FOOTNOTES:
[328] {268}[Two MSS. (A, B) are extant, A in Byron's handwriting, B a transcription by Mrs. Shelley. The variants are marked respectively MS. A., MS. B.
Motto: "Thinkest thou that because thou art virtuous there shall be no more cakes and ale? Aye! and ginger shall be hot in the mouth too."—Twelfth Night, or What You Will, Shakespeare, act ii. sc. 3, lines 109-112.—[MS. B.]
This motto, in an amended form, which was prefixed to the First Canto in 1833, appears on the title-page of the first edition of Cantos VI., VII., VIII., published by John Hunt in 1823.]
[329] [See Shakespeare, Julius Cæsar, act iv. sc. 3, lines 216, 217.]
[330] [Jacob Behmen (or Boehm) stands for "mystic." Byron twice compares him with Wordsworth (see Letters, 1899, iii. 239, 1900, iv. 238).]
[GB] {269}
Man with his head reflects (as Spurzheim tells),
But Woman with the heart—or something else.
or, Man's pensive part is (now and then) the head,
Woman's the heart or anything instead.—
[MS. A. Alternative reading.]
[GC] Like to a Comet's tail——.—[MS. A. erased.]
O'erbalance all the Cæsar's victories.—[MS. A.]
Outbalance all the Cæsar's victories.—[MS. B.]
In the Shelley copy "o'erbalance" has been erased and "outbalance" inserted in Byron's handwriting. The lines must have been intended to run thus—
'T is not his conquests keep his name in fashion
But Actium lost; for Cleopatra's eyes
Outbalance all the Cæsar's victories.
[GE] I wish that they had been eighteen——.—[MS. A. erased.]
[331] {270}[To Mary Chaworth. Compare "Our union would have healed feuds ... it would have joined lands broad and rich; it would have joined at least one heart."—Detached Thoughts, 1821, Letters, 1901, v. 441.]
[332] [Cato gave up his wife Martia to his friend Hortensius; but, on the death of the latter, took her back again. This conduct was censured by Cæsar, who observed that Cato had an eye to the main chance. "It was the wealth of Hortensius. He lent the young man his wife, that he might make her a rich widow."—Langhorne's Plutarch, 1838, pp. 539, 547.]
[333] {271}[Othello, act i. sc. i, lines 19-24.]
[GF]—— though with greater latitude.—[MS. A.]
[GG] {272}—— with one foolish woman wed.—[MS. B.]
[334] [The famous bed, measuring twelve feet square, to which an allusion is made by Shakespeare in Twelfth Night, act iii. sc. 2, line 44, was formerly preserved at the Saracen's Head at Ware, in Hertfordshire. The bed was removed from Ware to the Rye House in 1869.]
His Highness the sublimest of mankind,
The greatest, wisest, bravest, [and the] best,
Proved by his edicts somewhat blind,
Who saw his virtues as they saw the rest—
His Highness quite connubially inclined
Had deigned that night to be Gulbeyaz' guest.—[MS. A.]
[335] See Waverley [chap. xx.]
[GI] May look like what I need not mention here—[MS. A.]
[GJ] {273}Are better signs if such things can be signed.—[MS. A.]
[336] [For St. Francis of Assisi, and the "seven great balls of snow," of which "the greatest" was "his wife," see The Golden Legend, 1900, v. 221, vide ante, p. 32, note 1.]
[337] [The words medio, etc., are to be found in Ovid., Metam., lib. ii. line 137; the doctrine, Virtus est medium vitiorum, in Horace, Epist., lib. i, ep. xviii. line 9.]
In the damned line ('t is worth, at least, a curse)
Which I have examined too close.—[MS. erased.]
[GL] {274}Self-love that whetstone of Don Cupid's art.—[MS. A.]
[GM]—— with love despairs.—[MS. A. erased.]
[338] [Lady Noel's will was proved February 22, 1812. She left to the trustees a portrait of Byron ... with directions that it was not to be shown to his daughter Ada till she attained the age of twenty-one; but that if her mother was still living, it was not to be so delivered without Lady Byron's consent.—Letters, 1901, vi. 42, note 1.]
[GN] Which diddles you——.—[MS. A. erased.]
[GO] I'm a philosopher; G—d damn them all.—[MS. B.]
[GP] Bills, women, wives, dogs, horses and mankind.—[MS. B. erased.]
[GQ] {275}Is more than I know, and, so, damn them both.—[MS. A. erased.]
