Part Iii. Chap, X., and the "billet," See _letters,_ Ii. 354, Note 1)

... "She has been pleased to be pleased with my slight eulogy in the note annexed to The Bride."]

{A} In this line I have not drawn from fiction but memory--that mirror of regret memory--the too faithful mirror of affliction the long vista through which we gaze. Someone has said that the perfection of Architecture is frozen music--the perfection of Beauty to my mind always presented the idea of living Music.--[MS. erased.]

{166} Carasman Oglou, or Kara Osman Oglou, is the principal landholder in Turkey; he governs Magnesia: those who, by a kind of feudal tenure, possess land on condition of service, are called Timariots: they serve as Spahis, according to the extent of territory, and bring a certain number into the field, generally cavalry.

Who won of yore paternal lands.--[MS.]

Enough if that thy bridesman true.--[MS. erased.]

{167} When a Pacha is sufficiently strong to resist, the single messenger, who is always the first bearer of the order for his death, is strangled instead, and sometimes five or six, one after the other, on the same errand, by command of the refractory patient; if, on the contrary, he is weak or loyal, he bows, kisses the Sultan's respectable signature, and is bowstrung with great complacency. In 1810, several of these presents were exhibited in the niche of the Seraglio gate; among others, the head of the Pacha of Bagdat, a brave young man, cut off by treachery, after a desperate resistance.

Clapping of the hands calls the servants. The Turks hate a superfluous expenditure of voice, and they have no bells.

"Chibouque," the Turkish pipe, of which the amber mouthpiece, and sometimes the ball which contains the leaf, is adorned with precious stones, if in possession of the wealthier orders.

{168} "Maugrabee" [Maghrab[=i], Moors], Moorish mercenaries.

"Delis," bravos who form the forlorn hope of the cavalry, and always begin the action. [See Childe Harold, Canto II., Poetical Works, 1899, ii. 149, note 1.]

A twisted fold of felt is used for scimitar practice by the Turks, and few but Mussulman arms can cut through it at a single stroke: sometimes a tough turban is used for the same purpose. The jerreed [jar[=i]d] is a game of blunt javelins, animated and graceful.

"Ollahs," Alla il Allah [La il[=a]h ill 'll[=a]h], the "Leilies," as the Spanish poets call them, the sound is Ollah: a cry of which the Turks, for a silent people, are somewhat profuse, particularly during the jerreed [jar[=i]d], or in the chase, but mostly in battle. Their animation in the field, and gravity in the chamber, with their pipes and comboloios [vide post, p. 181, note 4], form an amusing contrast.

{169} Her heart confessed no cause of shame.--[MS.]

"Atar-gul," ottar of roses. The Persian is the finest.

The ceiling and wainscots, or rather walls, of the Mussulman apartments are generally painted, in great houses, with one eternal and highly-coloured view of Constantinople, wherein the principal feature is a noble contempt of perspective; below, arms, scimitars, etc., are, in general, fancifully and not inelegantly disposed.

The drops that flow upon his vest Unheeded fell upon his breast.--[MS.]

{170} It has been much doubted whether the notes of this "Lover of the rose" are sad or merry; and Mr. Fox's remarks on the subject have provoked some learned controversy as to the opinions of the ancients on the subject. I dare not venture a conjecture on the point, though a little inclined to the "errare mallem," etc., if Mr. Fox was mistaken.

Would I had never seen this hour What knowest thou not who loves thee best.--[MS.]

{171} If so by Mecca's hidden shrine.--[MS.]

The day that teareth thee from me.--[MS.]

"Azrael," the angel of death.

When comes that hour and come it must.--[MS. erased.]

{172} Which thanks to terror and the dark Hath missed a trifle of its mark.--[MS.]

With life to keep but not with life resign.--[MS.]

{173} That strays along that head so fair.--[MS.] or, That strays along that neck so fair.--[MS.]

The treasures of the Pre-Adamite Sultans. See D'Herbelot [1781, ii. 405], article Istakar [Estekhar ou Istekhar].

"Musselim," a governor, the next in rank after a Pacha; a Waywode is the third; and then come the Agas.

"Egripo," the Negropont. According to the proverb, the Turks of Egripo, the Jews of Salonica, and the Greeks of Athens, are the worst of their respective races.

