Lord Byron - Delphi Poets Series

by Lord Byron

  Whate’er the weapon, cudgel, fist, or foil,

  None reach expertness without years of toil; 640

  But fifty dunces can, with perfect ease,

  Tag twenty thousand couplets, when they please.

  Why not? — shall I, thus qualified to sit

  For rotten boroughs, never show my wit?

  Shall I, whose fathers with the “Quorum” sate,

  And lived in freedom on a fair estate;

  Who left me heir, with stables, kennels, packs,

  To ‘all’ their income, and to — ’twice’ its tax;

  Whose form and pedigree have scarce a fault,

  Shall I, I say, suppress my Attic Salt? 650

  Thus think “the Mob of Gentlemen;” but you,

  Besides all this, must have some Genius too.

  Be this your sober judgment, and a rule,

  And print not piping hot from Southey’s school,

  Who (ere another Thalaba appears),

  I trust, will spare us for at least nine years.

  And hark’ye, Southey! pray — but don’t be vexed —

  Burn all your last three works — and half the next.

  But why this vain advice? once published, books

  Can never be recalled — from pastry-cooks! 660

  Though “Madoc,” with “Pucelle,” instead of Punk,

  May travel back to Quito — on a trunk!

  Orpheus, we learn from Ovid and Lempriere,

  Led all wild beasts but Women by the ear;

  And had he fiddled at the present hour,

  We’d seen the Lions waltzing in the Tower;

  And old Amphion, such were minstrels then,

  Had built St. Paul’s without the aid of Wren.

  Verse too was Justice, and the Bards of Greece

  Did more than constables to keep the peace; 670

  Abolished cuckoldom with much applause,

  Called county meetings, and enforced the laws,

  Cut down crown influence with reforming scythes,

  And served the Church — without demanding tithes;

  And hence, throughout all Hellas and the East,

  Each Poet was a Prophet and a Priest,

  Whose old-established Board of Joint Controls

  Included kingdoms in the cure of souls.

  Next rose the martial Homer, Epic’s prince,

  And Fighting’s been in fashion ever since; 680

  And old Tyrtæus, when the Spartans warred,

  (A limping leader, but a lofty bard)

  Though walled Ithome had resisted long,

  Reduced the fortress by the force of song.

  When Oracles prevailed, in times of old,

  In song alone Apollo’s will was told.

  Then if your verse is what all verse should be,

  And Gods were not ashamed on’t, why should we?

  The Muse, like mortal females, may be wooed;

  In turns she’ll seem a Paphian, or a prude; 690

  Fierce as a bride when first she feels affright,

  Mild as the same upon the second night;

  Wild as the wife of Alderman or Peer,

  Now for His Grace, and now a grenadier!

  Her eyes beseem, her heart belies, her zone —

  Ice in a crowd — and Lava when alone.

  If Verse be studied with some show of Art.

  Kind Nature always will perform her part;

  Though without Genius, and a native vein

  Of wit, we loathe an artificial strain, 700

  Yet Art and Nature joined will win the prize,

  Unless they act like us and our allies.

  The youth who trains to ride, or run a race,

  Must bear privations with unruffled face,

  Be called to labour when he thinks to dine,

  And, harder still, leave wenching and his wine.

  Ladies who sing, at least who sing at sight,

  Have followed Music through her farthest flight;

  But rhymers tell you neither more nor less,

  ”I’ve got a pretty poem for the Press;” 710

  And that’s enough; then write and print so fast; —

  If Satan take the hindmost, who’d be last?

  They storm the Types, they publish, one and all,

  They leap the counter, and they leave the stall.

  Provincial Maidens, men of high command,

  Yea! Baronets have inked the bloody hand!

  Cash cannot quell them; Pollio played this prank,

  (Then Phoebus first found credit in a Bank!)

  Not all the living only, but the dead,

  Fool on, as fluent as an Orpheus’ Head; 720

  Damned all their days, they posthumously thrive,

  Dug up from dust, though buried when alive!

  Reviews record this epidemic crime,

  Those Books of Martyrs to the rage for rhyme.

  Alas! woe worth the scribbler! often seen

  In Morning Post, or Monthly Magazine.

  There lurk his earlier lays; but soon, hot pressed,

  Behold a Quarto! — Tarts must tell the rest.

