into the lake. One of these, crossed by the road, has been named Sanguinetto in reminiscence of the streams of blood with which it was once discolored." (Baedeker's 'Central Italy.') 115: Ixix. The waterfall of Terni, formed by the Velino, a tributary of the Tiber. "The fall looks so much like the Hell of Waters,' that 5. Addison thought the descent alluded to by the gulf in which Alecto [in Virgil, ‘Æneid,' VII, 563] plunged into the infernal regions." [Byron's note. 116: lxxiii, 5. Lauwine, avalanche, as in st. xii, 1. 7, above. The proper plural form is Lauwinen. : 7. Never-trodden, hence Jungfrau, or "virgin" mountain. 116 lxxiii, 9, and lxxiv, 1. Acroceraunian, from aκpos, extreme, elevated, pointed, and repavvós, thunderbolt. Hence ThunderHills. 116: lxxiv, 5. with a Trojan's eye, i.e., from the plain of Troy. 8-9. Horace, Odes I, ix, 1: "Vides ut alta stet nive candidum "Behold yon mountain's hoary height Made higher with new mounts of snow," etc. (Dryden's translation.) 117: lxxv, 7. "I wish to express, that we become tired of the task before we can comprehend the beauty; that we learn by rote before we can get by heart; that the freshness is worn away, and the future pleasure and advantage deadened and destroyed, by the didactic anticipation, at an age when we can neither feel nor understand the power of compositions which it requires an acquaintance with life, as well as Latin and Greek, to relish, or to reason upon." [From Byron's note. 118: lxxix. The Scipios' Tomb, near the Appian way, was discovered in 1780. Bones were found in some of the chambers but were soon dispersed. 118: lxxx, 5. Where formerly the chariot of victorious Roman generals had ascended the Capitoline hill in triumphal procession. 118: lxxx ff. Compare with this lament over the grandeur that was Rome the poem on the same theme ('The Ruines of Rome') paraphrased from du Bellay by Spenser. See especially st. iii (Works of Spenser, Globe edition, p. 526). Here again the spirit of the nineteenth century unconsciously touches that of the sixteenth. 119: lxxxiii. Sulla, who received the title of Felix in 81 B.C., attacked in his power at home by Marius, refused to return to Italy until he had conquered Mithridates. He became dictator in 81 B. C. and in 79 resigned his power and retired into private life. 120 lxxxv, 3. 'Dissolved the Long Parliament; and brought Charles I to the block.' 8-9. "On the 3d of September [1650] Cromwell gained the victory of Dunbar; a year afterwards he obtained 'his crowning mercy' of Worcester; and a few years after [1658] on the same day, which he had ever esteemed the most fortunate for him, died." [Byron's note. 121: lxxxvii, 1. The statue of Pompey, discovered in 1550, is "yet existent" in the Palazzo Spada at Rome. It is possibly but quite uncertainly the one at whose base" great Cæsar fell." Cf. Shakṣpere's 'Julius Cæsar,' III, ii, 192–3. 9. puppets of a Scene, i.e., mere playthings of fate. 121: lxxxviii. Alluding to the ancient bronze of the 'Capitoline Wolf,' still preserved in the Capitol (Palace of the Conservatori) at Rome; because of an injury on the right hind-leg hypothetically identified with the figure which, according to Cicero's third Catiline Oration, ch. viii, was struck by lightning B. C. 65. 121 lxxxix, 4. 'Men of later times, imitating the arms of Rome (the things they feared"), have fought and bled.' Napoleon. 8. one vain man. 122: xcii-xcviii. Listening to this trumpet-call of human liberty, it is easy to comprehend the immense influence which Byron exercised among the half-emancipated nations of Europe during the long years of reaction from the French Revolution and of renewed struggle for freedom. For a discussion of the nature and extent of this influence see Elze's Life of Byron' (Lond. 1872), 423-432. 124: xcvii, 7. the base pageant. The Congress of Vienna, September, 1815, the Holy Alliance (“an alliance for the protection of absolute monarchy "), and the second Treaty of Paris, all in the same year (E. H. Coleridge). : 125 xcix. The tomb of Caecilia Metella, on the Via Appia, "a circular structure, 65 feet in diameter," on a square pedestal. "In the thirteenth century the Gaetani converted the edifice into the tower of a stronghold, and furnished it with pinnacles." (Baedeker's Central Italy.') 126: cii, 8. Hesperus, the star which leads the way to 'the silent land' (Tozer). 9. consuming cheek. 'Manfred' II, iv: Cheek wasting with consumption. Cf. "There's a bloom upon her cheek; But now I see it is no living hue, But a strange hectic-like the unnatural red, Which Autumn plants upon the perished leaf." 126: ciii, 9. She was the wife of Crassus, because of his wealth called Dives. 