The Norton Anthology of English literature. Volume 2

Instantly he seized his horse's bridle, and with cautious steps advanced towards it. After a painful march he was stopt by a moated ditch surrounding the place from whence the light proceeded; and by a momentary glimpse of moon-light he had a full view of a large antique mansion, with turrets at the corners, and an ample porch in the centre. The injuries of time were strongly marked on every thing about it. The roof in various places was fallen in, the battlements were half demolished, and the windows broken and dismantled. A drawbridge, with a ruinous gateway at each end, led to the court before the building�He entered, and instantly the light, which proceeded from a window in one of the turrets, glided along and vanished; at the same moment the moon sunk beneath a black cloud, and the night was darker than ever. All was silent�Sir Bertrand fastened his steed under a shed, and approaching the house traversed its whole front with light and slow footsteps�All was still as death�He looked in at the lower windows, but could not distinguish a single object through the impenetrable gloom. After a short parley with himself, he entered the porch, and seizing a massy iron knocker at the gate, lifted it up, and hesitating, at length struck a loud stroke. The noise resounded through the whole mansion with hollow echoes. All was still again�He repeated the strokes more boldly and louder�another interval of silence ensued�A third time he knocked, and a third time all was still. He then fell back to some distance that he might discern whether any light could be seen in the whole front�It again appeared in the same place and quickly glided away as before� at the same instant a deep sullen toll sounded from the turret. Sir Bertrand's heart made a fearful stop�He was a while motionless; then terror impelled him to make some hasty steps towards his steed�but shame stopt his flight; and urged by honour, and a resistless desire of finishing the adventure, he returned to the porch; and working up his soul to a full steadiness of resolution, he drew forth his sword with one hand, and with the other lifted up the latch of the gate. The heavy door, creaking upon its hinges, reluctantly yielded to his hand�he applied his shoulder to it and forced it open�he quitted it

8. I.e., wolds: open, elevated ground.

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and stept forward�the door instantly shut with a thundering clap. Sir Bertrand's blood was chilled�he turned back to find the door, and it was long ere his trembling hands could seize it�but his utmost strength could not open it again. After several ineffectual attempts, he looked behind him, and beheld, across a hall, upon a large staircase, a pale bluish flame which cast a dismal gleam of light around. He again summoned forth his courage and advanced towards it�It retired. He came to the foot of the stairs, and after a moment's deliberation ascended. He went slowly up, the flame retiring before him, till he came to a wide gallery�The flame proceeded along it, and he followed in silent horror, treading lightly, for the echoes of his footsteps startled him. It led him to the foot of another staircase, and then vanished�At the same instant another toll sounded from the turret�Sir Bertrand felt it strike upon his heart. He was now in total darkness, and with his arms extended, began to ascend the second staircase. A dead cold hand met his left hand and firmly grasped it, drawing him forcibly forwards�he endeavoured to disengage himself, but could not�he made a furious blow with his sword, and instantly a loud shriek pierced his ears, and the dead hand was left powerless in his�He dropt it, and rushed forwards with a desperate valour. The stairs were narrow and winding, and interrupted by frequent breaches, and loose fragments of stone. The staircase grew narrower and narrower and at length terminated in a low iron grate. Sir Bertrand pushed it open�it led to an intricate winding passage, just large enough to admit a person upon his hands and knees. A faint glimmering of light served to show the nature of the place. Sir Bertrand entered�A deep hollow groan resounded from a distance through the vault� He went forwards, and proceeding beyond the first turning, he discerned the same blue flame which had before conducted him. He followed it. The vault, at length, suddenly opened into a lofty gallery, in the midst of which a figure appeared, compleatly armed, thrusting forwards the bloody stump of an arm, with a terrible frown and menacing gesture, and brandishing a sword in his hand. Sir Bertrand undauntedly sprung forwards; and aiming a fierce blow at the figure, it instantly vanished, letting fall a massy iron key. The flame now rested upon a pair of ample folding doors at the end of the gallery. Sir Bertrand went up to it, and applied the key to a brazen lock�with difficulty he turned the bolt�instantly the doors flew open, and discovered a large apartment, at the end of which was a coffin rested upon a bier, with a taper burning on each side of it. Along the room on both sides were gigantic statues of black marble, attired in the Moorish habit, and holding enormous sabres in their right hands. Each of them reared his arm, and advanced one leg forwards, as the knight entered; at the same moment the lid of the coffin flew open, and the bell tolled. The flame still glided forwards, and Sir Bertrand resolutely followed, till he arrived within six paces of the coffin. Suddenly, a lady in a shrowd and black veil rose up in it, and stretched out her arms towards him�at the same time the statues clashed their sabres and advanced. Sir Bertrand flew to the lady and clasped her in his arms-�she threw up her veil and kissed his lips; and instantly the whole building shook as with an earthquake, and fell asunder with a horrible crash. Sir Bertrand was thrown into a sudden trance, and on recovering, found himself seated on a velvet sofa, in the most magnificent room he had ever seen, lighted with innumerable tapers, in lustres of pure crystal. A sumptuous banquet was set in the middle. The doors opening to soft music, a lady of incomparable beauty, attired with amazing splendour entered,

surrounded by a troop of gay nymphs far more fair than the Graces�She

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BECJOFORD: VATHEK / 58 7

advanced to the knight, and falling on her knees thanked him as her deliverer. The nymphs placed a garland of laurel on his head, and the lady led him by the hand to the banquet, and sat beside him. The nymphs placed themselves at the table, and a numerous train of servants entering, served up the feast; delicious music playing all the time. Sir Bertrand could not speak for astonishment� he could only return their honours by courteous looks and gestures. After the banquet was finished, all retired but the lady, who leading back the knight to the sofa, addressed him in these words:�9

1773

9. The fragment ends here. WILLIAM BECKFORD

Beckford's Vathek is regularly mentioned in discussions of Gothic romance, though its setting is Arabian rather than European, and its exquisitely detailed architecture is futuristic rather than imitation medieval. It also has more incongruity of tone� suppressed comedy along with melodramatic high-seriousness�than the other works included in this section; it is Gothic, that is, in the way The Rocky Horror Picture Show is Gothic. Vathek was written in French�"at a single sitting of three days and two nights," according to the Dictionary of National Biography�and then published in English translation as An Arabian Tale, from an Unpublished Manuscript (1786). Byron was an enthusiastic admirer, drawing on the book extensively for his Eastern tale The Giaour (1813).

Besides Vathek, Beckford (1760�1844) was known in his time for building one of the most extraordinary and eccentric structures in the history of architecture: Fonthill Abbey, Beckford's Gothic palace, which he furnished with rare books; medieval, Islamic, and East Asian art; and other curiosities. Beckford endowed the Caliph Vathek with his own zeal for collecting, making him another connoisseur of the strange, as well as a tyrant who puts people, even little children, to death at the slightest whim. Sated with even these unorthodox pleasures, Vathek sets out in the course of Beckford's tale to find the city of Istakhar and "the treasures of the preadamite Sultans." In the extract we have selected from the final pages, he and his favorite companion, Nouronihar, daughter of the emir Fakreddin, arrive at the mountains surrounding Istakhar and, with the guidance of the Giaour (an evil magician), enter the underground realm of Eblis, prince of darkness. They achieve their quest but are doomed to suffer the agony of eternally burning hearts and, what seems even worse, the cessation of communion with anything outside their separate selves.

For discussion of the exotic geography of Beckford's fantasy, see "Bomantic Orientalism" at Norton Literature Online.

From Vathek

A deathlike stillness reigned over the mountain, and through the air. The moon dilated, on a vast platform, the shades of the lofty columns, which reached from the terrace almost to the clouds. The gloomy watch-towers, whose numbers could not be counted, were veiled by no roof; and their capitals, of an

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588 / THE GOTHIC

architecture unknown in the records of the earth, served as an asylum for the birds of darkness, which, alarmed at the approach of such visitants, fled away croaking.

The Chief of the Eunuchs, trembling with fear, besought Vathek that a fire might be kindled. "No!" replied he, "there is no time left to think of such trifles: abide where thou art, and expect my commands." Having thus spoken, he presented his hand to Nouronihar; and, ascending the steps of a vast staircase, reached the terrace, which was flagged with squares of marble, and resembled a smooth expanse of water, upon whose surface not a leaf ever dared to vegetate. On the right rose the watch-towers, ranged before the ruins of an immense palace, whose walls were embossed with various figures. In front stood forth the colossal forms of four creatures, composed of the leopard and the griffin; and, though but of stone, inspired emotions of terror. Near these were distinguished, by the splendour of the moon, which streamed full on the place, characters like those on the sabres of the Giaour, that possessed the same virtue of changing every moment. These, after vacillating for some time, at last fixed in Arabic letters, and prescribed to the Caliph the following words:

"Vathek! thou hast violated the conditions of my parchment, and deservest to be sent back; but, in favour to thy companion, and as the meed for what thou hast done to obtain it, Eblis permitteth that the portal of his palace shall be opened, and the subterranean fire will receive thee into the number of its adorers."

He scarcely had read these words before the mountain, against which the terrace was reared, trembled; and the watch-towers were ready to topple headlong upon them. The rock yawned, and disclosed within it a stair-case of polished marble that seemed to approach the abyss. Upon each stair were planted two large torches, like those Nouronihar had seen in her vision, the camphorated vapour ascending from which gathered into a cloud under the hollow of the vault.

This appearance, instead of terrifying, gave new courage to the daughter of Fakreddin. Scarcely deigning to bid adieu to the moon and the firmament, she abandoned without hesitation the pure atmosphere, to plunge into these infernal exhalations. The gait of those impious personages was haughty and determined. As they descended, by the effulgence of the torches, they gazed on each other with mutual admiration; and both appeared so resplendent that they already esteemed themselves spiritual Intelligences.1 The only circumstance that perplexed them was their not arriving at the bottom of the stairs. On hastening their descent with an ardent impetuosity, they felt their steps accelerated to such a degree that they seemed not walking, but falling from a precipice. Their progress, however, was at length impeded by a vast portal of ebony, which the Caliph, without difficulty, recognized. Here the Giaour awaited them, with the key in his hand. "Ye are welcome!" said he to them, with a ghastly smile, "in spite of Mahomet, and all his dependents. I will now admit you into that palace where you have so highly merited a place." Whilst he was uttering these words, he touched the enameled lock with his key; and the doors at once expanded, with a noise still louder than the thunder of mountains, and as suddenly recoiled the moment they had entered.

The Caliph and Nouronihar beheld each other with amazement, at finding themselves in a place which, though roofed with a vaulted ceiling, was so

1. Angels.

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BECJOFORD: VATHEK / 58 9

spacious and lofty that at first they took it for an immeasurable plain. But their eyes at length growing familiar to the grandeur of the objects at hand, they extended their view to those at a distance, and discovered rows of columns and arcades, which gradually diminished, till they terminated in a point, radiant as the sun, when he darts his last beams athwart the ocean. The pavement, strewed over with gold dust and saffron, exhaled so subtle an odour as almost overpowered them. They, however, went on, and observed an infinity of censers, in which ambergris2 and the wood of aloes were continually burning. Between the several columns were placed tables, each spread with a profusion of viands, and wines of every species, sparkling in vases of crystal. A throng of Genii, and other fantastic spirits, of each sex danced lasciviously in troops, at the sound of music which issued from beneath.

In the midst of this immense hall, a vast multitude was incessantly passing, who severally kept their right hands on their hearts, without once regarding anything around them. They had, all, the livid paleness of death. Their eyes, deep sunk in their sockets, resembled those phosphoric meteors that glimmer by night in places of interment. Some stalked slowly on, absorbed in profound reverie; some, shrieking with agony, ran furiously about, like tigers wounded with poisoned arrows; whilst others, grinding their teeth in rage, foamed along, more frantic than the wildest maniac. They all avoided each other; and, though surrounded by a multitude that no one could number, each wandered at random, unheedful of the rest, as if alone on a desert which no foot had trodden.

Vathek and Nouronihar, frozen with terror at a sight so baleful, demanded of the Giaour what these appearances might mean, and why these ambulating spectres never withdrew their hands from their hearts. "Perplex not yourselves," replied he bluntly, "with so much at once; you will soon be acquainted with all: let us haste, and present you to Eblis." They continued their way through the multitude; but, notwithstanding their confidence at first, they were not sufficiently composed to examine, with attention, the various perspectives of halls and of galleries that opened on the right hand and left, which were all illuminated by torches and braziers, whose flames rose in pyramids to the centre of the vault. At length they came to a place where long curtains, brocaded with crimson and gold, fell from all parts in striking confusion. Here the choirs and dances were heard no longer. The light which glimmered came from afar.

After some time, Vathek and Nouronihar perceived a gleam brightening through the drapery, and entered a vast tabernacle, carpeted with the skins of leopards. An infinity of Elders with streaming beards, and Afrits3 in complete armour, had prostrated themselves before the ascent of a lofty eminence, on the top of which, upon a globe of fire, sat the formidable Eblis. His person was that of a young man, whose noble and regular features seemed to have been tarnished by malignant vapours. In his large eyes appeared both pride and despair: his flowing hair retained some resemblance to that of an angel of light. In his hand, which thunder had blasted, he swayed the iron sceptre that causes the monster Ouranabad, the Afrits, and all the Powers of the abyss to tremble. At his presence, the heart of the Caliph sunk within him; and, for the first time, he fell prostrate on his face. Nouronihar, however, though greatly dismayed, could not help admiring the person of Ebbs: for she expected

2. The musky secretion of the sperm whale, val-3. Demons of Islamic legend. ued for its perfume.

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to have seen some stupendous Giant. Eblis, with a voice more mild than might be imagined, but such as transfused through the soul the deepest melancholy, said: "Creatures of clay, I receive you into mine empire: ye are numbered amongst my adorers: enjoy whatever this palace affords: the treasures of the pre-adamite Sultans, their bickering sabres, and those talismans that compel the Dives4 to open the subterranean expanses of the mountain of Kaf, which communicate with these. There, insatiable as your curiosity may be, shall you find sufficient to gratify it. You shall possess the exclusive privilege of entering the fortress of Aherman,5 and the halls of Argenk, where are portrayed all creatures endowed with intelligence, and the various animals that inhabited that earth prior to the creation of that contemptible being, whom ye denominate the Father of Mankind."6

Vathek and Nouronihar, feeling themselves revived and encouraged by this harangue, eagerly said to the Giaour: "Bring us instantly to the place which contains these precious talismans."�"Come!" answered this wicked Dive, with his malignant grin, "come! and possess all that my Sovereign hath promised, and more." He then conducted them into a long aisle adjoining the tabernacle, preceding them with hasty steps, and followed by his disciples with the utmost alacrity. They reached, at length, a hall of great extent, and covered with a lofty dome, around which appeared fifty portals of bronze, secured with as many fastenings of iron. A funereal gloom prevailed over the whole scene. Here, upon two beds of incorruptible cedar, lay recumbent the fleshless forms of the Pre-adamite Kings, who had been monarchs of the whole earth. They still possessed enough of life to be conscious of their deplorable condition. Their eyes retained a melancholy motion: they regarded each other with looks of the deepest dejection, each holding his right hand, motionless, on his heart. At their feet were inscribed the events of their several reigns, their power, their pride, and their crimes: Soliman Raad, Soliman Daki, and Soliman Di Gian Ben Gian, who, after having chained up the Dives in the dark caverns of Kaf, became so presumptuous as to doubt of the Supreme Power. All these maintained great state, though not to be compared with the eminence of Soliman Ben Daoud.

This King, so renowned for his wisdom, was on the loftiest elevation, and placed immediately under the dome. He appeared to possess more animation than the rest. Though from time to time he laboured with profound sighs, and, like his companions, kept his right hand on his heart, yet his countenance was more composed; and he seemed to be listening to the sullen roar of a vast cataract, visible in part through the grated portals. This was the only sound that intruded on the silence of these doleful mansions. A range of brazen vases surrounded this elevation. "Remove the covers from these cabalistic depositaries," said the Giaour to Vathek, "and avail thyself of the talismans, which will break asunder all these gates of bronze, and not only render thee master of the treasures contained within them, but also of the Spirits by which they are guarded."

The Caliph, whom this ominous preliminary had entirely disconcerted, approached the vases with faltering footsteps, and was ready to sink with terror when he heard the groans of Soliman. As he proceeded, a voice from the livid lips of the Prophet articulated these words: "In my life-time, I filled a magnif

4. Persian term for giants. the name for the principle of evil. 5. In the Zoroastrian theology of ancient Persia, 6. I.e., Adam.

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BECJOFORD: VATHEK / 59 1

icent throne, having on my right hand twelve thousand seats of gold, where the Patriarchs and the Prophets heard my doctrines: on my left the Sages and Doctors, upon as many thrones of silver, were present at all my decisions. Whilst I thus administered justice to innumerable multitudes, the birds of the air, librating7 over me, served as a canopy from the rays of the sun. My people flourished; and my palace rose to the clouds. I erected a temple to the Most High, which was the wonder of the universe: but I basely suffered myself to be seduced by the love of women, and a curiosity that could not be restrained by sublunary things. I listened to the counsels of Aherman and the daughter of Pharaoh, and adored fire and the hosts of heaven. I forsook the holy city, and commanded the Genii to rear the stupendous palace of Istakhar, and the terrace of the watch-towers, each of which was consecrated to a star. There, for a while, I enjoyed myself, in the zenith of glory and pleasure. Not only men, but supernatural Existences were subject also to my will. I began to think, as these unhappy monarchs around had already thought, that the vengeance of Heaven was asleep; when at once the thunder burst my structures asunder, and precipitated me hither: where, however, I do not remain, like the other inhabitants, totally destitute of hope; for an angel of light hath revealed that, in consideration of the piety of my early youth, my woes shall come to an end when this cataract shall for ever cease to flow. Till then, I am in torments, ineffable torments! an unrelenting fire preys on my heart."

Having uttered this exclamation, Soliman raised his hands towards heaven, in token of supplication; and the Caliph discerned through his bosom, which was transparent as crystal, his heart enveloped in flames. At a sight so full of horror Nouronihar fell back, like one petrified, into the arms of Vathek, who cried out with a convulsive sob: "O Giaour! whither hast thou brought us? Allow us to depart, and I will relinquish all thou hast promised. O Mahomet! remains there no more mercy?"�"None! none!" replied the malicious Dive. "Know, miserable Prince! thou art now in the abode of vengeance and despair. Thy heart also will be kindled, like those of the other votaries of Eblis. A few days are allotted thee, previous to this fatal period: employ them as thou wilt: recline on these heaps of gold: command the Infernal Potentates: range, at thy pleasure, through these immense subterranean domains: no barrier shall be shut against thee. As for me, I have fulfilled my mission: I now leave thee to thyself." At these words, he vanished.

The Caliph and Nouronihar remained in the most abject affliction. Their tears unable to flow, scarcely could they support themselves. At length, taking each other despondingly by the hand, they went faltering from this fatal hall, indifferent which way they turned their steps. Every portal opened at their approach. The Dives fell prostrate before them. Every reservoir of riches was disclosed to their view: but they no longer felt the incentives of curiosity, pride, or avarice. With like apathy they heard the chorus of Genii, and saw the stately banquets prepared to regale them. They went wandering on, from chamber to chamber, hall to hall, and gallery to gallery, all without bounds or limit, all distinguishable by the same lowering gloom, all adorned with the same awful grandeur, all traversed by persons in search of repose and consolation, but who sought them in vain; for every one carried within him a heart tormented in flames. Shunned by these various sufferers, who seemed, by their looks, to be upbraiding the partners of their guilt, they withdrew from them, to wait in

7. Hovering.

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59 2 / THE GOTHIC

direful suspense the moment which should render them to each other the like objects of terror.

