Chapter 22

[193] {156}[For some admirable stanzas in the metre and style of _Beppo_, by W.S. Rose, who passed the winter of 1817-18 in Venice, and who sent them to Byron from Albaro in the spring of 1818, see _Letters_, 1900 iv. 211-214, note 1.]

[194] {159}[The MS. of _Beppo_, in Byron's handwriting, is now in the possession of Captain the Hon. F. L. King Noel. It is dated October 10, 1817.]

[195] [The use of "persuasion" as a synonime for "religion," is, perhaps, of American descent. Thomas Jefferson, in his first inaugural address as President of U.S.A., speaks "of whatever state or persuasion, political or religious." At the beginning of the nineteenth century theological niceties were not regarded, and the great gulph between a religion and a sect or party was imperfectly discerned. Hence the solecism.]

[196] [Compare the lines which Byron enclosed in a letter to Moore, dated December 24, 1816 (_Letters_, 1900, iv. 30)--

"But the Carnival's coming, Oh Thomas Moore, * * * * * Masking and humming, Fifing and drumming, Guitarring and strumming, Oh Thomas Moore."]

[197] {160}[Monmouth Street, now absorbed in Shaftesbury Avenue (west side), was noted throughout the eighteenth century for the sale of second-hand clothes. Compare--

"Thames Street gives cheeses, Covent Garden fruits, Moorfields old books, and Monmouth Street old suits."

Gay's _Trivia_, ii. 547, 548.

Rag Fair or Rosemary Lane, now Royal Mint Street, was the Monmouth Street of the City. Compare--

"Where wave the tattered ensigns of Rag Fair."

Pope's _Dunciad_, i. 29, _var_.

The Arcade, or "Piazza," so called, which was built by Inigo Jones in 1652, ran along the whole of the north and east sides of the _Piazza_ or Square of Covent Garden. The Arcade on the north side is still described as the "Piazzas."--_London Past and Present_, by H. B. Wheatley, 1891, i. 461, ii. 554, iii. 145.]

[198] {162}["At Florence I remained but a day.... What struck me most was ... the mistress of Titian, a portrait; a Venus of Titian in the Medici Gallery ..."--Letter to Murray, April 27, 1817, _Letters_, 1900, iv. 113. Compare, too, _Childe Harold_, Canto IV. stanza xlix. line i, _Poetical Works_, 1899, ii. 365, note 2.]

[199] ["I know nothing of pictures myself, and care almost as little: but to me there are none like the Venetian--above all, Giorgione. I remember well his Judgment of Solomon in the Mareschalchi Gallery [in the Via Delle Asse, formerly celebrated for its pictures] in Bologna."--Letter to William Bankes, February 26, 1820, _Letters_, 1900, iv. 411.]

[200] ["I also went over the Manfrini Palace, famous for its pictures. Among them, there is a portrait of Ariosto by Titian [now in the possession of the Earl of Rosebery], surpassing all my anticipations of the power of painting or human expression: it is the poetry of portrait, and the portrait of poetry. There was also one of some learned lady, centuries old, whose name I forget, but whose features must always be remembered. I never saw greater beauty, or sweetness, or wisdom:--it is the kind of face to go mad for, because it cannot walk out of its frame.... What struck me most in the general collection was the extreme resemblance of the style of the female faces in the mass of pictures, so many centuries or generations old, to those you see and meet every day amongst the existing Italians. The Queen of Cyprus and Giorgione's wife, particularly the latter, are Venetians as it were of yesterday; the same eyes and expression, and, to my mind, there is none finer,"--Letter to Murray, April 14, 1817, _Letters_, 1900, iv. 105. The picture which caught Byron's fancy was the so-called _Famiglia di Giorgione_, which was removed from the Manfrini Palace in 1856, and is now in the Palazzo Giovanelli. It represents "an almost nude woman, probably a gipsy, seated with a child in her lap, and a standing warrior gazing upon her, a storm breaking over the landscape."--_Handbook of Painting_, by Austen H. Layard, 1891, part ii. p. 553.]

[201] {163}[According to Vasari and others, Giorgione (Giorgio Barbarelli, b. 1478) was never married. He died of the plague, A.D. 1511.]

[202] {164} "Quæ septem dici, sex tanien esse solent."--Ovid., [_Fastorum_, lib. iv. line 170.]

[202A] [Carlo Goldoni (1707-1793). His play, _Belisarius_, was first performed November 24, 1734; _Le Bourru Bienfaisant_, November 4, 1771. _La Bottega del Caffé_, _La Locandiera, etc_., still hold the stage. His _Mémoires_ were published in 1787.]

[202B] ["Look to't: * * * * * In Venice they do let heaven see the pranks They dare not show their husbands; their best conscience Is not to leave't undone, but keep't unknown."

_Othello_, act iii. sc. 3, lines 206-208.]

[203] {165}[Compare--

"An English lady asked of an Italian, What were the actual and official duties Of the strange thing, some women set a value on, Which hovers oft about some married beauties, Called 'Cavalier Servente,' a Pygmalion Whose statues warm (I fear, alas! too true 't is) Beneath his art. The dame, pressed to disclose them, Said--'Lady, I beseech you to _suppose them_.'"

_Don Juan_, Canto IX. stanza li.

A critic, in the _Monthly Review_ (March, 1818, vol. lxxxv. p. 286), took Byron to task for omitting the _e_ in _Cavaliere_. In a letter to Murray, April 17, 1818, he shows that he is right, and takes his revenge on the editor (George Edward) Griffiths, and his "scribbler Mr. Hodgson."--_Letters_, 1900, iv. 226.]

[204] ["An English abbreviation. Rialto is the name, not of the bridge, but of the island from which it is called; and the Venetians say, _Il ponti di Rialto_, as we say Westminster Bridge. In that island is the Exchange; and I have often walked there as on classic ground.... 'I Sopportichi,' says Sansovino, writing in 1580 [_Venetia_, 1581, p. 134], 'sono ogni giorno frequentati da i mercatanti Fiorentini, Genovesi, Milanesi, Spagnuoli, Turchi, e d'altre nationi diverse del mondo, i quali vi concorrono in tanta copia, che questa piazza è annoverata fra le prime dell' universo.' It was there that the Christian held discourse with the Jew; and Shylock refers to it when he says--

"'Signer Antonio, many a time and oft, In the Rialto you have rated me.'

'Andiamo a Rialto,'--' L'ora di Rialto,' were on every tongue; and continue so to the present day, as we learn from the Comedies of Goldoni, and particularly from his _Mercanti_."--Note to the _Brides of Venice_, Poems, by Samuel Rogers, 1852, ii. 88, 89. See, too, _Childe Harold_, Canto IV. stanza iv. line 6, _Poetical Works_, 1899, ii. 331.]

[205] {166}[Compare "At the epoch called a certain age she found herself an old maid."--Jane Porter, _Thaddeus of Warsaw_ (1803), cap. xxxviii. (See _N. Eng. Dict_., art. "Certain.")

Ugo Foscolo, in his article in the _Quarterly Review_, April, 1819, vol. xxi. pp. 486-556, quotes these lines in illustration of a stanza from Forteguerri's _Ricciardetto_, iv. 2--

Quando si giugne ad una certa età, Ch'io non voglio descrivervi qual è," etc.]

[206] {167}[A clean bill of health after quarantine. Howell spells the word "pratic," and Milton "pratticke."]

[207] Beppo is the "Joe" of the Italian Joseph.

[208] {168}["The general state of morals here is much the same as in the Doges' time; a woman is virtuous (according to the code) who limits herself to her husband and one lover; those who have two, three, or more, are a little wild; but it is only those who are indiscriminately diffuse, and form a low connection ... who are considered as over-stepping the modesty of marriage.... There is no convincing a woman here, that she is in the smallest degree deviating from the rule of right, or the fitness of things, in having an _Amoroso._"--Letter to Murray, January 2, 1817, _Letters,_ 1900, iv. 40, 41.]

[bk] {169}

_A Count of wealth inferior to his quality,_ _Which somewhat limited his liberality_.--[MS.]

[209]["Some of the Italians liked him [a famous improvisatore], others called his performance '_seccatura_' (a devilish good word, by the way), and all Milan was in controversy about him."--Letter to Moore, November 6, 1816, _Letters_, 1899, iii. 384.]

[210] {170}[The saying, "Il n'y a point de héros pour son valet de chambre," is attributed to Maréchal (Nicholas) Catinat (1637-1712). His biographer speaks of presenting "_le héros en déshabillé_." (See his _Mémoires_, 1819, ii. 118.)]

[211] {171}[The origin of the word is obscure. According to the _Vocab. della Crusca_, "cicisbeo" is an inversion of "bel cece," beautiful chick (pea). Pasqualino, cited by Diez, says it is derived from the French _chiche beau_.--_N. Eng. Dict._, art. "Cicisbeo."]

