Joy Unconfined
Page 27
His lack of understanding of her predicament, one after all brought on by his own overtures, twice - this was no shotgun wedding - and his maltreatment of her was thoughtless and cruel, a display of hubris that inevitably led to nemesis. He never understood that the arithmetic of love is unique: two halves do not make a whole, only two wholes make a whole. One hesitates to be judgemental of what goes on behind closed doors, but cannot help be reminded of a more recent marriage between an experienced and egotistical man and an inexperienced and willing girl, where the man put his own gratification before the needs of the whole, and that too inevitably ended in disaster.
She came to believe that the only explanation for his disagreeability was that he was mad; an echo of Caroline’s earlier prognosis. She then tried to read method into his madness, and when the two clearly did not fit she had nowhere to turn except the lawyers and her mother. Both egged her on for a separation in spite of Byron’s belated attempt at thoughtfulness and all their friends prompting for a reconciliation. But to make matters even worse, her own inheritance had by then failed and the bailiffs had arrived. Events now moved quickly to a conclusion. On 10 December 1815 Annabella gave birth to a daughter, Ada. Hounded by debts and shame, Byron turned more heavily to drink and became even fouler. When Ada was six weeks old Annabella could take no more abuse and took her daughter and left to be with her parents. She and Byron never saw each other again.
She still clung to the hope that he would be proved insane and so prove her to be correct - and him redeemable in her hands. But by then matters had assumed their own momentum. Assisted by innuendos from her lawyers and malicious gossip from Lady Caroline Lamb and others - largely true it has to be said - rumours spread that he was a homosexual and a sodomite, a ‘practitioner of incest’, of loose morals, syphilitic, prone to alcohol and depressions and sometimes violence - and Byron’s reputation was as ruined as his finances. On 21 April 1816, sixteen months after he had signed the marriage certificate, Hobhouse signed the separation on Byron’s behalf, and four days later the latter left England, five years after he had first returned, but this time never to return again.
***
So, what are we to make of Byron on his return from the Grand Tour? He did not seem a happy soul as he careered from creation to destruction and back again. After the triumph of Childe Harold‘s Pilgrimage John Murray launched The Giaour and the Bride of Abydos, both to great acclaim. The Corsair, which followed next, sold 10,000 copies on its first day. Lara was slightly less successful, but still well received, as was Hebrew Melodies and the Siege of Corinth. But in between these creative highs he laid a trail of emotional destruction for others to clear up.
One is tempted to conclude that the poet of wonderful romance knew not himself of love - pure,unselfish,unconditional love. He knew it not as others did, with words beyond romance: ‘Love is not love/ Which alters when it alteration finds,/Or bends with the remover to remove... Love’s not Time’s fool, though rosy lips and cheeks/Within his bending sickle’s compass come.’ He knew of passion - more or less permanently, one bout after another; he knew of romance - whenever he picked up a pen and allowed the words to do the work; he knew of lust - either way, as long as beauty was present. But pure love is light, just, bears no pressure or compulsion, offers no dark days or partiality. That love wants the best for everybody, it has a humour and tends its ways to bliss. It belongs to no one and everyone, it is a quality - the quality that transforms life into something deep and meaningful, the ultimate virtuous circle.
That love passed Byron by. His emotions were essentially selfish, and so he was driven by the duality of attraction and repulsion which reflected in a never ending series of contradictions. Just after his engagement to Annabella he thought - or maybe Hobhouse suggested - he should have his head examined. Literally. He visited a phrenologist who pronounced that the two sides of Byron’s brain were uncommonly incompatible, in fact mutually incompatible. He was at war with himself, did not know if he was a genius or a werewolf, and so it was hardly surprising that he could not be at peace with anyone else and took pleasure in their subsequent suffering.
It is beyond the scope of this book to follow him into exile in the Alps and Italy and then on to death in Greece. His life remains as compelling a story as ever, and it is apt that the story should end in the birthplace of tragedy, of hubris, nemesis and catharsis which stalked him throughout his short life. It has been well observed that the best way Byron could have served the cause of the Greek independence was to die for it, thereby causing not just independence for the wretched Greeks but his own immortality as well.
