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 BYRON 
 
 LDE HAROLD'S 
 LGRIMAGE 
 
 CANTOS i&U 
 
 EDITED BY 
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 FROM THE INCOME OF THE 
 
 FISKE ENDOWMENT FUND 
 
 THE BEQUEST OF 
 
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 Librarian of the University 1868-1883 
 1905 
 
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The original of this book is in 
 the Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924013449610 
 
CH1LDE HAROLD'S PILGRIMAGE 
 
LORD BYRON 
 
 CHILDE HAROLD'S 
 
 PILGRIMAGE 
 
 CANTOS I & II 
 EDITED WITH INTRODUCTION AND NOTES 
 
 Br THE 
 
 REV. J. C. SCRIMGEOUR, M.A. 
 
 PROFESSOR OF ENGLISH LITERATUKE 
 
 SCOTTISH CHCRCHES COLLEGE 
 
 CALCUTTA 
 
 MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED 
 
 LONDON, BOMBAY AND CALCUTTA 
 
 1914 
 
 All rights reserved 
 E.V- 
 
k^ 
 
 cp^oS 
 
 PE1NTED AT 
 
 THE COTTON PRESS, 57 HARRISON ROAD, CAL< CTTA 
 
 BY JYOTISH CHANDRA GHOSH FOR 
 
 * 
 
PREFACE 
 
 The first two cantos of Ghilde Harold are the 
 poetical fruitage of two years of travel and adventure in 
 southern Europe (1S09-11), which might be described 
 as the golden period of their author's life. Byron was an 
 ideal traveller, and, according to Hob house's testimony 
 (see p. xxii) also an ideal companion. All places and 
 all company were alike to him. "To-day in a palace, 
 to-morrow in a cow-house ; this day with a Pasha, the next 
 with a shepherd." 
 
 The interest is enhanced when the poem is read in the 
 light of Byron's letters of these days ; and of scarcely less 
 value in this connection are those of Hobhouse, which 
 he published under the title of Travels in Albania, ana] 
 other Provinces of Turkey, in 1809 and 18 10. My quota- 
 tions from the latter are from the second edition (London, 
 18 13) ; and I have been the more liberal with them, as 
 such a book is out of reach of most readers. 
 
 If topographical and historical details have been some- 
 what freely introduced, the object has been, not to encumber 
 the text, but to assist the reader to picture the scenes 
 that Byron saw, and feel the emotions that Byron felt. 
 
 The student who wishes to realize what these Wander- 
 jahre did for Byron — how they strengthened his character, 
 enlarged his sympathies, widened his outlook, and how they 
 were, in a word, the very making of him as a man and a 
 poet, is recommended to read the eleventh chapter of 
 Moore's Life. 
 
 I have to thank Mr. John Murray for the permission he 
 has kindly given me to make use of his latest edition of By- 
 ron's Works, where several letters referring to the period of 
 the pilgrimage have been printed for the first time. 
 In preparing the Life of Byron, I have laid myself 
 under great obligations to the editors of this monumental 
 
vi Preface 
 
 work— to Mr. Ernest Hartley Coleridge, the editor of the 
 Poems (in seven volumes), and Mr. Rowland E. Prothero, 
 the editor of the Letters and Journals (in six volumes). 
 
 In the preparation of the notes, in addition to other 
 authorities, I have made use of the following editions 
 of the poem : — 
 
 (i) Edition Classique, par James Darmesteter. Paris, 
 1882. 
 
 (2) Lord Byron, Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, erklar 
 von August Mommsen. Berlin, 1885. 
 
 (3) Byron, Childe Harold, edited by H. F. Tozer. 
 Oxford 1898. 
 
 My colleague Professor William Douglas, M.A., B.Phil., 
 B.D,, has kindly read over some of the proofs and given me 
 helpful suggestions. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PREFACE 
 
 CHRONOLOGY ix 
 
 LIFE OF BYRON, Etc xi 
 
 ANALYSIS . xli 
 
 BYRON'S PREFACES (EXTRACTS) . . . xliii 
 
 TOIANTHE 1 
 
 CANTO THE FIRST - 7 
 
 CANTO THE SECOND 96 
 
 INDEX TO THE NOTES ..... 179 
 
CHRONOLOGY 
 
 1788. Born January 22, in London. 
 
 1790. His mother takes him to Aberdeen. 
 
 1791. His father dies at Valenciennes. 
 
 1794. By the death of his cousin, he becomes heir to his great- 
 uncle, the filth Lord Byron. 
 
 1798. Byron succeeds to the family title and estates, journeys 
 southwards, and takes possession of Newstead Abbey. 
 1801. Byron is sent to Harrow. 
 
 1803'4. Byron becomes attached to Mary Chaworth, but is 
 disappointed in his suit. 
 1805. Leaves Harrow for Cambridge. 
 
 1807. Publication of Hours of Idleness, severely criticised in the 
 Edinburgh Review. 
 
 1809. He comes of age, takes his seat in the House of Lords, 
 and sets out on his travels. After visiting Lisbon, Cintra, Seville, 
 Cadiz, Gibraltar, Malta, Prevesa, Zitza, Tepalen, and Delphi, 
 arrives on Christmas Day at Athens. 
 
 1810. Leaves Athens for Smyrna, swims across the Hellespont, 
 spends two months in Constantinople, returns to Athens. 
 
 1811. Returns to England in July. His mother dies, 1 August. 
 
 1812. Publication of the first and second Cantos of Childe 
 Harold. 
 
 1813-14. Publication of the Oiaour, the Bride of Abydos, the 
 Corsair, and Lara. 
 
 1815. On January 2, marries Miss Anna Isabella Milbanke. In 
 April becomes personally acquainted with Sir Walter Scott. 
 
 1816. Lady Byron, shortly after the birth of her daughter Ada 
 Agusta, resolves to separate from her husband. In April Byron 
 leaves England never to return ; spends some time in Switzerland 
 in Shelley's company ; publishes the third Canto of Childe Harold ; 
 in November takes up his abode in Venice. 
 
 1817. Byron writes Manfred and, after visiting Rome, writes 
 the fourth Canto of Childe Harold. 
 
 1818. Don Juan is begun. 
 
 1820. Byron joins the revolutionary movement in Italy. 
 
 1821. Cain, a Mystery is written and dedicated to Scott. 
 
 1822. Byron joins with Leigh Hunt in starting The Liberal. 
 
 1823. Byron sails for Greece to support the revolution against 
 Turkey. 
 
 1824. Arrives at Mesolonghi. After a brief illness, dies on 
 April 19, and is buried in the family vault at Hucknall, near New- 
 stead. 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 LIFE OF BYRON. 
 
 Ancestry and Heredity. 
 
 Lord Byron was inordinately proud of his 
 title, his pedigree, and his ancient manorial seat. 
 He preferred to be received in society as a man of 
 rank, than as the most brilliant poet of his time. 
 He always affected to look down upon the career of 
 letters. 
 
 But up to the age of ten, we must think of him » 
 not as a peer, but as plain George Gordon Byron- 
 He was brought up in poverty and obscurity, and it 
 was by the mere chance of his grand-uncle (the fifth 
 lord, 1722-1798) having outlived his sons and his 
 grandson, that "the boy from Aberdeen " stepped 
 into the barony, and became heir to the family 
 traditions. 
 
 That men of genius have almost invariably had to 
 wrestle with adversity in early life is a common- 
 place of biography, and Byron was no exception 
 — though there is no hint of it in the First Canto of 
 Ckilde Harold. 
 
 In the Fourth Canto, however, in one of the best- 
 known passages in his writings, he alludes in impas- 
 sioned terms to his " ancestral faults " and all that he 
 had incurred in consequence of them. " The fathers 
 have eaten sour grapes, and the children's teeth are 
 set on edge." So many traits in the characters of 
 Byron's immediate forefathers reappear in himself, 
 that a few facts about some of them cannot be out 
 of place. 
 
xii Introduction 
 
 His grand-uncle was a recluse, a misanthrope* 
 a " man of mystery," and was known among his con- 
 temporaries as " the wicked lord." The " deadly 
 feud " between him and his cousin William Cha- 
 worth seems to be alluded to in Canto I, (see note 
 on st. 8). For years he lived apart from society, 
 buried in Newstead Abbey, and doing all in his 
 power to make it uninhabitable for those who 
 should come after him. 
 
 His brother the Hon. John Byron (1723-1786) 
 rose to the rank of vice-admiral in the navy ; but 
 many of his voyages ended so disastrously, that he 
 earned the sobriquet of " Foul-weather Jack." 
 Sailors were superstitious about voyaging with him. 
 
 He had two sons, the elder of whom, Captain John 
 Byron (1755-1791) was the father of the poet. He 
 too. had his sobriquet, viz. '• Mad Jack." He was a 
 very handsome man, but dissipated and extra- 
 vagant. He broke the hearts of both the women 
 whom he married : first the Marchioness of Car- 
 marthen, who died in giving birth to Augusta, the 
 poet's half-sister, who was four years his senior ; 
 next, a Scotch-woman, Catherine Gordon of Gicht 
 (locally " Gecht "), whom Darmesteter says he 
 married for love of his creditors (pour l'amour 
 de ses creanciers). Of her dowry of £ 23,000, 
 nearly £20,000 went into their pockets, but this only 
 paid half his debts. Soon after the birth of their 
 only child ( which took place in London, 22 
 January, 1788), he went abroad to hide himself from 
 these (or other) creditors and died in obscurity. 
 At his death he was thirty-six, the same age at which 
 his son was to die. 
 
 The father of Miss Gordon was "not at all ad- 
 dicted to any unhinging vice", but was a prey to 
 melancholy. He was found drowned in the canal 
 
Introduction xiii 
 
 at Bath in 1779, as his father was in the Ythan in 
 1760: suicide was suspected in both instances. 
 Byron resembled his maternal ancestors more than 
 those on the paternal side (Letter 937). We 
 cannot doubt that his gloom was deeply seated 
 in his constitution, not, as so many people have said, 
 put on for theatrical effect ("the Byronic pose"). 
 
 His mother was altogether wanting in tact and 
 self-control — ill-fitted for the task of bringing up a 
 wayward and high-spirited child. He was "cudgelled 
 into church-going till he was ten" (Letter 
 303). For the most trifling thing she would upbraid 
 him and beat him in the most violent manner. 
 From his infancy he was afflicted with lameness, 
 and (if it can be believed') she would sometimes 
 taunt her boy with his infirmity. In an early letter 
 (to Augusta) he says that " fault-finding is her 
 favourite amusement." 
 
 We cannot wonder if Byron complains of his 
 up-bringing. "Untaught in youth my' heart, to 
 tame, my springs of life were poisoned." If he owes 
 anything to his parentage, it is a plea for a charit- 
 able judgment on the darker passages in his career. 
 
 Newstead, Harrow, and Cambridge. 
 
 When Hanson the family lawyer, in May, 1798, 
 communicated to them the news of the death of the 
 "wicked earl," mother and son at once made prep- 
 arations for taking possession of Newstead. On 
 their southward journey they were accompanied, by 
 the nurse May Gray and received at the Abbey by 
 Hanson. In the poet's biographies it is com- 
 monly stated that this woman had won the child's 
 affection, that she taught him to. love the 
 Bible etc. — almost a halo has been thrown round her 
 
xiv Introduction 
 
 memory. A letter from Hanson to Mrs. Byron 
 dated September i, 1799 destroys this myth. 
 "My honourable little companion, tho' disposed to 
 retain his feelings, could not refrain, (from the harsh 
 usage he had received at her hand), from complaining 
 to me. He told me she was perpetually beating 
 him, and that his bones sometimes ached from it ; 
 that she brought all sorts of Company of the very 
 lowest Description into his apartments...! should be 
 mortified in the highest degree to see the honourable 
 feelings of my little fellow exposed to insult by the 
 inordinate Indiscretions of any Servant. He has 
 Ability and a quickness of Conception, and a correct 
 Discrimination that is seldom .seen in a youth, and 
 he is a fit associate of men, and choice indeed must be 
 the company that is selected for him." 
 
 The disappointment must have been great when 
 Newstead was found uninhabitable ; for their 
 expectations had been raised to the most roman- 
 tic pitch. Mrs Byron for some time lived in 
 Nottingham and afterwards in London. After two 
 year's schooling in Dulwich, Byron in 1801 was sent 
 to Harrow. 
 
 The head-master soon found that "a wild mountain 
 colt" had been submitted to his control ; but there 
 was "mind in his eye." 
 
 Everything of the nature of prescribed tasks 
 was repugnant to him, and yet, at odd moments, 
 he acquired an immense amount of information, 
 especially on historical subjects. "I was never seen 
 reading, but always idle, and in mischief, or at play. 
 The tiuth is that I read eating, read in bed, read 
 when no one else read." Sinclair, the "prodigy" of 
 the class, did most of his translations for him ; and 
 Byron, in requital, fought Sinclair's battles. In spite 
 of his lame foot, he excelled in manly sports 
 
Introduction xv 
 
 that chiefly required strength of arm ; such as 
 swimming, cricket, and boxing. 
 
 He always hated Harrow, he tells us, till the last 
 year and a half; and then, having formed many 
 boyish friendships (" My school friendships were 
 with me passions "), he left it with regret. He 
 looked back in his manhood to certain summer 
 holidays at Harrow as the happiest days in his 
 existence. He remembered the deadly feeling 
 of his boyhood slipping away from him : " from 
 that moment I begain to grow old in my own 
 esteem." 
 
 When Byron was sixteen, he became deeply 
 attached to his cousin Mary Chaworth. She was 
 the grand-niece of the Mr. Chaworth already spoken 
 of, and Annesley was within an easy ride of New- 
 stead, where he was spending the vacation. There 
 was something romantic about the idea of marrying 
 her, for (as he writes in his Detached Thoughts, 
 1821) "Our union would have healed feuds, in 
 which blood had been shed by our fathers ; it would 
 have joined lands, broad and rich ; and it would 
 have joined at least one heart, and twopersons not 
 ill-matched in years." 
 
 Miss Chaworth regarded his suit with indifference. 
 "Do you think I could care for that lame boy ? " 
 she said to a friend ; and Byron's susceptibilities 
 on hearing this saying were wounded to the 
 quick. She is alluded to near the beginning of 
 Childe Harold as some one far above him (I. 5, 5); 
 some writers have identified her with " Thyrza." 
 (See note on p. 104).* 
 
 Byron went into residence at Trinity College, 
 
 *The problem bears a certain analogy to that of the identity 
 of the "dark lady" of Shakespeare's Sonnets. 
 
xvi Introduction 
 
 Cambridge, in October, 1805. He lived in "Super- 
 excellent rooms," had an allowance of £500 a year 
 (which did not meet his expenditure), wore a white 
 hat, and rode a grey horse. He came to Cambridge 
 with no small intellectual hunger, which his tutors 
 had little power to gratify. He says (not quite justly !) 
 that "nobody here seems to look into an author, 
 ancient or modern, if they can avoid it." The years 
 he spent at Trinity were the most aimless of his life. 
 Cambridge was to him his "set," a little group of men 
 of wealth and fashion, who indulged in eccentric 
 practices conformable to their rank. John Cam 
 Hobhouse (afterwards Lord Broughton) was his 
 principal friend, and exercised a wholesome restraint 
 on his excesses. 
 
 Hours of Idleness and English Bards. 
 
 He was nineteen when he published his juvenile 
 poems. Hours of Idleness was their not inappropriate 
 name. They contain some stirring stanzas on 
 Loch na Garr, but otherwise show little promise of 
 future fame. So thought the Edinburgh Review, the 
 " literary leviathan" of the time, and counselled the 
 noble author "that he do forthwith abandon poetry, 
 and turn his talents, which are considerable, to 
 better account."* 
 
 * Byron had attacked Wordsworth's poems in the Monthly 
 Literary Recreations six months earlier — "such namby-pamby," 
 "such trifling subjects." Now the same justice was meted out to 
 himself ! It is interesting to know that Wordsworth resented 
 the attack on a younger brother-poet. " I was sitting with 
 Charles Lamb, when Wordsworth came in, with fume in his 
 countenance, and the Edinburgh Reoiew in his hand. ' I have no 
 patience with these Reviewers,' he said ; 'here is a young man, a 
 lord, and a minor, it appears, who publishes a little volume of 
 poetry ; and these fellows attack him, as if no one may write 
 poetry unless he lives in a garret. The young man will do some- 
 thing, if he goes on.' " Crabb Robinson's Diary (quoted in Letter* 
 and Journals, i. 183.). 
 
Introduction xvii 
 
 Byron could not let himself be "snuffed out by an 
 article." "[It] knocked me down,— but I got up 
 again." He "countered heavily." He began a careful 
 study of Pope's satirical writings ; and in March 1809, 
 two years after Hours' of idleness, launched his first 
 considerable work, English Bards and Scotch 
 Reviewers. It might be called the Dunciad of the 
 nineteenth century, but the disciple had none of the 
 master's malignity. He not only turned the tables on 
 his reviewers, but he also launched into abuse of the 
 greatest poets of the day, Wordsworth, Southey, 
 Moore, and Scott— it was nothing to him whether his 
 blows were just, provided they were hard. It was obvi- 
 ously the work of a free-lance in literature, and could 
 not be taken seriously. Scott owed him no grudge 
 for it, and Moore became his biographer. ''Seriously, 
 I do wish," he long afterwards wrote to Murray, "to 
 have the thing forgotten as much as it has been 
 forgiven."* 
 
 Byron became an M. A. in July, 1808 : but how he 
 got the degree was a mystery to himself (Letter 212). 
 Meanwhile he had been running heavily into debt — 
 it was perilously easy for him to borrow money from 
 "the tribe of Levi" by mortgaging his farms. But 
 after a time he found that he "could as soon compass 
 the National Debt" as pay his Cambridge bills. 
 
 Such was the state of his purse when the travel- 
 hunger took hold of him. But Scrope Davies, a gilded 
 youth of his set, obliged him with the loan of 
 £ 4800, and he and Hobhouse arranged to set out 
 together for the East : Byron paid his friend's 
 travelling expenses. 
 
 *0n a friend's copy of the book he wrote as follows (in 1816) : 
 "Nothing but the consideration of its being the property of 
 another prevents me from consigning this miserable record of 
 misplaced anger and indiscriminate acrimony to the flames." 
 
 ii 
 
xviii Introduction 
 
 Byron first invited his friends to a merry leave" 
 taking at Newstead. To be more in conformity to 
 the place they disguised themselves as monks. 
 Byron's sobriquet at Cambridge was "The Abbot", 
 and he now enacted the part. 
 
 The Pilgrimage of 1809-11. 
 
 In setting out on his travels he had a serious 
 purpose in view : he wished to widen his mind by 
 acquaintance with other countries, and make up for 
 the time he had wasted at Cambridge. On his return 
 he looked forward to a political career. He thus com- 
 municated his plans to his mother : "If we see 
 no nation but our own, we do not give mankind 
 a fair chance : — it is from experience, not books, we 
 ought to judge of them. There is nothing like" 
 inspection, and trusting our own senses." 
 
 The travellers reached Falmouth just too late for 
 the Malta packet, which obliged them to modify their 
 plans and sail for Lisbon. To this trifling circum- 
 stance we own our First Canto of Childe Harold, with 
 its glowing descriptions of Portuguese scenery and 
 Spanish battle-fields. 
 
 During this part of the journey they met with none 
 of the hardships they were afterwards to encounter. 
 "I had orders from the governments, and every possible 
 accommodation on the road, as an English noblemen, 
 in an English uniform, is a very respectable person- 
 age in Spain at present." No scene in his subsequent 
 travels delighted him so much as Cintra. The other 
 principal halting-places were Seville and Cadiz. Hob- 
 house, in his book of travels, has not a word to say 
 about this time — he was not the man to pass off upon 
 the public the superficial impressions of a hurried tour. 
 The quicker mind of the poet had no such misgiv- 
 ings ; and though he may fall into some blunders, it 
 
Introduction xix 
 
 is amazing, when we consider the shortness of his stay 
 in the Peninsula, that he felt the national pulse so 
 truly. His enthusiasm for the cause of the Spanish 
 people finds expression in the patriotic outburst of 
 Stanza 37 ; while the strange irony of the political 
 situation finds utterance in Stanza 86. 
 
 They sailed from Cadiz at the beginning of August : 
 they were conveyed as far as Gibraltar in the frigate 
 Hyperion with Admiral Purvis on board. From here 
 they took the packet to Malta, where again they 
 changed vessels. Mommsen facetiously points out 
 that our poet is so happy in his "winged sea-girt 
 citadel" (for so he describes the frigate), that he pro- 
 ceeds in her all the way to his destination, ignoring 
 the two less stately craft. 
 
 On board the Maltese packet the travellers made 
 the acquaintance of John Gait, who published a 
 biography of the poet in 1830, and whose mind has 
 been described as "the most sensitive plate for the 
 Byronic image which that image ever found."* (See 
 quotation on p. 1 10). 
 
 When they stepped ashore at Prevesa, the seaport 
 of Albania, the travellers found themselves in a new 
 and strange land ; the scenery bold and romantic, the 
 people almost savage. In choosing their route, they 
 had always to consider which of the ways were least 
 infested with robbers. On reaching Janina (or 
 Yanina) the Albanian capital, they learnt that the 
 chief — the famous AH Pasha — was at Tepeleni, 60 
 miles to the north-west. Their journey thither 
 occupied a fortnight, during which occurred a memor- 
 able thunder-storm as the travellers were about to 
 enter "monastic Zitza." The rain began to come 
 down in torrents, and their guides deserted them ; 
 
 * Ethel Colbum Mayne, Byron, i. 162. 
 
xx Introduction 
 
 Hobhouse was in advance and reached the convent 
 without difficulty ; but Byron and his man Fletcher 
 were exposed for nine hours to the rain, and did not* 
 arrive till 3 A. M. (Letter 131). They found Zitza 
 only less enchanting than Cintra. 
 
 The travellers spent October 19-23 at Tepeleni, 
 as the guests of Ali Pasha. "He asked us, what 
 had made us travel in Albania ? We told him, the 
 desire of seeing so great a man as himself." Ali 
 showed them with no little pride a magnificent gun, 
 which he had received as a gift from the King of 
 the French, but Ali's secretary informed them 
 afterwards that the weapon, when it came from 
 Napoleon, had only a common stock, and that all 
 the ornaments had been added by his Highness "to 
 make it look more like a royal gift." Hobhouse, 
 Travels, p. 112. 
 
 On the return journey to Prevesa Byron halted 
 again at Janina, where, on 31 October 1809, he 
 began to write the first canto of Childe Harold. 
 Among the adventures of these days was a ship- 
 wreck off the coast of Albania, some amusing details 
 of which appear in his letters, (see p. 150) 
 
 On November 13, they sailed from Prevesa under 
 a guard of 40 of Ali's soldiers and next day reached 
 Utraikey, on the S. E. shore of the Gulf of Arta. 
 
 Here by the light of their camp-fires they 
 witnessed Albanian war-dances to the accompani- 
 ment of war-songs, of which Tambourgi is given 
 as a specimen. Next morning the party begin to 
 traverse "Acarnania's forest wide." On crossing the 
 river Achelous (the modern Aspro), the travellers 
 found themselves among the wolds of Aetolia. 
 
 They were now proceeding on the way to Athens, 
 but in no hurry to reach their destination. They 
 halted three days at Mesolonghi, eleven days at 
 
Introduction xxi 
 
 Patras, and on 16 December reached Delphi, where 
 they visited the Pythian cave, and sprinkled them- 
 selves with the waters of Castalia, but spent only one 
 night here, as they were disappointed with the place. 
 Their next sojourn was at Thebes, which they left on 
 24 December. Next night was spent under memor- 
 able circumstances at Phyle : "We passed our 
 Christmas eve," writes Hobhouse, "in the worst hovel 
 of which we had ever been inmates. The cows and 
 pigs occupied the lower part of the chamber, where 
 there were racks and mangers... We were almost 
 suffocated with the smoke" (the fire was in the middle 
 of the chamber.) 
 
 For the next ten weeks (December 25, 1809 — 
 March 5 1 810), their head-quarters were at Athens, 
 where Byron finished the First Canto oiChilde Harold 
 on December 30. The poet took little interest in the 
 archeological and topographical investigations that 
 claimed Hobhouse's whole attention, but his soul was 
 filled with admiration and awe as he stood amidst 
 the ruins of ancient grandeur with which Athens 
 abounds — feelings reflected in many stanzas of the 
 second canto, which he now began to write. His 
 denunciation of Lord Elgin is strong, but expresses 
 his genuine feelings. He did not pause to consider 
 whether the master-works of Phidias had not been pre- 
 served by "the modern Pict" from inevitable ruin* 
 
 *Mrs Hemans upholds Lord Elgin in Modem Greece (stanza 88), 
 a poem that well deserves to be read in connection with Byron's : 
 And who may grieve that, rescued from their hands, 
 Spoilers of excellence and foes to art, 
 Thy relics, Athens ! borne to other lands, 
 Claim homage still to thee from every heart ? 
 Though now no more the exploring stranger's sight, 
 Fixed in deep reverence on Minerva's fane, 
 Shall hail, beneath their native heaven of light, 
 All that remained of forms adored in vain ; 
 A few short years — and vanished from the scene, 
 To blend with classic dust their proudest lot had been. 
 
xxii Introduction 
 
 Byron writes that : 'Greece, particularly in the vici- 
 nity of Athens, is delightful ;— cloudless skies and 
 lovely landscapes." Reminiscences of excursions to 
 Mendeli, Sunium, Marathon, and other classical spots 
 in Attica make up a considerable part of Canto II. 
 (stanzas 73-83). 
 
 On leaving Athens he paid a visit to Smyrna, 
 where the Second Canto was completed on 28 March. 
 His intention to devote a whole Canto to describe his 
 visit to Asia Minor was never carried out. 
 
 From Smyrna the travellers proceeded to Constan- 
 tinople in the Salsette. They were detained for 
 several days at the entrance of the Dardanelles, wait- 
 ing for permission to sail up the Bosporus. During 
 these days Byron visited the ruins of Troy * and swam 
 from Sestos to Abydos ; in imitation of Leander's 
 famous feat. Of this performance he was inordinately 
 proud, and boasts of it a score of times in his letters.! 
 
 After spending two months in the City on the 
 Golden Horn (May 13 July 14). the two friends 
 separated, Hobhouse proceeding home with materials 
 to furnish a book of 1200 quarto pages, his Travels in 
 Albania, etc.% 
 
 Hobhouse's description of his fellow-traveller may 
 here be quoted : — "a companion, who, to quickness of 
 
 * All the remains of Troy are the tombs of her destroyers... large 
 mounds of earth, like the barrows of the Danes in jour island" 
 Letter 135. 
 
 t "Byron (literally) never after that morning wrote a letter 
 home without describing it." Ethel C. Mayne, Byron i. 170. For 
 some time he had been remiss in his correspondence, but now his 
 epistolary activity was suddenly awakened. It is strange that he 
 refrains from making his Pilgrim perform the feat. When Byron 
 lived in Venice, he was known among the gondoliers as "the 
 EDglish fish." 
 
 X "I keep no journal, but my friend Hobhouse scribbles incess- 
 antly" (Letter 132). 
 
Introduction xxiii 
 
 observation and ingenuity of remark, united that gay 
 good humour which keeps alive the attention under 
 the pressure of fatigue, and softens the aspects of 
 every difficulty and danger." There is not much in 
 common between the gloomy and solitary pilgrim of 
 the poem and the real Byron, who, under the bright 
 skies of southern Europe, seemed to escape from 
 himself, and not to be pursued by "the demon 
 Thought." 
 
 He tells us that he missed no comforts, and the 
 mosquitoes that racked the morbid frame of Hobhouse 
 had little effect on himself, "because he lived 
 more temperately." (See Letter 136). All countries 
 were much the same in his eyes — all except his 
 own, whose clouds aud mist were accountable in 
 some measure for his melancholy. 
 
 It is difficult to trace the movements of the next 
 months, not having Hobhouse to guide us. Byron 
 spent a good deal of this time at Athens, living 
 in the Franciscan monastery, and studying modern 
 Greek. Unconsciously he was collecting mate- 
 rials for his Turkish Tales, of some of which he 
 could have affirmed, " El quorum pars magna 
 fui." In after years an air of mystery gathered 
 round this time, which was rather gratifying to 
 him than otherwise : — " [Hobhouse] told me an 
 odd report, that I am the actual Conrad, the 
 veritable Corsair, and that part of my travels, 
 are supposed to have passed in privacy. Um ! — 
 people sometimes hit near the truth ; but never the 
 whole truth. H. don't know what I was about the 
 year after he left the Levant ; nor does any one." 
 
 Byron would probably have visited Persia and 
 India if his funds had permitted : but his affairs 
 demanded his presence in England. In June 18 11 
 
xxiv Introduction 
 
 he sailed for home in the Volage frigate, and, 
 when near the end of his voyage, wrote as follows 
 to his mother : "You will be good enough to get my 
 apartments ready at Newstead ; but don't disturb 
 yourself on any account, particularly mine, nor con- 
 sider me in any light other than as a visitor. I must 
 only inform you that for a long time I have been 
 restricted to an entire vegetable diet, neither fish 
 nor flesh coming within my regimen ; so I expect a 
 powerful stock of potatoes, greens, and biscuit ; I 
 drink no wine.'' 
 
 His mother died before he reached Newstead ; 
 and his home-coming was further saddeded by 
 hearing of the deaths of several of his special friends. 
 Wingfield died in hospital at Coimbra, Matthews 
 was drowned in the Cam, Edleston — whom he 
 rescued from drowning — had died of consumption. 
 These sorrows, and another more overwhelming 
 than all of them, lend a sombre colouring to the 
 closing stanzas of Childe Harold. 
 
 The Lion of Society. 
 
 Byron now took lodgings in London. He wished 
 to find a publisher for a satirical poem, Hints from 
 Horace, which he submitted to his literary adviser, 
 Mr. Dallas, who persuaded him with much diffi- 
 culty that the poem could not add to the 
 reputation he had earned by his English Bards. 
 Dallas expressing surprise that he had nothing else 
 to show him, Byron went to a small trunk and 
 produced the MS. of Childe Harold, saying "Here 
 are some stanzas in Spenser's measure ; they are 
 not worth troubling you with, but you shall have 
 them all if you like." 
 
 Byron gave the copyright to Dallas. Several 
 stanzas of a satirical turn were omitted at his ins- 
 
Introduction xxv 
 
 tance and others substituted of a less compromising 
 nature. 
 
 The reception given to Ckilde Harold is the 
 chief event of Byron's life. 
 
 "I awoke one morning", he writes, "and found 
 myself famous." The first edition was exhaust- 
 ed in three days. 
 
 A new chapter in his history here begins. He was 
 only twenty-three, and (in the words of Disraeli) 
 "London lay at his feet". All the dandies began 
 to imitate his eccentricities of manner and costume. 
 
 Of his beauty in these days we have many a testi- 
 mony. Coleridge said : " So beautiful a counten- 
 ance 1 scarcely ever saw. ..his eyes were the open 
 portals of the sun. ..things of light, and for light." 
 Scott said : " The beauty of Byron is one which 
 makes one dream." 
 
 At the first meeting of Byron and Scott, " they 
 embraced each other in the most affectionate manner, 
 and entered into a cordial conversation," which lasted 
 for two hours. 
 
 This interview took place in the drawing-room of 
 John Murray, Byron's publisher, and when they 
 took their departure " it was a curious sight," writes 
 the younger Murray, " to see the two greatest poets 
 of the age, both lame, stumping downstairs, side 
 by side."* 
 
 These were years of dissipation : Byron rarely 
 rose before noon. But his pen was not idle. He 
 began to publish a succession of Turkish Tales, 
 whose popularity eclipsed that of the Childe. 
 > The Giaour, the Corsair and Lara ("Lord of 
 himself, that heritage of woe") are all reincarna- 
 
 * See Smiles's Memoir of John, Murray, i. 267. 
 
xxvi Introduction 
 
 tions of the original hero : in other words, replicas 
 of Byron himself. In these years Byron's finances 
 were often embarrassed, but he was too cavalier 
 to accept money for his poetry. 
 
 The ladies whose drawing-rooms he frequented 
 were all of the intellectual type ("blue eyes and 
 bluer stockings," Don Juan}) Lady Oxford was "an 
 adept in the text of Lucretius," Lady Jersey a power 
 in politics, Lady Caroline Lamb the author of roman- 
 ces. Not the least intellectual of the group was 
 Miss Anna Isabella Milbanke, who became his wife 
 on January 2, 181 5. Her bent was mathemr.tics, but 
 on occasion she could write satirical poetry. * 
 
 They had been drawn together by the attraction 
 of opposites, but there was nothing romantic in then- 
 union — Byron says he only wanted someone to "yawn" 
 with him. Their lives steadily drifted apart. The 
 irregularity of her husband's habits, his many eccentri- 
 cities, his morbid love of self-accusation and (one might 
 almost say) his fits of insanity, must have been a sore 
 trial to Lady Byron. He had no fixed hour for his 
 meals, and his wife hardly knew what it was to sit 
 down to dinner with him. He slept with loaded 
 pistols under his pillow, which seems to have been 
 a family trait. "There was hardly an offence of 
 which he would not, with perfect indifference, accuse 
 himself" (Harness). One day, in a paroxysm of rage, 
 he dashed a favourite watch upon the hearth and 
 ground it to pieces among the ashes with the poker.f 
 
 * She thus takes off some of her husband's foibles in a set of 
 verses sent to the Hon. Augusta Leigh : 
 
 "Then there's Byron, ashamed to appear like a poet, 
 He talks of Finances, for fear he should show it — 
 And makes all the envious Dandys despair, 
 By the out of his shirt and the curl of his hair." 
 
 t Scenes passed between them that nearly reoall Portia's des- 
 cription of her distracted husband : 
 
Introduction xxvii 
 
 A month after the birth of their child Augusta 
 Ada, Lady Byron left her husband, and never saw 
 him again. On reaching her parents she wrote him 
 a playful and affectionate letter, inviting him in their 
 name to join her as soon as possible ;* but this was 
 almost immediately followed by a letter from her 
 father, announcing Lady's Byron's intention never 
 to return to him. With the assistance of lawyers an 
 amicable separation was agreed upon. 
 
 The suddenness of Byron's fall is only matched 
 by the suddenness of his elevation. One or two 
 newspapers, and one or two stars of the ultra-fashion- 
 able world, still stood by him. Lady Jersey, wishing 
 to reinstate him in society, held a reception in his 
 honour ; but his entrance was the signal for the ladjes 
 to rise in a body and leave the room. They had 
 made up their minds to ostracize him. 
 
 There were many reasons for this change of attitude 
 towards their former favourite. He had never belonged 
 
 Yesternight at supper... 
 You stared upon me with ungentle looks ; 
 I urged you further ; then you scratched your head, 
 And too impatiently stamped with your foot... 
 Gave sign for me to leave you. 
 
 If Byron was not a Brutus, neither was Lady Byron a Portia, — 
 one who could "divine a grief and sympathize." 
 
 She is more suggestive of Ophelia, who, under similar provoca- 
 tion, could think of nothing better than to seek advice and comfort 
 from her parents. 
 
 * This curious letter is printed in the Quarterly Review (Jan. 1910) 
 in an article entitled "Byron and Napoleon." Ihe following extract 
 will show its tenor : "We got here quite well last night, and were 
 ushered into the kitchen instead of the drawing-room by a mistake 
 that might have been agreeable enough to hungry people... Of this 
 and other incidents Dad wants to write you a jocose account, and 
 both he and Mam long to have the family party completed... And 
 such a sitting-room, or sulking-room, all to yourself. If I were not 
 always looking for B — • I should be a great deal better already for 
 the country air. ..Love to the good goose [Augusta], and every- 
 body's love to you both from hence." 
 
xxviii Introduction 
 
 to this brilliant world at all, and had never bowed 
 down before its idols, and sooner or later a breach 
 was inevitable. He somewhere pathetically says (to 
 Dallas or to Murray, who were never done trying to 
 keep him on good terms with the powers that be), 
 "I cannot Torify my nature." Society had nearly 
 turned against him on a former occasion, viz. when 
 he lampooned the Prince Regent in a set of verses 
 that do his heart great credit. 
 
 Macaulay, in an Essay not reckoned among his 
 best, has some excellent remarks on this subject : 
 "His countrymen were in a bad humour with him. 
 His writings and his character had lost the charm 
 of novelty. He had been guilty of the offence 
 which, of all others, is punished most severely ; he 
 had been over-praised ; he had excited too warm 
 an interest; and the public, with its usual justice 
 [true Jedwood justice], chastised him for its own 
 folly." 
 
 In a letter to Isaac D'Israeli, Byron thus states 
 his reasons for leaving England : 
 
 "Of me and of mine [the public] knew little, except 
 that I had written what is called poetry, was a noble- 
 man, had married, became a father, and was involved 
 in differences with my wife and her relatives, no one 
 knew why. My name, which had been a knightly or 
 a noble one since my fathers helped to conquer the 
 kingdom for William the Norman, was tainted. I 
 felt that, if what was whispered, and muttered, and 
 murmured, was true, I was unfit forEngland ; if false, 
 England was unfit for me. I withdrew."* 
 
 * Sir Walter Scott wrote of him, "If he has acted wrong in 
 some respects, he has been no worse than half the men of his rank 
 in London who have done the same, and are not spoken of because 
 not worth being railed against." 
 
Introduction xxix 
 
 Switzerland and Italy. 
 
 On 24 April 18 16 Byron left England for ever 
 On his way through Belgium, he visited the field of 
 Waterloo, so well commemorated in Childe Harold. 
 He took up his abode in the Hotel d'Angleterre, on 
 the northern side of the Lake of Geneva, where he 
 found that Shelley and his wife were staying. The 
 two poets were enthusiastically fond of boating, and 
 every evening went out together on the lake. Byron's 
 intercourse with Shelley deepened his conception 
 of poetry, and the third canto of Childe Harold, 
 which he began at this time, bears marks of greater 
 maturity than any of his previous work. 
 
 He crossed the Alps in October and settled in 
 Italy, which he has called his adopted home. For 
 three years he lived in Venice, "the city of his 
 heart." After a brief visit to Rome, he began the 
 fourth canto of Childe Harold. For this Murray 
 offered him 1500 guineas, but Byron replied, "I wont 
 take it, 1 ask 2500 guineas for it which you will 
 either give or not, as you think proper." Murray 
 consented and found Byron for the future a hard 
 bargainer. It is commonly believed that for all he 
 wrote from this time onwards he received two 
 guineas a line. 
 
 He began a series of plays, of which Manfred, 
 the first of them, has its scene among the Alps. 
 
 It raised his poetical fame in foreign countries, 
 but never received so much attention in England. It 
 is significant that nine translations exist in German. 
 Cain, a Mystery, which he dedicated to Scott, gave 
 offence in conservative quarters, though " the scepti- 
 cal audacities of Cain are now like beatings at an 
 open door" (Elton). 
 
 None of Byron's eight plays were written for, or 
 
xxx Introduction 
 
 enjoyed any success on, the stage. They exhibit 
 his artistic shortcomings in the most glaring manner 
 — his lack of constructive power, his inability to make 
 his characters live, his incapacity to write blank verse. 
 With the appearance of Beppo (1818), a new 
 period opens in his poetical career. This was 
 written in the ottava rima, in a jaunty, humourous, 
 self-composed vein, which perfectly harmonized with 
 the mood of the writer. Byron had found a medium 
 in which he could express himself as perfectly as in 
 prose. Beppo was followed up by The Vision of 
 Judgment, and Don Juan, which all critics would 
 agree in pronouncing Byron's three most character- 
 istic works. In the last, which runs into seventeen 
 cantos, he turns the tables on the higher ranks of 
 English society, with whose ways he had become so 
 intimately acquainted in former days. If Byron had a 
 "mission" to his country, it was now he fulfilled it ; 
 and if his own life was far from being a shining ex- 
 ample to his people, we must not forget that "he was 
 himself a product of this corrupt society, and tainted 
 by its influence" (Elze). 
 
 In August 1821 Shelley paid a visit to Byron, 
 then Mving at Ravenna. He found his establish- 
 ment to consist, besides servants, "of ten horses, 
 eight enormous dogs, three monkeys, five cats, an 
 eagle, a crow, and a falcon ; and all these, except the 
 horses, walk about the house, which every now and 
 then resounds with their unarbitrated quarrels, as if 
 they were the masters of it." 
 
 Shelley had much difficulty in adapting himself to 
 Byron's strange mode of life. "Lord Byron gets up at 
 two. I get up quite contrary to my usual custom at 
 twelve. After breakfast, we sit talking till six. From 
 six till eight we gallop through the pine forests which 
 divide Ravenna from the sea. We then come home 
 
Introduction xxxi 
 
 and dine, and sit up gossiping till six in the morning." 
 Much of their conversation turned on the liberation 
 of Italy and the liberation of Greece. 
 
 Byron's income at this time was about four thou- 
 sand a year, one thousand of which he devoted to 
 purposes of charity. Shelley writes of him (August 
 ij, 1821): "Lord Byron is greatly improved in every 
 respect — in genius, in temper, in moral views, in 
 health and happiness. ..he has had mischievous pas- 
 sions, but these he seems to have subdued ; and 
 he is becoming, what he should be, a virtuous man." 
 
 Italy at this time seemed on the eve of great 
 things. The Austrian government — according to 
 Byron "the most infamous in history" — appeared to be 
 upon its trial. In one of his most ambitious poems, The 
 Prophesy of Dante, he calls on all Italy to unite. 
 Byron now describes himself in his letters as a 
 "Coal-heaver" (by which he means "Carbonaro"). 
 He began to be shadowed from place to place by the 
 Austrian police. The time for the revolution had 
 not yet arrived and the movement ended in dis- 
 appointment. 
 
 Greece. 
 
 But at this time a neighbouring country was in 
 the throes of a national movement : Greece having 
 gained her freedom and lost it, was attempting to 
 gain it again. In response to an invitation for help, 
 Byron sailed from Leghorn on 24 July, 1823. He 
 spent some months in Cephalonia, mastering the 
 situation, after which he settled in Mesolonghi. 
 Here his house became the head-quarters of the 
 movement for the liberation and unification of 
 Greece. -The spirit which he brought to his task 
 can be judged from a letter he wrote to the 
 English Consul at Prevesa. "Coming to Greece, one 
 
xxxii Introduction 
 
 of my principal obiects was to alleviate as much as 
 possible the miseries incident to a warfare so cruel 
 as the present. When the dictates of humanity are 
 in question, I know no difference between Turks and 
 Greeks." 
 
 Byron's health broke down under the strain of 
 these trying months. He was hardly thirty-six 
 but " pleasure and sorrow had done the work of 
 seventy years upon his delicate frame" (Macaulay). 
 There was continual dissension among the Greek 
 leaders, money was far from plentiful ( though 
 Byron was lavish of his own in the cause), he was 
 daily harassed by one disappointment after another. 
 At length he caught a rheumatic fever and died 
 after a short but painful illness, April 19, 1824. 
 His body (though he had written to Murray : "I 
 would not even feed your worms") was brought 
 to E .inland in charge of Fletcher; burial was 
 refused in Westminster Abbey — the authorities 
 without intending it merely placing one more 
 wreafh on his brow — and the body was laid 
 beside his mother's in the family vault at Hucknall 
 Church near Newstead.* 
 
 After a long day of darkness and tempest, some- 
 times the evening sun bursts through the clouds, 
 
 * Lady Byron took no part in the funeral, but four years after, 
 when her husband's statue (by Thorwaldsen) was refused admission 
 into Westminster Abbey, she expressed herself in these impassioned 
 strains, recently published by Mr. John Murray : 
 
 Think ye to tear the laurel from his brow ? — 
 To him ye had not dared the thought avow... 
 O could I bring to light the uncontest. 
 The deep dread secrets of the human breast, 
 How many hearts a kindred pang must own, 
 And who would feel in grief, in guilt, alone ! 
 Judge not, but weep for one who never knew,' 
 The blessings that descend on some like dew : 
 Stern o'er his childhood Calvin's spirit lowered, 
 And every hope of mercy overpowered. 
 
Introduction xxxiii 
 
 and then (in Milton's words) " the fields revive, 
 The birds their notes renew... and, ..hill and valley 
 rings." Such is the effect upon our mind when we 
 read about the last phase in Byron's career — it 
 makes us forget much that went before, it discloses 
 to us hidden depths in bis soul, it proves that 
 below the man of pleasure and the poet, there 
 was the philanthropist, "the good soldier in the 
 liberation war of humanity". 
 
 " In the last great episode of his career," writes 
 Lord Morley, " Byron was as lofty as the noblest side 
 of his creed... And for this, history will not forget 
 him. Though he may have no place in our own 
 Minster, he assuredly belongs to the band of far- 
 shining men, of whom Pericles declared the whole 
 world to be the tomb."* 
 
 BYRON'S CHARACTER. 
 
 " If I know myself, I have no character at all.'' " I 
 never know what I shall do till it is done."- So 
 Byron says of himself. Lady Blessington, who saw 
 much of him the year before his death, declared 
 that if ten individuals undertook the task of 
 describing Byron, no two would agree in their delinea- 
 tion, and yet each of them might be correct in 
 what he wrote about him. 
 
 Among those who have written about him, there 
 is no agreement even as regards his temperament : 
 in the opinion of Sir Walter Scott, Lady Byron and 
 others, he was at heart " the most melancholy of 
 mankind." Against this we have the testimony 
 of many (e. g. Mary Shelley) that even in a gay 
 company Byron was " more gay than any other." 
 
 * Critical Miscellanies, i. 251. 
 
 iii 
 
xxxiv Introduction 
 
 He seemed to be equally under the influence of 
 Saturn and Mercury, he was " a being made of many 
 beings," and perhaps mobility is the word that con- 
 veys most truth about his temperament. He 
 could never remain long in any one mood, or mental 
 attitude ; a fact of which we find frequent instances 
 in his poetry. 
 
 Of his eccentricity — as regards dress, food, hours 
 of sleep, mode of living, etc. — we have seen many 
 examples: some of these traits were inherited from 
 his ancestors. Lord Beaconsfield, in his Venetia, 
 presents a picture of Byron when he describes the 
 " new poet, Cadurcis " : "He must be a man of genius 
 ...he is so unlike everybody... Watch him to-day, 
 and vou will observe that he will not condescend to 
 perform the slightest act like an ordinary mortal." 
 Of his independence we have noteworthy examples. 
 In November 1815, when he was half insane 
 with domestic troubles, and when his privilege 
 as a peer alone exempted him from imprisonment for 
 debt, he consulted a bookseller about disposing of 
 his library. John Murray, on hearing of this, sent him 
 bills to the value of .£1500, with a promise of an 
 equal amount in the course of some weeks. Byron 
 replied (Letter 563) : Dear Sir, — I return you your 
 bills not accepted, but certainly not unkonoured." 
 
 Of his generosity we have many beautiful in- 
 stances. Miss Milbanke wrote of him before her 
 marriage : "It is not in the great world that Lord 
 Byron's true character must be sought; but ask 
 of those nearest to him,— of the unhappy whom 
 he has consoled, of the poor whom he has blessed, 
 of the dependents to whom he is the best 
 of masters." An old school and college friend 
 who frequently dined with Byron at Newstead, told 
 us that at table they were waited on by an old familly 
 
Introduction xxxv 
 
 servant. "I have seen Byron, as the old man waited 
 behind his chair at dinner, pour out a glass of wine 
 and pass it to him when he thought we were too 
 much engaged in conversation to observe what he 
 was doing." 
 
 Byron showed himself at his best among his men 
 friends. A recent biographer has called him a 
 "Man's Man." Very few of his letters (if we except 
 those addressed to his own family) are written to 
 women and these are of little or no interest.* 
 
 That Byron's early hopes of shining in politics were 
 ill-founded is obvious : "Come what may, I will never 
 flatter the million's canting in any shape." Matthew 
 Arnold may be permitted to doubt if the man 
 who uttered that was cut out for a political career. 
 Considering his abstemiousness, his indifference to 
 heat and cold, and his power to make the best 
 of a bad situation (laughing over the ill-luck that 
 others grumbled about), he might have made 
 a name for himself among modern travellers. 
 Such a career seemed opening out before him in 
 1811, when he was called back to Newstead. 
 
 "Always something fresh sprang forth from him, 
 always the spirit renewed its strength." Just 
 a month before his death he showed himself 
 in an altogether new light. In March 1824, he made 
 the acquaintance of an agent of the Bible Society, 
 who left in his charge a number of Greek Testaments, 
 "which," he writes (Letter 11 39) "I will endeavour to 
 distribute properly." In Letter 1 144 he says: "You 
 may depend upon my giving the Society as fair play 
 
 *"When he got away with Moore or another intimate, he turned 
 into a merry, happy boy. ..Where women ruled, he was a blighted 
 being. ..Everything that was delightful, even (one might go so far 
 as to say) everything that was good in him, emerged for men 
 alone." Ethel C. Mayne, Byron i. 286. (See notes p. 124). 
 
ixxxvi Introduction 
 
 as Mr. Wilberforce himself would." Julius Millingen, 
 in his Memoirs on the Affairs of Greece, writes that 
 Byron "acted at Mesolonghi as agent to the Bible 
 Society ; and on his arrival there, he piled up at the 
 entrance of his receiving-room the numerous Bibles 
 that had been entrusted to his care, and seldom 
 neglected to offer copies to his visitors." 
 
 A recent biographer has the audacity to present this episode 
 to his readers as follows : "Maintaining his character as a man of 
 action, he suppressed a converted blacksmith, who arrived from 
 England with a cargo of type, paper, bibles, and Wesleyan 
 tracts, proposing to use the tracts for cartridges and turn the 
 type into small shot. " 
 
CHILDE HAROLD'S PILGRIMAGE 
 
 ITS POPULARITY. 
 
 Childe Harold's Pilgrimage was published on March 10, 1812, 
 and in three days an edition of five hundred copies was sold. 
 Five weeks passed before a second edition was ready (April 17). 
 In six months 4500 were sold, but he who "woke up one morn- 
 ing and found himself famous" was far from pleased with the 
 reception of his poem !* 
 
 DESIGN OF THE POEM. 
 
 One might suppose from the opening section (stanzas 1 to 13) 
 that there was a "plan" in the author's mind at the start, but if 
 there was, it is soon abandoned — probably there was none, for 
 Byron was entirely lacking in the power of constructing a plot. 
 By going back for a starting-point to mediaeval times, Byron 
 was able to throw a greater air of mystery round his hero, and 
 to put more of the spirit of romance into his contemplated 
 journey. Travel now-a-days is too easy, too common, too 
 common-place to be turned to poetic account, although for the 
 individual there may be all the pleasurable excitement about 
 seeing new places that there ever was. 
 
 The poem has been called "a pilgrimage to scenes and cities 
 of renown, a song of travel, a rhythmical diorama" (Coleridge). 
 The plan admits of as many digressions as the poet chooses : 
 these he often indulges in, and he never has any difficulty in 
 returning to the main subject. A typical transition is the follow- 
 ing (II. 36, 1) : 
 
 Away ! nor let me loiter in my song, 
 For we have many a mountain-path to tread, 
 And many a varied shore to sail along, 
 By pensive Sadness, not by Fiction, led. 
 
 * John Murray informs Byron in a letter dated Sept. 7, 1812 that the sale 
 was almost unprecedented, and concludes : "You should cease to reproach the 
 public and the publisher for "tardy editions." But Byron knew he could do 
 better than this : the Corsair had a sale of 10,000 on the day of publication. 
 
 The success of Childe Barold is often over-stated. In the brilliant article 
 in Chambers's Encyclopaedia it is stated that the poem appeared on 20 February, 
 1812, and before the end of March, ran through seven whole editions ! Not even 
 on Saintsbury's authority can this be accepted. The facts will be found in 
 Coleridge's Introduction to the First and Second Cantos, p. xii. 
 
xxxviii Introduction 
 
 THE HERO AND THE AUTHOR. 
 
 The world has by common agreement identified the Poet 
 and the Pilgrim, notwithstanding Byron's disclaimers to the 
 contrary. There are striking points of resemblance, and not 
 less striking points of difference. 
 
 (i) Byron has told us that he"took his gradations in the vices 
 with great promptitude" {Detached Thoughts, 72) ; and this is 
 just what he makes his hero do, When Byron left his native 
 land, he was utterly tired of it and never wished to return, and 
 there was some secret reason for this : "I never will revisit 
 England if I can avoid it. ..for it is no country or me. ..Why — 
 must remain a secret." Letter to John Hanson, Letters and 
 Journals, vi., 446. Cambridge had been to him "a monotony 
 of endless variety" — the expression is not unfitting the hero 
 of Childe Harold. Other youths of his class could take a gun 
 in their hand and relieve their etmui by shooting down the 
 feathered creation— that this could not content a nature like 
 Byron's is sufficiently obvious : "There are indeed some of my 
 neighbours whose only pleasures consist in field sports, but in 
 other respects they are only one degree removed from the 
 brute creation." The Pilgrim in the course of his travels is 
 never represented as a sportsman, and goes about everywhere 
 unarmed. There are here numerous points of resemblance. 
 
 (2) But the differences are not less striking. The Childe is 
 a man of one mood, Byron (as we have seen) is "a being made 
 of many beings." The Childe has renounced the society of 
 his fellow-men, and (after the first section) has no other com- 
 pan^_but_his_sJafir-T. (See 1.27,2 and II. 43, 1). Byron has 
 ai. friend and is himself the best company imaginable. Byron 
 has all the delight in life of an over-grown schoolboy, such as 
 he still was in appearance.* But as soon as he takes up his pen 
 to write poetry, he assumes the gr?vity and maturity of some 
 one much older than himself ; so that in reading these early- 
 cantos of Childe Harold, it is impossible to keep in mind that 
 the author is barely twenty-two. He says with truth that his 
 poem contains the sentiments "of one at least ten years older 
 than the age at which they were written." 
 