1786

ANN RADCLIFFE

The "Great Enchantress," Radcliffe (1764-1823) published five novels between 1789 and 1797 and a sixth posthumously in 1826, most of them tremendously popular and influential on other writers for long afterward. She shunned fame and lived in seclusion; so little was known of her that, seeking to explain the long interval between The Italian in 1797 and Gaston de Blondeville in 1826, contemporaries gossiped that Radcliffe had at last gone mad from too much imagining and had spent her final decades confined in an asylum. The rumor was without basis, but the fate it assigned to Radcliffe is the fate most feared by her heroines, who cling valiantly to reason, but who are plunged into worlds of nightmarish mystery where nothing is as it seems and where reason, at least initially, does not get them very far. A Radcliffean heroine, like Radcliffe's reader, is kept on the rack of suspense by a succession of inexplicable sights and sounds that tempt her to believe that supernatural events really do happen. The ancient castle in which she is confined, the site of these mysteries, is often located in some wilderness that the forces of law have abandoned and that has become the haunt of mercenary soldiers and picaresque bandits. For all its strangeness, however, this place frequently turns out to be a version of the heroine's long-lost home, just as her tyrannical persecutors turn out to be closely allied with the fathers, uncles, and priests who are supposed to be a young lady's protectors.

Our first extract is taken from Radcliffe's third novel, The Romance of the Forest (1791). In this episode, later remembered by Jane Austen as she recounted the story of the first eventful night that Catherine Morland spends as a guest at Northanger Abbey, the orphaned Adeline sets out, detectivelike, to solve a mystery. The second extract is from Radcliffe's masterpiece, The Mysteries of Udolpho (1794), one of her signature pieces of dreamy landscape description, representing Emily St. Aubert's reactions as she and her villainous guardian Montoni approach his castle high in the Italian Appenines.

From The Romance of the Forest

From Cha-pter 8

Adeline retired early to her room, which adjoined on one side to Madame La Motte's, and on the other to the closet formerly mentioned. It was spacious and lofty, and what little furniture it contained was falling to decay; but, perhaps, the present tone of her spirits might contribute more than these circumstances to give that air of melancholy which seemed to reign in it. She was unwilling to go to bed, lest the dreams that had lately pursued her should return; and determined to sit up till she found herself oppressed by sleep, when it was probable her rest would be profound. She placed the light on a small table, and, taking a book, continued to read for above an hour, till her mind refused any longer to abstract itself from its own cares, and she sat for some time leaning pensively on her arm.

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RADCLIFFE: THE ROMANCE OF THE FOREST / 59 3

The wind was high, and as it whistled through the desolate apartment, and shook the feeble doors, she often started, and sometimes even thought she heard sighs between the pauses of the gust; but she checked these illusions, which the hour of the night and her own melancholy imagination conspired to raise. As she sat musing, her eyes fixed on the opposite wall, she perceived the arras, with which the room was hung, wave backwards and forwards; she continued to observe it for some minutes, and then rose to examine it farther. It was moved by the wind; and she blushed at the momentary fear it had excited: but she observed that the tapestry was more strongly agitated in one particular place than elsewhere, and a noise that seemed something more than that of the wind issued thence. The old bedstead, which La Motte had found in this apartment, had been removed to accommodate Adeline, and it was behind the place where this had stood that the wind seemed to rush with particular force: curiosity prompted her to examine still farther; she felt about the tapestry, and perceiving the wall behind shake under her hand, she lifted the arras, and discovered a small door, whose loosened hinges admitted the wind, and occasioned the noise she had heard.

The door was held only by a bolt, having undrawn which, and brought the light, she descended by a few steps into another chamber: she instantly remembered her dreams. The chamber was not much like that in which she had seen the dying Chevalier, and afterwards the bier; but it gave her a confused remembrance of one through which she had passed. Holding up the light to examine it more fully, she was convinced by its structure that it was part of the ancient foundation. A shattered casement, placed high from the floor, seemed to be the only opening to admit light. She observed a door on the opposite side of the apartment; and after some moments of hesitation, gained courage, and determined to pursue the inquiry. "A mystery seems to hang over these chambers," said she, "which it is, perhaps, my lot to develope;1 I will, at least, see to what that door leads."

She stepped forward, and having unclosed it, proceeded with faltering steps along a suite of apartments resembling the first in style and condition, and terminating in one exactly like that where her dream had represented the dying person; the remembrance struck so forcibly upon her imagination that she was in danger of fainting; and looking round the room, almost expected to see the phantom of her dream.

Unable to quit the place, she sat down on some old lumber2 to recover herself, while her spirits were nearly overcome by a superstitious dread, such as she had never felt before. She wondered to what part of the abbey these chambers belonged, and that they had so long escaped detection. The casements were all too high to afford any information from without. When she was sufficiently composed to consider the direction of the rooms, and the situation of the abbey, there appeared not a doubt that they formed an interior part of the original building.

As these reflections passed over her mind, a sudden gleam of moonlight fell upon some object without the casement. Being now sufficiently composed to wish to pursue the inquiry, and believing this object might afford her some means of learning the situation of these rooms, she combated her remaining terrors, and, in order to distinguish it more clearly, removed the light to an outer chamber; but before she could return, a heavy cloud was driven over the

1. Unfold, reveal. 2. Disused furniture and the like.

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face of the moon, and all without was perfectly dark: she stood for some moments waiting a returning gleam, but the obscurity continued. As she went softly back for the light, her foot stumbled over something on the floor, and while she stooped to examine it, the moon again shone, so that she could distinguish, through the casement, the eastern towers of the abbey. This discovery confirmed her former conjectures concerning the interior situation of these apartments. The obscurity of the place prevented her discovering what it was that had impeded her steps, but having brought the light forward, she perceived on the floor an old dagger: with a trembling hand she took it up, and upon a closer view perceived that it was spotted and stained with rust.

Shocked and surprised, she looked round the room for some object that might confirm or destroy the dreadful suspicion which now rushed upon her mind; but she saw only a great chair, with broken arms, that stood in one corner of the room, and a table in a condition equally shattered, except that in another part lay a confused heap of things, which appeared to be old lumber. She went up to it, and perceived a broken bedstead, with some decayed remnants of furniture, covered with dust and cobwebs, and which seemed, indeed, as if they had not been moved for many years. Desirous, however, of examining farther, she attempted to raise what appeared to have been part of the bedstead, but it slipped from her hand, and, rolling to the floor, brought with it some of the remaining lumber. Adeline started aside and saved herself, and when the noise it made had ceased, she heard a small rustling sound, and as she was about to leave the chamber, saw something falling gently among the lumber.

It was a small roll of paper, tied with a string, and covered with dust. Adeline took it up, and on opening it perceived an handwriting. She attempted to read it, but the part of the manuscript she looked at was so much obliterated that she found this difficult, though what few words were legible impressed her with curiosity and terror, and induced her to return immediately to her chamber.

1791

From The Mysteries of Udolpho

From Volume 2, Chapter 5

Towards the close of day, the road wound into a deep valley. Mountains, whose shaggy steeps appeared to be inaccessible, almost surrounded it. To the east, a vista opened, that exhibited the Apennines in their darkest horrors; and the long perspective of retiring summits, rising over each other, their ridges clothed with pines, exhibited a stronger image of grandeur, than any that Emily had yet seen. The sun had just sunk below the top of the mountains she was descending, whose long shadow stretched athwart the valley, but his sloping rays, shooting through an opening of the cliffs, touched with a yellow gleam the summits of the forest, that hung upon the opposite steeps, and streamed in full splendour upon the towers and battlements of a castle, that spread its extensive ramparts along the brow of a precipice above. The splendour of these illumined objects was heightened by the contrasted shade, which involved the valley below.

"There," said Montoni, speaking for the first time in several hours, "is

Udolpho."

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Emily gazed with melancholy awe upon the castle, which she understood to be Montoni's; for, though it was now lighted up by the setting sun, the gothic greatness of its features, and its mouldering walls of dark grey stone, rendered it a gloomy and sublime object. As she gazed, the light died away on its walls, leaving a melancholy purple tint, which spread deeper and deeper, as the thin vapour crept up the mountain, while the battlements above were still tipped with splendour. From those too, the rays soon faded, and the whole edifice was invested with the solemn duskiness of evening. Silent, lonely and sublime, it seemed to stand the sovereign of the scene, and to frown defiance on all who dared to invade its solitary reign. As the twilight deepened, its features became more awful in obscurity, and Emily continued to gaze, till its clustering towers were alone seen, rising over the tops of the woods, beneath whose thick shade the carriages soon after began to ascend.

The extent and darkness of these tall woods awakened terrific images in her mind, and she almost expected to see banditti start up from under the trees. At length, the carriages emerged upon a heathy rock, and, soon after, reached the castle gates, where the deep tone of the portal bell, which was struck upon to give notice of their arrival, increased the fearful emotions that had assailed Emily. While they waited till the servant within should come to open the gates, she anxiously surveyed the edifice: but the gloom that overspread it allowed her to distinguish little more than a part of its outline, with the massy walls of the ramparts, and to know that it was vast, ancient and dreary. From the parts she saw, she judged of the heavy strength and extent of the whole. The gateway before her, leading into the courts, was of gigantic size, and was defended by two round towers, crowned by overhanging turrets, embattled, where instead of banners, now waved long grass and wild plants, that had taken root among the mouldering stones, and which seemed to sigh, as the breeze rolled past, over the desolation around them. The towers were united by a curtain, pierced and embattled also, below which appeared the pointed arch of an huge portcullis, surmounting the gates: from these, the walls of the ramparts extended to other towers, overlooking the precipice, whose shattered outline, appearing on a gleam that lingered in the west, told of the ravages of war.�Beyond these all was lost in the obscurity of evening.

While Emily gazed with awe upon the scene, footsteps were heard within the gates, and the undrawing of the bolts; after which an ancient servant of the castle appeared, forcing back the huge folds of the portal, to admit his lord. As the carriage-wheels rolled heavily under the portcullis, Emily's heart sunk, and she seemed as if she was going into her prison; the gloomy court into which she passed served to confirm the idea, and her imagination, ever awake to circumstance, suggested even more terrors than her reason could justify.

MATTHEW GREGORY LEWIS

Lewis's The Monk, published in 1796 when the author was twenty, is the most gory of the Gothic novels and one of the most vividly written (a combination guaranteed to produce a best seller). Lewis (1775�1818) appears to have been alarmed by the

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scandal that erupted when his authorship was revealed, but not so rattled as to alter his literary course. He went on to compose Gothic dramas for the stage and, finding new uses for the language skills honed during the education that was meant to have prepared him for a diplomatic career, played a major part in introducing German tales of terror to England.

In The Monk Ambrosio, abbot of a monastery in Madrid, goes from a pinnacle of self-satisfied saintliness to become one of the most depraved villains in all fiction, both an incestuous rapist and matricidal murderer. After being seduced by Matilda, a female demon who has entered his monastery disguised as a male novice named Rosario, Ambrosio, with the help of a talisman that Matilda provides, plots the rape of one of his penitents, Antonia. Within The Monk mob violence competes with Ambrosio's bloodlust as a source for horror, suggesting how Gothic stories, even when set in distant pasts and places, may have allowed the readers and writers of the 1790s to work through timely anxieties about the power of crowds and the threat of revolution.

In the first extract given here, Ambrosio exults in private after having delivered a spellbinding sermon to a packed church in Madrid. The second extract recounts his assault on Antonia and the discovery by her mother, Elvira, of the young woman's peril.

From The Monk

From Chapter 2

The monks having attended their abbot to the door of his cell, he dismissed them with an air of conscious superiority, in which humility's semblance combated with the reality of pride.

He was no sooner alone, than he gave free loose to the indulgence of his vanity. When he remembered the enthusiasm which his discourse had excited, his heart swelled with rapture, and his imagination presented him with splendid visions of aggrandizement. He looked round him with exultation; and pride told him loudly that he was superior to the rest of his fellow-creatures.

"Who," thought he, "who but myself has passed the ordeal of youth, yet sees no single stain upon his conscience? Who else has subdued the violence of strong passions and an impetuous temperament, and submitted even from the dawn of life to voluntary retirement? I seek for such a man in vain. I see no one but myself possessed of such resolution. Religion cannot boast Ambrosio's equal! How powerful an effect did my discourse produce upon its auditors! How they crowded round me! How they loaded me with benedictions, and pronounced me the sole uncorrupted pillar of the church! What then now is left for me to do? Nothing, but to watch as carefully over the conduct of my brethren, as I have hitherto watched over my own. Yet hold! May I not be tempted from those paths which till now I have pursued without one moment's wandering? Am I not a man whose nature is frail and prone to error? I must now abandon the solitude of my retreat; the fairest and noblest dames of Madrid continually present themselves at the abbey, and will use no other confessor. I must accustom my eyes to objects of temptation, and expose myself to the seduction of luxury and desire. Should I meet in that world which I am constrained to enter, some lovely female�lovely as you�Madona�!"

As he said this, he fixed his eyes upon a picture of the Virgin, which was suspended opposite to him: this for two years had been the object of his increasing wonder and adoration. He paused, and gazed upon it with delight.

"What beauty in that countenance!" he continued after a silence of some

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minutes; "how graceful is the turn of that head! what sweetness, yet what majesty in her divine eyes! how softly her cheek reclines upon her hand! Can the rose vie with the blush of that cheek? can the lily rival the whiteness of that hand? Oh! if such a creature existed, and existed but for me! were I permitted to twine round my fingers those golden ringlets, and press with my lips the treasures of that snowy bosom! gracious God, should I then resist the temptation? Should I not barter for a single embrace the reward of my sufferings for thirty years? Should I not abandon- Fool that I am! Whither do I suffer my admiration of this picture to hurry me? Away, impure ideas! Let me remember that woman is for ever lost to me. Never was mortal formed so perfect as this picture. But even did such exist, the trial might be too mighty for a common virtue; but Ambrosio's is proof against temptation. Temptation, did I say? To me it would be none. What charms me, when ideal and considered as a superior being, would disgust me, become woman and tainted with all the failings of mortality. It is not the woman's beauty that fills me with such enthusiasm: it is the painter's skill that I admire; it is the Divinity that I adore. Are not the passions dead in my bosom? have I not freed myself from the frailty of mankind? Fear not, Ambrosio! Take confidence in the strength of your virtue. Enter boldly into the world, to whose failings you are superior; reflect that you are now exempted from humanity's defects, and defy all the arts of the spirits of darkness. They shall know you for what you are!"

Here his reverie was interrupted by three soft knocks at the door of his cell. With difficulty did the abbot awake from his delirium. The knocking was repeated.

"Who is there?" said Ambrosio at length.

"It is only Rosario," replied a gentle voice.

From Chapter 8

It was almost two o'clock before the lustful monk ventured to bend his steps towards Antonia's dwelling. It has been already mentioned that the abbey was at no great distance from the strada di San Iago. He reached the house unobserved. Here he stopped, and hesitated for a moment. He reflected on the enormity of the crime, the consequences of a discovery, and the probability, after what had passed, of Elvira's suspecting him to be her daughter's ravisher. On the other hand it was suggested that she could do no more than suspect; that no proofs of his guilt could be produced; that it would seem impossible for the rape to have been committed without Antonia's knowing when, where, or by whom; and finally, he believed that his fame was too firmly established to be shaken by the unsupported accusations of two unknown women. This latter argument was perfectly false. He knew not how uncertain is the air of popular applause, and that a moment suffices to make him to-day the detestation of the world, who yesterday was its idol. The result of the monk's deliberations was that he should proceed in his enterprise. He ascended the steps leading to the house. No sooner did he touch the door with the silver myrtle than it flew open, and presented him with a free passage. He entered, and the door closed after him of its own accord.

Guided by the moon-beams, he proceeded up the stair-case with slow and cautious steps. He looked round him every moment with apprehension and anxiety. He saw a spy in every shadow, and heard a voice in every murmur of the night-breeze. Consciousness of the guilty business on which he was employed appalled his heart, and rendered it more timid than a woman's. Yet

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still he proceeded. He reached the door of Antonia's chamber. He stopped, and listened. All was hushed within. The total silence persuaded him that his intended victim was retired to rest, and he ventured to lift up the latch. The door was fastened, and resisted his efforts. But no sooner was it touched by the talisman than the bolt flew back. The ravisher stepped on, and found himself in the chamber where slept the innocent girl, unconscious how dangerous a visitor was drawing near her couch. The door closed after him, and the bolt shot again into its fastening.

Ambrosio advanced with precaution. He took care that not a board should creak under his foot, and held in his breath as he approached the bed. His first attention was to perform the magic ceremony, as Matilda had charged him: he breathed thrice upon the silver myrtle, pronounced over it Antonia's name, and laid it upon her pillow. The effects which it had already produced permitted not his doubting its success in prolonging the slumbers of his devoted mistress. No sooner was the enchantment performed than he considered her to be absolutely in his power, and his eyes flashed with lust and impatience. He now ventured to cast a glance upon the sleeping beauty. A single lamp, burning before the statue of St. Rosolia, shed a faint light through the room, and permitted him to examine all the charms of the lovely object before him. The heat of the weather had obliged her to throw off part of the bed-clothes. Those which still covered her Ambrosio's insolent hand hastened to remove. She lay with her cheek reclining upon one ivory arm: the other rested on the side of the bed with graceful indolence. A few tresses of her hair had escaped from beneath the muslin which confined the rest, and fell carelessly over her bosom, as it heaved with slow and regular suspiration. The warm air had spread her cheek with a higher colour than usual. A smile inexpressibly sweet played round her ripe and coral lips, from which every now and then escaped a gentle sigh, or an half-pronounced sentence. An air of enchanting innocence and candour pervaded her whole form; and there was a sort of modesty in her very nakedness, which added fresh stings to the desires of the lustful monk.

He remained for some moments devouring those charms with his eyes which soon were to be subjected to his ill-regulated passions. Her mouth half-opened seem to solicit a kiss: he bent over her: he joined his lips to hers, and drew in the fragrance of her breath with rapture. This momentary pleasure increased his longing for still greater. His desires were raised to that frantic height by which brutes are agitated. He resolved not to delay for one instant longer the accomplishment of his wishes, and hastily proceeded to tear off those garments which impeded the gratification of his lust.

"Gracious God!" exclaimed a voice behind him: "Am I not deceived? Is not

this an illusion?"

Terror, confusion, and disappointment accompanied these words, as they struck Ambrosio's hearing. He started, and turned towards it. Elvira stood at the door of the chamber, and regarded the monk with looks of surprise and detestation.

A frightful dream had represented to her Antonia on the verge of a precipice. She saw her trembling on the brink: every moment seemed to threaten her fall, and she heard her exclaim with shrieks, "Save me, mother! save me!�Yet a moment, and it will be too late." Elvira woke in terror. The vision had made too strong an impression upon her mind to permit her resting till assured of her daughter's safety. She hastily started from her bed, threw on a loose nightgown, and, passing through the closet in which slept the waiting-woman,

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reached Antonia's chamber just in time to rescue her from the grasp of the ravisher.

His shame and her amazement seemed to have petrified into statues both Elvira and the monk. They remained gazing upon each other in silence. The lady was the first to recover herself.

"It is no dream," she cried: "it is really Ambrosio who stands before me. It is the man whom Madrid esteems a saint that I find at this late hour near the couch of my unhappy child. Monster of hypocrisy! I already suspected your designs, but forbore your accusation in pity to human frailty. Silence would now be criminal. The whole city shall be informed of your incontinence. I will unmask you, villain, and convince the church what a viper she cherishes in her bosom."

