Project Gutenberg's The Works Of Lord Byron, Vol. 3 (of 7), 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, Vol. 3 (of 7) Author: Lord Byron Editor: Ernest Hartley Coleridge Release Date: June 12, 2007 [EBook #21811] Language: English Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 *** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE WORKS OF LORD BYRON *** Produced by Jonathan Ingram, David Cortesi and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
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The present volume contains the six metrical tales which were composed within the years 1812 and 1815, the Hebrew Melodies, and the minor poems of 1809-1816. With the exception of the first fifteen poems (1809-1811)—Chansons de Voyage, as they might be called—the volume as a whole was produced on English soil. Beginning with the Giaour; which followed in the wake of Childe Harold and shared its triumph, and ending with the ill-omened Domestic Pieces, or Poems of the Separation, the poems which Byron wrote in his own country synchronize with his popularity as a poet by the acclaim and suffrages of his own countrymen. His greatest work, by which his lasting fame has been established, and by which his relative merits as a great poet will be judged in the future, was yet to come; but the work which made his name, which is stamped with his sign-manual, and [vi]which has come to be regarded as distinctively and characteristically Byronic, preceded maturity and achievement.
No poet of his own or other times, not Walter Scott, not Tennyson, not Mr. Kipling, was ever in his own lifetime so widely, so amazingly popular. Thousands of copies of the "Tales"—of the Bride of Abydos, of the Corsair, of Lara—were sold in a day, and edition followed edition month in and month out. Everywhere men talked about the "noble author"—in the capitals of Europe, in literary circles in the United States, in the East Indies. He was "the glass of fashion ... the observ'd of all observers," the swayer of sentiment, the master and creator of popular emotion. No other English poet before or since has divided men's attention with generals and sea-captains and statesmen, has attracted and fascinated and overcome the world so entirely and potently as Lord Byron.
It was Childe Harold, the unfinished, immature Childe Harold, and the Turkish and other "Tales," which raised this sudden and deafening storm of applause when the century was young, and now, at its close (I refer, of course, to the Tales, not to Byron's poetry as a whole, which, in spite of the critics, has held and still holds its own), are ignored if not forgotten, passed over if not despised—which but few know thoroughly, and "very few" are found to admire or to love. Ubi lapsus, quid feci? might the questioning spirit of the author exclaim with regard to his "Harrys and Larrys, Pilgrims and[vii] Pirates," who once held the field, and now seem to have gone under in the struggle for poetical existence!
To what, then, may we attribute the passing away of interest and enthusiasm? To the caprice of fashion, to an insistence on a more faultless technique, to a nicer taste in ethical sentiment, to a preference for a subtler treatment of loftier themes? More certainly, and more particularly, I think, to the blurring of outline and the blotting out of detail due to lapse of time and the shifting of the intellectual standpoint.
However much the charm of novelty and the contagion of enthusiasm may have contributed to the success of the Turkish and other Tales, it is in the last degree improbable that our grandfathers and great-grandfathers were enamoured, not of a reality, but of an illusion born of ignorance or of vulgar bewilderment. They were carried away because they breathed the same atmosphere as the singer; and being undistracted by ethical, or grammatical, or metrical offences, they not only read these poems with avidity, but understood enough of what they read to be touched by their vitality, to realize their verisimilitude.
Tout comprendre c'est tout pardonner. Nay, more, the knowledge, the comprehension of essential greatness in art, in nature, or in man is not to know that there is aught to forgive. But that sufficing knowledge which the reader of average intelligence brings with him for the comprehension and appreciation of contemporary[viii] literature has to be bought at the price of close attention and patient study when the subject-matter of a poem and the modes and movements of the poet's consciousness are alike unfamiliar.
Criticism, however subtle, however suggestive, however luminous, will not bridge over the gap between the past and the present, will not supply the sufficing knowledge. It is delightful and interesting and, in a measure, instructive to know what great poets of his own time and of ours have thought of Byron, how he "strikes" them; but unless we are ourselves saturated with his thought and style, unless we learn to breathe his atmosphere by reading the books which he read, picturing to ourselves the scenes which he saw,—unless we aspire to his ideals and suffer his limitations, we are in no way entitled to judge his poems, whether they be good or bad.
Byron's metrical "Tales" come before us in the guise of light reading, and may be "easily criticized" as melo-dramatic—the heroines conventional puppets, the heroes reduplicated reflections of the author's personality, the Oriental "properties" loosely arranged, and somewhat stage-worn. A thorough and sympathetic study of these once extravagantly lauded and now belittled poems will not, perhaps, reverse the deliberate judgment of later generations, but it will display them for what they are, bold and rapid and yet exact presentations of the "gorgeous East," vivid and fresh from the hand of the great artist who conceived them out of the abundance[ix] of memory and observation, and wrought them into shape with the "pen of a ready writer." They will be once more recognized as works of genius, an integral portion of our literary inheritance, which has its proper value, and will repay a more assiduous and a finer husbandry.
I have once more to acknowledge the generous assistance of the officials of the British Museum, and, more especially, of Mr. A. G. Ellis, of the Oriental Printed Books and MSS. Department, who has afforded me invaluable instruction in the compilation of the notes to the Giaour and Bride of Abydos.
I have also to thank Mr. R. L. Binyon, of the Department of Prints and Drawings, for advice and assistance in the selection of illustrations.
I desire to express my cordial thanks to the Registrar of the Copyright Office, Stationers' Hall; to Professor Jannaris, of the University of St. Andrews; to Miss E. Dawes, M.A., D.L., of Heathfield Lodge, Weybridge; to my cousin, Miss Edith Coleridge, of Goodrest, Torquay; and to my friend, Mr. Frank E. Taylor, of Chertsey, for information kindly supplied during the progress of the work.
For many of the "parallel passages" from the works of other poets, which are to be found in the notes, I am indebted to a series of articles by A. A. Watts, in the Literary Gazette, February and March, 1821; and to the notes to the late Professor E. Kolbing's Siege of Corinth.
On behalf of the publisher, I beg to acknowledge[x] the kindness of Lord Glenesk, and of Sir Theodore Martin, K.C.B., who have permitted the examination and collation of MSS. of the Siege of Corinth and of the "Thyrza" poems, in their possession.
The original of the miniature of H.R.H. the Princess Charlotte of Wales (see p. 44) is in the Library of Windsor Castle. It has been reproduced for this volume by the gracious permission of Her Majesty the Queen.
ERNEST HARTLEY COLERIDGE.
April 18, 1900.[xi]
Preface to Vol. III. of the Poems | v |
Introduction to Occasional Pieces (Poems 1809-1813; Poems 1814-1816) | xix |
Poems 1809-1813. | |
The Girl of Cadiz. First published in Works of Lord Byron, 1832, viii. 56 | 1 |
Lines written in an Album, at Malta. First published, Childe Harold, 1812 (4to) | 4 |
To Florence. First published, Childe Harold, 1812 (4to) | 5 |
Stanzas composed during a Thunderstorm. First published, Childe Harold, 1812 (4to) | 7 |
Stanzas written in passing the Ambracian Gulf. First published, Childe Harold, 1812 (4to) | 11 |
The Spell is broke, the Charm is flown! First published, Childe Harold, 1812 (4to) | 12 |
Written after swimming from Sestos to Abydos. First published, Childe Harold, 1812 (4to) | 13 |
Lines in the Travellers' Book at Orchomenus. First published, Travels in Italy, Greece, etc., by H. W. Williams, 1820, ii. 290 | 15 |
Maid of Athens, ere we part. First published, Childe Harold, 1812 (4to) | 15 |
Fragment from the "Monk of Athos." First published, Life of Lord Byron, by the Hon. Roden Noel, 1890, pp. 206, 207 | 18 |
Lines written beneath a Picture. First published, Childe Harold, 1812 (4to)[xii] | 19 |
Translation of the famous Greek War Song, Δεῦτε πῖδες, κ.τ.λ. First published, Childe Harold, 1812 (4to) | 20 |
Translation of the Romaic Song, Μνέπω μεσ' τὸ περιβόλι, κ.τ.λ. First published, Childe Harold, 1812 (4to) | 22 |
On Parting. First published, Childe Harold, 1812 (4to) | 23 |
Farewell to Malta. First published, Poems on his Domestic Circumstances, by W. Hone (Sixth Edition, 1816) | 24 |
Newstead Abbey. First published, Memoir of Rev. F. Hodgson, 1878, i. 187 | 27 |
Epistle to a Friend, in answer to some Lines exhorting the Author to be Cheerful, and to "banish Care." First published, Letters and Journals, 1830, i. 301 | 28 |
To Thyrza ["Without a stone," etc.]. First published, Childe Harold, 1812 (4to) | 30 |
Stanzas ["Away, away," etc.]. First published, Childe Harold, 1812 (4to) | 35 |
Stanzas ["One struggle more," etc.]. First published, Childe Harold, 1812 (4to) | 36 |
Euthanasia. First published, Childe Harold, 1812 (Second Edition) | 39 |
Stanzas ["And thou art dead," etc.]. First published, Childe Harold, 1812 (Second Edition) | 41 |
Lines to a Lady weeping. First published, Morning Chronicle, March 7, 1812 | 45 |
Stanzas ["If sometimes," etc.]. First published, Childe Harold, 1812 (Second Edition) | 46 |
On a Cornelian Heart which was broken. First published, Childe Harold, 1812 (Second Edition) | 48 |
The Chain I gave was Fair to view. From the Turkish. First published, Corsair, 1814 (Second Edition) | 49 |
Lines written on a Blank Leaf of The Pleasures of Memory. First published, Poems, 1816 | 50 |
Address, spoken at the Opening of Drury-Lane Theatre, Saturday, October 10, 1812. First published, Morning Chronicle, October 12, 1812 | 51 |
Parenthetical Address. By Dr. Plagiary. First published, Morning Chronicle, October 23, 1812 | 55 |
Verses found in a Summer-house at Hales-Owen. First published, Works of Lord Byron, 1832, xvii. 244 | 59 |
Remember thee! Remember thee! First published, Conversations of Lord Byron, 1824, p. 330 | 59 |
To Time. First published, Childe Harold, 1814 (Seventh Edition) | 60[xiii] |
Translation of a Romaic Love Song. First published, Childe Harold, 1814 (Seventh Edition) | 62 |
Stanzas ["Thou art not false," etc.]. First published, Childe Harold, 1814 (Seventh Edition) | 64 |
On being asked what was the "Origin of Love." First published, Childe Harold, 1814 (Seventh Edition) | 65 |
On the Quotation, "And my true faith," etc. MS. M. | 65 |
Stanzas ["Remember him," etc.]. First published, Childe Harold, 1814 (Seventh Edition) | 69 |
Impromptu, in Reply to a Friend. First published, Childe Harold, 1814 (Seventh Edition) | 67 |
Sonnet. To Genevra ["Thine eyes' blue tenderness," etc.]. First published, Corsair, 1814 (Second Edition) | 70 |
Sonnet. To Genevra ["Thy cheek is pale with thought," etc.]. First published, Corsair, 1814 (Second Edition) | 71 |
From the Portuguese ["Tu mi chamas"]. First published, Childe Harold, 1814 (Seventh Edition). "Another Version." First published, 1831 | 71 |
The Giaour: A Fragment of a Turkish Tale. | |
Introduction to The Giaour | 75 |
Bibliographical Note on The Giaour | 78 |
Dedication | 81 |
Advertisement | 83 |
The Giaour | 85 |
The Bride of Abydos. A Turkish Tale. | |
Introduction to The Bride of Abydos | 149 |
Note to the MSS. of The Bride of Abydos | 151 |
Dedication | 155 |
The Bride of Abydos. Canto the First | 157 |
Canto the Second | 178 |
Note to The Bride of Abydos | 211 |
The Corsair: A Tale. | |
Introduction to The Corsair | 217 |
Bibliographical Note on The Corsair | 220 |
Dedication | 223 |
The Corsair. Canto the First | 227 |
Canto the Second | 249 |
Canto the Third | 270[xiv] |
Introduction to the Ode to Napoleon Buonaparte | 303 |
Ode to Napoleon Buonaparte | 305 |
Lara: A Tale. | |
Introduction to Lara | 319 |
Lara. Canto the First | 323 |
Canto the Second | 348 |
Hebrew Melodies. | |
Introduction to the Hebrew Melodies | 375 |
Advertisement | 379 |
She walks in Beauty | 381 |
The Harp the Monarch Minstrel swept | 382 |
If that High World | 383 |
The Wild Gazelle | 384 |
Oh! weep for those | 385 |
On Jordan's Banks | 386 |
Jephtha's Daughter | 387 |
Oh! snatched away in Beauty's Bloom | 388 |
My Soul is Dark | 389 |
I saw thee weep | 390 |
Thy Days are done | 391 |
Saul | 392 |
Song of Saul before his Last Battle | 393 |
"All is Vanity, saith the Preacher" | 394 |
When Coldness wraps this Suffering Clay | 395 |
Vision of Belshazzar | 397 |
Sun of the Sleepless! | 399 |
Were my Bosom as False as thou deem'st it to be | 399 |
Herod's Lament for Mariamne | 400 |
On the Day of the Destruction of Jerusalem by Titus | 401 |
By the Rivers of Babylon we sat down and wept | 402 |
"By the Waters of Babylon" | 404 |
The Destruction of Sennacherib | 404 |
A Spirit passed before me | 406 |
Poems 1814-1816. | |
Farewell! if ever Fondest Prayer. First published, Corsair (Second Edition, 1814) | 409 |
When we Two parted. First published, Poems, 1816 | 410 |
[Love and Gold.] MS. M. | 411 |
Stanzas for Music ["I speak not, I trace not," etc.]. First published, Fugitive Pieces, 1829 | 413[xv] |
Address intended to be recited at the Caledonian Meeting. First published, Letters and Journals, 1830, i. 559 | 415 |
Elegiac Stanzas on the Death of Sir Peter Parker, Bart. First published, Morning Chronicle, October 7, 1814 | 417 |
Julian [a Fragment]. MS. M. | 419 |
To Belshazzar. First published, 1831 | 421 |
Stanzas for Music ["There's not a joy," etc.]. First published, Poems, 1816 | 423 |
On the Death of the Duke of Dorset. MS. M | 425 |
Stanzas for Music ["Bright be the place of thy soul"]. First published, Examiner, June 4, 1815 | 426 |
Napoleon's Farewell. First published, Examiner, July 30, 1815 | 427 |
From the French ["Must thou go, my glorious Chief?"]. First published, Poems, 1816 | 428 |
Ode from the French ["We do not curse thee, Waterloo!"]. First published, Morning Chronicle, March 15, 1816 | 431 |
Stanzas for Music ["There be none of Beauty's daughters"]. First published, Poems, 1816 | 435 |
On the Star of "the Legion of Honour." First published, Examiner, April 7, 1816 | 436 |
Stanzas for Music ["They say that Hope is happiness"]. First published, Fugitive Pieces, 1829 | 438 |
The Siege of Corinth. | |
Introduction to The Siege of Corinth | 441 |
Dedication | 445 |
Advertisement | 447 |
Note on the MS. of The Siege of Corinth | 448 |
The Siege of Corinth | 449 |
Parisina. | |
Introduction to Parisina | 499 |
Dedication | 501 |
Advertisement | 503 |
Parisina | 505 |
Poems of the Separation. | |
Introduction to Poems of the Separation | 531 |
Fare Thee Well | 537 |
A Sketch | 540 |
Stanzas to Augusta | 544 |
1. Lord Byron in Albanian Dress, from a Portrait in Oils by T. Phillips, R.A., in the Possession of Mr. John Murray | Frontispiece |
2. H.R.H. the Princess Charlotte of Wales, from the Miniature in the Possession of H.M. the Queen, at Windsor Castle | to face p. 44 |
3. Lady Wilmot Horton, from a Sketch by Sir Thomas Lawrence | 380 |
4. Temple of Zeus Nemeus, from a Drawing by William Pars, A.R.A., in the British Museum | 470 |
5. Samuel Taylor Coleridge, from a Portrait in Oils by T. Phillips, R.A., in the Possession of Mr. John Murray | 472 |
6. The Hon. Mrs. Leigh, from a Sketch by Sir George Hayter, in the British Museum | 544 |
The Poems afterwards entitled "Occasional Pieces," which were included in the several editions of the Collected Works issued by Murray, 1819-1831, numbered fifty-seven in all. They may be described as the aggregate of the shorter poems written between the years 1809-1818, which the author thought worthy of a permanent place among his poetical works. Of these the first twenty-nine appeared in successive editions of Childe Harold (Cantos I., II.) «viz. fourteen in the first edition, twenty in the second, and twenty-nine in the seventh edition», while the thirtieth, the Ode on the Death of Sir Peter Parker, was originally attached to Hebrew Melodies. The remaining twenty-seven pieces consist of six poems first published in the Second Edition of the Corsair, 1814; eleven which formed the collection entitled "Poems," 1816; six which were appended to the Prisoner of Chillon, December, 1816; the Very Mournful Ballad, and the Sonnet by Vittorelli, which accompanied the Fourth Canto of Childe Harold, 1818; the Sketch, first included by Murray in his edition of 1819; and the Ode to Venice, which appeared in the same volume as Mazeppa.
Thus matters stood till 1831, when seventy new poems (sixty had been published by Moore, in Letters and Journals, 1830, six were republished from Hobhouse's Imitations and Translations, 1809, and four derived from other sources) were included in a sixth volume of the Collected Works.[xx]
In the edition of 1832-35, twenty-four new poems were added, but four which had appeared in Letters and Journals, 1830, and in the sixth volume of the edition of 1831 were omitted. In the one-volume edition (first issued in 1837 and still in print), the four short pieces omitted in 1832 once more found a place, and the lines on "John Keats," first published in Letters and Journals, and the two stanzas to Lady Caroline Lamb, "Remember thee! remember thee," first printed by Medwin, in the Conversations of Lord Byron, 1824, were included in the Collection.
The third volume of the present issue includes all minor poems (with the exception of epigrams and jeux d'esprit reserved for the sixth volume) written after Byron's departure for the East in July, 1809, and before he left England for good in April, 1816.
The "Separation" and its consequent exile afforded a pretext and an opportunity for the publication of a crop of spurious verses. Of these Madame Lavalette (first published in the Examiner, January 21, 1816, under the signature B.B., and immediately preceding a genuine sonnet by Wordsworth, "How clear, how keen, how marvellously bright!") and Oh Shame to thee, Land of the Gaul! included by Hone, in Poems on his Domestic Circumstances, 1816; and Farewell to England, Ode to the Isle of St. Helena, To the Lily of France, On the Morning of my Daughter's Birth, published by J. Johnston, 1816, were repudiated by Byron, in a letter to Murray, dated July 22, 1816. A longer poem entitled The Tempest, which was attached to the spurious Pilgrimage to the Holy Land, published by Johnston, "the Cheapside impostor," in 1817, was also denounced by Byron as a forgery in a letter to Murray, dated December 16, 1816.
The Triumph of the Whale, by Charles Lamb, and the Enigma on the Letter H, by Harriet Fanshawe, were often included in piratical editions of Byron's Poetical Works. Other attributed poems which found their way into newspapers and foreign editions, viz. (i.) To my dear Mary Anne, 1804, "Adieu to sweet Mary for ever;" and (ii.) To Miss Chaworth, "Oh, memory, torture me no more," 1804, published in Works of Lord Byron, Paris, 1828; (iii.) lines written In the Bible, "Within this awful volume lies," quoted[xxi] in Life, Writings, Opinions, etc., 1825, iii. 414; (iv.) lines addressed to (?) George Anson Byron, "And dost thou ask the reason of my sadness?" Nicnac, March 29, 1823; (v.) To Lady Caroline Lamb, "And sayst thou that I have not felt," published in Works, etc., 1828; (vi.) lines To her who can best understand them, "Be it so, we part for ever," published in the Works of Lord Byron, In Verse and Prose, Hartford, 1847; (vii.) Lines found in the Travellers' Book at Chamouni, "How many numbered are, how few agreed!" published Works, etc., 1828; and (viii.) a second copy of verses with the same title, "All hail, Mont Blanc! Mont-au-Vert, hail!" Life, Writings, etc., 1825, ii. 384; (ix.) Lines addressed by Lord Byron to Mr. Hobhouse on his Election for Westminster, "Would you get to the house by the true gate?" Works, etc., 1828; and (x.) Enigma on the Letter I, "I am not in youth, nor in manhood, nor age," Works, etc., Paris, p. 720, together with sundry epigrams, must, failing the production of the original MSS., be accounted forgeries, or, perhaps, in one or two instances, of doubtful authenticity.
The following poems: On the Quotation, "And my true faith" etc.; [Love and Gold]; Julian [a Fragment]; and On the Death of the Duke of Dorset, are now published for the first time from MSS. in the possession of Mr. John Murray.
1809.
[First published, 1832.][4]
Malta, September 14, 1809.
[First published, Childe Harold, 1812 (4to).]
September, 1809.
[First published, Childe Harold, 1812 (4to).]
October 11, 1809.
[MS. M. First published, Childe Harold, 1812 (4to).]
November 14, 1809.
[MS. M. First published, Childe Harold, 1812 (4to).]
WRITTEN AT ATHENS, JANUARY 16, 1810.
[MS. M. First published, Childe Harold, 1812 (4to).][13]
May 9, 1810.
[First published, Childe Harold, 1812 (4to).][15]
IN THIS BOOK A TRAVELLER HAD WRITTEN:—
BENEATH WHICH LORD BYRON INSERTED THE FOLLOWING:—
1810.
[First published, Life, 1830.]
Ζωή μου, σᾶς ἀγαπῶ.
Athens, 1810.
[First published, Childe Harold, 1812 (4to).]
[First published in the Life of Lord Byron,
by the Hon. Roden Noel, London, 1890, pp. 206, 207.]
Athens, January, 1811.
[First published, Childe Harold, 1812 (4to).]
"Δεῦτε παῖδες τῶν Ἑλλήνων." [16]
[First published, Childe Harold, 1812 (4to).]
“Μπένω μεσ' τὸ περιβόλι
Ὡραιοτάτη Χαηδή,” κ.τ.λ.[18]
1811.
[First published, Childe Harold, 1812 (4to).]
March, 1811.
[First published, Childe Harold, 1812(4to).]
May 26, 1811.[26]
[First published, 1816.]
August 26, 1811.
[First published in Memoir of Rev. F. Hodgson, 1878, i. 187.]
IN ANSWER TO SOME LINES EXHORTING THE AUTHOR
TO BE CHEERFUL, AND TO "BANISH CARE."
Newstead Abbey, Oct. 11, 1811.
[First published, Life, 1830.]
October 11, 1811.
[First published, Childe Harold, 1812 (4to).]
December 8, 1811.
[First published, Childe Harold, 1812 (4to).]
[First published, Childe Harold, 1812 (4to).]
[First published, Childe Harold, 1812 (Second Edition).]
"Heu, quanto minus est cum reliquis versari quam tui meminisse!"[34]
February, 1812.
[First published, Childe Harold, 1812 (Second Edition).]
March, 1812.
[MS. M. First published, Morning Chronicle, March 7, 1812
(Corsair, 1814, Second Edition).]
March 14, 1812.
[First published, Childe Harold, 1812 (Second Edition).]
March 16, 1812.
[First published, Childe Harold, 1812 (Second Edition).]
FROM THE TURKISH.
[MS. M. First published, Corsair, 1814 (Second Edition).][50]
April 19, 1812.
[First published, Poems, 1816.]
[First published, Morning Chronicle, Oct. 12, 1812.]
BY DR. PLAGIARY.
Half stolen, with acknowledgments, to be spoken in an inarticulate voice by Master —— at the opening of the next new theatre. [Stolen parts marked with the inverted commas of quotation—thus “——”.]
[First published, Morning Chronicle, October 23, 1812.][59]
[First published, 1832, vol. xvii.]
[First published, Conversations of Lord Byron, 1824.]
[MS. M. First published, Childe Harold, 1814 (Seventh Edition).]
[First published, Childe Harold, 1814 (Seventh Edition).][64]
[MS. M. First published, Childe Harold, 1814 (Seventh Edition).]
[First published, Childe Harold, 1814 (Seventh Edition).]
1812.
[From a MS. in the possession of Mr. Murray, now for the first time printed.]
1813.
[MS. M. First published, Childe Harold, 1814 (Seventh Edition).]
