Childe Harold Canto IV

 

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rational culture, a pilgrimage of Rome meant surveying a culture  riddled with a superstitious religion, which had been superseded by scientific and historical thought, and the ruins of past empires, which mocked the ambitions of rulers. 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 hy©¡na 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 C©¡sar, 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 C©¡sars 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!