107, 7 hardened, feelings ]
109, 1 Aι αι ταν Kυθερειαν ‘Woe for Cytherea [Aphrodite]’ (Bion, The Lament for Adonis 28, trans. J. M. Edmonds in The Greek Bucolic Poets (1919), 388–9).
109, 5–8 Anacreon…/… dart Of Eros…… alma Venus genetrix One of Byron’s laments about mortality: youthful innocence (stanza 108), chastity (Diana’s star), love in various forms (the beauty of Cytherea’s star, the passionate dart of Eros, the generative force of Venus) – all are as transient as the phases of the moon, as time itself. Only Anacreon’s love odes do not wither (numbers 1, 6, 11, 13, 20).
The Venus epithet was used by Lucretius: ‘Aeneadum genetrix, hominum divomque voluptas, / alma Venus’ (‘Mother of Aeneas and his race, darling of men and gods, nurturing Venus’). De rerum natura I 1–2, trans. W. H. D. Rouse (1947), 2–3.
110, 2–3 ]
When people prop their pillows> fragment
111, 3 sans-culotte without breeches.
111, 8 ]
112, 4 devil take P ] devil may take 1824 and later editions
The auxiliary disrupts the rhythm and produces an eleven-syllable line with a stressed ending – a metrical pattern that Byron permitted only through carelessness.
112, 6–7 ] Or (light step) of an amatory Miss
Whose footstep beats less loudly than her>
Byron probably intended to complete this verse with ‘heart’ before he cancelled the whole line.
113, 6 When deep sleep fett on men ‘In thoughts from me visions of the night, When deep sleep falleth on men’(Job iv 13).
113, 7 ] The
114, 5 throbbed ]
115, 5 a mortal tympanum This unique occurrence of the word in Byron’s verse is also a rare but clear synecdoche (a part for the whole – eardrum for ear).
116, 2–3 Lasciate ogni speranza / Voi che entrate ‘Abandon every hope, you who enter here’ (Dante, Inferno III 9, trans. H. R. Huse, 1954).
116, 8 ]
118, 5 to awaken Elision reduces ‘to awaken’ to three syllables.
119, 3 ] But Juan
119, 5 thrust… carte and tierce The fourth (quarte) and third (terce) positions for thrusting or parrying in fencing.
120, 8 Should cause more fear than a whole host’s identity Byron’s note in the 1824 edition quoted Richard III V iii 217–19: ‘… shadows tonight Have struck more terror to the soul of Richard, Than can the substance of ten thousand soldiers.’
121, 2 ]
121, 7 Gleamed ]
123, 3 A dimpled chin ] A
CANTO XVII
Byron began the first draft (S) at Genoa on 8 May 1823. He wrote fourteen stanzas and one cancelled stanza. Though he took the manuscript with him to Greece, he wrote no more there. The fragment, found by Trelawny after Byron’s death, was given with other papers to John Cam Hobhouse (see Recollections of a Long Life, ed. Lady Dorchester (1909–11), III 59–61). John Murray published it in 1903 (the E. H. Coleridge edition). The present transcription is based directly on the MS. All variants are from S.
2, 1–3 ‘only children’… /… a spoilt child see note to Canto I 37, 6–7.
2, 3 ] Pronounces that
2, 5 ] That
3, 5 (what the Italians nickname) ‘mule’ ‘The Italians at least in some parts of Italy call bastards and foundlings – “I Muli” – the Mules – why – I cannot see – unless they mean to infer that the offspring of Matrimony are Asses’ (Byron, MS S).
4, 6 Dame Partlett This traditional name for a hen appeared in the French fable of Reynard the Fox, which was translated and published by Caxton in 1481. ‘Partlet’ is derived from the French ‘Pertelote’, used by Chaucer in The Nun’s Priest’s Tale. Byron’s comic episode does not appear in either story. As one might anticipate, Pliny in his Natural History smiled at ‘the behaviour of a hen when ducks’ eggs have been put under her and have hatched out – first her surprise when she does not quite recognize her brood, then her puzzled sobs as she anxiously calls them to her, and finally her lamentations round the margin of the pond when the chicks under the guidance of instinct take to the water’ (Book X, section 76, trans. H. Rackham (1940), III 390–93). Jonathan Swift used it in a simile in The Progress of Marriage (145–50). ‘So have I seen within a Pen / Young Ducklings, fostered by a Hen; But when let out, they run and muddle As Instinct leads them, in a Puddle; The sober Hen not born to swim With Mournful Note clocks [sic] round the Brim’ (The Poems of Jonathan Swift, ed. H. Williams (1958), I 294–5). Samuel Johnson’s Dictionary under the entry of ‘duckling’ found the same lore in John Ray’s The Wisdom of Cod Manifested in the Works of the Creation (1691).
6, 6 Heedless of pricks ]
7, 4–5 witches… who create / Mischief in families A recollection of Mrs Clermont, an elderly maidservant of Lady Byron, who became the governess of Ada. She is described in Byron’s acrimonious poem A Sketch (1816) as a ‘genial confidant, and general spy’.
