- "Pallas te hoc vulnere, Pallas
Immolat, et poenam scelerato ex sanguine sumit."
'Aeneid', lib. xii, 947, 948.
NOTE I.
In 'The Malediction of Minerva (New Monthly Magazine', vol. iii. p. 240) additional footnotes are appended
(1) to line 106, recording the obliteration of Lord Elgin's name, "which had been inscribed on a pillar of one of the principal temples," while that of Lady Elgin had been left untouched; and
(2) to line 196, giving quotations from pp. 158, 269, 419 of Eustace's 'Classical Tour in Italy'.
After line 130, which reads, "And well I know within that murky land" ('i.e'. Caledonia), the following apology for a hiatus was inserted:
"Here follows in the original certain lines which the editor has
exercised his discretion by suppressing; inasmuch as they comprise
national reflections which the bard's justifiable indignation has made
him pour forth against a people which, if not universally of an
amiable, is generally of a respectable character, and deserves not in
this case to be censured 'en masse' for the faults of an
individual."
NOTE II.
The text of 'The Curse of Minerva' is based on that of the quarto printed by T. Davison in 1813. With the exception of the variants, as noted, the text corresponds with the MS. in the possession of Lord Stanhope. Doubtless it represents Byron's final revision. The text of an edition of 'The Curse, etc'., Philadelphia, 1815, 8vo printed by De Silver and Co., was followed by Galignani (third edit., 1818, etc.). The same text is followed, but not invariably, in the selections printed by Hone in 1816 (111 lines); Wilson, 1818 (112 lines); and Knight and Lacy, 1824 (111 lines). It exhibits the following variants from the quarto of 1813: -
Line.Variant.
56. -- 'lands and main.'
81. 'Her helm was deep indented and her lance.'
94. 'Seek'st thou the cause? O mortal, look around.'
102. 'That Hadrian -- '
116. 'The last base brute -- '
143. 'Ten thousand schemes of petulance and pride.'
152. ' -- victors o'er the grave.'
162. ' -- Time shall tell the rest.'
199. 'Loath'd throughout life - scarce pardon'd in the dust.'
203. 'Erostratus and Elgin, etc.'
206. ' -- viler than the first.
222. 'Shall shake your usurpation to its base.'
233. 'While Lusitania -- '
273. 'Then in the Senates -- '
290. ' -- decorate his fall.'
The following variants may also be noted: -
Line.Variant. Publisher
1. 'Slow sinks now lovely, etc.' Hone
110. 'The Gothic monarch and the British -- .' Wilson
' -- and his fit compeer.'
131. 'And well I know within that murky land.
...
Dispatched her reckoning children far and wide.Hone
And well I know, albeit afar, the land,
Where starving Avarice keeps her chosen band;
Or sends their hungry numbers eager forth.
...
And aye accursed, etc.'Wilson
INTRODUCTION TO 'THE CURSE OF MINERVA'
'The Curse of Minerva', which was written at Athens, and is dated March 17, 1811, remained unpublished, as a whole, in this country, during Byron's life-time. The arrangement which had been made with Cawthorn, to bring out a fifth edition of 'English Bards', included the issue of a separate volume, containing 'Hints from Horace' and 'The Curse of Minerva;' and, as Moore intimates, it was the withdrawal of the latter, in deference to the wishes of Lord Elgin or his connections, which led to the suppression of the other satires.
The quarto edition of The 'Curse of Minerva', printed by T. Davison in 1812, was probably set up at the same time as Murray's quarto edition of 'Childe Harold', and reserved for private circulation. With or without Byron's consent, the poem as a whole was published in Philadelphia by De Silver and Co., 1815, 8vo (for variants, see p. 453, 'note'). In a letter to Murray, March 6, 1816, he says that he "disowns" 'The Curse, etc.', "as stolen and published in a miserable and villainous copy in the magazine." The reference is to 'The Malediction of Minerva, or The Athenian Marble-Market', which appeared in the 'New Monthly Magazine' for April, 1818, vol. iii. 240. It numbers 111 lines, and is signed "Steropes" (The Lightner, a Cyclops). The text of the magazine, with the same additional footnotes, but under the title of 'The Curse', etc., was republished in the eighth edition of 'Poems on His Domestic Circumstances', W. Hone, London, 1816, 8vo, and, thenceforth, in other piratical issues. Whatever may have been his feelings or intentions in 1812, four years later Byron was well aware that 'The Curse of Minerva' would not increase his reputation as a poet, while the object of his satire - the exposure and denunciation of Lord Elgin - had been accomplished by the scathing stanzas (canto ii. 10-15), with their accompanying note, in 'Childe Harold'. "Disown" it as he might, his words were past recall, and both indictments stand in his name.
