THE GIAOUR. No breath of air to break the wave * * * * * 1. A tomb above the rocks on the promontory, by some supposed the sepulchre of Themistocles. 66 ["There are," says Cumberland, in his Observer, 'a few lines by Plato upon the tomb of Themistocles, which have a turn of elegant and pathetic simplicity in them, that deserves a better translation than I can give— 666 "By the sea's margin, on the watery strand, Note to Edition 1832. The traditional site of the tomb of Themistocles, "a rock-hewn grave on the very margin of the sea generally covered with water," adjoins the lighthouse, which stands on the westernmost promontory of the Piræus, some three quarters of a mile from the entrance to the harbour. Plutarch, in his Themistocles (cap. xxxii.), is at pains to describe the exact site of the "altar-like tomb," and quotes the passage from Plato (the comic poet, B.C. 428-389) which Cumberland paraphrases. Byron and Hobhouse "made the complete circuit of the peninsula of Munychia," January 18, 1810.-Travels in Albania, 1858, i. 317, 318.] Fair clime! where every season smiles i That wakes and wafts the odours there! i. Fair clime! where ceaseless summer smiles Which seen from far Colonna's height, There shine the bright abodes ye seek, That wakes and wafts the fragrance there.-[MS.] the fragrance there.-[Second Edition.] 1. The attachment of the nightingale to the rose is a well-known Persian fable. If I mistake not, the "Bulbul of a thousand tales" is one of his appellations. [Thus Mesihi, as translated by Sir William Jones— "Come, charming maid! and hear thy poet sing, "The full style and title of the Persian nightingale (Pycnonotus The maid for whom his melody, His thousand songs are heard on high, Is heard, and seen the Evening Star; 30 40 hæmorrhous) is 'Bulbul-i-hazár-dástán,' usually shortened to 'Hazar' (bird of a thousand tales = the thousand), generally called 'Andalib.' (See Arabian Nights, by Richard F. Burton, 1887; Supplemental Nights, iii. 506.) For the nightingale's attachment to the rose, compare Moore's Lalla Rookh— "Oh! sooner shall the rose of May Mistake her own sweet nightingale," etc. (Ed. "Chandos Classics," p. 423) and Fitzgerald's translation of the Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám (stanza vi.)— "And David's lips are lockt; but in divine High piping Pehlevi, with Wine! Wine! Wine ! Rubáiyát, etc., 1899, p. 29, and note, p. 62. Byron was indebted for his information to a note on a passage in Vathek, by S. Henley (Vathek, 1893, p. 217).] 1. The guitar is the constant amusement of the Greek sailor by night; with a steady fair wind, and during a calm, it is accompanied always by the voice, and often by dancing. Then stealing with the muffled oar, Strange that where Nature loved to trace, And every charm and grace hath mixed There man, enamoured of distress, And trample, brute-like, o'er each flower It is as though the Fiends prevailed And, fixed on heavenly thrones, should dwell So soft the scene, so formed for joy, So curst the tyrants that destroy! He who hath bent him o'er the dead ii. 1 Ere the first day of Death is fled, i. Should wanton in a wilderness.—[MS.] 50 60 ii. The first draft of this celebrated passage differs in many 1. [Compare "Beyond Milan the country wore the aspect of a wider devastation; and though everything seemed more quiet, the repose was like that of death spread over features which retain the |