The Works of Lord Byron Volume II Part 79

Not a line of these lamentable effusions has survived; but the poor, pitiful story of common misfortune, with its tragic irony, uncommon circ.u.mstance, and far-reaching consequence, found its _vates sacer_ in the author of _Childe Harold_.]

[pz] {451} _Her prayers for thee and in thy coming power_ _Beheld her Iris--Thou too lonely Lord_ _And desolate Consort! fatal is thy dower_, _The Husband of a year--the Father of an_----[? _hour_].-- [D. erased.]

[533] {452} [Compare Canto III. stanza x.x.xiv. lines 6, 7--

"Like to the apples on the Dead Sea's sh.o.r.e, All ashes to the taste."]

[534] [Mr. Tozer traces the star simile to Homer (_Iliad_, viii. 559)--

???ta d? t' e?deta? ?st?a, ?????e d? te f???a p????

[Pa/nta de/ t' ei)/detai a)/stra, ge/gethe de/ te phre/na poime/n]]

[535] [Compare _Macbeth_, act iii. sc. 2, lines 22, 23--

"Duncan is in his grave; After life's fitful fever he sleeps well."]

[536] [Compare _Coriola.n.u.s_, act iii. sc. 3, lines 121, 122--

"You common cry of curs! whose breath I hate As reek o' the rotten fens."]

[537] {453} Mary died on the scaffold; Elizabeth, of a broken heart; Charles V., a hermit; Louis XIV., a bankrupt in means and glory; Cromwell, of anxiety; and, "the greatest is behind," Napoleon lives a prisoner. To these sovereigns a long but superfluous list might be added of names equally ill.u.s.trious and unhappy.

[qa] _Which sinks_----.--[MS. M.]

[538] [The simile of the "earthquake" was repeated in a letter to Murray, dated December 3, 1817: "The death of the Princess Charlotte has been a shock even here, and must have been an earthquake at home.... The death of this poor Girl is melancholy in every respect, dying at twenty or so, in childbed--of a _boy_ too, a present princess and future queen, and just as she began to be happy, and to enjoy herself, and the hopes which she inspired."]

[539] {454} The village of Nemi was near the Arician retreat of Egeria, and, from the shades which embosomed the temple of Diana, has preserved to this day its distinctive appellation of _The Grove_. Nemi is but an evening's ride from the comfortable inn of Albano.

[The basin of the Lago di Nemi is the crater of an extinct volcano.

Hence the comparison to a coiled snake. Its steel-blue waters are unruffled by the wind which lashes the neighbouring ocean into fury.

Hence its likeness to "cherished hate," as contrasted with "generous and active wrath."]

[qb] _And calm as speechless hate_----.--[MS. M.]

[540] [The spectator is supposed to be looking towards the Mediterranean from the summit of Monte Cavo. Tusculum, where "Tully reposed," lies to the north of the Alban Hills, on the right; but, as Byron points to a spot "beneath thy right," he probably refers to the traditional site of the Villa Ciceronis at Grotta Ferrata, and not to an alternative site at the Villa Ruffinella, between Frascati and the ruins of Tusculum.

Horace's Sabine farm, on the bank of Digentia's "ice-cold rivulet," is more than twenty miles to the north-east of the Alban Hills. The mountains to the south and east of Tusculum intercept the view of the valley of the Licenza (Digentia), where the "farm was tilled." Childe Harold had bidden farewell to Horace, once for all, "upon Soracte's ridge," but recalls him to keep company with Virgil and Cicero.]

[qc] {455} _Of girdling mountains circle on the sight_ _The Sabine farm was tilled, the wearied Bard's delight_.-- [MS. M.]

[541] ["Calpe's rock" is Gibraltar (compare _Childe Harold_, Canto II.

stanza xxii. line i). "Last" may be the last time that Byron and Childe Harold saw the Mediterranean together. Byron had last seen it--"the Midland Ocean"--by "Calpe's rock," on his return journey to England in 1811. Or by "last" he may mean the last time that it burst upon his view. He had not seen the Mediterranean on his way from Geneva to Venice, in October-November, 1816, or from Venice to Rome, April--May, 1817; but now from the Alban Mount the "ocean" was full in view.]

[qd] {456} ----_much suffering and some tears_.--[MS. M.]

[542] ["After the stanza (near the conclusion of Canto 4th) which ends with the line--

"'As if there was no man to trouble what is clear,'

insert the two following stanzas (clxxvii., clxxviii.). Then go on to the stanza beginning, 'Roll on thou,' etc., etc. You will find the place of insertion near the conclusion--just before the address to the Ocean.