September, 1813.
[MS. M. first published, Childe Harold, 1814 (Seventh Edition).]
TO GENEVRA.
December 17, 1813.[53]
[MS. M. First published, Corsair, 1814 (Second Edition).]
TO GENEVRA.
December 17, 1813.
[MS. M. First published, Corsair, 1814 (Second Edition).]
"TU MI CHAMAS."
[MS. M.]
[Stanzas 1, 2 first published, Childe Harold, 1814 (Seventh Edition).
"Another Version," first published, 1832.]
[1] [These stanzas were inserted in the first draft of the First Canto of Childe Harold, after the eighty-sixth stanza. "The struggle 'gainst the Demon's sway" (see stanza lxxxiv.) had, apparently, resulted in victory, for the "unpremeditated lay" poured forth at the time betrays the youth and high spirits of the singer. But the inconsistency was detected in time, and the lines, To Inez, dated January 25, 1810, with their "touches of dreariest sadness," were substituted for the simple and cheerful strains of The Girl of Cadiz (see Poetical Works, 1899, ii. 75, note 1; Life, p. 151).]
[a] {1} For thou hast never lived to see.—[MS. M. erased.]
[b] {2} The Saxon maids——.—[MS. M.]
[2] [Compare Childe Harold, Canto I. stanza lviii. lines 8, 9, Poetical Works, 1899, ii. 59, note 1.]
[3] {3} [For "Bolero," see Poetical Works, 1898, i. 492, note 1.]
[d] ——the lovely Girl of Cadiz.—[MS. M.]
[e]
{4} Written in an Album.—[Editions 1812-1831.]
Written in Mrs. Spencer S.'s——.—[MS. M. erased]
Written at the request of a lady in her memorandum book.—[MS. B. M.]
"Mrs. S. S.'s request."—[Erased. MS. B.M.]
[4] [The possessor of the album was, doubtless, Mrs. Spencer Smith, the "Lady" of the lines To Florence, "the sweet Florence" of the Stanzas composed during a Thunderstorm, and of the Stanzas written in passing through the Ambracian Gulf, and, finally, when "The Spell is broke, the Charm is flown," the "fair Florence" of stanzas xxxii., xxxiii. of the Second Canto of Childe Harold. In a letter to his mother, dated September 15, 1809, Byron writes, "This letter is committed to the charge of a very extraordinary woman, whom you have doubtless heard of, Mrs. Spencer Smith, of whose escape the Marquis de Salvo published a narrative a few years ago (Travels in the Year 1806, from Italy to England through the Tyrol, etc., containing the particulars of the liberation of Mrs. Spencer Smith from the hands of the French Police, London: 12mo, 1807). She has since been shipwrecked, and her life has been from its commencement so fertile in remarkable incidents, that in a romance they would appear improbable. She was born at Constantinople [circ. 1785], where her father, Baron Herbert, was Austrian Ambassador; married unhappily, yet has never been impeached in point of character; excited the vengeance of Buonaparte by a part in some conspiracy; several times risked her life; and is not yet twenty-five."
John Spencer Smith, the "Lady's" husband, was a younger brother of Admiral Sir Sidney Smith, the hero of the siege of Acre. He began life as a Page of Honour to Queen Charlotte, was, afterwards, attached to the Turkish Embassy, and (May 4, 1798) appointed Minister Plenipotentiary. On January 5, 1799, he concluded the treaty of defensive alliance with the Porte; and, October 30, 1799, obtained the freedom of the Black Sea for the English flag (see Remains of the late John Tweddell. London: 1815. See, too, for Mrs. Spencer Smith, Letters, 1898, i. 244, 245, note 1).]
[f] {5} To——.—[Editions 1812-1832.]
[g] {6} Through giant Danger's rugged path.—[MS. M.]
[h] {7} Stanzas—[1812.]
[5] Composed Octr. 11, 1809, during the night in a thunderstorm, when the guides had lost the road to Zitza, near the range of mountains formerly called Pindus, in Albania. [Editions 1812-1831.]
[This thunderstorm occurred during the night of the 11th October, 1809, when Lord Byron's guides had lost the road to Zitza, near the range of mountains formerly called Pindus, in Albania. Hobhouse, who had ridden on before the rest of the party, and arrived at Zitza just as the evening set in, describes the thunder as rolling "without intermission—the echoes of one peal had not ceased to roll in the mountains, before another tremendous crash burst over our heads, whilst the plains and the distant hills, visible through the cracks in the cabin, appeared in a perpetual blaze. The tempest was altogether terrific, and worthy of the Grecian Jove. Lord Byron, with the priest and the servants, did not enter our hut before three (in the morning). I now learnt from him that they had lost their way, ... and that after wandering up and down in total ignorance of their position, had, at last, stopped near some Turkish tombstones and a torrent, which they saw by the flashes of lightning. They had been thus exposed for nine hours. ... It was long before we ceased to talk of the thunderstorm in the plain of Zitza."—Travels in Albania, 1858, i. 70, 72; Childe Harold, Canto II. stanza xlviii., Poetical Works, 1899, ii. 129, note 1.]
[i] {11} Stanzas.—[1812.]
[j] {12} Had Bards but realms along with rhymes.—[MS. M.]
[k] Again we'd see some Antonies.—[MS. M.]
[l] Though Jove——.—[MS. M.]
[6] [Compare [A Woman's Hair] stanza 1, line 4, "I would not lose you for a world."—Poetical Works, 1898, i. 233.]
[m] Written at Athens.—[1812.]
[7] {13} On the 3rd of May, 1810, while the Salsette (Captain Bathurst) was lying in the Dardanelles, Lieutenant Ekenhead, of that frigate, and the writer of these rhymes, swam from the European shore to the Asiatic—by the by, from Abydos to Sestos would have been more correct. The whole distance, from the place whence we started to our landing on the other side, including the length we were carried by the current, was computed by those on board the frigate at upwards of four English miles, though the actual breadth is barely one. The rapidity of the current is such that no boat can row directly across, and it may, in some measure, be estimated from the circumstance of the whole distance being accomplished by one of the parties in an hour and five, and by the other in an hour and ten minutes. The water was extremely cold, from the melting of the mountain snows. About three weeks before, in April, we had made an attempt; but having ridden all the way from the Troad the same morning, and the water being of an icy chillness, we found it necessary to postpone the completion till the frigate anchored below the castles, when we swam the straits as just stated, entering a considerable way above the European, and landing below the Asiatic, fort. [Le] Chevalier says that a young Jew swam the same distance for his mistress; and Olivier mentions its having been done by a Neapolitan; but our consul, Tarragona, remembered neither of these circumstances, and tried to dissuade us from the attempt. A number of the Salsette's crew were known to have accomplished a greater distance; and the only thing that surprised me was that, as doubts had been entertained of the truth of Leander's story, no traveller had ever endeavoured to ascertain its practicability. [See letter to Drury, dated May 3; to his mother, May 24, 1810, etc. (Letters, 1898, i. 262, 275). Compare the well-known lines in Don Juan, Canto II. stanza cv.—
Compare, too, Childe Harold, Canto IV. stanza clxxxiv. line 3, and the Bride of Abydos, Canto II. stanza i.: Poetical Works, 1899, ii. 461, note 2, et post, p. 178.]
[8] {14} [Hobhouse, who records the first attempt to cross the Hellespont, on April 16, and the successful achievement of the feat, May 3, 1810, adds the following note: "In my journal, in my friend's handwriting: 'The whole distance E. and myself swam was more than four miles—the current very strong and cold—some large fish near us when half across—we were not fatigued, but a little chilled—did it with little difficulty.—May, 6, 1810. Byron.'"—Travels in Albania, ii. 195.]
[9] {15} ["At Orchomenus, where stood the Temple of the Graces, I was tempted to exclaim, 'Whither have the Graces fled?' Little did I expect to find them here. Yet here comes one of them with golden cups and coffee, and another with a book. The book is a register of names.... Among these is Lord Byron's connected with some lines which I shall send you: 'Fair Albion,' etc." (See Travels in Italy, Greece, etc., by H. W. Williams, ii. 290, 291; Life, p. 101.)]
[n] Song.—[1812.]
[10] [The Maid of Athens was, it is supposed, the eldest of three sisters, daughters of Theodora Macri, the widow of a former English vice-consul. Byron and Hobhouse lodged at her house. The sisters were sought out and described by the artist, Hugh W. Williams, who visited Athens in May, 1817: "Theresa, the Maid of Athens, Catinco, and Mariana, are of middle stature.... The two eldest have black, or dark hair and eyes; their visage oval, and complexion somewhat pale, with teeth of pearly whiteness. Their cheeks are rounded, their noses straight, rather inclined to aquiline. The youngest, Mariana, is very fair, her face not so finely rounded, but has a gayer expression than her sisters', whose countenances, except when the conversation has something of mirth in it, may be said to be rather pensive. Their persons are elegant, and their manners pleasing and lady-like, such as would be fascinating in any country. They possess very considerable powers of conversation, and their minds seem to be more instructed than those of the Greek women in general."—Travels in Italy, Greece, etc., ii. 291, 292.
Other travellers, Hughes, who visited Athens in 1813, and Walsh (Narrative of a Resident in Constantinople, i. 122), who saw Theresa in 1821, found her charming and interesting, but speak of her beauty as a thing of the past. "She married an Englishman named Black, employed in H.M. Consular Service at Mesolonghi. She survived her husband and fell into great poverty.... Theresa Black died October 15, 1875, aged 80 years." (See Letters, 1898, i. 269, 270, note 1; and Life, p. 105, note.)
"Maid of Athens" is possibly the best-known of Byron's short poems, all over the English-speaking world. This is no doubt due in part to its having been set to music by about half a dozen composers—the latest of whom was Gounod.]
[11] {16} Romaic expression of tenderness. If I translate it, I shall affront the gentlemen, as it may seem that I supposed they could not; and if I do not, I may affront the ladies. For fear of any misconstruction on the part of the latter, I shall do so, begging pardon of the learned. It means, "My life, I love you!" which sounds very prettily in all languages, and is as much in fashion in Greece at this day as, Juvenal tells us, the two first words were amongst the Roman ladies, whose erotic expressions were all Hellenised. [The reference is to the Ζωή καὶ Ψχὴ of Roman courtesans. Vide Juvenal, lib. ii., Sat. vi. line 195; Martial, Epig. x. 68. 5.]
[12] {17} In the East (where ladies are not taught to write, lest they should scribble assignations), flowers, cinders, pebbles, etc., convey the sentiments of the parties, by that universal deputy of Mercury—an old woman. A cinder says, "I burn for thee;" a bunch of flowers tied with hair, "Take me and fly;" but a pebble declares—what nothing else can. [Compare The Bride of Abydos, line 295—
See, too, Medwin's story of "one of the principal incidents in The Giaour." "I was in despair, and could hardly contrive to get a cinder, or a token-flower sent to express it."—Conversations of Lord Byron, 1824, p. 122.]
[13] Constantinople. [Compare—
Poems, by Thomas Carew, ed. 1640, p. 36.]
[14] {18} [Given to the Hon. Roden Noel by S. McCalmont Hill, who inherited it from his great-grandfather, Robert Dallas. No date or occasion of the piece has been recorded.—Life of Lord Byron, 1890, p. 5.]
[15] {19} [These lines are copied from a leaf of the original MS. of the Second Canto of Childe Harold. They are headed, "Lines written beneath the Picture of J.U.D."
In a curious work of doubtful authority, entitled, The Life, Writings, Opinions and Times of the Right Hon. G. G. Noel Byron, London, 1825 (iii. 123-132), there is a long and circumstantial narrative of a "defeated" attempt of Byron's to rescue a Georgian girl, whom he had bought in the slave-market for 800 piastres, from a life of shame and degradation. It is improbable that these verses suggested the story; and, on the other hand, the story, if true, does afford some clue to the verses.]
[16] {20} The song Δεῦτε παῖδες, etc., was written by Riga, who perished in the attempt to revolutionize Greece. This translation is as literal as the author could make it in verse. It is of the same measure as that of the original. [For the original, see Poetical Works, 1891, Appendix, p. 792. For Constantine Rhigas, see Poetical Works, 1899, ii. 199, note 2. Hobhouse (Travels in Albania, 1858, ii. 3) prints a version (Byron told Murray that it was "well enough," Letters, 1899, iii. 13) of Δεῦτε παῖδες of his own composition. He explains in a footnote that the metre is "a mixed trochaic, except the chorus." "This song," he adds, "the chorus particularly, is sung to a tune very nearly the same as the Marseillois Hymn. Strangely enough, Lord Byron, in his translation, has entirely mistaken the metre." The first stanza runs as follows:—
[17] {21} Constantinople. "Ἑπτάλοφος."
[18] {22} The song from which this is taken is a great favourite with the young girls of Athens of all classes. Their manner of singing it is by verses in rotation, the whole number present joining in the chorus. I have heard it frequently at our "χόροι" in the winter of 1810-11. The air is plaintive and pretty.
[o] {23} Has bound my soul to thee——[MS. M.]
[p] When wandering forth alone——[MS. M.]
[q] {24}
[19] [These lines, which are undoubtedly genuine, were published for the first time in the sixth edition of Poems on his Domestic Circumstances (W. Hone, 1816). They were first included by Murray in the collected Poetical Works, in vol. xvii., 1832.]
[20] ["The principal streets of the city of Valetta are flights of stairs."—Gazetteer of the World.]
[21] {25} [Major-General Hildebrand Oakes (1754-1822) succeeded Admiral Sir Richard Goodwin Keates as "his Majesty's commissioner for the affairs of Malta," April 27, 1810. There was an outbreak of plague during his tenure of office (1810-13).—Annual Register, 1810, p. 320; Dict. Nat. Biog., art. "Oakes."]
[22] ["Lord Byron ... was once rather near fighting a duel—and that was with an officer of the staff of General Oakes at Malta" (1809).—Westminster Review, January, 1825, iii. 21 (by J. C. Hobhouse). (See, too, Life (First Edition, 1830, 4to), i. 202, 222.)]
[23] [On March 13, 1811, Captain (Sir William) Hoste (1780-1828) defeated a combined French and Italian squadron off the island of Lissa, on the Dalmatian coast. "The French commodore's ship La Favorite was burnt, himself (Dubourdieu) being killed." The four victorious frigates with their prizes arrived at Malta, March 31, when the garrison "ran out unarmed to receive and hail them." The Volage, in which Byron returned to England, took part in the engagement. Captain Hoste had taken a prize off Fiume in the preceding year.—Annual Register, 1811; Memoirs and Letters of Sir W. Hoste, ii. 79.]
[24] {26} ["We have had balls and fetes given us by all classes here, and it is impossible to convey to you the sensation our success has given rise to."—Memoirs and Letters of Sir W. Hoste, ii. 82.]
[25] [Mrs. (Susan) Fraser published, in 1809, "Camilla de Florian (the scene is laid in Valetta) and Other Poems. By an Officer's Wife." Byron was, no doubt, struck by her admiration for Macpherson's Ossian, and had read with interest her version of "The Address to the Sun," in Carthon, p. 31 (see Poetical Works, 1898, i. 229). He may, too, have regarded with favour some stanzas in honour of the Bolero (p. 82), which begin, "When, my Love, supinely laying."]
[26] {27} [Byron left Malta for England June 13, 1811. (See Letter to H. Drury, July 17, 1811, Letters, 1898, i. 318.)]
[r] {28} And mine was the pride and the worth of a name—[MS. M.]
[s] It tells not of time——.—[MS. M.]
[27] Francis Hodgson.
[28] {30} [Hodgson stipulated that the last twelve lines should be omitted, but Moore disregarded his wishes, and included the poem as it stands in his Life. A marginal note ran thus: "N.B. The poor dear soul meant nothing of this. F.H."—Memoir of Rev. Francis Hodgson, 1878, i. 212.]
[t] On the death of——Thyrza.—[MS.]
[29] [The following note on the identity of Thyrza has been communicated to the Editor:—
"The identity of Thyrza and the question whether the person addressed under this name really existed, or was an imaginary being, have given rise to much speculation and discussion of a more or less futile kind.
"This difficulty is now incapable of definite and authoritative solution, and the allusions in the verses in some respects disagree with things said by Lord Byron later. According to the poems, Thyrza had met him
"' ... many a day
In these, to me, deserted towers.'
(Newstead, October 11, 1811.)
"'When stretched on fever's sleepless bed.'
(At Patras, about September, 1810.)
"'Death for thee
Prepared a light and pangless dart.'
"'And oft I thought at Cynthia's noon,
When sailing o'er the Ægean wave,
"Now Thyrza gazes on that moon"—
Alas, it gleam'd upon her grave!'
(One struggle more, and I am free.)
"Finally, in the verses of October 11, 1811—
"'The pledge we wore—I wear it still,
But where is thine?—Ah! where art thou?'
"There can be no doubt that Lord Byron referred to Thyrza in conversation with Lady Byron, and probably also with Mrs. Leigh, as a young girl who had existed, and the date of whose death almost coincided with Lord Byron's landing in England in 1811. On one occasion he showed Lady Byron a beautiful tress of hair, which she understood to be Thyrza's. He said he had never mentioned her name, and that now she was gone his breast was the sole depository of that secret. 'I took the name of Thyrza from Gesner. She was Abel's wife.'
"Thyrza is mentioned in a letter from Elizabeth, Duchess of Devonshire, to Augustus Foster (London, May 4, 1812): 'Your little friend, Caro William (Lady Caroline Lamb), as usual, is doing all sorts of imprudent things for him (Lord Byron) and with him; he admires her very much, but is supposed by some to admire our Caroline (the Hon. Mrs. George Lamb) more; he says she is like Thyrsa, and her singing is enchantment to him.' From this extract it is obvious that Thyrza is alluded to in the following lines, which, with the above quotation, may be reproduced, by kind permission of Mr. Vere Foster, from his most interesting book, The Two Duchesses (1898, pp. 362-374).
"'Verses Addressed by Lord Byron in the year 1812
to the Hon. Mrs. George Lamb.The sacred song that on my ear
Yet vibrates from that voice of thine
I heard before from one so dear,
'Tis strange it still appears divine.
But oh! so sweet that look and tone
To her and thee alike is given;
It seemed as if for me alone
That both had been recalled from Heaven.
And though I never can redeem
The vision thus endeared to me,
I scarcely can regret my dream
When realized again by thee.'"
(It may be noted that the name Thirza, or Thyrza, a variant of Theresa, had been familiar to Byron in his childhood. In the Preface to Cain he writes, "Gesner's Death of Abel! I have never read since I was eight years of age at Aberdeen. The general impression of my recollection is delight; but of the contents I remember only that Cain's wife was called Mahala, and Abel's Thirza." Another and more immediate suggestion of the name may be traced to the following translation of Meleager's Epitaphium In Heliodoram, which one of the "associate bards," Bland, or Merivale, or Hodgson, contributed to their Translations chiefly from the Greek Anthology, 1806, p. 4, a work which Byron singles out for commendation in English Bards, etc, (lines 881-890):—
The MSS. of "To Thyrza," "Away, away, ye notes of Woe!" "One struggle more, and I am free," and, "And thou art dead, as young and fair," which belonged originally to Mrs. Leigh, are now in the possession of Sir Theodore Martin, K.C.B.—Editor.)]
[30] [For the substitution in the present issue of continuous lines for stanzas, Byron's own authority and mandate may be quoted. "In reading the 4th vol.... I perceive that piece 12 ('Without a Stone') is made nonsense of (that is, greater nonsense than usual) by dividing it into stanzas 1, 2, etc."—Letter to John Murray, August 26, 1815, Letters, 1899, iii. 215.]
[u] And soothe if such could soothe thy shade.—[MS. erased.]
[v] {31} By many a land——.—[MS.]
[w] {33} And shall they not——.—[MS.]
[x] ——the walk aside.—[MS.]
[z] {34} Well hast thou fled——.—[MS. erased.]
[ab] So let it be my hope in Heaven.—[MS. erased]
[ac] {35} Stanzas.—[MS. Editions 1812-1832.]
[31] ["I wrote it a day or two ago, on hearing a song of former days."—Letter to Hodgson, December 8, 1811, Letters, 1898, ii. 82.]
[ad] I dare not hear——.—[MS. erased.]
[ae] But hush the chords——.—[MS. erased.]
[af] ——I dare not gaze.—[MS. erased.]
[ag] The voice that made that song more sweet.—[MS.]
[ah] 'Tis silent now——.—[MS.]
[ai] {36} To Thyrza.—[Editions 1812-1831.]
[ak] With things that moved me not before.—[MS. erased.]
[al] What sorrow cannot——.—[MS.]
[an] {38} —how oft I said.—[MS. erased.]
[32] [Compare My Epitaph: "Youth, Nature and relenting Jove."—Letter to Hodgson, October 3, 1810, Letters, 1898, i. 298.]
[ap] Dear simple gift——.—[MS. erased.]
[33] {39} Compare A Wish, by Matthew Arnold, stanza 3, etc.—
[aq] {41} Stanzas.—[Editions 1812-1831.]
[34] ["The Lovers' Walk is terminated with an ornamental urn, inscribed to Miss Dolman, a beautiful and amiable relation of Mr. Shenstone's, who died of the small-pox, about twenty-one years of age, in the following words on one side:—
On the other side—
(From a Description of the Leasowes, by A. Dodsley; Poetical Works of William Shenstone [1798], p. xxix.)]
[as] Unhonoured with the vulgar dread.—[MS. erased.]
[at] {42}
[au] So I shall know it not.—[MS. erased.]
[av] Like common dust can rot.—[MS.]
[aw] I would not wish to see nor touch.—[MS. erased.]
[ax] As well as warm as thou.—[MS. erased.]
[ay] MS. transposes lines 5 and 6 of stanza 3.
[az] Nor frailty disavow.—[MS.]
[ba] Nor canst thou fair and faultless see.—[MS. erased.]
[bb] Nor wrong, nor change, nor fault in me.—[MS.]
[bc] {43} The cloud that cheers——.—[MS.]
[bd] The sweetness of that silent deep.—[MS.]
[bf] I do not deem I could have borne.—[MS.]
[bh] {44} As stars that seem to quit the sky.—[MS.]
[bj] Through dark and dull Eternity.—[MS.]
[bk] {45} Sympathetic Address to a Young Lady.— [Morning Chronicle, March 7, 1812.]
[35] [The scene which begat these memorable stanzas was enacted at a banquet at Carlton House, February 22, 1812. On March 6 the following quatrain, entitled, "Impromptu on a Recent Incident," appeared in the Morning Chronicle:—
Byron's lines, headed, "Sympathetic Address to a Young Lady," were published anonymously in the Morning Chronicle of March 7, but it was not till March 10 that the Courier ventured to insert a report of "The Fracas at Carlton House on the 22nd ult.," which had already been communicated to the Caledonian Mercury.
"The party consisted of the Princess Charlotte, the Duchess of York, the Dukes of York and Cambridge, Lords Moira, Erskine, Lauderdale, Messrs. Adams and Sheridan.
"The Prince Regent expressed 'his surprise and mortification' at the conduct of Lords Grey and Grenville [who had replied unfavourably to a letter addressed by the P.R. to the Duke of York, suggesting an united administration]. Lord Lauderdale thereupon, with a freedom unusual in courts, asserted that the reply did not express the opinions of Lords Grey and Grenville only, but of every political friend of that way of thinking, and that he had been present at and assisted in the drawing-up, and that every sentence had his cordial assent. The Prince was suddenly and deeply affected by Lord Lauderdale's reply, so much so, that the Princess, observing his agitation, dropt her head and burst into tears—upon which the Prince turned round and begged the female part of the company to withdraw."
In the following June, at a ball at Miss Johnson's, Byron was "presented by order to our gracious Regent, who honoured me with some conversation," and for a time he ignored and perhaps regretted his anonymous jeu d'esprit. But early in 1814, either out of mere bravado or in an access of political rancour, he determined to republish the stanzas under his own name. The first edition of the Corsair was printed, if not published, but in accordance with a peremptory direction (January 22, 1814), "eight lines on the little Royalty weeping in 1812," were included among the poems printed at the end of the second edition.
