but in spite of some impatience on the part of the author (Letter to Murray, May 8, 1820, _Letters_, 1901, v. 20), and, after the lapse of some months, a pretty broad hint (Letter, August 17, 1820, _ibid_., p. 165) that "the time for the Dante would be good now ... as Italy is on the eve of great things," publication was deferred till the following year. _Marino Faliero, Doge of Venice_, and the _Prophecy of Dante_ were published in the same volume, April 21, 1821. The _Prophecy of Dante_ was briefly but favourably noticed by Jeffrey in his review of _Marino Faliero_ (_Edinb. Rev._, July, 1821, vol. 35, p. 285). "It is a very grand, fervid, turbulent, and somewhat mystical composition, full of the highest sentiment and the highest poetry; ... but disfigured by many faults of precipitation, and overclouded with many obscurities. Its great fault with common readers will be that it is not sufficiently intelligible.... It is, however, beyond all question, a work of a man of great genius." Other notices of _Marino Faliero_ and the _Prophecy of Dante_ appeared in _Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine_, April, 1821, vol. 9, pp. 93-103; in the _Monthly Review_, May, 1821, Enlarged Series, vol. 95, pp. 41-50; and in the _Eclectic Review_, June 21, New Series, vol. xv. pp. 518-527. DEDICATION. Lady! if for the cold and cloudy clime Where I was born, but where I would not die, Of the great Poet-Sire of Italy I dare to build[276] the imitative rhyme, Harsh Runic[277] copy of the South's sublime, Thou art the cause; and howsoever I Fall short of his immortal harmony, Thy gentle heart will pardon me the crime. Thou, in the pride of Beauty and of Youth, Spakest; and for thee to speak and be obeyed Are one; but only in the sunny South Such sounds are uttered, and such charms displayed, So sweet a language from so fair a mouth--[278] Ah! to what effort would it not persuade? Ravenna, June 21, 1819. PREFACE In the course of a visit to the city of Ravenna in the summer of 1819, it was suggested to the author that having composed something on the subject of Tasso's confinement, he should do the same on Dante's exile,--the tomb of the poet forming one of the principal objects[279] of interest in that city, both to the native and to the stranger. "On this hint I spake," and the result has been the following four cantos, in _terza rima_, now offered to the reader. If they are understood and approved, it is my purpose to continue the poem in various other cantos to its natural conclusion in the present age. The reader is requested to suppose that Dante addresses him in the interval between the conclusion of the _Divina Commedia_ and his death, and shortly before the latter event, foretelling the fortunes of Italy in general in the ensuing centuries. In adopting this plan I have had in my mind the Cassandra of Lycophron,[280] and the Prophecy of Nereus by Horace, as well as the Prophecies of Holy Writ. The measure adopted is the _terza rima_ of Dante, which I am not aware to have seen hitherto _tried in our language, except it may be by Mr. Hayley_,[281] of whose translation I never saw but one extract, quoted in the notes to _Caliph Vathek_; so that--if I do not err--this poem may be considered as a metrical experiment. The cantos are short, and about the same length of those of the poet, whose name I have borrowed and most likely taken in vain. Amongst the inconveniences of authors in the present day, it is difficult for any who have a name, good or bad, to escape translation. I have had the fortune to see the fourth canto of _Childe Harold_[282] translated into Italian _versi sciolti_,--that is, a poem written in the _Spenserean stanza_ into _blank verse_, without regard to the natural divisions of the stanza or the sense. If the present poem, being on a national topic, should chance to undergo the same fate, I would request the Italian reader to remember that when I have failed in the imitation of his great "Padre Alighier,"[283] I have failed in imitating that which all study and few understand, since to this very day it is not yet settled what was the meaning of the allegory[284] in the first canto of the _Inferno_, unless Count Marchetti's ingenious and probable conjecture may be considered as having decided the question. He may also pardon my failure the more, as I am not quite sure that he would be pleased with my success, since the Italians, with a pardonable nationality, are particularly jealous of all that is left them as a nation--their literature; and in the present bitterness of the classic and romantic war, are but ill disposed to permit a foreigner even to approve or imitate them, without finding some fault with his ultramontane presumption. I can easily enter into all this, knowing what would be thought in England of an Italian imitator of Milton, or if a translation of Monti, Pindemonte, or Arici,[285] should be held up to the rising generation as a model for their future poetical essays. But I perceive that I am deviating into an address to the Italian reader, where my business is with the English one; and be they few or many, I must take my leave of both. THE PROPHECY OF DANTE. CANTO THE FIRST. Once more in Man's frail world! which I had left So long that 'twas forgotten; and I feel The weight of clay again,--too soon bereft Of the Immortal Vision which could heal My earthly sorrows, and to God's own skies Lift me from that deep Gulf without repeal, Where late my ears rung with the damned cries Of Souls in hopeless bale; and from that place Of lesser torment, whence men may arise Pure from the fire to join the Angelic race; 10 Midst whom my own bright Beatricē[286] blessed My spirit with her light; and to the base Of the Eternal Triad! first, last, best,[287] Mysterious, three, sole, infinite, great God! Soul universal! led the mortal guest, Unblasted by the Glory, though he trod From star to star to reach the almighty throne.[bw] Oh Beatrice! whose sweet limbs the sod So long hath pressed, and the cold marble stone, Thou sole pure Seraph of my earliest love, 20 Love so ineffable, and so alone, That nought on earth could more my bosom move, And meeting thee in Heaven was but to meet That without which my Soul, like the arkless dove, Had wandered still in search of, nor her feet Relieved her wing till found; without thy light My Paradise had still been incomplete.[288] Since my tenth sun gave summer to my sight Thou wert my Life, the Essence of my thought, Loved ere I knew the name of Love,[289] and bright 30 Still in these dim old eyes, now overwrought With the World's war, and years, and banishment, And tears for thee, by other woes untaught; For mine is not a nature to be bent By tyrannous faction, and the brawling crowd, And though the long, long conflict hath been spent In vain,--and never more, save when the cloud Which overhangs the Apennine my mind's eye Pierces to fancy Florence, once so proud Of me, can I return, though but to die, 40 Unto my native soil,--they have not yet Quenched the old exile's spirit, stern and high. But the Sun, though not overcast, must set And the night cometh; I am old in days, And deeds, and contemplation, and have met Destruction face to face in all his ways. The World hath left me, what it found me, pure, And if I have not gathered yet its praise, I sought it not by any baser lure; Man wrongs, and Time avenges, and my name 50 May form a monument not all obscure, Though such was not my Ambition's end or aim, To add to the vain-glorious list of those Who dabble in the pettiness of fame, And make men's fickle breath the wind that blows Their sail, and deem it glory to be classed With conquerors, and Virtue's other foes, In bloody chronicles of ages past. I would have had my Florence great and free;[290] Oh Florence! Florence![291] unto me thou wast 60 Like that Jerusalem which the Almighty He Wept over, "but thou wouldst not;" as the bird Gathers its young, I would have gathered thee Beneath a parent pinion, hadst thou heard My voice; but as the adder, deaf and fierce, Against the breast that cherished thee was stirred Thy venom, and my state thou didst amerce, And doom this body forfeit to the fire.