The Works of Lord Byron Volume II Part 72

[422] {362} The celebrated letter of Servius Sulpicius to Cicero, on the death of his daughter, describes as it then was, and now is, a path which I often traced in Greece, both by sea and land, in different journeys and voyages. "On my return from Asia, as I was sailing from aegina towards Megara, I began to contemplate the prospect of the countries around me: aegina was behind, Megara before me; Piraeus on the right, Corinth on the left: all which towns, once famous and flouris.h.i.+ng, now lie overturned and buried in their ruins. Upon this sight, I could not but think presently within myself, Alas! how do we poor mortals fret and vex ourselves if any of our friends happen to die or be killed, whose life is yet so short, when the carca.s.ses of so many n.o.ble cities lie here exposed before me in one view."--See Middleton's _Cicero_, 1823, ii. 144.

[The letter is to be found in Cicero's _Epist. ad Familiares_, iv. 5.

Byron, on his return from Constantinople on July 14, 1810, left Hobhouse at the Island of Zea, and made his own way to Athens. As the vessel sailed up the Saronic Gulf, he would observe the "prospect" which Sulpicius describes.]

[mp] {363} _These carcases of cities_----.--[MS. M. erased.]

[423] ["By the events of the years 1813 and 1814, the house of Austria gained possession of all that belonged to her in Italy, either before or in consequence of the Peace of Campo Formio (October 17, 1797). A small portion of Ferrara, to the north of the Po (which had formed part of the Papal dominions), was ceded to her, as were the Valteline, Bormio, Chiavenna, and the ancient republic of Ragusa. The emperor const.i.tuted all these possessions into a separate and particular state, under the t.i.tle of the kingdom of Venetian Lombardy."--Koch's _History of Europe_, p. 234.]

[424] {364} It is Poggio, who, looking from the Capitoline hill upon ruined Rome, breaks forth into the exclamation, "Ut nunc omni decore nudata, prostrata jaceat, instar Gigantei cadaveris corrupti atque undique exesi."

[See _De Fortunae Varietate_, ap. _Nov. Thes. Ant. Rom._, ap. Sallengre, i. 502.]

[425] [Compare Milton, _Sonnet_ xxii.--

" ... my n.o.ble task, Of which all Europe talks from side to side."]

[mq] {365} _Where Luxury might willingly be born_.

_And buried Learning looks forth into fresher morn_,-- [MS. M. erased.]

[426] [The wealth which permitted the Florentine n.o.bility to indulge their taste for modern, that is, refined luxury was derived from success in trade. For example, Giovanni de' Medici (1360-1428), the father of Cosmo and great-grand-father of Lorenzo de' Medici, was a banker and Levantine merchant. As for the Renaissance, to say nothing of Petrarch of Florentine parentage, two of the greatest Italian scholars and humanists--Ficino, born A.D. 1430, and Poliziano, born 1454--were Florentines; and Poggio was born A.D. 1380, at Terra Nuova on Florentine soil.]

[mr] _There, too, the G.o.ddess breathes in stone and fills_.--[MS. M.]

[427] [The statue of Venus de' Medici, which stands in the Tribune of the Uffizzi Gallery at Florence, is said to be a late Greek (first or second century B.C.) copy of an early reproduction, of the Cnidian Aphrodite, the work, perhaps, of one of his sons, Kephisodotos or Timarchos. (See _Histoire de la Sculpture Grecque_, par Maxime Collignon, Paris, 1897, ii. 641.) In a Catalogue Raissonne of _La Galerie de Florence_, 1804, in the editor's possession, which opens with an eloquent tribute to the enlightenment of the Medici, _la fameuse Venus_ is conspicuous by her absence. She had been deported to Paris by Napoleon, but when Lord Byron spent a day in Florence in April, 1817, and returned "drunk with Beauty" from the two galleries, the lovely lady, thanks to the much-abused "Powers," was once more in her proper shrine.]

[ms]

----_and we draw_ _As from a fountain of immortal hills_.--[MS. M. erased.]

