Goethe died in 1832, Byron at Missolonghi in 1824. ↩
Almost a translation of Virgil, Georgics, 2:490–2. ↩
Edward Qullinian married Wordsworth’s daughter Dora. He died in 1851. ↩
The references are to two poems by Wordsworth, “Michael” and “Ruth.” “The Evening Star” was the name given to Michael’s solitary house from the “constant light” of his lamp, “so regular and so far seen.” ↩
“The Mighty Mother”: Rhea, the mother of the gods. ↩
The story of Sohrab and Rostam is told in Sir John Malcolm’s History of Persia, as follows:—
“The young Sohrab was the fruit of one of Rostam’s early amours. He had left his mother, and sought fame under the banners of Afrasiab, whose armies he commanded; and soon obtained a renown beyond that of all contemporary heroes but his father. He had carried death and dismay into the ranks of the Persians, and had terrified the boldest warriors of that country, before Rostam encountered him, which at last that hero resolved to do under a feigned name. They met three times. The first time, they parted by mutual consent, though Sohrab had the advantage; the second, the youth obtained a victory, but granted life to his unknown father; the third was fatal to Sohrab, who, when writhing in the pangs of death, warned his conqueror to shun the vengeance that is inspired by parental woes, and bade him dread the rage of the mighty Rostam, who must soon learn that he had slain his son Sohrab. These words, we are told, were as death to the aged hero; and when he recovered from a trance, he called in despair for proofs of what Sohrab had said. The afflicted and dying youth tore open his mail, and showed his father a seal which his mother had placed on his arm when she discovered to him the secret of his birth, and bade him seek his father. The sight of his own signet rendered Rostam quite frantic: he cursed himself, attempting to put an end to his existence, and was only prevented by the efforts of his expiring son. After Sohrab’s death, he burnt his tents and all his goods, and carried the corpse to Sistan, where it was interred; the army of Turan was, agreeably to the last request of Sohrab, permitted to cross the Oxus unmolested. To reconcile us to the improbability of this tale, we are informed that Rostam could have no idea his son was in existence. The mother of Sohrab had written to him her child was a daughter, fearing to lose her darling infant if she revealed the truth; and Rostam, as before stated, fought under a feigned name, an usage not uncommon in the chivalrous combats of those days.”
“Sugar’d mulberries”: Arnold says in a letter that his authority for this statement was Burnes (James Burnes, 1801–62, author of Narrative of a Visit to Scinde, 1830). ↩
“There was very lately a lad in the University of Oxford, who was by his poverty forced to leave his studies there; and at last to join himself to a company of vagabond gipsies. Among these extravagant people, by the insinuating subtlety of his carriage, he quickly got so much of their love and esteem as that they discovered to him their mystery. After he had been a pretty while exercised in the trade, there chanced to ride by a couple of scholars, who had formerly been of his acquaintance. They quickly spied out their old friend among the gipsies; and he gave them an account of the necessity which drove him to that kind of life, and told them that the people he went with were not such impostors as they were taken for, but that they had a traditional kind of learning among them, and could do wonders by the power of imagination, their fancy binding that of others: that himself had learned much of their art, and when he had compassed the whole secret, he intended, he said, to leave their company, and give the world an account of what he had learned.”
—Glanvil’s Vanity of Dogmatizing, 1661
These lines perhaps refer to Carlyle. ↩
One of the two daughters of Pandion, king of Attica; Tereus seduced her, feigning that her sister Procne, whom he had married, was dead. The dumb sister is Procne, whose tongue Tereus had cut out. The two sisters revenged themselves by killing Tereus’s son Itys; they then fled and, being overtaken, were changed by the gods into birds, Procne becoming a swallow, Philomela a nightingale. (This is the form of the story chosen by Arnold; another version changes the parts assigned to the two sisters.) ↩
“Baldur the Good having been tormented with terrible dreams, indicating that his life was in great peril, communicated them to the assembled Aesir, who resolved to conjure all things to avert from him the threatened danger. Then Frigga exacted an oath from fire and water, from iron and all other metals, as well as from stones, earths, diseases, beasts, birds, poisons, and creeping things, that none of them would do any harm to Baldur. When this was done, it became a favourite pastime of the Aesir, at their meetings, to get Balder to stand up and serve them as a mark, some hurling darts at him, some stones, while others hewed at him with their swords and battle-axes, for do what they would, none of them could harm him, and this was regarded by all as a great honour shown to Baldur. But when Loki, the son of Laufey, beheld the scene, he was sorely vexed that Baldur was not hurt. Assuming, therefore, the shape of a woman, he went to Fensalir, the
