Selected Poems

by Byron

  1. The little village of Castri stands partly on the site of Delphi. Along the path of the mountain, from Chrysso, are the remains of sepulchres hewn in and from the rock. ‘One, said the guide, ‘of a king who broke his neck hunting.’ His majesty had certainly chosen the fittest spot for such an achievement. A little above Castri is a cave, supposed the Pythian, of immense depth; the upper part of it is paved, and now a cowhouse. On the other side of Castri stands a Greek monastery; some way above which is the cleft in the rock, with a range of caverns difficult of ascent, and apparently leading to the interior of the mountain; probably to the Corycian Cavern mentioned by Pausanias. From this part descend the fountain and the ‘Dews of Castalie.’

  1. The convent of ‘Our Lady of Punishment,’ Nossa Señora de Pena, on the summit of the rock. Below, at some distance, is the Cork Convent, where St Honorius dug his den, over which is his epitaph. From the hills the sea adds to the beauty of the view. – [Since the publication of this poem, I have been informed of the misapprehension of the term Nossa Señora de Pena. It was owing to the want of the tilde, or mark over the ñ which alters the signification of the word: with it, Peña signifies a rock; without it, Pena has the sense I adopted. I do not think it necessary to alter the passage; as though the common acceptation affixed to it is ‘Our Lady of the Rock,’ I may well assume the other sense from the severities practised there. – Note to 2d Edition.]

  1. It is a well known fact, that in the year 1809, the assassinations in the streets of Lisbon and its vicinity were not confined by the Portuguese to their countrymen; but that Englishmen were daily butchered: and so far from redress being obtained, we were requested not to interfere if we perceived any compatriot defending himself against his allies. I was once stopped in the way to the theatre at eight o’clock in the evening, when the streets were not more empty than they generally are at that hour, opposite to an open shop, and in a carriage with a friend: had we not fortunately been armed, I have not the least doubt that we should have ‘adorned a tale‘ instead of telling one. The crime of assassination is not confined to Portugal: in Sicily and Malta we are knocked on the head at a handsome average nightly, and not a Sicilian or Maltese is ever punished!

  1. The Convention of Cintra was signed in the palace of the Marchese Marialva.

  1. The extent of Mafra is prodigious: it contains a palace, convent, and most superb church. The six organs are the most beautiful I ever beheld, in point of decoration: we did not hear them, but were told that their tones were correspondent to their splendour. Mafra is termed the Escurial of Portugal.

  1. As I found the Portuguese, so have I characterised them. That they are since improved, at least in courage, is evident. The late exploits of Lord Wellington have effaced the follies of Cintra. He has, indeed, done wonders: he has, perhaps, changed the character of a nation, reconciled rival superstitions, and baffled an enemy who never retreated before his predecessors. – 1812.

  2. Count Julian’s daughter, the Helen of Spain. Pelagius preserved his independence in the fastnesses of the Asturias, and the descendants of his followers, after some centuries, completed their struggle by the conquest of Grenada.

  1. ‘Vivã el Rey Fernando!’ Long live King Ferdinand! is the chorus of most of the Spanish patriotic songs. They are chiefly in dispraise of the old King Charles, the Queen, and the Prince of Peace. I have heard many of them: some of the airs are beautiful. Don Manuel Godoy, the Principe de la Paz, of an ancient but decayed family, was born at Badajoz, on the frontiers of Portugal, and was originally in the ranks of the Spanish guards; till his person attracted the queen’s eyes, and raised him to the dukedom of Alcudia, &c. &c. It is to this man that the Spaniards universally impute the ruin of their country.

  1. The red cockade, with ‘Fernando VII,’ in the centre.

  2. All who have seen a battery will recollect the pyramidal form in which shot and shells are piled. The Sierra Morena was fortified in every defile through which I passed in my way to Seville.

  1. Such were the exploits of the Maid of Saragoza, who by her valour elevated herself to the highest rank of heroines. When the author was at Seville she walked daily on the Prado, decorated with medals and orders, by command of the Junta.

  2. ‘Sigilla in mento impressa Amoris digitulo Vestigio demonstrant mollitudinem.’

  1. This stanza was written in Turkey.

  2. These stanzas were written in Castri (Delphos), at the foot of Parnassus, now called Aιaκvpá (Liakura), Dec. 1809.

  1. Seville was the Hispalis of the Romans.

  1. This was written at Thebes and consequently in the best situation for asking and answering such a question; not as the birthplace of Pindar, but as the capital of Bœtia, where the first riddle was propounded and solved.

