The Works of Lord Byron Volume III Part 36

[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} _Which thanks to terror and the dark_ _Hath missed a trifle of its mark._--[MS.]

[The couplet was expunged in a revise dated November 19.]

[fw] _With life to keep but not with life resign_.--[MS.]

[fx] {173} _That strays along that head so fair._--[MS.]

or, _That strays along that neck so fair._--[MS.]

[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} _But--Selim why my heart's reply_ _Should need so much of mystery_ _Is more than I can guess or tell,_ _But since thou say'st 'tis so--'tis well_.--[MS.]

[The fourth line erased.]

[ga]

_He blest me more in leaving thee._ _Much should I suffer thus compelled_.--[MS.]

[gb] {176} _This vow I should no more conceal_ _And wherefore should I not reveal?_--[MS.]

[gc]

_My breast is consciousness of sin_ _But when and where and what the crime_ _I almost feel is lurking here_.--[MS.]

[151] "Tchocadar"--one of the attendants who precedes a man of authority.

[See D'Ohsson's _Tableau Generale, etc._, 1787, ii. 159, and _Plates_ 87, 88. The Turks seem to have used the Persian word _chawki-dar_, 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_. 9^th^ 1813.--[MS.]

[152] [_Vide_ Ovid, _Herodes,_ Ep. xix.; and the _De Herone atque Leandro_ of Musaeus.]

[153] {179} The wrangling about this epithet, "the broad h.e.l.lespont" or the "boundless h.e.l.lespont," 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 "?pe????:" ["a)/peiros"]

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 ?pe???? [a)pei/ron], and for a _resume_ 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 aeyietes 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. _Vitae_, "Alexander M.," cap. xv. line 25, Lipsiae, 1814, vi.

187. For the tombs of aesyetes, etc., see _Travels in Albania, ii.

149-151._]

[155] [Compare--

"Or narrow if needs must be, Outside are the storms and the strangers."

_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 cast.i.tatis hieroglyphic.u.m gemma est."--Hoffmann, _Lexic. Univ._, art. "Smaragdus." Compare, too, _Lalla Rookh_ ("Chandos Cla.s.sics," p. 406), "The emerald's virgin blaze."]

[158] The belief in amulets engraved on gems, or enclosed in gold boxes, containing sc.r.a.ps 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 _ayatu 'l kursiy_, or verse of the throne (Sura II. "Chapter of the Heifer," v. 257), runs thus: "G.o.d, there is no G.o.d 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'an_, 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 Cla.s.sics," p. 420), "Her ruby rosary," etc., and note on "Le Tespih." _Lord Byron's Comboloio_ is the t.i.tle 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-gul, or attar of roses.]

[gf] {183} _Her Prophet did not clearly show_ _But Selim's place was quite secure_.--[MS.]

[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] "Galiongee" 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 Palaeopolis, 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} _What--have I lived to curse the day?_--[MS. M.]

_To curse--if I could curse--the day_.--[MS., ed. 1892.]

[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.