[212] Cortejo is pronounced Corte_h_o, with an aspirate, according to the Arabesque guttural. It means what there is as yet no precise name for in England, though the practice is as common as in any tramontane country whatever.

[213] [Stanzas xxxviii., xxxix., are not in the original MS.]

[214] {172}[For the association of bread and butter with immaturity, compare, "Ye bread-and-butter rogues, do ye run from me?" (Beaumont and Fletcher, _The Humorous Lieutenant_, act iii. sc. 7). (See _N. Eng. Dict._, art. "Bread.")]

[215] {173}[Compare--

" ... the Tuscan's siren tongue? That music in itself, whose sounds are song, The poetry of speech?"

_Childe Harold,_ Canto IV. stanza lviii. lines 4-6, _Poetical Works,_ 1899, ii. 374, note i.]

[216] _Sattin,_ eh? Query, I can't spell it.--[MS.]

[bl] _From the tall peasant with her ruddy bronze_.--[MS.]

[bm] _Like her own clime, all sun, and bloom, and skies_.--[MS.]

[217] {174}[For the received accounts of the cause of Raphael's death, see his Lives. "Fidem matrimonii quidem dederat nepti cuidam Cardinal. Bibiani, sed partim Cardinalatûs spe lactatus partim pro seculi locique more, Romæ enim plerumque vixit, vagis amoribus delectatus, morbo hinc contracto, obiit A.C. 1520, ætat. 37."--Art. "Raphael," _apud_ Hofmann, _Lexicon Universale_. It would seem that Raphael was betrothed to Maria, daughter of Antonio Divizio da Bibiena, the nephew of Cardinal Bibiena (see his letter to his uncle Simone di Battista di Ciarla da Urbino, dated July 1, 1514), and it is a fact that a girl named Margarita, supposed to be his mistress, is mentioned in his will. But the "causes of his death," April 6, 1520, were a delicate constitution, overwork, and a malarial fever, caught during his researches among the ruins of ancient Rome" (_Raphael of Urbino_, by J. D. Passavant, 1872, pp. 140, 196, 197. See, too, _Raphael_, by E. Muntz, 1888).]

[218] [Compare the lines enclosed in a letter to Murray, dated November 25, 1816--

"In this belovéd marble view, Above the works and thoughts of man, What Nature _could_ but _would not_ do, And Beauty and Canova can."]

[219]

["(In talking thus, the writer, more especially Of women, would be understood to say, He speaks as a Spectator, not officially, And always, Reader, in a modest way; Perhaps, too, in no very great degree shall he Appear to have offended in this lay, Since, as all know, without the Sex, our Sonnets Would seem unfinished, like their untrimmed bonnets.) "(Signed) Printer's Devil."]

[220] [_The Task_, by William Cowper, ii. 206. Compare _The Farewell_, line 27, by Charles Churchill--

"Be England what she will, With all her faults, she is my Country still."]

[221] {175}[The allusion is to Gally Knight's _Ilderim,_ a Syrian Tale. See, too, Letter to Moore, March 25, 1817, _Letters,_ 1900, iv. 78: "Talking of tail, I wish you had not called it [_Lalla Rookh_] a '_Persian Tale_.' Say a 'Poem,' or 'Romance,' but not 'Tale.' I am very sorry that I called some of my own things 'Tales.' ... Besides, we have had Arabian, and Hindoo, and Turkish, and Assyrian Tales." _Beppo_, it must be remembered, was published anonymously, and in the concluding lines of the stanza the satire is probably directed against his own "Tales."]

[222] {176}["The expressions '_blue-stocking_' and '_dandy_' may furnish matter for the learning of a commentator at some future period. At this moment every English reader will understand them. Our present ephemeral dandy is akin to the maccaroni of my earlier days. The first of these expressions has become classical, by Mrs. Hannah More's poem of '_Bas-Bleu_' and the other by the use of it in one of Lord Byron's poems. Though now become familiar and rather trite, their day may not be long.

' ... Cadentque Quæ nunc sunt in honore vocabula.'"

--Translation of Forteguerri's _Ricciardetto_, by Lord Glenbervie, 1822 (note to stanza v.).

Compare, too, a memorandum of 1820. "I liked the Dandies; they were always very civil to _me_, though in general they disliked literary people ... The truth is, that, though I gave up the business early, I had a tinge of Dandyism in my minority, and probably retained enough of it to conciliate the great ones at four-and-twenty."--_Letters_, 1901, v. 423.]

[223] {177}[The _Morning Chronicle_ of June 17, 1817, reports at length "Mrs. Boehm's Grand Masquerade." "On Monday evening this distinguished lady of the _haut ton_ gave a splendid masquerade at her residence in St. James's Square." "The Dukes of Gloucester, Wellington, etc., were present in plain dress. Among the dominoes were the Duke and Duchess of Grafton, etc." Lady Caroline Lamb was among the guests.]

[224] {178}[The reference is, probably, to the _Repository of Arts, Literature, Commerce, Manufactures, Fashions, and Politics_ (1809-1829), which was illustrated by coloured plates of dresses, "artistic" furniture, Gothic cottages, park lodges, etc.]

[225] [For "Ridotto," see Letter to Moore, January 28, 1817, _Letters,_ 1900, iv. 49, note 1.]

[bn] _Of Imited_ (_sic_) _Imitations, how soon! how._--[MS.]

[226] ["When Brummell was obliged ... to retire to France, he knew no French; and having obtained a Grammar for the purposes of study, our friend Scrope Davies was asked what progress Brummell had made in French ... he responded, 'that Brummell had been stopped, like Buonaparte in Russia, by the _Elements_.' I have put this pun into _Beppo,_ which is 'a fair exchange and no robbery;' for Scrope made his fortune at several dinners (as he owned himself), by repeating occasionally, as his own, some of the buffooneries with which I had encountered him in the Morning."--_Detached Thoughts_, 1821, _Letters_, 1901, v. 422, 423.]

[227] ["Like Sylla, I have always believed that all things depend upon Fortune, and nothing upon ourselves. I am not aware of any one thought or action, worthy of being called good to myself or others, which is not to be attributed to the Good Goddess--Fortune!"--_Ibid_., p. 451.]

[228] "January 19th, 1818. To-morrow will be a Sunday, and full Ridotto."--[MS.]

[bo] {181} ----_philoguny,_--[MS.]

[229] {182}[Botherby is, of course, Sotheby. In the _English Bards_ (line 818) he is bracketed with Gifford and Macneil _honoris causti,_ but at this time (1817-18) Byron was "against" Sotheby, under the impression that he had sent him "an anonymous note ... accompanying a copy of the _Castle of Chillon,_ etc. [_sic_]." Sotheby affirmed that he had not written the note, but Byron, while formally accepting the disclaimer, refers to the firmness of his "former persuasion," and renews the attack with increased bitterness. "As to _Beppo,_ I will not alter or suppress a syllable for any man's pleasure but my own. If there are resemblances between Botherby and Sotheby, or Sotheby and Botherby, the fault is not mine, but in the person who resembles,--or the persons who trace a resemblance. _Who_ find out this resemblance? Mr. S.'s _friends._ _Who_ go about moaning over him and laughing? Mr. S.'s _friends"_ (Letters to Murray, April 17, 23, 1818, _Letters,_ 1900, iv. 226-230). A writer of satires is of necessity satirical, and Sotheby, like "Wordswords and Co.," made excellent "copy." If he had not written the "anonymous note," he was, from Byron's point of view, ridiculous and a bore, and "ready to hand" to be tossed up in rhyme as _Botherby._ (For a brief account of Sotheby, see _Poetical Works,_ i. 362, note 2.)]

[bp] {183}_Gorging the slightest slice of Flattery raw_.--[MS. in a letter to Murray, April 11, 1818, _Letters_, 1900, iv. 218.]

[230] {184}[So, too, elsewhere. Wordsworth and Coleridge had depreciated Voltaire, and Byron, _en revanche_, contrasts the "tea-drinking neutrality of morals" of the _school_, i.e. the Lake poets, with "their convenient treachery in politics" (see _Letters,_ 1901, v. 600).]

[231] {184}["Lady Byron," her husband wrote, "would have made an excellent wrangler at Cambridge." Compare--

"Her favourite science was the mathematical."

_Don Juan,_ Canto I. stanza xii. line 1.]

[232] {185}[Stanza lxxx. is not in the original MS.]

[bq] {186}_Sate Laura with a kind of comic horror_.--[MS.]

[233] {189}[Cap Bon, or Ras Adden, is the northernmost point of Tunis.]

ODE ON VENICE

ODE ON VENICE[234]

I.