[428] {366} [Byron's contempt for connoisseurs and dilettanti finds expression in _English Bards, etc._, lines 1027-1032, and, again, in _The Curse of Minerva_, lines 183, 184. The "stolen copy" of _The Curse_ was published in the _New Monthly Magazine_ (_Poetical Works_, 1898, i.

453) under the t.i.tle of _The Malediction of Minerva; or, The Athenian Marble-Market_, a t.i.tle (see line 7) which must have been invented by and not for Byron. He returns to the charge in _Don Juan_, Canto 11.

stanza cxviii. lines 5-9--

" ... a statuary, (A race of mere impostors, when all's done-- I've seen much finer women ripe and real, Than all the nonsense of their stone ideal)."

Even while confessing the presence and power of "triumphal Art" in sculpture, one of "the two most artificial of the Arts" (see his letter to Murray, April 26, 1817), then first revealed to him at Florence, he took care that his enthusiasm should not be misunderstood. He had made bitter fun of the art-talk of collectors, and he was unrepentant, and, moreover, he was "not careful" to incur a charge of indifference to the fine arts in general. Among the "crowd" which found their place in his complex personality, there was "the barbarian," and there was "the philistine," and there was, too, the humourist who took a subtle pleasure in proclaiming himself "a plain man," puzzled by subtleties, and unable to catch the drift of spirits finer than his own.]

[429] {367}

?f?a???? ?st??? [O)phthalmous e(stia~n]

"Atque oculos pascat uterque suos."

Ovid., _Amor_., lib. ii. [Eleg. 2, line 6].

[Compare, too, Lucretius, lib. i. lines 36-38--

"Atque ita, suspiciens tereti cervice reposta, Pascit amore avidos, inhians in te, Dea, visus; Eque tuo pendet resupini spiritus ore;"

and _Measure for Measure_, act ii. sc. 2, line 179--

"And feast upon her eyes."]

[mt] {368} _Glowing and all-diffused_----.--[MS. M. erased.]

[430] [As the immortals, for love's sake, divest themselves of their G.o.dhead, so do mortals, in the ecstasy of pa.s.sion, recognize in the object of their love the incarnate presence of deity. Love, like music, can raise a "mortal to the skies" and "bring an angel down." In this stanza there is, perhaps, an intentional obscurity in the confusion of ideas, which are "thrown out" for the reader to shape for himself as he will or can.]

[mu] ----_and our Fate_----[MS. M.]

[431] {369} ["The church of Santa Croce contains much ill.u.s.trious nothing. The tombs of Macchiavelli, Michael Angelo, Galileo Galilei, and Alfieri make it the Westminster Abbey of Italy" (Letter to Murray, April 26, 1817). Michael Angelo, Alfieri, and Macchiavelli are buried in the south aisle of the church; Galileo, who was first buried within the convent, now rests with his favourite pupil, Vincenzo Viviani, in a vault in the south aisle. Canova's monument to Alfieri was erected at the expense of his so-called widow, Louise, born von s...o...b..rg, and (1772-78) consort of Prince Charles Edward.]

[432] [Vittorio Alfieri (1749-1803) is one of numerous real and ideal personages with whom, as he tells us (_Life_, p. 644), Byron was wont to be compared. Moore perceives and dwells on the resemblance. A pa.s.sage in Alfieri's autobiography (_La Vie de V. A. ecrite par Lui-meme_, Paris, 1809, p. 17) may have suggested the parallel--

"Voici une esquisse du caractere que je manifestais dans les premieres annees de ma raison naissante. Taciturne et tranquille pour l'ordinaire, mais quelquefois extremement petulant et babillard, presque toujours dans les extremes, obstine et rebelle a la force, fort soumis aux avis qu'on me donnait avec amitie, contenu plutot par la crainte d'etre gronde que par toute autre chose, d'une timidite excessive, et inflexible quand on voulait me prendre a rebours."

The resemblance, as Byron admits, "related merely to our apparent personal dispositions." Both were n.o.ble, both were poets, both were "patrician republicans," and both were lovers of pleasure as well as lovers and students of literature; but their works do not provoke comparison. "The quality of 'a narrow elevation' which [Matthew] Arnold finds in Alfieri," is not characteristic of the author of _Childe Harold_ and _Don Juan_.