7, 8 Sir Matthew Hole’s great humanity Sir Matthew Hale (1609–76) presided at the conviction of two women for witchcraft in 1662. Though Sir Matthew did not comment on the testimony in this case, he did declare that scripture, general consent and the Acts of Parliament had proved the existence of witches. The two elderly witches were executed.
8, 1–4 Great Galileo was debarred the sun, /… embargoed from mere walking
Galileo (1564–1642), the Italian astronomer, advocated the Copernican system and as a punishment was confined to house arrest for the last eight years of his life (‘debarred the sun ‘and ‘embargoed from mere walking’) by the Inquisition and forced to recant in public.
to stop ] to
9, 1–6 Pythagoras, Locke, Socrates…/… and perhaps much more Pythagoras formed in Crotona, Italy, a religious and philosophical fraternity, with various secret rites. The people of Crotona burned the building where he and his associates met, and similar uprisings against the Pythagorean clubs occurred in other cities.
John Locke (1632–1704) was expelled from England in 1684 for supposed complicity in 1681 in the schemes of Anthony Ashley Cooper, first Earl of Shaftesbury and of the Duke of Monmouth, to keep the throne from the Duke of York (later James II).
Socrates was condemned by the Greeks to take the hemlock after he had been accused of impiety by Meletus, a leather seller.
9, 5 outrun ]
9, 7] The wise man’s sure
9, 8 post-obit See note to Preface to Cantos I and II, 101.
10, 7 ] To be a
totus teres ‘Who is free ? the wise man, who is lord over himself,… who in himself is a whole, smoothed and rounded…’ (‘in se ipso totus, teres atque rotundus’). Horace, Satire II 7, 83–6, trans. H. R. Fairclough (1926), 230–31. Often the original context of Byron’s borrowings has little or no relevance to the setting he puts them into; but in this Latin satire the slave Davus rebukes his master Horace for a capricious inconsistency that is similar to Byron’s confessional paradoxes of stanzas 10–11.
11, 3 idem semper always the same.
11, 5 ]
11, 6 Hercules furens Seneca wrote a tragedy entitled Hercules Furens (mad).
11, 7–8 the same skin /… has two or three within See Byron’s comment on mobility, note to Can to XVI97, 4.
12 ^ 13 The following unfinished stanza follows stanza 12 on S and is entirely cancelled. The present transcription modernizes the text.
Would that I neer had loved! Oh woman, woman!
All that I write or wrote can ne�
��er revive
To paint a sole sensation – though quite common –
Of those in which the body seemed to drive
My soul from out me at thy single summon,
Expiring in the hope of sensation –>
13, 2 breakfast, tea and toast ] breakfast –
14, 7–8 as if she had kept / A vigil ] as if she
APPENDIX
Although Marchand’s recent publication (1973–81) of Byron’s letters has superseded earlier editions of Byron’s correspondence, we were unable, in the preceding two hundred pages, to change our volume-page data that refer to the earlier editions of the letters. The cost of such revision would have been prohibitive.
The following 1977–82 notes are placed in an appendix because they could not be inserted at their appropriate places without abundant reprinting and repagination.
Since Byron’s proof sheets for the 1819 publication of Cantos I and II became available to me in 1978 through the courtesy of Mr John Murray, I have included a sampling of his proof revisions and comments.
Dedication 1, 1 Byron wrote on the proof sheets ‘As the Poem is to be published anonymously omit the dedication – I won’t attack the dog in the dark–such things are for Scoundrels, and renegadoes like himself.’
Dedication II, 7–8 On the proof sheet below this note Byron wrote an alternative that diluted the impropriety of his anecdote: ‘I John Sylvester kissed your sister’, ‘I Ben Jonson kissed your wife.’
I 15–17 Byron posted these stanzas to his publisher on 6 May 1819 and asked that they be inserted into Canto I. Murray, however, had already mailed the proofs of Canto I to Venice. After they arrived on or shortly before 15 May, Byron wrote in the proof margins a version of stanzas 15–17 that differed slightly from that sent on 6 May. The following are the only verbal differences:
16, 4 in search of lovers
17, 2 Of every
These may not be intentional revisions, but changes Byron made because he did not have at hand the stanzas he had sent to Murray on 6 May.
I 28, 2 opened certain trunks On the proofs someone, probably Hobhouse, had objected to stanza 28: ‘There is some doubt about this.’ Byron replied with the rationalization that he was creating fiction: ‘What has the doubt to do with the poem? It is at least poetically true–why apply every thing to that absurd woman? I have no reference to living characters.’ The London proof reader had also objected to stanza 27: ‘This is so very pointed.’ Byron’s marginal reply was to blame the reader: ‘If people make applications it is their own fault.’
I 69, 8sunburnt nations]
I 75, 8 On M Byron substituted ‘God’ for ‘Christ’, and continued to revise the line on proof:
I 103, 8 Excepting the Post-obits of theology]
I 119 On proof Hobhouse wrote ‘You certainly will be damned for all this scene.’
I 129, 7–8 Hobhouse’s counsel on proof: ‘Mon cher ne touchez pas á la petite Verole.’ [My dear fellow do not touch small pox.]