Like this--and more than this.--[MS.]

{175} But--Selim why my heart's reply Should need so much of mystery Is more than I can guess or tell, But since thou say'st 'tis so--'tis well.--[MS.]

He blest me more in leaving thee. Much should I suffer thus compelled.--[MS.]

{176} This vow I should no more conceal And wherefore should I not reveal?--[MS.]

My breast is consciousness of sin But when and where and what the crime I almost feel is lurking here.--[MS.]

"Tchocadar"--one of the attendants who precedes a man of authority.

{177} Be silent thou.--[MS.]

{178} Nov. 9^th^ 1813.--[MS.]

{179} The wrangling about this epithet, "the broad Hellespont" or the "boundless Hellespont," whether it means one or the other, or what it means at all, has been beyond all possibility of detail. I have even heard it disputed on the spot; and not foreseeing a speedy conclusion to the controversy, amused myself with swimming across it in the mean time; and probably may again, before the point is settled. Indeed, the question as to the truth of "the tale of Troy divine" still continues, much of it resting upon the talismanic word[Greek: "a)/peiros:"] probably Homer had the same notion of distance that a coquette has of time; and when he talks of boundless, means half a mile; as the latter, by a like figure, when she says eternal attachment, simply specifies three weeks.

{180} Before his Persian invasion, and crowned the altar with laurel, etc. He was afterwards imitated by Caracalla in his race. It is believed that the last also poisoned a friend, named Festus, for the sake of new Patroclan games. I have seen the sheep feeding on the tombs of AEyietes and Antilochus: the first is in the centre of the plain.

"Or narrow if needs must be, Outside are the storms and the strangers."

Never the Time, etc., lines 19, 20, by Robert Browning.]

{181} When rubbed, the amber is susceptible of a perfume, which is slight, but not disagreeable. [Letter to Murray, December 6, 1813, Letters, 1898, ii. 300.]

The belief in amulets engraved on gems, or enclosed in gold boxes, containing scraps from the Koran, worn round the neck, wrist, or arm, is still universal in the East. The Koorsee (throne) verse in the second cap. of the Koran describes the attributes of the Most High, and is engraved in this manner, and worn by the pious, as the most esteemed and sublime of all sentences.

"Comboloio"--a Turkish rosary. The MSS., particularly those of the Persians, are richly adorned and illuminated. The Greek females are kept in utter ignorance; but many of the Turkish girls are highly accomplished, though not actually qualified for a Christian coterie. Perhaps some of our own "blues" might not be the worse for bleaching.

{182} [Shiraz, capital of the Persian province of Fars, is celebrated for the attar-gul, or attar of roses.]

{183} Her Prophet did not clearly show But Selim's place was quite secure.--[MS.]

And one seemed red with recent guilt.--[MS.]

{184} Her Selim--"Alla--is it he?"--[MS.]

"Galiongee" or Galiongi [i.e. a Galleon-er], a sailor, that is, a Turkish sailor; the Greeks navigate, the Turks work the guns. Their dress is picturesque; and I have seen the Capitan Pacha, more than once, wearing it as a kind of incog. Their legs, however, are generally naked. The buskins described in the text as sheathed behind with silver are those of an Arnaut robber, who was my host (he had quitted the profession) at his Pyrgo, near Gastouni in the Morea; they were plated in scales one over the other, like the back of an armadillo.

{185} What--have I lived to curse the day?--[MS. M.] To curse--if I could curse--the day.--[MS., ed. 1892.]

{186} I swear it by Medina's shrine.--[MS. erased.]

The characters on all Turkish scimitars contain sometimes the name of the place of their manufacture, but more generally a text from the Koran, in letters of gold. Amongst those in my possession is one with a blade of singular construction: it is very broad, and the edge notched into serpentine curves like the ripple of water, or the wavering of flame. I asked the Armenian who sold it, what possible use such a figure could add: he said, in Italian, that he did not know; but the Mussulmans had an idea that those of this form gave a severer wound; and liked it because it was "piu feroce." I did not much admire the reason, but bought it for its peculiarity.

