Читать книгу Childe Harold's Pilgrimage (With Byron's Biography) - Lord Byron - Страница 252

142 [For Byron's "star" similes, see Canto III. stanza xxxviii. line 9.]

ew ——and looked askance on Mars.—[MS. erased.]

143 [Compare the line in Tennyson's song, Break, break, break, "And the stately ships go on."]

ex And roused him more from thought than he was wont While Pleasure almost seemed to smooth his pallid front.—[MS. D.] While Pleasure almost smiled along——.—[MS. erased.]

144 [By "Suli's rocks" Byron means the mountainous district in the south of the Epirus. The district of Suli formed itself into a small republic at the close of the last century, and offered a formidable resistance to Ali Pacha. "Pindus' inland peak," Monte Metsovo, which forms part of the ridge which divides Epirus from Thessaly, is not visible from the sea-coast.]

145 ["Shore unknown." (See Byron's note to stanza xxxviii. line 5.)]

ey ——lovely harmful thing.—[MS. pencil.]

146 [Compare Byron's Stanzas written on passing the Ambracian Gulph.]

147 [Nicopolis, "the city of victory," which Augustus, "the second Cæsar," built to commemorate Actium, is some five miles to the north of Prevesa. Byron and Hobhouse visited the ruins on the 30th of September, and again on the 12th of November (see Byron's letter to Mrs. Byron. November 12, 1809: Letters, 1898, i. 251).]

ez Imperial wretches, doubling human woes! God!—was thy globe ere made——.—[MS. erased.]

148 [The travellers left Prevesa on October 1, and arrived at Janina on October 5. They left Janina on October 11, and reached Zitza at nightfall (Byron at 3 a.m., October 12). They left Zitza on October 13, and arrived at Tepeleni on October 19.]

149 [On the evening of October 11, as the party was approaching Zitza, Hobhouse and the Albanian, Vasilly, rode on, leaving "Lord Byron and the baggage behind." It was getting dark, and just as the luckier Hobhouse contrived to make his way to the village, the rain began to fall in torrents. Before long, "the thunder roared as it seemed without any intermission; for the echoes of one peal had not ceased to roll in the mountains before another crash burst over our heads." Byron, dragoman, and baggage were not three miles from Zitza when the storm began, and they lost their way. After many wanderings and adventures they were finally conducted by ten men with pine torches to the hut; but by that time it was three o'clock in the morning. Hence the "Stanzas composed during a Thunderstorm."—Hobhouse's Travels in Albania, i. 69-71.]

150 ["The prior of the monastery, a humble, meek-mannered man, entertained us in a warm chamber with grapes and a pleasant white wine ...We were so well pleased with everything about us that we agreed to lodge with him."—Hobhouse's Travels in Albania, i. 73.]

fa Here winds, if winds there be, will fan his breast.—[MS. D. erased.]

fb Keep Heaven for better souls, my shade shall seek for none.—[MS. erased.]

fc But frequent is the lamb, the kid, the goat— And watching pensive with his browsing flock.—[MS. erased.]

fd Counting the hours beneath yon skies unerring shock.—[MS. erased.]

151 [The site of Dodona, a spot "at the foot of Mount Tomaros" (Mount Olytsika) in the valley of Tcharacovista, was finally determined, in 1876, by excavations carried out, at his own expense, by M. Constantin Carapanos, a native of Arta. In his monograph, Dodone et ses Ruines (Paris, 1878, 4to), M. Carapanos gives a detailed description of the theatre, the twofold Temenos (I. L'Enceinte du Temple, II. Téménos, pp. 13-28), including the Temple of Zeus and a sanctuary of Aphrodite, and of the numerous ex voto offerings and inscriptions on lead which were brought to light during the excavations, and helped to identify the ruins. An accompanying folio volume of plates contains (Planches, i., ii.) a map of the valley of Tcharacovista, and a lithograph of Mount Tomaros, "d'un aspect majestueux et pittoresque ... un roc nu sillonné par le lit de nombreux torrents" (p. 8). Behind Dodona, on the summit of the many-named chain of hills which confronts Mount Tomaros, are "bouquets de chêne," sprung it may be from the offspring of the προσήγοροι δρύες (Æsch., Prom., 833), the "talking oaks," which declared the will of Zeus. For the "prophetic fount" (line 2), Servius, commenting on Virgil, Æneid, iii. 41-66, seems to be the authority: "Circa hoc templum quercus immanis fuisse dicitur ex cujus radicibus fons manebat, qui suo murmure instinctu Deorum diversis oracula reddebat" (Virgilii Opera, Leovardiæ, 1717, i. 548).