Pale and confused, the baffled culprit stood trembling before her. He would fain have extenuated his offence, but could find no apology for his conduct. He could produce nothing but broken sentences, and excuses which contradicted each other. Elvira was too justly incensed to grant the pardon which he requested. She protested that she would raise the neighbourhood, and make him an example to all future hypocrites. Then hastening to the bed, she called to Antonia to wake; and finding that her voice had no effect, she took her arm, and raised her forcibly from the pillow. The charm operated too powerfully. Antonia remained insensible; and, on being released by her mother, sank back upon the pillow.

"This slumber cannot be natural," cried the amazed Elvira, whose indignation increased with every moment: "some mystery is concealed in it. But tremble, hypocrite! All your villainy shall soon be unravelled. Help! help!" she exclaimed aloud: "Within there! Flora! Flora!"

"Hear me for one moment, lady!" cried the monk, restored to himself by the urgency of the danger: "by all that is sacred and holy, I swear that your daughter's honour is still unviolated. Forgive my transgression! Spare me the shame of a discovery, and permit me to regain the abbey undisturbed. Grant me this request in mercy! I promise not only that Antonia shall be secure from me in future, but that the rest of my life shall prove�"

Elvira interrupted him abruptly.

"Antonia secure from you? I will secure her. You shall betray no longer the confidence of parents. Your iniquity shall be unveiled to the public eye. All Madrid shall shudder at your perfidy, your hypocrisy, and incontinence. What ho! there! Flora! Flora! I say."

While she spoke thus, the remembrance of Agnes struck upon his mind. Thus had she sued to him for mercy, and thus had he refused her prayer! It was now his turn to suffer, and he could not but acknowledge that his punishment was just. In the mean while Elvira continued to call Flora to her assistance; but her voice was so choaked with passion, that the servant, who was buried in profound slumber, was insensible to all her cries: Elvira dared not go towards the closet in which Flora slept, lest the monk should take that opportunity to escape. Such indeed was his intention: he trusted that, could he reach the abbey unobserved by any other than Elvira, her single testimony would not suffice to ruin a reputation so well established as his was in Madrid. With this idea he gathered up such garments as he had already thrown off, and hastened towards the door. Elvira was aware of his design: she followed him, and, ere he could draw back the bolt, seized him by the arm, and detained him.

"Attempt not to fly!" said she: "you quit not this room without witnesses of your guilt."

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Ambrosio struggled in vain to disengage himself. Elvira quitted not her hold, but redoubled her cries for succour. The friar's danger grew more urgent. He expected every moment to hear people assembling at her voice; and, worked up to madness by the approach of ruin, he adopted a resolution equally desperate and savage. Turning round suddenly, with one hand he grasped Elvira's throat so as to prevent her continuing her clamour, and with the other, dashing her violently upon the ground, he dragged her towards the bed. Confused by this unexpected attack, she scarcely had power to strive at forcing herself from his grasp: while the monk, snatching the pillow from beneath her daughter's head, covering with it Elvira's face, and pressing his knee upon her stomach with all his strength, endeavoured to put an end to her existence. He succeeded but too well. Her natural strength increased by the excess of anguish, long did the sufferer struggle to disengage herself, but in vain. The monk continued to kneel upon her breast, witnessed without mercy the convulsive trembling of her limbs beneath him, and sustained with inhuman firmness the spectacle of her agonies, when soul and body were on the point of separating. Those agonies at length were over. She ceased to struggle for life. The monk took off the pillow, and gazed upon her. Her face was covered with a frightful blackness: her limbs moved no more: the blood was chilled in her veins: her heart had forgotten to beat; and her hands were stiff and frozen. Ambrosio beheld before him that once noble and majestic form, now become a corse, cold, senseless, and disgusting.

This horrible act was no sooner perpetrated, than the friar beheld the enormity of his crime. A cold dew flowed over his limbs: his eyes closed: he staggered to a chair, and sank into it almost as lifeless as the unfortunate who lay extended at his feet. From this state he was roused by the necessity of flight, and the danger of being found in Antonia's apartment. He had no desire to profit by the execution of his crime. Antonia now appeared to him an object of disgust. A deadly cold had usurped the place of that warmth which glowed in his bosom. No ideas offered themselves to his mind but those of death and guilt, of present shame and future punishment. Agitated by remorse and fear, he prepared for flight: yet his terrors did not so completely master his recollection as to prevent his taking the precautions necessary for his safety. He replaced the pillow upon the bed, gathered up his garments, and, with the fatal talisman in his hand, bent his unsteady steps towards the door. Bewildered by fear, he fancied that his flight was opposed by legions of phantoms. Wherever he turned, the disfigured corse seemed to lie in his passage, and it was long before he succeeded in reaching the door.

1795 1796

ANONYMOUS

The following discussion of the "fashion" for tales of terror appeared in The Spirit of the Public Journals for 1797. Its wonderfully scathing humor aside, it is typical of the many Bomantic-period commentaries that argued that the popularity of this new style of novel was a frightening symptom of literature's commercialization and of culture's degradation. The "recipe" with which the anonymous author concludes the squib,

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and which makes the point that best-selling fiction is likely to be, in a precise sense, "formula fiction," is a frequent feature of satires on novelists (Coleridge, who in our next extract refers to novels as "manufactures," i.e., as things produced mechanically rather than as works that authors compose, elsewhere wrote his own recipes for Radcliffe romances and for Walter Scott poems). Also notable is the author's tacit suggestion that the political climate has helped make "terror the order of the day": that phrase appeared in the directive that was issued in September 1793 by Robespierre's Committee of Public Safety and that inaugurated the bloodiest chapter of the Revolution in France.

Terrorist Novel Writing

I never complain of fashion, when it is confined to externals�to the form of a cap, or the cut of a lapelle; to the colour of a wig, or the tune of a ballad; but when I perceive that there is such a thing as fashion even in composing books, it is, perhaps, full time that some attempt should be made to recall writers to the old boundaries of common sense.

I allude, Sir, principally to the great quantity of novels with which our circulating libraries are filled, and our parlour tables covered, in which it has been the fashion to make terror the order of the day, by confining the heroes and heroines in old gloomy castles, full of spectres, apparitions, ghosts, and dead men's bones. This is now so common, that a Novelist blushes to bring about a marriage by ordinary means, but conducts the happy pair through long and dangerous galleries, where the light burns blue, the thunder rattles, and the great window at the end presents the hideous visage of a murdered man, uttering piercing groans, and developing shocking mysteries. If a curtain is withdrawn, there is a bleeding body behind it; if a chest is opened, it contains a skeleton; if a noise is heard, somebody is receiving a deadly blow; and if a candle goes out, its place is sure to be supplied by a flash of lightning. Cold hands grasp us in the dark, statues are seen to move, and suits of armour walk off their pegs, while the wind whistles louder than one of Handel's choruses, and the still air is more melancholy than the dead march in Saul.

Such are the dresses and decorations of a modern novel, which, as Bayes1 says, is calculated to "elevate and surprise"; but in doing so, carries the young reader's imagination into such a confusion of terrors, as must be hurtful. It is to great purpose, indeed, that we have forbidden our servants from telling the children stories of ghosts and hobgoblins, if we cannot put a novel into their hands which is not filled with monsters of the imagination, more frightful than are to be found in Glanvil,2 the famous hug-a-hoo of our fore fathers.

A novel, if at all useful, ought to be a representation of human life and manners, with a view to direct the conduct in the important duties of life, and to correct its follies. But what instruction is to be reaped from the distorted ideas of lunatics, I am at a loss to conceive. Are we come to such a pass, that the only commandment necessary to be repeated is, "Thou shalt do no murder?" Are the duties of life so changed, that all the instructions necessary for a young person is to learn to walk at night upon the battlements of an old castle, to creep hands and feet along a narrow passage, and meet the devil at

1. The ludicrously self-satisfied dramatist in The 2. Joseph Glanvill, author of Saducismus Trtum- Rehearsal, a comedy by George Villiers, duke of phatus (1681), which defended the belief in witch-

Buckingham (1672). craft.

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the end of it? Is the corporeal frame of the female sex so masculine and hardy, that it must be softened down by the touch of dead bodies, clay-cold hands, and damp sweats? Can a young lady be taught nothing more necessary in life, than to sleep in a dungeon with venomous reptiles, walk through a ward with assassins, and carry bloody daggers in their pockets, instead of pin-cushions and needle-books?

Every absurdity has an end, and as I observe that almost all novels are of the terrific cast, I hope the insipid repetition of the same bugbears3 will at length work a cure. In the mean time, should any of your female readers be desirous of catching the season of terrors, she may compose two or three very pretty volumes from the following recipe:

Take�An old castle, half of it ruinous. A long gallery, with a great many doors, some secret ones. Three murdered bodies, quite fresh. As many skeletons, in chests and presses. An old woman hanging by the neck; with her throat cut. Assassins and desperadoes, quant, stiff.* Noises, whispers, and groans, threescore at least.

Mix them together, in the form of three volumes, to be taken at any of the

watering places,5 before going to bed. 1798 3. Annoyances, objects of needless fear. 4. I.e., quantum sujficit (standard Latin phrase used in medical prescriptions): "as much as suffices." 5. Seaside resorts. The suggestion is that readers choose novels of terror as vacation reading.

SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE

Many elements in Coleridge's poetry�the account of the skeleton ship in The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, for instance, or the atmosphere, setting, and fragmentary plot of witchery and seduction in Christabel�suggest how absorbing he found the novels of the "terrorist school." His letters from the 1790s sometimes reveal him sitting up all night, trembling, he says, "like an aspen leaf" as he turns their pages. But elsewhere Coleridge's writings indicate how complex and ambivalent the Romantic poets' reaction to Gothic writing could be. As a first example we provide his scathing review, published in the Critical Review in February 1797, of The Monk. It should be noted that Coleridge's reaction to Matthew Lewis's novel is, for all its alarm, much more measured than those of most of his fellow critics.

Front Review of The Monk by Matthew Lewis

The horrible and the preternatural have usually seized on the popular taste, at the rise and decline of literature. Most powerful stimulants, they can never be required except by the torpor of an unawakened, or the languor of an exhausted, appetite. The same phenomenon, therefore, which we hail as a

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favourable omen in the belles lettres1 of Germany, impresses a degree of gloom in the compositions of our countrymen. We trust, however, that satiety will banish what good sense should have prevented; and that, wearied with fiends, incomprehensible characters, with shrieks, murders, and subterraneous dungeons, the public will learn, by the multitude of the manufacturers, with how little expense of thought or imagination this species of composition is manufactured. But, cheaply as we estimate romances in general, we acknowledge, in the work before us, the offspring of no common genius. The tale is similar to that of Santon Barsista in the Guardian.2 Ambrosio, a monk, surnamed the Man of Holiness, proud of his own undeviating rectitude, and severe to the faults of others, is successfully assailed by the tempter of mankind, and seduced to the perpetration of rape and murder, and finally precipitated into a contract in which he consigns his soul to everlasting perdition.

The larger part of the three volumes is occupied by the underplot, which, however, is skilfully and closely connected with the main story, and is subservient to its development. The tale of the bleeding nun is truly terrific; and we could not easily recollect a bolder or more happy conception than that of the burning cross on the forehead of the wandering Jew (a mysterious character, which, though copied as to its more prominent features from Schiller's incomprehensible Armenian,3 does, nevertheless, display great vigour of fancy). But the character of Matilda, the chief agent in the seduction of Antonio4 appears to us to be the author's master-piece. It is, indeed, exquisitely imagined, and as exquisitely supported. The whole work is distinguished by the variety and impressiveness of its incidents; and the author everywhere discovers an imagination rich, powerful, and fervid. Such are the excellencies;�-the errors and defects are more numerous, and (we are sorry to add) of greater importance.

All events are levelled into one common mass, and become almost equally probable, where the order of nature may be changed whenever the author's purposes demand it. No address is requisite to the accomplishment of any design; and no pleasure therefore can be received from the perception of dif

ficulty surmounted. The writer may make us wonder, but he cannot surprise us. For the same reasons a romance is incapable of exemplifying a moral truth. No proud man, for instance, will be made less proud by being told that Lucifer once seduced a presumptuous monk. Incredulus odit.5 Or even if, believing the story, he should deem his virtue less secure, he would yet acquire no lessons of prudence, no feelings of humility. Human prudence can oppose no sufficient shield to the power and cunning of supernatural beings; and the privilege of being proud might be fairly conceded to him who could rise superior to all earthly temptations, and whom the strength of the spiritual world alone would be adequate to overwhelm. So falling, he would fall with glory, and might reasonably welcome his defeat with the haughty emotions of a conqueror. As far, therefore, as the story is concerned, the praise which a romance can claim, is simply that of having given pleasure during its perusal; and so many are the calamities of life, that he who has done this, has not written uselessly. The children of sickness and of solitude shall thank him. To this praise, however, our author has not entitled himself. The sufferings which he describes are so frightful and intolerable, that we break with abruptness

1. Literature. The Ghost-seer (English translation 1795). 2. An Eastern tale published in 1713 and 4. Coleridge's mistake for Ambrosio. acknowledged by Lewis as one of his sources. 5. "To disbelieve is to dislike": Horace, Art of

3. The mysterious villain of Friedrich Schiller's Poetry 1.188.

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from the delusion, and indignantly suspect the man of a species of brutality, who could find a pleasure in wantonly imagining them; and the abominations which he portrays with no hurrying pencil, are such as the observation of character by no means demanded, such as "no observation of character can justify, because no good man would willingly suffer them to pass, however transiently, through his own mind." The merit of a novelist is in proportion (not simply to the effect, but) to the pleasurable effect which he produces. Situations of torment, and images of naked horror, are easily conceived; and a writer in whose works they abound, deserves our gratitude almost equally with him who should drag us by way of sport through a military hospital, or force us to sit at the dissecting-table of a natural philosopher. To trace the nice6 boundaries, beyond which terror and sympathy are deserted by the pleasurable emotions,�to reach those limits, yet never to pass them,�hie labor, hie opus est.' Figures that shock the imagination, and narratives that mangle the feelings, rarely discover genius, and always betray a low and vulgar taste. Nor has our author indicated less ignorance of the human heart in the management of the principal character. The wisdom and goodness of providence have ordered that the tendency of vicious actions to deprave the heart of the perpetrator, should diminish in proportion to the greatness of his temptations. Now, in addition to constitutional warmth and irresistible opportunity, the monk is impelled to incontinence by friendship, by compassion, by gratitude, by all that is amiable, and all that is estimable; yet in a few weeks after his first frailty, the man who had been described as possessing much general humanity, a keen and vigorous understanding, with habits of the most exalted piety, degenerates into an uglier fiend than the gloomy imagination of Dante would have ventured to picture. Again, the monk is described as feeling and acting under the influence of an appetite which could not co-exist with his other emotions. The romance-writer possesses an unlimited power over situations; but he must scrupulously make his characters act in congruity with them. Let him work physical wonders only, and we will be content to dream with him for a while; but the first moral miracle which he attempts, he disgusts and awakens us. Thus our judgment remains unoffended, when, announced by thunders and earthquakes, the spirit appears to Ambrosio involved in blue fires that increase the cold of the cavern; and we acquiesce in the power of the silver myrtle which made gates and doors fly open at its touch, and charmed every eye into sleep. But when a mortal, fresh from the impression of that terrible appearance, and in the act of evincing for the first time the witching force of this myrtle, is represented as being at the same moment agitated by so fleeting an appetite as that of lust, our own feelings convince us that this is not improbable, but impossible; not preternatural, but contrary to nature. The extent of the powers that may exist, we can never ascertain; and therefore we feel no great difficulty in yielding a temporary belief to any, the strangest, situation of things. But that situation once conceived, how beings like ourselves would feel and act in it, our own feelings sufficiently instruct us; and we instantly reject the clumsy fiction that does not harmonise with them. These are the two principal mistakes in judgment, which the author has fallen into; but we cannot wholly pass over the frequent incongruity of his style with his subjects. It is gaudy where it should have been severely simple; and too often the mind is offended by phrases the most trite and colloquial,

6. Subtle. 7. "This is the effort, this is the work.'

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where it demands and had expected a sternness and solemnity of diction.

A more grievous fault remains, a fault for which no literary excellence can atone, a fault which all other excellence does but aggravate, as adding subtlety to a poison by the elegance of its preparation. Mildness of censure would here be criminally misplaced, and silence would make us accomplices. Not without reluctance then, but in full conviction that we are performing a duty, we declare it to be our opinion, that the Monk is a romance, which if a parent saw in the hands of a son or daughter, he might reasonably turn pale. The temptations of Ambrosio are described with a libidinous minuteness, which, we sincerely hope, will receive its best and only adequate censure from the offended conscience of the author himself. The shameless harlotry of Matilda, and the trembling innocence of Antonia, are seized with equal avidity, as vehicles of the most voluptuous images; and though the tale is indeed a tale of horror, yet the most painful impression which the work left on our minds was that of great acquirements and splendid genius employed to furnish a mormo8 for children, a poison for youth, and a provocative for the debauchee. Tales of enchantments and witchcraft can never be useful: our author has contrived to make them -pernicious, by blending, with an irreverent negligence, all that is most awfully true in religion with all that is most ridiculously absurd in superstition. He takes frequent occasion, indeed, to manifest his sovereign contempt for the latter, both in his own person, and (most incongruously) in that of his principal characters; and that his respect for the former is not excessive, we are forced to conclude from the treatment which its inspired writings receive from him. Ambrosio discovers Antonia reading�

He examined the book which she had been reading, and had now placed upon the table. It was the Bible. "How!" said the friar to himself, "Antonia reads the Bible, and is still so ignorant?"

But, upon a further inspection, he found that Elvira had made exactly the same remark. That prudent mother, while she admired the beauties of the sacred writings, was convinced that, unrestricted, no reading more improper could be permitted a young woman. Many of the narratives can only tend to excite ideas the worst calculated for a female breast: every thing is called plainly and roundly by its name; and the annals of a brothel would scarcely furnish a greater choice of indecent expressions. Yet this is the book which young women are recommended to study, which is put into the hands of children, able to comprehend little more than those passages of which they had better remain ignorant, and which but too frequently inculcates the first rudiments of vice, and gives the first alarm to the still sleeping passions. Of this was Elvira so fully convinced, that she would have preferred putting into her daughter's hands "Amadis de Gaul," or "The Valiant Champion, Tirante the White"; and woidd sooner have authorised her studying the lewd exploits of Don Galaor, or the lascivious jokes of the Damsel Plazer di mi vida. Vol.11, p. 247.

The impiety of this falsehood can be equalled only by its impudence. This is indeed as if a Corinthian harlot, clad from head to foot in the transparent thinness of the Coan vest, should affect to view with prudish horror the naked knee of a Spartan matron! If it be possible that the author of these blasphemies

8. Bogeyman, object of needless dread.

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60 6 / THE GOTHIC

is a Christian, should he not have reflected that the only passage in the scrip- tures,9 which could give a shadow of plausibility to the weakest of these expressions, is represented as being spoken by the Almighty himself? But if he be an infidel, he has acted consistently enough with that character, in his endeavours first to influence the fleshly appetites, and then to pour contempt on the only book which would be adequate to the task of recalming them. We believe it not absolutely impossible that a mind may be so deeply depraved by the habit of reading lewd and voluptuous tales, as to use even the Bible in conjuring up the spirit of uncleanness. The most innocent expressions might become the first link in the chain of association, when a man's soul had been so poisoned; and we believe it not absolutely impossible that he might extract pollution from the word of purity, and, in a literal sense, turn the grace of God into wantonness.

We have been induced to pay particular attention to this work, from the unusual success which it has experienced. It certainly possesses much real merit, in addition to its meretricious attractions. Nor must it be forgotten that the author is a man of rank and fortune. Yes! the author of the Monk signs himself a LEGISLATOR!1 We stare and tremble.