Byron was prejudiced against Elgin before he started on his tour. He had, perhaps, glanced at the splendid folio, 'Specimens of Ancient Sculpture', which was issued by the Dilettanti Society in 1809. Payne Knight wrote the preface, in which he maintains that the friezes and metopes of the Parthenon were not the actual work of Phidias, "but ... architectural studies ... probably by workmen scarcely ranked among artists." So judged the leader of the 'cognoscenti', and, in accordance with his views, Elgin and Aberdeen are held up to ridicule in 'English Bards' (second edition, October, 1809, 1. 1007, and 'note') as credulous and extravagant collectors of "maimed antiques." It was, however, not till the first visit to Athens (December, 1809-March, 1810), when he saw with his own eyes the "ravages of barbarous and antiquarian despoilers" (Lord Broughton's 'Travels in Albania', 1858, i. 259), that contempt gave way to indignation, and his wrath found vent in the pages of 'Childe Harold'.
Byron cared as little for ancient buildings as he did for the authorities, or for patriotic enterprise, but he was stirred to the quick by the marks of fresh and, as he was led to believe, wanton injury to "Athena's poor remains." The southern side of the half-wrecked Parthenon had been deprived of its remaining metopes, which had suffered far less from the weather than the other sides which are still in the building; all that remained of the frieze had been stripped from the three sides of the cella, and the eastern pediment had been despoiled of its diminished and mutilated, but still splendid, group of figures; and, though five or six years had gone by, the blank spaces between the triglyphs must have revealed their recent exposure to the light, and the shattered edges of the cornice, which here and there had been raised and demolished to permit the dislodgment of the metopes, must have caught the eye as they sparkled in the sun. Nor had the removal and deportation of friezes and statues come to an end. The firman which Dr. Hunt, the chaplain to the embassy, had obtained in 1801, which empowered Elgin and his agents to take away 'qualche pezzi di pietra', still ran, and Don Tita Lusieri, the Italian artist, who remained in Elgin's service, was still, like the 'canes venatici' (Americane, "smell-dogs") employed by Verres in Sicily (see 'Childe Harold', canto ii. st. 12, 'note'), finding fresh relics, and still bewailing to sympathetic travellers the hard fate which compelled him to despoil the temples 'malgre lui'. The feelings of the inhabitants themselves were not much in question, but their opinions were quoted for and against the removal of the marbles. Elgin's secretary and prime agent, W.R. Hamilton, testifies, from personal knowledge, that, "so far from exciting any unpleasant sensations, the people seemed to feel it as the means of bringing foreigners into the country, and of having money spent there" ('Memoir on the Earl of Elgin's Pursuits in Greece', 1811). On the other hand, the traveller, Edward Daniel Clarke, with whom Byron corresponded (see 'Childe Harold', canto ii. st. 12, 'note'), speaks of the attachment of the Turks to the Parthenon, and their religious veneration for the building as a mosque, and tells a pathetic story of the grief of the Disdar when "a metope was lowered, and the adjacent masonry scattered its white fragments with thundering noise among the ruins" ('Travels in Various Countries', part ii, sect. ii, p. 483).
Other travellers of less authority than Clarke - Dodwell, for instance, who visited the Parthenon before it had been dismantled, and, afterwards, was present at the removal of metopes; and Hughes, who came after Byron (autumn, 1813) - make use of such phrases as "shattered desolation," "wanton devastation and avidity of plunder." Even Michaelis, the great archaeologist, who denounces 'The Curse of Minerva' as a "'libellous' poem," and affirms "that only blind passion could doubt that Lord Elgin's act was an act of preservation," admits that "the removal of several metopes and of the statue from the Erechtheion had severely injured the surrounding architecture" ('Ancient Marbles in Great Britain', by A. Michaelis, translated by C.A.M. Fennell, 1882, p. 135). Highly coloured and emotional as some of these phrases may be, they explain, if they do not justify, the 'saeva indignatio' of Byron's satire.
