Chapter XXIV: Canto THE FOURTH: 375 (5)

[538] [The simile of the "earthquake" was repeated in a letter to Murray, dated December 3, 1817: "The death of the Princess Charlotte has been a shock even here, and must have been an earthquake at home.... The death of this poor Girl is melancholy in every respect, dying at twenty or so, in childbed--of a _boy_ too, a present princess and future queen, and just as she began to be happy, and to enjoy herself, and the hopes which she inspired."]

[539] {454} The village of Nemi was near the Arician retreat of Egeria, and, from the shades which embosomed the temple of Diana, has preserved to this day its distinctive appellation of _The Grove_. Nemi is but an evening's ride from the comfortable inn of Albano.

[The basin of the Lago di Nemi is the crater of an extinct volcano. Hence the comparison to a coiled snake. Its steel-blue waters are unruffled by the wind which lashes the neighbouring ocean into fury. Hence its likeness to "cherished hate," as contrasted with "generous and active wrath."]

[qb] _And calm as speechless hate_----.--[MS. M.]

[540] [The spectator is supposed to be looking towards the Mediterranean from the summit of Monte Cavo. Tusculum, where "Tully reposed," lies to the north of the Alban Hills, on the right; but, as Byron points to a spot "beneath thy right," he probably refers to the traditional site of the Villa Ciceronis at Grotta Ferrata, and not to an alternative site at the Villa Ruffinella, between Frascati and the ruins of Tusculum. Horace's Sabine farm, on the bank of Digentia's "ice-cold rivulet," is more than twenty miles to the north-east of the Alban Hills. The mountains to the south and east of Tusculum intercept the view of the valley of the Licenza (Digentia), where the "farm was tilled." Childe Harold had bidden farewell to Horace, once for all, "upon Soracte's ridge," but recalls him to keep company with Virgil and Cicero.]

[qc] {455}
_Of girdling mountains circle on the sight_
_The Sabine farm was tilled, the wearied Bard's delight_.--
[MS. M.]

[541] ["Calpe's rock" is Gibraltar (compare _Childe Harold_, Canto II. stanza xxii. line i). "Last" may be the last time that Byron and Childe Harold saw the Mediterranean together. Byron had last seen it--"the Midland Ocean"--by "Calpe's rock," on his return journey to England in 1811. Or by "last" he may mean the last time that it burst upon his view. He had not seen the Mediterranean on his way from Geneva to Venice, in October-November, 1816, or from Venice to Rome, April--May, 1817; but now from the Alban Mount the "ocean" was full in view.]

[qd] {456} ----_much suffering and some tears_.--[MS. M.]

[542] ["After the stanza (near the conclusion of Canto 4th) which ends with the line--

"'As if there was no man to trouble what is clear,'

insert the two following stanzas (clxxvii., clxxviii.). Then go on to the stanza beginning, 'Roll on thou,' etc., etc. You will find the place of insertion near the conclusion--just before the address to the Ocean.

"These _two stanzas_ will just make up the number of 500 stanzas to the whole poem.

"Answer when you receive this. I sent back the packets yesterday, and hope they will arrive in safety."--D.]

[543] [His desire is towards no light o' love, but for the support and fellowship of his sister. Compare the opening lines of the _Epistle to Augusta_--

"My sister! my sweet sister! if a name
Dearer and purer were, it should be thine;
Mountains and seas divide us, but I claim
No tears, but tenderness to answer mine:
Go where I will, to me thou art the same--
A loved regret which I would not resign.
There yet are two things in my destiny,--
A world to roam through and a home with thee.

"The first were nothing--had I still the last,
It were the haven of my happiness."]

[544] {457} [Compare _Childe Harold_, Canto III. stanza lxxii. lines 8, 9; and _Epistle to Augusta_, stanza xi.]

[qe] {458} ----_unearthed, uncoffined, and unknown_.--[MS. M.]

[545] [Compare _Ps_. cvii. 26, "They mount up to the heaven, they go down again to the depths."]

[qf] _And dashest him to earth again: there let him lay!_--[D.]

[546] ["Lay" is followed by a plainly marked period in both the MSS. (M. and D.) of the Fourth Canto of _Childe Harold_. For instances of the same error, compare "The Adieu," stanza 10, line 4, and ["Pignus Amoris"], stanza 3, line 3 (_Poetical Works_, 1898, i. 232, note, and p. 241). It is to be remarked that Hobhouse, who pencilled a few corrections on the margin of his own MS. copy, makes no comment on this famous solecism. The fact is that Byron wrote as he spoke, with the "careless and negligent ease of a man of quality," and either did not know that "lay" was not an intransitive verb or regarded himself as "super grammaticam."]