When we lie down—wife, spouse, or bachelor
By what we love not, to sigh for the light.—[MS. A. erased.]
[GS] By their infernal bedfellow——.—[MS. A. erased.]
[339] [The comparison of Queen Caroline to snow may be traced to an article in the Times of August 23, 1820: "The Queen may now, we believe, be considered as triumphing! For the first three years at least of her Majesty's painful peregrinations, she stands before her husband's admiring subjects 'as white as unsunned snows.'" Political bards and lampoonists of the king's party thanked the Times for "giving them that word."]
[340] {276} [According to Gronow (Reminiscences, 1889, i. 62), a practical joke of Dan Mackinnon's (vide ante, p. 69, footnote ) gave Byron a hint for this scene in the harem: "Lord Wellington was curious about visiting a convent near Lisbon, and the lady abbess made no difficulty. Mackinnon hearing this contrived to get clandestinely within the sacred walls ... at all events, when Lord Wellington arrived Dan Mackinnon was to be seen among the nuns, dressed out in their sacred costume, with his whiskers shaved; and, as he possessed good features, he was declared to be one of the best-looking among those chaste dames. It was supposed that this adventure, which was known to Lord Byron, suggested a similar episode in Don Juan."]
[341] [Caligula—vide Suetonius, De XII. Cæs., C. Cæs. Calig., cap, xxx., "Infensus turbæ faventi adversus studium exclamavit: 'Utinam populus Romanus unam cervicem haberet!'"]
[GT] My wish were general but no worse.—[MS. A. erased.]
[GU] That Womankind had only one—say heart.—[MS. A. erased.]
[342] {277}The ladies of the Seraglio.
[343] [Demetrius Cantemir, hospodar of Moldavia. His work, the History of the Growth and Decay of the Othman Empire, was translated into English by N. Tyndal, 1734. He died in 1723.]
[344] [Baron de Tott, in his Memoirs concerning the State of the Turkish Empire (1786, i. 72), gives the title of this functionary as Kiaya Kadun, i.e. Mistress or Governess of the Ladies.]
[345] {278} [The repetition of the same rhyme-word was noted in Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, July, 1823, vol. xiv. p. 90.]
[346] {279}
["I guess, 't was frightful there to see
A lady so richly clad as she—
Beautiful exceedingly."
Christabel, Part I. lines 66-68.]
[347] "It is in the adjacent climates of Georgia, Mingrelia, and Circassia, that nature has placed, at least to our eyes, the model of beauty, in the shape of the limbs, the colour of the skin, the symmetry of the features, and the expression of the countenance: the men are formed for action, the women for love."—Gibbon, [Decline and Fall, etc., 1825, iii 126.]
[348] {280}Padisha is the Turkish title of the Grand Signior.
[349] [Katinka was the name of the youngest sister of Theresa, the "Maid of Athens."—See letter to H. Drury, May 3, 1810, Letters, 1898, i. 269, note 1; and Poetical Works, 1900, iii. 15, note 1.
It is probable that the originals of Katinka and Dudù were two Circassians who were presented for sale to Nicolas Ernest Kleeman (see his Voyage de Vienne, etc., 1780, pp. 142, 143) at Kaffa, in the Crimea. Of the first he writes, "Elle me baisa la main, et par l'ordre de son maître, elle se promena en long et en large, pour me faire remarquer sa taille mince et aisée. Elle avoit un joli petit pied.... Quand elle a en ôté son voile elle a présenté à mes yeux une beauté très-attrayante; ses cheveux étoient blonds argentés; elle avoit de grands yeux bleux, le nez un peu long, et les lèvres appétissantes. Sa figure étoit régulière, son teint blanc, délicat, les joues couvertes d'un charmant vermilion.... La seconde étoit un peu petite, assez grasse, et avoit les cheveux roux, l'air sensuel et revenant." Kleeman pretended to offer terms, took notes, and retired. But the Circassians are before us still.]
[350] {281} [Macbeth, act ii. sc. 2, line 36.]
[GV] {284}By which no doubt its Baptism came to pass.—[MS. A. erased.]
[GW] The Devil in Hell might melt but never settle.—[MS. A. erased.]
[351] [Hence the title of the satire, The Age of Bronze.]
[GX] For Woman's silence startles more than thunder.—[MS. A. erased.]
[352] {287}[Compare Beppo, stanza xxii. line 2, Poetical Works, 1901, iv. 166, note 1.]