Byron and Hobhouse, on one of their excursions from Janina, explored and admired the ruins of the "amphitheatre," but knew not that "here and nowhere else" was Dodona (Travels in Albania, i. 53-56).]

152 [The sentiment that man, "whose breath is in his nostrils," should consider the impermanence of all that is stable and durable before he cries out upon his own mortality, may have been drawn immediately from the famous letter of consolation sent by Sulpitius Severus to Cicero, which Byron quotes in a note to Canto IV. stanza xliv., or, in the first instance, from Tasso's Gerusalemme Liberata, xv. 20—

"Giace l'alta Cartago; appena i segni

Dell' alte sue ruini il lido serba.

Muojono le città; muojono i regni:

Copre i fasti, e le pompe, arena ed erba;

E l'uom d'esser mortal par cue si sdegni!"

Compare, too, Addison's "Reflections in Westminster Abbey," Spectator, No. 26.]

153 [The six days' journey from Zitza to Tepeleni is compressed into a single stanza. The vale (line 3) may be that of the Kalama, through which the travellers passed (October 13) soon after leaving Zitza, or, more probably, the plain of Deropoli ("well-cultivated, divided by rails and low hedges, and having a river flowing through it to the south"), which they crossed (October 15) on their way from Delvinaki, the frontier village of Illyria, to Libokhovo.]

154 ["Yclad," used as a preterite, not a participle (compare Coleridge's "I wis" [Christabel, part i. line 92]), is a Byronism—"archaisme incorrect," says M. Darmesteter.]

155 ["During the fast of the Ramazan, ... 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;' and in a large city, where they are numerous, they resemble a swarm of fireflies."—H.F. Tozer. (Compare The Giaour, i. 449-452—

"When Rhamazan's last sun was set,

And flashing from each minaret.

Millions of lamps proclaimed the feast

Of Bairam through the boundless East.")]

156 ["A kind of dervish or recluse ... regarded as a saint."—Cent. Dict., art. "Santon."]

fe ——guests and vassals wait.—[MS. erased.]

ff While the deep Tocsin's sound——.—[MS. D. erased.]

157 ["We were disturbed during the night by the perpetual carousal which seemed to be kept up in the gallery, and by the drum, and the voice of the 'muezzinn,' or chanter, calling the Turks to prayers from the minaret of the mosck attached to the palace. This chanter was a boy, and he sang out his hymn is a sort of loud melancholy recitative. He was a long time repeating the Eraun. The first exclamation was repeated four times, the remaining words twice; and the long and piercing note in which he concluded his confession of faith, by twice crying out the word 'hou!' ['At solemn sound of "Alla Hu!"' Giaour, i. 734] still rings in my ears."—Hobhouse's Travels in Albania, i. 95. D'Ohsonn gives the Eraun at full length: "Most high God! [four times repeated]. I acknowledge that there is no other God except God! I acknowledge that there is no other God except God! I acknowledge that Mohammed is the prophet of God! Come to prayer! Come to prayer! Come to the temple of salvation! Come to the temple of salvation! Great God! great God! There is no God except God!"—Oriental Antiquities (Philadelphia, 1788), p. 341.]

158 ["The Ramazan, or Turkish Lent, which, as it occurs in each of the thirteen months in succession, fell this year in October ... Although during this month the strictest abstinence, even from tobacco and coffee, is observed in the daytime, yet with the setting of the sun the feasting commences."—Travels in Albania, i. 66. "The Ramadan or Rhamazan is the ninth month of the Mohammedan year. As the Mohammedans reckon by lunar time, it begins each year eleven days earlier than in the preceding year, so that in thirty-three years it occurs successively in all the seasons."—Imp. Dictionary.]

159 [The feast was spread within the courtyard, "in the part farthest from the dwelling," and when the revelry began the "immense large gallery" or corridor, which ran along the front of the palace and was open on one side to the court, was deserted. "Opening into the gallery were the doors of several apartments," and as the servants passed in and out, the travellers standing in the courtyard could hear the sound of voices.—Travels in Albania, i. 93.]

fg ——even for health to move.—[MS.] She saves for one——.—[MS. erased.]

fh For boyish minions of unhallowed love The shameless torch of wild desire is lit, Caressed, preferred even to woman's self above, Whose forms for Nature's gentler errors fit All frailties mote excuse save that which they commit.—[MS. D. erased.]

160 [For an account of Ali Pasha (1741-1822), see Letters, 1898, i. 246, note.]