 "It was true that he had intended to draw a fictitious 
 character, a being whom he may have feared he might one day 
 
 *At the court of Ali Pasha in Tepaleii, the Vizier's grandson "asked me what 
 I did travelling so young without a Lala (tutor)?" The questioner was "a little 
 fellow ten years old, with large* black eyes as big as pigeon's eggs, and all the 
 gravity of sixty." 
 
Introduction xxxix 
 
 become, but whom he did not recognise as himself. He was 
 not sated, he was not cheerless, he was not unamiable. He 
 was all a-quiver with youth and enthusiasm and the joy of 
 great living. He had left behind him friends whom he knew 
 were not 'the flatterers of the festal hour' — friends whom he 
 returned to mourn and nobly celebrate. Byron was not 
 Harold, but Harold was an ideal Byron, the creature and 
 avenger of his pride, which haunted and pursued its presumptu- 
 ous creator to the bitter end" (Coleridge). 
 
 THE SATIRICAL VEIN. 
 
 A satirical vein runs through much of the poem. We 
 
 first observe this in the contemptuous reference to "later lyres" 
 
 in the opening stanza, and it becomes very marked in the 
 
 lines on the Convention of Cintra, where a laugh is indulged 
 
 in at the expense of "chiefs like ours" in the field, and "folks 
 
 in office" at home. Later he sneers at British victories 
 
 because they decide nothing — Britain is (I. 41, 5) : 
 
 the' fond ally 
 That fights for all, and ever fights in vain. 
 
 Stanza 43 is on the folly, of war (as stanza 88 is on the 
 piteousness of it). There is much sarcasm in stanza 46, on 
 the effeminacy of the inhabitants of Seville, "all unconscious 
 of the coming doom"; nor is there less where the poet des- 
 cribes how the people of Cadiz unite the worship of Venus 
 and the Virgin. Though Byron is in sympathy with the 
 people of Spain in their fight for liberty, the vein of sarcasm 
 reappears in stanza 86, where he reflects that they are 
 merely shedding their blood to save the Bourbon dynasty. 
 (See foot-note p. 90). 
 
 There is much less sarcasm in the Second Canto. It is 
 denunciation that the poet hurls at the head of "the modern 
 Pict'' who has deprived the Parthenon of its treasures ; while 
 cynicism finds bitter utterance in stanza 35, on the fruits 
 of "successful passion," as in one of Shakespeare's Sonnets : 
 Enjoyed no sooner than despised straight. 
 
 Near the close of the canto, there is not a little sarcasm at 
 the expense of the modern Greeks, because they have no 
 longer the spirit of freedom that distinguished their ancestors.* 
 
 * In most of the thirteen stanzas which were omitted from the.poem at the 
 instance of friends like Dallas and Murray there was the freest indulgence in 
 sarcasm. These may still be read in Coleridge's or Darruesteter's Editions, 
 and are of some interest from the fact that they "distinctly forecast the style of 
 Don Juan" (Elton). Byron's literary advisers were right in protesting against 
 
xl Introduction 
 
 THE DEEPEST NOTE. 
 
 Though there is so much that is sarcastic and misanthropic 
 in the poem, yet the fundamental note is given forth by one 
 who is young in spirit as well as in years. In spite of the poet's 
 efforts to suppress his youthful ..buoyancy, it breaks forth 
 on every possible occasion. Each new scene awakens his 
 eager interest ; though too long a residence in a place is 
 apt to bring on his old "moping fits" (see I. 28, 3 and II. 64, 4). 
 Observe the effect on his spirit of "the cry of land" (1. 14, 4 
 and II. 43, 7). Much as he loathes war, yet a battle-field is 
 "a splendid sight to see." In describing Parnassus, his 
 "silent joy" finds expression only in trembling. No one 
 ever contemplated the past glories of Greece with a more kind- 
 ling heart than Byron — this is not the kind of man whom we 
 can call a cynic. Both in Spain and Greece the history of the 
 great men of past ages is made to reflect interest on their 
 modern descendants, and the deepest note in both Cantos 
 is heard where the poet awakes these nations to struggle once 
 more to regain their freedom. 
 
 their publication : they would have ruined the poem, and excluded Byron 
 from the ultra-f aahionable society to which Childe Harold was to be his passport. 
 
ANALYSIS. 
 
 Canto I. 
 
 i. An abortive Invocation. 
 
 2-13. The Childe's evil courses, his ancestry, his family 
 seat, his ennui, and his resolve to visit distant lands : his 
 "Farewell" to England. 
 
 14-29. The Pilgrim in Portugal. Reflections on the 
 Portuguese, on the scenery round Lisbon, especially the 
 beautifully situated convent at Cintra, the Convention of 
 1808, the palace of the queen of Portugal at Mafra. 
 
 30-33. Transition stanzas : the pilgrim's journey from 
 Portugal to Spain. 
 
 34-53. The pilgrim, on reaching Spanish territory, thinks with- 
 •disdain on the Invaders, who have reduced northern and middle 
 Spain, but have found much opposition in the south. The poet 
 remembers Spain's former success in expelling the Moors ; 
 he contrasts the spirit of chivalry in her mediaeval and her 
 modern form, and gives us an animated description of the 
 recent battle of Talavera. 
 
 54-59 ; 64 ; 81. The subject of these eight stanzas is 
 the women of Spain, of whom the Maid of Saragoza is the 
 type. By virtue of their beauty and heroism they surpass 
 the women of all other countries. Their delight in cruel 
 sport is not denied, nor the freedom of their manners. 
 
 60-64. Parnassus is apostrophised in these stanzas — which 
 are a reminiscence of the poet's passing visit of r6 Decem- 
 ber 1809. 
 
 65-80. Reflexions of Cadiz, Spain's "capital of pleasure,'.' 
 and a description of the Sunday amusement of bull-fighting. 
 An interpolation (69-70) on a London Sunday. 
 
 82-84. The seductions of Cadiz have no effect on Harold 
 (witness the stanzas "To Inez"). 
 
 85-90. Reflections of the Peninsular War. 
 
 91-2. Tribute to a friend carried off by the War. 
 
 93. Transition Stanza. ; 
 
xlii Introduction 
 
 Canto II. 
 
 I. An abortive Invocation. 
 
 2-15. The poet's reflections in Athens, especially upon, 
 her despoilers : (1) Alaric, (2) the Turks, (3) the Scottish peer 
 who has recently robbed the Parthenon of her treasures. 
 The last of these is the worse. 
 
 16-28. The first part of Harold's voyage to Greece. Reflec- 
 tions on a sea voyage. (25-27 is a poem complete in itself on 
 the advantages of Nature over Civilisation). 
 
 29-41. The second part of the voyage. — The poet passes 
 Calypso's isles, (whose seductions move Harold as little as- 
 those of Cadiz), Ithaca, and Leucadia's cape. 
 
 42-72. Harold's travels in Albania. (1) The journey to. 
 Tepalen. (2) All Pasha and his court, (3) The shipwreck, (4) 
 The night at Utraikey, and the war-song Tambourgi. 
 
 73-77 1 83-93. ( T ) Contrast between ancient and modern 
 Greeks, (2) The loveliness of Nature survives while monu- 
 ments fall into ruin, (3) Will Greece ever regain her freedom ? 
 (78-82 is an interpolation on the carnival at Constantinople^. 
 
 94-98. The Pilgrim's home-coming is saddened by the los^ 
 ot "the parent, friendj and the more than friend." 
 
Introduction xliii 
 
 ORIGINAL PREFACE. 
 
 The following poem was written, for the most part, amidst 
 the scenes which it attempts to describe. It was begun in 
 Albania ; and the parts relative to Spain and Portugal were 
 composed from the author's observations in those countries. 
 Thus much it may be necessary to state for the correctness of 
 the descriptions. The scenes attempted to be sketched are in 
 Spain, Portugal, Epirus, Acarnania, and Greece. There, for 
 the present, the poem stops : its reception will determine 
 whether the author may venture to conduct his readers to the 
 capital of the East, through Ionia and Phrygia : these two 
 cantos are merely experimental. 
 
 A fictitious character is introduced for the sake of giving 
 some connection to the piece ; which, however, makes no pre- 
 tension to regularity. It has been suggested to me by friends, 
 on whose opinions I set a high value, that in this fictitious 
 character, "Childe Harold," I may incur the suspicion of 
 having intended some real personage : this I beg leave, once 
 for all, to disclaim — Harold is the child of imagination, for the 
 purpose I have stated. In some very trivial particulars, and 
 those merely local, there might be grounds for such a notion ; 
 but in the main points, I should hope, none whatever. * * * 
 
 ADDITION TO THE PREFACE. 
 
 I now leave "Chide Harold'' to live his day, such as he is ; it 
 had been more agreeable, and certainly more easy, to have 
 drawn an amiable character. It had been easy to varnish 
 over his faults, to make him do more and express less, but he 
 never was intended as an example, further than to show, that 
 early perversion of mind and morals leads to satiety of past 
 pleasures and disappointment in new ones, and that even 
 the beauties of nature, and the stimulus of travel (except 
 ambition, the most powerful of all excitements) are lost on a 
 soul so consituted, or rather misdirected. Had I proceeded 
 with the poem, this character would have deepened as he 
 drew to the close ; for the outline which I once meant to fill 
 up for him was, with some exceptions, the sketch of a modern 
 Timon, perhaps a poetical Zeluco. 
 
TO IANTHE 
 
 Not in those climes 1 where I have late been straying,* 
 Though Beauty long hath there been matchless deem'd ; 
 Not in those visions to the heart displaying 
 Forms 3 which it sighs but to have only dream'd, 
 Hath aught like thee in truth or fancy 4 seem'd : 
 
 1 — 5. Facing the title-page of the 7th edition of Ohilde Harold 
 (published in 1814) there appeared the sylph-like portrait of a 
 beautiful child, the Ianthe ("Flower o' the Naroissus") of these 
 dedicatory stanzas This was the Lady Charlotte Harley, second 
 daughter of the Earl and Countess of Oxford. Byron made the 
 acquaintance of the girl's parents in 1812, his annus mirabilis, 
 when Childe Harold took the reading public by storm, and made 
 him, as its author, the lion of London society. 
 
 It is not difficult to read into the lines (1) an oblique compliment 
 to the Countess, one of his numerous hostesses of those days, 
 whom be elsewhere speaks of as "the mother of several children 
 who were perfect angels ;" and perhaps also (2) his amende 
 honourable for sundry disparaging remarks about his country- 
 women which we shall meet with in the body of the poem, — see 
 e. g. Canto First, stanzas 57 & 58. He has come across admirable 
 types of womankind in the various foreign countries he has 
 visited, but he yields the palm to a daughter of his own race, 
 "as sweet as English air can make her." 
 
 1. * climes, regions (without reference to climate). Spain and 
 Turkey are meant, both famous for their beautiful women. 
 
 2 late(ly) been straying, wandering witnout any fixed object: 
 to style himself a pilgrim was the merest affectation. 
 
 3 Forms : the ideal creations of the mind in dreams. The 
 poet sighs because, on awaking, these vanish into their native 
 nothingness. Byron, happily, is not addicted to such sentiment- 
 ality as this, which can only be described as namby-pamby. 
 
 1 in truth repeats "in those climes" : or fancy repeats "in 
 those visions." 
 
2 Childe Harold 
 
 Nor, having seen thee, shall I vainly seek 
 To paint those charms which varied 5 as they beam'd — ■ 
 To such as see thee not my words were weak ; 
 To those who gaze on thee what language could they speak ? 
 
 Ah ! may'st thou ever be what now thou art, 1 
 Nor unbeseem the promise of thy spring, 2 
 As fair in form, as warm yet pure in heart, 
 Love's image 3 upon earth without his wing, 
 And guileless beyond Hope's 4 imagining! 
 And surely she 5 who now so fondly rears 
 Thy youth, in thee, thus hourly brightening, 6 
 Beholds the rainbow 7 of her future years, 
 Before whose heavenly hues 8 all sorrow disappears. 
 
 5 varied seems to state the reason why these charms cannot be 
 painted — the brush could not delineate the changes of expression. 
 The poet goes on to say that a portrait would be useless to those 
 Who have never seen Ianthe, and superfluous to those who have had 
 this privilege. 
 
 2. * what now thou art : as full of perfections (these the 
 stanza goes on to enumerate). 
 
 a unbeseem. ..spring, disappoint the promise of your youth. 
 
 3 image, perfect embodiment, without his wing. This is 
 added because the poet has very little belief in the constancy of 
 woman's love. He seems to forget what elsewh re he has told us — 
 that such constancy is even undesirable, for "Love has no gift so 
 grateful as his wings" (I. 82, 6). 
 
 4 Hope=the hopeful lover, as again at 5, S below. See also 
 11.35,7. 
 
 B she, the Countess of Oxford. 
 
 6 brightening, growing ever fairer. 
 
 7 the rainbow = the hope (metonymy). 
 
 8 heavenly hues : not less appropriate to the child than to 
 the rainbow. 
 
Childe Harold 3 
 
 3- 
 
 Young Peri 1 of the West ! — 'tis well for me 
 My years already doubly number thine ; * 
 My loveless 3 eye unmoved may gaze on thee, 
 And safely view thy ripening beauties shine ; 
 Happy, I ne'er shall see them in decline ; 4 
 Happier, that while all younger hearts shall bleed, 5 
 Mine shall escape the doom 6 thine eyes assign 
 To those whose admiration shall succeed, 7 
 But 8 mix'd with pangs 9 to Love's evenloveliest hours decreed. 
 
 Oh ! let that eye, which, wild as the Gazelle's, 1 
 Now brightly bold or beautifully shy, 2 
 
 3. * Peri, in Persian mythology, is a. fairy or good genius. 
 Compare "fairy fingers" 5, 6 below. 
 
 2 already doubly number thine. "In 1814, when the dedi- 
 cation was published, Byron completed his twenty-sixth year, 
 Ianthe her thirteenth" (0). The difference in their ages excludes 
 the tender passion. 
 
 ' loveless = passionless. 
 
 4 Happy (in this, that) I ne'er shall see thee in decline, i. e. 
 when she is past her prime. 
 
 6 Ianthe's contemporaries are destined (like Polonius) to 
 "suffer much extremity for love" : the poet is glad he will not be of 
 their number ! 
 
 " the doom, the evil fate. 
 
 7 succeed, be subsequent to (mine). (This is the only pos- 
 sible meaning of the word here — if Ianthe is to be a good woman). 
 
 8 But (whose admiration shall be) mixed etc. 
 
 pangs : those "aching joys" of which Burns sings so well 
 and so often in his love songs. 
 
 4. ' Gazelle, a, kind of antelope with beautiful, prominent 
 eyes. In the portrait of Ianthe (reproduced in Coleridge's Edition) 
 the eyes are particularly striking. , , 
 
 3 bold. ..shy : varying according to her different moods. 
 
4 Childe Harold 
 
 Wins as it wanders, dazzles where it dwells, 8 
 Glance o'er this page, nor to my verse deny 
 That smile for which my breast might vainly sigh, 4 
 Could I to thee be ever more than friend : 
 This much, dear maid, accord ; nor question why 6 
 To one so young my strain I would commend, 
 But bid me with my wreath 6 one matchless lily 7 blend. 
 
 5- 
 Such is thy name with this my verse entwined ; x 
 And long as kinder 2 eyes a look shall cast 
 On Harold's page, 3 Ianthe's here enshrined 
 Shall thus be first beheld, forgotten last : 
 My days once number'd, 4 should this homage past 6 
 
 3 Inversion of natural order : "wanders" belongs to "shy" and 
 "dwells" belongs to "bold". 
 
 * He would fain find favour in her eyes as a poet, seeing he 
 cannot as a lover. 
 
 5 nor question why etc. Childe Harold is hardly suited for 
 a young person's perusal, but Byron hopes the day may come when 
 the Lady Charlotte will do him the honour to glance through his 
 pages : the fair ?ex were not the least devoted admirers of his 
 poetry. 
 
 my wreath (of bay), such as poets wear round their fore- 
 heads. The "one leaf" of I. 63, 8 seems to have sprouted into a 
 considerable plant ! 
 
 7 one matchless lily : a play, no doubt on the pet name he 
 has bestowed upon the child. We are not so much concerned with 
 the real meaning of "Ianthe" (not to be found in Liddell and Scott) 
 as with what Byron took to be the meaning — not "violet", but 
 "lily." 
 
 5. l entwined, associated by means of this dedication. 
 
 2 kinder than Ianthe's : the poet carefully guards himself 
 against seeming presumption. 
 
 3 Harold's page : identifying himself with his hero ! Ianthe's 
 (page)=the Dedication, 
 
 4 my days once numbered (absolute clause) = when I am dead. 
 ' this homage past, this almost forgotten tribute of praise. 
 
 viz, the present stanzas. 
 
Childe Harold 5 
 
 Attract thy fairy fingers near the lyre" 
 Of him who hail'd thee, loveliest as thou wast, 
 Such is the most my memory 7 may desire ; 
 Though more than Hope can claim, could Friendship 
 less require ? 
 
 * the lyre. There seems to be a latent analogy in the poet'? 
 iriind between the pages of his book and the strings of a lyre. 
 
 7 my memory. The poet hopes to exist after his death in 
 the remembrance of his friends and those who read his books. This 
 idea (to which George Eliot has given classical expression in her 
 well-known lines "O may I join the choir invisible") is often come 
 » cross in Byron's poetry. 
 
CHILDE HAROLD'S PILGRIMAGE. 
 
 CANTO THE FIRST, 
 i. 
 Oh, thou ! in Hellas 1 deem'd of heavenly birth,* 
 Muse ! form'd or fabled 8 at the minstrel's will ! 
 Since shamed 4 full oft by later lyres on earth, 
 Mine dares not call thee from thy sacred hill :" 
 Yet there I've wander'd by thy vaunted rill, 6 
 
 1. The first stanza is a mere apostrophe to the Muse — the poet 
 disdains to invoke her aid, for this is a practice which (he thinks) 
 has turned iuto a mere convention among modern poets. Even 
 though, like few other poets, he can boast that he knows the Muse's 
 ancient haunts ("Happier in this than wisest bards have been'' 
 62, 1), yet he must refrain from seeking inspiration from this 
 source because 
 
 (1) he has too little faith in her existence ; ^ 
 
 (2) latter-day poets seem to have invoked her to no purpose ; 
 
 (3) the poet's present verses are too humble to warrant an 
 appeal to divine aid. This stanza was an afterthought — added 
 while the MS. was passing through the press : "the poem else will 
 open too abruptly," he writes to Murray his publisher (Letter 179). 
 
 1. T Hellas = ancient Greece. The word is now restricted to 
 Middle Greece, but originally it meant any territory where Greeks 
 were settled, however far it might be from their original home. 
 
 a of heavenly birth : the Muses were the daughters of Zeus. 
 
 3 formed or fabled = invented. The only existence they 
 ever had was in poets' dreams or fancies. 
 
 4 since (thou hast been) shamed i. e. covered with disgrace. 
 later lyres = contemporary poetry (in which the Muse has been 
 invoked). Byron's opinions about Wordsworth, Southey etc. were 
 given to the world in the famous satire called Mnglish Bards and 
 Scotch Reviewers. 
 
 5 thy sacred hill : Parnassus, apostrophised in stanza 60. 
 
 6 thy vaunted rill : the Castalian spring, from which Byron 
 and his friend Hobhouse "drank deep. ..without feeling sensible 
 of any extraordinary effect" Journey through Albania, i, 248. 
 
8 Childe Harold [ CANT0 
 
 Yes ! sigh'd o'er Delphi's long deserted shrine, 7 
 Where, save that feeble fountain, all is still ; 
 Nor mote my shell 8 awake the weary Nine 
 To grace so plain a tale — this lowly lay of mine. 
 
 2. 
 Whilome* in Albion's isle there dwelt a youth, 
 Who ne z in virtue's ways did take delight ; 
 But spent his days in riot most uncouth, 3 
 
 7 sigh'd o'er (the ruin and desolation around) Delphi's... 
 ' shrine. See note on Apollo's "grot", 62, 5. 
 
 8 Nor mote ( = might) my shell : the lyre was made originally 
 of the shell (or carapace) of a tortoise. 
 
 9 the weary Nine: these were (1) the Muse of epic song, 
 (2) the Muse of history, (3) the Muse of lyric song, (4) the Muse 
 of comedy, (5) the Muse of tragedy, (6) the Muse of dancing, 
 (7) the Muse of erotic poetry, (8) the Muse of sacred songs, (9) 
 the Muse of astronomy. It is the first of these that the poet 
 addresses in line 1. Her name was Calliope ("she of the fair 
 voice") and she is spoken of as their leader. 
 
 2-13. In this opening section.'ending with "Childe Harold's 
 Good Night", an atmosphere of mediaeval romance is thrown 
 round the hero of the poem, which makes it correspond in some 
 measure with its title. But though we seem, for a little while, 
 to be back to the period of the Crusades (see Dote on "paynim", 
 11, 9), we shall find that the Childe, as soon as he has crossed 
 "Biscay's sleepless bay", loses his original traces of knighthood, 
 and relapses into a personage not perceptibly different from the 
 modern tourist or globe-trotter. A youth of noble lineage, and 
 having every means of self-indulgence in his reach, our Childe, in 
 concert with evil companions of both sexes, spends his days and 
 nights in revelry and riot, until at length he finds pleasure to have 
 no more gratification for him. Oppressed with ennui, and stung 
 with occasional remorse, he now determines to leave his native 
 land in the hope of stimulating his blunted sensibility by the 
 excitement of foreign travel. 
 
 2. > Whilome = once upon a time. Albion ( — England) 
 and Albania (II. 38, 1) each derives its name from Latin cUbus = 
 white ; the former with reference to the chalk cliffs at Dover, the 
 latter with referenoe to its snowy range of mountain. 
 
 3 ne = not (a frequent archaism in this Canto). 
 
 * uncouth = unseemly, disreputable. 
 
*1 Childe Harold 9 
 
 And vex'd with mirth the drowsy ear of Night, 4 
 Ah me I s in sooth he was a shameless wight, 
 Sore given 6 ' to revel and ungodly glee ; 
 Few earthly things found favour in his sight 
 Save concubines and carnal companie, 
 And flaunting 7 wassailers 8 of high and low degree. 
 
 3- 
 Childe 1 Harold % was he hight 3 : — but whence 4 his name 
 And lineage long, it suits me not to say ; 
 Suffice it, that perchance 5 they were of fame, 
 And had been glorious in another day : 
 But one sad losel e soils a name for aye, 
 
 * continued his revels far into the night. 
 
 Ah me ! The poet is (or feigns to be) shocked at these 
 dissipations, wight = person. 
 
 8 sore given to = grievously addicted to. 
 
 ' flaunting = ostentatious. 
 
 8 wassailers = boon companions, literally "those who drink to 
 the health of one another" — encouraging dissipation under oover 
 of good fellowship. 
 
 3. l Childe, in mediaeval times, designated a youth under 
 training iu arms and who aspired to knightly honours : the word 
 is a familiar one to readers of the Faery Queene. 
 
 a Harold was substituted for "Burun" when the poem was 
 destined to be published. "Burun" occurs in the MS. through- 
 out ; it was the older form of "Byron" (e. g. in Doomsday Book). 
 
 3 was he hight = he hight=he was called. "Hight" (the only 
 English verb with a passive sense) is more idiomatically used 
 by Shakespeare than by Byron. Compare from Midsummer Night's 
 Dream (V. 1. 140) : 
 
 That grisly beast that Lion hight by name. 
 
 * whence (were derived) 
 
 * perchance here (as at 57, 9) introduces a parenthetic, rather 
 than a doubtful, remark. The poet was inordinately proud of his 
 pedigree, which he traced back to the time of William the 
 Conqueror. 
 
 4 one sad losel, the hero of the poem. "Sad" e "shock- 
 
10 Childe Harold [ CANT0 
 
 However mighty in the olden time •/ 
 Not all that heralds rake from coffin'd clay," 
 Nor florid prose, nor honeyed lies of rhyme, 9 
 Can blazon 10 evil deeds, or consecrate a crime. 11 
 
 4- 
 Childe Harold hask'd him 1 in the noontide sun, 
 Disporting there like any other fly ;* 
 Nor deem'd before his little day 8 was done 
 One blast* might chill him into misery. 
 But long ere scarce a third 6 of his pass'd by, 
 Worse than adversity the Childe befell ; 
 
 ing" (half playful in sense), losel = ne'er-do-well, a person lost 
 to shame. 
 
 ' in the olden time, -en is a relie of A. 8. inflection. "Olden" 
 occurs only in this phrase. 
 
 8 rake from coffined clay : discover by ransacking among 
 old family records— a good deal of such "raking" was done by 
 Byron himself at Newstead, where there was plenty of oppor- 
 tunity for it. By "clay" of course is meant that into which dead 
 bodies are turned in their tombs. Compare {Hamlet V. I. 235) : 
 
 Imperious Caesar dead and turned to clay. 
 
 9 Encomiums by chroniclers or ballad-writers. 
 
 10 blazon, set off, add lustre to. 
 
 11 consecrate a crime. The fact that a man's ancestors 
 fought in the crusades cannot shield their descendant from disgrace, 
 if he falls into evil courses, (a negative statement of the principle 
 of noblesse oblige) 
 
 4. ' him = himself. The use of the personal pronoun in » 
 reflexive sense is one of the commonest archaisms in this poem. 
 
 3 any other fly. Idleness and aimlessness puts him and them 
 in the same category. 
 
 3 little day, brief span of life. 
 
 4 One blast, the "adversity" of line 6. The event referred to 
 is more plainly spoken of in the next stanza. 
 
 5 scarce a third. Byron was a little over twenty-one when 
 he first left England. 
 
Childe Harold 11 
 
 TBerHoatheaiieTrrhis native land to dwell, 
 Which seem'd to him more lone than Eremite's 7 sad cell. 
 
 5- 
 For he through Sin's long labyrinth 1 had run, 
 Nor made atonement* when he did amiss, 
 Had sigh'd to many 8 though he loved but one, 
 And that loved one, alas ! could ne'er be his.* 
 Ah, happy she ! to 'scape from him whose kiss 
 Had 6 been pollution unto aught so chaste ; 
 Who soon had left her charms for vulgar bliss, 6 
 And spoil'd her goodly lands 7 to gild his waste, 
 Nor calm domestic peace had ever deign'd to taste. 5 
 
 6 the fulness of satiety is tautological, for "satiety" = "full- 
 ness." Premature and excessive indulgence has made him old 
 before his time. 
 
 7 Eremite : literally "one who dwells in the desert" ; a hermit 
 or anchorite. 
 
 5. 1 labyrinth, which is easier to enter than to get out of. The 
 idea is expanded in Spenser's famous picture of the "Cave of 
 Error." 
 
 3 atonement, amends for his evil doings (to those whom he 
 had wronged), 
 
 3 sighed to many. We would expect no such confession as 
 this from the man who, in stanza 33 of Canto II, bemocks "the 
 lovers' whining crew." 
 
 4 could ne'er be his. We have seen in the Introduction how 
 Miss Chaworth disdained the advances of the "lame boy" at 
 Newstead in the summer vacation of 1804. Byron used to speak 
 of this as the one passion of his whole life. 
 
 5 Had, would have. 6 vulgar bliss, degrading connections, 
 "carnal company." 
 
 ' spoiled her goodly lands : as Byron's father had done, 
 when he married Miss Goidon of Gicht. 
 
 8 These words seem prophetic of Byron's own domestic unhappi- 
 ness. 
 
12 Childe Harold [canto 
 
 6. 
 
 / 
 
 / And now Childe Harold was sore sick at heart, 
 
 And from his fellow bacchanals 1 would 2 flee ; 
 [ "Tis said, at times the sullen tear would start, 
 I But Pride congeal'd the drop within his ee j 3 
 
 Apart he stalk'd in joyless reverie, 
 
 And from his native land resolved to go, 
 ; And visit scorching climes beyond the sea ; 
 
 With pleasure drugg'd 4 he almost long'd for woe, 5 
 , And e'en for change of scenelwould seek (he shades below. 6 
 
 7- 
 The Childe departed from his father's hall i 1 
 It was a vast and venerable 15 pile ; 
 So old, it seemed only not to fall, 3 
 Yet strength was pillar'd 4 in each massy aisle. 
 
 6. ' bacchanals, rioters, "wassailers" (2, 9) ; literally vota- 
 ries of Bacchus, the god of wine and inspiration. 
 
 * would = was wont to. 
 
 3 ee=eye (archaic and Lowland Scotch). 
 
 * drugged, nauseated or cloyed. 
 
 s almost longed for woe : in search of a new sensation ! 
 
 would seek the shades below, would have visited the 
 infernal regions, the abodes of the dead. This perhaps hints at 
 suicide. See Byron' Journal, 10 Dec. 1813, and compare ifroni the 
 Epistle to Augusta) : 
 
 And I at times have found the struggle hard, 
 And thought of shaking off my bonds of clay. 
 
 7. ' his father's hall : Newstead Abbey, inherited by the poet 
 from his great uncle. "hall"=manor-house. 
 
 ?. venerable, because of its age and its religious associations. 
 
 3 only not to fall =almost on the point of falling. 
 
 4 strength was pillared etc., massive pillars upheld the aisles 
 of the building. The "aisles" of a church are the lateral divisions 
 (literally wings) : the centre being the "nave" ( = ship). 
 
i] Childe Harold 13 
 
 Monastic dome ! 6 condemn'd to uses vile ! 
 Where Superstition once had made her den 
 Now Paphian 6 girls were known to sing and smile ; 
 And monks might deem their time was come agen, 
 If ancient tales 7 say true, nor wrong these holy men. 
 
 8. 
 Yet oft-times in his maddest mirthful mood 1 
 Strange" pangs would flash along Childe Harold's brow, 
 As if the memory of some deadly feud 3 
 
 5 Monastic dome ! It was in the possessiou of the monks till 
 1540, when, on the dissolution of the monasteries, it was presented 
 by Henry VIII to Sir John Byron, who is commonly regarded as 
 the founder of the family. 
 
 6 Paphian. See note on Paphos, stanza 60, Byron, by what 
 Sir Leslie Stephen describes as "inverse hypocrisy" loved to paint 
 himself worse than he really was, and must not here (or in stanza 
 11) be taken too seriously. Some of his associates in these days 
 were certainly men of high principle, as Mommsen here reminds us. 
 He was "gaily dispensing the hospitalities of Newstead to a 
 party of young college friends, whom, with the prospect of so long 
 an absence from England, he had assembled round him at the 
 Abbey, for a sort of festive farewell." Moore's Life, p. 32. They 
 amused themselves by dressing up as monks, Byron acting the 
 part of Abbot. 
 
 7 ancient tales are likely enough to be coloured by imagina- 
 tion : we cannot lay very much stress on the oblique hint in the 
 text "holy men" is very disagreeable sarcasm. Carlyle's pictur- 
 esque description of one of these numerous religious communities, 
 drawn from contemporary documents, is much more favourable to 
 the morals of the religious orders, though even he admits that the 
 old monks "were not without secularity." See Past and Present, 
 bk. ii, "The ancient Monk." 
 
 8. * maddest mirthful mood, (alliteration). Among the other 
 freakish things they did was to drink their wine out of » human 
 skull that had been fashioned into a goblet. 
 
 1 Strange at such a time and place, pangs : sudden and vio- 
 lent pains, whether physical or mental. 
 
 3 some deadly feud, a family quarrel leading to bloodshed. 
 One cf.n hardly help here recalling to mind, the duel in which the 
 " wicked earl," Byron's predecessor at Newstead, killed his cousin 
 Mr. Chaworth. 
 
14 Childe Harold [° ANTO 
 
 Or disappointed passion 4 lurk'd below : 
 But this none knew, nor haply cared to know ; s 
 For his was not that open, artless soul 
 That feels relief by bidding sorrow flow, 
 Nor sought he friend to counsel or condole, 
 Whate'er this grief mote 7 be, which he could not control. 
 
 9- 
 And none did love him : though to hall and bower 1 
 He gather'd revellers from far and near, 
 He knew them flatt'rers of the festal hour ; 
 The heartless parasites 2 of present cheer. 
 Yea ! none did love him — not his lemans 3 dear — 
 But pomp and power alone are woman's care,* 
 And where these are light Eros 5 finds a feere ; 
 
 4 disappointed passion : perhaps Mary Chaworth's refusal 
 to marry him. She was this man's descendant. 
 
 Nor haply cared to know = and perhaps had no interest in 
 knowing. 
 
 6 This explains why " none knew," viz (1) because he never 
 gave vent to his sorrow, whether in words or in tears ; and (2) he 
 never took others into his confidence. (The real Lord Byron took 
 the whole world into his confidence regarding the most private 
 affairs of his domestic life). ' mote : compare 1, 8 above. 
 
 9. » hall and bower : the mediaeval distinction between the 
 public and private apartments of a manorial building. Compare 
 "Lady's bower", 55, i. 
 
 3 heartless parasites etc. Line 4 is a mere echo of line 3. 
 "Parasites" are those who live at the expense of a rich man 
 ("sponge" on him) and pay him (so to speak ) with their flattery. But 
 Hobhouse, Matthews and the rest of Byron's set were as high- 
 minded as himself, and it was chiefly out of regard for them that 
 Byron in his Preface maintained that his hero was a purely ficti- 
 tious person. 
 
 3 lemans, sweethearts. A. S. leof, dear ; manu, a man or woman. 
 
 * This sweeping assertion is both unchivalrous and un- 
 warranted. 
 
 * light Eros : the god of Love, in the character of match- 
 
J ] Childe Harold 15 
 
 Maidens, like moths, are ever caught by glare," 
 And Mammon 7 wins his way where Seraphs 8 might despair. 
 
 10. 
 
 Childe Harold had a mother — not forgot, 
 Though parting 1 from that mother he did shun ; 
 A sister 2 whom he loved, but saw her not 
 Before his weary pilgrimage 3 begun : 
 If friends he had, he bade adieu to none. 
 Yet deem not thence his breast a breast of steel :* 
 Ye, who have known what 'tis to dote upon 
 A few dear objects, will in sadness feel 
 Such partings break the heart 5 they fondly 6 ' hope to heal. 
 
 maker or pander (not exactly the part he is supposed to play). 
 The poet means here that a titled or a wealthy lover soon wins a 
 woman over. feere=mate, (archaic). 
 
 8 glare="pomp and power". 
 
 ' Mammon, the god of riches (Matth, 6, 24), here means a 
 moneyed suitor. , 
 
 8 The poet overlooks the fact that Seraphs are not likely to 
 compete with libertines. 
 
 10. * parting : object of "shun". The poet was sincerely 
 attached to his mother, but, because of her violent temper, found 
 it impossible to live under the same roof with her. Of 29 letters 
 written during his two years' residence abroad, 18 are addressed to 
 Mrs. Byron — and these are the longest and most entertaining. 
 (Prothero, Letters and Journals, Vol. i.) 
 
 2 A sister. To his half sister Augusta he was strongly attached, 
 but he had not seen her during the three years previous to his 
 departure. 
 
 3 pilgrimage. Mommsen says he was much more of a 
 tourist than a pilgrim. A pilgrim has some religious object before 
 him, and is under a vow to perform it; but Byron was only an 
 elegant loafer, seeking for change of scene in order to keep off 
 ennui. 
 
 4 a breast of steel, proof against feeling. 
 
 5 break the heart : wring it, making the leave-taking all the 
 harder. ° fondly=vainly. 
 
16 Childe Harold f CANTO 
 
 ii. 
 
 His house, his home his heritage, his lands, 
 The laughing dames in whom he did delight, 
 Whose large blue eyes, fair locks, and snowy hands, 
 Might shake the saintship of an anchorite, 1 
 And long had fed his youthful appetite ; 
 His goblets brimm'd with every costly wine, 
 And all that mote to luxury invite, 
 Without a sigh 2 he left, to cross the brine, 
 And traverse Paynim shore?,* and pass Earth's central line.* 
 
 12. 
 
 The sails were fill'd 1 and fair 1 ' the light winds blew. 
 As glad 3 to waft him from his native home ; 
 And fast the white rocks 4 faded from his view, 
 
 11. l anchorite, a hermit, one who retires from the world. 
 Byron is more cynical than Chaucer who describes such a man 
 as "souded [soldered, fixed fast] in virginitee." 
 
 2 without a sigh. "I leave England without regret", he 
 writes from Falmouth, and adds "I shall return to it without 
 pleasure". (Letter 125). 
 
 3 Paynim shores= Eastern lands. The expression carries 
 us back to the time of the Crusades, when "paynim" did not 
 exactly mean "pagan" or "heathen", but rather Saracen or Turk. 
 
 * Earth's central line, the equator. But Byron never 
 "crossed the line" in his life ! He defends the expression to his 
 friend Dallas by saying that "before Childe Harold left England, 
 it was his full intention to traverse Persia, and return by India, 
 which he could not have done without passing the equinoxial." 
 (Letter 180). 
 
 12. * filled, distended with wind. 
 
 2 a fair wind is one that helps the vessel along, (as a head wind 
 opposes its progress). s As (if) glad. 
 
 4 the white rocks (as we saw at 2, 1,) give their name to 
 the whole island of which they form a corner. It seems that 
 Harold sails from Dover ; Byron took the Lisbon packet from 
 Falmouth. 
 
'•> Childe Harold 17 
 
 And soon were lost in circumambient 5 foam : 
 And then it may be, of his wish to roam 
 Repented he, but in his bosom slept 
 The silent thought," nor from his lips did come 
 One word of wail, whilst others 7 sate and wept, 
 And to the reckless 8 gales unmanly moaning kept. 9 
 
 13 
 But when the sun was sinking in the sea 
 He seized his harp, which he at times could string, 1 
 And strike, albeit with untaught 8 melody, 
 When deem'd he no strange ear was listening : 3 
 And now his fingers o'er it he did fling, 
 And tuned his farewell in the dim twilight. 
 While flew the vessel on her snowy wing, 
 And fleeting shores receded from his sight, 
 Thus to the elements 4 he pour'd his last "Good Night." 
 
 circumambient : a picturesque word=surrounding or encom 
 passing (the vessel or the shore). 
 
 8 repents when it is too late to draw back from his resolu- 
 tion — but this is left a little doubtful. His mood will be more re- 
 solute a few years hence, when he set out a second time from his 
 native land : Compare (Canto III, stanza 1) : 
 
 I depart 
 Whither I know not ; but the hour's gone by, 
 When Albion's lessening shores eould grieve or glad mine eye. 
 
 7 others, such as his yeoman and page. 
 
 8 reckless, unsympathetic. 
 
 8 unmanly moaning kept. "Unmanly," as Mommsen point* 
 out, is an adverb="in unmanly fashion" ; while "moaning kept" = 
 "kept moaning"- 
 
 13. ' string = tune or play. 
 
 ' untaught, artless (transferred epithet). 
 
 3 When deemed he etc., when he thought no critical stranger 
 was within earshot. 
 
 * the elements : such as the sun, the waves, the deserts and 
 ■caves. ' 
 
18 Childe Harold t CAST0 
 
 (•) 
 
 Adieu, adieu ! my native shore 
 
 Fades o'er the waters blue ; 
 The night-winds sigh, the breakers roar, 
 
 And shrieks the wild sea-mew. 1 
 Yon sun that sets upon the sea 
 
 We follow' in his flight ; 
 Farewell awhile to him and thee, 
 
 My native Land — Good Night ! 
 
 (») 
 A few short hours and he will rise 
 
 To give the morrow birth ; 
 And I shall hail the main and skies, 
 
 But not my mother earth. 
 Deserted is my own good hall, 
 
 Its hearth is desolate ; 
 Wild weeds are gathering on the wall, 
 
 My dog howls at the gate. 
 
 (3) 
 "Come hither, hither, my little page ! 3 
 Why dost thou weep and wail ? 
 
 CHILDE HAROLD'S GOOD NIGHT. 
 
 In the following song, with Darmesteter and Mommsen, I have- 
 omitted the inverted commas from stanzas 1, 2, 8, 9, and 10, 
 which are found in the ordinary editions. 
 
 The Childe here unites the two functions of hnight and minstrel, 
 a. coinmor. thing in the earlier days of chivalry ; later on, the 
 latter accomplishment seems to have fallen greatly into contempt. 
 
 1 sea-mew=sea-gull. 
 
 5 we follow : because the vessel's course is westwards till she 
 enters the Bay. 
 
 * my little page ! This seems to refer to Robert Rushton, son 
 of one of Byron's tenants at Newstead, whom he sent back when 
 they got as far as Gibraltar. 
 
'] Childe Harold 19 
 
 Or dost thou dread the billows' rage, 
 
 Or* tremble at the gale ! 
 But dash the tear-drop from thine eye •, 
 
 Our ship is swift and strong : 
 Our fleetest falcon 5 scarce can fly 
 
 More merrily along." 
 
 (4) 
 ""Let winds be shrill, let waves roll high, 
 
 I fear not wave nor wind : 
 Yet marvel not, Sir Childe, that I 
 
 Am sorrowful in mind ; 
 For I have from my father gone, 
 
 A mother whom I love, 
 And have no friend, save these alone, 7 
 
 But thee — and One above. 
 
 (5) 
 "My father bless'd me fervently, 
 
 Yet did not much complain ; 
 But sorely will my mother sigh 
 
 Till I come back again." — 
 "Enough, enough, my little lad ! 
 
 Such tears become thine eye ; 
 If I thy guileless bosom had, 
 
 Mine own would not be dry. 
 
 * or...or = whether...or. 
 
 s falcon : another note of mediae valism. Attempts have 
 recently been made to re-introduce this sport in England, in which 
 we can see the workings of the inevitable " law of revival." 
 
 In this stanza the little page is supposed to reply to his 
 master. In the old ballads, it is often the context alone that 
 enables us to discover who are the several speakers. 
 
 7 alone is rednndaat. 
 
20 Childe Harold £ CANT0 
 
 (6) 
 
 "Come hither, hither, my staunch yeoman, 8 
 
 Why dost thou look so pale ? 
 Or dost thou dread a French foeman ? 
 
 Or shiver at the gale ?"' — 
 "Deem'st thou I tremble for my life ? 
 
 Sir Childe, I'm not so weak ; 
 But thinking on an absent wife 9 
 
 Will blanch a faithful cheek. 
 
 (7) 
 "My spouse and boys dwell near thy hall, 
 
 Along the bordering lake, 1 
 And when they on their father call, 
 
 What answer shall she make ?" — 
 "Enough, enough, my yeoman good, 
 
 Thy grief let none gainsay ; 2 
 But I, who am of lighter mood, 
 
 Will laugh 3 to flee away." 
 
 * staunch yeoman. If this, as is commonly supposed, is 
 meant for Byron's servant William Fletcher (a small farmer on 
 the Newstead estate), the epithet is purposely ironical. This man 
 was much less able than his master te put up with the rough- 
 and-tumble of foreign travel, and Byron repeatedly jests in his 
 letters about his weakness for his tea and many other home com- 
 forts — which he himself never felt the want of when away from 
 England. (Letters 14], 151, etc.). 
 
 * an absent wife. " He [Fletcher] begs leave to send half-a- 
 dozen sighs to Sally his spouse." (Letter 144, to Mrs. Byron). 
 
 1 bordering lake : an artificial pond at Newstead, from which 
 the monks supplied themselves with fish on fasting-days. 
 a gainsay, take exception to. 
 ' will laughs must laugh. 
 
T] Childe Harold 21 
 
 (8) 
 4 For who would trust the seeming sighs* 
 
 Of wife or paramour ? 
 Fresh feeres 8 will dry the bright blue eyes 
 
 We late saw streaming o'er. 
 For pleasures past I do not grieve, 
 
 Nor perils gathering near ; 
 My greatest grief is that I leave 
 
 No thing 7 that claims a tear. 
 
 (9) 
 And now I'm in the world alone, 
 
 Upon the wide, wide sea : 
 But why should I for others groan, 
 
 When none will sigh for me ? 
 Perchance my dog 8 will whine in vain, 
 
 Till fed by stranger hands ; 
 But long ere I come back again 
 
 He'd tear me where he stands. " 
 
 1 The rest of the song gives us the poet's private reflections, and 
 not his conversation with his domestics. 
 
 5 seeming sighs : more of Byron's cynicism ! 
 
 feeres, as in 9, 7. There the word was apparently feminine, 
 here it is certainly masculine. 
 
 7 No thing is much more emphatic than "nothing." He 
 had only two ties to England, Byron wrote to his mother from 
 Falmouth (22 June, 19 1809),—" yourself, and your present resi- 
 dence." "Deserted is my own good hall" is therefore inaccurate. 
 
 9 His cynicism extends even to his dog : before long it, too, 
 will take up with someone else, and forget its old master. 
 
 9 where he stands, on the spot, without hesitation. Byron 
 refused to omit this stanza at Dallas's suggestion (Letter 192). 
 ' ' I have no reason to suppose my dog better than his brother 
 brutes, mankind ; and Argos [Ulysses' dog] we know was a 
 fable." 
 
22 Childe Harold ^anto 
 
 Co) 
 With thee, my bark, I'll swifly go 
 
 Athwart the foaming brine ; 
 Nor care what land thou bear'st me to, 
 
 So 1 not again to mine. 
 Welcome, welcome, ye dark-blue waves ! 
 
 And when you fail my sight, 2 
 Welcome, ye deserts and ye caves ! 
 
 My native Land — Good Night ! 
 
 14 ' 
 On, on the vessel flies, the land is gone, 
 And winds are rude 1 in Biscay's sleepless bay. 
 Four days are sped, but with the fifth, anon, 2 
 New shores descried make every bosom gay ; 
 And Cintra's mountain 3 greets them on their way, 
 
 1 So = provided that it be, if only. 
 
 1 when you fail my sight = when I shall see you no more, i. e. 
 at the end of the voyage. 
 
 14-29. The pilgrim in Porttigal. Lisbon, as long as it is 
 viewed from a proper distance, appears a superb city ; but a near 
 acquaintance robs it of half its charms. Nature can be seen in 
 this sunny land in some of her most winning aspects : but the 
 people are a filthy, slothful and servile race ; ungrateful to the 
 Knglish, who are now assisting them against their enemies — for we 
 have left the middle ages behind us and find ourselves in modern 
 times, with Napoleon as the dominating force in the world. 
 
 Not far from Lisbon is Cintra, one of the most charming spots 
 on earth ; but its name must ever carry unpleasing associa- 
 tions to British ears ; for here, after victory in the field, British 
 generals were foiled at the council-table by the superior diplo- 
 macy of French generals. Mafra, a little to the north, reminds us 
 of the flight of the royal family to Brazil two years since, as soon 
 as danger threatened them from a foreign invasion. 
 
 14. ' rude=boisterous. The Bay has an ill name foi storms. 
 
 2 anon = presently. 
 
 3 Cintra's mountain, which Southey calls "The Rock of 
 Lisbon" (1700 feet), is the first object that would greet their eyes 
 when nearing the end of their voyage. 
 
'] Childe Harold 23 
 
 And Tagus*dashing onward to the deep, 
 His fabled golden tribute 5 bent to pay ; 
 And soon on board the Lusian pilots leap, 
 And steer 'twixt fertile shores where yet few rustics reap. 7 
 
 '5 
 Oh, Christ I 1 it is a goodly sight to see 
 What Heaven 2 hath done for this delicious land : 
 What fruits of fragrance 3 blush on every tree ! 
 What goodly prospects o'er the hills expand ! 
 But man would mar* them with an impious hand : 
 And when the Almighty lifts his fiercest scourge 5 
 'Gainst those who most transgress" his high command, 
 
 * The Tagus (560 miles) runs through the middle of the 
 Peninsula. 
 
 6 fabled golden tribute : not so fabvlous as Byron supposes, 
 for particles of gold are still found in its sands. More than once 
 Ovid alludes to this peculiarity of the Tagus. 
 
 " Lusian, a shortened form of Lusitanian. The Latin name for 
 Portugal was Lusilania (32, 1). 
 
 ' The corn at this time (6 July) would be waiting for the reaper, 
 but the peasantry were mostly under arms. 
 
 15. ' A gratuitously offensive interjection, as Mommsen 
 remarks. 
 
 " Heaven = Nature (18, 2). Byron's impressions are corro- 
 borated by many other travellers. 
 
 3 fruits of fragrance = fragrant fruits (the defining genitive). 
 
 * would mar, does his best to spoil. 
 
 5 his fiercest scourge (1. 5). ..his hot shafts: a mixture of 
 metaphors, each of which in its own way exprssses the divine retri- 
 bution. 
 
 those who most transgress are obviously the invaders 
 viz., the French armies that Napoleon has lately sent into 
 Portugal. It was now 18 months since their earliest intrusion, 
 and a longer period was to elapse before their final expulsion. 
 Byron's righteous indignation blazes out against Gaul's unsparing 
 lord, whom he elsewhere describes as "the Seourger of the world," 
 (52, 6).* 
 
 * But Byron'B feelings are assuredly not so strong as he states them. In the 
 ■original MS. line 9 reads as follows : 
 
 Those Lusian brutes and earth from worst oi wretches purge. 
 
24 Childe Harold C CANTO 
 
 With treble vengeance will his hot shafts urge 
 Gaul's locust host, and earth from fellest foemen purge. 
 
 16 
 
 What beauties doth Lisboa 1 first unfold ! 
 Her image floating on that noble tide, 2 
 Which poets vainly 3 pave with sands of gold, 
 But now whereon a thousand keels did ride 
 Of mighty strength, 4 since Albion was allied, 5 
 And to the Lusians did her aid afford : 
 A nation swoln with ignorance and pride, 6 
 Who lick yet loathe 7 the hand that waves the sword 
 To save them from the wrath of Gaul's unsparing lord. 
 
 16. 1 Lisboa is Portuguese for Lisbon. Next stanza shows 
 that first is emphatic. 
 
 2 tide = tidal river (metonymy). 
 
 3 vainly : but see note on 14, 4. Byron is inclined to speak 
 sarcastically of poets. 
 
 4 keels. ..of mighty strength = men-of-war, viz., the English 
 fleet. Ride (at anchor). 
 
 5 allied (to Portugal). The friendliest terms have existed 
 between the two nations almost uninterruptedly from the Crusades 
 to the present day. In July 1808, Wellesley (afterwards Duke 
 of Wellington) landed on the shores of Portugal with 30,000 British 
 troops, and Moore at the same place shortly after. 
 
 • Byron grudgingly admits in a note that the Portuguese had 
 manifestly improved since the date of his visit, that the "iron 
 duke" must have wrought a remarkable change in the character of 
 the nation. 
 
 7 lick yet loathe. Their dislike of their allies had sometimes 
 been asserted in the British parliament : to which Southey retorts : 
 "A more groundless assertion has seldom been hazarded there. If 
 there be a country in the world where the character of the 
 English is understood and England is loved as well as respected, it 
 is Portugal." Peninsular War, III, 387. 
 
 In other words, until the stanza was altered in deference to Murray (see 
 Letter 179), the "scourge" and the "shafts" were to be directed, not against 
 Napoleon, but against the Portuguese. 
 
*•! Childe Harold 2& 
 
 17 
 
 But whoso entereth within this town, 
 That, sheening far, 1 celestial seems to be. 
 Disconsolate will wander up and down, 
 'Mid many things unsightly to strange ee ; 2 
 For hut and palace show like filthily : 3 
 The dingy 4 denizens are rear'd in dirt ; 
 Ne 5 personage of high or mean degree 
 Doth care for cleanness of surtout" or shirt ; 
 Though shent 7 with Egypt's plague 8 unkempt, 9 unwash'd' 
 unhurt. l ° 
 
 17. ' sheening far, when shining or glistening from a dis- 
 tance (which in this instance "lends enchantment to the view"). 
 "Sheen" is properly a noun (as at 29, 7), though here employed as 
 a verb. 
 
 "It is not possible to conceive a more magnificent scene than the 
 entrance to the Tagus, and the gradual appearance of the beautiful 
 city upon its banks." Southey's Correspondence, II, 61. 
 
 3 to strange ee = in the eyes of strangers, if not in those of- 
 natives. Fielding says that Lisbon is "very beautiful at a dis- 
 tance," but "all idea of beauty vanishes at once" on a. nearer ap- 
 proach. ( Voyage to Lisbon, 1755). 
 
 3 show like fllthily=have a uniformly filthy appearance. 
 
 * dingy, grimy, dirty-looking. Notice the alliteration. 5 ne = no. 
 6 surtout (literally "over all") = loose coat. Such a garment is 
 
 needed by the inhabitants of Lisbon even in summer-time as a pro- 
 tection from the keen Atlantic winds. "The use of this sweltering 
 surtout, in some shape or other, is universal, even in the hottest 
 weather ; but the remedy is perhaps worse than the disease." 
 Matthews. 
 
 ' shent (p.p. of shend) here=disgraced. In Shakespeare it 
 means "chidden." 
 
 * Egypt's plague, lice and other vermin. But there is consider- 
 able latitude for choice among the ten plagues sent against Pha- 
 raoh. Southey, who knew Lisbon well, wrote that "every kind of 
 vermin that exists to punish the naatiness and indolence of man 
 multiplies in the heat and dirt of Lisbon ... Certain of the austerer 
 monks would think it wicked to kill any of their vermin." 
 
 9 unkempt, archaic for "uncombed." 
 
 10 unhurt, because the people are habituated to this filthy sta te- 
 of things. 
 