{187} It is to be observed, that every allusion to any thing or personage in the Old Testament, such as the Ark, or Cain, is equally the privilege of Mussulman and Jew: indeed, the former profess to be much better acquainted with the lives, true and fabulous, of the patriarchs, than is warranted by our own sacred writ; and not content with Adam, they have a biography of Pre-Adamites. Solomon is the monarch of all necromancy, and Moses a prophet inferior only to Christ and Mahomet. Zuleika is the Persian name of Potiphar's wife; and her amour with Joseph constitutes one of the finest poems in their language. It is, therefore, no violation of costume to put the names of Cain, or Noah, into the mouth of a Moslem.

{188} [Karaji['c] (Vuk Stefanovi['c], born 1787), secretary to Kara George, published Narodne Srpske Pjesme, at Vienna, 1814, 1815. See, too, Languages and Literature of the Slavic Nations, by Talvi, New York, 1850, pp. 366-382; Volkslieder der Serben, von Talvi, Leipzig, 1835, ii. 245, etc., and Chants Populaires des Servics, Recueillis par Wuk Stephanowitsch, et Traduits d'apres Talvy, par Madame Elise Voiart, Paris, 1834, ii. 183, etc.]

Paswan Oglou, the rebel of Widdin; who, for the last years of his life, set the whole power of the Porte at defiance.

And how that death made known to me Hath made me what thou now shalt see.--[MS.]

{189} "Horse-tail,"--the standard of a Pacha.

With venom blacker than his soul.--[MS.]

Giaffir, Pacha of Argyro Castro, or Scutari, I am not sure which, was actually taken off by the Albanian Ali, in the manner described in the text. Ali Pacha, while I was in the country, married the daughter of his victim, some years after the event had taken place at a bath in Sophia or Adrianople. The poison was mixed in the cup of coffee, which is presented before the sherbet by the bath keeper, after dressing.

{190} Nor, if his sullen spirit could, Can I forgive a parent's blood.--[MS.]

{191} Yet I must be all truth to thee.--[MS.]

{192} To Haroun's care in idlesse left, In spirit bound, of fame bereft.--[MS. erased.]

{193} That slave who saw my spirit pining Beneath Inaction's heavy yoke, Compassionate his charge resigning.--[MS.]

Oh could my tongue to thee impart That liberation of my heart.--[MS. erased.]

I must here shelter myself with the Psalmist--is it not David that makes the "Earth reel to and fro like a Drunkard"? If the Globe can be thus lively on seeing its Creator, a liberated captive can hardly feel less on a first view of his work.--[Note, MS. erased.]

The Turkish notions of almost all islands are confined to the Archipelago, the sea alluded to.

{194} Lambro Canzani, a Greek, famous for his efforts, in 1789-90, for the independence of his country. Abandoned by the Russians, he became a pirate, and the Archipelago was the scene of his enterprises. He is said to be still alive at Petersburgh. He and Riga are the two most celebrated of the Greek revolutionists.

{195} "Rayahs,"--all who pay the capitation tax, called the "Haratch."

This first of voyages is one of the few with which the Mussulmans profess much acquaintance.

The wandering life of the Arabs, Tartars, and Turkomans, will be found well detailed in any book of Eastern travels. That it possesses a charm peculiar to itself, cannot be denied. A young French renegado confessed to Chateaubriand, that he never found himself alone, galloping in the desert, without a sensation approaching to rapture which was indescribable.

/ a fancied \ "and tints tomorrow with { } ray." \ an airy /

A note was appended--

"Mr. M^y.^ Choose which of the 2 epithets 'fancied' or 'airy' may be best--or if neither will do--tell me and I will dream another--

"Yours,

"B^n^"

The epithet ("prophetic") which stands in the text was inserted in a revise dated December 3, 1813. Two other versions were also sent, that Gifford might select that which was "best, or rather not worst"--

/ gilds \ "And { } the hope of morning with its ray." \ tints /

"And gilds to-morrow's hope with heavenly ray."

(Letters, 1898, ii. 282.)

On the same date, December 3rd, two additional lines were affixed to the quatrain (lines 886-889)--

"Soft as the Mecca Muezzin's strains invite Him who hath journeyed far to join the rite."

And in a later revise, as "a last alteration"--

"Blest as the call which from Medina's dome Invites devotion to her Prophet's tomb."

