NOTES. LINE 1. Blue-eyed maid of heaven, one of the earliest epithets Homer applies to Minerva or Athena. Virgil uses the same term. Celestial and heaven-born maid are also used by Homer. 3. Goddess of Wisdom and blue-eyed maid are in apposition.Here thy temple. The Parthenon, the most perfect specimen of Grecian architecture, was the temple of Athena. 4. Despite of war and wasting fire. 'Part of the Acropolis [the citadel, or castle-hill of Athens], was destroyed by the explosion of a magazine during the Venetian siege.'-BYRON. 8-9. Men who never felt the sacred glow, &c. In addition to the text, Byron, in a series of notes, gives vent to his indignation at the spoliation of the Parthenon. 10. Ancient of days! august Athena! Athens is said to have been founded about 1550 B.C.; the grandeur of its situation, the splendour of its public buildings, its brilliant political history, and the number of illustrious names that adorn its annals, all combined to inspire Byron with a noble veneration for its former greatness, and an almost sacred enthusiasm for the preservation of the venerable memorials of its past history. 16. Sophist's stole, philosopher's cloak or gown. Sophists originally meant wise men, until Pythagoras adopted the more modest name of philosopher, a lover of wisdom. Stole is still applied to the sovereign's state mantle; hence 'Groom of the Stole.' 19. Son of the morning, an oriental phrase applied to a traveller, who, to avoid the noon-day heat, must be early astir. 24. 'Tis Mahomet's. The Parthenon, before its partial destruction in 1687, had been a temple, a church, and a mosque. 30. A boon; that is, the gift of being, or existence. 32-33. So on earth no more, provided that it be no more on earth. 37-42. From a somewhat indefinite note by Byron on this passage, Ajax, whose tumulus is still pointed out at Rhætium on the shores of the Hellespont, would appear to be the vanished hero he had in view; but from line 39 to 42 the reference is more applicable to Achilles, whose tumulus is not far distant on the sea-shore at Sigeum, and in whose honour annual games were held by a decree of the oracle of Dodona. 43-54. Compare Shakspeare's treatment of the same subject, Hamlet, Act v., scene 1. 55. Athena's wisest son. Socrates, the greatest moral teacher of Greece; declared by the oracle of Delphi to be the wisest of men, because he did not pretend to know what he did not know. "Tutor of Athens! he in every street Dealt priceless treasure: goodness his delight.' THOMSON'S Liberty. 56. This is to be regarded rather as the measure of Socrates' humility than a definition of his 'doctrine regarding knowledge, for he deemed knowledge invaluable. It may also be taken to mean that we know nothing absolutely. 61. Acheron, the river over which the souls of the dead were ferried. 'Sad Acheron of sorrow, black and deep.' Paradise Lost, ii. 579. 72. Bactrian. Zoroaster, the founder of the Persian religion, is said to have been a native of Bactria. He is supposed to have been contemporary with Moses. He taught the unity of the Deity, along with the existence of the principles of good and evil, which afterwards came to be recognised as gods. Samian sage. Pythagoras, so called from being a native of Samos. He flourished about 550 B.C., and founded the philosophic sect called after his name. 73-81. These lines commemorate a most affectionate friendship between Byron and a young Cambridge companion named Eddlestone, who died of consumption in May 1811. He was the donor of the Cornelian, of the Hours of Idleness. This, with the last three stanzas of Canto I., and a few others, were written at Newstead, after the poet's return. 84. Here, son of Saturn! was thy fav'rite throne: the temple of Jupiter Olympius, of which, out of one hundred and fifty marble columns, only sixteen remain. 94. The last, the worst, dull spoiler, refers to Thomas, seventh Earl of Elgin, who removed from the Parthenon those invaluable specimens of Greek art known as the Elgin Marbles. They were purchased by the nation for £35,000, and are now preserved in the British Museum. Lord Elgin's conduct is now looked at from a different point of view than that impul sively, though generously, taken by Byron-the ultimate preservation of the sculptures being due to their removal. 99. The long-reluctant brine. The vessel which was conveying the spoils of the Acropolis was wrecked on the coast of Cerigo, ancient Cythera. 118-126. According to Zosimus, Minerva [Pallas] and Achilles [Peleus' son] frightened Alaric from the Acropolis; but others relate that the Gothic king was nearly as mischievous as the Scottish peer.'-BYRON. The Athenians, however, adopted the more effectual expedient of purchasing Alaric's clemency. 125. Stygian shore. Hades, where dwelt the shades of the departed, being immediately beyond the river Styx, was hence termed the Stygian shore. The distinction betwixt the Styx and Acheron is not very clearly maintained. See note on 61. 144. The land of war and crimes, Spain and Portugal. The poet's poetical flight has so far outstript his geographical progress that he has to slacken pace, and ask, 'Where is Harold?' 151. Convoy, merchant ships protected by men-of-war. 152. Dullest sailer wearing bravely. The slowest ship sailing swiftly; wearing is not a strictly nautical term in this sense. 155. Reeved guns. Secured in their places with ropes.-Netted canopy, a network of rope stretched from the main-mast to the mizzen, to guard against the effects of splinters or falling rigging during action. 