The "newspapers were in hysterics and town in an uproar on the avowal and republication" of the stanzas (Diary, February 18), and during Byron's absence from town "Murray omitted the Tears in several of the copies"—that is, in the Third Edition—but yielding to force majeure, replaced them in a Fourth Edition, which was issued early in February. (See Letters of July 6, 1812, January 22, February 2, and February 10, 1814 (Letters, 1898, ii. 134, etc.); and for "Newspaper Attacks upon Byron," see Letters, 1898, ii. Appendix VII. pp. 463-492.)]
[bl] Stanzas.—[1812.]
[36] {48} [For allusion to the "Cornelian" see "The Cornelian," ["Pignus Amoris"], and "The Adieu," stanza 7, Poetical Works, 1898, i. 66, 231, 240. See, too, Letters, 1898, i. 130, note 3.]
[bm] {50} To Samuel Rogers, Esq.—[Poems, 1816.]
[37] ["Rogers is silent,—and, it is said, severe. When he does talk, he talks well; and, on all subjects of taste, his delicacy of expression is pure as his poetry. If you enter his house—his drawing-room—his library—you of yourself say, this is not the dwelling of a common mind. There is not a gem, a coin, a book thrown aside on his chimney-piece, his sofa, his table, that does not bespeak an almost fastidious elegance in the possessor."—Diary, 1813; Letters, 1898, ii. 331.]
[38] [Compare Collins' Ode on the Death of Mr. Thomson—"In yonder grave a Druid lies."]
[39] {51} ["Mr. Elliston then came forward and delivered the following Prize address. We cannot boast of the eloquence of the delivery. It was neither gracefully nor correctly recited. The merits of the production itself we submit to the criticism of our readers. We cannot suppose that it was selected as the most poetical composition of all the scores that were submitted to the committee. But perhaps by its tenor, by its allusions to Garrick, to Siddons, and to Sheridan, it was thought most applicable to the occasion, notwithstanding its being in part unmusical, and in general tame."—Morning Chronicle, October 12, 1812.]
[40] ["By the by, the best view of the said fire [February 24, 1809] (which I myself saw from a house-top in Covent-garden) was at Westminster Bridge, from the reflection on the Thames."—Letter to Lord Holland, September 25, 1812, Letters, 1898, ii. 148.]
[bo] {52}
[bp] That scorns the scythe of Time, the torch of Flame.—[Letter to Lord Holland, Sept, 28, 1812.]
[bq] {53}
[41] [Originally, "Ere Garrick died," etc. "By the by, one of my corrections in the fair copy sent yesterday has dived into the bathos some sixty fathom—
Ceasing to live is a much more serious concern, and ought not to be first; therefore I will let the old couplet stand, with its half rhymes 'sought' and 'wrote' [vide supra, variant ii.] Second thoughts in every thing are best, but, in rhyme, third and fourth don't come amiss.... I always scrawl in this way, and smooth as much as I can, but never sufficiently."—Letter to Lord Holland, September 26, 1812, Letters, 1898, ii. 150.]
[42] {54} [The following lines were omitted by the Committee:—
The last couplet but one was altered in a later copy, thus—
"Is Whitbread," wrote Lord Byron, "determined to castrate all my cavalry lines?... I do implore, for my own gratification, one lash on those accursed quadrupeds—'a long shot, Sir Lucius, if you love me.'"—Letter to Lord Holland, September 28, 1812, Letters, 1898, ii. 156. For "animal performers," vide ibid., note 1.]
[43] [Lines 66-69 were added on September 24, in a letter to Lord Holland.]
[44] {55} [The original of Dr. Busby's address, entitled "Monologue submitted to the Committee of Drury Lane Theatre," which was published in the Morning Chronicle, October 17, 1812, "will be found in the Genuine Rejected Addresses, as well as parodied in Rejected Addresses ('Architectural Atoms'). On October 14 young Busby forced his way on to the stage of Drury Lane, attempted to recite his father's address, and was taken into custody. On the next night, Dr. Busby, speaking from one of the boxes, obtained a hearing for his son, who could not, however, make his voice heard in the theatre.... To the failure of the younger Busby (himself a competitor and the author of an 'Unalogue'...) to make himself heard, Byron alludes in the stage direction, 'to be spoken in an inarticulate voice.'" (See Letters, 1898, ii. 176; and for Dr. Busby, see Poetical Works, 1898, i. 481, 485.) Busby's "Address" ran as follows:—
Morning Chronicle, October 17, 1812.]
[45] {57} [Busby's translation of Lucretius (The Nature of Things, a Didascalie Poem) was published in 1813. Byron was a subscriber, and is mentioned in the preface as "one of the most distinguished poets of the age." The passage in question is, perhaps, taken from the Second Book, lines 880, 881, which Busby renders—
[46] {59} [The Leasowes, the residence of the poet Shenstone, is near the village of Halesowen, in Shropshire.]
[47] [See Dryden's Cymon and Iphigenia, lines 84, 85.]
[48] [The sequel of a temporary liaison formed by Lord Byron during his career in London, occasioned this impromptu. On the cessation of the connection, the fair one [Lady C. Lamb: see Letters, 1898, ii. 451] called one morning at her quondam lover's apartments. His Lordship was from home; but finding Vathek on the table, the lady wrote in the first page of the volume the words, "Remember me!" Byron immediately wrote under the ominous warning these two stanzas.—Conversations of Lord Byron, by Thomas Medwin, 1824, pp. 329, 330.
In Medwin's work the euphemisms false and fiend are represented by asterisks.]
[49] {60} ["To Bd., Feb. 22, 1813.
From a MS. (in the possession of Mr. Hallam Murray) not in Byron's handwriting.]
[bs] {61} ——not confessed thy power.—[MS. M. erased.]
[bt] ——still forgets the hour.—[MS. M. erased.]
[bu] {64} Song.—[Childe Harold, 1814.]
[50] ["I send you some lines which may as well be called 'A Song' as anything else, and will do for your new edition."—B.—(MS. M.)]
[bv] But her who not——.—[MS. M.]
[bw] {65} To Ianthe.—[MS. M. Compare "The Dedication" to Childe Harold.]
[51] {67} [It is possible that these lines, as well as the Sonnets "To Genevra," were addressed to Lady Frances Wedderburn Webster.—See Letters, 1898, ii. 2, note 1; and Letters, 1899, iii. 8, note 1.]
[bx] To him who loves and her who loved.—[MS. M.]
[by] That trembling form——.—[MS. M.]
[ca] And crush——.—[MS. M.]
[cb] And I been not unworthy thee.—[MS. M.]
[cc] Long may thy days——.—[MS. M.]
[cd] Might make my hope of guilty joy.—[MS.]
[52] [Byron forwarded these lines to Moore in a postscript to a letter dated September 27, 1813. "Here's," he writes, "an impromptu for you by a 'person of quality,' written last week, on being reproached for low spirits."—Letters, 1898, ii. 268. They were written at Aston Hall, Rotherham, where he "stayed a week ... and behaved very well—though the lady of the house [Lady F. Wedderburn Webster] is young, and religious, and pretty, and the master is my particular friend."—Letters, 1898, ii. 267.]
[ce] {70} And bleed——.—[MS. M.]
[53] ["Redde some Italian, and wrote two Sonnets.... I never wrote but one sonnet before, and that was not in earnest, and many years ago, as an exercise—and I will never write another. They are the most puling, petrifying, stupidly platonic compositions."—Diary, December 18, 1813; Letters, 1898, ii. 379.]
[cf] {71} ——Hope whispers not from woe.—[MS. M.]
Byron wrote these lines in 1815, in Lady Lansdowne's album, at Bowood.—Note by Mr. Richard Edgecombe, Notes and Queries, Sixth Series, vii. 46.]
Moore.
["As a beam o'er the face," etc.—Irish Melodies.]
In a letter to Murray, dated Pisa, December 12, 1821 (Life, p. 545), Byron avows that the "Giaour Story" had actually "some foundation on facts." Soon after the poem appeared (June 5, 1813), "a story was circulated by some gentlewomen ... a little too close to the text" (Letters to Moore, September 1, 1813, Letters, 1898, ii. 258), and in order to put himself right with his friends or posterity, Byron wrote to his friend Lord Sligo, who in July, 1810, was anchored off Athens in "a twelve-gun brig, with a crew of fifty men" (see Letters, 1898, i. 289, note 1), requesting him to put on paper not so much the narrative of an actual event, but "what he had heard at Athens about the affair of that girl who was so near being put an end to while you were there." According to the letter which Moore published (Life, p. 178), and which is reprinted in the present issue (Letters, 1898, ii. 257), Byron interposed on behalf of a girl, who "in compliance with the strict letter of the Mohammedan law," had been sewn in a sack and was about to be thrown into the sea. "I was told," adds Lord Sligo, "that you then conveyed her in safety to the convent, and despatched her off at night to Thebes." The letter, which Byron characterizes as "curious," is by no means conclusive, and to judge from the designedly mysterious references in the Journal, dated November 16 and December 5, and in the second postscript to a letter to Professor Clarke, dated December 15, 1813 (Letters, 1898, ii. 321, 361, 311), "the circumstances which were the groundwork" are not before us. "An event," says John Wright (ed. 1832, ix. 145), "in which Lord Byron was personally concerned, undoubtedly supplied the groundwork of this tale; but for the [76] story so circumstantially set forth (see Medwin's Conversations, 1824, pp. 121, 124) of his having been the lover of this female slave, there is no foundation. The girl whose life the poet saved at Athens was not, we are assured by Sir John Hobhouse (Westminster Review, January, 1825, iii. 27), an object of his Lordship's attachment, but of that of his Turkish servant." Nevertheless, whatever Byron may have told Hobhouse (who had returned to England), and he distinctly says (Letters, 1898, ii. 393) that he did not tell him everything, he avowed to Clarke that he had been led "to the water's edge," and confided to his diary that to "describe the feelings of that situation was impossible—it is icy even to recollect them."
For the allusive and fragmentary style of the Giaour, The Voyage of Columbus, which Rogers published in 1812, is in part responsible. "It is sudden in its transitions," wrote the author, in the Preface to the first edition, "... leaving much to be imagined by the reader." The story or a part of it is told by a fellow-seaman of Columbus, who had turned "eremite" in his old age, and though the narrative itself is in heroic verse, the prologue and epilogue, as they may be termed, are in "the romance or ballad-measure of the Spanish." The resemblance between the two poems is certainly more than accidental. On the other hand, a vivid and impassioned description of Oriental scenery and customs was, as Gifford observed, new and original, and though, by his own admission, Byron was indebted to Vathek (or rather S. Henley's notes to Vathek) and to D'Herbelot's Bibliothèque Orientale for allusions and details, the "atmosphere" could only have been reproduced by the creative fancy of an observant and enthusiastic traveller who had lived under Eastern skies, and had come within ken of Eastern life and sentiment.
In spite, however, of his love for the subject-matter of his poem, and the facility, surprising even to himself, with which he spun his rhymes, Byron could not persuade himself that a succession of fragments would sort themselves and grow into a complete and connected whole. If his thrice-repeated depreciation of the Giaour is not entirely genuine, it is plain that he misdoubted himself. Writing to Murray (August 26, [77] 1813) he says, "I have, but with some difficulty, not added any more to this snake of a poem, which has been lengthening its rattles every month;" to Moore (September 1), "The Giaour I have added to a good deal, but still in foolish fragments;" and, again, to Moore (September 8), "By the coach I send you a copy of that awful pamphlet the Giaour."
But while the author doubted and apologized, or deprecated "his love's excess In words of wrong and bitterness," the public read, and edition followed edition with bewildering speed.
The Giaour was reviewed by George Agar Ellis in the Quarterly (No. xxxi., January, 1813 [published February 11, 1813]) and in the Edinburgh Review by Jeffrey (No. 54, January, 1813 [published February 24, 1813]). [78]
The bibliography of the Giaour is beset with difficulties, and it is doubtful if more than approximate accuracy can be secured. The composition of the entire poem in its present shape was accomplished within six months, May-November, 1813, but during that period it was expanded by successive accretions from a first draft of 407 lines (extant in MS.) to a seventh edition of 1334 lines. A proof is extant of an edition of 28 pages containing 460 lines, itself an enlargement on the MS.; but whether (as a note in the handwriting of the late Mr. Murray affirms) this was or was not published is uncertain. A portion of a second proof of 38 pages has been preserved, but of the publication of the poem in this state there is no record. On June 5 a first edition of 41 pages, containing 685 lines, was issued, and of this numerous copies are extant. At the end of June, or the beginning of July, 1813, a second edition, entitled, a "New Edition with some Additions," appeared. This consisted of 47 pages, and numbered 816 lines. Among the accretions is to be found the famous passage beginning, "He that hath bent him o'er the dead." Two MS. copies of this pannus vere purpureus are in Mr. Murray's possession. At the end of July, and during the first half of August, two or more issues of a third edition were set up in type. The first issue amounted to 53 pages, containing 950 lines, was certainly published in this form, and possibly a second issue of 56 pages, containing 1004 lines, may have followed at a brief interval. A revise of this second issue, dated August 13, is extant. In the last fortnight of August a fourth edition of 58 pages, containing 1048 lines, undoubtedly saw the light. Scarcely more than a few days can have elapsed before a fifth edition of 66 pages, [79] containing 1215 lines, was ready to supplant the fourth edition. A sixth edition, a reproduction of the fifth, may have appeared in October. A seventh edition of 75 pages, containing 1334 lines, which presented the poem in its final shape, was issued subsequently to November 27, 1813 (a seventh edition was advertised in the Morning Chronicle, December 22, 1813), the date of the last revise, or of an advance copy of the issue. The ninth, tenth, eleventh, and twelfth editions belong to 1814, while a fourteenth edition is known to have been issued in 1815. In that year and henceforward the Giaour was included in the various collected editions of Byron's works. The subjoined table assigns to their several editions the successive accretions in their order as now published:—
Lines. | Giaour. | Edition of—— |
1—6. | MS. First edition of 28 pages. | |
7—20. | Second edition. [47 pages, 816 lines.] | Approximate date, June 24, 1813. |
21—45. | Third edition. [53 pages, 950 lines.] | July 30, 1813. |
46—102. | Second edition. | |
103—167. | Fifth edition. [66 pages, 1215 lines.] | August 25, 1813. |
168—199. | MS. First edition of 28 pages. | |
200—250. | Third edition. | |
251—252. | Seventh edition. [75 pages, 1334 lines.] | November 27, 1813. |
253—276. | Third edition. | |
277—287. | MS. First edition of 28 pages. | |
288—351. | Third edition. (Second issue?) [56 pages, 1004,? 1014 lines.] | August 11, 1813. |
352—503. | MS. First edition of 28 pages. | |
504—518. | Third edition. | |
519—619. | MS. First edition of 28 pages. | |
620—654. | Second edition. | |
655—688. | MS. First edition of 28 pages. | |
689—722. | Fourth edition. [58 pages, 1048 lines.] | August 19. |
723—737. | MS. First edition of 28 pages. 733-4 not in the MS., but in First edition of 28 pages. | |
738—745. | First edition of 41 pages. | June 5, 1813. |
746—786. | First edition of 28 pages. Not in the MS | |
787—831. | MS. First edition of 28 pages. | |
832—915. | Seventh edition. | |
916—998. | First edition of 41 pages. 937-970 no MS. | |
999—1023. | Second edition. | |
1024—1028. | Seventh edition. | |
1029—1079. | First edition of 41 pages. | |
1080—1098. | Third edition. | |
1099—1125. | First edition of 41 pages. | |
1126—1130. | Seventh edition. | |
1131—1191. | Fifth edition. | |
1192—1217. | Seventh edition. | |
1218—1256. | Fifth edition. | |
1257—1318. | First edition of 41 pages. | |
1319—1334. | MS. First edition of 28 pages. |
The first edition is advertised in the Morning Chronicle, June 5; a third edition on August 11, 13, 16, 31; a fifth edition, with considerable additions, on September 11; on November 29 a "new edition;" and on December 27, 1813, a seventh edition, together with a repeated notice of the Bride of Abydos. These dates do not exactly correspond with Murray's contemporary memoranda of the dates of the successive issues.[81]
BYRON.
London, May, 1813.
The tale which these disjointed fragments present, is founded upon circumstances now less common in the East than formerly; either because the ladies are more circumspect than in the "olden time," or because the Christians have better fortune, or less enterprise. The story, when entire, contained the adventures of a female slave, who was thrown, in the Mussulman manner, into the sea for infidelity, and avenged by a young Venetian, her lover, at the time the Seven Islands were possessed by the Republic of Venice, and soon after the Arnauts were beaten back from the Morea, which they had ravaged for some time subsequent to the Russian invasion. The desertion of the Mainotes, on being refused the plunder of Misitra, led to the abandonment of that enterprise, and to the desolation of the Morea, during which the cruelty exercised on all sides was unparalleled even in the annals of the faithful.[85]
[55] {85} A tomb above the rocks on the promontory, by some supposed the sepulchre of Themistocles.
["There are," says Cumberland, in his Observer, "a few lines by Plato upon the tomb of Themistocles, which have a turn of elegant and pathetic simplicity in them, that deserves a better translation than I can give—
Note to Edition 1832.
The traditional site of the tomb of Themistocles, "a rock-hewn grave on the very margin of the sea generally covered with water," adjoins the lighthouse, which stands on the westernmost promontory of the Piræus, some three quarters of a mile from the entrance to the harbour. Plutarch, in his Themistocles (cap. xxxii.), is at pains to describe the exact site of the "altar-like tomb," and quotes the passage from Plato (the comic poet, B.C. 428-389) which Cumberland paraphrases. Byron and Hobhouse "made the complete circuit of the peninsula of Munychia," January 18, 1810.—Travels in Albania, 1858, i. 317, 318.]
[cg] {86}
[56] The attachment of the nightingale to the rose is a well-known Persian fable. If I mistake not, the "Bulbul of a thousand tales" is one of his appellations.
[Thus Mesihi, as translated by Sir William Jones—
"The full style and title of the Persian nightingale (Pycnonotus hæmorrhous) is 'Bulbul-i-hazár-dástán,' usually shortened to 'Hazar' (bird of a thousand tales = the thousand), generally called 'Andalib.'" (See Arabian Nights, by Richard F. Burton, 1887; Supplemental Nights, iii. 506.) For the nightingale's attachment to the rose, compare Moore's Lalla Rookh—
(Ed. "Chandos Classics," p. 423)
and Fitzgerald's translation of the Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám (stanza vi.)—
Rubáiyát, etc., 1899, p. 29, and note, p. 62.
Byron was indebted for his information to a note on a passage in Vathek, by S. Henley (Vathek, 1893, p. 217).]
[57] {87} The guitar is the constant amusement of the Greek sailor by night; with a steady fair wind, and during a calm, it is accompanied always by the voice, and often by dancing.
[ch] {88} Should wanton in a wilderness.—[MS.]
[ci] The first draft of this celebrated passage differs in many particulars from the Fair Copy, which, with the exception of the passages marked as vars. i. (p. 89) and i. (p. 90), is the same as the text. It ran as follows:—
The eleven lines following (88-98) were not emended in the Fair Copy, and are included in the text. The Fair Copy is the sole MS. authority for the four concluding lines of the paragraph.
[58] [Compare "Beyond Milan the country wore the aspect of a wider devastation; and though everything seemed more quiet, the repose was like that of death spread over features which retain the impression of the last convulsions."—Mysteries of Udolpho, by Mrs. Ann Radcliffe, 1794, ii. 29.]
[cj] {89}
[MS. of Fair Copy.]
[59] {90}
Measure for Measure, act iii. sc. I, lines 115, 116.
[Compare, too, Childe Harold, Canto II. stanza iv. line 5.]
[60] I trust that few of my readers have ever had an opportunity of witnessing what is here attempted in description; but those who have will probably retain a painful remembrance of that singular beauty which pervades, with few exceptions, the features of the dead, a few hours, and but for a few hours, after "the spirit is not there." It is to be remarked in cases of violent death by gun-shot wounds, the expression is always that of languor, whatever the natural energy of the sufferer's character; but in death from a stab the countenance preserves its traits of feeling or ferocity, and the mind its bias, to the last. [According to Medwin (1824, 4to, p. 223), an absurd charge, based on the details of this note, was brought against Byron, that he had been guilty of murder, and spoke from experience.]
[61] [In Dallaway's Constantinople (p. 2) [Rev. James Dallaway (1763-1834) published Constantinople Ancient and Modern, etc., in 1797], a book which Lord Byron is not unlikely to have consulted, I find a passage quoted from Gillies' History of Greece(vol. i. p. 335), which contains, perhaps, the first seed of the thought thus expanded into full perfection by genius: "The present state of Greece, compared to the ancient, is the silent obscurity of the grave contrasted with the vivid lustre of active life."—Moore, Note to Edition 1832.]
[62] {91} [From hence to the conclusion of the paragraph, the MS. is written in a hurried and almost illegible hand, as if these splendid lines had been poured forth in one continuous burst of poetic feeling, which would hardly allow time for the pen to follow the imagination.—(Note to Edition 1837. The lines were added to the Second Edition.)]
[cl] Fountain of Wisdom! can it be.—[MS. erased.]
[63] [Compare—"Son of the Morning, rise! approach you here!" Childe Harold, Canto II. stanza iii. line 1.]
[cn] {92}
[co] Commenced by Sire—renewed by Son.—[MS.]
[cq] There let the Muse direct thine eye.—[MS.]
[cr] {93} The hearts amid thy mountains bred.—[MS.]
[64] Athens is the property of the Kislar Aga [kizlar-aghasî] (the slave of the Seraglio and guardian of the women), who appoints the Waywode. A pander and eunuch—these are not polite, yet true appellations—now governs the governor of Athens!
[Hobhouse maintains that this subordination of the waiwodes (or vaivodes = the Sclavic βοεβόδα (Turkish governors of Athens) to a higher Turkish official, was on the whole favourable to the liberties and well-being of the Athenians.—Travels in Albania, 1858, i. 246.]
[ct] {94} he silent slants the doubtful creek.—[MS]
[65] [The reciter of the tale is a Turkish fisherman, who has been employed during the day in the gulf of Ægina, and in the evening, apprehensive of the Mainote pirates who infest the coast of Attica, lands with his boat on the harbour of Port Leone, the ancient Piræus. He becomes the eye-witness of nearly all the incidents in the story, and in one of them is a principal agent. It is to his feelings, and particularly to his religious prejudices, that we are indebted for some of the most forcible and splendid parts of the poem.—Note by George Agar Ellis, 1797-1833.]
[66] [In Dr. Clarke's Travels (Edward Daniel Clarke, 1769-1822, published Travels in Europe, Asia, Africa, 1810-24), this word, which means infidel, is always written according to its English pronunciation, Djour. Byron adopted the Italian spelling usual among the Franks of the Levant.—Note to Edition 1832.
The pronunciation of the word depends on its origin. If it is associated with the Arabic jawr, a "deviating" or "erring," the initial consonant would be soft, but if with the Persian gawr, or guebre, "a fire-worshipper," the word should be pronounced Gow-er—as Gower Street has come to be pronounced. It is to be remarked that to the present day the Nestorians of Urumiah are contemned as Gy-ours (the G hard), by their Mohammedan countrymen.—(From information kindly supplied by Mr. A. G. Ellis, of the Oriental Printed Books and MSS. Department, British Museum.)]
[cu] {95} Though scarcely marked——.—[MS.]
[cw] {96} For him who takes so fast a flight.—[MS. erased.]
[67] [Compare—
Scott's Lay of the Last Minstrel, Canto I. stanza xxvii. lines 1, 2.]
[cx] And looked along the olive wood.—[MS.]
[68] "Tophaike," musket. The Bairam is announced by the cannon at sunset: the illumination of the mosques, and the firing of all kinds of small arms, loaded with ball, proclaim it during the night. [The Bairâm, the Moslem Easter, a festival of three days, succeeded the Ramazân.]
For the illumination of the mosques during the fast of the Ramazân, see Childe Harold, Canto II. stanza lv. line 5, Poetical Works, 1899, ii. 134, note 2.
[cy] {97} Of transient Anger's Darkening blush.—[MS.]
[69] [For "hasty," all the editions till the twelfth read "darkening blush." On the back of a copy of the eleventh, Lord Byron has written, "Why did not the printer attend to the solitary correction so repeatedly made? I have no copy of this, and desire to have none till my request is complied with." Notes to Editions 1832, 1837.]
