FOOTNOTES:
[271] This expression of Homer has been much criticized. It hardly answers to our Atlantic ideas of the ocean, but is sufficiently applicable to the Hellespont, and the Bosphorus, with the Aegean intersected with islands.
[Vide Iliad, xiv. 245, etc. Homer's "ocean-stream" was not the Hellespont, but the rim of waters which encircled the disk of the world.]
[272] {219}["The pleasure of going in a barge to Chelsea is not comparable to that of rowing upon the canal of the sea here, where, for twenty miles together, down the Bosphorus, the most beautiful variety of prospects present themselves. The Asian side is covered with fruit trees, villages, and the most delightful landscapes in nature; on the European stands Constantinople, situated on seven hills; showing an agreeable mixture of gardens, pine and cypress trees, palaces, mosques, and public buildings, raised one above another, with as much beauty and appearance of symmetry as your ladyship ever saw in a cabinet adorned by the most skilful hands, where jars show themselves above jars, mixed with canisters, babies, and candlesticks. This is a very odd comparison: but it gives me an exact idea of the thing."—See letter to Mr. Pope, No. xl. June 17, 1717, and letter to the Countess of Bristol, No. xlvi. n.d., Letters of the Lady Mary Worthy Montagu, 1816, pp. 183-219. See, too, letter to Mrs. Byron, June 28, 1810, Letters, 1890, i. 280, note 1.]
[273] [For Byron's "Marys," see Poetical Works, 1898, i. 192, note 2.]
[274] The "Giant's Grave" is a height on the Asiatic shore of the Bosphorus, much frequented by holiday parties; like Harrow and Highgate.
["The Giant's Mountain, 650 feet high, is almost exactly opposite Buyukdereh ... It is called by the Turks Yoshadagh, Mountain of Joshua, because the Giant's Grave on the top is, according to the Moslem legend, the grave of Joshua. The grave was formerly called the Couch of Hercules; but the classical story is that it was the tomb of Amycus, king of the Bebryces [on his grave grew the laurus insana, a branch of which caused strife (Plin., Hist. Nat., lib. xvi. cap. xliv. ed. 1593, ii. 198)]. The grave is 20 feet long, and 5 feet broad; it is within a stone enclosure, and is planted with flowers and bushes."—Handbook for Constantinople, p. 103.]
[ET] {220}
For then the Parca are most busy spinning
The fates of seamen, and the loud winds raise.—[MS.]
[EU] {221}
That he a man of rank and birth had been,
And then they calculated on his ransom,
And last not least—he was so very handsome.—[MS.]
It chanced that near him, separately lotted,
From out the group of slaves put up for sale,
A man of middle age, and——.—[MS.]
[275] {222}[The object of Suwarof's campaign of 1789 was the conquest of Belgrade and Servia, that of Wallachia by the Austrians, etc. Neither of these plans succeeded."—The Life of Field-Marshal Suwarof, by L.M.P. Tranchant de Laverne, 1814, pp. 105, 106.]
[276] {226}[The Turkish zecchino is a gold coin, worth about seven shillings and sixpence. The para is not quite equal to an English halfpenny.]
[277] [Candide's increased satisfaction with life is implied in the narrative. For example, in chap, xviii., where Candide visits Eldorado:—"Never was there a better entertainment, and never was more wit shown at table than that which fell from His Majesty. Cacambo explained the king's bons mots to Candide, and notwithstanding they were translated, they still appeared bons mots." This was after supper. See, too, Part II. chap, ii.]
[278] See Plutarch in Alex., Q. Curt. Hist. Alexand., and Sir Richard Clayton's "Critical Inquiry into the Life of Alexander the Great," 1763 [from the Examen Critique, etc., of Guilhem de Clermont-Lodève, Baron de Sainte Croix, 1775.]
["He used to say that sleep and the commerce with the sex were the things that made him most sensible of his mortality, ... He was also very temperate in eating."—Plutarch's Alexander, Langhorne, 1838, p. 473.]
But for mere food, I think with Philip's son,
Or Ammon's—for two fathers claimed this one.—[MS.]
[279] {227}The assassination alluded to took place on the 8th of December, 1820, in the streets of Ravenna, not a hundred paces from the residence of the writer. The circumstances were as described.
