The Works of Lord Byron Volume II Part 27

Writing at Athens, January 16, 1810, he tells us, "The spell is broke, the charm is flown."]

[134] {120} [More than one commentator gravely "sets against" this line--Byron's statement to Dallas (_Corr. of Lord Byron_, Paris, 1824, iii. 91), "I am not a Joseph or a Scipio; but I can safely affirm that never in my life I seduced any woman." Compare _Memoirs of Count Carlo Gozzi_, 1890, ii. 12, "Never have I employed the iniquitous art of seduction ... Languishing in soft and thrilling sentiments, I demanded from a woman a sympathy and inclination of like nature with my own. If she fell ... I should have remembered how she made for me the greatest of all sacrifices.... I should have worshipped her like a deity. I could have spent my life's blood in consoling her; and without swearing eternal constancy, I should have been most stable on my side in loving such a mistress."]

[er] {121} _Brisk Impudence_----.--[MS.]

[es] _Youth wasted, wretches born_----.--[MS. erased.]

[135] [Compare Lucretius, iv. 1121-4--

"Adde quod absumunt viris pereuntque labore,

Labitur interea res, et Babylonica fiunt: Languent officia, atque aegrotat fama vacillans."]

[et] {122} _Climes strange withal as ever mortal head_.--[MS.]

[eu] _Suspected in its little pride of thought_.--[MS. erased.]

[136] ["Were counselled or advised." The pa.s.sive "were ared" seems to lack authority. (See _N. Eng. Dict._, art. "Aread.")]

[ev]

_Her not unconscious though her weakly child_.

or, ----_her rudest child_.--[MS. erased.]

[137] [Compare the description of the thunderstorm in the Alps (Canto III. stanzas xcii.-xcvi., pp. 273-275); and _Manfred_, act ii. sc. 2--

"My joy was in the wilderness; to breathe The difficult air of the iced mountain-top-- * * * * *

In them my early strength exulted; or To follow through the night the moving moon, The stars and their development; or catch The dazzling lightnings till my eyes grew dim."

Beattie, who describes the experiences of his own boyhood in the person of Edwin in _The Minstrel_, had already made a like protestation--

"In sooth he was a strange and wayward youth.

Fond of each gentle and each dreadful scene.

In darkness and in storm he found delight; Not less than when on ocean-wave serene The Southern sun diffus'd his dazzling sheen; Even sad vicissitude amus'd his soul."

Kirke White, too, who was almost Byron's contemporary, and whose verses he professed to admire--

"Would run a visionary boy When the hoa.r.s.e tempest shook the vaulted sky."

This love of Nature in her wilder aspects, which was perfectly genuine, and, indeed, meritorious, was felt to be out of the common, a note of the poetic temperament, worth recording, but unlikely to pa.s.s without questioning and remonstrance.]

[138] {123} [Alexander's mother, Olympias, was an Epiriote. She had a place in the original draft of Tennyson's _Palace of Art_ (_Life of Lord Tennyson_,. 119)--

"One was Olympias; the floating snake Roll'd round her ankles, round her waist Knotted," etc.

Plutarch (_Vitae_, Lipsiae:, 1814, vi. 170) is responsible for the legend: ?f?? d? p?te ?a? d????? ???????? t?? ???p??d?? pa?e?teta??? t?

s?at? [o)phthe de/ pote kai dra/kon koimome/nes te~s O)lympia/dou parektetame/ns to~| so/mati], "Now, one day, when Olympias lay abed, beside her body a dragon was espied stretched out at full length."

(Compare, too, Dryden's _Alexander's Feast_, stanza ii.)]

[139] [Mr. Tozer (_Childe Harold_, p. 236) takes this line to mean "whom the young love to talk of, and the wise to follow as an example," and points to Alexander's foresight as a conqueror, and the "extension of commerce and civilization" which followed his victories. But, surely, the ant.i.thesis lies between Alexander the ideal of the young, and Alexander the deterrent example of the old. The phrase, "beacon of the wise," if Hector in _Troilus and Cressida_ (act ii. sc. 2, line 16) is an authority, is proverbial.

" ... The wound of peace is surety, Surety secure; but modest doubt is call'd The beacon of the wise, the tent that searches To the bottom of the worst."

The beauty, the brilliance, the glory of Alexander kindle the enthusiasm of the young; but the murder of Clytus and the early death which he brought upon himself are held up by the wise as beacon-lights to save others from shipwreck.]

[140] [Byron and Hobhouse sailed for Malta in the brig-of-war _Spider_ on Tuesday, September 19, 1809 (Byron, in a letter to his mother, November 12, says September 21), and anch.o.r.ed off Patras on the night of Sunday, the 24th. On Tuesday, the 26th, they were under way at 12 noon, and on the evening of that day they saw the sun set over Mesalonghi. The next morning, September 27, they were in the channel between Ithaca and the mainland, with Ithaca, then in the hands of the French, to the left.