1797

From Biographia Literaria

From Chapter 31

For as to the devotees of the circulating libraries, I dare not compliment their pass-time, or rather kill-time, with the name of reading. Call it rather a sort of beggarly daydreaming, during which the mind of the dreamer furnishes for itself nothing but laziness and a little mawkish sensibility; while the whole materiel and imagery of the doze is supplied ah extra2 by a sort of mental camera ohscura3 manufactured at the printing office, which pro tempore4 fixes, reflects and transmits the moving phantasms of one man's delirium, so as to people the barrenness of an hundred other brains afflicted with the same trance or suspension of all common sense and all definite purpose. We should therefore transfer this species of amusement (if indeed those can be said to retire a musis,5 who were never in their company, or relaxation be attributable to those, whose bows are never bent) from the genus, reading, to that comprehensive class characterized by the power of reconciling the two contrary yet co-existing propensities of human nature, namely indulgence of sloth, and hatred of vacancy. In addition to novels and tales of chivalry in prose or rhyme

9. Ezekiel, chap, xxiii [Coleridge's note], has been before the reading public; the footnote 1. Lewis, a member of Parliament, signed himself (the text given here) then goes on to identify the "M. G. Lewis, Esq., M.P." on the title page of the sort of people who for him do not count as bona

second edition of The A'lonk. Worried that the pub-fide members of that public.

lic outcry over the episode Coleridge here lam-2. From the outside (Latin).

bastes would lead to his being charged with 3. A device (forerunner of the modern camera)

obscene libel. Lewis cut the episode from the creating a special optical effect: light passes

fourth edition. through a pinhole into a darkened room and cre

1. This paragraph makes up the first footnote to ates an inverted image of the world beyond the the third chapter of Coleridge's Biographia Liter-walls.

aria, the hybrid book in which he blended autobi-4. For the time being (Latin).

ography with philosophical speculations and 5. A pun linking "amusement" and a musis, "away

favorite anecdotes. In the body of his text, Cole-from the Muses."

ridge refers to the frequency with which his name

.

GEORGE GORDON, LORD BYRON / 60 7

(by which last I mean neither rhythm nor metre) this genus comprises as its species, gaming; swinging or swaying on a chair or gate; spitting over a bridge; smoking; snuff-taking; tete-a-tete quarrels after dinner between husband and wife; conning word by word all the advertisements of the Daily Advertiser in a public house on a rainy day, etc. etc. etc.

1815 1817

GEORGE GORDON, LORD BYRON 1788-1824

In his History of English Literature, written in the late 1850s, the French critic Hippolyte Taine gave only a few condescending pages to Wordsworth, Coleridge, Percy Shelley, and Keats and then devoted a long chapter to Lord Byron, "the greatest and most English of these artists; he is so great and so English that from him alone we shall learn more truths of his country and of his age than from all the rest together." This comment reflects the fact that Byron had achieved an immense European reputation during his own lifetime, while admirers of his English contemporaries were much more limited in number. Through much of the nineteenth century he continued to be rated as one of the greatest of English poets and the very prototype of literary Bomanticism. His influence was manifested everywhere, among the major poets and novelists (Balzac and Stendhal in France, Pushkin and Dostoyevsky in Russia, and Melville in America), painters (especially Delacroix), and composers (including Beethoven and Berlioz).

Yet even as poets, painters, and composers across Europe and the Americas struck Byronic attitudes, Byron's place within the canon of English Bomantic poetry was becoming insecure. The same Victorian critics who first described the Bomantic period as a literary period warned readers against the immorality of Byron's poetry, finding in his voluptuous imagination and aristocratic disdain for the commonplace an affront to their own middle-class values: "Close thy Byron; open thy Goethe," Thomas Carlyle urged in Sartor Resartus (1834), meaning to redirect the nation toward healthier reading matter. After getting a glimpse of the scandalous stuff recorded in Byron's journals, Felicia Hemans ceased to wear the brooch in which she had preserved a lock of the poet's hair: she could venerate him no longer. Indeed, Byron would have had qualms about being considered a representative figure of a period that also included Wordsworth (memorialized in Byron's Don Juan as "Wordy") or Keats (a shabby Cockney brat, Byron claimed) or scribbling women such as Hemans. These reservations were reciprocated. Of Byron's best-known male contemporaries, only Shelley thought highly of either the man or his work (although there are signs that, among the naysayers, the negative reactions were tinged with some resentment at Byron's success in developing a style that spoke to a popular audience). Byron in fact insisted that, measured against the poetic practice of Alexander Pope, he and his contemporaries were "all in the wrong, one as much as another. . . . We are upon a wrong revolutionary poetical system, or systems, not worth a damn in itself." Pope's Horatian satires, along with Laurence Sterne's novel Tristram Shandy, exerted a significant influence on the style that Byron developed for his epic survey of modern folly, Don Juan.

Still, even as he had recourse to old-fashioned eighteenth-century models, Byron cultivated a skepticism about established systems of belief that, in its restlessness and defiance, expressed the intellectual and social ferment of his era. And through much

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60 8 / GEORGE GORDON, LORD BYRON . �-�"

of his best poetry, he shared his contemporaries' fascination with the internal dramas of the individual mind (although Byron explored personality in an improvisatory and mercurial manner that could not have been more different from Wordsworth's autobiographical accounts of his psychological development). Readers marveled over the intensity of the feelings his verse communicated�"its force, fire, and thought," said the novelist Lady Sydney Morgan�and the vividness of the sense of self they found in it. Byron's chief claim to be considered an arch-Bomantic is that he provided the age with what Taine called its "ruling personage; that is, the model that contemporaries invest with their admiration and sympathy." This personage is the "Byronic hero." He is first sketched in the opening canto of Childe Harold, then recurs in various guises in the verse romances and dramas that followed. In his developed form, as we find it in Manfred, he is an alien, mysterious, and gloomy spirit, superior in his passions and powers to the common run of humanity, whom he regards with disdain. He harbors the torturing memory of an enormous, nameless guilt that drives him toward an inevitable doom. And he exerts an attraction on other characters that is the more compelling because it involves their terror at his obliviousness to ordinary human concerns and values. This figure, infusing the archrebel in a nonpolitical form with a strong erotic interest, was imitated in life as well as in art and helped shape the intellectual and the cultural history of the later nineteenth century. The literary descendants of the Byronic hero include Heathcliff in Wuthering Heights, Captain Ahab in Mohy-Dick, and the hero of Pushkin's great poem Eugene Onegin. Byron also lived on in the guise of the Undead, thanks to the success of a novella by his former friend and traveling companion John Polidori, whose "The Vampyre" (1819) mischievously made Byron its model for the title character. Earlier Byron had in his writings helped introduce the English to the Eastern Mediterranean's legends of bloodsucking evil spirits; it was left to Polidori, however, to portray the vampire as a habitue of England's most fashionable social circles. The fact that, for all their menace, vampires�from Bela Lugosi's Count Dracula to Anne Rice's L'Estat�remain models of well-dressed, aristocratic elegance represents yet another tribute to the staying power of Byron's image.

Byron's contemporaries insisted on identifying the author with his fictional characters, reading his writing as veiled autobiography even when it dealt with supernatural themes. (They also read other people's writing this way: to Polidori's chagrin, authorship of "The Vampyre" was attributed to Byron.) Byron's letters and the testimony of his friends show, however, that, except for recurrent moods of deep depression, his own temperament was in many respects opposite to that of his heroes. While he was passionate and willful, he was also a witty conversationalist capable of taking an ironic attitude toward his own activities as well as those of others. But although Byronism was largely a fiction, produced by a collaboration between Byron's imagination and that of his public, the fiction was historically more important than the actual person.

Byron was descended from two aristocratic families, both of them colorful, violent, and dissolute. His grandfather was an admiral nicknamed "Foulweather Jack"; his great-uncle was the fifth Baron Byron, known to his rural neighbors as the "Wicked Lord," who was tried by his peers for killing his kinsman William Chaworth in a drunken duel; his father, Captain John Byron, was a rake and fortune hunter who rapidly spent his way through the fortunes of two wealthy wives. Byron's mother was a Scotswoman, Catherine Gordon of Gight, the last descendant of a line of lawless Scottish lairds. After her husband died (Byron was then three), she brought up her son in near poverty in Aberdeen, where he was indoctrinated with the Calvinistic morality of Scottish Presbyterianism. Catherine Byron was an ill-educated and extremely irascible woman who nevertheless had an abiding love for her son; they fought violently when together, but corresponded affectionately enough when apart, until her death in 1811.

When Byron was ten the death of his great-uncle, preceded by that of more imme

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GEORGE GORDON, LORD BYRON / 60 9

diate heirs to the title, made him the sixth Lord Byron. In a fashion suitable to his new status, he was sent to Harrow School, then to Trinity College, Cambridge. He had a deformed foot, made worse by inept surgical treatment, about which he felt acute embarrassment. His lameness made him avid for athletic prowess; he played cricket and made himself an expert boxer, fencer, and horseman and a powerful swimmer. Both at Cambridge and at his ancestral estate of Newstead, he engaged with more than ordinary zeal in the expensive pursuits and fashionable dissipations of a young Begency lord. As a result, despite a sizable and increasing income, he got into financial difficulties from which he did not entirely extricate himself until late in his life. In the course of his schooling, he formed many close and devoted friendships, the most important with John Cam Hobhouse, a sturdy political liberal and commonsense moralist who exerted a steadying influence throughout Byron's turbulent life.

Despite his distractions at the university, Byron found time to try his hand at lyric verse, some of which was published in 1807 in a slim and conventional volume titled Hours of Idleness. This was treated so harshly by the Edinburgh Review that Byron was provoked to write in reply his first important poem, English Bards and Scotch Reviewers, a vigorous satire in which he incorporated brilliant ridicule (whose tactlessness he later came to regret) of important contemporaries, including Scott, Wordsworth, and Coleridge.

After attaining his M.A. degree and his legal independence from his guardians, Byron set out with Hobhouse in 1809 on a tour through Portugal and Spain to Malta, and then to little-known Albania, Greece, and Asia Minor. There, in the classic locale for Greek love, he encountered a culture that accepted sexual relations between older aristocratic men and beautiful boys, and he accumulated materials that, sometimes rather slyly, he incorporated into many of his important poems, including his last work, Don Juan. The first literary product was Childe Harold; he wrote the opening two cantos while on the tour that the poem describes; published them in 1812 soon after his return to England; and, in his own oft-quoted phrase, "awoke one morning and found myself famous." He became the celebrity of fashionable London, and increased his literary success with a series of highly readable Eastern tales; in these the Byronic hero, represented against various exotic backdrops as a "Giaour" (an "infidel" within Muslim society), or a "Corsair" (a pirate), or in other forms, flaunts his misanthropy and undergoes violent and romantic adventures that current gossip attributed to the author. In his chronic shortage of money, Byron could well have used the huge income from these publications, but instead maintained his status as an aristocratic amateur by giving the royalties away. Occupying his inherited seat in the House of Lords, he also became briefly active on the liberal side of the Whig party and spoke courageously in defense of the Nottingham weavers who had resorted to smashing the newly invented textile machines that had thrown them out of work. He also supported other liberal measures, including that of Catholic Emancipation.

Byron was extraordinarily handsome�"so beautiful a countenance," Coleridge wrote, "I scarcely ever saw . . . his eyes the open portals of the sun�things of light, and for light." Because of a constitutional tendency to obesity, however, he was able to maintain his looks only by resorting again and again to a starvation diet of biscuits, soda water, and strong purgatives. Often as a result of female initiative rather than his own, Byron entered into a sequence of liaisons with ladies of fashion. One of these, the flamboyant and eccentric young Lady Caroline Lamb, caused him so much distress by her pursuit that Byron turned for relief to marriage with Annabella Milbanke, who was in every way Lady Caroline's opposite, for she was unworldly and intellectual (with a special passion for mathematics) and naively believed that she could reform her husband. This ill-starred marriage produced a daughter (Augusta Ada) and many scenes in which Byron, goaded by financial difficulties, behaved so frantically that his wife suspected his sanity; after only one year the union ended in a legal separation. The final blow came when Lady Byron discovered her husband's

.

61 0 / GEORGE GORDON, LORD BYRON . �-�"

incestuous relations with his half-sister, Augusta Leigh. The two had been raised apart, so that they were almost strangers when they met as adults. Byron's affection for his sister, however guilty, was genuine and endured all through his life. This affair, enhanced by rumors about Byron's earlier liaisons with men, proved a delicious morsel even to the jaded palate of a public that was used to eating up stories of aristocratic vice. Byron was ostracized by all but a few friends and was finally forced to leave England forever on April 25, 1816.

Byron now resumed the travels incorporated in the third and fourth cantos of Childe Harold. At Geneva he lived for several months in close and intellectually fruitful relation to Percy and Mary Shelley, who were accompanied by Mary's stepsister, Claire Clairmont�a misguided seventeen-year-old who had forced herself on Byron while he was still in England and who in January 1817 bore him a daughter, Allegra. In the fall of 1817, Byron established himself in Venice, where he began a year and a half of debauchery that, he estimated, involved liaisons with more than two hundred women. This period, however, was also one of great literary creativity. Often working through the night, he finished his tragedy Manfred; wrote the fourth canto of Childe Harold; and then, feeling more and more trapped by the poetic modes that had won him his popularity, tested out an entirely new mode in Beppo: A Venetian Story, a comic verse tale about a deceived husband in which he previewed the playful narrative manner and the ottava rima stanzas of Don Juan. In December 1818 he began the composition of Don Juan.

Exhausted and bored by promiscuity, Byron in 1819 settled into a placid and relatively faithful relationship with Teresa Guiccioli, the young wife of the elderly Count Alessandro Guiccioli; according to the Italian upper-class mores of the times, having contracted a marriage of convenience, she could now with some propriety take Byron as her lover. Through the countess's nationalistic family, the Gambas, Byron became involved with a group of political conspirators seeking to end the Austrian Empire's control over northern Italy. When the Gambas were forced by the authorities to move to Pisa, Byron followed them there and, for the second time, joined the Shelleys. There grew up about them the "Pisan Circle," which in addition to the Gambas included their friends Thomas Medwin and Edward and Jane Williams, as well as the Greek nationalist leader Prince Mavrocordatos, the picturesque Irish Count Taaffe, and the adventurer Edward Trelawny, a great teller of tall tales who seems to have stepped out of one of Byron's romances. Leigh Hunt, the journalist and essayist, joined them, drawing Byron and Percy Shelley into his plan to make Italy the base for a radical political journal, The Liberal. This circle was gradually broken up, however, first by the Shelleys' anger over Byron's treatment of his daughter Allegra (Byron had sent the child to be brought up as a Catholic in an Italian convent, where she died of a fever in 1822); then by the expulsion of the Gambas, whom Byron followed to Genoa; and finally by the drowning of Percy Shelley and Edward Williams in July

1822.

Byron meanwhile had been steadily at work on a series of closet tragedies (including Cain, Sardanapalus, and Marino Faliero) and on his devastating satire on the life and death of George III, The Vision of Judgment. But increasingly he devoted himself to the continuation of Don Juan. He had always been diffident in his self-judgments and easily swayed by literary advice. But now, confident that he had at last found his metier, he kept on, in spite of persistent objections against the supposed immorality of the poem by the English public, by his publisher John Murray, by his friends and well-wishers, and by his extremely decorous lover, the Countess Guiccioli�by almost everyone, in fact, except the idealist Shelley, who thought Juan incomparably better than anything he himself could write and insisted "that every word of it is pregnant with immortality."

Byron finally broke off literature for action when he organized an expedition to assist in the Greek war for independence from the Ottoman Empire. He knew too well the conditions in Greece, and had too skeptical an estimate of human nature, to

.

WRITTEN AFTER SWIMMING FROM SESTOS TO ABYDOS / 611

entertain hope of success; but, in part because his own writings had helped kindle European enthusiasm for the Greek cause, he now felt honor-bound to try what could be done. In the dismal, marshy town of Missolonghi, he lived a Spartan existence, training troops whom he had subsidized and exhibiting practical grasp and a power of leadership amid a chaos of factionalism, intrigue, and military ineptitude. Worn out, he succumbed to a series of feverish attacks and died just after he had reached his thirty-sixth birthday. To this day Byron is revered by the Greek people as a national hero.

Students of Byron still feel, as his friends had felt, the magnetism of his volatile temperament. As Mary Shelley wrote six years after his death, when she read Thomas Moore's edition of his Letters and Journals: "The Lord Byron I find there is our Lord Byron�the fascinating�faulty�childish�philosophical being�daring the world�docile to a private circle�impetuous and indolent�gloomy and yet more gay than any other." Of his contradictions Byron was well aware; he told his friend Lady Blessington: "I am so changeable, being everything by turns and nothing long� I am such a strange melange of good and evil, that it would be difficult to describe me." Yet-he remained faithful to his code: a determination to tell the truth as he saw it about the world and about himself (his refusal to suppress or conceal any of his moods is in part what made him seem so contradictory) and a dedication to the freedom of nations and individuals. As he went on to say to Lady Blessington: "There are but two sentiments to which I am constant�a strong love of liberty, and a detestation of cant."

The poetry texts printed here are taken from Jerome J. McGann's edition, Lord Byron: The Complete Poetical Works (Oxford, 1980-93).

Written after Swimming from Sestos to Abydos1

May 9, 1810

i

If in the month of dark December Leander, who was nightly wont (What maid will not the tale remember?) To cross thy stream, broad Hellespont!

2

5 If when the wintry tempest roared He sped to Hero, nothing loth, And thus of old thy current pour'd, Fair Venus! how I pity both!

3 For me, degenerate modern wretch, IO Though in the genial month of May,

1. The Hellespont (now called the Dardanelles) is 1810. Ryron alternated between complacency and the narrow strait between Europe and Asia. In the humor in his many references to the event. In a

ancient story, retold in Christopher Marlowe's note to the poem, he mentions that the distance

Hero and Leander, young Leander of Abydos, on was "upwards of four English miles, though the

the Asian side, swam nightly to visit Hero, a priest-actual breadth is barely one. The rapidity of the

ess of the goddess Venus at Sestos, until he was current is such that no boat can row directly

drowned when he made the attempt in a storm. across. . . . The water was extremely cold, from the

Byron and a young Lieutenant Ekenhead swam the melting of the mountain snows."

Hellespont in the reverse direction on May 3,

.

612 / GEORGE GORDON, LORD BYRON . �-�"

My dripping limbs I faintly stretch, And think I've done a feat to-day. 4 15But since he cross'd the rapid tide, According to the doubtful story, To woo,�and�Lord knows what beside, And swam for Love, as I for Glory; 20 5 'Twere hard to say who fared the best: Sad mortals! thus the Gods still plague you! He lost his labour, I my jest: For he was drown'd, and I've the ague. 1810 1812

She walks in beauty1 She walks in beauty, like the night Of cloudless climes and starry skies; And all that's best of dark and bright Meet in her aspect and her eyes: Thus mellow'd to that tender light Which heaven to gaudy day denies. ioOne shade the more, one ray the less, Had half impair'd the nameless grace Which waves in every raven tress, Or softly lightens o'er her face; Where thoughts serenely sweet express How pure, how dear their dwelling place. 153 And on that cheek, and o'er that brow, So soft, so calm, yet eloquent, The smiles that win, the tints that glow, But tell of days in goodness spent, A mind at peace with all below, A heart whose love is innocent! June 181 4 181 5

1. From Hebrew Melodies (1815), a collection of first met wore a black mourning gown brightened lyrics on Old Testament themes that Byron com-with spangles. In their context as the opening

posed to accompany the musician Isaac Nathan's poem of Hebrew Melodies, the lines praise any one

settings of traditional synagogue chants. Byron of a number of Old Testament heroines. To hear

wrote these lines about his beautiful cousin by the poem sung to Nathan's music, consult Norton

marriage, Anne Wilmot, who at the ball where they Literature Online.