An erased version of this "last alteration" ran thus--

"Blest as the Muezzin's strain from Mecca's dome Which welcomes Faith to view her Prophet's tomb."{A}

{A} [It is probable that Byron, who did not trouble himself to distinguish between "lie" and "lay," and who, as the MS. of English Bards, and Scotch Reviewers (see line 732, Poetical Works, 1898, i. 355) reveals, pronounced "petit maitre" anglice in four syllables, regarded "dome" (vide supra) as a true and exact rhyme to "tomb," but, with his wonted compliance, was persuaded to make yet another alteration.] ]

{196} Of lines 886-889, two, if not three, variants were sent to the publisher--

(1) Dear as the Melody of better days That steals the trembling tear of speechless praise-- Sweet as his native song to Exile's ears Shall sound each tone thy long-loved voice endears.-- [December 2, 1813.]

(2) /Dear\ /better \ { } as the melody of { } days \Soft/ \youthful/ / a silent \ That steals { } tear of speechless praise-- \the trembling/

{197} "Jannat-al-Aden," the perpetual abode, the Mussulman paradise. [See Sale's Koran, "Preliminary Discourse," sect. i.; and Journal, November 17, 1813, Letters, 1898, ii. 326.]

Wait on thy voice and bow at thy command.--[MS.]

Oh turn and mingle every thought with his, And all our future days unite in this.--[MS.]

Man I may lead but trust not--I may fall By those now friends to me, yet foes to all-- In this they follow but the bent assigned, By fatal Nature to our warring kind.--[MS.]

{198} Behold a wilderness and call it peace,--[MS. erased.] Look round our earth and lo! where battles cease, "Behold a Solitude and call it" peace.--[MS.] or, Mark even where Conquest's deeds of carnage cease She leaves a solitude and calls it peace.--[November 21, 1813].

"Solitudinem faciun--pacem appellant."

See letter to Murray, November 24, 1813, Letters, 1898, ii. 287.]

Power sways but by distrust--her sole source.--[MS. erased.]

Which Love to-night hath lent by swelling sail.--[MS.]

{199} [Compare--

"Quam juvat immites ventos audire cubantem, Et dominam tenero detinuisse sinu." Tibullus, Eleg., Lib. I. i. 45, 46.]

Then if my lip once murmurs, it must be.--[MS.]

"My love possest, in Jason's bosom laid, Let seas swell high;--I cannot be dismay'd While I infold my husband in my arms: Or should I fear, I should but fear his harms." Englished by Sandys, 1632.]

This hour decides my doom or thy escape.--[MS.]

{200} [Compare--

"That thought has more of hell than had the former. Another, and another, and another!" The Revenge, by Edward Young, act iv. (Modern British Drama, 1811, ii. 17).]

{202} Or grazed by wounds he scorned to feel.--[MS.]

{203} Three MS. variants of these lines were rejected in turn before the text was finally adopted--

(1) {Ah! wherefore did he turn to look {I know not why he turned to look Since fatal was the gaze he took? So far escaped from death or chain, To search for her and search in vain: Sad proof in peril and in pain How late will Lover's hope remain.

(2) Thus far escaped from death or chain Ah! wherefore did he turn to look? For her his eye must seek in vain, Since fatal was the gaze he took. Sad proof, etc.--

(3) Ah! wherefore did he turn to look So far escaped from death or chain? Since fatal was the gaze he took For her his eye but sought in vain, Sad proof, etc.--

A fourth variant of lines 1046, 1047 was inserted in a revise dated November 16--

That glance he paused to send again To her for whom he dies in vain.

{204} O'er which their talons yet delay.--[MS. erased.]

{205} And that changed hand whose only life Is motion-seems to menace strife.--[MS.]

A turban is carved in stone above the graves of men only.

The death-song of the Turkish women. The "silent slaves" are the men, whose notions of decorum forbid complaint in public.

{206} The Koran-chapter chaunts thy fate.--[MS.]

{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.]

She whom thy Sultan had been fain to wed.--[MS.]

"I came to the place of my birth, and cried, 'The friends of my Youth, where are they?' and an Echo answered, 'Where are they?'"--From an Arabic MS. The above quotation (from which the idea in the text is taken) must be already familiar to every reader: it is given in the second annotation, p. 67, of The Pleasures of Memory [note to Part I. line 103]; a poem so well known as to render a reference almost superfluous: but to whose pages all will be delighted to recur [Poems, by Samuel Rogers, 1852, i. 48].

