ADVERTISEMENT
This production is founded partly on the story of a novel called "The Three Brothers,"[201] published many years ago, from which M. G. Lewis's "Wood Demon"[202] was also taken; and partly on the "Faust" of the great Goethe. The present publication[203] contains the two first Parts only, and the opening chorus of the third. The rest may perhaps appear hereafter.
| DRAMATIS PERSONÆ |
| Stranger, afterwards Cæsar |
| Arnold. |
| Bourbon. |
| Philibert. |
| Cellini. |
| Bertha. |
| Olimpia. |
| Spirits, Soldiers, Citizens of Rome, Priests, Peasants, etc. |
THE DEFORMED TRANSFORMED:[cv]
PART I.
Scene I.—A Forest.
Enter Arnold and his mother Bertha.
Bert. Out, Hunchback!
Arn.I was born so, Mother![204]
Bert.Out,
Thou incubus! Thou nightmare! Of seven sons,
The sole abortion!
Arn.Would that I had been so,
And never seen the light!
Bert.I would so, too!
But as thou hast—hence, hence—and do thy best!
That back of thine may bear its burthen; 'tis
More high, if not so broad as that of others.
Arn. It bears its burthen;—but, my heart! Will it
Sustain that which you lay upon it, Mother?
I love, or, at the least, I loved you: nothing10
Save You, in nature, can love aught like me.
You nursed me—do not kill me!
Bert.Yes—I nursed thee,
Because thou wert my first-born, and I knew not
If there would be another unlike thee,
That monstrous sport of Nature. But get hence,
And gather wood![205]
Arn.I will: but when I bring it,
Speak to me kindly. Though my brothers are
So beautiful and lusty, and as free
As the free chase they follow, do not spurn me:
Our milk has been the same.
Bert.As is the hedgehog's,20
Which sucks at midnight from the wholesome dam
Of the young bull, until the milkmaid finds
The nipple, next day, sore, and udder dry.
Call not thy brothers brethren! Call me not
Mother; for if I brought thee forth, it was
As foolish hens at times hatch vipers, by
Sitting upon strange eggs. Out, urchin, out!
[Exit Bertha.
Arn. (solus). Oh, mother!——She is gone, and I must do
Her bidding;—wearily but willingly
I would fulfil it, could I only hope30
A kind word in return. What shall I do?
[Arnold begins to cut wood: in doing this he wounds one of his hands.
My labour for the day is over now.
Accursed be this blood that flows so fast;
For double curses will be my meed now
At home—What home? I have no home, no kin,
No kind—not made like other creatures, or
To share their sports or pleasures. Must I bleed, too,
Like them? Oh, that each drop which falls to earth
Would rise a snake to sting them, as they have stung me!
Or that the Devil, to whom they liken me,40
Would aid his likeness! If I must partake[206]
His form, why not his power? Is it because
I have not his will too? For one kind word
From her who bore me would still reconcile me
Even to this hateful aspect. Let me wash
The wound.
[Arnold goes to a spring, and stoops to wash his hand: he starts back.
They are right; and Nature's mirror shows me,
What she hath made me. I will not look on it
Again, and scarce dare think on't. Hideous wretch
That I am! The very waters mock me with50
My horrid shadow—like a demon placed
Deep in the fountain to scare back the cattle
From drinking therein.[He pauses.
And shall I live on,
A burden to the earth, myself, and shame
Unto what brought me into life? Thou blood,
Which flowest so freely from a scratch, let me
Try if thou wilt not, in a fuller stream,
Pour forth my woes for ever with thyself
On earth, to which I will restore, at once,
This hateful compound of her atoms, and60
Resolve back to her elements, and take
The shape of any reptile save myself,
And make a world for myriads of new worms!
This knife! now let me prove if it will sever
This withered slip of Nature's nightshade—my
Vile form—from the creation, as it hath
The green bough from the forest.
[Arnold places the knife in the ground, with the point upwards.
Now 'tis set,
And I can fall upon it. Yet one glance
On the fair day, which sees no foul thing like
Myself, and the sweet sun which warmed me, but70
In vain. The birds—how joyously they sing!
So let them, for I would not be lamented:
But let their merriest notes be Arnold's knell;
The fallen leaves my monument; the murmur
Of the near fountain my sole elegy.
Now, knife, stand firmly, as I fain would fall!
[As he rushes to throw himself upon the knife, his eye is suddenly caught by the fountain, which seems in motion.
The fountain moves without a wind: but shall
The ripple of a spring change my resolve?
No. Yet it moves again! The waters stir,
Not as with air, but by some subterrane80
And rocking Power of the internal world.
What's here? A mist! No more?—
[A cloud comes from the fountain. He stands gazing upon it: it is dispelled, and a tall black man comes towards him.[207]
Arn.What would you? Speak!
Spirit or man?
Stran.As man is both, why not
Say both in one?
Arn.Your form is man's, and yet
You may be devil.
Stran.So many men are that
Which is so called or thought, that you may add me
To which you please, without much wrong to either.
But come: you wish to kill yourself;—pursue
Your purpose.
Arn.You have interrupted me.
Stran. What is that resolution which can e'er90
Be interrupted? If I be the devil
You deem, a single moment would have made you
Mine, and for ever, by your suicide;
And yet my coming saves you.
Arn.I said not
You were the Demon, but that your approach
Was like one.
Stran.Unless you keep company
With him (and you seem scarce used to such high
Society) you can't tell how he approaches;
And for his aspect, look upon the fountain,
And then on me, and judge which of us twain100
Looks likest what the boors believe to be
Their cloven-footed terror.
Arn.Do you—dare you
To taunt me with my born deformity?
Stran. Were I to taunt a buffalo with this
Cloven foot of thine, or the swift dromedary
With thy Sublime of Humps, the animals
Would revel in the compliment. And yet
Both beings are more swift, more strong, more mighty
In action and endurance than thyself,
And all the fierce and fair of the same kind110
With thee. Thy form is natural: 'twas only
Nature's mistaken largess to bestow
The gifts which are of others upon man.
Arn. Give me the strength then of the buffalo's foot,[cw]
When he spurns high the dust, beholding his
Near enemy; or let me have the long
And patient swiftness of the desert-ship,
The helmless dromedary!—and I'll bear[cx]
Thy fiendish sarcasm with a saintly patience.
Stran. I will.
Arn. (with surprise). Thou canst?
Stran.Perhaps. Would you aught else?120
Arn. Thou mockest me.
Stran.Not I. Why should I mock
What all are mocking? That's poor sport, methinks.
To talk to thee in human language (for
Thou canst not yet speak mine), the forester
Hunts not the wretched coney, but the boar,
Or wolf, or lion—leaving paltry game
To petty burghers, who leave once a year
Their walls, to fill their household cauldrons with
Such scullion prey. The meanest gibe at thee,—
Now I can mock the mightiest.[cy]
Arn.Then waste not130
Thy time on me: I seek thee not.
Stran.Your thoughts
Are not far from me. Do not send me back:
I'm not so easily recalled to do
Good service.
Arn.What wilt thou do for me?
Stran.Change
Shapes with you, if you will, since yours so irks you;
Or form you to your wish in any shape.
Arn. Oh! then you are indeed the Demon, for
Nought else would wittingly wear mine.
Stran.I'll show thee
The brightest which the world e'er bore, and give thee
Thy choice.
Arn.On what condition?
Stran.There's a question!140
An hour ago you would have given your soul
To look like other men, and now you pause
To wear the form of heroes.
Arn.No; I will not.
I must not compromise my soul.
Stran.What soul,
Worth naming so, would dwell in such a carcase?
Arn. 'Tis an aspiring one, whate'er the tenement
In which it is mislodged. But name your compact:
Must it be signed in blood?
Stran.Not in your own.
Arn. Whose blood then?
Stran.We will talk of that hereafter.
But I'll be moderate with you, for I see150
Great things within you. You shall have no bond
But your own will, no contract save your deeds.
Are you content?
Arn.I take thee at thy word.
Stran. Now then!—
[The Stranger approaches the fountain, and turns to Arnold.
A little of your blood.[208]
Arn.For what?
Stran. To mingle with the magic of the waters,
And make the charm effective.
Arn. (holding out his wounded arm). Take it all.
Stran. Not now. A few drops will suffice for this.
[The Stranger takes some of Arnold's blood in his hand, and casts it into the fountain.
Shadows of Beauty!
Shadows of Power!
Rise to your duty—160
This is the hour!
Walk lovely and pliant[cz]
From the depth of this fountain,
As the cloud-shapen giant
Bestrides the Hartz Mountain.[209]
Come as ye were,
That our eyes may behold
The model in air
Of the form I will mould,
Bright as the Iris170
When ether is spanned;—
Such his desire is,[Pointing to Arnold.
Such my command![da]
Demons heroic—
Demons who wore
The form of the Stoic
Or the shape of each victor—
From Macedon's boy,
To each high Roman's picture,180
Who breathed to destroy—
Shadows of Beauty!
Shadows of Power!
Up to your duty—
This is the hour!
[Various phantoms arise from the waters, and pass in succession before the Stranger and Arnold.
Arn. What do I see?
Stran.The black-eyed Roman,[210] with
The eagle's beak between those eyes which ne'er
Beheld a conqueror, or looked along
The land he made not Rome's, while Rome became
His, and all theirs who heired his very name.190
Arn. The phantom's bald; my quest is beauty. Could I
Inherit but his fame with his defects!
Stran. His brow was girt with laurels more than hairs.[211]
You see his aspect—choose it, or reject.
I can but promise you his form; his fame
Must be long sought and fought for.
Arn.I will fight, too,
But not as a mock Cæsar. Let him pass:
His aspect may be fair, but suits me not.
Stran. Then you are far more difficult to please
Than Cato's sister, or than Brutus's mother,200
Or Cleopatra at sixteen[212]—an age
When love is not less in the eye than heart.
But be it so! Shadow, pass on!
[The phantom of Julius Cæsar disappears.
Arn.And can it
Be, that the man who shook the earth is gone,[db]
And left no footstep?
Stran.There you err. His substance
Left graves enough, and woes enough, and fame
More than enough to track his memory;
But for his shadow—'tis no more than yours,
Except a little longer and less crooked
I' the sun. Behold another![A second phantom passes.
Arn.Who is he?210
Stran. He was the fairest and the bravest of
Athenians.[213] Look upon him well.
Arn.He is
More lovely than the last. How beautiful!
Stran. Such was the curled son of Clinias;—wouldst thou
Invest thee with his form?
Arn.Would that I had
Been born with it! But since I may choose further,
I will look further.[The shade of Alcibiades disappears.
Stran.Lo! behold again!
Arn. What! that low, swarthy, short-nosed, round-eyed satyr,
With the wide nostrils and Silenus' aspect,
The splay feet and low stature![214] I had better220
Remain that which I am.
Stran.And yet he was
The earth's perfection of all mental beauty,
And personification of all virtue.
But you reject him?
Arn.If his form could bring me
That which redeemed it—no.
Stran.I have no power
To promise that; but you may try, and find it
Easier in such a form—or in your own.
Arn. No. I was not born for philosophy,
Though I have that about me which has need on't.
Let him fleet on.
Stran.Be air, thou Hemlock-drinker!230
[The shadow of Socrates disappears: another rises.
Arn. What's here? whose broad brow and whose curly beard
And manly aspect look like Hercules,[215]
Save that his jocund eye hath more of Bacchus
Than the sad purger of the infernal world,
Leaning dejected on his club of conquest,[216]
As if he knew the worthlessness of those
For whom he had fought.
Stran.It was the man who lost
The ancient world for love.
Arn.I cannot blame him,
Since I have risked my soul because I find not
That which he exchanged the earth for.
Stran.Since so far240
You seem congenial, will you wear his features?
Arn. No. As you leave me choice, I am difficult.
If but to see the heroes I should ne'er
Have seen else, on this side of the dim shore,
Whence they float back before us.
Stran.Hence, Triumvir,
Thy Cleopatra's waiting.
[The shade of Antony disappears: another rises.
Arn.Who is this?
Who truly looketh like a demigod,
Blooming and bright, with golden hair, and stature,
If not more high than mortal, yet immortal
In all that nameless bearing of his limbs,250
Which he wears as the Sun his rays—a something
Which shines from him, and yet is but the flashing
Emanation of a thing more glorious still.
Was he e'er human only?[217]
Stran.Let the earth speak,
If there be atoms of him left, or even
Of the more solid gold that formed his urn.
Arn. Who was this glory of mankind?
Stran.The shame
Of Greece in peace, her thunderbolt in war—
Demetrius the Macedonian, and
Taker of cities.
Arn.Yet one shadow more.260
Stran. (addressing the shadow). Get thee to Lamia's lap!
[The shade of Demetrius Poliorcetes vanishes: another rises.
I'll fit you still,
Fear not, my Hunchback: if the shadows of
That which existed please not your nice taste,
I'll animate the ideal marble, till
Your soul be reconciled to her new garment
Arn. Content! I will fix here.
Stran.I must commend
Your choice. The godlike son of the sea-goddess,
The unshorn boy of Peleus, with his locks
As beautiful and clear as the amber waves
Of rich Pactolus, rolled o'er sands of gold,270
Softened by intervening crystal, and
Rippled like flowing waters by the wind,
All vowed to Sperchius[218] as they were—behold them!
And him—as he stood by Polixena,
With sanctioned and with softened love, before
The altar, gazing on his Trojan bride,
With some remorse within for Hector slain
And Priam weeping, mingled with deep passion
For the sweet downcast virgin, whose young hand
Trembled in his who slew her brother. So280
He stood i' the temple! Look upon him as
Greece looked her last upon her best, the instant
Ere Paris' arrow flew.
Arn.I gaze upon him
As if I were his soul, whose form shall soon
Envelope mine.
Stran.You have done well. The greatest
Deformity should only barter with
The extremest beauty—if the proverb's true
Of mortals, that Extremes meet.
Arn.Come! Be quick!
I am impatient.
Stran.As a youthful beauty
Before her glass. You both see what is not,290
But dream it is what must be.
Arn.Must I wait?
Stran. No; that were a pity. But a word or two:
His stature is twelve cubits; would you so far
Outstep these times, and be a Titan? Or
(To talk canonically) wax a son
Of Anak?
Arn.Why not?
Stran.Glorious ambition!
I love thee most in dwarfs! A mortal of
Philistine stature would have gladly pared
His own Goliath down to a slight David:
But thou, my manikin, wouldst soar a show300
Rather than hero. Thou shalt be indulged,
If such be thy desire; and, yet, by being
A little less removed from present men
In figure, thou canst sway them more; for all
Would rise against thee now, as if to hunt
A new-found Mammoth; and their curséd engines,
Their culverins, and so forth, would find way
Through our friend's armour there, with greater ease
Than the Adulterer's arrow through his heel
Which Thetis had forgotten to baptize310
In Styx.
Arn.Then let it be as thou deem'st best.
Stran. Thou shalt be beauteous as the thing thou seest,
And strong as what it was, and——
Arn.I ask not
For Valour, since Deformity is daring.[219]
It is its essence to o'ertake mankind
By heart and soul, and make itself the equal—
Aye, the superior of the rest. There is
A spur in its halt movements, to become
All that the others cannot, in such things
As still are free to both, to compensate320
For stepdame Nature's avarice at first.
They woo with fearless deeds the smiles of fortune,
And oft, like Timour the lame Tartar,[220] win them.
Stran. Well spoken! And thou doubtless wilt remain
Formed as thou art. I may dismiss the mould
Of shadow, which must turn to flesh, to incase
This daring soul, which could achieve no less
Arn.Had no power presented me
The possibility of change, I would
Have done the best which spirit may to make330
Its way with all Deformity's dull, deadly,
Discouraging weight upon me, like a mountain,
In feeling, on my heart as on my shoulders—
A hateful and unsightly molehill to
The eyes of happier men. I would have looked
On Beauty in that sex which is the type
Of all we know or dream of beautiful,
Beyond the world they brighten, with a sigh—
Not of love, but despair; nor sought to win,
Though to a heart all love, what could not love me340
In turn, because of this vile crookéd clog,
Which makes me lonely. Nay, I could have borne
It all, had not my mother spurned me from her.
The she-bear licks her cubs into a sort
Of shape;—my Dam beheld my shape was hopeless.
Had she exposed me, like the Spartan, ere
I knew the passionate part of life, I had
Been a clod of the valley,—happier nothing
Than what I am. But even thus—the lowest,
Ugliest, and meanest of mankind—what courage350
And perseverance could have done, perchance
Had made me something—as it has made heroes
Of the same mould as mine. You lately saw me
Master of my own life, and quick to quit it;
And he who is so is the master of
Whatever dreads to die.
Stran.Decide between
What you have been, or will be.
Arn.I have done so.
You have opened brighter prospects to my eyes,
And sweeter to my heart. As I am now,
I might be feared—admired—respected—loved360
Of all save those next to me, of whom I
Would be belovéd. As thou showest me
A choice of forms, I take the one I view.
Haste! haste!
Stran.And what shall I wear?
Who can command all forms will choose the highest,
Something superior even to that which was
Pelides now before us. Perhaps his
Who slew him, that of Paris: or—still higher—
The Poet's God, clothed in such limbs as are
Themselves a poetry.
Stran.Less will content me;370
For I, too, love a change.
Arn.Your aspect is
Dusky, but not uncomely.[221]
Stran.If I chose,
I might be whiter; but I have a penchant
For black—it is so honest, and, besides,
Can neither blush with shame nor pale with fear;
But I have worn it long enough of late,
And now I'll take your figure.
Arn.Mine!
Stran.Yes. You
Shall change with Thetis' son, and I with Bertha,
Your mother's offspring. People have their tastes;
You have yours—I mine.
Arn.Despatch! despatch!
Stran.Even so.380
[The Stranger takes some earth and moulds it along the turf, and then addresses the phantom of Achilles.
Beautiful shadow
Of Thetis's boy!
Who sleeps in the meadow
Whose grass grows o'er Troy:
From the red earth, like Adam,[222]
Thy likeness I shape,
As the Being who made him,
Whose actions I ape.
Thou Clay, be all glowing,
Till the Rose in his cheek390
Be as fair as, when blowing,
Ye Violets, I scatter,
Now turn into eyes!
And thou, sunshiny Water,
Of blood take the guise!
Let these Hyacinth boughs
Be his long flowing hair,
And wave o'er his brows,
As thou wavest in air!400
Let his heart be this marble
I tear from the rock!
But his voice as the warble
Of birds on yon oak!
Let his flesh be the purest
Of mould, in which grew
The Lily-root surest,
And drank the best dew!
Let his limbs be the lightest
Which clay can compound,410
And his aspect the brightest
On earth to be found!
Elements, near me,
Be mingled and stirred,
Know me, and hear me,
And leap to my word!
Sunbeams, awaken
This earth's animation![dc]
'Tis done! He hath taken
His stand in creation!420
[Arnold falls senseless; his soul passes into the shape of Achilles, which rises from the ground; while the phantom has disappeared, part by part, as the figure was formed from the earth.
Arn. (in his new form). I love, and I shall be beloved! Oh, life!
At last I feel thee! Glorious Spirit!
Stran.Stop!
What shall become of your abandoned garment,
Yon hump, and lump, and clod of ugliness,
Which late you wore, or were?
And vultures take it, if they will.
Stran.And if
They do, and are not scared by it, you'll say
It must be peace-time, and no better fare
Abroad i' the fields.
Arn.Let us but leave it there;
No matter what becomes on't.
Stran.That's ungracious;430
If not ungrateful. Whatsoe'er it be,
It hath sustained your soul full many a day.
Arn. Aye, as the dunghill may conceal a gem
Which is now set in gold, as jewels should be.
Stran. But if I give another form, it must be
By fair exchange, not robbery. For they[223]
Who make men without women's aid have long
Had patents for the same, and do not love
Your Interlopers. The Devil may take men,[dd]
Not make them,—though he reap the benefit440
Of the original workmanship:—and therefore
Some one must be found to assume the shape
You have quitted.
Arn.Who would do so?
Stran.That I know not,
And therefore I must.
Arn.You!
Stran.I said it ere
You inhabited your present dome of beauty.
Arn. True. I forget all things in the new joy
Of this immortal change.
Stran.In a few moments
I will be as you were, and you shall see
Yourself for ever by you, as your shadow.
Arn. I would be spared this.
Stran.But it cannot be.450
What! shrink already, being what you are,
From seeing what you were?
Arn.Do as thou wilt.
Stran. (to the late form of Arnold, extended on the earth).
Clay! not dead, but soul-less!
Though no man would choose thee,
An Immortal no less
Deigns not to refuse thee.
Clay thou art; and unto spirit
All clay is of equal merit.
Fire! without which nought can live;
Fire! but in which nought can live,460
Save the fabled salamander,
Or immortal souls, which wander,
Praying what doth not forgive,
Howling for a drop of water,
Burning in a quenchless lot:
Fire! the only element
Where nor fish, beast, bird, nor worm,
Save the Worm which dieth not,
Can preserve a moment's form,
But must with thyself be blent:470
Fire! man's safeguard and his slaughter:
Fire! Creation's first-born Daughter,
And Destruction's threatened Son,
When Heaven with the world hath done:
Fire! assist me to renew
Life in what lies in my view
Stiff and cold!
His resurrection rests with me and you!
One little, marshy spark of flame—[224]
And he again shall seem the same;480
But I his Spirit's place shall hold!
[An ignis-fatuus flits through the wood and rests on the brow of the body. The Stranger disappears: the body rises.
Arn. (in his new form). Oh! horrible!
Stran. (in Arnold's late shape). What! tremblest thou?
Arn.Not so—
I merely shudder. Where is fled the shape
Thou lately worest?
Stran.To the world of shadows.
But let us thread the present. Whither wilt thou?
Arn. Must thou be my companion?
Stran.Wherefore not?
Your betters keep worse company.
Arn.My betters!
Stran. Oh! you wax proud, I see, of your new form:
I'm glad of that. Ungrateful too! That's well;
You improve apace;—two changes in an instant,490
And you are old in the World's ways already.
But bear with me: indeed you'll find me useful
Upon your pilgrimage. But come, pronounce
Where shall we now be errant?
Arn.Where the World
Is thickest, that I may behold it in
Its workings.
Stran.That's to say, where there is War
And Woman in activity. Let's see!
Spain—Italy—the new Atlantic world[225]—
Afric with all its Moors. In very truth,
There is small choice: the whole race are just now500
Tugging as usual at each other's hearts.
Arn. I have heard great things of Rome.
Stran.A goodly choice—
And scarce a better to be found on earth,
Since Sodom was put out. The field is wide too;
For now the Frank, and Hun, and Spanish scion
Of the old Vandals, are at play along
The sunny shores of the World's garden.
Arn.How
Shall we proceed?
Stran.Like gallants, on good coursers.
What, ho! my chargers! Never yet were better,
Since Phaeton was upset into the Po[226].510
Our pages too!
Enter two Pages, with four coal-black horses.
Arn.A noble sight!
Stran.And of
A nobler breed. Match me in Barbary,
Or your Kochlini race of Araby[de][227],
With these!
Arn.The mighty steam, which volumes high
From their proud nostrils, burns the very air;
And sparks of flame, like dancing fire-flies wheel
Around their manes, as common insects swarm
Round common steeds towards sunset.
Stran.Mount, my lord:
They and I are your servitors.
Arn.And these
Our dark-eyed pages—what may be their names?520
Stran. You shall baptize them.
Arn.What! in holy water?
Stran. Why not? The deeper sinner, better saint.
Arn. They are beautiful, and cannot, sure, be demons.
Stran. True; the devil's always ugly: and your beauty
Is never diabolical.
Arn.I'll call him
Who bears the golden horn, and wears such bright
And blooming aspect, Huon;[228] for he looks
Like to the lovely boy lost in the forest,
And never found till now. And for the other
And darker, and more thoughtful, who smiles not,530
But looks as serious though serene as night,
He shall be Memnon[229], from the Ethiop king
Whose statue turns a harper once a day.
And you?
Stran.I have ten thousand names, and twice
As many attributes; but as I wear
A human shape, will take a human name.
Arn. More human than the shape (though it was mine once)
I trust.
Stran. Then call me Cæsar.
Arn.Why, that name
Belongs to Empire, and has been but borne
By the World's lords.
Stran.And therefore fittest for540
The Devil in disguise—since so you deem me,
Unless you call me Pope instead.
Arn.Well, then,
Cæsar thou shalt be. For myself, my name
Shall be plain Arnold still.
Cæs.We'll add a title[df]—
"Count Arnold:" it hath no ungracious sound,
And will look well upon a billet-doux.
Arn. Or in an order for a battle-field.
Cæs. (sings).