["December 9, 1820. I open my letter to tell you a fact, which will show the state of this country better than I can. The commandant of the troops is now lying dead in my house. He was shot at a little past eight o'clock, about two hundred paces from my door. I was putting on my great coat to visit Madame la Comtessa G., when I heard the shot. On coming into the hall, I found all my servants on the balcony, exclaiming that a man was murdered. I immediately ran down, calling on Tita (the bravest of them) to follow me. The rest wanted to hinder us from going, as it is the custom for everybody here, it seems, to run away from 'the stricken deer.' ... we found him lying on his back, almost, if not quite, dead, with five wounds; one in the heart, two in the stomach, one in the finger, and the other in the arm. Some soldiers cocked their guns, and wanted to hinder me from passing. However, we passed, and I found Diego, the adjutant, crying over him like a child—a surgeon, who said nothing of his profession—a priest, sobbing a frightened prayer—and the commandant, all this time, on his back, on the hard, cold pavement, without light or assistance, or anything around him but confusion and dismay. As nobody could, or would, do anything but howl and pray, and as no one would stir a finger to move him, for fear of consequences, I lost my patience—made my servant and a couple of the mob take up the body—sent off two soldiers to the guard—despatched Diego to the Cardinal with the news, and had him carried upstairs into my own quarters. But it was too late—he was gone.... I had him partly stripped—made the surgeon examine him, and examined him myself. He had been shot by cut balls or slugs. I felt one of the slugs, which had gone through him, all but the skin.... He only said, 'O Dio!' and 'Gesu!' two or three times, and appeared to have suffered little. Poor fellow! he was a brave officer; but had made himself much disliked by the people."—Letter to Moore, December 9, 1820, Letters, 1901, v. 133. The commandant's name was Del Pinto (Life, p. 472).]
—— so I had
Him borne, as soon's I could, up several pair
Of stairs—and looked to,——But why should I add
More circumstances?——.—[MS.]
[EY] And now as silent as an unstrung drum.—[MS.]
[280] {229}The light and elegant wherries plying about the quays of Constantinople are so called.
[281] {230}[Ilderim, a Syrian Tale, by Henry Gally Knight, was published in 1816; Phrosyne, a Grecian Tale, and Alashtar, an Arabian Tale, in 1817. Moore's Lalla Kookh also appeared in 1817.]
[282] [St. Bartholomew was "discoriate, and flayed quick" (Golden Legend, 1900, v. 43).]
[EZ] We from impalement——.—[MS.]
[283] {231}"Many of the seraï and summer-houses [on the Bosphorus] have received these significant, or rather fantastic names: one is the Pearl Pavilion; another is the Star Palace; a third the Mansion of Looking-glasses."—Travels in Albania, 1858, ii. 243.
[FA] {232}
Of speeches, beauty, flattery—there is no
Method more sure——.—[MS.]
[284] {233}[Guide des Voyageurs; Directions for Travellers, etc.—Rhymes, Incidental and Humorous; Rhyming Reminiscences; Effusions in Rhyme, etc.—Lady Morgan's Tour in Italy; Tour through Istria, etc., etc.—Sketches of Italy; Sketches of Modern Greece, etc., etc.—Historical Illustrations of the Fourth Canto of Childe Harold, by J.C. Hobhouse, 1818.]
[285] In Turkey nothing is more common than for the Mussulmans to take several glasses of strong spirits by way of appetiser. I have seen them take as many as six of raki before dinner, and swear that they dined the better for it: I tried the experiment, but fared like the Scotchman, who having heard that the birds called kittiwakes were admirable whets, ate six of them, and complained that "he was no hungrier than when he began."
[286] ["Everything is so still [in the court of the Seraglio], that the motion of a fly might be heard, in a manner; and if any one should presume to raise his voice ever so little, or show the least want of respect to the Mansion-place of their Emperor, he would instantly have the bastinado by the officers that go the rounds."-A Voyage in the Levant, by M. Tournefort, 1741, ii. 183.]
[287] {234}A common furniture. I recollect being received by Ali Pacha, in a large room, paved with marble, containing a marble basin, and fountain playing in the centre, etc., etc.
[Compare Childe Harold, Canto II. stanza lxii.—
"In marble-paved pavilion, where a spring
Of living water from the centre rose,
Whose bubbling did a genial freshness fling,
And soft voluptuous couches breathed repose,
Ali reclined, a man of war and woes," etc.]
