That glance he paused to send again
To her for whom he dies in vain.
[hc] {204} O'er which their talons yet delay.—[MS. erased.]
[ [hd] {205}
And that changed hand whose only life
Is motion-seems to menace strife.—[MS.]
[184] ["While the Salsette lay off the Dardanelles, Lord Byron saw the body of a man who had been executed by being cast into the sea, floating on the stream, moving to and fro with the tumbling of the water, which gave to his arms the effect of scaring away several sea-fowl that were hovering to devour. This incident he has strikingly depicted in the Bride of Abydos."—Life of Lord Byron, by John Galt, 1830, p. 144.]
[185] A turban is carved in stone above the graves of men only.
[186] The death-song of the Turkish women. The "silent slaves" are the men, whose notions of decorum forbid complaint in public.
[he] {206} The Koran-chapter chaunts thy fate.—[MS.]
[187] [At a Turkish funeral, after the interment has taken place, the Imâm "assis sur les genoux à côté de la tombe," offers the prayer Telkin, and at the conclusion of the prayer recites the Fathah, or "opening chapter" of the Korân. ("In the name of the merciful and compassionate God. Praise belongs to God, the Lord of the worlds, the Merciful, the Compassionate, the Ruler of the day of judgment. Thee we serve, and Thee we ask for aid. Guide us in the right path, the path of those Thou art gracious to; not of those Thou art wroth with; nor of those who err."—The Qur'ân, p. 1, translated by E. H. Palmer, Oxford, 1880): Tableau Générale de l'Empire Ottoman, par Mouradja D'Ohsson, Paris, 1787, i. 235-248. Writing to Murray, November 14, 1813, Byron instances the funeral (in the Bride of Abydos) as proof of his correctness with regard to local colouring.—Letters, 1898, ii. 283.]
[188] {207} ["I one evening witnessed a funeral in the vast cemetery of Scutari. An old man, with a venerable beard, threw himself by the side of the narrow grave, and strewing the earth on his head, cried aloud, 'He was my son! my only son!'"—Constantinople in 1828, by Charles Macfarlane, 1829, p. 233, note.]