—Editor ↩
After having suffered the horrors of hunger and thirst for many days, “they accidentally descried a small turtle floating on the surface of the water asleep.”—“Sufferings of the Crew of the Thomas,” Shipwrecks and Disasters at Sea, p. 356. —Editor ↩
“An indifferent spectator would have been at a loss which most to admire; the eyes of famine sparkling at immediate relief, or the horror of their preservers at the sight of so many spectres, whose ghastly countenances, if the cause had been unknown, would rather have excited terror than pity. Our bodies were nothing but skin and bones, our limbs were full of sores, and we were clothed in rags.”
—Narrative of the Mutiny of the Bounty, by William Bligh, 1790, p. 80
Compare The Siege of Corinth, lines 1048, 1049, Poetical Works, 1900, III 494, note 3. —Editor ↩
“They discovered land right ahead, and steered for it. There being a very heavy surf, they endeavoured to turn the boat’s head to it, which, from weakness, they were unable to accomplish, and soon afterwards the boat upset.”
—“Sufferings of Six Deserters from St. Helena, 1799,” Shipwrecks and Disasters at Sea, 1812, III, 371
—Editor ↩
Compare lines
“Written after swimming from Sestos to Abydos,”
Poetical Works, 1900, III 13, note 1; see, too, Letters, 1898, I 262, 263, note 1. —Editor ↩
Compare—
“How long in that same fit I lay
The Ancient Mariner, Part V lines 393, 394
I have not to declare.”
—Editor ↩
—in short she’s one.
—[MS.]
A set of humbug rascals, when all’s done—
—[MS.]
I’ve seen much finer women, ripe and real,
Than all the nonsense of their d⸺d ideal.
Compare Childe Harold, Canto IV stanza I lines 6–9, Poetical Works, 1899, II 366, note 1. —Editor ↩
Probably that “Alpha and Omega of Beauty,” Lady Adelaide Forbes (daughter of George, sixth Earl of Granard), whom Byron compared to the Apollo Belvidere. See Letters, 1898, II 230, note 3. —Editor ↩
“The saya or basquiña … the outer petticoat … is always black, and is put over the indoor dress on going out.”
Compare Μελανείμονες ἅπαντες τὸ πλέον ἐν σάγοις, Strabo, lib. III ed. 1807, I 210. Ford’s Handbook for Spain, 1855, I 111. —Editor ↩
“When Ajax, Ulysses, and Phoenix stand before Achilles, he rushes forth to greet them, brings them into the tent, directs Patroclus to mix the wine, cuts up the meat, dresses it, and sets it before the ambassadors.”
(Iliad, IX 193, sq.)—Study of the Classics, by H. N. Coleridge, 1830, p. 71
—Editor ↩
And such a bed of furs, and a pelisse.
—[MS.]
—which often spread,
—[MS.]
And come like opening Hell upon the mind,
No “baseless fabric” but “a wrack behind.”
Had e’er escaped more dangers on the deep;—
—[MS.]
And those who are not drowned, at least may sleep.
Entitled “A Narrative of the Honourable John Byron (Commodore in a late expedition round the world), containing an account of the great distresses suffered by himself and his companions on the coast of Patagonia, from the year 1740, till their arrival in England, 1746. Written by Himself,” London, 1768, 40. For the Hon. John Byron, 1723–86, younger brother of William, fifth Lord Byron, see Letters, 1898, I 3. —Editor ↩
Wore for a husband—or some such like brute.
—[MS.]
—although of late
—[MS.]
I’ve changed, for some few years, the day to night.
The second canto of Don Juan was finished in January, 1819, when the Venetian Carnival was at its height. —Editor ↩
Strabo (lib. XVI ed. 1807, p. 1106) gives various explanations of the name, assigning the supposed redness to the refraction of the rays of the vertical sun; or to the shadow of the scorched mountainsides which form its shores; or, as Ctesias would have it, to a certain fountain which discharged red oxide of lead into its waters. “Abyssinian” Bruce had no doubt that “large trees or plants of coral spread everywhere over the bottom,” made the sea “red,” and accounted for the name. But, according to Niebuhr, the Red Sea is the Sea of Edom, which, being interpreted, is “Red.” —Editor ↩
—just the same
—[MS.]
As at this moment I should like to do;—
But I have done with kisses—having kissed
All those that would—regretting those I missed.
Fair as the rose just plucked to crown the wreath,
—[MS.]
Soft as the unfledged birdling when at rest.
Compare Mazeppa, lines 829, sq., Poetical Works, 1901, IV 232. —Editor ↩
That finer melody was never heard,
—[MS.]
The kind of sound whose echo is a tear,
Whose accents are the steps of Music’s throne.1219
Moore, quoting from memory from one of Byron’s MS. journals, says that he speaks of “making earnest love to the younger of his fair hostesses at Seville, with the help of a dictionary.”—Life, p. 93. See, too, letter to his mother, August 11, 1809, Letters, 1898, I 240. —Editor ↩
Pressure of hands, et cetera—or a kiss.
—[MS. Alternative reading]
Italian rather more, having more teachers.
—[MS. erased]
“In 1813 … in the fashionable world of London, of which I then formed an item, a fraction, the segment of a circle, the unit of a
