The Works of Lord Byron Volume II Part 28

[fc] {132} _But frequent is the lamb, the kid, the goat_-- _And watching pensive with his browsing flock_.--[MS. erased.]

[fd] _Counting the hours beneath yon skies unerring shock_.--[MS.

erased.]

[151] [The site of Dodona, a spot "at the foot of Mount Tomaros" (Mount Olytsika) in the valley of Tcharacovista, was finally determined, in 1876, by excavations carried out, at his own expense, by M. Constantin Carapanos, a native of Arta. In his monograph, _Dodone et ses Ruines_ (Paris, 1878, 4to), M. Carapanos gives a detailed description of the theatre, the twofold Temenos (I. _L'Enceinte du Temple_, II. _Temenos_, pp. 13-28), including the Temple of Zeus and a sanctuary of Aphrodite, and of the numerous _ex voto_ offerings and inscriptions on lead which were brought to light during the excavations, and helped to identify the ruins. An accompanying folio volume of plates contains (Planches, i., ii.) a map of the valley of Tcharacovista, and a lithograph of Mount Tomaros, "d'un aspect majestueux et pittoresque ... un roc nu sillonne par le lit de nombreux torrents" (p. 8). Behind Dodona, on the summit of the many-named chain of hills which confronts Mount Tomaros, are "bouquets de chene," sprung it may be from the offspring of the p??s?????? d??e? [prose/goroi dry/es] (aesch., _Prom._, 833), the "talking oaks," which declared the will of Zeus. For the "prophetic fount"

(line 2), Servius, commenting on Virgil, _aeneid_, iii. 41-66, seems to be the authority: "Circa hoc templum quercus immanis fuisse dicitur ex cujus radicibus fons manebat, qui suo murmure instinctu Deorum diversis oracula reddebat" (_Virgilii Opera_, Leovardiae, 1717, i. 548).

Byron and Hobhouse, on one of their excursions from Janina, explored and admired the ruins of the "amphitheatre," but knew not that "here and nowhere else" was Dodona (_Travels in Albania_, i. 53-56).]

[152] {133} [The sentiment that man, "whose breath is in his nostrils,"

should consider the impermanence of all that is stable and durable before he cries out upon his own mortality, may have been drawn immediately from the famous letter of consolation sent by Sulpitius Severus to Cicero, which Byron quotes in a note to Canto IV. stanza xliv., or, in the first instance, from Ta.s.so's _Gerusalemme Liberata_, xv. 20--

"Giace l'alta Cartago; appena i segni Dell' alte sue ruini il lido serba.

Muojono le citta; muojono i regni: Copre i fasti, e le pompe, arena ed erba; E l'uom d'esser mortal par cue si sdegni!"

Compare, too, Addison's "Reflections in Westminster Abbey," _Spectator_, No. 26.]

[153] [The six days' journey from Zitza to Tepeleni is compressed into a single stanza. The vale (line 3) may be that of the Kalama, through which the travellers pa.s.sed (October 13) soon after leaving Zitza, or, more probably, the plain of Deropoli ("well-cultivated, divided by rails and low hedges, and having a river flowing through it to the south"), which they crossed (October 15) on their way from Delvinaki, the frontier village of Illyria, to Libokhovo.]

[154] {134} ["Yclad," used as a preterite, not a participle (compare Coleridge's "I wis" [_Christabel_, part i. line 92]), is a Byronism--"archaisme incorrect," says M. Darmesteter.]

[155] ["During the fast of the Ramazan, ... the gallery of each minaret is decorated with a circlet of small lamps. When seen from a distance, each minaret presents a point of light, 'like meteors in the sky;' and in a large city, where they are numerous, they resemble a swarm of fireflies."--H.F. Tozer. (Compare _The Giaour_, i. 449-452--

"When Rhamazan's last sun was set, And flashing from each minaret.

Millions of lamps proclaimed the feast Of Bairam through the boundless East.")]

[156] {135} ["A kind of dervish or recluse ... regarded as a saint."--_Cent. Dict._, art. "Santon."]

[fe] ----_guests and va.s.sals wait_.--[MS. erased.]

[ff] _While the deep Tocsin's sound_----.--[MS. D. erased.]

