The Works of Lord Byron Volume VI Part 46

[dv]

_Beauty and Pa.s.sion were the natural dower_ _Of Haidee's mother, but her climate's force_ _Lay at her heart, though sleeping at the source_.

or, _But in her large eye lay deep Pa.s.sion's force_, _Like to a lion sleeping by a source_.

or, _But in her large eye lay deep Pa.s.sion's force_, _As sleeps a lion by a river's source_.--[MS.]

[244] [Compare _Manfred_, act iii. sc. 1, line 128, _Poetical Works_, 1901, iv. 125.]

{199}[dw]

_The blood gushed from her lips, and ears, and eyes:_ _Those eyes, so beautiful--beheld no more_.--[MS.]

[245] This is no very uncommon effect of the violence of conflicting and different pa.s.sions. The Doge Francis Foscari, on his deposition in 1457, hearing the bells of St. Mark announce the election of his successor, "mourut subitement d'une hemorragie causee par une veine qui s'eclata dans sa poitrine" [see Sismondi, 1815, x. 46, and Daru, 1821, ii. 536; see, too, _The Two Foscari_, act v. sc. i, line 306, and Introduction to the _Two Foscari_, _Poetical Works_, 1901, v. 118, 193], at the age of eighty years, when "_Who would have thought the old man had so much blood in him?_" (_Macbeth_, act v. sc. 1, lines 34-36.) Before I was sixteen years of age I was witness to a melancholy instance of the same effect of mixed pa.s.sions upon a young person, who, however, did not die in consequence, at that time, but fell a victim some years afterwards to a seizure of the same kind, arising from causes intimately connected with agitation of mind.

{200}[246] [The view of the Venus of Medici instantly suggests the lines in the "Seasons" [the description of "Musidora bathing" in _Summer_]--

" ... With wild surprise, As if to marble struck, devoid of sense, A stupid moment motionless she stood: So stands the statue that enchants the world."

Hobhouse.

A still closer parallel to this stanza, and to _Childe Harold_, Canto IV. stanzas xlix., cxl., cxli., clx., clxi., is to be found in Thomson's _Liberty_, pt. iv. lines 131-206, where the "Farnese Hercules," the "Dying Gladiator," the "Venus of Medici," and the "Laoc.o.o.n" group, are commemorated as typical works of art.]

[dx] _Distinct from life, as being still the same_.--[MS.]

{202}[dy] _--working slow._--[MS.]

[dz] _Have dawned a child of beauty, though of sin._--[MS.]

[247]

[" ... Duncan is in his grave: After life's fitful fever he sleeps well."

_Macbeth_, act iii. sc. 2., lines 22, 23.]

{203}[ea]

_No stone is there to read, nor tongue to say_, _No dirge--save when arise the stormy seas_.--[MS.]

[248] ["But now I am cabined, cribbed," etc. _Macbeth_, act iii. sc. 4, line 24.]

{204}[249] [Jacob Bryant (1715-1804) published his _Dissertation concerning the War of Troy, etc._, in 1796. See _The Bride of Abydos_, Canto II. lines 510, sq., _Poetical Works_, 1900, iii. 179, note 1. See, too, _Extracts from a Diary_, January 11, 1821, _Letters_, 1901, v. 165, 166, "I have stood upon that plain [of Troy] _daily_, for more than a month, in 1810; and if anything diminished my pleasure, it was that the blackguard Bryant had impugned its veracity." Hobhouse, in his _Travels in Albania_, 1858, ii. 93, sq., discusses at length the ident.i.ty of the barrows of the Troad with the _tumuli_ of Achilles, Ajax, and Protesilaus, and refutes Bryant's arguments against the ident.i.ty of Cape Janissary and the Sigean promontory.

[eb]

/ who alive perhaps _All heroes_ <>--[MS. Alternative reading.]

if still alive /

[ec]

/ _and mountain-bounded ---- <> plain_.--[MS. Alternative reading.]

_and mountain-outlined /

[250] ["The whole region was, in a manner, in possession of the _Salsette's_ crew, parties of whom, in their white summer dresses, might be seen scattered over the plains collecting the tortoises, which swarm on the sides of the rivulets, and are found under every furze-bush."--_Travels in Albania_, 1858, ii. 116. See, too, for mention of "hundreds of tortoises" falling "from the overhanging branches, and thick underwood," into the waters of the Mender, _Travels, etc._, by E.D. Clarke, 1812, Part II. sect. i. p. 96.]

[ed]---- _and land tortoise crawls_.--[MS. Alternative reading.]

{205}[ee] --_their learned researches bear_.--[MS. Alternative reading.]

