—Editor ↩
A common furniture. I recollect being received by Ali Pacha, in a large room, paved with marble, containing a marble basin, and fountain playing in the centre, etc., etc.
[Compare Childe Harold, Canto II stanza LXII—
“In marble-paved pavilion, where a spring
Of living water from the centre rose,
Whose bubbling did a genial freshness fling,
And soft voluptuous couches breathed repose,
Ali reclined, a man of war and woes,” etc.]
A reminiscence of Newstead. Compare Moore’s song, “Oft in the Stilly Night”—
“I feel like one
Who treads alone
Some banquet-hall deserted.”
—Editor ↩
A small, snug chamber on a winter’s night,
—[MS.]
Well furnished with a book, friend, girl, or glass, etc.
I pass my days in long dull galleries solely.
—[MS. erased]
When this stanza was written Byron was domiciled in the Palazzo Guiccioli (in the Via di Porta Adriana) at Ravenna; but he may have had in his mind the monks’ refectory at Newstead Abbey, “the dark gallery, where his fathers frowned” (Lara, Canto I line 137), or the corridors which form the upper story of the cloisters. —Editor ↩
“Nabuchodonosor,” here used metri gratiâ, is Latin (see the Vulgate) and French (see J. P. De Béranger, Chansons Inédites, 1828, p. 48) for Nebuchadnezzar. —Editor ↩
See Ovid’s Metamorphoses, lib. IV lines 55–58—
“In Babylon, where first her queen, for state,
Garth
Raised walls of brick magnificently great,
Lived Pyramus and Thisbe, lovely pair!
He found no Eastern youth his equal there,
And she beyond the fairest nymph was fair.”
—Editor ↩
Babylon was enlarged by Nimrod, strengthened and beautified by Nabuchadonosor, and rebuilt by Semiramis.
[Pliny (Nat. Hist., lib. VIII cap. XLII ed. 1593, I 392) cites Juba, King of Mauretania, died AD 19, as his authority for the calumny.] ↩
In an Erratum of her Horse for Courier.
—[MS.]
Queen Caroline—whose trial (August—November, 1820) was proceeding whilst this canto was being written—was charged with having committed adultery with Bartolommeo Bergami, who had been her courier, and was, afterwards, her chamberlain. —Editor ↩
“Memoir on the Ruins of Babylon, by Claudius James Rich, Esq., Resident for the Honourable East India Company at the Court of the Pasha of Bagdad, 1815,” pp. 61–64: Second Memoir on Babylon, … 1818, by Claudius James Rich. See the plates at the end of the volume. —Editor ↩
If they shall not as soon cut off my head.
—[MS.]
A pair of drawers—.
—[MS.]
Compare “Extracts from a Diary,” January 24, 1821, Letters, 1901, V 184. —Editor ↩
Kings are not more imperative than rhymes.
—[MS.]
He looked almost in modesty a maid.
—[MS.]
Features of a gate—a ministerial metaphor: “the feature upon which this question hinges.” See the “Fudge Family,” or hear Castlereagh.
[Phil. Fudge, in his letter to Lord Castlereagh, says—
“As thou would’st say, my guide and teacher
In these gay metaphoric fringes,
I must embark into the feature
On which this letter chiefly hinges.”
Moore’s note adds,
“Verbatim from one of the noble Viscount’s speeches:—‘And now, sir, I must embark into the feature on which this question chiefly hinges.’ ”
—Fudge Family in Paris, Letter II
See, too, post, the Preface to Cantos VI, VII, and VIII, note 2.] ↩
Compare—
“A snake’s small eye blinks dull and sly,
Christabel, Part II lines 583–585
And the lady’s eyes they shrunk in her head,
Each shrunk up to a serpent’s eye.”
—Editor ↩
A few years ago the wile of Muchtar Pacha complained to his father of his son’s supposed infidelity: he asked with whom, and she had the barbarity to give in a list of the twelve handsomest women in Yanina. They were seized, fastened up in sacks, and drowned in the lake the same night. One of the guards who was present informed me, that not one of the victims uttered a cry, or showed a symptom of terror at so sudden a “wrench from all we know, from all we love.”
[See The Giaour, line 1328, Poetical Works, 1900, III 144, note 1.] ↩
As Venus rose from Ocean—bent on them
—[MS.]
With a far-reaching glance, a Paphian pair.
But there are forms which Time adorns, not wears,
—[MS.]
And to which Beauty obstinately clings.
Legend has credited Ninon de Lenclos (1620–1705) with lovers when she had “come to fourscore years.” According to Voltaire, John Casimir, ex-king of Poland, succumbed to her secular charms (see Mazeppa, line 138, Poetical Works, 1901, IV 212, note 1).
“In her old age, her house was the rendezvous of wits and men of letters. Scarron is said to have consulted her on his romances, Saint-Evremond on his poems, Molière on his comedies, Fontenelle on his dialogues, and La Rochefoucauld on his maxims. Coligny, Sévigné, etc., were her lovers and friends. At her death, in 1705, she bequeathed to Voltaire two thousand francs, to expend in books.”
—Biographic Universelle, art. “Lenclos”
—Editor ↩
“Her fair maids were ranged below the sofa, to the number of twenty, and put me in mind of the pictures of the ancient nymphs. I did not think all nature could have furnished