[292] Alas! how bitter is his country's curse To him who _for_ that country would expire, 70 But did not merit to expire _by_ her, And loves her, loves her even in her ire. The day may come when she will cease to err, The day may come she would be proud to have The dust she dooms to scatter, and transfer[bx] Of him, whom she denied a home, the grave. But this shall not be granted; let my dust Lie where it falls; nor shall the soil which gave Me breath, but in her sudden fury thrust Me forth to breathe elsewhere, so reassume 80 My indignant bones, because her angry gust Forsooth is over, and repealed her doom; No,--she denied me what was mine--my roof, And shall not have what is not hers--my tomb. Too long her arméd wrath hath kept aloof The breast which would have bled for her, the heart That beat, the mind that was temptation proof, The man who fought, toiled, travelled, and each part Of a true citizen fulfilled, and saw For his reward the Guelf's ascendant art 90 Pass his destruction even into a law. These things are not made for forgetfulness, Florence shall be forgotten first; too raw The wound, too deep the wrong, and the distress Of such endurance too prolonged to make My pardon greater, her injustice less, Though late repented; yet--yet for her sake I feel some fonder yearnings, and for thine, My own Beatricē, I would hardly take Vengeance upon the land which once was mine, 100 And still is hallowed by thy dust's return, Which would protect the murderess like a shrine, And save ten thousand foes by thy sole urn. Though, like old Marius from Minturnæ's marsh And Carthage ruins, my lone breast may burn At times with evil feelings hot and harsh,[293] And sometimes the last pangs of a vile foe Writhe in a dream before me, and o'erarch My brow with hopes of triumph,--let them go! Such are the last infirmities of those 110 Who long have suffered more than mortal woe, And yet being mortal still, have no repose But on the pillow of Revenge--Revenge, Who sleeps to dream of blood, and waking glows With the oft-baffled, slakeless thirst of change, When we shall mount again, and they that trod Be trampled on, while Death and Até range O'er humbled heads and severed necks----Great God! Take these thoughts from me--to thy hands I yield My many wrongs, and thine Almighty rod 120 Will fall on those who smote me,--be my Shield! As thou hast been in peril, and in pain, In turbulent cities, and the tented field-- In toil, and many troubles borne in vain For Florence,--I appeal from her to Thee! Thee, whom I late saw in thy loftiest reign, Even in that glorious Vision, which to see And live was never granted until now, And yet thou hast permitted this to me. Alas! with what a weight upon my brow 130 The sense of earth and earthly things come back, Corrosive passions, feelings dull and low, The heart's quick throb upon the mental rack, Long day, and dreary night; the retrospect Of half a century bloody and black, And the frail few years I may yet expect Hoary and hopeless, but less hard to bear, For I have been too long and deeply wrecked On the lone rock of desolate Despair, To lift my eyes more to the passing sail 140 Which shuns that reef so horrible and bare; Nor raise my voice--for who would heed my wail? I am not of this people, nor this age, And yet my harpings will unfold a tale Which shall preserve these times when not a page Of their perturbéd annals could attract An eye to gaze upon their civil rage,[by] Did not my verse embalm full many an act Worthless as they who wrought it: 'tis the doom Of spirits of my order to be racked 150 In life, to wear their hearts out, and consume Their days in endless strife, and die alone; Then future thousands crowd around their tomb, And pilgrims come from climes where they have known The name of him--who now is but a name, And wasting homage o'er the sullen stone, Spread his--by him unheard, unheeded--fame; And mine at least hath cost me dear: to die Is nothing; but to wither thus--to tame My mind down from its own infinity-- 160 To live in narrow ways with little men, A common sight to every common eye, A wanderer, while even wolves can find a den, Ripped from all kindred, from all home, all things That make communion sweet, and soften pain-- To feel me in the solitude of kings Without the power that makes them bear a crown-- To envy every dove his nest and wings Which waft him where the Apennine looks down On Arno, till he perches, it may be, 170 Within my all inexorable town, Where yet my boys are, and that fatal She,[294] Their mother, the cold partner who hath brought Destruction for a dowry--this to see And feel, and know without repair, hath taught A bitter lesson; but it leaves me free: I have not vilely found, nor basely sought, They made an Exile--not a Slave of me. CANTO THE SECOND. The Spirit of the fervent days of Old, When words were things that came to pass, and Thought Flashed o'er the future, bidding men behold Their children's children's doom already brought Forth from the abyss of Time which is to be, The Chaos of events, where lie half-wrought Shapes that must undergo mortality; What the great Seers of Israel wore within, That Spirit was on them, and is on me, And if, Cassandra-like, amidst the din 10 Of conflict none will hear, or hearing heed This voice from out the Wilderness, the sin Be theirs, and my own feelings be my meed, The only guerdon I have ever known. Hast thou not bled? and hast thou still to bleed, Italia? Ah! to me such things, foreshown With dim sepulchral light, bid me forget In thine irreparable wrongs my own; We can have but one Country, and even yet Thou'rt mine--my bones shall be within thy breast, 20 My Soul within thy language, which once set With our old Roman sway in the wide West; But I will make another tongue arise As lofty and more sweet, in which expressed The hero's ardour, or the lover's sighs, Shall find alike such sounds for every theme That every word, as brilliant as thy skies, Shall realise a Poet's proudest dream, And make thee Europe's Nightingale of Song;[295] So that all present speech to thine shall seem 30 The note of meaner birds, and every tongue Confess its barbarism when compared with thine.[bz] This shalt thou owe to him thou didst so wrong, Thy Tuscan bard, the banished Ghibelline. Woe! woe! the veil of coming centuries Is rent,--a thousand years which yet supine Lie like the ocean waves ere winds arise, Heaving in dark and sullen undulation, Float from Eternity into these eyes; The storms yet sleep, the clouds still keep their station, 40 The unborn Earthquake yet is in the womb, The bloody Chaos yet expects Creation, But all things are disposing for thy doom; The Elements await but for the Word, "Let there be darkness!" and thou grow'st a tomb! Yes! thou, so beautiful, shalt feel the sword,[296] Thou, Italy! so fair that Paradise, Revived in thee, blooms forth to man restored: Ah! must the sons of Adam lose it twice? Thou, Italy! whose ever golden fields, 50 Ploughed by the sunbeams solely, would suffice For the world's granary; thou, whose sky Heaven gilds[ca] With brighter stars, and robes with deeper blue; Thou, in whose pleasant places Summer builds Her palace, in whose cradle Empire grew, And formed the Eternal City's ornaments From spoils of Kings whom freemen overthrew; Birthplace of heroes, sanctuary of Saints, Where earthly first, then heavenly glory made[cb] Her home; thou, all which fondest Fancy paints, 60 And finds her prior vision but portrayed In feeble colours, when the eye--from the Alp Of horrid snow, and rock, and shaggy shade Of desert-loving pine, whose emerald scalp Nods to the storm--dilates and dotes o'er thee, And wistfully implores, as 'twere, for help To see thy sunny fields, my Italy, Nearer and nearer yet, and dearer still The more approached, and dearest were they free, Thou--Thou must wither to each tyrant's will: 70 The Goth hath been,--the German, Frank, and Hun[297] Are