According to the ancient epic laws,
To slacken sail, and anchor with our rhyme.
Let this fifth canto meet with due applause,
The sixth shall have a touch of the sublime;
Meanwhile, as Homer sometimes sleeps, perhaps
You'll pardon to my muse a few short naps.[GA]
End of Canto 5th Finished Ravenna, Nov. 27th 1820.
Begun Oct. 16, 1820.
and finished copying out, Dec. 26.
with some intermediate additions, 1820.
B.
FOOTNOTES:
[270] {218}[Canto V. was begun at Ravenna, October the 16th, and finished November the 20th, 1820. It was published August 8, 1821, together with Cantos III. and IV.]
[271] This expression of Homer has been much criticized. It hardly answers to our Atlantic ideas of the ocean, but is sufficiently applicable to the Hellespont, and the Bosphorus, with the Aegean intersected with islands.