128: cix. The golden roofs of Nero's Domus Aurea adjoining the Palatine, a palace "overlaid with plates of gold, picked out with gems and mother-of-pearl." 128; cx, 2. A solitary column in the Forum, now named the Column of Phocas. 6. The Statue of St. Peter (the apostle) now surmounts the column of Trajan, displacing the statue of Trajan, which formerly held a globe supposed to contain his ashes; that of St. Paul surmounts the column of Aurelius. 129: cxi, 8. Alexander, excited with wine at a banquet, killed his friend Clitus. 129: cxii, 1. cessions ended. 129: cxiii, 9. The Capitoline Hill, where the triumphal pro 'Orators who sold their services; ' hence 'baser' than real prostitutes. 130 cxiv. Rienzi, opposing the tyranny of the great nobles, was proclaimed Tribune in 1347, and was slain in 1354 during a revolt against his rule. See Bulwer-Lytton's 'Rienzi, The Last of the Tribunes.' 130: CXV. Egeria, the nymph who counselled Numa, the ancient Roman lawgiver, who was fabled to have been her lover. Her fountain and grotto were placed beyond the Sebastian gate in Byron's day. They are now thought to be near the Metronian gate. 133: cxxiii, 7. Cf. 'Hosea' viii, 7: "For they have sown the wind, and they shall reap the whirlwind." 134 cxxvii, 5. Cf. Wordsworth, Excursion,' bk. I: "The vision, and the faculty divine." 6. Cf. Macbeth III, iv, 24-25 : But now I am cabin'd, cribb'd, confin'd, bound in 9. couch, to prepare the eye for removing a cataract. 135: cxxxi, 1. this wreck. The Coliseum. 135: cxxxi ff. Personal stanzas, alluding to the wrongs Byron thought he had suffered from his wife and her family, and the public who sympathized with them and turned against him. 136: cxxxiii, 8. for the sake-Are we to supply in thought, of my sister? 137: CXXXV. Whatever reservation in other respects the reader may feel it necessary to make, he cannot but admire the astonishing rhetorical art and the fierce lyrical passion and pride of these lines. 138: cxl-cxli. The famous statute of the Dying Gladiator' in the Museum of the Capitol at Rome; more probably a Dying Gaul. 139: cxlii, 5-6. "When one gladiator wounded another, he shouted, 'He has it,' 'Hoc habet,' or 'Habet.' The wounded combatant dropped his weapon, and, advancing to the edge of the arena, supplicated the spectators. If he had fought well, the people saved him, if otherwise, or as they happened to be inclined, they turned down their thumbs, and he was slain.” [Hobhouse's note. 140: cxliv. Cf. Manfred 'III, iv, 10 ff. (above, p. 207). 140: cxlv. 1-2. "This is quoted [from Bede] in [Gibbon's] Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire,' as a proof that the Coliseum was entire, when seen by the Anglo Saxon pilgrims at the end of the seventh, or the beginning of the eighth, century.” [Byron's note. The original is: "Quamdiu stabit Colyseus, stabit et Roma; quando cadet Colyseus, cadet Roma; quando cadet Roma, cadet et mundus." 141: cxlviii-cli. The version of the legend from Festus is as follows: "It is said that Ælius dedicated a temple to Pietas on the very spot where a woman dwelt of yore. Her father was shut up in prison, and she kept him alive by giving him the breast by stealth; and, as a reward for her deed, obtained forgiveness and freedom for him." 142 cli. The 'fable' is that Hercules after his birth was put to Hera's (Juno's) breast, while she was asleep, that he might drink in divinity, but that awaking she pushed him away, and that the drops thus spilled fell upon the sky and became the Milky Way. 142: clii, I. the Mole. The castle of St. Angelo; not really built in imitation of the pyramids, although like them in its mass and size. 143: cliii, 1. the Dome. Of St. Peter's. 2. The temple of Diana at Ephesus. 7. The mosque of St. Sophia at Constantinople. 144: clvi, I. but increasing. Elliptical. Supply, to read"but it is increasing." 145: clxi, 1. 146: clxii, 1-4. The statute of the Apollo Belvedere. An incident of a French maiden's going mad for love of the statute of Apollo had been related and was utilized in a poem of 1812, by Milman, which Byron probably knew: "Yet on that form in wild delirious trance With more than rev'rence gazed the Maid of France. 146: clxiii, 2. the fire which we endure: i.e. life, or the soul. 147: clxvii-clxxii. On the death, in childbirth, November 6, 1817, of the Princess Charlotte, only daughter of the Prince Regent (afterwards George IV), married to Prince Leopold of SaxeCoburg. Her death was felt as a national calamity. If the child had lived it might in time have ascended the English throne. Cf. Byron's Letter to Murray of December 3, 1817. 149: clxxi, 7. "Mary died on the scaffold; Elizabeth of a broken heart; Charles V a hermit; Louis XIV a bankrupt in means and glory; Cromwell of anxiety; and, the greatest is behind,' |