The Works of Lord Byron Volume III Part 25

or, _The famished fox the wild dog gaunt_ _May vainly for its waters pant_.--[MS.]

[dg] _Might strike an echo_----.--[MS.]

[dh] {102} _And welcome Life though but in one_ _For many a gilded chamber's there_ _Unmeet for Solitude to share_.--- [MS.]

[75] ["I have just recollected an alteration you may make in the proof.... Among the lines on Ha.s.san's Serai, is this--'Unmeet for Solitude to share.' Now, to share implies more than _one_, and Solitude is a single gentlewoman: it must be thus--

'For many a gilded chamber's there, Which Solitude might well forbear;'

and so on. Will you adopt this correction? and pray accept a cheese from me for your trouble."--Letter to John Murray, Stilton, October 3, 1813, _Letters_, 1898, ii. 274.]

[di] _To share the Master's "bread and salt."_--[MS.]

[76] [To partake of food--to break bread and taste salt with your host, ensures the safety of the guest: even though an enemy, his person from that moment becomes sacred.--(Note appended to Letter of October 3, 1813.)

"I leave this (_vide supra_, note 1) to your discretion; if anybody thinks the old line a good one or the cheese a bad one, don't accept either. But in that case the word _share_ is repeated soon after in the line--

'To share the master's bread and salt;'

and must be altered to--

'To break the master's bread and salt.'

This is not so well, though--confound it!

If the old line ['Unmeet for Solitude to share'] stands, let the other run thus--

'Nor there will weary traveller halt, To bless the sacred bread and salt.'"

(P.S. to Murray, October 3, 1813.)

The emendation of line 335 made that of line 343 unnecessary, but both emendations were accepted.

(Moore says (_Life_; p. 191, note) that the directions are written on a separate slip of paper from the letter to Murray of October 3, 1813).]

[dj] {103} _And cold Hospitality shrinks from the labour_, _The slave fled his halter and the serf left his labour_.--[MS.]

or, _Ah! there Hospitality light is thy labour_, or, _Ah! who for the traveller's solace will labour?_--[MS.]

[77] I need hardly observe, that Charity and Hospitality are the first duties enjoined by Mahomet; and to say truth, very generally practised by his disciples. The first praise that can be bestowed on a chief is a panegyric on his bounty; the next, on his valour. ["Serve G.o.d ... and show kindness unto parents, and relations, and orphans, and the poor, and your neighbour who is of kin to you ... and the traveller, and the captives," etc.--_Koran_, cap. iv. Lines 350, 351 were inserted in the Fifth Edition.]

[78] The ataghan, a long dagger worn with pistols in the belt, in a metal scabbard, generally of silver; and, among the wealthier, gilt, or of gold.

[79] Green is the privileged colour of the prophet's numerous pretended descendants; with them, as here, faith (the family inheritance) is supposed to supersede the necessity of good works: they are the worst of a very indifferent brood.

[80] {104} "Salam aleikoum! aleikoum salam!" peace be with you; be with you peace--the salutation reserved for the faithful:--to a Christian, "Urlarula!" a good journey; or "saban hiresem, saban serula," good morn, good even; and sometimes, "may your end be happy!" are the usual salutes.

["After both sets of prayers, Farz and Sunnah, the Moslem looks over his right shoulder, and says, 'The Peace (of Allah) be upon you and the ruth of Allah,' and repeats the words over the left shoulder. The salutation is addressed to the Guardian Angels, or to the bystanders (Moslem), who, however, do not return it."--_Arabian Nights_, by Richard F. Burton, 1887: _Supplemental Nights_, i. 14, note.]

[dk]

_Take ye and give ye that salam_, _That says of Moslem faith I am_.--[MS.]

[dl] _Which one of yonder barks may wait_.--[MS.]

[81] [In the MS. and the first five editions the broken line (373) consisted of two words only, "That one."]

[82] The blue-winged b.u.t.terfly of Kashmeer, the most rare and beautiful of the species.

[The same insects (b.u.t.terflies of Cachemir) are celebrated in an unpublished poem of Mesihi.... Sir Anthony s.h.i.+rley relates that it was customary in Persia "to hawk after b.u.t.terflies with sparrows, made to that use."--Note by S. Henley to _Vathek_, ed. 1893, p. 222. Byron, in his Journal, December 1, 1813, speaks of Lady Charlemont as "that blue-winged Kashmirian b.u.t.terfly of book-learning."]

[dm] _If caught, to fate alike betrayed_.-[MS.]

[dn] {106} _The gathering flames around her close_.-[MS. erased.]

[83] {107} Alluding to the dubious suicide of the scorpion, so placed for experiment by gentle philosophers. Some maintain that the position of the sting, when turned towards the head, is merely a convulsive movement; but others have actually brought in the verdict "Felo de se."