[70] Jerreed, or Djerrid [Jarid], a blunted Turkish javelin, which is darted from horseback with great force and precision. It is a favourite exercise of the Mussulmans; but I know not if it can be called a manly one, since the most expert in the art are the Black Eunuchs of Constantinople. I think, next to these, a Mamlouk at Smyrna was the most skilful that came within my observation. [Lines 250, 251, together with the note, were inserted in the Third Edition.]
[da] {98}
[71] ["Lord Byron told Mr. Murray that he took this idea from one of the Arabian tales—that in which the Sultan puts his head into a butt of water, and, though it remains there for only two or three minutes, he imagines that he lives many years during that time. The story had been quoted by Addison in the Spectator" [No. 94, June 18, 1711].—Memoir of John Murray, 1891, i. 219, note.]
[72] [Lines 271-276 were added in the Third Edition. The MS. proceeds with a direction (dated July 31, 1813) to the printer—"And alter
to
Alter also the lines
to
[dc] {99} But neither fled nor fell alone.—[MS.]
[73] The blast of the desert, fatal to everything living, and often alluded to in Eastern poetry.
[James Bruce, 1730-1794 (nicknamed "Abyssinian Bruce"), gives a remarkable description of the simoom: "I saw from the south-east a haze come, in colour like the purple part of the rainbow, but not so compressed or thick. It did not occupy twenty yards in breadth, and was about twelve feet high from the ground. It was a kind of blush upon the air, and it moved very rapidly.... We all lay flat on the ground ... till it was blown over. The meteor, or purple haze, which I saw was, indeed, passed, but the light air which still blew was of a heat to threaten suffocation." He goes on to say that he did not recover the effect of the sandblast on his chest for nearly two years (Brace's Life and Travels, ed. 1830, p. 470).—Note to Edition 1832.]
[dd] There are two MS. versions of lines 290-298: (A) a rough copy, and (B) a fair copy—
[74] {100} [Compare "The walls of Balclutha were desolated.... The stream of Clutha was removed from its place by the fall of the walls. The fox looked out from the windows" (Ossian's Balclutha). "The dreary night-owl screams in the solitary retreat of his mouldering ivy-covered tower" (Larnul, or the Song of Despair: Poems of Ossian, discovered by the Baron de Harold, 1787, p. 172). Compare, too, the well-known lines, "The spider holds the veil in the palace of Cæsar; the owl stands sentinel on the watch-tower of Afrasyab" (A Grammar of the Persian Language, by Sir W. Jones, 1809, p. 106).]
[df] {101}
[dg] Might strike an echo——.—[MS.]
[dh] {102}
[75] ["I have just recollected an alteration you may make in the proof.... Among the lines on Hassan's Serai, is this—'Unmeet for Solitude to share.' Now, to share implies more than one, and Solitude is a single gentlewoman: it must be thus—
and so on. Will you adopt this correction? and pray accept a cheese from me for your trouble."—Letter to John Murray, Stilton, October 3, 1813, Letters, 1898, ii. 274.]
[di] To share the Master's "bread and salt."—[MS.]
[76] [To partake of food—to break bread and taste salt with your host, ensures the safety of the guest: even though an enemy, his person from that moment becomes sacred.—(Note appended to Letter of October 3, 1813.)
"I leave this (vide supra, note 1) to your discretion; if anybody thinks the old line a good one or the cheese a bad one, don't accept either. But in that case the word share is repeated soon after in the line—
and must be altered to—
This is not so well, though—confound it!
If the old line ['Unmeet for Solitude to share'] stands, let the other run thus—
(P.S. to Murray, October 3, 1813.)
The emendation of line 335 made that of line 343 unnecessary, but both emendations were accepted.
(Moore says (Life; p. 191, note) that the directions are written on a separate slip of paper from the letter to Murray of October 3, 1813).]
[dj] {103}
[77] I need hardly observe, that Charity and Hospitality are the first duties enjoined by Mahomet; and to say truth, very generally practised by his disciples. The first praise that can be bestowed on a chief is a panegyric on his bounty; the next, on his valour. ["Serve God ... and show kindness unto parents, and relations, and orphans, and the poor, and your neighbour who is of kin to you ... and the traveller, and the captives," etc.—Korân, cap. iv. Lines 350, 351 were inserted in the Fifth Edition.]
[78] The ataghan, a long dagger worn with pistols in the belt, in a metal scabbard, generally of silver; and, among the wealthier, gilt, or of gold.
[79] Green is the privileged colour of the prophet's numerous pretended descendants; with them, as here, faith (the family inheritance) is supposed to supersede the necessity of good works: they are the worst of a very indifferent brood.
[80] {104} "Salam aleikoum! aleikoum salam!" peace be with you; be with you peace—the salutation reserved for the faithful:—to a Christian, "Urlarula!" a good journey; or "saban hiresem, saban serula," good morn, good even; and sometimes, "may your end be happy!" are the usual salutes.
["After both sets of prayers, Farz and Sunnah, the Moslem looks over his right shoulder, and says, 'The Peace (of Allah) be upon you and the ruth of Allah,' and repeats the words over the left shoulder. The salutation is addressed to the Guardian Angels, or to the bystanders (Moslem), who, however, do not return it."—Arabian Nights, by Richard F. Burton, 1887: Supplemental Nights, i. 14, note.]
[dl] Which one of yonder barks may wait.—[MS.]
[81] [In the MS. and the first five editions the broken line (373) consisted of two words only, "That one."]
[82] The blue-winged butterfly of Kashmeer, the most rare and beautiful of the species.
[The same insects (butterflies of Cachemir) are celebrated in an unpublished poem of Mesihi.... Sir Anthony Shirley relates that it was customary in Persia "to hawk after butterflies with sparrows, made to that use."—Note by S. Henley to Vathek, ed. 1893, p. 222. Byron, in his Journal, December 1, 1813, speaks of Lady Charlemont as "that blue-winged Kashmirian butterfly of book-learning."]
[dm] If caught, to fate alike betrayed.-[MS.]
[dn] {106} The gathering flames around her close.-[MS. erased.]
[83] {107} Alluding to the dubious suicide of the scorpion, so placed for experiment by gentle philosophers. Some maintain that the position of the sting, when turned towards the head, is merely a convulsive movement; but others have actually brought in the verdict "Felo de se." The scorpions are surely interested in a speedy decision of the question; as, if once fairly established as insect Catos, they will probably be allowed to live as long as they think proper, without being martyred for the sake of an hypothesis.
[Byron assured Dallas that the simile of the scorpion was imagined in his sleep.—Recollections of the Life of Lord Byron, by R. C. Dallas, p. 264.
"Probably in some instances the poor scorpion has been burnt to death; and the well-known habit of these creatures to raise the tail over the back and recurve it so that the extremity touches the fore part of the cephalo-thorax, has led to the idea that it was stinging itself."—Encycl. Brit., art. "Arachnida," by Rev. O. P. Cambridge, ii. 281.]
[do] So writhes the mind by Conscience riven.—[MS.]
[84] The cannon at sunset close the Rhamazan. [Compare Childe Harold, Canto II. stanza Iv. line 5, Poetical Works, 1899, ii. 134. note 2.]
[85] {108} Phingari, the moon. φεγγάρι is derived from φεγγάριον, dim. of φέγγος.
[86] The celebrated fabulous ruby of Sultan Giamschid, the embellisher of Istakhar; from its splendour, named Schebgerag [Schabchirāgh], "the torch of night;" also "the cup of the sun," etc. In the First Edition, "Giamschid" was written as a word of three syllables; so D'Herbelot has it; but I am told Richardson reduces it to a dissyllable, and writes "Jamshid." I have left in the text the orthography of the one with the pronunciation of the other.
[The MS. and First Edition read, "Bright as the gem of Giamschid." Byron's first intention was to change the line into "Bright as the ruby of Giamschid;" but to this Moore objected, "that as the comparison of his heroine's eye to a ruby might unluckily call up the idea of its being bloodshot, he had better change the line to 'Bright as the jewel,' etc."
For the original of Byron's note, see S. Henley's note, Vathek, 1893, p. 230. See, too, D'Herbelot's Bibliothèque Orientale, 1781, iii. 27.
Sir Richard Burton (Arabian Nights, S.N., iii. 440) gives the following résumé of the conflicting legends: "Jám-i-jámshid is a well-known commonplace in Moslem folk-lore; but commentators cannot agree whether 'Jám' be a mirror or a cup. In the latter sense it would represent the Cyathomantic cup of the Patriarch Joseph, and the symbolic bowl of Nestor. Jamshid may be translated either 'Jam the bright,' or 'the Cup of the Sun;' this ancient king is the Solomon of the grand old Guebres."
Fitzgerald, "in a very composite quatrain (stanza v.) which cannot be claimed as a translation at all" (see the Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyaām, by Edward Heron Allen, 1898), embodies a late version of the myth—
[87] {109} Al-Sirat, the bridge of breadth narrower than the thread of a famished spider, and sharper than the edge of a sword, over which the Mussulmans must skate into Paradise, to which it is the only entrance; but this is not the worst, the river beneath being hell itself, into which, as may be expected, the unskilful and tender of foot contrive to tumble with a "facilis descensus Averni," not very pleasing in prospect to the next passenger. There is a shorter cut downwards for the Jews and Christians.
[Byron is again indebted to Vathek, and S. Henley on Vathek, p. 237, for his information. The authority for the legend of the Bridge of Paradise is not the Koran, but the Book of Mawakef, quoted by Edward Pococke, in his Commentary (Notæ Miscellaneæ) on the Porta Mosis of Moses Maimonides (Oxford, 1654, p. 288)—
"Stretched across the back of Hell, it is narrower than a javelin, sharper than the edge of a sword. But all must essay the passage, believers as well as infidels, and it baffles the understanding to imagine in what manner they keep their foothold."
The legend, or rather allegory, to which there would seem to be some allusion in the words of Scripture, "Strait is the gate," etc., is of Zoroastrian origin. Compare the Zend-Avesta, Yasna xix. 6 (Sacred Books of the East, edited by F. Max Muller, 1887, xxxi. 261), "With even threefold (safety and with speed) I will bring his soul over the Bridge of Kinvat," etc.]
[88] {110} A vulgar error: the Koran allots at least a third of Paradise to well-behaved women; but by far the greater number of Mussulmans interpret the text their own way, and exclude their moieties from heaven. Being enemies to Platonics, they cannot discern "any fitness of things" in the souls of the other sex, conceiving them to be superseded by the Houris.
[Sale, in his Preliminary Discourse ("Chandos Classics," p. 80), in dealing with this question, notes "that there are several passages in the Koran which affirm that women, in the next life, will not only be punished for their evil actions, but will also receive the rewards of their good deeds, as well as the men, and that in this case God will make no distinction of sexes." A single quotation will suffice: "God has promised to believers, men and women, gardens beneath which rivers flow, to dwell therein for aye; and goodly places in the garden of Eden."—The Qur'ân, translated by E. H. Palmer, 1880, vi. 183.]
[89] An Oriental simile, which may, perhaps, though fairly stolen, be deemed "plus Arabe qu'en Arabie."
[Gulnár (the heroine of the Corsair is named Gulnare) is Persian for a pomegranate flower.]
[90] Hyacinthine, in Arabic "Sunbul;" as common a thought in the Eastern poets as it was among the Greeks.
[S. Henley (Vathek, 1893, p. 208) quotes two lines from the Solima (lines 5, 6) of Sir W. Jones—
and refers Milton's "Hyacinthine locks" (Paradise Lost, iv. 301) to Lucian's Pro Imaginibus, cap. v.]
[91] {111} "Franguestan," Circassia. [Or Europe generally—the land of the Frank.]
[92] [Lines 504-518 were inserted in the second revise of the Third Edition, July 31, 1813.]
[93] {113} [Parnassus.]
[94] "In the name of God;" the commencement of all the chapters of the Koran but one [the ninth], and of prayer and thanksgiving. ["Bismillah" (in full, Bismillahi 'rrahmani 'rrahiem, i.e. "In the name of Allah the God of Mercy, the Merciful") is often used as a deprecatory formula. Sir R. Burton (Arabian Nights, i. 40) cites as an equivalent the "remembering Iddio e' Santí," of Boccaccio's Decameron, viii. 9.
The MS. reads, "Thank Alla! now the peril's past."]
[95] [A Turkish messenger, sergeant or lictor. The proper sixteen-seventeenth century pronunciation would have been chaush, but apparently the nearest approach to this was chaus, whence chouse and chiaush, and the vulgar form chiaus (N. Eng. Dict., art. "Chiaus"). The peculations of a certain "chiaus" in the year A.D. 1000 are said to have been the origin of the word "to chouse."]
[96] {114} A phenomenon not uncommon with an angry Mussulman. In 1809 the Capitan Pacha's whiskers at a diplomatic audience were no less lively with indignation than a tiger cat's, to the horror of all the dragomans; the portentous mustachios twisted, they stood erect of their own accord, and were expected every moment to change their colour, but at last condescended to subside, which, probably, saved more heads than they contained hairs.
[97] {115} "Amaun," quarter, pardon.
[Line 603 was inserted in a proof of the Second Edition, dated July 24, 1813: "Nor raised the coward cry, Amaun!"]
[98] The "evil eye," a common superstition in the Levant, and of which the imaginary effects are yet very singular on those who conceive themselves affected.
[99] [Compare "As with a thousand waves to the rocks, so Swaran's host came on."—Fingal, bk. i., Ossian's Works, 1807, i. 19.]
[dp] {116} That neither gives nor asks for life.—[MS.]
[100] {117} The flowered shawls generally worn by persons of rank.
[101] [Compare "Catilina vero longè a suis, inter hostium cadavera repertus est, paululum etiam spirans ferociamque animi, quam habuerat vivus, in vultu retinens."—Catilina, cap. 61, Opera, 1820, i. 124.]
[dq] {118}
Another copy began—
[These lines were erased, and lines 689-692 were substituted. They appeared first in the Fifth Edition.]
[102] ["The mother of Sisera looked out at a window, and cried through the lattice, Why is his chariot so long in coming? why tarry the wheels of his chariot?"—Judges v. 28.]
[dr] {119} And now his courser's pace amends.—[MS. erased.]
[ds] I could not deem my son was slow.—[MS. erased.]
[103] The calpac is the solid cap or centre part of the head-dress; the shawl is wound round it, and forms the turban.
[104] The turban, pillar, and inscriptive verse, decorate the tombs of the Osmanlies, whether in the cemetery or the wilderness. In the mountains you frequently pass similar mementos; and on inquiry you are informed that they record some victim of rebellion, plunder, or revenge.
[The following is a "Koran verse:" "Every one that is upon it (the earth) perisheth; but the person of thy Lord abideth, the possessor of glory and honour" (Sur. lv. 26, 27). (See "Kufic Tombstones in the British Museum," by Professor Wright, Proceedings of the Biblical Archæological Society, 1887, ix. 337, sq.)]
[105] {120} "Alla Hu!" the concluding words of the Muezzin's call to prayer from the highest gallery on the exterior of the Minaret. On a still evening, when the Muezzin has a fine voice, which is frequently the case, the effect is solemn and beautiful beyond all the bells in Christendom. [Valid, the son of Abdalmalek, was the first who erected a minaret or turret; and this he placed on the grand mosque at Damascus, for the muezzin or crier to announce from it the hour of prayer. (See D'Herbelot, Bibliothèque Orientale, 1783, vi. 473, art. "Valid." See, too, Childe Harold, Canto II. stanza lix. line 9, Poetical Works, 1899, ii. 136, note 1.)]
[106] The following is part of a battle-song of the Turks:—"I see—I see a dark-eyed girl of Paradise, and she waves a handkerchief, a kerchief of green; and cries aloud, 'Come, kiss me, for I love thee,'" etc.
[107] {121} Monkir and Nekir are the inquisitors of the dead, before whom the corpse undergoes a slight noviciate and preparatory training for damnation. If the answers are none of the clearest, he is hauled up with a scythe and thumped down with a red-hot mace till properly seasoned, with a variety of subsidiary probations. The office of these angels is no sinecure; there are but two, and the number of orthodox deceased being in a small proportion to the remainder, their hands are always full.—See Relig. Ceremon., v. 290; vii. 59,68, 118, and Sale's Preliminary Discourse to the Koran, p. 101.
[Byron is again indebted to S. Henley (see Vathek, 1893, p. 236). According to Pococke (Porta Mosis, 1654, Notæ Miscellaneæ, p. 241), the angels Moncar and Nacir are black, ghastly, and of fearsome aspect. Their function is to hold inquisition on the corpse. If his replies are orthodox (de Mohammede), he is bidden to sleep sweetly and soundly in his tomb, but if his views are lax and unsound, he is cudgelled between the ears with iron rods. Loud are his groans, and audible to the whole wide world, save to those deaf animals, men and genii. Finally, the earth is enjoined to press him tight and keep him close till the crack of doom.]
[108] Eblis, the Oriental Prince of Darkness.
[109] The Vampire superstition is still general in the Levant. Honest Tournefort [Relation d'un Voyage du Levant, par Joseph Pitton de Tournefort, 1717, i. 131] tells a long story, which Mr. Southey, in the notes on Thalaba [book viii., notes, ed. 1838, iv. 297-300], quotes about these "Vroucolochas" ["Vroucolocasses"], as he calls them. The Romaic term is "Vardoulacha." I recollect a whole family being terrified by the scream of a child, which they imagined must proceed from such a visitation. The Greeks never mention the word without horror. I find that "Broucolokas" is an old legitimate Hellenic appellation—at least is so applied to Arsenius, who, according to the Greeks, was after his death animated by the Devil. The moderns, however, use the word I mention.
Βουρκόλακας or Βρυκόλακας (= the Bohemian and Slovak Vrholak) is modern Greek for a ghost or vampire. George Bentotes, in his Λεξικον Τρίγλωσσον, published in Vienna in 1790 (see Childe Harold, Canto II. Notes, Papers, etc., No. III., Poetical Works, 1899, ii. 197), renders Βρουκόλακας "lutin," and Βρουκολιασμένος, "devenu un spectre."
Arsenius, Archbishop of Monembasia (circ. 1530), was famous for his scholarship. He prefaced his Scholia in Septem Euripidis Tragædias (Basileæ, 1544) by a dedicatory epistle in Greek to his friend Pope Paul III. "He submitted to the Church of Rome, which made him so odious to the Greek schismatics that the Patriarch of Constantinople excommunicated him; and the Greeks reported that Arsenius, after his death, was Broukolakas, that is, that the Devil hovered about his corps and re-animated him" (Bayle, Dictionary, 1724, i. 508, art. "Arsenius"). Martinus Crusius, in his Turco-Græcia, lib. ii. (Basileæ, 1584, p. 151) records the death of Arsenius while under sentence of excommunication, and adds that "his miserable corpse turned black, and swelled to the size of a drum, so that all who beheld it were horror-stricken, and trembled exceedingly." Hence, no doubt, the legend which Bayle takes verbatim from Guillet, "Les Grecs disent qu' Arsenius, apres la mort fust Broukolakas," etc. (Lacédémone, Ancienne et Nouvelle, par Le Sieur de la Guilletiére, 1676, ii. 586. See, too, for "Arsenius," Fabricii Script. Gr. Var., 1808, xi. 581, and Gesneri Bibliotheca Univ., ed. 1545, fol. 96.) Byron, no doubt, got his information from Bayle. By "old legitimate Hellenic" he must mean literary as opposed to klephtic Greek.]
[110] {123} The freshness of the face [? "The paleness of the face," MS.] and the wetness of the lip with blood, are the never-failing signs of a Vampire. The stories told in Hungary and Greece of these foul feeders are singular, and some of them most incredibly attested.
[Vampires were the reanimated corpses of persons newly buried, which were supposed to suck the blood and suck out the life of their selected victims. The marks by which a vampire corpse was recognized were the apparent non-putrefaction of the body and effusion of blood from the lips. A suspected vampire was exhumed, and if the marks were perceived or imagined to be present, a stake was driven through the heart, and the body was burned. This, if Southey's authorities (J. B. Boyer, Marquis d'Argens, in Lettres Juives) may be believed, "laid" the vampire, and the community might sleep in peace. (See, too, Dissertations sur les Apparitions, par Augustine Calmet, 1746, p. 395, sq., and Russian Folk-Tales, by W. R. S. Ralston, 1873, pp. 318-324.)]
[111] [For "Caloyer," see Childe Harold, Canto II. stanza xlix. line 6, and note 21, Poetical Works, 1899, ii. 130, 181. It is a hard matter to piece together the "fragments" which make up the rest of the poem. Apparently the question, "How name ye?" is put by the fisherman, the narrator of the first part of the Fragment, and answered by a monk of the fraternity, with whom the Giaour has been pleased to "abide" during the past six years, under conditions and after a fashion of which the monk disapproves. Hereupon the fisherman disappears, and a kind of dialogue between the author and the protesting monk ensues. The poem concludes with the Giaour's confession, which is addressed to the monk, or perhaps to the interested and more tolerant Prior of the community.]
[du] {124} As Time were wasted on his brow.—[MS.]
[dv] {125} Of foreign maiden lost at sea.—[MS.]
[dw] {127}
[A variant of the copy sent for insertion in the Seventh Edition differs alike from the MS. and the text—]
[dx] Lo! mark him as the harmony.—[MS.]
[dy] Thank heaven—he stands without the shrine.—[MS. erased.]
[dz] {128}
[112] [In defence of lines 922-927, which had been attacked by a critic in the British Review, October, 1813, vol. v. p. 139, who compared them with some lines in Crabbe's Resentment (lines 11—16, Tales, 1812, p. 309), Byron wrote to Murray, October 12, 1813, "I have ... read the British Review. I really think the writer in most points very right. The only mortifying thing is the accusation of imitation. Crabbe's passage I never saw; and Scott I no further meant to follow than in his lyric measure, which is Gray's, Milton's, and any one's who like it." The lines, which Moore quotes (Life, p. 191), have only a formal and accidental resemblance to the passage in question.]
[113] {129} [Compare—
Night Thoughts, iii., by Edward Young; Anderson's British Poets, x. 72. Compare, too, Childe Harold, Canto I. stanza vi, line 8—"With pleasure drugged, he almost longed for woe."]
[114] [Byron was wont to let his imagination dwell on these details of the charnel-house. In a letter to Dallas, August 12, 1811, he writes, "I am already too familiar with the dead. It is strange that I look on the skulls which stand beside me (I have always had four in my study) without emotion, but I cannot strip the features of those I have known of their fleshy covering, even in idea, without a hideous sensation; but the worms are less ceremonious." See, too, his "Lines inscribed upon a Cup formed from a Skull," Poetical Works, 1898, i. 276.]
[115] {130} The pelican is, I believe, the bird so libelled, by the imputation of feeding her chickens with her blood. [It has been suggested that the curious bloody secretion ejected from the mouth of the flamingo may have given rise to the belief, through that bird having been mistaken for the "pelican of the wilderness."—Encycl. Brit., art. "Pelican" (by Professor A. Newton), xviii. 474.]
[ea] Than feeling we must feel no more.—[MS.]
[116] {131} [Compare—
Othello, act iii. sc. 3, lines 274, 275.]
[eb] Though hope hath long withdrawn her beam.—[MS.] [This line was omitted in the Third and following Editions.]
[ec] {132}
[ed] {134} My hope a tomb, our foe a grave.—[MS.]