yet to come,--and on the imperial hill Ruin, already proud of the deeds done By the old barbarians, there awaits the new, Throned on the Palatine, while lost and won Rome at her feet lies bleeding; and the hue Of human sacrifice and Roman slaughter Troubles the clotted air, of late so blue, And deepens into red the saffron water Of Tiber, thick with dead; the helpless priest, 80 And still more helpless nor less holy daughter, Vowed to their God, have shrieking fled, and ceased Their ministry: the nations take their prey, Iberian, Almain, Lombard, and the beast And bird, wolf, vulture, more humane than they Are; these but gorge the flesh, and lap the gore Of the departed, and then go their way; But those, the human savages, explore All paths of torture, and insatiate yet, With Ugolino hunger prowl for more. 90 Nine moons shall rise o'er scenes like this and set;[298] The chiefless army of the dead, which late Beneath the traitor Prince's banner met, Hath left its leader's ashes at the gate; Had but the royal Rebel lived, perchance Thou hadst been spared, but his involved thy fate. Oh! Rome, the Spoiler or the spoil of France, From Brennus to the Bourbon, never, never Shall foreign standard to thy walls advance, But Tiber shall become a mournful river. 100 Oh! when the strangers pass the Alps and Po, Crush them, ye Rocks! Floods whelm them, and for ever! Why sleep the idle Avalanches so, To topple on the lonely pilgrim's head? Why doth Eridanus but overflow The peasant's harvest from his turbid bed? Were not each barbarous horde a nobler prey? Over Cambyses' host[299] the desert spread Her sandy ocean, and the Sea-waves' sway Rolled over Pharaoh and his thousands,--why,[cc] 110 Mountains and waters, do ye not as they? And you, ye Men! Romans, who dare not die, Sons of the conquerors who overthrew Those who overthrew proud Xerxes, where yet lie The dead whose tomb Oblivion never knew, Are the Alps weaker than Thermopylæ? Their passes more alluring to the view Of an invader? is it they, or ye, That to each host the mountain-gate unbar, And leave the march in peace, the passage free? 120 Why, Nature's self detains the Victor's car, And makes your land impregnable, if earth Could be so; but alone she will not war, Yet aids the warrior worthy of his birth In a soil where the mothers bring forth men: Not so with those whose souls are little worth; For them no fortress can avail,--the den Of the poor reptile which preserves its sting Is more secure than walls of adamant, when The hearts of those within are quivering. 130 Are ye not brave? Yes, yet the Ausonian soil Hath hearts, and hands, and arms, and hosts to bring Against Oppression; but how vain the toil, While still Division sows the seeds of woe And weakness, till the Stranger reaps the spoil.[300] Oh! my own beauteous land! so long laid low, So long the grave of thy own children's hopes, When there is but required a single blow To break the chain, yet--yet the Avenger stops, And Doubt and Discord step 'twixt thine and thee, 140 And join their strength to that which with thee copes; What is there wanting then to set thee free, And show thy beauty in its fullest light? To make the Alps impassable; and we, Her Sons, may do this with one deed--Unite. CANTO THE THIRD. From out the mass of never-dying ill,[cd] The Plague, the Prince, the Stranger, and the Sword, Vials of wrath but emptied to refill And flow again, I cannot all record That crowds on my prophetic eye: the Earth And Ocean written o'er would not afford Space for the annal, yet it shall go forth; Yes, all, though not by human pen, is graven, There where the farthest suns and stars have birth, Spread like a banner at the gate of Heaven, 10 The bloody scroll of our millennial wrongs Waves, and the echo of our groans is driven Athwart the sound of archangelic songs, And Italy, the martyred nation's gore, Will not in vain arise to where belongs[ce] Omnipotence and Mercy evermore: Like to a harpstring stricken by the wind, The sound of her lament shall, rising o'er The Seraph voices, touch the Almighty Mind. Meantime I, humblest of thy sons, and of 20 Earth's dust by immortality refined To Sense and Suffering, though the vain may scoff, And tyrants threat, and meeker victims bow Before the storm because its breath is rough, To thee, my Country! whom before, as now, I loved and love, devote the mournful lyre And melancholy gift high Powers allow To read the future: and if now my fire Is not as once it shone o'er thee, forgive! I but foretell thy fortunes--then expire; 30 Think not that I would look on them and live. A Spirit forces me to see and speak, And for my guerdon grants _not_ to survive; My Heart shall be poured over thee and break: Yet for a moment, ere I must resume Thy sable web of Sorrow, let me take Over the gleams that flash athwart thy gloom A softer glimpse; some stars shine through thy night, And many meteors, and above thy tomb Leans sculptured Beauty, which Death cannot blight: 40 And from thine ashes boundless Spirits rise To give thee honour, and the earth delight; Thy soil shall still be pregnant with the wise, The gay, the learned, the generous, and the brave, Native to thee as Summer to thy skies, Conquerors on foreign shores, and the far wave,[301] Discoverers of new worlds, which take their name;[302] For _thee_ alone they have no arm to save, And all thy recompense is in their fame, A noble one to them, but not to thee-- 50 Shall they be glorious, and thou still the same? Oh! more than these illustrious far shall be The Being--and even yet he may be born-- The mortal Saviour who shall set thee free, And see thy diadem, so changed and worn By fresh barbarians, on thy brow replaced; And the sweet Sun replenishing thy morn, Thy moral morn, too long with clouds defaced, And noxious vapours from Avernus risen, Such as all they must breathe who are debased 60 By Servitude, and have the mind in prison.[303] Yet through this centuried eclipse of woe[cf] Some voices shall be heard, and Earth shall listen; Poets shall follow in the path I show, And make it broader: the same brilliant sky Which cheers the birds to song shall bid them glow,[cg] And raise their notes as natural and high; Tuneful shall be their numbers; they shall sing Many of Love, and some of Liberty, But few shall soar upon that Eagle's wing, 70 And look in the Sun's face, with Eagle's gaze, All free and fearless as the feathered King, But fly more near the earth; how many a phrase Sublime shall lavished be on some small prince In all the prodigality of Praise! And language, eloquently false, evince[ch] The harlotry of Genius, which, like Beauty,[ci] Too oft forgets its own self-reverence, And looks on prostitution as a duty.[304] He who once enters in a Tyrant's hall[cj][305] 80 As guest is slave--his thoughts become a booty, And the first day which sees the chain enthral A captive, sees his half of Manhood gone[306]-- The Soul's emasculation saddens all His spirit; thus the Bard too near the throne Quails from his inspiration, bound to _please_,-- How servile is the task to please alone! To smooth the verse to suit his Sovereign's ease And royal leisure, nor too much prolong Aught save his eulogy, and find, and seize, 90 Or force, or forge fit argument of Song! Thus trammelled, thus condemned to Flattery's trebles, He toils through all, still trembling to be wrong: For fear some noble thoughts, like heavenly rebels, Should rise up in high treason to his brain, He sings, as the Athenian spoke, with pebbles In's mouth, lest Truth should stammer through his strain. But out of the long file of sonneteers There shall be some who will not sing in vain, And he, their Prince, shall rank among my peers,[307] And Love shall be his torment; but his grief Shall make an immortality of tears, And Italy shall hail him as the Chief Of Poet-lovers, and his higher song Of Freedom wreathe him with as green a leaf. But in a farther age shall rise along The banks of Po two greater still than he; The World which smiled on him shall do them wrong Till they are ashes, and repose with me. The first will make an epoch with his lyre, 110 And fill the earth with feats of Chivalry:[308] His Fancy like a rainbow, and his Fire, Like that of Heaven, immortal, and his Thought Borne onward with a wing that cannot tire; Pleasure shall, like a butterfly new caught, Flutter her lovely pinions o'er his theme, And Art itself seem into Nature wrought By the transparency of his bright dream.