The Works of Lord Byron Volume IV Part 39

Even music followed her light feet. 830 But those she called were not awake, And she went forth; but, ere she pa.s.sed, Another look on me she cast, Another sign she made, to say, That I had nought to fear, that all Were near, at my command or call, And she would not delay Her due return:--while she was gone, Methought I felt too much alone.

XX.

"She came with mother and with sire-- 840 What need of more?--I will not tire With long recital of the rest, Since I became the Cossack's guest.

They found me senseless on the plain, They bore me to the nearest hut, They brought me into life again-- Me--one day o'er their realm to reign!

Thus the vain fool who strove to glut His rage, refining on my pain, Sent me forth to the wilderness, 850 Bound--naked--bleeding--and alone, To pa.s.s the desert to a throne,-- What mortal his own doom may guess?

Let none despond, let none despair!

To-morrow the Borysthenes May see our coursers graze at ease Upon his Turkish bank,--and never Had I such welcome for a river As I shall yield when safely there.[275]

Comrades, good night!"--The Hetman threw 860 His length beneath the oak-tree shade, With leafy couch already made-- A bed nor comfortless nor new To him, who took his rest whene'er The hour arrived, no matter where: His eyes the hastening slumbers steep.

And if ye marvel Charles forgot To thank his tale, _he_ wondered not,-- The King had been an hour asleep!

FOOTNOTES:

[br] {205}_la suite_.--[MS. and First Edition.]

[248] {207}[The Battle of Poltava on the Vorskla took place July 8, 1709. "The Swedish troops (under Rehnskjold) numbered only 12,500 men.... The Russian army was four times as numerous.... The Swedes seemed at first to get the advantage, ... but everywhere the were overpowered and surrounded--beaten in detail; and though for two hours they fought with the fierceness of despair, they were forced either to surrender or to flee.... Over 2800 officers and men were taken prisoners."--_Peter the Great_, by Eugene Schuyler, 1884, ii. 148, 149.]

[249] [Napoleon began his retreat from Moscow, October 15, 1812. He was defeated at Vitepsk, November 14; Krasnoi, November 16-18; and at Beresina, November 25-29, 1812.]

[250] ["It happened ... that during the operations of June 27-28, Charles was severely wounded in the foot. On the morning of June 28 he was riding close to the river ... when a ball struck him on the left heel, pa.s.sed through his foot, and lodged close to the great toe.... On the night of July 7, 1709 ... Charles had the foot carefully dressed, while he wore a spurred boot on his sound foot, put on his uniform, and placed himself on a kind of litter, in which he was drawn before the lines of the array.... [After the battle, July 8] those who survived took refuge in flight, the King--whose litter had been smashed by a cannon-ball, and who was carried by the soldiers on crossed poles--going with them, and the Russians neglecting to pursue. In this manner they reached their former camp."--_Charles XII._, by Oscar Browning, 1899, pp. 213, 220, 224, sq. For an account of his flight southwards into Turkish territory, _vide post_, p. 233, note 1. The bivouack "under a savage tree" must have taken place on the night of the battle, at the first halt, between Poltava and the junction of the Vorskla and Dnieper.]

[251] {208}[Compare--

"Thus elms and thus the savage cherry grows."

Dryden's _Georgics_, ii. 24.]

[252] {209}[For some interesting particulars concerning the Hetman Mazeppa, see Barrow's _Memoir of the Life of Peter the Great_, 1832, pp.

181-202.]

[253] {211}[The Dnieper.]

[254] [John Casimir (1609-1672), Jesuit, cardinal, and king, was a Little-Polander, not to say a pro-Cossack, and suffered in consequence.

At the time of his proclamation as King of Poland, November, 1649, Poland was threatened by an incursion of Cossacks. The immediate cause was, or was supposed to be, the ill treatment which [Bogdan Khmelnitzky]

a Lithuanian had received at the hands of the Polish governor, Czaplinski. The governor, it was alleged, had carried off, ravished, and put to death Khmelnitzky's wife, and, not content with this outrage, had set fire to the house of the Cossack, "in which perished his infant son in his cradle." Others affirmed that the Cossack had begun the strife by causing the governor "to be publicly and ignominiously whipped," and that it was the Cossack's mill and not his house which he burnt. Be that as it may, Casimir, on being exhorted to take the field, declined, on the ground that the Poles "ought not to have set fire to Khmelnitzky's house." It is probably to this unpatriotic determination to look at both sides of the question that he earned the character of being an unwarlike prince. As a matter of fact, he fought and was victorious against the Cossacks and Tartars at Bereteskow and elsewhere. (See _Mod. Univ.

Hist._, x.x.xiv. 203, 217; Puffend, _Hist. Gener._, 1732, iv. 328; and _Histoire des Kosaques_, par M. (Charles Louis) Le Sur, 1814, i. 321.)]