26 Childe Harold [° ANTO 
 
 18 
 Poor, paltry slaves ! yet born 'midst noblest scenes — 
 Why, Nature, waste thy wonders on such men ? 
 Lo 1 Cintra's glorious Eden 1 intervenes 
 In variegated maze 2 of mount and glen. 
 Ah me ! what hand can pencil guide, or pen, 3 
 To follow half on which the eye dilates 
 Through views more dazzling unto mortal ken 
 Than those whereof such things the bard relates. 
 Who to the awe-struck world unlock'd Elysium's gates ?* 
 
 19 
 The horrid crags, 1 by toppling* convent crown'd, 
 The cork-trees 3 hoar that clothe the shaggy* steep, 
 
 18. ' Eden (literally "delight") is UBed to describe a certain 
 beautiful village 17 miles to the N. W. of Lisbon, which others 
 besides Byron have likened to an earthly paradise. George Borrow 
 speaks of it as "a mingled scene oil fairy beauty, artificial elegance, 
 savage grandeur, domes, turrets, enormous trees, flowers, and 
 waterfalls, such as is met nowhere else beneath the sun."' Bible in 
 Spain, chap. i. 
 
 2 variegated maze etc., bewildering alternation of hill and 
 valley. 
 
 3 "can guide pencil or pen." The former = the artist's brush. 
 ""Neither painter nor poet passing through these regions could 
 hope by his art to set forth one half of the beauties here richly dis- 
 played around him, making him open his eyes at every turn with 
 feelings of astonishment." 
 
 * Elysium's gates, the entrance to the abode of the blessed in 
 the lower world. The bard would naturally be Virgil, but the 
 Latin poet's picture of the Klysian "fields" has little in common 
 with what is here told us of Cintra. Mommsen thinks Byron refers 
 to Milton's description ot the Garden of Eden in Paradise Lost, 
 bk. iv. 
 
 19. This stanza describes the mountain of Cintra — the poet 
 taking up his own challenge in 18, 5. 
 
 1 horrid crags=shaggy rocks. They have been described as 
 "needle-like peaks." 
 
 2 toppling, not "unsteady," but "hanging threateningly over 
 the brow of the hill." For the name of the convent, see 20, 4. 
 crowned, adorned as with a crown. 
 
'•1 Childe Harold 27 
 
 The mountain- moss by scorching skies imbrown'd, 
 The sunken glen," whose sunless shrubs must weep, 6 
 The tender azure of the unruffled deep, 7 
 The orange tints 8 that gild the greenest bough, 
 The torrents that from cliff to valley leap,'' 
 The vine on high, the willow biancti below, 
 Mix'd in one mighty scene, 10 with varied beauty glow. 
 
 Then slowly climb the many-winding 1 way, 
 And frequent turn 2 to linger as you go, 
 
 3 cork-trees are pronounced by Southey (who saw them grow- 
 ing here) to be the most beautiful of trees. 
 
 * shaggy is proleptio, for it is the trees that make the steep 
 look shaggy. 
 
 5 sunken i.e. below the level of the surrounding country. The 
 depth of the valley sets off the height of the hill. 
 
 * weep for lack of sunshine (pathetic fallacy). 
 ' the blue Atlantic. 
 
 8 Oranges and lemons both grow here in profusion. 
 
 4 "rush down the sides of the hill." 
 
 10 one mighty scene, whose effect, says Southey, is grotesque 
 rather than beautiful ; yet he declares (in words that strangely 
 tally with the present stanza) : "Their cork woods or fir woods, 
 and mountain glens, and rock pyramids, and ever-flowing fountains 
 and lemon-groves, ever in flower and in fruit, want only society to 
 become a Paradise." 
 
 20- Travellers have often remarked that friars in all countries 
 have chosen very beautiful situations for their convents. Another 
 convent described in this poem ("Monastic Zitza !" II. 48, 1) is 
 declared to be "in the most beautiful situation (always excepting 
 Cintra in Portugal) I ever beheld." (Letter 131). 
 
 And when he visits the monks at Athos, we shall find that he can 
 scarcely tear himself away from the "witching scene" (II. 27, 7). 
 Three beautifully situated convents ! 
 
 1 many-winding, with many turnings. There was (as we shall 
 see) a guide-post at every one of these. 
 
 * frequent(ly) turn (round) : to look about and take your fill of 
 the landscape. Only foolish travellers rush round the sights. 
 
28 Childe Harold [ CANT0 
 
 From loftier rocks new loveliness survey, 
 And rest ye at "Our Lady's house of woe ;" $ 
 Where frugal monks their little relics 4 show, 
 And sundry legends to the stranger tell : 
 Here impious men have punish'd been, and lo ! 
 Deep in yon cave 5 Honorius long did dwell, 
 In hope to merit Heaven by making earth a Hell. 
 
 And here and there, as up the crags you spring, 1 
 Mark many rude-carved crosses near the path : 
 Yet deem not these devotion's offering — 2 
 
 3 "Our Lady's house of Woe." "Our Lady of the Rock" 
 would have been a more accurate translation of the Portuguese, 
 Byron having confused "pena" = woe with "penha" = rock. The 
 most interesting thing about this little slip is the fact that Sir 
 Walter Scott at once detected something wrong on reading the 
 poem, and pointed it out to Byron : "Will your Lordship permit 
 me a verbal criticism on C. H. , were it only to show I have read 
 his Pilgrimage with attention ?" etc. (Lockhart's Life of Scott, 
 p. 221). 
 
 * relics, souvenirs of religious persons (e.g., of Honorius), — the 
 monks' stock-in-trade, says Mommsen, who thinks sundry is sarca- 
 stically used. 
 
 5 in yon cave, known as the Cork Cloister. Honorius was a 
 saint of local celebrity (who died in 1596, at the age of 95). 
 
 Southey found the spot inhabited by about twenty hermits of 
 the most ligid order of St. Francis, whose subterranean apart- 
 mer.ts were lighted only by holes, cut obliquely in the rocks. 
 
 Thoughtful Hindus have pointed out to me that Byron shows 
 lack of religious discernment in speaking about these voluntary 
 mortifications [the performance of "tapas"] as if they could have 
 the effect of turning earth into a hell.* 
 
 21. ' spring. Byron of course was on horseback, otherwise 
 he could only have hobbled up the ascent. 
 
 ,J devotion's offering: being cruciform in appearance, they 
 seemed to the stranger to have some religious significance. The 
 mistake here made by Byron about these finger-posts was natural 
 enough — at least in a country like Portugal. 
 
 •Byron in another mood is capable of envying the life of "godly eremite" and 
 of sighing forth the -wish that such had been his own lot ! If. 27. S. 
 
Childe Harold 29 
 
 These are memorials frail 3 of murderous wrath : 
 For wheresoe'er the shrieking victim hath 
 Pour'd forth his blood beneath the assassin's knife, 
 Some hand erects a cross of mouldering lath ; 
 And grove and glen with thousand such are rife 4 
 Throughout this purple lan<l, s where law secures not life. 
 
 On sloping mounds, or in the vale beneath, 
 Are domes 1 where whilome kings did make repair; 
 But now the wild flowers round them only breathe; 
 Yet ruin'd splendour still 1 is lingering .there. 
 And yonder towers the Prince's palace 3 fair : 
 
 1 frail : "of mouldering lath," line 7. 
 
 4 thousand. ..rife=are to be seen by the thousand ! (Truly a 
 traveller's tale !) 
 
 5 purple land, That "purple" = "stained with blood" appears 
 from Byron's own note at* loo. His master Pope has — "To spread 
 the purple shore with mountains of the dead" (Iliad, bk. i). 
 
 Byron's companion Hobhouse remarks on this stanza : "I don't 
 remember any crosses there. " A correspondent wrote about the 
 matter as follows in the Athenaeum, of July 19, 1873 : "The track 
 from the main road to the convent, rugged and devious, leading up 
 to the mountain, is marked out by numerous crosses now, just as it 
 was when Byron rode along it in 1809, and it would appear he fell 
 into the mistake of considering that the crosses were erected to 
 show where assassinations had be«n committed." 
 
 22. ' domes = palaces (not the ordinary sense of "cupolas"). 
 
 i ruined splendour=splended ruins (synecdoche!. The ruins 
 of a Moorish castle are still conspicuous upon a neighbouring peak. 
 
 3 The Prince-Regent (who became king in 1816) lived in this 
 palace till 1807 (his mother residing ten miles off, as we shall 
 presently see, 29, 2). As soon as they learnt that their country 
 was about to be invaded by the French, the royal family showed 
 the white feather and set sail for Brazil ! For many years 
 after his coronation (at Rio) the new king, John VI., refused to 
 return to take possession of his throne. The palace here mentioned 
 is described in Southey's Letters as a remarkably irregular building, 
 with two white towers conspicuous a long way off at sea. 
 {Southey's "towers" were in reality chimneys,] 
 
30 Childe Harold ^ CASW 
 
 There thou too, Vathek ! England's wealthiest son, 
 Once fortn'd 5 thy Paradise, as not aware 6 
 When wanton Wealth her mightiest deeds 7 hath done, 
 Meek Peace voluptuous lures was ever wont to shun. 8 
 
 2 3 
 
 Here didst thou dwell, here schemes of pleasure plan, 
 Beneath yon mountain's ever beauteous brow • 
 But now, as if a thing unblest by Man, 1 
 
 4 Vathek means' here the author of an Eastern romance of this 
 name, published first in French (1784) and thereafter (1787) in 
 English. William Beckford said he wrote this work at a single 
 sitting (disputed by Sir Leslie Stephen in the Diet, of Nat. 
 Biography, where he is credited with being "the greatest amateur 
 in English Literature"). Beckford's fame rests on his fabulous 
 wealth (almost like that of the hero of Monte Cristo), and on the 
 mystery with which he chose to surround himself. Byron and he 
 were once at the same inn together (on the former's journey to 
 Falmouth), but Beckford declined to make the acquaintance of a 
 man with whom he had not a few striking traits in common. 
 
 5 formed (more correctly form'dst) thy Paradise. Beckford 
 was only two years at Cintra, but spent a fortune in beautifying 
 his palace. It was built in the Moorish style 
 
 as not aware etc. Byron's moral reflections are seldom 
 happily expressed. The creations of wealth and luxury (he means) 
 are not in themselves a guarantee of peace and contentment— rather 
 they drive away peace and contentment from the dwellings of 
 those who put their trust in these merely external things. 
 
 ' mightiest deeds : Beckford's extravagant outlays upon his 
 surroundings, 
 
 ■ "was ever wont to shun voluptuous lures.'' Peace is here 
 some shy, timid creature, and Wealth is a lure ( = snare or decoy) 
 used to entrap it — but she refuses to be taken prisoner by such 
 wily methods. 
 
 23 ' unbless by man. "Under a positivt curse.'' (Litotes). 
 The fate of Beckford's "fairy dwelling" will recall to the student 
 of Wordsworth the Shepherd's description of the "House of 
 Pleasure" in Hart Leap Well : 
 
 "A jolly place" said he "in times of old ! 
 But something ails it now ; the spot is curst. 
 
'•] Childe Harold 31 
 
 Thy fairy dwelling is as lone as thou ! 2 
 Here giant weeds a passage scarce allow 
 To halls deserted, portals graping wide : 
 Fresh lessons to the thinking bosom, how 
 Vain are the pleasaunces 3 on earth supplied ; 
 Swept into wrecks anon by Time's ungentle tide ! 4 
 
 24 
 
 Behold the hall 1 where chiefs were late 2 convened ! 
 Oh ! dome displeasing unto British eye ! 
 
 2 as lone as thou. For twenty years Beck ford almost literally 
 shut himself up at Fonthill, among his books, pictures, and articles 
 of virtu. He erected a high wall all round his estate to guard 
 himself against intrusive strangers. 
 
 ■' pleasaunces, archaic for pleasures. 
 
 * Time's ungentle tide. Compare (Julius Caesar, III. 1.257): 
 Thou art the ruins of the noblest man, 
 That ever lived in the tide oj time. 
 
 The ruinous condition of Monserrate (as Beckford's estate at 
 Cintra is called) suggests to the poet a, ship driven against the 
 rocks. 
 
 All this is now altered. To day "the place is a botanic garden 
 in the grandest sense, a park that unites the height of culture with 
 the wildness of a grinite mountain." Baedeker, Spain and 
 Portugal. Thus Byrou, if he saw it now, could no longer describe 
 it as "the most desolate mansion in the most beautiful spot I ever 
 beheld" (Letter 194). 
 
 24. ' the hall, byron alludes to the palace of the Marquis 
 of Marialva (25, 1), but this was not the real place of meeting. 
 
 a late(ly), : the famous Convention met on 30th August, 1808, 
 about ten days after the battle. Wellesley (as above stated) 
 landed on the shores of Portugal in July. Meeting the French 
 (under Junot) at Vimiera (30 miles NNW. of Lisbon) he routed 
 them, but was unable to take advantage of his victory ; as Sir 
 Harry Burrard, who superseded him as commander-in-chief on the 
 evening of the battle, countermanded the orders issued by him for 
 the pursuit. 
 
 Within 24 hours Burrard was superseded in turn by Sir Hew 
 Dalrymple, who made the articles of agreement that caused so 
 much indignation in England — here echoed in Byron's verses. 
 
32 Childe Harold C CA ™> 
 
 With diadem hight foolscap, 3 lo ! a fiend, 
 A little fiend 4 that scoffs incessantly, 
 There sits in parchment robe array'd, and by 
 His side is hung a seal and sable scroll, 8 
 Where blazon'd glare names known to chivalry, 6 
 And sundry signatures adorn the roll, 
 "Whereat the Urchin points and laughs with all his soul. 
 
 Convention is the dwarfish demon styled 
 That foil'd the knights 1 in Marialva's dome : 
 
 The Convention permitted the beaten army to return to France 
 in British ships, and to retain all their flags, guns and baggage ; 
 and no promise was exa3ted from them that they should not take 
 up arms again. 
 
 The three generals were immediately ordered home, and a court of 
 inquiry was held which absolved them from blame ; but Wellesley 
 was not reinstated in public favour till the battle of Talavera 
 (41, 8) wiped out the memory of Cintra. 
 
 It ought to be added that this Convention has the entire 
 approval of Napier, the chief historian of the war. All its 
 advantages, however, were lost by the time wasted over the 
 inquiry ! 
 
 The question narrows itself down to this — whether Wellesley 
 did right in ordering the pursuit, or Burrard (in the spirit of a 
 modern Fabius) in preventing it. 
 
 3 For hight ( = called) see 3, 1. foolscap makes us think of 
 (1) paper of that size (2) the cap worn by a fool (fool's-cap). 
 
 4 A little fiend (afterwards an "Urchin") is the Convention 
 personified - 
 
 s a seal and...scroll=the Articles of Agreement, signed aud 
 attested after the usual fashion. In important documents the seal 
 is sometimes suspended from the bottom of the roll by a string. 
 It is hard to say whether sable refers merely to the colour of the 
 ink, or to the ominous contents. 
 
 6 The lower end of the roll is unfurled, and the poet imagines he 
 can see such names as that of Wellesley exposed to view. The 
 scene here conjured up by the poet's imagination recalls to 
 Mommsen the well-known picture that adorns the cover of Punch. 
 iLine 8 merely repeats line 7. 
 
 25. * the knights, the English generals. 
 
'■1 Childe Harold 33 
 
 Of brains (if brains they had) he them beguiled, 
 And turn'd a nation's shallow 8 joy to gloom. 
 Here Folly dash'd to earth the victor's plume, 4 
 And policy" regain'd what arms had lost : 
 For chiefs like ours in vain may laurels bloom ! 
 Woe to the conqu'ring, not the conquer'd host, 8 
 Since baffled Triumph droops on Lusitania's coast ! 
 
 26 
 
 And ever since that martial synod 1 met, 
 Britannia sickens, Cintra ! at thy name ; 
 And folks in office 8 at the mention fret, 
 And fain would blush, if blush they could, for shame. 
 How will posterity the deed 3 proclaim ! 
 Will not our own and fellow-nations sneer, 
 To view these champions cheated of their fame, 
 By foes in fight o'erthrown, yet victors here, 
 Where Scorn 41 her finger points through many a coming 
 year ? 
 
 1 Marialva's dome is in Cintra. But the document purports 
 to be "done and concluded at Lisbon," seventeen miles away. 
 Napier (1. 219) says thirty— a, slip frequently reproduced. Prothero 
 falls into a two-fold mistake when he says the Convention 
 "was signed at the palace of the Marquis de Marialva, thirty 
 miles distant." (Letter 128, foot-note). 
 
 * plume = prowess (metonymy). 
 
 5 Policy = the diplomacy of the French generals. 
 
 6 Woe to the conquering. .. host : a reversal of the usual 
 saying, "Woe to the vanquished" ( Vae viclis !) 
 
 26. l martial synod ^conference of warriors (ironical). 
 "Jenes sabelrasselnde Konsistorium," says Mommsen, with the 
 clatter of the officers' swords in his ears. 
 
 a folks in office, the government of the day, of which Canning 
 was the ruling spirit. 
 
 1 the deed : chere may perhaps be a play on the two senses of 
 the word 1 : (1) scroll, (2) action. 
 
 ' Scorn, the "little fiend" of 24, 4.. 
 
34 Childe Harold C° ANT9 
 
 27 
 
 So deem'd 1 the Childe, as o'er the mountains he 
 Did take his way in solitary guise : 2 
 Sweet was the scene, yet soon he thought to flee, 
 More restless than the swallow in the skies : 
 Though here awhile he learn'd to moralise, 3 
 For Meditation fix'd at times on him ; 
 And conscious Reason* whisper'd 5 to despise 
 His early youth, misspent in maddest whim ; 
 But as he gazed on truth his aching eyes grew dim. 
 
 28. 
 
 To horse ! to horse ! he quits, for ever quits 
 A scene of peace, though soothing to his soul : 
 Again he rouses from his moping 1 fits, 
 But seeks not now the harlot and the bowl. " 
 Onward he flies, nor fix'd as yet the goal* 
 
 Napoleon, we are told, was far from pleased when his army 
 was foroed to evacuate Portugal, and was on the point of dis- 
 missing Junot for his lack of firmness. Napier, I. 268. 
 
 27. l So deemed. Mommsen, who regards 24-26 ("the 
 three political stanzas") as an interpolation, thinks these words 
 originally related to the reflections with which stanza 23 closes. 
 
 * in solitary guise=alone. Byron of course had the com- 
 panionship of Hobhouse. 
 
 s to moralise is not exactly Byron's forte : "as soon as he 
 reflects, he is a child" (Goethe, quoted by Matthew Arnold). 
 
 4 conscious reason etc. The "still small voice" of conscience 
 made him feel the folly of his wasted youth. 
 
 ■"■ gazed on truth : " the high, white star of Truth " (Matthew 
 Arnold). 
 
 28. ' rouses, bestirs himself, moping : the depression has 
 been caused by his moralising. 
 
 * nor fixed. ..goal : perhaps true of the " pilgrim," bat not of 
 Byron, whose plans were all out out and dried before starting from 
 home. (Letters 124 and 125). 
 
'•J Ghilde Harold 35 
 
 Where he shall rest him on his pilgrimage ; 
 And o'er him many changing scenes must roll 3 
 Ere toil his thirst for travel can assuage, 4 
 Or he shall 5 calm his breast, or learn experience sage. 
 
 29 
 
 Yet Mafia 1 shall one moment claim delay, 
 Where dwelt of yore 2 the Lusians' luckless 3 queen ; 
 And church and court did mingle their array, 
 And mass and revel were alternate seen ; 
 Lordlings and freres 4 — ill-sorted fry I ween ! 5 
 But here the Babylonian whore 6 hath built 
 
 1 changing scenes must roll. New skies might be said to 
 roll over the traveller's head, but the expression is hardly appro- 
 priate of new landscapes ; the meaning however is unmistakable. 
 
 * assuage ( = satisfy) has toil for its subjeet, and thirst for 
 travel for its object. 
 
 5 shall is a more formal word than "will" : these things being 
 regarded as written in the book of destiny. 
 
 2.9 • ' Mafra is 10 miles north of Cititra. 
 
 3 of yore : only two years past. See note on 22, 5. 5 luckless : 
 her reason lost, her land invaded, herself in exile. 
 
 * Observe here three pairs of incongruities : (1) church and 
 court, (2) mass and revel, (3) freres (=friars) and lordlings. 
 An unusual assortment, but in keeping with the bizarre character 
 of the building. 
 
 = fry I wene = company of persons, I suppose. 
 
 " Babylonian whore. The poet here misapplies holy writ 
 (Rev. 17, 5). The sacred writer meant heathen. Borne by the 
 expression ''mother of harlots and abominations of the earth," 
 but some Protestants have used this text as a weapon against the 
 Church of Rome (as Byron here does). 
 
 7 a dome=a church. This unique edifice was flanked by two 
 wings, of which one was used as a palace, and the other as a 
 convent. Southey says : 
 
 »' The church and convent and palace are one vast building, 
 whose front exhibits a strange and truly Portuguese mixture of 
 magnificence and meanness." 
 
36 Childe Harold [ CAST0 
 
 A dome, 7 where flaunts 8 she in such glorious sheen, 
 That men forget the blood which she hath spilt, 
 And bow the knee to Pomp that loves to varnish 9 guilt. 
 
 30 
 
 O'er vales that teem with fruits, romantic hills, 
 (Oh, that such hills upheld a free-born race I) 1 
 Whereon to gaze the eye with joyaunce 8 fills, 
 Childe Harold wends through many a pleasant place. 
 Though sluggards deem it but a foolish chase, 3 
 And marvel men should quit their easy chair,* 
 The toilsome way, and long, long league to trace, 5 
 
 * flaunts, makes a great show (compare "flaunting wassailers' 
 2, 9). The inversion gives emphasis. 
 
 * varnish, give a specious appearance to. Compare the use 
 of " blazon " at 3, 9. 
 
 29-33. These six might be called transition stanzas. The 
 Childe continues his weary pilgrimage ; or rather, Byron and his 
 friend Hobhouse, leaving Lisbon on July 17, ride across Portugal 
 post haste for Seville. Their route at first was due east, till 
 their arrival at the " silver streamlet " dividing the rival realms 
 of Portugal and Spain ; from this point they would proceed in 
 a south-easterly direction, passing many spots famous (or soon 
 to be famous) in the War. At present the country was quiet. 
 When the French had attempted to occupy Andalusia a year 
 previous to this time, they has been vigorously driven back by 
 the Spanish general Castanos, hero of Baylen (July 1808), and 
 had not yet repeated the experiment (52, 3). Byron dined with 
 this famous man in Gibraltar (Letter 128). 
 
 30. ' Mountains are favourite abodes of Liberty, as Words- 
 worth sings in his Sonnet, "Two voices are there", upheld = 
 maintained. 
 
 « joyance (for "joy"), a favourite archaism of Byron's (see II. 
 78, 6). 
 
 3 deem it but a foolish chase : because they see nothing to 
 be gained by foreign travel. Compare "wild-goose chase" = an 
 absurdly impossible quest. 
 
 4 their easy chair : their home comforts (sarcastic). 
 
 B to trace = to traverse. Compare : "To trace the forests 
 wild," Midsummer Night's Dream, II. 1. 25. 
 
'] Childe Harold 37 
 
 Oh ! there is sweetness in the mountain air, 
 And life," that bloated Ease can never hope to share. 
 
 3i 
 
 More bleak to view the hills at length recede, 1 
 And, less luxuriant, smoother vales extend ; 
 Immense horizon-bounded plains succeed ! 
 Far as the eye discerns, withouten end, 8 
 Spain's realms appear whereon her shepherds tend 
 Flocks, whose rich fleece right well the trader knows — 8 
 Now must the pastor's arm his lambs defend : 
 For Spain is compass'd' 1 by unyielding foes, 
 And all must shield their all, or share 5 Subjection's woes. 
 
 6 and life (as well) : another compensation for the disagreeables 
 of foreign travel. "Comfort must not be expected by folks that 
 go a pleasuring (Letter 126). "Lite" here = zest, exhileration, keen 
 enjoyment. Byron's readers took him at his word : no book was 
 ever so great a stimulus to touring and sight-seeing as Childe 
 
 Harold. 
 
 7 bloated Ease (abstract for eoncrete)=stay-at-homes, the 
 "sluggards" of line 5, who will sacrifice nothing for the sordid 
 ease of the domestic hearth. 
 
 31. 'More bleak etc. As we travel eastwards, the country 
 becomes bare and uniform : we are passing from Portugal into 
 Spain. 
 
 2 (As) far as the eye discerns means that Spain's realms are 
 still a very considerable distance off ; but is the poet justified 
 in saying this distance is withouten end ? ("Withouten" is an 
 archaism from Chaucer). 
 
 8 This breed of sheep is known by the name "merino," perhaps 
 from the Latin mijorinus, signifying that they are of a larger 
 species than ordinary sheep. 
 
 * compassed =surrounded, which is hardly the poet's meaning 
 here. At this time northern and middle Spain were entirely in 
 possession of the French, who were gathering their forces to make 
 a second great effort to get possession of Andalusia. 
 
 n share = experience. In the previous stanza (1. 9) it meant 
 "enjoy": here it means "suffer". 
 
38 Childe Harold £ 0ANT0 
 
 Where Lusitania and her Sister 1 meet, 
 Deem ye what bounds the rival realms divide ? 3 
 Or ere the jealous queens of nations greet, 
 Doth Tayo s interpose his mighty tide ?* 
 Or dark Sierras 5 rise in craggy pride ? 
 Or fence of art 6 like China's vasty wall ? — 7 
 Ne barrier wall, ne river deep and wide, 
 Ne horrid crags, nor mountains dark and tall, 
 Rise like the rocks that part Hispania's land from Gaul :* 
 
 33 
 But these between 1 a silver streamlet glides, 
 And scarce a name distinguisheth the brook, 2 
 Though rival kingdoms press its verdant sides. 3 
 
 32. * Lusitania : see note on 14,8. and her Sister, and 
 Spain. The two countries are spoken of as rival queens. 
 
 2 deem ye what bounds etc. What do you suppose to be 
 the line of demarcation between two such antagonistic countries * 
 (Presumably a very formidable barrier). 
 
 3 Tayo : the Spanish name for the river called Tagus (14,6). 
 
 * tide=waters. 
 
 s Sierras, the Spanish name for mountain chains, such 
 as the Sierra Moreno, (51,1) or the Sierra Nevada. So called from 
 their jagged outlines (Latin serra = a. saw.) 
 
 8 fence of art, artificial boundary. 
 
 7 The Great Wall is 1500 miles long and 25 feet at the base, 
 vasty is a poetical form of "vast." 
 
 s part Hispania's land from Gaul = separate Spain and 
 France. 
 
 38. ' these between = between the two countries. 
 
 ' The Caya is only indicated in larger maps : it has been called 
 the Tweed of the Peninsula. After fording this stream, Byron 
 would be on Spanish soil. The spot is in close proximity to 
 Badajos, in whose "breaches" was to be fought (in 1812) an 
 important battle between the French and the Allies. 
 
 * press its verdant sides : as if conscious of encroaching on 
 one another. 
 
*■] Childe Harold 39 
 
 Here leans the idle shepherd on his crook, 
 And vacant* on the rippling waves doth look, 
 That peaceful still twixt bitterest foemen 5 flow ; 
 For proud each peasant as the noblest duke : 
 Well doth the Spanish hind 6 the difference know 
 Twixt him and Lusian slave, 7 the lowest of the low. 
 
 34 
 
 But ere the mingling bounds 1 have far been pass'd, 
 Dark Guadiana rolls his power along 3 
 
 * vacant = vacantly (doubtless "for want of thought"). 
 
 ' bitterest foemen : owing to racial and political animosities. 
 But a common sense of danger now united them in the field. 
 
 The Spaniards think themselves the superior race : even the 
 peasant (or hind) has this proud consciousness. 
 
 7 Lusian slave. This is Byron's last opportunity of vilifying 
 the Portuguese — and he does not waste it ! 
 
 Note. Tozer {Clarendon Press Series) says : "The Peninsula 
 presents the peculiar geographical anomaly of a country whose 
 marked boundaries give it a definite unity, being divided between 
 two nations, which have no natural lines of demarkation. " 
 
 Darmesteter, on the other hand, referring to this last point 
 aays that the countries are so wonderfully shut off by natural 
 barriers, that there are only two places at which an army of 
 invasion could pass from the one to the other ; viz., by way of the 
 Minho, or by way of the Guadiana — rivers which are 200 miles 
 apart. 
 
 34 — 53. The crossing of the Caya marks an important 
 transition in the poem. As soon as the traveller feels himself on 
 Spanish soil, he seems to breathe a more congenial atmosphere, 
 his whole being becomes stirred to its depths, and consequently 
 the poem rises to a higher strain. 
 
 It is not the beauty of the country that has this effect on him — 
 Portugal was more beautiful — it is the romantic history of Spain, 
 with which, from his childhood, Byron had been as familiar as 
 with the annals of his native land. He had derived his knowledge 
 of old Spanish History from an old-fashioned book — not 
 always the worst sort of book for a child — entitled The Atlas ; and 
 whatever of History or Romance he had read in these susceptibla 
 days remained to him as a possession for ever. 
 
40 Childe Harold f CANTO 
 
 In sullen billows, murmuring and vast, 
 So noted ancient roundelays among. 3 
 Whtlome upon his banks did legions throng 
 Of Moor and Knight,* in mailed splendour 5 drest: 
 Here ceased the swift their race, here sunk the strong ;'' 
 The Paynim 7 turban and the Christian crest 8 
 Mix'd on the bleeding stream, by floating hosts oppress'd. 
 
 But this only partly explains the poetical elevation of the 
 following stanzas. The country he so swiftly traverses is now 
 engaged in what Byron fears to be a hopeless contest with One 
 who, he thinks, would crush out of her the spirit of her nationality. 
 With the whole force of his genius, he pours scorn upon a despot 
 who merely seeks his own aggrandisement, who is deaf to all 
 the higher promptings of humanity, a gambler in short, whose 
 stakes are men's lives. 
 
 ■ In soul-animating strains like these we almost seem to catch 
 the spirit of Milton. What Wordsworth says of the Miltonic 
 sonnet— "In his hand the thing became a trumpet" — can be 
 fearlessly applied to these Spenserian stanzas. 
 
 34. mingling bounds, the "silver streamlet" which, of 
 course, constitutes a very small portion of the line of frontier. 
 , 2 rolls his power along = moves powerfully onwards 
 (metonymy;. The momentum of the stream is suggested by these 
 words. 
 
 ' roundelays = ballads. The word is a corruption of French 
 rondtlet, dim. of rcndel, "a poem containing a line which recurs 
 or conies round again" (Skeat). See 36. 1. among governs 
 "roundelays." 
 
 4 Moor and knight. When he will write about the modern 
 Greeks and their sufferings at the hands of the Turks, Byron's 
 thoughts will travel back to Marathon and Thermopyle (Canto II, 
 stanzas 73, 89) : here in Spain (not going quite so far back into 
 the past) he remembers the successes of the Christian warriors 
 in their encounters with the Saracens. In either canto his aim is 
 the noble one of stirring up the spirit of nationality in a down- 
 trodden people. 
 
 5 mailed splendour=splendid suits of mail. Adjective and 
 noun here change office (metonymy). 
 
 A. reminiscence of the scriptural expression : "The race is 
 not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong." Ecclesiastes 9, 11. 
 ' ' Paynim, See note on 11, 9. 
 
 8 A reminiscence of Virgil (Aeneid i. 97) : "Ah that I could 
 
'•] Childe Harold 41 
 
 35 
 Oh, lovely Spain ! renown'd, romantic land I 1 
 Where is that standard 2 which Pelagio bore. 
 When Cava's traitor-sire first call'd the band 
 That dyed thy mountain streams with Gothic gore ? a 
 
 have fallen on the plains of Troy, where the Simois so often 
 carried beneath its waves the shields and the helmets and the 
 bodies of the brave." 
 
 crest : the apex of the helmet, which commonly consisted of 
 plumes ; perhaps the helmet itself, in contrast to the turban. 
 
 35- The present stanza is a comprehensive survey of the 
 Moors in Spain : from their invasion of the country in the 8th 
 century till their final expulsion in the 15th. 
 
 Three events are briefly referred to : 
 
 (1) How the Moors were introduced into the country. Roderick 
 "the last of the Goths" was ruler at this time and had his capital 
 in Toledo. He brought about the ruin of his people by his unholy 
 passion for Floiinda (here called Cava), whom he seduced. To 
 revenge the insult done to his daughter, Julian, general of the 
 Goths, turned traitor to his country and induced the Moors to 
 come over from Africa. Roderick was slain by them in battle and 
 most of Spain fell before the invaders. 
 
 (2) How Pelagio (or rather Pelayo) made head against them. In 
 the fastnesses of the Asturian mountains (in the north of Spain), 
 this prince of the royal blood gathered round him the conserv- 
 ative element in the uauon that refused lo submit to Mohammedan 
 rule ; displaying a patriotic spirit analogous to that of the Rana 
 Fratap Singh in the time of Akbar. His defeat of the Moors at 
 Covadonga earned him the foremost place in the ballad literature 
 of his people, and he is commonly accounted the founder of the 
 Spanish monarchy. 
 
 (3) How the Moors were finally driven out of the country. "At 
 last" (1. 7) refers to A. D. 1492, which was not only the year of 
 the discovery of America, but also that of the conquest of Granada, 
 the event that marks the end of Moorish rule in Spain. 
 
 u l romantic land ! No country in Europe has a more romantic 
 history than Spain, which may be described as the land of chivalry 
 par excellence (37,2). She took no part in the Crusades, but she 
 had, if one may say so, crusades of her own at home, viz, 
 encounters between the cross and the crescent. 
 
 a that standard : a famous cross of oak, still preserved some- 
 where in Spain as a relic. 
 
 - " Cava was Florinda's name among the Arabs. 
 
i2 Childe Harold f° ANT<> 
 
 Where are those bloody banners which of yore 
 Waved o'er thy sons, victorious to the gale, 
 And drove at last the spoilers to their shore ? 4 
 Red gleam'd the cross, 6 and waned the crescent pale, 
 While Afric's echoes thrill'd with Moorish matrons' wail. 
 
 36 
 Teems not each ditty 1 with the glorious tale? 
 Ah ! such, alas! the hero's amplest fate !* 
 When granite 3 moulders and when records fail, 
 A peasant's plaint prolongs his dubious date.* 
 Pride ! bend thine eye from heaven 5 to thine estate, 
 See how the Mighty shrink into a song ! 
 Can Volume, Pillar, Pile preserve thee great ? 
 Or must thou trust tradition's simple tongue, 6 
 When Flattery 7 sleeps with thee, and History does thee 
 wrong ? 8 
 
 * This battle was fought on the banks of the Guadelete 
 A.D. 711. The Moors were victorious. 
 
 s This was fought A.D. 718. The Moors were defeated. 
 
 " Red gleamed the cross : for "red" compare II. 44, 1. 
 
 36. ' ditty, soDg or ballad. 
 
 3 the hero's amplest fate : a paradox of course. Has 
 History nothing to tell us about heroes 1 The poet is thinking 
 specially about Pelayo, of whom History says little, but the 
 romanzeros (or collections of Spanish ballads) a great deal. It is 
 no mean compensation for the neglect of the men of learning to 
 have one's name and fame embalmed in popular literature 
 — though this (in the poet's words) is "to shrink into a song." 
 A famous Scotsman said he would rather be the author of his 
 country's ballads than of her laws ! 
 
 3 granite = monument of granite : no material is more enduring. 
 
 * "The plaintive songs of the people will perpetuate his name." 
 
 5 bend thine eye from heaven : tyranny, we know, is only 
 too apt to "look in the clouds" Julius Caesar, II. 1. 26. 
 
 Volume is here "history" ; Pillar and Pile— "a simple 
 monument" and "an imposing monument." 
 
 ' tradition is most commonly embodied in the people's songs. 
 
] Ghilde Harold 4a 
 
 37 
 
 Awake, ye sons of Spain I 1 awake ! advance ! 
 Lo ! Chivalry, 2 your ancient goddess, cries, 
 But wields not, as of old, her thirsty lance, 3 
 Nor shakes her crimson plumage in the skies : 
 Now on the smoke of blazing bolts 4 she flies, 
 And speaks in thunder through yon engine's roar : 5 
 In every peal she calls — "Awake ! arise !" 
 
 8 Flattery=flatterers, the proud man's parasites (abstract for 
 concrete). 
 
 9 History does thee wrong. "This well-known tale, romantic 
 in itself, is indifferently supported by external evidence." Gibbon, 
 Decline and Fall, chap. li. In some critical Histories the name 
 of Pelayo is not mentioned. 
 
 37. * Awake, ye sons of Spain ! Other poets were now 
 attempting, like Byron, to arouse the national spirit in this people. 
 Scott, in his Don Roderick, conjures up the vision — 
 Of Spain's invaders from her confines hurled, 
 While kindling nations [e. g. England] buckled on their mail- 
 Southey wrote — in his poem of the same name — 
 The nation will arise regenerate ; 
 Strong in her second youth and beautiful. 
 
 2 Chivalry is here represented as a goddess : the word sums up- 
 the war spirit of mediaeval times. The very sanre spirit is wanted' 
 in Spain again in these modern days, though she must appear in 
 altered shape — her sex and almost her identity transformed 
 by reason of the revolution in modern warfare brought about by 
 the invention of gunpowder. In fccott's poem occurs the same line' 
 of thought : 
 
 For War a new and dreadful language spoke, 
 Never by ancient warrior heard or known ; 
 Lightning and smoke her breath, and thunder was her tone. 
 
 '' (blood)thirsty lance : the weapon in the hand of Chivalry is- 
 personified^— a personification within a personification. 
 
 3 crimson plumage, crest of red feathers, the colour of blood. 
 So Mommsen ; but others think that wings are referred to. 
 
 4 blazing bolts, red-hot cannon balls. 
 
 6 yon engine's roar, the rattle of artillery. ! 
 
44 Childe Harold f CANTO 
 
 Say, is her voice more feeble than of yore, fi 
 When her war- song was heard on Andalusia shore ? 7 
 
 38 
 Hark ! heard you not those hoofs of dreadful note ? l 
 Sounds not the clang of conflict on the heath ? 
 Saw ye not whom 4 the reeking sabre smote, 
 Nor saved your brethren 3 ere they sank beneath 
 
 a is her voice more feeble...? Her voice is certainly louder: 
 can it be less appealing than of yore ? 
 
 7 This perhaps refers to no special battle. Andalusia, the 
 ■'garden of Spain", is a corruption of "Vandalusia," ths Vandals 
 having occupied it at the dissolution of the Roman Empire in the 
 fifth century. Some centuries later it was conquered by the 
 Moors (stanza 35). No part of Spain has more magnificent remains 
 of the architecture of this great people. 
 
 38. We now have a series of five stanzas (among the most 
 powerful in this Canto) giving us Byron's account of Talavera. 
 This high-sounding name is suggestive of "gigantic deeds" ; but 
 the battle was a bloody, raiher than decisive one. Military 
 commanders in those days showed almost criminal indifference 
 to the lives of those under their care, having given very little 
 attentim to the art of protecting their soldiers from the murderous 
 fire of an enemy's guns. (The study of mimicry among the lower 
 animals has increased the wisdom of military men in this respect). 
 In these days a poet might very well apply the epithet "red" 
 (line 9) to "battle" — suggestive of red flags, red coats, and streams 
 6t red blood. The town of Talavera is on the Tagus, far removed 
 from the route Byron pursued on his journey through the Peninsula. 
 He heard of the 'pretty victory" when he got the length of 
 Gibraltar (Letter 128). These stanzas are a striking illustration of 
 Morley's remark : "The matter with which he [Byron] deals is 
 gigantic, and he paints with violent colours and sweeping pencil." 
 Miscellanies, I. 223. 
 
 1 hoofs of dreadful note. A cavalry charge. 
 
 1 whom. ..your brethren— would in prose be "your brethren 
 whom... them' . The poet appeals to such as hold aloof from 
 tho national cause ; such, perhaps, as "prate of war, but skulk 
 in peace. " 
 
 3 Nor saved etc. "without coming to their rescue from the 
 oppressor and his bands of mercenaries. The plural Tyrants 
 is put for the singular : who is meant is sufficiently obvious to 
 the reader. 
 
'•3 Childe Harold 45 
 
 Tyrants and tyrants' slaves? — the fires of death, 4 
 The bale-fires 6 flash on high : — from rock to rock" 
 Ea^h volley tells that thousands cease to breathe : 
 Death rides upon the sulphury Siroc, 
 Red Battle stamps his foot, and nations feel the shock. 
 
 39 
 Lo ! where the Giant 1 on the mountain stands, 
 His blood-red tresses deep'ning* in ttie sun, 
 With death-shot glowing in his fiery hands, 3 
 And eye that scorcheth 4 all it glares upon ; 
 Restless it rolls, now fix'd, and now anon 
 Flashing afar, 5 —and at his iron feet 
 Destruction cowers" to mark what deeds are done ; 
 
 * fires of death, artillery or musketry, "of death" = deadly. 
 
 "Bale" means "evil" (compare "baleful"). Bale-fires repeats 
 "fires of death" (a phrase also found in ffohenlinden). 
 
 * from ' rock to rock. The batteries of the French and the 
 Allies were drawn up on opposite heights. See plan of the battle 
 in Napier's History, 11. p. 416. 
 
 ' sulphury Siroc . the hot wind issuing from the cannons' 
 mouths ("the dun hot breath of war" 47, 4). The "sirocco" is similar 
 to the simoon — a dry, suffocating, dust-laden wind of very short 
 duration. The use of the word is striking and suitable, but the 
 Edinburgh Review (Feb. 1812) took great exception to it. 
 
 39. ' An elaborate personification of modern warfare. The 
 Giant takes sides with neither party ; for he is the controlling 
 spirit of both. 
 
 2 tresses deepening, i. c. assuming a deeper red as the Giant 
 warms at his work. The line is an absolute clause. 
 
 3 death-shot glowing etc : compare "blazing bolts" 37, 5. 
 
 * And (with) eye that, scorcheth : more terrible than that of 
 the Gorgons of mythology. 
 
 6 rolls. ..flashing afar: this is equally applicable of the flash 
 of the eye and the discharge of the guns— which are here one and 
 the same. ■ , 
 
 " Destruction cowers. A second mythological invention pf 
 the poet's : this personification has much iu common with the first. 
 
46 Childe Harold I CANT0 
 
 For on this mom three potent nations meet, 
 To shed before his shrine 7 the blood he deems most sweet. 
 
 40 
 
 By Heaven ! it is a splendid sightto see 1 
 (For one who hath no friend, no brother there) 
 Their rival scarfs 2 of mix'd embroidery, 
 Their various arms that glitter in the air ! 
 What gallant war-hounds 3 rouse them from their lair, 
 And gnash their fangs, loud yelling for the prey ! 
 All join the chase,* but few the triumph share ; 
 The Grave shall bear the chiefest prize away, 5 
 And Havoc 6 scarce for joy can number their array. 
 
 7 before his shrine. Whose shrine? Moramsen says. Destruc- 
 tion's, because Battle is too remote from the pronoun " his." 
 Against this there is the fact that Battle is the more majestic 
 figure. Destruction " cowering " at Battle's feet suggests a grovel- 
 ing beast. 
 
 40. ' a splendid sight etc. We happen to know that Byron 
 was at this time on horseback, proceeding with post haste from 
 Seville towards Cadiz, and could not have been a spectator, as he 
 lalmost persuades us to believe. 
 
 ' rival scarfs. Soldiers in these times went into battle with 
 their finery. [Plutarch, by the way, records the fact that Brutus 
 believed that Roman soldiers fought best when they were finely 
 dressed !] These " scarfs " (French icharpe) are the gaily- coloured 
 sashes, which a non-commissioned officer wears over his right, and 
 a commissioned officer over his left shoulder. 
 
 3 war-hounds : the rank and file of either side are likened to 
 blood-hounds. 
 
 * the chase keeps up thiB metaphor. 
 
 5 This statement can be literally interpreted, only if the slain 
 outnumbered the survivors on both sides. Talavera was a very 
 bloody battle, but scarcely so bloody as this line would imply, 
 
 6 Havoc is doubtless the same as Destruction (39, 7), unless 
 it seems simpler to imagine a third impersonation of the spirit 
 of Fury. 
 
'•) Childe Harold 47 
 
 41 
 
 Three hosts l combine to offer sacrifice ; 
 Three tongues prefer strange orisons 2 on high; 
 Three gaudy standards flout the pale blue skies ; 
 The shouts are France, Spain, Albion, Victory ! 
 The foe, the victim, and the fond ally 3 
 That fights for all, but ever fights in vain, 
 Are met— as if at home they could not die — * 
 To feed the crow on Talavera's plain, 
 And fertilize the field that each pretends to gain. 5 
 
 41. l Three hosts ". viz. the French (under Victor) versus 
 the Spaniards and English (under Cuesta and Wellesley). 
 
 2 orisons=prayers. [Hamlet says to Ophelia : "Nymph, in 
 thy orisons, be all my sins remembered !] 
 
 3 flout the. ..skies: an expression adapted from Macbeth 
 (I. 2. 49) : 
 
 Where the Norweyan banners flout the sky. 
 
 * the fond ally etc. Byron here criticises English arms, rather 
 than England's foreign policy in championing the cause of Spain. 
 The student will find a clear presentation of the political situation 
 in Green's Short History of the English People, p. 824 ff. 
 
 As regards the battle of Talavera, Green writes : "The French 
 fell back at the close of the struggle, but the fruits of the viotory 
 were lost by a sudden appearance of Soult on the English line of 
 advance." 
 
 5 as if at home they could not die. The same reflection 
 occurs to Carlyle in an eloquent passage in Sartor Eesartus, 
 p. 120 f. 
 
 6 that each pretends to gain. The English doubtless gained 
 the day, but at too great cost —it was a Pyrrhic victory : Welles- 
 ley's contention might be questioned, that it "added to the 
 military reputation of the country." Byron in this line, I 
 believe, alludes to the fact that the Paris Gazette claimed 
 Talavera as a French victory. Reference is made to this Gazette 
 in a Note which Dallas begged him not to print, but which may 
 be read in Darmes to tor's Edition Classique, p. 270. 
 
48 Childe Harold [ CAK ™ 
 
 There shall they root— Ambition's honour'd fools I 1 
 Yes, Honour decks the turf 2 that wraps their clay ! 
 Vain Sophistry ! in these behold the tools, 
 The broken tools, 3 that tyrants cast away 
 By myriads, when they dare to pave their way 
 With human hearts — to what ? — a dream alone.* 
 Can despots compass aught that hails their sway ? 5 
 Or call with truth one span 6 of earth their own, 
 Save that wherein at last they crumble bone by bone 1 
 
 42. * Ambition's honoured fools ! The dupes of their own 
 desire for glory ! There is in this stanza no distinction in the 
 poet's mind between the three different nationalities. 
 
 J Honour decks the turf: a variation of Horace's apo- 
 phthegm, "Sweet is it and glorious to die for one's country !" But 
 the poet immediately recoils from his own sentiment ! He remem- 
 bers the fact that "War like Janus has a double face." (The 
 words are from Napier's account of Moore's famous Retreat). 
 
 3 tools, unconscious instruments of others' designs. (In a 
 moment the figure will change to that of stakes in a game of 
 hazard, 44, 2). This idea finds incomparable expression in Carlyle 
 (loc. cit. ) : 
 
 ' 'Had these men any quarrel ? Busy as the Devil is, not the 
 smallest I They lived far enough apart. ..How then? Simpleton! 
 their governors had fallen-out ; and, instead of shooting one 
 another, had the cunning to make these poor blockheads shoot." 
 
 4 a dream alone : something quite as unsubstantial. The 
 next words show us in what respect. 
 
 * compass ought that hails etc. The emphatic word is 
 "hails." "Is the good-will of the conquered people ever gained 
 by their Conqueror ?" Napier asks practically the same question 
 (with some indignation) near the beginning of his History (I. 5). 
 Napoleon, he allows, would have been justified in his aggression 
 had his policy been acceptable to the people : "but being enforced 
 contrary to their wishes, was unhallowed either by justice or 
 benevolence." 
 
 one span : literally nine inches. The poet means at least 
 six feet— the length of the tomb in which the Tyrant is destined 
 to dissolve into dust. 
 
'•] Childe Harold 49 
 
 43 
 Oh, Albuera ! x glorious field of grief! 4 
 As o'er thy plain the Pilgrim prick'd his steed, 
 Who could foresee thee, in a space so brief, 
 A scene where mingling foes should boast and bleed ! s 
 Peace to the perish'd ! may the warrior's meed 4 
 And tears of triumph their reward 5 prolong ! 
 Till others fall where other chieftains lead" 
 Thy name shall circle round the gaping throng, 
 And shine in worthless lays the theme of transient song. 
 
 44 
 Enough 1 of battle's minions ! 2 let them play 
 Their game of lives, and barter breath for fame : 3 
 
 43. ' Albuera. This battle was fought on May 15, 1811 
 the " space so brief " is therefore a period of nearly two years. 
 This stanza was added when the poem was at press. 
 
 2 glorious field of grief! (oxymoron). 
 
 3 boast and bleed. This does not mean "Words before 
 .blows !" (as before the liattleof Philippi), but is the figure known as 
 hysteron proleron (inversion of natural order) = bleed, and after- 
 wards boast. Albuera was another Pyrrhic victory for the Eng- 
 lish ; acoording to rfouthey (Peninsular War, V. 241), it was one of 
 the most murderous engagements of modern warfare. The French 
 .Would hardly own defeat. Soult wrote :■ " They [the enemy] were 
 completely beaten ; the day was mine, and yet they did not know 
 it, and would not run !" 
 
 4 the warrior's meed (or reward): the " Honour" (42, 2) 
 which the poet has just been scoffing at. 
 
 5 reward is not a very suitable word in this place, merely 
 •repeating " meed." Mommsen has ingeniously suggested that 
 "record" is the right reading. 
 
 till others fall etc. Till its memory is wiped out by the 
 next big battle to be fought, Albuera will be the theme of the 
 jingoist in England, and the chauvinist in France. 
 
 44. ' The poet would gladly change his theme— but we shall 
 find he will return to it in spite of himself ! 
 
 * Battle's minions. This Shakespearian word means " dar- 
 kling, favourite." Here it refers to the " tyrants " and "despots" 
 of stanza 42. 
 
 * To those who are responsible for the Cruarrels of nations,' War 
 
 4 
 
50 Childe Harold [ CANI(X 
 
 Fame that will scarce reanimate their clay,* 
 Though thousands fall to deck 8 some single name. 
 In sooth 'twere sad to thwart their noble aim 
 Who strike, blest hirelings ! for their country's good, 
 And die, that living might have proved her shame :" 
 Perish'd, perchance, in some domestic feud, 
 Or in a narrower sphere 7 wild Rapine's path pursued. 
 
 45 
 Full swiftly Harold wends his lonely way 
 Where proud Sevilla 1 triumphs unsubdued : 
 
 is only a game of chance, whose object is the winning of fame, 
 and whose stakes are the lives of their fellow-creatures.* 
 
 * reanimate their clay : in other words " back to its mansion 
 call the fleeting breath. " scarce " is litotes. 
 
 s deck, lend lustre to. 
 
 6 might have proved her shame. There is brutal frankness 
 in the insinuation : he thinks an army to be composed of the riff- 
 raff of a country ! 
 
 Carlyle gives us » far more sympathetic picture of such poor- 
 wretches : he supposes thirty sons of toil from some British Dam- 
 drudge sent to the south of Spain, where they are brought face- 
 to face with thirty similar sons of toil from a, French Dumdrudge. 
 What happens to them every reader of Sartor must remember : 
 
 " Thirty stand fronting Thirty, each with a gun in his hand. 
 Straightway the word ' Fire ' is given : and they blow the souls 
 out of one another ; and instead of sixty brisk useful craftsmen, 
 the world has sixty dead carcases, which it must bury, and anew 
 shed tears for." 
 
 * a narrower sphere : war is merely Rapine on a great scale ! 
 45. a Sevilla (the Spanish name of the city) was reached front 
 
 Lisbon on horseback in four days. Byron and Hobhouse here 
 spent four days (July 21 to July 25, 1809), then proceeded to Cadiz, 
 90 miles farther south. 
 
 Seville was at this time the headquarters of the nationalist 
 forces and the seat of the junta (= government). Byron fore- 
 
 * " /. even / (an insect compared to this creature), have set my life on cast* 
 not a millionth part of this man's." This is Byron's reflection on Napoleon's 
 abdication ; for Napoleon in 1814 was not mough of a gambler for Bvron's 
 taste! (Journal for April 9, 1S14). 8 ™ Byron a 
 
'•] Childe Harold 51 
 
 Yet is she free — the spoiler's wish'd-for prey ! 
 Soon, soon 2 shall Conquest's fiery foot 3 intrude, 
 Blackening her lovely domes with traces rude. 
 Inevitable hour ! 'Gainst fate 4 to strive 
 Where Desolation 6 plants her famish'd brood 
 Is vain, or Ilion, Tyre, 6 might yet survive, 
 And Virtue 7 vanquish all, and murder cease to thrive. 
 
 46. 
 
 But all unconscious 1 of the coming doom, 
 The feast, the song, the revel here abounds ; 
 Strange 2 modes of merriment the hours consume, 
 Nor bleed these patriots 3 with their country's wounds : 
 Nor here War's clarion, but Love's rebeck* sounds ; 
 
 sees that she will soon fall a prey to the French, but he does nob 
 correctly anticipate how the event will come about. 
 
