'tis not that now
And if my voice break forth—it is not that
I shrink from what is suffered—let him speak
decline upon my
Whohumbler in
What hath beheld me quiver on my brow
seen my mind's convulsion leave it blenched or weak?
Or my internal spirit changed or weak
found my mind convulsed
a
But in this page the record which I seek
will
from out of the deep
stands and of that remorse
Shall stand and when that hour shall come and come
Shall come—though I be ashes—and shall pile heap
It will come and wreak
In fire the measure
The fiery prophecy
The fullness of my
The fullness of my prophecy or heap
The mountain of my curse
Not in the air shall these my words disperse
'Tis written that an hour of deep remorse
Though I be ashes a deep far hour shall wreak
The fullness Thee this
The deep prophetic fullness of my verse
And pile on human heads the mountain of my curse.—[MS. M.]
If to forgive be "heaping coals of Fire"
As God hath spoken—on the heads of foes
Mine should lie a Volcano-and rise higher
Than o'er the Titans crushed Olympus rose
Than Athos soars, or blazing Ætna glows:
True—they who stung were petty things—but what
Than serpent's sting produce more deadly throes.
The Lion may be tortured by the Gnat—
Who sucks the slumberer's blood—the Eagle? no, the Bat.[A]—
[MS. M.]
[A] [The "Bat" was "a sobriquet by which Lady Caroline Lamb was well known in London society." An Italian translation of her novel, Glenarvon, was at this time in the press at Venice (see letter to Murray, August 7, 1817), and it is probable that Byron, who declined to interdict its publication, took his revenge in a petulant stanza, which, on second thoughts, he decided to omit. (See note by Mr. Richard Edgcumbe, Notes and Queries eighth series, 1895, viii. 101.)]
[510] [Compare "Lines on hearing that Lady Byron was ill," lines 53-55.]
[511] [{431}] Whether the wonderful statue which suggested this image be a laquearian gladiator, which, in spite of Winckelmann's criticism, has been stoutly maintained; or whether it be a Greek herald, as that great antiquary positively asserted;[A] or whether it is to be thought a Spartan or barbarian shieldbearer, according to the opinion of his Italian editor; it must assuredly seem a copy of that masterpiece of Ctesilaus which represented "a wounded man dying, who perfectly expressed what there remained of life in him." Montfaucon and Maffei thought it the identical statue; but that statue was of bronze. The Gladiator was once in the Villa Ludovisi, and was bought by Clement XII. The right arm is an entire restoration of Michael Angelo.
[There is no doubt that the statue of the "Dying Gladiator" represents a dying Gaul. It is to be compared with the once-named "Arria and Pætus" of the Villa Ludovisi, and with other sculptures in the museums of Venice, Naples, and Rome, representing "Gauls and Amazons lying fatally wounded, or still in the attitude of defending life to the last," which belong to the Pergamene school of the second century B.C. M. Collignon hazards a suggestion that the "Dying Gaul" is the trumpet-sounder of Epigonos, in which, says Pliny (Hist. Nat., xxxiv. 88), the sculptor surpassed all his previous works ("omnia fere prædicta imitatus præcessit in tubicine"); while Dr. H. S. Urlichs (see The Elder Pliny's Chapters on the History of Art, translated by K. Jex-Blake, with Commentary and Historical Illustrations, by E. Sellers, 1896, p. 74, note) falls back on Winckelmann's theory that the "statue ... may have been simply the votive-portrait of the winner in the contest of heralds, such as that of Archias of Hybla in Delphoi." (See, too, Helbig's Guide to the Collection of Public Antiquities in Rome, Engl. transl., 1895. i. 399; History of Greek Sculpture, by A. S. Murray, L.L.D., F.S.A., 1890, ii. 381-383.)]
[A] Either Polyphontes, herald of Laïus, killed by Oedipus; or Kopreas, herald of Eurystheus, killed by the Athenians when he endeavoured to drag the Heraclidæ from the altar of mercy, and in whose honour they instituted annual games, continued to the time of Hadrian; or Anthemocritus, the Athenian herald, killed by the Megarenses, who never recovered the impiety. [See Hist, of Ancient Art, translated by G. H. Lodge, 1881, ii. 207.]
[os] Leaning upon his hand, his mut[e] brow Yielding to death but conquering agony.—[MS. M. erased.]