161 [In a letter to his mother, November 12, 1809, Byron writes, "He [Ali] said he was certain I was a man of birth, because I had small ears, curling hair, and little white hands. ... He told me to consider him as a father whilst I was in Turkey, and said he looked on me as his son. Indeed, he treated me like a child, sending me almonds and sugared sherbet, fruit and sweetmeats, twenty times a day." Many years after, in the first letter On Bowles' Strictures, February 7, 1821, he introduces a reminiscence of Ali: "I never judge from manners, for I once had my pocket picked by the civillest gentleman I ever met with; and one of the mildest persons I ever saw was Ali Pasha" (Life, p. 689).]

fi Delights to mingle with the lips of youth.—[MS. D. erased.]

162 [Anacreon sometimes bewails, but more often defies old age. (Vide Carmina liv., xi., xxxiv.)

The paraphrase "Teian Muse" recurs in the song, "The Isles of Greece," Don Juan, Canto III.]

fj But 'tis those ne'er forgotten acts of ruth.—[MS. D.]

163 [In the first edition the reading (see var. ii.) is, "But crimes, those ne'er forgotten crimes of ruth." The mistake was pointed out in the Quarterly Review (March, 1812, No. 13, vol. vii. p. 193).

But in Spenser "ruth" means sorrow as well as pity, and three weeks after Childe Harold was published, Ali committed a terrible crime, the outcome of an early grief. On March 27, 1812, in revenge for wrongs done to his mother and sister nearly thirty years before, he caused 670 Gardhikiots to be massacred in the khan of Valiare, and followed up the act of treachery by sacking, plundering, and burning the town of Gardiki, and, "in direct violation of the Mohammedan law," carrying off and reducing to slavery the women and children.—Finlay's Hist. of Greece (edited by Rev. H. F. Tozer, 1877), vi. 67, 68.]

fk Those who in blood begin in blood conclude their span.—[MS. erased.]

164 [This was prophetic. "On the 5th of February, 1822, a meeting took place between Ali and Mohammed Pasha.... When Mohammed rose to depart, the two viziers, being of equal rank, moved together towards the door.... As they parted Ali bowed low to his visitor, and Mohammed, seizing the moment when the watchful eye of the old man was turned away, drew his hanjar, and plunged it in Ali's heart. He walked on calmly to the gallery, and said to the attendants, 'Ali of Tepalen is dead.' ... The head of Ali was exposed at the gate of the serai."—Finlay's Hist. of Greece, 1877, vi. 94, 95.]

fl Childe Harold with that chief held colloquy Yet what they spake it boots not to repeat; Converse may little charm strange ear or eye; Albeit he rested on that spacious seat, Of Moslem luxury the choice retreat.—[MS. D. erased.] Four days he rested on that worthy seat.-[MS. erased.]

165 [The travellers left Janina on November 3, and reached Prevesa November 7. At midday November 9 they set sail for Patras in a galliot of Ali's, "a vessel of about fifty tons burden, with three short masts and a large lateen sail." Instead of doubling Cape Ducato, they were driven out to sea northward, and, finally, at one o'clock in the morning, anchored off the Port of Phanari on the Suliote coast. Towards the evening of the next day (November 10) they landed in "the marshy bay" (stanza lxviii. line 2) and rode to Volondorako, where they slept. "Here they were well received by the Albanian primate of the place and by the Vizier's soldiers quartered there." Instead of re-embarking in the galliot, they returned to Prevesa by land (November 11). As the country to the north of the Gulf of Arta was up in arms, and bodies of robbers were abroad, they procured an escort of thirty-seven Albanians, hired another galliot, and on Monday, the 13th, sailed across the entrance of the gulf as far as the fortress of Vonitsa, where they anchored for the night. By four o'clock in the afternoon of November 14 they reached Utraikey or Lutraki, "situated in a deep bay surrounded with rocks at the south-east corner of the Gulf of Arta." The courtyard of a barrack on the shore is the scene of the song and dance (stanzas lxx.-lxxii.). Here, in the original MS., the pilgrimage abruptly ends, and in the remaining stanzas the Childe moralizes on the fallen fortunes and vanished heroism of Greece.—Travels in Albania, i. 157-165.]

166 [The route from Utraikey to Gouria (November 15-18) lay through "thick woods of oak," with occasional peeps of the open cultivated district of Ætolia on the further side of the Aspropotamo, "white Achelous' tide." The Albanian guard was not dismissed until the travellers reached Mesolonghi (November 21).]