I 130, 7–8 Hobhouse on proof: ‘Put out these but keep the other lines.’ Byron crossed out this advice and kept all his lines.
I 135, 8 The line was printed on the proof thus: A lobster, salad, and cham-paigne, and chat. On proof Byron added the hyphen to ‘lobster-salad’ and commented: ‘Lobster-sallad– not a lobster, salad–have you been at a London ball? and not known a Lobster-sallad.’
I 194, 8 To mourn alone the love which has undone PM and second alternative on Ml. On M1 Byron offered the publisher Murray two other uncancelled alternatives for line 8 and bid him choose which seemed the best of the three.
To love again and be again undone.
To
On M2 Byron wrote only the first of the above two lines.
III 92, 2 Like Shakespeare’s stealing deer, Lord Bacon’s bribes Nicholas Rowe in his Life of Shakespeare (1709) wrote that Shakespeare was prosecuted for stealing deer from the estate of Sir Thomas Lucy and forced to leave Stratford. According to one Richard Davies, later a rector in Gloucestershire (1695), Lucy had Shakespeare whipped and imprisoned. Although Rowe has not been regarded as a reliable biographer, and Davies even less so, some writers concede that there may be ‘a kernel of truth’ in these old scandals, but have advanced no historical verification of them.
For Bacon’s bribes, however, there is that judge’s own written confession that he had accepted gifts from ‘suitors in pending litigation’. In 1621 the House of Lords levied a severe sentence against Lord Bacon: a fine of £40, 000, imprisonment for an indefinite period, permanent disbarment from Parliament, and an order forbidding him to come ‘Srithin the verge of the court’. King James I pardoned Bacon, remitted the fine, and freed him from prison after four days, but did not allow him to sit in Parliament. Bacon condemned his own acceptance of the gifts from litigants, but maintained that his legal judgement had never been swayed by these gifts and that he had always been an impartial judge.
III 92, 5 Cromwell’s pranks There were rumours that as a boy he had robbed orchards. Cromwell later piously wrote: ‘I was… the chief of sinners,’ but there is no historical evidence that the young Cromwell, though high-spirited and fond of sport, ever committed a prank mat could be regarded as even a trivial and mischievous misdemeanour.
V 3, 6 The twelve isles, and the more than I could dream Here and often elsewhere ‘the’ is Byron’s metrical padding. ‘And more than…’ would suffice. OED includes examples of the correlative usage ‘the more… the more…’, and also of the comparative ellipsis followed by a statement of its cause (‘the more because…’). However, OED does not cite phrasing from other authors precisely similar to Byron’s elliptical ‘and the more than’, or ‘the more which’. This is one of Byron’s common formulas, often without a following clause.
V 61, 1–8 That injured queen…/… jury here However clever Byron’s persiflage with ‘courser’ and ‘courier’, his linking the sodomy of Semiramis with the trial of Queen Caroline for adultery was audacious and, according to Hobhouse, unkind. Hobhouse wrote to Byron, 19 June 1821: ‘By the way, do not cut at poor Queeney in your Don Juan about Semiramis and her Courser courier. She would feel it very much, I assure you.’ Byron replied, 6 July 1821: ‘I have written by this post to Murray to omit the stanza to which you object. In case he should forget, you can jog his memory.’ Correspondence, II, 176. See also Notes V 61, 1–8.
VI 18, 3 not the pink of old hexameters Byron is not using slang peculiar to his time, but a colloquialism that the OED found common from the sixteenth century to the present day. The word ‘pink’ originally referred to the flower dianthus. A figurative extension of ‘pink’ early came to mean the ‘flower’ of excellence, the very best, the embodied perfection. Byron’s verse here does not give us the pink of rhymes. All of stanza 18 is a laboured apology for the clumsy final line of stanza 17.
VII 21, 6–8 Shakespeare… plays so doting, /… quoting Byron rebukes not only the affected wits who quote Shakespeare, but the dramatist himself.
His disparagement of Shakespeare is repeated in Donjuan and the letters, though this is inconsistent with his frequent recollection of, and quotation from, the plays, and his acknowledgment of their merit. Here the wicked necessity of rhyming leads him to the absurd charge that the plays are as weak-minded as an aged man could be.
VIII 32, 5 ignis fatuus J. I. Morse (NQ 217:293–4) thought that Byron may have been indebted to A Satyr against Reason and Mankind (1675) by John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester. In lines 8–15 he wrote that man’s reason may become an ignis fatuus, abandon the ‘light of nature’ and common sense
and roam through the ‘pathless and dangerous’ bogs and brakes of error.
XIII 75, 4 The pointer ranges, and the sportsman beats The hunting dog roams about the fields and thickets, exploring for a scent of game. When a strong scent tells the dog that he is near a bird, he stands still and looks fixedly, muzzle stretched toward it. Meanwhile the hunter thrashes about trying to flush the bird.
* The best manna.
† Hot water.
‡ Two drams of tincture of senna to be drunk.
§ Take compound powder, three grains ipecac.
|| A pill of sulphurated potash to be taken, / And the dose three times a day to be swallowed.
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