[288] [A reminiscence of Newstead. Compare Moore's song, "Oft in the Stilly Night"—
"I feel like one
Who treads alone
Some banquet-hall deserted."]
[FB] {235}
A small, snug chamber on a winter's night,
Well furnished with a book, friend, girl, or glass, etc.—[MS.]
[FC] I pass my days in long dull galleries solely.—[MS. erased.]
[289] [When this stanza was written Byron was domiciled in the Palazzo Guiccioli (in the Via di Porta Adriana) at Ravenna; but he may have had in his mind the monks' refectory at Newstead Abbey, "the dark gallery, where his fathers frowned" (Lara, Canto I. line 137), or the corridors which form the upper story of the cloisters.]
[290] ["Nabuchodonosor," here used metri gratiâ, is Latin (see the Vulgate) and French (see J.P. De Béranger, Chansons Inédites, 1828, p. 48) for Nebuchadnezzar.]
[291] [See Ovid's Metamorphoses, lib. iv. lines 55-58—
"In Babylon, where first her queen, for state,
Raised walls of brick magnificently great,
Lived Pyramus and Thisbe, lovely pair!
He found no Eastern youth his equal there,
And she beyond the fairest nymph was fair."
Garth.]
[292] {236}Babylon was enlarged by Nimrod, strengthened and beautified by Nabuchadonosor, and rebuilt by Semiramis.
[Pliny (Nat. Hist., lib. viii. cap. xlii. ed. 1593, i. 392) cites Juba, King of Mauretania, died A.D. 19, as his authority for the calumny.]
[FD] In an Erratum of her Horse for Courier.—[MS.]
[293] [Queen Caroline—whose trial (August—November, 1820) was proceeding whilst this canto was being written—was charged with having committed adultery with Bartolommeo Bergami, who had been her courier, and was, afterwards, her chamberlain.]
[294] ["Memoir on the Ruins of Babylon, by Claudius James Rich, Esq., Resident for the Honourable East India Company at the Court of the Pasha of Bagdad, 1815," pp. 61-64: Second Memoir on Babylon, ... 1818, by Claudius James Rich. See the plates at the end of the volume.]
[FE] If they shall not as soon cut off my head.—[MS.]
[FF] {240}A pair of drawers——.—[MS.]
[295] [Compare "Extracts from a Diary," January 24, 1821, Letters, 1901, v. 184.]
[FG] Kings are not more imperative than rhymes.—[MS.]
[FH] {241} He looked almost in modesty a maid.—[MS.]
[296] {242}Features of a gate—a ministerial metaphor: "the feature upon which this question hinges." See the "Fudge Family," or hear Castlereagh.
[Phil. Fudge, in his letter to Lord Castlereagh, says—
"As thou would'st say, my guide and teacher
In these gay metaphoric fringes,
I must embark into the feature
On which this letter chiefly hinges."
Moore's note adds, "Verbatim from one of the noble Viscount's speeches:—'And now, sir, I must embark into the feature on which this question chiefly hinges.'"—Fudge Family in Paris, Letter II. See, too, post, the Preface to Cantos VI., VII., and VIII., p. 264, note 3.]
[297] {243}[Compare—
"A snake's small eye blinks dull and sly,
And the lady's eyes they shrunk in her head,
Each shrunk up to a serpent's eye."
Christabel, Part II. lines 583-585.]
[298] {244}A few years ago the wile of Muchtar Pacha complained to his father of his son's supposed infidelity: he asked with whom, and she had the barbarity to give in a list of the twelve handsomest women in Yanina. They were seized, fastened up in sacks, and drowned in the lake the same night. One of the guards who was present informed me, that not one of the victims uttered a cry, or showed a symptom of terror at so sudden a "wrench from all we know, from all we love."
[See The Giaour, line 1328, Poetical Works, 1900, iii. 144, note 1.]
[FI] {245}
As Venus rose from Ocean—bent on them
With a far-reaching glance, a Paphian pair.—[MS.]
But there are forms which Time adorns, not wears,
And to which Beauty obstinately clings.—[MS.]