The scorpions are surely interested in a speedy decision of the question; as, if once fairly established as insect Catos, they will probably be allowed to live as long as they think proper, without being martyred for the sake of an hypothesis.

[Byron a.s.sured Dallas that the simile of the scorpion was imagined in his sleep.--_Recollections of the Life of Lord Byron_, by R. C. Dallas, p. 264.

"Probably in some instances the poor scorpion has been burnt to death; and the well-known habit of these creatures to raise the tail over the back and recurve it so that the extremity touches the fore part of the cephalo-thorax, has led to the idea that it was stinging itself."--_Encycl. Brit_., art. "Arachnida," by Rev. O. P. Cambridge, ii. 281.]

[do] _So writhes the mind by Conscience riven_.--[MS.]

[84] The cannon at sunset close the Rhamazan. [Compare _Childe Harold_, Canto II. stanza Iv. line 5, _Poetical Works_, 1899, ii. 134. note 2.]

[85] {108} Phingari, the moon. [fe????? [phenga/ri] is derived from fe???????, [phenga/rion,] dim. of f????? [phe/ngos].]

[86] The celebrated fabulous ruby of Sultan Giamschid, the embellisher of Istakhar; from its splendour, named Schebgerag [Schabchiragh], "the torch of night;" also "the cup of the sun," etc. In the First Edition, "Giamschid" was written as a word of three syllables; so D'Herbelot has it; but I am told Richardson reduces it to a dissyllable, and writes "Jams.h.i.+d." I have left in the text the orthography of the one with the p.r.o.nunciation of the other.

[The MS. and First Edition read, "Bright as the gem of Giamschid."

Byron's first intention was to change the line into "Bright as the ruby of Giamschid;" but to this Moore objected, "that as the comparison of his heroine's eye to a ruby might unluckily call up the idea of its being bloodshot, he had better change the line to 'Bright as the jewel,'

etc."

For the original of Byron's note, see S. Henley's note, _Vathek,_ 1893, p. 230. See, too, D'Herbelot's _Bibliotheque Orientale_, 1781, iii. 27.

Sir Richard Burton (_Arabian Nights, S.N._, iii. 440) gives the following _resume_ of the conflicting legends: "Jam-i-jams.h.i.+d is a well-known commonplace in Moslem folk-lore; but commentators cannot agree whether 'Jam' be a mirror or a cup. In the latter sense it would represent the Cyathomantic cup of the Patriarch Joseph, and the symbolic bowl of Nestor. Jams.h.i.+d may be translated either 'Jam the bright,' or 'the Cup of the Sun;' this ancient king is the Solomon of the grand old Guebres."

Fitzgerald, "in a very composite quatrain (stanza v.) which cannot be claimed as a translation at all" (see the _Rubaiyat_ of Omar Khayyaam, by Edward Heron Allen, 1898), embodies a late version of the myth--

"Iram is gone and all his Rose, And Jamshyd's sev'n-ringed Cup where no one knows."]

[87] {109} Al-Sirat, the bridge of breadth narrower than the thread of a famished spider, and sharper than the edge of a sword, over which the Mussulmans must _skate_ into Paradise, to which it is the only entrance; but this is not the worst, the river beneath being h.e.l.l itself, into which, as may be expected, the unskilful and tender of foot contrive to tumble with a "facilis descensus Averni," not very pleasing in prospect to the next pa.s.senger. There is a shorter cut downwards for the Jews and Christians.

[Byron is again indebted to _Vathek_, and S. Henley on _Vathek,_ p. 237, for his information. The authority for the legend of the Bridge of Paradise is not the Koran, but the Book of Mawakef, quoted by Edward Poc.o.c.ke, in his Commentary (_Notae Miscellaneae_) on the _Porta Mosis_ of Moses Maimonides (Oxford, 1654, p. 288)--

"Stretched across the back of h.e.l.l, it is narrower than a javelin, sharper than the edge of a sword. But all must essay the pa.s.sage, believers as well as infidels, and it baffles the understanding to imagine in what manner they keep their foothold."

The legend, or rather allegory, to which there would seem to be some allusion in the words of Scripture, "Strait is the gate," etc., is of Zoroastrian origin. Compare the _Zend-Avesta_, Yasna xix. 6 (_Sacred Books of the East_, edited by F. Max Muller, 1887, x.x.xi. 261), "With even threefold (safety and with speed) I will bring his soul over the Bridge of Kinvat," etc.]

[88] {110} A vulgar error: the Koran allots at least a third of Paradise to well-behaved women; but by far the greater number of Mussulmans interpret the text their own way, and exclude their moieties from heaven. Being enemies to Platonics, they cannot discern "any fitness of things" in the souls of the other s.e.x, conceiving them to be superseded by the Houris.