[400] {492} ["Oh, but it made a glorious show!!!" Gifford erases the line, and adds these marks of exclamation.]
[qp] ——the sacrament wine.—[MS. G. erased.]
[qq] Which the Christians partook at the break of the day.—[MS. G. Copy.]
[401] {493} [Compare Sardanapalus, act v. sc. 1 (s.f.)—
"Myr. Art thou ready?
Sard. As the torch in thy grasp.
(Myrrha fires the pile.)
Myr. 'Tis fired! I come.">[
[402] [A critic in the Eclectic Review (vol. v. N.S., 1816, p. 273), commenting on the "obvious carelessness" of these lines, remarks, "We know not how 'all that of dead remained' could expire in that wild roar." To apply the word "expire" to inanimate objects is, no doubt, an archaism, but Byron might have quoted Dryden as an authority, "The ponderous ball expires.">[
[qr] The hills as by an earthquake bent.—[MS. G. erased.]
[403] {494} [Strike out from "Up to the sky," etc., to "All blackened there and reeking lay." Despicable stuff.—Gifford.]
[qs] Who can see or who shall say?—[MS. G. erased.]
[404] [Lines 1043-1047 are not in the Copy or MS. G., but were included in the text of the First Edition.]