Chapter 7

"Giace l'alta Cartago; appena i segni Dell' alte sue ruini il lido serba. Muojono le città; muojono i regni: Copre i fasti, e le pompe, arena ed erba; E l'uom d'esser mortal par cue si sdegni!"

Compare, too, Addison's "Reflections in Westminster Abbey," _Spectator_, No. 26.]

[153] [The six days' journey from Zitza to Tepeleni is compressed into a single stanza. The vale (line 3) may be that of the Kalama, through which the travellers passed (October 13) soon after leaving Zitza, or, more probably, the plain of Deropoli ("well-cultivated, divided by rails and low hedges, and having a river flowing through it to the south"), which they crossed (October 15) on their way from Delvinaki, the frontier village of Illyria, to Libokhovo.]

[154] {134} ["Yclad," used as a preterite, not a participle (compare Coleridge's "I wis" [_Christabel_, part i. line 92]), is a Byronism--"archaisme incorrect," says M. Darmesteter.]

[155] ["During the fast of the Ramazan, ... the gallery of each minaret is decorated with a circlet of small lamps. When seen from a distance, each minaret presents a point of light, 'like meteors in the sky;' and in a large city, where they are numerous, they resemble a swarm of fireflies."--H.F. Tozer. (Compare _The Giaour_, i. 449-452--

"When Rhamazan's last sun was set, And flashing from each minaret. Millions of lamps proclaimed the feast Of Bairam through the boundless East.")]

[156] {135} ["A kind of dervish or recluse ... regarded as a saint."--_Cent. Dict._, art. "Santon."]

[fe] ----_guests and vassals wait_.--[MS. erased.]

[ff] _While the deep Tocsin's sound_----.--[MS. D. erased.]

[157] {136} ["We were disturbed during the night by the perpetual carousal which seemed to be kept up in the gallery, and by the drum, and the voice of the 'muezzinn,' or chanter, calling the Turks to prayers from the minaret of the mosck attached to the palace. This chanter was a boy, and he sang out his hymn is a sort of loud melancholy recitative. He was a long time repeating the Eraun. The first exclamation was repeated four times, the remaining words twice; and the long and piercing note in which he concluded his confession of faith, by twice crying out the word 'hou!' ['At solemn sound of "Alla Hu!"' _Giaour_, i. 734] still rings in my ears."--Hobhouse's _Travels in Albania_, i. 95. D'Ohsonn gives the Eraun at full length: "Most high God! [four times repeated]. I acknowledge that there is no other God except God! I acknowledge that there is no other God except God! I acknowledge that Mohammed is the prophet of God! Come to prayer! Come to prayer! Come to the temple of salvation! Come to the temple of salvation! Great God! great God! There is no God except God!"--_Oriental Antiquities_ (Philadelphia, 1788), p. 341.]

[158] {137} ["The Ramazan, or Turkish Lent, which, as it occurs in each of the thirteen months in succession, fell this year in October ... Although during this month the strictest abstinence, even from tobacco and coffee, is observed in the daytime, yet with the setting of the sun the feasting commences."--_Travels in Albania_, i. 66. "The Ramadan or Rhamazan is the ninth month of the Mohammedan year. As the Mohammedans reckon by lunar time, it begins each year eleven days earlier than in the preceding year, so that in thirty-three years it occurs successively in all the seasons."--_Imp. Dictionary_.]

[159] [The feast was spread within the courtyard, "in the part farthest from the dwelling," and when the revelry began the "immense large gallery" or corridor, which ran along the front of the palace and was open on one side to the court, was deserted. "Opening into the gallery were the doors of several apartments," and as the servants passed in and out, the travellers standing in the courtyard could hear the sound of voices.--_Travels in Albania_, i. 93.]

[fg] {138} ----_even for health to move_.--[MS.] _She saves for one_----.--[MS. erased.]

[fh] _For boyish minions of unhallowed love_ _The shameless torch of wild desire is lit_, _Caressed, preferred even to woman's self above_, _Whose forms for Nature's gentler errors fit_ _All frailties mote excuse save that which they commit_. --[MS. D. erased.]

[160] [For an account of Ali Pasha (1741-1822), see _Letters_, 1898, i. 246, note.]