 '* Soon, soon : in the course of the next six months. 
 
 3 fiery foot : compare " iron feet," 39, 6. 
 
 4 fate : " the Man of Destiny," viz. Napoleon. 
 
 * Desolation : another powerful personification to be added to- 
 those of previous stanzas — see note on 39, 7. 
 
 7 Ilion and Tyre. Byron sometimes omits the copula (the figure 
 known as asyndeton). Ilion ( = Troy) fell because it was destined 
 to fall {Iliad iv, 1 84). Tyre was many times overthrown, and rose 
 many times from out its ruins. 
 
 7 Virtue : the spirit of Chivalry which Byron is attempting to 
 reawake in the Spanish people. Murder is a harsh name for the 
 spirit of French Aggression. 
 
 •IS. 1 After unconscious we should expect not The feast, 
 the song, the revel, but " those who feast, those who sing," etc, 
 An example of the Pendent Participial clause. 
 
 3 Strange : if we consider the time and place. 
 
 3 patriot is deservedly sarcastic. 
 
 4 clarion. ..rebeck : very different sorts of music ! 
 
 Byron says the latter instrument was a fiddle with thre» 
 strings : not the music appropriate to these times ! 
 
52 Childe Harold t CANT0 
 
 Here Folly still his votaries inthralls ; 6 
 And young-eyed Lewdness walks her midnight rounds :° 
 Girt with the silent crimes of Capitals, 7 
 Still to the last kind Vice clings to the tott'ring" walls. 
 
 47 
 Not so the rustic 1 -with his trembling mate 
 He lurks, 1 nor casts his heavy eye afar, 
 Lest he should view his vineyard desolate, 
 Blasted below the dun hot breath of war. 3 
 No more beneath soft Eve's consenting star* 
 
 5 inthralls (or enthrals). Like " captivate," this word literally 
 means " enslave" — a suitable sense here. 
 
 6 Love, Folly, Lewdness, and Vice are all personifications of 
 the spirit of voluptuousness that reigns in Seville. Being personi- 
 fications, they are printed as proper names. 
 
 6 Girt. ..Capitals, etc. We have here an exceedingly bold per- 
 sonification of Vice. " Girt "=invested as with a girdle. Hidden 
 in this girdle we can imagine the dagger wherewith the blood- 
 shedding of line 4 is perpetrated. "Kind," as an epithet of Vice, 
 is ironical. 
 
 1 tott'ring : " seeming only not to fall " (7-3) The doom of such 
 a city as this was as inevitable as that of Sodom or G-omorrah ! 
 But the very effeminacy of the people prevented fie fulfilment of 
 Byrou's prophesy. Had there been here the spirit of the men (and 
 women) of Saragossa (stanza 54 fl. ), "there might have been," 
 ., in the words of Napier, " a memorable tale and a ruined city." 
 •But "a feeling of helplessness produced tea/ in all, and Seville was 
 ready to submit to the invaders " III. 114. The surrender took 
 place on January 31, 1810. "Kind Vice !". 
 
 • 47. v the rustic, having neither Seville's strong walls to 
 shelter him, nor her vicious pleasures to drown his forebodings, 
 is fully alive to the dangers of the time. 
 
 3 lurks, keeps himself in concealment. 
 
 s _ blasted. Compare "scathed by Are,'' 49, 4. dun hot breath 
 of'war, the ''sulphury siroc" of 38, 8. 
 
 4 Eve's consenting star. The innocent amusements of the 
 rustics make, a striking antithesis to the "young-eyed Lewdness" 
 in the list stanza. For "consenting" in the sense of "propitious" 
 
 'see II. 80, 5 ( where it is the moon that regards the amusements 
 of the paople with kindly interest). 
 
J 3 Childe Harold 53 
 
 Fandango 5 twirls his jocund Castanet :" 
 Ah, monarcns ! could ye taste the mirth ye mar. 7 
 Not in the toils 8 of Glory would ye fret; 
 The hoarse dull drum would sleep, and Man be happy yet 9 ! 
 
 48 
 
 How carols 1 now the lusty muleteer ? 
 
 Of love, romance, devotion is his lay, 
 
 As whilome he was wont the leagues to cheer, 2 
 
 His quick bells wildly jingling on the way ? 
 
 No ! as he speeds, he chants ''Viva el Rey !" 3 
 
 And checks his song to execrate Godoy, 4 
 
 ' Fandango = the youths and maidens who join together in 
 this dance. The dance and the name seem to have come origi- 
 nally from the West Indies. 
 
 Castanet. The singular is here used for a, pair of these 
 instruments : small shell-like pieces of wood or ivory attached to 
 the thumb and struck together by the middle finger. The per- 
 former "twirls" them round his head, at the time of using. 
 
 7 could ye taste etc = had you a liking for the mirth of simple 
 folk (but monarchs are too sophisticated for this). 
 
 " toils : either (1) snares, or (2) labours. 
 
 * and man be happy yet, and the golden age might come 
 at last ! 
 
 48. ' How carols...? A question of more than passing 
 interest. What could be a better index to the temper of the 
 nation ? 
 
 2 the leagues to cheer, to beguile the journey. 
 
 3 Viva el Rey ! The Spanish equivalent to "Long live the 
 king !" But at this time we might almost say that there were 
 three kings: (1) Napoleon's brother Joseph, now enthroned in 
 Madrid : (2) Charles IV, an imbecile who had abdicated in favour 
 of his son, viz., (3) Ferdinand VII, who was the present hope of 
 the national party in Spain. Strange that with such a. choice 
 they should be styled "a kingless people"(86,3) ! 
 
 * to execrate Godoy. This man, who became Prime Minister 
 of Spain in 1792., was universally execrated as the principal 
 cause of his country's ruin. It was popularly believed that Charles 
 IV. was entirely governed by his Queen (Maria Louisa), and that 
 
54 Childe Harold C CANT0 
 
 The royal wittol Charles, and curse the day 
 When first Spain's queen beheld the black-eyed boy 5 
 And gore-faced Treason sprung from her adulterate joy. 
 
 49 
 On yon long, level plain 1 at distance crown'd 
 With crags, whereon those Moorish turrets 2 rest, 
 Wide scatter'd hoof-marks dint the wounded ground ; 
 And scathed by fire, 3 the greensward's darken'd vest 
 Tells that the foe was Andalusia's guest : 4 
 
 she in turn was entirely governed by Manuel Godoy, a man who 
 had sold himself to Napoleon ! (See Napier, I. p. 12.) 5 the black- 
 eyed boy : now aged 41, but very young when he first came to 
 court and won the affection of the Queen. In his Memoirs (in 8 vols.) 
 he maintains that his relations with her were perfectly innocent. 
 
 £9. No place on Byron's route seems to answer to his des- 
 cription in this present stanza of a recent battle-field. The 
 "dragon's nest" (so it stands in the Quarto of 1812, not "Dragon's 
 Nest") is obviously not a local name, but the poet's description 
 of some encampment upon the heights of ths Sierra Morena. 
 
 1 level plain of the Guadalquivir. 
 
 2 Moorish turrets. Such architectural remains are very 
 common in Andalusia, especially in the ancient city of Jaen (one 
 of the four Moorish capitals), which "guards the skirts of the 
 Sierras like a watchful Cerberus," and which Coleridge thinks to 
 be the veritable "dragon's nest" of line 7. "It was taken by the 
 French, but recaptured by the Spanish, early in July, 1808." 
 
 3 scathed by fire : "a circumstance more horrid than un- 
 frequent in war" (Southey). At Talavera "the long grass took 
 fire and many of the wounded were scorched to death". More 
 to the point is the fact that such a disaster happened just before 
 the evacuation of Baylen (Peninsular War, I. 489). 
 
 4 that the foe was Andalusia's guest : a poetical way of 
 saying that the Frenoh had invaded southern Spain through 
 the passes of the Sierra Morena. This took place at the begin- 
 ning of June, 1808 ; but within less than two months, the Span- 
 iards (without help from any ally ) defeated them at Baylen and 
 made them evacuate this part of the country. The capitulation 
 of Baylen (22 July, 1808) took place just a few weeks before 
 Wellesley and Moore landed their respective armies in Mondego 
 Bay. 
 
 In this line the stress is on "foe" : "guest" of course is ironical. 
 
'•} Childe Harold 55 
 
 Here was the camp, the watch-flame, and the host, 
 Here the bold peasant storm'd the dragon's nest ; 
 Still does he mark it with triumphant boast ; 
 And points to yonder cliffs, which oft were won and lost. 
 
 50 
 
 And whomsoe'er 1 along the path you meet 
 Bears in his cap the badge of crimson hue, 2 
 Which tells you whom to shun and whom to greet : 3 
 Woe to the man that walks in public view 
 Without of loyalty this token true : 4 
 Sharp is the knife, 5 and sudden is the stroke ; 
 And sorely would the Gallic foeman rue, 6 
 If subtle poniards, wrapt beneath the cloke, 
 Could blunt the sabre's edge, or clear the cannon's smoke. 
 
 50. x Whomsoever. There being no antecedent to this 
 word, it has to do the duty of governing bears. 
 
 2 badge of crimson hue : a red cockade bearing the name of 
 the king of their adoption (Fernando Septimo"). 
 
 3 tells you whom etc. : helps you to distinguish your 
 friend from your enemy. 
 
 * "this unmistakable token of loyalty." 
 
 5 the knife. Southey avers that the pocket-knife was more 
 dreaded by the French troops than all the bayonets of either 
 Spanish or Portuguese. Peninsular War. I. 217. 
 
 • rue, etc. The French would have much reason for repentance 
 if regularly drilled troops, armed with swords and artillery, 
 turned out to be no match for guerrilla soldiers, armed only with 
 their daggers. See farther allusions to the knife at 86, 9 
 and 87, 5. 
 
 Napier (III. 104) is very indignant with the Junta for ordering 
 the distribution of 100,000 poniards among the people, "as if 
 assassination were the mode in which a great nation could or 
 ought to defend itself." 
 
56 Ghilde Harold t CA ™ 
 
 At every turn Morena's 1 dusky height 
 Sustains aloft the battery's iron load ; a 
 And, far as mortal eye can compass sight, 3 
 The mountain-howitzer,* the broken road, 5 
 The bristling palisade 6 , the fosse 7 o'erflow'd, 
 The station'd bands, the never-vacant watch, 8 
 The magazine in rocky durance 9 stow'd, 
 The holster'd 10 steed beneath the shed of thatch, 
 The ball-piled pyramid, 11 the ever-blazing match, 
 
 51. ' Sierra Morena, one of the principal mountain ranges 
 in Spain, separates Andalusia from the part of the country then 
 in the possession of France. "The Sierra Morena was fortified in 
 every defile through which I passed in my way to Seville" 
 (Byron's note). 
 
 2 the battery's iron load : the mounted guns. All is in 
 readiness for the next French invasion. A "battery" consists of 
 a set of guns along with the men and horses required to work 
 them. 
 
 3 compass sight, command the surrounding country. "Sight" 
 = scene. 
 
 * howitzer, a very short cannon with a very wide bore. 
 
 5 broken road : purposely broken up to make it impassable for 
 the enemy. 
 
 6 bristling palisade, fence of pointed stakes. 
 
 7 fosse, trench employed in fortification. 
 
 9 never-vacant watch, outposts always occupied by sentinels. 
 
 9 in rocky durance. The gunpowder is stow'd away, for 
 fear of explosion, in the interior of the rock Magazine is here 
 put for the dangerous contents of the magazine. 
 
 10 holstered : i. d. the horses' saddles are provided with 
 piatol-caaea. 
 
 11 ball-piled pyramid. "All who have seen a battery will 
 recollect the pyramidal form in which shot and shell are piled. " 
 Byron's note. 
 
'■] Childe Harold 5? 
 
 Portend the deeds to come 1 : — but he whose nod 2 
 Has tumbled feebler despots 3 from their sway, 
 A moment pauseth 4 ere he lifts the rod ; 
 A little moment deigneth to delay : 
 Soon will his legions sweep through these their way ; 
 The West must own the Scourger of the world. 6 
 Ah ! Spain ! how sad will be thy reckoning day, 
 When soars Gaul's Vulture," with his wings unfurl'd, 
 And thou shalt view thy sons in crowds to Hades hurl'd ! 7 
 
 52. l portend the deeds to come. Byron augured from 
 the preparations here described, that the Andalusians would stoutly 
 guard these passes when the French next attempted them — but the- 
 resistance offered proved to be most feeble. (Napier, III. 109). 
 
 2 he whose nod. Napoleon. Like the Latin nutus, nod = a 
 strong man's will or pleasure. Power like this is ascribed by 
 Shakespeare to the "nod," the "eye" and the "word" of Julius 
 Caesar — "When Caesar says "do this," it is performed." 
 
 3 feebler despots : e. g. Charles IV and Ferdinand VII. 
 Oxymoron, for despotism can hardly be associated with feeblenees. 
 The total list of such dethroned monarchs would be a list of pretty 
 long one, and would include the Breganza dynasty then in Brazil 
 (29, 2). 
 
 * A moment pauseth. Napoleon was occupied at this time 
 in Austria. This very month he had won the battle of Wagram. 
 Byron here expects that Napoleon will come in person against 
 the portion of Spain still holding out against his arms. 
 
 5 the Scourger of the world. Byron is here comparing 
 Napoleon to Attila the Hun, who overran Europe in the fifth 
 century of our era. 
 
 9 Gaul's Vulture. Byron first wrote "eagle," with the French 
 standard in his mind. It has been pointed out by Elze {Life of 
 Byron, p. 359) that in prose Byron commonly expresses admira- 
 tion for Napoleon, while in poetry he commonly inveighs against 
 him. 
 
 7 view thy sons etc. A reminiscence of the opening lines of 
 the Iliad : "Sing, goddess, the wrath of Achilles, that. ..hurled 
 down into Hades many strong souls of heroes." 
 
58 Childe Harold C CANT0 
 
 53 
 
 And must they fall ? the young, the proud, the brave, 
 To swell one bloated 1 Chief's unwholesome reign ? 
 No step between submission and a grave ? a 
 The rise of rapine 3 and the fall of Spain ? 
 And doth the Power that man adores* ordain 
 Their doom, nor heed the suppliant's appeal ? 
 Is all that desperate Valour acts 5 in vain ? 
 And Counsel sage, and patriotic Zeal, 
 The Veterain's skill, Youth's fire, and Manhood's heart 
 of steel 6 ? 
 
 53. 1 bloated, swollen with ambition. 
 
 2 No step etc. Have they no alternative but to lose their 
 independence or die in attempting to maintain it ? 
 
 3 rapine. See note on this word, 44, 9. 
 
 4 the Power etc. The ways of Providence are so strange that 
 the poet almost questions its very existence. 
 
 s all that desperate Valour acts=all the exploits of the brave, 
 reckless from very despair in their fight for freedom. 
 
 6 Byron's admiration and enthusiasm for the Spanish people is 
 in striking contrast to his contempt for the Portuguese. 
 
 54-59 ; 64: ; 81. These eight stanzas may suitably 
 be brought into one focus, being on the same topic, viz. 
 the women of Spain, a, country where the female sex (at 
 least in the eyes of a passing stranger) is more striking in 
 character and appearance than the male. This was not likely to 
 escape the observation of a romantic adventurer of twenty-one 
 like our poet, whose letters on his experiences in Spain 
 confirm the impression conveyed by his stanzas. Byron is by no 
 means so blasi as he would have us believe : how could glowing 
 stanzas like these proceed from a heart withered up at the roots ? 
 
 His enthusiasm is first kindled by the story of the Maid of 
 Saragoza, whose heroism he takes to be typical of her country- 
 women generally (see ''they", 67, 3). But though they can show 
 fight, when their country is in danger and their men-folk not equal 
 to the emergency, their "master-bias leans to home-felt pleasures 
 and to gentler scenes.'' In comparison with them, the women in 
 the North are "languid, wan, and weak." 
 
'•] Childe Harold 59 
 
 54 
 
 Is it for this 1 the Spanish maid, s aroused, 
 Hangs on the willow her unstrung guitar, 3 
 And, all unsex'd, 4 the anlace 6 hath espoused, 
 
 Stanza 59 was written in Turkey, where the women are "houries" 
 in a figurative sense : but Spain's dark-glanoing daughters are 
 the literal houries ! 
 
 Stanza 64 was written under the shadow of Parnassus, where in 
 ancient times quires of inspired women sang hymns in honour of 
 Apollo : but the poet assures us that even these must yield the 
 palm to the maids of Andalusia ! 
 
 Stanza 81 refers to their emancipation — they have achieved their 
 liberty, and the jealous sex no longer (as formerly) keep ward and 
 watch over their movements. 
 
 54. l for this = to no purpose at all (''in vain", 53, 7). 
 
 2 the Spanish maid. Her very existence has been called in 
 question. (Napier, "will neither wholly believe, nor wholly deny" 
 the story, I. 70) ; but though "history does her wrong" (36, 9), 
 she is the theme of popular song. Southey, less critical than 
 Napier, gives the following account of the heroine of the Penin- 
 sular War : — 
 
 "Augustina Zaragoza [Saragoza], a handsome woman of the 
 lower class, about twenty- two years of age, arrived... with refresh- 
 ments, when not a man who defended the battery was left alive, 
 so tremendous was the fire which the French kept up against it. 
 Augustina sprung forward over the dead and dying, ^snatched a 
 match from the hand of a dead artilleryman, and fired off a 
 six-and-twenty pounder ; them jumping upon the gun, made a 
 solemn vow never to quit it alive during the siege. Such a sight 
 could not but animate with fresh courage all who beheld it. 
 The Zaragozans rushed into the battery, and renewed their fire 
 with greater vigour than ever, and the French were repulsed here, 
 and at all other points, with great slaughter." Peninsular 
 War, II. 14. 
 
 3 Hangs on the willow etc.=puts aside her guitar, as unsuit- 
 able to the present time (as we have seen the castanets set aside by 
 the peasantry, 47, 6). 
 
 * all unsexed : because there was cause enough — 
 To kindle cowards and to steel with valour 
 The melting spirits of women. 
 
60 Childe Harold C CAtm> 
 
 Sung the loud song, 8 and dared the deed of war ? 
 And she, whom once 7 the semblance of a scar 8 
 Appall'd, an owlet's larum child with dread, 
 Now views the column-scattering bay'net jar, 10 
 The falchion flash, and o'er the yet warm dead 
 Stalks with Minerva's 1 1 step where Mars might quake to tread 
 
 55 
 
 Ye who shall marvel when you hear her tale, 1 
 Oh ! had you known her in her softer hour, 
 Mark'd her black eye that mocks* her coal-black veil, 
 Heard her light, lively tones in Lady's bower, 3 
 Seen her long locks that foil the painter's power, 4 
 Her fairy form, with more than female grace, 
 
 6 anlace, a kind of dagger. There is a trace of the same word 
 in "cutlass" (sometimes written cutlace). espoused can only be 
 tolerated in consideration of the metre. 
 
 6 song (of war). 7 once = in time of peace, iu her "softer 
 hour," (55, 2). 
 
 8 the semblance of a scar, a "pinprick," the most trifling 
 wound. 
 
 9 an owlet's larum, the night-shriek of an owl, a bird whose 
 cry was supposed to forebode some mischief. 
 
 10 jar = discordant sound. Mommsen points out that this word 
 is absurd after the verb views. 
 
 11 Minerva, most warlike of goddesses, is here represented as 
 more valorous than Mars, most warlike of gods ! 
 
 55. ' her tale = the story told about her. 
 
 " mocks, defies comparison with. 
 
 3 Lady's bower. In the popular story she is called a vivandtire f 
 one who sells provisions to soldiers ; Byron makes her out to 
 be a lady ! 
 
 * foil the painter's power. She is (as it happens) the subject 
 of a painting by Sir David Wilkie, one of the most noted of modern 
 artibts. 
 
'•] Childe Harold 61 
 
 Scarce would you deem that Saragoza's 5 tower 
 Beheld her smile in Danger's Gorgon face, 6 
 Thin the closed ranks, 7 and lead in Glory's fearful chase. 8 
 
 56 
 Her lover 1 sinks — she sheds no ill-timed tear ; 
 Her chief is slain — she fills his fatal post ; z 
 Her fellows flee — she checks their base career ; 
 The foe retires — she heads the sallying host : 
 Who can appease 3 like her a lover's ghost? 
 Who can avenge so well a leader's fall ? 
 What maid retrieve* when man's flush'd hope is lost ? 
 Who hang so fiercely on" the flying Gaul, 
 Foil'd by a woman's hand, before a batter'd wall ?" 
 
 5 Saragoza is a corruption of Gaesnrea Augusta (as Jersey, by 
 the way, is a corruption of Caesarea). The city was founded, or 
 at least, greatly favoured by him whom Byron calls the "second 
 Caesar" (11. 45, 6). 
 
 "Danger's Gorgon face. This refers to three women (the 
 Gorgons in Greek mythology) who were credited with the power of 
 converting any beholder into stone 
 
 ~ Thin the closed ranks : reduce their numbers by firing 
 among them. 
 
 8 Glory's fearful chase refers to the rout of the French, when 
 this women headed her fellow-townsmen against them, as Southey 
 tells. We had this figure at 40, 7. 
 
 56. 'Her lover: the artilleryman of Southey's account who, 
 according to one version, recovered from his wounds, and lived to 
 marry his heroine. 
 
 2 fills his fatal post, assumes the place of responsibility that 
 had been death to her chief. 
 
 3 appease etc. : revenge the slain man's death, and lay his 
 ghost to rest. (See Julius Caesar, V. 5. 50). 
 
 4 retrieve, repair a disaster, save «, situation. This word is 
 commonly used transitively. 
 
 6 hang. ..on : a vivid metaphor, meaning "pursue at heel." 
 before a battered wall. This circumstance might have 
 explained the flight of the defenders (line 3), but is introduced too 
 late at this point of the story, when the besiegers are in full flight ! 
 
62 Childe Harold f CANTC> 
 
 57 
 Yet are Spain's maids no race of Amazons, 1 
 But form'd for all the witching 3 arts of love : 
 Though thus in arms they emulate her sons, 
 And in the horrid phalanx 5 dare to move, 
 'Tis but the tender fierceness of the dove. * 
 Pecking the hand that hovers o'er her mate : 
 In softness as in firmness 5 far above 
 Remoter females, 6 famed for sickening prate: 7 
 Her mind 8 is nobler sure, her charms perchance as great 
 
 58 
 The seal Love's dimpling finger hath impress'd 1 
 Denotes how soft that chin which bears his touch : 
 
 57. * Amazons, a famous race of fighting women. Their 
 Queen (according to some accounts) was Hippolyta. 
 
 ' witching, bewitching, enchanting. 
 
 3 the horrid phalanx : battalions bristling with bayonets. 
 The word in Greek means "a compact body of infantry." 
 
 4 tender fierceness etc. Oxymoron. The dove would fight 
 to defend her young : this woman fights in defence of home and 
 country, mate (=partner) does not give so good a meaning as 
 "young" would have done. 
 
 s in softness. ..in firmness = in her "softer hour" and in the 
 presence of danger. 
 
 6 Remoter : compare "round the North" 58,8. 'sickening 
 prate. Society small talk always bored Byron. See Journal 
 22 March, 1814: 
 
 "To-night party at Lady 's — deplorable waste of time, and 
 
 something of temper. Nothing imparted — nothing acquired — 
 talking without ideas ; — if any thing like thought in my mind, it 
 was not on the subjects on which they were gabbling." 
 
 8 Her mind. The oonstruotion is changed to the singular. 
 perchance. See note on 3, 3. 
 
 58. ' The seal etc. A reminiscence from the Latin poet 
 Varro — (Byron in his note quotes the passage as Gellius'). "The 
 dimple impressed on her chin by the finger of Cupid shows us how 
 very soft must be that chin." 
 
1J Childe Harold 6a 
 
 Her lips, whose kisses pout" to leave their nest, 
 Bid man be valiant 3 ere he merit such : 
 Her glance how wildly beautiful ! how much 
 Hath Phoebus 4 woo'd in vain to spoil her cheek, 
 Which glows yet smoother from his amorous clutch ! 5 
 Who round the North for paler dames 6 would seek? 
 How poor their forms appear ! how languid, wan, and weak T 
 
 59 
 Match me, ye climes ! x which poets love to laud, 
 Match me, ye harems of the land ! where now 
 
 1 strike my strain, 3 far distant, to applaud 
 Beauties that ev'n a cynic must avow ; 
 
 Match me those Howies, 3 whom ye scarce allow 
 
 2 pout is an action of the lips expressing sauciness. Mommsen 
 explains "nicht willig, sondern schmollend" (not eager but saucy). 
 Tozer, however, takes it differently : "betray impatience to fly 
 off." Does not the next line show which of these is right ? 
 
 3 Bid man be valiant: for- "None but the brave deserve 
 the fair !" (Dryden, Alexander's Feast). 
 
 * Phoebus, the sun, personified as a lover. 
 
 amorous clutch— the sun's courtship. Such an ungainly 
 phrase can only be excused by the metre. 
 
 ■ The women of the south of Spain are considerably darker then 
 paler dames of the North. The Andalusiaus, being descended 
 in part from the Moors, still preserve some of the features of this 
 people, viz. their dark complexions, black eyes, erect and stalwart 
 figures. 
 
 ' Byron's poetry is at a low ebb. Did any other poet ever 
 profess indifference to the charms of his own countrywomen ? See-- 
 Introductory note on stanzas To Ianthe). 
 
 59. l Match me. "me" is ethic dative, and lends a certain 
 vividness to what is about to be said — which takes the form of a. 
 ohallenge to Turkey, climes. Compare To Ianthe, 1, 1. 
 
 a where now I strike my strain : probably written in Con- 
 stantinople, where Byron spent two months in the summer of 1810. 
 
 * those Houries : beautiful Turkish women aie figuratively' 
 celled "houries" (or nymphs of paradise). The word means 
 "dark-eyed ones." 
 
-64 Childe Harold C CANT0 
 
 To taste the gale lest Love should ride the wind,* 
 With Spain's dark-glancing daughters — deign to know, 
 There your wise Prophet's paradise we find, 
 «His blaik-eyed maids of Heaven, 5 angelically kind. 
 
 60 
 
 Oh, thou Parnassus ! whom I now survey, 1 
 
 Not in the phrensy of a dreamer's eye,'' 
 
 Not in the fabled landscape of a lay, 8 
 
 But soaring snow clad 4 through thy native sky, 
 
 In the wild pomp of mountain majesty ! 
 
 What marvel if I thus 5 essay to sing ? 
 
 The humblest of thy pilgrims 6 passing by 
 
 * lest love should ride the wind. The poet Hafiz speaks of 
 the "wind" as Lore's messenger. The fear lest, the winged boy's 
 arrows should reach them keeps them at home, a fact which the 
 
 poet regards as a proof of their superior beauty. 
 
 5 His black-eyed maids of Heaven. Spain's daughters are 
 literal Houries. 
 
 60 — 61 These stanzas were written under the shadow ot the 
 mountain apostrophised by the poet. The serious vein that runs 
 through them is in striking contrast to the cynicism of the opening 
 stanza of the Canto. There Byron was a sceptic, here he 
 writes like a believer The scenerv of this part of Greece dis- 
 appointed him and ffobhouse. Their visit took place (according 
 to the latter) on 16 December, 1909. 1 
 
 5 a dreamer's eye. We are reminded of the lines in Mid- 
 summer Night's Dream : — 
 
 The poet's eye, in a fine frenzy rolling, etc. 
 
 3 "Nor as reflected in the verses of a poet." 
 
 4 Snow-clad. The time was winter. 
 D thus=as I am now doing. 
 
 * thy pilgrims : visitors to these parts, whether they are poets 
 or not. 
 
i] Childe Harold 65 
 
 Would gladly woo thine Echoes with his string/ 
 Thoug h from thy heights no more one Muse will wave her 
 wing.* 
 
 61 
 
 Oft have I dream'd of Thee I 1 whose glorious name 
 Who knows not, knows not man's divinest lore :' 
 And now I view thee, 'tis, alas ! with shame 
 That I in feeblest accents' must adore. 
 When I recount thy worshippers of yore* 
 I tremble, and can only bend the knee ; 
 Nor raise my voice, nor vainly dare to soar, 
 But gaze beneath thy cloudy canopy s 
 In silent joy to think at last I look on Thee ! 
 
 62 
 
 Happier in this than mightiest bards have been, 1 
 Whose fate to distant homes confined their lot, 
 
 ' woo. ..string. Some local echo seems to be in the poet's mind 
 See Coleridge's note ad loc. 
 
 8 Wave her wing : a mediaeval conception. We have not 
 the least warrant for regarding Greek gods or goddesses (or the 
 angels in the Bible) as winged beings. 
 
 CI. ' Oft have I (myself) dream'd of thee : like the poets 
 just referred to. 
 
 ' man's divinest lore = ancient Greek poetry. 
 
 3 in feeblest accents. The present stanzas are not worthy 
 (the poet thinks) of the occasion that calls them forth. See quota- 
 tion from Hobhouse in the note to 1, 5. 
 
 * recount thy worshippers of yore, go through the names of 
 ancient poets who drank in their inspiration from here, (and 
 compare verses). 
 
 * cloudy canopy, covering of clouds. 
 
 62. ' Happier in this etc. He states, as a reason for 
 his joy, that he is gazing on that which so many poets have 
 only seen in vision. mightiest bards : such as Milton, whose 
 travels were cut short before he saw Greece. The author of 
 
 5 
 
66 Childe Harold [ CANTO 
 
 Shall 1 unmoved behold the hallow'd scene,* 
 Which others raye of, 3 though they know it not ? , 
 Though here no more Apollo haunts his grot,* 
 And thou, 5 the Muses' seat, art now their grave; 
 Some gentle spirit 6 still pervades the spot, 
 Sighs in the gale, keeps silence in the cave, 
 And glides with glassy foot 7 o'er yon melodious wave". 
 6 3 
 Of thee hereafter 1 . — Ev'n amidst my strain 
 I turn'd aside* to pay my homage here ; 
 
 Parodist Lost visited such sites in thought — his blindness 
 being no impediment to the wings of his imagination. Compare 
 (III. 26) : 
 
 Yet not the more 
 Cease I to wander where the Muses haunt 
 Clear spring, or shady grove, or sunny hill, 
 Smit with the love of saered song. 
 
 2 hallowed scene. Compare II. 46, 8. 
 
 3 rave of. This sounds sarcastic, even though Shakespeare says 
 that the poets are in the same category as the lunatics ! 
 
 4 his grot. This is the famous cavern at Delphi called in Greek 
 adyton ( = not to be entered). From a small opening in the ground 
 ("the navel of the earth") an intoxicating vapour emerged. Over 
 this sat a priestess (see 64, 3) on a tripod. The words she uttered 
 after inhaling the fumes were believed to be the authentic revela- 
 tion of the god. 
 
 6 thou, the mountain. 
 
 e Some gentle spirit etc. Compare Matthew Arnold's quatrain 
 {Poetical Works, p. 243) : 
 
 Though the Muse be gone away 
 Though she move not earth to-day, 
 Souls, erewhile who caught her word, 
 Ah ! still harp on what they heard. 
 
 7 with glassy foot, with the gliding motion appropriate to 
 divine beings. 
 
 8 yon melodious wave : the Castalian spring. "This was the 
 immortal rill, and we were sprinkled with the spray of the falling 
 stream ; here we should [!] have felt the poetic inspiration." 
 Hobhouse, 246. 
 
 63. l (I will sing) Of thee hereafter. The poet anticipates 
 the Second Canto. 
 
 3 turn'd aside, departed from the main subject, (" the land, the 
 sons, the maids of Spain"). 
 
I] Childe Harold 67 
 
 Forgot the land, the sons, the maids of Spain ; 
 Her fate, to every freeborn bosom dear ; 
 And hail'd thee, not perchance without a tear.' 
 Now to my theme — but from thy holy haunt* 
 Let me some remnant, some memorial 5 bear ; 
 Yield me one leaf' of Daphne's deathless plant 7 
 Nor let thy votary's hope 8 be deem'd an idle vaunt. 
 
 6+ 
 
 But ne'er didst thou, fair Mount, when Greece was young 1 
 See round thy giant base 2 a brighter choir,' 
 Nor e'er did Delphi, when her priestess sung 
 
 3 not perchance etc. Not unmoved (litotes). "Perchance" 
 is a favourite word of Byron's. 
 
 4 holy haunt, much visited sanctuary. 
 
 * some memorial, some tangible memento of my visit. 
 
 one leaf. He feels himself unworthy of a spray. Hobhouse 
 and Byron searched in vain for this tree — only olives were to 
 be seen in the neighbourhood of Apollo's shrine ! TraveU in 
 Albania, p. 249. But no doubt our poet saw the laurels growing 
 •most luxuriantly "in the phrenzy of a dreamer's eye." 
 
 7 Daphne's deathless plant. This refers to a beautiful classical 
 ■story, viz. the transformation of Daphne into a laurel tree when 
 she was pursued by Apollo. The tree was ever afterwards sacred 
 to this god. 
 
 8 thy votary's hope. The day after he composed these stanzas, 
 Byron saw a fight of twelve eagles. On beholding the birds, the 
 poet remembered his verses, and "had a hope that Apollo had 
 accepted his homage." 
 
 64. : when Greece was young. The moderns are the real 
 ancients, as Bacon pointed out. 
 
 2 thy giant base. It is the most massive, if not the tallest, 
 .mountain in Greece (8000 feet). 
 
 " a brighter choir. Compare, from Envpedochs on Aetna : — 
 
 'Tis Apollo comes leading 
 His choir, the Nine. 
 The leader is fairest, 
 But all are divine. 
 
68 Childe Harold t CANT0 
 
 The Pythian* hymn with more than mortal fire, 5 
 Behold a train more fitting to inspire 
 The song of love, than Andalusia's maids, 6 
 Nurst in the glowing lap of soft desire : 
 Ah ! that to these were given such peaceful shades 
 As Greece can still bestow, though Glory fly her glades. 7 
 
 * Pythian = belonging to, connected with Apollo, who received 
 the title of Pythius after slaying a serpent called Python. 
 
 5 with more than mortal fire, i. e. divinely inspired. 
 
 8 than Andalusia's maids. This marks the end oi the long 
 digression. 
 
 7 though Glory fly her glades. The poet again anticipates 
 Canto Second. While Spain was fighting for her freedom, Greece 
 was enjoying peace — but it was peace without honour. (Compare 
 •'the bondsman's peace," II. 83, 4). 
 
 65-80. These stanzas give us the Pilgrim's reflections on 
 Cadiz, from where (after about ten days' sojourn) the travellers 
 embarked in the Hyperion frigate for Gibraltar. "Cadiz, sweet 
 Cadiz ! — it is the first spot in the creation. The beauty of its 
 streets and mansions is only excelled by the loveliness of its inhabi- 
 tants" (Letter 127). The poet speaks in plain language about the 
 loose and wanton gaieties of the place, and then goes on to contrast 
 a London Sunday with the same day in Cadiz. (1) Of church-going 
 in London we hear nothing — only of trips by land and by water 
 to favourite suburban retreats. "Perhaps" he writes to Murray, 
 his publisher, "the two stanzas of a buffooning oast on London's 
 Sunday are as well left out" — but Murray thought otherwise. (2) Of 
 church-going in Cadiz we hear all we want — the people count their 
 rosaries and receive absolution from the priest and then rush off in 
 indecent haste to the bull-ring ! The description of this cruel 
 sport is long and detailed, and done in Byron's best style, but it is- 
 singularly inaccurate. 
 
 Whether Byron merely drew upon his imagination and 
 what he had learned from books and hearsay, or whether he had 
 seen an actual bull-fight is a question I have never seen mooted ; 
 but it is deserving of mention that no reference to the sport 
 occurs in any of Byron's published letters or in Moore's Life. 
 
 There was no bull-fighting at this time in Cadiz — the only place 
 where it was then tolerated being at Puerto, just across the Bay 
 (seven miles distant by sea, twenty-two by land). Of a bull-fight 
 that took place here just a week before Byron's arrival in Cadiz 
 the student will find an account in Sir John Carr's Travels. 
 
'•J Childe Harold 69 
 
 65 
 Fair is proud Seville ; let her country boast 1 
 Her strength, her wealth, her site of ancient days ; 
 But Cadiz, 1 rising on the distant coast, 
 Calls forth a sweeter, though ignoble praise. 
 Ah, Vice ! how soft are thy voluptuous ways ! 
 While boyish blood is mantling, 8 who can 'scape 
 The fascination of thy magic gaze ? 
 A Cherub-Hydra* round us dost thou gape, 5 
 And mould to every taste 6 thy dear delusive shape. 
 
 66 
 
 When Paphos 1 fell by Time — accursed Time ! 
 The Queen who conquers all must yield to thee — 
 
 In Blaokie's Imperial Gazeteer (art. Puerto) it is stated that the 
 bull-fight described by Byron was the same that the Duke of 
 Wellington once witnessed — but Byron at the time in question 
 (Nov. 1809) was already in Greece. 
 
 65. This stanza transports us from Seville to Cadiz, " the 
 most delightful town I ever beheld " (Letter 128). Byron was here 
 about a week. 
 
 1 let her country boast. Two personifications : the country 
 compared to a mother, Seville to her daughter. 
 
 a Seville's preeminence is owing to her military strength, her 
 wealth, and her antiquity : Cadiz is preeminently " the capital of 
 pleasure." 
 
 s is mantling=suffuses or colours the cheeks. 
 
 * A Cherub-hydra. A composite being of the poet's imagin- 
 ation. He wishes to represent vicious pleasure on its two sides, as 
 at once seductive and treacherous. " At the last it biteth like a 
 serpent, and stingeth like an adder.,' Proverbs 23, 32. 
 
 5 gape : longing to devour its victim. 
 
 * (dost) mould etc. The seductions vary according to the age 
 and idiosyncrasies of the individual. 
 
 66, 1 Paphos (now Kyklia), a town in the island of Cyprus, 
 was famous in antiquity for its culo of the goddess Aphrodite 
 ( = Venus), " The Queen who conquers all." 
 
70 Childe Harold t CANTO 
 
 The Pleasures" fled, but sought as warm a clime ; 
 And Venus, constant to her native sea, 3 
 To nought else constant, hither deign'd to flee,* 
 And fix'd her shrine within these walls of white ; 
 Though not to one dome 5 circumscribeth 6 she 
 Her worship, but, devoted to her rite/ 
 A thousand altars rise, for ever blazing bright. 
 
 67 
 
 From morn till night, from night till startled Morn 1 
 Peeps blushing on the revel's laughing crew, 
 The song is heard, the rosy garland worn ; 
 
 = The Pleasures : minor divinities, here supposed to be Venus's 
 attendants. (Observe the capital). 
 
 3 her native sea. "Aphrodite" means "sprung from the 
 foam." She is said to have been born from the waves off the eoast 
 of Cyprus. 
 
 4 hither deigned to flee. See Heine's volume, The Gods in 
 Exile. Byron was perhaps unconscious of the poetical wealth 
 of the conception he here just touches upon, and which the 
 German writer most akin to himself was to turn to such splendid 
 account. Perhaps no book of Heine's is richer in humour or 
 imagination. 
 
 For some centuries after the victory of Christianity over 
 the religions of ancient Greece and Rome, simple people (and even 
 some Church Fathers) continued to believe in the existence of the 
 old familiar gods and goddesses, though now dethroned from power 
 and banished from their former seats. Their fortunes in the differ- 
 ent lands to which they were exiled have furnished subjects 
 for popular ballads, e. g. Tannhduser. Byron again touches on the 
 idea in Canto Second, (11,2), but perhaps only accidentally. 
 
 5 dome, temple. 
 
 6 circumscribeth = limits or confines. 
 
 7 devoted to her right. The subject of " devoted " is " wor- 
 shippers," implied in the mention of altars. A pendent participal 
 clause. 
 
 67. l From morn till. ..Morn, >. c. through the whole twenty- 
 four hours. It has been noticed (by Mommsen) that " till " in this 
 line is first a preposition and next a conjunction. 
 
*1 Ghilde Harold 71 
 
 Devices quaint, and frolics ever new,' 
 Tread on each other's kibes 8 . A long adieu 
 He bids to sober joy that here sojourns : 
 Nought interrupts the riot, though in lieu 
 Of true devotion* monkish incense burn?, 
 And love and prayer unite 5 or rule the hour by turns. 
 
 68 
 The Sabbath comes, a day of blessed rest :' 
 What hallows it upon this Christian shore ? a 
 Lo ! it is sacred to a solemn feast : 
 
 " Horn" (as the capital shows) is personified : she is quite taken 
 aback by the sight of the revellers still employed in their 
 orgies when she appears in the east, blushing — from feelings of 
 modesty. 
 
 Comus and his immodest crew, believing that daylight makes 
 sin, disappear into the shades before " the nice morn " can deteot 
 their doings. The people of Cadiz have no such scruples, for they 
 continue their ungodly glee far into the morning. 
 
 a Devices quaint and. ..new. Different forms of drollery, some 
 old, some new, follow each other in a perpetual round. Cadiz 
 reminds of Seville, where ' ' strange modes of merriment the hours 
 consume." 
 
 3 tread on each other's kibes. This unusual word means 
 " chilblains/' but both here and in another place Byron uses it for 
 '"heels." He was misled by the Prinoe of Denmark's words to 
 Horatio : " The age is grown so picked, that the toe of the peasant 
 comes so near the heel of the courtier, he galls his kibe." Hamlet, 
 V. 1. 150. 
 
 * in lieu of true devotion etc. With regard to religion as 
 practised in Cadiz it appears, (1) that there is no lack of it, but 
 (2) that it is not true devotion and (3) that it does not in the least 
 interfere with worship of Venus. 
 
 s love and prayer. Here at Cadiz, as among the mediaeval 
 monks at NewBtead, and the modern monks at Mafra, superstition 
 is very closely associated with vice. 
 
 68. 1 The Sabbath : here of course the Christian Sunday; 
 not the Jewish Sabbath, which corresponds to Saturday. 
 
 2 What hallows it.. .shore? What lends sanctity to this 
 day in the Christian city of Cadiz ? The day ought of course 
 
72 Childe Harold C CANTO 
 
 Hark ! heard you not 8 the forest-monarch's* roar ? 
 Crashing the lance, he snuffs the spouting gore 5 
 Of man and steed, o'erthrown beneath his horn ; 
 The throng'd arena 6 shakes with shouts for more ; 
 Yells the mad crowd 7 o'er entrails freshly torn, 
 Nor shrinks the female eye, 8 nor ev'n affects to mourn. 
 
 69 
 
 The seventh day 1 this ; the jubilee of man.* 
 London ! right well 8 thou know'st the day of prayer ; 
 Then thy spruce* citizen, wash'd artisan, 
 And smug 5 apprentice gulp their weekly air :' 
 
 to have a character of its own, distinguishing it from common 
 days — and so it has here, but hardly in the way we would expect. 
 " Christian," " sacred," and " solemn " are all used with studied 
 irony. 
 
 3 Hark ! heard you not. ..Compare 38, I. 
 
 * the forest-monarch is the bull. 
 
 5 Spouting gore : blood issuing from the wounds it inflicts 
 with its horns. 
 
 6 arena : (1) the circus, (2) the spectators that throng it. 
 
 7 Yells the mad crowd. The inversion of subject and verb 
 adds much force to the line. 
 
 • nor shrinks etc. This anticipates stanza 80, where the fact 
 receives severe comment, 
 
 69. J The seventh day : rather the "first." Byron again 
 ignores the distinction. 
 
 a the jubilee of man : man's day of rejoicing. "The Sabbath 
 was made for man." Mark 2, 27. For the Hebrew sense of "jubilee" 
 see Leviticus 25, 8 — where it will be seen that the festival occurred 
 only once in fifty years. 
 
 1 right well is ironical : in the description that follows, church- 
 going is strangely left out of account. 
 
 4 spruce, trim, in the clothes he keeps for Sunday wear. 
 
 5 smug : insignificant but conceited. 
 
 6 gulp, take their fill of. They have been breathing the stifling 
 air of the city all the week. 
 
'•] Childe Harold 73 
 
 Thy coach of hackney', whiskey," one-horse chair,* 
 And humblest gig through sundry suburbs whirl ; 
 To Hampstead, Brentford, Harrow 10 male repair 
 Till the tired jade the wheel forgets to hurl, 11 
 Provoking envious gibe from each pedestrian churl. 1 * 
 
 70 
 
 Some o'er thy Thamis 1 row the ribbon'd fair, 8 
 
 Others along the safer turnpike fly ; 
 
 Some Richmond-hill" ascend, some scud to Ware*, 
 
 And many to the steep of Highgate 5 hie. 
 
 Ask ye, Boeotian shades ! 6 the reason why ? 
 
 7 coach of hackney = hired vehicle, hackney-carriage. 
 
 8 whiskey, a very light vehicle (one that "whisks along"). 
 
 9 chair : a vehicle for one person. ("Chaise" strictly speaking 
 = chair). 
 
 10 Hampstead lies to the north of London, Brentford to the 
 west, Harrow still farther to the west. They have all been swal- 
 lowed up by Greater London. 
 
 11 forgets to hurl, is too exhausted to pull along the vehicle. 
 " pedestrian churl = churlish pedestrian. 
 
 70. ' Thamis, the river Thames (Latin Tameaia). 
 
 3 the ribbonned fair : their womenfolk, dressed out in their 
 "Sunday best." 
 
 s Richmond-hill : » suburb to the S. W. of London on a gentle 
 acclivity. 
 
 * scud, fly with smooth and easy motion. It is commonly used 
 as a nautical term = run before the wind. Ware : a market town 
 in Hertfordshire, about twenty miles north of London. 
 
 5 the steep of Highgate = Highgate Hill, a few miles north of 
 London. 
 
 6 Boeotian shades I Woods and groves of Boeotia. This 
 apostrophe is introduced so unexpectedly, that the poet thinks it 
 fair to explain that the stanza was written in the capital of the 
 country here invoked, viz. in Thebea (about 40 miles N.W. of 
 Athens), where the most famous riddle of antiquity was propounded, 
 by the monster called Sphinx. " What animal is it that in Ike morn- 
 ing walks on four legs, at noon on two, and in the evening on three" ? 
 Oedipus solved it by answering, "It is man ; who in infancy goes 
 
74 Childe Harold t CANT » 
 
 'Tis to the worship of the solemn Horn, 7 
 Grasp'd in the holy hand of Mystery, 8 
 In whose dread name both men and maids are sworn, 
 And consecrate the oath with draught, 9 and dance till morn . 
 
 7i 
 All have their fooleries 1 — not alike are thine,' 
 Fair Cadiz, rising o'er the dark blue sea ! s 
 Soon as the matin bell 4 proclaimeth nine 
 Thy saint-adorers count the rosary : s 
 
 on all-fours, then walks erect, till obliged by old age to use the support 
 of a 1 
 
 Mommsen supposes "shades" to refer to the spirits of 
 Oedipus and Tiresias, both connected with this ancient city, and 
 both possessed of prophetic powers. Even persons of their insight 
 into mysteries might fail to divine what attracts the Sunday trip- 
 per to Highgate. 
 
 7 the worship of the solemn Horn. "It was a custom at the 
 public-houses at Highgate to administer to visitors on a pair of 
 horns an oath, to t^e effect that they would never drink small beer 
 when they could get strong, unless they liked it better, together 
 with a variety of similar pledges." Tozer. A foolish and obsolete 
 custom, remembered only by antiquaries. 
 
 8 in the holy hand of Mystery. It appears to have been a 
 mock-religious rite. 9 draught=drinking. 
 
 71. ' their fooleries = follies or extravagances peculiar to 
 themselves. 
 
 2 not alike are thine: the "fooleries" of Cadiz are different 
 from those of London. 
 
 ' In his description of "its buildings of dazzling white, visible 
 between the azure of the sea and the azure of the sky, Byron has 
 characterised the physiognomy of Cadiz in a marvellous manner, 
 and with a single touch." Gautier, Travels in Spain. 
 
 A the matin bell : the bell that rings for morning prayer. It 
 would ring, however, at daybreak. 
 
 5 saint adorers : worshippers of the saints ; count the rosary 
 = tell their beads. The rosary is a string of 165 beads, used for 
 keeping count when reciting prayers. 
 
'•] Childe Harold 7.5- 
 
 Much is the Virgin teased to shrive them free 6 
 (Well do I ween the only virgin there 7 ) 
 From crimes as numerous as her beadsmen' be 
 Then to the crowded circus forth they fare : 9 
 Young, old, high, low, at once the same diversion share. 
 
 The lists 1 are oped, the spacious area 8 clear'd, 
 Thousands on thousands piled" are seated round ; 
 Long ere the first* loud trumpet's note is heard, 
 Ne vacant space for lated wight 5 is found : 
 Here dons, grandees 6 but chiefly dames abound, 
 
 " "The Virgin Mary is persistently invoked to absolve them, 
 from their sins.'' Shrive is the act of a priest when he hearB con- 
 fession, assigns penance, and pronounces absolution. It is there- 
 fore wrongly used here, as later in II. 78, 3. 
 
 7 there, in church. 
 
 s beadsmen : persons who tell beads, those now assembled in 
 church to "count the rosary." (Hence common gender). "Bead"" 
 (a small perforated ball for threading with others to form a rosary) 
 meant originally a "prayer." 
 
 * The line suggests precipitate haste in getting from the church, 
 to the bull-ring. The poet evidently means us to believe that the 
 latter is no great distance off. 
 
 72. ' lists : "the ground or field enclosed for a race or combat." 
 Compare 73, 4. 
 
 " area = arena; the central part of the enclosure, where the 
 combat tabes place. 
 
 , Thousands on thousands piled. The building is circular, 
 the seats rise behind and above each other as in an amphitheatre. 
 
 4 the first of three blasts, 75, 1. 
 
 5 (be)lated wight, or person. The word has a shade of 
 contempt. 
 
 " dons, grandees = gentlemen (and) noblemen. Asyndeton. 
 7 ogle. ..eye, amorous glances, roguish = knowing. 
 
76 Childe Harold f CANTO 
 
 Skill'd in the ogle of a roguish eye, 7 
 Yet ever well inclined to heal the wound ; 
 None through their cold disdain are doom'd to die, 
 As moon-struck bards complain 8 , by Love's sad archery. 9 
 
 73 
 
 Hush'd is the din of tongues 1 — on gallant steeds, 
 With milk-white crest, 2 gold spur, and light-poised 8 lance 
 Four cavaliers* prepare for venturous deed s. 
 And lowly bending to the lists advance ; 
 Rich are their scarfs, their chargers featly prance : 
 If in the dangerous game they shine 5 to-day, 
 The crowd's loud shout and ladies' lovely glance, 
 Best prize of better acts 6 , they bear away, 7 
 And all that kings or chiefs e'er gain' their toils repay. 9 
 
 8 e. g. Petrarch in his verses addressed to Laura. 
 
 9 Love's sad archery. The capital shows us that Cupid is 
 intended. 
 
 73. l "Expectation holds them mute." 
 
 2 crest : the upper curve of the animal's neck. 
 
 s light-poised, held by a practised hand. 
 
 * Four cavaliers : the picadors, dressed like Spanish knights of 
 the olden time. The lances (15 feet long) which they carry so feat- 
 ly can only harass the animals, the spike at the end being but 
 three inches long. The more they can work up the bull to fury, the 
 more exciting is the subsequent sport to the people. 
 
 5 shine = excel, distinguish themselves. Byron evidently thinks 
 the part these men play is of some importance, which, however, 
 is not the case. 
 
 better acts. Bull-fighting receives no oountenanoe from our 
 poet. 
 
 ' they bear away = they will earn for themselves. 
 
 8 All. ..gain = ladies' approbation. 
 
 • their toils repay = will reward their pains. 
 
'•] Childe Harold 77 
 
 74 
 
 In costly sheen and gaudy cloak 1 array'd, 
 But all afoot, the light-limb'd Matadore" 
 Stands in the centre, eager to invade 8 
 The lord of lowing herds ; but not before 
 The ground, with cautions- tread, is traversed o'er, 
 Lest aught unseen should lurk to thwart his speed : 
 His arms a dart, 4 he fights aloof, nor more 
 Can man achieve without the friendly steed — 
 Alas ! too oft condemned for him to bear and bleed. 
 
 75 
 Thrice sounds the clarion; lo ! the signal 1 falls, 
 The den expands, and Expectation mute 2 
 Gapes round the silent 3 circle's peopled walls. 
 
 74. ' costly sheen and gaudy cloak : hendiadys. The 
 cloak is (1) costly, (2) shining (see note on 17,2), and (3) showy. 
 Byron is here drawing upon his imagination. The matadore — if 
 this is really the person intended by this description — is clad 
 in black. 
 
 a al I = wholly or quite. This detail is correct, and so is also the 
 singular Matadore, for there is only one in a bull fight (but see 
 the plural, 78,5). 
 
 3 invade = attack is a licence demanded by the metre. 
 
 4 His arms a dart (technically a banderilla, which the per- 
 former tries to plant in the bull's shoulder). The description is 
 intended without doubt for the chidos, young men remarkable for 
 their agility, who are present to assist the picadors, by drawing 
 upon themselves the attention of the bull if the horses are 
 too hard pressed. This they do by waving bright flags in their 
 faces. 
 
 75. The last two stanzas have introduced us to the (1) theatre 
 and (2) the performers : (3) now the actual fight will be described. 
 It is preceded (as we have seen) by a shrill flourish of trumpets. 
 
 1 the signal viz. for the opening of the den, (as the encierro is 
 here called), where the bulls are waiting to be let loose. 
 