Oh Venice! Venice! when thy marble walls Are level with the waters, there shall be A cry of nations o'er thy sunken halls, A loud lament along the sweeping sea! If I, a northern wanderer, weep for thee, What should thy sons do?--anything but weep: And yet they only murmur in their sleep. In contrast with their fathers--as the slime, The dull green ooze of the receding deep, Is with the dashing of the spring-tide foam, 10 That drives the sailor shipless to his home, Are they to those that were; and thus they creep, Crouching and crab-like, through their sapping streets. Oh! agony--that centuries should reap No mellower harvest! Thirteen hundred years[235] Of wealth and glory turned to dust and tears; And every monument the stranger meets, Church, palace, pillar, as a mourner greets; And even the Lion all subdued appears,[236] And the harsh sound of the barbarian drum, 20 With dull and daily dissonance, repeats The echo of thy Tyrant's voice along The soft waves, once all musical to song, That heaved beneath the moonlight with the throng Of gondolas[237]--and to the busy hum Of cheerful creatures, whose most sinful deeds Were but the overbeating of the heart, And flow of too much happiness, which needs The aid of age to turn its course apart From the luxuriant and voluptuous flood 30 Of sweet sensations, battling with the blood. But these are better than the gloomy errors, The weeds of nations in their last decay, When Vice walks forth with her unsoftened terrors, And Mirth is madness, and but smiles to slay; And Hope is nothing but a false delay, The sick man's lightning half an hour ere Death, When Faintness, the last mortal birth of Pain, And apathy of limb, the dull beginning Of the cold staggering race which Death is winning, 40 Steals vein by vein and pulse by pulse away; Yet so relieving the o'er-tortured clay, To him appears renewal of his breath, And freedom the mere numbness of his chain; And then he talks of Life, and how again He feels his spirit soaring--albeit weak, And of the fresher air, which he would seek; And as he whispers knows not that he gasps, That his thin finger feels not what it clasps, And so the film comes o'er him--and the dizzy 50 Chamber swims round and round--and shadows busy, At which he vainly catches, flit and gleam, Till the last rattle chokes the strangled scream, And all is ice and blackness,--and the earth That which it was the moment ere our birth.[238]

II.

There is no hope for nations!--Search the page Of many thousand years--the daily scene, The flow and ebb of each recurring age, The everlasting _to be_ which _hath been_, Hath taught us nought or little: still we lean 60 On things that rot beneath our weight, and wear Our strength away in wrestling with the air; For't is our nature strikes us down: the beasts Slaughtered in hourly hecatombs for feasts Are of as high an order--they must go Even where their driver goads them, though to slaughter. Ye men, who pour your blood for kings as water, What have they given your children in return? A heritage of servitude and woes, A blindfold bondage, where your hire is blows. 70 What! do not yet the red-hot ploughshares burn,[239] O'er which you stumble in a false ordeal, And deem this proof of loyalty the _real_; Kissing the hand that guides you to your scars, And glorying as you tread the glowing bars? All that your Sires have left you, all that Time Bequeaths of free, and History of sublime, Spring from a different theme!--Ye see and read, Admire and sigh, and then succumb and bleed! Save the few spirits who, despite of all, 80 And worse than all, the sudden crimes engendered By the down-thundering of the prison-wall, And thirst to swallow the sweet waters tendered, Gushing from Freedom's fountains--when the crowd,[240] Maddened with centuries of drought, are loud, And trample on each other to obtain The cup which brings oblivion of a chain Heavy and sore,--in which long yoked they ploughed The sand,--or if there sprung the yellow grain, 'Twas not for them, their necks were too much bowed, 90 And their dead palates chewed the cud of pain:-- Yes! the few spirits--who, despite of deeds Which they abhor, confound not with the cause Those momentary starts from Nature's laws, Which, like the pestilence and earthquake, smite But for a term, then pass, and leave the earth With all her seasons to repair the blight With a few summers, and again put forth Cities and generations--fair, when free-- For, Tyranny, there blooms no bud for thee! 100

III.

Glory and Empire! once upon these towers[241] With Freedom--godlike Triad! how you sate! The league of mightiest nations, in those hours When Venice was an envy, might abate, But did not quench, her spirit--in her fate All were enwrapped: the feasted monarchs knew And loved their hostess, nor could learn to hate, Although they humbled--with the kingly few The many felt, for from all days and climes She was the voyager's worship;--even her crimes 110 Were of the softer order, born of Love-- She drank no blood, nor fattened on the dead, But gladdened where her harmless conquests spread; For these restored the Cross, that from above Hallowed her sheltering banners, which incessant Flew between earth and the unholy Crescent,[242] Which, if it waned and dwindled, Earth may thank The city it has clothed in chains, which clank Now, creaking in the ears of those who owe The name of Freedom to her glorious struggles; 120 Yet she but shares with them a common woe, And called the "kingdom"[243] of a conquering foe,-- But knows what all--and, most of all, _we_ know-- With what set gilded terms a tyrant juggles!

IV.

The name of Commonwealth is past and gone O'er the three fractions of the groaning globe; Venice is crushed, and Holland deigns to own A sceptre, and endures the purple robe;[244] If the free Switzer yet bestrides alone His chainless mountains, 't is but for a time, 130 For Tyranny of late is cunning grown, And in its own good season tramples down The sparkles of our ashes. One great clime, Whose vigorous offspring by dividing ocean[245] Are kept apart and nursed in the devotion Of Freedom, which their fathers fought for, and Bequeathed--a heritage of heart and hand, And proud distinction from each other land, Whose sons must bow them at a Monarch's motion, As if his senseless sceptre were a wand 140 Full of the magic of exploded science-- Still one great clime, in full and free defiance, Yet rears her crest, unconquered and sublime, Above the far Atlantic!--She has taught Her Esau-brethren that the haughty flag, The floating fence of Albion's feebler crag,[246] May strike to those whose red right hands have bought Rights cheaply earned with blood.--Still, still, for ever Better, though each man's life-blood were a river, That it should flow, and overflow, than creep 150 Through thousand lazy channels in our veins, Dammed like the dull canal with locks and chains, And moving, as a sick man in his sleep, Three paces, and then faltering:--better be Where the extinguished Spartans still are free, In their proud charnel of Thermopylæ, Than stagnate in our marsh,--or o'er the deep Fly, and one current to the ocean add, One spirit to the souls our fathers had, One freeman more, America, to thee![247] 160

FOOTNOTES:

[234] {193}[The _Ode on Venice_ (originally _Ode_) was completed by July 10, 1818 (_Letters_, 1900, iv. 245), but was published at the same time as _Mazeppa_ and _A Fragment_, June 28, 1819. The _motif_, a lamentation over the decay and degradation of Venice, re-echoes the sentiments expressed in the opening stanzas (i.-xix.) of the Fourth Canto of _Childe Harold_. A realistic description of the "Hour of Death" (lines 37-55), and a eulogy of the United States of America (lines 133-160), give distinction to the _Ode_.]

[235] [Compare _Childe Harold_, Canto IV. stanza xiii. lines 4-6.]

[236] [Compare _ibid._, stanza xi. lines 5-9.]

[237] {194}[Compare _Childe Harold_, Canto IV. stanza iii lines 1-4.]

[238] [Compare _The Prisoner of Chillon_, line 178, note 2, _vide ante_, p. 21.]

[239] {195}[In contrasting Sheridan with Brougham, Byron speaks of "the red-hot ploughshares of public life."--_Diary_, March 10, 1814, _Letters_, 1898, ii. 397.]

[240] [Compare--

"At last it [the mob] takes to weapons such as men Snatch when despair makes human hearts less pliant. Then comes 'the tug of war;'--'t will come again, I rather doubt; and I would fain say 'fie on't,' If I had not perceived that revolution Alone can save the earth from Hell's pollution."

_Don Juan_, Canto VIII. stanza li. lines 3-8.]

[241] {196}[Compare Lord Tennyson's stanzas--

"Of old sat Freedom on the heights."]

[242] [Compare _Childe Harold_, Canto IV. stanza xiv. line 3, note 1, and line 6, _Poetical Works_, 1899, ii. 339, 340.]

[243] {197}[In 1814 the Italian possessions of the Emperor of Austria were "constituted into separate and particular states, under the title of the kingdom of Venetian Lombardy."--Koch's _Europe_, p. 234.]

[244] [The Prince of Orange ... was proclaimed Sovereign Prince of the Low Countries, December 1, 1813; and in the following year, August 13, 1814, on the condition that he should make a part of the Germanic Confederation, he received the title of King of the Netherlands.-_Ibid_., p. 233.]

[245] [Compare "Oceano dissociabili," Hor., _Odes_, I. iii 22.]

[246] [In October, 1812, the American sloop _Wasp_ captured the English brig _Frolic_; and December 29, 1812, the _Constitution_ compelled the frigate _Java_ to surrender. In the following year, February 24, 1813, the _Hornet_ met the _Peacock_ off the Demerara, and reduced her in fifteen minutes to a sinking condition. On June 28, 1814, the sloop-of-war _Wasp_ captured and burned the sloop _Reindeer_, and on September 11, 1814, the _Confiance_, commanded by Commodore Downie, and other vessels surrendered."--_History of America_, by Justin Winsor, 1888, vii. 380, _seq_.]

