‘She is not of our order, but belongs
To the other powers.’[53]
The fine appeal of Manfred cannot have been addressed by Byron to his sister:
‘Hear me, hear me—
Astarte! my belovéd! speak to me:
I have so much endured—so much endure—
Look on me! the grave hath not changed thee more
Than I am changed for thee. Thou lovedst me
Too much, as I loved thee: we were not made
To torture thus each other—though it were
The deadliest sin to love as we have loved.
Say that thou loath’st me not—that I do bear
This punishment for both—that thou wilt be
One of the blesséd—and that I shall die.
*******
‘I cannot rest.
I know not what I ask, nor what I seek:
I feel but what thou art, and what I am;
And I would hear yet once before I perish
The voice which was my music[54]—speak to me!
*******
Speak to me! I have wandered o’er the earth,
And never found thy likeness.’
When Manfred implores Astarte to forgive him, she is silent. It is not a matter for forgiveness. He entreats her to speak to him, so that he may once more hear that sweet voice, even though it be for the last time. The silence is broken by the word ‘Farewell!’ Manfred, whose doom is sealed, cries in agony:
‘What I have done is done; I bear within
A torture which could nothing gain (from others).
The Mind, which is immortal, makes itself
Requital for its good or evil thoughts,—
Is its own origin of ill and end—
And its own place and time:
I was my own destroyer, and will be
My own hereafter...
The hand of Death is on me...
All things swim around me, and the Earth
Heaves, as it were, beneath me. Fare thee well!’
So far as we know, there is nothing in the whole length of this poem to suggest anything abnormal; and it is hard to understand what resemblance Byron’s contemporaries could have discovered between the Astarte of ‘Manfred’ and Augusta Leigh! Enough has been quoted to show that Byron was not thinking of his sister when he wrote ‘Manfred,’ but of her whose life he had blasted, and whose ‘sacred name’ he trembled to reveal.
In April, 1817, Byron was informed by Mrs. Leigh that Mary Chaworth and her husband had made up their differences. The ‘Lament of Tasso’ was written in that month, and Byron’s thoughts were occupied, as usual, with the theme of all his misery.
‘That thou wert beautiful, and I not blind,
Hath been the sin that shuts me from mankind;
But let them go, or torture as they will,
My heart can multiply thine image still;
Successful Love may sate itself away;
The wretched are the faithful; ’tis their fate
To have all feeling, save the one, decay,
And every passion into one dilate,
As rapid rivers into Ocean pour;
But ours is fathomless, and hath no shore.’
In ‘Mazeppa’ Byron tells how he met ‘Theresa’ in that month of June, and how ‘through his brain the thought did pass that there was something in her air which would not doom him to despair.’ This incident is again referred to in ‘Don Juan.’ The Count Palatine is, probably, intended as a sketch of Mary’s husband.
‘The Duel,’ which was written in December, 1818, is addressed to Mary Chaworth: