The Works of Lord Byron Volume III Part 27

[111] [For "Caloyer," see _Childe Harold_, Canto II. stanza xlix. line 6, and note 21, _Poetical Works_, 1899, ii. 130, 181. It is a hard matter to piece together the "fragments" which make up the rest of the poem. Apparently the question, "How name ye?" is put by the fisherman, the narrator of the first part of the _Fragment_, and answered by a monk of the fraternity, with whom the Giaour has been pleased to "abide"

during the past six years, under conditions and after a fas.h.i.+on of which the monk disapproves. Hereupon the fisherman disappears, and a kind of dialogue between the author and the protesting monk ensues. The poem concludes with the Giaour's confession, which is addressed to the monk, or perhaps to the interested and more tolerant Prior of the community.]

[du] {124} _As Time were wasted on his brow_.--[MS.]

[dv] {125} _Of foreign maiden lost at sea_.--[MS.]

[dw] {127} _Behold--as turns he from the--wall_ _His cowl fly back, his dark hair fall_.--[ms]

[A variant of the copy sent for insertion in the Seventh Edition differs alike from the MS. and the text--]

_Behold as turns him from the wall_-- _His Cowl flies back--his tresses fall_-- _That pallid aspect wreathing round_.

[dx] _Lo! mark him as the harmony_.--[MS.]

[dy] _Thank heaven--he stands without the shrine_.--[MS. erased.]

[dz] {128} _Must burn before it smite or s.h.i.+ne_.--[MS.]

_Appears unfit to smite or s.h.i.+ne_.--[MS. erased]

[112] [In defence of lines 922-927, which had been attacked by a critic in the _British Review_, October, 1813, vol. v. p. 139, who compared them with some lines in Crabbe's _Resentment_ (lines 11--16, _Tales_, 1812, p. 309), Byron wrote to Murray, October 12, 1813, "I have ... read the British Review. I really think the writer in most points very right.

The only mortifying thing is the accusation of imitation. _Crabbe's_ pa.s.sage I never saw; and Scott I no further meant to follow than in his _lyric_ measure, which is Gray's, Milton's, and any one's who like it."

The lines, which Moore quotes (_Life_, p. 191), have only a formal and accidental resemblance to the pa.s.sage in question.]

[113] {129} [Compare--

"To surfeit on the same [our pleasures]

And yawn our joys. Or thank a misery For change, though sad?"

_Night Thoughts_, iii., by Edward Young; Anderson's _British Poets_, x.

72. Compare, too, _Childe Harold_, Canto I. stanza vi, line 8--

"With pleasure drugged, he almost longed for woe."]

[114] [Byron was wont to let his imagination dwell on these details of the charnel-house. In a letter to Dallas, August 12, 1811, he writes, "I am already too familiar with the dead. It is strange that I look on the skulls which stand beside me (I have always had four in my study) without emotion, but I cannot strip the features of those I have known of their fleshy covering, even in idea, without a hideous sensation; but the worms are less ceremonious." See, too, his "Lines inscribed upon a Cup formed from a Skull," _Poetical Works_, 1898, i. 276.]

[115] {130} The pelican is, I believe, the bird so libelled, by the imputation of feeding her chickens with her blood. [It has been suggested that the curious b.l.o.o.d.y secretion ejected from the mouth of the flamingo may have given rise to the belief, through that bird having been mistaken for the "pelican of the wilderness."--_Encycl. Brit._, art. "Pelican" (by Professor A. Newton), xviii. 474.]

[ea] _Than feeling we must feel no more_.--[MS.]

[116] {131} [Compare--

"I'd rather be a toad, And live upon the vapours of a dungeon."

_Oth.e.l.lo_, act iii. sc. 3, lines 274, 275.]

[eb] _Though hope hath long withdrawn her beam_.--[MS.] [This line was omitted in the Third and following Editions.]

[ec] {132} _Through ranks of steel and tracks of fire_, _And all she threatens in her ire;_ _And these are but the words of one_ _Who thus would do--who thus hath done_.--[MS. erased.]

[ed] {134} _My hope a tomb, our foe a grave_.--[MS.]

[117] This superst.i.tion of a second-hearing (for I never met with downright second-sight in the East) fell once under my own observation.

On my third journey to Cape Colonna, early in 1811, as we pa.s.sed through the defile that leads from the hamlet between Keratia and Colonna, I observed Dervish Tahiri riding rather out of the path and leaning his head upon his hand, as if in pain. I rode up and inquired. "We are in peril," he answered. "What peril? We are not now in Albania, nor in the pa.s.ses to Ephesus, Messalunghi, or Lepanto; there are plenty of us, well armed, and the Choriates have not courage to be thieves."--"True, Affendi, but nevertheless the shot is ringing in my ears."--"The shot.