[247] {198}[Byron repented, or feigned to repent, this somewhat provocative eulogy of the Great Republic: "Somebody has sent me some American abuse of _Mazeppa_ and 'the Ode;' in future I will compliment nothing but Canada, and desert to the English."--Letter to Murray, February 21, 1820, _Letters_, 1900, iv. 410. It is possible that the allusion is to an article, "Mazeppa and Don Juan," in the _Analectic Magazine_, November, 1819, vol. xiv, pp. 405-410.]

MAZEPPA.

INTRODUCTION TO _MAZEPPA_

_Mazeppa_, a legend of the Russian Ukraine, or frontier region, is based on the passage in Voltaire's _Charles XII_. prefixed as the "Advertisement" to the poem. Voltaire seems to have known very little about the man or his history, and Byron, though he draws largely on his imagination, was content to take his substratum of fact from Voltaire. The "true story of Mazeppa" is worth re-telling for its own sake, and lends a fresh interest and vitality to the legend. Ivan Stepanovitch Mazeppa (or Mazepa), born about the year 1645, was of Cossack origin, but appears to have belonged, by descent or creation, to the lesser nobility of the semi-Polish Volhynia. He began life (1660) as a page of honour in the Court of King John Casimir V. of Poland, where he studied Latin, and acquired the tongue and pen of eloquent statesmanship. Banished from the court on account of a quarrel, he withdrew to his mother's estate in Volhynia, and there, to beguile the time, made love to the wife of a neighbouring magnate, the _pane_ or Lord Falbowski. The intrigue was discovered, and to avenge his wrongs the outraged husband caused Mazeppa to be stripped to the skin, and bound to his own steed. The horse, lashed into madness, and terror-stricken by the discharge of a pistol, started off at a gallop, and rushing "thorough bush, thorough briar," carried his torn and bleeding rider into the courtyard of his own mansion!

With regard to the sequel or issue of this episode, history is silent, but when the curtain rises again (A.D. 1674) Mazeppa is discovered in the character of writer-general or foreign secretary to Peter Doroshénko, hetman or president of the Western Ukraine, on the hither side of the Dniéper. From the service of Doroshénko, who came to an untimely end, he passed by a series of accidents into the employ of his rival, Samoïlovitch, hetman of the Eastern Ukraine, and, as his secretary or envoy, continued to attract the notice and to conciliate the good will of the (regent) Tzarina Sophia and her eminent _boyard_, Prince Basil Golitsyn. A time came (1687) when it served the interests of Russia to degrade Samoïlovitch, and raise Mazeppa to the post of hetman, and thenceforward, for twenty years and more, he held something like a regal sway over the whole of the Ukraine (a fertile "no-man's land," watered by the Dniéper and its tributaries), openly the loyal and zealous ally of his neighbour and suzerain, Peter the Great.

How far this allegiance was genuine, or whether a secret preference for Poland, the land of his adoption, or a long-concealed impatience of Muscovite suzerainty would in any case have urged him to revolt, must remain doubtful, but it is certain that the immediate cause of a final reversal of the allegiance and a break with the Tsar was a second and still more fateful _affaire du coeur_. The hetman was upwards of sixty years of age, but, even so, he fell in love with his god-daughter, Matréna, who, in spite of difference of age and ecclesiastical kinship, not only returned his love, but, to escape the upbraidings and persecution of her mother, took refuge under his roof. Mazeppa sent the girl back to her home, but, as his love-letters testify, continued to woo her with the tenderest and most passionate solicitings; and, although she finally yielded to _force majeure_ and married another suitor, her parents nursed their revenge, and endeavoured to embroil the hetman with the Tsar. For a time their machinations failed, and Matréna's father, Kotchúbey, together with his friend Iskra, were executed with the Tsar's assent and approbation. Before long, however, Mazeppa, who had been for some time past in secret correspondence with the Swedes, signalized his defection from Peter by offering his services first to Stanislaus of Poland, and afterwards to Charles XII. of Sweden, who was meditating the invasion of Russia.

"Pultowa's day," July 8, 1709, was the last of Mazeppa's power and influence, and in the following year (March 31, 1710), "he died of old age, perhaps of a broken heart," at Várnitza, a village near Bender, on the Dniester, whither he had accompanied the vanquished and fugitive Charles.

Such was Mazeppa, a man destined to pass through the crowded scenes of history, and to take his stand among the greater heroes of romance. His deeds of daring, his intrigues and his treachery, have been and still are sung by the wandering minstrels of the Ukraine. His story has passed into literature. His ride forms the subject of an _Orientale_ (1829) by Victor Hugo, who treats Byron's theme symbolically; and the romance of his old age, his love for his god-daughter Matréna, with its tragical issue, the judicial murder of Kotchúbey and Iskra, are celebrated by the "Russian Byron" Pushkin, in his poem _Poltava_. He forms the subject of a novel, _Iwan Wizigin_, by Bulgarin, 1830, and of tragedies by I. Slowacki, 1840, and Rudolph von Gottschall. From literature Mazeppa has passed into art in the "symphonic poem" of Franz Lizt (1857); and, yet again, _pour comble de gloire_, _Mazeppa, or The Wild Horse of Tartary_, is the title of a "romantic drama," first played at the Royal Amphitheatre, Westminster Bridge, on Easter Monday, 1831; and revived at Astley's Theatre, when Adah Isaacs Menken appeared as "Mazeppa," October 3, 1864. (_Peter the Great_, by Eugene Schuyler, 1884, ii. 115, _seq_.; _Le Fils de Pierre Le Grand, Mazeppa, etc_., by Viscount E. Melchior de Vogüé, Paris, 1884; _Peter the Great_, by Oscar Browning, 1899, pp. 219-229.)

Of the composition of Mazeppa we know nothing, except that on September 24, 1818, "it was still to finish" (_Letters_, 1900, iv. 264). It was published together with an _Ode_ (_Venice: An Ode_) and _A Fragment_ (see _Letters_, 1899, iii. Appendix IV. pp. 446-453), June 28, 1819.

Notices of _Mazeppa_ appeared in _Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine_, July, 1819, vol. v. p. 429 (for _John Gilpin_ and _Mazeppa_, by William Maginn, _vide ibid_., pp. 434-439); the _Monthly Review_, July, 1819, vol. 89, pp. 309-321; and the _Eclectic Review_, August, 1819, vol. xii. pp. 147-156.

ADVERTISEMENT.

"Celui qui remplissait alors cette place était un gentilhomme Polonais, nominé Mazeppa, né dans le palatinat de Podolie: il avait été élevé page de Jean Casimir, et avait pris à sa cour quelque teinture des belles-lettres. Une intrigue qu'il eut dans sa jeunesse avec la femme d'un gentilhomme Polonais ayant été découverte, le mari le fit lier tout nu sur un cheval farouche, et le laissa aller en cet état. Le cheval, qui était du pays de l'Ukraine, y retourna, et y porta Mazeppa, demi-mort de fatigue et de faim. Quelques paysans le secoururent: il resta longtems parmi eux, et se signala dans plusieurs courses contre les Tartares. La supériorité de ses lumières lui donna une grande considération parmi les Cosaques: sa réputation s'augmentant de jour en jour, obligea le Czar à le faire Prince de l'Ukraine."--Voltaire, _Hist. de Charles XII_., 1772, p. 205.

"Le roi, fuyant et poursuivi, eut son cheval tué sous lui; le Colonel Gieta, blessé, et perdant tout son sang, lui donna le sien. Ainsi on remit deux fois à cheval, dans la fuite,[br] ce conquérant qui n'avait pu y monter pendant la bataille."--p. 222.

"Le roi alla par un autre chemin avec quelques cavaliers. Le carrosse, où il était, rompit dans la marche; on le remit à cheval. Pour comble de disgrâce, il s'égara pendant la nuit dans un bois; là, son courage ne pouvant plus suppléer, à ses forces épuisées, les douleurs de sa blessure devenues plus insupportables par la fatigue, son cheval étant tombé de lassitude, il se coucha quelques heures au pied d'un arbre, en danger d'être surpris à tout moment par les vainqueurs, qui le cherchaient de tous côtés."--p. 224.

MAZEPPA

I.

'Twas after dread Pultowa's day,[248] When Fortune left the royal Swede-- Around a slaughtered army lay, No more to combat and to bleed. The power and glory of the war, Faithless as their vain votaries, men, Had passed to the triumphant Czar, And Moscow's walls were safe again-- Until a day more dark and drear,[249] And a more memorable year, 10 Should give to slaughter and to shame A mightier host and haughtier name; A greater wreck, a deeper fall, A shock to one--a thunderbolt to all.

II.