  1. ‘Medio de fonte leporum,’ &c. – Luc.

  1. Alluding to the conduct and death of Solano, the governor of Cadiz, in May, 1809.

  1. ‘War to the knife..’ Palafox’s answer to the French general at the siege of Saragoza.

  1. The Honourable John Wingfield, of the Guards, who died of a fever at Coimbra. 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 that being tolerable. 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,And thrice ere thrice yon moon had fill’d her horn.’I should have ventured a verse to the memory of the late Charles Skinner Matthews, Fellow of Downing College, Cambridge, were he not too much above all praise of mine. His powers of mind, shown in the attainment of greater honours, against the ablest candidates, than those of any graduate on record at Cambridge, have sufficiently established his fame on the spot where it was acquired; while his softer qualities live in the recollection of friends who loved him too well to envy his superiority.

  1. Part of the Acropolis was destroyed by the explosion of a magazine during the Venetian siege.

  1. We can all feel, or imagine, the regret with which the ruins of cities once the capitals of empires, are beheld: the reflections suggested by such objects are too trite to require recapitulation. But never did the littleness of man, and the vanity of his very best virtues, of patriotism to exalt, and of valour to defend his country, appear more conspicuous than in the record of what Athens was, and the certainty of what she now is. This theatre of contention between mighty factions, of the struggles of orators, the exaltation and deposition of tyrants, the triumph and punishment of generals, is now become a scene of petty intrigue and perpetual disturbance, between the bickering agents of certain British nobility and gentry. ‘The wild foxes, the owls and serpents in the ruins of Babylon,’ were surely less degrading than such inhabitants. The Turks have the plea of conquest for their tyranny, and the Greeks have only suffered the fortune of war, incidental to the bravest; but how are the mighty fallen, when two painters contest the privilege of plundering the Parthenon, and triumph in turn, according to the tenor of each succeeding firman! Sylla could but punish, Philip subdue, and Xerxes burn Athens; but it remained for the paltry antiquarian, and his despicable agents, to render her contemptible as himself and his pursuits. The Parthenon, before its destruction in part, by fire during the Venetian siege, had been a temple, a church, and a mosque. In each point of view it is an object of regard: it changed its worshippers; but still it was a place of worship thrice sacred to devotion: its violation is a triple sacrilege. But –

  ‘Man, proud man,

  Drest in a little brief authority,

  Plays such fantastic tricks before high heaven

  As make the angels weep.’

  1. It was not always the custom of the Greeks to burn their dead; the greater Ajax, in particular, was interred entire. Almost all the chiefs became gods after their decease; and he was indeed neglected, who had not annual games near his tomb, or festivals in honour of his memory by his countrymen, as Achilles, Brasidas, &c. and a
t last even Antinous, whose death was as heroic as his life was infamous.

  1. The temple of Jupiter Olympius, of which sixteen columns, entirely of marble, yet survive: originally there were one hundred and fifty. These columns, however, are by many supposed to have belonged to the Parthenon.

  2. The ship was wrecked in the Archipelago.

  3. See Appendix to this Canto [A], for a note too long to be placed here.

  4.I cannot resist availing myself of the permission of my friend Dr Clarke, whose name requires no comment with the public, but whose sanction will add tenfold weight to my testimony, to insert the following extract from a very obliging letter of his to me, as a note to the above lines: – ‘When the last of the Metopes was taken from the Parthenon, and, in moving of it, a great part of the superstructure with one of the triglyphs was thrown down by the workmen whom Lord Elgin employed, the Disdar who beheld the mischief done to the building, took his pipe from his mouth, dropped a tear, and, in a supplicating tone of voice, said to Lusieri, Tελoς! – I was present.’ The Disdar alluded to was the father of the present Disdar.

  1. According to Zosimus, Minerva and Achilles frightened Alaric from the Acropolis; but others relate that the Gothic king was nearly as mischievous as the Scottish peer. – See CHANDLER.

  1. To prevent blocks or splinters from falling on deck during action.

  1. Goza is said to have been the island of Calypso.

  1. See Appendix to this Canto, Note [B].

  2. Ithaca.

  1. Leucadia, now Santa Maura. From the promontory (the Lover’s Leap) Sappho is said to have thrown herself.

  2. Actium and Trafalgar need no further mention. The battle of Lepanto, equally bloody and considerable, but less known, was fought in the Gulf of Patras. Here the author of Don Quixote lost his left hand.