-- The second, of a tenderer, sadder mood, Shall pour his soul out o'er Jerusalem; 120 He, too, shall sing of Arms, and Christian blood Shed where Christ bled for man; and his high harp Shall, by the willow over Jordan's flood, Revive a song of Sion, and the sharp Conflict, and final triumph of the brave And pious, and the strife of Hell to warp Their hearts from their great purpose, until wave The red-cross banners where the first red Cross Was crimsoned from His veins who died to save,[ck] Shall be his sacred argument; the loss 130 Of years, of favour, freedom, even of fame Contested for a time, while the smooth gloss Of Courts would slide o'er his forgotten name And call Captivity a kindness--meant To shield him from insanity or shame-- Such shall be his meek guerdon! who was sent To be Christ's Laureate--they reward him well! Florence dooms me but death or banishment, Ferrara him a pittance and a cell,[309] Harder to bear and less deserved, for I 140 Had stung the factions which I strove to quell; But this meek man who with a lover's eye Will look on Earth and Heaven, and who will deign To embalm with his celestial flattery, As poor a thing as e'er was spawned to reign,[310] What will _he_ do to merit such a doom? Perhaps he'll _love_,--and is not Love in vain Torture enough without a living tomb? Yet it will be so--he and his compeer, The Bard of Chivalry, will both consume[311] 150 In penury and pain too many a year, And, dying in despondency, bequeath To the kind World, which scarce will yield a tear, A heritage enriching all who breathe With the wealth of a genuine Poet's soul, And to their country a redoubled wreath, Unmatched by time; not Hellas can unroll Through her Olympiads two such names, though one[312] Of hers be mighty;--and is this the whole Of such men's destiny beneath the Sun?[313] 160 Must all the finer thoughts, the thrilling sense, The electric blood with which their arteries run,[cl] Their body's self turned soul with the intense Feeling of that which is, and fancy of That which should be, to such a recompense Conduct? shall their bright plumage on the rough Storm be still scattered? Yes, and it must be; For, formed of far too penetrable stuff, These birds of Paradise[314] but long to flee Back to their native mansion, soon they find 170 Earth's mist with their pure pinions not agree, And die or are degraded; for the mind Succumbs to long infection, and despair, And vulture Passions flying close behind, Await the moment to assail and tear;[315] And when, at length, the wingéd wanderers stoop, Then is the Prey-birds' triumph, then they share The spoil, o'erpowered at length by one fell swoop. Yet some have been untouched who learned to bear, Some whom no Power could ever force to droop, 180 Who could resist themselves even, hardest care! And task most hopeless; but some such have been, And if my name amongst the number were, That Destiny austere, and yet serene, Were prouder than more dazzling fame unblessed; The Alp's snow summit nearer heaven is seen Than the Volcano's fierce eruptive crest, Whose splendour from the black abyss is flung, While the scorched mountain, from whose burning breast A temporary torturing flame is wrung, 190 Shines for a night of terror, then repels Its fire back to the Hell from whence it sprung, The Hell which in its entrails ever dwells. CANTO THE FOURTH. Many are Poets who have never penned Their inspiration, and perchance the best: They felt, and loved, and died, but would not lend Their thoughts to meaner beings; they compressed The God within them, and rejoined the stars Unlaurelled upon earth, but far more blessed Than those who are degraded by the jars Of Passion, and their frailties linked to fame, Conquerors of high renown, but full of scars. Many are Poets but without the name; 10 For what is Poesy but to create From overfeeling Good or Ill; and aim[316] At an external life beyond our fate, And be the new Prometheus of new men,[317] Bestowing fire from Heaven, and then, too late, Finding the pleasure given repaid with pain, And vultures to the heart of the bestower, Who, having lavished his high gift in vain, Lies to his lone rock by the sea-shore? So be it: we can bear.--But thus all they 20 Whose Intellect is an o'ermastering Power Which still recoils from its encumbering clay Or lightens it to spirit, whatsoe'er The form which their creations may essay, Are bards; the kindled Marble's bust may wear More poesy upon its speaking brow Than aught less than the Homeric page may bear; One noble stroke with a whole life may glow, Or deify the canvass till it shine With beauty so surpassing all below, 30 That they who kneel to Idols so divine Break no commandment, for high Heaven is there Transfused, transfigurated:[318] and the line Of Poesy, which peoples but the air With Thought and Beings of our thought reflected, Can do no more: then let the artist share The palm, he shares the peril, and dejected Faints o'er the labour unapproved--Alas! Despair and Genius are too oft connected. Within the ages which before me pass 40 Art shall resume and equal even the sway Which with Apelles and old Phidias She held in Hellas' unforgotten day. Ye shall be taught by Ruin to revive The Grecian forms at least from their decay, And Roman souls at last again shall live In Roman works wrought by Italian hands, And temples, loftier than the old temples, give New wonders to the World; and while still stands The austere Pantheon, into heaven shall soar 50 A Dome,[319] its image, while the base expands Into a fane surpassing all before, Such as all flesh shall flock to kneel in: ne'er Such sight hath been unfolded by a door As this, to which all nations shall repair, And lay their sins at this huge gate of Heaven. And the bold Architect[320] unto whose care The daring charge to raise it shall be given, Whom all Arts shall acknowledge as their Lord, Whether into the marble chaos driven 60 His chisel bid the Hebrew,[321] at whose word Israel left Egypt, stop the waves in stone,[cm] Or hues of Hell be by his pencil poured Over the damned before the Judgement-throne,[322] Such as I saw them, such as all shall see, Or fanes be built of grandeur yet unknown-- The Stream of his great thoughts shall spring from me[323] The Ghibelline, who traversed the three realms Which form the Empire of Eternity. Amidst the clash of swords, and clang of helms, 70 The age which I anticipate, no less Shall be the Age of Beauty, and while whelms Calamity the nations with distress, The Genius of my Country shall arise, A Cedar towering o'er the Wilderness, Lovely in all its branches to all eyes, Fragrant as fair, and recognised afar, Wafting its native incense through the skies. Sovereigns shall pause amidst their sport of war, Weaned for an hour from blood, to turn and gaze 80 On canvass or on stone; and they who mar All beauty upon earth, compelled to praise, Shall feel the power of that which they destroy; And Art's mistaken gratitude shall raise To tyrants, who but take her for a toy, Emblems and monuments, and prostitute Her charms to Pontiffs proud,[324] who but employ The man of Genius as the meanest brute To bear a burthen, and to serve a need, To sell his labours, and his soul to boot. 90 Who toils for nations may be poor indeed, But free; who sweats for Monarchs is no more Than the gilt Chamberlain, who, clothed and feed, Stands sleek and slavish, bowing at his door. Oh, Power that rulest and inspirest! how Is it that they on earth, whose earthly power[325] Is likest thine in heaven in outward show, Least like to thee in attributes divine, Tread on the universal necks that bow, And then assure us that their rights are thine? 