Such was the hazard of the die; The wounded Charles was taught to fly[250] By day and night through field and flood, Stained with his own and subjects' blood; For thousands fell that flight to aid: And not a voice was heard to upbraid 20 Ambition in his humbled hour, When Truth had nought to dread from Power. His horse was slain, and Gieta gave His own--and died the Russians' slave. This, too, sinks after many a league Of well-sustained, but vain fatigue; And in the depth of forests darkling, The watch-fires in the distance sparkling-- The beacons of surrounding foes-- A King must lay his limbs at length. 30 Are these the laurels and repose For which the nations strain their strength? They laid him by a savage tree,[251] In outworn Nature's agony; His wounds were stiff, his limbs were stark; The heavy hour was chill and dark; The fever in his blood forbade A transient slumber's fitful aid: And thus it was; but yet through all, Kinglike the monarch bore his fall, 40 And made, in this extreme of ill, His pangs the vassals of his will: All silent and subdued were they. As once the nations round him lay.

III.

A band of chiefs!--alas! how few, Since but the fleeting of a day Had thinned it; but this wreck was true And chivalrous: upon the clay Each sate him down, all sad and mute, Beside his monarch and his steed; 50 For danger levels man and brute, And all are fellows in their need. Among the rest, Mazeppa made[252] His pillow in an old oak's shade-- Himself as rough, and scarce less old, The Ukraine's Hetman, calm and bold; But first, outspent with this long course, The Cossack prince rubbed down his horse, And made for him a leafy bed, And smoothed his fetlocks and his mane, 60 And slacked his girth, and stripped his rein, And joyed to see how well he fed; For until now he had the dread His wearied courser might refuse To browse beneath the midnight dews: But he was hardy as his lord, And little cared for bed and board; But spirited and docile too, Whate'er was to be done, would do. Shaggy and swift, and strong of limb, 70 All Tartar-like he carried him; Obeyed his voice, and came to call, And knew him in the midst of all: Though thousands were around,--and Night, Without a star, pursued her flight,-- That steed from sunset until dawn His chief would follow like a fawn.

IV.

This done, Mazeppa spread his cloak, And laid his lance beneath his oak, Felt if his arms in order good 80 The long day's march had well withstood-- If still the powder filled the pan, And flints unloosened kept their lock-- His sabre's hilt and scabbard felt, And whether they had chafed his belt; And next the venerable man, From out his havresack and can, Prepared and spread his slender stock; And to the Monarch and his men The whole or portion offered then 90 With far less of inquietude Than courtiers at a banquet would. And Charles of this his slender share With smiles partook a moment there, To force of cheer a greater show, And seem above both wounds and woe;-- And then he said--"Of all our band, Though firm of heart and strong of hand, In skirmish, march, or forage, none Can less have said or more have done 100 Than thee, Mazeppa! On the earth So fit a pair had never birth, Since Alexander's days till now, As thy Bucephalus and thou: All Scythia's fame to thine should yield For pricking on o'er flood and field." Mazeppa answered--"Ill betide The school wherein I learned to ride!" Quoth Charles--"Old Hetman, wherefore so, Since thou hast learned the art so well?" 110 Mazeppa said--"'Twere long to tell; And we have many a league to go, With every now and then a blow, And ten to one at least the foe, Before our steeds may graze at ease, Beyond the swift Borysthenes:[253] And, Sire, your limbs have need of rest, And I will be the sentinel Of this your troop."--"But I request," Said Sweden's monarch, "thou wilt tell 120 This tale of thine, and I may reap, Perchance, from this the boon of sleep; For at this moment from my eyes The hope of present slumber flies."

"Well, Sire, with such a hope, I'll track My seventy years of memory back: I think 'twas in my twentieth spring,-- Aye 'twas,--when Casimir was king[254]-- John Casimir,--I was his page Six summers, in my earlier age:[255] 130 A learnéd monarch, faith! was he, And most unlike your Majesty; He made no wars, and did not gain New realms to lose them back again; And (save debates in Warsaw's diet) He reigned in most unseemly quiet; Not that he had no cares to vex; He loved the Muses and the Sex;[256] And sometimes these so froward are, They made him wish himself at war; 140 But soon his wrath being o'er, he took Another mistress--or new book: And then he gave prodigious fetes-- All Warsaw gathered round his gates To gaze upon his splendid court, And dames, and chiefs, of princely port. He was the Polish Solomon, So sung his poets, all but one, Who, being unpensioned, made a satire, And boasted that he could not flatter. 150 It was a court of jousts and mimes, Where every courtier tried at rhymes; Even I for once produced some verses, And signed my odes 'Despairing Thyrsis.' There was a certain Palatine,[257] A Count of far and high descent, Rich as a salt or silver mine;[258] And he was proud, ye may divine, As if from Heaven he had been sent; He had such wealth in blood and ore 160 As few could match beneath the throne; And he would gaze upon his store, And o'er his pedigree would pore, Until by some confusion led, Which almost looked like want of head, He thought their merits were his own. His wife was not of this opinion; His junior she by thirty years, Grew daily tired of his dominion; And, after wishes, hopes, and fears, 170 To Virtue a few farewell tears, A restless dream or two--some glances At Warsaw's youth--some songs, and dances, Awaited but the usual chances, Those happy accidents which render The coldest dames so very tender, To deck her Count with titles given, 'Tis said, as passports into Heaven; But, strange to say, they rarely boast Of these, who have deserved them most. 180

V.

"I was a goodly stripling then; At seventy years I so may say, That there were few, or boys or men, Who, in my dawning time of day, Of vassal or of knight's degree, Could vie in vanities with me; For I had strength--youth--gaiety, A port, not like to this ye see, But smooth, as all is rugged now; For Time, and Care, and War, have ploughed 190 My very soul from out my brow; And thus I should be disavowed By all my kind and kin, could they Compare my day and yesterday; This change was wrought, too, long ere age Had ta'en my features for his page: With years, ye know, have not declined My strength--my courage--or my mind, Or at this hour I should not be Telling old tales beneath a tree, 200 With starless skies my canopy. But let me on: Theresa's[259] form-- Methinks it glides before me now, Between me and yon chestnut's bough, The memory is so quick and warm; And yet I find no words to tell The shape of her I loved so well: She had the Asiatic eye, Such as our Turkish neighbourhood Hath mingled with our Polish blood, 210 Dark as above us is the sky; But through it stole a tender light, Like the first moonrise of midnight; Large, dark, and swimming in the stream, Which seemed to melt to its own beam; All love, half languor, and half fire, Like saints that at the stake expire, And lift their raptured looks on high, As though it were a joy to die.[bs] A brow like a midsummer lake, 220 Transparent with the sun therein, When waves no murmur dare to make, And heaven beholds her face within. A cheek and lip--but why proceed? I loved her then, I love her still; And such as I am, love indeed In fierce extremes--in good and ill. But still we love even in our rage, And haunted to our very age With the vain shadow of the past,-- 230 As is Mazeppa to the last.

VI.

"We met--we gazed--I saw, and sighed; She did not speak, and yet replied; There are ten thousand tones and signs We hear and see, but none defines-- Involuntary sparks of thought, Which strike from out the heart o'erwrought, And form a strange intelligence, Alike mysterious and intense, Which link the burning chain that binds, 240 Without their will, young hearts and minds; Conveying, as the electric[260] wire, We know not how, the absorbing fire. I saw, and sighed--in silence wept, And still reluctant distance kept, Until I was made known to her, And we might then and there confer Without suspicion--then, even then, I longed, and was resolved to speak; But on my lips they died again, 250 The accents tremulous and weak, Until one hour.--There is a game, A frivolous and foolish play, Wherewith we while away the day; It is--I have forgot the name-- And we to this, it seems, were set, By some strange chance, which I forget: I recked not if I won or lost, It was enough for me to be So near to hear, and oh! to see 260 The being whom I loved the most. I watched her as a sentinel, (May ours this dark night watch as well!) Until I saw, and thus it was, That she was pensive, nor perceived Her occupation, nor was grieved Nor glad to lose or gain; but still Played on for hours, as if her will Yet bound her to the place, though not That hers might be the winning lot[bt]. 270 Then through my brain the thought did pass, Even as a flash of lightning there, That there was something in her air Which would not doom me to despair; And on the thought my words broke forth, All incoherent as they were; Their eloquence was little worth, But yet she listened--'tis enough-- Who listens once will listen twice; Her heart, be sure, is not of ice-- 280 And one refusal no rebuff.

VII.

"I loved, and was beloved again-- They tell me, Sire, you never knew Those gentle frailties; if 'tis true, I shorten all my joy or pain; To you 'twould seem absurd as vain; But all men are not born to reign, Or o'er their passions, or as you Thus o'er themselves and nations too. I am--or rather _was_--a Prince, 290 A chief of thousands, and could lead Them on where each would foremost bleed; But could not o'er myself evince The like control--But to resume: I loved, and was beloved again; In sooth, it is a happy doom, But yet where happiest ends in pain.-- We met in secret, and the hour Which led me to that lady's bower Was fiery Expectation's dower. 300 My days and nights were nothing--all Except that hour which doth recall, In the long lapse from youth to age, No other like itself: I'd give The Ukraine back again to live It o'er once more, and be a page, The happy page, who was the lord Of one soft heart, and his own sword, And had no other gem nor wealth, Save Nature's gift of Youth and Health. 310 We met in secret--doubly sweet[261], Some say, they find it so to meet; I know not that--I would have given My life but to have called her mine In the full view of Earth and Heaven; For I did oft and long repine That we could only meet by stealth.

