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Canto IV 1. Italy was both the traditional destination of a Christian pilgrimage and the art lover's Grand Tour. To the modern Haroldian sceptic, particularly a Briton who had been brought up in a protestant rational culture, a pilgrimage of Rome meant surveying a culture riddled with a superstitious religion, which had been superseded by scientific and historical thought, and the ruins of past empires, which mocked the ambitions of rulers.
2. The alienation and nihilism produced by secular, historical relativism could, however, be offset by the hole that Italy - the cradle of republicanism in the ancient world - would provide a rebirth of political liberty and enshrine it in the creation of a new nation-state.
3. For Republicans such as Byron and his friends, the ruins of ancient Rome were of a more than antiquarian interest. After the defeat of the French republic, young idealist turned to Italy(most of which was ruled by Austria) as well as Greece (part of the Ottoman Empire), and fixed on them their dreams of revolution against imperial, monarchical tyranny.
4. Indeed, the aristocratic Grand Tour tradition of which the poem is a product, had been an important contributory factor in engendering the concept of Italian nationalism. For it was classically educated tourists who had first conceptualised the peninsula as one entity, rather than a collection of city-states and regions. It then took the Napoleonic occupation to provoke a spirit of defensive patriotism amongst the inhabitants.
5. Byron's mention of the British 'betrayal of Genoa, of Italy, of France, and of the world': Byron was now taking the cudgels against his homeland and its Tory government in no uncertain manner. His poem would inculcate the opposite of British jingoism: cosmopolitanism. This was the Enlightenment virtue promulgated by travel. Italy had now become Byron's adopted country.
6. The Coliseum had been consecrated by the Church in order to commemorate the Christian martyrs who had died there, but Byron adapts the notion of pilgrimage to sacralise his own secular quest to fight back against oppression and injustice. Individual self-renewal is thus linked with the wished-for renewal of the independence of Italy. So the matter-of-fact reality of the tourist's visit to a famous place goes hand in hand with an almost supernatural apprehension of the Coliseum as a 'magic' spot in which the poet communes with the spirit of the dead. 1. On Italy 25. But my Soul wanders: I demand it back To meditate amongst decay, and stand A Ruin amidst ruins; there to track Fall’n states and buried Greatness, o’er a land 220 Which was the mightiest in its old command, And is the loveliest, and must ever be The Master-mould of Nature’s heavenly hand; Wherein were cast the heroic and the free, The beautiful – the brave – the Lords of Earth and Sea, 225 26. The Commonwealth of Kings – the Men of Rome! And even since, and now, fair Italy! Thou art the Garden of the World, and Home Of all Art yields, and Nature can decree; Even in thy Desart, what is like to thee? 230 Thy very Weeds are beautiful – thy waste More rich than other Climes’ fertility; Thy wreck a Glory – and thy ruin graced With an immaculate charm which cannot be defaced. 2. Byron’s commemoration of Tasso 36. And Tasso is their Glory and their Shame. 316 Hark to his Strain! and then Survey his cell! And see how dearly earned Torquato’s Fame, And where Alfonso bade his poet dwell: The miserable Despot could not quell 320 The insulted Mind he sought to quench, and blend With the surrounding Maniacs, in the Hell Where he had plunged it. Glory without end Scattered the clouds away; and on that name attend 37. The tears and praises of all Time; while thine 325 Would rot in its oblivion – in the sink Of worthless dust, which from thy boasted line Is shaken into nothing – but the link Thou formest in his fortunes bids us think Of thy poor malice, naming thee with scorn: 330 Alfonso! how thy ducal pageants shrink From thee! if in another station born, Scarce fit to be the slave of him thou madest to mourn: 38. Thou! formed to eat, and be despised, and die, Even as the beasts that perish, save that thou 335 Hadst a more splendid trough and wider sty: He! with a glory round his furrowed brow, Which emanated then, and dazzles now, In face of all his foes, the Cruscan quire, And Boileau, whose rash Envy could allow 340 No strain which shamed his Country’s creaking lyre, That whetstone of the teeth – Monotony in wire! 39. Peace to Torquato’s injured shade! ’twas his In life and death to be the mark where Wrong Aimed with her poisoned arrows, but to miss. 345 Oh! Victor unsurpassed in modern Song! Each year brings forth its millions; but how