  1. It is said, that, on the day previous to the battle of Actium, Antony had thirteen kings at his levee.

  1. Nicopolis, whose ruins are most extensive, is at some distance from Actium, where the wall of the Hippodrome survives in a few fragments. These ruins are large masses of brickwork, the bricks of which are joined by interstices of mortar, as large as the bricks themselves, and equally durable.

  2. According to Pouqueville, the lake of Yanina: but Pouqueville is always out.

  3. The celebrated Ali Pacha. Of this extraordinary man there is an incorrect account in Pouqueville’s Travels.

  4. Five thousand Suliotes, among the rocks and in the castle of Suli, withstood thirty thousand Albanians for eighteen years; the castle at last was taken by bribery. In this contest there were several acts performed not unworthy of the better days of Greece.

  1. The convent and village of Zitza are four hours’ journey from Joannina or Yanina, the capital of the Pachalick. In the valley the river Kalamas (once the Acheron) flows, and, not far from Zitza, forms a fine cataract. The situation is perhaps the finest in Greece, though the approach to Delvinachi and parts of Acarnania and Ætolia may contest the palm. Delphi, Parnassus, and, in Attica, even Cape Colonna and Port Raphti, are very inferior; as also every scene in Ionia, or the Troad: I am almost inclined to add the approach to Constantinople; but, from the different features of the last, a comparison can hardly be made.

  2. The Greek monks are so called.

  1. The Chimariot mountains appear to have been volcanic.

  2. Now called Kalamas.

  3. Albanese cloak.

  1. Anciently Mount Tomarus.

  2. The river Laos was full at the time the author passed it; and, immediately above Tepaleen, was to the eye as wide as the Thames at Westminster; at least in the opinion of the author and his fellow traveller. In the summer it must be much narrower. It certainly is the finest river in the Levant; neither Achelous, Alpheus, Acheron, Scamander, nor Cayster, approached it in breadth or beauty.

  1. Alluding to the wreckers of Cornwall.

  1. The Albanian Mussulmans do not abstain from wine, and, indeed, very few of the others.

  2. Palikar, shortened when addressed to a single person, from Παλικαρí, a general name for a soldier amongst the Greeks and Albanese who speak Romaic: it means, properly, ‘a lad.’

  3. [For a specimen of the Albanian or Arnaout dialect of the Illyric, see Appendix to this Canto, Note [C].]

  1. Drummer.

  2. These stanzas are partly taken from different Albanese songs, as far as I was able to make them out by the exposition of the Albanese in Romaic and Italian.

  1. It was taken by storm from the French.

  2. Yellow is the epithet given to the Russians.

  3. Infidel.

  4. The insignia of a Pacha.

  5. Horsemen, answering to our forlorn hope.

  6. Sword-bearer.

  1. Some thoughts on the present state of Greece will be found in the Appendix to this Canto, Note [D].

  2. Phyle, which commands a beautiful view of Athens, has still considerable remains: it was seized by Thrasybulus, previous to the expulsion of the Thirty.

  1. When taken by the Latins, and retained for several years.

  2. Mecca and Medina were taken some time ago by the Wahabees, a sect yearly increasing.

  1. On many of the mountains, particularly Liakura, the snow never is entirely melted, notwithstanding the intense heat of the summer; but I never saw it lie on the plains, even in winter.

  1. Of Mount Pentelicus, from whence the marble was dug that constructed the public edifices of Athens. The modern name is Mount Mendeli. An immense cave, formed by the quarries, still remains, and will till the end of time.

  2. In all Attica, if we except Athens itself and Marathon, there is no scene more interesting than Cape Colonna. To the antiquary and artist, sixteen columns are an inexhaustible source of observation and design; to the philosopher, the supposed scene of some of Plato’s conversations will not be unwelcome; and the traveller will be struck with the beauty of the prospect over ‘Isles that crown the Ægean deep:’ but, for an Englishman, Colonna has yet an additional interest, as the actual spot of Falconer’s Shipwreck. Pallas and Plato are forgotten, in the recollection of Falconer and Campbell:–

  ‘Here in the dead of night by Lonna’s steep,

  The seaman’s cry was heard along the deep.’