VIII.

"For lovers there are many eyes, And such there were on us; the Devil On such occasions should be civil-- 320 The Devil!--I'm loth to do him wrong, It might be some untoward saint, Who would not be at rest too long, But to his pious bile gave vent-- But one fair night, some lurking spies Surprised and seized us both. The Count was something more than wroth-- I was unarmed; but if in steel, All cap-à-pie from head to heel, What 'gainst their numbers could I do? 330 'Twas near his castle, far away From city or from succour near, And almost on the break of day; I did not think to see another, My moments seemed reduced to few; And with one prayer to Mary Mother, And, it may be, a saint or two, As I resigned me to my fate, They led me to the castle gate: Theresa's doom I never knew, 340 Our lot was henceforth separate. An angry man, ye may opine, Was he, the proud Count Palatine; And he had reason good to be, But he was most enraged lest such An accident should chance to touch Upon his future pedigree; Nor less amazed, that such a blot His noble 'scutcheon should have got, While he was highest of his line; 350 Because unto himself he seemed The first of men, nor less he deemed In others' eyes, and most in mine. 'Sdeath! with a _page_--perchance a king Had reconciled him to the thing; But with a stripling of a page-- I felt--but cannot paint his rage.

IX.

"'Bring forth the horse!'--the horse was brought! In truth, he was a noble steed, A Tartar of the Ukraine breed, 360 Who looked as though the speed of thought Were in his limbs; but he was wild, Wild as the wild deer, and untaught, With spur and bridle undefiled-- 'Twas but a day he had been caught; And snorting, with erected mane, And struggling fiercely, but in vain, In the full foam of wrath and dread To me the desert-born was led: They bound me on, that menial throng, Upon his back with many a thong; 370 They loosed him with a sudden lash-- Away!--away!--and on we dash!-- Torrents less rapid and less rash.

X.

"Away!--away!--My breath was gone, I saw not where he hurried on: 'Twas scarcely yet the break of day, And on he foamed--away!--away! The last of human sounds which rose, As I was darted from my foes, 380 Was the wild shout of savage laughter, Which on the wind came roaring after A moment from that rabble rout: With sudden wrath I wrenched my head, And snapped the cord, which to the mane Had bound my neck in lieu of rein, And, writhing half my form about, Howled back my curse; but 'midst the tread, The thunder of my courser's speed, Perchance they did not hear nor heed: 390 It vexes me--for I would fain Have paid their insult back again. I paid it well in after days: There is not of that castle gate, Its drawbridge and portcullis' weight, Stone--bar--moat--bridge--or barrier left; Nor of its fields a blade of grass, Save what grows on a ridge of wall, Where stood the hearth-stone of the hall; And many a time ye there might pass, 400 Nor dream that e'er the fortress was. I saw its turrets in a blaze, Their crackling battlements all cleft, And the hot lead pour down like rain From off the scorched and blackening roof, Whose thickness was not vengeance-proof. They little thought that day of pain, When launched, as on the lightning's flash, They bade me to destruction dash, That one day I should come again, 410 With twice five thousand horse, to thank The Count for his uncourteous ride. They played me then a bitter prank, When, with the wild horse for my guide, They bound me to his foaming flank: At length I played them one as frank-- For Time at last sets all things even-- And if we do but watch the hour, There never yet was human power Which could evade, if unforgiven, 420 The patient search and vigil long Of him who treasures up a wrong.

XI.

"Away!--away!--my steed and I, Upon the pinions of the wind! All human dwellings left behind, We sped like meteors through the sky, When with its crackling sound the night[262] Is chequered with the Northern light. Town--village--none were on our track, But a wild plain of far extent, 430 And bounded by a forest black[263]; And, save the scarce seen battlement On distant heights of some strong hold, Against the Tartars built of old, No trace of man. The year before A Turkish army had marched o'er; And where the Spahi's hoof hath trod, The verdure flies the bloody sod: The sky was dull, and dim, and gray, And a low breeze crept moaning by-- 440 I could have answered with a sigh-- But fast we fled,--away!--away!-- And I could neither sigh nor pray; And my cold sweat-drops fell like rain Upon the courser's bristling mane; But, snorting still with rage and fear, He flew upon his far career: At times I almost thought, indeed, He must have slackened in his speed; But no--my bound and slender frame 450 Was nothing to his angry might, And merely like a spur became: Each motion which I made to free My swoln limbs from their agony Increased his fury and affright: I tried my voice,--'twas faint and low-- But yet he swerved as from a blow; And, starting to each accent, sprang As from a sudden trumpet's clang: Meantime my cords were wet with gore, 460 Which, oozing through my limbs, ran o'er; And in my tongue the thirst became A something fierier far than flame.

XII.

"We neared the wild wood--'twas so wide, I saw no bounds on either side: 'Twas studded with old sturdy trees, That bent not to the roughest breeze Which howls down from Siberia's waste, And strips the forest in its haste,-- But these were few and far between, 470 Set thick with shrubs more young and green, Luxuriant with their annual leaves, Ere strown by those autumnal eyes That nip the forest's foliage dead, Discoloured with a lifeless red[bu], Which stands thereon like stiffened gore Upon the slain when battle's o'er; And some long winter's night hath shed Its frost o'er every tombless head-- So cold and stark--the raven's beak 480 May peck unpierced each frozen cheek: 'Twas a wild waste of underwood, And here and there a chestnut stood, The strong oak, and the hardy pine; But far apart--and well it were, Or else a different lot were mine-- The boughs gave way, and did not tear My limbs; and I found strength to bear My wounds, already scarred with cold; My bonds forbade to loose my hold. 490 We rustled through the leaves like wind,-- Left shrubs, and trees, and wolves behind; By night I heard them on the track, Their troop came hard upon our back, With their long gallop, which can tire The hound's deep hate, and hunter's fire: Where'er we flew they followed on, Nor left us with the morning sun; Behind I saw them, scarce a rood, At day-break winding through the wood, 500 And through the night had heard their feet Their stealing, rustling step repeat. Oh! how I wished for spear or sword, At least to die amidst the horde, And perish--if it must be so-- At bay, destroying many a foe! When first my courser's race begun, I wished the goal already won; But now I doubted strength and speed: Vain doubt! his swift and savage breed 510 Had nerved him like the mountain-roe-- Nor faster falls the blinding snow Which whelms the peasant near the door Whose threshold he shall cross no more, Bewildered with the dazzling blast, Than through the forest-paths he passed-- Untired, untamed, and worse than wild-- All furious as a favoured child Balked of its wish; or--fiercer still-- A woman piqued--who has her will! 520

XIII.

"The wood was passed; 'twas more than noon, But chill the air, although in June; Or it might be my veins ran cold-- Prolonged endurance tames the bold; And I was then not what I seem, But headlong as a wintry stream, And wore my feelings out before I well could count their causes o'er: And what with fury, fear, and wrath, The tortures which beset my path-- 530 Cold--hunger--sorrow--shame--distress-- Thus bound in Nature's nakedness; Sprung from a race whose rising blood When stirred beyond its calmer mood, And trodden hard upon, is like The rattle-snake's, in act to strike-- What marvel if this worn-out trunk Beneath its woes a moment sunk?[264] The earth gave way, the skies rolled round, I seemed to sink upon the ground; 540 But erred--for I was fastly bound. My heart turned sick, my brain grew sore, And throbbed awhile, then beat no more: The skies spun like a mighty wheel; I saw the trees like drunkards reel, And a slight flash sprang o'er my eyes, Which saw no farther. He who dies Can die no more than then I died, O'ertortured by that ghastly ride.[265] I felt the blackness come and go, 550 And strove to wake; but could not make My senses climb up from below: I felt as on a plank at sea, When all the waves that dash o'er thee, At the same time upheave and whelm, And hurl thee towards a desert realm. My undulating life was as The fancied lights that flitting pass Our shut eyes in deep midnight, when Fever begins upon the brain; 560 But soon it passed, with little pain, But a confusion worse than such: I own that I should deem it much, Dying, to feel the same again; And yet I do suppose we must Feel far more ere we turn to dust! No matter! I have bared my brow Full in Death's face--before--and now.

XIV.