[161] [In a letter to his mother, November 12, 1809, Byron writes, "He [Ali] said he was certain I was a man of birth, because I had small ears, curling hair, and little white hands. ... He told me to consider him as a father whilst I was in Turkey, and said he looked on me as his son. Indeed, he treated me like a child, sending me almonds and sugared sherbet, fruit and sweetmeats, twenty times a day." Many years after, in the first letter _On Bowles' Strictures_, February 7, 1821, he introduces a reminiscence of Ali: "I never judge from manners, for I once had my pocket picked by the civillest gentleman I ever met with; and one of the mildest persons I ever saw was Ali Pasha" (_Life_, p. 689).]

[fi] {139} _Delights to mingle with the lips of youth_.--[MS. D. erased.]

[162] [Anacreon sometimes bewails, but more often defies old age. (_Vide_ Carmina liv., xi., xxxiv.)

The paraphrase "Teian Muse" recurs in the song, "The Isles of Greece," _Don Juan_, Canto III.]

[fj] _But 'tis those ne'er forgotten acts of ruth_.--[MS. D.]

[163] [In the first edition the reading (see _var_. ii.) is, "But crimes, those ne'er forgotten crimes of ruth." The mistake was pointed out in the _Quarterly Review_ (March, 1812, No. 13, vol. vii. p. 193).

But in Spenser "ruth" means sorrow as well as pity, and three weeks after _Childe Harold_ was published, Ali committed a terrible crime, the outcome of an early grief. On March 27, 1812, in revenge for wrongs done to his mother and sister nearly thirty years before, he caused 670 Gardhikiots to be massacred in the khan of Valiare, and followed up the act of treachery by sacking, plundering, and burning the town of Gardiki, and, "in direct violation of the Mohammedan law," carrying off and reducing to slavery the women and children.--Finlay's _Hist. of Greece_ (edited by Rev. H. F. Tozer, 1877), vi. 67, 68.]

[fk] {140} _Those who in blood begin in blood conclude their span_.--[MS. erased.]

[164] [This was prophetic. "On the 5th of February, 1822, a meeting took place between Ali and Mohammed Pasha.... When Mohammed rose to depart, the two viziers, being of equal rank, moved together towards the door.... As they parted Ali bowed low to his visitor, and Mohammed, seizing the moment when the watchful eye of the old man was turned away, drew his hanjar, and plunged it in Ali's heart. He walked on calmly to the gallery, and said to the attendants, 'Ali of Tepalen is dead.' ... The head of Ali was exposed at the gate of the serai."--Finlay's _Hist. of Greece_, 1877, vi. 94, 95.]

[fl] _Childe Harold with that chief held colloquy_ _Yet what they spake it boots not to repeat;_ _Converse may little charm strange ear or eye;_ _Albeit he rested on that spacious seat,_ _Of Moslem luxury the choice retreat_.--[MS. D. erased.] _Four days he rested on that worthy seat_.-[MS. erased.]

[165] {141} [The travellers left Janina on November 3, and reached Prevesa November 7. At midday November 9 they set sail for Patras in a galliot of Ali's, "a vessel of about fifty tons burden, with three short masts and a large lateen sail." Instead of doubling Cape Ducato, they were driven out to sea northward, and, finally, at one o'clock in the morning, anchored off the Port of Phanari on the Suliote coast. Towards the evening of the next day (November 10) they landed in "the marshy bay" (stanza lxviii. line 2) and rode to Volondorako, where they slept. "Here they were well received by the Albanian primate of the place and by the Vizier's soldiers quartered there." Instead of re-embarking in the galliot, they returned to Prevesa by land (November 11). As the country to the north of the Gulf of Arta was up in arms, and bodies of robbers were abroad, they procured an escort of thirty-seven Albanians, hired another galliot, and on Monday, the 13th, sailed across the entrance of the gulf as far as the fortress of Vonitsa, where they anchored for the night. By four o'clock in the afternoon of November 14 they reached Utraikey or Lutraki, "situated in a deep bay surrounded with rocks at the south-east corner of the Gulf of Arta." The courtyard of a barrack on the shore is the scene of the song and dance (stanzas lxx.-lxxii.). Here, in the original MS., the pilgrimage abruptly ends, and in the remaining stanzas the Childe moralizes on the fallen fortunes and vanished heroism of Greece.--_Travels in Albania_, i. 157-165.]