168. Aught, used here for persons. See note on 324. 174. Pennant-bearer, the leading ship bearing St George's Cross or pennant at the mast-head. 185. Arion, a musician and poet of Lesbos, who, returning from Corinth with the wealth procured by his skill, when threatened by the sailors with death, leaped into the sea, and was carried back to Corinth by a dolphin; his name, like that of Orpheus, is a synonym for a musician. 190. Calpe's straits, Greek name for the Straits of Gibraltar. We now return to the poet's personal whereabouts. 193. Pale Hecate's blaze, moonlight. Artemis, or Diana under certain of her manifold aspects, is identified with Hecate, a Tartarean divinity more commonly associated with sorcery and witchcraft. See Macbeth, iii., 2 and 5. 197. Mauritania, Morocco, the country of the Moors. 207. Ah! happy years! once more who would not be a boy? On being sent to Cambridge, Byron says: 'It was one of the deadliest and heaviest feelings of my life to feel that I was no longer a boy.' 217-234. These two stanzas delineate two characteristic features of Byron's disposition-his love of nature, and his dislike of society in its merely conventional aspects. 236. Athos (Gr.), a peninsular chain of mountains stretching from the southern coast of Macedonia into the Egean Sea, and terminating in a peak 6350 feet above the sea-level. It now gets the name of Monte Santo (Holy Mountain), from the number of monasteries that, from the time of the Byzantine empire, have existed there. 253. Calypso's isles, Malta and the neighbouring island of Gozo. In Malta, a cavern named Calypso's is still pointed out. 259-260. The incident here referred to forms no part of Homer's story, but is an invention of Fenelon's, in his Adventures o Telemachus.-Mentor is the goddess Athena, who in mortal disguise accompanied Telemachus on his travels. 266. Florence, Mrs Spencer Smith, whose beauty and romantic antecedents impressed the poet, and to whom two of his Occasional Pieces, 'To Florence,' and 'Stanzas composed during a Thunder-storm,' refer. 297. Lover's whining crew, indicates his contempt for the unmanly expressions of pain which lovers are supposed to feign as often as to feel. 322. Utopias, Utopia (Gr. ou, not, and topos, a place), No-place. Sir Thomas More's book of this name describes an ideal state of perfection.-Aréd, a participial form from the O. Eng. verb rede, to advise. 324. Thing. Note the frequent application of this word to persons. 325-333. The love of nature was inherent in Byron's disposition, but his special love of mountain scenery he attributes to his early associations with the mountains of the Dee: 'He who first met the Highlands' swelling blue, And clasp the mountains in his mind's embrace.' After having seen all the mountains of Italy and Greece, he exclaims: 'But 'twas not all long ages' lore, nor all Their nature held me in their thrilling thrall; The infant rapture still survived the boy, The Island. 334-342. Land of Albania! comprises part of Macedonia, Illyria, Chaonia, and Epirus.-BYRON.-Iskander, the celebrated Scanderbeg, 'Lord Alexander,' whom Gibbon calls a country man as well as a namesake of Alexander of Macedon. He defeated the Turks in twenty-two pitched battles, and achieved the independence of his country from 1443 till his death in 1467. Till his time the Albanese were Christians. Byron says: The Greeks hardly regard them as Christians, or the Turks as Moslems; and in fact they are a mixture of both, and sometimes neither.' 343. The barren spot, Ithaca (now Thiaki), the island of Ulysses. 347. Dark Sappho, the most celebrated poetess of antiquity, said to be a native of Lesbos (Mytilene), hence termed Lesbian. She formed the centre of a school of lyric poetry, about 600 B.C. Her leap from the Leucadian rock appears to have been an invention of later times, which, however unfounded, was too romantic to be forgotten. 356. Actium, the celebrated naval engagement fought 31 B.C., between Octavius (Augustus Cæsar) and Mark Antony, assisted by Cleopatra.-Lepanto, a naval fight (fought in the Gulf of Patras, in which the Turks were beaten by the Christians, under Don John of Austria, 1571. The author of Don Quixote lost his left hand in this engagement.- Fatal Trafalgar, where Nelson, the victor fell, 21st October 1805. 358. The poet here refers to his lameness. 362. Leucadia's far-projecting rock of woe. Far-projecting refers to the position of the famous rock, rising perpendicularly 2000 feet, near the extremity of the narrow peninsula. On its summit stood a temple of Apollo, at whose annual festival it was customary to throw a victim over the cliff into the sea; this is supposed to be the origin of the 'Lover's Leap.' See note to 347. 371. Suli's rocks, peaked rocks with a famous castle in the gorge of the Acheron, seen from the sea in clear weather.Pindus, the range of mountains that divides Thessaly from Albania. 381. Now he adventured on a shore unknown. 'With the exception of Major Leake, then officially resident at Joannina, no other Englishmen have ever advanced beyond the capital into the interior.'-BYRON. 397. Ambracia's gulf, now the Gulf of Arta, where the battle of Actium was fought. I saw the remains of the town of Actium, near which Antony lost the world, in a small bay where two frigates could hardly manœuvre; a broken wall is the sole remnant. On another part of the gulf stand the ruins of Nicopolis, built by Augustus in honour of his victory.' -BYRON. |