[GY] With no less true and feminine surprise.—[MS. A. erased.]
[353] {289}[Julius Cæsar, act iii. sc. II, line 216.]
["Nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vita
Mi ritrovai per una selva oscura," etc.
Inferno, Canto I, lines I, 2.]
Himself in an age when men grow good,
As Life's best half is done——.—[MS. A. erased.]
[HA] But out of reach—a most provoking sight.—[MS. A. erased.]
[HB] That ere her unreluctant lips could ope.—[MS. A.]
[355] {290}[One of the advocates employed for Queen Caroline in the House of Lords spoke of some of the most puzzling passages in the history of her intercourse with Bergami, as amounting to "odd instances of strange coincidence."—Ed. 1833, xvi. 160.]
[HC] {291}At least as red as the Flamingo's breast.—[MS. A. erased.]
[356] {292}[Byron used Kaff for Caucasus, vide ante, English Bards, etc., line 1022, Poetical Works, 1898, i. 378, note 3. But there may be some allusion to the fabulous Kaff, "anciently imagined by the Asiatics to surround the world, to bind the horizon on all sides." There was a proverb "From Kaf to Kaf," i.e. "the wide world through." See, too, D'Herbelot's Bibliothèque Orientale, 1697, art. "Caf."]
[357] [See L.A. Seneca, De Irâ, lib. ii. cap. 25.]
[HD] {293}
Oh thou her lawful grandson Alexander
Let not this quality offend——.—[MS. A. erased.]
[358] [Compare The Age of Bronze, lines 434, sq., Poetical Works, 1901, v. 563, note 1.]
[HE] {294}To call a man a whoreson——.—[MS. A. erased.]
[HF] But a man's grandmother is deemed fair game.—[MS. A.]
[359] [It is probable that Byron knew that there was a "hint of illegitimacy" in his own pedigree. John Byron of Clayton, grandfather of Richard the second Lord Byron, was born, out of wedlock, to Elizabeth, daughter of William Costerden, of Blakesley, in Lancashire, widow to George Halgh of Halgh (sic), and second wife of Sir John Byron of Clayton, "little Sir John with the great beard." He succeeded to Newstead and the Lancashire estates, not as heir-at-law, but by deed of gift. (See letter to Murray, October 20, 1820, Letters, 1901, v. 99, note 2.)]
[360] {295}[Aubry de la Motraye, in describing the interior of the Grand Signior's palace, into which he gained admission as the assistant of a watchmaker who was employed to regulate the clocks, says that the eunuch who received them at the entrance of the harem, conducted them into a hall: "Cette salle est incrustee de porcelaines fines; et le lambris doré et azuré qui orne le fond d'une coupole qui regne au-dessus, est des plus riches.... Une fontaine artificielle et jaillissante, dont le bassin est d'un prétieux marbre verd qui m'a paru serpentin ou jaspe, s'élevoit directement au milieu, sous le dôme.... Je me trouvai la tête si pleine de Sophas de prétieux plafonds, de meubles superbes, en un mot, d'une si grande confusion de matériaux magnifiques, ... qu'il seroit difficile d'en donner une idée claire."—Voyages, 1727, i. 220, 222.]
[361] {296}["Il n'ya point de Religieuses ... point de novices, plus soumises à la volonté de leur abbesse que ces filles [les Odaliques] le sont à leurs maitresses."—A. de la Motraye, Voyages, 1727, i. 338.]
[HG] {297}
——— though seen not heard
For it is silent.—[MS. A. erased.]
[362] ["How fares my Kate? What! sweeting, all amort?"—Taming of the Shrew, act iv. sc. 3, line 36. "Amort" is said to be a corruption of à la mort. Byron must have had in mind his silent ecstasy of grief when the Countess Guiccioli endeavoured to break the announcement of Allegra's death (April, 1822). "'I understand,' said he; 'it is enough; say no more.' A mortal paleness spread itself over his face, his strength failed him, and he sunk into a seat. His look was fixed, and the expression such that I began to fear for his reason; he did not shed a tear" (Life, p. 368).]
[363] {299}["His guilty soul, at enmity with gods and men, could find no rest; so violently was his mind torn and distracted by a consciousness of guilt. Accordingly his countenance was pale, his eyes ghastly, his pace one while quick, another slow [citus modo, modo tardus incessus]; indeed, in all his looks there was an air of distraction."—Sallust, Catilina, cap. xv. sf.]