[299] {246}[Legend has credited Ninon de Lenclos (1620-1705) with lovers when she had "come to four-score years." According to Voltaire, John Casimir, ex-king of Poland, succumbed to her secular charms (see Mazeppa, line 138, Poetical Works, 1901, iv. 212, note 1). "In her old age, her house was the rendezvous of wits and men of letters. Scarron is said to have consulted her on his romances, Saint-Evremond on his poems, Molière on his comedies, Fontenelle on his dialogues, and La Rochefoucauld on his maxims. Coligny, Sévigné, etc., were her lovers and friends. At her death, in 1705, she bequeathed to Voltaire two thousand francs, to expend in books."—Biographic Universelle, art. "Lenclos."]
[300] ["Her fair maids were ranged below the sofa, to the number of twenty, and put me in mind of the pictures of the ancient nymphs. I did not think all nature could have furnished such a scene of beauty," etc.—Lady M.W. Montagu to the Countess of Mar, April 18, O.S. 1717, ed. 1816, p. 163.]
["Nil admirari prope res est una, Numici,
Solaque quæ possit facere et servare beatum."
Hor., Epist., lib. 1, ep. vi. lines 1, 2.]
[302] {247}
["Not to admire, is all the Art I know
To make men happy, and to keep them so,
(Plain Truth, dear Murray, needs no flow'rs of speech,
So take it in the very words of Creech)."
To Mr. Murray (Lord Mansfield), Pope's Imitations of Horace, Book I. epist. vi. lines 1-4.
Thomas Creech (1659-1701) published his Translation of Horace in 1684. In the second edition, 1688, p. 487, the lines run—
"Not to admire, as most are wont to do,
It is the only method that I know,
To make Men happy and to keep 'em so."]
[303] [Johnson placed judgment and friendship above admiration and love. "Admiration and love are like being intoxicated with champagne; judgment and friendship like being enlivened." See Boswell's Life of Johnson, 1876, p. 450.]
[304] {248}There is nothing, perhaps, more distinctive of birth than the hand. It is almost the only sign of blood which aristocracy can generate.
[305] {249}[In old pictures of the Fall, it is a cherub who whispers into the ear of Eve. The serpent's coils are hidden in the foliage of the tree.]
[FK] {250}The very women half forgave her face.—[MS, Erased.]
[FL] Had his instructions—where and how to deal.—[MS.]
[FM] And husbands now and then are mystified.—[MS.]
[306] {251}[Narrow javelins, once known as archegays—the assegais of Zulu warfare.]
[FN] {252}
But nature teaches what power cannot spoil
And, though it was a new and strange sensation,
Young female hearts are such a genial soil
For kinder feelings, she forgot her station.—[MS.]
[FO] War with your heart—.—[MS.]
[307] {254}[See Fielding's History of the Adventures of Joseph Andrews, bk. i. chap. v.]
["'But if my boy with virtue be endued,
What harm will beauty do him?' Nay, what good?
Say, what avail'd, of old, to Theseus' son,
The stern resolve? what to Bellerophon?—
O, then did Phaedra redden, then her pride
Took fire to be so steadfastly denied!
Then, too, did Sthenobaea glow with shame,
And both burst forth with unextinguish'd flame!"
Gifford, Juvenal, Sat. x. 473-480.
The adventures of Hippolytus, the son of Theseus, and Bellerophon are well known. They were accused of incontinence, by the women whose inordinate passions they had refused to gratify at the expense of their duty, and sacrificed to the fatal credulity of the husbands of the disappointed fair ones. It is very probable that both the stories are founded on the Scripture account of Joseph and Potiphar's wife.—Footnote, ibid., ed. 1817, ii. pp. 49, 50.]
[FP] The poets and romances——.—[MS.]
And this strong second cause (to tire no longer
Your patience) shows the first must still be stronger.—[MS. Alternative reading.]
[309] {256}
["By Heaven! methinks, it were an easy leap,
To pluck bright honour from the pale-faced moon."
Henry IV., act i. sc. 3, lines 201, 202.]
[FR] Like natural Shakespeare on the immortal page.—[MS.]
["And when I have stol'n upon these sons-in law,
Then kill, kill, kill, kill, kill, kill."
King Lear, act iv. sc. 6, lines 185, 186.]
["A woman scorn'd is pitiless as fate,
For, there, the dread of shame adds stings to hate."