long The tide of Generations shall roll on, And not the whole combined and countless throng Compose a Mind like thine? though All in one 350 Condensed their scattered rays, they would not form a Sun. 3. Byron’s censure of “Ungrateful Florence” 57. Ungrateful Florence! Dante sleeps afar, 505 Like Scipio, buried by the upbraiding shore: Thy factions, in their worse than civil war, Proscribed the Bard whose name forevermore Their children’s children would in vain adore With the remorse of ages; and the crown 510 Which Petrarch’s laureate brow supremely wore, Upon a far and foreign soil had grown, His Life, his Fame, his Grave, though rifled – not thine own. 58. Boccaccio to his parent earth bequeathed His dust – and lies it not her Great among, 515 With many a sweet and solemn requiem breathed O’er him who formed the Tuscan’s siren tongue? That Music in itself, whose sounds are song, The poetry of Speech? No; even his tomb Uptorn, must bear the hyna bigots’ wrong, 520 No more amidst the meaner dead find room, Nor claim a passing sigh, because it told for whom! 4. Byron’s Celebration of Rome 78. Oh Rome! my Country! City of the Soul! The Orphans of the Heart must turn to thee, 695 Lone Mother of dead Empires! and controul In their shut breasts their petty misery. What are our woes and sufferance? Come and see The Cypress, Hear the Owl, and plod your way O’er steps of broken thrones and temples – Ye! 700 Whose agonies are evils of a day – A World is at our feet as fragile as our Clay. 79. The Niobe of Nations! there She stands, Childless and crownless, in her voiceless woe; An empty Urn within her withered hands, 705 Whose holy dust was scattered long ago; The Scipios’ tomb contains no ashes now; The very Sepulchres lie tenantless Of their heroic dwellers: dost thou flow, Old Tiber! through a marble wilderness? 710 Rise, with thy yellow waves, and mantle her distress. 82. Alas! the lofty City! and alas! 730 The trebly hundred triumphs! and the day When Brutus made the dagger’s edge surpass The Conqueror’s sword in bearing fame away! Alas, for Tully’s voice, and Virgil’s lay, And Livy’s pictured page! – but these shall be 735 Her Resurrection; all beside – decay. Alas for Earth, for never shall we see That brightness in her eye She bore when Rome was free! 5. On Cromwell 85. Sylla was first of Victors; but our own, The Sagest of Usurpers, Cromwell! – he Too swept off Senates while he hewed the throne Down to a block – Immortal rebel! See 760 What crimes it costs to be a moment free, And famous through all ages! but beneath His fate the Moral lurks of destiny; His day of double Victory and death Beheld him win two realms, and, happier, yield his breath. 6. Byron’s reflection on Napoleon 89. Thou dost – but all thy foster-babes are dead – The men of Iron – and the World hath reared Cities from out their sepulchres: Men bled 795 In imitation of the things they feared, And fought and conquered, and the same course steered, At apish distance; but as yet none have, Nor could the same Supremacy have neared, Save one vain Man, who is not in the Grave, 800 But, vanquished by himself, to his own slaves a Slave – 90. The fool of false dominion – and a kind Of bastard Csar, following him of old With steps unequal; for the Roman’s Mind Was modelled in a less terrestrial mould, 805 With passions fiercer, yet a judgement cold, And an immortal instinct which redeemed The frailties of a heart so soft, yet bold, Alcides with the distaff now he seemed At Cleopatra’s feet – and now Himself he beamed, 810 91. And came – and saw – and conquered! But the Man Who would have tamed his Eagles down to flee, Like a trained Falcon, in the Gallic van, Which he, in sooth, long led to Victory With a deaf heart, which never seemed to be 815 A listener to itself, was strangely framed; With but one weakest weakness – Vanity – Coquettish in Ambition, still he aimed – At what? can he avouch, or answer what he claimed? 92. And would be All or Nothing – nor could wait 820 For the sure Grave to level him; few years Had fixed him with the Csars in his fate, On whom we tread; for this the Conqueror rears The Arch of Triumph! and for this the tears And blood of Earth flow on as they have flowed, 825 An Universal Deluge, which appears Without an Ark for wretched Man’s abode, And ebbs but to reflow! Renew thy rainbow, God! 7. Byron’s Reflection on the French Revolution 93. What from this barren being do we reap? Our senses narrow, and our reason frail, 830 Life short, and truth a gem which loves the Deep, And all things weighed in Custom’s falsest scale; Opinion an Omnipotence, whose veil Mantles the Earth with darkness, until Right And Wrong are accidents, and Men grow pale 835 Lest their own Judgements should become too bright, And their free thoughts be crimes, and Earth have too much light. 