[157] {136} ["We were disturbed during the night by the perpetual carousal which seemed to be kept up in the gallery, and by the drum, and the voice of the 'muezzinn,' or chanter, calling the Turks to prayers from the minaret of the mosck attached to the palace. This chanter was a boy, and he sang out his hymn is a sort of loud melancholy recitative.

He was a long time repeating the Eraun. The first exclamation was repeated four times, the remaining words twice; and the long and piercing note in which he concluded his confession of faith, by twice crying out the word 'hou!' ['At solemn sound of "Alla Hu!"' _Giaour_, i.

734] still rings in my ears."--Hobhouse's _Travels in Albania_, i. 95.

D'Ohsonn gives the Eraun at full length: "Most high G.o.d! [four times repeated]. I acknowledge that there is no other G.o.d except G.o.d! I acknowledge that there is no other G.o.d except G.o.d! I acknowledge that Mohammed is the prophet of G.o.d! Come to prayer! Come to prayer! Come to the temple of salvation! Come to the temple of salvation! Great G.o.d!

great G.o.d! There is no G.o.d except G.o.d!"--_Oriental Antiquities_ (Philadelphia, 1788), p. 341.]

[158] {137} ["The Ramazan, or Turkish Lent, which, as it occurs in each of the thirteen months in succession, fell this year in October ...

Although during this month the strictest abstinence, even from tobacco and coffee, is observed in the daytime, yet with the setting of the sun the feasting commences."--_Travels in Albania_, i. 66. "The Ramadan or Rhamazan is the ninth month of the Mohammedan year. As the Mohammedans reckon by lunar time, it begins each year eleven days earlier than in the preceding year, so that in thirty-three years it occurs successively in all the seasons."--_Imp. Dictionary_.]

[159] [The feast was spread within the courtyard, "in the part farthest from the dwelling," and when the revelry began the "immense large gallery" or corridor, which ran along the front of the palace and was open on one side to the court, was deserted. "Opening into the gallery were the doors of several apartments," and as the servants pa.s.sed in and out, the travellers standing in the courtyard could hear the sound of voices.--_Travels in Albania_, i. 93.]

[fg] {138} ----_even for health to move_.--[MS.]

_She saves for one_----.--[MS. erased.]

[fh]

_For boyish minions of unhallowed love_ _The shameless torch of wild desire is lit_, _Caressed, preferred even to woman's self above_, _Whose forms for Nature's gentler errors fit_ _All frailties mote excuse save that which they commit_.

--[MS. D. erased.]

[160] [For an account of Ali Pasha (1741-1822), see _Letters_, 1898, i.

246, note.]

[161] [In a letter to his mother, November 12, 1809, Byron writes, "He [Ali] said he was certain I was a man of birth, because I had small ears, curling hair, and little white hands. ... He told me to consider him as a father whilst I was in Turkey, and said he looked on me as his son. Indeed, he treated me like a child, sending me almonds and sugared sherbet, fruit and sweetmeats, twenty times a day." Many years after, in the first letter _On Bowles' Strictures_, February 7, 1821, he introduces a reminiscence of Ali: "I never judge from manners, for I once had my pocket picked by the civillest gentleman I ever met with; and one of the mildest persons I ever saw was Ali Pasha" (_Life_, p.

689).]

[fi] {139} _Delights to mingle with the lips of youth_.--[MS. D.

erased.]

[162] [Anacreon sometimes bewails, but more often defies old age.

(_Vide_ Carmina liv., xi., x.x.xiv.)

The paraphrase "Teian Muse" recurs in the song, "The Isles of Greece,"

_Don Juan_, Canto III.]

[fj] _But 'tis those ne'er forgotten acts of ruth_.--[MS. D.]

[163] [In the first edition the reading (see _var_. ii.) is, "But crimes, those ne'er forgotten crimes of ruth." The mistake was pointed out in the _Quarterly Review_ (March, 1812, No. 13, vol. vii. p. 193).

But in Spenser "ruth" means sorrow as well as pity, and three weeks after _Childe Harold_ was published, Ali committed a terrible crime, the outcome of an early grief. On March 27, 1812, in revenge for wrongs done to his mother and sister nearly thirty years before, he caused 670 Gardhikiots to be ma.s.sacred in the khan of Valiare, and followed up the act of treachery by sacking, plundering, and burning the town of Gardiki, and, "in direct violation of the Mohammedan law," carrying off and reducing to slavery the women and children.--Finlay's _Hist. of Greece_ (edited by Rev. H. F. Tozer, 1877), vi. 67, 68.]

