The Works of Lord Byron Volume II Part 85

Upon the blue Symplegades.

Stanza clxxvi. line 1.

[Lord Byron embarked from "Calpe's rock" (Gibraltar) August 19, 1809, and after travelling through Greece, he reached Constantinople in the _Salsette_ frigate May 14, 1810. The two island rocks--the Cyanean Symplegades--stand one on the European, the other on the Asiatic side of the Strait, where the Bosphorus joins the Euxine or Black Sea. Both these rocks were visited by Lord Byron in June, 1810.--Note, Ed. 1879.]

END OF VOL. II.

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FOOTNOTES:

[555] {470} The writer meant _Lido_, which is not a long row of islands, but a long island: _littus_, the sh.o.r.e.

[556] _Curiosities of Literature_, ii. 156, edit. 1807, edit. 1881, i.

390; and Appendix xxix. to Black's _Life of Ta.s.so_, 1810, ii. 455.

[557] {472} _Su i Quattro Cavalli della Basilica di S. Marco in Venezia_. Lettera di Andrea Mustoxidi Corcirese. Padova, 1816.

[558] {473} "Quibus auditis, imperator, operante eo, qui corda Principum sicut vult, & quando vult, humiliter inclinat, leonina feritate deposita, ovinam mansuetudinem induit."--_Romualdi Salernitani Chronican, apud Script. Rer. Ital._, 1725, vii. 230.

[559] {474} _Rer. Ital._, vii. 231.

[560] {475} See the above-cited Romuald of Salerno. In a second sermon which Alexander preached, on the first day of August, before the Emperor, he compared Frederic to the prodigal son, and himself to the forgiving father.

[561] Mr. Gibbon has omitted the important _ae_, and has written Romani instead of Romaniae.--_Decline and Fall_, chap. lxi. note 9 (1882, ii.

777, note i). But the t.i.tle acquired by Dandolo runs thus in the chronicle of his namesake, the Doge Andrew Dandolo: "Ducali t.i.tulo addidit, 'Quartae partis, & dimidiae totius Imperii Romaniae; Dominator.'"

And. Dand. _Chronicon_, cap. iii. pars x.x.xvii. ap. _Script. Rer. Ital._, 1728, xii. 331. And the Romaniae is observed in the subsequent acts of the Doges. Indeed, the continental possessions of the Greek Empire in Europe were then generally known by the name of Romania, and that appellation is still seen in the maps of Turkey as applied to Thrace.

[562] See the continuation of Dandolo's _Chronicle_, ibid., p. 498. Mr.

Gibbon appears not to include Dolfino, following Sanudo, who says, "Il qual t.i.tolo si uso fin al Doge Giovanni Dolfino." See _Vite de' Duchi di Venezia_ [_Vitae Duc.u.m Venetorum Italiae scriptae_, Auctore Martino Sanuto], ap. _Script. Rer. Ital._, xxii. 530, 641.

[563] {476} "Fiet potentium in aquis Adriaticis congregatio, caeco praeduce, Hirc.u.m ambigent, Byzantium prophanabunt, aedificia denigrabunt, spolia dispergentur; Hircus novus balabit, usque dum liv. pedes, & ix.

pollices, & semis, praemensurati discurrant."--_Chronicon, ibid_., xii.

329.

[564] {477} _Cronaca della Guerra di Chioza, etc._, scritta da Daniello Chinazzo. _Script. Rer. Ital._, xv. 699-804.

[565] {478} "Nonnullorum e n.o.bilitate immensae sunt opes, adeo ut vix aestimari possint; id quod tribus e rebus oritur, parsimonia, commercio, atque iis emolumentis, quae e Repub. percipiunt, quae hanc ob caussam diuturna fore creditur."--See _De Princ.i.p.atibus Italia Tractatus Varii_, 1628, pp. 18, 19.

[566] {479} See _An Historical and Critical Essay on the Life and Character of Petrarch_; and _A Dissertation on an Historical Hypothesis of the Abbe de Sade_. 1810. [An Italian version, ent.i.tled _Riflessioni intorno a Madonna Laura_, was published in 1811.]

[567] _Memoires pour la Vie de Francois Petrarque_, Amsterdam, 1764, 3 vols. 4to.

[568] Letter to the d.u.c.h.ess of Gordon, August 17, 1782. _Life of Beattie_, by Sir W. Forbes, ii. 102-106.

[569] Mr. Gibbon called his _Memoirs_ "a labour of love" (see _Decline and Fall_, chap. lxx. note 2), and followed him with confidence and delight. The compiler of a very voluminous work must take much criticism upon trust; Mr. Gibbon has done so, though not as readily as some other authors.

[570] {480} The sonnet had before awakened the suspicions of Mr. Horace Walpole. See his letter to Dr. Joseph Warton, March 16, 1765.