There the sad cypress ever glooms.--[MS.]

{209} But with the day blush of the sky.--[MS.]

And some there be who could believe.--[MS.]

"And airy tongues that syllable men's names." Milton, Comus, line 208.

For a belief that the souls of the dead inhabit the form of birds, we need not travel to the East. Lord Lyttleton's ghost story, the belief of the Duchess of Kendal, that George I. flew into her window in the shape of a raven (see Orford's Reminiscences, Lord Orford's Works, 1798, iv. 283), and many other instances, bring this superstition nearer home. The most singular was the whim of a Worcester lady, who, believing her daughter to exist in the shape of a singing bird, literally furnished her pew in the cathedral with cages full of the kind; and as she was rich, and a benefactress in beautifying the church, no objection was made to her harmless folly. For this anecdote, see Orford's Letters.

{210} [According to J. B. Le Chevalier (Voyage de La Propontide, etc., an. viii. (1800), p. 17), the Turkish name for a small bay which formed the ancient port of Sestos, is Ak-Bachi-Liman (Port de la Tete blanche).]

And in its stead that mourning flower Hath flourished--flourisheth this hour, Alone and coldly pure and pale As the young cheek that saddens to the tale. And withers not, though branch and leaf Are stamped with an eternal grief.--[MS.]

An earlier version of the final text reads--

As weeping Childhood's cheek at Sorrow's tale!

THE CORSAIR:

A TALE.

----"I suoi pensieri in lui dormir non ponno."

Tasso, Gerusalemme Liberata, Canto X. [stanza lxxviii. line 8].

INTRODUCTION TO THE CORSAIR.

A seventh edition of the Giaour, including the final additions, and the first edition of the Bride of Abydos, were published on the twenty-ninth of November, 1813. In less than three weeks (December 18) Byron began the Corsair, and completed the fair copy of the first draft by the last day of the year. The Corsair in all but its final shape, together with the sixth edition of the Bride of Abydos, the seventh of Childe Harold, and the ninth of the Giaour, was issued on the first of February, 1814.

A letter from John Murray to Lord Byron, dated February 3, 1814 (Memoir of John Murray, 1891, i. 223), presents a vivid picture of a great literary triumph--

"My Lord,--I have been unwilling to write until I had something to say.... I am most happy to tell you that your last poem is--what Mr. Southey's is called--a Carmen Triumphale. Never in my recollection has any work ... excited such a ferment ... I sold on the day of publication--a thing perfectly unprecedented--10,000 copies.... Mr. Moore says it is masterly--a wonderful performance. Mr. Hammond, Mr. Heber, D'Israeli, every one who comes ... declare their unlimited approbation. Mr. Ward was here with Mr. Gifford yesterday, and mingled his admiration with the rest ... and Gifford did, what I never knew him do before--he repeated several stanzas from memory, particularly the closing stanza--

"'His death yet dubious, deeds too widely known.'

"I have the highest encomiums in letters from Croker and Mr. Hay; but I rest most upon the warm feeling it has created in Gifford's critic heart.... You have no notion of the sensation which the publication has occasioned; and my only regret is that you were not present to witness it."

For some time before and after the poem appeared, Byron was, as he told Leigh Hunt (February 9, 1814; Letters, 1899, iii. 27), "snow-bound and thaw-swamped in 'the valley of the shadow' of Newstead Abbey," and it was not till he had returned to town that he resumed his journal, and bethought him of placing on record some dark sayings with regard to the story of the Corsair and the personality of Conrad. Under date February 18, 1814, he writes--

"The Corsair has been conceived, written, published, etc., since I last took up this journal [?last day but one]. They tell me it has great success; it was written con amore [i.e. during the reign of Lady Frances Wedderburn Webster], and much from existence."

And again, Journal, March 10 (Letters, 1898, ii. 399),

"He [Hobhouse] told me an odd report,--that I am the actual Conrad, the veritable Corsair, and that part of my travels are supposed to have passed in privacy [sic;?piracy]. Um! people sometimes hit near the truth; but never the whole truth. H. don't know what I was about the year after he left the Levant; nor does any one--nor--nor--nor--however, it is a lie--but, 'I doubt the equivocation of the fiend that lies like truth.'"