It is almost, if not quite, unnecessary to state the facts on the other side. History regards Lord Elgin as a disinterested official, who at personal loss (at least thirty-five thousand pounds on his own showing), and in spite of opposition and disparagement, secured for his own country and the furtherance of art the perishable fragments of Phidian workmanship, which, but for his intervention, might have perished altogether. If they had eluded the clutches of Turkish mason and Greek dealer in antiquities - if, by some happy chance, they had escaped the ravages of war, the gradual but gradually increasing assaults of rain and frost would have already left their effacing scars on the "Elgin marbles." As it is, the progress of decay has been arrested, and all the world is the gainer. Byron was neither a prophet nor an archaeologist, and time and knowledge have put him in the wrong. But in 1810 the gaps in the entablature of the Parthenon were new, the Phidian marbles were huddled in a "damp dirty penthouse" in Park Lane (see 'Life of Haydon', i. 84), and the logic of events had not justified a sad necessity.
THE CURSE OF MINERVA.
Pallas te hoc Vulnere Pallas
Immolat et poenam scelerato ex Sanguine Sumit.
ATHENS: CAPUCHIN CONVENT, 'March' 17, 1811.
Slow sinks, more lovely ere his race be run, 1
Along Morea's hills the setting Sun;
Not, as in northern climes, obscurely bright,
But one unclouded blaze of living light;
O'er the hushed deep the yellow beam he throws, i
Gilds the green wave that trembles as it glows;
On old AEgina's rock and Hydra's isle 2
The God of gladness sheds his parting smile;
O'er his own regions lingering loves to shine,
Though there his altars are no more divine. ii10
Descending fast, the mountain-shadows kiss
Thy glorious Gulf, unconquered Salamis!
Their azure arches through the long expanse, iii
More deeply purpled, meet his mellowing glance,
And tenderest tints, along their summits driven,
Mark his gay course, and own the hues of Heaven;
Till, darkly shaded from the land and deep,
Behind his Delphian rock he sinks to sleep. iv
On such an eve his palest beam he cast
When, Athens! here thy Wisest looked his last.20
How watched thy better sons his farewell ray,
That closed their murdered Sage's 3 latest day!
Not yet - not yet - Sol pauses on the hill,
The precious hour of parting lingers still;
But sad his light to agonizing eyes,
And dark the mountain's once delightful dyes;
Gloom o'er the lovely land he seemed to pour,
The land where Phoebus never frowned before;
But ere he sunk below Cithaeron's head,
The cup of Woe was quaffed - the Spirit fled;30
The soul of Him that scorned to fear or fly, v
Who lived and died as none can live or die.
But lo! from high Hymettus to the plain
The Queen of Night asserts her silent reign; vi 4
No murky vapour, herald of the storm, vii
Hides her fair face, or girds her glowing form;
With cornice glimmering as the moonbeams play,
There the white column greets her grateful ray,
And bright around, with quivering beams beset,
Her emblem sparkles o'er the Minaret; 40
The groves of olive scattered dark and wide,
Where meek Cephisus sheds his scanty tide,
The cypress saddening by the sacred mosque,
The gleaming turret of the gay kiosk, 5
And sad and sombre 'mid the holy calm,
Near Theseus' fane, yon solitary palm;
All, tinged with varied hues, arrest the eye;
And dull were his that passed them heedless by. 6
Again the AEgean, heard no more afar,
Lulls his chafed breast from elemental war: 50
Again his waves in milder tints unfold
Their long expanse of sapphire and of gold,
Mixed with the shades of many a distant isle
That frown, where gentler Ocean deigns to smile. viii
As thus, within the walls of Pallas' fane,
I marked the beauties of the land and main,
Alone, and friendless, on the magic shore,
Whose arts and arms but live in poets' lore;
Oft as the matchless dome I turned to scan,
Sacred to Gods, but not secure from Man,60
The Past returned, the Present seemed to cease,
And Glory knew no clime beyond her Greece!
Hour rolled along, and Dian's orb on high
Had gained the centre of her softest sky;
And yet unwearied still my footsteps trod
O'er the vain shrine of many a vanished God: ix
But chiefly, Pallas! thine, when Hecate's glare
Checked by thy columns, fell more sadly fair
O'er the chill marble, where the startling tread
Thrills the lone heart like echoes from the dead. 70
Long had I mused, and treasured every trace
The wreck of Greece recorded of her race,
When, lo! a giant-form before me strode,
And Pallas hailed me in her own Abode!
Yes,'twas Minerva's self; but, ah! how changed,
Since o'er the Dardan field in arms she ranged!
Not such as erst, by her divine command,
Her form appeared from Phidias' plastic hand:
Gone were the terrors of her awful brow,
Her idle AEgis bore no Gorgon now; 80
Her helm was dinted, and the broken lance
Seemed weak and shaftless e'en to mortal glance;
The Olive Branch, which still she deigned to clasp,
Shrunk from her touch, and withered in her grasp;
And, ah! though still the brightest of the sky,
Celestial tears bedimmed her large blue eye;
Round the rent casque her owlet circled slow,
And mourned his mistress with a shriek of woe!