[166] {143} [The route from Utraikey to Gouria (November 15-18) lay through "thick woods of oak," with occasional peeps of the open cultivated district of Ætolia on the further side of the Aspropotamo, "white Achelous' tide." The Albanian guard was not dismissed until the travellers reached Mesolonghi (November 21).]

[167] [With this description Mr. Tozer compares Virgil, _Æneid_, i. 159-165, and Tasso's imitation in _Gerus. Lib._, canto xv. stanzas 42, 43. The following lines from Hoole's translation (_Jerusalem Delivered_, bk. xv. lines 310, 311, 317, 318) may be cited:--

"Amidst these isles a lone recess is found, Where circling shores the subject flood resound ... Within the waves repose in peace serene; Black forests nod above, a silvan scene!"]

[168] {144} ["In the evening the gates were secured, and preparations were made for feeding our Albanians. A goat was killed and roasted whole, and four fires were kindled in the yard, round which the soldiers seated themselves in parties. After eating and drinking, the greater part of them assembled round the largest of the fires, and, whilst ourselves and the elders of the party were seated on the ground, danced round the blaze to their own songs, in the manner before described, but with astonishing energy. All their songs were relations of some robbing exploits. One of them ... began thus: 'When we set out from Parga there were sixty of us!' then came the burden of the verse--

'Robbers all at Parga! Robbers all at Parga!' Κλέφτεις ποτὲ Πάργα! [Kle/phteis pote\ Pa/rga!] Κλέφτεις ποτὲ Πάργα! [Kle/phteis pote\ Pa/rga!]

And as they roared out this stave, they whirled round the fire, dropped, and rebounded from their knees, and again whirled round as the chorus was again repeated."--_Travels in Albania_, i. 166, 167.]

[169] {145} [This was not Byron's first experience of an Albanian war-song. At Salakhora, on the Gulf of Arta (nine miles north-east of Prevesa), which he reached on October 1, the Albanian guard at the custom-house entertained the travellers by "singing some songs." "The music is extremely monotonous and nasal; and the shrill scream of their voices was increased by each putting his hand behind his ear and cheek, to give more force to the sound."--_Travels in Albania_, i. 28.

Long afterwards, in 1816, one evening, on the Lake of Geneva, Byron entertained Shelley, Mary, and Claire with "an Albanian song." They seem to have felt that such melodies "unheard are sweeter." Hence, perhaps, his _petit nom_, "Albè," that is, the "Albaneser."--_Life of Shelley_, by Edward Dowden, 1896, p. 309.]

[170] {146} [Tambourgi, "drummer," a Turkish word, formed by affixing the termination _-gi_, which signifies "one who discharges any occupation," to the French _tambour_ (H. F. Tozer, _Childe Harold_, p. 246).]

[fm] ----_thy tocsin afar_.--[MS. D. erased.]

[171] [The _camese_ is the _fustanella_ or white kilt of the Toska, a branch of the Albanian, or Shkipetar, race. Spenser has the forms "camis," "camus." The Arabic _quamīç_ occurs in the Koran, but is thought to be an adaptation of the Latin _camisia, camisa_.--Finlay's _Hist, of Greece_, vi. 39; _N. Eng. Dict._, art. "Camis." (For "capote," _vide post_, p. 181.)]

[fn] _Shall the sons of Chimæra_----.--[MS. D.]

[172] [The Suliotes, after a protracted and often successful resistance, were finally reduced by Ali, in December, 1803. They are adjured to forget their natural desire for vengeance, and to unite with the Albanians against their common foe, the Russians.]

[fo] {147} _Shall win the young minions_----.--[MS. D.]

[fp] ----_the maid and the youth_.--[MS.]

[fq] _Their caresses shall lull us, their voices shall soothe_.--[MS. D. erased.]