  This temple of Minerva may be seen at sea from a great distance. In two journeys which I made, and one voyage to Cape Colonna, the view from either side, by land, was less striking than the approach from the isles. In our second land excursion, we had a narrow escape from a party of Mainotes, concealed in the caverns beneath. We were told afterwards, by one of their prisoners, subsequently ransomed, that they were deterred from attacking us by the appearance of my two Albanians: conjecturing very sagaciously, but falsely, that we had a complete guard of these Arnaouts at hand, they remained stationary, and thus saved our party, which was too small to have opposed any effectual resistance. Colonna is no less a resort of painters than of pirates; there

  ‘The hireling artist plants his paltry desk,

  And makes degraded nature picturesque.’

  (See Hodgson’s Lady Jane Grey, &c)

  But there Nature, with the aid of Art, has done that for herself. I was fortunate enough to engage a very superior German artist; and hope to renew my acquaintance with this and many other Levantine scenes, by the arrival of his performances.

  1. ‘Siste Viator – heroa calcas!’ was the epitaph on the famous Count Merci; – what then must be our feelings when standing on the tumulus of the two hundred (Greeks) who fell on Marathon? The principal barrow has recently been opened by Fauvel: few or no relics, as vases, &c. were found by the excavator. The plain of Marathon was offered to me for sale at the sum of sixteen thousand piastres, about nine hundred pounds! Alas! – ‘Expende – quot libras in duce summo – invenies!’ – was the dust of Miltiades worth no more? It could scarcely have fetched less if sold by weight.

  * This Sr Gropius was employed by a noble Lord for the sole purpose of sketching, in which he excel
s; but I am sorry to say, that he has, through the abused sanction of that most respectable name, been treading at humble distance in the steps of Sr Lusieri. – A shipful of his trophies was detained, and I believe confiscated, at Constantinople, in 1810. I am most happy to be now enabled to state, that ‘this was not in his bond;’ that he was employed solely as a painter, and that his noble patron disavows all connection with him, except as an artist. If the error in the first and second edition of this poem has given the noble Lord a moment’s pain, I am very sorry for it: Sr Gropius has assumed for years the name of his agent; and though I cannot much condemn myself for sharing in the mistake of so many, I am happy in being one of the first to be undeceived. Indeed, I have as much pleasure in contradicting this as I felt regret in stating it. – Note to third edition.

  * The Albanese, particularly the women, are frequently termed ‘Caliriotes;’ for what reason I enquired in vain.

  * A word, en passant, with Mr Thornton and Dr Pouqueville, who have been guilty between them of sadly clipping the Sultan’s Turkish.Dr Pouqueville tells a long story of a Moslem who swallowed corrosive sublimate in such quantities that he acquired the name of ‘Suleyman Yeyen,’ i.e. quoth the Doctor, ‘Suleyman, the eater of corrosive sublimate.’ ‘Aha,’ thinks Mr Thornton, (angry with the Doctor for the fiftieth time), ‘have I caught you?’ – Then, in a note twice the thickness of the Doctor’s anecdote, he questions the Doctor’s proficiency in the Turkish tongue, and his veracity in his own. – ‘For,’ observes Mr Thornton (after inflicting on us the tough participle of a Turkish verb), ‘it means nothing more than Suleyman the eater,’ and quite cashiers the supplementary ‘sublimate.’ Now both are right, and both are wrong. If Mr Thornton, when he next resides, ‘fourteen years in the factory,’ will consult his Turkish dictionary, or ask any of his Stamboline acquaintance, he will discover that ‘Suleyma’n yeyen,’ put together discreetly, means the ‘Swallower of sublimate,’ without any ‘Suleyman’ in the case: ‘Suleyman’ signifying ‘corrosive sublimate,’ and not being a proper name on this occasion, although it be an orthodox name enough with the addition of n. After Mr Thornton’s frequent hints of profound Orientalism, he might have found this out before he sang such pæans over Dr Pouqueville.After this, I think ‘Travellers versus Factors’ shall be our motto, though the above Mr Thornton has condemned ‘hoc genus omne,’ for mistake and misrepresentation. ‘Ne Sutor ultra crepidam,’ ‘No merchant beyond his bales.’ ‘N. B. For the benefit of Mr Thornton, ‘Sutor‘ is not a proper name.