The Works of Lord Byron Volume V Part 29

[19] {63}["In the third act, when Sardanapalus calls for a _mirror_ to look at himself in his _armour_, recollect to quote the Latin pa.s.sage from _Juvenal_ upon Otho (a similar character, who did the same thing: Gifford will help you to it). The trait is, perhaps, too familiar, but it is historical (of Otho, at least), and natural in an effeminate character."--Letter to Murray, May 30, 1821, _Letters_, 1901, v. 301.

The quotation was not made in the first edition, 1821, nor in any subsequent issue, till 1832. It is from Juvenal, _Sat._ ii. lines 199-203--

"Ille tenet speculum, pathici gestamen Othonis, Actoris Aurunci spolium, quo se ille videbat Armatum, c.u.m jam tolli vexilla juberet.

Res memoranda novis annalibus, atque recenti Historia, speculum civilis sarcina belli."

"This grasps a mirror--pathic Otho's boast (Auruncan Actor's spoil), where, while his host, With shouts, the signal of the fight required, He viewed his mailed form; viewed, and admired!

Lo, a new subject for the historic page, A MIRROR, midst the arms of civil rage!"

Gifford.]

[w] {66} ----_and his own helmet_.--[MS. M. erased.]

[x] {68} _We'll die where we were raised_----.--[MS. M. erased.]

[y] {70} _Tortured because his mind is tortured_.--[MS. M. erased.]

[z] _He ever such an order_----.--[MS. M. erased.] _He ever had that order_----.--[MS. M. erased.]

[20] {72}["When 'the king was almost dying with thirst' ... the eunuch Satibarzanes sought every place for water.... After much search he found one of those poor Caunians had about two quarts of bad water in a mean bottle, and he took it and carried it to the king. After the king had drawn it all up, the eunuch asked him, 'If he did not find it a disagreeable beverage?' Upon which he swore by all the G.o.ds, 'That he had never drunk the most delicious wine, nor the lightest and clearest water with so much pleasure. I wish only,' continued he, 'that I could find the man who gave it thee, that I might make him a recompense. In the mean time I entreat the G.o.ds to make him happy and rich.'"--Plutarch's _Artaxerxes_, Langhorne's translation, 1838, p. 694.

Poetry as well as history repeats itself. Compare the "water green"

which Gunga Din brought, at the risk of his own life, to fill the wounded soldier's helmet (_Barrack-Room Ballads_, by Rudyard Kipling, 1892, p. 25). Compare, too--

"_Arn._ 'Tis a scratch....

In the shoulder, not the sword arm-- And that's enough. I am thirsty: would I had A helm of water!"

_The Deformed Transformed_, part ii sc. ii. 44, seq., _vide post_, p.

518.]

[aa] {73}

----_ere they had time_ _To place his helm again_.--[MS. M. erased.]

[ab] _O ye G.o.ds! wounded_.--[MS. M.]

[21] {73}[Compare--"His flas.h.i.+ng eyes, his floating hair." _Kubla Khan_, line 49.]

[22] [Compare _Childe Harold_, Canto I. stanzas lv., lvi., _Poetical Works, 1898_, i. 57, 58, and note 11, pp. 91, 92.]

[23] {75}[Compare--

"How wonderful is Death, Death and his brother Sleep!"

Sh.e.l.ley's _Queen Mab, i. lines 1, 2_]

[ac] _Crisps the unswelling wave_.--[MS. M. erased]

[ad] {76}

_Old Hunter of mankind when baited and ye_ _All brutal who pursued both brutes and men_.--[MS. M. erased.]

[ae] {78} _With arrows peeping through his falling hair_.--[MS. M.

erased.]

[24] [In the diary for November 23, 1813 (_Letters_, 1898, ii. 334, 335), Byron alludes to a dream which "chilled his blood" and shook his nerves. Compare Coleridge's _Pains of Sleep_, lines 23-26--

"Desire with loathing strangely mixed, On wild or hateful objects fixed.

Fantastic pa.s.sions! maddening brawl!

And shame and terror over all!"]

[25] {79}[For the story of Semiramis and Ninya, see _Justinus Hist_., lib. i. cap. ii.]

[26] {81}[See Diod. Siculi _Bibl. Hist._, lib. ii. 80 c. Cotta was not a kinsman, but a loyal tributary.]

[af] {82} The MS. inserts--(_But I speak only of such as are virtuous_.)

[27] [Byron must often have pictured to himself an unexpected meeting with his wife. In certain moods he would write letters to her which were never sent, or never reached her hands. The scene between Sardanapalus and Zarina reflects the sentiments contained in one such letter, dated November 17, 1821, which Moore printed in his _Life_, pp. 581, 582. See _Letters_, 1901, v. 479.]

[ag] {84} _Bravely and won wear wisely--not as I_.--[MS. M, erased.]

[ah] {88}

_Which thou hast lighted up at once? but leavest_ _One to grieve o'er the other's change--Zarina_.-[MS. M, erased.]

[ai] {89} ----_natural_.--[MS. M. The first edition reads "mutual."]

[aj] {91} _Is heavier sorrow than the wrong which_--[MS. M. erased.]

[ak] {93} _A leech's lancet would have done as much_.--[MS. M. erased.]

[28] {94}[Myrrha's apostrophe to the sunrise may be compared with the famous waking vision of the "Solitary" in the Second Book of the _Excursion_ (_Works of Wordsworth_, 1889, p. 439)--

"The appearance, instantaneously disclosed, Was of a mighty city--boldly say A wilderness of building, sinking far And self-withdrawn into a boundless depth, Far sinking into splendour--without end!

Fabric it seemed of diamond and of gold, With alabaster domes, and silver spires, And blazing terrace upon terrace, high Uplifted."

But the difference, even in form, between the two pa.s.sages is more remarkable than the resemblance, and the interpretation, the moral of Byron's vision is distinct from, if not alien to, Wordsworth's. The "Solitary" sees all heaven opened; the revealed abode of spirits in beat.i.tude--a refuge and a redemption from "this low world of care;"

while Myrrha drinks in "enough of heaven," a medicament of "Sorrow and of Love," for the invigoration of "the common, heavy, human hours" of mortal existence. For a charge of "imitation," see _Works of Lord Byron_, 1832, xiii. 172, note I. See, too, _Poetical Works, etc._, 1891, p. 271, note 2.]

[al] {95}

_Sunrise and sunset form the epoch of_ _Sorrow and love; and they who mark them not_ {_Are fit for neither of those_ {_Can ne'er hold converse with these two_.--[MS. M. erased.]

[am] _Of labouring wretches in alloted tasks_.--[MS. M. erased.]

[an] {97} _We are used to such inflictions_.--[MS. M. erased.]

[29] {101} About two miles and a half.

[ao] {102} _Complexions, climes, aeras, and intellects_.--[MS. M.