To horse! to horse! my coal-black steed
Paws the ground and snuffs the air!
There's not a foal of Arab's breed550
On the hill he will not tire,
Swifter as it waxes higher;
In the marsh he will not slacken,
On the plain be overtaken;
In the wave he will not sink,
Nor pause at the brook's side to drink;
In the race he will not pant,
In the combat he'll not faint;
On the stones he will not stumble,560
Time nor toil shall make him humble;
In the stall he will not stiffen,
But be wingèd as a Griffin,
Only flying with his feet:
And will not such a voyage be sweet?
Shall our bonny black horses skim over the ground!
From the Alps to the Caucasus, ride we, or fly!
For we'll leave them behind in the glance of an eye.
[They mount their horses, and disappear.
Scene II.—A Camp before the walls of Rome.
Arnold and Cæsar.
Cæs. You are well entered now.
Arn.Aye; but my path
Has been o'er carcasses: mine eyes are full[dg]
Of blood.
Cæs.Then wipe them, and see clearly. Why!
Thou art a conqueror; the chosen knight
And free companion of the gallant Bourbon,
Late constable of France[230]; and now to be
Lord of the city which hath been Earth's Lord
Under its emperors, and—changing sex,
Not sceptre, an Hermaphrodite of Empire—
Lady of the old world[231].
Arn.How old? What! are there10
New worlds?
Cæs.To you. You'll find there are such shortly,
By its rich harvests, new disease, and gold;
From one half of the world named a whole new one,
Because you know no better than the dull
And dubious notice of your eyes and ears.
Arn. I'll trust them.
Cæs.Do! They will deceive you sweetly,
And that is better than the bitter truth.
Arn. Dog!
Cæs.Man!
Cæs.Your obedient humble servant.
Arn. Say master rather. Thou hast lured me on,
Through scenes of blood and lust, till I am here.20
Cæs. And where wouldst thou be?
Arn.Oh, at peace—in peace!
Cæs. And where is that which is so? From the star
To the winding worm, all life is motion; and
In life commotion is the extremest point
Of life. The planet wheels till it becomes
A comet, and destroying as it sweeps
The stars, goes out. The poor worm winds its way,
Living upon the death of other things,
But still, like them, must live and die, the subject
Of something which has made it live and die.30
You must obey what all obey, the rule
Of fixed Necessity: against her edict
Rebellion prospers not.
Arn.And when it prospers——
Cæs. 'Tis no rebellion.
Arn.Will it prosper now?
Cæs. The Bourbon hath given orders for the assault,
And by the dawn there will be work.
Arn.Alas!
And shall the city yield? I see the giant
Abode of the true God, and his true saint,
Saint Peter, rear its dome and cross into
That sky whence Christ ascended from the cross,40
Which his blood made a badge of glory and
Of joy (as once of torture unto him),—
God and God's Son, man's sole and only refuge!
Cæs. 'Tis there, and shall be.
Arn.What?
Cæs.The Crucifix
Above, and many altar shrines below.
Also some culverins upon the walls,
And harquebusses, and what not; besides
The men who are to kindle them to death
Of other men.
Arn.And those scarce mortal arches,[232]
Pile above pile of everlasting wall,50
The theatre where Emperors and their subjects
(Those subjects Romans) stood at gaze upon
The battles of the monarchs of the wild
And wood—the lion and his tusky rebels
Of the then untamed desert, brought to joust
In the arena—as right well they might,
When they had left no human foe unconquered—
Made even the forest pay its tribute of
Life to their amphitheatre, as well
As Dacia men to die the eternal death60
For a sole instant's pastime, and "Pass on
To a new gladiator!"—Must it fall?
Cæs. The city, or the amphitheatre?
The church, or one, or all? for you confound
Both them and me.
Arn.To-morrow sounds the assault
With the first cock-crow.
Cæs.Which, if it end with
The evening's first nightingale, will be
Something new in the annals of great sieges;
For men must have their prey after long toil.
Arn. The sun goes down as calmly, and perhaps70
More beautifully, than he did on Rome
On the day Remus leapt her wall.
Cæs.I saw him.
Arn. You!
Cæs.Yes, Sir! You forget I am or was
Spirit, till I took up with your cast shape,
And a worse name. I'm Cæsar and a hunch-back
Now. Well! the first of Cæsars was a bald-head,
And loved his laurels better as a wig
(So history says) than as a glory.[233] Thus
The world runs on, but we'll be merry still.
I saw your Romulus (simple as I am)80
Slay his own twin, quick-born of the same womb,
Because he leapt a ditch ('twas then no wall,
Whate'er it now be); and Rome's earliest cement
Was brother's blood; and if its native blood
Be spilt till the choked Tiber be as red
As e'er 'twas yellow, it will never wear
The deep hue of the Ocean and the Earth,
Which the great robber sons of fratricide
Have made their never-ceasing scene of slaughter,
For ages.
Arn.But what have these done, their far90
Remote descendants, who have lived in peace,
The peace of Heaven, and in her sunshine of
Piety?
Cæs. And what had they done, whom the old
Romans o'erswept?—Hark!
Arn.They are soldiers singing
A reckless roundelay, upon the eve
Of many deaths, it may be of their own.
Cæs. And why should they not sing as well as swans?
They are black ones, to be sure.
Arn.So, you are learned,
I see, too?
Cæs.In my grammar, certes. I
Was educated for a monk of all times,100
And once I was well versed in the forgotten
Etruscan letters, and—were I so minded—
Could make their hieroglyphics plainer than
Your alphabet.
Arn.And wherefore do you not?
Cæs. It answers better to resolve the alphabet
Back into hieroglyphics. Like your statesman,
And prophet, pontiff, doctor, alchymist,
Philosopher, and what not, they have built
More Babels, without new dispersion, than
The stammering young ones of the flood's dull ooze,110
Who failed and fled each other. Why? why, marry,
Because no man could understand his neighbour.
They are wiser now, and will not separate
For nonsense. Nay, it is their brotherhood,
Their Shibboleth—their Koran—Talmud—their
Cabala—their best brick-work, wherewithal
Arn. (interrupting him). Oh, thou everlasting sneerer!
Be silent! How the soldier's rough strain seems
Softened by distance to a hymn-like cadence!
Listen!
Cæs.Yes. I have heard the angels sing.120
Arn. And demons howl.
Cæs.And man, too. Let us listen:
I love all music.
Song of the Soldiers within.
The black bands came over
The Alps and their snow;
With Bourbon, the rover,
They passed the broad Po.
We have beaten all foemen,
We have captured a King[234],
We have turned back on no men,
And so let us sing!130
Here's the Bourbon for ever!
Though penniless all,
We'll have one more endeavour
At yonder old wall.
With the Bourbon we'll gather
At day-dawn before
The gates, and together
Or break or climb o'er
The wall: on the ladder,
As mounts each firm foot[dh],140
Our shout shall grow gladder,
And Death only be mute[235].
With the Bourbon we'll mount o'er
The walls of old Rome,
And who then shall count o'er[di]
Up! up with the Lily!
And down with the Keys!
In old Rome, the seven-hilly,
We'll revel at ease.150
Her streets shall be gory,
Her Tiber all red,
And her temples so hoary
Shall clang with our tread.
Oh, the Bourbon! the Bourbon[236]!
The Bourbon for aye!
Of our song bear the burden!
And fire, fire away!
With Spain for the vanguard,
Our varied host comes;160
And next to the Spaniard
Beat Germany's drums;
And Italy's lances
Are couched at their mother;
But our leader from France is,
Who warred with his brother.
Oh, the Bourbon! the Bourbon!
Sans country or home,
We'll follow the Bourbon,
To plunder old Rome.170
Cæs.An indifferent song
For those within the walls, methinks, to hear.
Arn. Yes, if they keep to their chorus. But here comes
The general with his chiefs and men of trust[dj].
A goodly rebel.
Enter the Constable Bourbon "cum suis," etc., etc.
Phil.How now, noble Prince,
You are not cheerful?
Bourb.Why should I be so?
Phil. Upon the eve of conquest, such as ours,
Bourb.If I were secure!
Phil. Doubt not our soldiers. Were the walls of adamant,
They'd crack them. Hunger is a sharp artillery.180
Bourb. That they will falter is my least of fears.
That they will be repulsed, with Bourbon for
Their chief, and all their kindled appetites
To marshal them on—were those hoary walls
Mountains, and those who guard them like the gods
Of the old fables, I would trust my Titans;—
But now——
Phil.They are but men who war with mortals.
Bourb. True: but those walls have girded in great ages,
And sent forth mighty spirits. The past earth
And present phantom of imperious Rome[dk]190
Is peopled with those warriors; and methinks
They flit along the eternal City's rampart,
And stretch their glorious, gory, shadowy hands,
And beckon me away!
Phil.So let them! Wilt thou
Turn back from shadowy menaces of shadows?
Bourb. They do not menace me. I could have faced,
Methinks, a Sylla's menace; but they clasp,
And raise, and wring their dim and deathlike hands,
And with their thin aspen faces and fixed eyes
Fascinate mine. Look there!
Phil.I look upon200
A lofty battlement.
Bourb.And there!
Phil.Not even
A guard in sight; they wisely keep below,
Sheltered by the grey parapet from some
Stray bullet of our lansquenets, who might
Practise in the cool twilight.
Bourb.You are blind.
Phil. If seeing nothing more than may be seen
Be so.
Bourb. A thousand years have manned the walls
With all their heroes,—the last Cato[237] stands
And tears his bowels, rather than survive
The liberty of that I would enslave.210
And the first Cassar with his triumphs flits
From battlement to battlement.
Phil.Then conquer
The walls for which he conquered and be greater!
Bourb. True: so I will, or perish.
Phil.You can not.
In such an enterprise to die is rather
The dawn of an eternal day, than death.
[Count Arnold and Cæsar advance.
Cæs. And the mere men—do they, too, sweat beneath
The noon of this same ever-scorching glory?
Bourb.Ah!
Welcome the bitter Hunchback! and his master,
The beauty of our host, and brave as beauteous,220
And generous as lovely. We shall find
Work for you both ere morning.
Cæs.You will find,
So please your Highness, no less for yourself.
Bourb. And if I do, there will not be a labourer
More forward, Hunchback!
Cæs.You may well say so,
For you have seen that back—as general,
Placed in the rear in action—but your foes
Have never seen it.
Bourb.That's a fair retort,
For I provoked it:—but the Bourbon's breast
Has been, and ever shall be, far advanced230
In danger's face as yours, were you the devil.
Cæs. And if I were, I might have saved myself
The toil of coming here.
Phil.Why so?
Of your brave bands of their own bold accord
Will go to him, the other half be sent,
More swiftly, not less surely.
Bourb.Arnold, your
Slight crooked friend's as snake-like in his words
As his deeds.
Cæs.Your Highness much mistakes me.
The first snake was a flatterer—I am none;
And for my deeds, I only sting when stung.240
Bourb. You are brave, and that's enough for me; and quick
In speech as sharp in action—and that's more.
I am not alone the soldier, but the soldiers'
Comrade.
Cæs.They are but bad company, your Highness;
And worse even for their friends than foes, as being
More permanent acquaintance.
Phil.How now, fellow!
Thou waxest insolent, beyond the privilege
Of a buffoon.
Cæs.You mean I speak the truth.
I'll lie—it is as easy: then you'll praise me
For calling you a hero.
Bourb.Philibert!250
Let him alone; he's brave, and ever has
Been first, with that swart face and mountain shoulder,
In field or storm, and patient in starvation;
And for his tongue, the camp is full of licence,
And the sharp stinging of a lively rogue
Is, to my mind, far preferable to
The gross, dull, heavy, gloomy execration
Of a mere famished sullen grumbling slave,[dl]
Whom nothing can convince save a full meal,
And wine, and sleep, and a few Maravedis,260
With which he deems him rich.
Cæs.It would be well
If the earth's princes asked no more.
Bourb.Be silent!
Cæs. Aye, but not idle. Work yourself with words![dm]
You have few to speak.
Phil.What means the audacious prater?
Cæs. To prate, like other prophets.
Bourb.Philibert!
Why will you vex him? Have we not enough
To think on? Arnold! I will lead the attack
To-morrow.
Arn.I have heard as much, my Lord.
Bourb. And you will follow?
Arn.Since I must not lead.
Bourb. 'Tis necessary for the further daring
Of our too needy army, that their chief
Plant the first foot upon the foremost ladder's
First step.
Cæs.Upon its topmost, let us hope:
So shall he have his full deserts.
Bourb.The world's
Great capital perchance is ours to-morrow.[dn]
Through every change the seven-hilled city hath
Retained her sway o'er nations, and the Cæsars
But yielded to the Alarics, the Alarics
Unto the pontiffs. Roman, Goth, or priest.
Still the world's masters! Civilised, barbarian,
Or saintly, still the walls of Romulus
Have been the circus of an Empire. Well!
'Twas their turn—now 'tis ours; and let us hope
That we will fight as well, and rule much better.
Cæs. No doubt, the camp's the school of civic rights.
What would you make of Rome?
Bourb.That which it was.
Cæs. In Alaric's time?
Bourb.No, slave! in the first Cæsar's,
Whose name you bear like other curs——
Cæs.And kings!
'Tis a great name for blood-hounds.
Bourb.There's a demon
In that fierce rattlesnake thy tongue. Wilt never
Be serious?
Cæs.On the eve of battle, no;—
That were not soldier-like. 'Tis for the general
To be more pensive: we adventurers
Must be more cheerful. Wherefore should we think?
Our tutelar Deity, in a leader's shape,
Takes care of us. Keep thought aloof from hosts!
If the knaves take to thinking, you will have
To crack those walls alone.
Bourb.You may sneer, since
'Tis lucky for you that you fight no worse for 't.
Cæs. I thank you for the freedom; 'tis the only300
Pay I have taken in your Highness' service.
Bourb. Well, sir, to-morrow you shall pay yourself.
Look on those towers; they hold my treasury:
But, Philibert, we'll in to council. Arnold,
We would request your presence.
Arn.Prince! my service
Is yours, as in the field.
Bourb.In both we prize it,
And yours will be a post of trust at daybreak.
Cæs. And mine?
Bourb.To follow glory with the Bourbon.
Good night!
Arn. (to Cæsar). Prepare our armour for the assault,
And wait within my tent.
[Exeunt Bourbon, Arnold, Philibert, etc.
Cæs. (solus).Within thy tent!310
Think'st thou that I pass from thee with my presence?
Or that this crooked coffer, which contained
Thy principle of life, is aught to me
Except a mask? And these are men, forsooth!
Heroes and chiefs, the flower of Adam's bastards!
This is the consequence of giving matter
The power of thought. It is a stubborn substance,
And thinks chaotically, as it acts,
Ever relapsing into its first elements.
Well! I must play with these poor puppets: 'tis320
The Spirit's pastime in his idler hours.
When I grow weary of it, I have business
Amongst the stars, which these poor creatures deem
Were made for them to look at. 'Twere a jest now
To bring one down amongst them, and set fire
Unto their anthill: how the pismires then
Would scamper o'er the scalding soil, and, ceasing
From tearing down each other's nests, pipe forth
One universal orison! ha! ha![Exit Caesar.
PART II.
Scene I.—Before the walls of Rome.—The Assault: the Army in motion, with ladders to scale the walls;[238] Bourbon with a white scarf over his armour, foremost.
Chorus of Spirits in the air.
I.
'Tis the morn, but dim and dark.[do]
Whither flies the silent lark?
Whither shrinks the clouded sun?
Is the day indeed begun?
Nature's eye is melancholy
O'er the city high and holy:
But without there is a din
Should arouse the saints within,
And revive the heroic ashes
Round which yellow Tiber dashes.10
Oh, ye seven hills! awaken,
Ere your very base be shaken!
II.
Hearken to the steady stamp!
Not a step is out of tune,
As the tides obey the moon!
On they march, though to self-slaughter,
Regular as rolling water,
Whose high-waves o'ersweep the border
Of huge moles, but keep their order,20
Breaking only rank by rank.
Hearken to the armour's clank!
Look down o'er each frowning warrior,
How he glares upon the barrier:
Look on each step of each ladder,
As the stripes that streak an adder.
III.
Look upon the bristling wall,
Manned without an interval!
Round and round, and tier on tier,
Cannon's black mouth, shining spear,30
Lit match, bell-mouthed Musquetoon,
Gaping to be murderous soon;
All the warlike gear of old,
Mixed with what we now behold,
In this strife 'twixt old and new,
Gather like a locusts' crew.
Shade of Remus! 'tis a time
Awful as thy brother's crime!
Christians war against Christ's shrine:—
Must its lot be like to thine?40
IV.
Near—and near—and nearer still,
As the Earthquake saps the hill,
First with trembling, hollow motion,
Like a scarce awakened ocean,
Then with stronger shock and louder,
Till the rocks are crushed to powder,—
Onward sweeps the rolling host!
Heroes of the immortal boast!
Mighty Chiefs! eternal shadows!
First flowers of the bloody meadows50
Which encompass Rome, the mother
Of a people without brother!
Will you sleep when nations' quarrels
Plough the root up of your laurels?
Ye who weep o'er Carthage burning,
Weep not—strike! for Rome is mourning![239]
V.
Onward sweep the varied nations!
Famine long hath dealt their rations.
To the wall, with hate and hunger,
Numerous as wolves, and stronger,60
On they sweep. Oh, glorious City!
Must thou be a theme for pity?
Fight, like your first sire, each Roman!
Alaric was a gentle foeman,
Matched with Bourbon's black banditti!
Rouse thee, thou eternal City;
Rouse thee! Rather give the torch
With thine own hand to thy porch,[dp]
Than behold such hosts pollute
Your worst dwelling with their foot.70
VI.
Ah! behold yon bleeding spectre!
Ilion's children find no Hector;
Priam's offspring loved their brother;
Rome's great sire forgot his mother,
When he slew his gallant twin,
With inexpiable sin.
See the giant shadow stride
O'er the ramparts high and wide!
When the first o'erleapt thy wall,
Its foundation mourned thy fall.80
Now, though towering like a Babel,
Who to stop his steps are able?
Stalking o'er thy highest dome,
Remus claims his vengeance, Rome!
VII.
Now they reach thee in their anger:
Fire and smoke and hellish clangour
Are around thee, thou world's wonder!
Death is in thy walls and under.
Now the meeting steel first clashes,
Downward then the ladder crashes,90
With its iron load all gleaming,
Lying at its foot blaspheming!
Up again! for every warrior
Slain, another climbs the barrier.
Thicker grows the strife: thy ditches
Europe's mingling gore enriches.
Rome! although thy wall may perish,
Such manure thy fields will cherish,
Making gay the harvest-home;
But thy hearths, alas! oh, Rome!—100
Yet be Rome amidst thine anguish,
Fight as thou wast wont to vanquish!
VIII.
Yet once more, ye old Penates!
Let not your quenched hearts be Atés!
Yet again, ye shadowy Heroes,
Yield not to these stranger Neros!
Though the son who slew his mother
Shed Rome's blood, he was your brother:
'Twas the Roman curbed the Roman;—
Brennus was a baffled foeman.110
Yet again, ye saints and martyrs,
Rise! for yours are holier charters!
Mighty Gods of temples falling,
Yet in ruin still appalling!
Mightier Founders of those altars,
True and Christian,—strike the assaulters!
Tiber! Tiber! let thy torrent
Show even Nature's self abhorrent.
Let each breathing heart dilated
Turn, as doth the lion baited!120
Rome be crashed to one wide tomb,
But be still the Roman's Rome![240]
[Bourbon, Arnold, Cæsar, and others, arrive at the foot of the wall. Arnold is about to plant his ladder.
Bourb. Hold, Arnold! I am first.
Arn.Not so, my Lord.
Bourb. Hold, sir, I charge you! Follow! I am proud
Of such a follower, but will brook no leader.
[Bourbon plants his ladder, and begins to mount.
Now, boys! On! on!
[A shot strikes him, and Bourbon falls.
Cæs.And off!
Arn.Eternal powers!
The host will be appalled,—but vengeance! vengeance!
Bourb. 'Tis nothing—lend me your hand.
[Bourbon takes Arnold by the hand, and rises; but as he puts his foot on the step, falls again.
Arnold! I am sped.
Conceal my fall[241]—all will go well—conceal it!
Fling my cloak o'er what will be dust anon;130
Let not the soldiers see it.
Arn.You must be
Removed; the aid of——
Bourb.No, my gallant boy!
Death is upon me. But what is one life?
The Bourbon's spirit shall command them still.
Keep them yet ignorant that I am but clay,
Till they are conquerors—then do as you may.
Cæs. Would not your Highness choose to kiss the cross?
We have no priest here, but the hilt of sword
May serve instead:—it did the same for Bayard[242].
Bourb. Thou bitter slave! to name him at this time!140
But I deserve it.
Arn. (to Cæsar). Villain, hold your peace!
Cæs. What, when a Christian dies? Shall I not offer
A Christian "Vade in pace?"[243]
Arn.Silence! Oh!
Those eyes are glazing which o'erlooked the world,
And saw no equal.
Bourb.Arnold, shouldst thou see
France——But hark! hark! the assault grows warmer—Oh!
For but an hour, a minute more of life,
To die within the wall! Hence, Arnold, hence!
You lose time—they will conquer Rome without thee.
Arn. And without thee.
Bourb.Not so; I'll lead them still150
In spirit. Cover up my dust, and breathe not
That I have ceased to breathe. Away! and be
Victorious.
Arn.But I must not leave thee thus.
Bourb. You must—farewell—Up! up! the world is winning.
[Bourbon dies.
Cæs. (to Arnold). Come, Count, to business.
Arn.True. I'll weep hereafter.
[Arnold covers Bourbon's body with a mantle, mounts the ladder, crying
The Bourbon! Bourbon! On, boys! Rome is ours!
Cæs. Good night, Lord Constable! thou wert a Man.
[Cæsar follows Arnold; they reach the battlement; Arnold and Cæsar are struck down.
Cæs. A precious somerset! Is your countship injured?
Arn. No.[Remounts the ladder.
Cæs.A rare blood-hound, when his own is heated!
And 'tis no boy's play. Now he strikes them down!160
His hand is on the battlement—he grasps it
As though it were an altar; now his foot
Is on it, and——What have we here?—a Roman?
The first bird of the covey! he has fallen[A man falls.
On the outside of the nest. Why, how now, fellow?
Wounded Man. A drop of water!
Cæs.Blood's the only liquid
Nearer than Tiber.
Wounded Man.I have died for Rome.[Dies.
Cæs. And so did Bourbon, in another sense.
Oh, these immortal men! and their great motives!
But I must after my young charge. He is170
By this time i' the Forum. Charge! charge!
[Cæsar mounts the ladder; the scene closes.
Scene II.—The City.—Combats between the Besiegers and Besieged in the streets. Inhabitants flying in confusion.
Enter Cæsar.
Cæs. I cannot find my hero; he is mixed
With the heroic crowd that now pursue
The fugitives, or battle with the desperate.
What have we here? A Cardinal or two
That do not seem in love with martyrdom.
How the old red-shanks scamper! Could they doff
Their hose as they have doffed their hats, 'twould be
A blessing, as a mark[244] the less for plunder.
But let them fly; the crimson kennels now
Will not much stain their stockings, since the mire10
Is of the self-same purple hue.
Enter a Party fighting—Arnold at the head of the Besiegers.
He comes,
Hand in hand with the mild twins—Gore and Glory.[dq]
Holla! hold, Count!
Arn.Away! they must not rally.
Cæs. I tell thee, be not rash; a golden bridge
Is for a flying enemy. I gave thee
A form of beauty, and an
Exemption from some maladies of body,
But not of mind, which is not mine to give.
But though I gave the form of Thetis' son,
I dipped thee not in Styx; and 'gainst a foe20
I would not warrant thy chivalric heart
More than Pelides' heel; why, then, be cautious,
And know thyself a mortal still.
Arn.And who
With aught of soul would combat if he were
Invulnerable? That were pretty sport.
Think'st thou I beat for hares when lions roar?
[Arnold rushes into the combat.
Cæs. A precious sample of humanity!
Well, his blood's up; and, if a little's shed,
'Twill serve to curb his fever.
[Arnold engages with a Roman, who retires towards a portico.
Arn.Yield thee, slave!
I promise quarter.
Rom.That's soon said.
Arn.And done——30
My word is known.
Rom.So shall be my deeds.
[They re-engage. Cæsar comes forward.
Cæs. Why, Arnold! hold thine own: thou hast in hand
A famous artisan, a cunning sculptor;
Also a dealer in the sword and dagger.
Not so, my musqueteer; 'twas he who slew
The Bourbon from the wall.[245]
Arn.Aye, did he so?
Then he hath carved his monument.