Very little weight can be attached to these "I could an I would" pronouncements, deliberately framed to provoke curiosity, and destined, no doubt, sooner or later to see the light; but the fact remains that Conrad is not a mere presentation of Byron in a fresh disguise, or "The Pirate's Tale" altogether a "painting of the imagination."

That the Corsair is founded upon fact is argued at some length by the author (an "English Gentleman in the Greek Military Service") of the Life, Writings, Opinions, and Times of the R. H. George Gordon Noel Byron, which was published in 1825. The point of the story (i. 197-201), which need not be repeated at length, is that Byron, on leaving Constantinople and reaching the island of Zea (July, 1810), visited ["strolled about"] the islands of the Archipelago, in company with a Venetian gentleman who had turned buccaneer malgre lui, and whose history and adventures, amatory and piratical, prefigured and inspired the "gestes" of Conrad. The tale must be taken for what it is worth; but it is to be remarked that it affords a clue to Byron's mysterious entries in a journal which did not see the light till 1830, five years after the "English Gentleman" published his volumes of gossiping anecdote. It may, too, be noted that, although, in his correspondence of 1810, 1811, there is no mention of any tour among the "Isles of Greece," in a letter to Moore dated February 2, 1815 (Letters, 1899, iii. 176), Byron recalls "the interesting white squalls and short seas of Archipelago memory."

How far Byron may have drawn on personal experience for his picture of a pirate chez lui, it is impossible to say; but during the year 1809-11, when he was travelling in Greece, the exploits of Lambros Katzones and other Greek pirates sailing under the Russian flag must have been within the remembrance and on the lips of the islanders and the "patriots" of the mainland. The "Pirate's Island," from which "Ariadne's isle" (line 444) was visible, may be intended for Paros or Anti-Paros.

For the inception of Conrad (see Canto I. stanza ii.), the paradoxical hero, an assortment rather than an amalgam of incongruous characteristics, Byron may, perhaps, have been in some measure indebted to the description of Malefort, junior, in Massinger's Unnatural Combat, act i. sc. 2, line 20, sq.--

"I have sat with him in his cabin a day together,

* * * * *

Sigh he did often, as if inward grief And melancholy at that instant would Choke up his vital spirits.... When from the maintop A sail's descried, all thoughts that do concern Himself laid by, no lion pinched with hunger Rouses himself more fiercely from his den, Then he comes on the deck; and then how wisely He gives directions," etc.

The Corsair, together with the Bride of Abydos, was reviewed by Jeffrey in the Edinburgh Review of April, 1814, vol. xxiii. p. 198; and together with Lara, by George Agar Ellis in the Quarterly Review of July, 1814, vol. ii. p. 428.

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE ON THE CORSAIR.

In comparison with the Giaour, the additions made to the Corsair whilst it was passing through the press were inconsiderable. The original MS., which numbers 1737 lines, is probably the fair copy of a number of loose sheets which have not been preserved. The erasures are few and far between, and the variations between the copy and the text are neither numerous nor important.

In one of the latest revises stanza x. was added to the First Canto. The last four lines of stanza xi. first appeared in the Seventh Edition.

The Second Canto suffered no alteration except the substitution of lines 1131-1133 for two lines which were expunged.

Larger additions were made to the Third Canto. Lines 1299-1375, or stanza v. (included in a revise dated January 6, 1814), stanzas xvii. and xxiii., numbering respectively 77, 32, and 16 lines, and the two last lines of stanza x., 127 lines in all, represent the difference between the text as it now stands and the original MS.

In a note to Byron's Poetical Works, 1832, ix. 257, it is stated that the Corsair was begun on the 18th and finished on the 31st of December, 1813. In the Introduction to the Corsair prefixed to the Library Edition, the poem is said to have been composed in ten days, "at the rate of 200 lines a day." The first page of the MS. is dated "27th of December, 1813," and the last page "December 31, 1813, January 1, 1814." It is probable that the composition of the first draft was begun on the 18th and finished on the 27th of December, and that the work of transcription occupied the last five days of the month. Stanza v. of