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Content A STUDY OF THE INFLUENCE OF MORTALITY ON BYRON’S THOUGHT AND POETRY A Dissertation Presented to the Faculty of the Department of English The University of Southern California In Partial fulfillment of the Requirement for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy fey Wade Rufey June 1944 UMI Number: DP22990 All rights reserved INFORMATION TO ALL USERS The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. In the unlikely event that the author did not send a complete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion. Dissertation Publishing UMI DP22990 Published by ProQuest LLC (2014). Copyright in the Dissertation held by the Author. Microform Edition © ProQuest LLC. All rights reserved. This work is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code ProQuest LLC. 789 East Eisenhower Parkway P.O. Box 1346 Ann Arbor, Ml 48106- 1346 T h is dissertation, w ritte n by WADE RUBY under the guidan ce o f h.X& F a c u lty C o m m itte e on Studies, a nd a p p ro ve d by a ll its members, has been presented to and accepted by the C o u n c il on G raduate S tu d y and Research, in p a rtia l f u l fillm e n t o f requirem ents f o r the degree o f D O C T O R O F ^ P H I L O S O P H Y Dean Secretary Date. May...l9A4.......... Committee on Studies , Chairman TABLE OF CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE I ♦ INTRODUCTION ................................ 1 Nature and purpose of the investigation . . 1 Definition of mortality ............ . 1 Brief survey of the emphasis o n ........ mortality in works to be studied .... 10 Divisions of the study............ 27 Analysis of related studies ....... 28 Analyses of Byron by Shelley and Goethe. . 50 II. BACKGROUNDS AND INFLUENCES ESPECIALLY .... RELATED TO MORTALITY IN BYRON *S ........... THOUGHT AND POETRY.................. 34 Specific hereditary and environmental . . . influences.......... 35 Parents and home l i f e ............ 35 Religious training ....................... 38 Physical deformity....................... 41 Love of nature.................... 43 Education and reading ................. 47 General influence of the times ....... 49 III. MORTALITY IN THE EARLY POETRY.......... 59 Mutability and death ............... 60 Clog of clay......................... 64 Escape in religion . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67 iii * CHAPTER PAGE IV. CHILDE HAROLD’S PILGRIMAGE................. 73 Introduction................. 73 Cantos I, I I .............................. 82 Canto I I I ..................... 103 Canto I V .................................. 123 V. MANFRED . 139 Introduction .............................. 139 Analysis of character and action ......... 141 Thirst for knowledge................... 142 P r i d e ......................... 151 VI. CAIN........................................ 160 Introduction .............................. 160 Inception . ............................ 164 Analysis of character and action ......... 169 Introduction to Cain................... 169 Influence of Lucifer ................... 185 After-influence ....................... 203 Love versus knowledge................. 209 Summary.............. 229 VII. DON JUAN .................................. 233 General statement of interest in ......... mortality.............................. 233 Mutability and death..................... 237 Vanity and evil in m a n................... 243 Man, "cabined, cribbed, confined" .... 256 iv. CHAPTER - PAGE VIII. THE LAST PHASE: "WELL-RECORDED WORTH". . . 262 Opinions of critics concerning Byron’s . motives in going to Greece..... 262 The ’ ’ mountsin-majesty of worth” . . . . 267 Love of liberty................... . 273 Interest in Greece................ 280 The end: apotheosis ........... 283 IX. CONCLUSION........................... 293 Statement of conclusions reached .... 293 Comparison with Shelley......... 304 BIBLIOGRAPHY 308 APPENDIX A. HEAVEN AND EARTH AND OTHER WORKS . . WRITTEN DURING THE COMPOSITION ... OF DON JUAN.................. 319 APPENDIX B. SOURCES OF MANFRED................. 327 CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION I., NATURE AND PURPOSE OF THE INVESTIGATION In Byron’s jjoetry are found many recurrent themes. None appears so often as mortality; and none has such sig nificance as a shaping force, an informing power, in his works. From his first juvenile volume to the last cantos of Don Juan and the verses found among his papers at Mis- solonghi Byron, sometimes seriously, sometimes mockingly, laments the state of ’ ’mortal bondage.”1 Mortality in this study will be used in the varied senses in which it is found in Byron’s poetry. Byron’s concept of mortality is divisible into three phases: 1. The mutability and perishability of man and of his works; 2. The ’ ’cabined, cribbed, confined”^ intellect of man, his inability to ’ ’comprehend the Universe”3; 3. The degrading and recalcitrant forces resident in man,— Byron would say in ’ ’dust”— which, in man's yielding to them, have produced the ugliness and 'evil common to human history. 1 Childe Harold. IV, 5* 2 Ibid., IV, 127. 3 Manfred. II, ii, 111. 2 Byron does not often use mortality in its purely etymological sense, although he is often concerned with the mutable and transient nature of human life and human striv ing. Byron is apparently referring to death in The Prophecy of Dante, when he speaks of shapes yet in "the abyss of Time" which must "undergo mortality."^ Death is the "way of all the earth." This phase of Byron's concept of mortality is so common as to need no further elaboration here. In numerous places Byron uses the words mortal and mortality without any reference to death. A spirit says of Manfred: This is to be a mortal, And seek the things beyond mortality.5 The context of this passage, as well as the entire spirit and theme of Manfred, makes clear that Manfred is not spoken of as seeking the things beyond death but as seeking to attain unto knowledge which the "cabined, cribbed, confined"^ intellectual powers of man cannot attain unto. As Chew puts it, the spirits with whom Manfred confers and from whom he seeks aid represent "the flaming walls of the world within 4 II, 5ff. 5 II, iv, 157f. 6 Childe Harold. IV, 127. 3 which his Qtlanfred’ sp spirit is penned, and against which he rebels."7 The Witch of the Alps tells Manfred that when he foregoes the "great knowledge” of her spirit world, he "shrink*st back to recreant mortality. "8 She obviously means that he accepts the "state of mortal bondage,"9 where he must remain "cooped in clay."IP "Clay...clogs the ether eal essence."11 Manfred would throw off this clog of clay, would have his mind "stripped of this mortality."I2 In Cain, and throughout Byron’s poetry, this emphasis upon the clay-bound nature of man is repeated. Lucifer tells Cain: But thou art clay— and canst but comprehend That which was clay, and such thou shalt behold.13 Lucifer further describes the mortal state as A Paradise of Ignorance, from which Knowledge was barred as poison.14 Lucifer’s common term of address to Cain is "Poor clay."1-5 7 Samuel C. Chew, The Dramas of Lord Byron, p. 79- 8 II, ii, 125f. 9 Childe Harold. IV, 5. 10 Manfred. I, i, 157. 11 Ibid,, II, iv, 56f. Cf.. Lara. I, xviii. 12 III, iv, 133. 13 II, i, l64f. 14 II, ii, lOlf. 15 See I, i, 123, 217. 4 It Is Lucifer's insistence upon the limitations of the mor tal state that leads Cain to the pronouncement: "I seem nothing."16 Lucifer so impresses Cain with the "cabined, cribbed, confined" nature of the human mind, so urges upon him the mocking discrepancy between his aspirations and his powers of realization, that Cain's already depressed spirit is overwhelmed with "mortal nature's nothingness."17 These passages, which could be almost unendingly multiplied, make clear the second phase of Byron's concept of mortality. Though man "lifts his eye to Heaven," he is "bound to the Earth."IS "This cumbrous clog of clay... stalks between our souls and heaven and fetters us to earth."19 The third phase of Byron's concept of mortality is made clear in a famous speech by Manfred: BeautifulI How Beautiful is all this visible world! How glorious in its action and itself! But we, who name ourselves its sovereigns, we, Half dust, half deity, alike unfit To sink or soar, with out mixed essence make A conflict of its elements, and breathe The breath of degradation and of pride, 16 II, ii, 420f. 17 II, ii, 422. 18 Childe Harold. II, 4. 19 Sardanapalus. IV, i, ,59ff. 5 Contending with, low wants and lofty will, Till our Mortality predominates,20 And men are— what they name not to themselves, And trust not to each other....21 Obviously Byron attributes man's state of conflict, his de gradation, his pride, to what may be called man’s fated mortal state, that is, to a mixture of dust and deity. When man yields to dust, or clay, submitting to the follies and vanities and evils to which flesh is subject, "Mortality predominates." Here again Byron clearly has no reference to death, but to the degrading and recalcitrant forces resi dent in man as a part of his nature. It Is clay, so to speak, that makes "frail mortality" frail.22 Already we have quoted such phrases as "cooped in clay," "cumbrous clog of clay," and "clay...clogs the ethereal essence."23 When Manfred, proud as he was, met human beings, he felt himself "degraded back to them, and was all clay again."24 The Doge in The Two Foscari has found man to be a "loathsome volume," of which his heart and brain are "black and bloody leaves":25 20 Italics not in the original. 21 I, ii, 36ff. 22 Cain. II, ii, 269. Supra, pp. $T:l, 24 11, ii, 78f. 25 II, ii, 335f. All is low, And false, and hollow— clay from first to last...26 Childe Harold, in the presence of the towering Alps, would mount "with a fresh pinion," Spurning the clay-cold bonds which round our being cling.2? He longs for the day when the mind shall be all free From what it hates in this degraded form.2° Lucifer describes the mind of man as "linked to a servile mass of matter," chained down To the most gross and petty paltry wants, All foul and fulsome....29 In his determined effort to depress the mind of Cain, Lucifer tells him: Thou Shalt soon return to earth, and all its dust: ' Tis part of thy eternity, and mine.30 Deformed Transformed, when Bourbon, Arnold, and Philibert have left the stage, the Stranger soliloquizes: 26 II,.i, 351f. 2>7 III, 73. 28 III, 74. 29 Cain. II, i, 51f. 3° II, i, I48f. 7 And these are men, forsooth! Heroes and chiefs, the flower of Adam’s bastards! This is the consequence of giving matter The power of thought. It is a stubborn substance, And thinks chaotically, as it acts, Ever relapsing into its first elements.31 In the words of Maddalo in Shelley’s poem, ’ ’ And such... is our mortality....”32 Man’s tendency to lapse into the de grading ’ ’first elements”, which enslave men to folly, vanity, cruelty, and other evils, is a part of Byron’s concept of mortality. This phase of mortality is strong ly emphasized in an Inscription on the Monument of a_ New foundland Dog. Childe Harold. Manfred, and particularly Don Juan. Mutability and death, the ’ ’cabined, cribbed, con fined” intellect of man, and the tendency of men to re lapse into the first elements-,— these three phases of mortality receive repeated emphasis in Byron’s works. But one must not overlook the fact that Byron was also conscious of a power in man,--he called it the ’ ’ethereal essence”33— which thirsts for good and longs to rise above the clogging clay. In the speech of Manfred quoted above,34 33-Pi, ii, 3l4ff. 32 Julian and Maddalo. 11.120. 33 See supra , p. 3> 34 p. 4. 8 man is presented as "half dust, half deity.” Byron sees in man a "Faculty divine.”35 This faculty is continually dissatisfied with attainment; it becomes tired of being "cooped in clay", of being thwarted from lofty purpose by what is "low, and false, and hollow— clay from first to last," by "the most gross and petty paltry wants, all foul and fulsome."36 Of this conflict within man Byron is ever conscious in his poetry, The "Faculty divine" often becomes a fire And motion of the Soul which will not dwell In its own narrow being, but aspire Beyond the fitting medium of desire....37 The conflict in man between dust and deity, the effort of dissatisfied spirits to narrow the chasm between aspira tion and realization, is an almost constant element in Byron’s greatest works. In Ghilde Harold Byron is es pecially aware of mutability and death, and of man’s lapsing into the first elements. In Manfred and Gain the protagonists, in their struggling against the limita tions of mortality, "aspire beyond the fitting medium of desire"; and in each poem the final effect is that such men as Manfred and Cain should tame their natures down, 35 Childe Harold, IV, 127. 36 See supra, p. 5. 37 Childe Harold, III, 1+2. 9 achieving a more ’ ’contented knowledge"38 through a some what stoical acceptation of ’ ’ what ij3. ”39 in Don Juan all three phases of mortality receive repeated and extended presentation; and before Byron is very far into the poem he concludes, as he does in Manfred and Cain, that Fate has decreed that man shall not attain unto a full compre hension of the universe. And, of course, he has always known that mutability and death are the common lot of all. These phases of mortality,— death and an inability to comprehend— he believes man cannot transcend; but, in spite of the common tale of evil among men, and in spite of his own delinquencies, Byron believes that man can reduce the number and gravity of his lapses into the first elements, and can, through deeds of ’ ’ well-recorded Worth,triumph over the limitations of man’s ’ ’degraded form.” Thus the triumph of the "mountain-majesty of Worth’ ’41 over the baser first elements becomes, to some extent, a triumph over death and aids in an adjustment to the inevitably "cabined, cribbed, confined" nature of the human intellect. 38 Gain, III, i, 50. 39 ibid.. I, i, 45. 40 Childe Harold, II, 85. 41 Ibid.. HI, 67. 10 The purpose of this investigation will he to determine just how intensive and far-reaching the in fluence of mortality is in Byron's poetry, particularly in his greatest creations. A careful analysis of the juvenilia, of the most ingenious subsequent productions, and of the letters and journals, will, it is believed, justify the statements made at the outset concerning the significance of mortality as a theme in Byron’s poetry. Before treating specific works in detail, we shall pre sent, in brief.survey, some of the stronger emphases on mortality which are found in the poems to be most carefully studied and which suggested this investigation. In his juvenilia Byron is especially impressed with the mutability, the perishability, of all things human. His thoughts often wander in the valley of the shadow. The third poem in Fugitive Pieces opens with the following stanza: Hush'd are the winds, and still the evening gloom, Not e'en a zephyr wanders through the grove, Whilst I return to view my Margaret's tomb. And scatter flowers in the dust I love.42 'Through Newstead’s battlements "the hollow winds whistle," and the abbey itself has "gone to decay."43 To ^2.0n The Death Of A Young Lady, st. 1. 43 on Leaving Newstead Abbey, st. 1. 11 M s departed ancestors Byron writes of himself, Like you will he live, or like you will he perish; When decay’d, may he mingle his dust with your own. 44 His obsession with thoughts of death appears again in Love* s Last Adieu: The roses of love glad the garden of life, Though nurtur'd 'mid weeds dropping pestilent dev/, Till Time crops the leaves with unmerciful knife, Or prunes them for ever, in Love’s last adieu! Youth flies, life decays, even hope is o'ercast; No more, with Love's former devotion, we sue: He spreads his young wing, he retires with the blast; The shroud of affection is Love's last adieul45 Perhaps the strongest disgust with man’s tendency to lapse into the "first elements" is found in the Inscription on the Monument of a Newfoundland Dog: Oh Man! thou feeble tenant of an hour, Debased by slavery, or corrupt by power, Who knows thee well must quit thee with disgust, Degraded mass of animated dust! Thy love is lust, they friendship all a cheat, Thy smiles hypocrisy, they words deceit! By nature vile, ennobled but by name, Each kindred brute might bid thee blush for shame.46 These passages, all written before Byron's first departure for the continent, show that as a boy he had read and ob served many things which caused him to be strongly conscious 44 ibid., st. 8. 45 sts.' 1, 9. 46 1L15-22. 12 of the evils and limitations of man. In the early poems, especially In those written before 1306, Byron relies upon religion to bear the shock produced by a growing sense of mortality and by increasing disillusionment.^7 Many spontaneous expressions implying faith are found, in both his prose and poetry of this early period. Over the first two cantos of Childe Harold * s Pil grimage hang yet darker clouds. As the Pilgrim moves from country to country he finds, through historical remin iscence, or through observation of contemporary condi tions, strong affirmation of his earlier judgments of man. True, the Childe seemingly is often awake to only the ugly, but he sees enough to lead him to conclude, ’ ’ What fools these mortals beI” The Portuguese are poor, paltry slaves, yet born midst noblest scenes; beautiful settings are marred by man's "impious hand."^ Sunday, in Spain as in England, is a day of sin and worldliness. "The Glory that was Greece," is now bespoken only by the ruins of the Acropolis, and the Childe, grown more skeptical, spurns man, who produced the ruins, as a "poor child of Doubt and Death, whose hope is built on reeds."^9 Meditation on the ^ See infra, pp. 67ff. ^ I, 15. ^9 11, 3. 13 limitations of the intellectual powers of mortals produces agnosticism: "'All that we know is, nothing can be known. "'30 When the Childe resumes his wanderings in Canto III, he has had added experience with man and his world, most of it bitter. He says of "Conquerors and Kings,...Sophists, Bards, Statesmen": Their breath is agitation, and their life A storm whereon they ride, to sink at last, And yet so nursed and bigoted 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 With its own flickering, or a sword laid by, Which eats into itself, and rusts ingloriously.51 Near the close of the cant’ o appears the following stanza: I have not loved the World, nor the World me,— But let us part fair foes; I do believe, 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— That two, or one, are almost what they seem,— That Goodness is no name— and Happiness no dream.52 In Canto IV, life is still a "state of mortal bond age, "53 and "the weight of earth recoils upon us."54 Harold 50"II} 1% 51 st: 44. 52 St. 114, 53 st. 5. ^ St. 52. now sees that mortals plod in sluggish misery, Rotting from sire to son, and age to age, Proud of their trampled nature, and so die, 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 Their fellows fall before, like leaves of the same tree.55 Man is ’ ’cabined, cribbed, confined”;56 death is the ’ ’sable smoke where vanishes the flame” of ’ ’love, fame, ambition, avarice, each idle— and all ill— and none the worst”;57 and ’ ’Circumstance...turns Hope to dust,--the dust we all have trod.”5^ Thus the Childe, finding the world the ’ ’same wide den--of thieves,”59 turns to the ocean and the pathless woods as a Zuflucht. In the first two cantos of Childe Harold, religion has ceased to console; dark and satiric skepticism pervades all. In these cantos, as in the juvenilia,60 nature serves as a partial relief to a kind of Weltschmerz. In Canto III Byron, for a time, turns to the pantheism of the mystics, 55 ” st . ~ ~ 9 4 . 56 st. 127. 57 St. 124. 5# St. 125. 59 st. 145. 60 see infra, pp. 43ff. 15 hoping there to find easement from the shocks of the world's and his own mortal evils. He seems seriously to seek comfort in the union of the individual with the eternal spirit of the universe; as Shelly would have ex pressed it, though he changed he could not die. Under the influence of Pantheism Byron wrote some of his best stanzas, stanzas that ring true with sincere desire to believe what he wrote. And in Byron's own words, 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 To which it mounts, as if to break.the link That keeps us from yon heaven which woes us to its brink.61 In Canto IY Byron confesses the inadequacy of pantheistic faith, although he leaves the Childe by the dark and deep blue ocean, ' Tglorious mirror” of the Almighty's form, "the image of Eternity— the throne of the Invisible."82 The canto is filled with bitterness; the problems rising from thoughts on mortality are unsolved. Eternal questioning remains. Manfred, composed about the same time as the third canto of Childe Harold, is a special study in mortality, 61 St. 14. 62 St. 188. 16 as the use of the word mortal eighteen times and mortal ity four times would suggest. In this dramatic piece death is found twelve times, dust three, and clay nine. Although like Faust's, Manfred’s spirit, somewhat uncon-/ vincingly, is able to disperse the spirits of evil, who, gloating over him in his anguish with ’ ’this is to be a mortal,” have heightened the sense of his mortality, Man fred has learned that ’ ’the Tree of Knowledge is not that of Life,”63 and that philosophy is "of all our vanities the motliest.’ ’^4 Typical of many speeches in the drama are the lines quoted above,^5 in which Manfred praises natural beauty as he stands before the Jungfrau. Con trasting with the beauty of the ’ ’visible world” is the conduct of men, who, with their "mixed essence” breathe The breath of degradation and of pride, Contending with low wants and lofty will Till our Mortality predominates.66 But the phase of mortality most strongly emphasized in Manfred is man’s inability to "comprehend the Universe.” 64 III, i, 10. 65 P* 4. 66 I, ii, 36ff. 17 In Gain mortality receives the deepest study, and as Marjarum says,^7 serves as motivation for the catas trophe. Thus Cain demands the most detailed study. Con cerning analyses of Cain by Chew, Brandes, and Brooke, Marjarum writes, "It is unlikely that anything yet to be undertaken will supersede them."68 But these works are not only incomplete; their interpretations are question able, and in certain major premises indefensible. Es pecially will this study seek to demonstrate that Chew does all his work on Cain upon a central and basic mis understanding of Byron’s purpose, a purpose made clear in the text of the play itself, as well as in Byron’s letters and journals. Chew’s interpretation seems an echo of Brandes’ ideas. Brandes says: This Lucifer is no devil...Nor is he a Mephis- topheles...No! This Lucifer is really the bringer of light, the genius of science, the proud and de fiant spirit of criticism, like the best friend of man, overthrown because, like his enemy, he is eter nal. He is the spirit of freedom.°9 Donner agrees: "Die Auffassung von Lucifer als dem Genius ^7 Edward Wayne Marjarum, Byron as Skeptic and Believer, p. 6. 63 Ibid.. p. 33, note 37. 69 Georg Brandes, "Naturalism in England," in Main Currents in Nineteenth Century Literature, IV; 316. 18 von Wahrheit wird hier aufs neue best&tigt."7° Marjarum's conception or Lucifer is the same: "By rejecting entirely the traditional indentification of Lucifer with evil he Cgyro43 implied a complete break with historic Christian ity. "71 But this is the very error of interpretation into which nearly all of Byron's critics have fallen. Byron does not entirely, nor to a great extent, break with the traditional identification of Lucifer with evil. The critics have, as it is believed a study of the play will establish, missed entirely the subtlety of Lucifer, and thus have been uninfluenced by the effective dramatic irony built around his powers to deceive. Many have accept ed literally and verbatim Lucifer's presentation of himself, as Lucifer wanted Cain to do, but as he would not do. Byron is not presenting Lucifer as the bringer of light but is emphasizing that an inordinate thirst for knowledge and light, a deep and resentful rebellion against the limita tions of mortality, brings Cain to the moment of catas trophe which causes him ultimately to confess what his failings have been. It is believed that a careful study ^ J* 0* E. Bonner, Lord Byrons Weltanschauung, 71 Ojd. bit., p. 35. 19 of tiie play will support tills interpretation, and will enable readers to discover great dramatic power in the piece which is not discernible to those who agree with Brandes’ interpretation, which has become traditional. When Byron wrote Cain he was already well into Don Juan; and those who see a different Byron in Don Juan from the Byron of preceding works should never con sider this poem apart from Byron's other creations of the same period. It is true that the mood of Don Juan is certainly different from that of Cain; but the work itself is different. Yet the numerous digressions in Don Juan make it clear that the same problems treated in Cain are constantly in the poet's mind. It is true that there is a mocking laughter, an affected and facetious spirit of indifference to problems of life and religion, problems arising from a consciousness of the evils and limitations seemingly common to mortality; but the mock ery is merely a repression of serious interest, and the affectation becomes obvious when Cain, the conversations with Kennedy, and the letters and journals are considered. There is a latent seriousness in the famous lines from Canto IV of Don Juan: And if I laugh at any mortal thing, ’Tis that I.may not weep....72 Throughout the poem Byron turns aside repeatedly to ex press the vanity of the mortal state. In Canto I, In a moment of vengeance to be regretted, he considers Sir Samuel Romilly’s suicide as "One sad example more, that ’All is Vanity. ”’73 Constantly he recurs to man’s in ability to comprehend the mysteries of life: Few mortals know what end they would oe at, But whether Glory, Power, or Love, or Treasure, The path is through perplexing ways, ana when The goal Is gainea, we aie, you know— and then— What then?— I do not know, no more do you— And so good night.74 For sixteen cantos Byron turns rrom the vagaries of his plot into many digressions; ana in most instances he dis- cusses the limitations of man, his rollies and vanities, his frustrations, his inability to achieve his aspirations, his capacity for knowledge. And though often the poet turns back to his story with some flippant remark, some times maintaining that he has digressed just for variety, it Is obvious that Byron is deeply concerned with the answers to the questions which he poses. A merely nega- 72 st. / * . . 73 St. 15. 74 i, 133f. 21 tive interest does not cause tne mind to turn to the same problems so repeatedly ana at such length. What are we? and whence came we? what shall be 0ur ultimate existence? what's our present? Are questions answerless, and yet incessant.75 In Manfred, Gain, and Don Juan, as has already been indicated, pantheistic enthusiasm nas been rejected, al though love of external nature is genuine, and often beau tifully expressed. A definitely defined religious faith has long been left behind; the skepticism of Childe Harold I and II has become confirmed agnosticism.76 Byron's mind, like all others, is mortal. There appears no cer tain theory of knowledge: I do not know, no more do you....77 The quotations thus far introduced are from the works which will be given detailed attention in'-this study. In many of the other poems the same lamentings of mortal ity appear, though often with less intensity and weaker emphasis. In The Two Foscari all things are to mortals "a mystery,” and, as we have seen, man is a ’ 'loathsome volume," of which his heart and brain are "black and 75 VI, 63. 76 see infra, pp. 256ff. 77 Dofl. Juan, I, 134. 22 bloody leaves. "7^ Man is "clay from first to last."79 Gloom pervades the narrative poems which Byron produced so prolifically just after achieving fame in 1812. In The Bride of Abydos man's "carnage and his conquests" are followed by a solitude, only because men have temporarily exhausted their powers to destroy. This solitude man calls *' peace.80 in Lara Byron writes that nature gives man a "fleshly form...to clog the soul, and feast the worm."81 Everywhere man is a poor child of clay, of dust; he is mortal. Much evidence in the journals and letters shows that Byron was not merely conventionally poetizing In the passages above: he was really concerned with the limita tions of man as they relate to the goodness of whatever controlling force there may be behind and in the universe. Scott recognized this when writing to accept the dedication of Cain: The great key to the mystery Is, perhaps, the imperfection of our own faculties, which see and feel strongly the partial evils which press upon us, but know too little of the general system of the universe to be aware how the existence 78 II, i, 3351*. 79 Loc. cit. 80 n. 912f. J 81 I, 18. 23 of these is to be reconciled with the benevolence of the great Creator.®2 In 1808 Byron wrote to Augusta: ...There is such a sameness in mankind upon the whole, and they grow so much more disgusting every dajr, that, were it not for a portion of Ambition, and a conviction that in times like the present we ought to perform our respective duties, I should live here all my life, in unvaried Solitude.^3 Three years later he wrote to Dallas concerning the death of Charles Skinner Matthews: When we see such men pass away and be no more— men, who seem created to display what the Creator could make his creatures, gathered into corruption, before the maturity of minds that might have been the pride of posterity, what are we to conclude? For my own part, I am bewildered. Inaccurately quoting Macbeth, he says to Dallas that he has "almost forgot the taste of grief," having so "supped full of horrors" that he is calloused; and with no recourse but his own reflections, he has no prospect here or hereafter, "except the satisfaction of surviving my betters."^5 Throughout the years, there is dark reflection on the limitations of mortality. In 1813 Byron writes to his cjp Quoted in Letters and Journals, VI, 3* The pre ceding form will be used throughout this study to refer to the standard edition of Byron’s letters and journals, edited by Rowland E. Prothero. See bibliography! 83 Ibid., I, 204. 84 £bid-, II, 29. Ibid., II, 52. 24 highly admired friend Gifford: It was the comparative insignificance of our selves and our world, when placed in competition with the mighty'whole, of which it is an atom, tnat first led me to imagine that our pretensions to eternity might be.over-rated.86 Always it is the same. Three years before death— in the year in which Cain appeared— Byron recorded in "Detached Thoughts": The lapse of time changes all things— time-- language--the earth--the bounds or the sea-.-the stars of the shy, and everytning 'about, around, and underneath' man, except man himself, who has always been, ana always will be, an unlucky rascal. The infinite variety of lives conduct but to death, and the infinity of wishes lead but to disappoint ment. 87 Only one other such statement, written at Allegra’s death, is chosen here: Death has done his work— and I am reslgned-r-rf or, however deeply human scrutiny may pry into the in finitely perplexed combination of events--however accurately human prudence may understand, arrange, and make use of what it knows--it still ever remains confined, nor even dreams of a thousand matters which come forth from the womb of the next hour.88 These statements, made at various periods of Byron’s life, accumulate to impress one with the amount of thought which Byron gave to mortality, to the "cabined, cribbed, confined" ^ Ibid.7 II, 222. 87 Ibid., V, 162. 88 rbid.. VI, 50", note 2. 25 condition common to the mind and life of man. It is only to be expected that a poet who wrote so subjectively as Byron should express in his verse what he deeply and con stantly felt within himself. In the closingyyears of life, especially after the beginning of an active personal in terest in Greek independence, Byron is more and more attract ed to the doctrines of social love set forth in Cain.