"These _two stanzas_ will just make up the number of 500 stanzas to the whole poem.

"Answer when you receive this. I sent back the packets yesterday, and hope they will arrive in safety."--D.]

[543] [His desire is towards no light o' love, but for the support and fellows.h.i.+p of his sister. Compare the opening lines of the _Epistle to Augusta_--

"My sister! my sweet sister! if a name Dearer and purer were, it should be thine; Mountains and seas divide us, but I claim No tears, but tenderness to answer mine: Go where I will, to me thou art the same-- A loved regret which I would not resign.

There yet are two things in my destiny,-- A world to roam through and a home with thee.

"The first were nothing--had I still the last, It were the haven of my happiness."]

[544] {457} [Compare _Childe Harold_, Canto III. stanza lxxii. lines 8, 9; and _Epistle to Augusta_, stanza xi.]

[qe] {458} ----_unearthed, uncoffined, and unknown_.--[MS. M.]

[545] [Compare _Ps_. cvii. 26, "They mount up to the heaven, they go down again to the depths."]

[qf] _And dashest him to earth again: there let him lay!_--[D.]

[546] ["Lay" is followed by a plainly marked period in both the MSS. (M.

and D.) of the Fourth Canto of _Childe Harold_. For instances of the same error, compare "The Adieu," stanza 10, line 4, and ["Pignus Amoris"], stanza 3, line 3 (_Poetical Works_, 1898, i. 232, note, and p.

241). It is to be remarked that Hobhouse, who pencilled a few corrections on the margin of his own MS. copy, makes no comment on this famous solecism. The fact is that Byron wrote as he spoke, with the "careless and negligent ease of a man of quality," and either did not know that "lay" was not an intransitive verb or regarded himself as "super grammaticam."]

[547] {459} [Compare Campbell's _Battle of the Baltic_ (stanza ii. lines 1, 2)--

"Like leviathans afloat, Lay their bulwarks on the brine."]

[qg] _These oaken citadels which made and make_.--[MS. M. erased.]

[548] The Gale of wind which succeeded the battle of Trafalgar destroyed the greater part (if not all) of the prizes--nineteen sail of the line--taken on that memorable day. I should be ashamed to specify particulars which should be known to all--did we not know that in France the people were kept in ignorance of the event of this most glorious victory in modern times, and that in England it is the present fas.h.i.+on to talk of Waterloo as though it were entirely an English triumph--and a thing to be named with Blenheim and Agincourt--Trafalgar and Aboukir.

Posterity will decide; but if it be remembered as a skilful or as a wonderful action, it will be like the battle of Zama, where we think of Hannibal more than of Scipio. For a.s.suredly we dwell on this action, not because it was gained by Blucher or Wellington, but because it was lost by Buonaparte--a man who, with all his vices and his faults, never yet found an adversary with a t.i.the of his talents (as far as the expression can apply to a conqueror) or his good intentions, his clemency or his fort.i.tude.

Look at his successors throughout Europe, whose imitation of the worst parts of his policy is only limited by their comparative impotence, and their positive imbecility.--[MS. M.]

[549] {460} ["When Lord Byron wrote this stanza, he had, no doubt, the following pa.s.sage in Boswell's _Johnson_ floating in his mind.... 'The grand object of all travelling is to see the sh.o.r.es of the Mediterranean. On those sh.o.r.es were the four great empires of the world--the a.s.syrian, the Persian, the Grecian, and the Roman' (_Life of Johnson_, 1876, p. 505)."--Note to _Childe Harold_, Canto IV. stanza clx.x.xii. ed. 1891.]

[550] [See letter to Murray, September 24, 1818: "What does 'thy waters _wasted_ them' mean (in the Canto)? _That is not me_. Consult the MS.

_always_." Nevertheless, the misreading appeared in several editions.

(For a correspondence on the subject, see _Notes and Queries_, first series, vol. i. pp. 182, 278, 324, 508; vol. ix. p. 481; vol. x. pp.

314, 434.)]

[qh] _Thy waters wasted them while they were free_.--[Editions 1818, 1819, 1823, and Galignani, 1825.]

[qi] _Unchangeable save calm thy tempests ply_.--[MS. M., D.]

[qj] {461} _The image of Eternity and s.p.a.ce_ _For who hath fixed thy limits_----.--[MS. M. erased.]

[551] [Compare Tennyson's _In Memoriam_, lv. stanza 6--