[255] [A.D. 1660 or thereabouts.]

[256] {212}[According to the editor of Voltaire's Works (_Oeuvres_, Beuchot, 1830, xix. 378, note 1), there was a report that Casimir, after his retirement to Paris in 1670, secretly married "_Marie Mignot, fille d'une blanchisseuse_;" and there are other tales of other loves, e.g.

Ninon de Lenclos.]

[257] [According to the biographers, Mazeppa's intrigue took place after he had been banished from the court of Warsaw, and had retired to his estate in Volhynia. The _pane_ [Lord] Falbowsky, the old husband of the young wife, was a neighbouring magnate. It was a case of "love in idlenesse."--_Vide ante_, "The Introduction to _Mazeppa_," p. 201.]

[258] This comparison of a "_salt_ mine" may, perhaps, be permitted to a Pole, as the wealth of the country consists greatly in the salt mines.

[259] {213}[It is improbable that Byron, when he wrote these lines, was thinking of Theresa Gamba, Countess Guiccioli. He met her for the first time "in the autumn of 1818, three days after her marriage," but it was not till April, 1819, that he made her acquaintance. (See _Life_, p.

393, and _Letters_, 1900, iv. 289.) The copy of _Mazeppa_ sent home to Murray is in the Countess Guiccioli's handwriting, but the a.s.sertion (see Byron's _Works_, 1832, xi. 178), that "it is impossible not to suspect that the Poet had some circ.u.mstances of his own personal history, when he portrayed the fair Polish _Theresa_, her faithful lover, and the jealous rage of the old Count Palatine," is open to question. It was Marianna Segati who had "large, black, Oriental eyes, with that peculiar expression in them which is seen rarely among _Europeans_ ... forehead remarkably good" (see lines 208-220); not Theresa Guiccioli, who was a "blonde," with a "brilliant complexion and blue eyes." (See Letters to Moore, November 17, 1816; and to Murray, May 6, 1819: _Letters_, 1900, iv. 8, 289, note 1.) Moreover, the "Maid of Athens" was called Theresa. Dr. D. Englaender, in his exhaustive monologue, _Lord Byron's Mazeppa_, pp. 48, sq., insists on the ident.i.ty of the Theresa of the poem with the Countess Guiccioli, but from this contention the late Professor Kolbing (see _Englische Studien_, 1898, vol. xxiv. pp 448-458) dissents.]

[bs] {214}_Until it proves a joy to die_.--[MS. erased.]

[260] {215}[For the use of "electric" as a metaphor, compare _Parisina_, line 480, _Poetical Works_, 1900, iii. 524, note i.]

[bt] {216}

--_but not_ _For that which we had both forgot_.--[MS. erased.]

[261] {217}[Compare--

"We loved, Sir, used to meet: How sad, and bad, and mad it was!

But then how it was sweet!"

_Confessions_, by Robert Browning.]

[262] {220}[Compare--

"In sleep I heard the northern gleams; ...

In rustling conflict through the skies, I heard, I saw the flashes drive."

_The Complaint_, stanza i. lines 3, 5, 6.

See, too, reference to _Hearne's Journey from Hudson's Bay, etc_., in prefatory note, _Works_ of W. Wordsworth, 1889, p. 86.]

[263] [As Dr. Englaender points out (_Mazeppa_, 1897, p. 73), it is probable that Byron derived his general conception of the scenery of the Ukraine from pa.s.sages in Voltaire's _Charles XII._, e.g.: "Depuis Grodno jusqu'au Borysthene, en tirant vers l'orient ce sont des marais, des deserts, des forets immenses" (_Oeuvres_, 1829, xxiv. 170). The exquisite beauty of the virgin steppes, the long rich gra.s.s, the wild-flowers, the "diviner air," to which the Viscount de Vogue testifies so eloquently in his _Mazeppa_, were not in the "mind's eye"

of the poet or the historian.]

[bu] {222}

_And stains it with a lifeless red_.--[MS.]

_Which clings to it like stiffened gore_.--[MS. erased.]

[264] {223}[The thread on which the successive tropes or images are loosely strung seems to give if not to snap at this point. "Considering that Mazeppa was sprung of a race which in moments of excitement, when an enemy has stamped upon its vitals, springs up to repel the attack, it was only to be expected that he should sink beneath the blow--and sink he did." The conclusion is at variance with the premiss.]

[265] {224}[Compare--

"'Alas,' said she, 'this ghastly ride, Dear Lady! it hath wildered you.'"

_Christabel_, Part I. lines 216, 217.]

[266] {225}[Compare--

"How long in that same fit I lay, I have not to declare."

_Ancient Mariner,_ Part V. lines 393, 394.]

[267] [Compare--

"From precipices of distempered sleep."