^9 All his life Byron had admired the few persons who seemed notably to overcome limitations of dust and clay, performing deeds of great unselfishness. In the second canto of Childe Harold he had written: So perish monuments of mortal birth, So perish all in turn,*save well-recorded W o r t h .90 Washington, Leonidas, and others who had lived heroically and unselfishly, especially in the name of liberty and free dom, always appealed to Byron, rousing within him noble stirrings to accomplish, before life should end, something more than he yet had done by writing verse. He several times expressed a desire deep within him to do something worthwhile that would shock those who expected little of h i m .91 ^9 See infra, pp. 209ff. 90 St. 85. 9- L Letters and Journals, IV, 62. * 26 When opportunity and circumstance turned his atten tion toward Greece, he recognized that now he could do what he had long told himself he should some day do. Furthermore, Byron had always loved Greece, and had been interested in her liberation. He seems in the final episode to be fighting to redeem the evils of his own mortality, to atone for the nightmare of his own delinquencies, which had blighted.his life and the lives of those who.had been most intimately connected with him. Though man cannot escape mutability and death, though he cannot pierce the veil of ignorance which shuts him within a limited area of'comprehension, he can yet live courageously and heroically. One may admit that Byron’s personality, his tendency toward histrionics, his love of the unusual and glamorous, may have made more easy his cham pioning of the cause of Greece, yet the evidence of his deep and unselfish interest in the work that he was doing is un deniable. Many critics have recognized this, but few have sufficiently documented their conclusions, or rendered easily accessible to the reader the data which make their conclus ions inevitable. This study will marshal the testimony, array as convincingly as possible the evidence, and will present in its true light Byron’s sacrifice of himself for Greece. The Greek episode is Byron's last grand effort to triumph over himself and over mortality. 27 Thus, in his early years Byron holds to a lingering Christian faith to weaken the shock of evil in man and man’s world; in ChiIde Harold, Canto III, he tries pantheism, but soon rejects it; in the end, uncertain and wondering about religion, he throws himself into performing deeds of "well recorded Worth,’ ’ hoping, it seems, to redeem the failings of a frustrated life and to fill up the void of which in the last two years of life he was so deeply conscious. The succeeding divisions of this study will comprise special investigations of the early poetry, Childe Harold, Manfred, Cain, Don Juan, and the G-reek episode— to some the apotheosis— from the points of view and with the emphases outlined in the preceding paragraphs. One of the chief values of the study will be that the specialized emphasis will carry the reader into the center and heart of the works to be investigated. It is believed that most of the poems to be studied can best be appreciated, with.respect to both thought and literary power, through attention to Byron’s wrestlings with mortality. Problems of melancholy, pessi mism, misanthropy, love of nature, belief and skepticism, are all best approached and studied in the light of the emphases of this investigation. Throughout this study, there will be much direct documentation from Byron’s prose and poetry. In the analysis 28 of each individual work the reader will be given', without apology, such quotations as permit him both to make judg ments of his own and to evaluate the critical opinions of the writer. But before entering into a study of mortality in the juvenilia, we shall analyze briefly several related studies and shall present analyses of Byron by Shelley and Goethe, which support the chief emphases of this study. II. ANALYSIS OF RELATED STUDIES Various biographers and critics of Byron’s works have noted the melancholic and misanthropic impression made upon his mind, and reflected in his poetry, by the great attention which he gave to the mortality of man; but no one has given mortality the place it deserves in a general study of Byron's works, or in a study of any one of his greater works in particular. Galt finds much in Byron that breathes "that sad translation of the Preacher’s ’vanity of vanities; all is vanity.'"92 Marjarum has also written: The insignificance of man in the face of creation was always present to Byron...It is found in his earliest poetry, and is intimately assoc iated with the development of his 'natural religion’ and his pantheism. It gains steadily in volume un til in Cain it is used as the motivation of the mur der of Abel.93 92 John Galt, The Life of Byron. p. 209. 93 Op. cit., p. 6. 29 Marjarum agrees with Paul Elmer More that ’ ’the greatness of Don Juan arises partly from the spirit of epic fortitude in the face of broken aspirations and human littleness."9^ Although Marjarum, in briefly discussing the influ ence of the insignificance of man in Byron’s poetry, some what suggests the course to be followed in this study, he does not pursue his ideas beyond suggestion. Like other studies of Byron, his, as the title Byron as Skeptic and Believer suggests, did not demand, or permit, a special focus of attention upon the mortality of man. His collection and interpretation of data, however, will be of great value in this study. The fluctuations, or modifications, of belief and skepticism in Byron's thought are inevitably influenced by his views of man and especially of the limitations common V " ' ' " ' " * ’ to mortals. Two other related studies have been made, both analyz ed and used by Marjarum. J. 0. E. Donner has tried to ascer tain Byron's Y/eltanschauung. 95 He attempts to gather evidence to show Byron a deist, without giving sufficient attention to the influences of Christianity in Byron’s thought. Donner, succumbing to the temptation which besets specialized studies 9^- Ibid., p. 9* 95 Op. cit., passim. like his and. like this one, goes beyond his evidence in en deavouring to systematize Byron’s religious and philosophical beliefs. As Marjarum has poihted out,96 Byron was never suf ficiently able s-o to reconcile his conflicting thoughts as to formulate what could well be called a Weltanschauung. Like Donner, Manfred Eimer over-emphasizes Byron’s deistic tendencies.97 He lays much stress upon astronomy and cosmogony, little upon formal religion. Eimer also over emphasizes the comfort which Byron found in ’ ’natural religion, dealing inadequately with contradictory passages. In the words of Marjarum, ”He attributes to Byron a fixity of opin ion irreconcilable with the alert skepticism of Don Juan.”98- III. ANALYSIS OF BYRON BY SHELLEY AND GOETHE Shelley, who knew Byron well, recognized his con tinual wrestling with special problems of mortality. In Julian and Maddalo, Shelley and Byron, with goadolieri, ride at sunset to a point near Venice. Like Milton’s rebels in Pandemonium, they descant Concerning God, freewill and destiny; Of all that earth has been,,or yet may be, All that vain men imagine or believe, Or hope can paint, or suffering may achieve.99 ^ 0p« ~cit. , p. xi. 97 Eimer's work is entitled Byron und der Kosmos. They pause before a windowless tower, behind which a broad sun is setting and in which hangs a beil, swinging and swaying in the radiance. When Byron— Maddalo— informs Shelley— Julian— that the bell calls maniacs to vespers, Julian replies: As much skill as need to pray In nhanks or hope for their dark lot have they To their stern Maker. Byron, expressing wonder that f , men change not," laments: And such...is our mortality; And this must be the emblem and the sign Of what should be eternal and divine! And,like that black and dreary bell, the soul, Hung in a heaven-illumined tower, must toll Our thoughts and our desires to meet below Round the rent heart and pray— as madmen do For what? they know not, till the night of death, As sunset that strange vision, severeth Our memory from itself, and us from all We sought, and yet were baffled.1°1 When Shelley has answered with the famous speech beginning "It is our will that thus enchains us to permitted ill..., Byron continues! Ay, if we were not weak— and we aspire How vainly to be strongI102 In the introduction to the poem Shelley wrote concerning Maddalo: "He derives, from a comparison of his own extra ordinary mind with the dwarfish intellects that surround 100 11. lllff. 101 11. 120ff. 102 11. 176f. 32 Jiim, an intense apprehension oi‘ the nothingness of human lire.” One recalls Cain’s words, "I seem nothing.”103 In fact, Maddalo’s speeches throughout Shelley’s poem, if in serted into Byron's-drama, would be of a piece with those of Cain. Goethe, who called Byron the greatest genius of his century,3-04 also recognized in Byron a dissatisfaction with his ’ ’cabined, cribbed, confined" condition as a mortal. He spoke to Eckermann of Byron's "unsatisfied nature" and of "that disposition which always leads him into the illimit able. "105 But it is in Faust that Goethe's most famous ref erence to Byron is found.3-00 Euphorion symbolizes Byron’s yearning for higher knowledge and greater achievement than he or man had yet attained. Euphorion speaks: Ich will nicht l&nger Am Boden stocken; Lasst meine H&nde Lasst meine Locken, Lasst meine Kleider! Sie sind ja mein,3-07 103 II, ii, 420f. 3-04 Conversations with Eckermann, pp. 2l8f. 3-05 Ibid. , p. 95- 10b belief that Euphorion symbolizes Byron is widely accepted by Goethe scholars. 107 This and the following (quotations are from Part Two, Act Three. Helena and Faust plead In vain: B&ndigeJ b&ndige Eltern zuliebe trberlebendlge, Heftlge Triebe! Landlien im stillen Ziere den Plan. But Euphorion would transcend his bounds and limitations: FelsengedrSnge hier Zwischen nem Waldegebtisch, Was soli die Enge mir, Bin ich doch jung und frisch. Winde, sie sausen ja, Wellen, sie brausen day; H0r Ich doch beides fern, Nah w&r ich gern. Eupnorion’s words as he leaps farther up the rocks could well be Cain’s, Immer h8her muss Ich steigen, Immer welter muss ich schaun. It is significant that Goethe reached tne conclusions about Byron found in Eckermann and Faust, not through personal ac quaintance or through the familiarity that later students gain through journals and letters, but through the reading or Byron’s poems, Manfred and Cain especially. Thus both Shelley and Goethe recognize in Byron that consciousness of mortality, and that deep yearning to transcend mortality, which throughout the following pages will be care fully investigated and analyzed. CHAPTER II BACKGROUNDS AND INFLUENCES ESPECIALLY RELATED TO MORTALITY IN BYRON’S THOUGHT AND POETRY Before turning to a study of mortality in Byron's poetry, it will be illuminating to investigage the back grounds and influences which made Byron just what he was. Since he was of all poets possibly the most subjective, since he wrote out of himself, it becomes doubly important to know him and the hereditary and environmental forces which deter mined the nature of both himself and his poetry. Five influences in early life were especially strong in establishing the particular bias with which Byron viewed himself and the world; in affecting his psychological and emo tional development; and in setting the pitch and determining the tone of what he wrote. These five influences, to be studied in order, are (1) parents and home life, (2) re ligious training, (3) physical deformity, (4) natural scenery, and (5) education and reading. Besides these specific early factors one must always remember the general spirit of disil lusion, the Weltschmerz, which swept over Europe after the French Revolution. As will be seen as this study progresses, this Zeitgeist and the five influences listed above contribu ted to, or are related to, the development and intensification of Byron’s consciousness of mortality. 3 5 I. SPECIFIC HEREDITARY AND ENVIRONMENTAL INFLUENCES A. Parents and Home Life Home and parental influence upon Byron was especially strong. Lord Byron*s father, Captain John Byron, known as Mad Jack, did not live long enough to have a direct personal influence upon his son; but he gave him his blood. Mad Jack inherited what Elze calls the "darker side of the family char acter,"1 and continued the adventuresome and wild spirit which has been generally attributed to the Byrons and Berkeleys.2 His libertine and dissolute ways led even Foulweather Jack, his father, to cast him off. Before marrying Miss Gordon of Gight, the poet’s mother, Captain Byron had seduced the Marchioness of Carmarthen, treating her with the same cruelty and unconcern as he did Byron’s mother, and wasting her for tune with the same reckless abandon that was to leave the sec ond Mrs. Byron relatively poor. Of special significance in this study is the fact that the poet’s mother delighted in constant references to Mad Jack, references which increased !T Karl Elze, Lord Byron. p. 8. 2 John Cordy Jeaffreson concludes that the "vehemence and impulsiveness, and waywardness” in the poet are traceable to the marriage of William, the fourth Lord Byron, to Fran ces, daughter of the fourth Baron Berkeley (The Real Lord Byron, p. 22) _ To say the least, there is much of the ve hement, impulsive, and wayward in the poet’s great uncle, William, in his grandfather, Foulweather Jack, and in his father, Mad Jack, all offspring of the union of Byron and Berkeley blood* tiie moodiness of a natively melancholy boy. Byron's mother influenced him in his formative years possibly more than any other person. First of all, he inheri ted from her a passionate, impetuous nature, to which his poetic genius undoubtedly owed much. Many of- his inconsist encies and much of his variability can be traced to consti tutional inheritances from the Gordons. But whereas the son was spared the influence of a dissolute father's example, he unfortunately was unable to escape— until he could exert him- self--the blighting effects of his mother's inefficient over sight. Well known are her changing moods, in one of which she would hurl objects at him, telling him ab one moment that he is as bad as his father, and at another that his eyes have his father’s beautiful blue. Possibly the best known anec dote of Byron’s childhood is his reply to his mother's impre cation; "You lame brat!"; defiantly and vengefully, evidently burning with deep resentment, he answered, "I was born so, m o t h e r ."3 As Byron grew up, at times he taunted his mother for her inability to catch him as she moved her low round body awkwardly through the room, pursuing in wrath her crippled brat. Mrs. Byron could get along with no one. All his mother's failings the young poet observed, passing through psychological experiences which took their toll from natural childish sweetness, and became a part of Wordsworth's "Shades 5-jeaffreson, op,, o-it , , p. 41. 37 of the prison-house,"4 closing in upon the growing boy. One is amazed, in reading the earliest letters, at the very numerous unfilial remarks which Byron makes concerning Mrs. Byron. When he was sixteen years old he wrote to Augusta: "My mother has lately behaved to me in such an eccentric man ner, that so far from feeling the affection of a Son, it is with difficulty I can restrain my dislike."5 A year later he says: "She is as I have before declared certainly mad (to say she was in her senses, would be condemning her as a Criminal),, her conduct is a happy compound of derangement and Eolly."6 Her "detestable temper destroys every idea of domestic com fort. "7 Since "her temper precludes every Idea of happiness," he says that he will henceforth avoid her "hospitable mansion. He dubs her "Mrs. Byron furiosa."9 In 1808 he joyfully reports to Augusta that he has shaken off Mrs. Byron’s "yoke" for two years, adding "i never can forgive that woman, or breathe in comfort under the same roof."3-0 ^ intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood. 5 Letters and Journals. I, 43. 6 Ibid., I, 66. 7 rbid., I, 75. 8 Ibid. , I, 82. 9 Ibid., I, 101. 10 Ibid., I, 203. 3 8 To Hanson he says: "Many a weary week of torment have I passed with her, nor have I forgot the insulting Epithets with which myself, my Sister, my Father and my Family have been repeatedly reviled,Although during later years a mature sense of filial loyalty led Byron to avow his love for his mother, and although, sitting in darkness by her corpse, he was heard to say that he had only one friend and 12 that she was gone, Byron undoubtedly felt during the years of early composition a genuine aversion to much of his mother's personality. One is not surprised to learn that Byron said, "My first and earliest impressions were melancholy,— my poor mother gave them,"-^ At the least, her general conduct and her treatment of him were not a kind initiation of a son into a world where cruelty and unkindness often disillusion youth. Byron* s sense of mortality evidently had its beginnings in the home. B. Religious Training A second early influence on Byron which obviously had much to do with focusing his attention on the limitations of man was his intense Calvinistic training. In Don Juan Byron says, "For I was bred a moderate Fresbyterian."14 There is 11 Ibid.. I, 87. IB Letters and Journals. I, 321, note 1, 13 Lady Blessington, Conversations of Lord Byron, p. 349, 14 XV, 91. 39 ample evidence that the "breeding" was strong, and intensive. To Gifford in 1S1J Byron writes: "...I was cudgelled to Church for the first ten years of my iir'e...."1^ From the first school in Aberdeem to nis days at Harrow Byron was under intense re ligious influence, although at Harrow the empnasis was Angli can rather than Presbyterian. In the home during the early years there was another source of religious influence, the care and teaching of his nurse, May Gray. Jeaffreson, somewhat sentimentally, dis cusses her influence as follows: The nurse taugnt the child his first prayers; and before he could read ne learned from her lips to re peat passages of the Sacred Scriptures; the first and twenty-third Psalms being amongst the selections from the Bible which were thus planted in his memory in his earliest infancy. And when one recalls now, in later time, he not seldom listened to the counsel of the ungodly, and stood in the way of sinners, and sat in the seat of the scornful, it is pitiful to tnink of the little fellow repeating the first Psalm to his attendant ere he bade her ’good-nite’ and lay his curly pate on the pillow. At this tender age the . nervous child accepted with the trustfulness of in fancy all the nurse’s Calvinistic views on matters of religion. it is more than probable that, had it not been for May Gray’s enduring influence on her pupil, Shelley would not have had occasion to extend his arms towards his wife in a way expressive of astonishment mingled with sorrow, and shriek excitedly, ’By what he said last night in talking over his Cainv the best of all his last dramas, 1 do believe, Mary— I do be lieve, Mary, that he is little better than a Christian.’16 His nurse’s introduction of Old Testament stories to the boy betters and Journals, II, 222. cit., p. 40. 40 as she wrapped nis deformed foot may have been what caused Byron so eagerly to read that he could write to Murray in l 1921 that he had read the books of- the Old Testament "through and through" before he was eight years old.1? Lady Byron ascribes much of Byron's unhappiness to his early relgious training. She writes: Not merely from casual expressions, but from the whole tenor of Lord Byron's feelings, I could not but conclude he was a believer in the inspiration of the Bible, and had the gloomiest Galvinistic tenets. To that unhappy view of the relation of the creature to the Creator, I have always ascribed the misery of life.... It is enough for me to remember, that he who thinks his * transgressions beyond forgiveness (and such was his own deepest feeling), has righteousness beyond that of the self-satisfied sinner; or, perhaps, of the half-awakened. It was impossible for me to doubt that, could he have been at once assured of pardon, his living faith in a moral duty and love of virtues ('I love the virtues which I cannot claim'} would have conquered every temp tation. ... Instead of being made happier by any apparent good, he felt convinced that every blessing would be ’turned into a curse’ to him.... ’The worst of it is that I do believe,' he said. I like all connected with him, was broken against the rock of Predestination....1^ From his religious training Byron xvas never able com pletely to tear himself. Even in his most skeptical moments there is yet a pull back to the thinking of his childhood, whether the influence be conscious or unconscious. Lady Byron’s statement given above shows that Byron felt himself doomed, fated, predestined to be lost. The doctrines of Letters and Journals, V, 391. 18 Ibid., VI, 261, note. 4 1 original sin and total depravity, lying behind all Calvinistie dogmas of election and a special working of Grace to enable man to will good, were so deeply rooted in Byron’s young mind that they were never completely out of his thought. William J. Calvert writes: In the depths of his mind the tenets of original sin were immovably intrenched. Manfred was but a defiance of the doctrine, a not very convincing defiance. Cain was an exposition of its minor premises....^-9 Calvert also sees a relationship between Byron’s Cal vinism and his passion for liberty. He says that Byron, "fretted by the shackles of a religion basically fatalistic,... developed a horro-r of being confined or ruled, an impatience 20 of check, an obsession with liberty." Less than a year be fore his death Byron assured Kennedy that he believed in both 21 total depravity and predestination. There is an obvious relation between Byron’s belief in the Calvinistie concept of the sovereignty of God on one hand and of the insignificance and fallen state of man— mortality— on the other. C. Physical Deformity A third formative influence on Byron’s personality was his lameness. Gald says: "The greatest weakness in Lord IQ Byron: Romantic Paradox, p. 45. 20 Itaia., P- 41. ^ James Kennedy, Conversations on Religion, p. 139. 42 Byron's character was a morbid sensibility to his lameness. He felt it with as much vexation as if it had been inflicted i g n o m i n y.”22 it is well established that during the important early years, when children are most sensitive, the pain and lameness were so great that much treatment was necessary. Byron wrote May Gray in great delight when he learned that he had become able to put on a regular boot.23 We have seen how his mother, until her death, "provoked her child to wrath" by unwise references to his lameness. Byron told Lady Bless- ington: My poor mother was generally in a rage every day and used to render me .sometimes almost frantic; par ticularly when, in her passion, she reproached me with my personal deformity; I have left her presence to rush into solitude, where, unseen, I could vent the rage and mortification I endured, and curse the deformity that I now began to consider as a signal mark of the injustice of providence.24 Had Byron not been lame he undoubtedly would have spent less time at Harrow brooding for hours on "Byron’s Tomb" and more in normal activity with, other boys. Jeaffreson, distinguish ing between the types of lameness with which Scott and Byron were afflicted, wrote: "And had Byron been able to walk about like a man, albeit with a clubfoot, he would have been less 22 Op. cit., p. 34. 23 See Elze, pp. cit. , p. 33. 24 Lady Blessington, pp. cit., p. 128. 4 3 stricken with melancholy and moved to breathe the fierce breath of anger.”25 Drinkwater believes that the lameness was "just the sort of thing to accentuate dark humours in a character sufficiently testy by nature, and it undoubtedly had a deeper influence upon him than it is possible exactly 26 to demonstrate." There can be no doubt that Byron’s darker musings, his bent for melancholic reverie, his oft-avowed misanthropy, if not initiated by, were intensified by, the effects of his lameness. I'QVQ of Nature We have seen that when Byron fled from his mother’s girding him about his deformity, he sought solitude; and often the solitude was found by the River Dee or by the sea. On such occasions his words could well be: Fain would I fly the haunts of men— I seek to shun, not hate mankind; My breast requires the sullen glen, Whose gloom may suit a darkened mind. From his earliest years Byron, like Wordsworth, loved nature— 1 usually in her wildest scenes and moods: ’Tis not the plant uprear’d by sloth, Which beauty shews, and sheds perfume; The flowers, which yield the most of both, In Nature’s wild luxuriance bloom. 8 25 Op. cit. . p. 28. 26 0£. cit., p. 95. 27 I Would I Were A Careless Child, st. 7. 28 The Cornelian, st. 6. 44 Among the early poems Laohin Y Galr expresses most strongly the influence of natural scenery upon Byron’s spirit: Away, ye gay landscapes, ye gardens of roses! In you let the minions of luxury rove; Restore me the rocks, where the snoflake reposes, Though still they are sacred to freedom and love: Yet, Caledonia, helov’d are.thy mountains Round their white summits though elements war; Though cataracts foam ’stead of smooth-flowing fountains, I sigh for the valley of dark Loch na Garr.29 The poem closes as. follows: England! thy beauties are tame and domestic, To one who has rov'd on the mountains afar: Oh! for the crags that are wild and majestic, The steep, frowning glories of dark Lach na Garr. Throughout his later poetry Byron continually recurs to the scenes of the Highlands, in the vicinity of which he spent eight years. In The Island he says that he enjoys the scenes of Greece more because of boyhood experiences In the moun- . tains than because of "all long ages’ lore."30 The infant Raptures still survived the boy, And Loch-na-gar with Ida looked o'er Troy. The North and Nature taught me to adore Your scenes sublime, from those beloved before.31 29 St. 1. 3° II, 288. 31 II, 290ff. This passage has excited interesting comment. Moore writes: In a note appended to this passage, we find him fall ing into a sort of anachronism in the history of his own feelings, which I have above adverted to as not uncommon, and referring to childhood Itself that love of mountain 45 In his letters and journals evidence of Byron's love of nature is great. In 1805, seven years after leaving Scot- . . . . . V land, Byron wrote to Gordon:32 I suppose you will soon have a view of the eternal snows that summit the top of Lachin Y Gair, which towers so magnificently ahove the rest of our Northern Alps. prospects, which was out the after result of his imagi native recollections of that period. (Life, I, 14) Drinkwater agrees with Moore that it could hardly have been the scenery of this very period which awoke the poetic urge within the young hoy. He says: People romantically inclined in their conceptions of the spirit of poetry have been ready to attach deep form ative significance to these days spent in the neighbour hood of "The steep, frowhihg glories of dark Loch na Garr." But Moore has a passage on this subject so admirable in its intuition and common sense that it deserves to be quoted as a warning to all such idle speculation. (Op. cit., P- $5) In Drinkwater there follows the passage qpoted above from Moore as containing the anachronism. Both Moore and Drink water appear to me to be wrong. In ppems written six or eight years after leaving the scenes, long trefore Byron had seen the mountains of the continent, his love of the mountains was expressed. It would appear almost as reasonable to say that when Byron looked back at Mary Duff and Margaret Parker and remembered his attraction to them and to others, he was falling intoa kind of anachronism; that really it was the charmof Guiccioli. which led him to imagine that he had also been interested greatly in his childhood sweethearts and in girls in general. From the earliest poetry to the latest Byron affirms the effect of mountains upon his nature. (Cf. Don £uan, X, 19; The Adieu, st. 3; Childe Harold, IV, 184; Lament to Tasso, sec. 6). 32 Charles 0. Gordon was one of Byron's younger Harrow friends, one of his favorites. 46 I still remember with pleasure the admiration which filled my mind, when I first beheld it, and further on the dark frowning mountains which rise near Invercauld, together with the' romantic rocks that overshadow Mar Lodge, a seat of lord Fife’s, and the cataract of the Dee, which dashes down the declivity with impetuous violence in the grounds adjoining the House.33 The evidence is abundant that Byron was so deeply influenced by the scenes of his early wanderings that they remained permanently before him, ’ ’recollected in tranquillity.” It was this deep impress, quickening memory, that often in after years caused him to feel as he felt in 1807: I would 1 were a careless child, Still dwelling in my Highland cave, Or roaming through the dusky wild, Or bounding o'er the dark blue wave; The cumbrous pomp of Saxon pride, Accords not with the freeborn soul, Vhiich loves the mountain’s shaggy side, And seeks the rocks where billows roll. Fortune I take back these cultured lands, Take back the name of splendid sound I I hate the touch of servile hands, I hate the slaves that cringe'around; Place"me among the rocks I love, Which sould to Ocean's wildest roar; I ask but this— again to rove Through scenes my youth hath known before.34 In this early poetry there is no pantheism; that-is to ap pear, briefly, in 1816. But there is expressed the yearn ing to turn to nature as a Zuflucht from the ills of life 33 Letters and Journals, I, 77. Z Wcmlh I Were a-:Careless Child, sts. If. 47 and of the world of man. The Influence of nature is deep and obvious. E. Education and Reading A fifth source of influence on Byron was his study and reading. Moore transcribes fram a memorandum book begun in 1807 a list of reading which Byron jotted down from memory, with the comment that he could "quote passages from any men tioned. "33 one note states that most of the books were read before he was fifteen. The list, divided into History(by countries), Biography, Law, Philosophy, Geography, Poetry, Eloquence, Divinity, Miscellanies, contains an amazingly large number of authors: Moore calls the list a "remarkable one," adding that "it must be doubted whether, among what are called the regularly educated, the contenders for schol astic honours and prizes, there could be found one who, at the same age, has possessed anything like the same stock of useful knowledge."36 Especially significant among the writers, with respect to this study, are Hume, Gibbon, Voltaire, Rousseau, Paley, Locke, Bacon, Berkeley, Bolingbroke, Blair, Tillotson, and Hooker. The divinity books Byron found "all very tiresome."37 Burton’s Anatomy of Melancholy he espec- 35 Life, I, 81. 36 Ibid., I, 79. 37 Ibid., I, 81. L[.8 ially recommends to one who would acquire , f with the least trouble” the reputation of being well read.-^ Nearly all ■'this ./reading was completed before Byron’s first poem was com posed. 39 Against his reading of skeptical works the inten sity of his religious training seems to have been sufficient bulwark until 1806, when his doubts first definitely appear. Later Byron shows a knowledge of Hume, with whose theory of miracles he agrees,^ of Voltaire, of Gibbon, of Bayle, and of other writers who could have destroyed the composure of religious faith. Three times within twenty pages Byron seems to confess a kinship between certain qualities in his work and those of Hume and Gibbon; and twice Voltaire’s name appears with theirs.^* The special significance of the effect of these men’s thinking upon Byron’s is that they introduced reasoning which created uncertainty, until death, about many mysteries which he earlier had accepted without serious question. He was made especially aware of the inability of mortality to comprehend the nature of things. 38 Ibid.. p. 81. 39 No poem is dated earlier than 1802. 