100 And how is it that they, the Sons of Fame, Whose inspiration seems to them to shine From high, they whom the nations oftest name, Must pass their days in penury or pain, Or step to grandeur through the paths of shame, And wear a deeper brand and gaudier chain? Or if their Destiny be born aloof From lowliness, or tempted thence in vain, In their own souls sustain a harder proof, The inner war of Passions deep and fierce? 110 Florence! when thy harsh sentence razed my roof, I loved thee; but the vengeance of my verse, The hate of injuries which every year Makes greater, and accumulates my curse, Shall live, outliving all thou holdest dear-- Thy pride, thy wealth, thy freedom, and even _that_, The most infernal of all evils here, The sway of petty tyrants in a state; For such sway is not limited to Kings, And Demagogues yield to them but in date, 120 As swept off sooner; in all deadly things, Which make men hate themselves, and one another, In discord, cowardice, cruelty, all that springs From Death the Sin-born's incest with his mother,[326] In rank oppression in its rudest shape, The faction Chief is but the Sultan's brother, And the worst Despot's far less human ape. Florence! when this lone spirit, which so long Yearned, as the captive toiling at escape, To fly back to thee in despite of wrong, 130 An exile, saddest of all prisoners,[327] Who has the whole world for a dungeon strong, Seas, mountains, and the horizon's[328] verge for bars,[cn] Which shut him from the sole small spot of earth Where--whatsoe'er his fate--he still were hers, His Country's, and might die where he had birth-- Florence! when this lone Spirit shall return To kindred Spirits, thou wilt feel my worth, And seek to honour with an empty urn[329] The ashes thou shalt ne'er obtain--Alas! 140 "What have I done to thee, my People?"[330] Stern Are all thy dealings, but in this they pass The limits of Man's common malice, for All that a citizen could be I was-- Raised by thy will, all thine in peace or war-- And for this thou hast warred with me.--'Tis done: I may not overleap the eternal bar[331] Built up between us, and will die alone, Beholding with the dark eye of a Seer The evil days to gifted souls foreshown, 150 Foretelling them to those who will not hear; As in the old time, till the hour be come When Truth shall strike their eyes through many a tear, And make them own the Prophet in his tomb. Ravenna, 1819. FOOTNOTES: [276] {241}[Compare-- "He knew Himself to sing, and build the lofty rhime." Milton, _Lycidas_, line 11.] [277] [By "Runic" Byron means "Northern," "Anglo-Saxon."] [278] [Compare "In that word, beautiful in all languages, but most so in yours--_Amor mio_--is comprised my existence here and hereafter."--Letter of Byron to the Countess Guiccioli, August 25, 1819, _Letters_, 1900, iv. 350. Compare, too, _Beppo_, stanza xliv.; _vide ante_, p. 173.] [279] {243}[Compare-- "I pass each day where Dante's bones are laid: A little cupola more neat than solemn, Protects his dust." _Don Juan_, Canto IV. stanza civ. lines 1-3.] [280] [The _Cassandra_ or _Alexandra_ of Lycophron, one of the seven "Pleiades" who adorned the court of Ptolemy Philadelphus (third century B.C.), is "an iambic monologue of 1474 verses, in which Cassandra is made to prophesy the fall of Troy ... with numerous other historical events, ... ending with [the reign of] Alexandra the Great." Byron had probably read a translation of the _Cassandra_ by Philip Yorke, Viscount Royston (born 1784, wrecked in the _Agatha_ off Memel, April 7, 1808), which was issued at Cambridge in 1806. The _Alexandra_ forms part of the _Bibliotheca Teubneriana_ (ed. G. Kinkel, Lipsiæ, 1880). For the prophecy of Nereus, _vide_ Hor., _Odes_, lib. i. c. xv.] [281] {244}[In the notes to his _Essay on Epic Poetry_, 1782 (Epistle iii. pp. 175-197), Hayley (see _English Bards, etc._, line 310, _Poetical Works_, 1898, i. 321, note 1) prints a translation of the three first cantos of the _Inferno_, which, he says (p. 172), was written "a few years ago to oblige a particular friend." "Of all Hayley's compositions," writes Southey (_Quart. Rev._, vol. xxxi. pp. 283, 284), "these specimens are the best ... in thus following his original Hayley was led into a sobriety and manliness of diction which ... approached ... to the manner of a better age." In a note on the Hall of Eblis, S. Henley quotes with approbation Hayley's translation of lines 1-9 of this Third Canto of the _Inferno_. _Vathek_ ... by W. Beckford, 1868, p. 188.] [282] [_L'Italia_: _Canto IV. del Pellegrinaggio di Childe Harold_ ... tradotto da Michele Leoni, Italia (London?), 1819, 8º. Leoni also translated the _Lament of Tasso_ (_Lamento di Tasso_ ... Recato in Italiano da M. Leoni, Pisa, 1818).] [283] [Alfieri has a sonnet on the tomb of Dante, beginning-- "O gran padre Alighier, se dal ciel miri." _Opere Scelle_, di Vittorio Alfieri, 1818, iii. 487.] [284] [The Panther, the Lion, and the She-wolf, which Dante encountered on the "desert slope" (_Inferno_, Canto I. lines 31, _sq._), were no doubt suggested by Jer. v. 6: "Idcirco percussit eos leo de silva, lupus ad vesperam vastavit eos, pardus vigilans super civitates corum." Symbolically they have been from the earliest times understood as denoting--the panther, lust; the lion, pride; the wolf, avarice; the sins affecting youth, maturity, and old age. Later commentators have suggested that there may be an underlying political symbolism as well, and that the three beasts may stand for Florence with her "Black" and "White" parties, the power of France, and the Guelf party as typically representative of these vices (_The Hell of Dante_, by A. J. Butler, 1892, p. 5, note). Count Giovanni Marchetti degli Angelini (1790-1852), in his _Discorso_ ... _della prima e principale Allegoria del Poema di Dante_, contributed to an edition of _La Divina Commedia_, published at Bologna, 1819-21, i. 17-44, and reissued in _La Biografia di Dante_ ... 1822, v. 397, _sq_., etc., argues in favour of a double symbolism. (According to a life of Marchetti, prefixed to his _Poesie_, 1878 [_Una notte di Dante, etc._], he met Byron at Bologna in 1819, and made his acquaintance.)] [285] {245}[For Vincenzo Monti (1754-1828), see letter to Murray, October 15, 1816 (_Letters_, 1899, iii. 377, note 3); and for Ippolito Pindemonte (1753-1828), see letter to Murray, June 4, 1817, (_Letters_, 1900, iv. 127, note 4). In his _Essay on the Present Literature of Italy_, Hobhouse supplies critical notices of Pindemonte and Monti, _Historical Illustrations_, 1818, pp. 413-449. Cesare Arici, lawyer and poet, was born at Brescia, July 2, 1782. His works (Padua, 1858, 4 vols.) include his didactic poems, _La coltivazione degli Ulivi_ (1805), _Il Corallo_, 1810, _La Pastorizia_ (on sheep-farming), 1814, and a translation of the works of Virgil. He died in 1836. (See, for a long and sympathetic notice, Tipaldo's _Biografia degli Italiani Illustri_, iii. 491, _sq_.)] [286] {247}The reader is requested to adopt the Italian pronunciation of Beatrice, sounding all the syllables. [287] [Compare-- "Within the deep and luminous subsistence Of the High Light appeared to me three circles, Of threefold colour and of one dimension, And by the second seemed the first reflected As Iris is by Iris, and the third Seemed fire that equally from both is breathed.... O Light Eterne, sole in thyself that dwellest." _Paradiso,_ xxxiii. 115-120, 124 (_Longfellow's Translation_).] [bw] {248}_Star over star_----.