8. apostolic statues, that of St. Peter surmounting the column of Trajan, that of St. Paul surmounting the column of M. Aurelius.

9. A statue of Trajan holding a globe, which was erroneously supposed to contain his ashes, formerly surmounted his column.

CXI. 5. The Roman globe, the Roman Empire at its widest, orbis terrarum.

CXII. 1. rock of Triumph, the Capitol.

3. Criminals were thrown from the Tarpeian rock.

CXIV. 1. The tribunes were magistrates elected by the lower orders at Rome to champion their interests against the patricians. Long afterwards, in 1347 A.D., the old name was revived by Rienzi, the leader of an insurrection against the tyranny of the nobles.

9. Numa, one of the seven legendary kings of early Rome, celebrated as a lawgiver. By the mention of Numa Byron ingeniously effects a transition to Egeria.

CXV. Egeria, a valley and fountain near the Porta Capena or southern gate of Rome. Noma was said to have learnt the religious ordinances which he gave to Rome from the nymph Egeria whom he met at this spot.

5. "The hallucination arising from some foolishly cherished hopeless love" (T.).

CXXII. 2. Under the influence of fever the mind invents beautiful forms that have no real existence.

8. its alchemy begun, "when once the heart has begun to convert every object into gold” (T.).

CXXVII. 6. cabin'd, cribb'd, confined. From Macbeth, III. iv. 24.

CXXVIII. 4. Coliseum or Colosseum, the great amphitheatre built for gladiatorial shows by the Flavian Emperors of Rome.

CXXXII. 5. Orestes, in Greek mythology, slew his mother Clytaemnestra to avenge the death of his father Agamemnon, and was pursued by Furies in consequence.

CXXXVI. 6. Janus glance, double-faced look. The Roman god Janus was represented with two faces.

CXXXVIII. 1. "My imprecation is finished and ratified" (T.). Cp. Canto III. st. vIII.

CXL.-I. These two stanzas describing the death of a gladiator in the Coliseum were inspired by the statue in the Capitoline Museum which used to be known as 'The Dying Gladiator.' That statue, however, represents a Gaulish warrior, not a Dacian.

CXLI. 6. Dacian. Dacia, a Roman province on the north bank of the lower Danube, the modern Roumania.

9. "It is a fine conception that the inroads of the Goths were an act of retribution for their murdered countrymen " (T.).

CXLIV. 3. loops of time, 'gaps made by time.'

6. Julius Caesar is said by Suetonius to have liked to wear a laurel crown because it concealed his baldness.

CXLV. A quotation from the Venerable Bede, cited by Gibbon in a note to chap. 71 of his History.

CXLVI. The Pantheon, a Roman temple which afterwards became a Christian Church, was formerly believed to have been built by Agrippa, the general of Augustus, in B.C. 27, but is now said to date only from the Emperor Hadrian, A.D. 120.

CXLVII. 6. Hawthorne calls the 'sole aperture' in the dome of the Pantheon 'that great eye gazing heavenward.'

9. around them close, encircle them.

CXLVIII. The story of a daughter feeding her father with milk from her own breast is connected with a cell under the Church of S. Nicola in Carcere at Rome.

CL. 7. "The mother's breast is a truer and more permanent source of life to men than the Nile is to the Egyptians" (T.).

CLI. 1. The fable that when Mercury held up the infant Hercules to Juno's breast, the goddess pushed him from her, and that drops of milk which she spilt formed 'the milky way' in the heavens.

9. Even as our souls, when they are freed from the body, return to God, which is our home.'

·

CLII. 1. Hadrian's Mole or Mausoleum, now the castle of S. Angelo.

2. old Egypt's piles, the pyramids.

CLIII. 2. Diana's marvel, the temple of Diana (Greek, Artemis) at Ephesus.

7. Sophia, the church (now mosque) of St. Sophia at Constantinople.

CLV. defined agrees with 'God,' 'made clear in like manner.'

CLVI. 1. "When you move forward and see more of the building, your power of comprehending it also increases, just as one who is ascending a mountain, though he sees more and more of its height as he proceeds, yet himself attains a greater elevation" (T.).