4-0 Letters and Journals, II, 35* 4! Ibid.. VI, 10, 16, 28. II. GENERAL INFLUENCE OF THE TIMES 49 Besides the specific influences just discussed one should never forget the general nature of the times in which Byron lived, especially the unusually striking and stirring revolutions in the political and social world. To be re membered also is the so-called "enlightenment” in France and England during the eighteenth century, with the resultant throwing off of authority in religion and the loosening of moral restraint when the source of moral sanctions, discus sed by Shaftesbury, Mandeville, and others, had become un certain. Concerning the general influence of the preceding and contemporary events and conditions Moore writes: There are those who trace in the peculiar character of Lord Byron's genius strong features of relationship to the times in which he lived; who think that the great events which marked the close of the last century, by giving a new impulse to men's minds, by habituating them to the daring and the free, and allowing full vent to "the flash and outbreak of spirits,” had led natural ly to the production of such a"poet as Byron; and that he was, in short, as much the child and representative of theRevolution, in poesy, as another great man of the age, Napoleon, was in statesmanship and warfare, With out going the full length of this notion, it will, at least, be conceded, that the free loose which had been given to all the passions and energies of the human mind, in the great struggle of that period, together with the constant spectacle of such astounding viccissitudes as were passing, almost daily, on the theatre of the world, had created, in all minds and in every walk of intellect, a taste for strong excitement, which the stim ulants supplied from ordinary sources were insufficient to gratify;— that a tame deference to established aughor- ities had fallen into disrepute, no less in literature than in politics, and that the poet who should breathe into his songs the fierce and passionate spirit of the age, 5° and assert, untrammelled and unawed, the high dominion of genius, would be the most sure of an audience toned in sympathy with his strains. The same Zeitgeist which produced the Sturm und Drang in Germany and the romanticism of Chateaubriand, Beranger, Lamartine, and Victor Hugo in France produced Byron, who, though he was a Romantic Paradox43 was much more of a piece with his own times than with those of Pope and the neiD-clas- sicists, whom he so strongly professed to champion. A special characteristic of the Zeitgeist is the Weltschmerz which.swept over Europe in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. William Rose, in a special study entitled From Goethe to Byron: The Development of Weltschmerz in German Literature, writes: The first hints of the coming change appeared in England, whence numerous influences fled to France and Germany to fan the flames of revolt that wer'e'aaabout to flare up there. The most important factors were the freedom from classical tradition in Shakespeare's plays, the bature-cult in Thomson’s Seasons, the melancholy poetry of Young's Night Thoughts, the sentimental novels of Richardson, Fielding, Sterne, and the misty northern atmosphere of Ossian. From France came the most import ant influence of all— the nature-philosophy of R o u s s e a u . 4 4 Rose finds that the Night Thoughts of Young were particular ly significant in introducing "the joy of grief and an at mosphere of graveyard melancholy.Another statement by 42 iLlfe. , ~ Lv‘ 271f-. h ' 43 See William J. Chlvert, Byron: Romantic Paradox. ^ P. 13f. ^ Ibid., p. 16. 51 Rose specifically relates his study to ours: There‘is no room for the slightest doubt that the dissonance between the ideal and the real, and the in ability to adapt the ego completely to reality, is the essence of Wertherism, Weltschmerz, mal du siecle, Byron- ism— call it what you will.4° The inability of Manfred and Gain to adapt themselves to the limitations and frustrations of mortality, their constant striving to bridge the chasm between aspiration and reali zation— to lay hold upon "things beyond mortality"— form the center around which revolves the dramatic action in Manfred and Cain. A special phase of Weltschmerz, a concomitant of it, is melancholy, usually romantic melancholy. Irving Babbitt has made possibly the best, though not the most unbiased, brief study of romantic melancholy. He says that "no move ment has perhaps been so prolific of melancholy as emotional romanticism."47 Concerning the victim of romantic melan choly Babbitt says: "Every finite satisfaction by the very fact that it is finite leaves him unsatisfied."4^ The dis satisfied romanticist, like Rene*, "takes his insatiableness to be the badge of his spiritual distinction."49 Babbitt 46 Ibid., p>. 190f. ^ Rousseau and Romanticism, p. 307- ^ Ibid., p. 306. 49 Ibid-» P* 307. 52 considers Byron and Chateaubriand unhealthy, and thus un- classical, influences on their contemporaries and their suc cessors : The victim of romantic melancholy is at times tender and elegiac, at other times he sets up as a heaven-de fying Tital. This latter pose became especially common in France around 1830 when the influence of Byron had been added to that of Chateaubriand. Under the influence of these two writers a whole generation of youth became "things of dark imaginings," predestined to a blight that was at the same time the badge of their superiority. One wished like Rene to have an "immense, solitary and storSy soul," and also, like a Byronic hero, to have'a diabolical glint in the eye and a corpse-like complexion, and so seem the "blind and deaf agent of funereal mysteries.50 Babbitt quotes Goetheis famous words concerning the extreme Rousseauists of bis time: "All these poets," Goethe complains to Eckermann of the romanticists of 1830, "write as though they were ill, and as though the whole world were a hospital.... Every one of them in writing tries to be more desolate than all the others. This is really an abuse of poetry which has been given to make man satisfied with the world and with his lot. But the present generation is afraid of all solid energy; its mind is at easeand sees poetry only in weakness. I have found a good expression to vex these gentlemen. I am going to call their poetry hospital poetry."51 This type of romanticism, according to Babbitt, arises from a non-classic attitude toward life, from the lack of stable and assured moral sanctions: Now to be spiritually inert, as I have said elsewhere, is to be temperamental, to indulge unduly the lust for knowledge or sensation or power without imposing on these lusts some centre or principle of control set above. o 50 Ibid., p. 31S. Ibid. , p. 309* See Conversations, Sept. 24, 1827. 53 the ordinary self.52 Babbitt explains in the following way the Rousseauist’s ’ ’aching sense of solitude": Then no longer subordinated to something higher than themselves , both the head and the heart(in the romantic sense) not only tend to be opposed to one another, but also, each in its own way, to isolate.53 Babbitt recognizes, of course, that there can be a genuine ness in this melancholy, but believes that at times the gloomy feelings "in a Chateaubriand or a Byron and still more in their innumerable followers may seem at once superficial and theatrical."54 Often there is only a "toying with sorrow, that luxury of grief, which was not unknown even to classical antiquity."55 Babbitt seems to agree with Chesterton, who sees "in the Byronic gloom an incident of youth and spirits."56 Byron is one of the poets of his time who "enter into a veri- 57 table competition...as to who shallbe accounted ...most forlorn, Fairchild warns against our "too hastily branding lit- ‘ 52 Ibid., p. 328. 53 Ibid., p. 325- 54 Xhid., p. 322. ^ 1°° • 56 , Loc. cit. 57 Ibid., p. 308. erary fashions as merely superficial. "5® He insists that no fad, such as romantic melancholy or Weltschmerz, can have "originated without some basis in the Zeitgeist."59 He re cognizes that a "proudly stricken gloom is, to be sure, a fetching pose"^0 and that many insincere writers have garbed themselves to suit the taste of highly romantic readers. Het finds Byron not "wholly free" from literary affectation in creating an atmosphere of gloom and melancholy.But he says: "On the whole, romantic melancholy deserves to be taken rather seriously.Fairchild compares the "seeker of the romantic illusion" to the child in Blake’s engraving who stands at the top of a ladder, stretching his arms toward the moon and crying, "I want! I want!"^5 He also insists that the romanticist who is unable to achieve his aspirations may be genuinely melancholy over his disillusionment.^ Thus one should not condemn as insincere the romantic musings of 58 Hoxie Neale Fairchild, The Romantic Quest, p. 3&3» 59 Loc. cit. Loc. cit. L q Cs .* cit Loc. cit 63 Ibid., p. 364* 55 such a seeker after the unobtainable; rather, one should condemn the inordinate thirst and unwise hungering of an un- stoical spirit who cannot adapt himself to ’ ’ what is.” Byron 65 does condemn uncontrolled aspiration in both Manfred and Caln» Fairchild says that Byron’s ’ ’melancholy is central and pervasive.” We have seen that he recognizes that Byron at times uses gloomy and melancholic settings and characteristics merely as literary devices to gain and hold interest. Byron was aware that there is something basic in human nature that causes men to be attracted to a dark and mysterious figure against the sky, or to a retiring but handsome and attractive figure in a black coat. And certainly Byron, like all young romantics, consciously ’ ’posed” at times in the juvenilia; and he purposely gave Childe Harold, Conrad, Lara, and the other Byronic heroes an air of aloofness, ’ ’dark imaginings,” and mys terious melancholy. He consciously made them lovers of sol itude and creatures of loneliness. But this does not mean that Byron was himself merely a poseur. This does not mean that Byron's own feelings do not pervade many of the melan- passages of Childe Harold and other poems. The evidence of Byron’s native melancholic disposition is abundant and convincing. We have already seen that Byron 65 Infra, Chapters IF and F. ^6 0|). cit. p. 364* 56 told the Countess of Blessington that his earliest impres sions were melancholy and that his mother produced them.^? Lady Byron once told her husband: ’ ’...At heart you are the most melancholy of mankind; and often when apparently gay- est."^ Prothero quotes the following from Scott: The flashes of mirth, gaiety, indignation, or satir ical dislike, which frequently animated Lord Byron’s countenance, might, during an evening’s conversation, be mistaken by a stranger for its habitual expression, so easily and so happily was it framed for them all; but those who had an opportunity of studying his features for a length of time, and upon various occasions, both of rest and emotion, will agree with us, that their proper language was that of melancholy*69 Moore, who knew Byron better than did Scott, confirms Scott’s judgment: I often rallied him on the gloomy tone of his poetry, as assumed; but his constant answer was(and I soon ceased to doubt its truth*)', that, though thus merry and full of laughter with those he liked, he was at heart one of the most melancholy wretches in existence.7o This evidence should lead one to expect just the melancholic tone which pervades much of Childe Harold, Lara, Manfred. and Cain. In these works Byron was not merely adopting a melan cholic pose. Though he was influenced by the Zeitgeist, and though at times he posed, much of his melancholy was native with him. One finds so close a kinship between Byron and the b7 Supra, p. 38. 68 Letters and Journals. IV, 73, note. 69 T Loc. cit. 70 Life. I, 281f. Childe, Manfred, and Cain that one is unable completely to separate the poet from them. The mere fact that Byron added certain romantic touches to his characters to interest his readers does not invalidate the basic seriousness with which the melancholy passages in his works were written. In the light of the foregoing study we see that Byron, in both his early verse and the later, was what he was because of his individual inheritance and training, and because of the conflux of the political and philosophical movements preced ing him. The blood of the Byrons and Gordons gave him his im petuous, unruly, dissatisfied spirit; his Calvinistic train ing produced a special consciousness of man’s mortality, of his insignificant and fallen state; the home experiences of his earliest years were not such as to cause him to see the good and beautiful in man and in the world,— on the contrary, they made him melancholy and misanthropic; his physical de formity merely intensified his bent for brooding and darkened his Calvinistic sense of fatality; his reading made him more andmore uncertain of Christian teaching and more aware of the limitations of man’s powers of comprehension, causing him to question always whether there were any certain theory of know ledge. His early-acquired love of nature was to a great ex tent an outgrowth of the influences just listed, for it was especially when he was tired of the world of mortals, of ’ ’earth’s dingy denizens,” that he turned to the gloomy dale, to the mountain’s height, or to the song of the sea. The times were times of disillusionment. Confidence in man’s ability to direct his own steps, to rise above his worst self, had been further shaken by the aftermath of the French Revolution. Romantic melancholy was to some^egree the result. Byron’s reading and his own melancholy disposition made him an easy victim of the temper and mood of the times. Many forces came together in Byron to give him the strong consciousness of mortality which his most significant poems evidence. CHAPTER III 59 MORTALITY IN THE EARLY POETRY In turning to Byron's early poetry one is not sur prised to find a pervasive dissatisfaction with things as they are: one would be surprised to find anything differ ent coming from the pen of a "minor" with such a background as his, and with such powerful influences playing upon him, producing completely natural emotional and psychological re actions. It is true that not all is dark: certain spots of light appear, but they often accentuate the predominant dark ness. In the poetry written before 1809, with which this chapter is to concern itself, are found to a greater or lesser degree the characteristics which are to be further developed in Byron's later poetry, sometimes with modifications. There is found, as this investigation will particularly show, a strong sense of mortality, of death and the evils of man's nature; there is found an increasing melancholy, which his "poor mother" first gave him;"1 * already he is a misanthropist, "a perfect Timon, not nineteen,"2 shunning mankind; the beau ties of nature are beginning to call the young poet to them selves for the healing of his Weltschmerz; youthful pride, especially of ancestry, fills the volumes; women consume much of his time, occasioning passionate love and passionate memory; skepticism already wars with childhood faith. - I See supra, p. 38. 2 Poetry, I, 84, variant reading. Of the three phases of mortality strongly emphasized in various of Byron’s works only two are significant in the early poetry. The first phase is death and mutability; the second, the evil which has been the ’ ’common tale” of ’ ’Crea tures of Clay.” The third phase of mortality, the ’ ’cabined, cribbed, confined” intellect of mortals, receives almost no explicit expression in the early volumes. Emphasis upon man’s inability to ’ ’comprehend the Universe” appears first in Childe Harold. Increasing in Manfred, it receives its most repeated and most explicit expression in Cain and Don Juan. A brief survey of the early poetry will reveal the extent of the emphasis upon the two phases of mortality mentioned above. I. MUTABILITY AND DEATH Byron's consciousness of the transient and perishable nature of things, his emphasis upon mutability, has already been pointed out.^ He wanders by Margaret Parker's tomb, scattering flowers on the dust he loves; he beholds Newstead's Abbey "gone to decay”; ’ ’ Youth flies, life decays, even hope is o’ercast.”^ In poem after poem the mood and spirit are the same. In an Epitaph on a Beloved, Friend "solitary Eriendship sighs alone.”5 A Fragment deals wholly with death, emphasiz- $ SupraT PP. lOff. ^ Loc. cit. 61 ing the vanity of ornate tombs. Although in the third poem to Caroline Byron wishes for the time when his soul shall 7 ’ ’wing her flight from this clay,’ ” in the fourth he laments: Yet still, this fond bosom regrets, while adoring, That love, like the leaf, must fall into sear, That Age will come on, when Remembrance, deploring, Contemplates the scenes of her youth with a tear; That the time must arrive, when, no longer retaining Their auburn, those locks must wave thin to the breeze. When a few silver hairs of those tresses remaining, Prove nature a prey to decay and disease.® T*1 The Tear death hangs over all: When my soul wings her flight To the regions of night, And my corse shall recline on its bier; As ye pass by the tomb, Where my ashes consume, Oh! moisten their dust with a Tear.9 The preceding quotations are from Fugitive Pieces. The volumes after Fugitive Pieces continue the conscious em phasis on death. In an answer to Montgomery’s poem, The Com mon Lot. the following lines appear: The Patriot’s and the Poet’s frame Must share the common tomb of all ^ Poetry, I, 21. 7 St. 1. 8 Sts. 2f. 9 St. 11. 62 All, all must sleep In grim repose, Collected in the silent tomb; The old, the young, with friends and foes, Fest’ring alike in shrouds, consume.10 Life has taught the sad lesson that The roses or Love glad the garden of life, Though nurtur'd mid weeds dropping pestilent dew, Till Time crops the leaves with"unmerciful knife. Or prunes tnem rorever, in Love’s last adieu Where the "yew-trees lightly wave their branches on the gale," he sees a simple grave, "which tells the common tale."12 Such is the common lot of man: Can we tnen ’scape from folly free? Can we reverse the general plan, Hor be what all In turn must be?13 These quotations are enough to make clear tne place which death and mutability have in Byron’s early poems. Mr. Benjamin P. Kurtz, in his study of Shelley's works, nas minimized the emphasis on death In Byron’s juvenilia.!*»• Minimizing the subject in Byron aids in his maximizing It in Shelley. Mr. Kurtz finds that out of Shelley's fifty-eight compositions written for Q,ueen Mab only four poems and tnree fragments fail to mention death; and that "in a great 1° Sts. 4, 8. Love’s Last Adieu, st. 1. 12 L’ Am.itie Est L’Amour sans Ailes , st. 3. 13 To a Youthful Friend, st. 11. 14 The Pursuit of Death, pp. _T5ff. 63 majority or the remaining fifty-one the subject is stressed emphatically.”15 Concerning Byron’s Hours of Idleness he writes: Byron’s Hours, a collection of sensational poems on trivial subjects of personal interest, is not filled with death. A commoner theme with this young collegian is ’ ’Woman, lovely Woman, my hope, my comforter, my all”: luscious, dreaming of kisses and bosoms. And his^kisses are physical philandering; not "soul-reviving." This statement, and others, reveal Kurtz's obvious partiality to Shelley. When one checks Shelley’s juvenilia, one discov ers that to find death mentioned in fifty-one of the pieces, to say nothing of its being ’ ’stressed emphatically,” one must almost stretch the author's broad definition of death: Physical death becomes here, as for Shelley,.the.sym bol of all that kills, or seeras to kill, the noble, the gentle, the beautiful. Brutish selfishness, vicious ambition,all rule by fear alone, are rendered in it, as well as that physical mutability which carries all living things down to the grave. Death must be understood here as the destruction, or seeming destruction, of both phy sical and spiritual life, or what men hold good and beau tiful. 17 By this definition, the percentage in Byron's juvenilia will not run as far below that in Shelley’s as Mr. Kurtz indi cates, although one must grant the younger poet a greater obsession with the subject. And one must also grant, with Mr. Kurtz, that in both poetssthere is often a.’ ’playing, with Ibid., p. 3* 16 Ibid., p. 15. 17 Ibid., p. xix. 64 G h o s t s . The poems quoted above, with many''Others, make clear that Byron’s interest in death, and in other subjects which cannot be called "sensational” or "trivial”, was more serious that Mr. Kurtz indicates. II. CLOG OF CLAY But physical death is. not the only phase of mortality which appears strongly in the early verse: Byron feels an inward revolt against the weaknesses of man which cause him to refine his vices rather than his virtues, and which pro duce ugliness rather than beauty of life. This conscious ness of the limitations of men produces his misanthropy, genuine or posed. The human state is such that Though we bend with a feign'd resignation, Life beams not for us with one ray that can cheer; Lpve and Hope upon earth bring no more consolation, In the grave is our hope, for in life is our fear.^9 Byron is especially aware of the deceitfulness of men. A on smile is often but the "hypocrite’s wile." Slander’s empoisoned breath, may blast my name, Envy delights to blight the buds of fame: Deceit may chill the current of my blood, And freeze affection’s warm impassion’d flood. ±8 Ibid., pp. Iff. IP y To Caroline, poem 3, st. 5. on The Tear, st. 2. Childish Recollections, Poetry, I, 104, variant reading. 65 pO He has learned that "a friend may profess, yet deceive. He pronounces a farewell to Romance because he is "disgusted with deceit."2^ Intolerance in religion Byron finds the source of much unhappiness. In The Prayer of Nature he asks: Shall man condemn his race to Hell, Unless they bend in pompous form? Tell us that all for one who fell, Must perish in the mingling storm? Shall each pretend to reach the skies, Yet doom his brother to expire, Whose soul a different hope supplies. Or doctrines less severe inspire?2^ Already the early training in the dogmas of Calvinism is having a negative reaction which condemns narrowness and dog matism in any religious profession. Byron's evaluation of the ways of men causes him, as we have seen, to "rest a perfect Timon, not nineteen."2' 5 He will not descend to a world he despises. He hates the "touch of servile hands, ...the slaves that cringe around."2^ Why- 27 was he born to "a world like this?" ' Men are "reptiles, ^ Line's', st. 7. 23 Poetry. I, 175. 2^ Sts. 6f. 2^ Childish Recollections, Poetry.,1» 84. 26 I Would I Were a-Careless Child, st. 2 V 27 Ibid., st. 3. 28 groveling on the ground.” Like Wordsworth, he finds that the world is a prison house which closes in upon the growing boy:29 And when we bid adieu to youth, Slaves to the specious World's controul, We sigh a long farewell to truth; That world corrupts the noblest soul.30 The strongest of the early misanthropic effusions is found in the Inscription on the Monument of a Newfoundland Dog. In this poem, already quoted,31 man is a "vain insect,” "fee ble tenant of an hour, debased by slavery,” "degraded mass of animated dust I” His love is lust, his friendship a cheat, his smiles hypocrisy, his words decit. By nature vile, he is worse than a beast. Admittedly there is much of the romantic poseur in these lines, but there is also much of Byron’s real feeling. Thus often the boy, like the man later, flees "the haunts of men”; but in it all it must be remembered that Byron sought "to shun, not hate mankind.”-*2 His sense of per sonal weakness, his inner suffering, creates sympathy for all who are mortal. 2& The"Prayer of Nature. st* 8. 29 Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood. 3° To a Useful Friend, st. 7. Supra, p. 11. Z. Would _I Were a Careless Child, st. 7. 67 III. ESCAPE IN RELIGION I . , . He who feels toward life and the state of man as Byron had come to feel needs something to ease the shock. We have seen how Byron early learned to go to nature that the "sullen glen" might take his thoughts from the evils of man’s world of mortality. 33 But during the years Before 1809, especially in the earlier years, Byron holds to the religion which all his life he has been taught. With conventional romanticism, Byron looks upon death as a welcome prospect, because in death there Is rest from weariness and escape from the evils of mortality. In several poems in Fugitive Pieces Byron is yet fully sub missive to the sovereignty of God, as Calvinism had taught him to be. In the third poem of this first volume, On the Death of a Young Lady, he fully submits to things as God made them: And shall presumptuous mortals Heaven arraign! And, madly, Godlike Providence accuse! Ah! no, far fly from me attempts so vain: I’ll n’er submission to my God refuse.34 When In an Epitaph on a Beloved Friend Byron says that^Por his friend alone he has lived and wishes to live, he immedi ately adds, seemingly in seriousness: "Oh God! if impious, this rash word forgive.”35 In the same poem he writes: 33 Supra, p.' 43. 34 St. 5. 35 Variant reading, 1. 16. 68 Together in one bed of earth we'll lie! Together share the fate to mortals given, Together mix our dust, and hope for Heaven.3° ■In one of the Caroline poems he still will not presume to arraign the decree Which God has proclaimed as the fate of his creatures.^’ All of the foregoing passages are from fugitive Pieces. 1806. In Childish Recollections Byron expresses belief that all are hastening to the dread abode, To meet the judgment of a righteous God....^8 At another time he would cleave the vault of Heaven, To flee away, and be at rest.^° In The Adieu faith is sure and strong: Forget this world, my restless sprite, Turn, turn thy thoughts to Heaven: There must thou soon direct thy flight, If errors are forgiven. To bigots and to sects unknown, Bow down beneath the Almighty’s throne; To Him address thy trembling prayer: He, who is merciful and just, Will not reject a child of dust, Although His meanest care. Father of Light: to Thee I call; My soul is dark within: Thou who canst mark the sparrow’s fall, Avert the death of sin. Thou, who canst guide the wandering star, Who calmst the elemental war, 36 Ibid.. JL 24ff. 37 Poem 2, st. 4* O c £ Poetry. I, 104, variant reading. ^ -L Would I Were a Careless Child, st. 7* 69 Whose mantle is yon boundless sky, My thoughts, my words, my crimes forgive; And, since I soon must cease to live, Instruct me how to die.^-0 This is the most common tone of the religious expressions in the earliest poems. One can agree with Marjarum that many of these early poems are "orthodox Christian lyrics."^ In the earliest letters, also, remains evidence of childhood faith. In 1799, now eleven years old, Byron ad dresses his mother: "I am very glad to hear you are well. I am so myself, thank God."^ The spirit here seems to be not profane but religious, as in the poems already quoted. At the age of fifteen he respects worship sufficiently to apologize for talking in church.^3 The next year he closes a letter in a prayerful tone: "God bless you, my beloved Sister. "4-4 A week before, the spirit is the same: "God bless you, my amiable Augusta. ... "^3 hj_ s prayer for his mother Is "God bless you."^ One might contend that there is not necessarily any real religious sentiment in these ex- 40 sts.Ilf. 41 0£>» d t . , p. 4* 4^ betters and Journals, I, 7. 43 Ibid., I, 14. 44 Ibid., I, 26. 45 Ibid., I, 24. 46 Ibid., I, 15. 70 cerpts, and that Byron is merely following customary and ex pected form; hut it hardly seems that he is, since in a few years, when skepticism has become strong, all such statements are missing, except for a few ejaculations of "Thank God," which are merely conventional or profane. The phrases quoted above are completely in keeping with Byron’s early religious training. In 1806 Byron seems first to have had doubts whi.ch led to partial skepticism. Most critics believe that in The Prayer of Nature natural religion first begins to displace revealed religion: Shall man confine his Maker’s sway To Gothic domes of mouldering stone? Thy temple is the face of day; Earth, Ocean, Heaven, thy boundless throne. Father! no prophet’s laws I seek,— Thy laws in Nature’s works appear I own myself corrupt and weak, Yet will I pray, for thou wilt hear 147 In the poem from which these stanzas are taken first appears doubt of immortality. Byron wonders whether his spirit will ’ ’share with clay the Grave’s eternal bed.”^® Yet he has hopes that his ’ ’erring life” may fly to God at last. In 1807 Byron writes to Long: ^-7 The "Prayer of Nature. sts. 5, 10. 48 st. 15. 71 Of religion I know nothing, at least in its favor. We have fools in all sects and Impostors in most; why should I believe mysteries no one understands, because written by men who chose to mistake madness for Inspir ation, and style themselves Evangelicals...? This ittuch I will affirm, that all the virtues and pious deeds per formed on Earth can never entitle a man to Everlasting happiness in a future state; nor on the other hand can such a Scene as a Seat of eternal punishment exist, it is incompatible with the benign attributes of a deity to suppose so....- I have lived a Deist, what I shall die I know not; however, come what may, ridens moriar.49 Thus the earlier doubts are confirmed. Later in life Byron is to return to his belief in immortality, but is never to accept the doctrine of hell fire. In the poems quoted above from those written after 1806 he is never certain that man shall not live again; and at times for uncertain moments he hopes for a future happiness himself. As we now review the early poetry with respect to the problem studies here, we find a strong sense of mortality, a special consciousness of physical death which sweeps friends and kinsmen down to dissolution. We find also a growing dis illusionment concerning man and life. A sense of man's lim itations, which produce evil, creates a modified misanthropy. The disillusionment is such as many an intelligent youth ex periences as the "shades of the Prison-house" gather more darkly around him. In the early years of disillusionment Byron's religious faith aids his adjustment. Nature also serves as a Zuflucht to soothe his Weltschmerz. The poems be- 4-9 Letters and Journals, II, 19, note. 72 tween 1802 and 1806 show the young poet turning toward God and heaven and toward the repose of a Christian grave. After 1806 doubt enters, but many of the poems are still expressive of the early faith. Toward 1809, which marks the end of the juvenilia, a deeper doubt and accompanying gloom settle over Byron's spirit. CHAPTER IV CHILDE HAROLD * S PILGRIMAGE I. INTRODUCTION Solomon Francis Gingerich has made the following statement concerning the first two cantos of Childe Harold: The cynicism of these cantos may he a mere pose of the youthful Byron, but the sense of man’s mor tality, of doubt and chance and mutability in man's being, which underlies the poem, reveals a note of deep reality in Byron’s thought.1 Gingerich says further: The feeling of man's futile existence, of his smallness as set against his pretensions, Byron not only attests in this poem, but in various pas sages in his letters written soon after.the poem. 2 H. 1. C. Grierson, In agreement with Gingerich, believes that "the central experience determining the mood of the whole poem" is that "Our life is a false nature"3 and that "the Faculty Divine is chained and tortured— cabined, crib bed, confined, and bred in darkness";**- but he further judge that this central experience "is subordinated to the elab- 1 Fssays in the Romantic Poets, p. 245. 2 I k M * . 247. 3 Childe Harold, IV, 126.' 4 Ibid.. IV, 247.- oration of the more general theme of historical world dis illusionment .”5 To Grierson, "Byron became the spokesman of a disillusioned Europe."6 Certainly the Childe, wander ing listlessly and thoughtfully through the greatest scenes and settings in the- world, is impressed with the record of slaughter and destruction, deceit and wretchedness, tyranny and slavery, shame and depravity, which men have left on the fair face of earth wherever man has lived. The Childe is sick with his disillusionment.; and like Hamlet, he is for the time debilitated by the shock which the months of ex perience have produced.7 Three stanzas, near the close of the fourth canto, contain the two most repeatedly recurring, the most strongly emphasized, most predominantly characteristic themes of the poem: the perishability of man’s world, the imperishability of God’s or nature’s; the transiency of what man makes and does, the eternity of the creation of God; the ugliness of men and the acts of men, the beauty of nature. Not only do these themes most often recur; they provide inspiration for some of the most beautiful and most imaginative stanzas in the poem, of which the three referred to above and quoted 5 "Byron and English Society,” in Byron the Poet, edited by W. A. Briscoe, p. 71. 6 id., p. 56. 