And immortal he seems to be. He had that one magical, indefinable, unbuyable quality that no one could gainsay: what the self-same ancient Greeks called kharisma, gift of the divine. If sometimes one feels too bilious about Byron the man, a few moments ‘in transport’ alone with Don Juan will settle the stomach - it was written by Byron the poet, and he was someone else altogether.
Thanks and Acknowledgements
The re-Tour is over.
It has been fun, and it owes special thanks to the following people and books, both of which have helped it along the way.
’I am a mighty Scribbler.’ So said the man himself and scribble away he certainly did. It has often been said that Byron was his own best biographer, and indeed his own writings have been the main source material for this book. When one considers that his publisher and friends destroyed a lot of the more contentious material after he died - supposedly to protect his own and others’ reputations - one is tempted to conclude there must have been a whole team of mighty Scribblers, so extensive were his writings.
The best way to access Byron’s writings is through Professor Leslie A. Marchand’s Byron’s Letters & Journals, all thirteen volumes of them. Marchand also wrote a three-volume biography in 1957, and the more accessible Byron: A Portrait in 1971, the book that inspired the re-Tour. On board Vasco da Gama, where space is limited, free internet access to the letters and journals can be found via The Project Gutenberg E-Book of The Works Of Lord Byron, Letters and Journals, edited by Rowland E. Protheroe on www.gutenberg.org. This also has excellent footnotes. Also on Gutenberg, for those with a strong stomach, is Ali Pasha’s biography by Alexandre Dumas the elder.
More recent biographies than Marchand’s are Byron: Life and Legend by Fiona MacCarthy and Byron, Child of Passion, Fool of Fame by Benita Eisler. Both are massive undertakings which are useful for checking facts and dates, but only the former ever really gets under the subject’s skin: the latter is good for knowing where and when he had breakfast without knowing what he had for breakfast, or why or with whom.
I thought it only good form to read the young Byron’s two favourite books: Anastasius by the artist Thomas Hope and Vathek, an Arabian Tale, by his early role model William Beckford. Both books are good ground for Grand Tour atmosphere in general and Byron on Grand Tour atmosphere in particular. Thomas Hope was a slightly earlier Grand Tourist, and his book brings to life the Orient that Byron would have found. Lady Blessington recorded that ‘Lord Byron said he wept bitterly over many pages of it, and for two reasons - first, that he had not written it, and secondly that Hope had written it... a book, as he said, excelling in wit and talent as well as in true pathos.’
For those who want to find out more about Byron in general I can heartily recommend joining the International Byron Society (IBS). This is headquartered in the UK but has national societies and branches in thirty-five countries from Albania to Uruguay. Looking back, I am tempted to conclude I learned more from the local society in each country than from the biographies and all the other books I carted around. In particular I would like to thank Rosa Florou of the Messolonghi branch of the IBS who has built up a wonderful collection of Byron books in the library of Byron House. This is the best single research facility I found and I spent many a happy hour up there looking up and out over the lagoon.
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br /> Among the gems in Messolonghi are Finden’s ‘Illustrations of Byron’, Volumes I to III, published by John Murray, 1833, with their wonderful illustrations of the Grand Tour; Greece in 1800, Engraving of an Era, edited by Miltiades Makriyiannis, Ergo Publishers; His Very Self and Voice by Ernest Lovell, Macmillan, 1954; and Byron and Greece by Harold Spender, John Murray, 1924.
The other first-hand source is of course Byron’s travelling companion John Cam Hobhouse. Hobhouse took extensive daily notes for his diary, and one can see, touch and smell the original in the British Library. It fair sent tingles down my spine to hold the very book that went on the main part of the Grand Tour. He eventually wrote a very much fuller account called A Journey through Albania and other Provinces of Turkey through Europe and Asia to Constantinople in the Years 1809 & 1810. A particularly helpful Hobhouse website is Peter Cochrane’s www.hobby-o.com. This must have been a real labour of love as he edits Hobhouse’s work to make it Byron relevant and then has wonderful footnotes and cross references back to the text.
These sources mentioned above are all about the poet. For the poetry there are any number of editions, and my favourite is Professor Jerome McGann’s Byron: The Major Works; Rosa told me to make sure to use the Oxford edition.