"My thoughts came back. Where was I? Cold, And numb, and giddy: pulse by pulse 570 Life reassumed its lingering hold, And throb by throb,--till grown a pang Which for a moment would convulse, My blood reflowed, though thick and chill; My ear with uncouth noises rang, My heart began once more to thrill; My sight returned, though dim; alas! And thickened, as it were, with glass. Methought the dash of waves was nigh; There was a gleam too of the sky, 580 Studded with stars;--it is no dream; The wild horse swims the wilder stream! The bright broad river's gushing tide Sweeps, winding onward, far and wide, And we are half-way, struggling o'er To yon unknown and silent shore. The waters broke my hollow trance, And with a temporary strength My stiffened limbs were rebaptized. My courser's broad breast proudly braves, 590 And dashes off the ascending waves, And onward we advance! We reach the slippery shore at length, A haven I but little prized, For all behind was dark and drear, And all before was night and fear. How many hours of night or day[266] In those suspended pangs I lay, I could not tell; I scarcely knew If this were human breath I drew. 600

XV.

"With glossy skin, and dripping mane, And reeling limbs, and reeking flank, The wild steed's sinewy nerves still strain Up the repelling bank. We gain the top: a boundless plain Spreads through the shadow of the night, And onward, onward, onward--seems, Like precipices in our dreams,[267] To stretch beyond the sight; And here and there a speck of white, 610 Or scattered spot of dusky green, In masses broke into the light, As rose the moon upon my right: But nought distinctly seen In the dim waste would indicate The omen of a cottage gate; No twinkling taper from afar Stood like a hospitable star; Not even an ignis-fatuus rose[268] To make him merry with my woes: 620 That very cheat had cheered me then! Although detected, welcome still, Reminding me, through every ill, Of the abodes of men.

XVI.

"Onward we went--but slack and slow; His savage force at length o'erspent, The drooping courser, faint and low, All feebly foaming went: A sickly infant had had power To guide him forward in that hour! 630 But, useless all to me, His new-born tameness nought availed-- My limbs were bound; my force had failed, Perchance, had they been free. With feeble effort still I tried To rend the bonds so starkly tied, But still it was in vain; My limbs were only wrung the more, And soon the idle strife gave o'er, Which but prolonged their pain. 640 The dizzy race seemed almost done, Although no goal was nearly won: Some streaks announced the coming sun-- How slow, alas! he came! Methought that mist of dawning gray Would never dapple into day, How heavily it rolled away! Before the eastern flame Rose crimson, and deposed the stars, And called the radiance from their cars,[bv] 650 And filled the earth, from his deep throne, With lonely lustre, all his own.

XVII.

"Uprose the sun; the mists were curled Back from the solitary world Which lay around--behind--before. What booted it to traverse o'er Plain--forest--river? Man nor brute, Nor dint of hoof, nor print of foot, Lay in the wild luxuriant soil-- No sign of travel, none of toil-- 660 The very air was mute: And not an insect's shrill small horn,[269] Nor matin bird's new voice was borne From herb nor thicket. Many a _werst,_ Panting as if his heart would burst, The weary brute still staggered on; And still we were--or seemed--alone: At length, while reeling on our way, Methought I heard a courser neigh, From out yon tuft of blackening firs. 670 Is it the wind those branches stirs?[270] No, no! from out the forest prance A trampling troop; I see them come! In one vast squadron they advance! I strove to cry--my lips were dumb! The steeds rush on in plunging pride; But where are they the reins to guide? A thousand horse, and none to ride! With flowing tail, and flying mane, Wide nostrils never stretched by pain, 680 Mouths bloodless to the bit or rein, And feet that iron never shod, And flanks unscarred by spur or rod, A thousand horse, the wild, the free, Like waves that follow o'er the sea, Came thickly thundering on, As if our faint approach to meet! The sight re-nerved my courser's feet, A moment staggering, feebly fleet, A moment, with a faint low neigh, 690 He answered, and then fell! With gasps and glazing eyes he lay, And reeking limbs immoveable, His first and last career is done! On came the troop--they saw him stoop, They saw me strangely bound along His back with many a bloody thong. They stop--they start--they snuff the air, Gallop a moment here and there, Approach, retire, wheel round and round, 700 Then plunging back with sudden bound, Headed by one black mighty steed, Who seemed the Patriarch of his breed, Without a single speck or hair Of white upon his shaggy hide; They snort--they foam--neigh--swerve aside, And backward to the forest fly, By instinct, from a human eye. They left me there to my despair, Linked to the dead and stiffening wretch, 710 Whose lifeless limbs beneath me stretch, Relieved from that unwonted weight, From whence I could not extricate Nor him nor me--and there we lay, The dying on the dead! I little deemed another day Would see my houseless, helpless head.

"And there from morn to twilight bound, I felt the heavy hours toil round, With just enough of life to see 720 My last of suns go down on me, In hopeless certainty of, mind, That makes us feel at length resigned To that which our foreboding years Present the worst and last of fears: Inevitable--even a boon, Nor more unkind for coming soon, Yet shunned and dreaded with such care, As if it only were a snare That Prudence might escape: 730 At times both wished for and implored, At times sought with self-pointed sword, Yet still a dark and hideous close To even intolerable woes, And welcome in no shape. And, strange to say, the sons of pleasure, They who have revelled beyond measure In beauty, wassail, wine, and treasure, Die calm, or calmer, oft than he Whose heritage was Misery. 740 For he who hath in turn run through All that was beautiful and new, Hath nought to hope, and nought to leave; And, save the future, (which is viewed Not quite as men are base or good, But as their nerves may be endued,) With nought perhaps to grieve: The wretch still hopes his woes must end, And Death, whom he should deem his friend, Appears, to his distempered eyes, 750 Arrived to rob him of his prize, The tree of his new Paradise. To-morrow would have given him all, Repaid his pangs, repaired his fall; To-morrow would have been the first Of days no more deplored or curst, But bright, and long, and beckoning years, Seen dazzling through the mist of tears, Guerdon of many a painful hour; To-morrow would have given him power 760 To rule--to shine--to smite--to save-- And must it dawn upon his grave?

XVIII.

"The sun was sinking--still I lay Chained to the chill and stiffening steed! I thought to mingle there our clay;[271] And my dim eyes of death had need, No hope arose of being freed. I cast my last looks up the sky, And there between me and the sun[272] I saw the expecting raven fly, 770 Who scarce would wait till both should die, Ere his repast begun;[273] He flew, and perched, then flew once more, And each time nearer than before; I saw his wing through twilight flit, And once so near me he alit I could have smote, but lacked the strength; But the slight motion of my hand, And feeble scratching of the sand, The exerted throat's faint struggling noise, 780 Which scarcely could be called a voice, Together scared him off at length. I know no more--my latest dream Is something of a lovely star Which fixed my dull eyes from afar, And went and came with wandering beam, And of the cold--dull--swimming--dense Sensation of recurring sense, And then subsiding back to death, And then again a little breath, 790 A little thrill--a short suspense, An icy sickness curdling o'er My heart, and sparks that crossed my brain-- A gasp--a throb--a start of pain, A sigh--and nothing more.

XIX.

"I woke--where was I?--Do I see A human face look down on me? And doth a roof above me close? Do these limbs on a couch repose? Is this a chamber where I lie? 800 And is it mortal yon bright eye, That watches me with gentle glance? I closed my own again once more, As doubtful that my former trance Could not as yet be o'er. A slender girl, long-haired, and tall, Sate watching by the cottage wall. The sparkle of her eye I caught, Even with my first return of thought; For ever and anon she threw 810 A prying, pitying glance on me With her black eyes so wild and free: I gazed, and gazed, until I knew No vision it could be,-- But that I lived, and was released From adding to the vulture's feast: And when the Cossack maid beheld My heavy eyes at length unsealed, She smiled--and I essayed to speak, But failed--and she approached, and made 820 With lip and finger signs that said, I must not strive as yet to break The silence, till my strength should be Enough to leave my accents free; And then her hand on mine she laid, And smoothed the pillow for my head, And stole along on tiptoe tread, And gently oped the door, and spake In whispers--ne'er was voice so sweet![274] Even music followed her light feet. 830 But those she called were not awake, And she went forth; but, ere she passed, 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 pass 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 Poltáva on the Vórskla took place July 8, 1709. "The Swedish troops (under Rehnskjöld) 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, passed 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 Poltáva and the junction of the Vórskla and Dniéper.]

[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 Dniéper.]

[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 [Bogdán Khmelnítzky] 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 Khmelnítzky'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 Khmelnítzky'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._, xxxiv. 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 assertion (see Byron's _Works_, 1832, xi. 178), that "it is impossible not to suspect that the Poet had some circumstances 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 identity of the Theresa of the poem with the Countess Guiccioli, but from this contention the late Professor Kölbing (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 passages in Voltaire's _Charles XII._, e.g.: "Depuis Grodno jusqu'au Borysthene, en tirant vers l'orient ce sont des marais, des déserts, des forêts immenses" (_Oeuvres_, 1829, xxiv. 170). The exquisite beauty of the virgin steppes, the long rich grass, the wild-flowers, the "diviner air," to which the Viscount de Vogüé 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."

Sonnet, "No more my visionary soul shall dwell," by S. T. Coleridge, attributed by Southey to Favell.--_Letters of S. T. Coleridge,_ 1895, i. 83; Southey's _Life and Correspondence,_ 1849, i. 224.]