[fk] {140} _Those who in blood begin in blood conclude their span_.--[MS. erased.]

[164] [This was prophetic. "On the 5th of February, 1822, a meeting took place between Ali and Mohammed Pasha.... When Mohammed rose to depart, the two viziers, being of equal rank, moved together towards the door.... As they parted Ali bowed low to his visitor, and Mohammed, seizing the moment when the watchful eye of the old man was turned away, drew his hanjar, and plunged it in Ali's heart. He walked on calmly to the gallery, and said to the attendants, 'Ali of Tepalen is dead.' ...

The head of Ali was exposed at the gate of the serai."--Finlay's _Hist.

of Greece_, 1877, vi. 94, 95.]

[fl]

_Childe Harold with that chief held colloquy_ _Yet what they spake it boots not to repeat;_ _Converse may little charm strange ear or eye;_ _Albeit he rested on that s.p.a.cious seat,_ _Of Moslem luxury the choice retreat_.--[MS. D. erased.]

_Four days he rested on that worthy seat_.-[MS. erased.]

[165] {141} [The travellers left Janina on November 3, and reached Prevesa November 7. At midday November 9 they set sail for Patras in a galliot of Ali's, "a vessel of about fifty tons burden, with three short masts and a large lateen sail." Instead of doubling Cape Ducato, they were driven out to sea northward, and, finally, at one o'clock in the morning, anch.o.r.ed off the Port of Phanari on the Suliote coast. Towards the evening of the next day (November 10) they landed in "the marshy bay" (stanza lxviii. line 2) and rode to Volondorako, where they slept.

"Here they were well received by the Albanian primate of the place and by the Vizier's soldiers quartered there." Instead of re-embarking in the galliot, they returned to Prevesa by land (November 11). As the country to the north of the Gulf of Arta was up in arms, and bodies of robbers were abroad, they procured an escort of thirty-seven Albanians, hired another galliot, and on Monday, the 13th, sailed across the entrance of the gulf as far as the fortress of Vonitsa, where they anch.o.r.ed for the night. By four o'clock in the afternoon of November 14 they reached Utraikey or Lutraki, "situated in a deep bay surrounded with rocks at the south-east corner of the Gulf of Arta." The courtyard of a barrack on the sh.o.r.e is the scene of the song and dance (stanzas lxx.-lxxii.). Here, in the original MS., the pilgrimage abruptly ends, and in the remaining stanzas the Childe moralizes on the fallen fortunes and vanished heroism of Greece.--_Travels in Albania_, i. 157-165.]

[166] {143} [The route from Utraikey to Gouria (November 15-18) lay through "thick woods of oak," with occasional peeps of the open cultivated district of aetolia on the further side of the Aspropotamo, "white Achelous' tide." The Albanian guard was not dismissed until the travellers reached Mesolonghi (November 21).]

[167] [With this description Mr. Tozer compares Virgil, _aeneid_, i.

159-165, and Ta.s.so's imitation in _Gerus. Lib._, canto xv. stanzas 42, 43. The following lines from Hoole's translation (_Jerusalem Delivered_, bk. xv. lines 310, 311, 317, 318) may be cited:--

"Amidst these isles a lone recess is found, Where circling sh.o.r.es the subject flood resound ...

Within the waves repose in peace serene; Black forests nod above, a silvan scene!"]

[168] {144} ["In the evening the gates were secured, and preparations were made for feeding our Albanians. A goat was killed and roasted whole, and four fires were kindled in the yard, round which the soldiers seated themselves in parties. After eating and drinking, the greater part of them a.s.sembled round the largest of the fires, and, whilst ourselves and the elders of the party were seated on the ground, danced round the blaze to their own songs, in the manner before described, but with astonishing energy. All their songs were relations of some robbing exploits. One of them ... began thus: 'When we set out from Parga there were sixty of us!' then came the burden of the verse--

'Robbers all at Parga!

Robbers all at Parga!'

???fte?? p?t? ????a! [Kle/phteis pote Pa/rga!]

???fte?? p?t? ????a! [Kle/phteis pote Pa/rga!]