Of this stanza, however, Alfieri's fine sonnet to Florence may have been the inspiration. I have Dr. Garnett's permission to cite the following lines of his admirable translation (_Italian Literature_, 1898, p.

321):--

"Was Angelo born here? and he who wove Love's charm with sorcery of Tuscan tongue, Indissolubly blent? and he whose song Laid bare the world below to world above?

And he who from the lonely valley clove The azure height and trod the stars among?

And he whose searching mind the monarch's wrong, Fount of the people's misery did prove?"]

[mv] {370} _Might furnish forth a Universe_----.--[MS. M.]

[mw]

_And ruin of thy beauty, shall deny_ _And hath denied, to every other sky_ _Spirits that soar like thine; from thy decay_ {_Still springs some son of the Divinity_} {_Still springs some work of the Divinity_}--[D.]

_And gilds thy ruins with reviving ray_-- _And what these were of yore--Canova is to-day_.--[MS. M.]

[433] [Compare "Lines on the Bust of Helen by Canova," which were sent in a letter to Murray, November 25, 1816--

"In this beloved marble view, Above the works and thoughts of man, What nature _could_, but _would not_, do, And Beauty and Canova can."

In _Beppo_ (stanza xlvi.), which was written in October, 1817, there is a further allusion to the genius of Canova.]

[mx] {371} _Their great Contemporary_----.--[MS. M. erased.]

[434] [Dante died at Ravenna, September 14, 1321, and was buried in the Church of S. Francesco. His remains were afterwards transferred to a mausoleum in the friars' cemetery, on the north side of the church, which was raised to his memory by his friend and patron, Guido da Polenta. The mausoleum was restored more than once, and rebuilt in its present form in 1780, at the cost of Cardinal Luigi Valenti Gonzaga. On the occasion of Dante's s.e.xcentenary, in 1865, it was discovered that at some unknown period the skeleton, with the exception of a few small bones which remained in an urn which formed part of Gonzaga's structure, had been placed for safety in a wooden box, and enclosed in a wall of the old Braccioforte Chapel, which lies outside the church towards the Piazza. "The bones found in the wooden box were placed in the mausoleum with great pomp and exultation, the poet being now considered the symbol of a united Italy. The wooden box itself has been removed to the public library."--_Handbook far Northern Italy_, p. 539, note.

The house which Byron occupied during his first visit to Ravenna--June 8 to August 9, 1819--is close to the Cappella Braccioforte. In January, 1820, when he wrote the Fourth Canto of _Don Juan_ ("I pa.s.s each day where Dante's bones are laid," stanza civ.), he was occupying a suite of apartments in the Palazzo Guiccioli, No. 328 in the Via di Porta Adriana. Compare Rogers's _Italy_, "Bologna," _Poems_, ii. 118--

"Ravenna! where from Dante's sacred tomb He had so oft, as many a verse declares, Drawn inspiration."]

[435] [The story is told in Livy, lib. x.x.xviii. cap. 53. "Thenceforth no more was heard of Africa.n.u.s. He pa.s.sed his days at Liternum [on the sh.o.r.e of Campania], without thought or regret of Rome. Folk say that when he came to die he gave orders that he should be buried on the spot, and that there, and not at Rome, a monument should be raised over his sepulchre. His country had been ungrateful--no Roman funeral for him."

It is said that his sepulchre bore the inscription: "Ingrata patria, cineres meos non habebis." According to another tradition, he was buried with his family at the Porta Capena, by the Caelian Hill.]

[436] [Compare Lucan, _Pharsalia_, i. I--"Bella per Emathios plusquam civilia campos."]

[437] [Petrarch's _Africa_ brought him on the same day (August 23, 1340) offers of the laurel wreath of poetry from the University of Paris and from the Senate of Rome. He chose in favour of Rome, and was crowned on the Capitol, Easter Day, April 8, 1341. "The poet appeared in a royal mantle ... preceded by twelve n.o.ble Roman youths clad in scarlet, and the heralds and trumpeters of the Roman Senate."--_Petrarch_, by Henry Reeve, p. 92.]

[438] {372} [Tomasini, in the _Petrarca Redivivus_ (pp. 168-172, ed.