 J Expectation mute. More excitement is manifested by this 
 intense silence than would be manifested by loud applause. 
 
 3 Silent is proleptie. 
 
78 Childe Harold t CANTO 
 
 Bounds with one lashing spring the mighty brute, 4 
 And, wildly staring, 6 spurns, with sounding foot, 
 The sand, nor blindly rushes on his foe : 
 Here, there, he points his threatening front, to suit 
 His first attack, wide waving to and fro 
 His angry tail ; red rolls his eye's dilated glow" 
 
 76 
 
 Sudden he stops; 1 his eye is fix'd : 2 away, 
 Away, thou heedless boy ! prepare the spear : 
 Now is thy time to perish, or display 
 The skill that yet may check his mad career." 
 With well-timed croupe 1 the nimble coursers veer ; 
 On foams the bull, but not unscathed 5 he goes ; 
 Streams from his flank 6 the crimson torrent clear : 
 He flies, he wheels, distracted with his throes ; 
 Dart follows dart; lance, lance ;' loud nellowings speak rin 
 woes. 
 
 4 A magnificent lire. Byron often uses inversion very effectively . 
 Lash i n g = vehement. 
 
 5 wildly staring : dazzled by his sudden emergence from the 
 darkness of the "den" to the sunlight of the arena, and bewildered 
 by the sight of the multitude. 
 
 a his eye's glow = his glowing eye (abstract for concrete). The 
 
 • eye is red, it turns in all directions, it is widely open, and it is 
 full of fire.. 
 
 76. * Sudden(ly) he stops (in his career). 
 
 2 fixed (on his victim, one of the picadors on horseback). 
 
 s check. ..career. Impossible ! The poet only means baffle or 
 frustrate the onset by sideward deviation. 
 
 4 croupe. "A particular leap taught in the manege" [ = riding 
 school. I Byron's note. 
 
 « not unscathed ( litotes) =" very much hurt " 
 
 6 from his flank (or side): where the lance has penetrated. 
 Another inversion of subject and object. The weapon could not 
 
 • do so much execution as Byron makes it — see note on 73,4. 
 
 1 Dart follows dart (from the ehulos ) ; lance (follows) lance 
 . (from the picadors). 
 
«•] Childe Harold 79 
 
 77 
 Again he 1 conies ; nor dart nor lance avail, 
 Nor the wild plunging of the tortured horse ; 
 Though man and man's avenging arms 2 assail, 
 Vain are his weapons, vainer is his force. 
 One gallant steed is stretch'd a mangled corse ; 
 Another, hideous sight ! unseam 'd 3 appears. 
 His gory chest unveils life's panting source ; 4 
 Though death-struck, still his feeble frame he rears ; 5 , 
 Staggering, but stemming all, his lord unharm'd he bears 
 
 78 
 
 Foil'd, bleeding, breathless, furious to the last, 
 
 Full in the centre stands the bull at bay, 1 
 
 Mid wounds, and clinging darts, and lances brast, 2 
 
 And foes disabled in the brutal fray : 
 
 And now the Matadores 3 around him play, 
 
 77. a he: the bull. In spite of his ''woes," he still has the 
 best of the fight. In the course of this stanza, he kills one horse 
 outright, and fatally injures a second. 
 
 3 avenging arms : the weapons of next line. 
 
 1 unseamed : ripped up by the bull's horn. 
 
 ' His gory chest unveils life's panting source ; The animal's 
 still palpitating heart is visible through its broken ribs — in 
 consequence of the wound that has ripped up his chest. 
 
 5 his feeble frame he rears, the faithful animal keeps 
 himself on his feet. 
 
 " stemming all, still presenting a bold front to the bull. 
 
 78. ' at bay : in the midst of his persecutors, where there is 
 no way of escape. 
 
 2 lances brast, i. e. shivered : "brast" is an obsolete form of 
 "burst." 
 
 1 and now the Matadores. Observe the combination of 
 accuracy and inacuracy. There is only one performer (as we have 
 seen) of this name, and he does not appear till the eDd of the 
 
80 Childe Harold t CANT& 
 
 Shake the red cloak 4 , and poise the ready brand : s 
 Once more through all he bursts his thundering way — 
 Vain rage ! the mantle quits the conynge 6 hand 
 Wraps his fierce eye — 'tis past — he sinks upon the sand ! 
 
 79 
 
 Where his vast neck just mingles with the spine, 1 
 Sheathed in his form the deadly weapon lies. 
 He stops — he starts — disdaining to decline : 
 Slowly he falls, amidst triumphant cries, 
 Without a groan, without a struggle dies. 
 The decorated car appears — on high 
 
 fray, to give the bull the coup de grace. His technical name- is 
 "swordsman", {espada) : '"the word matador is scarcely ever 
 employed in Spain to designate the person who kills the bull. " 
 Gautier, p. 59. This man is really the principal performer in 
 the drama, "the observed of all observers"; and "the crowd's 
 loud shout and ladies' lovely glance" (73,7), which Byron has 
 thrown away on the more showy picadors, ought to have been 
 reserved for him alone. 
 
 4 the red cloak or mantle is evidently meant for the brightly 
 coloured flag (technically known as the muleta) carried by the 
 espada. 
 
 5 the ready brand. "Brand" is a poetical word for "sword": 
 so called from its flashing. 
 
 6 conynge : archaic for "cunning." 
 
 79. ' Where. ..spine: where the neck ends and the spine 
 begins. The espada aims his blow " behind the head, some inches 
 from an imaginary line straight drawn from horn to horn." If 
 struck in precisely the right spot, the bull dies instaneously, with- 
 out losing a drop of blood. The event of supreme interest to the 
 crowd is the planting of this blow, but Byron passes over this 
 critical moment in silence— his bull is laid low at the time when 
 the mantle is flung over his eyes, (see close of last stanza). More- 
 over the bull has a short breathing-space after the sword 
 is plunged into him (line 3) ; but if this took plaoe in an actual 
 bull-fight, it would overwhelm the matador with yells and insults 
 from the spectators. 
 
'•] Childe Harold 81 
 
 The corse is piled 3 — sweet sight for vulgar eyes — 
 Four steeds* that spurn the rein, as swift as shy, 
 Hurl the dark bulk along, scarce seen in dashing by. 
 
 80 
 
 Such the ungentle sport that oft invites 
 The Spanish maid, 1 and cheers the Spanish swain. 
 Nurtured in blood betimes 2 , his heart delights 
 In vengeance, gloating 3 on another's pain. 
 What private feuds the troubled village stain ! 4 
 Though now one phalanx'd host 6 should meet the foe, 
 Enough, alas ! in humble homes 6 remain, 
 To meditate 'gainst friends 7 the secret blow, 
 For some slight cause ot wrath whence life's warm stream 
 must flow. 
 
 the corse is piled. "Corse" is poetic for "'corpse"; 
 "piled" suggests the vastness of the animal's frame, the "dark 
 bulk " of line 9. 
 3 Four steeds : more commonly a team of mules. 
 
 80. ' that oft invites the Spanish maid. This has been 
 attested by many writers. "How repugnant soever this diver- 
 sion may appear to every delicate and feeling mind, it is more 
 frequented and admired by the ladies than by the gentlemen. " 
 So writes Jacob, in describing the bull-fight witnessed in the neigh- 
 bourhood of Cadiz by the Duke of Wellington in November, 1809. 
 
 a Nurtured in blood betimes, accustomed to the sight of blood 
 from his earliest years. 
 
 3 " gloating, feasting his eyes. 
 
 * troubled is proleptic, being implied in stain (with bloodshed). 
 Cadiz can boast of the species of " patriots " whose acquaintance 
 we made in Seville (46, 4). 
 
 5 one phalanxed host etc. The common cause ought to unite 
 all classes against the foreigner — but there is not enough esprit de 
 corps to make them sink their private quarrels. 
 
 " in humble homes : the villages of line 5. The argu- 
 ment seems to be : " Let ignorant country people 6ght among each 
 other at such a time as this, but townspeople ought to know better. 
 
 " friends =countrymen. 
 
 6 
 
82 Childe Harold f CANT0 
 
 Si 
 
 But Jealousy has fled : l his bars, his bolts, 
 His wither'd centinel, Duenna sage ! 2 
 And all whereat the generous soul* revolts, 
 Which the stern dotard deem'd he could encage, 
 Have pass'd to darkness with the vanish'd age. 4 
 Who late 5 so free as Spanish girls were seen 
 (Ere War uprose in his volcanic rage), 
 With braided tresses bounding o'er the green, 
 While on the gay dance shone Night's lover-loving 
 Queen ? 6 
 
 82 
 
 Oh ! many a time and oft 1 had Harold loved, 
 Or dream'd 2 he loved, since rapture is a dream; 
 
 81. See note on p. 58. Hobhouse in his Travels often 
 reflects the disouasions that went on between the two friends. 
 In a passage referring to the Turkish manner of secluding their 
 women Hobhouse's thoughts revert to Spain: 'The restraint 
 severely observed 150 years ago in the treatment of the Spanish 
 women was not produced by the sun, but was a relic of Moorish 
 manners" (p. 846). 
 
 1 The jealous husband is unknown, because infidelity is too 
 rampant to be restrained. 
 
 2 his bars, his bolts. In these days "wedldck and a padlock 
 were the same" : the Duenna acting the part of the 
 eastern eunuch, was more of a centinel ( = sentinel), than of a 
 governess or elderly companion, as she is to-day. "Duenna," 
 though strictly in apposition to " centinel", is at the same time a 
 kind of apostrophe. 
 
 2 the generous soul, the spirit of freedom (or revolt ). 
 
 * The line is a mere expansion of " fled," line 1. 
 
 5 late(ly) : within the last 150 years (aocording to the above 
 extract) The war has been a, disturbing circumstance, but the 
 restraint it has imposed on woman's freedom does not indicate 
 a return to the old regime. 
 
 8 Night's lover-loving Queen : the Moon. Compare II. SO, j. 
 
*■) Childe Harold 83 
 
 But now his wayward bosom 3 was unmoved, 
 For not yet had he drunk of Lethe's stream ; 4 
 And lately had he learn'd with truth 5 to deem 
 Love has no gift so grateful as his wings : e 
 How fair, howyounsr, how soft soe'er he seem, 
 Full from the fount 7 of Joy's delicious springs 
 Some bitter o'er the flowers 8 its bubbling venom flings. 
 
 82-84. These stanzas, with the song "To Inez" ( Spanish 
 form of "Agnes"), show us how the Childe comports himself in the 
 gay environment of a southern Capital of Pleasure : even here 
 he retains his character for moroseness and world-weariness, the 
 "exile" has not escaped from himnelf. Change of scene has no effect 
 on him (compare "quickly wearied" II. 64, 4). The poet's feel- 
 ings, however, are much more faithfully mirrored in a rollicking 
 aong ("The CJirl of Cadiz"* which he had to suppress, that the 
 OhUde might not too glaringly step out of the character he has 
 hitherto so consistently maintained. 
 
 82. 1 many a time and oft : compare Julius Caesar, I. I. 42. 
 
 2 Or (rather) dreamed etc : love being as evanescent and un- 
 substantial as the stuff that dreams are made of. 
 
 3 now =here in Cadiz, his wayward bosom etc., his perverse 
 heart did not yield to the seductions of the place referred to in st. 
 67 ("A long adieu He bids to sober joy that here sojourns"), 
 
 4 not yet. ..Lethe's stream. This might refer to his unrequited 
 passion for Miss Cha worth. See 5, 4. 
 
 s with truth to deem etc. — to think there was truth in the 
 saying that... 
 
 6 no gift so grateful as his wings. Why is the mischievous 
 god represented with wings and 'more than that) with golden wings ? 
 Is it not to teach us that love can never he constant ? "Volatile" 
 (from Latin volare to fly) seems the most fitting epithet for the 
 tender passion, as it is understood by worldlings who, like Byron's 
 hero, pride themselves that it cannot claim empire over their 
 minds, but only fitful sway). 
 
 ■ Full from the fount etc. Byron renroduees this figure and 
 sentiment from Lucretius, his favourite Latin poet, 'De Rerum 
 Natnra iv. 1133V "Joy" is here likened to a well-spring of 
 water, but alas ! there issues along with it (from the hidden depths 
 of our nature) a bitter poison that pollutes its taste— the same 
 ountain sending forth both sweet waters and bitter. 
 
84 Childe Harold [ CANT(> 
 
 83 
 
 Yet to the beauteous form 1 he was not blind, 
 Though now it moved him as it moves the wise : a 
 Not thatf. Philosophy on such a mind 
 E'er deign'd to bend her chastely-awful eyes : 4 
 But Passion raves itself to rest, or flies ; 5 
 And Vice, that digs her own voluptuous tomb, 6 
 Had buried long his hopes 7 , no more to rise : 
 Pleasure's pall'd victim ! 8 life-abhorring gloom 
 Wrote on his faded brow" curst Cain's unresting doom. 
 
 One of Scott's heroes, stamped with certain ByroDic features, 
 writes to his mistress : "I told you I had that upon my mind which 
 I should carry to the grave with me — a perpetual aloes in the draught 
 of existence." Guy Mannering, chap. xii. 
 
 8 the flowers : a metaphor within a metaphor. This additional 
 circumstance is picturesque and natural — for what do we expect 
 but flowers beside a spring ? Like the water, the flowers 
 symbolise joy. 
 
 83. ' the beauteous form — female beauty. 
 
 2 as it moves the wise : Platonic love at most. 
 
 3 Not that...but=Not because. ..but because... 
 
 4 her chastely awful eyes : like those of Wordsworth's "Stern 
 Monitress." 
 
 5 raves itself to rest : the passion spends itself in the course of 
 time, or flies : or its victim takes refuge in flight. 
 
 " digs her own voluptuous tomb. Such a man's past history 
 had best be buried and forgotten. "Voluptuous" is a trans- 
 ferred epithet : the poet has in his mind a wealthy and titled 
 sinner. 
 
 7 buried long his hopes : Compare Arnold's lines To Faiisla 
 
 Our vaunted life is one long funeral. 
 
 Men dig graves with bitter tears 
 For their dead hopes. 
 
 8 Pleasure's palled victim : one whose curse is that pleasure 
 has ceased to please ! Compare "with pleasure drugged" 6, 8. 
 
 9 Wrote on his faded brow etc. There is reference in this line 
 (1) to the mark set upon Cain (Genesis iv. 15), probably on his 
 
'] Childe Harold 85 
 
 8 4 
 Still he beheld, 1 nor mingled with the throng ; 
 But view'd them not with misanthropic hate : 
 Fain would he now have join'd 2 the dance, the song ; 
 But who may smile that sinks beneath his fate? 3 
 Nought that he saw his sadness could abate : 
 Yet once he struggled 'gainst the Demon's* sway, 
 And as in Beauty's bower D he pensive sate, 
 Pour'd forth this unpremeditated lay, 6 
 To charms as fair as those that soothed his happier day. 
 
 TO INEZ. 
 1. 
 
 Nay, smile not 1 at my sullen brow ; 
 Alas ! I cannot smile again : 
 
 forehead and (2) to the sentence pronounced against him : "a 
 fugitive and a vagabond shalt thou be in the earth-" This figure 
 prepares us for that of "the fabled Hebrew wanderer" in the stanzas 
 to Inez, and reminds us that Byron (in Gain) was to give the 
 world a. full-length portrait of himself in the guise of the first 
 murderer ! 
 8$. * beheld : played the onlooker, not the actor. 
 
 2 now have joined etc. taken part in the festivities around 
 him. 
 
 3 sinks beneath his fate ; as Gain did, with whom Harold has 
 just compared himself. Genesis iv. 13. 14. 
 
 * the Demon here is melancholy, or, more strictly, "Thought" 
 {To Inez, st. 6). 
 
 ' Beauty's bower : Inez's boudoir. 
 
 6 unpremeditated lay, improvisation. The expression occurs 
 in Scott's Lay of the Last Minstrel. " All Byron's poems were 
 written when the fit of inspiration was upon him, with the utmost 
 rapidity and, as it were, at one cast." Elze, Life of Lord Byron, 
 p. 401. 
 
 TO INEZ. 
 
 There is no attempt in this song to get free from the "Demon"— 
 hardly anything in Byron's works strikes a sadder note ! But 
 
86 Childe Harold £ CANTa 
 
 Yet Heaven avert that ever thou 
 Shouldst weep 2 , and haply weep in vain 
 
 And dost thou ask what secret woe 
 I bear, corroding 3 joy and youth ? 
 
 And wilt thou vainly 4 seek to know 
 A pang, ev'n thou must fail to soothe ? 
 
 originally (as the MS. shows) an extremely mirthful song stood 
 here, but hardly up to the standard required for publication. I 
 here reproduce three double stanzas, (not always found in Byron's 
 Works) for the sake of the numerous points of contact they present 
 with the body of the poem : 
 
 The Spanish maid is no coquette, 
 
 Nor joys to see a lover tremble. 
 And if she love, or if she hate, 
 
 Alike she knows not to dissemble. 
 Her heart can ne'er be bought nor sold — 
 
 Howe'er it beats, it beats sincerely ; 
 And, though, it will not bend to gold, 
 
 'T will love you long, and love you dearly. 
 
 And when beneath the evening star, 
 
 She mingles in the gay Bolero |a dance] 
 Or sings to her attuned guitar 
 
 Of Christian knights or Moorish hero, 
 Or counts her beads with fairy hand 
 
 Beneath the twinkling rays of Hesper, 
 Or joins devotion's choral band 
 
 To chaunt the sweet and hallow'd vesper ; — 
 
 In each her charms the heart must move 
 
 Of all who venture to behold her ; 
 Then let not maids less fair reprove 
 
 Because her bosom is not colder : 
 Through many a clime 'tis mine to roam 
 
 Where many a soft and melting maid is, 
 But none abroad, and few at home, 
 
 May match the dark-eyed Girl of Cadiz. 
 
 1 smile not : her mirth cannot conjure away his gloom* 
 
 * Shouldst weep etc , as / do, and yet find no relief in tears. 
 3 corroding, consuming, wearing out (a participle). 
 
 * vainly : beoause she cannot know, and it would serve no good 
 purpose if she did. 
 
1 J Childe Harold 87 
 
 3- 
 It is not love, it is not hate ; 
 
 Nor low Ambition's honours lost,£ 
 That bids me loathe my present state, 
 
 And fly from all I prized the most : s 
 
 4. 
 
 It is that weariness which springs 
 From all I meet, or hear, or see : 
 
 To me no pleasure Beauty brings ; 
 
 Thine eyes 7 have scarce a charm for me. 
 
 5« 
 
 It is that settled, ceaseless gloom 
 The fabled Hebrew wanderer? bore 
 
 That will not look beyond the tomb,,', 
 Rut cannot hope for rest before. 
 
 6. 
 
 What Exile from himself can flee P 1 
 
 To zones though more and more remote, 
 
 ' thwarted worldly ambition, * home and country. 
 
 ' Thine eyes. "Thine" is emphatic : and the more emphatic, 
 the greater the compliment conveyed . they are only mentioned 
 because they are so beautiful. 
 
 " The fabled Hebrew wanderer. Commentators regard this 
 as a reference to the famous "wandering Jew," familiarised to 
 modern readers by Eugene Sue's romance. It is fabled that a certain 
 Ahashnerus refused to allow Jesus to sit down on a stone by his 
 door-step, and as a punishment was informed that he must con- 
 tinually walk on the earth till Jesus' return. "A wandering Jew" 
 is thus a person who never can settle down anywhere. 
 
 9 i. e. refuses to believe in a future existence. 
 
 1 What Exile etc. An old question. Horace ( Odes, II. 16) 
 asks : "Why exchange our own land for one that basks beneath 
 the sun ? The exile can escape from his country, but soarcely from 
 himself./" 
 
88 Childe Harold f CANT0 
 
 Still, still pursues, where'er I be, ! 
 
 The blight of life— the Demon Thought.' 
 
 Yet others rapt in pleasure seem, 
 And taste of all that I forsake ; 
 
 Oh ! may they still of transport dream, 
 And ne'er, at least like me, awake ! 4 
 
 Through many a clime 'tis mine 5 to go, 
 With many a retrospection curst :" 
 
 And all my solace is to know, 
 
 Whate'er betides, I've known the worst. 7 
 
 What is that worst ? Nay, do not ask — 
 
 In pity from the search forbear : 
 Smile on — nor venture to unmask 
 
 Man's heart, and view the HelP that's there. 
 
 2 _ where'er I be is superfluous. 
 
 3 the Demon Thought: tho thought of "self"; remorse for 
 a misspent life. The Ode speaks of '"the torturing troubles of 
 the mind" which neither "jewel, nor purple, nor gold" can dispel. 
 
 * dream. ..awake. Compare "since rapture is a, dream", 82, 2. 
 Disillusionment is like the experience of wakiug up from a dream. 
 
 mine, my lot. • afflicted with many unhappy memori es . 
 
 7 I've known the worst. Compare {King Lear IV. 1. 29) 
 
 And worse I may be yet : the worst is not, 
 So long as we can say, "This is the worst !" 
 
 * the Hell, the misery (metonymy). 
 
«•] Childe Harold 89 
 
 85 
 
 Adieu, fair Cadiz ! yea, a long adieu I 1 
 Who may forget how well thy walls have stood ? 2 
 When all were changing, thou alone wert true, 
 First to be free, and last to be subdued : 3 
 And if amidst a scene, a shock so rude, 4 
 Some native blood was seen thy streets to dye, 
 A Traitor only 5 fell beneath the feud : 
 Here all were noble, save Nobility ! 
 None hugg'd a conqueror's chain, save fallen Chivalry ! 
 
 85-90. The poet gives us his final reflections on the present 
 condition of the Peninsula, and the end which still seems so far off. 
 His sympathies are all on the side of the oppressed, but he cannot 
 help feeling the anomaly of a people fighting so bravely on behalf 
 of a dynasty that has never permitted them to taste of 
 liberty ! He gives strong expression in these stanzas to the horror 
 with which he looks upon war, and the contempt he feels for the 
 responsible parties. 
 
 85. This stanza is not in the original MS. 
 
 1 a long adieu, farewell for a long time, 77, 5. Byron never 
 saw Cadiz again. 
 
 2 how well thy walls have stood. Its two and a half years' 
 siege was begun in February, 1810 (just after the submission of 
 Seville : see note on 45, 4), and was still in progress at the time of 
 Childe Harold' s publication. The French were finally obliged to 
 abandon the task. 
 
 3 First to show the spirit of resistance, and never to be sub- 
 dued ! The poet's anticipation does not tally with events. 
 
 * a scene, a shock so rude. This refers to the insurrection of 
 the people in May, 1808. 
 
 5 A Traitor only. Byron writes as if Solano, the then Governor 
 of Cadiz, was of the same type as Godoy, an ame damnie (as;we 
 have seen, 48, 6) of Napoleon.' It might be more true to say that 
 Solano merely hesitated before plunging his countrymen in a war 
 in which he thought the odds would not be in their favour. Be 
 this as it may, he was massacred by the people on his refusal to 
 fire upon the French fleet when it anchored in the bay. 
 
 6 all were noble save Nobility. A rather striking antithesis. 
 Solano was a marquis. What about the principle of noblesse 
 
90 Childe Harold t CANTO 
 
 86 
 Such be the sons of Spain, and strange her fate ! l 
 They fight for freedom* who were never free, 
 A Kingless people 3 for a nerveless state ;* 
 Her vassals combat when their chieftains flee, 
 True 5 to the veriest slaves of Treachery : 6 
 Fond of a land which gave them nought but life. 
 Pride 7 points the path that leads to Liberty ; 
 Back to the struggle, baffled in the strife, 
 War, war is still the cry " War even to the knife !"* 
 
 87 
 Ye, who would more of Spain and Spaniards know, 
 Go, read whate'er is writ 1 of bloodiest strife : 
 
 86. The poet in this stanza refers to certain strange anomalies 
 about this war, which have struck many historians. 
 
 " They fight for freedom from a foreign lord, but they have 
 never enjoyed freedom under their indigenous sovereign* ! 
 
 3 A kingless people. See note on the three king*, st 48. 
 
 * Nerveless State. The Junto, as the government in Seville was 
 termed was lacking in purpose and determination, and required 
 outsiders to form its plans for it. 
 
 5 True etc. is to be taken with vassal. 
 
 ' Slaves of Treachery : Their native dynasty. Ferdinand VII* 
 Mas little better than Charles IV : they were b-ith tainted 
 alike with the vices of the Bourbons, the race that "forgot 
 nothing, and learned nothing." Wordsworth (.Convention uf Antra) 
 mildly sayo : '"Their devotion to the person of their sovereign 
 appeared to us to have 100 much of the alloy of d>lu«i'>ri" ; yet 
 this loyalty was "of better omen, than if they had stood forth 
 the zealots of abstract principles, drawn out of the laboratory of 
 unfeeling philosophers." 
 
 7 Pride The student will here remember what was said about 
 the Spaniards in stanza 33. 
 
 s to the knife : with which weapon, as we have seen (note on 
 50,8) they were liberally supplied. 
 
 78. l What'er is writ (on ihe page of history). 
 
 * When Ferdinand wits restored in 1814, he accepted a new c institution, but 
 this he soon annulled, not only breaking his oath but 'as Darmors'U > ronaarkse 
 "sending to the scaffold many oi the men who has shed their bluud to elevat > 
 hiro to his throne". 
 
I] Childe Harold 91 
 
 Whate'er keen Vengeance urged on foreign foe 3 
 Can act, is acting 5 there against man's life : 
 From flashing scimitar to secret knife, 
 War mouldeth there each weapon to his need — 
 So may he 4 guard the sister and the wife, 
 So may he make each curst oppressor bleed — 
 So may such foes deserve the most remorseless deed ! e 
 
 88 
 
 Flows there a tear of pity for the dead P 1 
 Look o'er the ravage of the reeking plain ;- 
 Look on the hands with female slaughter red ; 
 Then to the dogs resign the unburied slain, 3 
 
 2 Whate'er keen Vengeance etc. This means that every 
 refinement of cruelty has been practised in the course of the present 
 war. Many of the horrors perpetrated upon French prisoners are 
 detailed in Napier's History, I. 117. urged on = when incited 
 against. 
 
 * Can act, is acting, can perpetrate, is being perpetrated. 
 
 4 So may he. "Ho" is here either War or the Spanish wirrior. 
 These cruelties do not alienate the poet's sympathies from a 
 people who are only striving to protect their country from 
 servitude and their women from dishonour. 
 
 '- deserve =receive as their desert ; deed = requital for their 
 misdeeds. 
 
 88. ' The burden of this stanza is the horror of war. the 
 dead. There is no nice discrimination here of nationalities. 
 
 ■ the (still) reeking plain. For "reeking" see 38, 3. The 
 reader is addressed as a spectator. 
 
 3 Then to the dogs resign etc. Mommsen is perplexed about 
 the subject of "resign," but there is no attempt here at syntaotioal 
 correctness. "Look around on the unburied slain, abandoned 
 to the dogs and to the vultures — whose rapaoity, however great, 
 cannot dispose of the bones, which will remain to mark the 
 battle-field and help posterity to realise something of war's 
 horrors." Another pilgrim who followed on Byron's footsteps 
 in 1812 wrote as follows of the battle-fteld of Medellin (1808) : 
 "Human bones lay everywhere bleached by the sun and wind, 
 the relics of the wolf's and the eagle's feast." Quoted in The Modern 
 Traveller, vol. xix, p. 237. 
 
92 Childe Harold C CAST0 
 
 Then to the vulture let each corse remain, 
 Albeit unworthy of the prey-bird's maw ; 
 Let their bleach'd bones, and blood's unbleaching stain, 
 Long mark the battle-field with hideous awe : 
 "Thus only may our sons conceive the scenes we saw ! 
 
 89 
 
 Nor yet, alas I 1 the dreadful work is done ; 
 Fresh legions pour adown the Pyrenees : 
 It deepens still,* the work is scarce begun, 
 Nor mortal eye the distant end foresees. 
 Fall'n nations 3 gaze on Spain ; if freed, she frees* 
 More than her fell Pizarros" once enchain'd : 
 Strange retribution! now Columbia's ease 6 
 Repairs the wrongs that Quito's sons 7 sustain'd, 
 While o'er the parent clime 8 prowls Murder unrestrain'd. 
 
 89. * Not yet, alas ! The war went on till the eve of 
 Napoleon's abdication (April, 1814). 
 
 * It deepens still. The war is becoming more terrible. 
 
 3 Fall'n nations : the countries whose kings Napoleon had 
 dethroned, 52, 2. 
 
 * If freed, she frees etc. If she succeeds in her opposi- 
 tion to Napoleon, other nations will take heart from her example. 
 
 '- Her fell Pizarros. The two brothers Francisco and Gonzalo 
 are here meant. In the sixteenth century they overthrew the 
 empire of the Incas (in Peru) and founded the Spanish 
 power in South America. Byron cannot forget that the Spaniards 
 were "Geryon's sons" {Paradise Lost, xi, 410). 
 
 Columbia = America generally ; the South American republic 
 of this name had not yet come into existence. Ease. Taking 
 advantage of the mother-country's embarrassments, the oolonists 
 had begun to shake off the Spanish yoke. 
 
 ' Quito's sons, the Incas generally. Quito was one of their 
 principal cities. 
 
 * parent clime : mother country. 
 
l/i Childe Harold 93 
 
 90 
 
 Not all the blood at Talavera* shed, 
 Not all the marvels of Barossa's fight, a 
 Not Albuera lavish of the dead, 3 
 Have won for Spain her well-asserted right. 
 When shall her Olive-Branch be free from blight ?* 
 When shall she breathe her from the blushing toil ? & 
 How many a doubtful day shall sink in night, 
 Ere the Frank robber 6 turn him from his spoil, 
 And Freedom's stranger- tree 7 grow native of the soil, 
 
 And thou, my friend I 1 — since unavailing woe 
 Bursts from my heart, and mingles with the strain — 
 
 90. * Talavera, as we saw, was an indecisive battle. 
 
 " the marvels ( = heroie deeds) of Barossa's fight. The battle 
 was fought in March, 1811. The English, under Graham, over- 
 threw the French, under Victor. 
 
 8 lavish of the dead. See Southey's remark quoted in the 
 notes to stanza 43. 
 
 4 "When will freedom be restored, and Spain nourish once 
 more ?" 
 
 * breathe her = recover her breath. blushing = making to 
 blush (litotes). 
 
 '■ The Frank robber. Compare, "the rise of rapine," 53, 4. 
 Byron has never named the man, but often alluded to him. 
 
 7 Freedom's stanger-tree. "During the American War of 
 Independence (1775-83) and afterwards during the French Revolu- 
 tion, it was the oustom to plant trees as 'symbols of growing 
 liberty'." (C). 
 
 91. x And thou my friend, "thou" = "as for thee." "The 
 Honourable John Wingfield, of the Guards, who died of a fever 
 at Coimbra (May 14, 1811). I had known him ten years, the 
 better half of his life, and the happiest part of mine. In the short 
 space of one month I have lost her who gave me being, and most 
 of those who had made it tolerable (Byron's note). The two 
 friends, as Byron says in his Childish Recollections, were, 
 
 All, all that brothers should be, but the name. 
 
94 Childe Harold C CAXT0 
 
 Had the sword' laid thee with the mighty low, 
 Pride 3 might forbid e'en Friendship to complain : 
 But thus unlaurel'd to descend in vain, 
 By all forgotten, save the lonely breast, 4 
 And mix unbleeding 5 with the boasted slain, 
 While Glory crowns so many a meaner crest ! 6 
 "Wr, at hadst thou done to sink' so peacefully to rest ? 
 
 92 
 
 Oh, known the earliest, and esteem 'd the most ! 
 Dear to a heart where nought 1 was left so dear ! 
 Though to my hopeless* days for ever lost, 
 In dreams deny me not to see thee here ! 
 And Morn in secret shall renew the tear 
 Of Consciousness awaking to her woes, 3 
 And Fancy hover o'er thy bloodless bier, 4 
 Till my frail frame return to whence it rose, 5 
 And mourn'd and mourner lie united in repose. 
 
 3 sword is the emphatic word. 
 
 3 Pride. The sentiment here is not profound, for Byron 
 " hated the bravo's trade." 
 
 * Could Wingfield boast of only one friend ? 
 
 ' unbleeding : for he died, not of wounds but of fever, not in 
 the field but in hospital. 
 
 * crest (for "head") would not have been used but for the rhyme . 
 7 to sink etc. To deserve so inglorious an end ? 
 
 92. * nought, nothing, no other (after you were gone). 
 
 1 hopeless. He allows his grief to overmaster him. 
 
 3 When he awakes of a morning, his Iors will come back to his 
 consciousness, and his tears of the past night flow once more. 
 
 * bloodless bier. Compare 19, 5. 
 3 to whence it rose : the dust. 
 
'•3 Childe Harold 95 
 
 93 
 Here i^ *me fytte 1 of Harold's pilgrimage. 
 Ye wh< >f him may further seek to know, 
 Shall fiii'l some tidings in a future page,'* 
 If he that rhymeth now may scribble moe. 
 Is this too much ? stern Critic ! say not so : 
 Patience- V and ye shall hear what he beheld 
 In other lands, where he was doom'd to go : 
 Lands that contain* the monuments of Eld, 5 
 Ere Greece and Grecian arts by barbarous hands were 
 quell'd. 
 
 93. Of the present stanza Mommsen remarks that its only 
 fitting destination was the waste-paper-basket ! Without it, 
 Bs'ron probably thought the Canto might have ended too abruptly 
 (see introductory note to stanza 2). 
 
 1 Fytte = fit, a canto. [A. S. fit = song]. 
 
 2 page : singular for plural. 
 
 8 patience : Be willing to wait ! 
 
 * contain, (or contained) : pregnant construction. 
 
 * Eld = classical antiquity. 
 
 6 barbarous hands : the Turk's (II. 1, 7), whioh had ruined 
 Greece ; (2 the Soot's (11, i), which had ruined Grecian arts. 
 The line epitomises the first fifteen stanzas of the next Canto. 
 
CANTO THE SECOND. 
 
 Come, blue-eyed 1 maid of heaven ! — but thou, alas ! 
 Didst never yet one mortal song* inspire — 
 Goddess of Wisdom ! s here thy temple* was, 
 And is, despite of war and wasting fire, 5 
 
 1 The Second Canto, like the First, opens with an abortive Invo- 
 cation. Byron's address to the Muse (I. 1) wa9 half-hearted, owing 
 to his want of faith in her power to aid him He is in Athens 
 when he begins his new "fytte", and naturally turns to the 
 tutelary goddess of the city for inspiration ; but on second thoughts 
 he remembers that this majestic being was never an inspirer of song. 
 The poet's mind misgives him once more ; but all the same his 
 apostrophe to Athene is worthy of the occasion that calls it forth. 
 
 Byron's first sojourn at Athens extended from 25 December, 1809 
 to January 19, 1810, (i.e. after his travels in Albania, his ship- 
 wreck, and his visit to Delphi). 
 
 "During our residence of ten weeks at Athens, there was not, I 
 believe, a day of which we did not devote a part to the contem- 
 plation of the noble monuments of Grecian genius, that have out- 
 lasted the ravages of time, and the outrage of barbarians and anti- 
 quarian despoilers". Hobhouse, Travels, p. 309. 
 
 1 blue-eyed mistranslates Homer's epithet "owl-eyed" (=gleam- 
 ing-eyed). 
 
 - mortal song = song of a mortal. 
 
 1 of wisdom, and not of song. This goddess (whom Grote speaks 
 of as "the type of composed, majestic, and unrelenting force",) 
 formed with Zeus and Apollo the supreme triad in the Greek 
 mythology. The Romans identified her with their Minerva. She 
 is called Pallas in stanzas 11 and 14. 
 
 4 thy temple : the Parthenon, built on the Acropolis or citadel 
 of Athens. It is the purest example of the Doric style of architec- 
 ture, and even in its ruins is one of the most beautiful buildings in 
 the world. 
 
 " war and wasting fire=war's wasting fire, gunpowder explo- 
 sions. Hendiadys. The event referred to took place in 1687. The 
 Venetians, attempting to wrest Greece from the Turks, were laying , 
 siege to Athens, and fired right into the Parthenon, which was 
 being used for a powder magazine. The resulting explosion 
 almost blew up the building. 
 
"•] Childe Harold 97 
 
 And years, 6 that bade thy worship to expire : 
 But worse than steel, and flame, and ages slow, 7 
 Is the dread sceptre and dominion dire 8 
 Of men who never felt 9 the sacred glow 
 That thoughts of thee and thine on polish'd breasts bestow. 
 
 Ancient of days 1 ! august Athena ! where, 
 
 Where are thy men of might ? thy grand in soul ?* 
 
 6 and years etc. Another agency of change, a leas violent one, 
 whose effects are chiefly visible in the mind of man. bade = 
 ordained or decreed, thy worship, the worship of thee (and the 
 whole Bystem of which such worship was a part. ) 
 
 7 This line recapitulates the two preceding ones. 
 
 8 sceptre and dominion : hendiadys. Observe how the words 
 are paired (one supplying the mental picture, the other defining 
 the meaning). Compare "yoke and sufferance" Julius Gaesar, 
 I. 3. 84. 
 
 9 men who never felt : the Turks. Athens fell into their hands 
 in 1456, three years after they took Constantinople (77, 1). We 
 have in this stanza a climax, whose culmination is reserved for 
 stanza 1 ] . Hobhouse's words quoted at stanza 10 give the lie to 
 Byron's sweeping statement about the Turks. 
 
 2-9. From the present the poet now turns to the past. Where, 
 he asks, are Athene's men of might and men of mind, her con- 
 querors and philosophers, who made this city the foremost of the 
 ancient world ? Their record- appears but dimly on the page of 
 history, but their ghosts still seem to haunt their former seats. 
 
 According to his wont, the poet now "summons an audience", 
 addressing an imaginary person, not so impressed as himself by 
 the grandeur of the place. To this stranger he proceeds to impart 
 the thoughts that crowd into his own mind : (1) Religions take 
 their turn — "rites pass, creeds change, no altar standeth whole." 
 (2) If immortality is denied even to gods, why should men enter- 
 tain so fond a dream ? A funeral urn and a skull chance to arrest 
 the poet's eye, and serve him as object-lessons to enforce his thesis 
 against a future existence. 
 
 (3) But soon the poet rebels against his own doctrine. He cannot 
 resign the hope of seeing the shades of the great men who 
 have been the teachers of their kind, or those simpler souls that 
 have lightened his earthly labours for him, and one person in 
 particular whose identity is now lost in mystery. 
 
98 Childe Harold t CANTO 
 
 Gone 3 — glimmering through the dream of things 
 
 that were : 
 First in the race 4 that led to Glory's goal, 
 They won, and pass'd away — is this the whole ? 5 
 A schoolboy's tale, the wonder of an hour ! 6 
 The warrior's weapon and the sophist's stole 
 Are sought in vain 7 and o'er each mouldering tower, 
 Dim 8 with the mist of years, gray flits the shade of power." 
 
 2. * Ancient of Days ! "Entitled to veneration because of 
 age." The phrase is taken from Daniel 7, 9, where it is applied to 
 the Deity, august = majestic. 
 
 ^ thy men of might? thy grand in soul ? "Thy warriors 
 and thy sages." The poot addresses Athena in both her capacities 
 — as goddess of war and as goddess of wisdom. 
 
 3 Gone etc. They have lost their distinctness of outline as 
 seen through the mist of 2000 years. Byron liked this indistinct- 
 ness. Of Mitford's History of Greece he said : "I hate the book ; 
 it makes you too well acquainted with the ancient Greeks, and 
 robs antiquity of all its charms. History in his hands has no 
 poetry." 
 
 4 First both in time and in attainment, the race refers to 
 what we vulgarly call "the struggle for existence." The Greeks 
 attained to their place by preeminence in literature, philosophy, 
 and art. "The isles of Greece... Where grew the arts of war 
 and peace !" 
 
 s is this the whole ? What remains to be said on this theme 
 occupies the latter part of the Canto (from stanza 84 onwards). 
 
 6 a school boy's tale : compare "Theme of the 3'oung," 38, 2. 
 the wonder of an hour : either (1) the passing visitor's (Tozer), or 
 (2) the school-boy's (Mommsen). 
 
 ' The warrior's. ..sought in vain. An answer to the rhetori- 
 cal questions of line 2. Stole and weapon are put for their 
 respective owners (metonymy) ; sophist is used in its primary 
 sense, "a teacher of philosophy" — who may surely be "grand in 
 soul." But when men of this order turned "pedants and special 
 dealers", the name of "sophist" became equivalent to "quibbler" 
 (see I, 42, 3). 
 
 s dim ... repeats mouldering. The smooth white marble shows 
 signs of decay. 
 
 9 gray ...power : "the presence of the mighty dead still haunts 
 the ruins. 
 
"■] Childe Harold 99 
 
 3 
 Son of the Morning, rise I 1 approach you here ! 
 Come — but molest not yon defenceless urn : 2 
 Look on this spot — a nation's sepulchre ! 3 
 Abode of gods, whose shrines* no longer burn. 
 Even gods must yield — religions take their turn : 5 
 'Twas Jove's — 'tis Mahomet's 7 — and other creeds 8 
 Will rise with other years, till man shall learn 
 Vainly his incense soars, his victim bleeds ; 
 Poor child of Doubt and Death, whose hope is built 
 on reeds. 9 
 
 4 
 Bound to the earth, he lifts his eye to heaven 1 — 
 Is't not enough, unhappy thing! to know 
 
 3. * Son of the Morning, rise! Whether the person here 
 addressed be Greek or Turk, real or imaginary, need not be con- 
 sidered. He is only wanted as a listener, approach you. "you" 
 is subject of "approach." 
 
 " molest not. ..do not carelessly spurn the relic at your feet. 
 Urns are evidently very plentiful on this spot. Byron presented 
 Ssott with one which he picked up hereabout. 
 
 3 a nation's sepulchre ! The Acropolis (here intended) has been 
 described as "a cemetery of dead divinities" The poet's point of 
 view is the temple of Jupiter, a short distance to the south of the 
 Acropolis. This w.'. learn from 10, 1. 
 
 4 whose shrines etc. ; for they have neither priests nor 
 votaries. 
 
 religions take their turn : one religion yields place to another, 
 only itself to be superseded in turn. A generalisation from the 
 one instance before his eyes. "Our little systems have their day." 
 
 6 Jove's (turn). Jove or Zeus was the head of the Greek 
 religion. 
 
 7 Mahomet's (turn). This refers to the "sceptre and domi- 
 nion" of the Turks. They used the Parthenon as a mosque. 
 
 3 other creeds, perhaps not yet in existence ! 
 
 9 is built on reeds=has no solid foundations. The next stanza 
 tests their stability. 
 
 4. Not content with a short-lived existence in this present 
 world, man aspires to something better in a future world. 
 
 1 heaven = place of bliss. 
 
100 Childe Harold f CANTO 
 
 Thou art? Is this a boon so kindly given, 2 
 That being, thou wouldst be again, and go, 
 Thou know'st not, reck'st not, to what region, so 
 On earth no more, 3 but mingled with the skies ? 
 Still wilt thou dream on future joy and woe ? 
 Regard and weigh* yon dust before it flies : 
 That little urn saith more than thousand homilies. s 
 
 5 
 Or burst the vanish'd Hero's lofty mound ; l 
 Far on the solitary shore he sleeps : 2 
 
 2 so kindly given : ironical. Byron's pessimism is among 
 the most pronounced features of his poetry.* Compare (from 
 Euthanasia) : 
 
 Count o'er the joys thine hours have seen, 
 Count o'er thy days from anguish free, 
 
 And know, whatever thou hast been, 
 'Tis something better not to be. 
 
 3 so on earth no more. "so". = if only, as in Harold's Good- 
 night, 10, 4, "So not again to mine" 
 
 4 Regard and weigh : look at it and draw your conclusions. 
 A passage from Manfred (II. 2. 79) shows how eogenial were such 
 obstinate questionings to the poet's morbid mind : — 
 
 And then I dived, 
 In my lone wanderings, to the eaves of Death, 
 Searching its cause in its effect ; and drew 
 From withered bones, and skulls, and heaped up dust 
 Conclusions most forbidden. 
 
 5 homilies, tedious moralising discourses. 
 
 5. In this stanza we seem to be transported to the Troad — but 
 only for a moment. Here might be seen what appeared to be- 
 great sepulchral domes, presumably of the heroes of the Trojan 
 war. We find another reference to the same scene in Don Juan 
 (iv. 101) : 
 
 I've stood upon Achilles' tomb, 
 And heard Troy doubted. 
 
 1 burst (open), lofty mound. Byron's note suggests the 
 tomb of Ajax or Achilles. These heroes were honoured as 
 demigods after their death, and so their sepulchres became shrines. 
 
 *"We are misei'able enough in this world without the absurdity of speculating 
 upon another." Letter 177. 
 
n -] Childe Harold 101 
 
 He fell, and falling nations mourn'd around ; s 
 But now not one of saddening thousands weeps, 
 Nor warlike worshipper his vigil 4 keeps 
 Where demi-gods 5 appear'd, as records 6 tell. 
 Remove yon skull' from out the scatter'd heaps : 
 Is that a temple 8 where a God may dwell ? 
 Why ev'n the worm at last disdains her shatter'd cell ! 
 
 Look on its broken arch, 1 its ruin'd wall, 
 Its chambers desolate, and portals foul : 
 
 a Note the pathos of this line : to be buried away from home 
 and kindred was looked upon as a sore calamity in ancient times, 
 
 8 Falling nations etc The Greeks who do the last honours to 
 their chief are prostrated at his death, feeling that they cannot 
 survive such a calamity. 
 
 4 vigil (commonly plural) = nocturnal devotions. It hardly 
 surprises us that honours cease to be paid at the tomb after the 
 lapse of 3000 years. 
 
 5 A demigod is either a deified man, or the son of a god and 
 a mortal. 
 
 records : e. g. the Iliad. 
 
 7 yon skull. The new find gives occasion for further reflexions 
 •on so congenial a subject. 
 
 8 a temple. "For ye are the temple of the living God." 1 Cor. 
 6, 16. 
 
 8 Byron was a skull fancier. See his remarks in an often 
 quoted letter (No. 162) where he says : '■ I have had always four 
 in my study." The following staDza recalls Hamlet's* meditation 
 in the churchyard. 
 
 1 broken arch : observe the elaborateness of the description. 
 The metaphors are all borrowed from architecture — "arch," "wall," 
 " chambers," " portals," "hall," "dome," "palace," "tower," 
 " tenement." The last nve describe the skull as a whole, the 
 others the partitions or compartments. 
 
 *' "There is not a little in common between the characters, in spite of superficial 
 difference. In the desolation of his youth, in his moodiness, in his distempered 
 mobility between the extremes of laughter and tears, in his yearning for 
 sympathy, his intensity of friendship, his dark fits of misanthropy, his habit 
 of brooding over the mysteries of life, Byron unconsciously played the character 
 of Hamlet, with the world for his stage, and left a kindred problem for the 
 wonder o f mankind, — a problem which no analysis can make clear, and which 
 every one may pray that it be not given them to understand." Minto. 
 
102 Childe Harold C CANT(> 
 
 Yes, this was once Ambition's airy 8 hall, 
 The dome of Thought, the palace of the Soul : 
 Behold through each lack-lustre 3 eyeless hole, 
 The gay recess of Wisdom and of Wit, 
 And Passion's host,* that never brook'd control : 
 Can all saint, sage, or sophist ever writ, 
 People 6 this lonely tower, this tenement refit ? 
 
 Well didst thou speak, Athena's wisest son I 1 
 "All that we know is, nothing can be known." 
 Why should we shrink 3 from what we cannot shun ? z 
 Each hath his pang, but feeble sufferers groan 3 
 With brain-born dreams of evil all their own. 
 Pursue 4 what Chance or Fate 5 proclaimeth best ; 
 
 2 airy: transferred epithet. "Airy" is just what the "hall" 
 is not ! It is Ambition that is airy, in the sense of " looking in 
 the clouds " and " soaring above the view of men." 
 
 3 lack-lustre : applied by Shakespeare to the eye, here to the 
 socket. These empty eyeholes were once the windows of a human 
 soul — wise, witty, gay, passionate. 
 
 4 Passion's host : the most ungovernable parts of the man 
 were once " cabined, cribbed, confined " within this cranium. 
 
 5 people = repeople, reanimate — " back to its mansion call the 
 fleeting breath." 
 
 7. In stanza 4 the poet mocked at our longings for a future life .- 
 here, in similar fashion, he mocks at our fears. " Heaven " and 
 " Hell " appear like brain-born delusions to our poet. 
 
 1 Athena's wisest son is Socrates, whom the oracle at Delphi 
 declared to be the wisest of men. He is here ranked among the 
 sceptics (" nothing can be known "), which is strange treatment 
 for one who claimed to have an oracle in his breast (his 
 " demon ") prompting him in all he said and did. Scepticism is 
 here confounded with Socratic irony, this philosopher's habit of 
 confessing his ignorance in the company of the seeming wise. 
 
 a what we cannot shun =the inevitable. 
 
 3 groan and shrink are different manifestations of terror in 
 ace of the " undiscovered country." 
 
 4 Pursue. Is this the imperative, or the jussive subjunctive ? 
 
"I Childe Harold 103 
 
 Peace waits us on the shores of Acheron : 6 
 There no forced banquet 7 claims the sated guest, 
 But Silence 8 spreads the couch of ever welcome rest. 
 
 8 
 
 Yet if, 1 as holiest men have deem'd, there be 
 A land of souls beyond that sable shore, 2 
 To shame the doctrine of the Sadducee 3 
 And sophists, madly vain of dubious lore;'* 
 How sweet it were in concert to adore 6 
 
 ..4 
 
 '' Chance or Fate: the "power not ourselves" — which has 
 still a third name, here ignored, viz. Providence. To the poet it 
 seems quite a matter of indifference what we call our creed, or 
 how we order our lives. 
 
 " the shores of Acheron = the regions of the dead (synecdoche) 
 Acheron is a river of Hell. 
 
 ' no forced banquet etc. " Be sure that existence will not 
 be forced on you against your will." 
 
 ' A beautiful personification — Byron has caught something of 
 the pathos of Virgil and Lucretius. Silence, like a watch- 
 ful nurse, tends the couch of the tired sleeper. None of 
 Hamlet's misgivings at to what dreams may come " in this sleep 
 of death." 
 
 8. " Yet if etc. To remain for any length of time in one mental 
 attitude is not in the power of our poet ! "Byron had, in fact 
 no settled views. ..His heterodoxy did not rest upon reasoning, 
 but upon sentiment. ..Byron's scepticism was part of his quarrel 
 with Cant. He hated the religious dogma as he hated the politi- 
 cal creed and the social system of the respectable world." Sir 
 Leslie Stephen. 
 
 J that sable shore (of Acheron, 7, 7). 
 
 ' the Sadducee was the sceptic among the Jews of N. T. times. 
 For the sect's disbelief in the supernatural, see Acts 23, 8. 
 
 4 vain of dubious lore, placing too high an opinion on the 
 conclusions they have reached by sceptical reasonings. 
 
 s adore is intransitive. Our poet, when he does entertain 
 the idea of a future existence, thinks of it just in the old-fashioned, 
 orthodox manner— as the singing of praise before the Almighty's 
 throne. 
 
104 Childe Harold C CANT0 
 
 With those who made our mortal labours light ! 
 To hear each voice we fear'd to hear no more ! 
 Behold each mighty shade" reveal'd to sight, 
 The Bactrian, Samian sage, and all who taught the right ! 
 
 There, thou ! — whose love and life together fled, 
 Have left me here to love and live in vain — 
 Twined with my heart, and can I deem thee dead 
 When busy Memory 1 flashes on my brain ? 
 Well — I will dream that we may meet again, 
 And woo the vision 3 to my vacant breast : 
 If aught of young Remembrance then 3 remain, 
 
 • (to) Behold each mighty shade, i. e. the spirits of the 
 mighty dead, of whom two are named : (1) Zoroaster (born in 
 Bactria, a province of the ancient Persian Empire) whose system 
 of thought is based on the conflict between light aud darkness, 
 good and evil, Ormuzd and Ahriman ; (2) Pythagoras (a native 
 of Samos) who taught the Greeks about the transmigration of 
 souls. 
 
 9 . Three stanzas in this Canto (9, 95, and 96) are addressed to 
 a very dear friend who is no longer among the living. There has 
 been much speculation as to this person's identity. In a letter to 
 Dallas (not in Moore's Life.) Byron wrote : — 
 
 "I think it proper to state to you that this stanza alludes to 
 an event which has taken place since my arrival here [Newstead], 
 and not to the death of any male friend." (Letter 199). 
 
 This letter seems to rule out the popular opinion that Edleston, 
 the Cambridge chorister whom Byron saved from drowning, is 
 referred to. Coleridge connects the stanzas with the "Thyrza" 
 group of poems. Two recent writers (Edgcumbe and Gribble), 
 who have minutely studied these and similar passages in Byron's 
 prose and verse, both say that Mary Chaworth is the person in his 
 mind — though not actually dead, she was dead to him. 
 
 1 busy Memory : see note on the last stanza To Ianthe. 
 
 2 woo the vision, cling to the vain hope. 
 
 3 young Remembrance, childish recollections ; then : after 
 death. 
 
"•] Childe Harold 105 
 
 Be as it may Futurity's behest, 4 
 For me 'twere bliss enough to know thy spirit blest ! 
 
