[ [570] The effect of the original ballad—which existed both in Spanish and Arabic—was such, that it was forbidden to be sung by the Moors, on pain of death, within Granada. ["This ballad was so dolorous in the original Arabic language, that every time it was sung it acted as an incitement to grief and despair, and for this reason it was at length finally prohibited in Granada."—Historia ... de las Guerras Civiles, translated from the Arabic of Abenhamim, by Ginès Perez de Hita, and from the Spanish by Thomas Rodd, 1803, p. 334. According to Ticknor (Hist. of Spanish Literature, 1888, iii. 139), the "Arabic origin" of De Hita's work is not at all probable. "He may have obtained Arabic materials for parts of his story.">[
[ [hv] Alas—alas—Alhama!—[MS. M.]
[ [571] [Byron's Ay de mi, Alhama, which should be printed Ay de mi Alhama, must be rendered "Woe for my Alhama!" "Woe is me, Alhama!" is the equivalent of "Ay de mi Alhama!">[
[ [572] {531}["Un viejo Alfaqui" is "an old Alfaqui," i.e. a doctor of the Mussulman law, not a proper name.]
[ [573] {532}["De leyes tambien hablava" should be rendered "He spake 'also' of the laws," not tan bien, "so well," or "exceeding well.">[
[ [574] {533}[The Alcaide or "governor" of the original ballad is converted into the Alfaqui of stanza 9. It was the "Alcaide," in whose absence Alhama was taken, and who lost children, wife, honour, and his own head in consequence (Notes and Queries, iv. i. 162).]
[ [hw]——so white to see.—[MS. M.]
[ [575] {535}[Jacopo Vittorelli (1749-1835) was born at Bassano, in Venetian territory. Under the Napoleonic "kingdom of Italy" he held office as a subordinate in the Ministry of Education at Milan, and was elected a member of the college of "Dotti." At a later period of his life he returned to Bassano, and received an appointment as censor of the press. His poetry, which is sweet and musical, but lacking in force and substance, recalls and embodies the style and spirit of the dying literature of the eighteenth century. "He lived and died," says Luigi Carrer, "the poet of Irene and Dori," unmoved by the hopes and fears, the storms and passions, of national change and development.—See Manuale della Letteratura Italiana, by A. d'Ancona and O. Bacci, 1894, iv. 585.]
[ [576] {536}["The Helen of Canova (a bust which is in the house of Madame the Countess d'Albrizzi, whom I know) is without exception, to my mind, the most perfectly beautiful of human conceptions, and far beyond my ideas of human execution,"—Letter to Murray, November 25, 1816. In the works of Antonio Canova, engraved in outline by Henry Moses (London, 1873), the bust of Helen is figured (to face p. 58), and it is stated that it was executed in 1814, and presented to the Countess Albrizzi. (See Letters, 1900, iv. 14, 15, note.)]
[ [577] {537}[From an autograph MS. in the possession of Mr. Murray, now for the first time printed.]