Mosaics of Grecian History Part 50

On dim Cithaeron's ridge appears The gleam of twice ten thousand spears; And downward to the Isthmian plain, From sh.o.r.e to sh.o.r.e of either main, The tent is pitched, the crescent shines Along the Moslem's leaguering lines; And the dusk Spa'hi's bands advance Beneath each bearded pa'sha's glance; And far and wide as eye can reach The turbaned cohorts throng the beach; And there the Arab's camel kneels, And there his steed the Tartar wheels; The Turcoman has left his herd, The sabre round his loins to gird; And there the volleying thunders pour, Till waves grow smoother to the roar.

The trench is dug, the cannon's breath Wings the far hissing globe of death; Fast whirl the fragments from the wall, Which crumbles with the ponderous ball; And from that wall the foe replies, O'er dusty plain and smoky skies, With fires that answer fast and well.

The summons of the Infidel.

The walls grew weak; and fast and hot Against them poured the ceaseless shot, With unabating fury sent From battery to battlement; And thunder-like the pealing din Rose from each heated culverin; And here and there some crackling dome Was fired before the exploding bomb; And as the fabric sank beneath The shattering sh.e.l.l's volcanic breath, In red and wreathing columns flashed The flame, as loud the ruin crashed, Or into countless meteors driven, Its earth-stars melted into heaven-- Whose clouds that day grew doubly dun, Impervious to the hidden sun, With volumed smoke that slowly grew To one wide sky of sulphurous hue.

Having made a breach in the walls, as morning dawns the Turks form in line, and wait for the word to storm the intrenchments.

Coumourgi addresses them--the command is given, and with the irresistible force of an avalanche the infidels pour into Corinth.

Tartar, and Spahi, and Turcoman, Strike your tents and throng to the van; Mount ye, spur ye, skirr the plain, That the fugitive may flee in vain When he breaks from the town; and none escape, Aged or young, in the Christian shape; While your fellows on foot, in a fiery ma.s.s, Bloodstain the breach through which they pa.s.s.

The steeds are all bridled, and snort to the rein; Curved is each neck, and flowing each mane; White is the foam of their champ on the bit: The spears are uplifted, the matches are lit, The cannon are pointed, and ready to roar, And crush the wall they have crumbled before: The khan and the pashas are all at their post; The vizier himself at the head of the host.

When the culverin's signal is fired, then on; Leave not in Corinth a living one-- A priest at her altars, a chief in her halls, A hearth in her mansions, a stone on her walls.

G.o.d and the prophet-Ala Hu!

Up to the skies with that wild halloo!

"There the breach lies for pa.s.sage, the ladder to scale; And your hands on your sabres, and how should ye fail?

He who first downs with the red cross may crave His heart's dearest wish; let him ask it, and have!"

Thus uttered Coumourgi, the dauntless vizier; The reply was the brandish of sabre and spear, And the shout of fierce thousands in joyous ire; Silence--hark to the signal--fire!

As the spring-tides, with heavy plash, From the cliffs invading, dash Huge fragments, sapped by the ceaseless flow, Till white and thundering down they go, Like the avalanche's snow, On the Alpine vales below; Thus at length, outbreathed and worn, Corinth's sons were downward borne By the long and oft renewed Charge of the Moslem mult.i.tude.

In firmness they stood, and in ma.s.ses they fell, Heaped, by the host of the infidel, Hand to hand, and foot to foot: Nothing there, save death, was mute; Stroke, and thrust, and flash, and cry For quarter, or for victory, Mingle there with the volleying thunder, Which makes the distant cities wonder How the sounding battle goes, If with them or for their foes.

From the point of encountering blades to the hilt Sabres and swords with blood were gilt; But the rampart is won, and the spoil begun, And all but the after-carnage done.

Shriller shrieks now mingling come From within the plundered dome: Hark to the haste of flying feet, That splash in the blood of the slippery street; But here and there, where 'vantage ground Against the foe may still be found, Desperate groups of twelve or ten Make a pause, and turn again-- With banded backs against the wall Fiercely stand, or fighting fall.

Minotti, though an old man, has an "arm full of might," and he disputes, foot by foot, the successful and deadly onslaughts of the Turks. He finally retires, with the remnant of his gallant band, to the fortified church, where lie the last and richest spoils sought by the infidels, and in the vaults beneath which, lined with the dead of ages gone, was also "the Christians' chiefest magazine." To the latter a train had been laid, and, seizing a blazing torch, his "last and stern resource,"

Darkly, sternly, and all alone, Minotti stands o'er the altar-stone,

and awaits the last attack of his foes. It soon comes.

So near they came, the nearest stretched To grasp the spoil he almost reached, When old Minotti's hand Touched with the torch the train-- 'Tis fired!

Spire, vaults, the shrine, the spoil, the slain, The turbaned victors, the Christian band, All that of living or dead remain, Hurled on high with the shivered fane, In one wild roar expired!