7 See infra, pp. 82ff. 75 below are Illustrative: • ' There is a pleasure in tile pathless woods, There is a rapture on the lonely shore, There is society, where none intrudes, By the deep Sea, and Music in its roar: I love not Man the less, but Nature more, From these our interviews, in which I steal From all I may be, or have been before, To mingle with the Universe, and feel What I can ne’er express--yet can not all conceal. Roll, on, thou deep and dark blue Ocean— roll! Ten thousand fleets sweep over thee in vain; Man marks the earth with ruin--his control Stops with the shore;— upon the watery plain The wrecks are all thy deed, nor doth remain A shadow of man’s ravage, save his own, When, for a moment, like a drop of rain, He sinks into they depths with bubbling groan— ’ Without a grave--unknelled, uncoffined, and unknown. His steps are not upon thy paths,— thy fields Are not a spoil for him,--thou dost arise And shake him from thee; the vile strength he wields For Earth’s destruction thou dost all despise, Spurning him from thy bosom to the skies-- And send’st him, shivering in thy playful spray And howling, to his Gods, where haply lies His petty hope in some near port or bay, And dashest him again to Earth:--there let him lay.° Careful analysis of these stanzas will emphasize their effect. For nearly ten years the Childe, in many ways Byron himself, has wandered in the world of men, observing them and their doings. He has seen some of their most ancient cities; he has stood upon the sites of their greatest martial struggles; 8 IV, 178ff. he has beheld reflectively the tyranny of despots and the depraved condition of those whom the yoke of tyranny has ground down to the earth; the poem is a pageant of a bleed ing heart, not merely of Byron's, suffering for the state of mortals, but of man’s throughout the world, both past and present. Everywhere during the pilgrimage evidence accumu lates, until the Pilgrim cries out that "man marks the earth with ruin." Everywhere there is the pall and gloom of the "shadow" of man's ravages of earth’s goodness and beauty. Man wields a "vile strength...for Earth’s destruction." Byron's ungrammatical "there let him lay" has the bitterness of deep-seated misanthropy; that is, a hate for what has been man’s most common lot, his most constant record. It is partly this sense of the evils which history has shown to be to a great degree consonant with mortality that causes the Childe, and Byron, to turn repeatedly and with joy to the pleasure of the pathless woods and the rapture of the lonely shore. Man’s wreck and ruin of earth has been so con stant and complete, his blighting of his own happiness, tnrough yielding to his grosser nature, has been so tragic, that Byron delights to find in nature, symbolized by the sea, a limitation of man’s evil powers. Byron’s pleasure in seeing the sea rise and shake man from itself is no dissembled plea sure. Though man's armaments "thunderstrike the walls of 77 rock-built cities,:"9 "his control steps with the shore." The shores are changed,— "Assyria— Greece— Rome--Carthage— what are they?"; 10 -^g eternal deep, "such as Creation’s dawn behold,— rollest now."H On her brow "time writes no w r i n k l e ."12 she is the "image of Eternity— the throne of the Invisible."13 One recalls in this connection another statement by Grierson: The long period of high hopes and fierce conflicts' which the Erench Revolution inaugurated had ended with ?/aterloo in shattering and complete disillusionment. Great men— Napoleon, Rousseau, Voltaire, Gibbon, Hanni bal-great events, Waterloo, Cannae— great cities, Venice, Florence, above all Rome--they all tell the same tale, vanitas vanitatum; only nature, only beauty endures...."H- lohn Wilson recognized Byron’s ingenious stroke in bringing the Pilgrim to the seashore, there to part with him forever. With his usual excellent Insight and admirable style Wilson writes: It was, a thought worthy of the great spirit of Byron, after exhibiting to us his pilgrim amidst all the most striking scenes of earthly grandeur and earthly decay— after teaching us, like him, to sicken over the mutabil ity, and vanity, and emptiness of human greatness, to 9 IV, 181. 10 IV, 182. 11 Loc. cit. 12 Loc. cit. 13 IV, 183- 14 Op. cit., p. 69. 78 conduct him and us at last to the borders of "the Great Deep." It is there that we may perceive an image of the awful and unchangeable abyss of eter nity, into whose bosom so much has sunk, and all shall one day sink,--of that eternity wherein the scorn and the contempt of man, and the melancholy of great, and the fretting Of little minds, shall be at rest forever. No one, but a true poet of man and of nature, would have dared to frame such a termination for such a Pilgrimage. The Image of the wanderer may well be associated, for a time, with the rock of Calpe, the shattered temples of Athens, or the gigantic fragments of Rome; but when we wish to think of this dark personification as of a thing which is, where can we so well imagine him to have his daily haunt as by the roaring of the waves? It was thus that Homer represented Achilles in his moments of ungovernable and inconsolable grief for the loss of Patroclus.15 One wonders why Wilson feels that a special daring is necessary to frame "such a termination for such a Pilgrimage." Really such a termination is "the incorporate conclusion":16 it is of a body with the v/hole poem. Wilson recognizes a relation between "earthly decay...mutability, and vanity, and empti ness" on one hand, and the eternity of "the Great Deep" on the other. As already stated, throughout the poem there is an abiding and tragic consciousness of the ugliness of mor tality, a consciousness which brings a Weltschmerz, for the healing of which there is constant recourse to nature. A brief survey of the poem will impress both the. sense of mor-- tality and the strong love for nature so predominant throughout. - * - 5 Quoted in The Poetical Works of Lord Byron, Thomas Moore e_t al, eds., p. 61, 16 Othello, II, 11, 268. 79 A thorough study of the cantos In the order of their publi cation will intensify the impression. One never has far to look to find stanzas in which are united, as if they were inseparable, the mutability of man and the unchanging nature of the creation. If■the two themes do not appear in the same stanza, stanzas on the beputy and eternity of nature will be found immediately fol lowing stanzas on mortality. The evergreen ivy, symbol of eternity, creeps upward over the ruined wall, the broken column, or the lichen-covered tomb.1-7 as Byron beholds the fallen state of the Portuguese, he cries out; Poor, paltry slaves I yet born ’midst noblest scenes— Why, Nature, waste thy wonders on such men?l8 As he notes ’ ’domes where whilome kings did make repair,” he observes that the ’ ’ wild flowers round then only breathe. ”19 Two consecutive stanzas in Canto II typify the contrast emphasized throughout the canto between the world of man and the world of nature: To sit on rocks— to muse o’er flood and fell— To slowly trace the forest's shady scene, Where things that own not Man’s dominion dwell, And mortal foot hath ne'er or rarely been; To climb .the trackless mountain all unseen, With the. wild flock'that never needs a fold; 17 17, . 99, 110. 18 I, 18. 19 I, 22. So Alone o’er steeps and. foaming falls to lean; This is not Solitude— 'tis hut to hold Converse with Nature’s charms, and view her stores unrolled. But midst the crowd, the hum, the shock of men, To hear, to see, to feel, and to possess, And roam along, the World’s tired denizen, "With hone who bless us/ none whom we can bless; Minions of Splendour shrinking from distressI None that, with kindred consciousness endued, If we were not, would seem to smile the less, Of all that flattered--followed— sought, and sued; This is to be along— This, This is Solitude!20 In Canto III inter-relationship between the theme of Mortality and that of the beauty and healing influence of nature has become closer, especially in the famous pantheistic stanzas. As the lonely and disconsolate Pilgrim travels up the Rhine, admiring the beauty of nature’s wildness— though softer wildness--his mind returns to the evil works of man:”... Could man but leave thy bright creation s o . . . .”21 Thinking on a world where too late and long We may deplore and struggle with the coil, In a wretched Interchange of wrong for wrong Midst a contentious world, striving where none are strong,22 the poet asks; 20 II, 25f. 21 St. 50. 22 st. 69. 81 Is it not better, then, to be alone, And love Earth, only for its earthly sake? By the blue rushing of the arrowy Rhone, • Or on the pure bosom of its nurshing Lake, Is it not better thus our lives to wear, Than join the crushing crowd, doomed to inflict or bear?2 3 Placid Leman warns Byron, with its stillness, to forsake Earth’s troubled waters for a purer s p r i n g .24 Throughout the canto the poet turns from the disillusioning and dissatisfying experiences in the world of man to the pleasure and comfort found in nature. In this brief sketch, preliminary to detailed study of each canto in its time and place, investigation of Canto IV beyond the stanzas analyzed above is unnecessary. Enough has been presented to suggest the emphasis which mortality receives in the poem. The succeeding study of the cantos in order of publication will make clearer the intensity and extent of the influence of mortality. 23 St. 71. 24 St. 85. II. CANTOS I AND II The first cantos of Childe Harold are the direct products of his state of mind when he sailed from England in 1809. Concerning Byron’s feelings at this period Dalla says: At this period of his life his mind was full of bitter discontent. Already satiated with pleasure, and disgusted with those companions who have no other resource, he had resolved on mastering his appetites; he broke up his harems; and he reduced his palate to a diet the most simple and abstemious; but the passions of the heart were too might, nor did it ever enter his mind to overcome them: resent ment, and anger, and hatred held full sway over him, and his greatest gratification at that time was in overcharging his pen with gall, which flowed in every direction against individuals, his country, the world, the universe creation, and the Creator. A review of the letters and journals of this period shows that Dallas is largely right in his analysis. On December 14, 1808, a short time before sailing for the continent, Byron writes to Augusta: I live here much in my own manner, that is, alone, for I could not bear the company of my best friend, above a month; there is such a sameness in mankind upon the whole, and they grow so much more disgust ing every day, that, were it not for a portion of Ambition....I should live here all my life, in un varied Solitude.26 25 0£. cit.. p. 64f. 26 Letters and Journals. I, 204. 83 On October 10, 1810, he writes Hodgson from Patras: As for England, it Is long since I have heard rrom it. Every one at all connected with my concerns is asleep, and you are my only correspondent, agents ex cepted. I have really no friends in the world; though all my old school companions are gone forth into that world, and walk about there in monstrous disguises in garb of guardsmen, lawyers, parsons, fine gentlemen, and such other’ masquerade dresses. So, I have shaken hands and cut with all these busy people, none of whom write to me. Indeed I have asked It not;— and here I am, a poor traveller and heathenish philosopher, who hath perambulated the greatest part of the Levant, and seen a great quantity of very Improvable land and sea, and, after all, am no better than when I set out— Lord help me.’27 On nis return journey, he informs nis mother that he is com ing home In the same state of apathy that he experienced In departing.28 He tells her, "...You know that I never was fond of society, and I am less so than before.”2*? ’ ’...Soli tary without the wish to be social, with a body a little en feebled by a succession of fevers, but a spirit...yet un broken,” he returns home ’ ’ without a hope, and almost without a desire.”3° 27 Ibid., I, 298. 28 Ibid.. I, 311. 29 Ibid.. I, Jl2. 3° Ibid.. I, 310. 84 Upon his arrival in England the mood did not brighten; rather it darkened. Evil strokes of fortune fell thick upon him. His mother and two close friends had passed away in quick succession. On August 7, he writes to his old friend Davies a letter which needs no comment to intensify its deeply tragic tone: Some curse hangs over me and mine. My mother lies a corpse in this house; one of my best friends is drowned in a ditch. What can j- say, or think, or do? I received a letter from him (Matthews} the day before yesterday. My dearSbrope, if you can spare a moment, do come down to me— I want a friend...Come to me, Scrope, I am almost desolate— left almost alone and let me enjoy the survivers while I can...31 To Dallas he says: Besides her who gave me being, I have lost more than one who made that being tolerable....We shall all one day pass along with the rest— the world is too full of such things, and our very sorrow is s e l f i s h .32 Later he v/rites Hodgson that the death of his mother, Matthews, and Wingfield has made a "sad chasm" in his connections.33 He adds: Indeed the blows followed each other so rapidly that I am yet stupid from the shock; and though I do eat, and drink, and talk, and even laugh, at times, yet I can hardly persuade myself that I am awake, did not every morning convince me mournfully to the contrary.34 31 Ibid., I, 324f. 32 Ibid., I, 325f. 33 ibid., I, 338. 34 Loc. cit. 85 Soon after nis return Byron lost, "besides nis mother, Matthews, and Wingfield, the mysterious Thyrza, to whom, in addition to the separate poems,35 stanzas nine, ninety-five, and ninety- six of Canto II are dedicated. Concerning stanza nine, Byron tells Dallas: ”...It pertains to an event which has taken place since my arrival here, and not to the death of any male friend."36 Two weeks later he sends Dallas some stanzas, usually taken to "be the lines To Thyrza, stating, "...They relate to the same person whom I have mentioned in Canto 2nd, and at the conclusion of the poem."37 This is the authority for relating stanzas ninety-five and ninety-six to stanza nine. Moved by the loss of Thyrza, the poet writes^ All thou couldst have of mine, stern Death! thou hast; The Parent, Friend, and now the more than Friend: Ne'er yet for one thine arrows flew so fast, And grief with grief continuing still to blend, Hath snatched the little joy that Life had yet to lend.38 Death’s bereavements, then, account for the mood of the stanzas which were added to the first two cantos after the return to England. To stanza ninety-one of the first canto Byron adds the following note: 35 Poetry, III, 30, 388. 3b Letters and Journals. II, 58. 37 Ibid., II, 65. 38 Childe Harold, II, 96. 8b In the short space of one month I have lost her who gave me being, and most of those who had made that being tolerable. To me the lines of Young are are no fiction— Insatiate archer! could not one suffice? Thy shaft flew thrice, and thrice my peace was slain, And thrice ere thrice yon moon had fill'd her horn.39 When Byron left for the continent in 1809 he was apathetic, indifferent, satiated -with pleasure; as he now sails home ward his earlier feelings have been intensified. His tragic losses upon his return sink him yet further into'an apathetic stupor. Besides the environmental and other influences discussed above40 two things partially account for Byron's nature and spirit in 1809* One is the loss of his boyhood faith, a loss to which the intensity of early training made adjustment nec essary. He had found nothing to replace the loss; and dis illusionment in one's early twenties is rapid, especially to one with Byron's backgrounds. The second thing which had in fluenced Byron was the famous criticism of Hours of Idleness in the Edinburgh Review. Not only the cruelty and injustice of the judgments, but especially the reviewer's unkindly and ^ Poetry, II, 94ff. 40 Supra, pp. 34ff. B7 mocking spirit would have embittered a mind less proud and more stoical than Byron’s. During the journey Byron writes to his mother* ’ ’The Mediterranean and the Atlantic roll be tween me and criticism; and the thunders of the Hyperberean Review are deafened by the roar of the Hellespont, ”^-1 Even late in life, when Byron recalled his sensations upon read ing the review of his poem, he wrote: I recollect the effect on- me of the Edinburgh on my first poem; it was rage, and resistance, and re dress— but not despondency nor despair. I grant that those are not amiable feelings; but, in this world of bustle and broil, and especially in the career of writing, a man should calculate upon his powers of resistance before he goes into the arena.^2 In the light of all this, one is not surprised to find in the first two cantos just the kind of Childe and the spirit that are there. The nature of the Childe Is presented in the first thirteen stanzas, which comprise the first natural division of Canto I; the stanzas on Portugal (14-31) and those on Spain (32-98) comprise the last two. In one stanza a fairly clear picture of the Childe is drawn: Whilome in Albion’s isle tnere dwelt a youth, Who ne in Virtue’s ways did take delight; But spent his days In riot most uncouth, And vexed with mirth the drowsy ear of Night. Ah me! In sooth he was a shameless wight, 41 Letters and Journals, I, 267. 42 Ibid., V, 267. Sore given to revel ana ungodly glee; Few earthly things round favour in his sight, Save concubines and carnal companie, And flaunting wassailers of high and low degree.43 He has "felt the fullness of Satiety,"44 and now as one who loathes "in his native land to dwell,"45 he is sore sick at heart, And from his fellow Bacchanals would flee.46 His opinion of his associates is that they are flatterers of the festal hour, The heartless Parasites of present cheer.47 Women are no better than the men: like moths, they are ever caught by glare, loving merely pomp and power.48 To his "staunch yeoman," really his servant Fletcher, Byron sings: "For who would trust the seeming sighs Of wife, or paramour? Fresh feeres will dry the bright blue eyes We late saw streaming o'er.49 Thus the wandering pilgrim has no confidence in the goodness of man, no nor of women either. What the Childe sees and experiences in Portugal lowers yet more his opinion of men. The Portuguese are "poor, paltry 43 St. 2. 44 St. 4. ^ 4oc. cit. 46 st. 6. 47 st. 9. 4® Loc. cit. 49 St. S. 89 s l a v e s , ”50 an(| Portugal A nation swoln with ignorance and pride, Who lick yet loathe the hand that waves the sword To save them from the wrath of G-aul’s unsparing lord.51 Byron insists, in a note, that he presents the people just as he finds them:52 The dingy denizens are reared in dirt; No personage of high or mean degree Doth care for cleanness of surtout shirt, Though shent with Egypt's plague, unkempt, unwashed, unhurt.53 Throughout the land are monuments to the cruelty and folly of man. In "Cintra's glorious Eden," scene of the conven tion to which Byron dedicates several stanzas,54 there is "Our Lady's House of Woe,” where frugal monks have punished "impious men."55 Along the road there is many "a cross of mouldering lath," to show where the shrieking victim hath psour'd forth his blood beneath the assassin's knife.5° 5° St. 18. 51 St. 16. 52 Poetry, II, 87, note 6. 53 St. 17. 54 sts. 18-26. 55 St. 20. 56 st. 21. 90 Everywhere, deserted halls and gaping portals bring Fresh lessons to the thinking bosom, how Tain are the pleasaunces on earth supplied; Swept into wrecks anon by Time's ungentle tide 157 At Mafra, on his way to Spain, the Childe tarries "one moment." The poet still thinks on the evil ways of men: But here the Babylonian Where hath built A dome, where flaunts she in such glorious sheen, That men forget the blood which she hath spilt, And bow the knee to Pomp that loves to varnish g u i l t .58 During the ChildeTs sojourn in Portugal his dark picture of men has become darker. Portugal’s "dingy denizens" assert not the dignity of man. In his course through Spain the Pilgrim is still struck with the foolish and ignoble acts of men. But he finds the Spanish not such "poor, paltry slaves" as the Portuguese. In Spain each peasant is as proud as the noblest duke: Well doth the Spanish hind the difference know 'Twixt him and Lusian slave, the lowest of the low.59 Often the Childe is Impressed with the vanity of earthly things, the perishability of worldly glory: Pride! bend thine eye from. Heaven to thine estate, See how the mightly shrink Into a songj60 57 st. 23. 5s St. 29. 59 st.= 33. 60 St. 36. 91 Byron is especially conscious of the futility of war. There is fighting in the mountains: Each volley tells that thousands cease to breathe; Death rides upon the sulphury Sirec, Red Battle stamps his feet, and Nations feel the shock.61 The poet declares that war is vain. His attitude toward it is a scornful,, almost sneering one: What gallant War-hounds rouse them from their lair, And gnash their fangs, loud yelling for the preyI All join the chase, but few the triumph share; The Grave shall bear the chiefest prize away, And Havoc, scarce for joy can number their array.62 The battles of Talavera and Albuera accomplished nothing ex cept the death of thousands: The Foe, the Victim, and the fond Ally That fights for all, but ever fights in vain, Are met-as if at home they could not. die — To feed the crow on Talavera’s plain, And fertilize the field that each pretends to gain. There they shall rot--Ambition’s honoured.fools I Yes, Honour decks the turf that wraps their clay! Vain Sophistry! in these behold the tools, The broken tools, that Tyrants cast away By myriads, when they dare to pave their way With human hearts-to what?-a dream alone. Can Despots compass aught that hails their sway? Or call with truth one span of earth their own, Save that vdierein at last they crumble bone by bone?°3 Tired of battle-’s minions, who play ’ ’their game of lives, and barter breath for fame,”64 the Childe turns toward Seville, where instead of patriots bleeding for their country's weal, 61 St. 38. 62 st. 40. 63 Sts. 41f. 64 St. 44. 92 Folly still his vetaries inthralls; And young-eyed Lewdness walks her midnight rounds....65 But the V/anderer knows that soon, burning war must come, lay ing waste peasant's orchards and destroying city-dwellers' homes. Byron apostrophizes: Ah, Monarchsi could ye taste the mirth ye mar, Not in the toils of Glory would ye fret; The hearse dull drum would sleep, and Man be happy yet 166 Napoleon is "the Scourger of the world”:67 And must they fall? the young, the proud, the brave, To swell one bloated Chief’s unwholesome reign?6d Throughout the Canto it is the same,-a desolate picture of man and the vanity of his ways. Even the Sabbath becomes a day of lust and pleasure. Thousands pack the arena, yelling for blood.69 Byron recalls the vain and proud rides of Londoners, who provoke many an "envious gift" from those who behold their glory.70 Everywhere the Pilgrim unmasks man’s heart and views "the Hell that’s there.”71 65 st. 46. 66 st. 47. 67 st. 52. 66 St. 53. 69 St. 68. 70 st. 69. 71 Tk) Inez, st. 9* 93 But throughout the ride across the land, one source of joy the Pilgrim has,--nature. Continually he turns from the sordid and dissatisfying life of men to the soothing and inspiring beauties of the universe. Upon first beholding Portugal, he cries out, Oh, Christ I it is a goodly sight to see What Heaven hath done for this delicious landI What fruits of fragrance blush on every tree I ■ What goodly prospects o'er the hills expand172 He notes the wild flowers that "breathe" around the ruined "domes where whilome kings did make repair."73 He finds that there is sweetness in the mountain air, And Life, that bloated Ease can never hope to share.74 Separating Portugal and Spain are rippling waves... That peaceful still 'twixt bitterest foemen flew....75 These are typical of the instances in which the poet turns to nature to contemplate the beauty and peace which he finds there, contrasting clearly with the evil of the world of man. But in Canto I, there is more constant attention to the scenes of mortality than in Canto II; there are not so many beautiful nature passages, nor are they so sincere and 72 St. 15. 73 St. 22. 74 St. 30. 75 St. 33. 94 passionate. In fact, the love of nature grows upon Byron throughout the first three cantos, reaching its height in the pantheistic passages of Canto III. The poetry of Canto II is largely an imaginative, though basically realistic, projection of Byron's exper iences in Greece and Albania. The first fifteen and the last twenty-six stanzas are concerned with Greece, and stanzas 3^-72 with Albania. The remaining stanzas deal with the Florence episode and briefly-treated experiences which befell Byron in passage through the Mediterranean. Th’ e canto opens with a lamentation over the fallen state of ancient Athens and the Greek people. The first stanzas are exceedingly dark, for the condition of Greece makes Byron especially conscious of some of the fruits of mortality. In Athens there once were "men of might..., grand in soul," but they have "gone--glimmering through the dream of things that were," although o’er each mouldering tower, Dim with the mist of years, gray flits the shade of power. Byron sees Athens herself as "a Nation's sepulchre."77 Trans- ciency and death are an incorporate part of the world of man: 77 St. 3. In the MS the closing line of the stanza read faith instead of hope. 95 Even Gods must yield-Religions take their turn: ’Twas Jove’s— 'tis Mahomet’s— and other Creeds Will rise with other years, till Man shall learn Vainly his incense soars, his victim bleeds; Poor child of Doubt and Death, whose hope is built on reeds.78 The stanza which follows these lines seems a prophecy of Cain: Bound to the Earth, he lifts his eye to Heaven-- Is’t not enough, Unhappy Thing! to know Thou art? Is this a boon so kindly given, That being, thou wouldfst be again, and go, Thou know’st not, reck’st not to what region, so On Earth no more, but mingled with the skies? Still wilt thou dream on future Joy and Woe? ■ Regard and weigh yon dust before it flies: That little urn saith more than thousand H@milies.79 The agnosticism of Don Juan is alread present: ’ ’All that we know is, nothing can be known."80 A type of stoicism is advisable, with one taking whatever "Chance or Fate proclaimeth best."81 One can hope for rest, even if in annihiliation, on the "shores of A c h e r o n ."82 eighth stanza, as the poem was published, merely leaves the question of immortality in doubt, the poet dreaming that it would bring happiness to meet old friends again in another 7^ L o g , c it. 79 St. 4. 80 st. 7. 81 Loc. cit. 82 Loc. cit. 96 life, especially Thyrza.83 In the original stanza the churl ish priest is pictured looking for life ’ ’ where life may never be.”84 Thus, in the earlier stanzas of Canto II, Byron stresses two things,— how time and the destructive nature of man engulf all, and how man’s mind has been unable to answer the questionings which incessantly surge up within the mind. The later stanzas on G-reece have the same emphases, with greater attention to the depraved nature of the people and with stronger urgings that they throw off their Turkish masters. The Greeks must rise themselves: Who would be free themselves must strike the blow.85 Freedom will not seek the land; the land must seek freedom, lest ’ ’slave succeed to slave through years of endless toIL”86 The people of Greece are now a ’ ’degenerate herde”; their cities are despoiled: A thousand years scarce serve to form a state; An hour may lay it in the dust.87 Everywhere the poet turns, it is the same: ’ ’Death in the front, Destruction in the rear I”8# in a note to Canto II ^3 sts. 8f. See the lines To Thyrza. 84 Variant reading. . 85 st. 76. 86 st. 77. 87 st. 84. 88 st. 90. 97 Byron writes: But never did the littleness of man, and the vanity of his very best virtues, of patriotism to exalt, and of valour to defend his country appear more conspicuous than in the record of what Athens was, and the certain ty of what she now is.^9 In Athens the records of mortality are deeply engraved. As Harold sails toward Albania he hails Leucadia'a cape afar: A spot he longed to see, nor cared to leave....90 Actium, Lepanto, Trafalgar, move him not, for he would not delight (Torn beneath some remote inglorious star) In themes of bloody fray, or gallant fight, But loathed tne brave's trade, and laughted at martial wight.91 Once in Albania, the poet pauses a moment to scoff at the pampered priesthood, to whom pride is dear. "Idol--Saint~- Yirgin— Prophet--Crescent--Cross," he adjudges to be "sacer dotal gain, but general loss."92 Ambracia's gulf recalls how Caesar and Anthony for Cleopatra wasted the lives of many men.93 The extensive ruins at Nicopolis, where once "the second Caesar's trophies rose," are "How, like the hands that ^ Poetry, II, 166. 90 st. 40. 91 Loc. c it. 92 st. 44- 93 st. 45. 98 reared them, withering.”94 Men who Tor private and personal gain kill and give to be killed are ’ ’Imperial Anarchs, doubl ing human woes.”95 Deep in Albania’s hills Byron visits the famed chief, Ali Pacha, ’ ’ whose dread command is lawless law. ”96 _^s Le draws hear All’s seat of government Dodona’s Grove attracts nis attention. In this grove formerly stood a temple of Zeus and a sa(9^buary of Aphrodite; once the ’ ’valley echoed the response to Jove.”97 But here, too, Is the common tale: All, all forgotten— and shall Man repine That his frail bends to fleeting life are broke? Cease, Fool! the fate of Gods may well be thine: Wouldst thou survive the marble or the oak? When nations, tongues, and worlds must sink beneath the stroke?9o Finally arriving where ’ ’Amidst no common pomp the Despot sate,”99 the Childe is permitted another view of mortality, not this time of war— though the riches are the fruits of 94 Loc. cit. 95 Loc. cit. 96 st. 47. 97 St. 53. 98 Loc. cit. .99 St. 56. 99 merciless conquest— but of pride ana pageantry and pleasure, before wdose shrines men from all nations are votaries. All is a "man of war and woes," of "aged venerable face," in which one cannot trace "the deeds that lurk beneath, and stain him with disgrace."100 In a letter to his mother, Byron describes Ali Pacha as follows: He had the appearance of anything but his real character, for he is a remorseless tyrant, guilty of the most horrible cruelties, very brave, and so good a general that they call him the Mahometan Buena- .parte."101 In hours of courtly entertainment Harold views, "not dis pleased," "their barbarous, yet their not indecent, glee."102 In contrast to this revelry in court is the servile condition of labouring women in the country, Byron writes: ...Their women are sometimes handsome also, but tney are treated like slaves, beaten, and, In short, complete beasts of Durden; tney plough, dig, and sow, I found them carting 'wood, and actually repair ing the highways.1^3 The picture of mankind presented by.Albania did not elevate the Pilgrim* s concept of the nature and ways of man. The 100 St. t>2. 101 .Letters and Journals. I, 252, 102 st. 72. Letters and Journals, I, 233. 100 powerful and wealthy were wicked and remorseless in their cruelty, with selfishness and pride controlling activity. The poor remained the pawns of the rich. Money was more than honor and more valuable than the life of him from whom money could be bloodily taken. As in Canto I, Byron turns often from men to the wonders of nature, finding there a contrasting beauty and peace: Thus bending o'er the vessel's laving side, To gaze.on Dian’s wave-reflected sphere,. The soul forgets her scnemes of Hope and Bride, And flies unconscious o’er each backward year. . . .-L04 Two successive stanzas present the clearest contrast in the canto between nature and the world of man: To sit on rocks— to muse o’er flood and fell-- To slowly trace the forest’s shady scene, Where things that own not Man’s dominion dwell, And mortal foot hath ne’er or rarely been; To climb the trackless mountain all unseen, With the wild flock that never needs a fold; Alone oe’er steeps and foaming falls to lean; This is not Solitude--’tis but to hold Converse with Nature’s charms, and view her stores unrolled. But midst the crowd, the hum, the shock of men, To hear, to see, to feel, and to possess, And roam along, the World's tired denizen, With none who bless us, none whom we can bless; Minions of Splendour shrinking from distress I None that, with kindred consciousness endued, 104 St. 34. 