The Works of Lord Byron Volume VI Part 64

CXX.

I leave them for the present with good wishes, Though doubts of their well doing, to arrange Another part of History; for the dishes Of this our banquet we must sometimes change; And trusting Juan may escape the fishes, (Although his situation now seems strange, And scarce secure),--as such digressions _are_ fair, The Muse will take a little touch at warfare.

End of Canto 6th.

FOOTNOTES:

{268}[328] [Two MSS. (A, B) are extant, A in Byron's handwriting, B a transcription by Mrs. Sh.e.l.ley. The variants are marked respectively _MS.

A., MS. B._

Motto: "Thinkest thou that because thou art virtuous there shall be no more cakes and ale? Aye! and ginger shall be hot in the mouth too."--_Twelfth Night, or What You Will_, Shakespeare, act ii. sc. 3, lines 109-112.--[_MS. B._]

This motto, in an amended form, which was prefixed to the First Canto in 1833, appears on the t.i.tle-page of the first edition of Cantos VI., VII., VIII., published by John Hunt in 1823.]

[329] [See Shakespeare, _Julius Caesar_, act iv. sc. 3, lines 216, 217.]

[330] [Jacob Behmen (or Boehm) stands for "mystic." Byron twice compares him with Wordsworth (see _Letters_, 1899, iii. 239, 1900, iv. 238).]

{269}[gb]

_Man with his head reflects (as Spurzheim tells),_ _But Woman with the heart--or something else_.

or, _Man's pensive part is (now and then) the head,_ _Woman's the heart or anything instead_.-- [MS. A. Alternative reading.]

[gc] _Like to a Comet's tail_----.--[MS. A. erased.]

[gd]

_O'erbalance all the Caesar's victories_.--[MS. A.]

_Outbalance all the Caesar's victories_.--[MS. B.]

_In the Sh.e.l.ley copy "o'erbalance" has been erased and "outbalance"

inserted in Byron's handwriting. The lines must have been intended to run thus_--

_'T is not his conquests keep his name in fas.h.i.+on_ _But Actium lost; for Cleopatra's eyes_ _Outbalance all the Caesar's victories_.

[ge] _I wish that they had been eighteen_----.--[MS. A. erased.]

{270}[331] [To Mary Chaworth. Compare "Our union would have healed feuds ... it would have joined lands broad and rich; it would have joined at least _one_ heart."--_Detached Thoughts_, 1821, _Letters_, 1901, v.

441.]

[332] [Cato gave up his wife Martia to his friend Hortensius; but, on the death of the latter, took her back again. This conduct was censured by Caesar, who observed that Cato had an eye to the main chance. "It was the wealth of Hortensius. He lent the young man his wife, that he might make her a rich widow."--Langhorne's Plutarch, 1838, pp. 539, 547.]

{271}[333] [_Oth.e.l.lo_, act i. sc. i, lines 19-24.]

[gf]---- _though with greater lat.i.tude_.--[MS. A.]

{272}[gg] ---- _with one foolish woman wed_.--[MS. B.]

[334] [The famous _bed_, measuring twelve feet square, to which an allusion is made by Shakespeare in _Twelfth Night_, act iii. sc. 2, line 44, was formerly preserved at the Saracen's Head at Ware, in Hertfords.h.i.+re. The bed was removed from Ware to the Rye House in 1869.]

[gh]

_His Highness the sublimest of mankind,_ _The greatest, wisest, bravest, [and the] best,_ _Proved by his edicts somewhat blind,_ _Who saw his virtues as they saw the rest_-- _His Highness quite connubially inclined_ _Had deigned that night to be Gulbeyaz' guest_.--[MS. A.]

[335] See Waverley [chap. xx.]

[gi] _May look like what I need not mention here_--[MS. A.]

{273}[gj] _Are better signs if such things can be signed_.--[MS. A.]

[336] [For St. Francis of a.s.sisi, and the "seven great b.a.l.l.s of snow,"

of which "the greatest" was "his wife," see _The Golden Legend_, 1900, v. 221, _vide ante_, p. 32, note 1.]

[337] [The words _medio_, etc., are to be found in Ovid., _Metam._, lib.

ii. line 137; the doctrine, _Virtus est medium vitiorum_, in Horace, _Epist_., lib. i, ep. xviii. line 9.]

[gk]

_In the d.a.m.ned line ('t is worth, at least, a curse)_ _Which I have examined too close_.--[MS. erased.]

{274}[gl] _Self-love that whetstone of Don Cupid's art_.--[MS. A.]

[gm]---- _with love despairs._--[MS. A. erased.]

[338] [Lady Noel's will was proved February 22, 1812. She left to the trustees a portrait of Byron ... with directions that it was not to be shown to his daughter Ada till she attained the age of twenty-one; but that if her mother was still living, it was not to be so delivered without Lady Byron's consent.--_Letters_, 1901, vi. 42, note 1.]

[gn] _Which diddles you_----.--[MS. A. erased.]

[go] _I'm a philosopher; G--d d.a.m.n them all_.--[MS. B.]

[gp] _Bills, women, wives, dogs, horses and mankind_.--[MS. B. erased.]

{275}[gq] _Is more than I know, and, so, d.a.m.n them both_.--[MS. A.

erased.]

[gr]

_When we lie down--wife, spouse, or bachelor_ _By what we love not, to sigh for the light_.--[MS. A. erased.]

[gs] _By their infernal bedfellow_----.--[MS. A. erased.]

[339] [The comparison of Queen Caroline to snow may be traced to an article in the _Times_ of August 23, 1820: "The Queen may now, we believe, be considered as triumphing! For the first three years at least of her Majesty's painful peregrinations, she stands before her husband's admiring subjects 'as white as unsunned snows.'" Political bards and lampoonists of the king's party thanked the _Times_ for "giving them that word."]

{276}[340] [According to Gronow (_Reminiscences_, 1889, i. 62), a practical joke of Dan Mackinnon's (_vide ante_, p. 69, _footnote_) gave Byron a hint for this scene in the harem: "Lord Wellington was curious about visiting a convent near Lisbon, and the lady abbess made no difficulty. Mackinnon hearing this contrived to get clandestinely within the sacred walls ... at all events, when Lord Wellington arrived Dan Mackinnon was to be seen among the nuns, dressed out in their sacred costume, with his whiskers shaved; and, as he possessed good features, he was declared to be one of the best-looking among those chaste dames.

It was supposed that this adventure, which was known to Lord Byron, suggested a similar episode in _Don Juan_."]

[341] [Caligula--_vide_ Suetonius, _De XII. Caes_., C. _Caes_. Calig., cap, x.x.x., "Infensus turbae faventi adversus studium exclamavit: 'Utinam populus Roma.n.u.s unam cervicem haberet!'"]

[gt] _My wish were general but no worse_.--[MS. A. erased.]

[gu] _That Womankind had only one--say heart_.--[MS. A. erased.]