"We were close to it," says Hobhouse, "and saw a few shrubs on a brown heathy land, two little towns in the hills scattered among trees." The travellers made "but little progress this day," and, apparently, having redoubled Cape St. Andreas, the southern extremity of Ithaca, they sailed (September 28) through the channel between Ithaca and Cephalonia, pa.s.sed the hill of aetos, on which stood the so-called "Castle of Ulysses," whence Penelope may have "overlooked the wave," and caught sight of "the Lover's refuge" in the distance. Towards the close of the same day they doubled Cape Ducato ("Leucadia's cape," the scene of Sappho's leap), and, sailing under "the ancient mount," the site of the Temple of Apollo, anch.o.r.ed off Prevesa at seven in the evening. Poetry and prose are not always in accord. If, as Byron says, it was "an autumn's eve" when they hailed "Leucadia's cape afar," if the evening star shone over the rock when they approached it, they must have sailed fast to reach Prevesa, some thirty miles to the north, by seven o'clock.

But _de minimis_, the Muse is as disregardful as the Law. And, perhaps, after all, it was Hobhouse who misread his log-book. (_Travels in Albania_, i. 4, 5; Murray's _Handbook for Greece_, pp. 40, 46.)]

[141] {125} [The meaning of this pa.s.sage is not quite so obvious as it seems. He has in his mind the words, "He saved others, Himself He cannot save," and, applying this to Sappho, asks, "Why did she who conferred immortality on herself by her verse prove herself mortal?" Without Fame, and without verse the cause and keeper of Fame, there is no heaven, no immortality, for the sons of men. But what security is there for the eternity of verse and Fame? "_Quis custodiet custodes_?"]

[142] {126} [For Byron's "star" similes, see Canto III. stanza x.x.xviii.

line 9.]

[ew] ----_and looked askance on Mars_.--[MS. erased.]

[143] [Compare the line in Tennyson's song, _Break, break, break,_ "And the stately ships go on."]

[ex]

_And roused him more from thought than he was wont_ _While Pleasure almost seemed to smooth his pallid front_.--[MS. D.]

_While Pleasure almost smiled along_----.--[MS. erased.]

[144] [By "Suli's rocks" Byron means the mountainous district in the south of the Epirus. The district of Suli formed itself into a small republic at the close of the last century, and offered a formidable resistance to Ali Pacha. "Pindus' inland peak," Monte Metsovo, which forms part of the ridge which divides Epirus from Thessaly, is not visible from the sea-coast.]

[145] {127} ["Sh.o.r.e unknown." (See Byron's note to stanza x.x.xviii. line 5.)]

[ey] {128} ----_lovely harmful thing_.--[MS. pencil.]

[146] [Compare Byron's _Stanzas written on pa.s.sing the Ambracian Gulph_.]

[147] [Nicopolis, "the city of victory," which Augustus, "the second Caesar," built to commemorate Actium, is some five miles to the north of Prevesa. Byron and Hobhouse visited the ruins on the 30th of September, and again on the 12th of November (see Byron's letter to Mrs. Byron.

November 12, 1809: _Letters_, 1898, i. 251).]

[ez]

_Imperial wretches, doubling human woes!_ _G.o.d!--was thy globe ere made_----.--[MS. erased.]

[148] {129} [The travellers left Prevesa on October 1, and arrived at Janina on October 5. They left Janina on October 11, and reached Zitza at nightfall (Byron at 3 a.m., October 12). They left Zitza on October 13, and arrived at Tepeleni on October 19.]

[149] [On the evening of October 11, as the party was approaching Zitza, Hobhouse and the Albanian, Vasilly, rode on, leaving "Lord Byron and the baggage behind." It was getting dark, and just as the luckier Hobhouse contrived to make his way to the village, the rain began to fall in torrents. Before long, "the thunder roared as it seemed without any intermission; for the echoes of one peal had not ceased to roll in the mountains before another crash burst over our heads." Byron, dragoman, and baggage were not three miles from Zitza when the storm began, and they lost their way. After many wanderings and adventures they were finally conducted by ten men with pine torches to the hut; but by that time it was three o'clock in the morning. Hence the "Stanzas composed during a Thunderstorm."--Hobhouse's _Travels in Albania_, i. 69-71.]

[150] {130} ["The prior of the monastery, a humble, meek-mannered man, entertained us in a warm chamber with grapes and a pleasant white wine ...We were so well pleased with everything about us that we agreed to lodge with him."--Hobhouse's _Travels in Albania_, i. 73.]

[fa] _Here winds, if winds there be, will fan his breast_.--[MS. D.

erased.]

[fb] _Keep Heaven for better souls, my shade shall seek for none_.--[MS.

erased.]