[117] This superstition of a second-hearing (for I never met with downright second-sight in the East) fell once under my own observation. On my third journey to Cape Colonna, early in 1811, as we passed through the defile that leads from the hamlet between Keratia and Colonna, I observed Dervish Tahiri riding rather out of the path and leaning his head upon his hand, as if in pain. I rode up and inquired. "We are in peril," he answered. "What peril? We are not now in Albania, nor in the passes to Ephesus, Messalunghi, or Lepanto; there are plenty of us, well armed, and the Choriates have not courage to be thieves."—"True, Affendi, but nevertheless the shot is ringing in my ears."—"The shot. Not a tophaike has been fired this morning."—"I hear it notwithstanding—Bom—Bom—as plainly as I hear your voice."—"Psha!"—"As you please, Affendi; if it is written, so will it be."—I left this quick-eared predestinarian, and rode up to Basili, his Christian compatriot, whose ears, though not at all prophetic, by no means relished the intelligence. We all arrived at Colonna, remained some hours, and returned leisurely, saying a variety of brilliant things, in more languages than spoiled the building of Babel, upon the mistaken seer. Romaic, Arnaout, Turkish, Italian, and English were all exercised, in various conceits, upon the unfortunate Mussulman. While we were contemplating the beautiful prospect, Dervish was occupied about the columns. I thought he was deranged into an antiquarian, and asked him if he had become a "Palaocastro" man? "No," said he; "but these pillars will be useful in making a stand;" and added other remarks, which at least evinced his own belief in his troublesome faculty of forehearing. On our return to Athens we heard from Leoné (a prisoner set ashore some days after) of the intended attack of the Mainotes, mentioned, with the cause of its not taking place, in the notes to Childe Harold, Canto 2nd [Poetical Works, 1899, ii. 169]. I was at some pains to question the man, and he described the dresses, arms, and marks of the horses of our party so accurately, that, with other circumstances, we could not doubt of his having been in "villanous company" [I Henry IV., act iii. sc. 3, line 11] and ourselves in a bad neighbourhood. Dervish became a soothsayer for life, and I dare say is now hearing more musketry than ever will be fired, to the great refreshment of the Arnaouts of Berat, and his native mountains.—I shall mention one trait more of this singular race. In March, 1811, a remarkably stout and active Arnaout came (I believe the fiftieth on the same errand) to offer himself as an attendant, which was declined. "Well, Affendi," quoth he, "may you live!—you would have found me useful. I shall leave the town for the hills to-morrow; in the winter I return, perhaps you will then receive me."—Dervish, who was present, remarked as a thing of course, and of no consequence, "in the mean time he will join the Klephtes" (robbers), which was true to the letter. If not cut off, they come down in the winter, and pass it unmolested in some town, where they are often as well known as their exploits.
[118] {135} [Vide ante, p. 90, line 89, note 2, "In death from a stab the countenance preserves its traits of feeling or ferocity."]
[ef] {136}
[119] [Lines 1127-1130 were inserted in the Seventh Edition. They recall the first line of Plato's epitaph, Ἀστὴρ πριν μὲν ἔλαμπες ἐνι ζωοῖσιν ἑῷος, which Byron prefixed to his "Epitaph on a Beloved Friend" (Poetical Works, 1898, i. 18), and which, long afterwards, Shelley chose as the motto to his Adonais.]
[eh] {137}
[120] [The hundred and twenty-six lines which follow, down to "Tell me no more of Fancy's gleam," first appeared in the Fifth Edition. In returning the proof to Murray, Byron writes, August 26, 1813, "The last lines Hodgson likes—it is not often he does—and when he don't, he tells me with great energy, and I fret and alter. I have thrown them in to soften the ferocity of our Infidel, and, for a dying man, have given him a good deal to say for himself."—Letters, 1898, ii. 252.]
[ei] {138}
[ej] Must plunge into a dark abyss.—[MS.]
[ek] {139}
[el] Less than the soft and shallow maid.—[MS. erased.]
[em] The joy—the madness of my heart.—[MS.]
[eo] {140}
[121] The monk's sermon is omitted. It seems to have had so little effect upon the patient, that it could have no hopes from the reader. It may be sufficient to say that it was of a customary length (as may be perceived from the interruptions and uneasiness of the patient), and was delivered in the usual tone of all orthodox preachers.
[ep] Where thou, it seems, canst offer grace.—[MS. erased.]
[eq] Where rise my native city's towers.—[MS.]
[er] I had, and though but one—a friend!—[MS.]
[es] {141}
[eu] {142} Nay—kneel not, father, rise—despair.—[MS.]
[122] {143} "Symar," a shroud. [Cymar, or simar, is a long loose robe worn by women. It is, perhaps, the same word as the Spanish camarra (Arabic camârra), a sheep-skin cloak. It is equivalent to "shroud" only in the primary sense of a "covering."]
[ev] Which now I view with trembling spark.—[MS.]
[ew] {144} Then lay me with the nameless dead.—[MS.]
[123] The circumstance to which the above story relates was not very uncommon in Turkey. A few years ago the wife of Muchtar Pacha complained to his father of his son's supposed infidelity; he asked with whom, and she had the barbarity to give in a list of the twelve handsomest women in Yanina. They were seized, fastened up in sacks, and drowned in the lake the same night! One of the guards who was present informed me that not one of the victims uttered a cry, or showed a symptom of terror at so sudden a "wrench from all we know, from all we love." The fate of Phrosine, the fairest of this sacrifice, is the subject of many a Romaic and Arnaout ditty. The story in the text is one told of a young Venetian many years ago, and now nearly forgotten. I heard it by accident recited by one of the coffee-house story-tellers who abound in the Levant, and sing or recite their narratives. The additions and interpolations by the translator will be easily distinguished from the rest, by the want of Eastern imagery; and I regret that my memory has retained so few fragments of the original. For the contents of some of the notes I am indebted partly to D'Herbelot, and partly to that most Eastern, and, as Mr. Weber justly entitles it, "sublime tale," the "Caliph Vathek." I do not know from what source the author of that singular volume may have drawn his materials; some of his incidents are to be found in the Bibliothèque Orientale; but for correctness of costume, beauty of description, and power of imagination, it far surpasses all European imitations, and bears such marks of originality that those who have visited the East will find some difficulty in believing it to be more than a translation. As an Eastern tale, even Rasselas must bow before it; his "Happy Valley" will not bear a comparison with the "Hall of Eblis." [See Childe Harold, Canto II. stanza xxii. line 6, Poetical Works, 1899, ii. 37, note 1.
"Mansour Effendi tells the story (vide supra, line 6) thus: Frosini was niece of the Archbishop of Joannina. Mouctar Pasha ordered her to come to his harem, and her father advised her to go; she did so. Mouctar, among other presents, gave her a ring of great value, which she wished to sell, and gave it for that purpose to a merchant, who offered it to the wife of Mouctar. That lady recognized the jewel as her own, and, discovering the intrigue, complained to Ali Pasha, who, the next night, seized her himself in his own house, and ordered her to be drowned. Mansour Effendi says he had the story from the brother and son of Frosini. This son was a child of six years old, and was in bed in his mother's chamber when Ali came to carry away his mother to death. He had a confused recollection of the horrid scene."—Travels in Albania, 1858, i. Ill, note 6.
The concluding note, like the poem, was built up sentence by sentence. Lines 1-12, "forgotten," are in the MS. Line 12, "I heard," to line 17, "original," were added in the Second Edition. The next sentence, "For the contents" to "Vathek," was inserted in the Third; and the concluding paragraph, "I do not know" to the end, in the Fourth Editions.]
[ex] {146}
Burns [Farewell to Nancy].
Many poets—Wordsworth, for instance—have been conscious in their old age that an interest attaches to the circumstances of the composition of their poems, and have furnished their friends and admirers with explanatory notes. Byron recorded the motif and occasion of the Bride of Abydos while the poem was still in the press. It was written, he says, to divert his mind, "to wring his thoughts from reality to imagination—from selfish regrets to vivid recollections" (Diary, December 5, 1813, Letters, ii. 361), "to distract his dreams from ..." (Diary, November 16) "for the sake of employment" (Letter to Moore, November 30, 1813). He had been staying during part of October and November at Aston Hall, Rotherham, with his friend James Wedderburn Webster, and had fallen in love with his friend's wife, Lady Frances. From a brief note to his sister, dated November 5, we learn that he was in a scrape, but in "no immediate peril," and from the lines, "Remember him, whom Passion's power" (vide ante, p. 67), we may infer that he had sought safety in flight. The Bride of Abydos, or Zuleika, as it was first entitled, was written early in November, "in four nights" (Diary, November 16), or in a week (Letter to Gifford, November 12)—the reckoning goes for little—as a counter-irritant to the pain and distress of amour interrompu.
The confession or apology is eminently characteristic. Whilst the Giaour was still in process of evolution, still "lengthening its rattles," another Turkish poem is offered to the public, and the natural explanation, that the author is in vein, and can score another trick, is felt to be inadequate[150] and dishonouring—"To withdraw myself from myself," he confides to his Diary(November 27), "has ever been my sole, my entire, my sincere motive for scribbling at all."
It is more than probable that in his twenty-sixth year Byron had not attained to perfect self-knowledge, but there is no reason to question his sincerity. That Byron loved to surround himself with mystery, and to dissociate himself from "the general," is true enough; but it does not follow that at all times and under all circumstances he was insincere. "Once a poseur always a poseur" is a rough-and-ready formula not invariably applicable even to a poet.
But the Bride of Abydos was a tonic as well as a styptic. Like the Giaour, it embodied a personal experience, and recalled "a country replete with the darkest and brightest, but always the most lively colours of my memory" (Diary, December 5, 1813).
In a letter to Galt (December 11, 1813, Letters, 1898, ii. 304, reprinted from Life of Byron, pp. 181, 182) Byron maintains that the first part of the Bride was drawn from "observations" of his own, "from existence." He had, it would appear, intended to make the story turn on the guilty love of a brother for a sister, a tragic incident of life in a Harem, which had come under his notice during his travels in the East, but "on second thoughts" had reflected that he lived "two centuries at least too late for the subject," and that not even the authority of the "finest works of the Greeks," or of Schiller (in the Bride of Messina), or of Alfieri (in Mirra), "in modern times," would sanction the intrusion of the μισητὸν into English literature. The early drafts and variants of the MS. do not afford any evidence of this alteration of the plot which, as Byron thought, was detrimental to the poem as a work of art, but the undoubted fact that the Bride of Abydos, as well as the Giaour, embody recollections of actual scenes and incidents which had burnt themselves into the memory of an eye-witness, accounts not only for the fervent heat at which these Turkish tales were written, but for the extraordinary glamour which they threw over contemporary readers, to whom the local colouring was new and attractive, and who were not out of conceit with "good Monsieur Melancholy."[151]
Byron was less dissatisfied with his second Turkish tale than he had been with the Giaour. He apologizes for the rapidity with which it had been composed—stans pede in uno—but he announced to Murray (November 20) that "he was doing his best to beat the Giaour," and (November 29) he appraises the Bride as "my first entire composition of any length."
Moreover, he records (November 15), with evident gratification, the approval of his friend Hodgson, "a very sincere and by no means (at times) a flattering critic of mine," and modestly accepts the praise of such masters of letters as "Mr. Canning," Hookham Frere, Heber, Lord Holland, and of the traveller Edward Daniel Clarke.
The Bride of Abydos was advertised in the Morning Chronicle, among "Books published this day," on November 29, 1813. It was reviewed by George Agar Ellis in the Quarterly Review of January, 1814 (vol. x. p. 331), and, together with the Corsair, by Jeffrey in the Edinburgh Review of April, 1814 (vol. xxiii. p. 198).
The MSS. of the Bride of Abydos are contained in a bound volume, and in two packets of loose sheets, numbering thirty-two in all, of which eighteen represent additions, etc., to the First Canto; and fourteen additions, etc., to the Second Canto.
The bound volume consists of a rough copy and a fair copy of the first draft of the Bride; the fair copy beginning with the sixth stanza of Canto I.
The "additions" in the bound volume consist of—
1. Stanza xxviii. of Canto II.—here called "Conclusion" (fifty-eight lines). And note on "Sir Orford's Letters."
2. Eight lines beginning, "Eve saw it placed," at the end of stanza xxviii.
3. An emendation of six lines to stanza v. of Canto II., with reference to the comboloio, the Turkish rosary.[152]
4. Forty additional lines to stanza xx. of Canto II., beginning, "For thee in those bright isles," and being the first draft of the addition as printed in the Revises of November 13, etc.
5. Stanza xxvii. of Canto II., twenty-eight lines.
6. Ten additional lines to stanza xxvii., "Ah! happy!"—"depart."
7. Affixed to the rough Copy in stanza xxviii., fifty-eight lines, here called "Continuation." This is the rough Copy of No. 1.
The eighteen loose sheets of additions to Canto I. consist of—
1. The Dedication.
2. Two revisions of "Know ye the land."
3. Seven sheets, Canto I. stanzas i.-v., being the commencement of the Fair Copy in the bound volume.
4. Two sheets of the additional twelve lines to Canto I. stanza vi., "Who hath not proved,"—"Soul."
5. Four sheets of notes to Canto I. stanza vi., dated November 20, November 22, 1813.
6. Two sheets of notes to stanza xvi.
7. Sixteen additional lines to stanza xiii.
The fourteen additional sheets to Canto II. consist of—
1. Ten lines of stanza iv., and four lines of stanza xvii.
2. Two lines and note of stanza v.
3. Sheets of additions, etc., to stanza xx. (eight sheets).
(α) Eight lines, "Or, since that hope,"—"thy command."
(β) "For thee in those bright isles" (twenty-four lines).
(γ) "For thee," etc. (thirty-six lines).
(δ) "Blest as the call" (three variants).
(ε) "For thee in those bright isles" (seven lines).
(ζ) Fourteen lines, "There ev'n thy soul,"—"Zuleika's name," "Aye—let the loud winds,"—"bars escape," additional to stanza xx.
4. Two sheets of five variants of "Ah! wherefore did he turn to look?" being six additional lines to stanza xxv.
5. Thirty-five lines of stanza xxvi.
6. Ten lines, "Ah! happy! but,"—"depart." And eleven[153] lines, "Woe to thee, rash,"—"hast shed," being a continuous addition to stanza xxvii.
REVISES.
Endorsed—
BYRON.[ey]
After the completion of the fair copy of the MS. of the Bride of Abydos, seventy lines were added to stanza xx. of Canto II. In both MSS. the rough and fair copies, the stanza ends with the line, "The Dove of peace and promise to mine ark!"
Seven MS. sheets are extant, which make up the greater portion of these additional lines.
The First Addition amounts to eight lines, and takes the narrative from line 880 to line 893, "Wait—wave—defend— destroy—at thy command!"
Lines 884-889 do not appear in the first MS. Fragment, but are given in three variants on separate sheets. Two of these are dated December 2 and December 3, 1813.
The Second Fragment begins with line 890, "For thee in those bright isles is built a bower," and, numbering twenty-two lines, ends with a variant of line 907, "Blend every thought, do all—but disunite!" Two lines of this addition, "With thee all toils are sweet," find a place in the text as lines 934, 935.
The Third Fragment amounts to thirty-six lines, and may be taken as the first draft of the whole additions—lines 880-949.
Lines 908-925 and 936-945 of the text are still later additions, but a fourth MS. fragment supplies lines 920-925 and lines 936-945. (A fair copy of this fragment gives text for Revise of November 13.) Between November 13 and November 25 no less than ten revises of the Bride were[212] submitted to Lord Byron. In the earliest of these, dated November 13, the thirty-six lines of the Third Fragment have been expanded into forty lines—four lines of the MS. being omitted, and twelve lines, 908-919, "Once free,"—"social home," being inserted. The text passed through five revises and remained unaltered till November 21, when eighteen lines were added to the forty, viz.: (4) "Mark! where his carnage,"—"sabre's length;" (6) "There ev'n thy soul,"—"Zuleika's name;" and (8) "Aye—let the loud winds,"—"bars escape." Of these the two latter additions belong to the Fourth Fragment. The text in this state passed through three more revises, but before the first edition was issued two more lines were added—lines 938, 939,
Even then the six lines, "Blest—as the Muezzin's,"—"endears," are wanting in the text; but the four lines, "Soft—as the melody,"—"endears," are inserted in MS. in the margin. The text as it stands first appears in the Seventh Edition.
[First Draft of 880, sq., of Canto II. Stanz xx. of the Bride of Abydos.]
[Proof and Revise.—See Letters to Murray, November 13, 17, 1813.]
[124] {157} ["Murray tells me that Croker asked him why the thing was called the Bride of Abydos? It is a cursed awkward question, being unanswerable. She is not a bride, only about to become one. I don't wonder at his finding out the Bull; but the detection ... is too late to do any good. I was a great fool to make it, and am ashamed of not being an Irishman."—Journal, December 6, 1813; Letters, 1898, ii. 365.
Byron need not have been dismayed. "The term is particularly applied on the day of marriage and during the 'honeymoon,' but is frequently used from the proclamation of the banns.... In the debate on Prince Leopold's allowance, Mr. Gladstone, being criticized for speaking of the Princess Helena as the 'bride,' said he believed that colloquially a lady when engaged was often called a 'bride.' This was met with 'Hear! Hear!' from some, and 'No! No!' from others."—N. Engl. Dict., art. "Bride."]
[125] [The opening lines were probably suggested by Goethe's—"Kennst du das Land wo die citronen blühn?"]
[126] "Gúl," the rose.
[127] {158} ["'Where the Citron,' etc. These lines are in the MS., and omitted by the Printer, whom I again request to look over it, and see that no others are omitted.—B." (Revise No. 1, November 13, 1813.)
"I ought and do apologise to Mr.—— the Printer for charging him with an omission of the lines which I find was my own—but I also wish he would not print such a stupid word as finest for fairest." (Revise, November 15, 1813.)
The lines, "Where the Citron," etc., are absent from a fair copy dated November 11, but are inserted as an addition in an earlier draft.]
Young's Revenge, act v. sc. 2 (British Theatre, 1792, p. 84).
[ez] For wild as the moment of lovers' farewell.—[MS.]
[fa] Canto 1st The Bride of Abydos. Nov. 1st 1813.—[MS.]
[fb] {159} The changing cheek and knitting brow.—[MS. i.]
[These lines must have been altered in proof, for all the revises accord with the text.]
[fd] {160} With many a tale and mutual song.—[ms]
[129] Mejnoun and Leila, the Romeo and Juliet of the East. Sadi, the moral poet of Persia. [For the "story of Leila and Mujnoon," see The Gulistan, or Rose Garden of ... Saadi, translated by Francis Gladwin, Boston, 1865, Tale xix. pp. 288, 289; and Gulistan ... du Cheikh Sa'di ... Traduit par W. Semelet, Paris, 1834, Notes on Chapitre V. p. 304. Sa'di "moralizes" the tale, to the effect that love dwells in the eye of the beholder. See, too, Jāmī's Medjnoun et Leila, translated by A. L. Chezy, Paris, 1807.]
[130] Tambour. Turkish drum, which sounds at sunrise, noon, and twilight. [The "tambour" is a kind of mandoline. It is the large kettle-drum (nagaré) which sounds the hours.]
[fe] {161}
[ff] {162} For looks of peace and hearts of ire.—[MS.]
[fg] And calmly to his Sire's was raised.—[MS.]
[fh] {163} No—nor the blood I call my own.—[MS.]
[131] The Turks abhor the Arabs (who return the compliment a hundredfold) even more than they hate the Christians.
[fi] Or Christian flying from the fight.—[MS.]
[fj] Zuleika! ever welcome here.—[MS.]
[fk] Who never was more blest than now.—[MS.]
[132] {164} [Lines 170-181 were added in the course of printing. They were received by the publisher on November 22, 1813.]
[133] This expression has met with objections. I will not refer to "Him who hath not Music in his soul," but merely request the reader to recollect, for ten seconds, the features of the woman whom he believes to be the most beautiful; and, if he then does not comprehend fully what is feebly expressed in the above line, I shall be sorry for us both. For an eloquent passage in the latest work of the first female writer of this, perhaps of any, age, on the analogy (and the immediate comparison excited by that analogy) between "painting and music," see vol. iii. cap. 10, De l'Allemagne. And is not this connection still stronger with the original than the copy? with the colouring of Nature than of Art? After all, this is rather to be felt than described; still I think there are some who will understand it, at least they would have done had they beheld the countenance whose speaking harmony suggested the idea; for this passage is not drawn from imagination but memory,[A] that mirror which Affliction dashes to the earth, and looking down upon the fragments, only beholds the reflection multiplied!
[A] In this line I have not drawn from fiction but memory—that mirror of regret memory—the too faithful mirror of affliction the long vista through which we gaze. Someone has said that the perfection of Architecture is frozen music—the perfection of Beauty to my mind always presented the idea of living Music.—[MS. erased.]
[For the simile of the broken mirror, compare Childe Harold, Canto III. stanza xxxiii. line 1 (Poetical Works, ii. 236, note 2); and for "the expression," "music breathing from her face," compare Sir Thomas Browne's Religio Medici, Part II. sect, ix., Works, 1835, ii. 106, "And sure there is musick, even in the beauty and the silent note which Cupid strikes, far sweeter than the sound of any instrument;" and Lovelace's "Song," Orpheus to Beasts—
The effect of the appeal to Madame de Staël is thus recorded in Byron's Journal of December 7, 1813 (Letters, 1898, ii. 369): "This morning, a very pretty billet from the Staël," (for passage in De L'Allemagne, Part III. chap, x., and the "billet," see Letters, ii. 354, note 1) ... "She has been pleased to be pleased with my slight eulogy in the note annexed to The Bride."]
[134] {166} Carasman Oglou, or Kara Osman Oglou, is the principal landholder in Turkey; he governs Magnesia: those who, by a kind of feudal tenure, possess land on condition of service, are called Timariots: they serve as Spahis, according to the extent of territory, and bring a certain number into the field, generally cavalry.
[The "line of Carasman" dates back to Kara Youlouk, the founder of the dynasty of the "White Sheep," at the close of the fourteenth century. Hammer-Purgstall (Hist. de l'Emp. Ottoman, iii. 151) gives sang-sue, "blood-sucker," as the equivalent of Youlouk, which should, however, be interpreted "smooth-face." Of the Magnesian Kara Osman Oglou ("Black Osman-son"), Dallaway (Constantinople Ancient and Modern, 1797, p. 190) writes, "He is the most powerful and opulent derè bey ('lord of the valley'), or feudal tenant, in the empire, and, though inferior to the pashas in rank, possesses more wealth and influence, and offers them an example of administration and patriotic government which they have rarely the virtue to follow." For the Timariots, who formed the third class of the feudal cavalry of the Ottoman Empire, see Finlay's Greece under Othoman ... Domination, 1856, pp. 50, 51.]
[fn] Who won of yore paternal lands.—[MS.]
[fo] Enough if that thy bridesman true.—[MS. erased.]
[135] [The Bey Oglou (Begzāde) is "the nobleman," "the high-born chief."]
[136] {167} When a Pacha is sufficiently strong to resist, the single messenger, who is always the first bearer of the order for his death, is strangled instead, and sometimes five or six, one after the other, on the same errand, by command of the refractory patient; if, on the contrary, he is weak or loyal, he bows, kisses the Sultan's respectable signature, and is bowstrung with great complacency. In 1810, several of these presents were exhibited in the niche of the Seraglio gate; among others, the head of the Pacha of Bagdat, a brave young man, cut off by treachery, after a desperate resistance.
[137] Clapping of the hands calls the servants. The Turks hate a superfluous expenditure of voice, and they have no bells.
[138] "Chibouque," the Turkish pipe, of which the amber mouthpiece, and sometimes the ball which contains the leaf, is adorned with precious stones, if in possession of the wealthier orders.
[139] {168} "Maugrabee" [Maghrabī, Moors], Moorish mercenaries.
[140] "Delis," bravos who form the forlorn hope of the cavalry, and always begin the action. [See Childe Harold, Canto II., Poetical Works, 1899, ii. 149, note 1.]
[141] [The Kizlar aghasi was the head of the black eunuchs; kislar, by itself, is Turkish for "girls," "virgins."]
[142] A twisted fold of felt is used for scimitar practice by the Turks, and few but Mussulman arms can cut through it at a single stroke: sometimes a tough turban is used for the same purpose. The jerreed [jarīd] is a game of blunt javelins, animated and graceful.
[143] "Ollahs," Alla il Allah [La ilāh ill 'llāh], the "Leilies," as the Spanish poets call them, the sound is Ollah: a cry of which the Turks, for a silent people, are somewhat profuse, particularly during the jerreed [jarīd], or in the chase, but mostly in battle. Their animation in the field, and gravity in the chamber, with their pipes and comboloios [vide post, p. 181, note 4], form an amusing contrast.
[fp] {169} Her heart confessed no cause of shame.—[MS.]
[144] "Atar-gul," ottar of roses. The Persian is the finest.
[145] The ceiling and wainscots, or rather walls, of the Mussulman apartments are generally painted, in great houses, with one eternal and highly-coloured view of Constantinople, wherein the principal feature is a noble contempt of perspective; below, arms, scimitars, etc., are, in general, fancifully and not inelegantly disposed.
