The Works of Lord Byron Volume III Part 26

[Sale, in his _Preliminary Discourse_ ("Chandos Cla.s.sics," p. 80), in dealing with this question, notes "that there are several pa.s.sages 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 G.o.d will make no distinction of s.e.xes." A single quotation will suffice: "G.o.d 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'an_, 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."

[Gulnar (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--

"The fragrant hyacinths of Azza's hair That wanton with the laughing summer-air;"

and refers Milton's "Hyacinthine locks" (_Paradise Lost_, iv. 301) to Lucian's _Pro Imaginibus_, cap. v.]

[91] {111} "Franguestan," Circa.s.sia. [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} [Parna.s.sus.]

[94] "In the name of G.o.d;" 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 G.o.d 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' Santi," 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 p.r.o.nunciation 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 superst.i.tion 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 longe 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} _His mother looked from the lattice high_, _With throbbing heart and eager eye;_ _The browsing camel bells are tinkling_, _And the last beam of twilight twinkling:_ _'Tis eve; his train should now be nigh_.

_She could not rest in her garden bower_, _And gazed through the loop of her steepest tower_.

_"Why comes he not? his steeds are fleet_, _And well are they train'd to the summer's heat_."--[MS.]

Another copy began--

_The browsing camel bells are tinkling_, _And the first beam of evening twinkling;_ _His mother looked from her lattice high_, _With throbbing breast and eager eye_-- "'_Tis twilight--sure his train is nigh_."--[MS. Aug. 11, 1813.]

_The browsing camel's bells are tinkling_ _The dews of eve the pasture sprinkling_ _And rising planets feebly twinkling:_ _His mother looked from the lattice high_ _With throbbing heart and eager eye_.--[Fourth Edition.]

[These lines were erased, and lines 689-692 were subst.i.tuted. 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.]

[dt]

_The Tartar sped beneath the gate_ _And flung to earth his fainting weight_.--[MS.]

[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 pa.s.s 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 Archaeological 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, _Bibliotheque 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 d.a.m.nation. 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 Poc.o.c.ke (_Porta Mosis_, 1654, Notae Miscellaneae, 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 superst.i.tion 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" ["Vroucoloca.s.ses"], 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 h.e.l.lenic appellation--at least is so applied to a.r.s.enius, who, according to the Greeks, was after his death animated by the Devil. The moderns, however, use the word I mention.

[???????a?a? [Bourko/lakas] or ??????a?a? [Bryko/lakas] (= the Bohemian and Slovak _Vrholak_) is modern Greek for a ghost or vampire. George Bentotes, in his ?e????? ??????ss?? [Lexikon Tri/glosson], published in Vienna in 1790 (see _Childe Harold_, Canto II. Notes, Papers, etc., No.

III., _Poetical Works_, 1899, ii. 197), renders ???????a?a?

[Brouko/lakas] "lutin," and ????????as???? [Broukoliasme/nos], "devenu un spectre."

a.r.s.enius, Archbishop of Monembasia (circ. 1530), was famous for his scholarship. He prefaced his _Scholia in Septem Euripidis Tragaedias_ (Basileae, 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 a.r.s.enius, after his death, was _Broukolakas_, that is, that the Devil hovered about his corps and re-animated him" (Bayle, _Dictionary_, 1724, i. 508, art.

"a.r.s.enius"). Martinus Crusius, in his _Turco-Graecia_, lib. ii. (Basileae, 1584, p. 151) records the death of a.r.s.enius 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'

a.r.s.enius, apres la mort fust _Broukolakas_," etc. (_Lacedemone, Ancienne et Nouvelle_, par Le Sieur de la Guilletiere, 1676, ii. 586. See, too, for "a.r.s.enius," 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 h.e.l.lenic" 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.)]