101 If we were not, would seem to smile the less, Of all that flattered— followed--sought, and sued;' This is to he alone— This, This is Solitude;105 In Greece the poet is always conscious of the eternity of nature. Though ruin lies all around, the skies are as blue, the crags as wild, the groves as sweet, the fields as ver dant as in days of o l d : 106 Art, Glory, Freedom fail, but Nature still is fair.107 In an apostrophe to Athens, Byron writes: Each hill and dale, each deepening glen and wold Defies the power which crushed thy temples gone: Age shakes Athenae’s tower, but spares gray Marathon.108 In this canto the most famous stanza expressing the poet’s love for nature seems to come as a natural and necessary con sequence of thinking upon man, ’ ’that corrupted thing”: 109 Dear Nature Is the kindest mother still! Though always changing, in her aspect mild; From her bare bosom let me take my fill, Her never-weaned, though not her favoured child. Oh! she is fairest In her features wild, Where nothing polished dares pollute her path: To me by day or night she ever smiled, Though I have marked her when none other(hath, And sought her more and more, and loved her- best in wrath.HO i - 1°5 Sts. 25f. 1°6 St. 87. 0°c * c il • 1°8 St. 88. 1°9 St. 36. 11° St. 37. 102 This stanza, with, the other passages quoted, reveals that the poet's love of nature, learned by the sea and among the mountains of Aberdeenshire, has increased with the years. The step from Byron's love of nature in Canto II to the pantheism in Canto III is not a long step. The preceding survey of the fJ.rs.t_ ±wo„cantos. makes clear the predominance of theftheme of mortality. The Pil- L grim, who in his thinking is usually Byron, has been impressed at every turn with the folly of mankind. The ancient monu ments of the past, ruined walls and towers, and even whole cities, proclaim man*s destructive nature throughout his history. Contemporary society and conflicts attest that man is unchanged. He has, as Swift put it, used his modicum of reason to refine his vices rather than his virtues.m Though the beauty and eternity of nature somewhat assuage the poet's inward grief at what he beholds, Canto II closes on the note with which it began and in the pitch most often sung through out the first two cantos: Roll on, vain days! full reckless may ye flow, Since Time hath reft whate’er my soul enjoyed, And with the ills of Eld mine earlier years alloyed.112 111 - Jonathan Swift, G-ulliver' s Travels, Part TV, Chap ter 5* 112 St. 98. 103 III. CANTO III Tiie third canto of Ciiilde Harold, begun In May and completed in June, 1816, was published by Murray on Novem ber 18 of the same year. During the four years between the publication of the first two cantos and the third Byron en joyed great popularity as a poet. Society courted him, women ran after him, great persons sought him out. He con tinued briefly his work in parliament, begun just before his poem made him famous. His Eastern Tales in verse followed one another with amazing rapidity. Byron was a member of a governing group for Drury Lane Theater long enough to be friend Coleridge in getting Remorse published and to gain some experience in judgment and observation which would be of value later in the writing of his own dramas. In January, 1815, he married. A year later Lady Byron left him, under such circumstances as to give eager gossips occasion to wag their tongues. Byron was feeling the full force of domestic troubles during the composition of Canto III. Before an analysis of the canto itself is made, attention should be given first to mortality In the narrative poems between 1812 and 1816, and then to the specific effect upon Byron’s mind and spirit of the separation from his wife. 104 Besides The Waltz, the Ode to Napoleon, The Hebrew Melodies, and occasional pieces, Byron published between 1812 and 1816 six narrative poems, greatly influenced by Scott and Coleridge. They are in order of composition, The Giaour, The Bride of Abydos, The Corsair, Lara, The Siege of Corinth, and Parisina. All partake of the gloomy and pessimistic tone of much of Childe Harold. The chief men of the poems are of the same general family as the Childe. They are, in fact, so much alike as to cause Jeffrey to complain in his review of the third canto that Byron's heroes are too much of a type.H3 The Giaour, Conrad, and Lara are sketched in the same outline and painted with the same dark colours. All are influenced by the heroes of the Gothic novels very popular just before Byron’s day. A part of the description of Lara will reveal the general nature of the Byronic Hero: He comes at last in sudden loneliness, And whence they know not, why they need not guess; They more might marvel, when the greeting's o’er, Not that he came, but came not long before That brow in furrow'd lines had fix’d at last, And spake of passions, but .of passion past: The pride, but not the fire, of early days, Coldness of mien, and careless of praise; A high:demeanour, and a glance that took Their thoughts from others with a single look; And that sarcastic levity of tongue, The stinging of a heart the world hath stung, That darts in seeming playfulness around, And makes these feel that will not own the wound; All these seemed his, and something more beneath, Than glance could well reveal, or accent breathe. ^-4 Edinburgh Review, 27:281, December, 1816. 114 Lara, I, ivf. 105 Scattered throughout these poems are passages which emphasize the evil ways into which man has fallen. As we have seen to be true in the first two cantos of Childe Harold, the ugliness of men is contrasted with the beauty of nature, which beauty men sometimes seek to destroy. In The Giaour we read; Strange-that where Nature loved to trace, As if for Gods, a dwelling-place, And every charm and grace hath mix'd Within the Paradise she fix'd, There man, enamoured of distress, Should mar it into wilderness, And trample, bruite-like, o’er each flower That tasks not one laborious hour. Strange-that where all is peace beside, There passion riots in her pride, And lust and rapine wildly reign, To darken o’er the fair domain It is as though the fiends prevail'd Against the Seraphs they assail’d, The freed inheritors of hell; So soft the scene, so form'd for jov. So curst the tyrants that destroy!^*-? In The Bride of Abydos Selim saysj. Once free, 'tis mine our horde again to guide; Friends to each other, foes to aught beside: Yet there wre follow but the bent assigned By fatal Nature to man’s warring kind: Mark! where his carnage and his conquests cease! He makes a solitude and calls it peace.H6 115 11. 46ff. 116 Canto II, 908ff. 106 During the period between the first two cantos of Childe Harold and the third the clouds of mortality have not lifted from the poet’s mind. On the contrary, Byron’s treatment at the time of the separation increased nis gloom beyond what the very tragedy'of the domestic situation itself had done. And according to Guiccioli, the marriage, with its consequences, was Byron’s most tragic experience: Lord Byron’s marriage exercised such a deplorable Influence over nis destiny, that It Is impossible t.o speak of it succinctly, and without entering into de tails; for this one great misfortune proved the fruit ful source of all others.ll? Those who knew Byron most intimately at this time testify concerning the effect of the separation on him. Leigh Hunt writes: I now returned the visits which Lord Byron had made me in prison. His wife’s separation from him had just taken place, and he had become 111 himself; his face was jaundiced with bile; he felt the attacks of the public severely; and, to crown all, he had an execution In his house. I was- struck with the real trouble he manifested, compared with what the public thought of it. U S Hobhouse, who possibly knew Byron better than any other man among his friends at this time, gives the following account of his first visit to Byron after the separation: 117 220. 118 Autobiography, II, 19. 107 Mr. H. found Lord Byron exceedingly depressed, more so than in an intimacy of eleven years lie iiad ever seen. Lord B. at first seemed unwilling to mention the cause of his dejection; hut at last, with tears in his eyes, and in an agitation which scarcely allowed him to speak, mentioned the proposition he had received from Sir Ralph Noel.11^ There can he no doubt that Byron was deeply sorrowful over the tragic issue of his marriage. All his life he suffered from it. It was Byron’s fate to he a man who had a deep need of home, a certain constitutional yearning for what home and love offer, without being able to curb his feel ings and control his wayward temper to such a degree as to make a happy marriage possible and permanent. Added to this genuine grief over the Separation was the humiliation of public enmity. Macaulay,in reviewing Moore’s Life, paints the following picture of the public’s treatment of Byron: The obloquy which Byron had to endure was such as might well have shaken a man of constant mind. The newspapers were filled with lampoons. The theatres shook with execrations. He was excluded from circles where he had lately been the observed of all observers. It is not every day that the savage envy of aspiring dunces is gratified by the agonies of such a spirit.120 Byron’s sadness over the loss of wife and child and his humilia tion before the English public undoubtedly account for many of the darker stanzas of Canto III. John C,affix Hobhouse, Recollections of a Long Life, II, 217. 120 Edinburgh Review, 53:544f., June, 1831. 108 In Canto IV Byron, after nearly two years have passed, out of the fullness of memory puts into verse the record of his deep feeling: .. .Have I not — Hear me, my mother EarthI behold it, Heaven I-- Have I not had to wrestle with my lot? Have I not suffered things to be forgiven? Have I not had my brain seared, my heart riven, Hopes sapped, name blighted, Life’s life lied away? And only not to desperation driven, Because not altogether of such clay As rots into the souls of those whom I survey. From mighty wrong to petty perfidy Have I not seen what human things could do? From the loud roar of foaming calumny To the small whisper of .the as paltry few-- And subtler venom of the reptile crew, The Ianus glance of whose significant eye, Learning to lie with silence, would seem true— And without utterance, save the shrug or sigh, Deal round to happy fools its speechless obloquy.121 Thus when Byron sailed in 1816 he was as a feed, Flung from the rock, on ocean’s foam, to sail Where’er the surge may sweep, the tempest breath prevail.122 ’ ’From Dan to Beersheba all was barrenness, "123 and not a flower appeared.124 The Childe, who is much less important in this canoifc, yielding place to the poet, who speaks more in propria persona, has since his last appearance ’ ’grown 121 Sts. 135f. 122 st. 2. 123 Quarterly Review, 19:218, September, 1818. 124 st. 3. 109 aged in this world of woe."125 Byron, in answer to his own question "What am I?”, replies, "Nothing,"126 although he feels that his power of thought is something, enabling him partially to create for himself a new and more ideal world. He tries to drink from a "purer fount," from the beautiful universe colored by the power of thought: But in vain.’ Still round him clung invisibly a chain Which galled forever, fettering though unseen, And heavy though it clanked not.127 But nature comforts now, more than in the earlier cantos: Where rose the mountains, there to him were friends; Where rolled 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, Were unto him companionship; they spake A mutual language, clearer than the tome Of his land’s tongue, which he would oft forsake^ For Nature’s pages glassed by sunbeams on the lake'. 128 But mortality pulls always downward. Byron attempts, in con templation of the beauty of the stars, to forget "earth, and earth-born jars, and human frailties."129 in certain moments of mystic experience and deep contemplation he is successful, but always he slips back into his old moods: 125 St. 5- 126 st. 6. 127 St. 9. 128 st. 13. 129 St. 14. 110 Could lie have kept his spirit to that flight He had been happy; but this clay will sink. Its spark immortal, envying it the light To which it mounts, as if to break the link That keeps us from yoh heaven which woos us to its brink.130 The first sixteen stanzas, introducing the canto, continue the contrast so strongly stressed in the earlier cantos be tween the limitations and frustrations of mortality and the beauty and imperishability of nature. Stanzas 17-45 present Byron’s reflections upon Water loo and its consequences. In all the carnage Byron sees stark tragedy; again the theme is Vanitas ■ . wnitatum. Men have fought not so much for freedom as for gain: How that red rain hath made the harvest growl And is this all the world had gained by thee, Thou first and last of fields! king-making Victory? Fit retribution! Gaul may champ the bit And foam in fetters;— but is Earth more free? 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 Pay the Wolf homage? proffering lowly gaze And servile knees to Thrones? No! prove before ye praise! I.3I Waterloo., in Byron's mind, did not result in general benefit to the people of Europe. As if tired of thinking on ^30 Loc, cit. 131 Sts. 17f. Ill Waterloo, on Napoleon, on tiie sad. story of mankind in gen eral, Byron turns to nature, to the beauties of the Rhine and her course through the earth: Away with these! true. Wisdom’s world'will be Within its own creation, or in thine, Maternal NatureI for who teems like thee, Thus on the banks of thy majestic Rhine? There Harold gazes on a work divine, A blending of all beauties; streams and dells, Fruit, foliage, crag, wood, cornfield, mountain, vine, And chiefless castles breathing stern farewells From gray but leafy walls, where Ruin greenly dwells.132 But even among the beauties of nature, in the valley of Rhine, stand monuments of decay, relics of the destructive wrath of man, symbols of mortality. There are battlements, ’ ’all tenantless, save to the crannying Wind,” where those who fought "are in a bloody shroud.’ ^133 Beneath those bat tlements the ’ ’discoloured Rhine” once ran red, ’ ’for some fair mischief won.”134 Turning again from records of mor tality, the poet repeats his oft-recorded inward wish or prayer: ’ ’Gould man but leave thy bright creation so .”135 The earth is beautiful and pleasant and good; it is man who produces ugliness and unpleasantness and evil. The Rhine, like the eternal waters -of the deep, rolls on, mirroring, •132 St. 4b. 133 st. 47. 134 st. 49. 135 st. 50. 112 "with its dancing light, the sunny ray,"136 out men who have struggled in a thousand mortal conflicts "are gone, and what are they?"137 As the Childe leaves behind a scene, Where Nature, nor too sombre nor too gay, Wild but not rude, awful yet not austere, Is to the mellow Earth as Autumn to the year,138 he bids a vain adieu, vain Decause uhere can be no farewell to scenes like this.139 "Though empires near them fall,"140 the scenes of nature’s beauty live on. Now the Childe is in the Alps. The Palaces of Nature, whose vast walls Have pinnacled in clouds their snowy scalps, And throned Eternity in icy halls Of cold Sublimity, where forms and falls The Avalanche— the thunderbolt of snow! All that expands the spirit, yet appals, Gather around these summits, as to show How earth may pierce to Heaven, yet leave vain man below. 141 Again in this stanza there Is obvious an Inferred contrast between nature and man. Among the Alps In 1816 Byron’s love of nature reached Its highest peak of intense feeling and found its most beautiful, though most mystical, poetical 136 St. 51. 137 Loc. cit. 138 st. 59. 139 St. 60. 140 St. 61. 141 St. 62. 113 expression. At the Villa Diodati, where Byron settled in Geneva soon after arriving May 25, he found ’ ’too much of Man. "142 Having ’ ’ mingled with the herd, ”143 he had been penned in their fold, and he would break away. But he makes clear his motives in escaping: To 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, In wretched Interchange of wrong for wrong Midst a contentious world, striving where none are strong.144 In a note concerning this stanza and those that follow it Coleridge writes: The thought which underlies the whole of this pass age Is that man is the creature and thrall of fate. In society, in the world, he is exposed to the incidence of passion, which he can neither resist nor yield to without torture. he is overcome by the world, and, as a last resource, he turns to nature and solitude. He lifts up his eyes to the hills, unexpectant of Divine aid, but In the hope that, by claiming kinship with Nature, and becoming ”a portion of that around” him, he may forego humanity, with its burden of penitence, and elude the curse. There is a further reference to this despairing recourse to Nature in The Dream, vii, 10, seq.— ”...he lived Through that which had been death to many men, And made him friends of mountains: with the stars 142 St. 68. -*-43 Loc. cit. 144 st. 69. 114 He held his dialogues I and they did teach To him the magic of their mysteries.”145 Thus Byron concludes that it is better to be alone and to love the earth "only for its own earthly sake," rather than "join the crushing crowd, doomed to inflict or bear.”14o At this point appears Byron’s first clear and full expression of pantheism.147 in the following stanza, one of the most famous of the canto, Byron’s feeling approaches pantheistic enthusiasm: 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 A link reluctant in a fleshly chain, Classed 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.148 In many places in the canto this sense of union with the spirit or the universe reappears. In Stanza seventy-five Byron expresses the feeling that the mountains, the waves, the sky, are a part of him and of his soul. Later he writes the following lines, in which his pantheism is obvious: Poetry, II, 259, note 2. 146 st. 71. 147 The nearest earlier approach to pantheism was In one of the Hebrew Melodies, "When Coldness Wraps This Suffer ing Clay," Poetry, III, 395- 148 st. 72. 115 All Heaven and Earth are still: From the high host Of stars, to the lulled lake and mountain-coast, All is concentred in a life intense, Where not a beam, nor air, nor leaf is lost, But hath a part of Being, and a sense Of that which is all Creator and Defense. 1^-9 Another element of Byron's pantheism is like the Shelleyan doctrine of universal love, inspired by the material universe: Clarens! sweet Clarens, birthplace of deep Love! Thine air is the young breath of passionate Thought; Thy trees take root in Love; the snows above, The very Glaciers should have his colours caught, And Sun-set into rose-hues sees them wrought By rays which sleep there lovingly: the rocks, The permanent crags, tell here or Love, who sought In them a refuge from the worldly shocks, Which stir and sting the Soul with Hope that woos, then mocks.150 Earlier in the canto Byron had spoken of the teaching of love found in Rousseau, similar to that in Shelley's Hymn to Intellectual Beauty. Rousseau's love was "Passion's essence," not the love of living dame, Nor of the dead who rise upon our dreams, But of Ideal Beauty, which became In him existence, and o'erflowing teems Along his burning page, distempered though it seems.151 To Byron Love created all the wonder which he beholds; it Inspires within, a warm contagion of love for all things.152 1Z^9 St. 89. 150 St. 99. 151 St. 78. 152 St. 102. 116 He who has not learned love, at Clarens "would learn that lore, and make his heart a spirit.”153 The canto makes it clear that it is the vanity, the futility, the frustrations so common to mortality that have turned the poet’s mind to seeking in nature a healing power for what is sick within him and in the world. The Childe has quaffed too quickly "life’s enchanted cup”; and he ’ ’found the dregs were wormwood. ”154 Now amid nature’s beauties he fills his cup again at a ’ ’purer font. ”155 Byron has looked upon the past as a ’ ’peopled desert past,...a place of agony and strife; 156 now he remounts ’ ’with a fresh pinion,” which, young and vigorous, spurns ’ ’the clay-cold bonds which round our being cling.”157 Leman, which Byron calls' ■ a ’ ’contrasted lake with the wild world I dwelt in,” warns him to forsake Earth’s troubled waters for a purer spring.158 He would De wafted from distraction. It has been man as he is and the world of things as they are that has caused the poet to seek something better, something less mortal, in nature’s beauties. I55 St. 103. 154 St. 9. 155 Loc. cit. 156 st. 73. 15*7 Lo c. cit. 15S st. 85. 117 Since the pantheism or Canto III is a new quality in Byron’s poetry, one is led to enquire concerning its origins. Certainly one cannot account for. it on the basis that Byron has just learned the theory. Me knew Spinoza as early as 1811.159 He reviewed Wordsworth’s poems of 1807. Pope's doctrine of Universal Love and of one as a part of tne whole he read as a boy; and Byron's championing of Pope Is one of the most interesting of his critical positions. Yet pantheism had not found its way Into his work. It ap pears that three things are to be considered. The first Is Byron’s state of mind, which has been presented"earlier in tms chapter. 1^0 The tragedy of a broken home, the night mare of his own delinquencies, bitter condemnation by a public wnich had once worshipped him,— all these things had bowed his spirit, producing need of something to lay hold upon. He had hoped that marriage would be his salvation.161 The Irony was bitter. A second thing to remember is that Byron’s feeling toward nature had already come close to pantheism. His early love of nature, so well known, has been illustrated.1® As we have seen, In Canto II of Childe Harold this early love letters ana Journals, II, 72. 160 Supra, p. 106. 161 Hfe. I, 072. 162 Suprak p. 43. 118 is intensified. Nature is the "kindest mother still."163 From this intimacy and enthusiasm the distance to pantheism is not great. In the third place, Shelley, already in Geneva wnen Byron arrived in May, 1816, toured the Alps with him, as Medwin reports it from Byron, dosing Byron with large quantities of Wordsworth.164 As they traveled in nature's wonderland, they had Kousseau’s Nouvelle Heloise in their hands.165 Byron's depressed spirit, his already great en- tnusiasm for nature, and the new interest in Wordswohth in spired hy Shelley, account sufficiently for the pantheistic elements of the canto. Although like Elmer, one may not go so far as to say with Coleridge that Byron "got relitlon" in reading Words worth under Shelley's guiding hand and powerful Influence,167 and although one could over-emphasize the influence of the two English contemporaries, It seems rather certain that Wordsworth through Shelley is the most Important direct cause of Byron's having, just when he did, the brief and short lived pantheistic experience. 163 St. 37. 164 Thomas Medwin, Conversation of Lord Byron, p. 293-. ^ 5 Letters and Journals, III, 335- 166 Manfred Elmer, "Byrons Pantheismus vom Jahre 1816," Englisbhe Studien, 43:419, 1910. "^7 Poetry, II, 219, note. 119 The fact that later Byron Is not able to maintain the mystical height of the pantheism of Canto III need not lead one to conclude that he is here merely trying a poetic exer cise. There is too much of his own life’s blood, too much of soul and deep feeling, in the stanzas to permit of any conclusion except that Byron was in earnest shielding himself to the influences of a pantheistic conception of the universe. He was indeed trying to lay hold upon something, that he might steady himself upon the brink of a perilous precipice to which life had led him. But it is true that the height and depth of the pantheistic feeling pass away. In fact, there are admissions in Canto III of the Inability to main tain the comforting fervor of the moments when he feels that draughts from nature's cup have refreshed him. He declares that as he drank from the purer font it was ’ ’but in vain!"; for Still round him clung invisibly a chain Which galled for ever, fettering though unseen, And heavy though it clanked not; worn with pain, Which pined although It spoke not, and grew keen, Entering with every step he took through many a scene.168 He found that 168 St. 9. ~ 120 this clay will sink Its spark immortal, envying It the light To which it mounts, as If to break the link That keeps us from yon heaven which woos .us to its brink. In stanzas 121-126 of Canto IV there is a virtual abnegation of the pantheistic doctrines of love and universal unity. Love is not an inhabitant of the earth: The mind hath made thee, as it peopled Heaven.-*-70 Love Is but a meteor of which death extinguishes the flame.171 Thus in Canto IV Byron has left pantheism behind^him, with the Alps. In his journal to Augusta, written during the mountain experiences of the Geneva period, Byron reveals that when his victory over the world of man seemed most complete, he really was never altogether triumphant: But in all this— recollections of bitterness, and more especially home desolation, which must accompany me through life, have prayed upon me here; and neither the music of the Shepherd, the crashing of the ava lanche, nor the torrent, the mountain, the Glacier, the Forrest, nor the Cloud, have for one moment light ened the weight upon my heart, nor enabled me to lose my own wretched Identity in the majesty, and the power and the Glory, around, above, and beneath m e . 3-72 The intense, love of nature characteristic of certain of the earliest poems continues in Byron’s last poems, although the pantheistic passages are few and not of the old Intensity. 169 St. 14. 170 St. 121. 171 St. 124. ''^-72 Letters and Journals, III, 364. 121 Concerning God in Heaven and Earth we find: Change us he may, but not o’erwhelm; we are Of as eternal essence, and must war With him if he will war with us.173 And in Don Juan Byron writes, My altars are the mountains, and the ocean, Earth, air, stars,— all that springs from the great whole, Who has produced and will receive the soul.174 Later in the same poem, however, he says, And therefore will I leave off metaphysical Discussion, which is neither here nor there.175 The earlier seriousness is gone. Byron closes one Rous- seauistic nature passage by saying that he wrote It just for variety.176 Even in Canto III of Childe Harold bitterness returns upon the poet’s spirit as he looks back at man as he Is and at his own life among them. Byron did not often write in a more bitter mood than that which breathes throughout the two stanzas appearing immediately before he returns to thoughts of Ada, to close the canto: I have not loved the World, nor the World me; I have not flattered its rank breath, nor bowed To its idolatries a patient knee, Nor coined my cheek’ : to smiles,--nor cried aloud 173 if i} i20ff. 174 III, 104. 175 xi, 5. 176 viii, 68. 122 In worship of an echo: in the crowd They could not deem me one of such— I stood Among them, but not of them— in a shroud Of thoughts which were not their thoughts, and still could, Had I not filed my mind, which thus itself subdued. I have not loved the World, nor the World me,— But let us part fair foes; I do believe, 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— That two, or one, are almost what they seem,— That Goodness is no name— and Happiness no dream.177 177 Sts. 113fi IV. CANTO IV 123 Byron and Hobhouse left Geneva in October, 1816, passing through Milan and Verona to Venice. Hobhouse left Venice in December for Rome, where he remained, except for brief excursions to Naples and other points of interest, until he rejoined Byron in Venice In July, 1817. During his absence from Byron Hobhouse was busily engaged in a study of Italian literature, especially in relation to arch eology and art. He continued this research upon his return to Venice, preparing his material so that it would be especi ally illustrative of Canto IV of Childe Harold, which Byron had already begun when Hobhouse rejoined him in July, 1817, In V e n i c e .178 Coleridge has clearly presented the debt which Byron’s poem owes to the influence of Hobhouse, con cluding that just as ’ ’the 'delicate spirit* of Shelley suf fused the third canto of Childe Harold, so the fourth reveals the presence and cooperation of Hobhouse.”179 Certainly many of the additions were suggested either directly by Hobhouse or by his research, which he had now put Into written form. The canto was ready for Hobhouse to take to London when he left Venice in January 7, 1818. It appeared in print April 28, 1818. 17^ Poetry. II, 314. !79 Ibid., II, 315. 124 Byron’s bitter judgments of men, bis sense of the shortcomings of man in general, are not so sustained .in Canto IV as In Cantos I-III. But in his evaluation of the various cantos Jeffrey overstates the case. He says: It Is a nobler creature who Is before 'us. The ill- sustained misanthropy, and disdain of the first two cantos, more faintly glimmer through the third, and may be said to disappear wholly from the fourth....180 It is true that the mood of the last canto Is for the most part brighter, less bitter, than that of the earlier cantos. It is only when the poet views Rome, much as he had looked upon the waste places In Athens, that the sweeter temper of nearly the first one hundred stanzas gives way to the old lamentings of mortality. It is Caesar’s ravaging of earth which first stirs Byron to dark reflections on the evil ways of man. Having cursed Caesar’s ’ ’one weakest weakness”— his vanity— Byron adds that the tyrant would be all or nothing— nor could wait For sure grave to level him; few years Had fixed him with the Caesars in his fate, On whom we tread: For this the conquerer rears The arch of Triumph! and for this the tears And blood of earth flow on as they have flowed, And universal Deluge, which appears Without an Ark 'for wretched Man’s abode, And ebbs but to reflow!— Renew thy rainbow, God!1**1. 180 Edinburgh Review, 30:94, June, 1818. Jeffrey seems to have forgotten that in reviewing the third canto he wrote that ”...his misanthropy... appears...more deeply rooted than before....” iS1 St. 92. 125 In approximately the ninety stanzas preceding this, Byron has discussed first Venice, and then the glory of Italy, with various cities and famous men who contributed to the nation’s greatness in the past. But Venice receives, besides Romes, the most detailed treatment of the Canto. Standing on the Bridge of Sighs the poet laments: In Venice Tasso’s echoes are no more, And silent rows the songless Gondolier; Her palaces are crumbling to the shore., And Music meets not always now the ear: Those days are gone— but Beauty still is here. States fall— Arts fade— but Nature doth not die, Nor yet forget how Venice once was dear, The pleasant place of all festivity, The Revel of the earth— the Masque of Italy’ . 182 A later stanza describes yet more darkly the fallen state of Venice: Statues of glass— all shivered--the long file Of her dead Doges are declined to dust; But where they dwelt, the vast and sumptuous pile Bespeaks the pageant of their splendid trust; Their sceptre broken, and their sword In rust, Have yielded to the stranger: empty halls, Thin streets, and foreign aspects, nuch as must Too oft remind her who and what enthrals, Have flung a desolate cloud o’er Venice's lovely walls.I°3 Thus the Childe stands, ”a ruin amidst ruins,”184 meditating on decay. 182 St. 3- 183 St. 15. 184 St. 25. 126 Although there is a certain "beauty which yet hangs over the fallen greatness of the past, the poet finds that he must strive to recreate, through the power of thought— both his and poets’ of the past--something more ideal than reality presents. The plays of Shakespeare and Otway aid in the re-creation.1&5 Thinking on the essential reality of characters from the works of these dramatists, Byron says: The Beings of the Mind are not of clay: Essentially immortal, they create And multiply in us a brighter ray And more beloved existence: that which Fate Prohibits to dull life in this our state Of mortal bondage, by these Spirits supplied, First exiles, then replaces what we hate; Watering the heart whose early flowers have died And with a fresher growth replenishing the void.l°° But even creations of the mind satisfy not: They came like Truth--and disappeared like dreams; And whatsoe'er they were— are now but so....187 If he wished, he could call them back, or create anew such as they were, but waking Reason deems Such over-weening phantasies unsound....168 In the Ode on Venice, written approximately a year after these stanzas, the lament over the perishability of things human, over the mortality of human greatness and 185 St. 4. 186 St. 5. 187 St. 7. 