167 [With this description Mr. Tozer compares Virgil, Æneid, i. 159-165, and Tasso's imitation in Gerus. Lib., canto xv. stanzas 42, 43. The following lines from Hoole's translation (Jerusalem Delivered, bk. xv. lines 310, 311, 317, 318) may be cited:—

"Amidst these isles a lone recess is found,

Where circling shores the subject flood resound ...

Within the waves repose in peace serene;

Black forests nod above, a silvan scene!"]

168 ["In the evening the gates were secured, and preparations were made for feeding our Albanians. A goat was killed and roasted whole, and four fires were kindled in the yard, round which the soldiers seated themselves in parties. After eating and drinking, the greater part of them assembled round the largest of the fires, and, whilst ourselves and the elders of the party were seated on the ground, danced round the blaze to their own songs, in the manner before described, but with astonishing energy. All their songs were relations of some robbing exploits. One of them ... began thus: 'When we set out from Parga there were sixty of us!' then came the burden of the verse—

'Robbers all at Parga!

Robbers all at Parga!'

Κλέφτεις ποτὲ Πάργα!

Κλέφτεις ποτὲ Πάργα!

And as they roared out this stave, they whirled round the fire, dropped, and rebounded from their knees, and again whirled round as the chorus was again repeated."—Travels in Albania, i. 166, 167.]

169 [This was not Byron's first experience of an Albanian war-song. At Salakhora, on the Gulf of Arta (nine miles north-east of Prevesa), which he reached on October 1, the Albanian guard at the custom-house entertained the travellers by "singing some songs." "The music is extremely monotonous and nasal; and the shrill scream of their voices was increased by each putting his hand behind his ear and cheek, to give more force to the sound."—Travels in Albania, i. 28.

Long afterwards, in 1816, one evening, on the Lake of Geneva, Byron entertained Shelley, Mary, and Claire with "an Albanian song." They seem to have felt that such melodies "unheard are sweeter." Hence, perhaps, his petit nom, "Albè," that is, the "Albaneser."—Life of Shelley, by Edward Dowden, 1896, p. 309.]

170 [Tambourgi, "drummer," a Turkish word, formed by affixing the termination -gi, which signifies "one who discharges any occupation," to the French tambour (H. F. Tozer, Childe Harold, p. 246).]

fm ——thy tocsin afar.—[MS. D. erased.]

171 [The camese is the fustanella or white kilt of the Toska, a branch of the Albanian, or Shkipetar, race. Spenser has the forms "camis," "camus." The Arabic quamīç occurs in the Koran, but is thought to be an adaptation of the Latin camisia, camisa.—Finlay's Hist, of Greece, vi. 39; N. Eng. Dict., art. "Camis." (For "capote," vide post, p. 181.)]

fn Shall the sons of Chimæra——.—[MS. D.]

172 [The Suliotes, after a protracted and often successful resistance, were finally reduced by Ali, in December, 1803. They are adjured to forget their natural desire for vengeance, and to unite with the Albanians against their common foe, the Russians.]

fo Shall win the young minions——.—[MS. D.]

fp ——the maid and the youth.—[MS.]

fq Their caresses shall lull us, their voices shall soothe.—[MS. D. erased.]

173 [So, too, at Salakhora (October 1): "One of the songs was on the taking of Prevesa, an exploit of which the Albanians are vastly proud; and there was scarcely one of them in which the name of Ali Pasha was not roared out and dwelt upon with peculiar energy."—Travels in Albania, i. 29.

Prevesa, which, with other Venetian possessions, had fallen to the French in 1797, was taken in the Sultan's name by Ali, in October, 1798. The troops in the garrison (300 French, 460 Greeks) encountered and were overwhelmed by 5000 Albanians, on the plain of Nicopolis. The victors entered and sacked the town.]

174 [Ali's eldest son, Mukhtar, the Pasha of Berat, had been sent against the Russians, who, in 1809, invaded the trans-Danubian provinces of the Ottoman Empire.]

175 Yellow is the epithet given to the Russians.

176 Infidel.

177 The insignia of a Pacha.

178 [The literal meaning of Delhi or Deli, is, says M. Darmesteter, "fou" ["properly madmen" (D'Herbelot)], a title bestowed on Turkish warriors honoris causû. Byron suggests "forlorn hope" as an equivalent; but there is a wide difference between the blood-drunkenness of the Turk and the "foolishness" of British chivalry.]

179 Sword-bearer.

fr Tambourgi! thy tocsin——.—[MS. D. erased]

180 [Compare "The Isles of Greece," stanza 7 (Don Juan, Canto III.)—

"Earth! render back from out thy heart

A remnant of our Spartan dead!