[547] {459} [Compare Campbell's _Battle of the Baltic_ (stanza ii. lines 1, 2)--

"Like leviathans afloat,
Lay their bulwarks on the brine."]

[qg] _These oaken citadels which made and make_.--[MS. M. erased.]

[548] The Gale of wind which succeeded the battle of Trafalgar destroyed the greater part (if not all) of the prizes--nineteen sail of the line--taken on that memorable day. I should be ashamed to specify particulars which should be known to all--did we not know that in France the people were kept in ignorance of the event of this most glorious victory in modern times, and that in England it is the present fashion to talk of Waterloo as though it were entirely an English triumph--and a thing to be named with Blenheim and Agincourt--Trafalgar and Aboukir. Posterity will decide; but if it be remembered as a skilful or as a wonderful action, it will be like the battle of Zama, where we think of Hannibal more than of Scipio. For assuredly we dwell on this action, not because it was gained by Blucher or Wellington, but because it was lost by Buonaparte--a man who, with all his vices and his faults, never yet found an adversary with a tithe of his talents (as far as the expression can apply to a conqueror) or his good intentions, his clemency or his fortitude.

Look at his successors throughout Europe, whose imitation of the worst parts of his policy is only limited by their comparative impotence, and their positive imbecility.--[MS. M.]

[549] {460} ["When Lord Byron wrote this stanza, he had, no doubt, the following passage in Boswell's _Johnson_ floating in his mind.... 'The grand object of all travelling is to see the shores of the Mediterranean. On those shores were the four great empires of the world--the Assyrian, the Persian, the Grecian, and the Roman' (_Life of Johnson_, 1876, p. 505)."--Note to _Childe Harold_, Canto IV. stanza clxxxii. ed. 1891.]

[550] [See letter to Murray, September 24, 1818: "What does 'thy waters _wasted_ them' mean (in the Canto)? _That is not me_. Consult the MS. _always_." Nevertheless, the misreading appeared in several editions. (For a correspondence on the subject, see _Notes and Queries_, first series, vol. i. pp. 182, 278, 324, 508; vol. ix. p. 481; vol. x. pp. 314, 434.)]

[qh] _Thy waters wasted them while they were free_.--[Editions 1818, 1819, 1823, and Galignani, 1825.]

[qi] _Unchangeable save calm thy tempests ply_.--[MS. M., D.]

[qj] {461}
_The image of Eternity and Space_
_For who hath fixed thy limits_----.--[MS. M. erased.]

[551] [Compare Tennyson's _In Memoriam_, lv. stanza 6--

"Dragons of the prime,
That tare each other in their slime,
Were mellow music match'd with him."]

[552] ["While at Aberdeen, he used often to steal from home unperceived; sometimes he would find his way to the seaside" (_Life_, p. 9). For an account of his feats in swimming, see _Letters_, 1898, i. 263, note 1; and letter to Murray, February 21, 1821. See, too, for a "more perilous, but less celebrated passage" (from Old Lisbon to Belem Castle), _Travels in Albania_, ii. 195.]

[553] ["It was a thought worthy of the great spirit of Byron, after exhibiting to us his Pilgrim amidst all the most striking scenes of earthly grandeur and earthly decay ... to conduct him and us at last to the borders of 'the Great Deep.' ... The image of the wanderer may well be associated, for a time, with the rock of Calpe, the shattered temples of Athens, or the gigantic fragments of Rome; but when we wish to think of this dark personification as of a thing which is, where can we so well imagine him to have his daily haunt as by the roaring of the waves? It was thus that Homer represented Achilles in his moments of ungovernable and inconsolable grief for the loss of Patroclus. It was thus he chose to depict the paternal despair of Chryseus--

"[Greek: Be/ d' a)ke/on para\ thi~na polyphloi/sboio thala/sses]"

Note by Professor Wilson, ed. 1837.]

[qk] {462}
_Is dying in the echo--it is time_
_To break the spell of this protracted dream_
_And what will be the fate of this my rhyme_
_May not be of my augury_----.--[MS. M. erased.]

[ql] _Fatal--and yet it shakes me not--farewell._--[MS. M.]

[qm] _Ye! who have traced my Pilgrim to the scene._--[MS. M.]

[554] {463} At end--

Laus Deo!
Byron.
July 19th, 1817.
La Mira, near Venice.

Laus Deo!
Byron.
La Mira, near Venice,
Sept. 3, 1817.

* * * * *

NOTES TO CHILDE HAROLD'S PILGRIMAGE.