[173] {148} [So, too, at Salakhora (October 1): "One of the songs was on the taking of Prevesa, an exploit of which the Albanians are vastly proud; and there was scarcely one of them in which the name of Ali Pasha was not roared out and dwelt upon with peculiar energy."--_Travels in Albania_, i. 29.

Prevesa, which, with other Venetian possessions, had fallen to the French in 1797, was taken in the Sultan's name by Ali, in October, 1798. The troops in the garrison (300 French, 460 Greeks) encountered and were overwhelmed by 5000 Albanians, on the plain of Nicopolis. The victors entered and sacked the town.]

[174] [Ali's eldest son, Mukhtar, the Pasha of Berat, had been sent against the Russians, who, in 1809, invaded the trans-Danubian provinces of the Ottoman Empire.]

[175] Yellow is the epithet given to the Russians.

[176] Infidel.

[177] The insignia of a Pacha.

[178] {149} [The literal meaning of Delhi or Deli, is, says M. Darmesteter, "fou" ["properly madmen" (D'Herbelot)], a title bestowed on Turkish warriors _honoris causû_. Byron suggests "forlorn hope" as an equivalent; but there is a wide difference between the blood-drunkenness of the Turk and the "foolishness" of British chivalry.]

[179] Sword-bearer.

[fr] _Tambourgi! thy tocsin_----.--[MS. D. erased]

[180] [Compare "The Isles of Greece," stanza 7 (_Don Juan_, Canto III.)--

"Earth! render back from out thy heart A remnant of our Spartan dead! Of the three hundred grant but three To make a new Thermopylæ!"

The meaning is, "When shall another Lysander spring from Laconia ('Eurotas' banks') and revive the heroism of the ancient Spartans?"]

[fs] {150} _A fawning feeble race, untaught, enslaved, unmanned_.--[MS. erased.]

[ft] ----_fair Liberty_.--[MS. erased, D.]

[181] {151} [Compare _The Age of Bronze_, vi. lines 39-46.]

[182] [The Wahabees, who took their name from the Arab sheik Mohammed ben Abd-el-Wahab, arose in the province of Nedj, in Central Arabia, about 1760. Half-socialists, half-puritans, they insisted on fulfilling to the letter the precepts of the Koran. In 1803-4 they attacked and ravaged Mecca and Medinah, and in 1808 they invaded Syria and took Damascus. During Byron's residence in the East they were at the height of their power, and seemed to threaten the very existence of the Turkish empire.]

[183] {152} [Byron spent two months in Constantinople (Stamboul, i.e. εἰς τὴν πόλιν [ei)s tê po/lin])--from May 14 to July 14, 1810. The "Lenten days," which were ushered in by a carnival, were those of the second "great" Lent of the Greek Church, that of St. Peter and St. Paul, which begins on the first Monday after Trinity, and ends on the 29th of June.]

[184] {153} [These _al-fresco_ festivities must, it is presumed, have taken place on the two days out of the seven when you "might not 'damn the climate' and complain of the spleen." Hobhouse records excursions to the Valley of Sweet Waters; to Belgrade, where "the French minister gave a sort of _fête-champêtre_," when "the carousal lasted four days," and when "night after night is kept awake by the pipes, tabors, and fiddles of these moonlight dances;" and to the grove of Fanar-Baktchesi.--_Travels in Albania_, ii. 242-258.]

[185] ["There's nothing like young Love, No! No! There's nothing like young love at last."]

[186] {154} [It has been assumed that "searment" is an incorrect form of "cerement," the cloth dipped "in melting wax, in which dead bodies were enfolded when embalmed" (_Hamlet_, act i. sc. 4), but the sense of the passage seems rather to point to "cerecloth," "searcloth," a plaster to cover up a wound. The "robe of revel" does but half conceal the sore and aching heart.]

[187] [For the accentuation of the word, compare Chaucer, "The Sompnour's Tale" (_Canterbury Tales_, line 7631)--

"And dronkennesse is eke a foul recórd Of any man, and namely of a lord."]

[fu] _When Athens' children are with arts endued_.--[MS. D.]

[188] [Compare _Ecclus._ xliv. 8, 9: "There be of them, that have left a name behind them, that their praises might be reported. And some there be, which have no memorial; who are perished, as though they had never been."]