"Mortal!" - 'twas thus she spake - "that blush of shame
Proclaims thee Briton, once a noble name; 90
First of the mighty, foremost of the free, x
Now honoured 'less' by all, and 'least' by me:
Chief of thy foes shall Pallas still be found.
Seek'st thou the cause of loathing! - look around.
Lo! here, despite of war and wasting fire,
I saw successive Tyrannies expire;
'Scaped from the ravage of the Turk and Goth, xi
Thy country sends a spoiler worse than both.
Survey this vacant, violated fane;
Recount the relics torn that yet remain:100
'These' Cecrops placed, 'this' Pericles adorned, 7
'That' Adrian reared when drooping Science mourned.
What more I owe let Gratitude attest -
Know, Alaric and Elgin did the rest.
That all may learn from whence the plunderer came,
The insulted wall sustains his hated name: 8
For Elgin's fame thus grateful Pallas pleads,
Below, his name - above, behold his deeds!
Be ever hailed with equal honour here
The Gothic monarch and the Pictish peer: xii110
Arms gave the first his right, the last had none,
But basely stole what less barbarians won.
So when the Lion quits his fell repast,
Next prowls the Wolf, the filthy Jackal last: xiii
Flesh, limbs, and blood the former make their own,
The last poor brute securely gnaws the bone.
Yet still the Gods are just, and crimes are crossed:
See here what Elgin won, and what he lost!
Another name with 'his' pollutes my shrine:
Behold where Dian's beams disdain to shine! 120
Some retribution still might Pallas claim,
When Venus half avenged Minerva's shame." 9
She ceased awhile, and thus I dared reply,
To soothe the vengeance kindling in her eye:
"Daughter of Jove! in Britain's injured name, xiv
A true-born Briton may the deed disclaim.
Frown not on England; England owns him not:
Athena, no! thy plunderer was a Scot.
Ask'st thou the difference? From fair Phyles' towers
Survey Boeotia; - Caledonia's ours.130
And well I know within that bastard land 10
Hath Wisdom's goddess never held command;
A barren soil, where Nature's germs, confined
To stern sterility, can stint the mind;
Whose thistle well betrays the niggard earth,
Emblem of all to whom the Land gives birth;
Each genial influence nurtured to resist;
A land of meanness, sophistry, and mist. xv
Each breeze from foggy mount and marshy plain
Dilutes with drivel every drizzly brain,140
Till, burst at length, each wat'ry head o'erflows,
Foul as their soil, and frigid as their snows:
Then thousand schemes of petulance and pride
Despatch her scheming children far and wide;
Some East, some West, some - everywhere but North!
In quest of lawless gain, they issue forth.
And thus - accursed be the day and year!
She sent a Pict to play the felon here.
Yet Caledonia claims some native worth, 11
As dull Boeotia gave a Pindar birth;150
So may her few, the lettered and the brave,
Bound to no clime, and victors of the grave,
Shake off the sordid dust of such a land,
And shine like children of a happier strand;
As once, of yore, in some obnoxious place,
Ten names (if found) had saved a wretched race."
"Mortal!" the blue-eyed maid resumed, "once more
Bear back my mandate to thy native shore. 12
Though fallen, alas! this vengeance yet is mine,
To turn my counsels far from lands like thine.160
Hear then in silence Pallas' stern behest;
Hear and believe, for Time will tell the rest.
"First on the head of him who did this deed
My curse shall light, - on him and all his seed:
Without one spark of intellectual fire,
Be all the sons as senseless as the sire:
If one with wit the parent brood disgrace,
Believe him bastard of a brighter race:
Still with his hireling artists let him prate,
And Folly's praise repay for Wisdom's hate; 170
Long of their Patron's gusto let them tell,
Whose noblest, 'native' gusto is - to sell:
To sell, and make - may shame record the day! -
The State - Receiver of his pilfered prey.