The shattered town, the walls thrown down, The waves a moment backward bent-- The hills that shake, although unrent, As if an earthquake pa.s.sed-- The thousand shapeless things all driven In cloud and flame athwart the heaven, By that tremendous blast-- Proclaimed the desperate conflict o'er On that too long afflicted sh.o.r.e: Up to the sky like rockets go All that mingled there below: Many a tall and goodly man, Scorched and shrivelled to a span, When he fell to earth again Like a cinder strewed the plain: Down the ashes shower like rain; Some fell in the gulf, which received the sprinkles With a thousand circling wrinkles; Some fell on the sh.o.r.e, but, far away, Scattered o'er the isthmus lay.

All the living things that heard That deadly earth-shock disappeared; The wild birds flew; the wild dogs fled, And howling left the unburied dead; The camels from their keepers broke, The distant steer forsook the yoke-- The nearer steed plunged o'er the plain, And burst his girth, and tore his rein; The bull-frog's note, from out the marsh, Deep-mouthed arose, and doubly harsh The wolves yelled on the caverned hill, Where echo rolled in thunder still; The jackal's troop, in gathered cry, Bayed from afar complainingly, With a mixed and mournful sound, Like crying babe, and beaten hound: With sudden wing and ruffled breast The eagle left his rocky nest, And mounted nearer to the sun, The clouds beneath him seemed so dun; Their smoke a.s.sailed his startled beak, And made him higher soar and shriek.

Thus was Corinth lost and won!

IV. FINAL CONQUEST OF GREECE BY TURKEY.

The fall of Corinth opened the way to a successful advance of the Turkish forces through the Peloponnesus, and the Venetians were soon compelled to abandon it. By the peace of Pa.s.sa'rowitz, in 1718, the whole of Greece was again surrendered to Turkey, and under her rule the country, divided into military districts called Pasha'lics, sunk into a deplorable condition which the progress of time did nothing to ameliorate. The Greeks, being virtually reduced to bondage, suffered untold miseries from the rapacity and barbarism of their masters. Says the historian, SIR EMERSON TENNENT, "So undefined was the system of extortion, and so uncontrolled the power of those to whose execution it was intrusted, that the evil spread over the whole system of administration, and insinuated itself with a polypous fertility into every relation and ordinance of society, till there were few actions or occupations of the Greeks that were not burdened with the scrutiny and interference of their masters, and none that did not suffer, in a greater or less degree, from their heartless rapine." For four centuries and over the Greeks suffered under this despotism, which stamped out industry and education, and tended to the extinction of every manly trait in the people, while it also developed the native vices of the h.e.l.lenic character.

In a poem written in 1786 by the afterward celebrated British statesman, GEORGE CANNING, the writer, after paying a handsome tribute to the greatness and glory of the Greece of olden time, draws the following truthful picture of her degeneracy in his own day:

The Slavery of Greece.

Oh, how changed thy fame, And all thy glories fading into shame!

What! that thy bold, thy freedom-breathing land Should crouch beneath a tyrant's stern command!

That servitude should bind in galling chain Whom Asia's millions once opposed in vain, Who could have thought? Who sees without a groan Thy cities mouldering and thy walls o'erthrown; That where once towered the stately, solemn fane, Now moss-grown ruins strew the ravaged plain; And, un.o.bserved but by the traveller's eye, Proud, vaulted domes in fretted fragments lie; And the fallen column, on the dusty ground, Pale ivy throws its sluggish arms around?

Thy sons (sad change!) in abject bondage sigh; Unpitied toil, and unlamented die; Groan at the labors of the galling oar, Or the dark caverns of the mine explore.

The glittering tyranny of Othman's sons, The pomp of horror which surrounds their thrones, Have awed their servile spirits into fear; Spurned by the foot, they tremble and revere.

The day of labor, night's sad, sleepless hour, The inflictive scourge of arbitrary power, The b.l.o.o.d.y terror of the pointed steel, The murderous stake, the agonizing wheel, And (dreadful choice!) the bowstring or the bowl, Damps their faint vigor and unmans the soul.

Disastrous fate! Still tears will fill the eye, Still recollection prompt the mournful sigh, When to the mind recurs thy former fame, And all the horrors of thy present shame.

In 1810-'11 the poet BYRON spent considerable time in Greece, visiting its many scenes of historic interest, and noting the condition of its people. Here he wrote the second canto of Childe Harold, in which the following fine apostrophe and appeal To Greece, still under Moslem rule, are found:

Fair Greece! sad relic of departed worth!

Immortal, though no more; though fallen, great!

Who now shall lead thy scattered children forth, And long accustomed bondage uncreate?

Not such thy sons who whilom did await, The hopeless warriors of a willing doom, In bleak Thermopylae's sepulchral strait-- Oh, who that gallant spirit shall resume, Leap from Euro'ta's banks, and call thee from the tomb?