.

WHEN WE TWO PARTED / 613

They say that Hope is happiness

Felix qui potuit rerum cognoscere causas.1 VIRGIL

They say that Hope is happiness� But genuine Love must prize the past; And Mem'ry wakes the thoughts that bless: They rose the first�they set the last.

2

5 And all that mem'ry loves the most Was once our only hope to be: And all that hope adored and lost Hath melted into memory.

3

Alas! it is delusion all� 10 The future cheats us from afar: Nor can we be what we recall, Nor dare we think on what we are.

1814 1829

When we two parted

i

When we two parted In silence and tears, Half broken-hearted To sever for years, 5 Pale grew thy cheek and cold, Colder thy kiss; Truly that hour foretold Sorrow to this.

2. The dew of the morning 10 Sunk chill on my brow� It felt like the warning Of what I feel now.

Thy vows are all broken, And light is thy fame; 15 I hear thy name spoken,

And share in its shame.

3

They name thee before me, A knell to mine ear;

1. Happy is he who has been able to learn the causes of things (Latin; Georgics 2.490).

.

61 4 / GEORGE GORDON, LORD BYRON . �-�"

A shudder comes o'er me � 20 Why wert thou so dear? They know not I knew thee, Who knew thee too well:� Long, long shall I rue thee, Too deeply to tell. 4 25 In secret we met� In silence I grieve, That thy heart could forget, Thy spirit deceive. If I should meet thee 30 After long years, How should I greet thee!� With silence and tears. 1815 1815

Stanzas for Music

There be none of Beauty's daughters With a magic like thee; And like music on the waters Is thy sweet voice to me:

5 When, as if its sound were causing The charmed ocean's pausing, The waves lie still and gleaming, And the lulled winds seem dreaming.

And the midnight moon is weaving 10 Her bright chain o'er the deep; Whose breast is gently heaving,

As an infant's asleep. So the spirit bows before thee, To listen and adore thee;

15 With a full but soft emotion, Like the swell of Summer's ocean.

1816 1816

Darkness1

I had a dream, which was not all a dream. The bright sun was extinguish'd, and the stars Did wander darkling0 in the eternal space, in the dark Rayless, and pathless, and the icy earth

1. A powerful blank-verse description of the end such speculations hardly less common in Byron's of life on Earth. New geological sciences and an time than in ours. Mary Shelley would later take

accompanying interest in what the fossil record up the theme in her novel The Last Man (1826).

indicated about the extinction of species made

.

DARKNESS / 61 5

Swung blind and blackening in the moonless air; Mom came, and went�and came, and brought no day, And men forgot their passions in the dread Of this their desolation; and all hearts Were chill'd into a selfish prayer for light:

And they did live by watchfires�and the thrones, The palaces of crowned kings�the huts, The habitations of all things which dwell, Were burnt for beacons; cities were consumed, And men were gathered round their blazing homes

To look once more into each other's face; Happy were those who dwelt within the eye Of the volcanos, and their mountain-torch: A fearful hope was all the world contain'd; Forests were set on fire�but hour by hour

They fell and faded-�and the crackling trunks Extinguish'd with a crash�and all was black. The brows of men by the despairing light Wore an unearthly aspect, as by fits The flashes fell upon them; some lay down

And hid their eyes and wept; and some did rest Their chins upon their clenched hands, and smiled; And others hurried to and fro, and fed Their funeral piles with fuel, and looked up With mad disquietude on the dull sky, The pall of a past world; and then again With curses cast them down upon the dust, And gnash'd their teeth and howl'd: the wild birds shriek'd, And, terrified, did flutter on the ground, And flap their useless wings; the wildest brutes Came tame and tremulous; and vipers crawl'd And twined themselves among the multitude, Hissing, but stingless�they were slain for food: And War, which for a moment was no more, Did glut himself again;�a meal was bought With blood, and each sate sullenly apart Gorging himself in gloom: no love was left; All earth was but one thought�and that was death, Immediate and inglorious; and the pang Of famine fed upon all entrails�men Died, and their bones were tombless as their flesh; The meagre by the meagre were devoured, Even dogs assail'd their masters, all save one, And he was faithful to a corse, and kept

The birds and beasts and famish'd men at bay, Till hunger clung0 them, or the dropping dead withered Lured their lank jaws; himself sought out no food,

But with a piteous and perpetual moan, And a quick desolate cry, licking the hand Which answered not with a caress�he died.

The crowd was famish'd by degrees; but two Of an enormous city did survive, And they were enemies; they met beside The dying embers of an altar-place,

.

61 6 / GEORGE GORDON, LORD BYRON . �-�"

Where had been heap'd a mass of holy things 60 For an unholy usage; they raked up,

And shivering scraped with their cold skeleton hands

The feeble ashes, and their feeble breath Blew for a little life, and made a flame Which was a mockery; then they lifted up 65 Their eyes as it grew lighter, and beheld Each other's aspects�saw, and shriek'd, and died� Even of their mutual hideousness they died, Unknowing who he was upon whose brow Famine had written Fiend. The world was void, 70 The populous and the powerful�was a lump, Seasonless, herbless,� treeless, manless, lifeless� without vegetation A lump of death�a chaos of hard clay. The rivers, lakes, and ocean all stood still, And nothing stirred within their silent depths; 75 Ships sailorless lay rotting on the sea,

And their masts fell down piecemeal; as they dropp'd They slept on the abyss without a surge� The waves were dead; the tides were in their grave, The moon their mistress had expired before;

so The winds were withered in the stagnant air, And the clouds perish'd; Darkness had no need Of aid from them�She was the universe.

1816 1816

So, we'll go no more a roving1

i

So, we'll go no more a roving So late into the night, Though the heart be still as loving, And the moon be still as bright.

2

5 For the sword outwears its sheath, And the soul wears out the breast, And the heart must pause to breathe, And love itself have rest.

3

Though the night was made for loving, 10 And the day returns too soon, Yet we'll go no more a roving By the light of the moon.

1817 1830

1. Composed in the Lenten aftermath of a period have but just turned the corner of twenty-nine." of late-night carousing during the Carnival season The poem is based on the refrain of a bawdy Scot-

in Venice, and included in a letter to Thomas tish song, "The Jolly Beggar": "And we'll gang nae

Moore, February 28, 1817. Byron wrote, "I find mair a roving / Sae late into the nicht."

'the sword wearing out the scabbard,' though I

.

CHILDE HAROLD'S PILGRIMAGE, CANTO 1 / 61 7

Childe Harold's Pilgrimage Childe Harold is a travelogue narrated by a melancholy, passionate, well-read, and very eloquent tourist. Byron wrote most of the first two cantos while on the tour through Spain, Portugal, Albania, and Greece that these cantos describe. When he published them, in 1812, they made him at one stroke the best-known and most talked about poet in England. Byron took up Childe Harold again in 1816, during the European tour he made after the breakup of his marriage. Canto 3, published in 1816, moves through Belgium, up the Rhine, then to Switzerland and the Alps. Canto 4, published in 1818, describes Italy's great cities, in particular their ruins and museums and the stories these tell of the bygone glories of the Roman Empire.

Byron chose for his poem the Spenserian stanza, and like James Thomson (in The Castle of Indolence) and other eighteenth-century predecessors, he attempted in the first canto to imitate, in a seriocomic fashion, the archaic language of his Elizabethan model. (Childe is the ancient term for a young noble awaiting knighthood.) But he soon dropped the archaisms, and in the last two cantos he confidently adapts Spenser's mellifluous stanza to his own autobiographical and polemical purposes. The virtuoso range of moods and subjects in Childe Harold was a quality on which contemporaries commented admiringly. Equally fascinating is the tension between the body of the poem and the long notes (for the most part omitted here) that Byron appended to its sometimes dashing and sometimes sorrowing chronicle of his pilgrimage in the countries of chivalry and romance�notes that feature cosmopolitan reflections on the contrasts among cultures as well as sardonic, hard-hitting critiques of the evolving political order of Europe.

In the preface to his first two cantos, Byron had insisted that the narrator, Childe Harold, was "a fictitious character," merely "the child of imagination." In the manuscript version of these cantos, however, he had called his hero "Childe Burun," the early form of his own family name. The world insisted on identifying the character as well as the travels of the protagonist with those of the author, and in the fourth canto Byron, abandoning the third-person dramatis persona, spoke out frankly in the first person. In the preface to that canto, he declares that there will be "less of the pilgrim" here than in any of the preceding cantos, "and that little slightly, if at all, separated from the author speaking in his own person. The fact is, that I had become weary of drawing a line which every one seemed determined not to perceive."

FROM CHILDE HAROLD'S PILGRIMAGE

A ROMAUNT1

From Canto 1

["SIN'S LONG LABYRINTH"]

I

Oh, thou! in Hellas0 deem'd of heav'nly birth, Greece Muse! form'd or fabled at the minstrel's will! Since sham'd full oft by later lyres on earth, Mine dares not call thee from thy sacred hill:

5

Yet there I've wander'd by thy vaunted rill;

I. A romance or narrative of adventure.

.

61 8 / GEORGE GORDON, LORD BYRON . �-�"

Yes! sigh'd o'er Delphi's long-deserted shrine, Where, save that feeble fountain, all is still; Nor mote� my shell awake the weary Nine2 may To grace so plain a tale�this lowly lay� of mine. song 2 Whilome3 in Albion's" isle there dwelt a youth, England's Who ne in virtue's ways did take delight; But spent his days in riot most uncouth, And vex'd with mirth the drowsy ear of Night. Ah, me! in sooth he was a shameless wight,0 creature Sore given to revel and ungodly glee; Few earthly things found favour in his sight Save concubines and carnal companie, And flaunting wassailers4 of high and low degree. 3 Childe Harold was he hight:��but whence his name called And lineage long, it suits me not to say; Suffice it, that perchance they were of fame, And had been glorious in another day: But one sad losel5 soils a name for aye, However mighty in the olden time; Nor all that heralds rake from coffin'd clay, Nor florid prose, nor honied lies of rhyme Can blazon evil deeds, or consecrate a crime. 4 Childe Harold bask'd him in the noon-tide sun, Disporting there like any other fly; Nor deem'd before his little day was done One blast might chill him into misery. But long ere scarce a third of his pass'd by, Worse than adversity the Childe befell; He felt the fulness of satiety: Then loath'd he in his native land to dwell, Which seem'd to him more lone than Eremite's6 sad cell. 5 For he through Sin's long labyrinth had run, Nor made atonement when he did amiss, Had sigh'd to many though he lov'd but one, And that lov'd one, alas! could ne'er be his. Ah, happy she! to 'scape from him whose kiss Had been pollution unto aught so chaste; Who soon had left her charms for vulgar bliss, And spoil'd her goodly lands to gild his waste, Nor calm domestic peace had ever deign'd to taste.

2. The Muses, whose "vaunted rill" (line 5) was 4. Noisy, insolent drinkers (Byron is thought to the Castalian spring. "Shell": lyre. Hermes isfahled refer to his own youthful carousing with friends at to have invented the lyre by stretching strings over Newstead Abbey).

the hollow of a tortoise shell. 5. Rascal. Byron's great-uncle, the fifth Lord

3. Once upon a time; one of the many archaisms Byron, had killed a kinsman in a drunken duel. that Byron borrowed from Spenser. 6. A religious hermit.

.

CHILDE HAROLD'S PILGRIMAGE, CANTO 3 / 61 9

6

And now Childe Harold was sore sick at heart,

And from his fellow bacchanals would flee;

'Tis said, at times the sullen tear would start,

But Pride congeal'd the drop within his ee:� eye

so Apart he stalk'd in joyless reverie,

And from his native land resolv'd to go,

And visit scorching climes beyond the sea;

With pleasure drugg'd he almost long'd for woe,

And e'en for change of scene would seek the shades below.

From Canto 3

["ONCE MORE UPON THE WATERS"]

1

Is thy face like thy mother's, my fair child!

Ada!' sole daughter of my house and heart?

When last I saw thy young blue eyes they smiled,

And then we parted,�not as now we part,

But with a hope.�

5 Awaking with a start,

The waters heave around me; and on high

The winds lift up their voices: I depart,

Whither I know not; but the hour's gone by,

When Albion's lessening shores could grieve or glad mine eye.

2

io Once more upon the waters! yet once more!

And the waves bound beneath me as a steed

That knows his rider. Welcome, to their roar!

Swift be their guidance, wheresoe'er it lead!

Though the strain'd mast should quiver as a reed, 15 And the rent canvas fluttering strew the gale, Still must I on; for I am as a weed, Flung from the rock, on Ocean's foam, to sail

Where'er the surge may sweep, the tempest's breath prevail.

3 In my youth's summer2 I did sing of One, 20 The wandering outlaw of his own dark mind; Again I seize the theme then but begun, And bear it with me, as the rushing wind Bears the cloud onwards: in that Tale I find The furrows of long thought, and dried-up tears, 25 Which, ebbing, leave a sterile track behind, O'er which all heavily the journeying years Plod the last sands of life,�where not a flower appears.

1. Byron's daughter Augusta Ada, born in Decem-tion, but he was never to see Ada again. ber 1815, a month before her parents separated. 2. Byron wrote canto 1 at age twenty-one; he is

Byron's "hope" (line 5) had been for a reconcilia-now twenty-eight.

.

620 / GEORGE GORDON, LORD BYRON . �-�"

4

Since my young days of passion�-joy, or pain, Perchance my heart and harp have lost a string,

30 And both may jar:3 it may be, that in vain I would essay as I have sung to sing. Yet, though a dreary strain, to this I cling; So that it wean me from the weary dream Of selfish grief or gladness�so it fling

35 Forgetfulness around me�it shall seem To me, though to none else, a not ungrateful theme.

5

He, who grown aged in this world of woe, In deeds, not years, piercing the depths of life, So that no wonder waits him; nor below

40 Can love, or sorrow, fame, ambition, strife, Cut to his heart again with the keen knife Of silent, sharp endurance: he can tell Why thought seeks refuge in lone caves, yet rife With airy images, and shapes which dwell

45 Still unimpair'd, though old, in the soul's haunted cell.

6 'Tis to create, and in creating live A being more intense, that we endow With form our fancy, gaining as we give The life we image, even as I do now. so What am I? Nothing; but not so art thou, Soul of my thought!4 with whom I traverse earth, Invisible but gazing, as I glow Mix'd with thy spirit, blended with thy birth, And feeling still with thee in my crush'd feelings' dearth.

7

55 Yet must I think less wildly:�I have thought Too long and darkly, till my brain became, In its own eddy boiling and o'erwrought, A whirling gulf of phantasy and flame: And thus, untaught in youth my heart to tame,

60 My springs of life were poison'd. 'Tis too late! Yet am I chang'd; though still enough the same In strength to bear what time can not abate, And feed on bitter fruits without accusing Fate.

8 Something too much of this:�but now 'tis past, 65 And the spell closes with its silent seal.5 Long absent HAROLD re-appears at last; He of the breast which fain no more would feel, Wrung with the wounds which kill not, but ne'er heal; Yet Time, who changes all, had alter'd him

3. Sound discordant. 5. I.e., he sets the seal of silence on his personal 4. I.e., Childe Harold, his literary creation. tale ("spell").

.

CHILDE HAROLD'S PILGRIMAGE,

In soul and aspect as in age: years steal Fire from the mind as vigour from the limb; And life's enchanted cup but sparkles near the brim.

9 His had been quaff'd too quickly, and he found The dregs were wormwood; but he fill'd again,

75 And from a purer fount, on holier ground, And deem'd its spring perpetual; but in vain! Still round him clung invisibly a chain Which gall'd for ever, fettering though unseen, And heavy though it clank'd not; worn with pain,

CANTO 1 / 621

so Which pined although it spoke not, and grew keen, Entering with every step, he took, through many a scene.

10

Secure in guarded coldness, he had mix'd Again in fancied safety with his kind, And deem'd his spirit now so firmly fix'd

85 And sheath'd with an invulnerable mind, That, if no joy, no sorrow lurk'd behind; And he, as one, might midst the many stand Unheeded, searching through the crowd to find Fit speculation! such as in strange land

90 He found in wonder-works of God and Nature's hand.

11

But who can view the ripened rose, nor seek To wear it? who can curiously behold The smoothness and the sheen of beauty's cheek, Nor feel the heart can never all grow old?

95 Who can contemplate Fame through clouds unfold The star which rises o'er her steep, nor climb? Harold, once more within the vortex, roll'd On with the giddy circle, chasing Time,

Yet with a nobler aim than in his youth's fond� prime. foolish

12

loo But soon he knew himself the most unfit Of men to herd with Man; with whom he held Little in common; untaught to submit His thoughts to others, though his soul was quell'd In youth by his own thoughts; still uncompell'd,

105 He would not yield dominion of his mind To spirits against whom his own rebell'd; Proud though in desolation; which could find

A life within itself, to breathe without mankind.

13

Where rose the mountains, there to him were friends;

110 Where roll'd the ocean, thereon was his home; Where a blue sky, and glowing clime, extends, He had the passion and the power to roam; The desert, forest, cavern, breaker's foam,

.

622 / GEORGE GORDON, LORD BYRON . �-�"

Were unto him companionship; they spake 115 A mutual language, clearer than the tome� book Of his land's tongue, which he would oft forsake For Nature's pages glass'd� by sunbeams on the lake. made glassy

14

Like the Chaldean,6 he could watch the stars, Till he had peopled them with beings bright

120 As their own beams; and earth, and earth-born jars, And human frailties, were forgotten quite: Could he have kept his spirit to that flight He had been happy; but this clay will sink Its spark immortal, envying it the light

125 To which it mounts, as if to break the link That keeps us from yon heaven which woos us to its brink.

15

But in Man's dwellings he became a thing Restless and worn, and stern and wearisome, Droop'd as a wild-born falcon with dipt wing,

130 To whom the boundless air alone were home: Then came his fit again, which to o'ercome, As eagerly the barr'd-up bird will beat His breast and beak against his wiry dome Till the blood tinge his plumage, so the heat

135 Of his impeded soul would through his bosom eat.

16

Self-exiled Harold wanders forth again, With nought of hope left, but with less of gloom; The very knowledge that he lived in vain, That all was over on this side the tomb,

140 Had made Despair a smilingness assume, Which, though 'twere wild,�as on the plundered wreck When mariners would madly meet their doom With draughts intemperate on the sinking deck,�

Did yet inspire a cheer, which he forbore to check.

[WATERLOO]

17

145 Stop!-�for thy tread is on an Empire's dust! An Earthquake's spoil is sepulchered below! Is the spot mark'd with no colossal bust? Nor column trophied for triumphal show?7 None; but the moral's truth tells simpler so,

150 As the ground was before, thus let it be;� How that red rain hath made the harvest grow! And is this all the world has gained by thee,

Thou first and last of fields! king-making Victory?

6. A people of ancient Babylonia, expert in astron- ancient Rome to honor conquering generals, a cusomy. torn Napoleon had revived.

7. Referring to the triumphal arches erected in

.

CHILDE HAROLD'S PILGRIMAGE, CANTO 1 / 62 3

18

And Harold stands upon this place of skulls,

155 The grave of France, the deadly Waterloo!8 How in an hour the power which gave annuls Its gifts, transferring fame as fleeting too! In "pride of place" here last the eagle flew,9 Then tore with bloody talon the rent plain,

160 Pierced by the shaft of banded nations1 through; Ambition's life and labours all were vain; He wears the shattered links of the world's broken chain.2

Fit retribution! Gaul3 may champ the bit And foam in fetters;�but is Earth more free?