--[MS. Alternative reading.] [288] "Ché sol per le belle opre Che sono in cielo, il sole e l'altre stelle, Dentro da lor _si crede il Paradiso:_ Così se guardi fiso Pensar ben dei, che ogni terren piacere. [Si trova in lei, ma tu nol puoi vedere."] Canzone, in which Dante describes the person of Beatrice, Strophe third. [Byron was mistaken in attributing these lines, which form part of a Canzone beginning "Io miro i crespi e gli biondi capegli," to Dante. Neither external nor internal evidence supports such an ascription. The Canzone is attributed in the MSS. either to Fazio degli Uberti, or to Bindo Borrichi da Siena, but was not assigned to Dante before 1518 (_Canzoni di Dante, etc._ [Colophon]. Impresso in Milano per Augustino da Vimercato ... MCCCCCXVIII ...). See, too, _Il Canzoniere di Dante_ ... Fraticelli, Firenze, 1873, pp. 236-240 (from information kindly supplied by the Rev. Philip H. Wicksteed).] [289] ["Nine times already since my birth had the heaven of light returned to the selfsame point almost, as concerns its own revolution, when first the glorious Lady of my mind was made manifest to mine eyes; even she who was called Beatrice by many who knew not wherefore."--_La Vita Nuova,_ § 2 (Translation by D. G. Rossetti, _Dante and his Circle,_ 1892, p. 30). "In reference to the meaning of the name, '_she who confers blessing_,' we learn from Boccaccio that this first meeting took place at a May Feast, given in the year 1274, by Folco Portinari, father of Beatrice ... to which feast Dante accompanied his father, Alighiero Alighieri."--_Note_ by D. G. Rossetti, ibid., p. 30.] [290] {249} "L'Esilio che m' è dato onor mi tegno * * * * * Cader tra' buoni è pur di lode degno." _Sonnet of Dante_ [Canzone xx. lines 76-80, _Opere_ di Dante, 1897, p. 171] in which he represents Right, Generosity, and Temperance as banished from among men, and seeking refuge from Love, who inhabits his bosom. [291] [Compare-- "On the stone Called Dante's,--a plain flat stone scarce discerned From others in the pavement,--whereupon He used to bring his quiet chair out, turned To Brunelleschi's Church, and pour alone The lava of his spirit when it burned: It is not cold to-day. O passionate Poor Dante, who, a banished Florentine, Didst sit austere at banquets of the great And muse upon this far-off stone of thine, And think how oft some passer used to wait A moment, in the golden day's decline, With 'Good night, dearest Dante!' Well, good night!" _Casa Guidi Windows_, by E. B. Browning, _Poetical Works_, 1866, iii. 259.] [292] {250} "Ut si quis predictorum ullo tempore in fortiam dicti communis pervenerit, _talis perveniens igne comburatur, sic quod moriatur_." Second sentence of Florence against Dante, and the fourteen accused with him. The Latin is worthy of the sentence. [The decree (March 11, 1302) that he and his associates in exile should be burned, if they fell into the hands of their enemies, was first discovered in 1772 by the Conte Ludovico Savioli. Dante had been previously, January 27, fined eight thousand lire, and condemned to two years' banishment.] [bx] _The ashes she would scatter_----.--[MS. Alternative reading.] [293] {251}[At the end of the Social War (B.C. 88), when Sulla marched to Rome at the head of his army, and Marius was compelled to take flight, he "stripped himself, plunged into the bog (_Paludes Minturnenses_, near the mouth of the Liris), amidst thick water and mud.... They hauled him out naked and covered with dirt, and carried him to Minturnæ." Afterwards, when he sailed for Carthage, he had no sooner landed than he was ordered by the governor (Sextilius) to quit Africa. On his once more gaining the ascendancy and re-entering Rome (B.C. 87), he justified the massacre of Sulla's adherents in a blood-thirsty oration. Past ignominy and present triumph seem to have turned his head ("ut erat inter iram toleratæ fortunæ, et lætitiam emendatæ, parum compos animi").--Plut., "Marius," _apud_ Langhorne, 1838, p. 304; Livii _Epit_., lxxx. 28.] [by] {252}----_their civic rage_.--[MS. Alternative reading.] [294] {253} This lady, whose name was _Gemma_, sprung from one of the most powerful Guelph families, named Donati. Corso Donati was the principal adversary of the Ghibellines. She is--described as being "_Admodum morosa, ut de Xantippe Socratis philosophi conjuge scriptum esse legimus,_" according to Giannozzo Manetti. But Lionardo Aretino is scandalised with Boccace, in his life of Dante, for saying that literary men should not marry. "Qui il Boccaccio non ha pazienza, e dice, le mogli esser contrarie agli studj; e non si ricorda che Socrate, il più nobile filosofo che mai fusse, ebbe moglie e figliuoli e ufici nella Repubblica nella sua Città; e Aristotile che, etc., etc., ebbe due moglie in varj tempi, ed ebbe figliuoli, e ricchezze assai.--E Marco Tullio--e Catone--e Varrone--e Seneca--ebbero moglie," etc., etc. [_Le Vite di Dante, etc._, Firenze, 1677, pp. 22, 23]. It is odd that honest Lionardo's examples, with the exception of Seneca, and, for anything I know, of Aristotle, are not the most felicitous. Tully's Terentia, and Socrates' Xantippe, by no means contributed to their husbands' happiness, whatever they might do to their philosophy--Cato gave away his wife--of Varro's we know nothing--and of Seneca's, only that she was disposed to die with him, but recovered and lived several years afterwards. But says Leonardo, "L'uomo è _animale civile_, secondo piace a tutti i filosofi." And thence concludes that the greatest proof of the _animal's civism_ is "la prima congiunzione, dalla quale multiplicata nasce la Città." [There is nothing in the _Divina Commedia_, or elsewhere in his writings, to justify the common belief that Dante was unhappily married, unless silence may be taken to imply dislike and alienation. It has been supposed that he alludes to his wife, Gemma Donati, in the _Vita Nuova_, § 36, "as a young and very beautiful lady, who was gazing upon me from a window, with a gaze full of pity," "who remembered me many times of my own most noble lady," whom he consented to serve "more because of her gentle goodness than from any choice" of his own (_Convito_, ii. 2. 7), but there are difficulties in the way of accepting this theory. There is, however, not the slightest reason for believing that the words which he put into the mouth of Jacopo Rusticucci, "La fiera moglie più ch'altro, mi nuoce" ["and truly, my savage wife, more than aught else, doth harm me"] (_Inferno_, xvi. 45), were winged with any personal reminiscence or animosity. But with Byron (see his letter to Lady Byron, dated April 3, 1820, in which he quotes these lines "with intention" [_Letters_, 1901, v. 2]), as with Boccaccio, "the wish was father to the thought," and both were glad to quote Dante as a victim to matrimony. Seven children were born to Dante and Gemma. Of these "his son Pietro, who wrote a commentary on the _Divina Commedia_, settled as judge in Verona. His daughter Beatrice lived as a nun in Ravenna" (_Dante_, by Oscar Browning, 1891, p. 47).] [295] {256}[In his defence of the "mother-tongue" as a fitting vehicle for a commentary on his poetry, Dante argues "that natural love moves the lover principally to three things: the one is to exalt the loved object, the second is to be jealous thereof, the third is to defend it ... and these three things made me adopt it, that is, our mother-tongue, which naturally and accidentally I love and have loved." Again, having laid down the premiss that "the magnanimous man always praises himself in his heart; and so the pusillanimous man always deems himself less than he is," he concludes, "Wherefore many on account of this vileness of mind, depreciate their native tongue, and applaud that of others; and all such as these are the abominable wicked men of Italy, who hold this precious mother-tongue in vile contempt, which, if it be vile in any case, is so only inasmuch as it sounds in the evil mouth of these adulterers."--_Il Convito_, caps. x., xi., translated by Elizabeth Price Sayer, 1887, pp. 34-40.] [bz] ----_when matched with thine_.--[MS. Alternative reading.] [296] [With the whole of this apostrophe to Italy, compare _Purgatorio_, vi. 76-127.] [ca] _From the world's harvest_----.--[MS. Alternative reading.] [cb] {257} _Where earthly Glory first then Heavenly made._-- [MS. Alternative reading.] _Where Glory first, and then Religion made_.