Spirit of Freedom! when on Phy'le's brow Thou sat'st with Thrasybu'lus and his train, Couldst thou forebode the dismal hour which now Dims the green beauties of thine Attic plain?

Not thirty tyrants now enforce the chain, But every carle can lord it o'er thy land; Nor rise thy sons, but idly rail in vain, Trembling beneath the scourge of Turkish hand, From birth till death enslaved; in word, in deed, unmanned.

In all, save form alone, how changed! and who That marks the fire still sparkling in each eye, Who but would deem their bosoms burned anew With thy unquenched beam, lost Liberty!

And many dream withal the hour is nigh That gives them back their father's heritage: For foreign arms and aid they fondly sigh, Nor solely dare encounter hostile rage, Or tear their name defiled from Slavery's mournful page.

Hereditary bondsmen! know ye not Who would be free themselves must strike the blow?

By their right arms the conquest must be wrought?

Will Gaul or Muscovite redress thee? No!

True, they may lay your proud despoilers low, But not for you will Freedom's altars flame.

Shades of the Helots! triumph o'er your foe!

Greece! change thy lords, thy state is still the same; Thy glorious day is o'er, but not thy years of shame.

When riseth Lacedaemon's hardihood, When Thebes Epaminondas rears again, When Athens' children are with hearts endued, When Grecian mothers shall give birth to men, Then may'st thou be restored; but not till then.

A thousand years scarce serve to form a state; An hour may lay it in the dust: and when Can man, in shattered splendor renovate, Recall its virtues back, and vanquish Time and Fate?

FIRST STEPS TO SECURE LIBERTY.

Although the oppressive domination of the Turks was tamely submitted to for so many centuries, the Greeks did not entirely lose their national spirit, nor their devotion to their religion and their domestic inst.i.tutions; and long before Byron wrote, Greece began preparations to break the Turkish yoke. The preservation of the national spirit was largely due to the warlike inhabitants of the mountainous regions of the north, who maintained their independence against the b.l.o.o.d.y tyranny of the Turks, and continually hara.s.sed their camps and villages. These mountaineers were known as Klephts; and though they were literally robbers, ofttimes plundering the Greeks as well as the Turks, yet, on the decline of the Armato'li--the Christian local militia which the Turks attempted to crush out--the Klephts acquired political and social importance as a permanent cla.s.s in the Greek nation; and, as DR. FELTON says, "When the Revolution broke out, the courage, temperance, and hardihood of these bands were among the most effective agencies in rescuing Greece from the blighting tyranny of the Turks." This writer characterizes the ballads of the Klephts as "full of fire, and redolent of the mountain life, which had an irresistible charm for young and adventurous spirits chafing under the domination of the Turks in the lowlands;" and to him we are indebted for a literal version of one of these ballads, representing the feelings of a young man who had resolved to leave his mother's home and betake himself to the mountains, and "ill.u.s.trating at once the impatient spirit of rebellion against the Turks, and the sweet flow of natural poetry which was ever welling up in the hearts of the people." [Footnote: This ballad is taken from "a collection published by Zampelios, a Greek gentleman, and a native of Leucadia."]

"Mother, I can no longer be a slave to the Turks; I cannot--my heart fights against it. I will take my gun and go and become a Klepht; to dwell on the mountains, among the lofty ridges; to have the woods for my companions, and my converse with the beasts; to have the snow for my covering, the rocks for my bed; with sons of the Klephts to have my daily habitation. I will go, mother, and do not weep, but give me thy prayer. And we will pray, my dear mother, that I may slaughter many a Turk. Plant the rose, and plant the dark carnation, and give them sugar and musk to drink; and as long, O mother mine, as the flowers blossom and put forth, thy son is not dead, but is warring with the Turks.

But if a day of sorrow come, a day of woe, and the plants fade away, and the flowers fall, then I too shall have been slain, and thou must clothe thyself in black.'

"Twelve years pa.s.sed, and five months, while the roses blossomed and the buds bloomed; and one spring morning, the first of May, when the birds were singing and heaven was smiling, at once it thundered and lightened, and grew dark. The carnation sighed, the rose wept, both withered away together, and the flowers fell; and with them the hapless mother became a lifeless heap of earth."

The last half of the eighteenth century witnessed, in Greece, the first general desire for liberty. Secret societies were formed to aid in the emanc.i.p.ation of the country, and "eminent writers, at home and abroad, appealed to the glorious recollections of Greece in order to excite a universal enthusiasm for freedom."

Among the latter may be mentioned CONSTANTINOS RHIGAS, a native of Thessaly, born in 1753, a man of fine accomplishments and an ardent patriot, whose lyric ballads are said to have "rung through Greece like a trumpet," and who has been styled "the Tyrtae'us of modern Greece." One of his war-songs has been thus translated:

Sons of the Greeks, arise!