Rom.I yet
May live to carve your better's.
Cæs. Well said, my man of marble! Benvenuto,
Thou hast some practice in both ways; and he40
Who slays Cellini will have worked as hard
As e'er thou didst upon Carrara's blocks.
[Arnold disarms and wounds Cellini, hit slightly: the latter draws a pistol, and fires; then retires, and disappears through the portico.
Cæs. How farest thou? Thou hast a taste, methinks,
Of red Bellona's banquet.
Arn. (staggers).'Tis a scratch.
Lend me thy scarf. He shall not 'scape me thus.
Cæs. Where is it?
Arn.In the shoulder, not the sword arm—
And that's enough. I am thirsty: would I had
A helm of water!
Cæs.That's a liquid now
In requisition, but by no means easiest
To come at.
Arn.And my thirst increases;—but50
I'll find a way to quench it.
Cæs.Or be quenched
Thyself.
Arn.The chance is even; we will throw
The dice thereon. But I lose time in prating;
Prithee be quick.[Cæsar binds on the scarf.
And what dost thou so idly?
Cæs.Your old philosophers
Beheld mankind, as mere spectators of
The Olympic games. When I behold a prize
Worth wrestling for, I may be found a Milo.[246]
Arn. Aye, 'gainst an oak.
Cæs.A forest, when it suits me:
I combat with a mass, or not at all.60
Meantime, pursue thy sport as I do mine;
Which is just now to gaze, since all these labourers
Will reap my harvest gratis.
Arn.Thou art still
A fiend!
Cæs.And thou—a man.
Arn. Why, such I fain would show me.[dr]
Cæs.True—as men are.
Arn. And what is that?
Cæs.Thou feelest and thou see'st.
[Exit Arnold, joining in the combat which still continues between detached parties. The scene closes.
Scene III.—St. Peter's—The interior of the Church—The Pope at the Altar—Priests, etc., crowding in confusion, and Citizens flying for refuge, pursued by Soldiery.
Enter Cæsar.
A Spanish Soldier. Down with them, comrades, seize upon those lamps!
Cleave yon bald-pated shaveling to the chine!
His rosary's of gold!
Lutheran Soldier.Revenge! revenge!
Plunder hereafter, but for vengeance now—
Yonder stands Anti-Christ!
Cæs. (interposing).How now, schismatic?
Luth. Sold.In the holy name of Christ,
Destroy proud Anti-Christ.[247] I am a Christian.
Cæs. Yea, a disciple that would make the founder
Of your belief renounce it, could he see
Such proselytes. Best stint thyself to plunder.10
Luth. Sold. I say he is the Devil.
Cæs.Hush! keep that secret,[ds]
Lest he should recognise you for his own.
Luth. Sold. Why would you save him? I repeat he is
The Devil, or the Devil's vicar upon earth.
Cæs. And that's the reason: would you make a quarrel
With your best friends? You had far best be quiet;
His hour is not yet come.
Luth. Sold.That shall be seen!
[The Lutheran Soldier rushes forward: a shot strikes him from one of the Pope's Guards, and he falls at the foot of the Altar.
Cæs. (to the Lutheran). I told you so.
Luth. Sold.And will you not avenge me?
Cæs. Not I! You know that "Vengeance is the Lord's:"
You see he loves no interlopers.
Luth. Sold. (dying).Oh!20
Had I but slain him, I had gone on high,
Crowned with eternal glory! Heaven, forgive
My feebleness of arm that reached him not,
And take thy servant to thy mercy. 'Tis
A glorious triumph still; proud Babylon's
No more; the Harlot of the Seven Hills
Hath changed her scarlet raiment for sackcloth
And ashes![The Lutheran dies.
Cæs.Yes, thine own amidst the rest.
Well done, old Babel!
[The Guards defend themselves desperately, while the Pontiff escapes, by a private passage, to the Vatican and the Castle of St. Angelo.[248]
Cæs.Ha! right nobly battled!
Now, priest! now, soldier! the two great professions,30
Together by the ears and hearts! I have not
Seen a more comic pantomime since Titus
Took Jewry. But the Romans had the best then;
Now they must take their turn.
Soldiers.He hath escaped!
Follow!
Another Sold. They have barred the narrow passage up,
And it is clogged with dead even to the door.
Cæs. I am glad he hath escaped: he may thank me for't
In part. I would not have his bulls abolished—
'Twere worth one half our empire: his indulgences
Demand some in return; no, no, he must not40
Fall;—and besides, his now escape may furnish
A future miracle, in future proof
Of his infallibility.[To the Spanish Soldiery.
Well, cut-throats!
What do you pause for? If you make not haste,
There will not be a link of pious gold left.
And you, too, Catholics! Would ye return
From such a pilgrimage without a relic?
The very Lutherans have more true devotion:
See how they strip the shrines!
Soldiers.By holy Peter!
He speaks the truth; the heretics will bear50
The best away.
Cæs.And that were shame! Go to!
Assist in their conversion.
[The Soldiers disperse; many quit the Church, others enter.
Cæs.They are gone,
And others come: so flows the wave on wave
Of what these creatures call Eternity,
Deeming themselves the breakers of the Ocean,
While they are but its bubbles, ignorant
That foam is their foundation. So, another!
Enter Olimpia, flying from the pursuit—She springs upon the Altar.
Sold. She's mine!
Another Sold. (opposing the former).
You lie, I tracked her first: and were she
The Pope's niece, I'll not yield her.[They fight.
3d Sold. (advancing towards Olimpia). You may settle
Your claims; I'll make mine good.
Olimp.Infernal slave!60
You touch me not alive.
3d Sold.Alive or dead!
Olimp. (embracing a massive crucifix). Respect your God!
3d Sold. Yes, when he shines in gold.
Girl, you but grasp your dowry.
[As he advances, Olimpia, with a strong and sudden effort, casts down the crucifix; it strikes the Soldier, who falls.
3d Sold.Oh, great God!
Olimp. Ah! now you recognise him.
3d Sold.My brain's crushed!
Comrades, help, ho! All's darkness![He dies.
Other Soldiers (coming up).
Slay her, although she had a thousand lives:
She hath killed our comrade.
Olimp.Welcome such a death!
You have no life to give, which the worst slave
Would take. Great God! through thy redeeming Son,
And thy Son's Mother, now receive me as70
I would approach thee, worthy her, and him, and thee!
Enter Arnold.
Arn. What do I see? Accurséd jackals! Forbear!
Cæs. (aside and laughing). Ha! ha! here's equity! The dogs
Have as much right as he. But to the issue!
Soldiers. Count, she hath slain our comrade.
Arn.With what weapon?
Sold. The cross, beneath which he is crushed; behold him
Lie there, more like a worm than man; she cast it
Upon his head.
Arn.Even so: there is a woman
Worthy a brave man's liking. Were ye such,
Ye would have honoured her. But get ye hence,80
And thank your meanness, other God you have none,
For your existence. Had you touched a hair
Of those dishevelled locks, I would have thinned
Your ranks more than the enemy. Away!
Ye jackals! gnaw the bones the lion leaves,
But not even these till he permits.
A Sold. (murmuring).The lion
Might conquer for himself then.
Arn. (cuts him down).Mutineer!
Rebel in hell—you shall obey on earth!
[The Soldiers assault Arnold.
Arn. Come on! I'm glad on't! I will show you, slaves,
How you should be commanded, and who led you90
First o'er the wall you were so shy to scale,
Until I waved my banners from its height,
As you are bold within it.
[Arnold mows down the foremost; the rest throw down their arms.
Soldiers.Mercy! mercy!
Arn. Then learn to grant it. Have I taught you who
Led you o'er Rome's eternal battlements?
Soldiers. We saw it, and we know it; yet forgive
A moment's error in the heat of conquest—
The conquest which you led to.
Arn.Get you hence!
Hence to your quarters! you will find them fixed
In the Colonna palace.
Olimp. (aside).In my father's100
House!
Arn. (to the Soldiers). Leave your arms; ye have no further need
Of such: the city's rendered. And mark well
You keep your hands clean, or I'll find out a stream
As red as Tiber now runs, for your baptism.
Soldiers (deposing their arms and departing). We obey!
Arn. (to Olimpia). Lady, you are safe.
Olimp.I should be so,
Had I a knife even; but it matters not—
Death hath a thousand gates; and on the marble,
Even at the altar foot, whence I look down
Upon destruction, shall my head be dashed,
Ere thou ascend it. God forgive thee, man!110
Arn. I wish to merit his forgiveness, and
Thine own, although I have not injured thee.
Olimp. No! Thou hast only sacked my native land,—
No injury!—and made my father's house
A den of thieves! No injury!—this temple—
Slippery with Roman and with holy gore!
No injury! And now thou wouldst preserve me,
To be——but that shall never be!
[She raises her eyes to Heaven, folds her robe round her, and prepares to dash herself down on the side of the Altar opposite to that where Arnold stands.
Arn.Hold! hold!
I swear.
Olimp.Spare thine already forfeit soul
A perjury for which even Hell would loathe thee.120
I know thee.
Arn.No, thou know'st me not; I am not
Of these men, though——
Olimp.I judge thee by thy mates;
It is for God to judge thee as thou art.
I see thee purple with the blood of Rome;
Take mine, 'tis all thou e'er shalt have of me,
And here, upon the marble of this temple,
Where the baptismal font baptized me God's,
I offer him a blood less holy
But not less pure (pure as it left me then,
A redeeméd infant) than the holy water130
The saints have sanctified!
[Olimpia waves her hand to Arnold with disdain, and dashes herself on the pavement from the Altar.
Arn.Eternal God!
I feel thee now! Help! help! she's gone.
Cæs. (approaches).I am here.
Arn. Thou! but oh, save her!
Cæs. (assisting him to raise Olimpia). She hath done it well!
The leap was serious.
Arn.Oh! she is lifeless!
Cæs.If
She be so, I have nought to do with that:
The resurrection is beyond me.
Arn.Slave!
Cæs. Aye, slave or master, 'tis all one: methinks
Good words, however, are as well at times.
Arn. Words!—Canst thou aid her?
Cæs.I will try. A sprinkling
Of that same holy water may be useful.140
[He brings some in his helmet from the font.
Arn. 'Tis mixed with blood.
Cæs.There is no cleaner now
Arn. How pale! how beautiful! how lifeless!
Alive or dead, thou Essence of all Beauty,
I love but thee!
Cæs.Even so Achilles loved
Penthesilea;[249] with his form it seems
You have his heart, and yet it was no soft one.
Arn. She breathes! But no, 'twas nothing, or the last
Faint flutter Life disputes with Death.
Cæs.She breathes.
Arn. Thou say'st it? Then 'tis truth.
Cæs.You do me right—
The Devil speaks truth much oftener than he's deemed:150
He hath an ignorant audience.
Arn. (without attending to him). Yes! her heart beats.
Alas! that the first beat of the only heart
I ever wished to beat with mine should vibrate
To an assassin's pulse.
Cæs.A sage reflection,
But somewhat late i' the day. Where shall we bear her?
I say she lives.
Arn.And will she live?
Cas.As much
As dust can.
Arn.Then she is dead!
Cæs.Bah! bah! You are so,
And do not know it. She will come to life—
Such as you think so, such as you now are;
But we must work by human means.
Arn.We will160
Convey her unto the Colonna palace,
Where I have pitched my banner.
Cæs.Come then! raise her up!
Arn. Softly!
Cæs.As softly as they bear the dead,
Perhaps because they cannot feel the jolting.
Arn. But doth she live indeed?
Cæs.Nay, never fear!
But, if you rue it after, blame not me.
Arn. Let her but live!
Cæs.The Spirit of her life
Is yet within her breast, and may revive.
Count! count! I am your servant in all things,
And this is a new office:—'tis not oft170
I am employed in such; but you perceive
How staunch a friend is what you call a fiend.
On earth you have often only fiends for friends;
Now I desert not mine. Soft! bear her hence,
The beautiful half-clay, and nearly spirit!
I am almost enamoured of her, as
Of old the Angels of her earliest sex.[250]
Arn. Thou!
Cæs.I! But fear not. I'll not be your rival.
Arn. Rival!
Cæs.I could be one right formidable;
But since I slew the seven husbands of180
Tobias' future bride (and after all
Was smoked out by some incense),[251] I have laid
Aside intrigue: 'tis rarely worth the trouble
Of gaining, or—what is more difficult—
Getting rid of your prize again; for there's
The rub! at least to mortals.
Arn.Prithee, peace!
Softly! methinks her lips move, her eyes open!
Cæs. Like stars, no doubt; for that's a metaphor
For Lucifer and Venus.
Arn.To the palace
Colonna, as I told you!
Cæs.Oh! I know190
My way through Rome.
Arn.Now onward, onward! Gently!
[Exeunt, bearing Olimpia. The scene closes.
PART III.
Scene I.—A Castle in the Apennines, surrounded by a wild but smiling Country. Chorus of Peasants singing before the Gates.
Chorus.
I.
The wars are over,
The spring is come;
The bride and her lover
Have sought their home:
They are happy, we rejoice;
Let their hearts have an echo in every voice!
II.
The spring is come; the violet's gone,
The first-born child of the early sun:[dt]
With us she is but a winter's flower,
The snow on the hills cannot blast her bower,10
And she lifts up her dewy eye of blue
To the youngest sky of the self-same hue.
III.
And when the spring comes with her host
Of flowers, that flower beloved the most
Shrinks from the crowd that may confuse
Her heavenly odour and virgin hues.
IV.
Pluck the others, but still remember
Their herald out of dim December—
The morning star of all the flowers,
The pledge of daylight's lengthened hours;20
Nor, midst the roses, e'er forget
The virgin—virgin Violet.
Enter Cæsar.
Cæs. (singing).
The wars are all over,
Our swords are all idle,
The steed bites the bridle,
The casque's on the wall.
There's rest for the rover;
But his armour is rusty,
And the veteran grows crusty,
As he yawns in the hall.30
He drinks—but what's drinking?
A mere pause from thinking!
No bugle awakes him with life-and-death call.
Chorus.
But the hound bayeth loudly,
The boar's in the wood,
And the falcon longs proudly
To spring from her hood:
On the wrist of the noble
She sits like a crest,
And the air is in trouble40
With birds from their nest.
Cæs.
Oh! shadow of Glory!
Dim image of War!
But the chase hath no story,
Her hero no star,
Since Nimrod, the founder
Of empire and chase,
Who made the woods wonder
And quake for their race.
When the lion was young,50
In the pride of his might,
Then 'twas sport for the strong
To embrace him in fight;
To go forth, with a pine
For a spear, 'gainst the mammoth,
Or strike through the ravine[du]
While man was in stature
As towers in our time,
The first born of Nature,60
And, like her, sublime!
Chorus.
But the wars are over,
The spring is come;
The bride and her lover
Have sought their home:
They are happy, and we rejoice;
Let their hearts have an echo from every voice!
[Exeunt the Peasantry, singing.
FRAGMENT OF THE THIRD PART OF THE DEFORMED TRANSFORMED.
Chorus.
When the merry bells are ringing,
And the peasant girls are singing,
And the early flowers are flinging
Their odours in the air;
And the honey bee is clinging
To the buds; and birds are winging
Their way, pair by pair:
Then the earth looks free from trouble
With the brightness of a bubble:
Though I did not make it,10
I could breathe on and break it;
But too much I scorn it,
Or else I would mourn it,
To see despots and slaves
Playing o'er their own graves.
Enter Count Arnold.
Mem. Jealous—Arnold of Cæsar.
Olympia at first not liking Cæsar
—then?—Arnold jealous of himself
under his former figure, owing to
the power of intellect, etc., etc., etc.
Arnold. You are merry, Sir—what? singing too?
Cæsar.It is
The land of Song—and Canticles you know
Were once my avocation.
Arn.Nothing moves you;
You scoff even at your own calamity—
And such calamity! how wert thou fallen20
Son of the Morning! and yet Lucifer
Can smile.
Cæs.His shape can—would you have me weep,
In the fair form I wear, to please you?
Arn.Ah!
Cæs. You are grave—what have you on your spirit!
Arn.Nothing.
Cæs. How mortals lie by instinct! If you ask
A disappointed courtier—What's the matter?
"Nothing"—an outshone Beauty what has made
Her smooth brow crisp—"Oh, Nothing!"—a young heir
When his Sire has recovered from the Gout,
What ails him? "Nothing!" or a Monarch who30
Has heard the truth, and looks imperial on it—
What clouds his royal aspect? "Nothing," "Nothing!"
Nothing—eternal nothing—of these nothings
All are a lie—for all to them are much!
And they themselves alone the real "Nothings."
Your present Nothing, too, is something to you—
What is it?
Arn.Know you not?
Cæs.I only know
What I desire to know! and will not waste
Omniscience upon phantoms. Out with it!
If you seek aid from me—or else be silent.40
And eat your thoughts—till they breed snakes within you.
Arn. Olimpia!
Cæs.I thought as much—go on.
Arn. I thought she had loved me.
Cæs.Blessings on your Creed!
What a good Christian you were found to be!
But what cold Sceptic hath appalled your faith
And transubstantiated to crumbs again
The body of your Credence?
Arn.No one—but—
Each day—each hour—each minute shows me more
And more she loves me not—
Cæs.Doth she rebel?
Arn. No, she is calm, and meek, and silent with me,50
And coldly dutiful, and proudly patient—
Endures my Love—not meets it.
Cæs.That seems strange.
You are beautiful and brave! the first is much
For passion—and the rest for Vanity.
Arn. I saved her life, too; and her Father's life,
And Father's house from ashes.
Cæs.These are nothing.
You seek for Gratitude—the Philosopher's stone.
Arn. And find it not.
Cæs.You cannot find what is not.
But found would it content you? would you owe
To thankfulness what you desire from Passion?60
No! No! you would be loved—what you call loved—
Self-loved—loved for yourself—for neither health,
Nor wealth, nor youth, nor power, nor rank, nor beauty—
For these you may be stript of—but beloved
As an abstraction—for—you know not what!
These are the wishes of a moderate lover—
And so you love.
Arn.Ah! could I be beloved,
Would I ask wherefore?
Cæs.Yes! and not believe
The answer—You are jealous.
Arn.And of whom?
Cæs. It may be of yourself,[252] for Jealousy70
Is as a shadow of the Sun. The Orb
Is mighty—as you mortals deem—and to
Your little Universe seems universal;
But, great as He appears, and is to you,
The smallest cloud—the slightest vapour of
Your humid earth enables you to look
Upon a Sky which you revile as dull;
Though your eyes dare not gaze on it when cloudless.
Nothing can blind a mortal like to light.
Now Love in you is as the Sun—a thing80
Beyond you—and your Jealousy's of Earth—
A cloud of your own raising.
Arn.Not so always!
There is a cause at times.
Cæs.Oh, yes! when atoms jostle,
The System is in peril. But I speak
Of things you know not. Well, to earth again!
This precious thing of dust—this bright Olimpia—
This marvellous Virgin, is a marble maid—
An Idol, but a cold one to your heat
Promethean, and unkindled by your torch.
Arn. Slave!
Cæs.In the victor's Chariot, when Rome triumphed,90
There was a Slave of yore to tell him truth!
You are a Conqueror—command your Slave.
Arn. Teach me the way to win the woman's love.
Cæs. Leave her.
Arn.Where that the path—I'd not pursue it.
Cæs. No doubt! for if you did, the remedy
Would be for a disease already cured.
Arn. All wretched as I am, I would not quit
My unrequited love, for all that's happy.
Cæs. You have possessed the woman—still possess.
What need you more?
Arn.To be myself possessed—100
To be her heart as she is mine.
FOOTNOTES:
[201] {473}[The Three Brothers, by Joshua Pickersgill, junior, was published in 1803. There is no copy of The Three Brothers in the British Museum. The following extracts are taken from a copy in the Bodleian Library at Oxford (vol. 4, cap. xi. pp. 229-350):—
"Arnaud, the natural son of the Marquis de Souvricour, was a child 'extraordinary in Beauty and Intellect.' When travelling with his parents to Languedoc, Arnaud being 8 years old, he was shot at by banditti, and forsaken by his parents. The Captain of the band nursed him. 'But those perfections to which Arnaud owed his existence, ceased to adorn it. The ball had gored his shoulder, and the fall had dislocated it; by the latter misadventure his spine likewise was so fatally injured as to be irrecoverable to its pristine uprightness. Injuries so compound confounded the Captain, who sorrowed to see a creature so charming, at once deformed by a crooked back and an excrescent shoulder.' Arnaud was found and taken back to his parents. 'The bitterest consciousness of his deformity was derived from their indelicate, though, perhaps, insensible alteration of conduct.... Of his person he continued to speak as of an abhorrent enemy.... "Were a blessing submitted to my choice, I would say, [said Arnaud] be it my immediate dissolution." "I think," said his mother, ... "that you could wish better." "Yes," adjoined Arnaud, "for that wish should be that I ever had remained unborn."' He polishes the broken blade of a sword, and views himself therein; the sight so horrifies him that he determines to throw himself over a precipice, but draws back at the last moment. He goes to a cavern, and conjures up the prince of hell. "Arnaud knew himself to be interrogated. What he required.... What was that answer the effects explain.... There passed in liveliest portraiture the various men distinguished for that beauty and grace which Arnaud so much desired, that he was ambitious to purchase them with his soul. He felt that it was his part to chuse whom he would resemble, yet he remained unresolved, though the spectator of an hundred shades of renown, among which glided by Alexander, Alcibiades, and Hephestion: at length appeared the supernatural effigy of a man, whose perfections human artist never could depict or insculp—Demetrius, the son of Antigonus. Arnaud's heart heaved quick with preference, and strait he found within his hand the resemblance of a poniard, its point inverted towards his breast. A mere automaton in the hands of the Demon, he thrust the point through his heart, and underwent a painless death. During his trance, his spirit metempsychosed from the body of his detestation to that of his admiration ... Arnaud awoke a Julian!'">[
[202] {474}[For a résumé of M. G. Lewis's Wood Demon (afterwards re-cast as One O'clock; or, The Knight and the Wood-Demon, 1811), see "First Visit to the Theatre in London," Poems, by Hartley Coleridge, 1851, i., Appendix C, pp. cxcix.-cciii. The Wood Demon in its original form was never published.]
[203] [Mrs. Shelley inscribed the following note on the fly-leaf of her copy of The Deformed Transformed:—
"This had long been a favourite subject with Lord Byron. I think that he mentioned it also in Switzerland. I copied it—he sending a portion of it at a time, as it was finished, to me. At this time he had a great horror of its being said that he plagiarised, or that he studied for ideas, and wrote with difficulty. Thus he gave Shelley Aikins' edition of the British poets, that it might not be found in his house by some English lounger, and reported home; thus, too, he always dated when he began and when he ended a poem, to prove hereafter how quickly it was done. I do not think that he altered a line in this drama after he had once written it down. He composed and corrected in his mind. I do not know how he meant to finish it; but he said himself that the whole conduct of the story was already conceived. It was at this time that a brutal paragraph[*] alluding to his lameness appeared, which he repeated to me lest I should hear it from some one else. No action of Lord Byron's life—scarce a line he has written—but was influenced by his personal defect.">[
[[*] It is possible that Mrs. Shelley alludes to a sentence in the Memoirs, etc., of Lord Byron. (by Dr. John Watkin), 1822, p. 46: "A malformation of one of his feet, and other indications of a rickety constitution, served as a plea for suffering him to range the hills and to wander about at his pleasure on the seashore, that his frame might be invigorated by air and exercise.">[
[cv] {477} The Deformed—a drama.—B. Pisa, 1822.
[204] [Moore (Life, p. 13) quotes these lines in connection with a passage in Byron's "Memoranda," where, in speaking of his own sensitiveness on the subject of his deformed foot, he described the feeling of horror and humiliation that came over him, when his mother, in one of her fits of passion, called him "a lame brat!"... "It may be questioned," he adds, "whether that whole drama [The Deformed Transformed] was not indebted for its origin to that single recollection."
Byron's early letters (e.g. November 2, 11, 17, 1804, Letters, 1898, i. 41, 45, 48) are full of complaints of his mother's "eccentric behaviour," her "fits of phrenzy," her "caprices," "passions," and so forth; and there is convincing proof—see Life, pp. 28, 306; Letters, 1898, ii. 122 (incident at Bellingham's execution); Letters, 1901, vi. 179 (Le Diable Boiteux)—that he regarded the contraction of the muscles of his legs as a more or less repulsive deformity. And yet, to quote one of a hundred testimonies,—"with regard to Lord Byron's features, Mr. Mathews observed, that he was the only man he ever contemplated, to whom he felt disposed to apply the word beautiful" (Memoirs of Charles Matthews, 1838, ii. 380). The looker-on or the consoler computes the magnitude and the liberality of the compensation. The sufferer thinks only of his sufferings.]