 Here 1 let me sit upon this massy stone, 
 The marble column's yet unshaken base ; 2 
 Here, son of Saturn ! was thy fav'rite throne :' 
 Mightiest of many such ! Hence let me trace 
 The latent grandeur 4 of thy dwelling-place. 
 It may not be : nor ev'n can Fancy's eye 
 Restore what Time hath labour'd 5 to deface. 
 
 1 That there are three variant readings in the MS. shows that 
 this line was a troublesome one to its author — as it has proved 
 also to his commentators. The future is spoken of in this line as 
 uncertain and in the next as certain. The most satisfactory 
 solution refers the former to himself, and the latter to the friend. 
 
 10-15. Seated among the shattered columns of the temple of 
 Zeus, the poet regrets that he cannot reconstruct it in thought — 
 the ravages of time have gone too far to permit of this. Then 
 his eye catches sight of the even more glorious edifioe that crowns 
 the Acropolis, and he breaks forth into an impassioned attack 
 on the Scottish peer who has recently removed parts of it "to 
 northern climes abhorred." 
 
 10. ' Here. See note on 3, 3. The temple of Zeus was the 
 largest ever built by the Greeks, with the sole exception of the 
 temple at Ephesus (Baedeker). Of the 100 columns, and more, 
 that once supported it, only 16 were standing in Byron's time ; 
 one of these has fallen since. 
 
 4 base : being of the Corinthian order, the columns have bases. 
 Doric columns have none. 
 
 3 fav'rite throne, chief seat of worship. Byron has no 
 authority for saying so — there are many other places far more 
 associated with the cult of Zeus. It is even questioned whether 
 this temple was his ! 
 
 1 trace The latent grandeur etc. — imagine the grandeur of 
 the temple as originally constructed. (In Hobhouse there is a 
 picture of the temple restored). 
 
 6 labour'd is too vigorous a word to apply to the destructive 
 ■work of Time (compare "ages slow", 1, 6). 
 
106 Childe Harold [ CANT<> 
 
 Yet these proud pillars claim no passing sigh ; e 
 Unmoved 7 the Moslem sits, the light Greek carols by. 
 
 ii 
 
 But who, of all the plunderers of yon fane 
 
 On high, 1 where Pallas linger 'd 2 loth to flee 
 
 The latest relic of her ancient reign ; 
 
 The last, the worst, dull spoiler, 3 who was he ? 
 
 Blush, Caledonia !* such thy son could be ! 
 
 England ! I joy no child he was of thine ;° 
 
 Thy free-born men should spare what once wac free : B 
 
 8 Claim no passing sigh : either (1) deserve more than, or (2) 
 receive not even. 
 
 7 Unmoved = with no feeling for the grandeur of these ruins. 
 Hobhouse — a more accurate observer — differs from Byron. 
 "The solitary grandeur of these marbles is, perhaps, more strik- 
 ing than any other object at Athens, and the Turks themselves 
 seem to regard them with an eye of respect and admiration. 
 I have frequently seen large parties of them seated on their 
 carpets in the long shade of the columns." Travels, p. 332. 
 
 11. We here return to the subject of stanza 1, viz. the 
 enemies of Athena ("steel, and flame, and ages slow" and the 
 Turk, worse than any of these). But the worst of all remains to 
 be mentioned. 
 
 1 yon fane on high. The Acropolis is conspicuous from the 
 temple of Zeus. From "fane" (poet, for temple) is derived "profane." 
 
 2 where Pallas lingered. We are reminded once more of 
 Heine's Gods in Exile. Compare what has been said on the 
 flight of Venus from Paphos, I. 66. "Pallas" = Athene, Homer 
 always used these two names together. 
 
 ■* dull spoiler. Byron can only see in the transaction an 
 act of vandalism. 
 
 4 Caledonia : the anoient name of Scotland. 
 
 11 Compare (from The Curse of Minerva, which was too libell- 
 ous to find a publisher) : 
 
 Frown not on England ; England owns him not : 
 Athena, no ! thy plunderer was a Scot. 
 
 *■ what once was free, i. e. the land of Greece, "once" is 
 emphatic. 
 
"•3 Childe Harold lor 
 
 Yet they could violate each saddening shrine, 
 And bear these altars' o'er the long-reluctant brine. 8 
 
 12 
 
 But most the modern Pict's 1 ignoble boast, 
 To rive what Goth, and Turk, and Time hath spared : 2 
 Cold as the crags upon his native coast, 
 His mind as barren and his heart as hard, 
 Is he whose head conceived, whose hand prepared, 
 Aught* to displace Athena's poor remains: 4 
 Her sons, too weak the sacred shrine to guard, 
 Yet felt some portion of their mother's pains, 5 
 And never knew, till then, the weight of Despot's chains. 
 
 7 altars cannot be understood literally, The Elgin marbles 
 were mostly figures of mythological persons, the most familiar 
 being of the reclining Theseus. The same inaccuracy is repeated 
 at 15, 4. 
 
 " long-reluctant brine. Byron explains this in a foot-note: 
 "The ship was wrecked in the Archipelago." 
 
 12. ' Byron calls Lord Elgin the modern Pict, in order to 
 associate his name with that of Alaric the Goth. Picts and 
 Goths sound well together, both races figuring in history at the 
 time of the decline of the Roman Empire. The poet ignores the 
 Pietish (or at least the Celtic) blood in his own veins, inherited 
 from the Gordons of Gicht. 
 
 2 This is just neither to Goth not to Turk. It was not 
 the Turks, but the Venetians, that made a ruin of the Parthenon 
 (see note on Stanza 1). Alaric invaded Athens in 395 A. D. 
 but (his notion of plunder not coinciding with Lord Elgin's) he 
 left all public monuments intact — he was content with 
 treasures more easily carried off. There was not much of the 
 "vandal" about Alaric : 15 years later, when he pillaged Borne, 
 he forbade his soldiers to destroy the religious buildings (or to 
 molest the women). 
 
 3 aught (=anything) is the object of conceived and prepared. 
 The poet condemns alike Elgin's design and its execution. 
 
 4 poor remains : the expression shows how little the writer 
 was of a connoisseur, and weakens his case against the spoiler. 
 
 5 i. e. "were opposed to the removal of the treasures." Hob- 
 house can be quoted agjainBt Byron. "The Athenians suppose 
 
108 Childe Harold C CAST0 
 
 13 
 
 What ! shall it e'er be said by British tongue, 
 Albion was happy in Athena's tears P 1 
 Though in thy name the slaves her bosom wrung,* 
 Tell not the deed to blushing Europe's 3 ears ; 
 The ocean queen, the free Britannia, bears 
 The last poor plunder* from a bleeding land : 
 Yes, she, whose gen'rous aid 5 her name endears, 
 Tore down those remnants with a harpy's hand, 6 
 Which envious Eld forbore, 7 and tyrants left to stand. 
 
 Where was thine ^Egis, 1 Pallas ! that appall'd 
 Stern Alaric and Havoc 2 on their way ? 
 
 that the condition of these enchanted marbles will be bettered by 
 a removal from the country of the tyrant Turks." Travels, p. 348. 
 
 13. ' That Athena's loss was Eogland's gain. 
 
 2 the slaves her bosom wrung, the despoilers filled the soul 
 of the goddess with anguish. 
 
 3 tell not the deed. Is not the speaker himself proclaiming 
 it, as with trumpet blast, to the whole world ? blushing Europe : 
 the other nations feel they share England's disgrace. 
 
 4 poor plunder : see note on "poor remains" 12, 6. 
 
 5 gen'rous aid : to Spain and Portugal in their struggle against 
 Napoleon. 
 
 a harpy's hand. The harpies were in form half birds, and 
 half maidens, and had both hands and claws. They were supposed 
 to be the spirit of mischief incarnate. 
 
 7 what envious Eld forbore (to tear down). "Eld" is archaic 
 ior old age", equivalent to "Time", 10, 7, and "ages slow", 1,6. 
 
 14. ' thine Aegis : the famous shield described in the Iliad 
 (bk. v.). Here (by metonymy) = the goddess herself. 
 
 2 Alaric and Havoc : "Alaric the Destroyer" (hendiadys). 
 Zosimus (a Greek historian who lived near the event) relates that 
 Alaric was restrained from committing acts of violence on the 
 Parthenon by the apparition of two terrible phantoms, one of 
 Athena, the other of Achilles (Peleus' son). 
 
"•] Childe Harold 109 
 
 Where Peleus' son ? whom Hell in vain enthrall'd 3 
 His shade from Hades upon that dread day 
 Bursting to light in terrible array ! 4 
 What ! could not Pluto spare the chief once more, 
 To scare a second robber 5 from his prey ? 
 Idly he wander'd on the Stygian shore, 
 Nor now preserved the walls he loved to shield before." 
 
 '5 
 Cold is the heart, fair Greece ! that looks on thee, 
 Nor feels as lovers o'er the dust they loved ; x 
 Dull is the eye that will not weep to see 
 Thy walls defaced, thy mouldering shrines* removed 
 By British hands, which it had best behoved 
 To guard 3 those relics ne'er to be restored.* 
 Curst be the hour when from their isle they roved, 
 
 1 in vain enthralled, vainly tried to hold back i.e. to thwart 
 his purpose. Hell is equivalent to Pluto (line 6.). 
 
 * His shade. ..array ! An absolute clause, telling us the conse- 
 quence of Hell not being able to enthral him. "His shade found 
 its way to the upper world, and he appeared to the Goths in 
 warlike form." 
 
 "■ a second robber. In The Gurse of Minerva, . "Alaric and 
 Klgin" are again linked together. Compare : 
 
 Be ever hailed with equal honour here 
 The Gothic monarch and the Pictish peer. 
 
 8 before = formerly. 
 
 15. * the dust (of those) they loved. Compare (88, 2) : 
 No earth of thine is lost in vulgar mould. 
 
 ' shrines : see note on 12,7. 
 
 ' To guard. How else could British hands guard them than 
 by carrying them over the seas ? In Athens (as Byron himself has 
 told us) they were in the power of men who had no respect for 
 such remains. 
 
 4 ne'er to be restored = that cannot be replaced by others 
 of the kind. 
 
110 Childe Harold t CA * T0 
 
 And once again 5 thy hapless bosom gored, 
 And snatch'd thy shrinking Gods 6 to northern climes 
 abhorr'd ! 
 
 16 
 
 But where is Harold ? shall I then forget 
 
 To urge the gloomy wanderer o'er the wave ? x 
 
 5 once again -. a repetition of the vandalism of 395 A.D. 
 
 6 thy shrinking gods: the figures of marble are supposed to 
 be conscious of their banishment. 
 
 16 — 2A; 28 — 36. Harold'8 voyage to Greece. This was accom- 
 plished in about eight weeks (August and September, 1809) in 
 three different vessels. 
 
 (1) From Cadiz to Gibraltar, by the courtesy of Admiral Purvis, 
 they sailed in the frigate Hyperion ("pennant-bearer", 20, 3, 
 because the admiral was on board). 
 
 (2) After spending ten days at Gibraltar, there being no ship 
 of war available, they embarked in the packet boat for Malta. 
 During this part of the voyage they were accompanied by John 
 Gait, one of Byron's future biographers.* 
 
 (3) At Malta Byron spent 21 days, making the acquaintance of 
 Lady Spencer Smith, "a pattern of refined manners and virtue," 
 whom he styles the "new Calyposo" of the island. Our travel- 
 lers left Malta in the brig of war Spider, and in 8 days stepped 
 on the soil of Albania at Prevesa. It was during this last part 
 of the voyage that they were accompanied by a convoy ; but in 
 the poem, it is with them all the time, nor do they ever abandon 
 their frigate for less considerable vessels. 
 
 16. In the fifteen preceding stanzas the hero of the poem has 
 been overlooked. The present stanza (which Moramsen pronounces 
 insipid) returns to him and tells us of his departure from "the land 
 of war and crimes." 
 
 1 urge. ..wave, continue the story of his travels, now by sea. 
 
 * His account of his fellow-passenger tallies with the portrait of the hero 
 of tho poeoi iu stanza 24, "bending o'er the vessel's laving side." 
 
 "Byron held himself aloof, aud sat on the rail, leaning on the 'miz/.en 
 Bhrouds, inhaling, as it were, poetical sympathy from the gloomy' rock 
 then dark and stern in the twilight.. He was often strangely rapt— it may 
 have boon from his genius ; and had its grandeur and darkness been then 
 divulged, susceptible of explanation; but at the time it threw, as it were 
 around him tho sackcloth of penitence. Sitting amid the shrouds and rattlings' 
 in the tranquillity of the moonlight, churning an inarticulate melody' 
 he seemed almost apparitional, suggesting dim reminiscences of him who 
 shot tho albatross." 
 
11 ] Childe Harold 111 
 
 Little reck'd he of all that men regret f 
 No loved-one now in feign'd lament 3 could rave ; 
 No friend the parting hand extended gave, 
 Ere the cold stranger pass'd to other climes : 
 Hard is his heart whom charms 4 may not enslave ; 
 But Harold felt not as in other times, 
 And left without a sigh 5 the land of war and crimes. v 
 
 17- 
 He that has sail'd 1 upon the dark blue sea 
 Has view'd at times, I ween, a full fair 2 sight ; 
 When 3 the fresh breeze is fair as breeze may be, 
 The white sail set, 4 the gallant frigate tight; 5 
 Masts, spires, and strand retiring to the right, 8 
 
 3 recked. ..of, paid heed to, concerned himself about, regret 
 (on bidding farewell to a place). 
 
 3 feign'd lament : a vein of cynicism with which we are now 
 familiar. Compare (Harold's Good-night, 8, 1) : — "For who would 
 trust the seeming sigh.;" etc. 
 
 4 charms : like those of Inez : "Thine eyes have scarce a 
 «harm for me." 
 
 8 without a sigh : the mood in which he had left England. 
 The words are repeated from I. 11, 8. 
 
 This may have been Han . l's, but it was not Byron s feeling. 
 "I shall rel.u'-n to Spain before I see England, for I am enamoured 
 of the country." Letter 127. 
 
 17. * He that hath sail'd etc. The poet asks us to imagine 
 a sea- voyage under the most favourable conditions ; sea -faring 
 readers (he knows) will have no difficulty in calling up the picture 
 he here presents to them. 
 
 2 full fair = very pleasant. 
 
 3 When introduces particulars about the "full fair sight." 
 * (when) The white sail (is) set (=hoisted). 
 
 (and when) the gallant frigate (is) tight i. e. without leaks, 
 the timbers well compacted together. 
 
 6 retiring to the right. "Left" would be nearer the truth, 
 as the vessel (on its way to Gibraltar) will have the land on the 
 port side. 
 
112 Childe Harold f CANT(> 
 
 The glorious main expanding o'er the bow, 
 The convoy 7 spread like wild swans in their flight, 
 The dullest sailer wearing bravely 8 now, 
 So gaily curl the waves before each dashing prow- 
 
 18 
 And oh, the little warlike world 1 within ! 
 The well-reeved 2 guns, the netted canopy, 3 
 The hoarse command, the busy humming din, 
 When, at a word, 4 the tops 5 are mann'd on high : 
 Hark, to the Boatswain's 6 call, the cheering cry ! 
 While through the seaman's hand the tackle 7 glides ; 
 Or schoolboy Midshipman s that, standing by, 
 
 7 The convoy. A convoy is a fleet of merchant vessels sailing 
 under the protect ion of a war-ship — a precaution necessary in time 
 of war, or if there is danger from piracy. 
 
 8 the dullest sailer="the most sluggish hulk," (20, 6). 
 wearing bravely=conducting herself well (because the weather 
 conditions are favourable). 
 
 18. the little warlike world : the frigate is small, but 
 compact ; and everything suggests readiness for action. 
 
 2 well-reeved : the guns have to be fastened securely to rings 
 or blocks. Those who remember Victor Hugo's Ninety-three 
 can realise the consequences, should one of the guns breaks 
 loose. Such a catastrophe occurred on boaid the galliot conveying 
 Byron and his friend along the coast of Epirus : the sailors 
 lost control of the vessel and allowed her to dash on the 
 Suli coast (see 67, 1). The details are given in Hobhouse's 
 Travels, p. 188. 
 
 3 the netted canopy : "to prevent blocks or splinters from 
 falling on deck during action" (Byron's note). 
 
 4 at a word (of command). 
 
 5 the tops : platforms at the heads of masts, commonly fenced 
 round with a rail. These "fighting tops" are conspicuous in 
 modern war-ships. 
 
 " the Boatswain is a petty officer in charge of the boats, who 
 also summons the men to their work. 
 
 7 the tackle : apparatus for lifting weights. 
 
 8 schoolboy = of the age of a schoolboy. The "middy" is the 
 youngest of naval officers. 
 
11 ] Childe Harold 113 
 
 Strains his shrill pipe " as good or ill betides, 
 And well the docile crew that skilful urchin guides. 10 
 
 White is the glassy deck 1 without a stain. 
 Where on the watch the staid Lieutenant a walks : 
 Look on that part which sacred 3 doth remain 
 For the lone Chieftain, who majestic stalks, 
 Silent and fear'd* by all — not oft he talks 
 With aught beneath him, if he would preserve 
 That strict restraint, which broken, ever balks 5 
 Conquest and fame : but Britons rarely swerve 
 From law, however stern, which tends their strength to 
 nerve. 8 
 
 9 shrill pipe = voice not yet broken : strains shows that it 
 is the human, voice, and not a musical instrument that is meant. 
 
 10 Urchin is obviously the subject of guides. 
 
 19. glassy deck : scrubbed every morning with holystone 
 (hyperbole). 
 
 2 the staid Lieutenant : he reflects his chief's gravity. 
 
 ■ that part : the bridge deck. It is a narrow platform amid- 
 ships, extending from side to side of the vessel, sacred, reserved 
 for the commander. 
 
 * silent and fear'd. \ few more strokes, and we should have 
 the full-length figure of Byron's Corsair — 
 
 That man of loneliness and mystery, 
 
 Scare seen to smile, and seldom heard to sigh : 
 Whose name appals the fiercest of his crew, 
 
 And tints each swarthy cheek with sallower hue ; 
 Still sways their souls with that commanding art. 
 That dazzles, leads, yet chills the vulgar heart. 
 5 which broken ever balks=»the breach of which always 
 frustrates. 
 
 "The British sailor understands the value of law and order 
 on shipboard, and therefore mutiny is rare." Byron first wrote 
 "From discipline's stern law." 
 
 8 
 
114 Childe Harold t CANT0 
 
 Blow ! swiftly blow, thou keel-compelling gale I 1 
 Till the broad sun withdraws his lessening ray ; 2 
 Then must the pennant-bearer 3 slacken sail, 
 That lagging barks may make their lazy way. * 
 Ah ! grievance sore, and listless dull delay, 
 To waste on sluggish hulks the sweetest breeze ! 5 
 What leagues are lost, before the dawn of day, 
 Thus loitering pensive on the willing seas, 
 The flapping sail haul'd down 6 to halt 7 for logs like these ! 
 
 The moon is up ; by Heaven, a lovely eve ! 
 Long streams of light 1 o'er dancing waves expand ; 
 Now lads on shore may sigh, 2 and maids believe : 
 Such be our fate 3 when we return to land ! 
 
 20. ' keel=ship (synecdoche), compelling has the sense of 
 Latin compellere = drive or urge on. The poet's present task is 
 "to urge the gloomy wanderer o'er the wave." gale : poetical 
 for a fair wind ; not a "gale" in the sailors' sense. 
 
 2 withdraws. .. ray : a periphrasis for "sets." 
 
 3 pen nant-bearer ; the frigate, because it is carrying a particular 
 kind of flag to show that a high officer is on board. The pennant 
 (or pennon) is a long narrow streamer at the masthead. 
 
 4 make their lazy way, slowly make up lost ground. 
 
 6 waste. ..breeze, lose the advantage of the fair wind. 
 s flapping in the process of being haul'd down. 
 ' to halt=in halting (gerundial infinitive). Connect this with 
 What leagues are lost. 
 
 21. * Long streams of light=moonbeams. Compare [Stanzas 
 for Music, 1816) ; 
 
 And the midnight moon is weaving 
 Her bright chain o'er the deep. 
 
 2 may sjgh : the usual sign of yearning for a person or thing 
 desired. Compare ''seeming sighs" Harold's Good-night. S, 1. 
 
 3 our fate : viz. to be believed ! "our" is emphatic. 
 
"■] Childe Harold 115 
 
 Meantime some rude Arion's' 1 restless hand 
 Wakes 5 the brisk harmony that sailors love ; 
 A circle there of merry listeners stand, 
 Or to some well-known measure featly 6 move, 
 Thoughtless, as if 7 on shore they still were free to rove. 
 
 Through Calpe's straits survey the steepy shore ; 2 
 Europe and Afric on each other gaze ! 2 
 Lands of the dark-eyed Maid 3 and dusky Moor 
 Alike * beheld beneath pale Hecate's •' blaze : 
 How softly on the Spanish shore she plays, 
 Disclosing rock, and slope, and forest brown, 7 
 
 * some rude Arion : the fiddler on board. "rude"=self- 
 taught, untrained. Arion (according to Herodotus) was a musician 
 whose life was threatened during a voyage by sea-robbers who 
 coveted his treasures. Throwing himself overboard, he was saved 
 by a dolphin that had followed the vessel to listen to the music of 
 his harp. 
 
 5 Wakes=oalls forth, or elicits. 
 
 c measure. This word strictly means a kind of dance (compare 
 "to tread a measure"), but here it is the music of the dance, 
 featly = skilfully. 
 
 ' As if etc. While they dance, they lose the feeling of being 
 "cooped up" etc. (28, 6). 
 
 22. * (While passing) Through etc. Calpe's straits = the 
 Straits of Gibraltar. Calpe was the ancient name for the Rock of 
 Gibraltar, the steepy shore — "There where Gibraltar's cannoned 
 steep o'erfrowns the waves" (M. Arnold). 
 
 2 on each other gaze I the continents are personified. 
 
 1 Compare "Spain's dark-glahcieg daughters, I. 59, 7. 
 
 * Alike=both at once. Africa, however, is in shadow, while 
 Spain is lighted up by the moonbeams : compare "plays," line 5, 
 and "frown," line 8. 
 
 Hecate, the moon, regarded as u, goddess. She was called 
 Luna in heaven, Diana (see 24, 2) on earth, and Hecate in Hades. 
 
 8 "Play on" = direet light on. It can also mean "discharge 
 guns on." 
 
 » brown : compare 70, 3, and (from The Siege of Corinth 
 1. 242) : 
 
llfi Childe Harold [ CANT(> 
 
 Distinct, though darkening with her waning phase ; 3 
 But Mauritania's giant shadows 9 frown, 
 From mountain-cliff to coast descending sombre down. 
 
 23 
 
 Tis night, when Meditation bids us feel 1 
 
 We once have loved, though love is at an end : 2 
 
 The heart, lone mourner of its baffled zeal, 
 
 Though friendless now, will dream 3 it had a friend. 
 
 Who with the weight of years would wish to bend, 
 
 When Youth itself survives young Love and Joy ?* 
 
 Alas ! when mingling 5 souls forget to blend, 8 
 
 Death hath but little left him to destroy ! 
 
 Ah ! happy years ! once more who would not be a boy ? r 
 
 'Tis midnight : on the mountain brown 
 The eold, round moon shines deeply down. 
 
 » with her waning phase : the moon is past the full. 
 
 9 The shadows oast on the shores of Africa by the mountains 
 of Morocco in the background. Byron has a preference for the 
 classical names of places. 
 
 23 l bids us feel : by stirring up old memories. 
 
 ' though love is at an end : compare "and none did love 
 him" I. 9, 1. Harold is supposed to be alone in the world, having 
 lost all his friends by death or estrangement. 
 
 * dream etc. "dally with fond surmise." Compare 9, 5. 
 
 * When even a youth of twenty-one outlives the emotions of 
 Love and Joy, who would have his years prolonged to extreme 
 old age ? In Letter 208, Byron declares he is "as old at twenty- 
 three as many men at seventy." 
 
 5 mingling = that have been in the habit of mingling. 
 
 * blend =mingle. 
 
 7 once more. ..boy. "It was one of the deadliest and heaviest 
 feelings of my life to feel that I was no longer a boy." Detached 
 
 Thoughts (No. 72). 
 
"■] Childe Harold 117 
 
 24 
 
 Thus bending 1 o'er the vessel's laving 2 side, 
 To gaze on Dian's wave-reflected sphere, 3 
 The soul forgets 4 her schemes of hope and pride, 
 And flies unconscious o'er each backward year. 
 None are so desolate but something 5 dear, 
 Dearer than self, possesses or possess'd 
 A thought, " and claims the homage of a tear ; 
 A flashing pang ! 7 of which the weary breast 
 Would still, albeit in vain, the heavy heart 8 divest. 
 
 To sit on rocks, to muse o'er flood and fell, 1 
 To slowly trace* the forest's shady scene, 
 
 24. * bending = as one bends (introducing a pendant parti- 
 cipial clause). 
 
 3 laving=: washed by (not "washing") the sea. 
 
 3 Dian's. ..sphere, the moon reflected in the waters. Hecate 
 is the name used in stanza 22, where the sentiment is more sombre 
 than here. 
 
 * forgets etc. , loses consciousness of the pressing interests* of 
 the present, and lives its past life over again. The soul is likened 
 to a bird, and time to space. 
 
 5 something = someone. 
 
 6 a thought, a hold upon our mind (litotes). 
 
 7 a flashing pang ! Compare "strange pangs would flash,' - 
 I. 8, 2. 
 
 » the weary breast. ..the heavy heart. It matters little which 
 of these we treat as the subject and which as the object of divest 
 (tautology). 
 
 25-27. These three stanzas might be regarded (as in Mommsen) 
 as a poem by themselves. They have little to do with the present 
 theme — Harold's voyage to Greece. 
 
 The poet tells us that wild Nature has a charm for him which he 
 cannot find in the Doise of the city, and that he would rather live V 
 the life of a "godly eremite" than be exposed to the hum and shock 
 of unsympathetic crowds. 
 
 25. 1 To sit on rocks etc. The poet anticipates his travels 
 
118 Childe Harold [° ANT0 
 
 Where things that own not man's dominion dwell, 
 And mortal foot hath ne'er or rarely been ; 
 To climb the trackless mountain all unseen, 
 With the wild flock 9 that never needs a fold ; 
 Alone o'er steeps and foaming falls* to lean ; 
 This is not solitude ; 'tis but to hold 
 Converse with Nature's charms, and view her stores 5 
 unroll'd. 
 
 26 
 
 But midst the crowd, the hum, the shock of men, 1 
 To hear, to see, to feel, and to possess, 8 
 And roam along, the world's tired denizen, 3 
 With none who bless us, none whom we can bless ; 
 
 iu Albania, or his thoughts travel back to Scotland ("land of the 
 mountain and the flood") where he had lived as a boy till the age 
 often, fell = barren mountain. 
 
 2 trace : compare I. 30, 7. 
 
 3 wild flock : like the Suliote's (compare Tambourgi, 2, 3). 
 
 4 steeps and. ..falls repeats flood and fell. 
 
 5 stores = riches, resources (hardly different from charms). 
 26. The same man who finds companionship in the solitary 
 
 wilderness feels himself forlorn and miserable in the crowded city. 
 
 1 the shock of men. The poet does not care for the "give and 
 take" of familiar intercourse. "Hail fellow well met" may be a 
 stimulating formula to less sensitive persons, but not to a nature 
 like his. 
 
 " to possess. The rest of the string of infinitives — "to hear," 
 "to see," "to feel," " to roam along" — go quite naturally with 
 "midst the crowd" ; but "to possess" seems out of place among 
 them (syllepsis). The person here described who has such claims 
 on our sympathy laoks neither society nor wealth. 
 
 3 denizen. It is tempting to take this word in its original 
 sense, viz. "one living among foreigners, more or less on suffer- 
 ance." Amidst the crowd the poet feels a stranger, for want of 
 ties between himself and his fellows. 
 
"1 Childe Harold 119 
 
 Minions of splendour shrinking from distress !* 
 None that, with kindred consciousness endued, 5 
 If we were not, 6 would seem to smile the less, 
 Of all that flatter'd, 7 follow'd, sought, and sued ; 
 This is to be alone ; this, this is solitude ! 
 
 27 
 
 More blest the life of godly eremite, 1 
 Such as on lonely Athos may be seen, 
 Watching at eve upon the giant height," 
 Which looks o'er waves so blue, skies so serene, 
 That he who there at such an hour hath been 
 Will wistful 3 linger on that hallow'd spot ; 
 Then slowly tear him 4 from the 'witching scene, 
 
 * This line is an expansion of "none who bless us." The 
 Minions of splendour are the spoilt children of fortune, those 
 whom prosperity has made indifferent to the woes of their fellow- 
 men. They pass the poet by "with frozen stare," shrinking from 
 his distress. For "minions" see I. 44, 1. 
 
 "' with. ..endued, with hearts beating in unison with ours. 
 
 6 were not = ceased to exist. 
 
 7 flattered etc. In our happier days these people (who now 
 shrink from us) courted our society ! This is the way of the world — 
 
 For who not needs shall never lack a friend ! 
 
 27, The owner of Newstead Abbey finds monasteries to be a 
 congenial theme. Athos is a mountainous promontory situated oh 
 the easternmost of the three tongues of land which Macedonia 
 projects into the Aegean Sea. From the present stanza we might 
 infer that it was a desolate spot— tenanted, perhaps, by a solitary 
 monk. But in truth it is a great religious community, a republic 
 of 6,000 monks, crowded together in twenty monasteries. 
 
 1 eremite : see note on I. 4, 9. 
 
 '' the giant height. It is over 6,000 feet and commands a magni- 
 ficent prospect. Locally it is believed that Satan took Jesus here 
 to show Him "the kingdoms of the world." It is referred to in a 
 characteristic note to Don Juan : "Athos remains, I trust, ere long 
 to look over a nation of freemen.'' 
 
 * wistful(ly) : with unsatisfied desire (see line 8). 
 
 * him(self). 
 
120 Childe Harold [° ANT0 
 
 Sigh forth one wish that such had been his lot, 5 
 Then turn to hate 6 a world he had almost forgot. 
 
 28 
 
 Pass we the long, unvarying course, the track 
 Oft trod, that never leaves a trace behind -, 1 
 Pass we the calm, the gale, the change, the tack, s 
 And each well-known caprice of wave and wind ; 
 Pass we the joys and sorrows sailors find, 
 Coop'd in their winged sea-girt citadel ; 3 
 The foul, the fair, the contrary, the kind, 4 
 As breezes rise and fall and billows swell, 
 Till on some jocund morn 5 lo, land ! and all is well. 
 
 29 
 
 But not in silence pass Calypso's isles, 1 
 The sister tenants of the middle deep ; 2 
 
 5 that such had been his lot : to have been himself an eremite. 
 
 Sir Walter Scott said (perhaps playfully), that some day he 
 would "look to see [him] retreat upon the Catholic faith, and 
 distinguish [himself] by the severity of his penances". Letters 
 and Journals, in., p. 412. 
 
 "turn to hate etc. The monastery is not part of the world, it 
 is ire the world but not of it. 
 
 23. The log-book, broken off at stanza 22, is now resumed. 
 But an auspicious voyage like the present must needs be uneventful. 
 
 1 never. ..behind : for the wake is immediately obliterated. 
 
 2 the tack is the change in a sailing vessel's direction, which 
 enables it to take advantage of the wind. 
 
 3 winged, sea-girt citadel, a suitable description of a fast- 
 sailing man of war. 
 
 4 The foul=the contrary ; the fair = the kind. 
 
 5 some jocund morn : compare I. 14, 4 : 
 
 New shores descried make every bosom gay. 
 
 29. * Calypso's isles. Ulysses, after the storm in which he lost 
 
 all his companions, was driven on his mast upon the island of 
 
 Ogj'gia, where dwelt the nymph Calypso, who detained him here 
 
 for seven years. The vessel that carries our hero has reached 
 
" ] Childe Harold 121 
 
 There for the weary 3 still a haven smiles, 
 Though the fair goddess long hath ceased to weep,* 
 And o'er her cliffs a fruitless watch 5 to keep 
 For him who dared prefer a mortal bride : " 
 Here, too, his boy 7 essay'd the dreadful leap 
 Stern Mentor urged from high to yonder tide ; 
 While thus of both bereft, the nymph queen doubly sigh'd. 
 
 30 
 
 Her reign is past, her gentle glories gone : 
 
 But trust not this : too easy * youth, beware ! 
 
 A mortal 2 sovereign holds her dangerous throne, 
 
 Malta, which it pleases the poet to identify with the ancient 
 Ogygia, inasmuch as it can boast of having a modern Calypso. 
 
 a The sister tenants : Gozo and Malta. 
 
 the middle deep, the Mediterranean (literally "Midland Sea"). 
 
 3 for the weary. Ulysses had been tossed for nine days on his 
 mast : if Harold is weary, it is with the monotony of a prosperous 
 voyage. 
 
 4 to weep : when Ulysses has gone. 
 
 '' fruitless watch : in hopes of his returning. 
 
 '' A mortal bride : his own Penelope, proverbial for constancy. 
 
 7 His boy. This was Telemachus who came to Calypso's island in 
 the course of his journeyings in search for his father. He in turn 
 was loved by the sorceress ; but his "stern monitor" Mentor 
 [Mercury in disguise] bade him throw himself into the sea, he him- 
 self setting the example. Byron's authority here is not Homer 
 but Fenelon, the author of Telemachus (chap. vii). 
 
 30. l too easy youth. The poet addresses a warning to 
 anyone whom it may concern, perhaps some reader who may 
 follow in his steps, "easy", incautious. 
 
 2 mortal as opposed to Calypso, who was a goddess. Byron's 
 first readers could have no means of knowing that a real person 
 was here alluded to, — the secret was divulged in 1830 when 
 Moore's Life of the poet appeared. The "new Calypso" was Mrs. 
 Florence Spencer Smith, an Austrian lady with » most romantic 
 hiscory. While sojourning in Italy she was suspected of weaving 
 a plot against Napoleon, who ordered her to be imprisoned. 
 A certain Marquis de Salvo, moved by her cruel fate, rescued her 
 
122 Childe Harold [° ANTO 
 
 And thou mayst find a new Calypso there. 
 Sweet Florence ! could another ever share 
 This wayward, loveless heart, it would be thine : 
 But check'd by every tie, 3 I may not dare 
 To cast a worthless offering at thy shrine,* 
 Nor ask so dear a breast to feel one pang for mine. 
 
 Thus Harold deem'd, as on that lady's eye 
 He look'd, and met its beam without a thought 1 
 Save admiration glancing harmless 3 by : 
 Love 3 kept aloof, albeit not far remote, 
 Who knew his votary* often lost and caught, 5 
 
 by the help of a rope ladder, boy's clothes, etc., and then escorted 
 her to a place of safety. She was passing through Malta at the 
 same time as Byron, but her route was westwards and his east- 
 wards. Letter 130 (to Byron's mother) was committed to her 
 charge. She is described in it as very pretty, very accomplished, 
 extremely eccentric, and of unimpeachable character. Byron's 
 feelings towards her are the subject of the Stanzas composed 
 during a Thunderstorm : 
 
 Though smile and sigh alike are vain, 
 When severed hearts repine, 
 
 My spirit flies o'er mount and main, 
 And mourns in search of thine. 
 Harold would fall out of character if such tender sentiments 
 were imputed to him ; so he is represented as indifferent to 
 her charms. 
 
 3 checked by every tie : because his heart belongs to another 
 (I. 5, 3). 
 
 4 thy shrine ; the word implies that she too is a goddess. 
 
 31. ] without a thought etc. He felt nothing warmer 
 than admiration : the lady's eye had no power to fascinate or 
 enthral his, which retained the power to look around on 
 other objects. 
 
 2 harmless=unharmed. 
 
 3 Love = the god Cupid. 
 
 4 his votary = his (sometime) follower. 
 
 " lost and caught ; the same idea is expressed (in different 
 
«■] Childe Harold 123 
 
 But knew him as his worshipper no more, 
 And ne',er again the boy" his bosom sought : 
 Since now he vainly urged him 7 to adore, 
 Well deem'd the little God his ancient 8 sway was o'er. 
 
 32 
 
 Fair Florence found, in sooth with some amaze, 1 
 One who, 'twas said, still sigh'd to all he saw, 2 
 Withstand, 3 unmoved, the lustre of her gaze, 
 Which others* hail'd with real or mimic awe, 
 Their hope, 5 their doom, their punishment, their law; 
 All that gay Beauty from her bondsmen claims : 6 
 And much she marvell'd that a youth so raw 7 
 Nor felt, not feign'd 8 at least, the oft told flames, 9 
 Which, though sometimes they frown, yet rarely anger 
 dames, 
 
 ways) by both words, for loss of liberty ensues when one is taken 
 in the toils of love. 
 
 " the boy with the bow and arrows. Sought = aimed at. 
 
 ' vainly urged him : plied his shafts to no purpose. Harold's 
 heart is not less proof than that of the "imperial votaress" in 
 Oberon's story, who "passed on in maiden meditation, fancy free." 
 
 . 8 . ancient=former. 
 
 32 * amaze = amazement. Harold's fame has gone before him. 
 
 2 sighed to all he saw : made love to every woman he met. 
 
 3 Withstand =able to withstand, to be taken with One, which 
 is the object of found. 
 
 • others : "the lovers' whining crew", 33, 9 
 
 5 hailed. ..Their hope etc. Having been captivated by the 
 sorceress, they are at the mercy of her caprices. 
 
 6 All that (which). ..claims : a recapitulation of the previous 
 line, 
 
 7 so raw in years ; but not raw in experience, if we may judge 
 from the introductory stanzas of the previous Canto. 
 
 8 felt. ..feign'd. Compare real. ..mimic (line 4). 
 
 9 flames = fervent passion. 
 
124 Childe Harold t CANT0 
 
 33 
 Little knew 1 she that seeming marble 8 heart, 
 Now mask'd in silence or withheld by pride, 3 
 Was not unskilful in the spoiler's art, 
 And spread 1 its snares licentious far and wide ; 
 Nor from the base pursuit had turn'd aside, 
 As long as aught was worthy to pursue : 
 But Harold on such arts no more relied ; 
 And had he doted on those eyes so blue, 
 Yet never would he join 5 the lovers' whining crew. 
 
 34 
 
 Not much he kens, I ween, 1 of woman's breast, 
 Who thinks that wanton thing 2 is won by sighs ; 
 
 33. 1 Little knew = did not know at all (litotes). 
 
 * seeming marble, seemingly unsusceptible. 
 
 J mask'd. ..withheld. .."Masked" corresponds to "withheld", 
 and "silence" to "pride." Our hero, (spite of 31, 9) has been 
 smitten with her charms, though too proud to own it, 
 
 * and spread = and had spread. Judging him by his present 
 coldness, she cannot believe that he had once been notorious for 
 his gallantries. It would not be fair to take this passage as the 
 author's self-revelation. "I would not be such a fellow as I have 
 made my hero for all the world" (Letter 206). Byron's relations 
 with women form an unpleasant chapter in his history — his beauty 
 exposed him to be the prey* to not a few vain and worthless 
 women whom he inwardly despised. We can take him at his 
 word when he says (to Captain Medwin) "I can safely affirm 
 that never in my life I seduced any woman." His indignation 
 against the seducer is seen in Letter 142 (to his Mother): "Poor 
 Miss — : if he (a tenant at Newstead] does not marry her, and 
 marry her speedily, he shall be no tenant of mine from the day 
 that I set foot on English shores." 
 
 5 would he join=would he have joined. 
 
 34. ' he kens = he knows. I ween • compare I. 29, 5. 
 ' wanton thing : compare "harmless thing", 45, 2. 
 
 * "Jtlnckwood accuses me of treating women harshly : it may be so, but 1 
 have been their martyr. My whole life has been sacrificed to them, and by 
 them." Letter 765. 
 
"J Childe Harold 125 
 
 What careth she for hearts when once possess'd ?* 
 Do proper homage to thine idol's eyes ; 
 But not too humbly, 4 or she will despise 
 Thee and thy suit, though told in moving tropes ; : ' 
 Disguise ev'n tenderness, if thou art wise ; 
 Brisk Confidence still best with woman copes : s 
 Pique her and soothe in turn/ soon Passion crowns thy 
 hopes. 8 
 
 35 
 'Tis an old lesson ;* Time approves it true, 
 And those who know it best deplore it most ; 
 When all is won* that all desire to woo. 
 The paltry prize is hardly worth the cost : 
 Youth wasted, 3 minds degraded, honour lost, 
 
 3 hearts. ..possessed : those she has made a conquest of. 
 
 * But not too humbly, i. o. do not join "the lovers' whining 
 crew". 
 
 "• moving tropes, impassioned or poetical language ; "tropes" 
 =figures of speech. 
 
 6 with woman copes — contends evenly with. 
 
 7 Pique her and soothe (her) in turn etc. To overcome her 
 coldness combine vexation with flattery. 
 
 8 crowns thy hopes. The next stanza, however, tells us how 
 little has been gained "when all i9 won." 
 
 35. ' an old lesson • This stanza reminds us of the most 
 bitter of Shakespeare's Sonnets (129). 
 
 2 when all is won. Compare "What careth she" 34, 3. On 
 either side disenchantment follows conquest. 
 
 1 Youth wasted etc. "He never attempts to deceive the world 
 by representing the profligate as happy. And his testimony is 
 the more of value, as his situation in life must have permitted 
 him to see the experiment tried under the most favourable circum- 
 stances. He has probably seen more than one example of young 
 men of high birth, talents, and expectancies... sink under the 
 burden of unsubdued tempers, licentious alliances, and enervating 
 indulgence." Christian Observer, November, 1813. Byron acknow- 
 ledged this article to be "uncommonly well written" {Letter 368). 
 
126 Childe Harold [ CA * T0 
 
 These are thy fruits, successful Passion ! these ! 
 If, kindly cruel, 4 early hope is crost, 
 Still to the last it rankles, 6 a disease, 
 Not to be cured when love itself forgets to please." 
 
 36 
 Away I 1 nor let me loiter in my song, 
 For we 4 have many a mountain-path to tread, 
 And many a varied shore to sail along, 
 By pensive Sadness, not by Fiction, 3 led — 
 Climes, fair withal 4 as ever mortal head 
 
 4 kindly cruel (oxymoron) — "cruel to be kind". 
 
 5 early hope : another haunting memory of Mary Chaworth. 
 
 6 it rankles : for the wound is never healed ("it" = the disappoint 
 ment.) Compare Canto III. 8, 4 : 
 
 Long absent Harold reappears at last ; 
 
 He of the breast which fain no more would feel, 
 
 Wrung with the wounds which kill not, but ne'er heal. 
 
 7 when love itself forgets to please = after passion has ex- 
 hausted itself. 
 
 36-41. The last part of the voyage (with Albania's hills now 
 in sight) is not the least interesting. After passing on the left 
 the island of Ithaea, the vessel doubles the white cliffs that the 
 island of Leucadia projects into the sea towards Cephalonia. It 
 was from here that hopeless lovers threw themselves into the 
 deep as a way of making an end of their misery. Our hero's 
 fellow-feeling with these sufferers is not so surprising, when we 
 remember that he himself had once contemplated suicide (I. 6 9). 
 
 36. 1 Away ! We have lingered too long in Calypso's isle ! 
 
 2 we : the poet and his readers, whom he always supposes to 
 accompany him in fancy. 
 
 3 Sadness and Fiction are meant for opposites. The poet would 
 have us think of Harold as a real person, not a fictitious one ; 
 whose gloom, like that of the "fabled Hebrew wanderer," does not 
 permit him to settle down in one place, (see 64, 4). 
 
 4 Climes fair withal etc. Countries as beautiful as any to 
 which imagination has assigned "a local habitation and a name". 
 The most famous of these imaginary countries is Sir Thomas" 
 More's ideal island, occupied by the ideal race of beings described 
 in his Utopia (1516). withal = moreover- 
 
"■J Childe Harold 127 
 
 Imagined in its little schemes of thought ; 
 Or e'er in new Utopias were ared, 5 
 To teach man what he might be, or he ought ; 
 If that corrupted thing could ever such be taught. 
 
 37 ■■ ' 
 
 Dear Nature is the kindest mother still, 1 
 Though always changing 2 in her aspect mild ; 
 From her bare bosom let me take my fill, 
 Her never- wean'd, though not her favour'd child. 3 
 Oh ! she is fairest in her features wild, 
 Where nothing polish'd dares pollute her path : 4 
 To me by day or night she ever smiled, 
 Though I have mark'd her when none other hath, 5 
 And sought her more and more, and loved her best in 
 wrath." 
 
 5 ared : a word from Spenser, which might either mean (1) 
 explained, unfolded, or (2) "held up for imitation (M). e'er(=ever) 
 must be taken with "ared." 
 
 37. 1 is the kindest mother still : for "Nature never did 
 betray the heart that loved her. " When his soul cannot find rest 
 amid "the crowd, the hum" of the city, or even in Calypso's 
 enchanted isle, he has Nature still to turn to. 
 
 3 always changing : compare I. 6, 9 ("change of scene") and 
 I. 28, 7 ("many changing scenes"). 
 
 s not her favour'd child : this may refer to the poet's 
 lameness. 
 
 * dares pollute her path. The polluting touch of man's 
 civilisation is an idea borrowed perhaps from Rousseau.. We 
 meet with it again at 52, 1. 
 
 6 when none other hath : for he has visited places never 
 trodden by foot of man (43, 3). 
 
 6 loved her best in wrath. He is a lover of the thunder-cloud 
 and the tempest, for " rage with rage doth sympathise." TroUws 
 and Oreasida, I. 3. 52. 
 
 Byron's education of Nature never advanced as far as Words- 
 worth's ; he was now at the stage when "the sounding cataract 
 haunted him like a passion." 
 
128 Childe Harold t CANT<> 
 
 33 
 
 Land of Albania! 1 where Iskander 2 rose, 
 Theme of the young, 3 and beacon of the wise, 4 
 And he his namesake 5 whose oft-baffled foes 
 Shrunk from his deeds of chivalrous emprize : 
 Land of Albania ! let me bend mine eyes 
 On thee, thou rugged nurse" of savage men ! 
 The Cross descends, thy minarets arise. 
 And the pale Crescent sparkles in the glen, 
 Through many a cypress giove within each city's ken. 
 
 38. This stanza is introduced too soon— it would be more in 
 place after 42. 
 
 1 Land of Albania ! The pilgrim hails the country as soon as 
 her snowy peaks heave in sight, but dees not set foot on shore 
 till we get to stanza 43. 
 
 51 Iskander is the Turkish form of Alexander. Some have 
 thought it strange that Byron speaks of Alexander the Great a* 
 an Albanian. (Tozer says there is ground for it in the fact that 
 his mother was an Epirote). Byron justifies himself by telling us 
 in a note that Albania comprises part of the ancient Macedonia. 
 
 , theme of the young: compare "a schoolboy's tale," 2, 6. 
 
 4 beacon of the wise. " Beacon " might mean "exemplar'' 
 but (for the sake of the antithesis) " deterrent " seems to be 
 preferable. The glorious side of his career appeals most to the 
 young; its disastrous side to the old. 
 
 B his namesake is Scanderbeg (better known as George 
 Castriota), an Albanian chief who in the fifteenth century stoutly 
 maintained the independence of his country against the Turks. 
 For 25 years he defeated every army that invaded his territory. 
 Mahomet II (who captured Constantinople in 1453, see 77, 1) was 
 his principal antagonist. 
 
 6 rugged nurse etc. Compare Scott : "0, Caledonia stern 
 and wild !" Byron tells us that the Albanese struck him forcibly 
 "by their resemblance to the Highlanders of Scotland in dress, 
 figure, and manner of living. Their very mountains seemed 
 Caledonian," 
 
"•] Childe Harold 129 
 
 39 
 Childe Harold sail'd and pass'd the barren spot 1 
 Where sad Penelope 4 o'erlook'd the wave; 
 And onward 3 view'd the mount, 4 not yet forgot, 
 The lover's refuge," and the Lesbian's grave. 
 Dark Sappho ! could not verse immortal save 
 That breast 7 imbued with such immortal fire ? 
 Could she not live" who life eternal gave ? 
 
 39. * the barren spot is Ithaca, the home of Ulysses, who 
 describes it (Odyssey ix. 27) as "a rugged isle but a good nurse of 
 noble youths ; and for myself, I can see nought sweeter than a 
 man's own country." 
 
 ' Penelope ; the wife of Ulysses, proverbial for her fidelity 
 to her husband, for whose return from Troy she waited twenty 
 years (the "mortal bride" of 29, 6). 
 
 3 onward = farther on, "afar," 40,2. The vessel that carried 
 the travellers, having first touched at Patras (in the Morea), is 
 proceeding to Prevesa. To do so, it is necessary to double 
 Leucadia's Cape (the modern Cape Ducato), the southern extrem- 
 ity of the island of St. Maura. Very few places excited so much 
 interest in the mind of our pilgrim • it is the principal theme 
 of this and the two following stanzas. 
 
 * the mount= "Leucadia's cape,'' 40, 2, "the rock of woe," 
 41, 2, "that ancient mount," 41, 6. 
 
 * The lover's refuge, etc. To leap into the sea from this high 
 headland was in ancient times believed to be a cure for hopeless 
 love. It was equivalent to suicide, for the victims were usually 
 drowned. Sappho, one of the greatest of Greek lyric poets, is 
 recorded to have made the fatal leap, when her passion for Phaon 
 was treated by him with disdain. 
 
 6 the Lesbian, because she was a native of the island of 
 Lesbos. 
 
 7 that breast=Sappho herself (syncedoche). The poet asks 
 why the immortal fire of genius could not preserve Sappho from 
 drowning, 
 
 8 Could she not live etc. A variation of the preceding 
 question. She gave life eternal to her verses, could she herself not 
 live a little longer on earth ? 
 
130 Childe Harold [ CANTO 
 
 If life eternal may await the lyre, 
 That only Heaven 9 to which Earth's children may aspire. 
 
 40 
 
 'Twas on a Grecian autumn's gentle eve 1 
 Childe Harold hail'd Leucadia's cape afar, 
 A spot he long'd to see, nor cared to leave : 
 Oft did he mark" the scenes of vanish'd war, 
 Actium, 3 Lepanto, 4 fatal Trafalgar ; 5 
 Mark them unmoved, for he would not delight 
 ( Born beneath some remote inglorious star) 6 
 In themes of bloody fray, or gallant fight, 
 But loathed the bravo's trade, 7 and laughed at martial wight. 
 
 9 That only Heaven (or immortality) that mortals may aspire 
 to. There are many denials of man's hope of immortality in this 
 Canto. The next is in stanza 53. 
 
 40. * a Grecian autumn's gentle eve. It was (according 
 to Hobhouse) September 27, 1809. 
 
 2 Oft did he mark = often had he marked. These words 
 introduce a roundabout explanation of the words "nor cared to 
 leave." Scenes of battle had no interest for him, but Leucadia's 
 cape is not connected with battle. 
 
 3 Actium. See notes on stanza 45. 
 
 4 Lepanto. At Patras Byron was near the mouth of the Gulf 
 of Lepanto, the scene of the famous battle between Turks and 
 Franks in 1571. Cervantes, the author of Don Quixote, fought 
 here with great valour, and spent seven months afterwards in 
 hospital while recovering from his wounds. But Byron "marked 
 it unmoved " ! 
 
 '■ Trafalgar. On the voyage from Cadiz to Gibraltar, Byron 
 must have sailed through the Bay where Lord Nelson Avon his 
 naval victory on October 21, 1805. fatal. This is not the only 
 place in the poem where the author braves public opinion. 
 
 The remote, inglorious star might be the planet Saturn, 
 but is certainly not Mars. Our hero's temperament is "saturnine," 
 i. e. grave or gloomy ; in the days of astrology that planet was 
 supposed to produce this type of character. 
 
 1 the bravo's trade = the military profession (sarcastic), 
 "bravo" means a desperado or hired assassin. Compare I. 44. 
 
"•] Childe Harold 131 
 
 41 
 
 But when he saw the evening star above 
 Leucadia's far-projecting 1 rock of woe, 
 And hail'd the last resort* of fruitless love, 
 He felt, or deem'd he felt, no common glow : s 
 And as the stately vessel glided slow 
 Beneath the shadow of that ancient mount, 
 He watch'd the billows' melancholy flow, 
 And, sunk albeit in thought as he was wont, 
 More placid seem'd his eye, and smooth his pallid front. 4 
 
 41. l far-projecting = jutting out into the sea. 
 
 2 the last resort etc., the precipice that afforded a final remedy 
 for unrequited affection. 
 
 3 no common glow. Strange that his interest should be so 
 kindled by a spot associated only with suicide ! 
 
 * and (more) smooth, pallid front = pale brow. 
 
 42-72. Harold's travels in Albania. Landing at Prevesa, 
 he finds himself in a new and strange world, where the Crescent 
 lords it over the Cross. Nature is wild, and men are wilder. 
 
 (1) The journey to Tepalen. Making his way in a small boat 
 to Salora, on the northern shore of the Gulf of Arta (where the 
 battle of Actium took place in 31 B. C), the pilgrim proceeds 
 by land over the Suliote mountains to Yanina, AH Pasha's capital. 
 Of six days spent here he tells us nothing, but lingers lovingly 
 over Zitza, where there wa3 a monastery. The description of the 
 scenery in this neighbourhood recalls the stanzas on Cintra. Cross- 
 ing the river Laos, he finds himself at the gate of Ali's fortress. 
 
 (2) Nine stanzas (56 to 64) are devoted to the description of 
 the Vizier's country-seat and the pilgrim's reception here (where 
 he remained from October 19 to 23). 
 
