Childe Harold's Pilgrimage (With Byron's Biography). Lord Byron

190 [Tritonia, or Tritogenia, one of Athena's names of uncertain origin. Hofmann's Lexicon Universale, Tooke's Pantheon, and Smith's Classical Dictionary are much in the same tale. Lucan (Pharsalia, lib. ix. lines 350-354) derives the epithet from Lake Triton, or Tritonis, on the Mediterranean coast of Libya—

      "Hanc et Pallas amat: patrio quæ vertice nata

       Terrarum primum Libyen (nam proxima coelo est,

       Ut probat ipse calor) tetigit, stagnique quietâ

       Vultus vidit aquâ, posuitque in margine plantas,

       Et se dilectâ Tritonida dixit ab undâ."]

191 [Hobhouse dates the first visit to Cape Colonna, January 24, 1810.]

192 [Athené's dower of the olive induced the gods to appoint her as the protector and name-giver of Athens. Poseidon, who had proffered a horse, was a rejected candidate. (See note by Rev. E. C. Owen, Childe Harold, 1897, p. 175.)]

193 ["The wild thyme is in great abundance; but there are only two stands of bee-hives on the mountains, and very little of the real honey of Hymettus is to be now procured at Athens.... A small pot of it was shown to me as a rarity" (Travels in Albania, i. 341). There is now, a little way out of Athens, a "honey-farm, where the honey from Hymettus is prepared for sale" (Handbook for Greece, p. 500).]

fv ——Pentele's marbles glare.—[MS. D. erased.]

194 [Stanzas lxxxviii.-xc. are not in the MS., but were first included in the seventh edition, 1814.]

195 [Byron and Hobhouse, after visiting Colonna, slept at Keratéa, and proceeded to Marathon on January 25, returning to Athens on the following day.]

fw Preserve alike its form——.—[MS. L.]

      fx When uttered to the listener's eye——.—[MS. L.]

      fy The host, the plain, the fight——.—[MS. L.]

      fz The shattered Mede who flies with broken bow.—[MS. L.]

196 ["The plain of Marathon is enclosed on three sides by the rocky arms of Parnes and Pentelicus, while the fourth is bounded by the sea." After the first rush, when the victorious wings, where the files were deep, had drawn together and extricated the shallower and weaker centre, which had been repulsed by the Persians and the Sakæ, "the pursuit became general, and the Persians were chased to their ships, ranged in line along the shore. Some of them became involved in the impassable marsh, and there perished." (See Childe Harold, edited by H. F. Tozer, 1885, p. 253; Grote's History of Greece, iv. 276. See, too, Travels in Albania, i. 378-384.)]

ga To tell what Asia troubled but to hear.—[MS. L.]

197 [See note to Canto II. stanzas i.-xv., pp. 99, 100.]

gb Long to the remnants—.——[D.]

198 [The "Ionian blast" is the western wind that brings the voyager across the Ionian Sea.]

199 [The original MS. closes with this stanza.]

gc Which heeds nor stern reproach——.—[D.]

gd Would I had ne'er returned——.—[D.]

200

      "To Mr. Dallas.

      The 'he' refers to 'Wanderer' and anything is better than I I I I always I.

      Yours,

      BYRON."

      4th Revise B.M.]

ge But Time the Comforter shall come at last.—[MS. erased.]

201 [Compare Young's Night Thoughts ("The Complaint," Night i.). Vide ante, p. 95.]

gf Though Time not yet hath ting'd my locks with snow,*] Yet hath he reft whate'er my soul enjoy'd.—[D.]

      *] "To Mr. Dallas.

      If Mr. D. wishes me to adopt the former line so be it. I prefer the other I confess, it has less egotism—the first sounds affected.

      Yours,

      BYRON."

      Dallas assented, and directed the printer to let the Roll stand.]

      Notes

       to

       Childe Harold's Pilgrimage.

       Canto II.

       Table of Contents

      1.

      Despite of War and wasting fire.

      Stanza i. line 4.

      Part of the Acropolis was destroyed by the explosion of a magazine during the Venetian siege.

      In 1684, when the Venetian Armada threatened Athens, the Turks removed the Temple of Victory, and made use of the materials for the construction of a bastion. In the autumn of 1687, when the city was besieged by the Venetians under Francesco Morosini (1618-1694; Doge of Venice, 1688), "mortars were planted ... near the north-east corner of the rock, which threw their shells at a high angle, with a low charge, into the Acropolis.... On the 25th of September, a Venetian bomb blew up a small powder-magazine in the Propylæa, and on the following evening another fell in the Parthenon, where the Turks had deposited ... a considerable quantity of powder.... A terrific explosion took place; the central columns of the peristyle, the walls of the cella, and the immense architraves and cornices they supported, were scattered around the remains of the temple. The Propylæa had been partly destroyed in 1656 by the explosion of a magazine which was struck by lightning."—Finlay's History of Greece, 1887, i. 185.]