Canto X. [stanzas 1-27].

{244} Oh! he could bear no more--but madly grasped Her form--and trembling there his own unclasped.--[MS.]

{247} By night, particularly in a warm latitude, every stroke of the oar, every motion of the boat or ship, is followed by a slight flash like sheet lightning from the water.

{248} [Cape Gallo is at least eight miles to the south of Corone; but Point Lividia, the promontory on which part of the town is built, can hardly be described as a "jutting cape," or as (see line 1623) a "giant shape."]

{249} [Coron, or Corone, the ancient Colonides, is situated a little to the north of a promontory, Point Lividia, on the western shore of the Gulf of Kalamata, or Coron, or Messenia.

Antoine Louis Castellan (1772-1838), with whose larger work on Turkey Byron professed himself familiar (Letter to Moore, August 28, 1813), gives a vivid description of Coron and the bey's palace in his Lettres sur la Moree, etc. (first published, Paris, 1808), 3 vols., 1820. Whether Byron had or had not consulted the "Letters," the following passages may help to illustrate the scene:--

"La chaine caverneuse du Taygete s'eleve en face de Coron, a l'autre extremite du golfe" (iii. 181).

"Nous avons aussi ete faire une visite au bey, qui nous a permis de parcourir la citadelle" (p. 187).

"Le bey fait a executer en notre presence une danse singuliere, qu'on peut nommer danse pantomime" (p. 189; see line 642).

"La maison est assez bien distribuee et proprement meublee a la maniere des Turcs. La principale piece est grande, ornee d'une boisserie ciselee sur les dessins arabesques, et meme marquetee. Les fenetres donnent sur le jardin ... les volets sont ordinairement fermes, dans le milieu de la journee, et le jour ne penetre alors qu'a travers des ouvertures pratiquees, au dessus des fenetres et garnis de vitraux colores" (p. 200).

Castellan saw the palace and bay illuminated (p. 203).]

{250} Coffee.

"Chibouque" [chibuk], pipe.

{251} Dancing girls. [Compare The Waltz, line 127, Poetical Works, 1898, i. 492, note 1.]

It has been observed, that Conrad's entering disguised as a spy is out of nature. Perhaps so. I find something not unlike it in history.--"Anxious to explore with his own eyes the state of the Vandals, Majorian ventured, after disguising the colour of his hair, to visit Carthage in the character of his own ambassador; and Genseric was afterwards mortified by the discovery, that he had entertained and dismissed the Emperor of the Romans. Such an anecdote may be rejected as an improbable fiction; but it is a fiction which would not have been imagined unless in the life of a hero."--See Gibbon's Decline and Fall [1854, iv. 272.]

{252} [On the coast of Asia Minor, twenty-one miles south of Smyrna.]

{254} [Compare the Giaour, line 343, note 2; vide ante, p. 102.]

The Dervises [Dervish, Persian darvesh, poor] are in colleges, and of different orders, as the monks.

{255} "Zatanai," Satan. [Probably a phonetic rendering o [Greek: satana(s).] The Turkish form would be sheytan. Compare letter to Moore, April 9, 1814, Letters, 1899, iii. 66, note 1.]

{256} A common and not very novel effect of Mussulman anger. See Prince Eugene's Memoires, 1811, p. 6, "The Seraskier received a wound in the thigh; he plucked up his beard by the roots, because he was obliged to quit the field." ["Le seraskier est blesse a la cuisse; il s'arrache la barbe, parce qu'il est oblige de fuir." A contemporary translation (Sherwood, Neely, and Jones, 1811), renders "il s'arrache la barbe" he tore out the arrow.]

{257} Gulnare, a female name; it means, literally, the flower of the pomegranate.

{259} [The word "to" had been left out by the printer, and in a late revise Byron supplies the omission, and writes--

"To Mr. Murray or Mr. Davison.

"Do not omit words--it is quite enough to alter or mis-spell them.

"Bn."

In the MS. the line ran--

"To send his soul--he scarcely cared to Heaven."

"Asked" is written over in pencil, but "cared" has not been erased.]

{261} [Compare--"One anarchy, one chaos of the mind." The Wanderer, by Richard Savage, Canto V. (1761, p. 86).]

{262} [Compare--"That hideous sight, a naked human heart." Night Thoughts, by Edward Young (Night III.) (Anderson's British Poets, x. 71).]

{263} [Compare--

"When half the world lay wrapt in sleepless night, A jarring sound the startled hero wakes. * * * * * He hears a step draw near--in beauty's pride A female comes--wide floats her glistening gown-- Her hand sustains a lamp...." Wieland's Oberon, translated by W. Sotheby,