Meantime, the flattering, feeble dotard, West,
Europe's worst dauber, and poor Britain's best,
With palsied hand shall turn each model o'er,
And own himself an infant of fourscore. 13
Be all the Bruisers culled from all St. Giles',
That Art and Nature may compare their styles; xvi 180
While brawny brutes in stupid wonder stare,
And marvel at his Lordship's 'stone shop' there. 14
Round the thronged gate shall sauntering coxcombs creep
To lounge and lucubrate, to prate and peep;
While many a languid maid, with longing sigh,
On giant statues casts the curious eye;
The room with transient glance appears to skim,
Yet marks the mighty back and length of limb;
Mourns o'er the difference of 'now' and 'then';
Exclaims, 'These Greeks indeed were proper men!'190
Draws slight comparisons of 'these' with 'those', xvii
And envies Lais all her Attic beaux.
When shall a modern maid have swains like these? xviii
Alas! Sir Harry is no Hercules!
And last of all, amidst the gaping crew,
Some calm spectator, as he takes his view,
In silent indignation mixed with grief,
Admires the plunder, but abhors the thief.
Oh, loathed in life, nor pardoned in the dust,
May Hate pursue his sacrilegious lust!200
Linked with the fool that fired the Ephesian dome,
Shall vengeance follow far beyond the tomb, 15
And Eratostratus 16 and Elgin shine
In many a branding page and burning line;
Alike reserved for aye to stand accursed,
Perchance the second blacker than the first.
"So let him stand, through ages yet unborn,
Fixed statue on the pedestal of Scorn;
Though not for him alone revenge shall wait,
But fits thy country for her coming fate: 210
Hers were the deeds that taught her lawless son
To do what oft Britannia's self had done.
Look to the Baltic - blazing from afar,
Your old Ally yet mourns perfidious war. 17
Not to such deeds did Pallas lend her aid,
Or break the compact which herself had made;
Far from such counsels, from the faithless field
She fled - but left behind her Gorgon shield;
A fatal gift that turned your friends to stone,
And left lost Albion hated and alone. 220
"Look to the East, 18 where Ganges' swarthy race
Shall shake your tyrant empire to its base;
Lo! there Rebellion rears her ghastly head,
And glares the Nemesis of native dead;
Till Indus rolls a deep purpureal flood,
And claims his long arrear of northern blood.
So may ye perish! - Pallas, when she gave
Your free-born rights, forbade ye to enslave.
"Look on your Spain! - she clasps the hand she hates,
But boldly clasps, and thrusts you from her gates.230
Bear witness, bright Barossa! 19 thou canst tell
Whose were the sons that bravely fought and fell.
But Lusitania, kind and dear ally,
Can spare a few to fight, and sometimes fly.
Oh glorious field! by Famine fiercely won,
The Gaul retires for once, and all is done!
But when did Pallas teach, that one retreat
Retrieved three long Olympiads of defeat?
"Look last at home - ye love not to look there
On the grim smile of comfortless despair: 240
Your city saddens: loud though Revel howls,
Here Famine faints, and yonder Rapine prowls.
See all alike of more or less bereft;
No misers tremble when there's nothing left.
'Blest paper credit;' 20 who shall dare to sing?
It clogs like lead Corruption's weary wing.
Yet Pallas pluck'd each Premier by the ear,
Who Gods and men alike disdained to hear;
But one, repentant o'er a bankrupt state,
On Pallas calls, - but calls, alas! too late:250
Then raves for' -- '; to that Mentor bends,
Though he and Pallas never yet were friends.
Him senates hear, whom never yet they heard,
Contemptuous once, and now no less absurd.
So, once of yore, each reasonable frog,
Swore faith and fealty to his sovereign 'log.'
Thus hailed your rulers their patrician clod,
As Egypt chose an onion 21 for a God.
"Now fare ye well! enjoy your little hour;
Go, grasp the shadow of your vanished power;260
Gloss o'er the failure of each fondest scheme;
Your strength a name, your bloated wealth a dream.
Gone is that Gold, the marvel of mankind.
And Pirates barter all that's left behind. 22
No more the hirelings, purchased near and far,
Crowd to the ranks of mercenary war.
The idle merchant on the useless quay
Droops o'er the bales no bark may bear away;
Or, back returning, sees rejected stores
Rot piecemeal on his own encumbered shores: 270
The starved mechanic breaks his rusting loom,
And desperate mans him 'gainst the coming doom.
Then in the Senates of your sinking state
Show me the man whose counsels may have weight.
Vain is each voice where tones could once command;
E'en factions cease to charm a factious land:
Yet jarring sects convulse a sister Isle,
And light with maddening hands the mutual pile.
"'Tis done, 'tis past - since Pallas warns in vain;
The Furies seize her abdicated reign: 280
Wide o'er the realm they wave their kindling brands,
And wring her vitals with their fiery hands.