 (3) Two other adventures bring to a close this part of the poem. 
 (a) On one oocasion he was wrecked off the coast of Suli, and 
 found himself in the power of wild men who, though bound to 
 him neither by ties of race nor religion, rendered him every service 
 within their power, (b) On another occasion he was in danger 
 from robbers, and had a band of fifty Albanians to escort him 
 ^through the wilds of Acarnania). One night round the watch-fire, 
 they gave him an exhibition of their native songs and dances, 
 which made Utraikey one of the memorable spots in his pilgrimage. 
 
132 Childe Harold t CANTa 
 
 42 
 
 Morn dawns :' and with it stern Albania's hills, 
 Dark Suli's 2 rocks, and Pindus' inland peak, 
 Robed half in mist, bedew'd with snowy rills, 3 
 Array'd in many a dun and purple streak, 
 Arise f and, as the clouds along them break, 5 
 Disclose the dwelling of the mountaineer ; 
 Here roams the wolf, the eagle whets his beak, 
 Birds, beasts of prey, and wilder men 6 appear, 
 And gathering storms around convulse the closing year.* 
 
 43 
 Now Harold found himself at length alone, 1 
 And bade to Christian tongues 2 a long adieu ; 
 
 42. x morn dawns. The vessel has reached Prevesa, the 
 chief seaport of Albania. This country was in Byron's time "the 
 wildest province in Greece, where very few Englishmen had ever 
 been." Even in April, 1914, a war correspondent writes co The. 
 Times that it is "almost as little known as Afghanistan, and there 
 is.no other country with which it may so well be compared." The 
 part visited by Byron is all included in the present kingdom of 
 Greece ; the new kingdom of Albania lies to the north of Tepeleni 
 (Tepalen, 55, 6), beyond which our travellers did not penetrate. 
 
 * Suli is a mountainous district to the north of the Gulf of 
 Arta. It was a small republic before it was conquered by Ali 
 Pasha. Pindus : see on 47, 1. 
 
 3 bedewed with snowy rills : watered by streams running 
 down from the =nowy peaks. 
 
 4 arise, disclose themselves, become visible. 
 
 5 clouds. ..break, i. e. disperse or dissolve. 
 
 wilder men. "Each carried an immense brace of pistols and 
 a long knife, sticking out from a belt before his waist" Hobhouse, 
 p. 13. The same writer speaks of bands of banditti numbering 
 hundreds, and says it is reckoned no disgrace for an Albanian to 
 belong to such a company. It was quite a common thing to over- 
 hear a man say, "when I was a robber." ib. 149. 
 
 7 closing year. See note on "autumn's gentle eve" 40, 1. 
 
 43. ' alone : Harold is a lonely wanderer, shunning the 
 society of his fellow-men : Byron travels in the company of 
 Hobhouse and Fletcher. 
 
 2 Christian tongues : fellow -Christians (synecdoche). 
 
n.] Childe Harold 133 
 
 Now he adventured on a shore unknown, 3 
 Which all admire, but many dread to view : 
 His breast was arm'd 'gainst fate, his wants were few ; 
 Peril he sought not, but ne'er shrank to meet : 
 The scene was savage, but the scene was new ; 
 This made the ceaseless toil of travel sweet, 4 
 Beat back keen winter's blast, and welcomed summer's 
 heat. 5 
 
 44 
 Here the red 1 Cross, for still the Cross is here, 
 Though sadly scoff'd at by the circumcised, 2 
 Forgets that pride to pamper'd priesthood dear ; 3 
 Churchman and votary 4 alike despised. 
 Foul Superstition! 6 howsoe'er disguised, 
 Idol, saint, virgin, prophet, crescent, cross, 
 
 3 a shore unknown. The travellers reached Prevesa on 
 September 28. Only one other Englishman had preceded them, viz. 
 Major Leake, then officially resident in l'anina (52, 2). "Shore" = 
 country (synecdoche). 
 
 4 This made the ceaseless toil. ..sweet. Compare: "Oh! 
 there is sweetness" etc. I. 30, 8. 
 
 5 Beat back etc. Made winter's cold and summer's heat alike 
 tolerable. But he was here only in the autumn. 
 
 44. 1 red compare I. 35, 8. 
 
 2 the circumcised : the Turks. The pilgrim is at list within 
 reach of one of the objects that took him abroad, viz. to "traverse 
 Paynim shores" I. 11, 9. 
 
 3 d ear = characteristic of. Christianity is not the predominant 
 religion in Albania, and the priesthood do not carry their heads 
 so high as in other countries. 
 
 4 Churchman and votary : the secular and the regular clergy 
 (the former being the parish priests, the latter the monks). 
 
 5 Foul superstition ! a blow against false religion, irrespective 
 of creed. "They are not all Turks ; some tribes are Christians. 
 But their religion makes little difference in their manner or 
 conduct" (Letter 131). 
 
134 Childe Harold t CANT0 
 
 For whatsoever symbol thou art prized, 
 Thou sacerdotal gain, but general loss ! 7 
 Who from true worship's gold can separate thy dross ? 
 
 45 
 Ambracia's gulf 1 behold, where once was lost 
 A world 2 for woman, lovely, harmless thing ! 
 In yonder rippling bay, their naval host 3 
 Did many a Roman chief and Asian king 
 To doubtful conflict,* certain slaughter bring : 
 Look 6 where the second Caesar's trophies" rose 
 Now, like the hands 7 that rear'd them, withering : 
 
 6 whatsoever symbol : all religions are alike to him! Tokens 
 or watchwords (six in number) of contrary creeds are instanced, 
 each of which is capable of abuse. 
 
 7 general loss: the laity lose what the priesthood gain. 
 
 8 gold = true religion ; dross = superstition. 
 
 45. ' Ambracia's Gulf, now the Gulf of Arta. After two 
 days of incessant rain in Prevesa, the travellers proceeded to 
 Yanina, the capital of Albania, where they hoped to see the 
 Vizier. There were two routes open to them, of which they chose 
 che longer and less dangerous, via the Gulf of Arta. They went 
 first in an open boat, rowed by six men, as far as Salora ; the rest 
 of the way on horseback. Byron's thoughts go back to Roman 
 history, for it was in this Bay (or just outside) that Augustus (the 
 Second Caesar) defeated Antony and Cleopatra in a naval battle. 
 
 2 A world : the mastery of the Roman Kmpire. Antony threw 
 away his chance of winning the battle by following Cleopatra when 
 she retreated with her fleet, harmless is here intensely ironical. 
 
 3 their naval host object of Did. ..bring. 
 
 4 doubtful conflict, certain slaughter : compare (I. 40, 8) : 
 
 "The Grave shall bear the chiefest prize away." 
 
 5 look : the reader is supposed to be present, 36, 2. 
 
 ° trophies : memorials of victory. This refers to the ruins of 
 Nicopolis, a city built at the northern entrance to the Gulf to 
 celebrate the victory. 
 
 1 the hands = the builders (synecdoche). 
 
»•] Childe Harold 135 
 
 Imperial anarchs, 8 doubling human woes ! 
 God ! was thy globe 9 ordain'd for such to win and lose ? 
 
 46 
 From the dark barriers 1 of that rugged clime, 
 Ev'n to the centre of Illyria's 2 vales, 
 Childe Harold pass'd o'er many a mount sublime, 
 Through lands scarce noticed in historic tales ; s 
 Yet in famed 4 Attica such lovely dales 
 Are rarely seen; nor can fair Tempe 5 boast 
 A charm they know not ; loved Parnassus e fails, 
 Though classic ground and consecrated most 7 
 To match some spots that lurk within this lowering coast. 8 
 
 47 
 He pass'd bleak Pindus * Acherusia's lake, 2 
 And left the primal city 3 of the land, 
 
 8 anarchs, lawless rulers. Compare "Ah, monarchs 1" (47, 7). 
 
 " thy globe : compare "a world," line 2. to win or lose : war 
 is to such persons a game of hazard, and the world is the prize. 
 
 46. * the dark barriers : the southern frontiers. Albania was 
 then bounded on the south by the Gulf of Arta. 
 
 3 lllyria, in ancient times, was the country north of Epirus and 
 comprehended a part of the modern Albania. 
 
 3 scare noticed in historic tales = concerning which history has 
 little to tell us. Ruins of cities have been found, whose names 
 have fallen into oblivion. 
 
 4 famed : made famous by historians, though the scenery of 
 Attica cannot vie with that of Albania. 
 
 "Tempe: the valley of the river Peneus in Thessaly. It is so 
 narrow as barely to allow the river to find an outlet into the 
 Aegean Sea. It has been called the most beautiful spot on earth, 
 boast (of having), know not=do not possess. 
 
 Parnassus. See note on I. 60, 1. 
 
 ' consecrated most : the most sacred spot in Greece. 
 
 8 lurk : lie hidden from observation, lowering coast : exposed 
 to frequent thunderstorms. 
 
 4t7. ' Pindus : part of a lofty range of mountains forming the 
 backbone of the Balkan Peninsula ; the Apennines of Greece (both 
 words from the Celtic "pen" = a height). 
 
 5 Acherusia's lake. Byron evidently means the lake of Yanina ; 
 
136 Childe Harold [ CANT0 
 
 And onwards 4 did his further journey take 
 To greet Albania's chief, whose dread command 
 Is lawless law ; for with a bloody hand 5 
 He sways a nation, turbulent and bold ; 
 Yet here and there some daring mountain-band 6 
 Disdain his power, and from their rocky hold 
 Hurl their defiance far, nor yield, unless to gold. 
 
 48 
 
 Monastic Zitza I 1 from thy shady brow, 
 
 Thou small but favour'd spot of holy ground ! 
 
 Where'er we gaze, 2 around, above, below. 
 
 What rainbow tints, 3 what magic charms are found ! 
 
 Rock, river, forest, mountain, all abound,* 
 
 but the real lake (or swamp) of this name is near the mouth of the 
 river Acheron, a little to the south. 
 
 3 the primal city = Yanina, at this time (according to Byron) 
 superior to Athens in the wealth and refinement of its inhabitants. 
 
 4 onwards : farther north. The Vizier was absent from his 
 capital, and the travellers were obliged to seek him at his "choice 
 retreat" (64, 5) in Tepalen. It was a journey of 75 miles as the 
 crow flies. 
 
 5 with a bloody hand : see note on 62. 9. 
 
 " some. ..mountain band. Byron says he means the Sidiotes, 
 who inhabited the mountains north of the Gulf of Arta. But these 
 were now among his most loyal subjects. 
 
 48. 1 Monastic Zitza! "in the most beautiful situation 
 (always excepting Cintra in Portugal) I ever beheld" (Letter 131). 
 brow = summit. 
 
 2 Where'er we gaze. "Perhaps there is not in the world a more 
 romantic prospect than that which is viewed from the summit of 
 the hill. ..The view is everywhere closed by mountains wood v to 
 their tops... To the east is Pindue...to the south are the Suliote 
 mountains, and to the north-west, but in the farther distance, are 
 those of Chimera (Hobhouse, p. 83). 
 
 3 rainbow tints ; hyperbolic, says Mommsen. 
 .* all abound, are here richly displayed. 
 
"•] Childe Harold 137 
 
 And bluest skies that harmonise the whole : 
 Beneath, the distant torrent's 5 rushing sound 
 Tells where the volumed cataract doth roll 
 Between those hanging rocks, that shock yet please 6 the soul. 
 
 49 
 Amidst the grove that crowns yon tufted hill, 1 
 Which, were it not for many a mountain nigh 
 Rising in lofty ranks, 2 and loftier still, 
 Might well itself be deem'd of dignity, 
 The convent's white walls glisten fair on high : 
 Here dwells the caloyer, 3 nor rude is he, 
 Nor niggard* of his cheer ; the passer by 
 Is welcome still ; nor heedless will he flee 
 From hence, if he delight kind Nature's sheen 5 to see. 
 
 Here in the sultriest season 1 let him rest, 
 Fresh is the green beneath those aged trees; 
 Here winds of gentlest wing a will fan his breast, 
 
 " the distant torrent ia the river Calamas, which tumbles over 
 a cataract, whose sound might be heard from the monastery. 
 6 that shock yet please : wild scenery rather than picturesque. 
 
 49. 1 yon tufted ( = bushy) hill : the hill that has just been 
 described. 
 
 2 in lofty ranks : in tiers, after the manner of an amphitheatre. 
 
 3 the caloyer : literally "the good old man," the word for 
 "monk" in Modern Greek. Here collective, meaning a brotherhood, 
 of monks, not a hermit living alone. 
 
 4 Nor niggard (litotes). The travellers were so well entertained 
 on their outward journey, that they revisited the convent on their 
 return. 
 
 5 sheen. This word, as we have seen (I. 29, 7) means 
 "brightness," but here generally for "loveliness." 
 
 50. l in the sultriest season. Byron had only seen it in 
 October, but could imagine what it would be like in summer. 
 
 2 of gentlest wing. Byron first wrote "if winds there be." 
 
138 Childe Harold f CA!fT& 
 
 From heaven itself he may inhale the breeze : 
 The plain is far beneath — oh ! let him seize 
 Pure pleasure while he can ; the scorching ray 
 Here pierceth not, impregnate with disease : 3 
 Then let his length the loitering pilgrim lay, 4 
 And gaze, untired, the morn, the noon, the eve away ! 6 
 
 Dusky and huge, enlarging on the sight, 1 
 
 Nature's volcanic amphitheatre, 2 
 
 Chimaera's Alps 3 extend from left to right : 
 
 Beneath, a living valley seems to stir ; 
 
 Flocks play, trees wave, streams flow, the mountain-fir 
 
 Nodding above ; behold black Acheron !* 
 
 Once consecrated to the sepulchre. 5 
 
 3 ray. ..impregnate. Malaria is the disease supposed here to be 
 due to the sun. Zitza was above the malarial region. 
 
 4 lay his length = stretch himself at his ease, "lie" would be 
 more idiomatic, for "lay" = cause to lie. 
 
 5 pass the livelong day in gazing around him. 
 
 51. * enlarging on the sight : (1) "increasing in magnitude 
 as we gaze" (Tozer) ; or (2) "in wider and wider circles" ("in 
 weiter stets geschweiftem Bogen"), describing the background of 
 the picture as opposed to the living valley in the foreground. 
 
 2 amphitheatre : compare " rising in loftly tiers," 49, 3, 
 "screen of hills, 52, 3. The surmise that they are of volcanic 
 origin is not confirmed by geology. 
 
 3 Chimaera's Alps : the Acroceraunian mountains. 
 
 4 behold black Acheron ! The travellers were told by their 
 guide (the Vizier's secretary) that the river Oalamas was the 
 Acheron of antiquity. 
 
 5 Once consecrated to the sepulchre : For a, part of its 
 course the river runs underground, which might account for its 
 identification with the Kiver of Woe in the lower world. 
 
"•] Childe Harold 139 
 
 Pluto ! if this be hell 6 I look upon, 
 Close shamed Elysium's gates, my shade'' shall seek 
 for none. 
 
 52 
 Ne city's towers pollute the lovely view ; l 
 Unseen 2 is Yanina, 3 though not remote 
 Veil'd by the screen of hills : 4 here men are few, 
 Scanty the hamlet, rare the lonely cot : 
 But, peering 5 down each precipice, the goat 
 Browseth; and, pensive" o'er his scatter'd flock, 
 The little shepherd in his white capote 7 
 Doth lean his boyish form along the rock, 
 Or in his cave awaits the tempest's short-lived shock. 8 
 
 6 Pluto : see 14, 6. if this be (a fair sample of) hell : if 
 Hades can boast of such scenes as these. 
 
 "■ Close (against me), shamed : put to shame, my shade etc. 
 My soul after death shall prefer Hades to Elysium. 
 
 52. l Ne=no : Compare "Ne personage,'' I. 17, 7. pollute 
 the lovely view : See reference to Rousseau at 37, 6. 
 
 a Unseen (and better out of sight). Wordsworth (the poet of 
 Nature par excellence) would not agree with Byron. One of his 
 most majestic sonnets is on the view of London from Westminster 
 Bridge, in which he declares that — 
 
 Earth hath not anything to show more fair ! 
 
 1 Yanina (or Janina) is 15 miles to the south. 
 
 4 screen of hills : the "amphitheatre'' of 51, 2. 
 
 5 peering : (1) looking narrowly or intently (with reference to 
 the animal's defective vision), or (2) appearing, showing them- 
 selves, goat = goats. 
 
 6 These shepherds are pensive ; but the minds of Spanish and 
 Portuguese shepherds were vacant (I. 33, 5). 
 
 7 White capote : "a large great coat, with loose open sleeves 
 of shaggy white woollen" Hobhouse, p. 134. 
 
 s the tempest's short-lived shock. "Most persons who have 
 visited Yanina can testify to the frequent thunderstorms in the 
 neighbourhood." Tozer. 
 
140 Childe Harold t CANT0 
 
 53 
 Oh ! where, Dodona l 1 is thine aged grove," 
 Prophetic fount, and oracle divine ? 3 
 What valley echoed the response of Jove ? 4 
 What trace remaineth of the Thunderer's shrine ? 
 All, all forgotten — and shall man repine" 
 That his frail bonds to fleeting life 6 are broke ? 
 Cease, fool ! the fate of gods may well be thine : 
 Wouldst thou survive the marble or the oak ? ' 
 When nations, tongues, and worlds s must sink beneath the 
 stroke ! 
 
 53. ' Dodona : famous for its oracle of Zeus, the oldest in 
 Greece, and the most venerated till it was eclipsed by that of 
 Apollo. In later times it utterly disappeared from sight, and in 
 1S09 its position was still unknown — hence the question, "Oh ! 
 where V But in 1875, it was discovered by a Greek excavator 
 a few miles south of Yanina. 
 
 2 aged grove (of sacred oaks). The will of the god was ascer- 
 tained (1) from the rustling of the leaves, and (2) from the sound 
 of the prophetic fount that gushed forth from underneath the 
 ground. 
 
 3 and oracle divine : redundant — the "oracle" was the grove 
 and the fount already mentioned. 
 
 4 response of Jove : conveyed through the sounds specified. 
 
 and shall man repine. Byron falls into the train of thought 
 already suggested by the ruins of the Parthenon. 
 
 bonds to fleeting life : Perhaps the "thread" of life ; 
 spun, measured, and finally cut by the Fates ; broke, broken or 
 severed. 
 
 ' the oak : collection of sacred oaks at Dodona. 
 
 8 (Wouldst thou survive) when nations, tongues ( = languages), 
 and worlds etc. A French thinker has anticipated .Byron's 
 objection : "Man is as frail as a reed, but he is a thinking reed : he 
 is greater than the world itself, for were the world shattered, man 
 would be aware of the shock, while the world would not." 
 Pascal's Penates* 
 
 * " It was the comparative insignificance of ourselves and our world, when 
 placed in competition with the mighty whole, of which it is an atom, that first 
 led me to imagine that our pi"etensions to immortality might be over- 
 
"■] Childe Harold 141 
 
 54 
 Epirus' bounds recede, and mountains fail ;' 
 Tired of up-gazing still, 4 the wearied eye 
 Reposes gladly on as smooth a vale s 
 As ever Spring yclad * in grassy dye : 
 Ev'n on a plain b no humble beauties lie, 
 Where some bold river breaks G the long expanse, 
 And woods along the banks are waving high, 
 Whose shadows 7 in the glassy waters dance, 
 Or with the moonbeam sleep in midnight's solemn trance. 
 
 55- 
 The sun had sunk behind vast Tomerit, 1 
 And Laos' wide and fierce came roaring by ; 
 
 54. ' Epirus' bounds recede. The travellers have left 
 Zitza, and are on their way north to Tepalen. The roads were 
 almost impassable owing to the recent rain, and they took six 
 days to cover a distance of 45 miles. All this is "compressed 
 into a single stanza" (C). mountains fail = the character of the 
 landscape changes north of Zitza. 
 
 still =continuously. wearied: suffering from strain. 
 
 •' as smooth a vale : that of the Calamas (51, 4). 
 
 4 yclad. an obsolete form of "clad" {past participle), which 
 Byron seems to use as a, preterite. 
 
 s a plain: the low fertile land traversed by the bed of the 
 stream ; the same as the "smooth vale" of line 3, and the "long 
 expanse" of line 6. no humble : litotes. 
 
 " breaks (the monotony of). 
 
 'shadows = reflections : this old sense is frequent in Shake- 
 speare, and survives in the fable of the Dog and his (Shadow. 
 
 55. ' vast Tomarit "Probably. ..Mount Olytsika, ancient 
 Tomaros, which lies to the west of Janina." (C). 
 
 2 Laos = L'Aos or Aous, the ancient name of the river Viosa, 
 which flows past Tepalen. The travellers are now approaching 
 
 rated." Letter 303 (1S13). Later in life he modified his view; in Detaclicd Thoughts 
 flS-2-2), in discussing the Immortality of the Soul, he says, "I used to doubt it, 
 but reflection has taught me better.. That the Mind is eternal, seems as 
 probable as that the body is not so." 
 
142 Childe Harold CAXT " 
 
 The shades of wonted night were gathering yet, 3 
 When, down the steep banks winding warily, 
 Childe Harold saw, like meteors in the sky, 
 The glittering minarets * of Tepalen, 
 Whose walls o'erlook the stream ; and drawing nigh, 
 He heard the busy hum of warrior-men 5 
 Swelling the breeze that sigh'd along the lengthening glen. 
 
 56. 
 
 He pass'd the sacred Haram's silent 1 tower, 
 And underneath the wide o'erarching gate 2 
 Survey'd the dwelling of this chief of power, 8 
 Where all around proclaim'd his high estate. 
 Amidst no common pomp* the despot sate, 
 
 the Vizier's retreat. Byron says of this river (as wide as the 
 Thames at Westminster) that it is "certainly the finest in the 
 Levant." 3 It was still twilight. 
 
 * glittering minarets. Mommsen finds fault with the epithet, 
 because of the lateness of the hour. Byron, he thinks, crowds too 
 much into his frame, (an evening and a morning picture). This 
 criticism applies to other passages in the poem (see stanza 70), 
 but not to this one. "During the fast of the Ramazan, with 
 which Byron's visit coincided (60, 1), the gallery of each minaret 
 is decorated with a circlet of small lamps. When seen from a 
 distance, each minaret presents a point of light, "like meteors in 
 the sky." (C). 
 
 = "After travelling down the valley an hour, we. ..saw. ..a large 
 party of soldiers." Hobhouse. 
 
 56. Six stanzas tell us about his surroundings, before we are 
 introduced to the Vizier himself. ' Sacred : reserved for the 
 women. "The Turks take too much care of their women to 
 permit them to be scrutinised. ..female society is out of the ques- 
 tion " (Letter 137). Silent : Compare 61, 1. 
 
 2 the wide o'erarching gate. " We entered through a gate- 
 way in a tower, and found ourselves in the court-yard of the 
 Vizier's palace" Hobhouse, p. 105. 
 
 3 of power = powerful. 
 
 4 no common pomp = much ostentation (litotes). 
 
"•] Childe Harold 143 
 
 While busy preparation shook 5 the court, 
 Slaves, eunuchs, soldiers, guests, and santons 6 wait ; 
 Within, a palace, and, without, a fort : 
 Here men of every clime' appear to make resort. 
 
 57- 
 Richly caparison'd, a ready row 
 Of armed horse, 1 and many a warlike store, 2 
 Circled the wide-extending court below ; 
 Above, strange groups adorn'd the corridore ;' 
 And oft-times through the area's echoing door, 4 
 Some high-capp'd 5 Tartar spurr'd his steed away : 
 The Turk, the Greek, the Albanian, and the Moor, 
 Here mingled in their many-hued array, 
 While the deep war-drum's 6 sound announced the close of 
 day. 
 
 s shook refers to the heavy tread of many feet. "In the part 
 farthest from the dwelling, preparations were making for the 
 feast of the night." 
 
 6 santons : Mohammedan monks (from Spanish santo = saint). 
 
 7 men of every clime : enumerated in stanza 58. 
 
 57. * " Two hundred steeds ready caparisoned to move in a 
 moment." Letter 131. 
 
 3 many a warlike store: supplies necessary in a time of war, 
 for Ali was then engaged in besieging the neighbouring town of 
 Berat. 
 
 3 the corridore : "a long gallery with two wings, opening 
 into which, as in a large English inn, were the doors of several 
 apartments." Hobhouse, p. 106 Into one of these the guests 
 were shown : it was furnished with large silken sofas, and had a 
 sleeping room-aloft. 
 
 4 the area's echoing door : the "wide o'erarching gate" of 
 the court. 
 
 high-capped : the " the cap of terror," 58, 5. 
 
 6 the deep war-drum : a kettle-drum (B.). "At sunset the 
 drum was beat in the yard, and the Albanians, most of them 
 being Turks, went to prayers (Hobhouse, p. 106). 
 
144 Childe Harold C CA * TI> 
 
 58. 
 
 The wild Albanian kirtled to his knee, 1 
 With shawl-girt head and ornamented gun, 
 And gold-embroider'd garments, fair to see ; 
 The crimson-scarfed men of Macedon ; 
 The Delhi 3 with his cap of terror on, 
 And crooked glaive ; s the lively, supple Greek ; 
 And swarthy 4 Nubia's mutilated son ; 
 The bearded Turk, that rarely deigns to speak, 
 Master of all around, too potent to be meek, 
 
 59- 
 
 Are mix'd conspicuous : 1 some recline in groups, 
 Scanning the motley scene that varies round ; 
 There some grave Moslem to devotion stoops,' 
 And some that smoke, and some that play,* are found ; 
 Here the Albanian proudly treads the ground ; 
 
 58. " The Albanian's dress, the most beautiful in the world." 
 Letter 131. There is no handsomer or more pleasing portrait of 
 Byron than that which shows him wearing the complete Albanian 
 nostume in the midsc of » thunder-storm.* 
 
 * kirtled to the knee : wearing a kirtle (or kilt) down to the 
 knee. 
 
 * The Delhi. Darmesteter says that the bravest of the Turkish 
 soldiers (les plus grand faros tnrcs) received this title, which 
 literally 'means madman (fou). Byron describes them as "horsemen 
 answering to our forlorn hope." 
 
 1 crooked glaive = curved sword, soimetar. 
 
 4 swarthy : applies to "son," not to "Nubia" (hypallage). 
 
 59. ' mixed conspicuous (in the courtyard). A motley 
 scene it must have been. 
 
 ' to devotion stoops, oee note on 57, 9. 
 s play : some game of hazard is meant. 
 
 * It is reproduced in vol. iii of Coleridge's edition. 
 
J1 -] Childe Harold 145 
 
 Half whispering* there the Greek is heard to prate ; 
 Hark ! from the mosque the nightlv 5 solemn sound, 
 The Muezzin's 6 call doth shake the minaret, 
 " There is no god but God ! — to prayer — lo ! God is 
 great !" 
 
 60. 
 Just at this season Ramazani's fast ' 
 Through the long day''' its penance did maintain : 
 But when the lingering twilight hour was past, 
 Revel and feast assumed the rule 3 again ; 
 Now all wis bustle, and the menial train 
 Prepared and spread the plenteous board 4 within ; 
 The vacant gallery now seem'd made in vain, 5 
 But from the chambers 6 came the mingling din, 
 As page and slave anon were passing out and in. 
 
 61. 
 
 Here 1 woman's voice is never heard : apart, 1 
 And scarce permitted, guarded, veil'd, to move, 2 
 
 4 Half whi spering. None in the company are so subdued as 
 the Greeks, for they are the people of least consequence. 
 
 6 nightly It continued at intervals throughout the night. 
 
 6 The Muezzin calls out the hours of prayer from the minaret. 
 "This chanter was a boy, and he sang out his hymn in a sort of 
 loud melancholy recitative." 
 
 60. l Ramazani's fast, the ninth, or fasting month, of the 
 Mohammedan year, corresponds to Lent. 
 
 3 the long day: during the hours of daylight a rigid fast is 
 observed ; which would make even a day in October seem long. 
 
 3 assumed the rule : became the order of the day. 
 
 4 Prepared the food, spread the cloth, and heaped the board. 
 
 * seem'd made in vain : being deserted for the time. 
 
 * the chambers : see note on 57, 4. 
 
 61. * Here : in the public apartments, apart : in the "Haram's 
 silent tower", 56, 1. 
 
 3 scarce permitted. ..to move: not even when guarded and 
 veiled. The reason is given at I. 59, 5. 
 
 10 
 
146 Childe Harold t CAST0 
 
 She yields to one 8 her person and her heart, 
 Tamed to her cage, 4 nor feels a wish to rove : 
 For, not unhappy in her master's love, 
 And joyful in a mother's gentlest cares, 5 
 Blest cares ! all other feelings far above ! 
 Herself more sweetly 6 rears the babe she bears, 
 Who never quits the breast, no meaner passion shares. 
 
 62. 
 
 In marble-paved pavilion, 1 where a spring 
 Of living water 2 from the centre rose, 
 Whose bubbling did a genial freshness fling, 
 And soft voluptuous couches breathed repose, 3 
 Ali reclined, a man of war and woes :* 
 Yet in his lineaments ye cannot trace, 
 While Gentleness 5 her milder radiance throws 
 
 3 to one : "her master", line. 5. Whether he is a monogamist 
 or polygamist is here an open question. 
 
 * her cage : the lady is compared to a bird, the harem to its 
 cage. 
 
 6 Wifely and motherly cares complete the circle of her existence. 
 
 6 Herself more sweetly etc. She is the more endeared to her 
 children, because she rears them herself, not sharing her motherly 
 cares with a menial. 
 
 62. Ali Pasha's reception of Byron. "The next day [after 
 our arrival] I was introduced to Ali Pasha. I was dressed in a 
 full suit of staff uniform, with a very magnificent sabre, etc. The 
 vizier received me in a large room paved with marble ; a fountain 
 was playing in the centre ; the apartment was surrounded by 
 scarlet ottomans. He received me standing, a wonderful compli- 
 ment from a Mussulman, and made me sit down on his right 
 hand." (Letter 131). 
 
 1 pavilion : here a stately room, not a tent. 
 
 a living water, i.e. issuing from the ground. 
 
 s breathed repose : gave the room a look of repose. 
 
 * a man of war and woes (hendiadys) : a seasoned warrior. 
 
 5 Gentleness. "He was mightily civil ; and said he consid- 
 ered us as his children ... He was in great good humour, and 
 
II] Childe Harold 147 
 
 Along that aged venerable face, 
 The deeds that lurk beneath, 8 and stain him with disgrace. 
 
 63. 
 It is not that yon hoary lengthening beard 1 
 111 suits the passions which belong to youth ; 
 Love conquers age — so Hafiz 2 hath averr'd, 
 So sings the Teian,® and he sings in sooth — 
 But crimes that scorn the tender voice of ruth, 4 
 Beseeming all men ill, but most the man 
 In years, 5 have mark'd him with a tiger's tooth -, 8 
 Blood follows blood, 7 and, through their mortal span, 
 In bloodier acts conclude those who with blood began. 
 
 several timea laughed aloud, which is very uncommon in a man 
 of consequence : I nevor saw another instance of it in Turkey." 
 Hobhouse, p. 110. 
 
 that lurk beneath : that are upon his conscience, though no 
 signs of them appear on his face. Pouqueville, a French trareller 
 who preceded Byron, writes : "Wherever I have followed any of the 
 roads previously travelled by Ali Pasha, I have never failed to 
 observe... wretches hanging on the trees." 
 
 63. ' It is not... But (1. 5). His ruling passion is not for the 
 fair sex (though his age would not exclude this), but for blood, 
 lengthening beard (by metonomy) = increasing years. 
 
 3 Hafiz : a Persian poet of the 14th century of our era, who 
 sang of love and flowers and wine : the Horace of the East. 
 averred = asserted. 
 
 * the Teian = the poet of Teos, Anacreon, who lived five centu- 
 ries B.C. Of his poems only a few fragments have come down 
 to us. 
 
 * the tender voice of ruth. Byron, (forgetting that "ruth" = 
 pity), first wrote : 
 
 But 'tis those ne'er forgotten acts of ruth, 
 as the 1 line runs 'n the Quarto edition. 
 
 ■ the man In years=the old man. "His highness is sixty 
 years old", wrote Byron to his mother ; but he was at this time 
 sixty-nine. 
 
 "' a tiger's tooth : the symbol of blood-thirstiness : but were we 
 not told in the previous stanza that no marks of cruelty were visible 
 in his lineaments ? 
 
 ' Blood follows blood : one bloody act leads to the per- 
 petration of others. 
 
148 Childe Harold [canto 
 
 6 4 . 
 
 'Mid many things most new 1 to ear and eye 
 The pilgrim rested here his weary feet, 
 And gazed around on Moslem 2 luxury, 
 Till quickly wearied 3 with that spacious seat* 
 Of Wealth and Wantonness, the choice retreat 
 Of sated Grandeur 5 from the city's noise : 
 And were it humbler, 6 it in sooth were sweet ; 
 But Peace abhorreth artificial joys, 
 And Pleasure, leagued with Pomp/ the zest of both 
 destroys. 
 
 65. 
 
 Fierce are Albania's children, 1 yet they lack 
 Not virtues, were those virtues more mature. 2 
 Where is the foe that ever saw their back ? 3 
 
 64. * things most new : strange tongues, strange costumes, 
 etc. It was a new world to him. 
 ° Moslem = Mussulman. 
 
 3 Till quickly wearied = till he was wearied, which occurred 
 soon. So he longs once more "for change of scene", I. 6, 9. 
 
 Byron left Tepalen on October 23rd, after a four days' stay. The 
 poem is silent about the leave-taking. 
 
 4 seat = country residence. 
 
 5 retreat is in apposition to "seat" ; Grandeur repeats Wealth 
 and Wantonness. 
 
 were it humbler. There was too much artificiality, luxury, 
 and ostentation for our pilgrim's simple tastes. Peace is personi- 
 fied, as in the description of Vathek's house at Cintra, I. 22, 9. 
 
 7 a. compact between Pleasure and Pomp militates against 
 both. 
 
 63. ' Albania's children = the Albanians: a common peri- 
 phrasis. Compare "thy sons", 73, 5. 
 a more mature = less barbaric. 
 3 saw their back : having first put them to rout. 
 
Childe Harold 149 
 
 Who can so well the toil of war endure ? 
 Their native fastnesses not more secure 
 Than they in doubtful time of troublous need : 4 
 Their wrath how deadly ! but their friendship sure, 5 
 When Gratitude or Valour bids them bleed, 
 Unshaken rushing on where'er their chief may lead. 
 
 66. 
 
 Childe Harold saw them in their chieftain's tower z 
 Thronging to war 8 in splendour and success ; 
 And after' view'd them, when, within their power, 
 Himself awhile the victim of distress ; 
 That saddening hour when bad men hotlier press : 
 But these did shelter him beneath their roof, 
 When less barbarians would have cheer'd him less, 4 
 And fellow-countrymen have stood aloof. 5 
 In aught that tries the heart 8 how few withstand the proof ! 
 
 * a comparison between the hearts of this people and their fast- 
 nesses in the mountains ; each can be safely relied upon in emer-" 
 gencies. doubtful = critical ; time of.. .need : "That saddening 
 hour... press", 66, 5. 
 
 ' (how) sure. Like so many barbaric races, their hearts readily 
 respond to kindness. 
 
 66. l tower : the fortress-palace of 55, 8. 
 
 2 Thronging to war : against the inhabitants of Berat. 
 See 57, 2. 
 
 3 after = some time after. The shipwreck took place on 
 November 8, about three weeks after his departure from Tepalen. 
 
 * less barbarians : meaning fellow-countrymen; cheered him 
 less=given him a colder reception. 
 
 5 have stood aloof. Eyron says he alludes to the wreckers in 
 Cornwall, men who made a trade of causing wrecks for purposes of 
 plunder. Such men would have left the sufferers to their fate. 
 
 " tries the heart=tests friendship, or rather humanity, for 
 these good Samaritans were strangers. 
 
150 Childe Harold t CACT0 
 
 67. 
 It chanced that adverse winds once drove his bark 
 Full on the coast of Suli's shaggy shore, 1 
 When all around was desolate and dark ; 
 To land was perilous, to sojourn* more ; 
 Yet for a while the mariners forbore, 3 
 Dubious to trust where treachery might lurk :* 
 At length they ventured forth, though doubting sore 5 
 That those who loathe 6 alike the Frank and Turk 
 Might once again renew their ancient' butcher- work. 
 
 68. 
 Vain fear ! the Suliotes stretch'd the welcome hand, 1 
 Led them o'er rocks and past the dangerous swamp,* 
 
 67. The travellers embarked at Prevesa in an armed galley 
 (put at their disposal by AH Pasha) with the intention of sailing to 
 Patras. But when they got out to sea, a storm arose, the Turkish 
 captain lost his nerve, and instead of holding south, the vessel was 
 driven northwards almost as far as Parga. The sequel is told in 
 Letter 131. "Fletcher yelled after his wife [see note p. 20], the 
 Greeks called on all the saints, the Mussulmans on Allah : the 
 captain burst into tears and ran below deck. ..I. ..wrapped myself 
 up in my Albanian capote (an immense cloak), and lay down on 
 deck to wait the worst... Luckily the wind abated, and only drove 
 us on the coast of Suli, on the mainland, where we landed, and 
 proceeded, by the help of natives, to Prevesa again." 
 
 1 Full on the coast. "The bay in which we landed was one 
 called Fanari, immediately contiguous to the district and mountains 
 of Suli." Hobhouse, p. 189. shaggy : "craggy and woody," 
 full = exactly : compare, "hit him full on the face." 
 
 2 sojourn (in the ship). 
 
 *" forebore (to land). 
 
 * They feared to land, lest they might walk into a trap : 
 treachery : see note on 66, 8. 
 
 5 doubting sore = fearing much. 
 
 6 those who loathe etc. The Albanians, whose hand wa3 against 
 every man. Frank here means any person of western Europe. 
 
 7 ancient = former : compare "ancient sway," 31, 9. 
 
 68. 1 stretch'd the welcome hard = received them with the 
 utmost friendliness. 
 
"1 Childe Harold 151 
 
 Kinder than polish'd slaves, though not so bland, 8 
 And piled the hearth, and wrung their garments damp, 
 And fill'd the bowl, 4 and trimm'd the cheerful lamp, 
 And spread their fare f though homely, all they had : 
 Such conduct bears Philanthropy's rare stamp : 
 To rest the weary and to soothe the sad, 
 Doth lesson happier 6 men, and shames at least the bad. 
 
 69. 
 
 It came to pass, that when he did address 
 Himself to quit at length 1 this mountain-land, 
 Combined marauders half-way barr'd egress, 11 
 And wasted far and near with glaive and brand ;" 
 And therefore did he take a trusty band* 
 
 '' Led them... past ( = beyond) the dangerous swamp to the 
 village of Volondorako, near the mouth of the Acheron. Tho 
 "swamp", if not "Aeherusia's lake" 47, 1, was at least not far 
 from it. 
 
 1 polished slaves : compare "less barbarians", 66, 7 ; bland 
 is used ironically. 
 
 * piled (with fuel) the hearth ; the bowl, compare I. 28, 4. 
 
 s spread their fare : compare "spread the plenteous board", 
 60, 6. 
 
 " doth lesson = gives a lesson to : happier : more civilized. 
 
 69. ' did address himself to quit=prepared to leave. He 
 spent only one night at Volondorako, but at length suggests a 
 prolonged visit. 
 
 2 Combined marauders: an organized band of brigands; 
 half-way barr'd egress =obstructed the roads leading out of the 
 country ; "egress" = exit, departure. 
 
 '■ glaive and brand ; "fire and sword." Both words can mean 
 " sword", but "brand" is best taken literally as = "torch." 
 
 * a trusty band. Knowing the state of the country, AH Pasha 
 had provided the travellers with orders to his several military posts, 
 empowering them to take as many guards as might be necessary. 
 (Hobhouse, p. 113). Three men escorted them back to Prevesa. 
 But the "trusty band" probably refers to the 37 soldiers (or more) 
 whom they procured in Prevesa to conduct them through 
 Acarnania (the country south of the Gulf of Arta, now Carnia). 
 
152 Ghilde Harold r cANTO 
 
 To traverse Acamania's forest wide, 
 
 In war well season'd, and with labours tann'd, 5 
 
 Till he did greet white Acheloiis' tide, 
 
 And from his further bank Aetolia's wolds 6 espied. 
 
 70. 
 
 Where lone Utraikey forms its circling cove, 
 And weary waves 1 retire to gleam at rest, 
 How brown' the foliage of the green hill's grove. 
 Nodding at midnight o'er the calm bay's breast, 
 As winds come lightly whispering from the west, 
 Kissing, not ruffling, the blue deep's serene 8 : — 
 
 B season'd by experience : tann'd by exposure. 
 
 Achelous, now the Aspro ( = White River) "a considerable 
 river winding through a long line of country" : the boundary 
 between Acarnania and Aetolia. 
 
 ' wolds, open, uncultivated laud. " What we saw of the 
 Aetolian side of the Achelous abounded with tracts of luxuriant 
 vegetation."* 
 
 70. In this stanza the poet, who has conveyed us as far as the 
 left or Aetolian, bank of the Aspro, 69, 9, retraces his steps to 
 describe a memorable midnight scene which occurred at Utraikey : 
 a place "situated in a deep bay surrounded with rocks and 
 woods, at the south-east corner of the Gulf." Hobhouse p. 193. 
 
 1 weary waves ; the pathetic fallacy. 
 
 3 brown, green, and blue are unexpected epithets in a des- 
 cription of a midnight scene. The poet exposes himself to the 
 criticism unfairly levelled against "glittering" at 55, 6. But he 
 errs in noble company, for (as Mommsen points out) Homer 
 applies stock epithets to natural objects with as little consistently 
 as Byron. 
 
 3 Kissing : the impaot does not wrinkle the surface of the 
 water, serene = serenity. 
 
 » The first part of this journey, from Prevesa to Utraikey was performed 
 by boat, occupying two days. From Utraikey they proceeded on horseback 
 through "Acamania's forest wide", finding the country free from disturbance. 
 During a journey of 14 hours, they did not meet or pass a single traveller of 
 any description. "The whole of Carnia appeared to us a wilderness of forests 
 and unpeopled plains." Hobhouse p, 201. After crossing the Aspro, they were 
 within a short distance of ;Mesolonghi, where they dismissed their Albanian 
 guard. 
 
"•I- Childe Harold 153 
 
 Here Harold was received a welcome guest ; 4 
 Nor did he pass unmoved the gentle scene, 
 For many a joy could he from Night's soft presence glean. 5 
 
 7i- 
 
 On the smooth shore the night-fires 1 brightly blazed, 
 The feast was done, the red wine circling fast, 
 And he that unawares had there ygazed* 
 With gaping wonderment had stared aghast;' 
 For ere night's midmost, stillest 4 hour was past, i 
 The native 5 revels of the troop began ; 
 Each Palikar 6 his sabre from him cast, 
 And bounding hand in hand/ man link'd to man, 
 Yelling their uncouth dirge, 8 long daunced the kirtled clan. 
 
 * a welcome guest. The travellers were received at the 
 barracks, almost the only building in the place. 
 
 5 glean = derive. 
 
 71. * night-fires. Four fires were kindled (not on shore, but 
 in the courtyard of the barracks) and a goat roasted whole to feed 
 the company. 
 
 2 the red wine. Though Mussalmans, these Albani°ns did 
 not abstain from wine. 
 
 3 ygazed = gazed, 64, 3. Here the old inflection is used correctly, 
 as this is the past participle. 
 
 4 had stared aghast = would have been wonder-stricken. 
 
 midmost, stillest : "that hour, of night's black arch the 
 keystone" (Burns). 
 
 6 native : indigenous, peculiar to the Albanians. 
 
 7 Palikar means properly a, lad, but is "a general name for a 
 soldier amongst the Greeks and Albanese". (Byron). 
 
 8 bounding hand in hand. "They whirled round the fire, 
 dropped, and rebounded from their knees, and again whirled 
 round, and the chorus was again repeated." Hobhouse. Byron 
 is inaccurate in saying that they joined hands — they linked them- 
 selves by holding scarfs or handkerchiefs. 
 
 9 dirge, wild song (strictly a lament for the dead ). 
 
154 Childe Harold [ CANTl> 
 
 7 2 - 
 Childe Harold at a little distance stood ' 
 And view'd, but not displeased, the revelrie. 
 Nor hated harmless mirth, however rude : 
 In sooth, it was no vulgar sight to see 2 
 Their barbarous, yet their not indecent, glee ; 
 And, as the flames along their faces gleam'd, 3 
 Their gestures nimble, dark eyes flashing free,* 
 The long wild locks that to their girdles stream'd, 
 While thus in concert they this lay half sang, half 
 scream 'd s : — 
 
 72. ' Compare (I. 84,) : 
 
 Still he beheld, nor mingled with the throng ; 
 But viewed them not with misanthropic hate. 
 
 ' no vulgar sight to see = "a splendid sight to see" I. 40, 1, 
 (litotes). 
 
 ' along their faces gleam'd. "The night was very dark, but 
 by the flashes of the fire we caught a glimpse of the woods, the 
 rocks, and the lake, w 1, ieh together with the wild appearance of 
 the dancers, presented us with such a, scene that would have made 
 a fine picture in the hands of such an artist as the author of the 
 Mysteries of TJdolpho." Hobhouse, p. 197. 
 
 4 eyes flashing free : like those of freemen. 
 
 5 half sang half scream'd. Seven years later, when sailing 
 one evening on the Lake of Geneva, Byron amused his friends by 
 an imitation of this song : "I will sing you an Albanian song,' cried 
 Lord Byron, 'now be sentimental, and give me your attention.' It 
 was a strange wild howl that he gave forth ; but such as he 
 declared was an exact imitation of the savage Albanian mode." 
 
 TAMBOURGI. 
 
 The poet here introduces a war-song describing the gathering 
 of the scattered Albanian clans for some daring expedition, 
 apparently against the Russians, in the northern parts of Illyria. 
 (I) The hope of booty should make them abandon their sheep- 
 tending and hunting, and forget their domestic feuds, in order that 
 they may present a solid front against the foe. (2) Their success 
 against the Franks at Prevesa is vividly brought to their minds as 
 an incitement to another enterprises of a like nature. (31 Their 
 pride in their ever glorious leader Ali Pasha, whose genius and 
 daring had united so man3 - different tribes into a compact people, 
 forms the dominant note of the song. 
 
JI -1 Childe Harold 155 
 
 (>) 
 
 Tambourgi ! 1 Tambourgi ! thy 'larum afar* 
 Gives hope to the valiant, and promise of war -, 3 
 All the sons of mountains* arise at the note, 
 Chimariot, 5 Illyrian, and dark Suliote ! 
 
 Oh ! who is more brave than a dark Suliote, 
 
 In his snowy camese" and his shaggy capote ? 7 
 
 To the wolf and the vulture he leaves his wild flock 8 , 
 
 And descends to the plain like the stream from the rock. 
 
 (3» 
 
 Shall the sons of Chimari, who never forgive 
 The fault of a friend, 1 bid an enemy live ? 
 Let those guns so unerring such vengeance forgo ? 
 What mark is so fair 2 as the breast of a foe ? 
 
 1 Tamb,ourgi=Drummer. 
 
 A combination of the French tambour = drum, and the Turkish 
 suffix gi, a termination denoting the agent. 
 
 2 'larum = alarum, call to arms, afar = far and wide. 
 
 3 and promise of war : explains hope. 
 
 J sons of the mountains = mountaineers. 
 
 5 Chimariot (collective) = "the sons of Chimari" stanza 3. 
 
 8 camese, a form of chemise = shirt. 
 
 ' capote. See 52, 7. They wore thein in the day-time, and 
 slept in them at night. 
 
 " wild flock, "that never needs a fold", 25, 6. 
 
 " Chimari = Chimaera'a Alps, 51, 3. 
 
 1 fault of a friend : their family fueds. Time has not yet 
 healed them. The Times correspondent quoted on p. 132 writes 
 (April, 1914) "The land is so completely throttled by the blood- 
 fued, that ordinary human intercourse is almost impossible." 
 
 1 so fair : only to those "nurtured in blood betimes" I. 80, 3. 
 
156 Childe Harold [° ANTO 
 
 (4) 
 
 Macedonia 3 sends forth her invincible race ; 
 For a time they abandon the cave* and the chase ; 
 But those scarfs 5 of blood-red shall be redder, before 
 The sabre is sheathed and the battle is o'er. 
 
 (5) 
 Then the pirates of Parga that dwell by the waves, 
 And teach the pale Franks what it is to be slaves, 6 
 Shall leave on the beach the long galley and oar, 
 And track to his covert the captive 7 on shore. 
 
 (6) 
 I ask not the pleasures that riches supply, 
 My sabre 8 shall win what the feeble must buy ; 
 Shall win the young bride with her long flowing hair, 
 And many a maid from her mother shall tear. 
 
 (7) 
 I love the fair face of the maid in her youth, 
 Her caresses shall lull me, her music shall soothe ; 
 Let her bring from the chamber 9 her many-toned lyre, 
 And sing us a song 1 on the fall of her sire. 
 
 3 Macedonia : the part of it in Ali's domains. 
 
 J the (mountain) cave : "the hiding place of a band of robbers 
 during the day time. " Tozer. 
 
 '- scarfs : part of the Macedonian dress. 
 
 * teach... to be slaves : a periphrasis for "reduce to slavery." 
 pale Franks : pale compared to Albanians. See note on 67, 8. 
 
 ' captive is proleptic— they are not captives until they are 
 caught. 
 
 b My sabre etc. This is what might be called "living by the 
 sword". 
 
 9 from the chamber from her bower. 
 
 1 sing us a song. Byron no doubt has in mind Psalm 137, 3 : 
 "They that carried us away captive required of us a song ; and they 
 
Childe Harold 157 
 
 (8) 
 
 Remember the moment when Previsa fell, 2 
 The shrieks of the conquer'd, the conqueror's yell ; 
 The roofs that we fired, and the plunder we shared, 
 The wealthy we slaughter'd, the lovely we spared. 
 
 (9) 
 I talk not of mercy, I talk not of fear ; 
 He neither must know who would serve the Vizier : s 
 Since the days of our prophet the Crescent 4 ne'er saw 
 A chief ever glorious 6 like Ali Pashaw. 
 
 (io) 
 
 Dark Muchtar, his son, to the Danube is sped, 
 Let the yellow-hair'd Giaours 6 view his horsetail 7 with 
 dread ; 
 
 that wasted us required of us mirth, saying, Sing us one ol th& 
 songs of Zion." 
 
 ' J when Previsa fell. The Albanians took this town from the 
 French in 1798. One who was an eye-witness gave Hobhouse an 
 account of the battle. The Albanians, who numbered 10,000, were 
 led by Ali and his two sons against 800 French, 200 of whom they 
 slew before capturing the town. 
 
 1 the Vizier is the name of a high functionary in Mohammadan 
 countries. Though Ali was nominally a vassal of the Sultan, lie- 
 was virtually an independent sovereign. 
 
 * the Crescent : mentioned here as the ensign upon the 
 Turkish flag, adopted after the capture of Constantinople. 
 
 "" A chief ever glorious. "There was scarcely any one of [the 
 songs] in which the name of Ali Pasha was not roared out and 
 dwell upon, with peculiar energy." 
 
 6 yellow-haired Giaours = the Russian infidels. "Yellow is the 
 epithet given to the Russians" (Byron). "Giaour" =infidel, non- 
 Mussulman. The ivord belongs to the same class as gentile, 
 barbarian, kafflr, etc. Byron has made it peculiarly his own. 
 
 7 horsetail : the insignia of a Pasha. A Pasha of the first 
 grade has three tails figured on his standard, of the second 
 grade two, and of the third grade, one. When Byron was at 
 
158 Childe Harold [ CANT0 
 
 When his Delhis come dashing in blood o'er the banks, 
 How few shall escape the Muscovite 8 ranks ! 
 
 00 
 
 Selictar ! 9 unsheathe then our chief's scimitar ; 
 Tambourgi ! thy 'larum gives promise of war. 
 Ye mountains, that see us descend to the shore, 
 Shall view us as victors, or view us no more ! 
 
 73 
 
 Fair Greece ! sad relic of departed worth ! x 
 Immortal, though no more ; though fallen, great ! 
 Who now 2 shall lead thy scatter'd children forth, 
 
 Tepalen. All's eldest son Muohtar was engaged in fighting 
 against the Russians. The rest of the Albanians are here pre- 
 paring to follow him. Delhis = horsemen : see note on 58, 3. 
 
 8 Muscovite : equivalent to "Russian" (synecdoche). 
 
 * Selictar = sword-bearer. 
 
 73-77 ; 83-93. The narrative of the "Pilgrimage" proceeds 
 no farther than "Acarnania's forest wild." We now have a series 
 of stanzas on various interesting spots visited by the poet, which 
 might be headed "Thoughts on the present condition of Greece." 
 It is obvious that there would have been some danger of an 
 anticlimax, if the poet had attempted (after his adventures "on a 
 shore unknown" and among a half-savage people) to throw this part 
 of the poem into narrative form. 
 
 This section, though wanting in continuity, contains three prin- 
 cipal strands of reflection : (1) The contrast between the ancient 
 and modern inhabitants of Greece (or the contrast between "men" 
 and "slaves"). (2) Nature's loveliness, which was not exaggerated 
 by ancient poets. (3) The interest attaching to monuments, even 
 when crumbling to decay, and sites of old battles, like Marathon 
 and Thermopylae, which have shaped human history. 
 
 73. ' Greece is but a shadow of her former self : Nature still 
 is fair, but "art, glory, freedom fail" 87, 9. relic is "what is left 
 after deoay". departed worth = vanished greatness. 
 