  Then leave, ye wise, the Lyre’s precarious chords

  To muse-mad baronets, or madder lords, 730

  Or country Crispins, now grown somewhat stale,

  Twin Doric minstrels, drunk with Doric ale!

  Hark to those notes, narcotically soft!

  The Cobbler-Laureats sing to Capel Lofft!

  Till, lo! that modern Midas, as he hears,

  Adds an ell growth to his egregious ears!

  There lives one Druid, who prepares in time

  ’Gainst future feuds his poor revenge of rhyme;

  Racks his dull Memory, and his duller Muse,

  To publish faults which Friendship should excuse. 740

  If Friendship’s nothing, Self-regard might teach

  More polished usage of his parts of speech.

  But what is shame, or what is aught to him?

  He vents his spleen, or gratifies his whim.

  Some fancied slight has roused his lurking hate,

  Some folly crossed, some jest, or some debate;

  Up to his den Sir Scribbler hies, and soon

  The gathered gall is voided in Lampoon.

  Perhaps at some pert speech you’ve dared to frown,

  Perhaps your Poem may have pleased the Town: 750

  If so, alas! ‘tis nature in the man —

  May Heaven forgive you, for he never can!

  Then be it so; and may his withering Bays

  Bloom fresh in satire, though they fade in praise

  While his lost songs no more shall steep and stink

  The dullest, fattest weeds on Lethe’s brink,

  But springing upwards from the sluggish mould,

  Be (what they never were before) be — sold!

  Should some rich Bard (but such a monster now,

  In modern Physics, we can scarce allow), 760

  Should some pretending scribbler of the Court,

  Some rhyming Peer — there’s plenty of the sort —

  All but one poor dependent priest withdrawn,

  (Ah! too regardless of his Chaplain’s yawn!)

  Condemn the unlucky Curate to recite

  Their last dramatic work by candle-light,

  How would the preacher turn each rueful leaf,

  Dull as his sermons, but not half so brief!

  Yet, since ‘tis promised at the Rector’s death,

  He’ll risk no living for a little breath. 770

  Then spouts and foams, and cries at every line,

  (The Lord forgive him!) “Bravo! Grand! Divine!”

  Hoarse with those praises (which, by Flatt’ry fed,

  Dependence barters for her bitter bread),

  He strides and stamps along with creaking boot;

 
Till the floor echoes his emphatic foot,

  Then sits again, then rolls his pious eye,

  As when the dying vicar will not die!

  Nor feels, forsooth, emotion at his heart; —

  But all Dissemblers overact their part. 780

  Ye, who aspire to “build the lofty rhyme,”

  Believe not all who laud your false “sublime;”

  But if some friend shall hear your work, and say,

  ”Expunge that stanza, lop that line away,”

  And, after fruitless efforts, you return

  Without amendment, and he answers, “Burn!”

  That instant throw your paper in the fire,

  Ask not his thoughts, or follow his desire;

  But (if true Bard!) you scorn to condescend,

  And will not alter what you can’t defend, 790

  If you will breed this Bastard of your Brains,

  We’ll have no words — I’ve only lost my pains.

  Yet, if you only prize your favourite thought,

  As critics kindly do, and authors ought;

  If your cool friend annoy you now and then,

  And cross whole pages with his plaguy pen;

  No matter, throw your ornaments aside, —

  Better let him than all the world deride.

  Give light to passages too much in shade,

  Nor let a doubt obscure one verse you’ve made; 800

  Your friend’s a “Johnson,” not to leave one word,

  However trifling, which may seem absurd;

  Such erring trifles lead to serious ills,

  And furnish food for critics, or their quills.

  As the Scotch fiddle, with its touching tune,

  Or the sad influence of the angry Moon,

  All men avoid bad writers’ ready tongues,

  As yawning waiters fly Fitzscribble’s lungs;

  Yet on he mouths — ten minutes — tedious each

  As Prelate’s homily, or placeman’s speech; 810

  Long as the last years of a lingering lease,

  When Riot pauses until Rents increase.

  While such a minstrel, muttering fustian, strays

  O’er hedge and ditch, through unfrequented ways,

  If by some chance he walks into a well,

  And shouts for succour with stentorian yell,

  ”A rope! help, Christians, as ye hope for grace!”