[268] {226}[Compare _Werner_, iii. 3--

"Burn still, Thou little light! Thou art my _ignis fatuus_. My stationary Will-o'-the-wisp!--So! So!"

Compare, too, _Don Juan_, Canto XI. stanza xxvii. line 6, and Canto XV, stanza liv. line 6.]

[bv] {227}

_Rose crimson, and forebade the stars_ _To sparkle in their radiant cars_.--[MS, erased.]

[269] [Compare--

"What time the gray-fly winds her sultry horn."

_Lycidas,_ line 28.]

[270] [Compare--

"Was it the wind through some hollow stone?"

_Siege of Corinth,_ line 521, _Poetical Works,_ 1900, iii. 471, note 1.]

[271] {230}[Compare--

"The Architect ... did essay To extricate remembrance from the clay, Whose minglings might confuse a Newton's thought."

_Churchill's Grave_, lines 20-23 (_vide ante_, p. 47).]

[272] [Compare--

" ... that strange shape drove suddenly Betwixt us and the Sun."

_Ancient Mariner_, Part III. lines 175, 176.]

[273] [_Vide infra_, line 816. The raven turns into a vulture a few lines further on. Compare--

"The scalps were in the wild dog's maw, The hair was tangled round his jaw: But close by the shore, on the edge of the gulf, There sat a vulture flapping a wolf."

_Siege of Corinth_, lines 471-474, _Poetical Works_, 1900, iv. 468.]

[274] {232}[Compare--

"Her eyes were eloquent, her words would pose, Although she told him, in good modern Greek, With an Ionian accent, low and sweet, That he was faint, and must not talk but eat.

"Now Juan could not understand a word, Being no Grecian; but he had an ear, And her voice was the warble of a bird, So soft, so sweet, so delicately clear."

_Don Juan_, Canto II. stanza cl. line 5 to stanza cli. line 4.]

[275] {233}["By noon the battle (of Poltáva) was over.... Charles had been induced to return to the camp and rally the remainder of the army. In spite of his wounded foot, he had to ride, lying on the neck of his horse.... The retreat (down the Vórskla to the Dniéper) began towards evening.... On the afternoon of July 11 the Swedes arrived at the little town of Perevolótchna, at the mouth of the Vórskla, where there was a ferry across the Dniéper ... the king, Mazeppa, and about 1000 men crossed the Dniéper.... The king, with the Russian cavalry in hot pursuit, rode as fast as he could to the Bug, where half his escourt was captured, and he barely escaped. Thence he went to Bender, on the Dniester, and for five years remained the guest of Turkey."--_Peter the Great_, by Eugene Schuyler, 1884, ii. 149-151.]

THE PROPHECY OF DANTE.

"'Tis the sunset of life gives me mystical lore, And coming events cast their shadows before."

Campbell, [_Lochiel's Warning_].

INTRODUCTION TO _THE PROPHECY OF DANTE_.

The _Prophecy of Dante_ was written at Ravenna, during the month of June, 1819, "to gratify" the Countess Guiccioli. Before she left Venice in April she had received a promise from Byron to visit her at Ravenna. "Dante's tomb, the classical pinewood," and so forth, had afforded a pretext for the invitation to be given and accepted, and, at length, when she was, as she imagined, "at the point of death," he arrived, better late than never, "on the Festival of the _Corpus Domini_" which fell that year on the tenth of June (see her communication to Moore, _Life_, p. 399). Horses and books were left behind at Venice, but he could occupy his enforced leisure by "writing something on the subject of Dante" (_ibid_., p. 402). A heightened interest born of fuller knowledge, in Italian literature and Italian politics, lent zest to this labour of love, and, time and place conspiring, he composed "the best thing he ever wrote" (Letter to Murray, March 23, 1820, _Letters_, 1900, iv. 422), his _Vision_ (or _Prophecy_) _of Dante_.

It would have been strange if Byron, who had sounded his _Lament_ over the sufferings of Tasso, and who had become _de facto_ if not _de jure_ a naturalized Italian, had forborne to associate his name and fame with the sacred memory of the "Gran padre Alighier." If there had been any truth in Friedrich Schlegel's pronouncement, in a lecture delivered at Vienna in 1814, "that at no time has the greatest and most national of all Italian poets ever been much the favourite of his countrymen," the reproach had become meaningless. As the sumptuous folio edition (4 vols.) of the _Divina Commedia_, published at Florence, 1817-19; a quarto edition (4 vols.) published at Rome, 1815-17; a folio edition (3 vols.) published at Bologna 1819-21, to which the Conte Giovanni Marchetti (_vide_ the Preface, _post_, p. 245) contributed his famous excursus on the allegory in the First Canto of the _Inferno_, and numerous other issues remain to testify, Dante's own countrymen were eager "to pay honours almost divine" to his memory. "The last age," writes Hobhouse, in 1817 (note 18 to Canto IV. of _Childe Harold's Pilgrimage_, _Poetical Works_, 1899, ii. 496), "seemed inclined to undervalue him.... The present generation ... has returned to the ancient worship, and the _Danteggiare_ of the northern Italians is thought even indiscreet by the more moderate Tuscans." Dante was in the air. As Byron wrote in his Diary (January 29, 1821), "Read Schlegel [probably in a translation published at Edinburgh, 1818]. Not a favourite! Why, they talk Dante, write Dante, and think and dream Dante at this moment (1821), to an excess which would be ridiculous, but that he deserves it."

There was, too, another reason why he was minded to write a poem "on the subject of Dante." There was, at this time, a hope, if not a clear prospect, of political change--of throwing off the yoke of the Bourbon, of liberating Italy from the tyrant and the stranger. "Dante was the poet of liberty. Persecution, exile, the dread of a foreign grave, could not shake his principles" (Medwin, _Conversations_, 1824, p. 242). The _Prophecy_ was "intended for the Italians," intended to foreshadow as in a vision "liberty and the resurrection of Italy" (_ibid_., p. 241). As he rode at twilight through the pine forest, or along "the silent shore Which bounds Ravenna's immemorial wood," the undying past inspired him with a vision of the future, delayed, indeed, for a time, "the flame ending in smoke," but fulfilled after many days, a vision of a redeemed and united Italy.

"The poem," he says, in the Preface, "may be considered as a metrical experiment." In _Beppo_, and the two first cantos of _Don Juan_, he had proved that the _ottava rima_ of the Italians, which Frere had been one of the first to transplant, might grow and flourish in an alien soil, and now, by way of a second venture, he proposed to acclimatize the _terza rima_. He was under the impression that Hayley, whom he had held up to ridicule as "for ever feeble, and for ever tame," had been the first and last to try the measure in English; but of Hayley's excellent translation of the three first cantos of the _Inferno_ (_vide post_, p. 244, note 1), praised but somewhat grudgingly praised by Southey, he had only seen an extract, and of earlier experiments he was altogether ignorant. As a matter of fact, many poets had already essayed, but timidly and without perseverance, to "come to the test in the metrification" of the _Divine Comedy_. Some twenty-seven lines, "the sole example in English literature of that period, of the use of _terza rima_, obviously copied from Dante" (_Complete Works of Chaucer_, by the Rev. W. Skeat, 1894, i. 76, 261), are imbedded in Chaucer's _Compleint to his Lady_. In the sixteenth century Sir Thomas Wyatt and Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey ("Description of the restless state of a lover"), "as novises newly sprung out of the schools of Dante, Ariosto, and Petrarch" (Puttenham's _Art of Poesie_, 1589, pp. 48-50); and later again, Daniel ("To the Lady Lucy, Countess of Bedford"), Ben Jonson, and Milton (_Psalms_ ii., vi.) afford specimens of _terza rima_. There was, too, one among Byron's contemporaries who had already made trial of the metre in his _Prince Athanase_ (1817) and _The Woodman and the Nightingale_ (1818), and who, shortly, in his _Ode to the West Wind_ (October, 1819, published 1820) was to prove that it was not impossible to write English poetry, if not in genuine _terza rima_, with its interchange of double rhymes, at least in what has been happily styled the "Byronic _terza rima_." It may, however, be taken for granted that, at any rate in June, 1819, these fragments of Shelley's were unknown to Byron. Long after Byron's day, but long years before his dream was realized, Mrs. Browning, in her _Casa Guidi Windows_ (1851), in the same metre, re-echoed the same aspiration (see her _Preface_), "that the future of Italy shall not be disinherited." (See for some of these instances of _terza rima_, _Englische Metrik_, von Dr. J. Schipper, 1888, ii. 896. See, too, _The Metre of Dante's Comedy discussed and exemplified_, by Alfred Forman and Harry Buxton Forman, 1878, p. 7.)

The MS. of the _Prophecy of Dante_, together with the Preface, was forwarded to Murray, March 14, 1820; but in spite of some impatience on the part of the author (Letter to Murray, May 8, 1820, _Letters_, 1901,