188 Loc. cit. 127 earthly hopes, are darker than in Canto III. The mood par takes more of the hopelessness created by the unsoundness' of the "over-weening phantasies" called up on the Bridge of Sighs. In the Ode Byron says, There is 110 hope for nations I--Search the page Of Many thousand years— the daily scene, The-flow and ebb of each recurring age, The everlasting to be which hath been Hath taught us naught or little: still we lean On things that rot beneath our weight, and wear Our strength away in wrestling with the air; For ’ t is our nature strikes us down: the beasts Slaughtered in hourly hecatombs for feasts Are of as high an order— they must go Even where their driver goads them, though he slaughter. The poet’s conclusion in Childe Harold as he mediates on Venice, as it now is, compared to what it once was, is that a kind of stoicism is wisest, an acceptance of life as we find it, an acquiescence before whatever weal or woe fate may decree: Existence may be borne, and the deep root Of life and sufferance make its firm abode In bare and desolated bosoms: mute The camel labours with the heaviest load, And the wolf dies in silence— not bestowed In vain should such example be; if they, Things of ignoble or a savage mood, Endure and shrink not, we of nobler clay May temper it to bear,--it is but for a day.190 189 II. ^6f. 190 St. 21. 128 Between the stanzas which heal with Venice and those yvhich treat of Rome the mood is the brightest in the Canto, for Byron beholds much which causes him to think of men rare in the world, whose lives he feels to rise highest a- bove the circumscriptions of mortality. First he stops at Arqua, the peaceful Euganean village where Petrarch, Laura’s lover, spent his last days. 191 Next he comes to the ’ ’ wide and grass-grown streets’ ’192 Qf Ferrara, where he thinks of the family of Este, Patron or Tyrant, as the changing mood Of petty power impelled.193 To Alfonso he addresses the following lines: ThouI formed to eat, and be despised, and die, Even as the beasts that perish— save that thou Hadst a more splendid trough and wider sty.194 Byron also dedicates lines to Dante, Boccaccio, Ariosto, and at Florence to Michael Angelo, Alfieri, G-alileo, and Machia- velli, ’ ’four minus, which. . .might furnish forth creation, ”195 whose tombs In Santa Croce's holy precincts lie Ashes which make it holier, dust which is Even in itself an immortality....196 191 sts. 30ff. 192 st. 35. 193 Loc. cit. 194 st. 38. 195 St..55. 196 st. 54. 129 Ixx Florence also Byron gives attention to the Venus de Medici, standing in tJie Tribune of the' TJffizzi Gallery. Thinking imaginatively upon the power of the mind to pic ture forth its own idealizing, Byron concludes: Glowing, and circumfused in speechless love— Their full divinity inadequate That reeling to express, or to improve-- The Gods become as mortals— and man’s fate Has moments like their brightest; but the weight Of earth recoils upon us;--let it go! 'We can recall such visions, and create, From what has been, or might be, things which gi*ow Into thy statue’s form, and look like gods below. Byron turns from Florence, and "Arno’s dome of Art’s most princely s h r i n e ,”198 to scenes and thoughts of nature, saying: For I have been accustomed to entwine My thoughts with Nature rather in the fields, Than Art in galleries....199 He roams by ’ ’Thrasimene*s lake,” and among the famed scenes where stands the temple of the Clitumnus, and where a ’ ’ Hell of Waters” ’ ’cleaves the wave-worn precipice.”200 He passes on through the ’ ’ woody Apennine--the infant Alps,” whose beauty had been greater had not the poet ...seen the soaring Jungfrau near Her never-trodden snow, and seen the hoar Glaciers of Bleak Mont Blanc both far and near-- And in Chimari heard the Thunder-Hills of fear....291 197 st. 52. 198 st. 61. 199 Loc. cit. 200 st. 69. 201 st. 73. 130 In contrast to the beautiful scenes of the woody Ap- ennlne stands Rome, She who was named Eternal, and arrayed Her warriors but to conquer— she who veiled Earth with her haughty shadow, and displayed, Until the -o’er-canopied horizon failed, Her rushing wings--0h! she who was Almighty hailed!202 Her grandeur and her glory now are gone; her eternity had been only a name: The Niobe or nations! there she stands, Childless and crownless, in her voiceless woe; An empty urn within her withered hands, 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 rlow, Old Tiber! through a marble wilderness? 203 Rise, with thy yellow waves, and mantle her distress. But this Is by no means the darkest stanza. Vsfhen Byron has recalled witn bitterness the ravages which Caesar heaped upon men, he writes; What from this barren being do we reap? Our senses narrow, and our reason frail, .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 Lest their own judgments should become too bright, And their free thoughts be crimes, and Earth have too much light;204 20$ st. 84-. 200 St* ,7?.. - 204 Sts. 93ff. 131 After this, follows a pessimistic stanza already quoted in this study.205 Men plod in misery, "rotting from sire to sonf" hnd after a life of servile futility die, be queathing to their offspring what they themselves have ex perienced. . The poet has returned to.nis earlier emphasis upon mortality, upon.the evils which have appeared wherever man has lived upon the earth. Rome is no" exception;’ it is merely a part of "one page": There is the moral of all human tales; *Tis but the same rehearsal of the past, First Freedom, and then Glory— when that fails, Wealth— Vice--Corruption,— Barbarism at last And History, with all her volumes vast, Hath but one page.,--’t is bett.er written here, Where gorgeous Tyranny hath thus amassed .All treasures, all delights, that Eye or Ear, Heart, Soul could seek— Tongue ask....206 Thus the ruins of Rome,have called up thoughts like those which the Parthenon evoked.207 As the canto progresses it becomes darker.- Byron’s thoughts are more bitter, more pessimistic, especially when he contemplates the so-called Grotte jof Egeria. At this nymphaeum Byron .meditates the vanity and futility of Love, "which dies as it.'was born, in sighing."208 Love is unable •to escape the "dull satiety which all destroys."209 Our 205 Supra, p, 14'. 206 St.' 108. 207 Supra, p. 94. T . 208 St. 119. ■ 209 Loc. cit. 132 young affections merely water the desert, that weeds and tares may come forth.210 Love Is no inhabitant of the earth: The mind hath made thee, as it peopled Heaven.211 Stanzas one hundred twenty-three and one hundred twenty-four are among the most hopeless Byron ever wrote: Who loves, raves--’tis youth’s frenzy— but the cure Is bitterer still, as charm by charm unwinds Which robed our idols, and we see too sure Nor Worth nor Beauty dwells from out the mind’s Ideal shape of such; yet still It binds The fatal spell, and still it draws us on, Reaping the whirlwind from the oft-sown winds; The stubborn heart, Its alchemy begun, Seems ever near the prize— wealthiest when most undone. We wither from our youth, we gasp away-- Sick— sick; unfound the boon— unslaked the thirst, Though to the last, in verge of our decay, Some phantom lures, such as we sought at first— But all too late,--so are we doubly curst. Love, Fame, Ambition, Avarice--'tis the same, Each idle— and all ill— and none the worst— For all are meteors with a different name, And Death the sable smoke where vanishes the flame.212 These stanzas show Byron’s apostasy from the idealized love » and feelings of his pantheistic moments in Ganto III. Life is no longer harmonized into a beautiful Whole which every- 213 where tells a story of love: ”0ur life Is a false nature..v” And even when the poet boldly champions his right to reason and to think, he confesses that 210 St. 120. 211 St. 121. 212 Sts. 123ff. 213 St. 126. 133 from our birth the Faculty divine Is chained and tortured— cabined, cribbed, and c onl* ine d... £14 Turning to the Colosseum, Byron, amidst its ruins, offers his’ famous prayer of vengeance to Nemesis. He him self, for some reason which he wishes not to state, has not taken vengeance for what he has suffered since his separa tion from Lady Byron; but he would that Nemesis awake to vengeance for him, and pile on human heads the mountain of my curse.”215 The curse is to be Forgiveness. In the light of the tone which precedes the pronouncement of the nature of the curse, one is surprised,— and not too strongly convinced of the success of the effort to forgive, although one may confess the effort to be genuinely made. Self-pity, a little too strong, and the tinge of bitterness with which Byron recalls his suffering and insults suggest that his forgiveness must have a period of growth before it can accomplish its full ideal. When Byron has described the feelings aroused by Saint Peter's Church and the Vatican, he asks; 214 St. 127. 215 St. 134. 134 But where Is lie, the Pilgrim of my Song, The Being who upheld it through the past? Me thinks he cometh late and tarries long. He is no more--these breathings are his last— His shadow fades away into Destruction’s m a s s . 2 l 6 And, in remembering the Childe, he recalls that the mass of destruction into which he fades away gathers shadow— substance--life and all That we inherit in its mortal shroud,217 and there remains but A melancholy hal© scarce allowed To hover on the verge of darkness— rays Sadder than saddest night, for they distract the gaze, And send us prying into the abyss, To gather what we shall be when the frame Shall be resolved to something less than this— Its wretched essence.... It is enough in sooth that once we bore These fardels of the heart— the heart whose sweat was gore.218 Byron has called in the Childe, to part with him after all these years of wandering and sighing together. Also there must be a farewell to the reader.219 Byron says to his com panion in wandering: 216 St. 164. 217 St. 165. 218 St. 165f. 219 The closing stanzas have already been sufficient ly studied. Supra, pp. 74ff. 135 Yet not In vain our mortal race hath run— We have had our reward— and it is here,-- That we can yet feel gladdened by the Sun, And reap from Earth--Sea— joy almost as dear As If there were no Man to trouble what is c l e a r .220 In the last two lines of this stanza, are brought together what have been presented in this study as the two control ling themes of the entire poem— man’s troubling of earth’s peace and happiness and nature’s eternal beauty, with Its A- power to comfort one who is conscious of the evils of mor tality. Byron would ’ ’forget the human race,” and in a desert— that is, only In nature’s presence— love only ’ ’one fair Spirit,” Augusta or such an o n e .221 He now would en joy the pleasure of the pathless woods and the wild sweep of the dark blue ocean. Eight years of wandering has tired the Pilgrim, and the poet, of earth’s ’ ’dingy denizens”222 and the ’ ’vile strength” they wield "for Earth’s destructioli. ” ”Assyria--Greece— Rome— Carthage” have perished: "their decay has dried' up realms to deser^,” but the sea Is un changeable, save to the "wild waves’ piayI”224 The ocean is 223 st. 180. 224 st. 182. 136 Dark-heaving--boundless, endless, and sublime— The image of Eternity— the throne Of the Invisible....225 Attention has already been called to Wilson’s praise of Byron's insight in bringing the poem to so fitting a c l o s e .226 jn iast eleven stanzas the main threads of thought which throughout the poem have woven the patterns, have been brought together in such a way that the earlier effects are made beautiful in reminiscence, yet contribute to the blended and harmonized effect of the closing scene of thought and song. The themes which from the beginning have controlled the pitch and tone of the music, swell at ✓ the close into a beautiful concord of blended notes, which do not fade softly away, but remain, ringing in the reader's mind with a fullness of tone sustained and imperishable. The Pilgrim, who has been so often sick over scenes of mor tality which constantly proclaim vanitas. vanitatum, and who has so often turned to the beauty and eternity of nature as an escape from what he has seen and known, is left in the pathless woods, with the sound of the changeless and eternal deep ringing in his ears. 225 St. I83. 226 sUpra. pp,. 77ff. But before leaving Cliilde Harold, one must, in fair ness to Byron and to the poem, point out a certain bright ness and hope which flicker faintly throughout the poem, al though almost obscured by the more constant darkness of lamentations upon mortality. Although Byron.has perceived throughout his wanderings an ugliness in the common history of man, a history in which each page is largely a repetition of all others, he has found a few men whose heroism gives hope to all men, even to Byron himself, that in spite of man’s "cabined, cribbed, and confined" condition, in spite of the recalcitrant forces of evil within, which restrain from highest achievement, one may yet achieve usefulness of life and enduring greatness. Men die and are forgotten; monuments the most enduring waste away, or their significance is forgotten; nations once strong are crushed into nothing ness: such are the laws of mortality. But Byron finds one thing that perishes not. He puts it this way, as he stands among the ruins of Athens: Thy fanes, thy temples, to thy surface bow, Commingling slowly with heroic earth, Broke by the share of every rustic plough: So perish monuments of mortal birth, £27 So perish all in turn, save well-recorded Worth... 138 Byron was always thrilled by earth's few who lived valiant ly and well. And it seems that even in his blackest periods of gloom and misanthropy there was always a latent conscious ness of man's ability to do deeds which transcend the limi tations most common to mortality, deeds which in the reality of effect can never perish. As we shall see more in detail later,228 it was this realization of the imperishability of "well-recorded Worth" which caused Byron to answer the deep yearnings for true greatness within himself which drove him to the full sacrifice on the altar of freedom in Greece. 228 Infra> pp> 267ff. CHAPTER V MANFRED I. INTRODUCTION Manfred ana C a m , both, or which are special studies in mortality, are Byron’s most poetic ana most dramatic present ations ol* the limitations of man, or man’s Inability to fathom life’s mysteries, of his frustrated efforts to achieve an un derstanding of the nature and essence of life. In both dra matic pieces man’s inability to attain unto a knowledge which is a road to happiness leads to deep despondency. Cain is the greater production, chiefly because Byron aehieves'In it a more universal appeal. Manfred's character is so unusual and his particular problem is so personal that much of the reader's Interest is turned upon him and the meeting or his own neeas, rather than upon characteristic limitations of the human mind. Tnis particularization of interest prevents Manfred’s being so symbolical or humanity as a whole as is Cain. let Manfred throughout emphasizes the "cabined, crib bed, confined" nature of this "state of mortal bondage."1 By his diction In Manfred, Byron has skilfully foc used attention upon questions or mortality. The word mortal appears eighteen times in the three brief acts of the dramatic 1 Childe Harold. IV, 5. 140 poem, and mortality is found four times. Death, often cap italized, appears thirteen times, dead four, and forms of die twelve. Manfred is often called T , Son of mortals,” ."Child of Clay,” "Son of Earth," and men are referred to as "Creatures of Clay.” Other words and phrases recurring often are olay(9), dust(3), grave(4), worm(4), fatal(4), earthly ills, cooped in clay, epitaph, decay, perish. It is obvious that Byron has consciously chosen words which increase the dominant stress upon mortality. Besides the effect achieved through diction, a dis tinct emphasis upon mortality is found in certain striking speeches scattered throughout the play. Manfred, alone upon the cliffs before the Jungfrau, soliloquizes: How beautiful is all this visible world I How glorious in its action and in itself! But we, who name ourselves its sovereigns, we, Half dust, half deity, alike unfit To sink or soar, with our mixed essence make A conflict of its elements, and breathe The breath of degradation and of pride, Contending with low wants and lofty will, Till our Mortality predominates, And men are--what they name not to themselves, And trust not to eachoother.2 One recognizes immediately the contrast between man and na ture so often iterated in Childe Harold and earlier poems. In a later scene the Witch of the Alps tells Manfred that he foregoes the gifts of great knowledge which the spirits 2 I, ii, 37ff. 141 can afford him, and "shrink'st back to recreant mortality."3 The First Destiny, in a colloquy of spirits, says of Manfred: ...His sufferings Have been of an immortal nature— like Our own; his knowledge, and his powers and will, As far as compatible with clay, Which clogs the ethereal essence, have been such As clay hath seldom borne; his aspirations Have been beyond the dwellers of the earth, And they have only taught him what we know--■ That knowledge is not happiness, and science But an exbhange of ignoranch for that Which is another kind of ignorance.4 When Manfred is disappointed, at the disappearance of Astarte, a spirit says: He is convulsed— This is to be a mortal, And seek the things beyond mortality.5 The emphasis upon mortality in these speeches will be:in tensified through a study of the characters and action of the dramatic piece. II. ANALYSIS OF CHARACTER AND ACTION In the poem the figure of Manfred predominated. ; All ■ centers in him. In this respect Manfred is Marlowesque; but it is more definitely Greek. Manfred has the bigness, the epic sweep of passion, and the concentration of action common 3 II, ii, 25f. 4 II, iv, 331. 5 II, iv, 57f. 142 to classic Greek drama. Analysis or the dramatic piece should Degin with and center around a study of Manfred’s char acter. Two characteristics in Manfred are especially sig nificant: (1) his eternal yearning to ’ ’comprehend the Uni verse,” and (2) his sense of superiority to other men. Manfred’s yearning to pierce through the veil which obscures the mysteries of the universe has evidently Deen with him for years before the opening lines of the play. The search for a satisfying knowledge has been long, in tense, but fruitless. The search has not increased happi ness. In the opening soliloqqy Manfred confesses the fu tility of his strivings: 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 assayed, and in my mind there is A power to make these subject to itself- But they avail not: I have done good to men, And I have met good even among men— But this availed not....6 But confession of inability to pierce the veil does not quench Manfred’s insatiable thirst. He would strive, even against futility. In his thirst to know, he is a harbinger of Cain, in whom, more strongly than in Manfred, Byron illustrates the inability of mortals to solve the mysteries of life. 6 1, i, 9ff. 143 . -> But Manfred’s present deep grief and remorse, as well as his yearning ror oblivion, come from the fact that in his search for knowledge he took into his "fatal embrace” Astarte, who, like Manfred, had "a mind to comprehend the Universe.”? Just what relationship Astarte had to Manfred is not made clear. It appears to have been incestuous.^ Manfred tells the Chamois-hunter: I say ’tis blood--my blood I 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....° Later Manfred says to Nemesis: . It were - The deadliest sin to love as we have loved. 0 Manuel tells Herman that Astarte was the ’ ’only thing” Manfred loved, 1 1 As he, indeed, by blood was bound to do.... Thus Manfred’s and Astarte’s blook kin is established. Manfred’s description or her would•suggest that they were brother and sister: 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; 7 II, ii, HOf. 8 Incest appeared earlier in The Bride of Abydos. 9 II, i, 24ff. 10 II, iv, 122ff. 11 III, iii, 4b. 1 4 4 But softened all, and tempered into beauty: She had the same lone thoughts and wanderings, The quest for hidden knowledge, and a mind To comprehend the Universe....12 Just how Manfred destroyed Astarte is uncertain. He states clearly that he did not kill her with his hand, but with his heart, which broke hers.13 It seems that her death, if indeed she died, occurred at an "all-nameless hour,"14 obviously the hour the events of which Manuel is beginning to recount to Herman when the Abbot appears. Herman tells of Manuel’s speaking darkly...of an event Which happened here abouts, by this same- tower.15 The "event" happened when only Manfred and Astarte were in the tower.15 Byron purposely mystifies the reader concerning both the identity and the nature of the death of Astarte. Samuel C. Chew thinks that Astarte was not in real ity dead, but dead only to Manfred.17 His conclusion is based on three passages: Manfred’s words about "heaven, where thou art not,"18 Manfred’s indication that Astarte is 12 II, ii, 105ff• 13 II, ii, 118ff• 14 I, i, 24. 15 III, iii, 42f. 15 £»oc» cit. 17 Infra. p. 337. 18 II, i, 29f• 1 4 5 now a sufferer for my sins,"19 and Manfred*s desire that Nemesis uncharnal "one without a tomb."20 Over against these lines may be set many which seem to point to real death* We have quoted the line which says that blood was shed.21 The "all-nameless hour" and the "event" suggest that her death took place in the tower when she was alone with Manfred* When the Hunter asks Manfred to "pledge" him, Manfred replies that there is "blood upon the brim,"22 blood that colors the clouds and shuts Manfred out from heaven.23 It is the cause of the guilt and remorse which rack Manfred’s soul and produce his desire for oblivion* When Astarte is called up, Manfred*s words suggest that she comes from the land of the physically dead* In his address to her after her appearance he says: ...The grave hath not changed thee more Than I have changed for thee*24 Manfred’s words,"A sufferer for my sins,"25 which Chew quotes may indicate that Byron wrote Manfred with the Catholic con cept of Purgatory in mind, as Manfred’s words to Astarte sug- 19 II, ii, 196. 20 II, iv, 82* 21 Supra, p. 143. 22 II, i, 21. 23 II, i, 29. 24 II, iv, 119f. 25 II, ii, 196. 1 4 6 gest: "Say that...thou wilt he one of the blessed...."26 Thus it seems that Astarte is really dead, and that Manfred is at least responsible for her destruction. One wonders if, as Elze suggest^7the spirits of evil so enticed Manfred through promises of satisfying his thirst for knowledge that he was induced to sacrifice Astarte in the "event" of the "all-nameless hour," though his own hand shed not her blood. Such a crime would explain the bitter depth of Manfred's grief and the intensity of his remorse. But whatever the crime, and whatever the biographical signif icance, Manfred's thirst for knowledge led him to destroy the - one whom he loved most. And her destruction seems related to the desire of both herself and Manfred to "comprehend the Uni verse." But still Manfred turns, as Byron himself turned in vain in Ohilde Harold, to nature, to the "Spirits of the un bounded Universe,"2® to seek comfort there. By a "written charm" and by the "strong curse" which is upon his soul he summons up spirits which symbolize the power and beauty of the universe4 They are spirits seven,— of "Earth— ocean— air— night— mountains— winds— thy Star,"22- representing the most 26 II, iv, 124ff. 27 oifr *» P*-47. 28 I, i, 29. 29 I, i, 132. - / 1 4 7 powerful and most striking elements of nature. The spirits, whom Manfred wishes actually to see in bodily formf^ them selves are circumscribed— they cannot give him forget fulness, his greatest boon; but the seventh spirit disap pears and returns in the form of a "beautiful female figure." _ — 31 Edgcum.be believes that she is Astarte;* Coleridge says 32 that she is not Astarte, but the "subject of the ’Incantation*" Chew concludes that Coleridge’s theory is not "plausible,"33 and that Edgcumbe’s "would be an inartistic anticipation of the 34 climax of the drama." Chew himself ventures that the apparition "is an indistinct reminiscence of "das sehonste Bild von einem Weibe,’ which Faust sees in the Witch’s mirror," and that whereas Faust’s vision is sensual, Manfred’s is "a fleeting glimpse of the Ideal towards which in youth he had 36 striven, but which had long since vanished." ' Chew sees here the influence of Shelley’s Hymn to. Intellectual Beauty and 37 Epipsvchidion. Conjecture concerning the identity aiid mean- 30 I, i, 75. £2* sit • > P* 293. 3^ Poetry. IV, 91, note 2. 33 Op. cit., p. 176. 34 T . hoc. Clt. 35 Ibid.» P* I?7* 3® Loc. cit. 37 Loc. cit. 1 4 8 Ing of the lady is hazardous. Chewfs theory seems to be in keeping with the feeling and mood of Manfred; Edgcumbe’s is somewhat supported by the words "And we again will be— .”38 Manfred*s experience with the spirits further discour ages and depresses him: The spirits I have raised abandon me, The spells which I have studied baffle me; The remedy I recked of tortured me; I lean no more on superhuman aid....39 This appears to be a further denial of the earlier pantheis- 40 tic enthusiasm. The material elements of the universe have given no wisdom. Later Manfred tells the Witch of the Alps: The face of earth hath maddened me, and X take refuge in her mysteries, and pierce To the abodes of those who govern her— But they can nothing aid me....41 Manfred’s "Mortality predominates."42 But Manfred’s yearning drives him on, a yearning not so much to "comprehand the Universe" as to behold Astarte and speak with her, "to wake the dead" or be laid "low with them.”4® He calls the Witch of the Alps into his presence, 38 I, i, 191. 39 I, ii, iff. 40 See supra, p. 115. 41 II* ii, 39ff• 42 I, ii, 45. 43 n f ii, i52# V 149 telling her of his destruction of Astarte, which came because with his knowledge "grew the thirst of knowledge."44 In his search for forgetfulness even his "long pursued and super human art is mortal...."4^ The Witch agrees to hid him, if he will swear obedience, Manfred refuses proudly, and as the Witch expresses it, "shrink*st back to recreant mortality."4® Still seeking Astarte, and yet desiring to understand things as they are, Manfred finds himself in the Hall of Arimanes, where are present the Destinies, Nemesis, and other spirits, preparing fpr a feast. The spirits increase Manfred*s sense of mortality. They call him "Child of Earth,"47; They cry out, "Crush the worm."4® One Destiny says to another: His aspirations Have been beyond the dwellers of the earth, And they have only taught him what we know— That knowledge is not happiness, and science But an exchange of ignorance for that Which is another kind of ignorance.49 But they call up Astarte, to whom Manfred speaks at length the anguishcof his soul, and by whom he is forgiven, if Astarte*s 44 II, ii, 94f* 45 II, ii, 148f• 46 II, ii, 125f• 47 II, iv, 34. 48 II, iv, 49. 49 II iv, 58ff• * * 150 last "Manfred" is properly interpreted to have in it the full ness of Astarte*s sweetness and tenderness. At the disappear ance of Astarte, Manfred is for a moment "convulsed." A gloating spirit says; ...This is to be a mortal, And seek the things beyond mortality.50 But Manfred has learned from Astarte what is confirmed by the spirits,— that tomorrow he shall die; he can now make his tor ture "tributory to his will."51 Manfred’s knowledge that his death will be on the mor row calms and comforts him; There is a calm upon me— Inexplicable stillnessI which till now Did not belong to what I knew of life. If that I did not know Philosophy To be of all our vanities the moPliest, The merest word that ever fooled the ear From out the schoolman’s jargon, I should deem The golden secret, the sought "Kalon" found, And seated in my soul. It will not last, But it is well to have known it, though but once; It hath enlarged my thoughts with a new sense, And I within my tablets would note down That there is such a feeling....52 Thus at the end Manfred does not understand life and its pur poses. He has no confidence in human power to "comprehend the Universe." He rejects twice, though with sympathy,the 50 II, iv, 152 51 II, iv, 160 52 III, i, 9ff proffered help from religion by the Abbet of St. Maurice. He cannot believe in eternal punishment for sin, saying that hell would be "crimes punished but by other crimes, and great er criminals."53 He banishes the spirits of evil, finding it "not so difficult to die,"54 though he dies without solving the mysteries which have lain about him all his life. A second characteristic of Manfred, as mentioned above, is his high pride, his feeling of superiority toward others of his kind. Chew calls this quality of Manfred's personality the Promethean, or Titan, element, but he points out that "in Manfred there is nothing of the high self- sacrifice of Prometheus, who suffers, Christ-like, for the sake of men, that through his solitary an guish and perpetual war, the sum of human wretched ness may be rendered less."56 Manfred's dimensions are tremendous, but not so superior to others as he would have them, or as he really thinks they are. There is within him a high disdain for men as he sees them, for the mortality which everything human proclaims; but within him also, especially at the end, there is for men a genuine sympathy, which often prevails over his disdain. When the Chamois-hunter advises Manfred to turn to holy men 53 III, iv, 123. 54 III, iv, 151. 55 Supra, p.i&2» and the comfort of religion, Manfred retorts: Preach it to mortals of a dust like thine,— I am not of thine order.5? Manfred tells the Witch of the Alps that from his youth his spirit has not walked. with the souls of men, Nor looked upon the earth with human eyes....58 Yet Manfred, though when a mortal crossed his path he ’ ’was cq all clay again,” was one with men, ’ ’hating to he so.”''5 7 To the Abbet Manfred further insists: I disdained to mingle with A herd, though to be leader— and of wolves. The lion is alone, and so am I.60 Manfred is proud of his power gained over spirits, feeling his superiority to them. To a spirit of the earth he says: Slaves, scoff not at my will! The Mind,— the Spirit— the Promethean spark, The lightning of my being, is as bright, Pervading, and far darting as your own, And shall not yield to yours, though cooped in clay!®-*- He disdains the Witch’s offer of service on condition that he "swear obedience": 57 II, i, 37f. 58 ii, ii, 50f. 59 II, ii, 76. 60 III, i, 121ff. 61 I, i, 153ff. Obeyl and whom? the Spirits Whose presence I command, and be the slave Of those who served me— NeverI62 He also refuses to bow to Arimanes; but he will bow with him to worship the "overruling Infinite— the Maker."6® The spirits recognize that "this man is of no common order," and that "his knowledge, and his powers and his will...have been such as clay hath seldom borne."64 At the end Manfred banishes the spirits who would carry him away: I have commanded Things of an essence greater far than thine, And striven with thy masters. Get thee hence. Manfred1s superiority over evil spirits, his refusal to bow to them or to enter into a pact with them Chew believes to be one of the controlling motifs of the poem.66 Chew has pointed out the obvious spiritual rise of Manfred through 67 three stages. First there is the colloquy with the Witch of Atlas, then the visit to the Hall of Arimanes, and finally the closing scene, in which Manfred disdainfully disperses the spirits merely by the power of personality which makes effective his order of banishment. Chew correctly says that 6£ II, ii, 158ff. 63 xi, iv, 47. 64 XT, iv, 51f. 65 m f iv, 84ff. 1 5 4 although there is a quick decline to death after the scene with Arimanes, there is a continued spiritual rise, which reaches its height in the dispersal of the fiends, which is followed by the words, "Old Man, *tis not so difficult to die."®8 Thus, as Chew further states, Manfred "had the strength of Promethean pride which can make his tortures ’tributory to his will* and can wrench a victory from death."89 But Chew also emphasizes Manfred’s strivings to trans cend the limitations of mortal knowledge, which we have dis- 70 cussed at length. Chew stresses Manfred’s "ceaseless quest after knowledge."71 He says further concerning Manfred: "He trusts in the strength of mind to attain a spiritual revela tion of the masteries of the universe."72 Following this sen tence is Chew’s interpretation of Arimanes and his "crew" as "the flaming walls of the world within which his cabined ample spirit is penned, and against which he rebels...." ° Having pointed out that "Byron centers Manfred’s inquiry upon the mystery of Death, because Death is the very type of the un known," Chew states: "Inquiry is fruitless; he reaches the 68 III, iv, 151. 