  Nor woman, man, nor child will stir a pace;

  For there his carcass he might freely fling,

  From frenzy, or the humour of the thing. 820

  Though this has happened to more Bards than one;

  I’ll tell you Budgell’s story, — and have done.

  Budgell, a rogue and rhymester, for no good,

  (Unless his case be much misunderstood)

  When teased with creditors’ continual claims,

  ”To die like Cato,” leapt into the Thames!

  And therefore be it lawful through the town

  For any Bard to poison, hang, or drown.

  Who saves the intended Suicide receives

  Small thanks from him who loathes the life he leaves; 830

  And, sooth to say, mad poets must not lose

  The Glory of that death they freely choose.

  Nor is it certain that some sorts of verse

  Prick not the Poet’s conscience as a curse;

  Dosed with vile drams on Sunday he was found,

  Or got a child on consecrated ground!

  And hence is haunted with a rhyming rage —

  Feared like a bear just bursting from his cage.

  If free, all fly his versifying fit,

  Fatal at once to Simpleton or Wit: 840

  But ‘him’, unhappy! whom he seizes, — ’him’

  He flays with Recitation limb by limb;

  Probes to the quick where’er he makes his breach,

  And gorges like a Lawyer — or a Leech.

  THE CURSE OF MINERVA.

  — ”Pallas te hoc vulnere, Pallas

  Immolat, et poenam scelerato ex sanguine sumit.”

  Aeneid, lib. xii, 947, 948.

  INTRODUCTION

  ‘The Curse of Minerva’, which was written at Athens, and is dated March 17, 1811, remained unpublished, as a whole, in this country, during Byron’s life-time. The arrangement which had been made with Cawthorn, to bring out a fifth edition of ‘English Bards’, included the issue of a separate volume, containing ‘Hints from Horace’ and ‘The Curse of Minerva;’ and, as Moore intimates, it was the withdrawal of the latter, in deference to the wishes of Lord Elgin or his connections, which led to the suppression of the other satires.

  The quarto edition of The ‘Curse of Minerva’, printed by T. Davison in 1812, was probably set up at the same time as Murray’s quarto edition of ‘Childe Harold’, and reserved for private circulation. With or without Byron’s consent, the poem as a whole was published in Philadelphia by De Silver and Co., 1815, 8vo (for variants, see p. 453, ‘note’). In a letter to Murray, March 6, 1816, he says that he “disowns” ‘The Curse, etc.’, “as stolen and published in a miserable and villainous copy in the magazine.” The reference is to ‘The Malediction of Minerva, or The Athenian Marble-Market’, which appeared in the ‘New Monthly Magazine’ for April, 1818, vol. iii. 240. It numbers 111 lines, and is signed “Steropes” (The Lightner, a Cyclops). The text of the magazine, with the same additional footnotes, but under the title of ‘The Curse’, etc., was republished in the eighth edition of ‘Poems on His Domestic Circumstances’, W. Hone, London, 1816, 8vo, and, thenceforth, in other piratical issues. Whatever may have been his feelings or intentions in 1812, four years later Byron was well aware that ‘The Curse of Minerva’ would not increase his reputation as a poet, while the object of his satire — the exposure and denunciation of Lord Elgin — had been accomplished by the scathing stanzas (canto ii. 10-15), with their accompanying note, in ‘Childe Harold’. “Disown” it as he might, his words were past recall, and both indictments stand in his name.

  Byron was prejudiced against Elgin before he started on his tour. He had, perhaps, glanced at the splendid folio, ‘Specimens of Ancient Sculpture’, which was issued by the Dilettanti Society in 1809. Payne Knight wrote the preface, in which he maintains that the friezes and metopes of the Parthenon were not the actual work of Phidias, “but … architectural studies … probably by workmen scarcely ranked among artists.” So judged the leader of the ‘cognoscenti’, and, in accordance with his views, Elgin and Aberdeen are held up to ridicule in ‘English Bards’ (second edition, October, 1809, 1. 1007, and ‘note’) as credulous and extravagant collectors of “maimed antiques.” It was, however, not till the first visit to Athens (December, 1809-March, 1810), when he saw with his own eyes the “ravages of barbarous and antiquarian despoilers” (Lord Broughton’s ‘Travels in Albania’, 1858, i. 259), that contempt gave way to indignation, and his wrath found vent in the pages of ‘Childe Harold’.

