The Works of Lord Byron Volume III Part 48

[202] {237} [Lines 277-280 are not in the MS. They were inserted on a detached printed sheet, with a view to publication in the Seventh Edition.]

[hr] {238} _Not Guilt itself could quench this earliest one_.--[MS.

erased.]

[hs] {239} _Now to Francesca_.--[MS.]

_Now to Ginevra_.--[Revise of January 6, 1814.]

_Now to Medora_.--[Revise of January 15, 1814.]

[ht] _Yet heed my prayer--my latest accents hear_.--[MS.]

[203] [Compare--

"He gave to Misery all he had, a tear, He gained from Heaven ('twas all he wished) a friend."

Gray's _Elegy in a Country Churchyard._]

[204] {243} [For Bireno's desertion of Olympia, see] _Orlando Funoso_, Canto X. [stanzas 1-27].

[hu] {244} _Oh! he could bear no more--but madly grasped_ _Her form--and trembling there his own unclasped_.--[MS.]

[205] {247} By night, particularly in a warm lat.i.tude, every stroke of the oar, every motion of the boat or s.h.i.+p, is followed by a slight flash like sheet lightning from the water.

[206] {248} [Cape Gallo is at least eight miles to the south of Corone; but Point Lividia, the promontory on which part of the town is built, can hardly be described as a "jutting cape," or as (see line 1623) a "giant shape."]

[207] {249} [Coron, or Corone, the ancient Colonides, is situated a little to the north of a promontory, Point Lividia, on the western sh.o.r.e of the Gulf of Kalamata, or Coron, or Messenia.

Antoine Louis Castellan (1772-1838), with whose larger work on Turkey Byron professed himself familiar (Letter to Moore, August 28, 1813), gives a vivid description of Coron and the bey's palace in his _Lettres sur la Moree, etc_. (first published, Paris, 1808), 3 vols., 1820.

Whether Byron had or had not consulted the "Letters," the following pa.s.sages may help to ill.u.s.trate the scene:--

"La chaine caverneuse du Taygete s'eleve en face de Coron, a l'autre extremite du golfe" (iii. 181).

"Nous avons aussi ete faire une visite au bey, qui nous a permis de parcourir la citadelle" (p. 187).

"Le bey fait a executer en notre presence une danse singuliere, qu'on peut nommer danse pantomime" (p. 189; see line 642).

"La maison est a.s.sez bien distribuee et proprement meublee a la maniere des Turcs. La princ.i.p.ale piece est grande, ornee d'une boisserie ciselee sur les dessins arabesques, et meme marquetee.

Les fenetres donnent sur le jardin ... les volets sont ordinairement fermes, dans le milieu de la journee, et le jour ne penetre alors qu'a travers des ouvertures pratiquees, au dessus des fenetres et garnis de vitraux colores" (p. 200).

Castellan saw the palace and bay illuminated (p. 203).]

[208] {250} Coffee.

[209] "Chibouque" [chibuk], pipe.

[210] {251} Dancing girls. [Compare _The Waltz_, line 127, _Poetical Works_, 1898, i. 492, note 1.]

[211] It has been observed, that Conrad's entering disguised as a spy is out of nature. Perhaps so. I find something not unlike it in history.--"Anxious to explore with his own eyes the state of the Vandals, Majorian ventured, after disguising the colour of his hair, to visit Carthage in the character of his own amba.s.sador; and Genseric was afterwards mortified by the discovery, that he had entertained and dismissed the Emperor of the Romans. Such an anecdote may be rejected as an improbable fiction; but it is a fiction which would not have been imagined unless in the life of a hero."--See Gibbon's _Decline and Fall_ [1854, iv. 272.]

[212] {252} [On the coast of Asia Minor, twenty-one miles south of Smyrna.]

[213] [A Levantine bark--"a kind of ketch without top-gallant sail, or mizzen-top sail."]

[214] {254} [Compare the _Giaour_, line 343, note 2; _vide ante_, p.

102.]

[215] The Dervises [Dervish, Persian _darvesh_, poor] are in colleges, and of different orders, as the monks.

[216] {255} "Zatanai," Satan. [Probably a phonetic rendering of sata??(?) [satana(s)]. The Turkish form would be _sheytan_. Compare letter to Moore, April 9, 1814, _Letters_, 1899, iii. 66, note 1.]

[217] {256} A common and not very novel effect of Mussulman anger. See Prince Eugene's _Memoires_, 1811, p. 6, "The Seraskier received a wound in the thigh; he plucked up his beard by the roots, because he was obliged to quit the field." ["Le seraskier est blesse a la cuisse; il s'arrache la barbe, parce qu'il est oblige de fuir." A contemporary translation (Sherwood, Neely, and Jones, 1811), renders "il s'arrache la barbe" _he tore out the arrow_.]

[218] {257} Gulnare, a female name; it means, literally, the flower of the pomegranate.

[219] {259} [The word "to" had been left out by the printer, and in a late revise Byron supplies the omission, and writes--

"To Mr. Murray or Mr. Davison.

"Do not omit words--it is quite enough to alter or mis-spell them.

"Bn."

In the MS. the line ran--

"To send his soul--he scarcely cared to Heaven."

"Asked" is written over in pencil, but "cared" has not been erased.]

[220] {261} [Compare--"One _anarchy_, one _chaos_ of the _mind_." _The Wanderer_, by Richard Savage, Canto V. (1761, p. 86).]

[221] {262} [Compare--"That hideous sight, a _naked_ human heart."

_Night Thoughts_, by Edward Young (Night III.) (Anderson's _British Poets_, x. 71).]

[222] {263} [Compare--

"When half the world lay wrapt in sleepless night, A jarring sound the startled hero wakes.

He hears a step draw near--in beauty's pride A female comes--wide floats her glistening gown-- Her hand sustains a lamp...."

Wieland's _Oberon_, translated by W. Sotheby, Canto XII. stanza x.x.xi., _et seq_.]

[223] {265} In Sir Thomas More, for instance, on the scaffold, and Anne Boleyn, in the Tower, when, grasping her neck, she remarked, that it "was too slender to trouble the headsman much." During one part of the French Revolution, it became a fas.h.i.+on to leave some "_mot_" as a legacy; and the quant.i.ty of facetious last words spoken during that period would form a melancholy jest-book of a considerable size.

[hv] {268} _I breathe but in the hope--his altered breast_ _May seek another--and have mine at rest._ _Or if unwonted fondness now I feign_.{A}--[MS.]

{A}[The alteration was sent to the publishers on a separate quarto sheet, with a memorandum, "In Canto _first_--nearly the end," etc.--a rare instance of inaccuracy on the part of the author.]

[224] {270} The opening lines, as far as section ii., have, perhaps, little business here, and were annexed to an unpublished (though printed) poem [_The Curse of Minerva_]; but they were written on the spot, in the Spring of 1811, and--I scarce know why--the reader must excuse their appearance here--if he can. [See letter to Murray, October 23, 1812.]

[225] [See _Curse of Minerva_, line 7, _Poetical Works_, 1898, i. 457.

For Hydra, see A. L. Castellan's _Lettres sur la Moree_, 1820, i.