Gifford's Juvenal, Sat. x. lines 481, 482, ed. 1817, ii. p. 50.]
[312] {258}["Yes—my valour is certainly going! it is sneaking off! I feel it oozing out, as it were, at the palms of my hands!"—Sheridan's Rivals, act v. sc. 3.]
[FS] Or all the stuff which uttered by the "Blues" is.—[MS.]
[FT] {259}
But prithee—get my women in the way,
That all the stars may gleam with due adorning.—[MS.]
[FU] Of Cantemir or Knollēs——-.—[MS.]
[313] It may not be unworthy of remark, that Bacon, in his essay on "Empire" (Essays, No. xx.), hints that Solyman was the last of his line; on what authority, I know not. These are his words: "The destruction of Mustapha was so fatal to Solyman's line; as the succession of the Turks from Solyman until this day is suspected to be untrue, and of strange blood; for that Selymus the second was thought to be supposititious." But Bacon, in his historical authorities, is often inaccurate. I could give half a dozen instances from his Apophthegms only.
[Selim II. (1524-1574) succeeded his father as Sultan in 1566. Hofmann (Lexicon Univ.) describes him as "meticulosus, effeminatus, ebriosus," but neither Demetrius Cantemir, in his History of the Growth and Decay of the Othman Empire (translated by N. Tyndal, 1734); nor The Turkish History (written by Mr. Knolles, 1701), cast any doubts on his legitimacy. Byron complained of the omission from the notes to the first edition of Don Juan, of his corrections of Bacon's "Apophthegms" (see Letters, 1901, v. Appendix VI. pp. 597-600), in a letter to Murray, dated January 21, 1821,—vide ibid., p. 220.]
[314] {260}[Gibbon.]
Because he kept them wrapt up in his closet, he
Ruled fair wives and twelve hundred whores, unseen,
More easily than Christian kings one queen.—[MS.]
Then ended many a fair Sultana's trip:
The Public knew no more than does this rhyme;
No printed scandals flew,—the fish, of course,
Were better—while the morals were no worse.—[MS.]
[FX] No sign of its depression anywhere.—[MS.]
[315] ["We attempted to visit the Seven Towers, but were stopped at the entrance, and informed that without a firman it was inaccessible to strangers.... It was supposed that Count Bulukof, the Russian minister, would be the last of the Moussafirs, or imperial hostages, confined in this fortress; but since the year 1784 M. Ruffin and many of the French have been imprisoned in the same place; and the dungeons.... were gaping, it seems, for the sacred persons of the gentlemen composing his Britannic Majesty's mission, previous to the rupture between Great Britain and the Porte in 1809."—Hobhouse, Travels in Albania, 1858, ii. 311, 312.]
[316] {261}["The princess" (Asma Sultana, daughter of Achmet III.) "complained of the barbarity which, at thirteen years of age, united her to a decrepit old man, who, by treating her like a child, had inspired her with nothing but disgust."—Memoirs of Baron de Toil, 1786, i. 74. See, too, Mémoires, etc., 1784, i. 84, 85.]
[317] {262}[The connection between "horns" and Heaven, to which Byron twice alludes, is not very obvious. The reference may be to the Biblical "horn of salvation," or to the symbolical horns of Divine glory as depicted in the Moses of Michel Angelo. Compare Mazeppa, lines 177, 178, Poetical Works, 1901, iv. 213.]
[FY]—— with solemn air and wise.—[MS.]
[FZ] Virginity in these unhappy climes.—[MS.]
[318] {263}[This stanza, which Byron composed in bed, February 27, 1821 (see Extracts from a Diary, Letters, 1901, v. 209), is not in the first edition. On discovering the omission, he wrote to Murray: "Upon what principle have you omitted ... one of the concluding stanzas sent as an addition?—because it ended, I suppose, with—
'And do not link two virtuous souls for life
Into that moral centaur, man and wife?'
Now, I must say, once for all, that I will not permit any human being to take such liberties with my writings because I am absent. I desire the omissions to be replaced (except the stanza on Semiramis)—particularly the stanza upon the Turkish marriages."—Letter to Murray, August 31, 1821, ibid., p. 351.]
Meanwhile as Homer sometimes sleeps, much more
The modern muse may be allowed to snore.—[MS.]