[146] {170} It has been much doubted whether the notes of this "Lover of the rose" are sad or merry; and Mr. Fox's remarks on the subject have provoked some learned controversy as to the opinions of the ancients on the subject. I dare not venture a conjecture on the point, though a little inclined to the "errare mallem," etc., if Mr. Fox was mistaken.
[Fox, writing to Grey (see Lord Holland's Preface (p. xii.) to the History ... of James the Second, by ... C. J. Fox, London, 1808), remarks, "In defence of my opinion about the nightingale, I find Chaucer, who of all poets seems to have been the fondest of the singing of birds, calls it a 'merry note,'" etc. Fox's contention was attacked and disproved by Martin Davy (1763-1839, physician and Master of Caius College, Cambridge), in an interesting and scholarly pamphlet entitled, Observations upon Mr. Fox's Letter to Mr. Grey, 1809.]
[fs] {171} If so by Mecca's hidden shrine.—[MS.]
[ft] The day that teareth thee from me.—[MS.]
[147] "Azrael," the angel of death.
[fu] When comes that hour and come it must.—[MS. erased.]
[fv] {172}
[The couplet was expunged in a revise dated November 19.]
[fw] With life to keep but not with life resign.—[MS.]
[fx] {173}
[148] The treasures of the Pre-Adamite Sultans. See D'Herbelot [1781, ii. 405], article Istakar [Estekhar ou Istekhar].
[149] "Musselim," a governor, the next in rank after a Pacha; a Waywode is the third; and then come the Agas.
[This table of precedence applies to Ottoman officials in Greece and other dependencies. The Musselim [Mutaselline] is the governor or commander of a city (e.g. Hobhouse, Travels in Albania, ii. 41, speaks of the "Musselim of Smyrna"); Aghas, i.e. heads of departments in the army or civil service, or the Sultan's household, here denote mayors of small towns, or local magnates.]
[150] "Egripo," the Negropont. According to the proverb, the Turks of Egripo, the Jews of Salonica, and the Greeks of Athens, are the worst of their respective races.
[See Gibbon's Decline and Fall, 1855, viii. 386.]
[fy] Like this—and more than this.—[MS.]
[fz] {175}
[gb] {176}
[151] "Tchocadar"—one of the attendants who precedes a man of authority.
[See D'Ohsson's Tableau Générale, etc., 1787, ii. 159, and Plates 87, 88. The Turks seem to have used the Persian word chawki-dār, an officer of the guard-house, a policeman (whence our slang word "chokey"), for a "valet de pied," or, in the case of the Sultan, for an apparitor. The French spelling points to D'Ohsson as Byron's authority.]
[gd] {177} Be silent thou.—[MS.]
[ge] {178} Nov. 9th 1813.—[MS.]
[152] [Vide Ovid, Heroïdes, Ep. xix.; and the De Herone atque Leandro of Musæus.]
[153] {179} The wrangling about this epithet, "the broad Hellespont" or the "boundless Hellespont," whether it means one or the other, or what it means at all, has been beyond all possibility of detail. I have even heard it disputed on the spot; and not foreseeing a speedy conclusion to the controversy, amused myself with swimming across it in the mean time; and probably may again, before the point is settled. Indeed, the question as to the truth of "the tale of Troy divine" still continues, much of it resting upon the talismanic word "ἄπειρος:" probably Homer had the same notion of distance that a coquette has of time; and when he talks of boundless, means half a mile; as the latter, by a like figure, when she says eternal attachment, simply specifies three weeks.
[For a defence of the Homeric ἀπείρων, and for a résumé of the "wrangling" of the topographers, Jean Baptiste Le Chevalier (1752-1836) and Jacob Bryant (1715-1804), etc., see Travels in Albania, 1858, ii. 179-185.]
[154] {180} Before his Persian invasion, and crowned the altar with laurel, etc. He was afterwards imitated by Caracalla in his race. It is believed that the last also poisoned a friend, named Festus, for the sake of new Patroclan games. I have seen the sheep feeding on the tombs of Æyietes and Antilochus: the first is in the centre of the plain.
[Alexander placed a garland on the tomb of Achilles, and "went through the ceremony of anointing himself with oil, and running naked up to it."—Plut. Vitæ, "Alexander M.," cap. xv. line 25, Lipsiæ, 1814, vi. 187. For the tombs of Æsyetes, etc., see Travels in Albania, ii. 149-151.]
[155] [Compare—
Never the Time, etc., lines 19, 20, by Robert Browning.]
[156] {181} When rubbed, the amber is susceptible of a perfume, which is slight, but not disagreeable. [Letter to Murray, December 6, 1813, Letters, 1898, ii. 300.]
[157] ["Coeterum castitatis hieroglyphicum gemma est."—Hoffmann, Lexic. Univ., art. "Smaragdus." Compare, too, Lalla Rookh ("Chandos Classics," p. 406), "The emerald's virgin blaze."]
[158] The belief in amulets engraved on gems, or enclosed in gold boxes, containing scraps from the Koran, worn round the neck, wrist, or arm, is still universal in the East. The Koorsee (throne) verse in the second cap. of the Koran describes the attributes of the Most High, and is engraved in this manner, and worn by the pious, as the most esteemed and sublime of all sentences.
[The âyatu 'l kursîy, or verse of the throne (Sura II. "Chapter of the Heifer," v. 257), runs thus: "God, there is no God but He, the living and self-subsistent. Slumber takes Him not, nor sleep. His is what is in the heavens and what is in the earth. Who is it that intercedes with Him, save by His permission? He knows what is before them, and what behind them, and they comprehend not aught of His knowledge but of what He pleases. His throne extends over the heavens and the earth, and it tires Him not to guard them both, for He is high and grand."—The Qur'ân, translated by E. H. Palmer, 1880, Part I., Sacred Books of the East, vi. 40.]
[159] "Comboloio"—a Turkish rosary. The MSS., particularly those of the Persians, are richly adorned and illuminated. The Greek females are kept in utter ignorance; but many of the Turkish girls are highly accomplished, though not actually qualified for a Christian coterie. Perhaps some of our own "blues" might not be the worse for bleaching.
[The comboloio consists of ninety-nine beads. Compare Lalla Rookh ("Chandos Classics," p. 420), "Her ruby rosary," etc., and note on "Le Tespih." Lord Byron's Comboloio is the title of a metrical jeu d'esprit, a rhymed catalogue of the Poetical Works, beginning with Hours of Idleness, and ending with Cain, a Mystery.—Blackwood's Magazine, 1822, xi. 162-165.]
[160] {182} [Shiraz, capital of the Persian province of Fars, is celebrated for the attar-gûl, or attar of roses.]
[gf] {183}
[161] [Compare The Giaour, line 490, note 1, vide ante, p. 110.]
[gg] And one seemed red with recent guilt.—[MS.]
[gh] {184} Her Selim—"Alla—is it he?"—[MS.]
[162] "Galiongée" or Galiongi [i.e. a Galleon-er], a sailor, that is, a Turkish sailor; the Greeks navigate, the Turks work the guns. Their dress is picturesque; and I have seen the Capitan Pacha, more than once, wearing it as a kind of incog. Their legs, however, are generally naked. The buskins described in the text as sheathed behind with silver are those of an Arnaut robber, who was my host (he had quitted the profession) at his Pyrgo, near Gastouni in the Morea; they were plated in scales one over the other, like the back of an armadillo.
[Gastuni lies some eight miles S.W. of Palæopolis, the site of the ancient Elis. The "Pyrgo" must be the Castle of Chlemutzi (Castel Tornese), built by Geoffrey II. of Villehouardin, circ. A.D. 1218.]
[gi] {185}
[gj] {186} I swear it by Medina's shrine.—[MS. erased.]
[163] The characters on all Turkish scimitars contain sometimes the name of the place of their manufacture, but more generally a text from the Koran, in letters of gold. Amongst those in my possession is one with a blade of singular construction: it is very broad, and the edge notched into serpentine curves like the ripple of water, or the wavering of flame. I asked the Armenian who sold it, what possible use such a figure could add: he said, in Italian, that he did not know; but the Mussulmans had an idea that those of this form gave a severer wound; and liked it because it was "piu feroce." I did not much admire the reason, but bought it for its peculiarity.
[Compare Lalla Rookh ("Chandos Classics," p. 373)—"The flashing of their swords' rich marquetry."]
[164] {187} It is to be observed, that every allusion to any thing or personage in the Old Testament, such as the Ark, or Cain, is equally the privilege of Mussulman and Jew: indeed, the former profess to be much better acquainted with the lives, true and fabulous, of the patriarchs, than is warranted by our own sacred writ; and not content with Adam, they have a biography of Pre-Adamites. Solomon is the monarch of all necromancy, and Moses a prophet inferior only to Christ and Mahomet. Zuleika is the Persian name of Potiphar's wife; and her amour with Joseph constitutes one of the finest poems in their language. It is, therefore, no violation of costume to put the names of Cain, or Noah, into the mouth of a Moslem.
[À propos of this note "for the ignorant," Byron writes to Murray (November 13, 1813), "Do you suppose that no one but the Galileans are acquainted with Adam, and Eve, and Cain, and Noah?—Zuleika is the Persian poetical name for Potiphar's wife;" and, again, November 14, "I don't care one lump of sugar for my poetry; but for my costume, and my correctness on these points ... I will combat lustily."—Letters, 1898, ii. 282, 283.]
[165] {188} [Karajić (Vuk Stefanović, born 1787), secretary to Kara George, published Narodne Srpske Pjesme, at Vienna, 1814, 1815. See, too, Languages and Literature of the Slavic Nations, by Talvi, New York, 1850, pp. 366-382; Volkslieder der Serben, von Talvi, Leipzig, 1835, ii. 245, etc., and Chants Populaires des Servics, Recueillis par Wuk Stephanowitsch, et Traduits d'après Talvy, par Madame Élise Voïart, Paris, 1834, ii. 183, etc.]
[166] Paswan Oglou, the rebel of Widdin; who, for the last years of his life, set the whole power of the Porte at defiance.
[Passwan Oglou (1758-1807) [Passewend's, or the Watchman's son, according to Hobhouse] was born and died at Widdin. He first came into notice in 1788, in alliance with certain disbanded Turkish levies, named Krdschalies. "It was their pride to ride along on stately horses, with trappings of gold and silver, and bearing costly arms. In their train were female slaves, Giuvendi, in male attire, who not only served to amuse them in their hours of ease with singing and dancing, but also followed them to battle (as Kaled followed Lara, see Lara, Canto II. stanza xv., etc.), for the purpose of holding their horses when they fought." On one occasion he is reported to have addressed these "rebel hordes" much in the spirit of the "Corsair," "The booty be yours, and mine the glory." "After having for some time suffered a Pacha to be associated with him, he at length expelled his superior, and demanded 'the three horse-tails' for himself." In 1798 the Porte despatched another army, but Passwan was completely victorious, and "at length the Porte resolved to make peace, and actually sent him the 'three horse-tails'" (i.e. made him commander-in-chief of the Janissaries at Widdin). (See History of Servia, by Leopold von Ranke, Bohn, 1853, pp. 68-71. See, too, Voyage dans l'Empire Othoman, par G. A. Olivier, an. 9 (1801), i. 108-125; and Madame Voïart's "Abrégé de l'histoire du royaume de Servie," prefixed to Chants Populaires, etc., Paris, 1834.)]
[167] {189} "Horse-tail,"—the standard of a Pacha.
[gl] With venom blacker than his soul.—[MS.]
[168] Giaffir, Pacha of Argyro Castro, or Scutari, I am not sure which, was actually taken off by the Albanian Ali, in the manner described in the text. Ali Pacha, while I was in the country, married the daughter of his victim, some years after the event had taken place at a bath in Sophia or Adrianople. The poison was mixed in the cup of coffee, which is presented before the sherbet by the bath keeper, after dressing.
[gm] {190}
[gn] {191} Yet I must be all truth to thee.—[MS.]
[go] {192}
[gp] {193}
[169] I must here shelter myself with the Psalmist—is it not David that makes the "Earth reel to and fro like a Drunkard"? If the Globe can be thus lively on seeing its Creator, a liberated captive can hardly feel less on a first view of his work.—[Note, MS. erased.]
[170] The Turkish notions of almost all islands are confined to the Archipelago, the sea alluded to.
[171] {194} Lambro Canzani, a Greek, famous for his efforts, in 1789-90, for the independence of his country. Abandoned by the Russians, he became a pirate, and the Archipelago was the scene of his enterprises. He is said to be still alive at Petersburgh. He and Riga are the two most celebrated of the Greek revolutionists.
[For Lambros Katzones (Hobhouse, Travels in Albania, ii. 5, calls him Canziani), see Finlay's Greece under Othoman ... Domination, 1856, pp. 330-334. Finlay dwells on his piracies rather than his patriotism.]
[172] {195} "Rayahs,"—all who pay the capitation tax, called the "Haratch."
["This tax was levied on the whole male unbelieving population," except children under ten, old men, Christian and Jewish priests.—Finlay, Greece under Ottoman ... Domination, 1856, p. 26. See, too, the Qur'ân, cap. ix., "The Declaration of Immunity."]
[173] This first of voyages is one of the few with which the Mussulmans profess much acquaintance.
[174] The wandering life of the Arabs, Tartars, and Turkomans, will be found well detailed in any book of Eastern travels. That it possesses a charm peculiar to itself, cannot be denied. A young French renegado confessed to Châteaubriand, that he never found himself alone, galloping in the desert, without a sensation approaching to rapture which was indescribable.
[175] [Inns, caravanserais. From sarāy, a palace or inn.]
[176] [The remaining seventy lines of stanza xx. were not included in the original MS., but were sent to the publisher in successive instalments while the poem was passing through the press.]
[177] [In the first draft of a supplementary fragment, line 883 ran thus—
A note was appended—
"Mr. My. Choose which of the 2 epithets
'fancied' or 'airy'
may be best—or if neither will do—tell me and I will dream
another—
"Yours,
"Bn"
The epithet ("prophetic") which stands in the text was inserted in a revise dated December 3, 1813. Two other versions were also sent, that Gifford might select that which was "best, or rather not worst"—
(Letters, 1898, ii. 282.)
On the same date, December 3rd, two additional lines were affixed to the quatrain (lines 886-889)—
And in a later revise, as "a last alteration"—
An erased version of this "last alteration" ran thus—
[A] [It is probable that Byron, who did not trouble himself to distinguish between "lie" and "lay," and who, as the MS. of English Bards, and Scotch Reviewers (see line 732, Poetical Works, 1898, i. 355) reveals, pronounced "petit maître" anglicé in four syllables, regarded "dome" (vide supra) as a true and exact rhyme to "tomb," but, with his wonted compliance, was persuaded to make yet another alteration.] ]
[gr] {196} Of lines 886-889, two, if not three, variants were sent to the publisher—
[178] {197} "Jannat-al-Aden," the perpetual abode, the Mussulman paradise. [See Sale's Koran, "Preliminary Discourse," sect. i.; and Journal, November 17, 1813, Letters, 1898, ii. 326.]
[gs] Wait on thy voice and bow at thy command.—[MS.]
[179] ["You wanted some reflections, and I send you per Selim, eighteen lines in decent couplets, of a pensive, if not an ethical tendency.... Mr. Canning's approbation (if he did approve) I need not say makes me proud."—Letter to Murray, November 23, 1813, Letters, 1898, ii. 286.]
[gv] {198}
[For the final alteration to the present text, see letter to Murray of November 24, 1813.]
[180] [Compare Tacitus, Agricola, cap. 30—"Solitudinem faciun—pacem appellant." See letter to Murray, November 24, 1813, Letters, 1898, ii. 287.]
[gw] Power sways but by distrust—her sole source.—[MS. erased.]
[gx] Which Love to-night hath lent by swelling sail.—[MS.]
[181] {199} [Compare—
Tibullus, Eleg., Lib. I. i. 45, 46.]
[gy] Then if my lip once murmurs, it must be.—[MS.]
[182] [The omission of lines 938, 939 drew from Byron an admission (Letter to Murray, November 29, 1813) that "the passage is an imitation altogether from Medea in Ovid" (Metamorph., vii. 66-69)—
Englished by Sandys, 1632.]
[gz] This hour decides my doom or thy escape.—[MS.]
[183] {200} [Compare—
The Revenge, by Edward Young, act iv.
(Modern British Drama, 1811, ii. 17).]
[ha] {202} Or grazed by wounds he scorned to feel.—[MS.]
[hb] {203} Three MS. variants of these lines were rejected in turn before the text was finally adopted—
A fourth variant of lines 1046, 1047 was inserted in a revise dated November 16—
[hc] {204} O'er which their talons yet delay.—[MS. erased.]
[hd] {205}
[184] ["While the Salsette lay off the Dardanelles, Lord Byron saw the body of a man who had been executed by being cast into the sea, floating on the stream, moving to and fro with the tumbling of the water, which gave to his arms the effect of scaring away several sea-fowl that were hovering to devour. This incident he has strikingly depicted in the Bride of Abydos."—Life of Lord Byron, by John Galt, 1830, p. 144.]
[185] A turban is carved in stone above the graves of men only.
[186] The death-song of the Turkish women. The "silent slaves" are the men, whose notions of decorum forbid complaint in public.
[he] {206} The Koran-chapter chaunts thy fate.—[MS.]
[187] [At a Turkish funeral, after the interment has taken place, the Imâm "assis sur les genoux à côté de la tombe," offers the prayer Telkin, and at the conclusion of the prayer recites the Fathah, or "opening chapter" of the Korân. ("In the name of the merciful and compassionate God. Praise belongs to God, the Lord of the worlds, the Merciful, the Compassionate, the Ruler of the day of judgment. Thee we serve, and Thee we ask for aid. Guide us in the right path, the path of those Thou art gracious to; not of those Thou art wroth with; nor of those who err."—The Qur'ân, p. 1, translated by E. H. Palmer, Oxford, 1880): Tableau Générale de l'Empire Ottoman, par Mouradja D'Ohsson, Paris, 1787, i. 235-248. Writing to Murray, November 14, 1813, Byron instances the funeral (in the Bride of Abydos) as proof of his correctness with regard to local colouring.—Letters, 1898, ii. 283.]
[188] {207} ["I one evening witnessed a funeral in the vast cemetery of Scutari. An old man, with a venerable beard, threw himself by the side of the narrow grave, and strewing the earth on his head, cried aloud, 'He was my son! my only son!'"—Constantinople in 1828, by Charles Macfarlane, 1829, p. 233, note.]
[hf] She whom thy Sultan had been fain to wed.—[MS.]
[189] ["The body of a Moslemin is ordered to be carried to the grave in haste, with hurried steps."—Ibid., p. 233, note.]
[190] "I came to the place of my birth, and cried, 'The friends of my Youth, where are they?' and an Echo answered, 'Where are they?'"—From an Arabic MS. The above quotation (from which the idea in the text is taken) must be already familiar to every reader: it is given in the second annotation, p. 67, of The Pleasures of Memory [note to Part I. line 103]; a poem so well known as to render a reference almost superfluous: but to whose pages all will be delighted to recur [Poems, by Samuel Rogers, 1852, i. 48].
[hg] There the sad cypress ever glooms.—[MS.]
[hh] {209} But with the day blush of the sky.—[MS.]
[hi] And some there be who could believe.—[MS.]
Milton, Comus, line 208.
For a belief that the souls of the dead inhabit the form of birds, we need not travel to the East. Lord Lyttleton's ghost story, the belief of the Duchess of Kendal, that George I. flew into her window in the shape of a raven (see Orford's Reminiscences, Lord Orford's Works, 1798, iv. 283), and many other instances, bring this superstition nearer home. The most singular was the whim of a Worcester lady, who, believing her daughter to exist in the shape of a singing bird, literally furnished her pew in the cathedral with cages full of the kind; and as she was rich, and a benefactress in beautifying the church, no objection was made to her harmless folly. For this anecdote, see Orford's Letters.
["But here (at Gloucester) is a modernity, which beats all antiquities for curiosity. Just by the high altar is a small pew hung with green damask, with curtains of the same; a small corner-cupboard, painted, carved, and gilt, for books, in one corner, and two troughs of a bird-cage, with seeds and water. If any mayoress on earth was small enough to inclose herself in this tabernacle, or abstemious enough to feed on rape and canary, I should have sworn that it was the shrine of the queen of the aldermen. It belongs to a Mrs. Cotton, who, having lost a favourite daughter, is convinced her soul is transmigrated into a robin redbreast, for which reason she passes her life in making an aviary of the cathedral of Gloucester."—Letter to Richard Bentley, September, 1753 (Lord Orford's Works, 1798, v. 279).]
[192] {210} [According to J. B. Le Chevalier (Voyage de La Propontide, etc., an. viii. (1800), p. 17), the Turkish name for a small bay which formed the ancient port of Sestos, is Ak-Bachi-Liman (Port de la Tête blanche).]
[193] ["The Bride, such as it is is my first entire composition of any length (except the Satire, and be damned to it), for The Giaour is but a string of passages, and Childe Harold is, and I rather think always will be, unconcluded" (Letter to Murray, November 29, 1813). It (the Bride) "was published on Thursday the second of December; but how it is liked or disliked, I know not. Whether it succeeds or not is no fault of the public, against whom I can have no complaint. But I am much more indebted to the tale than I can ever be to the most partial reader; as it wrung my thoughts from reality to imagination—from selfish regrets to vivid recollections—and recalled me to a country replete with the brightest and darkest, but always most lively colours of my memory" (Journal, December 5, 1813, Letters, 1898, ii. 291, 361).]
——"I suoi pensieri in lui dormir non ponno."
Tasso, Gerusalemme Liberata, Canto X. [stanza lxxviii. line 8].
A seventh edition of the Giaour, including the final additions, and the first edition of the Bride of Abydos, were published on the twenty-ninth of November, 1813. In less than three weeks (December 18) Byron began the Corsair, and completed the fair copy of the first draft by the last day of the year. The Corsair in all but its final shape, together with the sixth edition of the Bride of Abydos, the seventh of Childe Harold, and the ninth of the Giaour, was issued on the first of February, 1814.
A letter from John Murray to Lord Byron, dated February 3, 1814 (Memoir of John Murray, 1891, i. 223), presents a vivid picture of a great literary triumph—
"My Lord,—I have been unwilling to write until I had something to say.... I am most happy to tell you that your last poem is—what Mr. Southey's is called—a Carmen Triumphale. Never in my recollection has any work ... excited such a ferment ... I sold on the day of publication—a thing perfectly unprecedented—10,000 copies.... Mr. Moore says it is masterly—a wonderful performance. Mr. Hammond, Mr. Heber, D'Israeli, every one who comes ... declare their unlimited approbation. Mr. Ward was here with Mr. Gifford yesterday, and mingled his admiration with the rest ... and Gifford did, what I never knew him do before—he repeated several stanzas from memory, particularly the closing stanza—
"'His death yet dubious, deeds too widely known.'
"I have the highest encomiums in letters from Croker and Mr. Hay; but I rest most upon the warm feeling it has created in Gifford's critic heart.... You have no notion of[218] the sensation which the publication has occasioned; and my only regret is that you were not present to witness it."
For some time before and after the poem appeared, Byron was, as he told Leigh Hunt (February 9, 1814; Letters, 1899, iii. 27), "snow-bound and thaw-swamped in 'the valley of the shadow' of Newstead Abbey," and it was not till he had returned to town that he resumed his journal, and bethought him of placing on record some dark sayings with regard to the story of the Corsair and the personality of Conrad. Under date February 18, 1814, he writes—
"The Corsair has been conceived, written, published, etc., since I last took up this journal [?last day but one]. They tell me it has great success; it was written con amore [i.e. during the reign of Lady Frances Wedderburn Webster], and much from existence."
And again, Journal, March 10 (Letters, 1898, ii. 399),
"He [Hobhouse] told me an odd report,—that I am the actual Conrad, the veritable Corsair, and that part of my travels are supposed to have passed in privacy [sic;?piracy]. Um! people sometimes hit near the truth; but never the whole truth. H. don't know what I was about the year after he left the Levant; nor does any one—nor—nor—nor—however, it is a lie—but, 'I doubt the equivocation of the fiend that lies like truth.'"
Very little weight can be attached to these "I could an I would" pronouncements, deliberately framed to provoke curiosity, and destined, no doubt, sooner or later to see the light; but the fact remains that Conrad is not a mere presentation of Byron in a fresh disguise, or "The Pirate's Tale" altogether a "painting of the imagination."
