Chapter 8

[hu] {244} _Oh! he could bear no more--but madly grasped_ _Her form--and trembling there his own unclasped_.--[MS.]

[205] {247} By night, particularly in a warm latitude, every stroke of the oar, every motion of the boat or ship, is followed by a slight flash like sheet lightning from the water.

[206] {248} [Cape Gallo is at least eight miles to the south of Corone; but Point Lividia, the promontory on which part of the town is built, can hardly be described as a "jutting cape," or as (see line 1623) a "giant shape."]

[207] {249} [Coron, or Corone, the ancient Colonides, is situated a little to the north of a promontory, Point Lividia, on the western shore of the Gulf of Kalamata, or Coron, or Messenia.

Antoine Louis Castellan (1772-1838), with whose larger work on Turkey Byron professed himself familiar (Letter to Moore, August 28, 1813), gives a vivid description of Coron and the bey's palace in his _Lettres sur la Morée, etc_. (first published, Paris, 1808), 3 vols., 1820. Whether Byron had or had not consulted the "Letters," the following passages may help to illustrate the scene:--

"La châine caverneuse du Taygete s'élève en face de Coron, à l'autre extrémité du golfe" (iii. 181).

"Nous avons aussi été faire une visite au bey, qui nous a permis de parcourir la citadelle" (p. 187).

"Le bey fait a exécuter en notre présence une danse singuliére, qu'on peut nommer danse pantomime" (p. 189; see line 642).

"La maison est assez bien distribuée et proprement meublée à la manière des Turcs. La principale pièce est grande, ornée d'une boisserie ciselée sur les dessins arabesques, et même marquetée. Les fenêtres donnent sur le jardin ... les volets sont ordinairement fermés, dans le milieu de la journée, et le jour ne pénètre alors qu'a travers des ouvertures pratiquées, au dessus des fenêtres et garnis de vitraux colorés" (p. 200).

Castellan saw the palace and bay illuminated (p. 203).]

[208] {250} Coffee.

[209] "Chibouque" [chibûk], pipe.

[210] {251} Dancing girls. [Compare _The Waltz_, line 127, _Poetical Works_, 1898, i. 492, note 1.]

[211] It has been observed, that Conrad's entering disguised as a spy is out of nature. Perhaps so. I find something not unlike it in history.--"Anxious to explore with his own eyes the state of the Vandals, Majorian ventured, after disguising the colour of his hair, to visit Carthage in the character of his own ambassador; and Genseric was afterwards mortified by the discovery, that he had entertained and dismissed the Emperor of the Romans. Such an anecdote may be rejected as an improbable fiction; but it is a fiction which would not have been imagined unless in the life of a hero."--See Gibbon's _Decline and Fall_ [1854, iv. 272.]

[212] {252} [On the coast of Asia Minor, twenty-one miles south of Smyrna.]

[213] [A Levantine bark--"a kind of ketch without top-gallant sail, or mizzen-top sail."]

[214] {254} [Compare the _Giaour_, line 343, note 2; _vide ante_, p. 102.]

[215] The Dervises [Dervish, Persian _darvesh_, poor] are in colleges, and of different orders, as the monks.

[216] {255} "Zatanai," Satan. [Probably a phonetic rendering o [Greek: satana(s).] The Turkish form would be _sheytan_. Compare letter to Moore, April 9, 1814, _Letters_, 1899, iii. 66, note 1.]

[217] {256} A common and not very novel effect of Mussulman anger. See Prince Eugene's _Mémoires_, 1811, p. 6, "The Seraskier received a wound in the thigh; he plucked up his beard by the roots, because he was obliged to quit the field." ["Le séraskier est blessé a la cuisse; il s'arrache la barbe, parce qu'il est obligé de fuir." A contemporary translation (Sherwood, Neely, and Jones, 1811), renders "il s'arrache la barbe" _he tore out the arrow_.]

[218] {257} Gulnare, a female name; it means, literally, the flower of the pomegranate.

[219] {259} [The word "to" had been left out by the printer, and in a late revise Byron supplies the omission, and writes--

"To Mr. Murray or Mr. Davison.

"Do not omit words--it is quite enough to alter or mis-spell them.

"Bn."

In the MS. the line ran--

"To send his soul--he scarcely cared to Heaven."

"Asked" is written over in pencil, but "cared" has not been erased.]

[220] {261} [Compare--"One _anarchy_, one _chaos_ of the _mind_." _The Wanderer_, by Richard Savage, Canto V. (1761, p. 86).]

[221] {262} [Compare--"That hideous sight, a _naked_ human heart." _Night Thoughts_, by Edward Young (Night III.) (Anderson's _British Poets_, x. 71).]

[222] {263} [Compare--

"When half the world lay wrapt in sleepless night, A jarring sound the startled hero wakes. * * * * * He hears a step draw near--in beauty's pride A female comes--wide floats her glistening gown-- Her hand sustains a lamp...." Wieland's _Oberon_, translated by W. Sotheby,