[571] "Par ce pet.i.t manege, cette alternative de faveurs et de rigueurs bien menagee, une femme tendre & sage amuse pendant vingt et un ans le plus grand Poete de son siecle, sans faire la moindre breche a son honneur." _Memoires pour la Vie de Petrarque_, Preface aux Francais, i.

p. cxiii.

[572] In a dialogue with St. Augustin, Petrarch has described Laura as having a body exhausted with repeated _ptubs_. The old editors read and printed _perturbationibus_; but M. Capperonier, librarian to the French king in 1762, who saw the MS. in the Paris library, made an attestation that "on lit et qu'on doit lire, partubus exhaustum." De Sade joined the names of Messrs. Boudot and Bejot with M. Capperonier, and, in the whole discussion on this _ptubs_, showed himself a downright literary rogue.

(See _Riflessioni_, p. lxxiv. _sq._; _Le Rime del Petrarca_, Firenze, 1832, ii. _s.f._) Thomas Aquinas is called in to settle whether Petrarch's mistress was a _chaste_ maid or a _continent_ wife.

[573] {481}

"Pigmalion, quanto lodar ti dei Dell' immagine tua, se mille volte N' avesti quel, ch' i' sol una vorrei!"

Sonetto 50, _Quando giunse a Simon l'alto concetto_.

_Le Rime_, etc., i. 118, edit. Florence, 1832.

[574] "A questa confessione cos sincera diede forse occasione una nuova caduta, ch' ei fece."--Tiraboschi, _Storia_, lib. iii., _della Letteratura Italiana_, Rome, 1783, v. 460.

[575] {482} "Il n'y a que la vertu seule qui soit capable de faire des impressions que la mort n'efface pas."--M. de Bimard, Baron de la Bastie, in the _Memoires de l'Academie des Inscriptions de Belles Lettres_ for 1740 (_Memoires de Litterature_ [1738-1740], 1751, xvii.

424). (See also _Riflessioni, etc._, p. xcvi.; _Le Rime_, etc., 1832, ii. _s.f._)

[576] "And if the virtue or prudence of Laura was inexorable, he enjoyed, and might boast of enjoying, the nymph of poetry."--_Decline and Fall_, 1818, chap. lxx. p. 321, vol. xii. 8vo. Perhaps the _if_ is here meant for _although_.

[577] {484} _Remarks on Antiquities, etc., in Italy_, by Joseph Forsyth, p. 107, note.

[578] {485} _La Vita di Ta.s.so_, lib. iii. p. 284 (tom. ii. edit.

Bergamo, 1790).

[579] _Histoire de l'Academie Francaise depuis_ 1652 _jusqu'a_ 1700, par M. l' Abbe [Thoulier] d'Olivet, Amsterdam, 1730. "Mais, ensuite, venant a l'usage qu'il a fait de ses talens, j'aurois montre que le bon sens n'est pas toujours ce qui domine chez lui," p. 182. Boileau said he had not changed his opinion. "J'en ai si peu change, dit-il," etc., p. 181.

[580] _La Maniere de bien Penser dans les Ouvrages de l'esprit_, sec.

Dial., p. 89, edit. 1692. Philanthes is for Ta.s.so, and says in the outset, "De tous les beaux esprits que l'Italie a portez, le Ta.s.se est peut-estre celuy qui pense le plus n.o.blement." But Bohours seems to speak in Eudoxus, who closes with the absurd comparison: "Faites valoir le Ta.s.se tant qu'il vous plaira, je m'en tiens pour moy a Virgile," etc.

(_ibid_., p. 102).

[581] _La Vita, etc_., lib. iii. p. 90, tom. ii. The English reader may see an account of the opposition of the Crusca to Ta.s.so, in Black's _Life_, 1810, _etc_., chap. xvii. vol. ii.

[582] For further, and it is hoped, decisive proof, that Ta.s.so was neither more nor less than a _prisoner of state_, the reader is referred to _Historical Ill.u.s.trations of the IVth Canto of Childe Harold_, p. 5, and following.

[583] {486} Orazioni funebri ... delle lodi di Don Luigi Cardinal d'Este ... delle lodi di Donno Alfonso d'Este. See _La Vita_, lib. in. p. 117.

[584] It was founded in 1582, and the Cruscan answer to Pellegrino's _Caraffa_, or _Epica poesia_, was published in 1584.

[585] "Cotanto, pote sempre in lui il veleno della sua pessima volonta contro alia n.a.z.ion Fiorentina." _La Vita_, lib. iii. pp. 96, 98, tom.

ii.

[586] _La Vita di M. L. Ariosto_, scritta dall' Abate Girolamo Baruffaldi Giuniore, etc. Ferrara, 1807, lib. in. p. 262. (See _Historical Ill.u.s.trations, etc._, p. 26.)

[587] _Storia della Lett._, Roma, 1785, tom. vii. pt. in. p. 130.

[588] {486} _Op_. di Bianconi, vol. iii. p. 176, ed. Milano, 1802: Lettera al Signor Guido Savini Arcifisiocritico, sull' indole di un fulmine caduto in Dresda, Panno 1759.