That the Corsair is founded upon fact is argued at some length by the author (an "English Gentleman in the Greek Military Service") of the Life, Writings, Opinions, and Times of the R. H. George Gordon Noel Byron, which was published in 1825. The point of the story (i. 197-201), which need not be repeated at length, is that Byron, on leaving Constantinople and reaching the island of Zea (July, 1810), visited ["strolled about"] the islands of the Archipelago, in company with a Venetian gentleman who had turned buccaneer malgré lui, and whose history and adventures,[219] amatory and piratical, prefigured and inspired the "gestes" of Conrad. The tale must be taken for what it is worth; but it is to be remarked that it affords a clue to Byron's mysterious entries in a journal which did not see the light till 1830, five years after the "English Gentleman" published his volumes of gossiping anecdote. It may, too, be noted that, although, in his correspondence of 1810, 1811, there is no mention of any tour among the "Isles of Greece," in a letter to Moore dated February 2, 1815 (Letters, 1899, iii. 176), Byron recalls "the interesting white squalls and short seas of Archipelago memory."
How far Byron may have drawn on personal experience for his picture of a pirate chez lui, it is impossible to say; but during the year 1809-11, when he was travelling in Greece, the exploits of Lambros Katzones and other Greek pirates sailing under the Russian flag must have been within the remembrance and on the lips of the islanders and the "patriots" of the mainland. The "Pirate's Island," from which "Ariadne's isle" (line 444) was visible, may be intended for Paros or Anti-Paros.
For the inception of Conrad (see Canto I. stanza ii.), the paradoxical hero, an assortment rather than an amalgam of incongruous characteristics, Byron may, perhaps, have been in some measure indebted to the description of Malefort, junior, in Massinger's Unnatural Combat, act i. sc. 2, line 20, sq.—
The Corsair, together with the Bride of Abydos, was reviewed by Jeffrey in the Edinburgh Review of April, 1814, vol. xxiii. p. 198; and together with Lara, by George Agar Ellis in the Quarterly Review of July, 1814, vol. ii. p. 428.[220]
In comparison with the Giaour, the additions made to the Corsair whilst it was passing through the press were inconsiderable. The original MS., which numbers 1737 lines, is probably the fair copy of a number of loose sheets which have not been preserved. The erasures are few and far between, and the variations between the copy and the text are neither numerous nor important.
In one of the latest revises stanza x. was added to the First Canto. The last four lines of stanza xi. first appeared in the Seventh Edition.
The Second Canto suffered no alteration except the substitution of lines 1131-1133 for two lines which were expunged.
Larger additions were made to the Third Canto. Lines 1299-1375, or stanza v. (included in a revise dated January 6, 1814), stanzas xvii. and xxiii., numbering respectively 77, 32, and 16 lines, and the two last lines of stanza x., 127 lines in all, represent the difference between the text as it now stands and the original MS.
In a note to Byron's Poetical Works, 1832, ix. 257, it is stated that the Corsair was begun on the 18th and finished on the 31st of December, 1813. In the Introduction to the Corsair prefixed to the Library Edition, the poem is said to have been composed in ten days, "at the rate of 200 lines a day." The first page of the MS. is dated "27th of December, 1813," and the last page "December 31, 1813, January 1, 1814." It is probable that the composition of the first draft was begun on the 18th and finished on the 27th of December, and that the work of transcription occupied the last five days[221] of the month. Stanza v. of Canto III. reached the publisher on the 6th, and stanzas xvii. and xxiii. on the 11th and 12th of January, 1814.
The First Edition amounted to 1859 lines (the numeration, owing to the inclusion of broken lines, is given as 1863), and falls short of the existing text by the last four lines of stanza xi. It contains the first dedication to Moore, and numbers 100 pages. To the Second Edition, which numbers 108 pages, the following poems were appended:—
To a Lady Weeping.
From the Turkish.
Sonnet to Genevra ("Thine eyes' blue tenderness," etc.).
Sonnet to Genevra ("Thy cheek is pale with thought," etc.).
Inscription on the Monument of a Newfoundland Dog.
Farewell.
These occasional poems were not appended to the Third Edition, which only numbered 100 pages; but they reappeared in the Fourth and subsequent editions.
The Seventh Edition contained four additional lines (the last four of stanza xi.), and a note (unnumbered) to line 226, in defence of the vraisemblance of the Corsair's misanthropy. The Ninth Edition numbered 112 pages. The additional matter consists of a long note to the last line of the poem ("Linked with one virtue, and a thousand crimes") on the pirates of Barataria.
Twenty-five thousand copies of the Corsair were sold between January and March, 1814. An Eighth Edition of fifteen hundred copies was printed in March, and sold before the end of the year. A Ninth Edition of three thousand copies was printed in the beginning of 1815.[223]
My dear Moore,
I dedicate to you the last production with which I shall trespass on public patience, and your indulgence, for some years; and I own that I feel anxious to avail myself of this latest and only opportunity of adorning my pages with a name, consecrated by unshaken public principle, and the most undoubted and various talents. While Ireland ranks you among the firmest of her patriots; while you stand alone the first of her bards in her estimation, and Britain repeats and ratifies the decree, permit one, whose only regret, since our first acquaintance, has been the years he had lost before it commenced, to add the humble but sincere suffrage of friendship, to the voice of more than one nation. It will at least prove to you, that I have neither forgotten the gratification derived from your society, nor abandoned the prospect of its renewal, whenever your leisure or inclination allows you to atone to your friends for too long an absence. It is said among those friends, I trust truly, that you are engaged in the composition of a poem whose scene will be laid in the East; none can do those scenes so much justice. The wrongs of your own country,[194] the magnificent and fiery spirit[224] of her sons, the beauty and feeling of her daughters, may there be found; and Collins, when he denominated his Oriental his Irish Eclogues, was not aware how true, at least, was a part of his parallel. Your imagination will create a warmer sun, and less clouded sky; but wildness, tenderness, and originality, are part of your national claim of oriental descent, to which you have already thus far proved your title more clearly than the most zealous of your country's antiquarians.
May I add a few words on a subject on which all men are supposed to be fluent, and none agreeable?—Self. I have written much, and published more than enough to demand a longer silence than I now meditate; but, for some years to come, it is my intention to tempt no further the award of "Gods, men, nor columns." In the present composition I have attempted not the most difficult, but, perhaps, the best adapted measure to our language, the good old and now neglected heroic couplet. The stanza of Spenser is perhaps too slow and dignified for narrative; though, I confess, it is the measure most after my own heart; Scott alone,[195] of the present generation, has hitherto completely triumphed over the fatal facility of the octosyllabic verse; and this is not the least victory of his fertile and mighty genius: in blank verse, Milton, Thomson, and our dramatists, are the beacons that shine along the deep, but warn us from the rough and barren rock on which they are kindled. The heroic couplet is not[225] the most popular measure certainly; but as I did not deviate into the other from a wish to flatter what is called public opinion, I shall quit it without further apology, and take my chance once more with that versification, in which I have hitherto published nothing but compositions whose former circulation is part of my present, and will be of my future regret.
With regard to my story, and stories in general, I should have been glad to have rendered my personages more perfect and amiable, if possible, inasmuch as I have been sometimes criticised, and considered no less responsible for their deeds and qualities than if all had been personal. Be it so—if I have deviated into the gloomy vanity of "drawing from self," the pictures are probably like, since they are unfavourable: and if not, those who know me are undeceived, and those who do not, I have little interest in undeceiving. I have no particular desire that any but my acquaintance should think the author better than the beings of his imagining; but I cannot help a little surprise, and perhaps amusement, at some odd critical exceptions in the present instance, when I see several bards (far more deserving, I allow) in very reputable plight, and quite exempted from all participation in the faults of those heroes, who, nevertheless, might be found with little more morality than The Giaour, and perhaps—but no—I must admit Childe Harold to be a very repulsive personage; and as to his identity, those who like it must give him whatever "alias" they please.[196]
If, however, it were worth while to remove the impression, it might be of some service to me, that the man who is alike the delight of his readers and his friends, the poet of all circles, and the idol of his own, permits me here and elsewhere to subscribe myself,
Most truly,
And affectionately,
His obedient servant,
BYRON.
January 2, 1814.[227]
"——nessun maggior dolore,
Che ricordarsi del tempo felice
Nella miseria,——"
Dante, Inferno, v. 121.
"Conosceste i dubbiosi desiri?"
Dante, Inferno, v, 120.
"Come vedi—ancor non m'abbandona."
Dante, Inferno, v. 105.
[194] {223} [This political allusion having been objected to by a friend, Byron composed a second dedication, which he sent to Moore, with a request that he would "take his choice." Moore chose the original dedication, which was accordingly prefixed to the First Edition. The alternative ran as follows:—
"January 7th, 1814.
My dear Moore,
I had written to you a long letter of dedication, which I suppress, because, though it contained something relating to you, which every one had been glad to hear, yet there was too much about politics and poesy, and all things whatsoever, ending with that topic on which most men are fluent, and none very amusing,—one's self. It might have been re-written; but to what purpose? My praise could add nothing to your well-earned and firmly established fame; and with my most hearty admiration of your talents, and delight in your conversation, you are already acquainted. In availing myself of your friendly permission to inscribe this poem to you, I can only wish the offering were as worthy your acceptance, as your regard is dear to
Yours, most affectionately and faithfully,
Byron."]
[195] {224} [After the words, "Scott alone," Byron had inserted, in a parenthesis, "He will excuse the 'Mr.'—we do not say Mr. Cæsar."]
[196] {225} ["It is difficult to say whether we are to receive this passage as an admission or a denial of the opinion to which it refers; but Lord Byron certainly did the public injustice, if he supposed it imputed to him the criminal actions with which many of his heroes were stained. Men no more expected to meet in Lord Byron the Corsair, who 'knew himself a villain,' than they looked for the hypocrisy of Kehama on the shores of the Derwent Water; yet even in the features of Conrad, those who had looked on Lord Byron will recognize the likeness—
Canto I. stanza ix.
—Sir Walter Scott, Quart. Rev., No. xxxi. October, 1816.]
[197] {227} The time in this poem may seem too short for the occurrences, but the whole of the Ægean isles are within a few hours' sail of the continent, and the reader must be kind enough to take the wind as I have often found it.
[198] [Compare—"Survey the region, and confess her home." Windsor Forest, by A. Pope, line 256.]
[hk] {228} Protract to age his painful doting day.—[MS. erased.]
[hl] {230} Her nation—flag—how tells the telescope.—[MS.]
[199] [Compare The Isle of Palms, by John Wilson, Canto I. (1812, p. 8)—
[hm] {231} Till creaks her keel upon the shallow sand.—[MS.]
[hn] {234} The haughtier thought his bosom ill conceals.—[MS.]
[200] {235} That Conrad is a character not altogether out of nature, I shall attempt to prove by some historical coincidences which I have met with since writing The Corsair.
"Eccelin, prisonnier," dit Rolandini, "s'enfermoit dans un silence menaçant; il fixoit sur la terre son visage féroce, et ne donnoit point d'essor à sa profonde indignation. De toutes partes cependant les soldats et les peuples accouroient; ils vouloient voir cet homme, jadis si puissant ... et la joie universelle éclatoit de toutes partes.... Eccelino étoit d'une petite taille; mais tout l'aspect de sa personne, tous ses mouvemens, indiquoient un soldat. Son langage étoit amer, son déportement superbe, et par son seul regard, il faisoit trembler les plus hardis."—Simonde de Sismondi, Histoire des Républiques Italiennes du Moyen Age, 1809, iii. 219.
Again, "Gizericus [Genseric, king of the Vandals, the conqueror of both Carthage and Rome] ... staturâ mediocris, et equi casu claudicans, animo profundus, sermone ratus, luxuriæ contemptor, irâ turbidus, habendi cupidus, ad sollicitandas gentes providentissimus," etc., etc.—Jornandes, De Getarum Origine ("De Rebus Geticis"), cap. 33, ed. 1597, p. 92.
I beg leave to quote those gloomy realities to keep in countenance my Giaour and Corsair.—[Added to the Ninth Edition.]
[201] [Stanza x. was an after-thought. It is included in a sixth revise, in which lines 244-246 have been erased, and the present reading superscribed. A seventh revise gives the text as above.]
[hp] {236}
[202] {237} [Lines 277-280 are not in the MS. They were inserted on a detached printed sheet, with a view to publication in the Seventh Edition.]
[hr] {238} Not Guilt itself could quench this earliest one.—[MS. erased.]
[hs] {239}
[ht] Yet heed my prayer—my latest accents hear.—[MS.]
[203] [Compare—
Gray's Elegy in a Country Churchyard.]
[204] {243} [For Bireno's desertion of Olympia, see] Orlando Funoso, Canto X. [stanzas 1-27].
[hu] {244}
[205] {247} By night, particularly in a warm latitude, every stroke of the oar, every motion of the boat or ship, is followed by a slight flash like sheet lightning from the water.
[206] {248} [Cape Gallo is at least eight miles to the south of Corone; but Point Lividia, the promontory on which part of the town is built, can hardly be described as a "jutting cape," or as (see line 1623) a "giant shape."]
[207] {249} [Coron, or Corone, the ancient Colonides, is situated a little to the north of a promontory, Point Lividia, on the western shore of the Gulf of Kalamata, or Coron, or Messenia.
Antoine Louis Castellan (1772-1838), with whose larger work on Turkey Byron professed himself familiar (Letter to Moore, August 28, 1813), gives a vivid description of Coron and the bey's palace in his Lettres sur la Morée, etc. (first published, Paris, 1808), 3 vols., 1820. Whether Byron had or had not consulted the "Letters," the following passages may help to illustrate the scene:—
"La châine caverneuse du Taygete s'élève en face de Coron, à l'autre extrémité du golfe" (iii. 181).
"Nous avons aussi été faire une visite au bey, qui nous a permis de parcourir la citadelle" (p. 187).
"Le bey fait a exécuter en notre présence une danse singuliére, qu'on peut nommer danse pantomime" (p. 189; see line 642).
"La maison est assez bien distribuée et proprement meublée à la manière des Turcs. La principale pièce est grande, ornée d'une boisserie ciselée sur les dessins arabesques, et même marquetée. Les fenêtres donnent sur le jardin ... les volets sont ordinairement fermés, dans le milieu de la journée, et le jour ne pénètre alors qu'a travers des ouvertures pratiquées, au dessus des fenêtres et garnis de vitraux colorés" (p. 200).
Castellan saw the palace and bay illuminated (p. 203).]
[208] {250} Coffee.
[209] "Chibouque" [chibûk], pipe.
[210] {251} Dancing girls. [Compare The Waltz, line 127, Poetical Works, 1898, i. 492, note 1.]
[211] It has been observed, that Conrad's entering disguised as a spy is out of nature. Perhaps so. I find something not unlike it in history.—"Anxious to explore with his own eyes the state of the Vandals, Majorian ventured, after disguising the colour of his hair, to visit Carthage in the character of his own ambassador; and Genseric was afterwards mortified by the discovery, that he had entertained and dismissed the Emperor of the Romans. Such an anecdote may be rejected as an improbable fiction; but it is a fiction which would not have been imagined unless in the life of a hero."—See Gibbon's Decline and Fall [1854, iv. 272.]
[212] {252} [On the coast of Asia Minor, twenty-one miles south of Smyrna.]
[213] [A Levantine bark—"a kind of ketch without top-gallant sail, or mizzen-top sail."]
[214] {254} [Compare the Giaour, line 343, note 2; vide ante, p. 102.]
[215] The Dervises [Dervish, Persian darvesh, poor] are in colleges, and of different orders, as the monks.
[216] {255} "Zatanai," Satan. [Probably a phonetic rendering of σατανὰ(ς). The Turkish form would be sheytan. Compare letter to Moore, April 9, 1814, Letters, 1899, iii. 66, note 1.]
[217] {256} A common and not very novel effect of Mussulman anger. See Prince Eugene's Mémoires, 1811, p. 6, "The Seraskier received a wound in the thigh; he plucked up his beard by the roots, because he was obliged to quit the field." ["Le séraskier est blessé a la cuisse; il s'arrache la barbe, parce qu'il est obligé de fuir." A contemporary translation (Sherwood, Neely, and Jones, 1811), renders "il s'arrache la barbe" he tore out the arrow.]
[218] {257} Gulnare, a female name; it means, literally, the flower of the pomegranate.
[219] {259} [The word "to" had been left out by the printer, and in a late revise Byron supplies the omission, and writes—
"To Mr. Murray or Mr. Davison.
Do not omit words—it is quite enough to alter or mis-spell them.
Bn."
In the MS. the line ran—
"Asked" is written over in pencil, but "cared" has not been erased.]
[220] {261} [Compare—"One anarchy, one chaos of the mind." The Wanderer, by Richard Savage, Canto V. (1761, p. 86).]
[221] {262} [Compare—"That hideous sight, a naked human heart." Night Thoughts, by Edward Young (Night III.) (Anderson's British Poets, x. 71).]
[222] {263} [Compare—
Wieland's Oberon, translated by W. Sotheby, Canto XII. stanza xxxi., et seq.]
[223] {265} In Sir Thomas More, for instance, on the scaffold, and Anne Boleyn, in the Tower, when, grasping her neck, she remarked, that it "was too slender to trouble the headsman much." During one part of the French Revolution, it became a fashion to leave some "mot" as a legacy; and the quantity of facetious last words spoken during that period would form a melancholy jest-book of a considerable size.
[hv] {268}
[*] [The alteration was sent to the publishers on a separate quarto sheet, with a memorandum, "In Canto first—nearly the end," etc.—a rare instance of inaccuracy on the part of the author.]
[224] {270} The opening lines, as far as section ii., have, perhaps, little business here, and were annexed to an unpublished (though printed) poem [The Curse of Minerva]; but they were written on the spot, in the Spring of 1811, and—I scarce know why—the reader must excuse their appearance here—if he can. [See letter to Murray, October 23, 1812.]
[225] [See Curse of Minerva, line 7, Poetical Works, 1898, i. 457. For Hydra, see A. L. Castellan's Lettres sur la Morée, 1820, i. 155-176. He gives (p. 174) a striking description of a sunrise off the Cape of Sunium.]
[226] {271} Socrates drank the hemlock a short time before sunset (the hour of execution), notwithstanding the entreaties of his disciples to wait till the sun went down.
[227] The twilight in Greece is much shorter than in our own country: the days in winter are longer, but in summer of shorter duration.
[228] {272} The Kiosk is a Turkish summer house: the palm is without the present walls of Athens, not far from the temple of Theseus, between which and the tree, the wall intervenes.—Cephisus' stream is indeed scanty, and Ilissus has no stream at all.
[E. Dodwell (Classical Tour, 1819, i. 371) speaks of "a magnificent palm tree, which shoots among the ruins of the Ptolemaion," a short distance to the east of the Theseion. There is an illustration in its honour. The Theseion—which was "within five minutes' walk" of Byron's lodgings (Travels in Albania, 1858, i. 259)—contains the remains of the scholar, John Tweddell, died 1793, "over which a stone was placed, owing to the exertions of Lord Byron" (Clarke's Travels, Part II. sect. i. p. 534). When Byron died, Colonel Stanhope proposed, and the chief Odysseus decreed, that he should be buried in the same spot.—Life, p. 640.]
[229] {273} [After the battle of Salamis, B.C. 480, Paros fell under the dominion of Athens.]
[hw] {274}
[hx] {275}
[230] [Lines 1299-1375 were written after the completion of the poem. They were forwarded to the publisher in time for insertion in a revise dated January 6, 1814.]
[231] The comboloio, or Mahometan rosary; the beads are in number ninety-nine. [Vide ante, p. 181, The Bride of Abydos, Canto II. line 554.]
[hy] {276}
[hz] {277}
[ia] {278}
[232] ["By the way—I have a charge against you. As the great Mr. Dennis roared out on a similar occasion—'By G-d, that is my thunder!' so do I exclaim, 'This is my lightning!' I allude to a speech of Ivan's, in the scene with Petrowna and the Empress, where the thought and almost expression are similar to Conrad's in the 3d canto of The Corsair. I, however, do not say this to accuse you, but to exempt myself from suspicion, as there is a priority of six months' publication, on my part, between the appearance of that composition and of your tragedies" (Letter to W. Sotheby, September 25, 1815, Letters, 1899, iii. 219). The following are the lines in question:—
Act iv. sc. 3 (Ivan, 1816, p. 64).
According to Moore, this passage in The Corsair, as Byron seemed to fear, was included by "some scribblers"—i.e. the "lumbering Goth" (see John Bull's Letter), A. A. Watts, in the Literary Gazette, February and March, 1821—among his supposed plagiarisms. Sotheby informed Moore that his lines had been written, though not published, before the appearance of the Corsair. The Confession, and Orestes, reappeared with three hitherto unpublished tragedies, Ivan, The Death of Darnley, and Zamorin and Zama, under the general title, Five Unpublished Tragedies, in 1814.
The story of the critic John Dennis (1657-1734) and the "thunder" is related in Cibber's Lives, iv. 234. Dennis was, or feigned to be, the inventor of a new method of producing stage-thunder, by troughs of wood and stops. Shortly after a play (Appius and Virginia) which he had put upon the stage had been withdrawn, he was present at a performance of Macbeth, at which the new "thunder" was inaugurated. "That is my thunder, by God!" exclaimed Dennis. "The villains will play my thunder, but not my plays."—Dict. Nat. Biog., art. "Dennis."]
[ib] {282}
[ic] {284}
[id] {286} A variant of lines 1596, 1597 first appeared in MS. in a revise numbering 1780 lines—
In a later revise line 1597 was altered to—
[ie] {287} His silent thoughts the present, past review.—[MS. erased.]
[if] Fell quenched in tears of more than misery.—[MS.]
[ig] {288} They count the Dragon-teeth around her tier.—[MS.]
[233] ["Tier" must stand for "hold." The "cable-tier" is the place in the hold where the cable is stowed.]
[ih] {289} Whom blood appalled not, their rude eyes perplex.—[MS. erased.]
[234] [Compare—
Marmion, Canto III. stanza xvii. lines 9, 10.]
[ii] {290}
[ik] As he had fanned them with his rosy wing.—[MS.]
[il] {291}
[235] {292} In the Levant it is the custom to strew flowers on the bodies of the dead, and in the hands of young persons to place a nosegay.
[Compare—"There shut it inside the sweet cold hand." Evelyn Hope, by Robert Browning.]
[236] {293} [Compare—"And—but for that sad shrouded eye," etc. and the whole of the famous passage in the Giaour (line 68, sq., vide ante, p. 88), beginning—"He who hath bent him o'er the dead."]
[im] Escaped the idle braid that could not bind.—[MS.]
[in] By the first glance on that cold soulless brow.—[MS.]
[io] {294} And the night cometh—'tis the same to him.—[M.S.]
[237] [Stanza xxiii. is not in the MS. It was forwarded on a separate sheet, with the following directions:— (1814, January 10, 11.) "Let the following lines be sent immediately, and form the last section (number it) but one of the 3rd (last) Canto."]
[238] {295} [Byron had, perhaps, explored the famous stalactite cavern in the island of Anti-Paros, which is described by Tournefort, Clarke, Choiseul-Gouffier, and other travellers.]