--[MS. erased.] [297] [Compare-- "The Goth, the Christian--Time--War--Flood, and Fire, Have dealt upon the seven-hilled City's pride." _Childe Harold_, Canto IV. stanza lxxx. lines 1, 2, _Poetical Works_, 1899, ii. 390, note 2.] [298] {258}See "Sacco di Roma," generally attributed to Guicciardini [Francesco (1482-1540)]. There is another written by a Jacopo _Buonaparte_. [The original MS. of the latter work is preserved in the Royal Library at Paris. It is entitled, "Ragguaglio Storico di tutto I'occorso, giorno per giorno, nel Sacco di Roma dell' anno mdxxvii., scritto da Jacopo Buonaparte, Gentiluomo Samminiatese, che vi si trovo' presente." An edition of it was printed at Cologne, in 1756, to which is prefixed a genealogy of the Buonaparte family. The "traitor Prince" was Charles IV., Connétable de Bourbon, Comte de Montpensier, born 1490, who was killed at the capture of Rome, May 6, 1527. "His death, far from restraining the ardour of the assailants [the Imperial troops, consisting of Germans and Spanish foot], increased it; and with the loss of about 1000 men, they entered and sacked the city.... The disorders committed by the soldiers were dreadful, and the booty they made incredible. They added insults to cruelty, and scoffs to rapaciousness. Upon the news of Bourbon's death, His Holiness, imagining that his troops, no longer animated by his implacable spirit, might listen to an accommodation, demanded a parley; but ... neglected all means for defence.... Cardinals and bishops were ignominiously exposed upon asses with their legs and hands bound; and wealthy citizens ... suspected of having secreted their effects ... were tortured ... to oblige them to make discoveries, ... the booty ... is said to have amounted to about two millions and a half of ducats."--_Mod. Univ. History_, xxxvi. 512.] [299] {259}[Cambyses, the second King of Persia, who reigned B.C. 529-532, sent an army against the Ammonians, which perished in the sands.] [cc] ----_and his phalanx--why_.--[MS. Alternative reading.] [300] [The _Prophecy of Dante_ was begun and finished before Byron took up the cause of Italian independence, or definitely threw in his lot with the Carbonari, but his intimacy with the Gambas, which dates from his migration to Ravenna in 1819, must from the first have brought him within the area of political upheaval and disturbance. A year after (April 16, 1820) he writes to Murray, "I have, besides, another reason for desiring you to be speedy, which is, that there is that brewing in Italy which will speedily cut off all security of communication.... I shall, if permitted by the natives, remain to see what will come of it, ... for I shall think it by far the most interesting spectacle and moment in existence, to see the Italians send the Barbarians of all nations back to their own dens. I have lived long enough among them to feel more for them as a nation than for any other people in existence: but they want Union [see line 145], and they want principle; and I doubt their success."--_Letters_, 1901, v. 8, note 1.] [cd] {261} ----_of long-enduring ill._--[MS. erased.] [ce] ----_the martyred country's gore_ _Will not in vain arise to whom belongs._--[MS. erased.] [301] {262}Alexander of Parma, Spinola, Pescara, Eugene of Savoy, Montecuccoli. [Alessandro Farnese, Duke of Parma (1546-1592), recovered the Southern Netherlands for Spain, 1578-79, made Henry IV. raise the siege of Paris, 1590, etc. Ambrogio, Marchese di Spinola (1569-1630), a Maltese by birth, entered the Spanish service 1602, took Ostend 1604, invested Bergen-op-Zoom, etc. Ferdinando Francesco dagli Avalos, Marquis of Pescara (1496-1525), took Milan November 19, 1521, fought at Lodi, etc., was wounded at the battle of Padua, February 24, 1525. He was the husband of Vittoria Colonna, and when he was in captivity at Ravenna wrote some verses in her honour. François Eugene (1663-1736), Prince of Savoy-Carignan, defeated the French at Turin, 1706, and (with Marlborough) at Malplaquet, 1709; the Turks at Peterwardein, 1716, etc. Raimondo Montecuccoli, a Modenese (1608-1680), defeated the Turks at St. Gothard in 1664, and in 1675-6 commanded on the Rhine, and out-generalled Turenne and the Prince de Condé] [302] Columbus, Americus Vespusius, Sebastian Cabot. [Christopher Columbus (circ. 1430-1506), a Genoese, discovered mainland of America, 1498; Amerigo Vespucci (1451-1512), a Florentine, explored coasts of America, 1497-1504; Sebastian Cabot (1477-1557), son of Giovanni Cabotto or Gavotto, a Venetian, discovered coasts of Labrador, etc., June, 1497.] [303] {263}[Compare-- "Ah! servile Italy, griefs hostelry! A ship without a pilot in great tempest!" _Purgatorio_, vi. 76, 77.] [cf] _Yet through this many-yeared eclipse of Woe_. --[MS. Alternative reading.] _Yet through this murky interreign of Woe_.--[MS. erased.] [cg] _Which choirs the birds to song_---.--[MS. Alternative reading.] [ch] _And Pearls flung down to regal Swine evince_.--[MS. Alternative reading.] [ci] _The whoredom of high Genius_----.--[MS. Alternative reading.] [304] {264}[Alfieri, in his _Autobiography_ ... (1845, _Period III_. chap. viii. p. 92) notes and deprecates the servile manner in which Metastasio went on his knees before Maria Theresa in the Imperial gardens of Schoenbrunnen.] [cj] _And prides itself in prostituted duty_.--[MS. Alternative reading.] [305] A verse from the Greek tragedians, with which Pompey took leave of Cornelia [daughter of Metellus Scipio, and widow of P. Crassus] on entering the boat in which he was slain. [The verse, or verses, are said to be by Sophocles, and are quoted by Plutarch, in his Life of Pompey, c. 78, _Vitæ_, 1814, vii. 159. They run thus-- Ὅστις γὰρ ὡς τύραννον ἐμπορεύεται, [Greek: O(/stis ga\r ô(s ty/rannon e)mporeu/etai,] Κείνου ἐστὶ δοῦλος, κἂν ἐλεύθερος μῃ. [Greek: Kei/nou e)sti\ dou~los, ka)\n e)leu/theros mê|.] ("Seek'st thou a tyrant's door? then farewell, freedom! Though _free_ as air before.") _Vide Incert. Fab. Fragm_., No. 789, _Trag. Grec. Fragm_., A. Nauck, 1889, p. 316.] [306] The verse and sentiment are taken from Homer. [Ἥμισυ γάρ τ' ἀρετῆς ἀποαίνυται εὐρύοπα Ζεύς [Greek: Ê(/misy ga/r t' a)retê~s a)poai/nytai eu)ry/opa Zeu/s] ᾿Ανέρος, εὗτ᾿ ἅν μιν κατὰ δούλιον ἦμαρἕλῃσιν. [Greek: ᾿Ane/ros, eu~(t᾿ a(/n min kata\ dou/lion ê~)mare(/lê|sin.] _Odyssey_, xvii. 322, 323.] [307] {265}Petrarch. [Dante died September 14, 1321, when Petrarch, born July 20, 1304, had entered his eighteenth year.] [308] [Historical events may be thrown into the form of prophecy with some security, but not so the critical opinions of the _soi-disani_ prophet. If Byron had lived half a century later, he might have placed Ariosto and Tasso after and not before Petrarch.] [ck] _Was crimsoned with his veins who died to save,_ _Shall be his glorious argument,_----.--[MS, Alternative reading.] [309] {266}[See the Introduction to the _Lament of Tasso_, _ante_, p. 139, and _Childe Harold_, Canto IV. stanza xxxvi. line 2, _Poetical Works_, 1899, ii. 355, note 1.] [310] [Alfonso d'Este (II.), Duke of Ferrara, died 1597.] [311] [Compare the opening lines of the _Orlando Furioso_-- "Le Donne, i Cavalier'! l'arme, gli amori, Le Cortesie, l'audaci imprese io canto." See _Childe Harold_, Canto IV. stanzas xl., xli., _Poetical Works_, 1899, ii. 359, 360, note 1.] [312] [The sense is, "Ariosto may be matched with, perhaps excelled by, Homer; but where is the Greek poet to set on the same pedestal with Tasso?"] [313] [Compare _Churchill's Grave_, lines 15-19-- "And is this all? I thought,--and do we rip The veil of Immortality, and crave I know not what of honour and of light Through unborn ages, to endure this blight? So soon, and so successless?" _Vide ante_, p. 47.] [cl] {267} / _winged_ \ _The_ < > _blood_----.