[189] {156} [The "solitary column" may be that on the shore of the harbour of Colonna, in the island of Kythnos (Thermia), or one of the detached columns of the Olympeion.]

[190] [Tritonia, or Tritogenia, one of Athena's names of uncertain origin. Hofmann's _Lexicon Universale_, Tooke's _Pantheon_, and Smith's _Classical Dictionary_ are much in the same tale. Lucan (_Pharsalia_, lib. ix. lines 350-354) derives the epithet from Lake Triton, or Tritonis, on the Mediterranean coast of Libya--

"Hanc et Pallas amat: patrio quæ vertice nata Terrarum primum Libyen (nam proxima coelo est, Ut probat ipse calor) tetigit, stagnique quietâ Vultus vidit aquâ, posuitque in margine plantas, Et se dilectâ Tritonida dixit ab undâ."]

[191] [Hobhouse dates the first visit to Cape Colonna, January 24, 1810.]

[192] {157} [Athené's dower of the olive induced the gods to appoint her as the protector and name-giver of Athens. Poseidon, who had proffered a horse, was a rejected candidate. (See note by Rev. E. C. Owen, _Childe Harold_, 1897, p. 175.)]

[193] ["The wild thyme is in great abundance; but there are only two stands of bee-hives on the mountains, and very little of the real honey of Hymettus is to be now procured at Athens.... A small pot of it was shown to me as a rarity" (_Travels in Albania_, i. 341). There is now, a little way out of Athens, a "honey-farm, where the honey from Hymettus is prepared for sale" (_Handbook for Greece_, p. 500).]

[fv] ----_Pentele's marbles glare_.--[MS. D. erased.]

[194] [Stanzas lxxxviii.-xc. are not in the MS., but were first included in the seventh edition, 1814.]

[195] [Byron and Hobhouse, after visiting Colonna, slept at Keratéa, and proceeded to Marathon on January 25, returning to Athens on the following day.]

[fw] {158} _Preserve alike its form_----.--[MS. L.]

[fx] _When uttered to the listener's eye_----.--[MS. L.]

[fy] _The host, the plain, the fight_----.--[MS. L.]

[fz] _The shattered Mede who flies with broken bow_.--[MS. L.]

[196] ["The plain of Marathon is enclosed on three sides by the rocky arms of Parnes and Pentelicus, while the fourth is bounded by the sea." After the first rush, when the victorious wings, where the files were deep, had drawn together and extricated the shallower and weaker centre, which had been repulsed by the Persians and the Sakæ, "the pursuit became general, and the Persians were chased to their ships, ranged in line along the shore. Some of them became involved in the impassable marsh, and there perished." (See _Childe Harold_, edited by H. F. Tozer, 1885, p. 253; Grote's _History of Greece_, iv. 276. See, too, _Travels in Albania_, i. 378-384.)]

[ga] _To tell what Asia troubled but to hear_.--[MS. L.]

[197] [See note to Canto II. stanzas i.-xv., pp. 99, 100.]

[gb] _Long to the remnants_--.----[D.]

[198] [The "Ionian blast" is the western wind that brings the voyager across the Ionian Sea.]

[199] {160} [The original MS. closes with this stanza.]

[gc] _Which heeds nor stern reproach_----.--[D.]

[gd] {161}_Would I had ne'er returned_----.--[D.]

[200] "To Mr. Dallas. The 'he' refers to 'Wanderer' and anything is better than _I I I I_ always _I_. Yours, BYRON." [4th Revise B.M.]

[ge] _But Time the Comforter shall come at last_.--[MS. erased.]

[201] [Compare Young's _Night Thoughts_ ("The Complaint," Night i.). _Vide ante_, p. 95.]

[gf]

_Though Time not yet hath ting'd my locks with snow,_[§] _Yet hath he reft whate'er my soul enjoy'd_.--[D.]

[§] "To Mr. Dallas.

If Mr. D. wishes me to adopt the former line so be it. I prefer the other I confess, it has less egotism--the first sounds affected.

Yours,

B."

[Dallas assented, and directed the printer to let the Roll stand.]

* * * * *

NOTES TO CHILDE HAROLD'S PILGRIMAGE.