165 Did nations combat to make One submit; Or league to teach all kings true sovereignty? What! shall reviving Thraldom again be The patched-up idol of enlightened days? Shall we, who struck the Lion down, shall we

170 Pay the Wolf homage? proffering lowly gaze And servile knees to thrones? No; prove4 before ye praise!

20

If not, o'er one fallen despot boast no more! In vain fair cheeks were furrowed with hot tears For Europe's flowers long rooted up before

175 The trampler of her vineyards; in vain years Of death, depopulation, bondage, fears, Have all been borne, and broken by the accord Of roused-up millions: all that most endears Glory, is when the myrtle wreathes a sword

180 Such as Harmodius drew on Athens' tyrant lord.5

21

There was a sound of revelry by night,6 And Belgium's capital had gathered then Her Beauty and her Chivalry, and bright The lamps shone o'er fair women and brave men;

185 A thousand hearts beat happily; and when Music arose with its voluptuous swell, Soft eyes look'd love to eyes which spake again, And all went merry as a marriage-bell;

But hush! hark! a deep sound strikes like a rising knell!

8. Napoleon's defeat at Waterloo, near Brussels, 2. Napoleon was then a prisoner at St. Helena. had occurred only the year before, on June 18, 3. France. Byron, like other liberals, saw the

1815. The battlefield, where almost fifty thousand defeat of the Napoleonic tyranny as a victory for

English, Prussian, and French soldiers were killed tyrannical kings and the forces of reaction

in a single day, quickly became a gruesome tourist throughout Europe.

attraction. 4. Await the test (proof) of experience.

9. "Pride of place," is a term of falconry, and 5. In 514 B.C.E. Harmodius and Aristogeiton, hid- means the highest pitch of flight [Byron's note, ing their daggers in myrtle (symbol of love), killed

which continues by referring to the use of the term Hipparchus, tyrant of Athens.

in Shakespeare's Macbeth 2.4]. The eagle was the 6. A famous ball, given by the duchess of Rich-

symbol of Napoleon. mond on the eve of the battle of Quatre Bras,

1. The Grand Alliance formed in opposition to which opened the conflict at Waterloo. Napoleon.

.

62 4 / GEORGE GORDON, LORD BYRON . �-�"

22

190 Did ye not hear it?�No; 'twas but the wind,

Or the car rattling o'er the stony street;

On with the dance! let joy be unconfined;

No sleep till morn, when Youth and Pleasure meet

To chase the glowing Hours with flying feet�

195 But, hark!�that heavy sound breaks in once more,

As if the clouds its echo would repeat;

And nearer, clearer, deadlier than before!

Arm! Arm! and out�it is�the cannon's opening roar!

23

Within a windowed niche of that high hall

200 Sate Brunswick's fated chieftain;7 he did hear

That sound the first amidst the festival,

And caught its tone with Death's prophetic ear;

And when they smiled because he deem'd it near,

His heart more truly knew that peal too well

205 Which stretch'd his father on a bloody bier, And roused the vengeance blood alone could quell:

He rush'd into the field, and, foremost fighting, fell.

24

Ah! then and there was hurrying to and fro,

And gathering tears, and tremblings of distress,

210 And cheeks all pale, which but an hour ago

Blush'd at the praise of their own loveliness;

And there were sudden partings, such as press

The life from out young hearts, and choking sighs

Which ne'er might be repeated; who could guess

215 If ever more should meet those mutual eyes, Since upon nights so sweet such awful morn could rise?

25

And there was mounting in hot haste: the steed,

The mustering squadron, and the clattering car,

Went pouring forward in impetuous speed,

220 And swiftly forming in the ranks of war;

And the deep thunder peal on peal afar;

And near, the beat of the alarming drum

Roused up the soldier ere the morning star;

While throng'd the citizens with terror dumb,

225 Or whispering, with white lips�"The foe! They come! they come!"

26

And wild and high the "Cameron's gathering" rose! The war-note of Lochiel,8 which Albyn's� hills Scotland's

Have heard, and heard, too, have her Saxon foes:�

How in the noon of night that pibroch9 thrills,

7. The duke of Brunswick, nephew of George III 8. "Cameron's gathering" is the clan song of the of England, was killed in the battle of Quatre Bras. Camerons, whose chief was called "Lochiel," after

His father, commanding the Prussian army against his estate.

Napoleon, had been killed at Auerstedt in 1806 9. Bagpipe music, usually warlike in character.

(line 205).

.

CHILDE HAROLD'S PILGRIMAGE, CANTO 1 / 62 5

230 Savage and shrill! But with the breath which fills Their mountain-pipe, so fill the mountaineers With the fierce native daring which instils The stirring memory of a thousand years,

And Evan's, Donald's1 fame rings in each clansman's ears!

27

235 And Ardennes2 waves above them her green leaves, Dewy with nature's tear-drops, as they pass, Grieving, if aught inanimate e'er grieves, Over the unreturning brave,�alas! Ere evening to be trodden like the grass

240 Which now beneath them, but above shall grow In its next verdure, when this fiery mass Of living valour, rolling on the foe

And burning with high hope, shall moulder cold and low.

28

Last noon beheld them full of lusty life,

245 Last eve in Beauty's circle proudly gay, The midnight brought the signal-sound of strife, The morn the marshalling in arms,�the day Battle's magnificently-stern array! The thunder-clouds close o'er it, which when rent

250 The earth is covered thick with other clay, Which her own clay shall cover, heaped and pent, Rider and horse,�friend, foe,�in one red burial blent!

$ * >*

[NAPOLEON]

36

There sunk the greatest, nor the worst of men,3 Whose spirit antithetically mixt One moment of the mightiest, and again On little objects with like firmness fixt,

320 Extreme in all things! hadst thou been betwixt, Thy throne had still been thine, or never been; For daring made thy rise as fall: thou seek'st Even now to re-assume the imperial mien,� character

And shake again the world, the Thunderer of the scene!

37

325 Conqueror and captive of the earth art thou! She trembles at thee still, and thy wild name Was ne'er more bruited in men's minds than now That thou art nothing, save the jest of Fame,

1. Sir Evan and Donald Cameron, famous warri-mans against the Roman encroachments�I have ors in the Stuart cause in the Jacobite risings of ventured to adopt the name connected with nobler

1689 and 1745. associations than those of mere slaughter [Byron's

2. The wood of Soignes is supposed to be a rem-note], Orlando Innamorato is a 15th-century Italnant of the "forest of Ardennes" famous in ian epic of love and adventure.

Boiardo's Orlando, and immortal in Shakespeare's 3. Napoleon, here portrayed with many character-

As You Like It. It is also celebrated in Tacitus as istics of the Byronic hero.

being the spot of successful defence by the Ger

.

62 6 / GEORGE GORDON, LORD BYRON . �-�"

Who wooed thee once, thy vassal, and became

330 The flatterer of thy fierceness, till thou wert A god unto thyself; nor less the same To the astounded kingdoms all inert,

Who deem'd thee for a time whate'er thou didst assert.

38

Oh, more or less than man�in high or low,

335 Battling with nations, flying from the field; Now making monarchs' necks thy footstool, now More than thy meanest" soldier taught to yield; lowest An empire thou couldst crush, command, rebuild, But govern not thy pettiest passion, nor,

340 However deeply in men's spirits skill'd, Look through thine own, nor curb the lust of war, Nor learn that tempted Fate will leave the loftiest star.

/

39

,

Yet well thy soul hath brook'd the turning tide With that untaught innate philosophy,

345 Which, be it wisdom, coldness, or deep pride, Is gall and wormwood to an enemy. When the whole host of hatred stood hard by, To watch and mock thee shrinking, thou hast smiled With a sedate and all-enduring eye;�

350 When Fortune fled her spoil'd and favourite child, He stood unbowed beneath the ills upon him piled.

40

Sager than in thy fortunes; for in them Ambition steel'd thee on too far to show That just habitual scorn which could contemn

355 Men and their thoughts; 'twas wise to feel, not so To wear it ever on thy lip and brow, And spurn the instruments thou wert to use Till they were turn'd unto thine overthrow: 'Tis but a worthless world to win or lose;

360 So hath it proved to thee, and all such lot who choose.4

41

If, like a tower upon a headlong rock, Thou hadst been made to stand or fall alone, Such scorn of man had help'd to brave the shock; But men's thoughts were the steps which paved thy throne,

365 Their admiration thy best weapon shone; The part of Philip's son5 was thine, not then (Unless aside thy purple had been thrown) Like stern Diogenes6 to mock at men;

For sceptred cynics earth were far too wide a den.

4. An inversion: "all who choose such lot" (i.e., porary of Alexander. It is related that Alexander who choose to play such a game of chance). was so struck by his independence of mind that he 5. Alexander the Great, son of Philip of Macedon. said, "If I were not Alexander, I should wish to be 6. The Greek philosopher of Cynicism, contem-Diogenes."

.

CHILD E HAROLD' S PILGRIMAGE , CANT O 1 / 62 7 4 2 370 But quiet to quick bosoms is a hell, And there hath been thy bane; there is a fire And motion of the soul which will not dwell In its own narrow being, but aspire Beyond the fitting medium of desire; 375 And, but once kindled, quenchless evermore, Preys upon high adventure, nor can tire Of aught but rest; a fever at the core, Fatal to him who bears, to all who ever bore. 43 This makes the madmen who have made men mad 380 By their contagion; Conquerors and Kings, Founders of sects and systems, to whom add Sophists,7 Bards, Statesmen, all unquiet things Which stir too strongly the soul's secret springs, And are themselves the fools to those they fool; 385 Envied, yet how unenviable! what stings Are theirs! One breast laid open were a school Which would unteach mankind the lust to shine or rule: 44 Their breath is agitation, and their life A storm whereon they ride, to sink at last, 390 And yet so nurs'd and bigotted to strife, That should their days, surviving perils past, Melt to calm twilight, they feel overcast With sorrow and supineness, and so die; Even as a flame unfed, which runs to waste 395 With its own flickering, or a sword laid by Which eats into itself, and rusts ingloriously. 45 He who ascends to mountain-tops, shall find The loftiest peaks most wrapt in clouds and snow; He who surpasses or subdues mankind, 400 Must look down on the hate of those below. Though high above the sun of glory glow, And far beneath the earth and ocean spread, Round him are icy rocks, and loudly blow Contending tempests on his naked head, 405 And thus reward the toils which to those summits led.8 $ * $ 52 460 Thus Harold inly said, and pass'd along, Yet not insensibly to all which here

7. Learned men. But the term often carries a 8. In the stanzas here omitted, Harold is sent sail- derogatory sense�thinkers with a penchant for ing up the Rhine, meditating on the "thousand bat-

tricky reasoning. tles" that "have assailed thy banks."

.

628 / GEORGE GORDON, LORD BYRON . �-�"

Awoke the jocund birds to early song In glens which might have made even exile dear: Though on his brow were graven lines austere,

465 And tranquil sternness which had ta'en the place Of feelings fierier far but less severe, Joy was not always absent from his face,

But o'er it in such scenes would steal with transient trace.

53

Nor was all love shut from him, though his days

470 Of passion had consumed themselves to dust. It is in vain that we would coldly gaze On such as smile upon us; the heart must Leap kindly back to kindness, though disgust Hath wean'd it from all worldlings: thus he felt,

475 For there was soft remembrance, and sweet trust In one fond breast,9 to which his own would melt, And in its tenderer hour on that his bosom dwelt.

54 And he had learn'd to love,�I know not why, For this in such as him seems strange of mood,�

480 The helpless looks of blooming infancy, Even in its earliest nurture; what subdued, To change like this, a mind so far imbued With scorn of man, it little boots to know; But thus it was; and though in solitude

485 Small power the nipp'd affections have to grow, In him this glowed when all beside had ceased to glow.

55

And there was one soft breast, as hath been said, Which unto his was bound by stronger ties Than the church links withal; and, though unwed,

490 That love was pure, and, far above disguise, Had stood the test of mortal enmities Still undivided, and cemented more By peril, dreaded most in female eyes; But this was firm, and from a foreign shore

495 Well to that heart might his these absent greetings pour!

* * *

[SWITZERLAND] 1

68

Lake Leman� woos me with its crystal face, Geneva 645 The mirror where the stars and mountains view

9. Commentators agree that the reference is to story-telling contest in which these five particiByron's half-sister, Augusta Leigh. pated, and which saw the genesis of both

1. Byron with his traveling companion and phy-Frankenstein and Polidori's "The Vampyre," took sician, John Polidori, spent the gloomy summer of place that June. The Shelley household's involve

1816 near Geneva, in a villa rented for its proximity ment in Childe Harold is extensive. The fair copy

to the household that Percy Shelley, Mary Woll-of this canto was in fact written out by Claire, and

stonecraft Godwin (who would marry Shelley at Percy would eventually deliver it to Byron's pub-

the end of the year), and her half-sister Claire lisher in London.

Clairmont had set up there. The famous ghost

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CHILDE HAROLD'S PILGRIMAGE, CANTO 1 / 62 9

650The stillness of their aspect in each trace Its clear depth yields of their far height and hue: There is too much of man here, to look through With a fit mind the might which I behold; But soon in me shall Loneliness renew Thoughts hid, but not less cherish'd than of old, Ere mingling with the herd had penn'd me in their fold. 69 655660To fly from, need not be to hate, mankind; All are not fit with them to stir and toil, Nor is it discontent to keep the mind Deep in its fountain, lest it overboil In the hot throng, where we become the spoil Of our infection, till too late and long We may deplore and struggle with the coil,0 In wretched interchange of wrong for wrong 'Midst a contentious world, striving where none are strong. tumult 70 665There, in a moment, we may plunge our years In fatal penitence, and in the blight Of our own soul, turn all our blood to tears, And colour things to come with hues of Night; The race of life becomes a hopeless flight To those that walk in darkness: on the sea, The boldest steer but where their ports invite, But there are wanderers o'er Eternity

670 Whose bark drives on and on, and anchored ne'er shall be.

71

Is it not better, then, to be alone, And love Earth only for its earthly sake? By the blue rushing of the arrowy Rhone,2 Or the pure bosom of its nursing lake,

675 Which feeds it as a mother who doth make A fair but froward infant her own care, Kissing its cries away as these awake;� Is it not better thus our lives to wear,

Than join the crushing crowd, doom'd to inflict or bear?

72

680 I live not in myself, but I become Portion of that around me; and to me, High mountains are a feeling, but the hum Of human cities torture: I can see Nothing to loathe in nature, save to be

685 A link reluctant in a fleshly chain, Class'd among creatures, when the soul can flee, And with the sky, the peak, the heaving plain

Of ocean, or the stars, mingle, and not in vain.3

2. River rising in Switzerland and flowing through Ryron to the poetry of Wordsworth and Words- France into the Mediterranean. worth's concepts of nature. Those ideas are

3. During the tour around Lake Geneva that they reflected in canto 3, but the voice is Byron's own. took in late June 1816, Percy Shelley introduced For his comment on being "half mad" while writing

.

63 0 / GEORGE GORDON, LORD BYRON . �-�"

73 And thus I am absorb'd, and this is life:

690 I look upon the peopled desart past, As on a place of agony and strife, Where, for some sin, to Sorrow I was cast, To act and suffer, but remount at last With a fresh pinion; which I feel to spring,

695 Though young, yet waxing vigorous, as the blast Which it would cope with, on delighted wing, Spurning the clay-cold bonds which round our being cling.

74 And when, at length, the mind shall be all free From what it hates in this degraded form,

700 Reft of its carnal life, save what shall be Existent happier in the fly and worm,� When elements to elements conform, And dust is as it should be, shall I not Feel all I see, less dazzling, but more warm?

705 The bodiless thought? the Spirit of each spot? Of which, even now, I share at times the immortal lot?

75 Are not the mountains, waves, and skies, a part Of me and of my soul, as I of them? Is not the love of these deep in my heart

710 With a pure passion? should I not contemn All objects, if compared with these? and stem A tide of suffering, rather than forego Such feelings for the hard and worldly phlegm Of those whose eyes are only turn'd below,

715 Gazing upon the ground, with thoughts which dare not glow?

76

But this is not my theme; and I return To that which is immediate, and require Those who find contemplation in the urn,4 To look on One,5 whose dust was once all fire,

720 A native of the land where I respire The clear air for a while�a passing guest, Where he became a being,�whose desire Was to be glorious; 'twas a foolish quest,

The which to gain and keep, he sacrificed all rest.

77

725 Here the self-torturing sophist, wild Rousseau, The apostle of affliction, he who threw Enchantment over passion, and from woe Wrung overwhelming eloquence, first drew The breath which made him wretched; yet he knew

730 How to make madness beautiful, and cast

canto 3, see his letter to Thomas Moore, January 5. Jean-Jacques Rousseau, who had been born in

28, 1817 (p. 736). Geneva in 1712. Byron's characterization is based

4. I.e., those who find matter for meditation in an on Rousseau's novel La Nouvelle Heloise and auto- urn containing the ashes of the dead. biographical Confessions.

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CHILDE HAROLD'S PILGRIMAGE, CANTO 1 / 631

O'er erring deeds and thoughts, a heavenly hue Of words, like sunbeams, dazzling as they past The eyes, which o'er them shed tears feelingly and fast.

78

His love was passion's essence�as a tree

735 On fire by lightning; with ethereal flame Kindled he was, and blasted; for to be Thus, and enamoured, were in him the same. But his was not the love of living dame, Nor of the dead who rise upon our dreams,

740 But of ideal beauty, which became In him existence, and o'erflowing teems Along his burning page, distempered though it seems.

3 $

85 800so; Clear, placid Leman! thy contrasted lake, With the wild world I dwelt in, is a thing Which warns me, with its stillness, to forsake Earth's troubled waters for a purer spring. This quiet sail is as a noiseless wing To waft me from distraction; once I loved Torn ocean's roar, but thy soft murmuring Sounds sweet as if a sister's voice reproved, That I with stern delights should e'er have been so moved. 86 8ioIt is the hush of night, and all between Thy margin and the mountains, dusk, yet clear, Mellowed and mingling, yet distinctly seen, Save darken'd Jura,6 whose capt heights appear Precipitously steep; and drawing near, There breathes a living fragrance from the shore, Of flowers yet fresh with childhood; on the ear Drops the light drip of the suspended oar, Or chirps the grasshopper one good-night carol more; 87 si s820 He is an evening reveller, who makes His life an infancy, and sings his fill; At intervals, some bird from out the brakes," Starts into voice a moment, then is still. There seems a floating whisper on the hill, But that is fancy, for the starlight dews All silently their tears of love instil, Weeping themselves away, till they infuse Deep into Nature's breast the spirit of her hues. thickets 88 825Ye stars! which are the poetry of heaven! If in your bright leaves we would read the fate

6. The mountain range between Switzerland and France, visible from Lake Geneva.

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63 2 / GEORGE GORDON, LORD BYRON . �-�"

Of men and empires,�'tis to be forgiven, That in our aspirations to be great, Our destinies o'erleap their mortal state, And claim a kindred with you; for ye are

830 A beauty and a mystery, and create In us such love and reverence from afar, That fortune, fame, power, life, have named themselves a star.

89

All heaven and earth are still�though not in sleep, But breathless, as we grow when feeling most;

835 And silent, as we stand in thoughts too deep:� All heaven and earth are still: From the high host Of stars, to the lull'd lake and mountain-coast, All is concentered in a life intense, Where not a beam, nor air, nor leaf is lost,

840 But hath a part of being, and a sense Of that which is of all Creator and defence.

90

Then stirs the feeling infinite, so felt In solitude, where we are least alone; A truth, which through our being then doth melt

845 And purifies from self: it is a tone, The soul and source of music, which makes known Eternal harmony, and sheds a charm, Like to the fabled Cytherea's zone,7 Binding all things with beauty;�'twould disarm

850 The spectre Death, had he substantial power to harm.

91 Not vainly did the early Persian make His altar the high places and the peak Of earth-o'ergazing mountains, and thus take8 A fit and unwall'd temple, there to seek 855 The Spirit, in whose honour shrines are weak, Uprear'd of human hands. Come, and compare Columns and idol-dwellings, Goth or Greek, With Nature's realms of worship, earth and air, Nor fix on fond abodes to circumscribe thy prayer!