--[MS. Alternative reading.] \ _lightning_ / [314] [Compare-- "For he on honey-dew hath fed, And drunk the milk of Paradise." _Kubla Khan,_ lines 52, 53, _Poetical Works_. of S. T. Coleridge, 1893, p. 94.] [315] [Compare-- "By our own spirits are we deified: We Poets in our youth begin in gladness; But thereof come in the end despondency and madness." _Resolution and Independence_, vii. lines 5-7, Wordsworth's _Poetical Works_, 1889, p. 175. Compare, too, Moore's fine apology for Byron's failure to submit to the yoke of matrimony, "and to live happily ever afterwards"-- "But it is the cultivation and exercise of the imaginative faculty that, more than anything, tend to wean the man of genius from actual life, and, by substituting the sensibilities of the imagination for those of the heart, to render, at last, the medium through which he feels no less unreal than that through which he thinks. Those images of ideal good and beauty that surround him in his musings soon accustom him to consider all that is beneath this high standard unworthy of his care; till, at length, the heart becoming chilled as the fancy warms, it too often happens that, in proportion as he has refined and elevated his theory of all the social affections, he has unfitted himself for the practice of them."--_Life_, p. 268.] [316] {269}[So too Wordsworth, in his Preface to the _Lyrical Ballads_ (1800); "Poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings."] [317] [Compare-- "Thy Godlike crime was to be kind, To render with thy precepts less The sum of human wretchedness ... But baffled as thou wert from high ... Thou art a symbol and a sign To Mortals." _Prometheus_, iii. lines 35, _seq_.; _vide ante_, p. 50. Compare, too, the _Ode to Napoleon Buonaparte_, stanza xvi. _var_ ii.-- "He suffered for kind acts to men." _Poetical Works_, 1900, iii. 312.] [318] {270}["Transfigurate," whence "transfiguration," is derived from the Latin _transfiguro,_ found in Suetonius and Quintilian. Byron may have thought to anglicize the Italian _trasfigurarsi._] [319] The Cupola of St. Peter's. [Michel Angelo, then in his seventy-second year, received the appointment of architect of St. Peter's from Pope Paul III. He began the dome on a different plan from that of the first architect, Bramante, "declaring that he would raise the Pantheon in the air." The drum of the dome was constructed in his life-time, but for more than twenty-four years after his death (1563), the cupola remained untouched, and it was not till 1590, in the pontificate of Sixtus V., that the dome itself was completed. The ball and cross were placed on the summit in November, 1593.--_Handbook of Rome_, p. 239. Compare _Childe Harold_, Canto IV. stanza cliii. line i, _Poetical Works_, 1892, ii. 440, 441, note 2.] [320] {271}["Yet, however unequal I feel myself to that attempt, were I now to begin the world again, I would tread in the steps of that great master [Michel Angelo]. To kiss the hem of his garment, to catch the slightest of his perfections, would be glory and distinction enough for an ambitious man."--_Discourses_ of Sir Joshua Reynolds, 1884, p. 289.] [321] The statue of Moses on the monument of Julius II. [Michel Angelo's Moses is near the end of the right aisle of the Church of S. Pietro-in-Vincoli.] "SONETTO "_Di Giovanni Battista Zappi_. "Chi é costui, che in si gran pietra scolto, Siede gigante, e le più illustri, e conte Opre dell' arte avanza, e ha vive, e pronte Le labbra si, che le parole ascolto? Quest' è Mosè; ben me 'l diceva il folto Onor del mento, e 'l doppio raggio in fronte; Quest' è Mosè, quando scendea dal monte, E gran parte del Nume avea nel volto. Tal' era allor, che le sonanti, e vaste Acque ei sospese, a se d' intorno; e tale Quando il Mar chiuse, e ne fè tomba altrui. E voi, sue turbe, un rio vitello alzaste? Alzata aveste immago a questa eguale! Ch' era men fallo i' adorar costui." [_Scelta di Sonetti ... del Gobbi_, 1709, iii. 216.] ["And who is he that, shaped in sculptured stone Sits giant-like? stern monument of art Unparalleled, while language seems to start From his prompt lips, and we his precepts own? --'Tis Moses; by his beard's thick honours known, And the twin beams that from his temples dart; 'Tis Moses; seated on the mount apart, Whilst yet the Godhead o'er his features shone. Such once he looked, when Ocean's sounding wave Suspended hung, and such amidst the storm, When o'er his foes the refluent waters roared. An idol calf his followers did engrave: But had they raised this awe-commanding form, Then had they with less guilt their work adored." Rogers.] [cm] {272} ----_from whose word_ {_Israel took God, pronounce the law in stone._ {_Israel left Egypt, cleave the sea in stone_.-- [MS. Alternative readings.] [322] The Last Judgment, in the Sistine Chapel. ["It is obvious, throughout his [Michel Angelo's] works, that the poetical mind of the latter [Dante] influenced his feelings. The Demons in the Last Judgment ... may find a prototype in _La Divina Comedia_. The figures rising from the grave mark his study of _L'Inferno_, e _Il Purgatorio_; and the subject of the Brazen Serpent, in the Sistine Chapel, must remind every reader of Canto XXV. dell' _Inferno_."--_Life of Michael Angelo_ by R. Duppa, 1856, p. 120.] [323] I have read somewhere (if I do not err, for I cannot recollect where,) that Dante was so great a favourite of Michael Angelo's, that he had designed the whole of the Divina Commedia: but that the volume containing these studies was lost by sea. [Michel Angelo's copy of Dante, says Duppa (_ibid_., and note 1), "was a large folio, with Landino's commentary; and upon the broad margin of the leaves he designed with a pen and ink, all the interesting subjects. This book was possessed by Antonio Montanti, a sculptor and architect in Florence, who, being appointed architect to St. Peter's, removed to Rome, and shipped his ... effects at Leghorn for Cività Vecchia, among which was this edition of Dante. In the voyage the vessel foundered at sea, and it was unfortunately lost in the wreck."] [324] {273} See the treatment of Michel Angelo by Julius II., and his neglect by Leo X. [Julius II. encouraged his attendance at the Vatican, but one morning he was stopped by the chamberlain in waiting, who said, "I have an order not to let you enter." Michel Angelo, indignant at the insult, left Rome that very evening. Though Julius despatched five couriers to bring him back, it was some months before he returned. Even a letter (July 8, 1506), in which the Pope promised his "dearly beloved Michel Angelo" that he should not be touched nor offended, but be "reinstated in the apostolic grace," met with no response. It was this quarrel with Julius II. which prevented the completion of the sepulchral monument. The "Moses" and the figures supposed to represent the Active and the Contemplative Life, and three Caryatides (since removed) represent the whole of the original design, "a parallelogram surmounted with forty statues, and covered with reliefs and other ornaments."--See Duppa's _Life, etc_., 1856, pp. 33, 34, and _Handbook of Rome_, p. 133.] [325] [Compare _Merchant of Venice_, act iv. sc. 1, lines 191, 192.] [326] {274}[Compare-- "I fled, and cried out Death ... I fled, but he pursued, (though more, it seems, Inflamed with lust than rage), and swifter far, Me overtook, his mother, all dismayed, And in embraces forcible and foul, Ingendering with me, of that rape begot These yelling monsters, that with ceaseless cry Surround me." _Paradise Lost_, book ii. lines 787-796.] [327] [In his _Convito_, Dante speaks of his banishment, and the poverty and distress which attended it, in very affecting terms. "Ah! would it had pleased the Dispenser of all things that this excuse had never been needed; that neither others had done me wrong, nor myself undergone penalty undeservedly,--the penalty, I say, of exile and of poverty. For it pleased the citizens of the fairest and most renowned daughter of Rome--Florence--to cast me out of her most sweet bosom, where I was born and bred, and passed half of the life of man, and in which, with her good leave, I still desire with all my heart to repose my weary spirit, and finish the days allotted me; and so I have wandered in almost every place to which our language extends, a stranger, almost a beggar, exposing against my will the wounds given me by fortune, too often unjustly imputed to the sufferer's fault. Truly I have been a vessel without sail and without rudder, driven about upon different ports