But one convulsive struggle still remains, xix
And Gaul shall weep ere Albion wear her chains,
The bannered pomp of war, the glittering files, xx
O'er whose gay trappings stern Bellona smiles;
The brazen trump, the spirit-stirring drum,
That bid the foe defiance ere they come;
The hero bounding at his country's call,
The glorious death that consecrates his fall, 290
Swell the young heart with visionary charms.
And bid it antedate the joys of arms.
But know, a lesson you may yet be taught,
With death alone are laurels cheaply bought;
Not in the conflict Havoc seeks delight,
His day of mercy is the day of fight.
But when the field is fought, the battle won,
Though drenched with gore, his woes are but begun:
His deeper deeds as yet ye know by name;
The slaughtered peasant and the ravished dame,300
The rifled mansion and the foe-reaped field,
Ill suit with souls at home, untaught to yield.
Say with what eye along the distant down
Would flying burghers mark the blazing town?
How view the column of ascending flames
Shake his red shadow o'er the startled Thames?
Nay, frown not, Albion! for the torch was thine
That lit such pyres from Tagus to the Rhine:
Now should they burst on thy devoted coast,
Go, ask thy bosom who deserves them most? 310
The law of Heaven and Earth is life for life,
And she who raised, in vain regrets, the strife."
Footnote 1: The lines (1-54) with which the Satire begins, down to "As thus, within the walls of Pallas' fane," first appeared (1814) as the opening stanza of the Third Canto of 'The Corsair'. At that time the publication of 'The Curse of Minerva' had been abandoned. (See Byron's 'note' to 'The Corsair', Canto III. st. i. line i.)
Footnote 2:Idra; 'The Corsair', III. st. i. line 7. Hydra, or Hydrea, is an island on the east coast of the Peloponnese, between the gulfs of Nauplia and AEgina. As an "isle of Greece" it had almost no history until the War of Independence, when its chief town became a "city of refuge" for the inhabitants of the Morea and Northern Greece. Byron was, perhaps, the first poet to give it a name in song.
Footnote 3: Socrates drank the hemlock a short time before sunset (the hour of execution), notwithstanding the entreaties of his disciples to wait till the sun went down.
Footnote 4: The twilight in Greece is much shorter than in our own country; the days in winter are longer, but in summer of less duration.
Footnote 5: The kiosk is a Turkish summer-house; the palm is without the present walls of Athens, not far from the temple of Theseus, between which and the tree the wall intervenes. Cephisus' stream is indeed scanty, and Ilissus has no stream at all.
Footnote 6:
"The Temple of Theseus is the most perfect ancient edifice in the
world. In this fabric, the most enduring stability, and a simplicity
of design peculiarly striking, are united with the highest elegance
and accuracy of workmanship."
'Travels in Albania, etc.', by Lord Broughton (1858), i. 259.
Footnote 7: This is spoken of the city in general, and not of the Acropolis in particular. The temple of Jupiter Olympius, by some supposed the Pantheon, was finished by Hadrian; sixteen columns are standing, of the most beautiful marble and architecture.
Footnote 8: The following lines, of which the first two were written on the original 'MS'., are in Byron's handwriting: -
"Aspice quos Scoto Pallas concedit honores;
Subter stat nomen, facta superque vide. Scote miser! quamvis nocuisti Palladis aedi,
Infandum facinus vindicat ipsa Venus. Pygmalion statuam pro sponsa arsisse refertur;
Tu statuam rapias, Scote, sed uxor abest."
Compare 'Horace in London', by the authors of 'Rejected Addresses' (James and Horace Smith), London, 1813, ode xv., "The Parthenon," "'Pastor quum traheret per freta navibus'."
"And Hymen shall thy nuptial hopes consume,
Unless, like fond Pygmalion, thou canst wed Statues thy hand could never give to bloom.
In wifeless wedlock shall thy life be led, No marriage joys to bless thy solitary bed."
Lord Elgin's first marriage with Mary, daughter of William Hamilton Nisbet, was dissolved by Act of Parliament in 1808.
Footnote 9: His lordship's name, and that of one who no longer bears it, are carved conspicuously on the Parthenon; above, in a part not far distant, are the torn remnants of the bassorelievos, destroyed in a vain attempt to remove them.
On the Erechtheum there was deeply cut in a plaster wall the words -
"QUOD NON FECERUNT GOTI,
HOC FECERUNT SCOTI."
Footnote 10: "Irish bastards," according to Sir Callaghan O'Brallaghan. "A wild Irish soldier in the Prussian Army," in Macklin's 'Love-a-la-Mode' (first played December 12, 1759).