  Byron cared as little for ancient buildings as he did for the authorities, or for patriotic enterprise, but he was stirred to the quick by the marks of fresh and, as he was led to believe, wanton injury to “Athena’s poor remains.” The southern side of the half-wrecked Parthenon had been deprived of its remaining metopes, which had suffered far less from the weather than the other sides which are still in the building; all that remained of the frieze had been stripped from the three sides of the cella, and the eastern pediment had been despoiled of its diminished and mutilated, but still splendid, group of figures; and, though five or six years had gone by, the blank spaces between the triglyphs must have revealed their recent exposure to the light, and the shattered edges of the cornice, which here and there had been raised and demolished to permit the dislodgment of the metopes, must have caught the eye as they sparkled in the sun. Nor had the removal and deportation of friezes and statues come to an end. The firman which Dr. Hunt, the chaplain
to the embassy, had obtained in 1801, which empowered Elgin and his agents to take away ‘qualche pezzi di pietra’, still ran, and Don Tita Lusieri, the Italian artist, who remained in Elgin’s service, was still, like the ‘canes venatici’ (Americané, “smell-dogs”) employed by Verres in Sicily (see ‘Childe Harold’, canto ii. st. 12, ‘note’), finding fresh relics, and still bewailing to sympathetic travellers the hard fate which compelled him to despoil the temples ‘malgré lui’. The feelings of the inhabitants themselves were not much in question, but their opinions were quoted for and against the removal of the marbles. Elgin’s secretary and prime agent, W.R. Hamilton, testifies, from personal knowledge, that, “so far from exciting any unpleasant sensations, the people seemed to feel it as the means of bringing foreigners into the country, and of having money spent there” (‘Memoir on the Earl of Elgin’s Pursuits in Greece’, 1811). On the other hand, the traveller, Edward Daniel Clarke, with whom Byron corresponded (see ‘Childe Harold’, canto ii. st. 12, ‘note’), speaks of the attachment of the Turks to the Parthenon, and their religious veneration for the building as a mosque, and tells a pathetic story of the grief of the Disdar when “a metope was lowered, and the adjacent masonry scattered its white fragments with thundering noise among the ruins” (‘Travels in Various Countries’, part ii, sect. ii, p. 483).

  Other travellers of less authority than Clarke — Dodwell, for instance, who visited the Parthenon before it had been dismantled, and, afterwards, was present at the removal of metopes; and Hughes, who came after Byron (autumn, 1813) — make use of such phrases as “shattered desolation,” “wanton devastation and avidity of plunder.” Even Michaelis, the great archaeologist, who denounces ‘The Curse of Minerva’ as a “‘libellous’ poem,” and affirms “that only blind passion could doubt that Lord Elgin’s act was an act of preservation,” admits that “the removal of several metopes and of the statue from the Erechtheion had severely injured the surrounding architecture” (‘Ancient Marbles in Great Britain’, by A. Michaelis, translated by C.A.M. Fennell, 1882, p. 135). Highly coloured and emotional as some of these phrases may be, they explain, if they do not justify, the ‘sæva indignatio’ of Byron’s satire.

  It is almost, if not quite, unnecessary to state the facts on the other side. History regards Lord Elgin as a disinterested official, who at personal loss (at least thirty-five thousand pounds on his own showing), and in spite of opposition and disparagement, secured for his own country and the furtherance of art the perishable fragments of Phidian workmanship, which, but for his intervention, might have perished altogether. If they had eluded the clutches of Turkish mason and Greek dealer in antiquities — if, by some happy chance, they had escaped the ravages of war, the gradual but gradually increasing assaults of rain and frost would have already left their effacing scars on the “Elgin marbles.” As it is, the progress of decay has been arrested, and all the world is the gainer. Byron was neither a prophet nor an archaeologist, and time and knowledge have put him in the wrong. But in 1810 the gaps in the entablature of the Parthenon were new, the Phidian marbles were huddled in a “damp dirty penthouse” in Park Lane (see ‘Life of Haydon’, i. 84), and the logic of events had not justified a sad necessity.