[205] {478}[So, too, Prospero to Caliban, Tempest, act i. sc. 2, line 309, etc.]
[206] {479}[Compare—"Have not partook oppression." Marino Faliero, act i. sc. 2, line 468, Poetical Works, 1901, iv. 362, note 1.]
[207] {480}[Compare the story of the philosopher Jamblichus and the raising of Eros and Anteros from their "fountain-dwellings."—Manfred, act ii. sc. 2, line 93, Poetical Works, 1901, iv. 105, note 2.]
[cw] {481} Give me the strength of the buffalo's foot (which marks me).—[MS.]
[cx] The sailless dromedary——.—[MS.]
[cy] {482} Now I can gibe the mightiest.—[MS.]
[208] {483}[So, too, in The Tragical History of Dr. Faustus (Marlowe's Works, 1858, p. 112), Faustus stabs his arm, "and with his proper blood Assures his soul to be great Lucifer's.">[
Walk lively and pliant.
You shall rise up as pliant.—[MS, erased.]
[209] This is a well-known German superstition—a gigantic shadow produced by reflection on the Brocken. [See Brewster's Letters on Natural Magic, 1831, p. 128.]
[da] And such my command.—[MS.]
[210] {484}["Nigris vegetisque oculis."—Suetonius, Vitæ C. Julius Cæsar, cap. xiv., Opera Omnia, 1826, i. 105.]
[211] [Vide post, [p. 501, note 1].]
[212] ["Sed ante alias [Julius Cæsar] dilexit M. Bruti matrem Serviliam ... dilexit et reginas ... sed maxime Cleopatram" (ibid., i. 113, 115). Cleopatra, born B.C. 69, was twenty-one years old when she met Cæsar, B.C. 48.]
And can
It be? the man who shook the earth is gone.—[MS.]
[213] {485}["Upon the whole, it may be doubted whether there be a name of Antiquity which comes down with such a general charm as that of Alcibiades. Why? I cannot answer: who can?"—Detached Thoughts (1821), No. 108, Letters, 1901, v. 461. For Sir Walter Scott's note on this passage, see Letters, 1900, iv. 77, 78, note 2.]
[214] [The outside of Socrates was that of a satyr and buffoon, but his soul was all virtue, and from within him came such divine and pathetic things, as pierced the heart, and drew tears from the hearers.—Plato, Symp., p. 216, D.]
[215] {486}["Anthony had a noble dignity of countenance, a graceful length of beard, a large forehead, an aquiline nose: and, upon the whole, the same manly aspect that we see in the pictures and statues of Hercules."—Plutarch's Lives, Langhorne's Translation, 1838, p. 634.]
[216] [As in the "Farnese" Hercules.]
[217] [The beauty and mien [of Demetrius Poliorcetes] were so inimitable that no statuary or painter could hit off a likeness. His countenance had a mixture of grace and dignity; and was at once amiable and awful; and the unsubdued and eager air of youth was blended with the majesty of the hero and the king.—Plutarch's Lives, Langhorne's Translation, 1838, p. 616.
Demetrius the Besieger rescued Greece from the sway of Ptolemy and Cassander, B.C. 307. He passed the following winter at Athens, where divine honours were paid to him under the title of "the Preserver" (ὁ Σωτήρ). He was "the shame of Greece in peace," by reason of his profligacy—"the citadel was so polluted with his debaucheries, that it appeared to be kept sacred in some degree when he indulged himself only with such Hetæræ as Chrysis, Lamia, Demo, and Anticyra." He was the unspiritual ancestor of Charles the Second. Once when his father, Antigonus, had been told that he was indisposed, "he went to see him; and when he came to the door, he met one of his favourites going out. He went in, however, and, sitting down by him, took hold of his hand. 'My fever,' said Demetrius, 'has left me.' 'I knew it,' said Antigonus, 'for I met it this moment at the door.'"—Plutarch's Lives, ibid., pp. 621-623.]
[218] {488}[Spercheus was a river-god, the husband of Polydora, the daughter of Peleus. Peleus casts into the river the hair of his son Achilles, in the pious hope that his son-in-law would accept the votive offering, and grant the youth a safe return from the Trojan war. See Iliad, xxiii. 140, sqq.]
[219] {489}["Whosoever," says Bacon, "hath anything fixed in his person that doth induce contempt, hath also a perpetual spur in himself to rescue and deliver himself from scorn; therefore, all deformed persons are extreme bold; first, as in their own defence, as being exposed to scorn, but in process of time by a general habit; also it stirreth in them industry, and especially of this kind, to watch and observe the weakness of others, that they may have somewhat to repay." (Essay xliv.). Byron's "chief incentive, when a boy, to distinction was that mark of deformity on his person, by an acute sense of which he was first stung into the ambition of being great."—Life, p. 306.]
[220] [Timúr Bey, or Timúr Lang, i.e. "the lame Timúr" (A.D. 1336-1405), was the founder of the Mogul dynasty. He was the Tamerlane of history and of legend. Byron had certainly read the selections from Marlowe's Tamburlaine the Great, in Lamb's Specimens of English Dramatic Poets.]
[221] {491}["I am black, but comely."—Song of Solomon i. 5.]
[222] Adam means "red earth," from which the first man was formed. [The word adām is said to be analogous to the Assyrian admu, "child"—i.e. "one made" by God.—Encycl. Bibl., art. "Adam.">[
[dc] {492} This shape into Life.—[MS.]
[223] {493}[The reference is to the homunculi of the alchymists. See Retzsch's illustrations to Goethe's Faust, 1834, plates 3, 4, 5. Compare, too, The Second Part of Faust, act ii.—
"The glass rings low, the charming power that lives
Within it makes the music that it gives.
It dims! it brightens! it will shape itself.
And see! a graceful dazzling little elf.
He lives! he moves! spruce mannikin of fire,
What more can we? what more can earth desire?"
Anster's Translation, 1886, p. 91.]
[dd] Your Interloper——.—[MS.]
[224] {494}[Compare Prisoner of Chillon, stanza ii. line 35, Poetical Works, 1091, iv. 15, note i. Compare, too, the dialogue between Mephistopheles and the Will-o'-the Wisp, in the scene on the Hartz Mountains, in Faust, Part I. (see Anster's Translation, 1886, p. 271).]
[225] {495}[The immediate reference is to the composite forces, German, French, and Spanish, of the Imperial Army under the command of Charles de Bourbon: but there is in lines 498-507 a manifest allusion to the revolutionary movements in South America, Italy, and Spain, which were at their height in 1822. (See the Age of Bronze, section vi. lines 260, sq., post, pp. 555-557.)]
[226] {496}[See Euripides, Hippolytus, line 733.]
[de] Kochlani——.—[MS.]
[227] [Kochlani horses were bred in a central province of Arabia.]
[228] [Byron's knowledge of Huon of Bordeaux was, most probably, derived from Sotheby's Oberon; or, Huon de Bourdeux: A Mask, published in 1802. For The Boke of Duke Huon of Burdeux, done into English by Sir John Bourchier, Lord Berners, see the reprint issued by the Early English Text Society (E.S., No. xliii. 1884); and for Analyse de Huon de Bordeaux, etc., see Les Epopées Françaises, by Léon Gautier, 1880, ii. 719-773.]
[229] {497}[The so-called statue of Memnon, the beautiful son of Tithonus and Eos (Dawn), is now known to be that of Amenhotep III., who reigned in the eighteenth dynasty, about 1430 B.C. Strabo, ed. 1807. p. 1155, was the first to record the musical note which sounded from the statue when it was touched by the rays of the rising sun. It used to be argued (see Gifford's note to Don Juan, Canto XIII. stanza lxiv. line 3, ed. 1837, p. 731) that the sounds were produced by a trick, but of late years it has been maintained that the Memnon's wail was due to natural causes, the pressure of suddenly-warmed currents of air through the pores and crevices of the stone. After the statue was restored, the phenomenon ceased. (See La statue vocale de Memnon, par J. A. Letronne, Paris, 1833, pp. 55, 56.)]
[df] We'll add a "Count" to it.—[MS.]
[dg] {498} ——my eyes are full.—[MS.]
[230] [Charles de Bourbon, Comte de Montpensier et de la Marche, Dauphin d'Auvergne, was born February 17, 1490. He served in Italy with Bayard, and helped to decide the victory of Agnadello (A.D. 1510). He was appointed Constable of France by Francis I., January, 1515, and fought at the battle of Marignano, September 13, 1515. Not long afterwards he lost the king's favour, who was set against him by his mother, Louise de Savoie; was recalled from his command in Italy, and superseded by Odet de Foix, brother of the king's mistress. It was not, however, till he became a widower (Susanne, Duchesse de Bourbon, died April 28, 1521) that he finally broke with Francis and attached himself to the Emperor Charles V. Madame, the king's mother, not only coveted the vast estates of the house of Bourbon, but was enamoured of the Constable's person, and, so to speak, gave him his choice between marriage and a suit for his fiefs. Charles would have nothing to say to the lady's proposals or to her son's entreaties, and seeing that rejection meant ruin, he "entered into a correspondence with the Emperor and the King [Henry VIII.] of England ... and, finding this discovered, went into the Emperor's service."
After various and varying successes, both in the South of France and in Lombardy, he found himself, in the spring of 1527, not so much the commander-in-chief as the popular capo of a mixed body of German, Spanish, and Italian condottieri, unpaid and ill-disciplined, who had mutinied more than once, who could only be kept together by the prospect of unlimited booty, and a timely concession to their demands. "To Rome! to Rome!" cried the hungry and tumultuous landsknechts, and on May 5, 1527, the "late Constable of France," at the head of an army of 30,000 troops, appeared before the walls of the sacred city. On the morning of the 6th of May, he was killed by a shot from an arquebuse. His epitaph recounts his honours: "Aucto Imperio, Gallo victo, Superatâ Italiâ, Pontifice obsesso, Româ captâ, Borbonius, Hic Jacet;" but in Paris they painted the sill of his gate-way yellow, because he was a renegade and a traitor. He could not have said, with the dying Bayard, "Ne me plaignez pas-je meurs sans avoir servi contre ma patrie, mon roy, et mon serment." (See Modern Universal History, 1760, xxiv. 150-152, Note C; Nouvelle Biographie Universelle, art. "Bourbon.")]
[231] {499}[The contrast is between imperial Rome, the Lord of the world, and papal Rome, "the great harlot which hath corrupted the earth with her fornications" (Rev. ii. 19). Compare Part II. sc. iii. line 26, vide post, [p. 521].]
[232] {500}[Compare Manfred, act iii. sc. 4, line 10; and Childe Harold, Canto IV. stanza cxxviii. line 1; Poetical Works, 1901, iv. 131, 1899, ii. 423, note 2.]
[233] {501}["Calvitii vero deformitatem iniquissime ferret, sæpe obtrectatorum jocis obnoxiam expertus. Ideoque et deficientem capillum revocare a vertice assuerat, et ex omnibus decretis sibi a Senatu populoque honoribus non aliud aut recepit aut usurpavit libentius, quam jus laureæ coronæ perpetuo gestandæ."—Suetonius, Opera Omnia, 1826, pp. 105, 106.]
[234] {503}[Francis the First was taken prisoner at the Battle of Pavia, February 24, 1525.]
[dh] With a soldier's firm foot.—[MS.]
[235] [Compare The Siege of Corinth, line 752, Poetical Works, 1900, iii. 483. There is a note of tragic irony in the soldiers' vain-glorious prophecy.]
[di] With the Bourbon will count o'er.—[MS.]
[236] {504}[Brantôme (Memoires, etc., 1722, i. 215) quotes a "chanson" of "Les soldats Espagnols" as they marched Romewards. "Calla calla Julio Cesar, Hannibal, y Scipion! Viva la fama de Bourbon.">[
[dj] The General with his men of confidence.—[MS.]
[dk] {505} And present phantom of that deathless world.—[MS.]
[237] {506}[When the Uticans decided not to stand a siege, but to send deputies to Cæsar, Cato determined to put an end to his life rather than fall into the hands of the conqueror. Accordingly, after he had retired to rest he stabbed himself under the breast, and when the physician sewed up the wound, he thrust him away, and plucked out his own bowels.—Plutarch's Lives, Langhorne's Translation, 1838, P. 553.]
[dl] {507} Of a mere starving——.—[MS.]
[dm]——Work away with words.—[MS.]
[dn] {508} First City rests upon to-morrow's action.—[MS.]
[238] {510}["Dès l'aube du lundi 6 mai 1527, le connétable, à cheval, la cuirasse couverte d'un manteau blanc, marcha vers le Borgo, dont les murailles, à la hauteur de San-Spirito, étaient d'accès facile.... Bourbon mit pied à terre, et, prenant lui-même une échelle l'appliqua tout près de la porte Torrione."—De l'Italie, par Émile Gebhart, 1876, p. 255. Cæsar Grolierius (Historia expugnatæ ... Urbis, 1637), who claims to speak as an eye-witness (p. 2), describes "Borbonius" as "insignemque veste et armis" (p. 62).]
[do] 'Tis the morning—Hark! Hark! Hark!—[MS.]
[239] {512} Scipio, the second Africanus, is said to have repeated a verse of Homer [Iliad, vi. 448], and wept over the burning of Carthage [B.C. 146]. He had better have granted it a capitulation.
[dp] Than such victors should pollute.—[MS.]
[240] {514}[Byron retains or adopts the old-fashioned pronunciation of the word "Rome" metri gratiâ. Compare The Island, Canto II. line 199.]
[241] ["Le bouillant Bourbon, à la tête des plus intrepides assaillans tenoit, de la main gauche une échelle appuyée centre le mur, et de la droite faisoit signe à ses soldats de monter pour suivre leurs camarades; en ce moment il reçut dans le flanc une balle d'arquebuse qui le traversa de part en part; il tomba à terre, mortellement blessé. On rapporte qu'avant d'expirer il prononca ces mots: 'Officiers et soldats, cacher ma mort à l'ennemi et marchez toujours en avant; la victoire est à vous, mon trépas ne peut vous la ravir.'"—Sac de Rome en 1527, par Jacques Buonaparte, 1836, p. 201.]
[242] {515}["Quand il sentit le coup, se print à cryer: 'Jésus!' et puis il dist 'Hélas! mon Dieu, je suis mort!' Si prit son espée par la poignée en signe de croix en disant tout hault, 'Miserere mei, Deus, secundùm magnam misericordiam tuam.'"—Chronique de Bayart, 1836, cap. lxiv., p. 119. For his rebuke of Charles de Bourbon, "Ne me plaignez pas," etc., vide ante, [p. 499].]
[243] ["'M. de Bourbon,' dit un contemporain, 'termina de vie par mort, mais avant fist le devoir de bon, Chrestien; car il se confessa et reçut son Créateur."'—De l'Italie, par Émile Gebhart, 1876, p. 256.]
[244] {516}["While I was at work upon that diabolical task of mine, there came, from time to time, to watch me, some of the Cardinals who were invested in the castle; and most frequently the Cardinal of Ravenna and the Cardinal de' Gaddi. I often told them not to show themselves, since their nasty red caps gave a fair mark for the enemy." —Life of Benvenuto Cellini, translated by J. A. Symonds, 1888, i. 112. See, too, for the flight of the Cardinals, Sac de Rome, par Jacques Buonaparte, Paris, 1836, p. 203.]
[dq] {517} Covered with gore and glory—those good times.—[MS.]
[245] ["Directing my arquebuse where I saw the thickest and most serried troop of fighting men, I aimed exactly at one whom I remarked to be higher than the rest; the fog prevented me from being certain whether he was on horseback or on foot. Then I turned to Alessandro and Cecchino, and bade them discharge their arquebuses, showing them how to avoid being hit by the besiegers. When we had fired two rounds apiece, I crept cautiously up to the walls, and observing a most extraordinary confusion, I discovered afterwards that one of our shots had killed the Constable of Bourbon; and from what I subsequently learned he was the man whom I had first noticed above the heads of the rest." It is a fact "that Bourbon was shot dead near the spot Cellini mentions. But the honour of flying the arquebuse ... cannot be assigned to any one in particular."—Life of Benvenuto Cellini, 1888, i. 114, and note.]
[246] {519}[Compare Ode to Napoleon Buonaparte, stanza vi. line 2, Poetical Works, 1900, in. 307, note 3.]
'Tis the moment
When such I fain would show me.—[MS.]
[247] {520}[Among the Imperial troops which Charles de Bourbon led against Rome were at least six thousand Landsknechts, ardent converts to the Reformed religion, and eager to prove their zeal by the slaughter of Catholics and the destruction of altars and crucifixes. Their leader, George Frundsberg, had set out for Rome with the pious intention of hanging the Pope (see The Popes of Rome, by Leopold Ranke, translated by Sarah Austen, 1866, i. 72). Brantôme (Memoirs de Messire Pierre de Bourdeille.... Leyde, 1722, i. 230) gives a vivid picture of their fanatical savagery: "Leur cruauté ne s'estendit pas seulement sur les personnes, mais sur les marbres et les anciennes statuës. Les Lansquenets, qui nouvellement estoient imbus de la nouvelle Religion, et les Espagnols encore aussi bien que les autres, s'habilloient en Cardinaux et evesques en leur habits Pontificaux et se pourmenoient ainsi parray la Ville."
In the Schmalkald articles, 1530, the pious belief that the Pope was Antichrist became an article of the Lutheran creed. Compare the following extracts, quoted by Hans Schultz in Der Sacco di Roma, 1894, p. 63, from the Historia von der Romischen Bischoff, etc., 1527:
"Der Papst ist für den Verfasser der Antichrist, der durch Lug und Trug seine Herrschaft in der Welt behauptet."
"Quant à l'armée impériale, on n'en vit jamais de plus étonnante.... Allemands et Espagnols, luthériens iconoclastes qui brûlaient les églises, ou furieux mystiques qui brûlaient Juils et Maures, barbares plus raffinés que leur vieux ancêtres les Visigoths, les Vandales et les Huns, ils frappaient l'Italie d'une terreur sans exemple."—De I'italie, by E. Gebliart, chap. vii., "Le Sac de Rome en 1527," p. 245.]
Hush! don't let him hear you
Or he might take you off before your time.—[MS.]
[248] {521}["We got with the greatest difficulty to the gate of the castle.... I ascended to the keep, and, at the same instant, Pope Clement came in through the corridors into the castle; he had refused to leave the palace of St. Peter earlier, being unable to believe that his enemies would effect their entrance into Rome."—Life of Benvenuto Cellini, translated by J. A. Symonds, 1888, i. 114, 115.
So, too, Jacques Buonaparte (Le Sac de Rome, 1836, p. 202): "Le Pape Clement, avoit entendu les cris des soldats; il se sauvoit précipitamment par un long corridor pratiqué dans un mur double et se laissoit emporter de son palais an château Saint-Ange.">[
[249] {526}[Penthesilea, Queen of the Amazons, was slain by Achilles, who wept over her as she lay a-dying, bewailing her beauty and her daring. For the picture, see Pausanias, Descriptio Græciæ, lib, v. cap. 11, 2.]
[250] {527}[See Gen. vi. 2, the motto of Heaven and Earth, ante, p, 277.]
[251] ["It came to pass the same day, that in Echatane a city of Media, Sara the daughter of Raguel was also reproached by her father's maids; because that she had been married to seven husbands, whom Asmodeus the evil spirit had killed before they had lain with her.... And as he went, he remembered the words of Raphael, and took the ashes of the perfumes, and put the heart and the liver of the fish thereupon, and made smoke therewith. The which smell when the evil spirit had smelled, he fled into the utmost parts of Egypt."—Tobit iii. 7, 8; viii. 2, 3.]
[dt] {528} The first born who burst the winter sun.—[MS.]
[du] ——through the brine.—[MS.]
[252] {533}[Lucifer or Mephistopheles, renamed Cæsar, wears the shape of the Deformed Arnold. It may be that Byron intended to make Olimpia bestow her affections, not on the glorious Achilles, but the witty and interesting Hunchback.]
THE AGE OF BRONZE;
OR,
CARMEN SECULARE ET ANNUS HAUD
MIRABILIS.[dv]
"Impar Congressus Achilli."[253]
INTRODUCTION TO THE AGE OF BRONZE.
The Age of Bronze was begun in December, 1822, and finished on January 10, 1823. "I have sent," he writes (letter to Leigh Hunt, Letters, 1901, vi. 160), "to Mrs. S[helley], for the benefit of being copied, a poem of about seven hundred and fifty lines length—The Age of Bronze,—or Carmen Seculare et Annus haud Mirabilis, with this Epigraph—'Impar Congressus Achilli.' It is calculated for the reading part of the million, being all on politics, etc., etc., etc., and a review of the day in general,—in my early English Bards style, but a little more stilted, and somewhat too full of 'epithets of war' and classical and historical allusions. If notes are necessary, they can be added."
On March 5th he forwarded the "Proof in Slips" ("and certainly the Slips are the most conspicuous part of it") to his new publisher, John Hunt; and, on April 1, 1823, The Age of Bronze was published, but not with the author's name.
Ten years had gone by since he had published, only to disclaim, the latest of his boyish satires, The Waltz, and more than six years since he had written, "at the request of Douglas Kinnaird," the stilted and laboured Monody on the Death of ... Sheridan. In the interval (1816-1822) he had essayed any and every measure but the heroic, and, at length, as a tardy recognition of his allegiance to "the great moral poet of all times, of all climes, of all feelings, and of all stages of existence" (Observations upon "Observations," Letters, 1901, v. 590), he reverts, as he believes, to his "early English Bards style," the style of Pope.
The brazen age, the "Annus Haud Mirabilis," which the satirist would hold up to scorn, was 1822, the year after Napoleon's death, which witnessed a revolution in Spain, and the Congress of Allied Sovereigns at Verona. Earlier in the year, the publication of Las Cases' Memorial de Ste Hélène, and of O'Meara's Napoleon in Exile, or a Voice from St. Helena, had created a sensation on both sides of the Channel. Public opinion had differed as to the system on which Napoleon should be treated—and, since his death, there had been a conflict of evidence as to the manner in which he had been treated, at St. Helena. Tories believed that an almost excessive lenience and indulgence had been wasted on a graceless and thankless intriguer, while the "Opposition," Liberals or Radicals, were moved to indignation at the hardships and restrictions which were ruthlessly and needlessly imposed on a fallen and powerless foe. It was, and is, a very pretty quarrel; and Byron, whose lifelong admiration for his "Héros de Roman" was tempered by reason, approached the Longwood controversy somewhat in the spirit of a partisan.
In The Age of Bronze (sects, iii.-v.) he touches on certain incidents of the "Last Phase" of Napoleon's career, and proceeds to recapitulate, in a sort of Memoria Technica, the chief events of his history, from the dawn at Marengo to the sunset at "bloody and most bootless Waterloo," and draws the unimpeachable moral that "Honesty is the best policy," even when the "game is Empire" and "the stakes are thrones"!
From the rise and fall, the tyranny and captivity of Napoleon, he passes on to the Congress of Allied Powers, which met at Verona in November, 1822.
The "Congress" is the object of his satire. It had assembled with a parade of power and magnificence, and had dispersed with little or nothing accomplished. It was "impar Achilli" (vide ante, [p. 535, note 1]), an empty menace, ill-matched with the revolutionary spirit, and in pitiful contrast to the Sic volo, sic jubeo of the dead Napoleon.
The immediate and efficient cause of the Congress of Verona was the success of the revolution in Spain. The point at issue between Spanish Liberals and Royalists, or serviles, was the adherence to, or the evasion of, the democratic Constitution of 1812. At the moment the Liberals were in the ascendant, and, as Chateaubriand puts it, had driven King Ferdinand into captivity, at Urgel, in Catalonia, to the tune of the Spanish Marseillaise, "Tragala, Tragala" "swallow it, swallow it," that is, "accept the Constitution." On July 7, 1822, a government was established under the name of the "Supreme Regency of Spain during the Captivity of the King," and, hence, the consternation of the partners of the Holy Alliance, especially France, who conceived, or feigned to conceive, that revolution next door was a source of danger to constitutional government at home. To meet the emergency, a Congress was summoned in the first instance at Vienna, and afterwards at Verona. Thither came the sovereigns of Europe, great and small, accompanied by their chancellors and ministers. The Czar Alexander was attended by Count Nesselrode and Count Pozzo di Borgo; the Emperor Francis of Austria, by Metternich and Prince Esterhazy; the King of Prussia (Frederic William III.), by Count Bernstorff and Baron Humboldt. George IV. of Great Britain, and Louis XVIII. of France, being elderly and gouty, sent as their plenipotentiaries the Duke of Wellington and the Vicomte de Montmorenci, accompanied, and, finally, superseded by, the French ambassador, M. de Chateaubriand. Thither, too, came the smaller fry, Kings of the Two Sicilies and of Sardinia; and last, but not least, Marie Louise of Austria, Archduchess of Parma, ci-devant widow of Napoleon, and wife sub rosâ of her one-eyed chamberlain, Count de Neipperg. They met, they debated, they went to the theatre in state, and finally decided to send monitory despatches to Spain, and to leave to France a free hand to look after her own interests, and to go to war or not, as she was pleased to determine. There was one dissentient, the Duke of Wellington, who refused to sign the procès verbaux. His Britannic Majesty had been advised to let the Spaniards alone, and not to meddle with their internal affairs. The final outcome of the Congress, the French invasion of Spain, could not be foreseen; and, apparently, all that the Congress had accomplished was to refuse to prohibit the exportation of negroes from Africa to America, and to decline to receive the Greek deputies.