Footnote 11: Lines 149-156 not in original 'MS'.
Footnote 12: Compare 'Horace in London', ode xv: -
"All who behold my mutilated pile,
Shall brand its ravages with classic rage;
And soon a titled bard from Britain's isle
Thy country's praise and suffrage shall engage,
And fire with Athens' wrongs an angry age."
Footnote 13: Mr. West, on seeing the "Elgin Collection," (I suppose we shall hear of the "Abershaw" and "Jack Shephard" collection) declared himself a "mere tyro" in art.
Compare Letters of Benjamin West to the Earl of Elgin, February 6, 1809, March 20, 1811, published in W.R. Hamilton's 'Memorandum', 1811.
Footnote 14: Poor Crib was sadly puzzled when the marbles were first exhibited at Elgin House; he asked if it was not "a stone shop?" - He was right; it 'is' a shop.
Footnote 15: Lines 202-265 are not in the MS.
Footnote 16: Herostratus or Eratostratus fired the temple of Artemis on the same night that Alexander the Great was born. (See Plut., 'Alex'., 3, etc.)
Footnote 17: The affair of Copenhagen. Copenhagen was bombarded by sea by Admiral Lord Gambier (1756-1833), and by land by General Lord Cathcart (1755-1843), September 2-8, 1807. The citadel was given up to the English, and the Danes surrendered their fleet, with all the naval stores, and their arsenals and dockyards. The expedition was "promptly and secretly equipped" by the British Government "with an activity and celerity," says Koch ('Hist. of Europe', p. 214), "such as they had never displayed in sending aid to their allies," with a view to anticipate the seizure and appropriation of the Danish fleet by Napoleon and Alexander (Green's 'Hist. English People' (1875), p. 799).
Footnote 18: "The East" is brought within range of Minerva's curse, 'symmetriae causa', and it is hard to say to which "rebellion" she refers. A choice lies between the mutiny which broke out in 1809, during Sir George Barlow's presidency of Madras, among the officers of the Company's service, and which at one time threatened the continuance of British sway in India; and later troubles, in 1810, arising from the Pindari hordes, who laid waste the villages of Central India and Hindostan, and from the Pathans, who invaded Berar under Ameer Khan. But here, as in lines 245-258 ('vide infra', p. 470, 'note' i), Byron is taking toll of a note to 'Epics of the Ton', pp. 246, 247, which enlarges on the mutiny of native soldiers which took place at Vellore in 1806, where several "European officers and a considerable portion of the 69th Regiment were massacred," in consequence of "an injudicious order with respect to the dress of the Sepoys." - Gleig's 'History of the British Empire in India' (1835), iii. 233, 'note'.
Footnote 19: The victory of "bright Barossa," March 5, 1811, was achieved by the sudden determination - "an inspiration rather than a resolution," says Napier - of the British commander, General Graham (Thomas, Lord Lynedoch, 1750-1843), to counter-march his troops, and force the eminence known as the Cerro de Puerco, or hill of Barosa, which had fallen into the hands of the French under Ruffin. Graham was at this time second in command to the Spanish Captain-general, La Pena, and at his orders, but under the impression that the hill would be guarded by the Spanish troops, was making his way to a neighbouring height. Meantime La Pena had withdrawn the corps of battle to a distance, and left the hill covered with baggage and imperfectly protected. Graham recaptured Barosa, and repulsed the French with heavy loss, in an hour and a half. Napier affirms that La Pena "looked idly on, neither sending his cavalry nor his horse artillery to the assistance of his ally;" and testifies "that no stroke in aid of the British was struck by a Spanish sabre that day."
"Famine" may have raised the devil in the English troops, but it prevented them from following up the victory. A further charge against the Spaniards was that, after Barosa had been won, the English were left for hours without food, and, as they had marched through the night before they came into action, they could only look on while the French made good their retreat.
Two companies of the 20th Portuguese formed part of the British contingent, and took part in the engagement. The year before, at Busaco (September 27, 1810), the Portuguese had displayed signal bravery; but at Gebora (February 19, 1811) "Madden's Portuguese, regardless of his example and reproaches, shamefully turned their backs" (Napier's 'History of the Peninsular War' (1890), iii. 26, 98, 102-107).
Footnote 20:
"Blest paper credit! last and best supply,
That lends Corruption lighter wings to fly."
(POPE.)