8. In air. Michael Angelo said of his design for the dome of St. Peter's, that he would raise the Pantheon in the air.'

CLIX. 9. can, are able to do,' 'know how to do.'

CLX. The story of the death of Laocoon and his two sons, strangled by huge serpents, is told in Virgil, Aeneid, 11. 201 et seq. The group of statuary in the Vatican which represents their death struggle is one of the most famous in the world.

CLXI. The statue known as the Apollo Belvedere

CLXII. 5. All, plural, all things.'

CLXIII. 2. The fire which we endure, life.

CLXVI. 9. Cp. Hamlet, III. i. 76, "Who would fardels bear, To grunt and sweat under a weary life?"

CLXVII. The Princess Charlotte, only daughter of George IV., married Prince Leopold of Saxe-Coburg (afterwards king of the Belgians) on May 16, 1816, and died in child-birth on November 6, 1817. Her death is commemorated by Wordsworth in an exquisite sonnet ("Methought I saw the footsteps of a throne").

CLXXI. 1. From Macbeth, III. ii. 23, "After life's fitful fever he sleeps well."

2. From Coriolanus, III. iii. 122, "Yon common cry of curs, whose breath I hate As reek o' the rotten fens."

CLXXIII. Wishing to conclude with a view of the sea, the poet brings us to the Alban Hills, which rise from the Roman Campagna. The lake of Nemi and the Alban lake (CLXXIV.) both occupy the craters of extinct volcanoes.

CLXXIV. 4. the Epic war between Aeneas and Turnus, related in the second half of Virgil's Aeneid.

5. "Arms and the man," Arma virumque, the opening words of the Aeneid. 'The man' is Aeneas.

re-ascending, after its setting in the fall of Troy.

7. Cicero's villa at Tusculum.

9. The Sabine farm of the poet Horace.

CLXXV. 5. midland ocean, Mediterranean.

8. last. Cp. Canto II. st. XXII. Calpe, Gibraltar.

9. Euxine, the Black Sea.

CLXXVI. 1. Symplegades, 'the clashing rocks,' at the entrance to the Euxine.

CLXXX. 9. lay, inaccurate for 'lie.'

CLXXXII. 3. wash'd them power, "brought power to them by commerce and since have brought them tyrants."

CLXXXVI. 7. sandal-shoon and scallop-shell, pilgrims' emblems. Cp. the song in Hamlet, IV. v. :

"How should I your true love know

From another one?

By his cockle hat and staff

And by his sandal shoon."

Scallop-shells were worn by returning pilgrims as a proof that they had visited the Holy Land, where such shells abound.

GLOSSARY.

CANTO THIRD.

The number in brackets gives the stanza in which the word occurs.

An asterisk (*) prefixed denotes that the word is now seldom used in the sense which it bears here.

alarm (25), v., call to arms—the original sense of the word (Italian).

amaze (65), n., poetical form of 'amazement.'

annul (18), cancel.

antithetically mixt (36), compounded of opposite qualities: 'antithesis'='opposition,' 'contrast.'

auspices (111), omens.

battles (47), battalions, an old use found in Shakespeare and Scott.

bigoted to (44), obstinately attached to.

boot (54), v., profit.

bruited (37), noised abroad.

capt (86), cloud-capt, covered at the top with cloud.

chivalry (21), abstract for concrete, knights. Etymologically 'chivalry' is the same word as 'cavalry.'

circumscribe (91), to limit.

civic band (64), band of citizens.

coeval (65), belonging to the same age.

coil (69) has two meanings, (1) a ring of rope, (2) turmoil. Both meanings are here combined as in Hamlet, III. i. 67, "When we have shuffled off this mortal coil."

colossal (17), huge; from Gr. Colossus, a gigantic statue.

compeer (81), an equal, a companion.

concenter'd (89), brought to a common centre.

contemplate (11), watch. Byron pronounced it 'contémplate.'