[239] {296} That the point of honour which is represented in one instance of Conrad's character has not been carried beyond the bounds of probability, may perhaps be in some degree confirmed by the following anecdote of a brother buccaneer in the year 1814:—"Our readers have all seen the account of the enterprise against the pirates of Barataria; but few, we believe, were informed of the situation, history, or nature of that establishment. For the information of such as were unacquainted with it, we have procured from a friend the following interesting narrative of the main facts, of which he has personal knowledge, and which cannot fail to interest some of our readers:—Barataria is a bayou, or a narrow arm of the Gulf of Mexico; it runs through a rich but very flat country, until it reaches within a mile of the Mississippi river, fifteen miles below the city of New Orleans. This bayou has branches almost innumerable, in which persons can lie concealed from the severest scrutiny. It communicates with three lakes which lie on the south-west side, and these, with the lake of the same name, and which lies contiguous to the sea, where there is an island formed by the two arms of this lake and the sea. The east and west points of this island were fortified, in the year 1811, by a band of pirates, under the command of one Monsieur La Fitte. A large majority of these outlaws are of that class of the population of the state of Louisiana who fled from the island of St. Domingo during the troubles there, and took refuge in the island of Cuba; and when the last war between France and Spain commenced, they were compelled to leave that island with the short notice of a few days. Without ceremony they entered the United States, the most of them the state of Louisiana, with all the negroes they had possessed in Cuba. They were notified by the Governor of that State of the clause in the constitution which forbade the importation of slaves; but, at the same time, received the assurance of the Governor that he would obtain, if possible, the approbation of the General Government for their retaining this property.—The island of Barataria is situated about lat. 29 deg. 15 min., lon. 92. 30.; and is as remarkable for its health as for the superior scale and shell fish with which its waters abound. The chief of this horde, like Charles de Moor, had, mixed with his many vices, some transcendant virtues. In the year 1813, this party had, from its turpitude and boldness, claimed the attention of the Governor of Louisiana; and to break up the establishment he thought proper to strike at the head. He therefore, offered a reward of 500 dollars for the head of Monsieur La Fitte, who was well known to the inhabitants of the city of New Orleans, from his immediate connection, and his once having been a fencing-master in that city of great reputation, which art he learnt in Buonaparte's army, where he was a captain. The reward which was offered by the Governor for the head of La Fitte was answered by the offer of a reward from the latter of 15,000 for the head of the Governor. The Governor ordered out a company to march from the city to La Fitte's island, and to burn and destroy all the property, and to bring to the city of New Orleans all his banditti. This company, under the command of a man who had been the intimate associate of this bold Captain, approached very near to the fortified island, before he saw a man, or heard a sound, until he heard a whistle, not unlike a boatswain's call. Then it was he found himself surrounded by armed men who had emerged from the secret avenues which led to this bayou. Here it was that this modern Charles de Moor developed his few noble traits; for to this man, who had come to destroy his life and all that was dear to him, he not only spared his life, but offered him that which would have made the honest soldier easy for the remainder of his days, which was indignantly refused. He then, with the approbation of his captor, returned to the city. This circumstance, and some concomitant events, proved that this band of pirates was not to be taken by land. Our naval force having always been small in that quarter, exertions for the destruction of this illicit establishment could not be expected from them until augmented; for an officer of the navy, with most of the gun-boats on that station, had to retreat from an overwhelming force of La Fitte's. So soon as the augmentation of the navy authorised an attack, one was made; the overthrow of this banditti has been the result: and now this almost invulnerable point and key to New Orleans is clear of an enemy, it is to be hoped the government will hold it by a strong military force."—American Newspaper.
[The story of the "Pirates of Barataria," which an American print, the National Intelligencer, was the first to make public, is quoted in extenso by the Weekly Messenger (published at Boston) of November 4, 1814. It is remarkable that a tale which was destined to pass into the domain of historical romance should have been instantly seized upon and turned to account by Byron, whilst it was as yet half-told, while the legend was still in the making. Jean Lafitte, the Franco-American Conrad, was born either at Bayonne or Bordeaux, circ. 1780, emigrated with his elder brother Pierre, and settled at New Orleans, in 1809, as a blacksmith. Legitimate trade was flat, but the delta of the Mississippi, with its labyrinth of creeks and islands and bayous, teemed with pirates or merchant-smugglers. Accordingly, under the nominal sanction of letters of marque from the Republic of Cartagena, and as belligerents of Spain, the brothers, who had taken up their quarters on Grande Terre, an island to the east of the "Grand Pass," or channel of the Bay of Barataria, swept the Gulph of Mexico with an organised flotilla of privateers, and acquired vast booty in the way of specie and living cargoes of claves. Hence the proclamation of the Governor of Louisiana, W. C. C. Claiborne, in which (November 24, 1813) he offered a sum of $500 for the capture of Jean Lafitte. For the sequel of this first act of the drama the "American newspaper" is the sole authority. The facts, however, if facts they be, which are pieced together by Charles Étienne Arthur Gayarré, in the History of Louisiana (1885, iv. 301, sq.), and in two articles contributed to the American Magazine of History, October and November, 1883, are as curious and romantic as the legend. It would appear that early in September, 1814, a British officer, Colonel E. Nicholls, made overtures to Jean Lafitte, offering him the rank of captain in the British army, a grant of lands, and a sum of $30,000 if he would join forces with the British squadron then engaged in an attack on the coast of Louisiana. Lafitte begged for time to consider Colonel Nicholls's proposal, but immediately put himself in communication with Claiborne, offering, on condition of immunity for past offences, to place his resources at the disposal of the United States. Claiborne's reply to this patriotic offer seems to have been to despatch a strong naval force, under Commander Daniel Patterson, with orders to exterminate the pirates, and seize their fort on Grande Terre; and, on this occasion, though the brothers escaped, the authorities were successful. A proclamation was issued by General Andrew Jackson, in which the pirates were denounced as "hellish banditti," and, to all appearances, their career was at an end. But circumstances were in their favour, and a few weeks later Jackson not only went back on his own mandate, but accepted the alliance and services of the brothers Lafitte and their captains at the siege of New Orleans, January 8, 1815. Finally, when peace with Great Britain was concluded, President Madison publicly acknowledged the "unequivocal traits of courage and fidelity" which had been displayed by the brothers Lafitte, and the once proscribed band of outlaws. Thenceforth Pierre Lafitte disappears from history; but Jean is believed to have settled first at Galveston, in Texas, and afterwards, in 1820, on the coast of Yucatan, whence "he continued his depredations on Spanish commerce." He died game, a pirate to the last, in 1826. See, for what purports to be documentary evidence of the correspondence between Colonel E. Nicholls and Jean Lafitte, Historical Memoirs of the War in West Florida and Louisiana, by Major A. La Carriére Latour, 1816, Appendix III. pp. vii.-xv. See, too, Fernando de Lemos (an historical novel), by Charles Gayarré, 1872, pp. 347-361.]
In [the Rev. Mark] Noble's continuation of "Granger's Biographical History" [of England, 1806, iii. 68], there is a singular passage in his account of Archbishop Blackbourne [1658-1743]; and as in some measure connected with the profession of the hero of the foregoing poem, I cannot resist the temptation of extracting it.—"There is something mysterious in the history and character of Dr. Blackbourne. The former is but imperfectly known; and report has even asserted he was a buccaneer; and that one of his brethren in that profession having asked, on his arrival in England, what had become of his old chum, Blackbourne, was answered, he is Archbishop of York. We are informed, that Blackbourne was installed sub-dean of Exeter in 1694, which office he resigned in 1702; but after his successor Lewis Barnet's death, in 1704, he regained it. In the following year he became dean; and in 1714 held with it the archdeanery [i.e. archdeaconry] of Cornwall. He was consecrated Bishop of Exeter, February 24, 1716; and translated to York, November 28, 1724, as a reward, according to court scandal, for uniting George I. to the Duchess of Munster. This, however, appears to have been an unfounded calumny. As archbishop he behaved with great prudence, and was equally respectable as the guardian of the revenues of the see. Rumour whispered he retained the vices of his youth, and that a passion for the fair sex formed an item in the list of his weaknesses; but so far from being convicted by seventy witnesses, he does not appear to have been directly criminated by one. In short, I look upon these aspersions as the effects of mere malice. How is it possible a buccaneer should have been so good a scholar as Blackbourne certainly was? He who had so perfect a knowledge of the classics (particularly of the Greek tragedians), as to be able to read them with the same ease as he could Shakespeare, must have taken great pains to acquire the learned languages; and have had both leisure and good masters. But he was undoubtedly educated at Christ-church College, Oxford. He is allowed to have been a pleasant man; this, however, was turned against him, by its being said, 'he gained more hearts than souls.'"
[Walpole, in his Memoirs of the Reign of King George II., 1847, i. 87, who makes himself the mouthpiece of these calumnies, says that Hayter, Bishop of Norwich, was "a natural son of Blackbourne, the jolly old Archbishop of York, who had all the manners of a man of quality, though he had been a Buccaneer, and was a clergyman; but he retained nothing of his first profession except his seraglio."]
"The only voice that could soothe the passions of the savage (Alphonso III.) was that of an amiable and virtuous wife, the sole object of his love; the voice of Donna Isabella, the daughter of the Duke of Savoy, and the grand-daughter of Philip II. King of Spain. Her dying words sunk deep into his memory [A.D. 1626, August 22]; his fierce spirit melted into tears; and, after the last embrace, Alphonso retired into his chamber to bewail his irreparable loss, and to meditate on the vanity of human life."—Gibbon's Miscellaneous Works [1837, p. 831].
[This final note was added to the Tenth Edition.]
"Expende Annibalem:—quot libras in duce summo Invenies?"
Juvenal, [Lib. iv.] Sat. x. line 147. [241]
"The Emperor Nepos was acknowledged by the Senate, by the Italians, and by the Provincials of Gaul; his moral virtues, and military talents, were loudly celebrated; and those who derived any private benefit from his government announced in prophetic strains the restoration of the public felicity. * * By this shameful abdication, he protracted his life about five years, in a very ambiguous state, between an Emperor and an Exile, till!!!"—Gibbon's Decline and Fall, two vols. notes by Milman, i. 979.[242]
The dedication of the Corsair, dated January 2, 1814, contains one of Byron's periodical announcements that he is about, for a time, to have done with authorship—some years are to elapse before he will again "trespass on public patience."
Three months later he was, or believed himself to be, in the same mind. In a letter to Moore, dated April 9, 1814 (Letters, 1899, iii. 64), he writes, "No more rhyme for—or rather, from—me. I have taken my leave of that stage, and henceforth will mountebank it no longer." He had already—Journal, April 8 (Letters, 1898, ii. 408)—heard a rumour "that his poor little pagod, Napoleon" was "pushed off his pedestal," and before or after he began his letter to Moore he must have read an announcement in the Gazette Extraordinary (April 9, 1814—the abdication was signed April 11) that Napoleon had abdicated the "throne of the world," and declined upon the kingdom of Elba. On the next day, April 10, he wrote two notes to Murray, to inform him that he had written an "ode on the fall of Napoleon," that Murray could print it or not as he pleased; but that if it appeared by itself, it was to be published anonymously. A first edition consisting of fifteen stanzas, and numbering fourteen pages, was issued on the 16th of April, 1814. A second edition followed immediately, but as publications of less than a sheet were liable to the stamp tax on newspapers, at Murray's request, another stanza, the fifth, was inserted in a later (between the second and the twelfth) edition, and, by this means, the pamphlet was extended to seventeen[304] pages. The concluding stanzas xvii., xviii., xix., which Moore gives in a note (Life, p. 249), were not printed in Byron's lifetime, but were first included, in a separate poem, in Murray's edition of 1831, and first appended to the Ode in the seventeen-volume edition of 1832.
Although he had stipulated that the Ode should be published anonymously, Byron had no objection to "its being said to be mine." There was, in short, no secret about it, and notices on the whole favourable appeared in the Morning Chronicle, April 21, in the Examiner, April 24 (in which Leigh Hunt combated Byron's condemnation of Buonaparte for not "dying as honour dies"), and in the Anti-Jacobin for May, 1814 (Letters, 1899, iii. 73, note 3).
Byron's repeated resolutions and promises to cease writing and publishing, which sound as if they were only made to be broken, are somewhat exasperating, and if, as he pleaded in his own behalf, the occasion (of Napoleon's abdication) was physically irresistible, it is to be regretted that he did not swerve from his self-denying ordinance to better purpose. The note of disillusionment and disappointment in the Ode is but an echo of the sentiments of the "general." Napoleon on his own "fall" is more original and more interesting: "Il céda," writes Léonard Gallois (Histoire de Napoléon d'après lui-même, 1825, pp. 546, 547), "non sans de grands combats intérieurs, et la dicta en ces termes.
'Les puissances alliées ayant proclamé que l'empereur Napoléon était le seul obstacle au rétablissement, de la paix en Europe, l'empereur Napoléon fidèle à son serment, déclare qu'il renonce, pour lui et ses héritiers, aux trônes de France et d'Italie, parce qu'il n'est aucun sacrifice personnel, même celui de la vie, qu'il ne soit prêt à faire à l'intérêt de la France.
Napoléon.'"
[240] {301}
[ODE TO NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE.
——
By
——
London: Printed for J. Murray, Albemarle Street, By W. Bulmer and Co. Cleveland-Row, St. James's, 1814.—First Proof, title-page.]
[241] [The quotation from Juvenal was added in Second Proof.
"I know not that this was ever done in the old world; at least with regard to Hannibal: but in the statistical account of Scotland, I find that Sir John Paterson had the curiosity to collect and weigh the ashes of a person discovered a few years since in the parish of Eccles.... Wonderful to relate, he found the whole did not exceed in weight one ounce and a half! And is This All? Alas! the quot libras itself is a satirical exaggeration."—Gifford's Translation of Juvenal (ed. 1817), ii. 26, 27.
The motto, "Expende—Quot Libras In Duce Summo Invenies," was inscribed on one side of the silver urn presented by Byron to Walter Scott in April, 1815. (See Letters, 1899, iii. 414, Appendix IV.)]
[242] ["I send you ... an additional motto from Gibbon, which you will find singularly appropriate."—Letter to Murray, April 12, 1814, ibid., p. 68.]
[243] {305} ["I don't know—but I think I, even I (an insect compared with this creature), have set my life on casts not a millionth part of this man's. But, after all, a crown may not be worth dying for. Yet, to outlive Lodi for this!!! Oh that Juvenal or Johnson could rise from the dead! 'Expende—quot libras in duce summo invenies?' I knew they were light in the balance of mortality; but I thought their living dust weighed more carats. Alas! this imperial diamond hath a flaw in it, and is now hardly fit to stick in a glazier's pencil;—the pen of the historian won't rate it worth a ducat. Psha! 'something too much of this.' But I won't give him up even now; though all his admirers have, 'like the thanes, fallen from him.'"—Journal, April 9, 1814, Letters, 1898, ii. 409.]
[244] [Compare "How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning!"—Isaiah xiv. 12.]
[245] {306} [Stanzas ii. and iii. were added in Proof iv.]
[246] [A "spell" may be broken, but it is difficult to understand how, like the two halves of a seal or amulet, a broken spell can "unite again."]
[247] "Certaminis gaudia"—the expression of Attila in his harangue to his army, previous to the battle of Chalons, given in Cassiodorus. ["Nisi ad certaminis hujus gaudia præparasset."—Attilæ Oratio ad Hunnos, caput xxxix., Appendix ad Opera Cassiodori, Migne, lxix. 1279.]
[248] {307} [Added in Proof v.]
[249] [The first four lines of stanza v. were quoted by "Mr. Miller in the House of Representatives of the United States," in a debate on the Militia Draft Bill (Weekly Messenger, Boston, February 10, 1815). "Take warning," he went on to say, "by this example. Bonaparte split on this rock of conscription," etc. This would have pleased Byron, who confided to his Journal, December 3, 1813 (Letters, 1898, ii. 360), that the statement that "my rhymes are very popular in the United States," was "the first tidings that have ever sounded like Fame to my ears."]
[250] ["Like Milo, he would rend the oak; but it closed again, wedged his hands, and now the beasts—lion, bear, down to the dirtiest jackal—may all tear him."—Journal, April 8, 1814, Letters, 1898, ii. 408. For the story of Milo and the Oak, see Valerius Maximus, Factorum, Dictorumque Memorabilium, lib. ix. cap. xii. Part II. example 9.]
[251] {308} Sylla. [We find the germ of this stanza in the Diary of the evening before it was written: "I mark this day! Napoleon Buonaparte has abdicated the throne of the world. 'Excellent well.' Methinks Sylla did better; for he revenged, and resigned in the height of his sway, red with the slaughter of his foes—the finest instance of glorious contempt of the rascals upon record. Dioclesian did well too—Amurath not amiss, had he become aught except a dervise—Charles the Fifth but so so; but Napoleon worst of all."—Journal, April 9, 1814, Letters, 1898, ii. 409.]
[252] ["Alter 'potent spell' to 'quickening spell:' the first (as Polonius says) 'is a vile phrase,' and means nothing, besides being commonplace and Rosa-Matildaish."—Letter to Murray, April 11, 1814, Letters, 1899, iii. 68.]
[253] {309} [Charles V. resigned the kingdom to his son Philip, circ. October, 1555, and the imperial crown to his brother Ferdinand, August 27, 1556, and entered the Jeronymite Monastery of St. Justus at Placencia in Estremadura. Before his death (September 21, 1558) he dressed himself in his shroud, was laid in his coffin, "joined in the prayers which were offered up for the rest of his soul, mingling his tears with those which his attendants shed, as if they had been celebrating a real funeral."—Robertson's Charles V., 1798, iv. 180, 205, 254.]
[ip] {310}
[iq] ——common clay.—[First Proof.]
[254] [Added in Proof v.]
[255] {311} [Count Albert Adam de Neipperg, born 1774, an officer in the Austrian Army, and, 1811, Austrian envoy to the Court of Stockholm, was presented to Marie Louise a few days after Napoleon's abdication, became her chamberlain; and, according to the Nouvelle Biographie Universelle, "plus tard il l'épousa." The count, who is said to have been remarkably plain (he had lost an eye in a scrimmage with the French), died April 12, 1829.]
[256] ["Dionysius at Corinth was yet a king to this."—Diary, April 9. Dionysius the Younger, on being for the second time banished from Syracuse, retired to Corinth (B.C. 344), where "he is said to have opened a school for teaching boys to read" (see Plut., Timal., c. 14), but not, apparently, with a view to making a living by pedagogy.—Grote's Hist. of Greece, 1872, ix. 152.]
[257] {312} The cage of Bajazet, by order of Tamerlane.
[The story of the cage is said to be a fable. After the battle of Angora, July 20, 1402, Bajazet, whose escape from prison had been planned by one of his sons, was chained during the night, and placed in a kafes (kàfess), a Turkish word, which signifies either a cage or a grated room or bed. Hence the legend.—Hist. de l'Empire Othoman, par J. von Hammer-Purgstall, 1836, ii. 97.]
[it] There Timour in his captive cage.—[First Proof.]
[258] [Presumably another instance of "careless and negligent ease."]
[259] ["Have you heard that Bertrand has returned to Paris with the account of Napoleon's having lost his senses? It is a report; but, if true, I must, like Mr. Fitzgerald and Jeremiah (of lamentable memory), lay claim to prophecy."—Letter to Murray, June 14, 1814, Letters, 1899, iii. 95.]
[260] Prometheus.
[261] {313}
Othello, act iv. sc. 1, lines 69-71.
[We believe there is no doubt of the truth of the anecdote here alluded to—of Napoleon's having found leisure for an unworthy amour, the very evening of his arrival at Fontainebleau.—Note to Edition 1832.
A consultation of numerous lives and memoirs of Napoleon has not revealed the particulars of this "unworthy amour." It is possible that Murray may have discovered the source of Byron's allusion among the papers "in the possession of one of Napoleon's generals, a friend of Miss Waldie," which were offered him "for purchase and publication," in 1815.—See Memoir of John Murray, 1891, i. 279.]
[iv] And—were he mortal had as proudly died,—[Alteration in First Proof.]
[262] [Of Prometheus—
—Attached to Proof v., April 25.]
[iw] While earth was Gallia's, Gallia thine.—[MS.]
[ix] {314} Where is that tattered——.—[MS.]
[iy] ——the laurel-circled crest.—[MS.]
[263] [Byron had recently become possessed of a "fine print" (by Raphael Morghen, after Gérard) of Napoleon in his imperial robes, which (see Journal, March 6, 1814, Letters, 1898, ii. 393, note 2) became him "as if he had been hatched in them." According to the catalogue of Morghen's works, the engraving represents "the head nearly full-face, looking to the right, crowned with laurel. He wears an enormous velvet robe embroidered with bees—hanging over it the collar and jewel of the Legion of Honour." It was no doubt this "fine print" which suggested "the star, the string [i.e. the chain of enamelled eagles], the crest."]
[iz] Where may the eye of man repose.—[MS.]
[ja] Alas! and must there be but one!—[MS.]
[264] ["The two stanzas which I now send you were, by some
mistake, omitted in the copies of Lord Byron's spirited and poetical
'Ode to Napoleon Buonaparte,' already published. One of 'the
devils' in Mr. Davison's employ procured a copy of this for me,
and I give you the chance of first discovering them to the world.
Your obedient servant,
J. R."
Morning Chronicle, April 27, 1814.]
The MS. of Lara is dated May 14, 1814. The opening lines, which were not prefixed to the published poem, and were first printed in Murray's Magazine (January, 1887), are of the nature of a Dedication. They were probably written a few days after the well-known song, "I speak not, I trace not, I breathe not thy name," which was enclosed to Moore in a letter dated May 4, 1814. There can be little doubt that both song and dedication were addressed to Lady Frances Wedderburn Webster, and that Lara, like the Corsair and the Bride of Abydos, was written con amore, and because the poet was "eating his heart away."
By the 14th of June Byron was able to announce to Moore that "Lara was finished, and that he had begun copying." It was written, owing to the length of the London season, "amidst balls and fooleries, and after coming home from masquerades and routs, in the summer of the sovereigns" (Letter to Moore, June 8, 1822, Life, p. 561).
By way of keeping his engagement—already broken by the publication of the Ode to Napoleon Buonaparte—not to "trespass on public patience," Byron began by protesting (June 14) that Lara was not to be published separately, but "might be included in a third volume now collecting." A fortnight later (June 27) an interchange of unpublished poems between himself and Rogers, "two cantos of darkness and dismay" in return for a privately printed copy of Jacqueline, who is "all grace and softness and poetry" (Letter to Rogers, Letters, 1899, iii. 101), suggested another[320] and happier solution of the difficulty, a coalescing with Rogers, and, if possible, Moore (Life, 1892, p. 257, note 2), "into a joint invasion of the public" (Letter to Moore, July 8, 1814, Letters, 1899, iii. 102). But Rogers hesitated, and Moore refused to embark on so doubtful a venture, with the result that, as late as the 3rd of August, Byron thought fit to remonstrate with Murray for "advertising Lara and Jacqueline," and confessed to Moore that he was "still demurring and delaying and in a fuss" (Letters, 1899, iii. 115, 119). Murray knew his man, and, though he waited for Byron's formal and ostensibly reluctant word of command, "Out with Lara, since it must be" (August 5, 1814, Letters, 1899, iii. 122), he admitted (August 6, Memoir of John Murray, 1891, i. 230) that he had "anticipated his consent," and "had done everything but actually deliver the copies of Lara." "The moment," he adds, "I received your letter, for for it I waited, I cut the last cord of my aerial work, and at this instant 6000 copies are sold." Lara, a Tale; Jacqueline, a Tale, was published on Saturday, August 6, 1814.
Jacqueline is a somewhat insipid pastoral, betraying the influence of the Lake School, more especially Coleridge, on a belated and irresponsive disciple, and wholly out of place as contrast or foil to the melodramatic Lara.
No sooner had the "lady," as Byron was pleased to call her, played her part as decoy, than she was discharged as emerita. A week after publication (August 12, 1814, Letters, iii. 125) Byron told Moore that "Murray talks of divorcing Larry and Jacky—a bad sign for the authors, who will, I suppose, be divorced too.... Seriously, I don't care a cigar about it." The divorce was soon pronounced, and, contrary to Byron's advice (September 2, 1814, Letters, iii. 131), at least four separate editions of Lara were published during the autumn of 1814.
The "advertisement" to Lara and Jacqueline contains the plain statement that "the reader ... may probably regard it [Lara] as a sequel to the Corsair"—an admission on the author's part which forestalls and renders nugatory any prolonged discussion on the subject. It is evident that Lara is Conrad, and that Kaled, the "darkly delicate" and[321] mysterious page, whose "hand is femininely white," is Gulnare in a transparent and temporary disguise.
If the facts which the "English Gentleman in the Greek Military Service" (Life, Writings, etc., of Lord Byron, 1825, i. 191-201) gives in detail with regard to the sources of the Corsair are not wholly imaginary, it is possible that the original Conrad's determination to "quit so horrible a mode of life" and return to civilization may have suggested to Byron the possible adventures and fate of a grand seigneur who had played the pirate in his time, and resumed his ancestral dignities only to be detected and exposed by some rival or victim of his wild and lawless youth.
Lara was reviewed together with the Corsair, by George Agar Ellis in the Quarterly Review for July, 1814, vol. xi. p. 428; and in the Portfolio, vol. xiv. p. 33.