In February, 1811, a select committee of the House of Commons "on commercial credit" recommended an advance of L6,000,000 to manufacturers who were suffering from over-speculation. "Did they not know," asked Lord Grenville, in the House of Lords, March 21, "that they were adding to the mass of paper at this moment in existence a sum of L6,000,000, as if there was not paper enough already in the country, in order to protect their commerce and manufactures from destruction?" Nevertheless, the measure passed. The year before (February 19, 1810), a committee which had sat under the presidency of Francis Horner, to inquire into the cause of the high price of gold bullion (gold was worth L4. 10s. an ounce), returned (June 10) a report urging the resumption of cash payment at the end of two years.
It has been suggested to the editor that the asterisks (' -- ') in line 251 (which are not filled up in Lord Stanhope's MS. of 'The Curse of Minerva') stand for "Horner," and that Byron, writing at Athens in March, 1811, was under the impression that Perceval would adopt sound views on the currency question, and was not aware that he was strongly anti-bullionist. On that supposition the two premiers are Portland and Perceval, Horner is the Mentor, and Perceval (line 257) the "patrician clod." To what extent Byron was 'au courant' with home politics when he wrote the lines, it is impossible to say, and without such knowledge some doubt must rest on any interpretation of the passage. But of its genesis there is no doubt. Lady Ann Hamilton, in her estimate of Lord Henry Petty, in 'Epics of the Ton' (p. 139), has something to say on budget "figures" -
"Those imps which make the senses reel, and zounds!
Mistake a cypher for a thousand pounds;"
and her note-writer comments thus: "It somewhat hurts the feelings to see a minister stand up in his place, and after a very pretty exordium to the budget, take up a bundle of papers from the table, gaze at the incomprehensible calculations before him, stammer out a few confused numbers, and then, with a rueful face, look over his shoulder to V - ns - rt for assistance. How often have I grieved to see unhappy A - d - g - n in this lamentable predicament!" Again, on Thellusson being raised to the peerage as Lord Rendlesham, she asks -
"Say, shall we bend to titles thus bestowed,
And like the Egyptians, hail the calf a god?
With toads, asps, onions, ornament the shrine,
And reptiles own and pot-herbs things divine?"
It is evident that Byron, uninspired by Pallas, turned to the 'Epics of the Ton' for "copy," but whether he left a blank on purpose because "Vansittart" (to whom Perceval did turn) would not scan, or, misled by old newspapers, would have written "Horner," must remain a mystery.
Footnote 21: See the portrait of Spencer Perceval in the National Portrait Gallery.
Footnote 22: The Deal and Dover traffickers in specie.
Footnote i:
'O'er the blue ocean way his'.
'MS.'A
Sub-Footnote A: The only MS. of 'The Curse of Minerva' which the
editor has seen, is in the possession of the Earl of Stanhope. A
second MS., formerly in the possession of the Duke of Newcastle, is
believed to have perished in a fire which broke out at Clumber in
1879.
Footnote ii:
'Nor yet forbears each long-abandoned shrine'.
'MS.'
Footnote iii:
'Their 'varying azure mingled with the sky
Beneath his rays assumes a deeper dye'.
'MS.'
Footnote iv:
'Behind his Delphian cliff' -- .
'Corsair', III. st. i. l. 18.
Footnote v:
'The soul of him who' -- .
'Corsair, III. st. i. 1. 31.'
Footnote vi:
'silver reign'.
'MS.'
Footnote vii:
'How sweet and Silent, not a passing cloud
Hides her fair face with intervening shroud'.
'MS.'
Footnote viii:
'seems to smile',
'Corsair', III. st. i. 1. 54.
Footnote ix:
'Sad shrine'.
'MS.'
Footnote x:
'Welcome to slaves, and foremost'.
'MS'.
Footnote xi:
'Ah, Athens! scarce escaped from Turk and Goth,
Hell sends a paltry Scotchman worse than both.'
'MS'.
Footnote xii:
'British peer'.
'MS'.
Footnote xiii:
'Sneaking Jackal'.
'MS'.
Footnote xiv:
'guilty name'.
'MS'.
Footnote xv:
'A land of liars, mountebanks, and Mist'.
'MS'.
Footnote xvi:
'That Art may measure old and modern styles'.
'MS'.
Footnote xvii:
'shy comparisons'.
'MS'.
Footnote xviii:
'In sooth the Nymph 'twere no slight task to please
Since young Sir Harry, etc.'
'MS'.
Footnote xix:
'Fallen is each dear bought friend on Foreign Coast
Or leagued to add you to the world you lost'.
'MS'.
Footnote xx:
' -- 'the glittering file
The martial sounds that animate the while'.
'MS'.