Not a tophaike has been fired this morning."--"I hear it notwithstanding--Bom--Bom--as plainly as I hear your voice."--"Psha!"--"As you please, Affendi; if it is written, so will it be."--I left this quick-eared predestinarian, and rode up to Basili, his Christian compatriot, whose ears, though not at all prophetic, by no means relished the intelligence. We all arrived at Colonna, remained some hours, and returned leisurely, saying a variety of brilliant things, in more languages than spoiled the building of Babel, upon the mistaken seer. Romaic, Arnaout, Turkish, Italian, and English were all exercised, in various conceits, upon the unfortunate Mussulman. While we were contemplating the beautiful prospect, Dervish was occupied about the columns. I thought he was deranged into an antiquarian, and asked him if he had become a "_Palaocastro_" man? "No," said he; "but these pillars will be useful in making a stand;" and added other remarks, which at least evinced his own belief in his troublesome faculty of _forehearing_. On our return to Athens we heard from Leone (a prisoner set ash.o.r.e some days after) of the intended attack of the Mainotes, mentioned, with the cause of its not taking place, in the notes to _Childe Harold_, Canto 2nd [_Poetical Works_, 1899, ii. 169]. I was at some pains to question the man, and he described the dresses, arms, and marks of the horses of our party so accurately, that, with other circ.u.mstances, we could not doubt of _his_ having been in "villanous company" [I _Henry IV_., act iii. sc. 3, line 11] and ourselves in a bad neighbourhood. Dervish became a soothsayer for life, and I dare say is now hearing more musketry than ever will be fired, to the great refreshment of the Arnaouts of Berat, and his native mountains.--I shall mention one trait more of this singular race. In March, 1811, a remarkably stout and active Arnaout came (I believe the fiftieth on the same errand) to offer himself as an attendant, which was declined.

"Well, Affendi," quoth he, "may you live!--you would have found me useful. I shall leave the town for the hills to-morrow; in the winter I return, perhaps you will then receive me."--Dervish, who was present, remarked as a thing of course, and of no consequence, "in the mean time he will join the Klephtes" (robbers), which was true to the letter. If not cut off, they come down in the winter, and pa.s.s it unmolested in some town, where they are often as well known as their exploits.

[118] {135} [_Vide ante_, p. 90, line 89, note 2, "In death from a stab the countenance preserves its traits of feeling or ferocity."]

[ee]

_Her power to soothe--her skill to save--_ _And doubly darken o'er the grave,_--[MS.]

[ef] {136} _Of Ladye-love--and dart--and chain--_ _And fire that raged in every vein_.--[MS.]

[eg]

_Even now alone, yet undismayed,--_ _I know no friend, and ask no aid_.--[MS.]

[119] [Lines 1127-1130 were inserted in the Seventh Edition. They recall the first line of Plato's epitaph, ?st?? p??? ?? ??ape? ??? ????s??

???? [A)ster prin men e)/lampes e)ni zooi~sin e(o~|os] which Byron prefixed to his "Epitaph on a Beloved Friend" (_Poetical Works_, 1898, i. 18), and which, long afterwards, Sh.e.l.ley chose as the motto to his _Adonais_.]

[eh] {137} _Yes_ / _doth spring_ } _Love indeed_ { _descend_ } _from heaven:_ _If_ / _be born_ /

/ _immortal_ _A spark of that_ { _eternal_ } _fire_ _celestial_ / _To human hearts in mercy given,_ _To lift from earth our low desire,_ _A feeling from the G.o.dhead caught,_ / _each_ _To wean from self_ { } _sordid thought:_ _our_ / _Devotion sends the soul above,_ _But Heaven itself descends to love,_ _Yet marvel not, if they who love_ _This present joy, this future hope_ _Which taught them with all ill to cope,_ _No more with anguish bravely cope_.--[MS.]

[120] [The hundred and twenty-six lines which follow, down to "Tell me no more of Fancy's gleam," first appeared in the Fifth Edition. In returning the proof to Murray, Byron writes, August 26, 1813, "The last lines Hodgson likes--it is not often he does--and when he don't, he tells me with great energy, and I fret and alter. I have thrown them in to soften the ferocity of our Infidel, and, for a dying man, have given him a good deal to say for himself."--_Letters,_ 1898, ii. 252.]

[ei] {138} _That quenched, I wandered far in night,_ or, _'Tis quenched, and I am lost in night_.--[MS.]

[ej] _Must plunge into a dark abyss_.--[MS.]

[ek] {139} _And let the light, inconstant fool_ _That sneers his c.o.xcomb ridicule_.--[MS.]

[el] _Less than the soft and shallow maid_.--[MS. erased.]

[em] _The joy--the madness of my heart_.--[MS.]

[en]

_To me alike all time and place_-- _Scarce could I gaze on Nature's face_ _For every hue_----.--[MS.]

or, _All, all was changed on Nature's face_ _To me alike all time and place_.--[MS. erased.]

[eo] {140} ----_but this grief_ _In truth is not for thy relief._ _My state thy thought can never guess_.--[MS.]

[121] The monk's sermon is omitted. It seems to have had so little effect upon the patient, that it could have no hopes from the reader. It may be sufficient to say that it was of a customary length (as may be perceived from the interruptions and uneasiness of the patient), and was delivered in the usual tone of all orthodox preachers.

[ep] _Where thou, it seems, canst offer grace_.--[MS. erased.]

[eq] _Where rise my native city's towers_.--[MS.]

[er] _I had, and though but one--a friend!_--[MS.]