69 cit-» P- 75- 70 Supra. pp.l42ff. 71 Op. cit.. p. 79 72 cit. 73 See supra. p.2. 155- boundaries of human nature and human knowledge, and finds 74 there the nothingness of it all.” Chew further says that "the Manfred— idea is that knowledge brings trouble and un happiness."7^ This emphasis is one of the chief in the drama There is rather striking irony in Manfred’s wish to transcend the intellectual limitations which circumscribe all mortality and in his inability to learn more than those whose presence he has, in proud superiority, spurned on earth. In spite of the fact that "his aspirations have been beyond the dwellers of the earth," he has not extended his knowledge in any significant way beyond theirs. He has only learned That knowledge is not happiness, and science But an exchange of ignorance for that Which is another kind of ignorance.76 He has come to know that Philosophy is "of all our vanities 171 7 the motliest."'' His experiences with forbidden lore have not enabled him to pierce beyond the limits of mortality: "They avail not."78 Manfred dies as all men die, but with less fear than many, though he has lived with uncommon striv ings and aspirations. He, like Cain, was unhappy because he 7Q would not have a "contented knowledge." v 74 On.oTt., p . 80 75 Ibid.. p. 81. 76 II, iv, 61ff. 77 III, i, 9f. 78 I, i, I7. 79 III, i, 50. In fact, the whole tenor and nature of the poem demon strates that the tragic "flaw" lies in Manfred’s inordinate thirs.t for knowledge, in his inability to adjust himself to things as they are, without, of course, accepting things that need not be. Several speeches emphasize Manfred's weakness, a weakness which is in reality part of the strength of his unusual personality. The Abbot, when Manfred has refused him upon his first visitation, soliloquizes: This should have been a noble creature: he Hath all the energy which would have made A goodly frame of glorious element, Had they been wisely mingled; as it is, It is an awful chaos— Light and Darkness- And mind and dust--and passions and pure thoughts Mixed, and contending without end or order,-- All dormant or destructive.80 Manfred himself confesses, "I could not tame my nature down.”* Earlier he said: Like the wind, The red-hot breath of the most lone Simoom, Which dwells but in the desert, and sweeps o’er The barren sands which bear no shrubs to blast, And revels o’er their wild and arid waves, And seeketh not, so that it is not sought, But being met in deadly,— such hath been The course of my existence; but there came Things in my path which are no more.82 80 III, i, 159ff 81 III, i, 116. 82 III, i, 117ff The Chamois-hunter, finding Manfred upon the mountains and hearing the nature of his existence, says: This is convulsion, and no healthful life.83 In the conversation which follows this line, Manfred recog nizes the superior peace and beauty of the creature like whom he has disdained to be. When the hunter asks him what he looks upon, he replies; Myself, and thee-a peasant of the Alps— Thy humble virtues, hospitable home, And spirit patient, pious, proud, and free; 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 grandchildrenTs love for epitaph! This did I see-and then I look within— It matters not— my Soul was scorched already!84 This speech is obviously inspired by the same biographical elements as the Ada-Stanzas of Childe Harold III?3 It springs from the same inward yearning for the quietness and beauty of home,86 for which Byron had longed since the stormy scenes of his youth, a longing which contradictory elements of Byron’s constitution seemed to make it impossible for him to satisfy. The home scenes of Cain are a more detailed expression, born out of Byron’s "home desolation." Had Manfred tamed his 85 II, i, 43. 84 II, i, 63ff. 85 sts. 115ff. 86 Cf*, infra, p. £16. 1 5 8 nature down, it would have meant an acceptation of mortality, with all of its limitations; it would have meant an accepta tion of the Chamois-hunter*s dictum: But whatsoe’er thine ill, It must he borne.87 Byron defended his "moral" in Cain: he could have de fended it in Manfred, for it is essentially the same. Manfred is not presented as a pattern of happiness. He himself would advise that the tree of knowledge is not that of life. His own life he would not recommend to others, though it seemed to him that his fate drove him to be just what he was. The play forcefully emphasizes the necessity of one’s determining that one’s energies and elements shall be ’ ’wisely mingled," that certain rebellious elements of human nature shall be tamed down, somewhat as Cain predicted would have taken place had Abel lived and his offspring been joined with Cain’s.88 Thus Manfred throughout, in addition to being a dramatization of the power of human will, is a treatment of mortality; it emphasizes the futility of seeking "the things beyond mortal^ ity."8^ It is the treatment of a theme which Cain is to ela borate, with the elaboration intensifying both the sense of 87 II, i, 40f. 88 Cain. Ill, i, 556f. 89 II, iv, 158. 1 5 9 mortality and the wisdom of a certain stoical acceptation of an adjustment to "things as they are.” CHAPTER VI CAIN I. INTRODUCTION In Cain, as has been pointed out,l mortality receives its deepest treatment, serving as motivation for the catas trophe, In a stanza in Childe Harold, Byron has given a most adequate and effective statement of the theme developed in Cain: 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; 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.2 Byron proceeds to say that this fire, this ’ ’fever at the core,” makes ’ ’the madmen who have made men mad by their contagion, ”3 whose ’ ’breath is agitation..., their life a storm.”4 - Various critics have recognized in Cain the fire and fever of insatiate thirst for knowledge, the rebellion which comes from aspirations which exceed realization, a sense of rebellion which proves to be the tragic flaw in 1 Su£ra, p. 14. 2 III, 42. 3 St. 43. 4 st. 44. 161 Cain's character. Helene Richter says concerning Cain: "Selbstflberhebung treibt zur selbstvernichtung.”5 She says further: "Dieses ewige Warum, dieses Fragzeichen hinter allem und jedem ist ein Fluch, schon vor der Tat. Cains Wissbegier will zu hoch hinaus."6 Richter recognizes that Cain’s consciousness of the limitations of mortality moti vates his activity: "Seine Kleinheit ist ihm zum Bewusstsein gekommen und treibt ihn zur Auflehnung."7 Gerard, who has made one of the most admirable studies in Byron, says that "the tremendous 'but with me.' ’ of Cain expresses not merely the burden of his own punishment but the burden of the mystery of the human spirit ever distracted between its aspiration and its destiny."0 Gerard states further: Manfred, as a Hamlet-like soul, is interesting to men, but Cain is the race itself, and his ruin the ruin of mankind. The poem is at once the mythus of the human mind that thirsts vainly for an apprehended good; the drama of its Paradise-re-lost...."9 Gerard believes that in Cain aspiration turns back on itself, creating an "eddying madness" in his brain and causing him to slay what he feels is "injustice momentarily personified."10 5 Lord Byron: Personlichkeit und Werk, p. 390. 6 Ibid., p. 392. 7 Ibid., p. 394. & William Gerard, Byron Re-studied in His Dramas, p. 97. 9 Ibid., p. 93« 10 Loc. cit. 162 These critics in these statements have suggested the approach to a study of Cain which enables one best to understand the agonies of Cain, the ironic subtleties of Lucifer, and the sources of the tremendous dramatic power of the drama. On the other hand, this analysis will attempt to show that certain interpretations of the message of Cain which have become traditional are erroneous. Furthermore, these traditional interpretations have caused both the critics interpreting and those following them to be unable to per ceive and appreciate the greatest sources of power in the poem and the great and conscious skill of Byron as a writer. The full power of the drama can be appreciated only when, one is aware of Lucifer’s subtle effort to incite Cain to revolt by impressing him with his mortality. Brandes, as pointed out early in tnis study, has well worded the basic interpretation whicn tnis study undertakes to show as false. His words are: This Lucifer is no devil. He says himself: She covets evil For its own bitter sake? None— nothingl ’tis Tis tne leaven of all life, ana lifelessness. Nor is ne a Mephistopheles. Except for one faint Jest, he is severely earnest. No! this Lucifer is really the bringer of light, the genius of science, the proud and defiant spirit of criticism, the best friend of man, overthrown because he would not cringe or lie, but in flexible, because, like his enemy, he is eternal. fie is tne spirit of freedom.H H Georg< Brandes, cfp. cit. , p. 316. 163 Samuel E. Chew studies the play entirely in the light of this interpretation by B r a n d e s .12 Donner agrees that Lucifer should be considered as the ’ ’Genius von Wahrheit. ”13 Mar- jarum believes concerning the studies by Chew and Brandes that ”it is unlikely that anything yet to be undertaken will supersede them. ”14- Marjarum goes so rar as to say that "by rejecting entirely the traditional indentification of Lucifer with evil he (Byron^) implied a complete break with historic Christianity.”15 The following analysis of the drama will show that Byron does not reject to any considerable degree the identification of Lucifer with evil, but that on the contrary he sees Lucifer as thoroughly evil, evilly set upon destroying Cain and those closest to him. It is only when Lucifer Is viewed in this light that the Mephistophelean mockery, denied by Brandes, is evident, and m e truly dia bolical nature of certain subtly Ironic speeches is discern ible. Kicnter has seen more clearly: ”Als Wahrheitsbekenner Ist Luzirer ein Erzfeind aller Heuchelei und Verlogenheit, doch vor Trligschlussen hat er nicht den gleichen Abscheu. Dadurch wird der LIchtbrihger zum Teufel.”16 12 Op. cit., ch. VTI. Op. cit., p. 192. .14 Op. cit., p. 33, note 37. 15 Ibid., p. 33. •> P* 590. II. INCEPTION 164 Before, however, a detailed, analysis of the drama is entered into, a history of the inception of the theme will reveal how long and deep had been Byron's interest in the study of Cain, both as a problem in theology and phil osophy ana as a subject for dramtic treatment. R. W. Babcock, in an inadequate study of the ’ ’Incep- tion and Reception of Byron’s Cain,” writes: On January 28, 1821, Lord Byron wrote in a diary: “Pondered the subjects.of four tragedies to be written (life and circumstances permitting), to wit, Sardana- palus, already begun; Cain, a metaphysical subject, something in the style of Manfred, but in five acts, perhaps with the chorus...” At the bottom of the same entry appeared a jotting: ’Memoranda What is poetry?.......The feeling of a Former world and Future. Thought Second ’Why, at tne height of desire and human pleasure... does there mingle a certain sense of doubt ana sor row. ..? 1 allow sixteen minutes to any given or sup posed possession. From whatever place we commence we know where it must end. And yet, what good is there in knowing it? It does not make men better or wiser. ...It is all-a mystery. I feel most things, cut I know nothing, except...’ Here tne manuscript has several pen scratches, or better, jabs, and then Byron suddenly continues: ’Thought for a Speech of Lucifer, In the Tragedy of Cain: 165 Were Death an evil, would I let thee live? Fool! lire as I live--as thy father lives ■ And thy son’s sons shall live for evermore.’17 To Mr. habcock, "In this peculiarly shirting sequence of thought lies the seed ol* Gain, sown six months before Byron set pen to paper....”18 put in reality the seed of Cain was sown much earlier. Shelley wrote to a friend in England concerning Byron: "He had conceived Cain many years ago, and he had already commenced writing it when I saw him last year in Ravenna."19 To Medwin Byron said, "I always thought Cain a fine subject."20 Be felt that not even Faust was so great. Cain was a "grand mystery." While Byron was a small boy, his German tutor read to him Gessner’s Per Tod Abels, "crying out his eyes over its pages."21 Byron’s general impression was "delight".22 In the preface to Cain he says that he remembers "only that Cain’s wife was called Mahala, and Abel’s ThirzaJ’23 rather difficult names, one feels, to be the only recollections from a poem at times striking in circumstance, deep and moving in -*-7 "Inception and Reception of Byron’s Cain," South Atlantic Quarterly. 2b:178f, April, 1927. H°c♦ cit. 19 Letters, II, 959. 20 Thomas Medwin, Journal of the Conversations of Lord Byron, p. 125. 21 H i d . , P. 129. 22 Poetry, V, 2091 23 Loc. cit. 1 6 6 passion. Coleridge suggests that Byron’s memory was ’ ’clearer 24 than he imagined.” Richard Ackermann, in a review of The Prisoner of Chillon and other poems, writes: ’ ’Die Ersch- einung Cains in den Dichtungen Byron’s ist ubrigens ebenso vielfach zu finden, wie diejenige-des Wandering Jew in denen 25 Shelley’s.” Examples of such appearances are: But look— ’tis written on my brow! There read of Cain the curse and crime. 6 He reared me, not with tender help, But like the nephew of a Cain.2” By thy delight in others’ pain, And by the brotherhood of Cain.28 As will be seen as this study progresses, reminiscent of Lucifer's advice to Cain and of his attitude toward the ruler of the heavens are certain lines in Byron’s Prom etheus, paraphrased from Aeschylus: Titan! to whose immortal eyes The sufferings of mortality, Seen in their sad reality, Were not as things that gods despise; And the inexorable Heaven, And the deaf tyranny of Fate, The ruling principle of Hate, Which for its pleasure doth create The things it may annihilate, Refused thee even the boon to die: 24 Poetry. V, 200. 2^ Anglia Beiblatt. 8:21, May, 1897. 26 T M Giaour. Ill, 1057f. 27 The Bride of Abydos. II, 686f. 28 Manfred. I, i, 248f. 167 Like thee, Man is in part divine, A troubled stream from a pure source; And Man in portions can foresee His own funereal destiny; His wretchedness, and his resistance, And his sad unallied existence: To which his Spirit may oppose Itself--an equal to all woes— And a firm will, and a deep sense, Which even in torture can descry Its own concentered recompense, Triumphant where it dares defy, And making Death a Victory.29 There are other lines to which Babcock could have re ferred, some of which we shall give, that Byron's Interest in Gain as a subject can be clearly seen. In a poem written in 1808, entitled To a . Lady, there appears the following stanza: When Man, expell’d from Eden*s bowers, A moment linger’d near the gate, Each scene recall’d the vanish’d hours, And bade him curse his future fate.30 One remembers Cain's words: ...Before the gates round which I linger oft, In Twilight's hour, to catch a glimpse of those Gardens which are my just inheritance....31 Two years after To A Lady Byron wrote The Spell is Broke, The Charm is Flown: 29 21. Iff. 30 st. 1, Poetry, I, 282. 168 The spell is broke, the charm is flown! Thus is it with Lire’s fitful fever: We madly smile when we should groan; Delirium is our best deceiver, ii'ach lucid interval of thought Recalls the woes of Nature's charter; But He who acts as wise men ought, But lives--as Saints have died— a martyr. The ’ ’ woes of nature's cnarter”— toil, sweat, suffering, death— produce the anguish and wondering of Cain’s mind.32 At about the time Byron was writing the two preceding poems he wrote to Hodgson: ”1 am like Adam, the first convict sentenced to transportation, but 1 have no Eve, and have eaten no apple but what was sour as a crab....”33 When Harold leaves England, he has the "curse of Cain” upon him: Life-abhorring G-loom Wrote on his faded brow curst Gain's unresting doom.34 Most of this Babcock overlooks, or ignores; but he does point out that seven years before beginning Cain Byron wrote, ”My good and evil are at perpetual war,”35 and that one month after completing the drama he lamented: Man is born passionate of body, but with an innate, though secret, tendency to the love of Cod in the Mainspring of his Mind. But God help us all! It is at present a sad jar of atoms.36 In anticipation of further treatment, later, of the relation- 31 I, i, 86ff. 32 See infra, /pp Ztl 7X£f. ^ letters and Journals, I, 230. 34 i, «3. 35 Babcock, op. pit., p. 188. 36 Loc. cit. 169 slilp between Cain's experiences and Byron's own, we merely mention Coleridges' statement that Byron "bad passed that way. "37 The possibilities, then, oi the plight ol* Cain as material for dramatic treatment had long been in the poet's 4 mind. III. ANALYSIS OB CHARACTER AND ACTION A. Introduction to Cain In order to enable the reader to follow clearly the Intricacies of thought and emotion within the chief figures, an analysis of Cain must be detailed and chronological. As much of the actual text of tne drama must be presented as will reveal the subtleties of interchanged thought and the reactions to newly-presented intellectual and emotional Is# ' stimuli. In the very opening lines of the poem, Byron effectively focuses the reader's attention upon the protagonist, making definitely certain that Cain is tne center of interest. More over, at the same time he clearly projects the nature of the difficulties of mind and soul with which he is to deal. Cain's rebellious spirit, born out of his consciousness of mortality, Is impressed upon the reader’s mind: ^ Poetry, V, 201. 170 The Land without Paradise Time, Sunrise Adam, Eve, Cain, Abel, Adah, Zillah, offering a Sacrifice. Adam. God, the Eternal1 Infinite! All-wise I - Who, out of darkness on the deep didst make Light on the waters with a word— All hail! Jehovah! with returning light, All hail! Eve. God! who didst name Morning from night, till Who didst divide the Part of thy work the Abel. God! who didst the day, and, then divided separate never— wave from wave, and call firmament--All hail! call the elements into Earth--ocean— air— and fire, and with the day And night, and world which these illuminate, Or shadow, madest beings to enjoy them, And love both them and thee--All hail! All hail! Adah. God, the Eternal partent of all things! Who didst create these best and beauteous things, To be beloved, more than all, save thee-- Let me love thee and them:--All hail! All hail! Zillah. Oh, God! who loving, making, blessing all, Yet didst permit the Serpent to creep in, And drive my father forth from Paradise, Keep us from further evil;--Hail, All hail! Adam. Son Cain! my first—born-wherefore art thou silent? Cain. Why should I speak? Adam. To Pray. Cain. Have ye not prayed? Adam. We have, most fervently. Cain. And loudly, 'I Have heard you. Adam. And so will God, I trust. Abel. AmenI Adam. But thou, my eldest born? are silent still? Cain. ’Tis better I should be so. Adam. Wherefore so? Cain. I have nought to ask. Adam. Nor aught to thank for? No. Cain. Adam. Dost thou not live? Cain. Must I not die? Alas! Eve. The fruit of our forbidden tree begins!1 ' " To fall. Adam. And we must gather it again. Oh, God! why didst thou plant the tree of know ledge? 171 Cain. And wherefore pluck’d ye not the tree'of life? Ye might have then defied him. Adam. Oh! my son, Blaspheme not: these are Serpent’s words. Cain. Why not? The snake spoke truth: it was the tree of knowledge; It was the tree of life: knowledge is good, And life is good; and how can both "be evil? There he is! Cain, the first rebel! A defiant dissenter! A lone non-conformer! He stands ’ ’among them, but not of them-- in a shroud of thoughts which were not their thoughts.”3# Well might he cry with Harold: ”1 stood and stand alone."39 How clearly Byron has cut him out from the crowd, in stubborn isolation! In part, the causes, of Cain’s non-conformance are in troduced in these opening lines; as the drama develops they are revealed in detail. Though we learn them later, they have been always in his mind. To Lucifer’s first long speech, he replies: Thou speak’st to me of things which long have swum In visions through my thought.... 40 The first of Cain’s.complaints, in our order of considering them, is that in the sweat of his brow he must eat his bread. When he is left solus , his wail is: ; And this is Life!--Toil! and wherefore should I toil?41 3s Childe Harold, Illy. 113. 39 III, 112. 40 i, i, i67f. 41 x, i, 64f. 172 A few minutes later to Lucifer he complains: I feel the weight Of daily toil....42 God is one "who bids the earth yield nothing to us without sweat...."43 Little Enoch is to inherit and transmit a fated life of toilsome labor.44 After his journey with Luci fer Cain says to Adah: I have toil’d, and till'd and sweaten in the sun According to the curse.43 In Gessner’s poem toil and sweat affect Cain even more; and one can feel that Byron’s remembrance of his German reading is in this instance ”clear." Early in that work Cain sighs: "Qpand jfai supporte' bien des fatigues pendant le jour, mes membres lasses demandent le repos, & des le matin le travail m’attend dans les champs.”4® Later Thirza says: "...II regrette les travaux qu'il lui faut supporter pour rendre ses champs fructueux....”47 Weighing more heavily on Cain’s mind than toil is 42 I, i, 184f. 43 I, i, 184f. 44 III, i, 122ff. 45 III, i, 109f. 46 Salomon Gessner, La Mort D’Abel. p. 21. 47 Ibid., p. 278. 173 the suffering which those who spring from his loins must endure, myriad myriads of them unto thousands of generations. It is a thought which drives him almost to desperation. The loveliness of his children, and his own tenderly paternal heart intensify his agony: My little Enoch! and his lisping sister! Could I but deem them happy, I would half Forget— but I can never be forgotten Through thrice a thousand generations! never Shall men love the remembrance of the man Who sow’d the seed of evil and mankind In the same hourl^S They plucked the tree of science And sin— and, not content with their own sorrow, Begot me--thee--and all the few that are, And all the unnumber'd and innumerable Multitudes, millions, myriads, which may be, To inherit agonies accumulated By ages!--and I_ must be sire of such things! Thy beauty and thJEy love--my love and joy, The rapturous moment and the placid hour, All we love in our children and each other, But lead them and ourselves through many years Of sin and pain....49 As he travels through ethereal regions with Lucifer, he pleads in deepest mental misery: Of.» Who, of all ages to succeed, but feeling The evil on him brought by me, will curse My head! Ill fare our ancestor impure, For this we may thank Adam. (Paradise Lost, X, 733ff.) 49 I, i, 1+38?f. Here let me die: for to give birth to those Who can but suffer many years, and die— Me thinks is merely propagating death, And multiplying murder.50 He cannot away with the thought! It continually recurs, haunting his every hour, each time to create greater bitter ness. The lovely innocence of his sleeping son, contrasting so sharply with multiplied agonies of future men as Cain's minds sees them, maddens the father until, to Adah’s con sternation, he breaks forth: Little deems our young blooming sleeper, there, The germ of eternal misery To myriads is within him! better ’twere I snatch’d him in his sleep, and dashed him 'gainst The rocks, than let him live to— .51 With good dramatic judgment, Byron introduces Cain’s chief complaint first. When Adam asks, ’ ’Dost thou not live? Cain replies, ’ ’ Must I not die?”52 Death! Death! Death! this is his constant cry. The ’ ’mystery of death” is his per plexi'ng problem. Of the tree of knowledge ’ ’all the fruit is Death!”53 When Cain says, ”1 live,” his next breath brings, ’ ’ But live to die.... ”54 50 II, i, 68f f. Cf., All that I eat or drink, or shall beget Is propagated curse, (Paradise Lost, X, 728f) 51 III, i, 122ff. 52 I, i, 29. 53 I, 1, 108. 54 x, i, 109f. 175 Cursed be He who invented Life that leads to Death!55 The mystery is not merely the why but the what.56 ■Cain's conception of death is as of a person: L. Darest thou look on Death? C. He -has not yet Been seen. L. But must be undergone C. My father Says he is something dreadful, and my mother Weeps when he is named; and Abel lifts his eyes To Heaven, and Zillah casts hers to the earth, And sighs a prayer; and Adah looks on me, And speaks not.57 55 ii, ii, I8f. 5° Concerning Cain’s ignorance of the nature of death Jeffrey subjoined an interesting note to his review of the drama: It may appear to be very prosaic, but it is certainly a very obvious criticism on these passages, that the young family of mankind had, long ere this, been quite familiar with the death of animals— some of whom Abel was in the habit of offering up as sacrifices: so that it is not quite conceivable that they should be so much at a loss to conjecture what death was. (Edinburgh Review 36*440, note). These words by Jeffrey are not so prosaic as he suggests. They are the statement of an obvious truth, one which looms always in the mind of the reader. In fact, one must have indeed a "willing suspension of disbelief" throughout the drama, es pecially ‘ in the death scene, to enjoy any tragic experience at all. Without this Ignorance of death, simulated by Byron for his characters, Zillah’s cry over her husband’s prostrate form, "Adah, come hither! Death is in the world," would have been more successfully tragic. The death of the first human being is sufficiently adaptable in itself to tragic treatment, with out mystification. Thus the emphasis upon Cain’s incredible ignorance of death must be confessed a weakness of the drama. 57 I, i, 249ff. 176 Several speeches later Jae adds: . . .Although I know not what it is. Yet it seems horrible.58 I have look’d out In the vast desolate night in search of him; And when I saw gigantic shadows in The umbrage of the walls of Eden, chequer'd By the far-flashing of the Cherubs’ swords, I watch’d for what I thought his coming; fob With fear rose longing in my heart to know What *twas that shook us all— but nothing came.59 Thus his question to Lucifer is ’ ’ What is death?”60 Although Cain says, ”1 know nought of Death,”61 yet he feels that it is ’ ’something dreadful. ”62 He has of It a ’ ’thousand fears. ”63 Cain's world, then, Is one in which he must toil and in which his offspring must toil even more; in which he must suffer and give birth to "myriad myriads” whose agonies will be far greater; in which there are the Inevitable and constant fears of a mysteriously dreadful death. But tragedy of trage dies I it has not always been so. Adam and Eve have related the story of the fall. There was once no sweat of toil, no snock of pain, no fear of death. That place of happiness now is behind the walls, before whose gates spirits ’ ’daily wave " zrgL Cf., So near grows Death to Life, whate'er Death is, Some dreadful thing no doubt. (Paradise Lost, IV, 425**. ) 59 i, I, 269ff. 60 i, 284. 61 II, I, 60f. 62 i, xf 252. 63 II, ii, 129. 177 their fiery swords,"64 gates around which Cain lingers oft "in Twilight's hour," to catch a glimpse of those gardens which he feels are his "just inheritance."65. a view of Eden, the paradise which once his father knew, he would, with . deepest longing, steal, Ere the night closes o'er the inhibited walls And the immortal trees which overtop The Cherubim-defended battlements.^o Thus between what he suffers and what he would enjoy there is merely a wall. But "fire-armed angels" make that wall impregnable. Wherein lies the cause of man's ejection from that paradise, ejection xvith inhibited return? Cain knows too well! There stood two trees within the garden, one of know ledge, one of life, the fruit of the former forbidden upon the curse of death. Eve had eaten, then Adam. Then came expulsion, to be followed by sweat and suffering, and finally death. Cain's reaction to this information Byron gives in a few lines of soliloquy: 54 I,■i, 84. 65 1, i, 86f. 66 1, i, 88f f.■ Cf., And higher than that Wall a circling row Of goodliest Trees loaden with fairest fruit. (Paradise Lost, IV, 14&f.) 178 Why did he Yield to the Serpent and the woman? or, YIelding--why suffer? What was there in this? The tree was planted, and why not for him? If not, why place*him near it, where it grew, The fairest in the centre? They nave but One answer to all questions, "T’was his will, And he is good." How know 1 that? Because He is all-powerful, must all-good, too, folllow? I judge but by the fruits--ana they are bitter-- Which I must feed on for a fault not m i n e .87 The question, then, is the why and wherefore of human suffer ing— the age-old problem of good and evil, with a corollary question of uhe sins of parents visited upon their children. Why is the mortal state just what it is? All but Gain have, ostensibly, ceased to be disturbed by the philosophic aspects of the situation. They feel within that "omnipotence must be all g o o d n e s s ."88 Theirs Is a Stoical acquiescence to "what is"--a feeling-belief that some way, seemingly incomprehensible to man, "What was good, shall be good, with, for evil, so much good more."89 As if to show by the very weakness of the example his own disgust with Adam’s defense of evil in the world, Gain tells Lucifer: I lately saw A lamb stung by a reptile: the poor suckling Lay foaming on the earth, beneath the vain 67 I, i, 69ff. 88 x , I, 390f. 89 Robert Browning, Abt Vogler. 179 And. piteous Dieating of its restless dam; My father plucked some herbs, and laid uhem to The wound; and by degrees the helpless wretch Resumed its careless lire, and rose no drain The mother’s milk, who o’er it tremulous Stood licking its reviving limDs with Joy. Behold, my son I said Adam, how from Evil Springs Good17^ When offering his sacrifice, Abel prays, Sole lord or Light I Of good, and glory, and eternityI Without whom all were evil, and with whom Nothing can err except to some good end Of thine omnipotent benevolenceI Inscrutable, but still to be fulfill’d.... ” Yet there is evidence that they all, possibly except Abel, have at times thought the thoughts of Cain. Eve tells Cain, ’ ’Thou speakest as I spoke in sin, before thy birth. ”72 she adds, ”1 have repented.”73 Adam, though in submission, still would know, ”0h God I why didst thou plant the tree of knowledge?”7^ Zillah remembers, even in her prayer that God 70 II, ii, 289ff. Byron may have remembered Bayle's example: ”If you say that God permitted sin to manifest His wisdom, which shines the more brightly by the disorders which the wickedness of men produces every day, then it would have done In a state of innocence, it may be answered that this is to compare the Deity to a father who should suffer his children to break their legs on purpose to show all the city his great art in setting their broken bones; or to a king who should suffer seditions and factions to Increase through all his kingdom, that he might purchase the glory of quelling them...This is that doctrine- of a Father of the Church who said, ’ ’ Felix culpra quae talem Re- demptorem meruitt’” (Quoted in Poetry, V, 250.) 71 III, i, 231ff. 72 I, i, 39f. 73 i, i, 4i. 7^ I, i, 32. 180 • ’ ’didst permit the Serpent to creep in,” and drive her father ’ ’forth from Paradise. ”75 A lingering bitterness remains at times in Adah’s words: But all we know of it has gathered Evil on ill; expulsion from our home, And dread, and toil, and sweat, and heaviness; Remorse of that which was— and hope of that Which cometh not.78 To her, evil spirits come' to ’ ’tempt us with our own dissat isfied and curious thought.”77 When Lucifer advises Adah, ”...Ask your own heart; it is not tranquil?”, she replies, ’ ’Alasl no!...”78 All four have had their troublesome question ings, which lie beneath, pushed down in acquiescence, yet still bursting through at times, when the mouth speaks spon taneously the abundance of the heart. Thus the difference between Cain and the rest is not that he has had questions different from theirs. He has not acquiesced. There lies the difference. In fact, Byron-has, by these up-croppings from the minds of Adam, Eve, Adah, and Zillah, given a universality to the distresses of Cain’s soul. And indeed the problems troubling Cain have always engaged the minds of thoughtful men. The History of philosophy bears 75 x, i, 19f. 76 it i, 357ff. 77 I, i, 402. . 