As the Morning Chronicle (November 7, 1822) was pleased to put it, "the Royal vultures have been deprived of their anticipated meal."
From the Holy Alliance and its antagonist, "the revolutionary stork," Byron turns to the landed and agricultural "interest" of Great Britain. With the cessation of war and the resumption of cash payments in 1819, prices had fallen some 50 per cent., and rents were beginning to fall. Wheat, which in 1818 had fetched 80s. a quarter, in December, 1822, was quoted at 39s. 11d.; consols were at 80. Poor rates had risen from £2,000,000 in 1792 to £8,000,000 in 1822. How was the distress which these changes involved to be met? By retrenchment and reform, by the repeal of taxes, the reduction of salaries, by the landlords and farmers, who had profited by war prices, submitting to the inevitable reaction; or by sliding scales, by a return to an inflated currency, perhaps by a repudiation of a portion of the funded debt?
The point of Byron's diatribe is that Squire Dives had enjoyed good things during the war, and, now that the war was over, he had no intention to let Lazarus have his turn; that, whoever suffered, it should not be Dives; that patriotism had brought grist to his mill; and that he proposed to suck no small advantage out of peace.
"Year after year they voted cent. per cent.,
Blood, sweat, and tear-wrung millions—why? for rent?
They roared, they dined, they drank, they swore they meant
To die for England—why then live?—for rent!"
It is easier to divine the "Sources" and the inspiration of The Age of Bronze than to place the reader au courant with the literary and political causerie of the day. Byron wrote with O'Meara's book at his elbow, and with batches of Galignani's Messenger, the Morning Chronicle, and Cobbett's Weekly Register within his reach. He was under the impression that his lines would appear as an anonymous contribution to The Liberal, and, in any case, he felt that he could speak out, unchecked and uncriticized by friend or publisher. He was, so to speak, unmuzzled.
With regard to the style and quality of his new satire, Byron was under an amiable delusion. His couplets, he imagined, were in his "early English Bards style," but "more stilted." He did not realize that, whatever the intervening years had taken away, they had "left behind" experience and passion, and that he had learned to think and to feel. The fault of the poem is that too much matter is packed into too small a compass, and that, in parts, every line implies a minute acquaintance with contemporary events, and requires an explanatory note. But, even so, in The Age of Bronze Byron has wedded "a striking passage of history" to striking and imperishable verse.
The Age of Bronze was reviewed in the Scots Magazine, April, 1823, N.S., vol. xii. pp. 483-488; the Monthly Review, April, 1823, E.S., vol. 100, pp. 430-433; the Monthly Magazine, May, 1823, vol. 55, pp. 322-325; the Examiner, March 30, 1823; the Literary Chronicle, April 5, 1823; and the Literary Gazette, April 5, 1823.
THE AGE OF BRONZE.
I.
The "good old times"—all times when old are good—
Are gone; the present might be if they would;
Great things have been, and are, and greater still
Want little of mere mortals but their will:[dw]
A wider space, a greener field, is given
To those who play their "tricks before high heaven."[254]
I know not if the angels weep, but men
Have wept enough—for what?—to weep again!
II.
All is exploded—be it good or bad.
Reader! remember when thou wert a lad,10
Then Pitt was all; or, if not all, so much,
His very rival almost deemed him such.[255]
We—we have seen the intellectual race
Of giants stand, like Titans, face to face—
Athos and Ida, with a dashing sea
Of eloquence between, which flowed all free,
As the deep billows of the Ægean roar
Betwixt the Hellenic and the Phrygian shore.
But where are they—the rivals! a few feet
Of sullen earth divide each winding sheet.[256]20
How peaceful and how powerful is the grave,
Which hushes all! a calm, unstormy wave,
Which oversweeps the World. The theme is old
Of "Dust to Dust," but half its tale untold:
Time tempers not its terrors—still the worm
Winds its cold folds, the tomb preserves its form,
Varied above, but still alike below;
The urn may shine—the ashes will not glow—
Though Cleopatra's mummy cross the sea[257]
O'er which from empire she lured Anthony;30
Though Alexander's urn[258] a show be grown
On shores he wept to conquer, though unknown—[259]
How vain, how worse than vain, at length appear
The madman's wish, the Macedonian's tear!
He wept for worlds to conquer—half the earth
Knows not his name, or but his death, and birth,
And desolation; while his native Greece
Hath all of desolation, save its peace.
He "wept for worlds to conquer!" he who ne'er
Conceived the Globe, he panted not to spare!40
With even the busy Northern Isle unknown,
Which holds his urn—and never knew his throne.
III.
But where is he, the modern, mightier far,
Who, born no king, made monarchs draw his car;
The new Sesostris, whose unharnessed kings,[260]
Freed from the bit, believe themselves with wings,
And spurn the dust o'er which they crawled of late,
Chained to the chariot of the Chieftain's state?
Yes! where is he, "the champion and the child"[261]
Of all that's great or little—wise or wild;50
Whose game was Empire, and whose stakes were thrones;
Whose table Earth—whose dice were human bones?
Behold the grand result in yon lone Isle,
And, as thy nature urges—weep or smile.
Sigh to behold the Eagle's lofty rage
Reduced to nibble at his narrow cage;
Smile to survey the queller of the nations
Now daily squabbling o'er disputed rations;[dx][262]
Weep to perceive him mourning, as he dines,
O'er curtailed dishes and o'er stinted wines;60
O'er petty quarrels upon petty things.
Is this the Man who scourged or feasted kings?
Behold the scales in which his fortune hangs,
A surgeon's[263] statement, and an earl's[264] harangues!
A bust delayed,[265]—a book[266] refused, can shake
The sleep of Him who kept the world awake.
Is this indeed the tamer of the Great,[dy]
Now slave of all could tease or irritate—
The paltry gaoler[267] and the prying spy,
The staring stranger with his note-book nigh?[268]70
Plunged in a dungeon, he had still been great;
How low, how little was this middle state,
Between a prison and a palace, where
How few could feel for what he had to bear!
Vain his complaint,—My Lord presents his bill,
His food and wine were doled out duly still;
Vain was his sickness, never was a clime
So free from homicide—to doubt's crime;
And the stiff surgeon,[269] who maintained his cause,
Hath lost his place, and gained the world's applause.80
But smile—though all the pangs of brain and heart
Disdain, defy, the tardy aid of art;
Though, save the few fond friends and imaged face
Of that fair boy his Sire shall ne'er embrace,
None stand by his low bed—though even the mind
Be wavering, which long awed and awes mankind:
Smile—for the fettered Eagle breaks his chain,
And higher Worlds than this are his again.[270]
IV.
How, if that soaring Spirit still retain
A conscious twilight of his blazing reign,90
How must he smile, on looking down, to see
The little that he was and sought to be!
What though his Name a wider empire found
Than his Ambition, though with scarce a bound;
Though first in glory, deepest in reverse,
He tasted Empire's blessings and its curse;
Though kings, rejoicing in their late escape
From chains, would gladly be their Tyrant's ape;
How must he smile, and turn to yon lone grave,
The proudest Sea-mark that o'ertops the wave!100
What though his gaoler, duteous to the last,
Scarce deemed the coffin's lead could keep him fast,
Refusing one poor line[271] along the lid,
To date the birth and death of all it hid;
That name shall hallow the ignoble shore,
A talisman to all save him who bore:
The fleets that sweep before the eastern blast
Shall hear their sea-boys[272] hail it from the mast;
When Victory's Gallic column[273] shall but rise,
Like Pompey's pillar[274], in a desert's skies,110
The rocky Isle that holds or held his dust,
Shall crown the Atlantic like the Hero's bust,
And mighty Nature o'er his obsequies
Do more than niggard Envy still denies.
But what are these to him? Can Glory's lust
Touch the freed spirit or the fettered dust?
Small care hath he of what his tomb consists;
Nought if he sleeps—nor more if he exists:
Alike the better-seeing Shade will smile
On the rude cavern[275] of the rocky isle,120
As if his ashes found their latest home
In Rome's Pantheon or Gaul's mimic dome[276].
He wants not this; but France shall feel the want
Of this last consolation, though so scant:
Her Honour—Fame—and Faith demand his bones,
To rear above a Pyramid of thrones;
Or carried onward in the battle's van,
To form, like Guesclin's dust, her Talisman[277].
But be it as it is—the time may come
His name shall beat the alarm, like Ziska's drum[278].130
V.
Oh Heaven! of which he was in power a feature;
Oh Earth! of which he was a noble creature;
Thou Isle! to be remembered long and well,
That saw'st the unfledged eaglet chip his shell!
Ye Alps which viewed him in his dawning flights
Hover, the Victor of a hundred fights!
Thou Rome, who saw'st thy Cæsar's deeds outdone!
Alas! why passed he too the Rubicon—
The Rubicon of Man's awakened rights,
To herd with vulgar kings and parasites?140
Egypt! from whose all dateless tombs arose
Forgotten Pharaohs from their long repose,
And shook within their pyramids to hear
A new Cambyses thundering in their ear;
While the dark shades of Forty Ages stood
Like startled giants by Nile's famous flood[279];
Or from the Pyramid's tall pinnacle
Beheld the desert peopled, as from hell,
With clashing hosts, who strewed the barren sand,
To re-manure the uncultivated land!150
Spain! which, a moment mindless of the Cid,
Beheld his banner flouting thy Madrid[280]!
Austria! which saw thy twice-ta'en capital[281]
Twice spared to be the traitress of his fall!
Ye race of Frederic!—Frederics but in name
And falsehood—heirs to all except his fame:
Who, crushed at Jena, crouched at Berlin[282], fell
First, and but rose to follow! Ye who dwell
Where Kosciusko dwelt, remembering yet
The unpaid amount of Catherine's bloody debt[283]!160
Poland! o'er which the avenging Angel past,
But left thee as he found thee,[284] still a waste,
Forgetting all thy still enduring claim,
Thy lotted people and extinguished name,
Thy sigh for freedom, thy long-flowing tear,
That sound that crashes in the tyrant's ear—
Kosciusko![285] On—on—on—the thirst of War
Gasps for the gore of serfs and of their Czar.
The half barbaric Moscow's minarets
Gleam in the sun, but 'tis a sun that sets!170
Moscow! thou limit of his long career,
For which rude Charles had wept his frozen tear[286]
To see in vain—he saw thee—how? with spire
And palace fuel to one common fire.
To this the soldier lent his kindling match,
To this the peasant gave his cottage thatch,
To this the merchant flung his hoarded store,
The prince his hall—and Moscow was no more!
Sublimest of volcanoes! Etna's flame
Pales before thine, and quenchless Hecla's tame;180
Vesuvius shows his blaze,[287] an usual sight
For gaping tourists, from his hackneyed height:[dz]
Thou stand'st alone unrivalled, till the Fire
To come, in which all empires shall expire!
Thou other Element! as strong and stern,
To teach a lesson conquerors will not learn!—
Whose icy wing flapped o'er the faltering foe,
Till fell a hero with each flake of snow;
How did thy numbing beak and silent fang,
Pierce, till hosts perished with a single pang!190
In vain shall Seine look up along his banks
For the gay thousands of his dashing ranks!
In vain shall France recall beneath her vines
Her Youth—their blood flows faster than her wines;
Or stagnant in their human ice remains
In frozen mummies on the Polar plains.
In vain will Italy's broad sun awaken
Her offspring chilled; its beams are now forsaken.
Of all the trophies gathered from the war,
What shall return? the Conqueror's broken car![288]200
The Conqueror's yet unbroken heart! Again
The horn of Roland[289] sounds, and not in vain.
Lutzen, where fell the Swede of victory,[290]
Beholds him conquer, but, alas! not die:
Dresden[291] surveys three despots fly once more
Before their sovereign,—sovereign as before;[ea]
But there exhausted Fortune quits the field,
And Leipsic's[292] treason bids the unvanquished yield;
The Saxon jackal leaves the lion's side
To turn the bear's, and wolf's, and fox's guide;210
And backward to the den of his despair
The forest monarch shrinks, but finds no lair!
Oh ye! and each, and all! Oh France! who found
Thy long fair fields ploughed up as hostile ground,
Disputed foot by foot, till Treason, still
His only victor, from Montmartre's hill[293]
Looked down o'er trampled Paris! and thou Isle,
Which seest Etruria from thy ramparts smile,
Thou momentary shelter of his pride,
Till wooed by danger, his yet weeping bride!220
Oh, France! retaken by a single march,
Whose path was through one long triumphal arch!
Oh bloody and most bootless Waterloo!
Which proves how fools may have their fortune too,
Won half by blunder, half by treachery:
Oh dull Saint Helen! with thy gaoler nigh—
Hear! hear Prometheus[294] from his rock appeal
To Earth,—Air,—Ocean,—all that felt or feel
His power and glory, all who yet shall hear
A name eternal as the rolling year;230
He teaches them the lesson taught so long,
So oft, so vainly—learn to do no wrong!
A single step into the right had made
This man the Washington of worlds betrayed:
A single step into the wrong has given
His name a doubt to all the winds of heaven;
The reed of Fortune, and of thrones the rod,
Of Fame the Moloch or the demigod;
His country's Cæsar, Europe's Hannibal,
Without their decent dignity of fall.240
Yet Vanity herself had better taught
A surer path even to the fame he sought,
By pointing out on History's fruitless page
Ten thousand conquerors for a single sage.
While Franklin's quiet memory climbs to Heaven,
Calming the lightning which he thence hath riven,
Or drawing from the no less kindled earth
Freedom and peace to that which boasts his birth;[295]
While Washington's a watchword, such as ne'er
Shall sink while there's an echo left to air:[296]250
While even the Spaniard's thirst of gold and war
Forgets Pizarro to shout Bolivar![297]
Alas! why must the same Atlantic wave
Which wafted freedom gird a tyrant's grave—
The king of kings, and yet of slaves the slave,
Who burst the chains of millions to renew
The very fetters which his arm broke through,
And crushed the rights of Europe and his own,
To flit between a dungeon and a throne?
VI.
But 'twill not be—the spark's awakened—lo!260
The swarthy Spaniard feels his former glow;
The same high spirit which beat back the Moor
Through eight long ages of alternate gore
Revives—and where? in that avenging clime
Where Spain was once synonymous with crime,
Where Cortes' and Pizarro's banner flew,
The infant world redeems her name of "New."
'Tis the old aspiration breathed afresh,
To kindle souls within degraded flesh,
Such as repulsed the Persian from the shore270
Where Greece was—No! she still is Greece once more.
One common cause makes myriads of one breast,
Slaves of the East, or helots of the West:
On Andes'[298] and on Athos' peaks unfurled,
The self-same standard streams o'er either world:
The Athenian[299] wears again Harmodius' sword;
The Chili chief[300] abjures his foreign lord;
The Spartan knows himself once more a Greek,[301]
Young Freedom plumes the crest of each cacique;
Debating despots, hemmed on either shore,280
Shrink vainly from the roused Atlantic's roar;
Through Calpe's strait the rolling tides advance,
Sweep slightly by the half-tamed land of France,
Dash o'er the old Spaniard's cradle, and would fain
Unite Ausonia to the mighty main:
But driven from thence awhile, yet not for aye,
Break o'er th' Ægean, mindful of the day
Of Salamis!—there, there the waves arise,
Not to be lulled by tyrant victories.
Lone, lost, abandoned in their utmost need290
By Christians, unto whom they gave their creed,
The desolated lands, the ravaged isle,
The fostered feud encouraged to beguile,
The aid evaded, and the cold delay,
Prolonged but in the hope to make a prey[302];—
These, these shall tell the tale, and Greece can show
The false friend worse than the infuriate foe.
But this is well: Greeks only should free Greece,
Not the barbarian, with his masque of peace.
How should the Autocrat of bondage be300
The king of serfs, and set the nations free?
Better still serve the haughty Mussulman,
Than swell the Cossaque's prowling caravan;
Better still toil for masters, than await,
The slave of slaves, before a Russian gate,—
Numbered by hordes, a human capital,
A live estate, existing but for thrall,
Lotted by thousands, as a meet reward
For the first courtier in the Czar's regard;
While their immediate owner never tastes310
His sleep, sans dreaming of Siberia's wastes:
Better succumb even to their own despair,
And drive the Camel—than purvey the Bear.
VII.
But not alone within the hoariest clime
Where Freedom dates her birth with that of Time,
And not alone where, plunged in night, a crowd
Of Incas darken to a dubious cloud[eb],
The dawn revives: renowned, romantic Spain
Holds back the invader from her soil again.
Not now the Roman tribe nor Punic horde[ec]320
Demands her fields as lists to prove the sword;
Not now the Vandal or the Visigoth
Pollute the plains, alike abhorring both[ed];
Nor old Pelayo[303] on his mountain rears
The warlike fathers of a thousand years.
That seed is sown and reaped, as oft the Moor
Sighs to remember on his dusky shore.
Long in the peasant's song or poet's page
Has dwelt the memory of Abencerrage;
The Zegri[304], and the captive victors, flung330
Back to the barbarous realm from whence they sprung.
But these are gone—their faith, their swords, their sway,
Yet left more anti-christian foes than they[ee];
The bigot monarch, and the butcher priest[305],
The Inquisition, with her burning feast,
The Faith's red "Auto," fed with human fuel,
While sate the catholic Moloch, calmly cruel,
Enjoying, with inexorable eye,[ef]
That fiery festival of Agony!
The stern or feeble sovereign, one or both340
By turns; the haughtiness whose pride was sloth;
The long degenerate noble; the debased
Hidalgo, and the peasant less disgraced,
But more degraded; the unpeopled realm;
The once proud navy which forgot the helm;
The once impervious phalanx disarrayed;
The idle forge that formed Toledo's blade;
The foreign wealth that flowed on every shore,
Save hers who earned it with the native's gore;
The very language which might vie with Rome's,350
And once was known to nations like their homes,
Neglected or forgotten:—such was Spain;
But such she is not, nor shall be again.
These worst, these home invaders, felt and feel
The new Numantine soul of old Castile[eg],
Up! up again! undaunted Tauridor!
The bull of Phalaris renews his roar[eh];
Mount, chivalrous Hidalgo! not in vain
Revive the cry—"Iago! and close Spain!"[306]
Yes, close her with your arméd bosoms round,360
And form the barrier which Napoleon found,—
The exterminating war, the desert plain,
The streets without a tenant, save the slain;
The wild Sierra, with its wilder troop[ei]
Of vulture-plumed Guerrillas, on the stoop[ej]
For their incessant prey; the desperate wall
Of Saragossa, mightiest in her fall;
The Man nerved to a spirit, and the Maid
Waving her more than Amazonian blade[307];
The knife of Arragon, Toledo's steel;370
The famous lance of chivalrous Castile[308];
The unerring rifle of the Catalan;
The Andalusian courser in the van;
The torch to make a Moscow of Madrid;
And in each heart the spirit of the Cid:—
Such have been, such shall be, such are. Advance,
And win—not Spain! but thine own freedom, France!
VIII.
But lo! a Congress[309]! What! that hallowed name
Which freed the Atlantic! May we hope the same
For outworn Europe? With the sound arise,380
Like Samuel's shade to Saul's monarchic eyes,
The prophets of young Freedom, summoned far
From climes of Washington and Bolivar;
Henry, the forest-born Demosthenes,
Whose thunder shook the Philip of the seas[310];
And stoic Franklin's energetic shade,
Robed in the lightnings which his hand allayed;
And Washington, the tyrant-tamer, wake,
To bid us blush for these old chains, or break.
But who compose this Senate of the few390
That should redeem the many? Who renew
This consecrated name, till now assigned
To councils held to benefit mankind?
Who now assemble at the holy call?
The blest Alliance, which says three are all!
An earthly Trinity! which wears the shape
Of Heaven's, as man is mimicked by the ape.
A pious Unity! in purpose one—
To melt three fools to a Napoleon[ek].
Why, Egypt's Gods were rational to these;400
Their dogs and oxen knew their own degrees,
And, quiet in their kennel or their shed,
Cared little, so that they were duly fed;
But these, more hungry, must have something more—
The power to bark and bite, to toss and gore.
Ah, how much happier were good Æsop's frogs
Than we! for ours are animated logs,
With ponderous malice swaying to and fro,
And crushing nations with a stupid blow;
All dully anxious to leave little work410
Unto the revolutionary stork.
IX.
Thrice blest Verona! since the holy three
With their imperial presence shine on thee!
Honoured by them, thy treacherous site forgets[el]
The vaunted tomb of "all the Capulets!"[311]
Thy Scaligers—for what was "Dog the Great,"
"Can Grande,"[312] (which I venture to translate,)
To these sublimer pugs? Thy poet too,
Catullus, whose old laurels yield to new;[313]
Thine amphitheatre, where Romans sate;420
And Dante's exile sheltered by thy gate;
Thy good old man, whose world was all within
Thy wall, nor knew the country held him in;[314]
Would that the royal guests it girds about
Were so far like, as never to get out!
Aye, shout! inscribe![315] rear monuments of shame,
To tell Oppression that the world is tame!
Crowd to the theatre with loyal rage,
The comedy is not upon the stage;
The show is rich in ribandry and stars,430
Then gaze upon it through thy dungeon bars;
Clap thy permitted palms, kind Italy,
For thus much still thy fettered hands are free!
X.
Resplendent sight! Behold the coxcomb Czar,[316]
The Autocrat of waltzes[317] and of war!
As eager for a plaudit as a realm,
And just as fit for flirting as the helm;
A Calmuck beauty with a Cossack wit,
And generous spirit, when 'tis not frost-bit;
Now half dissolving to a liberal thaw,[em]440
But hardened back whene'er the morning's raw;
With no objection to true Liberty,
Except that it would make the nations free.
How well the imperial dandy prates of peace!
How fain, if Greeks would be his slaves, free Greece!
How nobly gave he back the Poles their Diet,
Then told pugnacious Poland to be quiet!
How kindly would he send the mild Ukraine,
With all her pleasant Pulks,[318] to lecture Spain!
How royally show off in proud Madrid450
His goodly person, from the South long hid!
A blessing cheaply purchased, the world knows,
By having Muscovites for friends or foes.
Proceed, thou namesake of great Philip's son!
La Harpe, thine Aristotle, beckons on;[319]
And that which Scythia was to him of yore
Find with thy Scythians on Iberia's shore.
Yet think upon, thou somewhat agéd youth,
Thy predecessor on the banks of Pruth;
Thou hast to aid thee, should his lot be thine,460
Many an old woman,[320] but not Catherine.[321]
Spain, too, hath rocks, and rivers, and defiles—
The Bear may rush into the Lion's toils.
Fatal to Goths are Xeres' sunny fields;[322]
Think'st thou to thee Napoleon's victor yields?
Better reclaim thy deserts, turn thy swords
To ploughshares, shave and wash thy Bashkir[323] hordes,
Redeem thy realms from slavery and the knout,
Than follow headlong in the fatal route,
To infest the clime whose skies and laws are pure470
With thy foul legions. Spain wants no manure:
Her soil is fertile, but she feeds no foe:
Her vultures, too, were gorged not long ago;
And wouldst thou furnish them with fresher prey?
Alas! thou wilt not conquer, but purvey.
I am Diogenes, though Russ and Hun[324]
Stand between mine and many a myriad's sun;
But were I not Diogenes, I'd wander
Rather a worm than such an Alexander!
Be slaves who will, the cynic shall be free;480
His tub hath tougher walls than Sinopè:[en]
Still will he hold his lantern up to scan
The face of monarchs for an "honest man."[325]
XI.
And what doth Gaul, the all-prolific land
Of ne plus ultra ultras and their band
Of mercenaries? and her noisy chambers
And tribune, which each orator first clambers
Before he finds a voice, and when 'tis found,
Hears "the lie" echo for his answer round?
Our British Commons sometimes deign to "hear!"490
A Gallic senate hath more tongue than ear;
Even Constant,[326] their sole master of debate,
Must fight next day his speech to vindicate.