94. And thus they plod in sluggish misery, Rotting from Sire to Son, and age to age, Proud of their trampled Nature, and so die, 840 Bequeathing their hereditary rage To the new race of inborn slaves, who wage War for their chains, and rather than be free, Bleed Gladiator-like, and still engage Within the same Arena where they see 845 Their fellows fall before, like Leaves of the same Tree. 95. I speak not of Men’s creeds – they rest between Man and his Maker – but of things allowed, Averred, and known, and daily, hourly seen – The Yoke that is upon us doubly bowed, 850 And the Intent of Tyranny avowed, The Edict of Earth’s Rulers, who are grown The Apes of him who humbled once the proud, And shook them from their slumbers on the Throne: Too Glorious, were this all his mighty arm had done. 855 97. But France got drunk with Blood to vomit Crime, 865 And fatal have her Saturnalia been To Freedom’s cause, in every age and clime; Because the deadly days which we have seen, And vile Ambition, that built up between Man and his hopes an Adamantine wall, 870 And the base pageant last upon the Scene, Are grown the pretext for the eternal Thrall Which nips Life’s tree, and dooms Man’s worst – his second fall. 98. Yet, Freedom! yet thy Banner, torn, but flying, Streams like the Thunder-storm against the Wind; 875 Thy trumpet voice, though broken now and dying, The loudest still the Tempest leaves behind; Thy tree hath lost its blossoms, and the rind, Chopped by the axe, looks rough and little worth, But the Sap lasts – and still the seeds we find 880 Sown deep, even in the bosom of the North; So shall a better Spring less bitter fruit bring forth. 8. Byron’s reflection on Coliseum(Colosseum) 137. But I have lived, and have not lived in vain: 1225 My Mind may lose its force, my Blood its fire, And my Frame perish even in conquering pain; But there is that within me which shall tire Torture and Time, and breathe when I expire; Something unearthly, which they deem not of, 1230 Like the remembered tone of a mute Lyre, Shall on their softened Spirits sink, and move In hearts all rocky now the late remorse of Love. 138. The seal is set. – Now welcome, thou dread Power! Nameless, yet thus omnipotent, which here 1235 Walk’st in the shadow of the midnight hour With a deep awe, yet all distinct from fear; Thy haunts are ever where the dead walls rear Their ivy mantles, and the solemn scene Derives from thee a sense so deep and clear 1240 That we become a part of what has been, And grow unto the spot – all-seeing but unseen. 9. Byron’s Final Comments 182. Thy shores are Empires, changed in all save thee – 1630 Assyria – Greece – Rome – Carthage – what are they? Thy Waters wafted Power while they were free, And many a tyrant since; their shores obey The stranger, slave, or savage; their decay Has dried up realms to desarts – not so thou – 1635 Unchangeable, save to thy wild Waves’ play, Time writes no wrinkle on thine azure brow – Such as Creation’s dawn beheld, thou rollest now. 183. Thou glorious Mirror, where the Almighty’s form Glasses itself in tempests; in all time – 1640 Calm or convulsed – in breeze, or Gale, or Storm – Icing the Pole, or in the torrid clime Dark-heaving – boundless – endless and sublime – The Image of Eternity – the throne Of the Invisible; even from out thy Slime 1645 The Monsters of the deep are made – each Zone Obeys thee – thou goest forth, dread – fathomless – alone. 184. And I have loved thee, Ocean! and my joy Of youthful sports was on thy breast to be Borne, like thy bubbles, onward: from a boy 1650 I wantoned with thy breakers – they to me Were a delight; and if the freshening sea Made them a terror – ’twas a pleasing fear, For I was as it were a Child of thee, And trusted to thy billows far and near, 1655 And laid my hand upon thy Mane – as I do here. 185. My task is done – my Song hath ceased – my theme Has died into an Echo; it is fit The Spell should break of this protracted dream. The torch shall be extinguished which hath lit 1660 My Midnight lamp – and what is writ, is writ – Would it were worthier! but I am not now That which I have been – and my Visions flit Less palpably before me – and the Glow Which, in my Spirit dwelt is fluttering, faint, and low. 1665 186. Farewell! a word that must be, and hath been – A Sound which makes us linger; yet – farewell! Ye! who have traced the Pilgrim to the Scene Which is his last – if in your memories dwell A thought which once was his – if on ye swell 1670 A single recollection – not in vain He wore his sandal-shoon, and scallop-shell; Farewell! with him alone may rest the pain If such there were – with You, the Moral of his Strain!
 
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