92

860 The sky is changed!�and such a change! Oh night, And storm, and darkness, ye are wondrous strong, Yet lovely in your strength, as is the fight Of a dark eye in woman! Far along, From peak to peak, the rattling crags among

865 Leaps the live thunder! Not from one lone cloud, But every mountain now hath found a tongue, And Jura answers, through her misty shroud,

Back to the joyous Alps, who call to her aloud!

7. The sash of Venus, which conferred the power and impressive doctrines of the Founder of Chris- to attract love. tianity were delivered, not in the Temple, but on

8. It is to be recollected, that the most beautiful the Mount [Byron's note].

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CHILDE HAROLD'S PILGRIMAGE, CANTO 1 / 63 3

93 And this is in the night:�Most glorious night!

870 Thou wert not sent for slumber! let me be A sharer in thy fierce and far delight,� A portion of the tempest and of thee! How the lit lake shines, a phosphoric sea, And the big rain comes dancing to the earth!

875 And now again 'tis black,�and now, the glee Of the loud hills shakes with its mountain-mirth, As if they did rejoice o'er a young earthquake's birth.

94 Now, where the swift Rhone cleaves his way between Heights which appear as lovers who have parted

880 In hate, whose mining depths so intervene, That they can meet no more, though broken-hearted; Though in their souls, which thus each other thwarted, Love was the very root of the fond rage Which blighted their life's bloom, and then departed:�

885 Itself expired, but leaving them an age Of years all winters,�war within themselves to wage.

95 Now, where the quick Rhone thus hath cleft his way, The mightiest of the storms hath ta'en his stand: For here, not one, but many, make their play,

890 And fling their thunder-bolts from hand to hand, Flashing and cast around: of all the band, The brightest through these parted hills hath fork'd His lightnings,�as if he did understand, That in such gaps as desolation work'd,

895 There the hot shaft should blast whatever therein lurk'd.

96

Sky, mountains, river, winds, lake, lightnings! ye! With night, and clouds, and thunder, and a soul To make these felt and feeling, well may be Things that have made me watchful; the far roll

900 Of your departing voices, is the knoll9 Of what in me is sleepless,�if I rest. But where of ye, oh tempests! is the goal? Are ye like those within the human breast?

Or do ye find, at length, like eagles, some high nest?

97

905 Could I embody and unbosom now That which is most within me,�could I wreak My thoughts upon expression, and thus throw Soul, heart, mind, passions, feelings, strong or weak, All that I would have sought, and all I seek,

910 Bear, know, feel, and yet breathe�into one word, And that one word were Lightning, I would speak;

9. Knell (old form).

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634 / GEORGE GORDON, LORD BYRON . �-�"

But as it is, I live and die unheard, With a most voiceless thought, sheathing it as a sword.

98

The morn is up again, the dewy morn,

915 With breath all incense, and with cheek all bloom, Laughing the clouds away with playful scorn, And living as if earth contain'd no tomb,� And glowing into day: we may resume The march of our existence: and thus I,

920 Still on thy shores, fair Leman! may find room And food for meditation, nor pass by Much, that may give us pause, if pondered fittingly.

^ $ $ *

�3 I have not loved the world, nor the world me;

1050 I have not flattered its rank breath, nor bow'd To its idolatries a patient knee,� Nor coin'd my cheek to smiles,�nor cried aloud In worship of an echo; in the crowd They could not deem me one of such; I stood

1055 Among them, but not of them; in a shroud Of thoughts which were not their thoughts, and still could, Had I not filed1 my mind, which thus itself subdued.

114

I have not loved the world, nor the world me,� But let us part fair foes; I do believe,

1060 Though I have found them not, that there may be Words which are things,�hopes which will not deceive, And virtues which are merciful, nor weave Snares for the failing: I would also deem O'er others' griefs that some sincerely grieve;

1065 That two, or one, are almost what they seem,� That goodness is no name, and happiness no dream.

"5 My daughter! with thy name this song begun� My daughter! with thy name thus much shall end� I see thee not,�I hear thee not,�but none

1070 Can be so wrapt in thee; thou art the friend To whom the shadows of far years extend: Albeit my brow thou never should'st behold, My voice shall with thy future visions blend, And reach into thy heart,�when mine is cold,�

1075 A token and a tone, even from thy father's mould.

116

To aid thy mind's development,�to watch Thy dawn of little joys,�to sit and see

1. Defiled. In a note Byron refers to Macbeth 3.1.66 ("For Banquo's issue have I filed my mind").

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MANFRED / 635

Almost thy very growth,�to view thee catch Knowledge of objects,�wonders yet to thee!

1080 To hold thee lightly on a gentle knee, And print on thy soft cheek a parent's kiss,� This, it should seem, was not reserv'd for me; Yet this was in my nature:�as it is,

I know not what is there, yet something like to this.

117 1085 Yet, though dull Hate as duty should be taught, I know that thou wilt love me; though my name Should be shut from thee, as a spell still fraught With desolation,�and a broken claim: Though the grave closed between us,�'twere the same, 1090 I know that thou wilt love me; though to drain My blood from out thy being, were an aim, And an attainment,�all would be in vain,� Still thou would'st love me, still that more than life retain.

118 The child of love,�though born in bitterness, 1095 And nurtured in convulsion,�of thy sire These were the elements,�and thine no less. As yet such are around thee,�but thy fire Shall be more tempered, and thy hope far higher. Sweet be thy cradled slumbers! O'er the sea, 1100 And from the mountains where I now respire, Fain would I waft such blessing upon thee, As, with a sigh, I deem thou might'st have been to me!

1812,1816

Manfred Manfred is Byron's first dramatic work. As its subtitle, "A Dramatic Poem," indicates, it was not intended to be produced on the stage; Byron also referred to it as a "metaphysical" drama�that is, a drama of ideas. He began writing it in the autumn of 1816 while living in the Swiss Alps, whose grandeur stimulated his imagination; he finished the drama the following year in Italy.

Manfred's literary forebears include the villains of Gothic fiction (another Manfred can be found in Horace Walpole's Castle of Otranto; see p. 579) and of the Gothic dramas Byron had encountered during his time on the board of managers of London's Drury Lane Theatre. Manfred also shares traits with the Greek Titan Prometheus, rebel against Zeus, ruler of the gods; Milton's Satan; Ahasuerus, the legendary Wandering Jew who, having ridiculed Christ as he bore the Cross to Calvary, is doomed to live until Christ's Second Coming; and Faust, who yielded his soul to the devil in exchange for superhuman powers. Byron denied that he had ever heard of Marlowe's Doctor Faustus, and because he knew no German he had not read Goethe's Faust, of which part 1 had been published in 1808. But during an August 1816 visit to Byron and the Shelley household, Matthew Lewis (author of the Gothic novel The Monk; see pp. 595 and 602) had read parts of Faust to him aloud, translating as he went, and Byron worked memories of this oral translation into his own drama in a way that evoked Goethe's admiration.

Like Byron's earlier heroes, Childe Harold and the protagonists of some of his

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63 6 / GEORGE GORDON, LORD BYRON . �-�"

Eastern tales, Manfred is hounded by remorse�in this instance, for a transgression that (it is hinted but never quite specified) is incest with his sister Astarte; it is also hinted that Astarte has taken her own life. While this element in the drama is often regarded as Byron's veiled confession of his incestuous relations with his half-sister, Augusta, and while Byron, ever the attention-seeker, in some ways courted this interpretation, the theme of incest was a common one in Gothic and Bomantic writings. It features in The Monk and Walpole's closet drama The Mysterious Mother (1768), and, at about the time Byron was composing his drama, it was also being explored by Mary and Percy Shelley.

The character of Manfred is its author's most impressive representation of the Byronic Hero. Byron's invention is to have Manfred, unlike Faust, disdainfully reject the offer of a pact with the powers of darkness. He thereby sets himself up as the totally autonomous man, independent of any external authority or power, whose own mind, as he says in the concluding scene (3.4.127�40), generates the values by which he lives "in sufferance or in joy," and by reference to which he judges, requites, and finally destroys himself. In his work Ecce Homo, the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, recognizing Byron's anticipation of his own Uhermensch (the "superman" who posits for himself a moral code beyond all traditional standards of good and evil), asserted that the character of Manfred was greater than that of Goethe's Faust.

For more information on the context of Manfred, see "The Satanic and Byronic Hero" at Norton Literature Online.

Manfred

A DRAMATIC POEM

"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, Than are dreamt of in your philosophy."1

DRAMATIS PERSONAE

MANFRED WITCH OF THE ALPS CHAMOIS HUNTER ARIMANES ABBOT OF ST. MAURICE NEMESIS MANUEL THE DESTINIES HERMAN SPIRITS, ETC.

The scene of the Drama is amongst the Higher Alps�partly in the Castle of Manfred, and partly in the Mountains.

Act 1

SCENE 1. MANFRED alone.�Scene, a Gothic gallery.2�Time, Midnight.

MANFRED The lamp must be replenish'd, but even then It will not burn so long as I must watch: My slumbers�if I slumber�are not sleep, But a continuance of enduring thought,

Which then I can resist not: in my heart There is a vigil, and these eyes but close To look within; and yet I live, and bear The aspect and the form of breathing men.

1. Hamlet's comment after having seen his 2. A large chamber built in the medieval Gothic father's ghost (Shakespeare, Hamlet 1.5.168�69). style with high, pointed arches.

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MANFRED, ACT 1 / 637

But grief should be the instructor of the wise; Sorrow is knowledge: they who know the most Must mourn the deepest o'er the fatal truth, The Tree of Knowledge is not that of Life. Philosophy and science, and the springs Of wonder, and the wisdom of the world, I have essayed, and in my mind there is A power to make these subject to itself� But they avail not: I have done men good, And I have met with good even among men� But this avail'd not: I have had my foes, And none have baffled, many fallen before me� But this avail'd not:�Good, or evil, life, Powers, passions, all I see in other beings, Have been to me as rain unto the sands, Since that all-nameless hour. I have no dread, And feel the curse to have no natural fear, Nor fluttering throb, that beats with hopes or wishes, Or lurking love of something on the earth.� Now to my task.�

Mysterious Agency! Ye spirits of the unbounded Universe! Whom I have sought in darkness and in light� Ye, who do compass earth about, and dwell In subtler essence�ye, to whom the tops Of mountains inaccessible are haunts, And earth's and ocean's caves familiar things� I call upon ye by the written charm Which gives me power upon you�Rise! appear! [A pause.] They come not yet.�Now by the voice of him Who is the first among you3�by this sign, Which makes you tremble�by the claims of him Who is undying,4�Bise! appear!�Appear! [A pause.] If it be so.�Spirits of earth and air, Ye shall not thus elude me: by a power, Deeper than all yet urged, a tyrant-spell, Which had its birth-place in a star condemn'd, The burning wreck of a demolish'd world, A wandering hell in the eternal space; By the strong curse which is upon my soul, The thought which is within me and around me, I do compel ye to my will.�Appear!

[A star is seen at the darker end of the gallery; it is stationary; and a voice is heard singing.]

FIRST SPIRIT5

Mortal! to thy bidding bow'd, From my mansion in the cloud,

3. Arimanes, who appears in 2.4. 5. The Spirits, successively, are those of the Air, 4. Probably God, to whom traditional magic con-Mountain, Ocean, Earth, Winds, Night, and Manjurations often allude. fred's guiding Star.

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638 / GEORGE GORDON, LORD BYRON . �-�"

Which the breath of twilight builds, And the summer's sun-set gilds With the azure and vermilion, Which is mix'd for my pavilion; Though thy quest may be forbidden, On a star-beam I have ridd'n; To thine adjuration0 bow'd, summons Mortal�be thy wish avow'd!

Voice of the SECOND SPIRIT

Mont Blanc6 is the monarch of mountains, They crowned him long ago On a throne of rocks, in a robe of clouds, With a diadem of snow. Around his waist are forests braced, The Avalanche in his hand; But ere it fall, that thundering ball Must pause for my command. The Glacier's cold and restless mass Moves onward day by day; But I am he who bids it pass, Or with its ice delay. I am the spirit of the place, Could make the mountain bow And quiver to his cavern'd base� And what with me wouldst Thou?

Voice of the THIRD SPIRIT

In the blue depth of the waters, Where the wave hath no strife, Where the wind is a stranger, And the sea-snake hath life, Where the Mermaid is decking Her green hair with shells; Like the storm on the surface Came the sound of thy spells; O'er my calm Hall of Coral The deep echo roll'd� To the Spirit of Ocean Thy wishes unfold!

FOURTH SPIRIT

Where the slumbering earthquake Lies pillow'd on fire, And the lakes of bitumen0 mineral pitch Rise boilingly higher; Where the roots of the Andes Strike deep in the earth,

6. The highest mountain in the Alps. Percy Shelley paid tribute to it in a poem published in the same year as Manfred.

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MANFRED, ACT 1 / 639

As their summits to heaven Shoot soaringly forth; I have quitted my birth-place,

Thy bidding to bide�Thy spell hath subdued me, Thy wall be my guide!

FIFTH SPIRIT

I am the Rider of the wind, The Stirrer of the storm; The hurricane I left behind

Is yet with lightning warm; To speed to thee, o'er shore and sea I swept upon the blast: The fleet I met sailed well, and yet 'Twill sink ere night be past.

SIXTH SPIRIT

My dwelling is the shadow of the night, Why doth thy magic torture me with light?

SEVENTH SPIRIT

The star which rules thy destiny, Was ruled, ere earth began, by me: It was a world as fresh and fair As e'er revolved round sun in air; Its course was free and regular, Space bosom'd not a lovelier star. The hour arrived�and it became A wandering mass of shapeless flame, A pathless comet, and a curse, The menace of the universe; Still rolling on with innate force, Without a sphere, without a course, A bright deformity on high, The monster of the upper sky! And thou! beneath its influence born� Thou worm! whom I obey and scorn� Forced by a power (which is not thine, And lent thee but to make thee mine) For this brief moment to descend, Where these weak spirits round thee bend And parley with a thing like thee� What wouldst thou, Child of Clay! with me?

The SEVEN SPIRITS

Earth, ocean, air, night, mountains, winds, thy star, Are at thy beck and bidding, Child of Clay! Before thee at thy quest their spirits are� What wouldst thou with us, son of mortals-�say?

MANFRED Forgetfulness� FIRST SPIRIT Of what�of whom�and why?

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64 0 / GEORGE GORDON, LORD BYRON . �-�"

MANFRED Of that which is within me; read it there� Ye know it, and I cannot utter it. SPIRIT We can but give thee that which we possess:

140 Ask of us subjects, sovereignty, the power O'er earth, the whole, or portion, or a sign Which shall control the elements, whereof We are the dominators, each and all, These shall be thine.

MANFRED Oblivion, self-oblivion� 145 Can ye not wring from out the hidden realms Ye offer so profusely what I ask? SPIRIT It is not in our essence, in our skill;

But�thou mayst die. MANFRED Will death bestow it on me? SPIRIT We are immortal, and do not forget;

iso We are eternal; and to us the past Is, as the future, present. Art thou answered?

MANFRED Ye mock me�but the power which brought ye here Hath made you mine. Slaves, scoff not at my will! The mind, the spirit, the Promethean spark,7

155 The lightning of my being, is as bright, Pervading, and far-darting as your own, And shall not yield to yours, though coop'd in clay! Answer, or I will teach you what I am.

SPIRIT We answer as we answered; our reply Is even in thine own words.

160 MANFRED Why say ye so?

SPIRIT If, as thou say'st, thine essence be as ours, We have replied in telling thee, the thing Mortals call death hath nought to do with us.

MANFRED I then have call'd ye from your realms in vain; Ye cannot, or ye will not, aid me.

165 SPIRIT Say;

What we possess we offer; it is thine: Bethink ere thou dismiss us, ask again� Kingdom, and sway, and strength, and length of days�

MANFRED Accursed! what have I to do with days? i7o They are too long already.�Hence�begone!

SPIRIT Yet pause: being here, our will would do thee service; Bethink thee, is there then no other gift Which we can make not worthless in thine eyes?

MANFRED No, none: yet stay�one moment, ere we part�

175 I would behold ye face to face. I hear Your voices, sweet and melancholy sounds, As music on the waters; and I see The steady aspect of a clear large star; But nothing more. Approach me as ye are,

iso Or one, or all, in your accustom'd forms. SPIRIT We have no forms beyond the elements

7. In Greek myth Prometheus molded man from clay, and stole fire from heaven to give it to humans.

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IMANFRED, ACT 2 / 641

Of which we are the mind and principle: But choose a form�in that we will appear.

MANFRED I have no choice; there is no form on earth Hideous or beautiful to me. Let him, Who is most powerful of ye, take such aspect As unto him may seem most fitting.�Come!

SEVENTH SPIRIT [appearing in the shape of a beautiful female figure].8

Behold!

MANFRED Oh God! if it be thus, and thou Art not a madness and a mockery, I yet might be most happy.�I will clasp thee, And we again will be� [The figure vanishes.]

My heart is crushed! [MANFRED falls senseless.]

[A voice is heard in the Incantation9 which follows.]

When the moon is on the wave, And the glow-worm in the grass, And the meteor on the grave,

And the wisp on the morass; When the falling stars are shooting, And the answer'd owls are hooting, And the silent leaves are still In the shadow of the hill, Shall my soul be upon thine, With a power and with a sign.

Though thy slumber may be deep, Yet thy spirit shall not sleep, There are shades which will not vanish, There are thoughts thou canst not banish; By a power to thee unknown, Thou canst never be alone; Thou art wrapt as with a shroud, Thou art gathered in a cloud; And for ever shalt thou dwell In the spirit of this spell.

Though thou seest me not pass by, Thou shalt feel me with thine eye As a thing that, though unseen, Must be near thee, and hath been; And when in that secret dread Thou hast turn'd around thy head, Thou shalt marvel I am not As thy shadow on the spot, And the power which thou dost feel Shall be what thou must conceal.

8. This shape may be an image of Astarte, whose before Matifred, with a note explaining that the phantom appears in 2.3.97. poem was "a Chorus in an unfinished Witch drama 9. Byron had published this "incantation"�a began some years ago." magical spell�as a separate poem six months

.

642 / GEORGE GORDON, LORD BYRON

And a magic voice and verse

Hath baptized thee with a curse;

And a spirit of the air

Hath begirt thee with a snare;

In the wind there is a voice

Shall forbid thee to rejoice;

And to thee shall Night deny

All the quiet of her sky;

And the day shall have a sun,

Which shall make thee wish it done.

From thy false tears I did distil An essence which hath strength to kill; From thy own heart I then did wring The black blood in its blackest spring; From thy own smile I snatch'd the snake, For there it coil'd as in a brake;0 thicket From thy own lip I drew the charm Which gave all these their chiefest harm; In proving every poison known, I found the strongest was thine own.

By thy cold breast and serpent smile,

By thy unfathom'd gulfs of guile,

By that most seeming virtuous eye,

By thy shut soul's hypocrisy;

By the perfection of thine art

Which pass'd for human thine own heart;

By thy delight in others' pain,

And by thy brotherhood of Cain,1

I call upon thee! and compel

Thyself to be thy proper Hell!2

And on thy head I pour the vial

Which doth devote thee to this trial;

Nor to slumber, nor to die,

Shall be in thy destiny;

Though thy death shall still seem near

To thy wish, but as a fear;

Lo! the spell now works around thee,

And the clankless chain hath bound thee;

O'er thy heart and brain together

Hath the word been pass'd�now wither!