But this costs little to true Franks, who'd rather
Combat than listen, were it to their father.
What is the simple standing of a shot,
To listening long, and interrupting not?
Though this was not the method of old Rome,
When Tully fulmined o'er each vocal dome,
Demosthenes has sanctioned the transaction,500
In saying eloquence meant "Action, action!"
XII.
But where's the monarch?[327] hath he dined? or yet
Groans beneath indigestion's heavy debt?
Have revolutionary patés risen,
And turned the royal entrails to a prison?
Have discontented movements stirred the troops?
Or have no movements followed traitorous soups?
Have Carbonaro[328] cooks not carbonadoed
Each course enough? or doctors dire dissuaded
Repletion? Ah! in thy dejected looks510
I read all France's treason in her cooks!
Good classic Louis! is it, canst thou say,
Desirable to be the "Desiré?"
Why wouldst thou leave calm Hartwell's green abode,
Apician table, and Horatian ode,
To rule a people who will not be ruled,
And love much rather to be scourged than schooled?
Ah! thine was not the temper or the taste
For thrones; the table sees thee better placed:
A mild Epicurean, formed, at best,520
To be a kind host and as good a guest,
To talk of Letters, and to know by heart
One half the Poet's, all the Gourmand's art;
A scholar always, now and then a wit,
And gentle when Digestion may permit;—
But not to govern lands enslaved or free;
The gout was martyrdom enough for thee.
XIII.
Shall noble Albion pass without a phrase
From a bold Briton in her wonted praise?
"Arts—arms—and George—and glory—and the Isles,530
And happy Britain, wealth, and Freedom's smiles,
White cliffs, that held invasion far aloof,
Contented subjects, all alike tax-proof,
Proud Wellington, with eagle beak so curled,[eo]
That nose, the hook where he suspends the world![329]
And Waterloo, and trade, and——(hush! not yet
A syllable of imposts or of debt)——
And ne'er (enough) lamented Castlereagh,[330]
Whose penknife slit a goose-quill t'other day—[ep]
And, 'pilots who have weathered every storm'—[331]540
(But, no, not even for rhyme's sake, name Reform)."
These are the themes thus sung so oft before,
Methinks we need not sing them any more;
Found in so many volumes far and near,
There's no occasion you should find them here.
Yet something may remain perchance to chime
With reason, and, what's stranger still, with rhyme.[eq]
Even this thy genius, Canning![332] may permit,
Who, bred a statesman, still wast born a wit,
And never, even in that dull House, couldst tame550
To unleavened prose thine own poetic flame;
Our last, our best, our only orator,
Even I can praise thee—Tories do no more:
Nay, not so much;—they hate thee, man, because
Thy Spirit less upholds them than it awes.
The hounds will gather to their huntsman's hollo,
And where he leads the duteous pack will follow;
But not for love mistake their yelling cry;
Their yelp for game is not an eulogy;
Less faithful far than the four-footed pack,560
A dubious scent would lure the bipeds back.
Thy saddle-girths are not yet quite secure,
Nor royal stallion's feet extremely sure;
The unwieldy old white horse is apt at last
To stumble, kick—and now and then stick fast
With his great Self and Rider in the mud;
But what of that? the animal shows blood.
XIV.
Alas, the Country! how shall tongue or pen
Bewail her now uncountry gentlemen?
The last to bid the cry of warfare cease,570
The first to make a malady of peace.
For what were all these country patriots born?
To hunt—and vote—and raise the price of corn?
But corn, like every mortal thing, must fall,
Kings—Conquerors—and markets most of all.
And must ye fall with every ear of grain?
Why would you trouble Buonaparté's reign?
He was your great Triptolemus;[333] his vices
Destroyed but realms, and still maintained your prices;
He amplified to every lord's content580
The grand agrarian alchymy, high rent.[er]
Why did the tyrant stumble on the Tartars,
And lower wheat to such desponding quarters?
Why did you chain him on yon Isle so lone?
The man was worth much more upon his throne.
True, blood and treasure boundlessly were spilt,
But what of that? the Gaul may bear the guilt;
But bread was high, the farmer paid his way,
And acres told upon the appointed day.[es]
But where is now the goodly audit ale?590
The purse-proud tenant, never known to fail?
The farm which never yet was left on hand?
The marsh reclaimed to most improving land?
The impatient hope of the expiring lease?
The doubling rental? What an evil's peace!
In vain the prize excites the ploughman's skill,
In vain the Commons pass their patriot bill;[334]
The Landed Interest—(you may understand
The phrase much better leaving out the land)—
The land self-interest groans from shore to shore,600
For fear that plenty should attain the poor.[et]
Up, up again, ye rents, exalt your notes,
Or else the Ministry will lose their votes,
And patriotism, so delicately nice,
Her loaves will lower to the market price;[eu]
For ah! "the loaves and fishes," once so high,
Are gone—their oven closed, their ocean dry,[ev]
And nought remains of all the millions spent,
Excepting to grow moderate and content.
They who are not so, had their turn—and turn610
About still flows from Fortune's equal urn;
Now let their virtue be its own reward,
And share the blessings which themselves prepared.
See these inglorious Cincinnati swarm,
Farmers of war, dictators of the farm;
Their ploughshare was the sword in hireling hands,
Their fields manured by gore of other lands;
Safe in their barns, these Sabine tillers sent
Their brethren out to battle—why? for rent!
Year after year they voted cent. per cent.620
Blood, sweat, and tear-wrung millions—why?—for rent!
They roared, they dined, they drank, they swore they meant
To die for England—why then live?—for rent!
The peace has made one general malcontent
Of these high-market patriots; war was rent!
Their love of country, millions all mis-spent,
How reconcile? by reconciling rent!
And will they not repay the treasures lent?
No: down with everything, and up with rent!
Their good, ill, health, wealth, joy, or discontent,630
Being, end, aim, religion—rent—rent—rent!
Thou sold'st thy birthright, Esau! for a mess;
Thou shouldst have gotten more, or eaten less;
Now thou hast swilled thy pottage, thy demands
Are idle; Israel says the bargain stands.
Such, landlords! was your appetite for war,
And gorged with blood, you grumble at a scar!
What! would they spread their earthquake even o'er cash?
And when land crumbles, bid firm paper crash?[335]
So rent may rise, bid Bank and Nation fall,640
And found on 'Change a Fundling Hospital?
Lo, Mother Church, while all religion writhes,
Like Niobe, weeps o'er her offspring—Tithes;[336]
The Prelates go to—where the Saints have gone,
And proud pluralities subside to one;
Church, state, and faction wrestle in the dark,
Tossed by the deluge in their common ark.
Shorn of her bishops, banks, and dividends,
Another Babel soars—but Britain ends.
And why? to pamper the self-seeking wants,650
And prop the hill of these agrarian ants.
"Go to these ants, thou sluggard, and be wise;"
Admire their patience through each sacrifice,
Till taught to feel the lesson of their pride,
The price of taxes and of homicide;
Admire their justice, which would fain deny
The debt of nations:—pray who made it high?[337]
XV.
Or turn to sail between those shifting rocks,
The new Symplegades[338]—the crushing Stocks,
Where Midas might again his wish behold660
In real paper or imagined gold.
That magic palace of Alcina[339] shows
More wealth than Britain ever had to lose,
Were all her atoms of unleavened ore,
And all her pebbles from Pactolus' shore.
There Fortune plays, while Rumour holds the stake
And the World trembles to bid brokers break.
How rich is Britain! not indeed in mines,
Or peace or plenty, corn or oil, or wines;
No land of Canaan, full of milk and honey,670
Nor (save in paper shekels) ready money:
But let us not to own the truth refuse,
Was ever Christian land so rich in Jews?
Those parted with their teeth to good King John,
And now, ye kings, they kindly draw your own;
All states, all things, all sovereigns they control,
And waft a loan "from Indus to the pole."
The banker—broker—baron[340]—brethren, speed
To aid these bankrupt tyrants in their need.
Nor these alone; Columbia feels no less680
Fresh speculations follow each success;
And philanthropic Israel deigns to drain
Her mild per-centage from exhausted Spain.
Not without Abraham's seed can Russia march;
Tis gold, not steel, that rears the conqueror's arch.
Two Jews, a chosen people, can command
In every realm their Scripture-promised land:—
Two Jews, keep down the Romans,[341] and uphold
The accurséd Hun, more brutal than of old:
Two Jews,—but not Samaritans—direct690
The world, with all the spirit of their sect.
What is the happiness of earth to them?
A congress forms their "New Jerusalem,"
Where baronies and orders both invite—
Oh, holy Abraham! dost thou see the sight?
Thy followers mingling with these royal swine,
Who spit not "on their Jewish gaberdine,"
But honour them as portion of the show—
(Where now, oh Pope! is thy forsaken toe?
Could it not favour Judah with some kicks?700
Or has it ceased to "kick against the pricks?")
On Shylock's shore behold them stand afresh,
To cut from Nation's hearts their "pound of flesh."
XVI.
Strange sight this Congress! destined to unite
All that's incongruous, all that's opposite.
I speak not of the Sovereigns—they're alike,
A common coin as ever mint could strike;
But those who sway the puppets, pull the strings,
Have more of motley than their heavy kings.
Jews, authors, generals, charlatans, combine,710
While Europe wonders at the vast design:
There Metternich, power's foremost parasite,
Cajoles; there Wellington forgets to fight;
There Chateaubriand[342] forms new books of martyrs;
And subtle Greeks[343] intrigue for stupid Tartars;
There Montmorenci, the sworn foe to charters,[344]
Turns a diplomatist of great éclat,
To furnish articles for the "Débats;"
Of war so certain—yet not quite so sure
As his dismissal in the "Moniteur."720
Alas! how could his cabinet thus err!
Can Peace be worth an ultra-minister?
He falls indeed, perhaps to rise again,
"Almost as quickly as he conquered Spain.[345]"
XVII.
Enough of this—a sight more mournful woos
The averted eye of the reluctant Muse.
The Imperial daughter, the Imperial bride,[346]
The imperial Victim—sacrifice to pride;
The mother of the Hero's hope, the boy,
The young Astyanax of Modern Troy;[347]730
The still pale shadow of the loftiest Queen
That Earth has yet to see, or e'er hath seen;
She flits amidst the phantoms of the hour,
The theme of pity, and the wreck of power.
Oh, cruel mockery! Could not Austria spare
A daughter? What did France's widow there?
Her fitter place was by St. Helen's wave,
Her only throne is in Napoleon's grave.
But, no,—she still must hold a petty reign,
Flanked by her formidable chamberlain;740
The martial Argus, whose not hundred eyes[348]
Must watch her through these paltry pageantries.
What though she share no more, and shared in vain,
A sway surpassing that of Charlemagne,
Which swept from Moscow to the southern seas!
Yet still she rules the pastoral realm of cheese,
Where Parma views the traveller resort,
To note the trappings of her mimic court.
But she appears! Verona sees her shorn
Of all her beams—while nations gaze and mourn—750
Ere yet her husband's ashes have had time
To chill in their inhospitable clime;
(If e'er those awful ashes can grow cold;—
But no,—their embers soon will burst the mould;)
She comes!—the Andromache (but not Racine's,
Nor Homer's,)—Lo! on Pyrrhus' arm[349] she leans![ew]
Yes! the right arm, yet red from Waterloo,
Which cut her lord's half-shattered sceptre through,
Is offered and accepted? Could a slave
Do more? or less?—and he in his new grave!760
Her eye—her cheek—betray no inward strife,
And the Ex-Empress grows as Ex a wife!
So much for human ties in royal breasts!
Why spare men's feelings, when their own are jests?
XVIII.
But, tired of foreign follies, I turn home,
And sketch the group—the picture's yet to come.
My Muse 'gan weep, but, ere a tear was spilt,
She caught Sir William Curtis in a kilt![350]
While thronged the chiefs of every Highland clan
To hail their brother, Vich Ian Alderman!770
Guildhall grows Gael, and echoes with Erse roar,
While all the Common Council cry "Claymore!"[351]
To see proud Albyn's tartans as a belt
Gird the gross sirloin of a city Celt,
She burst into a laughter so extreme,
That I awoke—and lo! it was no dream!
Here, reader, will we pause:—if there's no harm in
This first—you'll have, perhaps, a second "Carmen."
B. Jn 10th 1823.
FOOTNOTES:
[dv] {535} Annus Mirabilis.—MS.
[253] [It has been suggested by Dr. Garnett (late keeper of the Printed Books in the British Museum) that the motto to The Age of Bronze may, possibly, contain a reference to the statue of Achilles, "inscribed by the women of England to Arthur, Duke of Wellington, and his brave companions in arms," which was erected in Hyde Park, June 18, 1822.]
[ [dw] {541} Want nothing of the little, but their will.—[MS.]
[ [254] [Measure for Measure, act ii. sc. 2, line 121.]
[255] [Fox used to say, "I never want a word, but Pitt never wants the word.">[
[256] [The grave of Fox, in Westminster Abbey is within eighteen inches of that of Pitt. Compare—
"Nor yet suppress the generous sigh.
Because his rival slumbers nigh;
Nor be thy requiescat dumb,
Lest it be said o'er Fox's tomb.
Where,—taming thought to human pride!—
The mighty chiefs sleep side by side.
Drop upon Fox's grave the tear,
'Twill trickle to his rival's bier," etc.
Marmion, by Sir Walter Scott,
Introduction to Canto I. lines 125-128, 184-188.
Compare, too, Macaulay on Warren Hastings: "In that temple of silence and reconciliation, where the enmities of twenty generations lie buried, in the Great Abbey ... the dust of the illustrious accused should have mingled with the dust of the illustrious accusers. This was not to be."—Critical and Historical Essays, 1843, iii. 465.]
[257] {542}[The Cleopatra whose mummy is preserved in the British Museum was a member of the Theban Archon family. Her date was circ. A.D. 100.]
[258] [According to Strabo (Rerum Geog., xvii. ed. 1807, ii. 1127), Ptolemæus Soter brought Alexander's body back from Babylon, and buried it in Alexandria, in the spot afterwards known as the Soma. There it lay, in Strabo's time, not in its original body-mask of golden chase-work, which Ptolemæus Cocces had stolen, but in a casket of glass. Great men "turned to pilgrims" to visit Alexander's grave. Augustus crowned the still life-like body with a golden laurel-wreath, and scattered flowers over the tomb: Caligula stole the breastplate, and wore it during his pantomimic triumphs; Septimius Severus buried in the sarcophagus the writings of the priests, and a clue to the hieroglyphics. Finally, the sarcophagus and its sacred remains disappear, and Alexander himself passes into the land of fable and romance. In 1801 a sarcophagus came into the possession of the English Army, and was presented by George III. to the British Museum. Hieroglyphics were as yet undeciphered, and, in 1805, the traveller Edward Daniel Clarke published a quarto monograph (The Tomb of Alexander, etc.), in which he proves, to his own satisfaction, that "this surprising sarcophagus in one entire block of green Egyptian breccia," had once contained the ashes of Alexander the Great. Byron knew Clarke, and, no doubt, respected his authority (see letter December 15, 1813, Letters, 1898, ii. 308); and, hence, the description of "Alexander's urn" as "a show." The sarcophagus which has, since 1844, been assigned to its rightful occupant, Nectanebus II. (Nekht-neb-f), is a conspicuous object in the Egyptian Gallery of the British Museum. It is a curious coincidence that in the Ethiopic version of the Pseudo-Callisthenes, Alexander is said to have been the son of Nectanebus II., who threw a spell over Olympias, the wife of Philip of Macedon, and won her love by the exercise of nefarious magic. (See the Life and Exploits of Alexander the Great, by E. A. Wallis Budge, Litt.D., F.S.A., Keeper of the Egyptian and Assyrian Antiquities in the British Museum, 1896, i, ix.)]
[259] {543}[Arrian (Alexand. Anabasis, vii. i, 4, ed. 1849, p. 165) says that Alexander would never have rested content with what he had acquired; "that if he had annexed Europe to Asia, and the British Isles to Europe, he would have sought out some no-man's-land to conquer." So insatiable was his ambition, that when the courtly philosopher Anaxarchus explained to him the theory of the plurality of worlds he bemoaned himself because as yet he was not master of one. "Heu me, inquit, miserum, quod ne uno quidem adhuc potitus sum."—Valerius Maximus, De Dictis, etc., lib. viii. cap. xiv. ex. 2. See, too, Juvenal, x. 168, 169. Burton (Anatomy of Melancholy, 1893, i. 64) denies that this was spoken like a prince, but, as wise Seneca censures him [on another occasion, however], 'twas vox iniquissima et stultissima, "'twas spoken like a bedlam fool.">[
[260] [Compare Werner, [act iii. sc. 1, lines 288, 289], "When he [Sesostris] went into the temple or the city, his custom was to cause the horses to be unharnessed out of his chariot, and to yoke four kings and four princes to the chariot-pole."—Diodori Siculi Bibl. Hist., lib. i. p. 37, C, ed. 1604, p. 53.]
[261] {544}[In a speech delivered in the House of Commons, February 17, 1800, "On the continuance of the War with France," Pitt described Napoleon as the "child and champion of Jacobinism." Coleridge, who was reporting for the Morning Post, took down Pitt's words as "nursling and champion" (unpublished MS. note-book)—a finer and more original phrase, but substituted "child" for "nursling" in his "copy." (See Letters of S. T. Coleridge, 1895, i. 327, note i.) The phrase was much in vogue, e.g. "All that survives of Jacobinism in Europe looks up to him as its 'child and champion.'"-Quarterly Review, xvi. 48.]
[dx] Lines 55-58 not in MS.
[262] [O'Meara, under the dates August 19, September 5, September 7, 13, etc. (see Napoleon in Exile, 1888, i. 95, 96, 114, 121, etc.), reports complaints on the part of Napoleon with regard to the reduction of expenses suggested or enforced by Sir Hudson Lowe, and gives specimens of the nature and detail of these reductions. For a refutation of O'Meara's facts and figures (as given in Napoleon in Exile, 1822, ii. Appendix V.), see the History of the Captivity of Napoleon, by William Forsyth, Q.C., 1853, iii. 121, sq.; see, too, Sir Hudson Lowe and Napoleon, by R. C. Seaton, 1898. It is a fact that Sir Hudson Lowe, on his own responsibility, increased the allowance for the household expenses of Napoleon and his staff from £8000 to £12,000 a year, and it is also perfectly true that opportunities for complaint were welcomed by the ex-Emperor and his mimic court. It was la politique de Longwood to make the worst of everything, on the off-chance that England would get to hear, and that Radical indignation and Radical sympathy would gild, perhaps unbar, the eagle's cage. It is true, too, that a large sum of money was spent on behalf of a prisoner of war whom the stalwarts of the Tory party would have executed in cold blood. But it is also true that Napoleon had no need to manufacture complaints, that he was exposed to unnecessary discomforts, that useless and irritating precautions were taken to prevent his escape, that the bottles of champagne and madeira, the fowls and the bundles of wood were counted with an irritating preciseness, inconsistent with the general scale of expenditure, which saved a little waste, and covered both principals and agents with ridicule. It is said that O'Meara, in his published volumes, manipulated his evidence, and that his own letters give him the lie; but there is a mass of correspondence, published and unpublished, between him and Sir Thomas Reade, Sir Hudson Lowe, and Major Gorrequer (see Addit. MSS. Brit. Mus. 20,145), which remains as it was written, and which testifies to facts which might have been and were not refuted on the spot and at the moment. With regard to "disputed rations," the Governor should have been armed with a crushing answer to any and every complaint. As it was, he was able to show that champagne was allowed to "Napoleon Buonaparte," and that he did not exceed his allowance.]
[263] {545}[In his correspondence with Lord Bathurst, Sir Hudson Lowe more than once quotes "statements" made by Dr. O'Meara (vide post, [p. 546]). But the surgeon may be William Warden (1777-1849), whose Letters written on board His Majesty's Ship the Northumberland, and at St, Helena, were published in 1816.]
[264] [Henry, Earl of Bathurst (1762-1834), Secretary for War and the Colonies, replied to Lord Holland's motion "for papers connected with the personal treatment of Napoleon Buonaparte at St. Helena," March 18, 1817. Parl. Deb., vol. 35, pp. 1137-1166.]
[265] [A bust of Napoleon's son, the Duke of Reichstadt, had been forwarded to St. Helena. O'Meara (Napoleon in Exile, etc., 1822, i. p. 100) says "that it had been in the island fourteen days, during several of which it was at Plantation House," before it was transferred to Longwood. Forsyth (History of Napoleon in Captivity, 1853, ii. 146) denies this statement. It was, no doubt, detained on board ship for inspection, but not at Plantation House.]
[266] [The book in question was The Substance of some Letters written by an Englishman in Paris, 1816 (by J. C. Hobhouse). It was inscribed "To the Emperor Napoleon." Lowe's excuse was that Hobhouse had submitted the work to his inspection, and suggested that if the Governor did not think fit to give it to Napoleon, he might place it in his own library. (See Napoleon in Exile, 1822, i. 85-87; and Forsyth, 1853, i. 193.)]
[dy] Weep to survey the Tamer of the Great.—[MS.]
[267] [Lieutenant-General Sir Hudson Lowe, K.C.B. (1769-1844), was the son of an army surgeon, John Hudson Lowe. His mother was Irish. He was appointed Governor of St. Helena, August 23, 1815, and landed in the island April 14, 1816. Byron met him at Lord Holland's, before he sailed for St. Helena, and was not impressed by his remarks on Napoleon and Waterloo (Letters, 1901, v. 429). He was well-intentioned, honourable, and, in essentials, humane, but he was arrogant and tactless. The following sentence, from a letter written by Lowe to O'Meara, October 3, 1816 (Forsyth, i. 318, 319), is characteristic: "With respect to the instructions I have received, and my manner of making them known, never having regarded General Bonaparte's opinions in any point whatever as to matter or manner, as an oracle or criterion by which to regulate my own judgment, I am not disposed to think the less favourably of the instructions, or my mode of executing them." It must, however, be borne in mind that this was written some time after Lowe's fifth and last interview with his captive (Aug. 18, 1816); that Napoleon had abused him to his face and behind his back, and was not above resorting to paltry subterfuges in order to defy and exasperate his "paltry gaoler.">[
[268] {546}[There is reason to think that "the staring stranger" was the traveller Captain Basil Hall (1788-1844), who called upon Byron at Venice (see Letters, 1900, iv. 252), but did not see him. His account of his interview with Napoleon is attached to his narrative of a Voyage to Java, 1840. It is not included in the earlier editions of Hall's Voyage to the Corea and the Loochoo Islands, but is quoted by Scott, in his Life of Napoleon, 1827.]
[269] [Barry Edward O'Meara (1786-1836) began life as assistant-surgeon to the 62nd Regiment, then stationed in Sicily and Calabria. In 1815 he was surgeon on board the Bellerophon, under Captain F. L. Maitland. Napoleon took a fancy to him because he could speak Italian, and, as his own surgeon Mengeaud would not follow him into exile, requested that O'Meara might accompany him, in the Northumberland, to St. Helena. His position was an ambiguous one. He was to act as Napoleon's medical and, quoad hoc, confidential attendant, but he was not to be subservient to him or dependent on him. At St. Helena Lowe expected him to be something between an intermediary and a spy, and, for a time, O'Meara discharged both functions to the Governor's satisfaction (statements by Dr. O'Meara are quoted by Lowe in his letter to Lord Bathurst [Life of Napoleon, etc., by Sir W. Scott, 1828, p. 763]). As time went on, the surgeon yielded to the glamour of Napoleon's influence, and more and more disliked and resented the necessity of communicating private conversations to Lowe. He "withheld his confidence," with the result that the Governor became suspicious, and treated O'Meara with reprobation and contempt. At length, on July 18, 1818, on a renewed accusation of "irregularities," Lord Bathurst dismissed him from his post, and ordered him to quit St. Helena. He returned to England, and, October 28, 1818, addressed a letter (see Forsyth's Napoleon, etc., iii. 432, 433) to J. W. Croker, the Secretary to the Admiralty, in which he argued against the justice of his dismissal. One sentence which asserted that Lowe had dwelt upon the "benefit which would result to Europe from the death of Napoleon," was seized upon by Croker as calumnious, and in answer to his remonstrance, O'Meara's name was struck off the list of naval surgeons. He published, in 1819, a work entitled Exposition of some of the Transactions that have taken place at St. Helena since the appointment of Sir Hudson Lowe as Governor, which was afterwards expanded into Napoleon in Exile, or a Voice from St. Helena (2 vols., 1822). The latter work made a great sensation, and passed through five editions. It was republished in 1888. O'Meara was able, and generously disposed, but he was not "stiff" (vide infra, 489). "He was," says Lord Rosebery (Napoleon, The Last Phase, 1900, p. 31), "the confidential servant of Napoleon: unknown to Napoleon, he was the confidential agent of Lowe; and behind both their backs he was the confidential informant of the British Government.... Testimony from such a source is ... tainted." Neither men nor angels will disentangle the wheat from the tares.]