[251] This is a fact. A few years ago a man engaged a company for some foreign theatre, embarked them at an Italian port, and carrying them to Algiers, sold them all. One of the women, returned from her captivity, I heard sing, by a strange coincidence, in Rossini's opera of _L'Italiana in Algieri_, at Venice, in the beginning of 1817.

[We have reason to believe that the following, which we take from the MS. journal of a highly respectable traveller, is a more correct account: "In 1812 a Signor Guariglia induced several young persons of both s.e.xes--none of them exceeding fifteen years of age--to accompany him on an operatic excursion; part to form the opera, and part the ballet. He contrived to get them on board a vessel, which took them to Janina, where he sold them for the basest purposes. Some died from the effect of the climate, and some from suffering. Among the few who returned were a Signor Molinari, and a female dancer named Bonfiglia, who afterwards became the wife of Crespi, the tenor singer. The wretch who so basely sold them was, when Lord Byron resided at Venice, employed as _capo de' vestarj_, or head tailor, at the Fenice."--Maria Graham (Lady Callcot). Ed. 1832.]

{206}[252] [A comic singer in the _opera buffa_. The Italians, however, distinguish the _buffo cantante_, which requires good singing, from the _buffo comico_, in which there is more acting.--Ed. 1832.]

{207}[253] [The figuranti are those dancers of a ballet who do not dance singly, but many together, and serve to fill up the background during the exhibition of individual performers. They correspond to the chorus in the opera.--Maria Graham.]

[ef] _To help the ladies in their dress and lacing_.--[MS.]

[254] It is strange that it should be the Pope and the Sultan, who are the chief encouragers of this branch of trade--women being prohibited as singers at St. Peter's, and not deemed trustworthy as guardians of the harem.

["Scarcely a soul of them can read. Pacchierotti was one of the best informed of the _castrati_ ... Marchesi is so grossly ignorant that he wrote the word opera, _opperra_, but Nature has been so bountiful to the animal, that his ignorance and insolence were forgotten the moment he sang."--_Venice, etc._, by a Lady of Rank, 1824, ii. 86.]

{208}[255] [The N. Engl. Dict. cites Bunyan, Walpole, Fielding, Miss Austen, and d.i.c.kens as authorities for the plural "was." See art. "be."

Here, as elsewhere, Byron wrote as he spoke.]

[eg] _He never shows his feelings, but his teeth_.--[MS. Alternative reading.]

[256] ["Our firman arrived from Constantinople on the 30th of April (1810)."--Travels in Albania, 1858, ii. 186.]

{209}[eh]

_That each pulled, different ways--and waxing rough_, _Had cuffed each other, only for the cuff_.--[MS.]

{210}[257]

["O, who can hold a fire in his hand, By thinking on the frosty Caucasus?"

_Richard II.,_ act i. sc. 3, lines 294, 295.]

[ei] _Having had some experience in my youth_.--[MS. erased.]

[258] ["_Don Juan_ will be known, _by and by_, for what it is intended--a Satire on abuses in the present states of society, and not an eulogy of vice. It may be now and then voluptuous:--I can't help that. Ariosto is worse. Smollett (see Lord Strutwell in vol. 2^nd^ of _R_[_oderick_] _R_[_andom_][1793, pp. 119-127]) ten times worse; and Fielding no better."--Letter to Murray, December 25, 1822, _Letters_, 1901, vi. 155, 156.]

{211}[259] [Vide ante, p. 204, note 1. "It seems hardly to admit of doubt, that the plain of Anatolia, watered by the Mender, and backed by a mountainous ridge, of which Kazdaghy is the summit, offers the precise territory alluded to by Homer. The long controversy, excited by Mr.

Bryant's publication, and since so vehemently agitated, would probably never have existed, had it not been for the erroneous maps of the country which, even to this hour, disgrace our geographical knowledge of that part of Asia."--_Travels, etc._, by E.D. Clarke, 1812, Part II.

sect, i. p. 78.]

{212}[260] The pillar which records the battle of Ravenna is about two miles from the city, on the opposite side of the river to the road towards Forli. Gaston de Foix [(1489-1512) Duc de Nemours, nephew of Louis XII.], who gained the battle, was killed in it: there fell on both sides twenty thousand men. The present state of the pillar and its site is described in the text.

[Beyond the Porta Sisi, about two miles from Ravenna, on the banks of the Ronco, is a square pillar (_La Colonna de Francesi_), erected in 1557 by Pietro Cesi, president of Romagna, as a memorial of the battle gained by the combined army of Louis XII. and the Duke of Ferrara over the troops of Julius II. and the King of Spain, April 11 1512.--_Handbook of Northern Italy_, p. 548.]

[261] [Compare _Childe Harold_, Canto IV. stanza lvii. line i, _Poetical Works_, 1899, ii. 371, note i. See, too, Preface to the _Prophecy of Dante, ibid_., iv. 243.]