SCENE 2. The Mountain of the Jungfrau,3�Time, Morning.� MANFRED alone upon the Cliffs.

MANFRED The spirits I have raised abandon me� The spells which I have studied baffle me�

1. I.e., by your kinship with Cain, who murdered 4.75: "Which way I fly is Hell; my self am Hell." his brother, Abel. 3. A high Alpine mountain in south-central Swit2. Cf. Satan's words in Milton's Paradise Lost zerland.

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IMANFRED, ACT 2 / 64 3

The remedy I reck'd of� tortured me; considered I lean no more on super-human aid,

5 It hath no power upon the past, and for The future, till the past be gulf'd in darkness, It is not of my search.�My mother Earth! And thou fresh breaking Day, and you, ye Mountains, Why are ye beautiful? I cannot love ye.

10 And thou, the bright eye of the universe, That openest over all, and unto all Art a delight�thou shin'st not on my heart. And you, ye crags, upon whose extreme edge I stand, and on the torrent's brink beneath

15 Behold the tall pines dwindled as to shrubs In dizziness of distance; when a leap, A stir, a motion, even a breath, would bring My breast upon its rocky bosom's bed To rest for ever�wherefore do I pause?

20 I feel the impulse�yet I do not plunge; I see the peril�yet do not recede; And my brain reels�and yet my foot is firm: There is a power upon me which withholds And makes it my fatality to live;

25 If it be life to wear within myself This barrenness of spirit, and to be My own soul's sepulchre, for I have ceased To justify my deeds unto myself� The last infirmity of evil.4 Ay,

30 Thou winged and cloud-cleaving minister, [An eagle passes.] Whose happy flight is highest into heaven, Well may'st thou swoop so near me�I should be Thy prey, and gorge thine eaglets; thou art gone Where the eye cannot follow thee; but thine

35 Yet pierces downward, onward, or above, With a pervading vision.�Beautiful! How beautiful is all this visible world! How glorious in its action and itself; But we, who name ourselves its sovereigns, we,

40 Half dust, half deity, alike unfit To sink or soar, with our mix'd essence make A conflict of its elements, and breathe The breath of degradation and of pride, Contending with low wants and lofty will

45 Till our mortality predominates, And men are�what they name not to themselves, And trust not to each other. Hark! the note,

[The Shepherd's pipe in the distance is heard.]

The natural music of the mountain reed�

4. An echo of Milton's "Lycidas," where fame is identified as "That last infirmity of a noble mind" (line 71).

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64 4 / GEORGE GORDON, LORD BYRON

For here the patriarchal days5 are not

50 A pastoral fable�pipes in the liberal0 air, free-moving Mix'd with the sweet bells of the sauntering herd; My soul would drink those echoes.�Oh, that I were The viewless0 spirit of a lovely sound, invisible A living voice, a breathing harmony,

55 A bodiless enjoyment�born and dying With the blest tone which made me!

Enter from, below a CHAMOIS6 HUNTER,

CHAMOIS HUNTER Even so This way the chamois leapt: her nimble feet Have baffled me; my gains to-day will scarce Repay my break-neck travail.�What is here?

60 Who seems not of my trade, and yet hath reach'd A height which none even of our mountaineers, Save our best hunters, may attain: his garb Is goodly, his mien� manly, and his air appearance Proud as a free-born peasant's, at this distance.� I will approach him nearer.

65 MANFRED [not perceiving the other] To be thus� Gray-hair'd with anguish, like these blasted pines, Wrecks of a single winter, barkless, branchless, A blighted trunk upon a cursed root, Which but supplies a feeling to decay�

-0 And to be thus, eternally but thus, Having been otherwise! Now furrow'd o'er With wrinkles, plough'd by moments, not by years; And hours�all tortured into ages�hours Which I outlive!�Ye toppling crags of ice!

75 Ye avalanches, whom a breath draws down In mountainous o'erwhelming, come and crush me� I hear ye momently above, beneath, Crash with a frequent conflict; but ye pass, And only fall on things which still would live;

so On the young flourishing forest, or the hut And hamlet of the harmless villager.

CHAMOIS HUNTER The mists begin to rise from up the valley; I'll warn him to descend, or he may chance To lose at once his way and life together.

85 MANFRED The mists boil up around the glaciers; clouds Rise curling fast beneath me, white and sulphury, Like foam from the roused ocean of deep Hell, Whose every wave breaks on a living shore, Heaped with the damn'd like pebbles.�I am giddy.

90 CHAMOIS HUNTER I must approach him cautiously; if near, A sudden step will startle him, and he Seems tottering already.

MANFRED Mountains have fallen,

5. The days of the Old Testament partriarchs, who 6. A goatlike antelope found in the European were shepherds. mountains.

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IMANFRED, ACT 2 / 64 5

Leaving a gap in the clouds, and with the shock Rocking their Alpine brethren; filling up

95 The ripe green valleys with destruction's splinters; Damming the rivers with a sudden dash, Which crush'd the waters into mist, and made Their fountains find another channel�thus, Thus, in its old age, did Mount Rosenberg7� Why stood I not beneath it?

IOO CHAMOIS HUNTER Friend! have a care, Your next step may be fatal!�for the love Of him who made you, stand not on that brink!

MANFRED [not hearing him] Such would have been for me a fitting tomb; My bones had then been quiet in their depth;

105 They had not then been strewn upon the rocks For the wind's pastime�as thus�thus they shall be� In this one plunge.�Farewell, ye opening heavens! Look not upon me thus reproachfully� Ye were not meant for me�Earth! take these atoms!

[As MANFRED is in act to spring from the cliff, the CHAMOIS HUNTER seizes and retains him with a sudden grasp.]8

no CHAMOIS HUNTER Hold, madman!�though aweary of thy life, Stain not our pure vales with thy guilty blood.� Away with me�I will not quit my hold.

MANFRED I am most sick at heart�nay, grasp me not� I am all feebleness�the mountains whirl 115 Spinning around me�I grow blind�What art thou?

CHAMOIS HUNTER I'll answer that anon.�Away with me� The clouds grow thicker�there�now lean on me� Place your foot here�here, take this staff, and cling A moment to that shrub�now give me your hand,

120 And hold fast by my girdle�softly�well� The Chalet will be gained within an hour� Come on, we'll quickly find a surer footing, And something like a pathway, which the torrent Hath wash'd since winter.�Come,'tis bravely done�

125 You should have been a hunter.�Follow me. [As they descend the rocks with difficulty, the scene closes. ]

Act 2

SCENE 1. A Cottage amongst the Bernese Alps.9 MANFRED and the CHAMOIS HUNTER.

CHAMOIS HUNTER NO, no�yet pause�thou must not yet go forth: Thy mind and body are alike unfit To trust each other, for some hours, at least; When thou art better, I will be thy guide�

7. In 1806, ten years before the composition of 8. See the color insert for John Martin's visual rep- Manfred, a huge landslide on Mount Rossberg resentation of this moment in his watercolorMati(" Rosenberg") had destroyed four villages and fred on the Jnngfrau. killed 457 people. 9. A mountain range in south-central Switzerland.

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64 6 / GEORGE GORDON, LORD BYRON

But whither? MANFRED It imports not; I do know My route full well, and need no further guidance.

CHAMOIS HUNTER Thy garb and gait bespeak thee of high lineage� One of the many chiefs, whose castled crags Look o'er the lower valleys�which of these May call thee Lord? I only know their portals; My way of life leads me but rarely down To bask by the huge hearths of those old halls, Carousing with the vassals; but the paths, Which step from out our mountains to their doors, I know from childhood�which of these is thine?

MANFRED No matter.

CHAMOIS HUNTER Well, sir, pardon me the question, And be of better cheer. Come, taste my wine; 'Tis of an ancient vintage; many a day 'T has thawed my veins among our glaciers, now Let it do thus for thine�Come, pledge me fairly.

MANFRED Away, away! there's blood upon the brim!

Will it then never�never sink in the earth? CHAMOIS HUNTER What dost thou mean? thy senses wander from thee. MANFRED I say 'tis blood�my blood! the pure warm stream

Which ran in the veins of my fathers, and in ours When we were in our youth, and had one heart, And loved each other as we should not love, And this was shed: but still it rises up, Colouring the clouds, that shut me out from heaven, Where thou art not-�and I shall never be.

CHAMOIS HUNTER Man of strange words, and some half-maddening sin, Which makes thee people0 vacancy, whate'er populate Thy dread and sufferance be, there's comfort yet� The aid of holy men, and heavenly patience�

MANFRED Patience and patience! Hence�that word was made For brutes of burthen, not for birds of prey; Preach it to mortals of a dust like thine,� I am not of thine order.

Thanks to heaven!

CHAMOIS HUNTER I would not be of thine for the free fame Of William Tell;' but whatsoe'er thine ill, It must be borne, and these wild starts are useless.

MANFRED Do I not bear it?�Look on me�J live. CHAMOIS HUNTER This is convulsion, and no healthful life. MANFRED I tell thee, man! I have lived many years,

Many long years, but they are nothing now To those which I must number: ages�ages� Space and eternity�and consciousness, With the fierce thirst of death�and still unslaked!

CHAMOIS HUNTER Why, on thy brow the seal of middle age Hath scarce been set; I am thine elder far.

I. The hero who, according to legend, liberated Switzerland from Austrian oppression in the 14th century.

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IMANFRED, ACT 2 / 64 7

MANFRED Think'st thou existence doth depend on time? It doth; but actions are our epochs: mine Have made my days and nights imperishable, Endless, and all alike, as sands on the shore, Innumerable atoms, and one desart, Barren and cold, on which the wild waves break, But nothing rests, save carcases and wrecks, Rocks, and the salt-surf weeds of bitterness.

CHAMOIS HUNTER Alas! he's mad�but yet I must not leave him. MANFRED I would I were�for then the things I see Would be but a distempered0 dream. disturbed CHAMOIS HUNTER What is it That thou dost see, or think thou look'st upon?

MANFRED Myself, and thee�a peasant of the Alps� Thy humble virtues, hospitable home, And spirit patient, pious, proud and free; Thy self-respect, grafted on innocent thoughts; Thy days of health, and nights of sleep; thy toils, By danger dignified, yet guiltless; hopes Of cheerful old age and a quiet grave, With cross and garland over its green turf, And thy grandchildren's love for epitaph; This do I see�and then I look within� It matters not�my soul was scorch'd already!

CHAMOIS HUNTER And would'st thou then exchange thy lot for mine?

MANFRED No, friend! I would not wrong thee, nor exchange My lot with living being: I can bear� However wretchedly,'tis still to bear� In life what others could not brook to dream, But perish in their slumber.

CHAMOIS HUNTER And with this� This cautious feeling for another's pain, Canst thou be black with evil?�say not so. Can one of gentle thoughts have wreak'd revenge Upon his enemies?

MANFRED Oh! no, no, no!

My injuries came down on those who loved me� On those whom I best loved: I never quell'd0 killed An enemy, save in my just defence� My wrongs were all on those I should have cherished� But my embrace was fatal.

CHAMOIS HUNTER Heaven give thee rest! And penitence restore thee to thyself; My prayers shall be for thee.

MANFRED I need them not, But can endure thy pity. I depart� 'Tis time�farewell!�Here's gold, and thanks for thee� No words�it is thy due.�Follow me not� I know my path�the mountain peril's past:� And once again, I charge thee, follow not! [Exit MANFRED.]

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648 / GEORGE GORDON, LORD BYRON

SCENE 2. A lower Valley in the Alps.�A Cataract.

Enter MANFRED.

It is not noon�the sunbow's rays still arch2 The torrent with the many hues of heaven, And roll the sheeted silver's waving column O'er the crag's headlong perpendicular, And fling its lines of foaming light along, And to and fro, like the pale courser's tail, The Giant steed, to be bestrode by Death, As told in the Apocalypse.3 No eyes But mine now drink this sight of loveliness; I should be sole in this sweet solitude, And with the Spirit of the place divide The homage of these waters.�I will call her.

[MANFRED takes some of the water into the palm of his hand, and flings it in the air, mnttering the adjuration. After a pause, the WITCH OF THE ALPS rises beneath the arch of the sunbow of the torrent.]

Beautiful Spirit! with thy hair of light, And dazzling eyes of glory, in whose form The charms of Earth's least-mortal daughters grow To an unearthly stature, in an essence Of purer elements; while the hues of youth,�Carnation'd like a sleeping infant's cheek, Rock'd by the beating of her mother's heart, Or the rose tints, which summer's twilight leaves Upon the lofty glacier's virgin snow, The blush of earth embracing with her heaven,� Tinge thy celestial aspect, and make tame The beauties of the sunbow which bends o'er thee. Beautiful Spirit! in thy calm clear brow, Wherein is glass'd0 serenity of soul, reflected Which of itself shows immortality, I read that thou wilt pardon to a Son Of Earth, whom the abstruser powers permit At times to commune with them�if that he Avail him of his spells�to call thee thus, And gaze on thee a moment.

WITCH Son of Earth! I know thee, and the powers which give thee power; I know thee for a man of many thoughts, And deeds of good and ill, extreme in both, Fatal and fated in thy sufferings. I have expected this�what wouldst thou with me?

MANFRED To look upon thy beauty�nothing further. The face of the earth hath madden'd me, and I Take refuge in her mysteries, and pierce

2. This iris is formed by the rays of the sun over [Byron's note]. the lower part of the Alpine torrents: it is exactly 3. Revelation 6.8: "And I looked, and behold a like a rainbow come to pay a visit, and so close that pale horse: and his name that sat on him was you may walk into it: this effect lasts until noon Death, and Hell followed with him."

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IMANFRED, ACT 2 / 64 9

To the abodes of those who govern her� But they can nothing aid me. I have sought From them what they could not bestow, and now I search no further.

WITCH What could be the quest Which is not in the power of the most powerful, The rulers of the invisible?

MANFRED A boon;

But why should I repeat it? 'twere in vain. WITCH I know not that; let thy lips utter it. MANFRED Well, though it torture me,'tis but the same;

My pang shall find a voice. From my youth upwards My spirit walk'd not with the souls of men, Nor look'd upon the earth with human eyes; The thirst of their ambition was not mine, The aim of their existence was not mine; My joys, my griefs, my passions, and my powers, Made me a stranger; though I wore the form, I had no sympathy with breathing flesh, Nor midst the creatures of clay that girded me Was there but one who�but of her anon. I said, with men, and with the thoughts of men, I held but slight communion; but instead, My joy was in the Wilderness, to breathe The difficult air of the iced mountain's top, Where the birds dare not build, nor insect's wing Flit o'er the herbless granite; or to plunge Into the torrent, and to roll along On the swift whirl of the new breaking wave Of river-stream, or ocean, in their flow. In these my early strength exulted; or To follow through the night the moving moon, The stars and their development; or catch The dazzling lightnings till my eyes grew dim; Or to look, list'ning, on the scattered leaves, While Autumn winds were at their evening song. These were my pastimes, and to be alone; For if the beings, of whom I was one,� Hating to be so,�cross'd me in my path, I felt myself degraded back to them, And was all clay again. And then I dived, In my lone wanderings, to the caves of death, Searching its cause in its effect; and drew From wither'd bones, and skulls, and heap'd up dust, Conclusions most forbidden.4 Then I pass'd The nights of years in sciences untaught, Save in the old-time; and with time and toil,

4. Cf. passages from Victor Frankenstein's to death"; "Who shall conceive the horrors of my account of his scientific investigations. "To exam- secret toil, as I dabbled among the unhallowed ine the causes of life, we must first have recourse damps of the grave . . . ?" (chap. 4).

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650 / GEORGE GORDON, LORD BYRON

And terrible ordeal, and such penance As in itself hath power upon the air, And spirits that do compass air and earth, Space, and the peopled infinite, I made

90 Mine eyes familiar with Eternity, Such as, before me, did the Magi,5 and He who from out their fountain dwellings raised Eros and Anteros, at Gadara,6 As I do thee;�and with my knowledge grew

95 The thirst of knowledge, and the power and joy

Of this most bright intelligence, until� WITCH Proceed. MANFRED Oh! I but thus prolonged my words,

Boasting these idle attributes, because As I approach the core of my heart's grief�

ioo But to my task. I have not named to thee Father or mother, mistress, friend, or being, With whom I wore the chain of human ties; If I had such, they seem'd not such to me� Yet there was one�

WITCH Spare not thyself�proceed.

105 MANFRED She was like me in lineaments�her eyes, Her hair, her features, all, to the very tone Even of her voice, they said were like to mine; But soften'd all, and temper'd into beauty; She had the same lone thoughts and wanderings,

no The quest of hidden knowledge, and a mind To comprehend the universe: nor these Alone, but with them gentler powers than mine, Pity, and smiles, and tears�which I had not; And tenderness�but that I had for her;

115 Humility�and that I never had. Her faults were mine�her virtues were her own� I loved her, and destroy'd her!

WITCH With thy hand? MANFRED Not with my hand, but heart�which broke her heart� It gazed on mine, and withered. I have shed 120 Blood, but not hers�and yet her blood was shed-� I saw�and could not staunch it.

WITCH And for this-� A being of the race thou dost despise, The order which thine own would rise above, Mingling with us and ours, thou dost forego

125 The gifts of our great knowledge, and shrink'st back To recreant" mortality�Away! cowardly MANFRED Daughter of Air! I tell thee, since that hour� But words are breath�look on me in my sleep,

5. Masters of occult knowledge (plural of magus). opher, who called up Eros, god of love, and 6. Byron's note to lines 92�93 identifies this figure Anteros, god of unrequited love, from the hot as Iamblicus, the 4th-century Neoplatonic philos-springs named after them at Gadara, in Syria.

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IMANFRED, ACT 2 / 65 1

Or watch my watchings�Come and sit by me!

130 My solitude is solitude no more, But peopled with the Furies;�I have gnash'd My teeth in darkness till returning morn, Then cursed myself till sunset;�I have pray'd For madness as a blessing�'tis denied me.

135 I have affronted death�but in the war Of elements the waters shrunk from me, And fatal things pass'd harmless�the cold hand Of an all-pitiless demon held me back, Back by a single hair, which would not break.

MO In phantasy, imagination, all The affluence of my soul�which one day was A Croesus in creation7�I plunged deep, But, like an ebbing wave, it dash'd me back Into the gulf of my unfathom'd thought.

145 I plunged amidst mankind�Forgetfulness I sought in all, save where 'tis to be found, And that I have to learn�my sciences,8 My long pursued and super-human art, Is mortal here�I dwell in my despair� And live�and live for ever.

150 WITCH It may be

That I can aid thee.

MANFRED To do this thy power Must wake the dead, or lay me low with them. Do so�in any shape�in any hour� With any torture�so it be the last.

155 WITCH That is not in my province; but if thou Wilt swear obedience to my will, and do My bidding, it may help thee to thy wishes.

MANFRED I will not swear�-Obey! and whom? the spirits Whose presence I command, and be the slave Of those who served me�Never!

160 WITCH Is this all? Hast thou no gentler answer�Yet bethink thee, And pause ere thou rejectest.

MANFRED I have said it. WITCH Enough!-�I may retire then�say! MANFRED Retire!

[The WITCH disappears.] MANFRED [alone] We are the fools of time and terror: Days

165 Steal on us and steal from us; yet we live, Loathing our life, and dreading still to die. In all the days of this detested yoke� This heaving burthen, this accursed breath� This vital weight upon the struggling heart,