[270] {547}[Buonaparte died the 5th of May, 1821.]
[271] [At the end of vol. ii. of O'Meara's Voice, etc. (ed. 5), there is a statement, signed by Count Montholon, to the effect that he wished the following inscription to be placed on Napoleon's coffin—
"Napoléon.
Né à Ajaccio le 15 Août, 1769,
Mort à Ste. Hélène le 5 Mai, 1821;"
but that the Governor said, "that his instructions would not allow him to sanction any other name being placed on the coffin than that of 'General Bonaparte.'" Lowe would have sanctioned "Napoléon Bonaparte," but, on his own admission, did refuse the inscription of the one word "Napoléon."—Forsyth, iii. 295, 296, note 3.]
[272] {548}[Hall, in his interview with Napoleon at St. Helena, Narrative of a Voyage to Java, 1840, p. 77, testifies that, weeks before the vessel anchored at St. Helena, August 11, 1817, "the probability of seeing him [Napoleon] had engrossed the thoughts of every one on board.... Even those of our number who, from their situation, could have no chance of seeing him, caught the fever of the moment, and the most cold and indifferent person on board was roused on the occasion into unexpected excitement.">[
[273] [The Colonne Vendôme, erected to commemorate the Battle of Austerlitz, was inaugurated in 1810.]
[274] [Pompey's, i.e. Diocletian's Pillar stands on a mound near the Arabian cemetery, about three quarters of a mile from Alexandria, between the city and Lake Mareotis.]
[275] [Napoleon was buried, May 9, 1821, in a garden in the middle of a deep ravine, under the shade of two willow trees.]
[276] [Byron took for granted that Napoleon's remains would one day rest under the dome of the Pantheon, where Mirabeau is buried, and where cenotaphs have been erected to Voltaire and Rousseau. As it is (since December 15, 1840) he sleeps under the Dôme des Invalides. Above the entrance are these words, which are taken from his will: "Je désire que mes cendres reposent sur les bords de la Seine, au milieu de ce peuple Français que j'ai tant aimé.">[
[277] {549} Guesclin died during the siege of a city; it surrendered, and the keys were brought and laid upon his bier, so that the place might appear rendered to his ashes. [Bertrand du Guesclin, born 1320, first distinguished himself in the service of King John II. of France, in defending Rennes against Henry Duke of Lancaster, 1356-57. He was made Constable of France in 1370, and died before the walls of Châteauneuf-de-Randon (Lozère). July 13, 1380. He was buried by the order of Charles V. in Saint-Denis, hard by the tomb which the king had built for himself. In La Vie vaillant Bertran du Guesclin [Chronique, etc. (par E. Charrière), 1839, tom. ii. p. 321, lines 22716, sq.], the English do not place the keys of the castle on Du Guesclin's bier, but present them to him as he lies tossing on his death-bed ("à son lit agité"). So, too, Histoire de Messire Bertrand du Guesclin, par Claude Menard, 1618, 540: "Et Engloiz se accorderent à ce faire. Lors issirent dudit Chastel, et vindrent à Bertran, et lui presenterent les clefs. Et ne demora guères, qu'il getta le souppir de la mort.">[
[278] [John of Trocnow, surnamed Zižka, or the "One-eyed," was born circ. 1360, and died while he was besieging a town on the Moravian border, October 11, 1424. He was the hero of the Hussite or Taborite crusade (1419-1422), the malleus Catholicorum. The story is that on his death-bed he was asked where he wished to be buried, and replied, "that it mattered not, that his flesh might be thrown to the vulture and eagles; but his skin was to be carefully preserved and made into a drum, to be carried in the front of the battle, that the very sound might disperse their enemies." Voltaire, in his Essai sur Les Mœurs et L'Esprit des Nations (cap. lxxiii. s.f. Œuvres Complètes, etc., 1836, iii. 256), mentions the legend as a fact, "Il ordonna qu' après sa mort on fit un tambour de sa peau." Compare Werner, [act i. sc. I, lines 693, 694].]
[279] {550}["Au moment de la bataille Napoléon avait dit à ses troupes, en leur montrant les Pyramides: 'Soldats, quarante siècles vous regardent.'"—Campagnes d'Égypte et de Syrie, 1798-9, par le Général Bertrand, 1847, i. 160.]
[280] [Madrid was taken by the French, first in March, 1808, and again December 2, 1808.]
[281] [Vienna was taken by the French under Murat, November 14, 1805, evacuated January 12, 1806, captured by Napoleon, May, 1809, and restored at the conclusion of peace, October 14, 1809. Her treachery consisted in her hospitality to the sovereigns at the Congress of Vienna, November, 1814, and her share in the Treaty of Vienna, March 25, 1815, which ratified the Treaties of Chaumont, March 1, and of Paris, April 11, 1814.]
[282] [At Jena Napoleon defeated Prince Hohenlohe, and at Auerstadt General Davoust defeated the King of Prussia, October 14, 1806. Napoleon then advanced to Berlin, October 27, from which he issued his famous decree against British commerce, November 20, 1806.]
[283] [The partition of Poland. "Henry [of Prussia] arrived at St. Petersburg, December 9, 1770; and it seems now to be certain that the first open proposal of a dismemberment of Poland arose in his conversations with the Empress.... Catherine said to the Prince, 'I will frighten Turkey and flatter England. It is your business to gain Austria, that she may lull France to sleep;' and she became at length so eager, that ... she dipt her finger into ink, and drew with it the lines of partition on a map of Poland which lay before them."—Edinburgh Review, November, 1822 (art. x. on Histoire des Trois Démembremens de la Pologne, par M. Ferrand, 1820, etc., vol. 37, pp. 479, 480.)]
[284] {551} [Napoleon promised much, but did little for the Poles. "In speaking of the business of Poland he ... said it was a whim (c'était un caprice)."—Narrative of an Embassy to Warsaw, by M. Dufour de Pradt, 1816, p. 51. "The Polish question," says Lord Wolseley (Decline and Fall of Napoleon, 1893, p. 19), "thrust itself most inconveniently before him. In early life all his sympathies ... were with the Poles, and he had regarded the partition of their country as a crime.... As a very young man liberty was his only religion; but he had now learned to hate and to fear that term.... He had no desire ... to be the Don Quixote of Poland by reconstituting it as a kingdom. To fight Russia by the re-establishment of Polish independence was not, therefore, to be thought of.">[
[285] [The final partition of Poland took place after the Battle of Maciejowice, October 12, 1794, when "Freedom shrieked when Kosciusko fell." Tyrants, e.g. Napoleon in 1806, and Alexander in 1814 and again in 1815, approached Kosciusko with respect, and loaded him with flattery and promises, and then "passed by on the other side.">[
[286] [The reference is to Charles's chagrin when the Grand Vizier allowed the Russians to retire in safety from the banks of the Pruth, and assented to the Treaty of Jassy, July 21, 1711. Charles, "impatient for the fight, and to behold the enemy in his power," had ridden above fifty leagues from Bender to Jassy, swam the Pruth at the risk of his life, and found that the Czar had marched off in triumph. He contrived to rip up the Vizier's robe with his spur, "remonta à cheval, et retourna a Bender le desespoir dans le cœur" (Histoire de Charles XII., Livre v. s.f.).]
[287] {552}["Naples, October 29, 1822. Le Vésuve continue à lancer des pierres et des cendres."—From Le Moniteur Universel, November 21, 1822.]
[dz] For staring tourists——.—[MS.]
[288] [The material for this description of Napoleon on his return from Moscow is drawn from De Pradt's Narrative of an Embassy to Warsaw and Wilna, published in 1816, pp. 133-141. "I hurried out, and arrived at the Hôtel d'Angleterre.... [Warsaw, December 10, 1812]. I saw a small carriage body placed on a sledge made of four pieces of fir: it had stood some crashes, and was much damaged.... The ministers joined me in addressing to him ... wishes for the preservation of his health and the prosperity of his journey. He replied, 'I never was better; if I carried the devil with me, I should be all the better for that (Quand j'aurai le diable je ne m'en porterai que mieux).' These were his last words. He then mounted the humble sledge, which bore Cæsar and his fortune, and disappeared." The passage is quoted in the Quarterly Review, October, 1815, vol. xiv. pp. 64-68.]
[289] {553}
["Soldats Français! Serrez vos rangs!
Intendez Roland qui vous crie!
Armez vous contre vos tyrans!
Brisez les fers de la patrie."
"L'Ombre de Roland," Morning Chronicle, October 10, 1822.]
[290] [Gustavus Adolphus fell at the great battle of Lutzen, in November, 1632. Napoleon defeated the allied Russian and Prussian armies at Lutzen, May 2, 1813.]
[291] [On June 26, 1813, Napoleon re-entered Dresden, and on the 27th repulsed the allied sovereigns, the Emperors of Russia and Prussia, with tremendous loss. Thousands of prisoners and a great quantity of cannon were taken.]
Dresden beholds three nations fly once more
Before the lash they oft had felt before.—[MS. erased.]
[292] [At the battle of Leipzig, October 18, 1813, on the appearance of Bernadotte, the Saxon soldiers under Regnier deserted and went over to the Allies. Napoleon, whose army was already weakened, lost 30,000 men at Leipzig.]
[293] [Joseph Buonaparte, who had been stationed on the heights of Montmartre, March 30, 1814, to witness if not direct the defence of Paris against the Allies under Blücher, authorized Marmont to capitulate. His action was, unjustly, regarded as a betrayal of his brother's capital.]
[294] {554} I refer the reader to the first address of Prometheus in Æschylus, when he is left alone by his attendants, and before the arrival of the chorus of Sea-nymphs.—Prometheus Vinctus, line 88, sq.
[295] [Franklin published his Opinions and Conjectures concerning the Properties and Effects of the Electrical Matter and the Means of preserving Buildings, Ships, etc., from Lightning, in 1751, and in June, 1752, "the immortal kite was flown." It was in 1781, when he was minister plenipotentiary at the Court of France, that the Latin hexameter, "Eripuit cœlo fulmen sceptrumque tyrannis," first applied to him by Turgot, was affixed to his portrait by Fragonard. The line, said to be an adaptation of a line in the Astronomicon of Manilius (lib. i. 104), descriptive of the Reason, "Eripuitque Jovi fulmen viresque tonandi," was turned into French by Nogaret, d'Alembert, and other wits and scholars. It appears on the reverse of a medal by F. Dupré, dated 1786. (See Works of Benjamin Franklin, edited by Jared Sparks, 1840, viii. 537-539; Life and Times, etc., by James Parton, 1864, i. 285-291.)]
[296] {555}["To be the first man—not the Dictator, not the Sylla, but the Washington, or the Aristides, the leader in talent and truth—is next to the Divinity."—Journal, November 24, 1813, Letters, 1898, ii. 340.]
[297] [Simon Bolivar (El Libertador), 1783-1830, was at the height of his power and fame at the beginning of 1823. In 1821 he had united New Grenada to Venezuela under the name of the Republic of Columbia, and on the 1st of September he made a solemn entry into Lima. He was greeted with acclaim, but in accepting the honours which his fellow-citizens showered upon him, he warned them against the dangers of tyranny. "Beware," he said, "of a Napoleon or an Iturbide." Byron, at one time, had a mind to settle in "Bolivar's country" (letter to Ellice, June 12, 1821, Letters, 1901, vi. 89); and he christened his yacht The Bolivar.]
[298] [A proclamation of Bolivar's, dated June 8, 1822, runs thus: "Columbians, now all your delightful country is free.... From the banks of the Orinoco to the Andes of Peru, the ... army marching in triumph has covered with its protecting arms the entire extent of Columbia."—"Jamaica Papers," Morning Chronicle, September 28, 1822.]
[299] {556}[The capitulation of Athens was signed June 21, 1822. "Three days after the Greeks had sworn to observe the capitulation, they commenced murdering their helpless prisoners.... The streets of Athens were stained with the blood of four hundred men, women, and children."—History of Greece, by George Finlay, 1877, vi. 283. The sword was hid in the myrtle bough. Hence the allusion. (Compare Childe Harold, Canto III. stanza xx. line 9, Poetical Works, 1899, ii. 228, and 291, note 2.)]
[300] [The independence of Chili dated from April 5, 1818, when General José de San Martin routed the Spanish army on the plains of Maypo. On the 28th of July, 1821, the Independence of Peru was proclaimed. General San Martin assumed the title of Protector, and, August 3, 4, 1821, issued proclamations, in which he announced the independence of Peru, and bade the Spaniards tremble if they "abused his indulgence." Extracts from a Journal written on the Coast of Chili, etc., by Captain Basil Hall, 1824, i. 266-272.]
[301] [On the 8th of August, 1822, Niketas and Hypsilantes defeated the Turks under Dramali, near Lerna. The Moreotes attributed their good fortune to the generalship of Kolokotrones, a Messenian. Compare with the whole of section vi. the following quotations from an article on the "Numbers of the Greeks," which appeared in the Morning Chronicle, September 13, 1822—
"'Trust not for freedom to the Franks,
They have a king who buys and sells;
In native swords and native ranks
The only hope of courage dwells.'
Byron.
"As Russia has now removed her warlike projects, and the Greeks are engaged single-handed with the whole force of the Ottoman Empire, etc.... Byron's Grecian bard can no longer exclaim—
'My country! on thy voiceless shore
The heroic lay is tuneless now—
The heroic bosom beats no more.'
"Greece is no longer a 'nation's sepulchre,' the foul abode of slaves, but the living theatre of the patriot's toils and the hero's achievements. Her banners once more float on the mountains, and the battles she has already won show that in every glen and valley, as well as on
'Suli's rock and Parga's shore
Exists the remnant of a line
Such as the Doric mothers bore.'">[
[302] {557}[An account of these Russian intrigues in Greece is contained in Thomas Gordon's History of the Greek Revolution, 1832, i. 194-204.]
[eb] {558} Of Incas known but as a cloud.—[MS. erased.]
[ec] Not now the Roman or the Punic horde.—[MS.]
[ed] ——abhorrent of them both.—[MS.]
[303] [Pelayo, said to be the son of Favila, Duke of Cantabria, was elected king by the Christians of the Asturias in 718, and defeated the Arab generals Suleyman and Manurza. He died A.D. 737.]
[304] [For the "fabulous sketches" of the Zegri and Abencerrages, rival Moorish tribes, whose quarrels, at the close of the fifteenth century, deluged Granada with blood, see the Civil Wars of Granada, a prose fiction, interspersed with ballads, by Ginés Perez de Hita, published in 1595. An opera, Les Abencerages, by Cherubini, was performed in Paris in 1813. Chateaubriand's Les Aventures du dernier Abencerrage was not published till 1826.]
[ee] And yet have left worse enemies than they.—[MS. erased.]
[305] [Ferdinand VII. returned to Madrid in March, 1814. "No sooner was he established on his throne ... than he set himself to restore the old absolutism with its worst abuses. The nobles recovered their privileges ... the Inquisition resumed its activity; and the Jesuits returned to Spain.... A camarilla of worthless courtiers and priests conducted the government, and urged the king to fresh acts of revolutionary violence. For six years Spain groaned under a royalist 'reign of terror.'"—Encycl. Brit., art. "Spain," vol. 22, p. 345.]
[ef] As rose on his remorseless ear the cry.—[MS. erased.]
[eg] {559} The re-awakened virtue——.—[MS. erased.]
[eh] ——is on the shore.—[MS. erased.]
[306] "'St. Jago and close Spain!' the old Spanish war-cry." ["Santiago y serra España.">[
[ei] The wild Guerilla on Morena——.—[MS. erased]
[ej] Of eagle-eyed——.—[MS. erased.]
[307] [Compare Childe Harold, Canto I. stanzas liv.-lvi., Poetical Works, i. 57, 58, 91, 92 (note II). The "man" was Tio Jorge (Jorge Ibort), vide ibid., p. 94.]
[308] {560} The Arragonians are peculiarly dexterous in the use of this weapon, and displayed it particularly in former French wars.
[309] [Vide ante, the Introduction to the Age of Bronze, pp, [537]-540.]
[310] [Patrick Henry, born May 29, 1736, died June 6, 1799, was one of the leading spirits of the American Revolution. His father, John Henry, a Scotchman, a cousin of the historian, William Robertson, had acquired a small property in Virginia. Patrick was not exactly "forest born," but, as a child, loved to play truant "in the forest with his gun or over his angle-rod." He first came into notice as an orator in the "Parson's Cause," a suit brought by a minister of the Established Church to recover his salary, which had been fixed at 16,000 lbs. of tobacco. In his speech he is said to have struck the key-note of the Revolution by arguing that "a king, by disallowing acts of a salutary nature, from being the father of his people, degenerates into a tyrant, and forfeits all right to his subjects' obedience." His famous speech against the "Stamps Act" was delivered in the House of Burgesses of Virginia, May 29, 1765. One passage, with which, no doubt, Byron was familiar, has passed into history. "Cæsar had his Brutus—Charles the First had his Cromwell—and George the Third—" Henry was interrupted with a shout of "Treason! treason!!" but finished the sentence with, and "George the Third may profit by their example. If this be treason, make the most of it."
Henry was delegate to the first Continental Congress, five times Governor of Virginia, and was appointed U.S. Senator in 1794.
His contemporaries said that he was "the greatest orator that ever lived." He seems to have exercised a kind of magical influence over his hearers, which they could not explain, which charmed and overwhelmed them, and "has left behind a tradition of bewitching persuasiveness and almost prophetic sublimity."—See Life of Patrick Henry, by William Wirt, 1845, passim.]
[ek] {561} ——to one Napoleon.—[MS. erased.]
[el] ——thy poor old wall forgets.—[MS. erased.]
[311] ["I have been over Verona. The amphitheatre is wonderful—beats even Greece. Of the truth of Juliet's story they seem tenacious to a degree, insisting on the fact, giving a date1303, and showing a tomb. It is a plain, open, and partly decayed sarcophagus, with withered leaves in it, in a wild and desolate conventual garden, once a cemetery, now ruined to the very graves. The situation struck me as very appropriate to the legend, being blighted as their love.... The Gothic monuments of the Scaliger princes pleased me, but 'a poor virtuoso am I.'"—Letter to Moore, November 7, 1816, Letters, 1899, iii. 386, 387. The tombs of the Scaligers are close to the Church of Santa Maria l'Antica. Juliet's tomb, "of red Verona marble," is in the garden of the Orfanotrofio, between the Via Cappucini and the Adige. It is not "that ancient vault where all the kindred of the Capulets lie," which has long since been destroyed. Since 1814 Verona had been under Austria's sway, and had "treacherously" forgotten her republican traditions.]
[312] {562}[Francesco Can Grande della Scala died in 1329. It was under his roof that Dante learned
"... how salt his food who fares
Upon another's bread—how steep his path
Who treadeth up and down another's stairs."
For anecdotes of Can Grande, see Commedia, etc., by E. H. Plumptre, D.D., 1886, I. cxx., cxxi.; and compare Dante at Verona, by D. G. Rossetti, Works, 1886, i. 1-17.]
[313] [Ippolito Pindemonte, the modern Tibullus (1753-1828). (See Letters, 1900, iv. 127, note 4.)]
[314] [Claudian's famous old man of Verona, "qui suburbium numquam egressus est."
"Indocilis rerum, vicinæ nescius urbis,
Adspectu fruitur liberiore poli."
C. Claudiani Opera, lii., Epigrammata, ii. lines 9, 10 (ed. 1821, iii. 427).]
[315] ["In the amphitheatre ... crowds collected after the sittings of the Congress, to witness dramatic representations.... But for the costumes, a spectator might have imagined he was witnessing a resurrection of the ancient Romans."—Congress, etc., by M. de Chateaubriand, 1838, i. 76. This was on the 24th of November. Catalani sang. Rossini's cantata was performed with tremendous applause. On the next day the august visitors witnessed an illumination of the city. "Leur attention s'est principalement arrête sur le superbe portail de l'église Sainte-Agnés, qui brillait de mille feux, au milieu desquels se lisait l'inscription suivante en lettres de grandeur colossale:
'A Cesare Augusta Verona esultante.'"
—Le Moniteur, December 14, 1822.]
[316] {563}[Alexander I. (Paulowitsch), 1777-1825, succeeded his father in 1801. He began his reign well. Taxation was diminished, judicial penalties were remitted, universities were founded and reorganized, personal servitude was abolished or restricted throughout the empire. At the height of his power and influence, when he was regarded as the Liberator of Europe, he granted a Constitution to Poland, based on liberal if not democratic principles (June 21, 1815). But after a time he reverted to absolutism. Autocracy at home, a mystical and sentimental alliance with autocrats abroad, were incompatible with the indulgence of liberal proclivities. "After the Congresses of Aix-la-Chapelle and Troppau," writes M. Rambaud (History of Russia, 1888, ii. 384), "he was no longer the same man.... From that time he considered himself the dupe of his generous ideas ... at Carlsbad, at Laybach, and at Verona, Alexander was already the leader of the European reaction." But even to the last he believed that he could run with the hare and hunt with the hounds. "They may say of me," he exclaimed, "what they will; but I have lived and shall die republican" (ibid., p. 398).
Alexander was a man of ideas, a sentimentalist, and a poseur, but he had an eye to the main chance. Whatever cause or dynasty suffered, the Emperor Alexander was still triumphant. Byron's special grudge against him at this time was due to his vacillation with regard to the cause of Greek Independence. But he is too contemptuous. There were points in common between the "Coxcomb Czar" and his satirist; and it is far from certain that if the twain had changed places Byron might not have proved just "such an Alexander." In one respect their destiny was alike. The greatest sorrow of their lives was the death of a natural daughter.]
[317] [For Alexander's waltzing, see Personal Reminiscences, by Cornelia Knight and Thomas Raikes, 1875, p. 286. See, too, Moore's Fables for the Holy Alliance, Fable I., "A Dream.">[
[em] Now half inclining——.—[MS.]
[318] {564}["Pulk" is Polish for "regiment." The allusion must be to the military colonies planted by "the corporal of Gatchina," Araktchèef, in the governments of Novgorod, Kharkof, and elsewhere.]
[319] [Frédéric César La Harpe (1754-1838) was appointed by Catherine II. Governor to the Grand-Dukes Alexander and Constantine. It was from La Harpe's teaching that Alexander imbibed his liberal ideas. In 1816, when Byron passed the summer in Switzerland, La Harpe was domiciled at Lausanne, and it is possible that a meeting took place.]
[320] [Alexander's platonic attachment to the Baronne de Krüdener (Barbe Julie de Wietenhoff), beauty, novelist, illuminée, was the source of amusement rather than scandal. The Baronne, then in her fiftieth year, was the channel through which Franz Bader's theory or doctrine of the "Holy Alliance" was conveyed to the enthusiastic and receptive Czar. It was only a passing whim. Alexander's mysticism was for ornament, not for use, and, before very long, Egeria and her Muscovite Numa parted company.]
[321] The dexterity of Catherine extricated Peter (called the Great by courtesy), when surrounded by the Mussulmans on the banks of the river Pruth. [Catherine, who had long been Peter's mistress, had at length been acknowledged as his wife. Her "dexterity" took the form of a bribe of money and jewels, conveyed to the Turkish grand-vizier Baltazhi-Mahomet, who was induced to accede to the Treaty of Pruth, July 20, 1711.]
[322] {565}
["Eight thousand men had to Asturias march'd
Beneath Count Julian's banner.... To revenge
His quarrel, twice that number left their bones,
Slain in unnatural battle, on the field
Of Xeres, where the sceptre from the Goths
By righteous Heaven was reft."
Southey's Roderick, Canto XXV. lines 1, 2, 7-11.]
[323] [The Bashkirs are a Turco-Mongolian tribe inhabiting the slopes of the Ural Mountains. They supply a body of irregular cavalry to the Russian army.]
[324] [The Austrian and Russian armies stood between the Greeks and other peoples, and their independence, as Alexander the Great stood between Diogenes and the sunshine.]
Still will I roll my tub at Sinope
Be slaves who may——.—[MS.]
[325] [Lines 482, 483, are not in the MS.]
