Читать книгу Childe Harold's Pilgrimage (With Byron's Biography) - Lord Byron - Страница 146

Ask ye, Boeotian Shades! the reason why?

Stanza lxx. line 5.

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 Boeotia, where the first riddle was propounded and solved.

Byron reached Thebes December 22, 1809. By the first riddle he means, of course, the famous enigma of Oedipus—the prototype of Boeotian wit.]