Of the three hundred grant but three

To make a new Thermopylæ!"

The meaning is, "When shall another Lysander spring from Laconia ('Eurotas' banks') and revive the heroism of the ancient Spartans?"]

fs A fawning feeble race, untaught, enslaved, unmanned.—[MS. erased.]

ft ——fair Liberty.—[MS. erased, D.]

181 [Compare The Age of Bronze, vi. lines 39-46.]

182 [The Wahabees, who took their name from the Arab sheik Mohammed ben Abd-el-Wahab, arose in the province of Nedj, in Central Arabia, about 1760. Half-socialists, half-puritans, they insisted on fulfilling to the letter the precepts of the Koran. In 1803-4 they attacked and ravaged Mecca and Medinah, and in 1808 they invaded Syria and took Damascus. During Byron's residence in the East they were at the height of their power, and seemed to threaten the very existence of the Turkish empire.]

183 [Byron spent two months in Constantinople (Stamboul, i.e. εἰς τὴν πόλιν)—from May 14 to July 14, 1810. The "Lenten days," which were ushered in by a carnival, were those of the second "great" Lent of the Greek Church, that of St. Peter and St. Paul, which begins on the first Monday after Trinity, and ends on the 29th of June.]

184 [These al-fresco festivities must, it is presumed, have taken place on the two days out of the seven when you "might not 'damn the climate' and complain of the spleen." Hobhouse records excursions to the Valley of Sweet Waters; to Belgrade, where "the French minister gave a sort of fête-champêtre," when "the carousal lasted four days," and when "night after night is kept awake by the pipes, tabors, and fiddles of these moonlight dances;" and to the grove of Fanar-Baktchesi.—Travels in Albania, ii. 242-258.]

185 "There's nothing like young Love, No! No! There's nothing like young love at last."]

186 [It has been assumed that "searment" is an incorrect form of "cerement," the cloth dipped "in melting wax, in which dead bodies were enfolded when embalmed" (Hamlet, act i. sc. 4), but the sense of the passage seems rather to point to "cerecloth," "searcloth," a plaster to cover up a wound. The "robe of revel" does but half conceal the sore and aching heart.]

187 [For the accentuation of the word, compare Chaucer, "The Sompnour's Tale" (Canterbury Tales, line 7631)—

"And dronkennesse is eke a foul recórd

Of any man, and namely of a lord."]

fu When Athens' children are with arts endued.—[MS. D.]

188 [Compare Ecclus. xliv. 8, 9: "There be of them, that have left a name behind them, that their praises might be reported. And some there be, which have no memorial; who are perished, as though they had never been."]

189 [The "solitary column" may be that on the shore of the harbour of Colonna, in the island of Kythnos (Thermia), or one of the detached columns of the Olympeion.]

190 [Tritonia, or Tritogenia, one of Athena's names of uncertain origin. Hofmann's Lexicon Universale, Tooke's Pantheon, and Smith's Classical Dictionary are much in the same tale. Lucan (Pharsalia, lib. ix. lines 350-354) derives the epithet from Lake Triton, or Tritonis, on the Mediterranean coast of Libya—

"Hanc et Pallas amat: patrio quæ vertice nata

Terrarum primum Libyen (nam proxima coelo est,

Ut probat ipse calor) tetigit, stagnique quietâ

Vultus vidit aquâ, posuitque in margine plantas,

Et se dilectâ Tritonida dixit ab undâ."]

191 [Hobhouse dates the first visit to Cape Colonna, January 24, 1810.]

192 [Athené's dower of the olive induced the gods to appoint her as the protector and name-giver of Athens. Poseidon, who had proffered a horse, was a rejected candidate. (See note by Rev. E. C. Owen, Childe Harold, 1897, p. 175.)]

193 ["The wild thyme is in great abundance; but there are only two stands of bee-hives on the mountains, and very little of the real honey of Hymettus is to be now procured at Athens.... A small pot of it was shown to me as a rarity" (Travels in Albania, i. 341). There is now, a little way out of Athens, a "honey-farm, where the honey from Hymettus is prepared for sale" (Handbook for Greece, p. 500).]

fv ——Pentele's marbles glare.—[MS. D. erased.]

194 [Stanzas lxxxviii.-xc. are not in the MS., but were first included in the seventh edition, 1814.]

195 [Byron and Hobhouse, after visiting Colonna, slept at Keratéa, and proceeded to Marathon on January 25, returning to Athens on the following day.]

fw Preserve alike its form——.—[MS. L.]