[326] {566} [Constant (Henri Benjamin de Rebecque, 1767-1830) was the "stormy petrel" of debate in the French Chamber. For instance, in a discussion on secret service money for the police (July 27, 1822), he exclaimed, "Vous les répresentez-vous payant d'une main le salaire du vol, et tenant peut-être un crucifix de l'autre?" No wonder that there were "violens murmures, cris d'indignation à droite." The duel, however, did not arise out of a speech in the Chamber, but from a letter of June 5, 1822, in La Quotidienne, in which the Marquis de Forbin des Issarts replied to some letters of Constant, which had appeared in the Courrier and Constitutionnel. Constant was lame, and accordingly both combatants "out été places à dix petits pas sur des chaises." Both fired twice, but neither "was a penny the worse." (See La Grande Encyclopédie, art. "Constant;" and, for details, La Quotidienne, June 8, 1822. See, too, for "session de 1822," Opinions el Discours de M. Casimir Perrier, 1838, ii. 5-47.)]
[327] [Louis XVIII. (Louis Stanislas Xavier, 1755-1824) passed several years of exile in England, at Goswell, Wanstead, and latterly at Hartwell, near Aylesbury, in Buckinghamshire. When he entered Paris as king, in May, 1814, he was in his fifty-ninth year, inordinately bulky and unwieldy—a king pour rire. "C'est ce gros goutteux," explained an ouvrier to a bystander, who had asked, "Which is the king?" Fifteen mutton cutlets, "sautées au jus," for breakfast; fifteen mutton cutlets served with a "sauce à la champagne," for dinner; to say nothing of strawberries, and sweet apple-puffs between meals, made digestion and locomotion difficult. It was no wonder that he was a martyr to the gout. But he cared for nature and for books as well as for eating. His Lettres d'Artwell (Paris, 1830), which profess to be selections from his correspondence with a friend, give a pleasant picture of the roi en exil. His wife, Louise de Savoie, died November, 1810, and in the following April he writes (Lettres, pp. 70, 71), "Mars a maintenu le bien d'un hiver fort doux; point encore de goutte; à brebis tondue, Dieu measure le vent. Hélas! je l'éprouve bien qu'elle est tondue cette pauvre brebis!... je me promène dans le jardin, je vois mes rosiers qui poussent bien; a qui offrirai-je les roses?... Eh bien! je ne voudrais pas que cette goutte d'absinthe cessât, car pour cela il faudrait l'oublier. L'oublier! Ah Dieu! Je suis comme les enfans d'Israël qui disaient: Super flumina Babylonis ... Sion. Mais ajoutons tout de suite: Si oblitus fuero hit, Jerusalem, oblivioni detur dextera mea." In another letter, June 8, 1811, he criticizes some translations of Horace, and laments that the good Père Sanadon has confined himself to the Opera Expurgata. Not, he adds, that he would not have excluded one or two odes, "mais on a impitoyablement sabré des choses délicieuses" (Lettres, p. 98).
To his wit, Chateaubriand testifies (The Congress, etc., 1838, i. 262). At the council, when affairs of state were being discussed, the king "would say in his clear shrill voice, 'I am going to make you laugh, M. de Chateaubriand.' The other ministers fumed with impatience, but Chateaubriand laughed, not as a courtier, but as a human being.">[
[328] {567}[Louvel, who assassinated the Due de Berri, and who was executed June 7, 1820, was supposed to have been an agent of the carbonari. La Fayette, Constant, Lafitte, and others were also suspected of being connected with secret societies.—The Court of the Tuileries, 1815-1848, by Lady Jackson, 1883, ii. 19.]
[eo] {568}
Immortal Wellington with beak so curled.
That foremost Corporal of all the World—
Immortal Wellington—and flags unfurled.—[MS. erased.]
[329] "Naso suspendis adunco."—Horace [Sat. i. 6, 5]. The Roman applies it to one who merely was imperious to his acquaintance.
[330] [Robert Stewart, Viscount Castlereagh, afterwards Marquis of Londonderry (1769-1822), who had been labouring under a "mental delirium" (Letter of Duke of Wellington, August 9, 1822), committed suicide by cutting his throat with a penknife (August 12, 1822). He was the uncompromising and successful opponent of popular causes in Ireland, Italy, and elsewhere, and, as such, Byron assailed him, alive and dead, with the bitterest invective. (See, for instance, the "Dedication" to Don Juan, stanzas xi.-xvi., sundry epigrams, and an "Epitaph.") In the Preface to Cantos VI., VII., VIII., of Don Juan, he justifies the inclusion of a stanza or two on Castlereagh, which had been written "before his decease," and, again, alludes to his suicide. (For an estimate of his career and character, see Letters, 1900, iv. 108, 109, note 1; and for a full report of the inquest, The Annual Biography, 1823, pp. 56-62.)]
Whose penknife saved some nations t'other day.
Who shaved his throat by chance the other day.—[MS. erased.]
[331] ["The Pilot that weathered the Storm" was written by Canning, to be recited at a dinner given on Pitt's birthday, May 28, 1802.]
[eq] {569} With reason—whate'er it may with rhyme.—[MS. erased.]
[332] [George Canning (1770-1827) succeeded Lord Londonderry as Foreign Secretary, September 8, 1822. He was not a persona grata to George IV., who had been offended by Canning's neutral attitude, as a minister, on the question of the Queen's message (June 7, 1820), and by his avowal "of an unaltered regard and affection" for that "illustrious personage" herself. There was, too, the prospect of Catholic Emancipation. In 1821 he had spoken in favour of Plunket's bills, and, the next year (April 30, 1822), he had brought in a bill to remove the disabilities of Roman Catholic peers from sitting in the House of Lords. If Canning persisted in his advocacy of Catholic claims, the king's conscience might turn restive, and urge him to effectual resistance. Hence the warning in lines 563-567.]
[333] {570} [Demeter gave Triptolemus a chariot drawn by serpents, and bade him scatter wheat throughout the world. (See Ovid, Met., lib. v. lines 642-661.)]
[er] The mighty monosyllable high Rent!—[MS.]
[es] ——upon the audit day.—[MS. M.]
[334] ["Lord Londonderry proposed (April 29, 1822) that whenever wheat should be under 60 shillings a quarter, Government should be authorized to issue £1,000,000 in Exchequer bills to landed proprietors on the security of their crops; that importation of foreign corn should be permitted whenever the price of wheat should be at or above 70 shillings a quarter ... that a sliding-scale should be fixed, that for wheat being under 80s. a quarter at 12 shillings; above 80s. and below 85s., at 5 shillings; and above 85s., only one shilling."—Allison's History of Europe, 1815-1852, and 1854, ii. 506. The first clause was thrown out, but the rest of the bill passed May 13, 1822.]
[et] {571} For fear that riches——.—[MS. M.]
[eu] Will sell the harvest at a market price.—[MS. M.]
[ev] Are gone—their fields untilled.—[MS. M.]
[335] {572}[Peel's bill for the resumption of cash payments (Act 59 Geo. III. cap. 49) was passed June 14, 1819. The "landed interest" attributed the fall of prices and the consequent fall of rent to this measure, and hinted more or less plainly that the fund-holders should share the loss. They had lent their money when the currency was inflated, and should not now be paid off in gold.
"But you," exclaims Cobbett [Letter to Mr. Western (Weekly Register, November 23, 1822)], "what can induce you to stickle for the Pitt system [i.e. paper-money]? I will tell you what it is: you loved the high prices, and the domination that they gave you.... Besides this, you think that the boroughs can be preserved by a return to paper-money, and along with them the hare-and-pheasant law and justice. You loved the glorious times of paper-money, and you want them back again. You think that they could go on for ever.... The bill of 1819 was really a great relaxation of the Pitt system, and when you are crying out spoliation and confiscation, when you are bawling out so lustily about the robbery committed on you by the fund-holders and the placemen, and are praising the infernal Pitt system at the same time, ... you say they are receiving, the fund-vagabonds in particular, more than they ought." It is evident that Byron's verse is a reverberation of Cobbett's prose.]
[336] [Petitions were presented by the inhabitants of St. Andrew, Holborn; St. Botolf, Bishopsgate; and St. Gregory by St. Paul, to the Court of Common Council, against a tithe-charge of 2s, 9d. in the pound on their annual rents.—Morning Chronicle, November 1, 1822.]
[337] Lines 614-657 are not in the MS.
[338] {573}[The Symplegades, or "justling rocks," Ovid's instabiles Cyaneæ, were supposed to crush the ships which sailed between them.]
[339] [Alcina, the personification of carnal pleasure in the Orlando Furioso, is the counterpart of Homer's Circe. "She enjoyed her lovers for a time, and then changed them into trees, stones, fountains, or beasts, as her fancy dictated." (See Ariosto, Orlando Furioso, vi. 35, seq.)]
[340] [There were five brothers Rothschild: Anselm, of Frankfort, 1773-1855; Salomon, of Vienna, 1774-1855; Nathan Mayer, of London, 1777-1836; Charles, of Naples, 1788-1855; and James, of Paris, 1792-1868. In 1821 Austria raised 37½ million guldens through the firm, and, as an acknowledgment of their services, the Emperor raised the brothers to the rank of baron, and appointed Baron Nathan Mayer Consul-General in London, and Baron James to the same post in Paris. In 1822 both Russia (see [line 684]) and England raised 3½ millions sterling through the Rothschilds. The "two Jews" (line 686, etc.) are, probably, the two Consuls-General. In 1822 their honours were new, and some mocked. There is the story that Talleyrand once presented the Parisian brother to Montmorenci as M. le premier Juif to M. le premier Baron Chrétien; while another tale, parent or offspring of the preceding, which appeared in La Quotidienne, December 21, 1822, testifies to the fact, not recorded, that a Rothschild was at Verona during the Congress: "M. de Rotschild, baron et banquier général des gouvernemens absolus, s'est, dit-on, rendu an congres, il a été présenté a l'empereur d'Autriche, et S.M., en lui remettant une decoration, a daigné lui dire: 'Vous pouvez être assuré, Monsieur, que la maison d'Autriche sera toujours disposée à reconnaître vos services et à vous accorder ce qui pourra vous être agréable,'—'Votre Majesté,' a répondu le baron financier, 'pourra toujours également compter sur la maison Rotschild.'"—See The Rothschilds, by John Reeves, 1886.]
[341] {574}[In 1822 the Neapolitan Government raised 22,000,000 ducats through the Rothschilds.]
[342] {575} Monsieur Chateaubriand, who has not forgotten the author in the minister, received a handsome compliment at Verona from a literary sovereign: "Ah! Monsieur C., are you related to that Chateaubriand who—who—who has written something?" (écrit quelque chose!) It is said that the author of Atala repented him for a moment of his legitimacy. [Francçois René Vicomte de Chateaubriand (1768-1848) published Les Martyrs ou le Triomphe de la religion chrétienne in 1809.]
[343] [Count Capo d'Istria (b. 1776)—afterwards President of Greece. The count was murdered, in September, 1831, by the brother and son of a Mainote chief whom he had imprisoned (note to ed. 1832). Byron may have believed that Capo d'Istria was still in the service of the Czar, but, according to Allison, his advocacy of his compatriots the Greeks had led to his withdrawal from the Russian Foreign Office, and prevented his taking part in the Congress. It was, however, stated in the papers that he had been summoned, and was on his way to Verona.]
[344] [Jean Mathieu Félicité, Duc de Montmorenci (1766-1826), was, in his youth, a Jacobin. He proposed, August 4, 1789, to abrogate feudal rights, and June 15, 1790, to abolish the nobility. He was superseded as plenipotentiary by Chateaubriand, and on his return to Paris created a duke. Before the end of the year he was called upon to resign his portfolio as Minister of Foreign Affairs. The king disliked him, and there were personal disagreements between him and the Prime Minister, M. de Villêle.
The following "gazette" appeared in the Moniteur:—
"Ordonnance du Roi. Signé Louis. Art 1er Le Vicomte de Chateaubriand, pair de France, est nomme ministre secrétaire d'état au département des affaires étrangères. Louis par la grace de Dieu Roi de France et de Navarre.
"Art. 1er Le Duc Mathieu de Montmorenci, pair de France, est nommé ministre d'Etat, et membre de notre Conseil privé.
"Dimanche, 29 Décembre, 1822."
"On Tuesday, January 1, 1823," writes Chateaubriand, Congress, 1838, i. 258, "we crossed the bridges, and went to sleep in that minister's bed, which was not made for us,—a bed in which one sleeps but little, and in which one remains only for a short time.">[
[345] {576}[From Pope's line on Lord Peterborough, Imitations of Horace, Sat. i. 132.]
[346] [Marie Louise, daughter of Francis I. of Austria, was born December 12, 1791, and died December 18, 1849. She was married to Napoleon, April 2, 1810, and gave birth to a son, March 29, 1811. In accordance with the Treaty of Paris, she left France April 26, 1814, renounced the title of Empress, and was created Duchess of Parma, Placentia, and Guastalla. After Napoleon's death (May 5, 1821). "Proud Austria's mournful flower" did not long remain a widow, but speedily and secretly married her chamberlain and gentleman of honour, Count Adam de Neipperg (ce polisson Neipperg, as Napoleon called him), to whom she had long been attached. It was supposed that she attended the Congress of Verona in the interest of her son, the ex-King of Rome, to whom Napoleon had bequeathed money and heirlooms. She was a solemn stately personage, tant soit peu declassée, and the other potentates whispered and joked at her expense. Chateaubriand says that when the Duke of Wellington was bored with the meetings of the Congress, he would while away the time in the company of the Orsini, who scribbled on the margin of intercepted French despatches, "Pas pour Mariée." Not for Madame de Neipperg.]
[347] [Napoleon Francçois Charles Joseph, Duke of Reichstadt, died at the palace of Schönbrunn, July 22, 1832, having just attained his twenty-first year.]
[348] [Count Adam Albrecht de Neipperg had lost an eye from a wound in battle.]
[349] {577}[La Quotidienne of December 4, 1822, has a satirical reference to a passage in the Courrier, which attached a diplomatic importance to the "galanterie respectueuse que le duc de Wellington aurait faite à cette jeune Princesse." We read, too, of another victorious foe, the King of Prussia, giving "la main à l'archduchesse Marie-Louise jusqu'à son carrosse" (Le Constitutionnel, November 19, 1822). "All the world wondered" what Andromache did, and how she would fare—dans ce galère. It is difficult to explain the allusion to Pyrrhus. Andromache was the unwilling bride of Pyrrhus or Neoptolemus, whose father had slain her husband, Hector; Marie Louise the willing bride of Neipperg, who had certainly fought at Leipsic, but who could not be said to have given the final blow to Napoleon at Waterloo. Pyrrhus must stand for the victorious foe, and the right arm on which the too-forgiving Andromache leant, must have been offered by "the respectful gallantry" of the Duke of Wellington.]
She comes the Andromache of Europe's Queens,
And led by Pyrrhus arm on which she leans.—[MS. M.]
[350] {578}[Sir William Curtis (1752-1805), maker of sea-biscuits at Wapping, was M.P. for the City of London 1790-1818, Lord Mayor 1795-6. George IV. affected his society, visited him at Ramsgate, and sailed with him in his gorgeously appointed yacht. When the king visited Scotland in August, 1822, Curtis followed in his train. On first landing at Leith, "Sir William Curtis, who had celtified himself on the occasion, marched joyously in his scanty longitude of kilt." At the Levee, August 17, "Sir William Curtis again appeared in the Royal tartan, but he had forsaken the philabeg and addicted himself to the trews" (Morning Chronicle, August 19, 20, 1822). "The Fat Knight" was seventy years of age, and there was much joking at his expense. See, for instance, some lines in "Hudibrastic measure," Gentleman's Magazine, vol. 92, Part II. p. 606—
"And who is he, that sleek and smart one
Pot-bellied pyramid of Tartan?
So mountainous in pinguitude,
Ponderibus librata Suis,
He stands like pig of lead, so true is,
That his abdomen throws alone
A Body-guard around the Throne!">[
[351] [Lines 771, 772 are not in the MS.]
THE ISLAND;
OR,
CHRISTIAN AND HIS COMRADES.
INTRODUCTION TO THE ISLAND
The first canto of The Island was finished January 10, 1823. We know that Byron was still at work on "the poeshie," January 25 (Letters, 1901, vi. 164), and may reasonably conjecture that a somewhat illegible date affixed to the fourth canto, stands for February 14, 1823. The MS. had been received in London before April 9 (ibid., p. 192); and on June 26, 1823, The Island; or, The Adventures of Christian and his Comrades, was published by John Hunt.
Byron's "Advertisement," or note, prefixed to The Island contains all that need be said with regard to the "sources" of the poem.
Two separate works were consulted: (1) A Narrative of the Mutiny on board His Majesty's Ship Bounty, and the subsequent Voyage of ... the Ship's Boat from Tafoa, one of the Friendly Islands, to Timor, a Dutch Settlement in the East Indies, written by Lieutenant William Bligh, 1790; and (2) An Account of the Natives of the Tonga Islands, Compiled and Arranged from the Extensive Communications of Mr. William Mariner, by John Martin, M.D., 1817.
According to George Clinton (Life and Writings of Lord Byron, 1824, p. 656), Byron was profoundly impressed by Mariner's report of the scenery and folklore of the Friendly Islands, was "never tired of talking of it to his friends," and, in order to turn this poetic material to account, finally bethought him that Bligh's Narrative of the mutiny of the Bounty would serve as a framework or structure "for an embroidery of rare device"—the figures and foliage of a tropical pattern. That, at least, is the substance of Clinton's analysis of the "sources" of The Island, and whether he spoke, or only feigned to speak, with authority, his criticism is sound and to the point. The story of the mutiny of the Bounty, which is faithfully related in the first canto, is not, as the second title implies, a prelude to the "Adventures of Christian and his Comrades," but to a description of "The Island," an Ogygia of the South Seas.
It must be borne in mind that Byron's acquaintance with the details of the mutiny of the Bounty was derived exclusively from Bligh's Narrative; that he does not seem to have studied the minutes of the court-martial on Peter Heywood and the other prisoners (September, 1792), or to have possessed the information that in 1809, and, again, in 1815, the Admiralty received authentic information with regard to the final settlement of Christian and his comrades on Pitcairn Island. Articles, however, had appeared in the Quarterly Review, February, 1810, vol. iii. pp. 23, 24, and July, 1815, vol. xiii. pp. 376-378, which contained an extract from the log-book of Captain Mayhew Folger, of the American ship Topaz, dated September 29, 1808, and letters from Folger (March 1, 1813), and Sir Thomas Staines, October 18, 1814, which solved the mystery. Moreover, the article of February, 1810, is quoted in the notes (pp. 313-318) affixed to Miss Mitford's Christina, the Maid of the South Seas, 1811, a poem founded on Bligh's Narrative, of which neither Byron or his reviewers seem to have heard.
But whatever may have been his opportunities of ascertaining the facts of the case, it is certain (see his [note to Canto IV. section vi. line 122]) that he did not know what became of Christian, and that whereas in the first canto he follows the text of Bligh's Narrative, in the three last cantos he draws upon his imagination, turning Tahiti into Toobonai (Tubuai), and transporting Toobonai from one archipelago to another—from the Society to the Friendly Islands.
Another and still more surprising feature of The Island is that Byron accepts, without qualification or reserve, the guilt of the mutineers and the innocence and worth of Lieutenant Bligh. It is true that by inheritance he was imbued with the traditions of the service, and from personal experience understood the necessity of discipline on board ship; but it may be taken for granted that if he had known that the sympathy, if not the esteem, of the public had been transferred from Bligh to Christian, that in the opinion of grave and competent writers, the guilt of mutiny on the high seas had been almost condoned by the violence and brutality of the commanding officer, he would have sided with the oppressed rather than the oppressor. As it is, he takes Bligh at his own valuation, and carefully abstains from "eulogizing mutiny." (Letter to L. Hunt, January 25, 1823.)
The story of the "mutiny of the Bounty" happened in this wise. In 1787 it occurred to certain West India planters and merchants, resident in London, that it would benefit the natives, and perhaps themselves, if the bread-fruit tree, which flourished in Tahiti (the Otaheite of Captain Cook and Sir Joseph Banks, see Poetical Works, 1899, ii. 7, note 2) and other islands of the South Seas, could be acclimatized in the West Indies. A petition was addressed to the king, with the result that a vessel, with a burden of 215 tons, which Banks christened the Bounty, sailed from Spithead December 23, 1787. Lieutenant William Bligh, who had sailed with Cook in the Resolution, acted as commanding officer, and under him were five midshipmen, a master, two master's mates, etc.—forty-four persons all told. The Bounty arrived at Tahiti October 26, 1788, and there for six delightful months the ship's company tarried, "fleeting the time carelessly, as in the elder world." But "Scripture saith an ending to all fine things must be," and on April 4, 1789, the Bounty, with a cargo of over a thousand bread-fruit trees, planted in pots, tubs, and boxes (see for plate of the pots, etc., A Voyage, etc., 1792, p. 1), sailed away westward for the Cape of Good Hope, and the West Indies. All went well at first, but "just before sun-rising" on Tuesday, April 28, 1789, "the north-westernmost of the Friendly Islands, called Tofoa, bearing north-east," Fletcher Christian, who was mate of the watch, assisted by Charles Churchill, master-at-arms, Alexander Smith (the John Adams of Pitcairn Island), and Thomas Burkitt, able seamen, seized the captain, tied his hands behind his back, hauled him out of his berth, and forced him on deck. The boatswain, William Cole, was ordered to hoist out the ship's launch, which measured twenty-three feet from stem to stern, and into this open boat Bligh, together with eighteen of the crew, who were or were supposed to be on his side, were thrust, on pain of instant death. When they were in the boat they were "veered round with a rope, and finally cast adrift." Bligh and his eighteen innocent companions sailed westward, and, after a voyage of "twelve hundred leagues," during which they were preserved from death and destruction by the wise ordering and patient heroism of the commander, safely anchored in Kœpang Bay, on the north-west coast of the Isle of Timor, June 14, 1789. (See Bligh's Narrative, etc., 1790, pp. 11-88; and The Island, Canto I. section ix. lines 169-201.)
The Bounty, with the remainder of the crew, twenty-five in number, "the most able of the ship's company," sailed eastward, first to Toobooai, or Tubuai, an island to the south of the Society Islands, thence to Tahiti (June 6), back to Tubuai (June 26), and yet again, to Tahiti (September 20), where sixteen of the mutineers, including the midshipman George Stewart (the "Torquil" of The Island), were put on shore. Finally, September 21, 1789, Fletcher Christian, with the Bounty and eight of her crew, six Tahitian men, and twelve women, sailed away still further east to unknown shores, and, so it was believed, disappeared for good and all. Long afterwards it was known that they had landed on Pitcairn Island, broken up the Bounty, and founded a permanent settlement.
When Bligh returned to England (March 14, 1790), and acquainted the Government "with the atrocious act of piracy and mutiny" which had been committed on the high seas, the Pandora frigate, with Captain Edwards, was despatched to apprehend the mutineers, and bring them back to England for trial and punishment. The Pandora reached Tahiti March 23, 1791, set sail, with fourteen prisoners, May 8, and was wrecked on the "Great Barrier Reef" north-east of Queensland, August 29, 1791. Four of the prisoners, including George Stewart, who had been manacled, and were confined in "Pandora's box," perished in the wreck, and the remaining ten were brought back to England, and tried by court-martial. (See The Eventful History of the Mutiny, etc. (by Sir John Barrow), 1831, pp. 205-244.)
The story, which runs through the second, third, and fourth cantos, may possibly owe some of its details to a vague recollection of incidents which happened, or were supposed to happen, at Tahiti, in the interval between the final departure of the Bounty, September 21, 1789, and the arrival of the Pandora, March 23, 1791; but, as a whole, it is a work of fiction.
With the exception of the fifteenth and sixteenth cantos of Don Juan, The Island was the last poem of any importance which Byron lived to write, and the question naturally suggests itself—Is the new song as good as the old? Byron answers the question himself. He tells Leigh Hunt (January 25, 1823) that he hopes the "poem will be a little above the ordinary run of periodical poesy," and that, though portions of the Toobonai (sic) islanders are "pamby," he intends "to scatter some uncommon places here and there nevertheless." On the whole, in point of conception and execution, The Island is weaker and less coherent than the Corsair; but it contains lines and passages (e.g. Canto I. lines 107-124, 133-140; Canto II. lines 272-297; Canto IV. lines 94-188) which display a finer feeling and a more "exalted wit" than the "purple patches" of The Turkish Tales.
The poetic faculty is somewhat exhausted, but the poetic vision has been purged and heightened by suffering and self-knowledge.
The Island was reviewed in the Monthly Review, July, 1823, E.S., vol. 101, pp. 316-319; the New Monthly Magazine, N.S., 1823, vol. 8, pp. 136-141; the Atlantic Magazine, April, 1826, vol. 2, pp. 333-337; in the Literary Chronicle, June 21, 1823; and the Literary Gazette, June 21, 1823.