Two BBC presenters have written books that were useful: Jeremy Paxman’s On Royalty was helpful with King Leka I of the Albanians, and Michael Woods’s In Search of Troy was helpful, well, searching for Troy.
Looking across at the bookshelf I can also see that The Accursed Mountains by Robert Carver about Albania is well thumbed, as is Lady Wortley Montagu’s Turkish Embassy Letters. Charlotte Higgins’s It’s All Greek to Me is an enjoyable reunion with Greek gods and myths. Travellers’ Greece, edited by John Tomkinson, was useful for eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Ottoman Greek background. Another little gem is Lord Byron’s Iberian Pilgrimage by Gordon Kent Thomas, published by Brigham Young University Press, 1983. I also tried Edna O’Brien’s Byron in Love but it’s fluff and nonsense and manages to miss the point about Byron and love.
Now, on a more practical level I am especially indebted to Imray Laurie Norie & Wilson Ltd, not for legal advice but for publishing the Imray Pilot series of yachtsmen’s guides to the different waters of the Mediterranean. One should not leave berth without them.
Also useful, when things go wrong (oh boy!), is Nigel Calder’s Boatowners Mechanical and Electrical Manual, and for when you go wrong Tom Cunliffe’s The Complete Yachtmaster tells you how it should have been done.
And lastly, thanks to all the people mentioned in the book for their co-operation and enthusiasm, but above all thanks to Gillian for not hearing the pins drop or the pips squeak.
Index
Abydos, Turkey, 189-91
Acarnania, Greece, 137
Acropolis, Athens, 163-4, 172, 216-18
Acropolis Museum, 224
Actium, Battle of, 101, 134
Adair, Sir Robert, 176, 182, 201-2, 204-5, 208-12, 215
Aegean, The, Greece, 164, 184, 238
Aegeus, King, 175
Ahmet Pristina City Museum, Izmir,
Turkey, 180
Alexander the Great, 162, 174, 186
Algiers, 226
Ali Pasha, 82-3, 86, 88, 92-4, 101, 103, 105-12, 114, 119, 121, 123-7, 133-4, 136-7, 139, 145, 152, 154, 176, 196, 216, 253
Andronicus, 170
Angelos, Mayor of Messolonghi, 151
Anglo-Turkish War, 201
Annesley, Lady, 243
Arraiolos, Portugal, 33
Arta, Greece, 104-5, 134
Athens, Greece, 107, 142, 143, 146, 153, 161-8, 171-3, 175-77, 181, 183, 195, 200, 204, 208, 212-6, 219-224, 226-8, 230, 234-5, 238
Augustina, the ‘Maid of Saragossa’, 40
Badajoz, Spain, 35
Baird, ‘Nick’, 203
Ball, Rear-Admiral Sir Alexander J., 86, 92
Bankes, William, 5
Bar Restaurante Baco, Sevilla, 42
Barbarossa, High Admiral, 134-5
Barbary Coast, 53, 226
Barry, Sir Charles, 200
Bath House of the Winds, Athens, 225
Bathurst Captain, later Admiral, 182, 184, 186, 188, 190, 207, 209-10
Battle of Navarino, 145, 182
Beckford, William, 26-7, 30, 254
Bektashism, 112
Belgrade, Turkey, 205
Bellini, Gentile, 199
Beltrán, Josefa, ‘landlady’ in Sevilla, 41
Beyazit Tower, Istanbul, 197-8
Black Eunuchs at Constantinople, 164
Black, James, 177
Blessington, Lady, 68, 243, 249, 254
Blue Mosque, Istanbul, see Sultan Ahmet
Bonanza, Marqués de, 44-5
Bonaparte, Napoleon, 22, 51, 62, 72, 80-1, 88-90, 94, 126, 140, 145, 152, 246
