LINES IN THE TRAVELLERS' BOOK AT IN THIS BOOK A TRAVELLER HAD WRITTEN : "FAIR Albion, smiling, sees her son depart Noble his object, glorious is his aim; He comes to Athens, and he-writes his name." BENEATH WHICH LORD BYRON INSERTED THE FOLLOWING: THE modest bard, like many a bard unknown, His name would bring more credit than his verse. [First published, Life, 1830.] MAID OF ATHENS, ERE WE PART. Ζωή μου, σᾶς ἀγαπῶ, I. MAID of Athens,2 ere we part, Give, oh give me back my heart! i. Song. [1812.] 1. [“ At Orchomenus, where stood the Temple of the Graces, I was tempted to exclaim, 'Whither have the Graces fled?' Little did I expect to find them here. Yet here comes one of them with golden cups and coffee, and another with a book. The book is a register of names. Among these is Lord Byron's connected with some lines which I shall send you: 'Fair Albion,' etc." (See Travels in Italy, Greece, etc., by H. W. Williams, ii. 290, 291; Life, p. 101.)] 2. [The Maid of Athens was, it is supposed, the eldest of three sisters, daughters of Theodora Macri, the widow of a former English Or, since that has left my breast, 2. By those tresses unconfined, vice-consul. Byron and Hobhouse lodged at her house. The sisters were sought out and described by the artist, Hugh W. Williams, who visited Athens in May, 1817: "Theresa, the Maid of Athens, Catinco, and Mariana, are of middle stature. . . . The two eldest have black, or dark hair and eyes; their visage oval, and complexion somewhat pale, with teeth of pearly whiteness. Their cheeks are rounded, their noses straight, rather inclined to aquiline. The youngest, Mariana, is very fair, her face not so finely rounded, but has a gayer expression than her sisters', whose countenances, except when the conversation has something of mirth in it, may be said to be rather pensive. Their persons are elegant, and their manners pleasing and lady-like, such as would be fascinating in any country. They possess very considerable powers of conversation, and their minds seem to be more instructed than those of the Greek women in general."-Travels in Italy, Greece, etc., ii. 291, 292. Other travellers, Hughes, who visited Athens in 1813, and Walsh (Narrative of a Resident in Constantinople, i. 122), who saw Theresa in 1821, found her charming and interesting, but speak of her beauty as a thing of the past. "She married an Englishman named Black, employed in H.M. Consular Service at Mesolonghi. She survived her husband and fell into great poverty. . . . Theresa Black died October 15, 1875, aged 80 years." (See Letters, 1898, i. 269, 270, note I; and Life, p. 105, note.) "Maid of Athens" is possibly the best-known of Byron's short poems, all over the English-speaking world. This is no doubt due in part to its having been set to music by about half a dozen composers the latest of whom was Gounod.j 1. Romaic expression of tenderness. If I translate it, I shall affront the gentlemen, as it may seem that I supposed they could not; and if I do not, I may affront the ladies. For fear of any misconstruction on the part of the latter, I shall do so, begging pardon of the learned. It means, "My life, I love you!" which sounds very prettily in all languages, and is as much in fashion in Greece at this day as, Juvenal tells us, the two first words were amongst the Roman ladies, whose erotic expressions were all Hellenised. [The reference is to the Zwǹ kal Yuxǹ of Roman courtesans. Vide Juvenal, lib. ii., Sat. vi. line 195; Martial, Epig. x. 68. 5.1 By those lids whose jetty fringe 3. By that lip I long to taste; By all the token-flowers1 that tell [First published, Childe Harold, 1812 (4to).] 1. In the East (where ladies are not taught to write, lest they hould scribble assignations), flowers, cinders, pebbles, etc., convey the sentiments of the parties, by that universal deputy of Mercuryan old woman. A cinder says, "I burn for thee; a bunch of flowers tied with hair, "Take me and fly; " but a pebble declareswhat nothing else can. [Compare The Bride of Abydos, line 295— "What! not receive my foolish flower?" See, too, Medwin's story of " one of the principal incidents in The Giaour." "I was in despair, and could hardly contrive to get a cinder, or a token-flower sent to express it."-Conversations of Lord Byron, 1824, p. 122.] 2. Constantinople. [Compare VOL. III. "Tho' I am parted, yet my mind That's more than self still stays behind." Poems, by Thomas Carew, ed. 1640, p. 36.] C FRAGMENT FROM THE "MONK OF ATHOS."1 I. BESIDE the confines of the Ægean main, Where northward Macedonia bounds the flood, And views opposed the Asiatic plain, Where once the pride of lofty Ilion stood, Like the great Father of the giant brood, With lowering port majestic Athos stands, Crowned with the verdure of eternal wood, As yet unspoiled by sacrilegious hands, And throws his mighty shade o'er seas and distant lands. 2. And deep embosomed in his shady groves Full many a convent rears its glittering spire, Weaning the thoughts from every low desire, And the wild waves that break with murmuring sound Along the rocky shore proclaim it holy ground. 3. Sequestered shades where Piety has given 1. [Given to the Hon. Roden Noel by S. McCalmont Hill, who inherited it from his great-grandfather, Robert Dallas. No date o occasion of the piece has been recorded.-Life of Lord Byron, 1890, p. 5.1 Whence the rapt spirit may ascend to Heaven! Oh, ye condemned the ills of life to bear! As with advancing age your woes increase, What bliss amidst these solitudes to share The happy foretaste of eternal Peace, Till Heaven in mercy bids your pain and sorrows cease. [First published in the Life of Lord Byron, by the Hon, Roden Noel, London, 1890, pp. 206, 207.] LINES WRITTEN BENEATH A PICTURE.' I. DEAR object of defeated care! Though now of Love and thee bereft, To reconcile me with despair Thine image and my tears are left. 2. 'Tis said with Sorrow Time can cope; For by the death-blow of my Hope Athens, January, 1811. [First published, Childe Harold, 1812 (4to).] 1. [These lines are copied from a leaf of the original MS. of the Second Canto of Childe Harold. They are headed, "Lines written beneath the Picture of J. U. D." In a curious work of doubtful authority, entitled, The Life, Writings, Opinions and Times of the Right Hon. G. G. Noel Byron, London, 1825 (iii. 123-132), there is a long and circumstantial narrative of a "defeated" attempt of Byron's to rescue a Georgian girl, whom he had bought in the slave-market for 800 piastres, from a life of shame and degradation. It is improbable that these verses suggested the story; and, on the other hand, the story, if true, does afford some clue to the verses.] |