 2 who now ..Who are to be the leaders of the people in their 
 struggle for emancipation ? 
 
»•] Childe Harold 159 
 
 And long accustom'd bondage uncreate ? 3 
 Not such thy sons who whilome 4 did await, 5 
 The hopeless warriors of a willing doom, 6 
 In bleak Thermopylae's sepulchral strait — ' 
 Oh ! who that gallant spirit shall resume, 8 
 Leap from Eurotas' banks, and call thee from the tomb ?° 
 
 74 
 
 Spirit of Freedom ! when on Phyle's brow 1 
 Thou sat'st a with Thrasybulus and his train, 
 
 s long accustom'd bondage. Their political bondage dates 
 from 1454 (the year after the taking of Constantinople), when it 
 was sealed by a treaty between the Turks and the Venetians which 
 secured to the former the territory of Greece, and to th* latter 
 its commerce. uncreate = annul or cancel. 
 
 * not such (are thy sons to-day as were) thy sons etc. A cruel 
 eomparison ! whilome= formerly (seel. 2, 1). 
 
 did await = waited (intransitive). 
 
 ° The. ..doom : an absolute clause. hopeless warriors : 
 Thermopylae is the most famous "forlorn hope" in human history. 
 
 7 Thermopylae's strait : a narrow defile leading from Thessaly 
 to Locris, sometimes called the Key of Greece. Here in 480 B. C. 
 Leonidas, King of Sparta, with 300 of his countrymen, opposed the 
 Persian hordes of Xerxes, 20,000 of whom they slew before their 
 own annihilation, sepulchral. A monument was erected over 
 them with the inscription, "0 Stranger ! tell the Spartans, that we 
 lie here obedient to their laws." 
 
 8 resume : exhibit once more. One of the Spartans, when his 
 companion remarked that the arrows of the Persians would darken 
 the sun, calmly replied, "Then we shall fight in the shade." 
 
 9 The Eurotas was the river on which Sparta stood. 
 
 The figure here has never been clearly explained, but call thee 
 from the tomb obviously means "revive the heroism, or possibly 
 the Spirit of Freedom, of ancient times" — a German commentator 
 has cleverly proposed to substitute a comma for the question-mark 
 at the close of the stanza. 
 
 74. Another gallant spirit is summoned from the past to 
 witness against the servility now prevailing among the people. 
 Thrasybulus took the most active part in overthrowing the Thirty 
 Tyrants who possessed themselves of Athens in 404 B. C. 
 
 1 Phyle's brow. A fortress commanding one of the passes from 
 
160 Childe Harold t CANTO 
 
 Couldst thou forebode 3 the dismal hour which now 
 Dims the green beauties 4 of thine Attic plain ? 
 Not thirty tyrants now enforce the chain, 5 
 But every carle 6 can lord it o'er thy land ; 
 Nor rise thy sons, 7 but idly rail in vain,*' 
 Trembling beneath the scourge of Turkish hand ; 
 From birth till death enslaved ; in word, in deed, 
 unmann'd. 9 
 
 75 
 
 In all save form alone, 1 how changed ! and who 
 
 That marks the fire still sparkling in each eye, 
 
 Boeotia iuto Attica, the head-quarters of Thrasybulus and his band 
 of resolutes. Byron passed this spot on December 25, 1809 while on 
 his way to Athens. 
 
 1 Thou sat'st : Freedom is apostrophised. 
 
 3 forebode = have any presentiment of. 
 
 * Dims the green beauties, mars the fair face of nature (scarce- 
 ly consistent with stanza 87.) 
 
 ' enforce the chain. Byron (Journal, Sept. 28, 1823) speaks 
 of the limbs of the Greeks as being stiff from the shackles of four 
 centuries. 
 
 6 every carle. No Turk is too insignificant to lord it over the 
 subject race.* See 58, 9. "carle"( = fellow) is cognate with churl. 
 
 "• Nor rise thy sons. And yet (strange as it may seem) they 
 do not stand up to the tyrants i 
 
 * idly rail : compare "prate of war", 83, 3. in vain is redundant 
 after "idly." 
 
 9 unmann'd = enslaved. 
 
 75. 1 In all save form alone. This recalls Cassius' taunt, 
 that — 
 
 Romans now 
 Have thews and limbs like to their ancestors ; 
 But, woe the while ! our father's minds are dead. 
 
 •"The whole appearance of ouv host [at Vostizzs in the Morea] presented us. 
 with the singular spectacle of a Greek in authority, .a sight we had never seen 
 before in Turkey." Hobhouse, p. 225. 
 
"•] Childe Harold 161 
 
 Who but would deem " their bosoms burn'd anew 
 With thy unquenched 3 beam, lost Liberty ! 
 And many dream 4 withal the hour is nigh 
 That gives them back 5 their fathers' heritage : 
 For foreign arais 6 and aid they fondly sigh, 
 Nor solely 7 dare encounter hostile rage, 
 Or tear their name defiled from Slavery's mournful page. 8 
 
 76 
 Hereditary bondsmen ! know ye not 
 Who would be free themselves must strike the blow ? 
 By their right arms the conquest must be wrought ? 
 Will Gaul or Muscovite 1 redress ye ? no ! 
 
 3 Who (is there) but would deem : the eye being the most 
 expressive part of the man. 
 
 3 unquenched, not yet quenched. They have lost their outward 
 liberty, but not the wish for independence. "This patriotism is a 
 flame that has never been utterly smothered, although it has so 
 long glimmered in obscurity." Hobhouse, p. 595. 
 
 4 many dream. The independence of Greece dates from 1832, 
 but the. movement which led up to it had been active for some 
 years. * 
 
 5 gives them back = will infallibly give them back. "The 
 Greeks consider their country to belong to them as much as it 
 ever did, and look upon their right to the soil as not at all affected 
 by an ejection of three centuries and a half." ibid. 
 
 6 foreign arms ; Gaul or Muscovite, 76, 4. 
 
 7 solely, without the aid of allies. 
 
 8 tear. ..from. ..Slavery's mournful page : an imaginary 
 record . compare " blotted from life's page," 98, 3. 
 
 76. ' Gaul or Muscovite = France or Russia. The Greeks 
 expected Napoleon at one time to espouse their cause. Regarding 
 the expedition that Russia sent to their assistance in 1770, Hope 
 (in his Anastasius) writes: "The Greeks expected the Russians 
 alone to accomplish the whole task of their deliverance. The 
 
 * Riga (who has been styled the modem Tyrtaeus ) formed in 1792 an associ- 
 ation whose object was to prepare the minds of the people for an effort in favour 
 of emancipation. 
 
 11 
 
162 Childe Harold E° A * TO 
 
 True, they may lay your proud despoilers low, 4 
 But not for you£ will Freedom's altars flame. 
 Shades of the Helots* ! triumph o'er your foe ! 
 Greece ! chaiige thy lords, 5 thy state is still the same ; 
 Thy glorious day" is o'er, but not thy years of shame. 
 
 77 
 The city* won for Allah from the Giaour, 
 The Giaour from Othman's race* again may wrest ; 
 And the Serai's impenetrable tower* 
 Receive the fiery Frank, her former guest ; 4 
 
 Russians had laid their account with a powerful co-operation on 
 the part of the Greeks. Each, alike disappointed, threw on the 
 other the whole blame of every failure. " 
 
 2 lay your proud despoilers low : recapture Constantinople, 
 77, 'i. * not for you. You would only change masters ! 
 
 * Shades of the Helots 1 Of these there were an immense num- 
 ber in ancient Sparta. They differed from domestic slaves, inas- 
 much as they were the property of the state. Though employed 
 in war, they were a constant source of public danger, being in a 
 staf e of ch'onic discontent and ever disposed to take part against 
 their oppressors, your foe = your former masters : they are now the 
 " helots " of the Turks. (For " shades " see 14, 4.). 
 
 6 change thy lords, granting a change of lords ; state = 
 condition. 
 
 6 is...is = will be. ..will be. 
 
 77 1 The city etc. Constantinople was captured from the 
 Greeks in 1453, by Mohammed II. 
 
 2 Othman's race = the Ottomans, who derive their name from 
 Othman I., the founder of the Turkish dynasty. Byron's conjec- 
 ture about Napoleon ( The Giaour) was not an unreasonable 
 one in 1810. 
 
 3 the Serai's impenetrable tower, the walled place of 
 the Sultan (compare " chieftain's tower," 66,1). " Imagine four 
 miles of immense triple battlements. ..surmounted with 218 towers". 
 Letter 141. Receive etc., which would prove the tower to be, 
 after all, not impenetrable ! 
 
 4 her former guest. This is said to refer to the occupation 
 of Constantinople by the Latins from 1204 to 1261 ; but Byron is 
 no t commonly so circumstantial as this. 
 
"•] Childe Harold 163 
 
 Or Wahab's rebel brood, 5 who dared divest 
 The prophet's tomb of all its pious spoil, 6 
 May wind their path 7 of blood along the West ; 
 But ne'er will freedom 8 seek this fated soil, 
 But slave succeed to slave through years of endless toil. 
 
 78 
 Yet mark their mirth 1 — ere lenten days' begin, 
 That penance which their holy rites prepare 
 To shrive from man his weight of mortal sin, 3 
 
 5 Wahab's rebel brood : the followers of Abd-el-Wahhab, 
 a Mohammedan reformer in the 18th century who attempted to 
 restore the early principles of his faith. He discountenanced the 
 superstitious veneration of Mohammed, whose tomb (at Medina) 
 the sect desecrated in 1804. " During Byron's residence in the 
 East, they were at the height of their 1 power, and seemed to threat- 
 en the very existence of the Turkish empire." Coleridge. 
 
 8 pious spoi I = religious treasures. Relics of the Prophet 
 would be specially obnoxious to these fanatics, who had some points 
 of resemblance to Cromwell's soldiers. 
 
 7 wind their path etc. The expression suggests the circuitous 
 and insinuating course of an army of invaders. 
 
 8 But ne'er will freedom etc., This was Byron's deliber- 
 ate opinion in 1810 : " The Greeks will never be independent ; 
 they will never be sovereigns as hitherto, and God forbid they 
 ever should ! but they may be subjects without being slaves." 
 
 " toil = servitude. 
 
 78 — 82. The Carnival at Constantinople. There is something 
 grotesque in the introduction of these stinzas just where they 
 cleave in two the finest and most thoughtful portion of the whole 
 Canto. They serve very well to illustrate the lightness of character, 
 which was what principally struck Byron in the modern Greek 
 (compare 58, 6). 
 
 78. l mark their mirth : not indulgently, but " with way- 
 ward thought, and stern disdain," 82, 7. 
 
 2 lenten days : a fast of 40 days (commemorative of Christ 
 in the wilderness) extending from Ash-Wednesday to Easter-Eve. 
 Compare " lenten fare " (without meat) ; " lenten face " ( = sombre 
 look). 
 
 3 which their holy rites prepare etc., "prescribed by their 
 religion for cleansing them from their deadly sins." shrive (as 
 
164 Childe Harold [° ANT0 , 
 
 By daily abstinence and nightly prayer : 
 But ere his sackcloth garb Repentance wear, 4 
 Some days of joyaunce are decreed to all, 5 
 To take of pleasaunce each his secret share, e 
 In motley robe to dance at masking ball, 
 And join the mimic train of merry Carnival.'' 
 
 79 
 And whose 1 more rife with merriment than thine, 
 Oh Stamboul ! 2 once the empress of their reign ? 
 Though turbans now pollute Sophia's 8 shrine, 
 And Greece her very altars eyes in vain : 4 
 
 here used) = remove. For its true meaning see note on I. 71, 5. 
 It comes from Latin scribere = to write, mortal sin : as opposed to 
 venial. 
 
 4 But etc. resumes the thread, after the parenthesis, That... 
 prayer, ere... wear is an expansion of "ere lenten days begin." 
 Repentance=penitents (abstract for concrete) ; his sackcloth 
 garb...wear = don their robes of penance. 
 
 5 to all. This latter is the more popular of the two institutions ! 
 secret share : for the revellers go in masks. (Hence, motley, 
 
 masking, mimic). 
 
 7 Carnival : Italian carvevale, from the Latin phrase carnem 
 Jei)are = put away flesh (explained in Beppo as " farewell to flesh. ") 
 It is the chief time of merriment throughout southern Europe, and 
 probably had its origin in some heathen spring-time festival, such 
 as the Luperealia. 
 
 79 K And whose "joy" (78, 6) or "Carnival" (78, 9). Nowhere 
 do the Greks celebrate the festival with more merriment than 
 under the shadow of St. Sophia's ! 
 
 3 Stamboul is the Turkish name of the city that was once the 
 Greek capital. 
 
 3 St. Sophia's church is perhaps the oldest in Christendom, and 
 the most celebrated in history. For 900 years it was a Christian 
 place of worship before being turned into a mosque. It is the 
 most wonderful example of Byzantine architecture— "outside not 
 worth a second glance : but within the airy grace of its stupendous 
 dome fascinates and amazes the vision." 
 
 * eyes in vain: sees them, without being able to worship at 
 them , 
 
n.] Childe Harold 165 
 
 (Alas ! her woes will still pervade my strain !) 
 Gay were her minstrels once, 5 for free her throng, 
 All felt the common joy they now must feign, 
 Nor oft I've seen such sight, nor heard such song, 
 As woo'd the eye, and thrill'd the Bosphorus along." 
 
 80 
 
 Loud was the lightsome x tumult on the shore, 
 Oft Music changed, but never ceased her tone, 
 And timely echo'd back 3 the measured oar, 
 And rippling waters made a pleasant moan : 
 The Queen of tides on high consenting shone, 3 
 And when a transient breeze swept o'er the wave, 
 'Twas, as if darting from her heavenly throne, 4, 
 A brighter glance her form reflected 5 gave, 
 Till sparking billows seem'd to light the banks they lave. e 
 
 s once : modern minstrels do not participate in the merriment 
 of the vulgar throng. 
 
 6 Observe the arrangement of clauses. " Nor oft I've seen such 
 (an animated) sight As woo'd the eye, nor (often) heard such 
 (a merry) song, as thrilled (the ear) along the Bosphorus", 
 
 80. 1 lightsome = frolicsome, "gamesome", 82, 6. 
 
 2 timely echoed back etc. The music kept time with the 
 stroke of the oars. 
 
 3 The Queen of tides = "the governess of floods", Midsummer 
 JVight's Dream II, 2. 44. consenting : compare I. 47, 5. "Eve's 
 consenting star"- 
 
 4 darting from her heavenly throne. The resplendent image 
 of the moon might have been mistaken for the moon itself. A 
 frigid "conceit". 
 
 form reflected ( = reflected form) is the subject of gave, and 
 glance is the object. 
 " lave : compare 24, 1. 
 
166 Childe Harold t CANTl> 
 
 81 
 
 Glanced 1 many a light caique 2 along the foam, 
 Danced 1 on the shore the daughters of the land, 
 No thought had man or maid of rest or home, 3 
 While many a languid eye and thrilling hand 
 Exchanged the look few bosoms may withstand, 
 Or gently prest, return'd the pressure still :* 
 Oh Love ! young Love ! bound in thy rosy band, 5 
 Let sage or cynic prattle as he will, 6 
 These hours, and only these, redeem Life's years of ill ! 
 
 82 
 
 But, midst the throng 1 in merry masquerade, 
 Lurk there no hearts that throb 2 with secret pain, 
 Even through the closest searment 3 half betray'd ? 
 
 81. 1 Glanced, danced : inversion as at 75, 4. 
 
 '' caique (Turkish kaik) : a row-boat used on the Bosphorus, 
 "the gondola of Constantinople". 
 
 ' No thought.. .of rest op home. To no other Englishman was 
 the Carnival more congenial than to Byron : "I write in haste ; 
 it is the last day but one of the Carnival, and I have not been in 
 bed till seven or eight in the morning for these ten days past'' 
 Letter 727- 
 
 * "While many a languid eye Exchanged the look and 
 (many a,) thrilling hand, gently pressed, returned the pres- 
 sure." still = continually. 
 
 5 bound in thy rosy band* = " when one is bound in thy rosy 
 band" (pendent participial clause) ; to be taken after the words, 
 These hours, and only these. 
 
 * The sage and the cynic are the same person, viz. our poet 
 in one of his moods. Compare stanza 35. 
 
 82. * midst the throng, and wearing "the robe of revel" 1. 9. 
 2 hearts that throb etc., zealous for their country's freedom. 
 
 * the closest searment = the most secret mask. "Cerement" 
 (as the word should be spelt)=grave clothes, not a happy designa- 
 
 » Perhaps a reminiscence of the words in which Venus (in Shakespear's 
 poem) vaunts to Adonis her easy victory over Mars ; 
 
 Thus him that overruled I overswayed, 
 Leading him captive in a red-rose chain. 
 
"•] Childe Harold 167 
 
 To such the gentle murmurs of the main 4 
 Seem to re-echo 8 all they mourn in vain ; 
 To such the gladness of the gamesome crowd 
 Is source of wayward 6 thought and stern disdain : 
 How do they loathe the laughter idly loud, 
 And long to change the robe of revel for the shroud ! 
 
 This must he 1 feel, the true-born son of Greece, 
 
 If Greece one true-born partriot still can boast : 
 
 Not such as prate of war, but skulk 2 in peace, 
 
 The bondsman's peace, '\ who sighs^for all he lost, 
 
 Yet with smooth smile his tyrant can accost, 
 
 And wield the slavish* sickle, not the sword : 
 
 A.h ! Greece ! thev love thee legist wno owe thee most 5 — 
 
 tion of a masquerade dress ; Coleridge suggests that Byron means 
 "cerecloth", a plaster to eover.up a wound, but this interpretation 
 is not less artificial than the other. 
 
 * murmers of the main : "the eternal note of Sadness," which 
 "Sophocles long ago" and Matthew Arnold more recently (in Doier 
 Beach) put into verse. 
 
 '' seem to reecho, or to be responsive to, their mournful moods. 
 
 6 wayward = unaccountable, not comformable to other people's 
 thoughts — the word expresses the point of view of the crowd, not 
 of the poet. 
 
 83. x he anticipates the subject : compare (IV. 164, 1) 
 But where is he, the Pilgrim of my song ? 
 
 * such as prate etc, those who talk big, but have not the 
 courage to act up to their words. skulk = sliiyk danger, 
 
 1 The bondsman's peace : peace without honour. 
 
 4 slavish : only fit for slaves. 
 
 5 they love thee least who owe thee most. This is strictly 
 true if Hobhouse (p. 597) was right in saying that "the great mass 
 of the people have feeling and spirit enough to make the attempt 
 [to free themselves from the Turk,] yet most of the higher classes 
 ...are apparently willing to acquiesce in the present condition." 
 
168 Childe Harold C CANT0 
 
 Their birth, their blood 6 , and that sublime record 7 
 Of hero sires, who shame thy now degenerate horde ! 8 
 
 84 
 
 When riseth Lacedemon's hardihood, l 
 When Thebes Epaminondas 2 rears again, 
 When Athens' children are with hearts endued, 
 When Grecian mothers shall give birth to men, 
 Then may'st thou be restored ; 3 but not till then. 
 A thousand years scarce serve to torm a state ; 
 An hour may lay it in the dust : and when 4 
 Can man its shatter'd splendour renovate, 
 Recall its virtues back, and vanquish Time and Fate ? 5 
 
 85 
 And yet how lovely in thine age of woe, 
 Land of lost gods and godlike men, J art thou ! 
 
 6 their blood repeats their birth = their descent. Why did 
 Byron not say "their speech" ? For this, after all, is their greatest 
 inheritance from the past : that they are a mixed and degenerate 
 race is undeniable ; but that the language of Homer and Demos- 
 thenes still lives on their lips is essentially true. 
 
 ' sublime record : ancient Greek literature. 
 
 8 degenerate horde : compare 77, 9. 
 
 84. ' Lacedemon's hardihood ; exemplified at Thermopyle, 
 73,7. 
 
 2 (men like) Epaminondas : one of the most accomplished of 
 Greeks. He raised Thebes to the height of her supremacy, which 
 she lost by his death in 362 B. C. 
 
 3 Then mayst thou be restored. This is almost equivalent to 
 " on the Greek Calends" see 77, 8. 
 
 1 when. ..The question seems to dismiss the emancipation of 
 Greece as outside of the realm of practical polities. 
 
 5 If Fate could be vanquished, it would be no longer Fate ! 
 
 85. Three stanzas follow on the natural features of the 
 country ; Greece is as fair a land to-day as ever she was in the 
 heroic age. 
 
"•] Childe Harold 169 
 
 Thy vales of evergreen, thy hills of snow, 
 Proclaim thee Nature's varied favourite now :* 
 Thy fanes, thy temples to thy surface bow, 8 
 Comminging slowly with heroic earth,* 
 Broke 5 by the share of every rustic plough : 
 So perish monuments of mortal birth, B 
 So perish all in turn, save well-recorded Worth ; T , 
 
 86 
 
 Save where some solitary column mourns 
 Above its prostrate brethren of the cave; 1 
 Save where Tritonia's airy shrine 2 adorns 
 
 1 Land. ..men : apostrophe. 
 
 2 varied : presenting many different aspects ; now : in spite of 
 servitude : compare "Dims the green beauties... plain", 74, 4. 
 
 8 fanes: a poetical word for temples ; to thy surface bow, 
 as if they felt the weight of old age. 
 
 4 Commingling etc. So also no doubt thought Lord Elgin, 
 one of whose defenders wrote, "The progress of decay has been 
 arrested, and all the world is the gainer." heroic earth = the dust 
 of heroes. 
 
 6 Broke : in agreement with "earth" 
 
 6 of mortal birth : man-made, not like the hills and valleys. 
 
 7 well-recorded Worth ( = Worthies) : the historical records 
 of men like Leonidas (73), Thrasybulus (84), Epaminondas (84), 
 and Milbiades (89). 
 
 86. Some more survivals from an earlier time are recounted in 
 this stanza. 
 
 1 mourns : The upright column is represented as sorrowing 
 over its fallen brethren beside it. the cave = the quarry from 
 where they were hewn. 
 
 2 Tritonia's airy shrine : the temple of Athene at Sunium, 
 the headland that forms the southern point of Attica. Its summit 
 (270 feet) is crowned by sixteen columns— the remains of what 
 was once a great temple. Nothing is known of the origin of the 
 epithet Tritonia (or rather Tritogenia="born of Triton") anciently 
 applied to the goddess of virginity. 
 
170 Childe Harold [° ANT(> 
 
 Colonna's cliff, 3 and gleams* along the wave ; 
 Save o'er 5 some warrior's half-forgotten grave, 
 Where the gray stones and unmolested grass 
 Ages, but not oblivion, feebly brave ; 
 While strangers only 6 not regardless pass, 
 Lingering like me, perchance, to gaze, and sigh "Alas !" 
 
 Yet are thy skies as blue, thy crags as wild ; 
 Sweet are thy groves, and verdant are thy fields, 
 Thine olive ripe 1 as when Minerva smiled, 2 
 And still his honey'd wealth Hymettus 3 yields ; 
 There the blithe bee his fragrant fortress builds, 
 The freeborn wanderer of thy mountain-air ; 
 Apollo still thy long, long summer gilds, 4 
 
 3 Colonna's cliff received its name from its columns, which are 
 visible far out at sea. The ancient name of Sunium has recently 
 been restored to it. 
 
 4 gleams. "The whole edifice is of very white marble. ..the 
 whiteness of the marble has been preserved probably by the sea 
 vapour." Hobhouse, p. 4l6. 
 
 5 Save o'er etc. The last of the series of exceptions is hardly 
 an exception at all ; feebly brave ( = defy) is a ease of oxymoron. 
 It is a tomb whose stones are grey with age, and overgrown 
 with grass ; a, memorial that is no longer a, memorial, for the 
 name warrior of the has perished in whose honour it was erected. 
 
 '' strangers only ; like Byron and Hobhouse. Compare (10, 9) 
 Unmoved the Moslem sits, the light Greek carols by. 
 
 87. ' (as) Sweet. ..(as) verdant. ..(as) ripe. 
 
 " as when Minerva smiled. The olive-tree was (and is) the 
 treasure of Attica. The tree was sacred to Athene. 
 
 3 honey'd wealth = stores of hone)-. Hymettus is a moun- 
 tain to the south of Athens famous (like Hyhla in Sicily) for it& 
 honey. 
 
 * Apollo. ..gilds : the golden sun brightens. Apollo was the 
 god of light and therefore came to be identified with the sun. 
 
 " Mendeli (the same as Pentelicus) is a range of hills over- 
 looking the plain of Marathon. Its marble quarries supplied 
 Athens with materials for its temples and statues. " fail = decline. 
 
"•] Childe Harold 171 
 
 Still in his beam Mendeli's 6 marbles glare ; 
 Art, Glory, Freedom fail 6 , but Nature still is fair. 
 
 88 
 
 Where'er we tread 'tis haunted, holy ground ; 
 No earth of thine is lost in vulgar mould, 1 
 But one vast realm of wonder spreads around, 
 And all the Muse's tales seem truly told,' 2 
 Till the sense aches 3 with gazing to behold 
 The scenes our earliest dreams have dwelt upon : 
 Each hill and dale, each deepening 4 glen and wold 
 Defies the power 5 which crush'd thy temples gone : 
 Age shakes Athena's tower" but spares gray Marathon. 
 
 89 
 
 The sun, the soil — but not the slave, the same 1 ; — 
 Unchanged* in all except its foreign lord, 
 
 88. x Where'er. ..mould. These lines are the motto of 
 Baedeker's Handbook to Greece, one of the best commentaries on 
 the present Canto, vulgar mould : the antithesis of "heroic 
 earth", 85, 6. 
 
 2 all the Muse's tale. ..told, the ancient poets have not 
 exaggerated the beauty of their country. 
 
 ■' the sense aches the eye becomes wearied with all the beauty 
 spread out before it. Compare 54, 2. The expression is Shake- 
 speare's (Othello's "sense aches" as he contemplates the loveliness 
 of the woman he is about to murder). 
 
 * deepening : compare "sunken glen" I. 19, 4. 
 
 ° the power, viz. Time, 10, 7. 
 
 " tower, is hardly the right word to describe the Parthenon. 
 This line is parallel to 87, 9. 
 
 89. l but not the slave, the same = but the people are not 
 the same — they are slaves. 
 
 " Unchanged. The punctuation (which is that of the Standard 
 Edition) shews that this word is in apposition to Battle-field, 
 the subject of Preserves. "The Battle-field, where Persia's victim 
 horde first bow'd beneath the brunt of Hellas' sword, unchanged 
 in all except its foreign lord, preserves its bounds and boundless 
 
172 Childe Harold C CASTO 
 
 Preserves alike its bounds 3 and boundless fame 
 The Battle-field, where Persia's victim horde 
 First bow'd* beneath the brunt of Hellas' sword, 
 As on the morn to distant 5 Glory dear, 
 When Marathon became a magic word ;° 
 Which utter'd, to the hearer's eye appear 
 The camp, the host, the fight, the conqueror's career, 
 
 90 
 
 The flying Mede, 1 his shaftless* broken bow; 
 The fiery Greek, his red pursuing spear ; 
 Mountains above, Earth's, Ocean's plain 3 below ; 
 Death in the front, Destruction in the rear ! * 
 Such was the scene — what now remaineth here ? 
 What sacred trophy marks the hallow 'd ground, 
 
 fame alike as on the morn" etc. (Some editions have the dash after 
 lord). 
 
 3 its bounds. It stood on a plain between the sea and a range 
 of rocky hills. 
 
 * First bow'd : in 490 B. C, ten years before Thermopyle. 
 brunt = stroke or stress (compare "bear the brunt of"). 
 
 5 distant from the point of view of the victors — "which future 
 ages would glory in". 
 
 6 a magic word. Hobhouse, echoing his companion's en- 
 thusiasm, calls it "the scene which the most glorious action of all 
 antiquity has rendered so renowned." 10,000 Athenians under 
 Miltiades, here defeated 100,000 Persians. It has been said that 
 this battle has a more important bearing on English history 
 than even the battle of Senlac. 
 
 90. ' Wlede is here equivalent to Persian. 
 '' shaftless : the arrows being all spent. 
 
 3 Earth's (plain) = the battle-field ; (and) Ocean's (as3'ndeton. ) 
 
 4 The Greeks in the front ; the sea in the rear. 
 
 5 rifled is the antithesis of sacred, and violated of hallow'd. 
 A sepulchral mound was erected over the Athenians who fell 
 in the battle : shortly before Byron's visit this had been opened 
 by an excavator, angrily apostrophised in the words rude stranger. 
 
"■] Childe Harold 173 
 
 Recording Freedom's smile and Asia's tear ? 
 The rifled urn, the violated 5 mound, 
 The dust thy courser's hoof, rude stranger ! spurns around. 
 
 91. 
 Yet to the remnants of thy splendour past 
 Shall pilgrims, 1 pensive, but unwearied, throng ; 
 Long shall the voyager, with th' Ionian blast, 2 
 Hail the bright clime of battle and of song ; 
 Long shall thine annals and immortal tongue 
 Fill with thy fame the youth of many a shore ; 3 
 Boast of the aged ! lesson of the young ! 4 
 Which sages venerate and bards adore, 
 As Pallas and the Muse unveil their awful lore. 5 
 
 92. 
 
 The parted bosom clings to wonted home, 1 
 
 If aught that's kindred cheer the welcome hearth • 
 
 He that is lonely,* hither let him roam, 
 
 And gaze complacent on congenial 3 earth. 
 
 Greece is no lightsome land of social mirth : 
 
 But he whom Sadness sootheth 4 may abide, 
 
 91. * pilgrims, like Byron and Hobhouse : compare I. 60, 7. 
 
 2 th' Ionian blast : the west wind. The Ionian sea washes the 
 western shores of Greece, and the Aegean sea the eastern. 
 
 3 Fill with thy fame : stir to enthusiasm ; shore = country. 
 
 4 A variation of 38, 2. 
 
 1 Pallas (see note on 14, 1) goes along with sages, and the 
 Muse with Bards, lore includes both wisdom and poetry. 
 
 92. ' parted = sundered ; clings to wonted home = can 
 never forget his native land. 
 
 2 He that is lonely, he that has no home ties. 
 
 3 congenial is explained in the next line. 
 
 4 whom Sadness sootheth = who finds pleasure in melancholy. 
 
174 Childe Harold [ CANTO 
 
 And scarce regret 5 the region of his birth, 
 When wandering slow by Delphi's sacred side, 
 Or gazing o'er the plains where Greek and Persian died. 
 
 93- 
 Let such 1 approach this consecrated land, 
 And pass in peace along the magic waste ; 
 But spare its relics — let no busy hand 8 
 Deface the scenes, already how defaced ! 
 Not for such purpose were these altars 3 placed : 
 Revere the remnants nations* once revered ; 
 So may 5 our country's name be undisgraced, 
 So may'st thou prosper where thy youth was rear'd," 
 "By every honest joy of love and life endear'd ! " 
 
 s scarce regret. This was true of Byron himself : "The farther 
 I proceed from England, the less I regret quitting it"- 
 
 93. 1 such : "the orphans of the heart", IV. 78, 2. 
 
 3 But (let them) spare its relics ; busy hand ; that of the 
 despoilers. Byron renews his onslaught on Elgin. 
 
 1 for such purpose : to form collections ; altars : see note 
 on II. 9. 
 
 * Revere : a change from the third person to the second ; 
 nations : "Goth and Turk" 12, 2. 
 
 6 So may etc. Thus will our country's honour be upheld. 
 
 » So may'st etc. The poet utters a benediction upon those 
 who revere the ruins of the past ; (when thou returnest to) 
 where thy youth was reared. 
 
 7 endear'd ! equivalent to "blest." 
 
 94 98. The Canto ends (like the former) with the personal 
 note. Byron's home-coming was saddened by the loss of his 
 mother and several intimate friends of former days. This mood 
 is faithfully reflected in these stanzas ; more so than those would 
 suspect who are not acquainted with his Letters and Journals. 
 
 (1) The passage about "Laughter.. .false to the heart' (97, 3) is 
 curiously matched in the following words to Dallas : "Though I feel 
 tolerably miserable, yet I am at the same time subject to a kind 
 of hysterical merriment or rather laughter without merriment. 
 
"•] Childe Harold 175 
 
 94. 
 For thee, who thus in too protracted song 1 
 Hast soothed thine idlesse with inglorious lays, 2 
 Soon shall thy voice be lost amid the throng 
 Of louder minstrels 3 in these later days : 
 To such resign the strife for fading bays — 
 111 4 may such contest now the spirit move 
 Which heeds nor keen reproach nor 5 partial praise, 
 Since cold each kinder heart 6 that might approve, 
 And none are left to please when none are left to love. 
 
 which 1 can neither account for not conquer, and yet I do not feel 
 relieved by it." 
 
 (2) Eighteen months after the publication of the poem, we 
 still find him harping upon the mysterious "loved and lovely one" 
 (95, 1) : who can read what follows without realising the poig- 
 nancy of his feelings and the saeredness of the sorrow ? "Last 
 nighc I finished 'Zuleika' my second Turkish Tale. I believe 
 the composition of it kept me alive — for it was written to drive 
 my thoughts from the recollection of — 
 
 Dear sacred name, rest ever unrevealed. 
 
 "At least, even here, my hand would tremble to write it." 
 Journal, November 14, 1813. 
 
 94b. * (As) For thee : the poet now addresses himself, too 
 protracted song : compare, "Is this too much ?" I. 93, 5. 
 
 2 inglonious lays. "I do noi, think publishing at all creditable 
 either to men or women and (though you will not believe me) 
 very often feel ashamed of it myself." Letter 235 (to Lady Caroline 
 Lamb). 
 
 3 louder minstrels: referring principally to Scott, whom 
 he had attacked in English Bards, but whom later on (in the 
 Dedication of the Giaour) he styled, "The Monarch of Parnassus". 
 It was Scott who was now to resign "the strife for fading bays." 
 On the appearance of Childe Harold, the elder poet said of the 
 younger, "Byron has beat me ; he hits the mark, where I dont 
 even pretend to fledge my arrow : he has access to a stream of 
 sentiment unknown to me." * lll = not at all. 
 
 5 nor...nor=neither...nor. "I am alike distant from praise 
 or censure, which tends to make both very indifferent to me, and so 
 good-night to scribbling". Letters, vi. 451. 
 
 8 cold (in death); kinder heart: compare (To lanthe, 5,2) 
 "kinder eyes." 
 
176 Childe Harold 0ANTO 
 
 95- 
 Thou too art gone, 1 thou loved and lovely one ! 
 Whom youth and youth's affection bound to me ; 
 Who did for me what none beside have done, 
 Nor shrank from one albeit unworthy thee. 2 
 What is my being ? thou hast ceased to be ! 
 Nor staid to welcome here thy wanderer home. 
 Who mourns o'er hours which we no more shall see — 
 Would they had never been, or were to come ! 
 Would he 3 had ne'er return'd to find fresh cause to roam t 
 
 96. 
 
 Oh ! ever loving, lovely, and beloved ! 
 
 How selfish Sorrow ponders on the past, 
 
 And clings to thoughts now better far removed ! 
 
 But Time shall tear thy shadow 1 from me last. 
 
 All thou couldst have of mine, stern Death ! thou hast ; 
 
 The parent, friend, 2 and now the more than friend ; 
 
 95. ' Thou too art gone. We have Byron's authority (Letter 
 206) for identifying this person with the person addressed in 
 stanza 9, and in the "Thyrza" group of poems — "and there our 
 knowledge ends" (Coleridge).* 
 
 ' albeit unworthy (of) thee : "a mixed construction between 
 'one unworthy thee' and 'me, albeit unworthy thee.'" T. 
 
 1 he, the returned wnderer. 153-ron ended this first pilgrimage 
 on 2nd July, 1811, two years almost to a day since his departure 
 from England (Letter 154). 
 
 96. * thy shadow ; dream form from the lower world. 
 
 ' The parent : Mrs. Byron died August I, 1811. friend : either 
 VVingfleld (I. 91, 1), Matthews (drowned at Cambridge), or 
 Edleston who "died in May last of a consumption, at the age 
 of twenty-one, making the sixth, within four months, of friends and 
 
 * ' ' "With this note I send a few stanzas on a subject which has lately 
 occupied much of my thoughts. They refer to the death of one to whose name 
 you 1 Dallas! are a stranger, and consequently, cannot he interested. I mean 
 them to completo the piescnt volume [The "Thyrza" poems were originally 
 jmblished along with Childe Haroltl.\ They relate to the same person whom I 
 have mentioned in Canto 2nd, and at the conclusion of the poem." 
 
"•] Childe Harold 177 
 
 Ne'er yet for one thine arrows 3 flew so fast, 
 And grief with grief continuing still to blend, 
 Hath snatch'd the little joy that life had yet to lend. 
 
 97- 
 Then must I plunge again into the crowd, 1 
 And follow all that Peace disdains to seek ? 2 
 Where Revel calls, and Laughter, vainly loud, 
 False to the heart, distorts the hollow cheek, 
 To leave 3 the flagging spirit doubly weak ; * 
 Still o'er the features, which perforce they cheer, 
 To feign the pleasure or conceal the pique ? 
 Smiles 5 form the channel of a future tear, 
 Or raise the writhing lip with ill-dissembled sneer. 
 
 98. 
 
 What is the worst of woes that wait on age P 1 
 What stamps the wrinkle deeper on the brow ? 
 
 relatives that I have lost between May and the end of August." 
 Letters, vol. i, p. 131. 
 
 3 for (any one), thine arrows : "To me the lines of Young 
 are no fiction — 
 
 Insatiate archer ! could not one suffice ? 
 
 Thy shaft flew thrice, and thrice my peace was slain." 
 
 97. * into the crowd : his friends having all left him. 
 
 2 all that Peace disdains to seek : e. g. "artificial joys " 
 I. 64, 8. 
 
 s To leave, so that it leaves. 
 
 4 doubly weak : compare a similar sentiment about laughter 
 
 (in Beppo) : 
 
 though Laughter 
 Leaves us so doubly serious shortly after. 
 
 5 Smiles etc. The poet speaks of forced smiles. Sardonic 
 laughter is midway between a smile and a sneer. 
 
 98. * the worst of woes that wait on age. " That which 
 should accompany old age" says Macbeth, "as -troops of friend, I 
 may not hope te have." 
 
 12 
 
178 Childe Harold [canto 
 
 To view each loved one blotted from life's page, 
 And be alone on earth 8 as I am now. 
 Before the Chastener 3 humbly let me bow, 
 O'er hearts divided 4 and o'er hopes destroy'd : 
 Roll on, vain days ! full reckless may ye flow, 
 Since Time hath reft 5 whate'er my soul enjoy'd. 
 And with the ills of Eld G mine earlier years alloy'd. 
 
 3 alone on earth. The poet does not exaggerate his feelings at 
 this time : compare : "My dear Serope, if you can spare a moment, 
 do come down to me — I want a friend ... [ am almost desola te — 
 left almost alone in the world. (Letter 161). 
 
 5 the Chastener. Byron was no atheist, even while doubting 
 man's immortality. (Letter 303). 
 
 * divided : not estranged, but sundered. 
 
 reft : past participle of reave = snatched away. 
 
 with the ills of Eld etc. "I am. ..as old at twenty-three as 
 anj- men at seventy." Letter 208, "Eld" is archaic for"old age" 
 
INDEX TO NOTES 
 
 Aehelous, the modern Aspro, forms 
 the boundary between Aoarnania 
 and Aetolia, 152. 
 
 Acheron, used to designate the 
 lower world, 103 ; the Calamas 
 identified with, 138. 
 Acherusia's lake = the lake of 
 Yanina, 1. 
 
 Acropolis, the citadel of Athens, 
 96. 
 
 Actium, the battle of, 130, 
 
 Aegis, the shield of Pallas, 108. 
 
 Aetolia, end of itinerary of pilgri- 
 mage, 152, 158. 
 
 Alaric the Goth, plunderer of 
 Athens, 107. 
 
 Albania, the wildest province in 
 Europe, 132. 
 
 Albuera, a dearly bought victory, 
 49. 
 
 Alexander the Great claimed as an 
 Albanian, 128. 
 
 Ali Pasha, the lion of Albania, his 
 cruelties, 147 ; his kindness to 
 Byron, 146, 150. 
 
 Amazons, fighting women, 62. 
 
 Ambracia's Gulf = the Gulf of 
 Arta, 134. 
 
 Andalusia, the garden of Spain, 
 44 ; first invasion of by the 
 French, 54 ; second invasion, 57. 
 
 Apollo's grot, 66. 
 
 Archaic words : anlace, 60 ; ared, 
 127 ; ee, 25 ; ckilde, 9 ; eld, 95, 
 178 ; feere, 15 ; fytle, 95 ; glaive 
 151 ; hight, 9 ; kibes (wrongly 
 used), 71 ; losel, 10 ; leman, 
 14 ; mote, 8 ; paynim, 16 ; 
 sheening, 25 ; shent, 25 ; whilome 
 8 ; ygazed, 153. 
 
 Arion on the dolphin's back, 115. 
 
 Asyndeton (figure of speech), 51. 
 
 Athena (Byron's form of Athene), 
 
 tutelary goddess of Athens, 96 ; 
 
 Grote on, ib. 
 Athos, its monastery, 119. 
 Augustina, the heroine of Saragoza 
 
 59. 
 
 Babylonian whore, 35. 
 
 Bactrian, an epithet of Zoroaster, 
 104. 
 
 Baedeker's Spain and Portugal, 31 ; 
 Greece, 171. 
 
 Barossa's fight, 93. 
 
 Baylen capitulation of, 54. 
 
 Beckford, William, author of 
 Vathek, 30. 
 
 Boeotian shades, 73. 
 
 Borrow, George, on Cintra, 26. 
 
 Bull-fight, had Byron seen one ? 69. 
 
 Byron : not to be identified with 
 his hero, 14 ; his sympathy with 
 oppressed peoples, 43, 89, 161 ; 
 his views on immortality, 97, 
 140, 1 a skull fancier, 101 ; M into 
 on his likeness to Hamlet, ib ; 
 a martyr to women, 124 ; the 
 Byronic pose, Gait on, 110. 
 
 Cadiz, 'first spot in the creation' 
 68 ; insurrection of tho people, 
 89. 
 
 Caesar, the second, 134. 
 
 Oalamas, identified with the 
 Acheron, 138. 
 
 Calpe, ancient name of Gibraltar, 
 115. 
 
 Calypso, the old and the new, 110, 
 121. 
 
 Capote, an Albanian garment, 
 150, 5. 
 
 Carlyle on monasticism, 13 ; on 
 war, 48, 50. 
 
 Castalian spring, 7, 66. 
 
 Castanets, instruments of percus- 
 sion, 53. 
 
180 
 
 Index to Notes 
 
 Cava, daughter of Julian, seduced 
 
 by Roderick, 41. 
 Caya, the 'Tweed' of the Peninsula, 
 
 38. 
 Charles IV., king of Spain, 53. 
 Chaworth, Mary, 11, 83, 104. 
 Cherub-Hydra, a description of 
 
 Vice, 69. 
 Chimariot mountains, 138. 
 Chulos, their part in a bull-fight, 
 
 77. 
 Cintra, description of, 26 : con- 
 vention of, 31. 
 Christian Observer (1813) on the 
 
 tendency of Byron's writings 125. 
 Columbia — Spanish America,. 92. 
 Columbia = America, 92. 
 Convents, three picturesquely 
 
 situated, 27. 
 Cork cloister, Southey on the, 28. 
 Corsair quoted, 113. 
 Croupe, a kind of leap, 78. 
 
 Daphne's plant (the laurel), 67. 
 
 Delphi, the poet's visit to, 7, 67. 
 
 Dian used for the moon, 117. 
 
 Dodona, ancient oracle of Zeus, 
 how the responses were given at 
 140 ; site discovered in 1875, ib. 
 
 Dragon's nest, a fortification on 
 the Sierra Morena, 54. 
 
 Duenna, her ancient function, 82. 
 
 Egypt's plague, 25. 
 
 Elgin marbles : Byron's opinion 
 about their removal, 107 : Hob- 
 house's, ib. 
 
 Elysium's gates, 26. 
 
 Epaminondas a warrior and states- 
 man of Thebes, 168. 
 
 Epirus, a district on the west coast 
 of Greece, 141. 
 
 Eros, the god of Love, 14. 
 
 Eurotas, the river on which Sparta 
 stood, 159. 
 
 Fandango, a dance popular in 
 
 Spain, 53. 
 Ferdinand VII., the people's 
 
 favourite, 53 : did he deserve 
 their confidence 1 90. 
 
 Fletcher, Byron's valet, 20, 150. 
 
 Florinda : see Cava. 
 
 Gait on the Byronic pose, 110. 
 
 Godoy, the Spanish minister, ex- 
 ecrated by the people, 53. 
 
 Gods in Exile referred to, 70, 106. 
 
 Gorgons, three frightful maidens, 
 61. 
 
 Goths under Alaric invade Greece, 
 107. 
 
 Granada, conquest of, marks end 
 of Moorish rule in Spain, 41. 
 
 Hafiz, a Persian poet, 64. 
 Hamlet, Byron compared to, 10 1. 
 Harpies, (i. b. Spoilers), 108. 
 Hecate, a name applied to the 
 
 moon, 115. 
 Heine quoted, 70, 106. 
 Hellas, two different meanings, 7. 
 Helots, their position in ancient 
 
 Sparta, 162. 
 Hendiadys (figure of speech), 77, 
 
 95, 97. 
 Highgate's mystery, 74. 
 Hobhouse quoted, 7, 29, 64, 67, 
 
 82, etc. 
 Honorius. an anchoret, 28. 
 Horn-worship, 74. 
 Houries, the figurative and the 
 
 literal, 63, 64. 
 Hymettus, a hill near Athens 
 
 famous for its honey, 170. 
 Hysteron proteron (figure of 
 
 speech), 49. 
 Howitzer, a short gun, 56. 
 
 Ianthe, (the Lady Charlotte 
 
 Harley), why Childe Harold 
 
 dedicated to her, 1. 
 Ilion ( = Troy), fated to fall, 51. 
 Inez, Harold is unmoved by her 
 
 charms, 83. 
 Inverse hypocrisy, Byron's, 13,124. 
 Iskander (or Scanderbeg) a famous 
 
 Albanian, 128. 
 
Index to Notes 
 
 181 
 
 •John VI. of Portugal, his flight to 
 
 Brazil- 29. 
 Jove, son of Saturn, identical with 
 
 Zeus, 99. 
 
 Knives as instruments of war, 
 Napier's opinion about, 55. 
 
 Laos, the. modern Viosa, flows into 
 
 the Adriatic, 141. 
 Lepanto, battle of, 130. 
 Lesbian, The, (applied to Sappho), 
 
 1^9. 
 Lethe, the river of forgetfulness,85 
 Leueadia, ancient place of suicide, 
 
 126. 
 Lisboa (or Lisbon), how it struck 
 
 the pilgrim, 24, 25. 
 Lucretius quoted, 83. 
 Lusian = Portuguese, 23. 
 Lusitania = Portugal, 38. 
 
 Mafra, its palace, Southey's des- 
 cription of, 35. 
 
 Mammon, god of riches, 15. 
 
 Marialva's dome, supposed to be 
 the meeting-place of the Conven- 
 tion of Cintra, 33. 
 
 Marathon, battle of, 172. 
 
 Mauritania, ancient name of 
 Morocco, 116. 
 
 Matadore, the principal actor in a 
 bull-fight, 79. 
 
 Mede used for Persian, 172. 
 
 Mendeli, famous for marble quar- 
 ries, 170. 
 
 Mentor, Telemaohus' monitor, 121. 
 
 Minerva, goddess of war, 60 ; 
 same as Athene, goddess of 
 wisdom, 96. 
 
 Moor and Knight, encounters, 
 
 between, 40. 
 Morena, Sierra, a mountain chain 
 
 dividing southern from middle 
 
 Spain, 56. 
 Muchtar, son of Ali Pasha, 157. 
 Muezzin, the Mohammedan crier, 
 
 145. 
 Muses, the nine, 8, 
 
 Napier : on the Convention of 
 Cintra, 32, 33 ; on the injustice 
 of the Peninsular War, 48 : why 
 Seville was not destroyed, 52 ; 
 on the knife as an instrument 
 of war, 55. 
 
 Napoleon : not named, but describ- 
 ed, 40 ; his abdication, 50 ; 
 compared to Attila, the Scourge 
 of God, 57. 
 
 Newstead, festivities at, 13 ; the 
 owner of finds monasteries a 
 congenial theme 119 
 
 Oxymoron, (figure of speech), 62. 
 
 Pallas, surname of Athene, 106. 
 Paphian ( = connected with Venus ), 
 
 13, 60. 
 Parga, a seaport of Albania n erth 
 
 of Prevesa, 156. 
 Paris Gazette claimed Talavera as 
 
 a French victory, 47. 
 Parnassus, Mount, seat of Apollo 
 
 and the Muses, 8, 64. 
 Pascal quoted (man greater than 
 
 the universe), 140. 
 
 Pelagio (or Pelayo), Spanish hero 
 and patriot, 41, 
 
 Penelope, wife of Ulysses, type of 
 constancy, 129. 
 
 Peri, beautiful or gracious being, 3. 
 
 Personifications : Chivalry, 43 ; 
 War, 45 ; Destruction, ib. ; 
 Desolation, 46, Peace, 148. 
 
 Phoebus (the Sun god) as a 
 lover, 63. 
 
 Phyle, stronghold of Thrasybulus, 
 160. 
 
 Picadors, their function in a bull- 
 fight, 76. 
 
 Picts, ancient inhabitants of Scot- 
 land, 107. 
 
 Pilgrim : his wasted youth, 8 ; 
 farewell to his native land, 16 ; 
 in Portugal, 22 ; wanders alone 
 and with no fixed goal, 34 ; not 
 captivated by female beauty, 83, 
 
182 
 
 Index to Notes 
 
 123 ; does not eecape from him- 
 self, 87 ; stages of his voyage to 
 Greece, 110 ; reflections amidst 
 earthly grandeur, 30, 148. 
 
 Pindus, a range of mountains in 
 Greece, 135. 
 
 Pizarros, two fell brothers, 92. 
 
 Play of words, 32. 
 
 Prevesa, a seaport on the Ionian 
 sea, the starting-point of Byron's 
 Albanian tour, 131. 
 
 Pythagoras' teaching, 104. 
 
 Quito, city of the Incas in Spanish 
 America, 92. 
 
 Ramazan, the Mohammedan fast- 
 ing month, 145. 
 
 Rebeck, a three-stringed riddle, 51, 
 
 Roundelay, a short simple song 
 with refrain, 40. 
 
 Rousseau referred to, 137. 
 
 Sabbath (or Sunday), in London 
 
 and in Cadiz, 68 f . 
 Saducees, the N.T. sceptics, 103. 
 Samian, epithet of Pythagoras, 104. 
 Sappho's leap from the Leucadian 
 
 rock, 129. 
 Saragoza, Maid of, see Augustina. 
 Scott. Sir Walter ; a verbal criti- 
 cism, 28 ; his Don Roderick, 43. 
 Selictar, sword-bearer, 158. 
 Serai (= Seraglio), the Sultan's 
 
 palace, 162. 
 Seville ; effeminacy of the people 
 
 52: capitulation, ib. 
 "Shrive" twice misused by Byron, 
 
 75, 163. 
 Sierras, Spanish mountain 
 
 chains, 38. 
 Smith, Mrs. Spencer, her romantic 
 
 history, 121. 
 Solano, was he a traitor ? 89. 
 Sophia's shrine in Constantinople, 
 
 164. 
 Southey on Lisbon and Cintra, 
 
 25 ff. 
 Stamboul ( = "to town"), Turkish 
 
 name of Constantinople, 164. 
 
 taken in 1453 from the Greeks 
 
 132. 
 Suliote mountains, 132. 
 Synecdoche (figure of speech), 132. 
 
 Talavera, "a pretty victory," 44. 
 
 Tayo or Tagus. its fabled sands of 
 gold, 23. 
 
 Teian, The, epithet of Anacreon, 
 147. 
 
 Telemaehus, son of Ulysses, 121. 
 
 Tempe, vale of, the beauty of 135. 
 
 Tepalen, AH Pasha's retreat, 142. 
 
 Thermopylae, Pass of, where 300 
 Spartans fell, 159. 
 
 Thrasybulus, an Athenian patriot, 
 159. 
 
 Thyrza poems, 104. 
 
 Tomarit, Mount, site of, 141. 
 
 Trafalgar, why oa,lled "fatal," 130. 
 
 Tritonia, a name for Athene, 159. 
 
 Turks : Byron on their indiffer- 
 ence to art, 97 ; Hobhouse differs 
 from Byron, 106 
 
 Tyre, often besieged, 51. 
 
 Utraikey, memorable scene around 
 the night-fires, 152. 
 
 Vathelc, Eastern romance by 
 
 William Beckford, 30. 
 Viva el Rey, (Long life the king, 
 
 viz. Ferdinand VII.), 53. 
 
 WaU of China, 38. 
 Wandering Jew, The, 87. 
 Whiskey, a light vehicle, 73. 
 Wingfield, Byron's early friend 
 
 who perished in the Peninsular 
 
 War, 93. 
 Wings, do the Muses have? 65. 
 Wordsworth's House of Pleasure, 
 
 30 ; tract on Convention of Cintra, 
 
 90. 
 Wahab's rebel brood, 163. 
 Yanina, capital of Albania, 139. 
 
 Zitza, Byron at 136. 
 Zeus, temple of 105. 
 Zoroaster, teaching of 104. 
 
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