Borhy, Marcello, 74
Boswell, James, 6
Bride of Abydos, 250
British Council, 222
British Museum, 220, 222, 224
Brodie, Capt, 49
Broughton, Lord, see Hobhouse, John
Cam
Bruce, Michael, 219
Bruin, pet bear, 4
Brunswick, Princess Caroline of, 243
Buenos Ayres Hotel, Lisbon, 11, 24, 25
Bull, Captain, 11
Bulwer Lytton, Edward, 238
Buonaparte, Joseph, King of Naples, 51
Byng, Admiral, 135
Byromania, 239
Byron House, Messolonghi, Greece, 143
Byron, ‘Foulweather Jack’, 82
Byron, George Gordon, Lord
Grand Tour, concept, 1
Birth, 2
Childhood in Aberdeen, 2
Inherits title, 2
Inheritance, 3
Early reading about the Orient, 3
Harrow school, first poetry, 3
Profligate spending at Cambridge, 4
First poetry published, 5
Befriends John Cam Hobhouse, 5
Relationship with Hobhouse, 5-6
Moves to London, 7
Plans Grand Tour, 7
Takes seat in House of Lords, 8
Maiden speech House of Lords, 241
Success of Childe Harold ‘s
Pilgrimage, 242
In society, 243
Incest, 245
Byron, ‘Mad Jack’, 2
Byron, Ada, 249-50
Byron, Frances, 69, 245
Byron, Lady, see Milbanke, Annabella
Cadiz, Spain, 31, 35, 44, 46-50, 54, 56, 163, 208
Café and Bar Daphne, Athens, 218
Cagliari, Sardinia, 61-2, 69-70
Calvi, Corsica, 2, 64
Cambridge University, 4-7, 15, 20, 166, 217, 241
Canning, George, 82, 144, 201
Canning, Stratford, 201-2, 207, 209, 212
Cape Colonna, Greece, 175
Capuchin Monastery, Athens, 216-8
Carey, Captain, Ball’s aide de camp, 92-3, 95
Carlisle, Earl of, 3
Carlo Felice, heir to Sardinian throne, 73
Castri, Greece, 158-9
Chainitza, Ali Pasha’s sister, 121
Chamier, Frederick, 183-4, 186, 188, 196, 207
Charles V, Emperor, 134
Chateaubriand, François-René de, 238
Childe Harold ‘s Pilgrimage, 6, 7, 13, 19, 24, 26-7, 38, 48-9, 65-6, 90-91, 109, 112, 116, 127, 138, 152, 154, 166, 182, 220, 237, 239, 241-2, 250
Cintra, see Sintra
Cochrane, ‘Dauntless’, 82
Codrington, Admiral, 145<
br />
Cohn-Bendit, Daniel, 222
Colletti, Ioannis, 125
Collingwood, Admiral, 51, 55, 81-3
Colovo, Spiridion, 107
Congreve, William, 243
Convent, The, Gibraltar, 52, 55-7
Convention of Cintra, 22, 29
Convention of London, 147
Cordova, Admiral, 48
Cordova, Sennorita (sic), 48, 248
Cornucopia magazine, 206
Corsair, The, 245, 250
Cowper, Lady, 243
Craufurd, General Robert, 22
Craven, Lady, 238
Crimea War, 202
Crisso, Greece, 158
Curse of Minerva, 220, 229
Dardanelles, Turkey, 178, 182, 184-5, 187, 189-91, 199, 201
Darwin, Dr. Francis, 179, 184
Davies, Scrope, 5, 8
Davy, Lady, 243
de la Gravière, Admiral, 135
de Merteuil, Madame, 243
De Pouqueville, François, 238
Delacroix, Eugène, 145
Delphi, Greece, 146, 155-61, 182, 195
Delvinaki, Albania, 116-117, 120
Dervish Tahiri, 134, 149, 179, 187, 213, 214, 228
Dionysius, Athens, 162, 216
Dodwell, Edward, 153
Dolondoracho, Greece, 137
Don Juan, 38, 40, 49, 152, 172, 175, 209-10, 251
Doria, Admiral, 135
Doyle, General, 47
Duff, Don Diego, English Consul in Cadiz, 47
Duke of Marlborough, SV, 11
Dulcigniote, Captain, 134
Duogen, 18-19
Durrell, Lawrence, 169
Dytiki, Greece, 139, 141
Edinburgh Review, 7
Edleston, John, 241
Efendi Princess Adeline-Mae
Osman, 212