78 x, i, 483f. witness. Pre-socratic philosopher, although dominantly natural istic, and concerned almost entirely with cosmology, has yet Heraclitus, with his doctrine of the eternal flux of things torn between strife and peace; Empedocles, with his doctrine of conflicting elements ruled by love and hate; and Pythagoras with a moral philosophy tending to despise the world and look at life as a conflict of good and evil. And after Socrates one finds grappling with the question such brilliant and rep resentative minds as Plato, Aristotle, Epicurus, Epictetus, Plutarch, Philo of Alexandria, Plotinus, Maniehaeus, August ine, Thomas Aquinas, and Calvin, to bring the matter no fur ther than the Renaissance. These have tried to cut the G-ordian knot in various ways: some have pronounced evil a non-being; others have seen two principles in eternal con flict, one producing good, the other evil; others, with materialistic views, seeing an evil and ill design in the world, view everything as the result of cnance; and yet others, intuitively committed to a monistic philosophy, confess the existence of evil, admit their inability fully to comprehend the causes of its existenoe, yet cling ten aciously to their belief in an eternal, all-wise, and com pletely benevolent creator--God. Origen says, "If there be any difficult question, it is certainly that of the 182 origin of evil."79 Bayle himself has given what to many Christians is the answer: ...The best answer which can naturally be made to the question, Why aid God suffer man to sin? is to say, "I do not know: I believe only that he had reasons for it, becoming his infinite wisdom, but which are inconceivable to me.80 Even Heber, who in his review attacked Cain with bitter in vective, confessed? "The origin of evil itself is among those secrets of Providence which, if they do non surpass our present faculties, are, at least, not as yet communicated to us."81 Many minus have achieved a Job-like submission, fully persuaded that God is good, and in some way "does all things weil." Submission of this type is that of Adam, Eve,. Abel, Zillah, and Adah. They ail believe in Omnipotent benevolence! Inscrutable, but still to be fulfilled!82 But not so with Cain. His mind is a tumult of con flicting ideas, constantly stirred to greater storms by his strivings, strivings best expressed in his own words: "I 83 never could reconcile what 1 saw with what 1 heard." With Intense passion he exclaims, "I thirst for good."84 He 79 Quoted in Pierre Ba3^1e, "Paulicians, " A General Dictionary, III?,' 1226. 80 Ibid., 8:227. 81 Quarterly Review, 27:523, July, 1822. 82 m 3 i} 235f. 83 I, I, lb8f. 84 1X^ ±1^ 183 would reconcile ills natural yearning lor tne good and the beautirul— his intuitive feeling that ’ ’omnipotence must be all goodness”85--with the evil which blasts the lives of all his. people, and promises greater desolation as the world grows older. His great problem is the why and wherefore of mortality. Life, with evil, is a mystery, when life could have continued free from evil had creation’s 'laws been dif ferent, had no tree been planted. Thus comes his cry, ’ ’ Let me but be taught the mystery of my being.”88 Since the fruits ’ ’are bitter”, he would know why. His constant desire is, ”1 would know! I would know!” And in his knowing he would find a unity of essence, that unity sought by every philosophic mind which has wrestled with the problem of good and evil. Concerning God and Lucifer his wish is: Would there were only one of ye! perchance An unity or purpose might make union In elements which seem now jarred in storms.87 His mother’s advice.is, ’ ’Content-.thee -with what Is_.’ ’88 But 85 I, i, 390f. 86 I, i, 321f. 87 II, II, 37?ff. 88 I, I, 45- Cf., Bound to earth, he lifts his eye to heaven Is’t not enougn, Unnappy Things, to know thou art? (Childe Harold, II, 4.) 184 it is vain advice to sued a spirit as Cain’s. He would understand ’ ’ what is”: But tiiou canst not Speak aught of Knowledge, which I would not know, And do not thirst to know, and bear a mind To know.89 As he sails with Lucifer through ’ ’unimaginable ether”, ’ in toxicated with eternity”, he bursts forth: Oh God I uh Gods! or whatso’er ye are! How beautiful ye are! how beautiful Your works, or accidents, or whatsoder They may be! Let me die, as atoms die, (If that they die), or know ye in your might And knowledge! My thoughts are not In this hour Unworthy what I see, though my dust Is: Spirit! let me expire, or see them nearer.90 Cain, then, even at the opening of the drama, is of deeply troubled mind. His efforts to understand have been futile, because of limitations common to man. Toil, suffering, and fear of death, frustrating life which once knew only good and would know it still, blighting even the lives of those who ate not of the tree, have presented problems which a ’ ’frail child of clay” can not answer! It is not with earth, though I must till it, I feel at war, but that I may not profit By what it bears of beautiful untoiling, . Nor gratify my thousand swelling thoughts 89 I, i, 247ff. 90 xit I, llOff. 185 With, knowledge,91 nor allay my thousand fears Of death and life.92 And being unable to gratify his swelling thoughts, he wails: Were I quiet earth, 'That were no evil. Would I never had been Aught else but dust 193 If he cannot know, he is ready for the dreaded death. More over, he is also ready to know, even if the knowing bring death: ’ ’ And let me perish, so I see them I C'the two Princi ples.) ”94 Gerard writes: ' ’Cain's mind of large discourse* apprehends an injustice in his fate, but may not a larger knowledge solve it?”95 But, as Jeffrey says in reviewing the 96 drama, he is not seeking mere knowledge; he seeks knowledge, in his own words, "as being the road to ha p p i n e s s I”97 B* Influence of Lucifer This is the state of Cain's mind when Lucifer finds him outside the garden walls. And alas I he meets him ”in an evil hour.” But it is Lucifer’s business so to meet _ _ Italics not in original. 92 i i, ii, 125ff. 93 I, i, 290ff. 94 II, ii, 408. The passage concerning the Two Principles--good and evil--were seized upon by Byron’s ^ critics who would hurl at him charges of Manichaeism. 95 William Gerard, o j d. cit. , p. 95* 96 Edinburgh Review, 36:329, February, 1822. 97 11, ii, 230f. him. He is careful to appear just when Cain's mind is struggling hardest, in the vain futility of "dust". In the moment before Lucifer approaches, Cain, in soliloquy, has asked: "...Wherefore should I toil?"98 "...Why suffer?"99 Later he enquires, "Why place him near it, where it grew, the fairest in the centre?"100 ’ ’ Because he is all-powerful, must all-good, too, follow?"101 These are his questionings. The stage is set. Lucifer's cue has come; and he is about his business, seeking whom he may devour. Cain wants know ledge; Lucifer poses, ironically, as the oracle which "knows the answers." Interrupted in his.soliloquizings, Cain asks: Whom have we here?--A shape like the angels Yet of a sterner and a sadder aspect Of spiritual essence: why do I quake? Why should I fear him more than other spirits, Whom I see daily wave their fiery swords If I shrink not from these, the fire-armed angels, Why should 1 quail from him who now^approaches? Yet— he seems mightier far than them, nor less Beauteous, and yet not as beautiful As he hath been, and might be: sorrow seems Half of his immortality. And is it So? and can aught grieve save Humanity? He cometh.102 98 I, i, 65. 99 i, i, 7i. 100 I, i, 73f. 101 I, i, 76f. 1°2 I, i, SOff. 187 Indeed lie cometh! It is not our purpose here to give a detailed compari son of Byron’s Lucifer and Milton’s Satan; yet an association in one’s mind between them is inevitable. Although Lucifer is ’ ’not all as beautiful as he hath been,” he is yet ’ ’beaut eous”. 103 Adah pleads: ’ ’FiendI tempt me not with beauty; thou art fairer than was the Serpent....”104 In fact, Luci-. fer’s beauty, though diminished, is still such that Adah says further: I cannot abhor him; I look upon hiin with a pleasing fear, And yet I fly not from him.. . . • He awes me, and yet draws me near, Nearer, and nearer:— Gain— Cain--save me from him!105 Of Milton’s Satan we read: Likest Gods they (Michael and Satan) seem’d, Stood they or moved, in stature, motion, arms.... 0 Heaven! that such resemblance of the Highest Should yet remain.... ...Darken’d so, yet shone Above tnem all til’ Arch Angel.... 106 1°3 I, i, 94f. 104 i, ±t 392f. l°5 1, i, 407ff. 106 These quotations are from Paradise Lost, VI, 301f; Vl,5!Mf; I, 599f. 188 When Cain tells Lucifer, "Thyself, though proud, hast a superior", Lucifer retorts: No! by Heaven, which he Holds, the abyss, and the immensity Of worlds and life, which I hold with him— NoI I have a Victor--true; but no superior Homage he has from all--but none from me. I battle it against him, as I battled In highest Heaven--through all Eternity, And the unfathomable gulfs of Hades, And the interminable realms of space, And the infinity of endless ages, All, all, will I disputeJ.107 The reader will remember that Satan is determined, ...To wage by guile or force eternal War, Irreconcileable to our grand foe....108 Lucifer would be Aught above— beneath— Aught save a sharer or a servant of His power.109 Satan believes that To reign Is worth ambition, though In hell. Better to reign in hell, then serve in heaven.HO Both would identify themselves, through sympathy, with man: Lucifer. Spirits and Men, atljbast we sympathize.m Satan. League with you I seek And mutual amity so strait, so close....H2 107 II, ii, 425ff. 108 Paradise Lost, I, 121f. 109 Cain, I, i, 305ff. lie Paradise Lost, I, 262f. 111.Cain, I, i, 157. 112 Paradise Lost, IV, 375f. These passages, with their parallels, are introduced here be cause they present the qualities which attract Cain, and give him a confidence, though a "quaking" confidence, in Lucifer. If Cain, in order to gain the knowledge for which he thirsts, is to yield himself to a tutor, that tutor must have an eminence of personality and at least an apparent independence of mind. But all other qualities of Lucifer’s being are sub servient to one characteristic— his guile and craftiness. "He was a liar from the beginning." And Byron makes him dominantly so in this dramatic piece, although at times he uses him to voice his own rebellion against certain dogmas of his religious contemporaries. Critics go astray when they make the identity between Cain and Lucifer too strong. It is true that Cain is now outside Paradise and Lucifer outside heaven; it is true that both suffer because of their exclusion it is true that Cain has wondered concerning the tyranny of Divinity, and that Lucifer increases and darkens that wonder ing. But here the parallel ends. Lucifer has brought his condition upon himself. Cain had no choice concerning Para dise; he was born outside it. Cain is essentially good; Lucifer is thoroughly evil. Even his sympathy with Cain is largely simulated. Though he may, as Gerard says, show "in voluntary touches of magnanimity and pity", these are "the Insidious traits of a spirit which by the very nature of its 190 being seeks to involve others in its loss.”H 3 Evil is always his good. The reviewer of Harding Grant’s Notes on Gain writes: ”So here, Lucifer’s end was, to entrap Cain, and get him. ..body and soul for himself. "114 And Lucifer, per ceiving so well Cain’s nature, knows that he can best ensnare Cain by depressing him with an increased consciousness of mor tality. It is only when the poem is read with this in mind that all the characteristic subtlety of Lucifer and the deeper intricacies of the dramatic development can be apprec iated. This, then, is the nature of the creature who approaches Cain. It is to such a creature that he says, ’ ’Wilt thou teach me all?’ ’H 5 The irony is bitter! The results are tragic! But we run before ourselves. First the teacher must be seen at his teaching. Lucifer’s first word is significant: ’ ’ Mortal. ”116 Hidden in that word is the malignant purpose of the fiend. He is determined to depress Cain by urging the mortality of humanity. To this first word he is to add clay, dust, noth ing, and death. Often, with design, he uses them casually, but Cain’s mind, turned as it is, is always affected by them. 113 U£. cit., p. 95. 11# Fraser’s Magazine, 3:288, April, 1831. H 5 I, i, 301. II6 I, i, 98. To Lucifer’s salutation, Cain replies, ’ ’Spirit, who art thou?”; and the dialogue continues; L. Master of Spirits. C. And being so, canst thou Leave them and walk with dust? L. I know the -thoughts Of dust, and feel for it, and with you. C. HowI You know my thoughts? L. They are the thoughts of all Worthy of thought;— ’tis your immortal part Which speaks within you.If7 Thus Lucifer’s first psychological statement is ’ ’and feel for it, and with you.” Cain's is a lonely soul; and Lucifer knows the nature of loneliness. He knows that there is an affinity between understanding minds. Thus Cain is attracted: ...My Adah ...understands not The minds which overwhelm me; never till Now met I aught to sympathize with me. The tragic irony of Lucifer's reply is pure diabolical sub tlety . And hadst thou not been fit by thine own soul For such companionship, I would not now Have stood before thee as I am....H® How true I But how great the mocking discrepancy between what these words mean to Cain.and what Lucifer knows they mean! It is a speech worthy of Shakespeare’s Othello. And who thinks not of Iago when reading the words of the reviewer in Fraser’s ’ ’...The suggestions of Lucifer are but as the echoes of the 117 I, i, 99ff. 118 I, i, 192ff. 192 thoughts of Cain?"H9 Having expressed his sympathy, Lucifer, on the hasis of this sympathy, would urge Cain to continue his thought, the thinking of his "immortal part.”- This part, he tells Cain, "wilt he no less than thou art now!"120 He already knows that Cain’s reply will be, "No Less I and why not more?" But Adam’s G-od made such clay. Lucifer would have done a better job. When Cain asks, "What art thou?", the answer is: One who aspired to be what made thee, and Would not have made thee what thou art.121 With this skillful beginning, Lucifer proceeds, still per fectly sure of Cain’s state of mind, to argue the tyranny of God. Seraphs sing of love because they are afraid to sing the hate which they really feel.122 When Cain asks what Seraphs fear to become, Lucifer replies in a speech full of "things which long have swum in visions"123 through Cain’s thoughts: 119 Frazer’s Magazine. 3:293, April, 1831. 120 j f i} H8f. 121 I, i, I26f. 122 i, i} I32f. 123 I, i, I67f. 193 Souls who dare use their immortality— Souls who dare look the Omnipotent tyrant in His everlasting face, and tell him, that His evil is not good! If he has made, As he saith— which I know not, nor believe— But, if he made us— he cannot unmake; We are immortal!— nay, hefd have us so, That he may torture:— let him! He is great-- But, in his greatness, is no happier than We in our conflict! Goodness would not make Evil; and what else hath he made? But let him Sit on his vast and solitary throne— Creating worlds to make eternity Less burdensome to his Immense existence And unparticipated solitude; Let him crowd orb on orb: he is alone Indefinite, indissoluble Tyrant; Could he but crush himself, ’twere the.best boon He ever granted: but, let him reign on! And multiply himself in misery! Spirits and Men, at least we sympathize— And, suffering In concert, make our pangs Innumerable, more endurable, By the unbounded sympathy of all— With all! But He! so wretched in his height, So restless in his wretchedness, must still Create, and re-create--124 Lucifer had- prepared for this long speech when he denied be ing a God. To be called such would insult hira! When Lucifer says, "I would have made ye Gods," he still is playing upon a soul which he understands. But "the other God", did he not thrust ye forth, so thrust ye Because "ye should eat the fruits of life, And become gods as we." Were those his words?125 The consummate art of the creature! 12if I, i,143ff. 125 I, l, 203ff. 194 ...Then who was the demon? He Who would not let ye live, or he who would ■ Have made ye live for ever, in the joy . And power of Enowledge?126 After denying being the "snake’ ’, 127 and after mentioning with the inward delight of malignity the thousand ages which will roll over Gain's "dead ashes,"128 Lucifer returns to the mortal's puzzling problem, working upon his mind until Cain confesses that he believes that God "makes but to destroy. "129 Thus the victim is brought back to his earlier despondency, wishing he had ne’er been "aught else but dust."130 Lucifer reminds him that this is a "grovelling wish”, less than Adam’s, "for he wished to know!"131 Having mentioned death, he now with equal skill suggests know, fanning the flame which has so often burned high within the heart of Cain. Lucifer feels that this is the time to offer the Mephistophelean contract. But Cain is not Faust. He proudly rejects, saying the he never has bowed even to his father’s God.132 The first act 126 I, i, 207ff. 127 in the Preface Byron wrote: "If he Quuclfer} dis claims having tempted Eve in the shape of.the Serpent, it is only because the book of Genesis has not the most distant allusion to anything of.the kind...." (Poetry. V, 210}. 128 I, i, 23!3ff. 129.1, i, 2b7. 130 I, i, 291f. 131 1, i, 2y2f. 132 I, I, 3l0ff. Cf. , Manfred. II, iv. 195 closes after Adah comes, pleading with Cain to choose hove rather than Knowledge, and after Lucifer has told Cain; if thou dost long for Knowledge, 1 can satiate That thirst; nor ask thee to partake of fruits Which shall deprive tnee of a single good The conqueror has left thee.' follow me. 133 Adah’s lament, ”CainI My brotherI Cain I” ,134 is Byron’s device for suggesting that ner husband’s choice may bring tragic consequences. It is a forecasting of the later em phasis upon ’ ’tragic flaw” in Cain, his inordinate thirst to know. In Act II, scene I, Lucifer leads Cain amidst the innumerable spheres of the heavens, on his way to show him the history Of past— and present, and of future worids.135 When Cain sees a small blue circle, swinging in far ether, vvith an inferior circlet purpler it still, 136 Lucifer informs him that it is the "dust which formed” his father. In aery realms lighted by heavenly bodies, Lucifer asks Cain how he should feel if all these were worlds greater than his own. The reply is characteristic: !33 I, i, 558ff. 134 i, i, 562. 135 II, i, 24f. 136 n > i, 291. 196 I should be proud of thought Which knew such•things.137 If Heber had studied carefully Lucifer’s next speech, he possibly would never have written: ”It Is not easy to perceive what natural or rational object the Devil proposes to himself in carrying his disciple through the abyss of space.”13& But If that high thought were Linked to a servile mass of matter— and, Knowing such things, aspiring to such things, And science still beyond them, were chained down To the most gross and petty paltry wants, All foul and fulsome, and the very best Of thine enjoyments a sweet degradation, A most enervating and filthy chest, To lure thee on to the renewal of Fresh souls and bodies, all foredoomed to be As frail, and few so happy 139 Thus Byron continually suggests to the reader’s mind that Lucifer’s purpose is to lead the spirit of Cain to a darker despair, to a fuller consciousness of mortality. Gain would know the ’ ’Gods” In their ’ ’might and knowledge’ .*. 1^-0 But Lucifer reminds him: ...thou Shalt soon return to earth, and all its dust: ’Tis part of thy eternity,, and mine.141 And again; 137 ii, i, 49f. - 138-0|>, cit. , 27: 513- 139 II, i, 5Off.. 140 II, i, H 4 f . 141 II, i, 148ff. 197 But thou art clay— and canst but comprehend That which was clay, and such thou shalt behold.H2 And that he might behold, he leads him to the Hadean world. Cain’s comment is, ’ ’ All here seems dark and dreadful.”143 Outside the gates of Hades they converse: C. 'Tis darkness I L. And so shall it be ever--but we will Unfold its gates 1 C. Enormous vapours roll Apart— what is this? L. Enter I C. Can I return? L. Return! Be sure: how else would Death be peopled? Its present realm Is thin to what It will be, Through thee and thine, H I Lucifer will not permit a consciousness mortality ever to escape from Cain's thought. Cannot Heber yet understand? May not one see as one runs? Once inside the gates, and beholding the realms of death, Cain cries out, "Cursed be he who invented Life that leads to ’Death! "H5 He sees "mighty phantoms. . .floating around," which H 2 II, i, 164f. H 3 i t , i, 190. H I II, i, 9?ff. lfr5 II, ii, 18f. 198 bear not The wing of Seraph, nor the face of man, Nor form of mightiest brute, nor aught that is Now breathing.146 But to Cain’s amazement, they once lived upon the earth! "Destruction and disorder," "rare in time," but "frequent in eternity," "struck a world to chaos."147 When Cain asks concerning the Iladean creatures, "And must I be like them?”, Lucifer says: Let He who made thee answer that. I show thee what thy predecessors are, And what they were, thou feelest, in degree Inferior as thy petty feelings and Thy pettier portion of the immortal part Of high intelligent and earthly strength. What ye in common have with what they had Is Life, and what ye shall have--death! the rest Of your poor attributes is such as suits Reptiles engendered out of the subsiding Slime of a mighty universe, crushed into A scarcely-yet shaped planet,'peopled with Things whose enjoyment was to be in blindness--- A Paradise of Ignorance, from which Knowledge was barred as poison. But behold What these superior beings are or were; Or, if It irk thee, turn thee back and till The earth, thy task— I’ll waft thee there In safety.148 146 II, ii, 56ff. 147 II, ii, 80ff. Q£Mais ces pays aujourd’hui habites, et que la derniere reVolution a mis a sec avaient deja ete habite's auparavant, si non par des hommes du moins par des animaux terrestres: par consequent une revolution proce'dente, au moins, les avait mis sous les eaux; et, si l’on peut en juger par les diff^rens ordres d’animaux dont on y trouve les depouilles, Us avaient peut-Htre subi jusqu’a deux ou trois irruptions de la mer. [Cuvier, Discours sur les revolution’ s de la surface du globe, 1825, 282). In Letters and Journals, V, 367f. 148 -ggff. 199 Typically ironic are the words "if it irk thee.” Surely it irks, deeply Irks. It was so designed. Add to tnis Lucifer’s advice, ”Be content; it will seem clearer to tnine immortality. ”14-9 To help Cain be "contented,” he informs him that his present "state of sin...and of sorrow,” are both Eden In all its innocence compared to what Thou snortly mayst be; and that state again, In Its redoubled wretchedness, a Paradise To what thy sons' sons, accumulating In generations like to dust (which they In fact but add to), shall endure and do.— Now let us back to earth.150 A tender spot has now been touched! Cain asks: And wherefore didst thou Lead me here only to inform me this?151 Lucifer's reply is that Cain, seeking knowledge, now has it. Evil "...must still roll on the same, a part of all things.”153 Within the glorious orbs of heaven "distant, and dazzling, and innumerable,” he Is persuaded "ill cannot come.”154 "They are too beautiful.”15 5 And Adah is too beautiful. But Lucifer insists that all beauty "must pass away In them and 149 II, Ii, 176f. 150 II, II, 221ff. 151 II, ii, 228f. 152 11, ii, 236f . 153 H H ii, 238. 154 A H H II, 242ff. 155 H H ii, 245- 200 her."156 If it be true, Cain is "sorry for it," but cannot conceive his love for her tne less. But the disciple is far from satisfied.. In fact, his dissatisfaction is increased. His yearning abides. He would see "where Jehovah dwells in his especial Paradise."157 Or he would see Lucifer’s dwelling place. He would transcend the bounds of mortal knowledge. Cain now pushes Lucifer into his closest corner: C. But one of you makes evil. L. Which? C. -Thou, for If thou canst do man good, why dost thou not? L. And why Lot he who made? _I made you not; Te are his creatures, and not mine. C. Then leave us His creatures, as thou say’st we are, or show me Thy dwelling, or his dwelling.158 As Cain continues to pose his Why’s, Lucifer says: Thy human mind hath scarcely grasp to.gather The little I have shown thee into calm And clear thought; and thou wouldst go on aspir ing To the Ibwo great double Mysteries! the Two Principles, 156 II, ii, 331f. 157 II, ii, 36bf. 158 ii, ii, 393ff. 201 And gaze upon them on their secret thrones! Dust! limit thy ambition, for to see hither or these, would be for thee to perish!159 7/hen Cain has said that he fears death less, now that he knows it leads to "something definite," .Lucifer replies, up to his usual trick of devilish suggestion: And now I will convey thee to thy world, 7/here thou shald multiply the race of Adam, Eat, drink, toil, tremble, laugh, weep, sleep and die.160 Cain again Inquires: Ana to what end have I beheld these things Which thou hast shown me?161- In the lines that follow this question the drama reaches Its climax. From here on, it is all down hill to the catastrophe L. uidst Thou not require Knowledge? And have I not, In what I showed Taught thee to know thyself? C. Alas! I seem Nothing. L. And this should oe the human sum Of knowledge, to know mortal nature's nothing ness; Bequeath that science to thy children, and ’Twill spare them tortures. ' C. i Thou speak’st it proudly; but thyself, though proud, ■ ■ Has a superior.162 159 II, ii, 401ff. 160 ii, ii} 4iiff. 161 ii, ii, H7f. 162 ii, ii, 4i8ff. 2 0 2 Lucifer here has not spoken out of character. He has merely reached., in the humiliation of Cain’s mind, the point toward which he has been skillfully moving. But the disciple has at last, at least partly seen through the teacher: "Thou speak1st it proudly."163 Lucifer’s closing speeches are a re-iteration of what he has taught for two acts. But note the mocking irony of his last words: One good gift has the fatal apple given— Your reason:— let it not be over-swayed By tyrannous threats to force you into faith ’Gainst all external sense and inward feeling: Think and endure,— and form an inner world In your own bosom— where the outward fails; So shall you never be the spiritual Nature, and war triumphant with your own.164 Throughout his ^conversations he has insisted upon the limita tions of clay and dust. He has urged upon Cain’s mind the toil, and suffering, and death of man. Mortality is magnified. Lucifer has shown Cain a past world which leads him to cry out, ’ ’ ’ Tis Awful I "165 And he has assured him that the Hadean creatures are "that which thou shalt be. "166 resting place of the righteous souls Is unvisited by Lucifer with 163 ii, ii, a25. 164 II, ii, 459ff. 165 II, ii, 84. 166 ii, n, 66. 203 his disciple. No Millennium is found for the future, as in Heaven and Earth When the Redeemer cometh; first in pain. And then in glory.167 After the son of clay, the child of earth, has confessed him self dust, saying, "I seem nothing,” it can he only in tri umphant mockery that Lucifer urges: Think and endure— and form an inner world In your bosom— where the outward fails.165 If Cain was unable to do this before his Hadean journey, Lucifer knows well that he cannot achieve it now. Brandes, Chess, and Marjarum have missed completely the bitter dram atic irony of this speech and of all that precedes it. C. After-inf1uence of Lucifer: The Catastrophe When Act III opens, Lucifer has gone, but his in fluence remains behind him, in the darkened mind of Cain.. Death Is still upon the mortal’s tongue. He notes that Enoch sleeps beneath a gloomy cypress, and remembers that he must be "amerced for sins unknown."169 When Adah refers II, ii, 459ff. 165 II, ii, 34. 166 i i , ii, 66. 167 I, ill, 205f. 165 ii, ii, 4631. 169 III, I, 24. Cain borrows amerced from Lucifer. 204 to gifts they owe to their mother, Cain replies, "Yes--Death too."170 Adah perceives a change: CainI that proud Spirit, who withdrew thee hence, Hath saddened thine still deeper.... I see Thy guide hath done thee evil....171 4 Clearly evident is LuciferTs influence in Cain's words about Jehovah: No I he contents him With making us the nothing which we are: And after flattering dust with glimpses of Eden and Immortality, resolves It back to dust again....172 He tells Adah that since the parents sinned, they should be the ones.to die. She replies: Thou hast not spoken well, nor Is that thought Thy own, but of the Spirit who was with thee.173 When she begs him to sacrifice on the altar, he asks: For what must I be grateful? For being dust and grovelling In the dust, Till I return to dust? If I am nothing-- For nothing shall I be a.hypocrite. And seem well-pleased with pain?17d Brought to despairing depths, especially conscious of his mortality, he says it would be a favor to little Enoch's to dash his brains out against the rock. 170 III, i, 44. 171 III, i, 45ff. 172 III, i, 70ff. 173 III, i, 77f. 174 III, i, 113ff. 205 Abel, too, when he comes, tells Cain, "Your words are strange today.”175 ge adds: Thine eyes are flashing with unnatural light— Thy cheek is flushed with an unnatural hue— Thy words are fraught with an unnatural sound....176 Yet, in spite of all this evidence, Heber cannot see what Lucifer was about in the first two acts: "The event which is the catastrophe of the drama is not otherwise than incident-* ally, we may say, accidentally, produced by those which pre cede it."177 Goethe, as would be expected, sees more clearly: t t So kehrt er zu den Seinigen zuruck, aufgeregter, obgleich nicht schlimmer, als er war, und da er im Familienwesen Alles findet, wie er1s verlassen hatte, so wirdt|ihm die Zudringlichkeit A^els, der ihn zum Opfer nothingen will, ganz unertraglich. Mehr sagen wir nicht, als dass die Szene, in welcher Abel um- koramt, auf das kSstlichste motiviert ist....178 Though through Lucifer Cain's spirit is "sadden’d still deep er," he, to please Adah and Abel, will sacrifice. But, in contrast to Abel, he prays a prayer of skepticism*179 His offering is rejected, his altar overthrown, his fruits scattered upon the earth. Aroused the indignation, he would "cast down yon vile flatt'rer from the clouds."180 175 IB;,i, 171. 176 III, i, 185ff• 177 Op. cit., 27:513. aWBa w 178 "Cain, A Mystery by Lord Byron," Samtliche Werke. XXXVTI: 265. 179 III, i, 245ff• 180 III, i, 290. What was his high pleasure in The fumes-of scorching flesh and blood, To the pain of the bleating mothers, which Still yearn for their dead offspring? or the pangs Of the sad victims underneath Thy pious knife? Give way I this bloody record Shall not stand in the sun, tPe shame creation 1181 But Abel would protect his altar, in spite of his brother’s warning. Mortally wounded by a brand which Cain has snatched from the place of sacrifice, he falls. Now that the blow is struck, a change comes over Cain. When Abel, prostrate, asks, ’ ’ What hast thou done--my brother?’ ’, Cain’s reply is, ’ ’Brotherl "182 in that word there is all the tenderness that an only brother's heart, characteristically tender, can ex press. Though some readers may think Abel over-pious, a genuinely tragic spirit drives out such a consideration in this scene, and prevails: Oh, God I receive thy servant I and Forgive his slayer, for he knew not what He did Cain, give me give me thy hand; and tell Poor Sillah-^i®^ Before continuing, it is necessary to give Cain his full due as a man, that the tragedy of the scene may be most strongly impressed. Well has Schaffner said, ’ ’Byron’s Cain ist ein tragischer Held.”184 We have already emphasized 181 III, i, 29Sff. 182 III, .i, 317f. 183 ill, i, 3i8f. 207 Cain’s intellectual aspirations. Gerard, in his usual ex cellent manner, has communicated his own sense of Cain’s admirable character: Cain as a mere incarnation of revolt is inexplicable and undramatic. But his revolt is the measure of his aspiration, and thus becomes clear and explicable and grandly dramatic. Sympathy is the groundwork of his character; human affection pulses in him at full. To his parents he is not undutiful; to his brother and sisters he can say, crossed as he is, "Your gentleness must not be harshly met.” He is "wrought upon” by Abel’s earnest prayers.” For Adah his love is such that "rather than see her weep” he would "bear all”; and the sight of his son Enoch awakes in him an inexhaustible tenderness .-185 This is the tragic hero who, seeking the "mystery of death,” and standing over the prostrate form of a brother to whom he has given a fatal blow, "after a moment;’s stupefaction,” begins to speak, in low, questioning, halting sentences: My handI ’tis all red, and with-- What? (A long pause--looking slowly around") Where am I? alone! Where’s Abel? where Cain? Can it be that I am he? My brother, Awake!— why liest thou so on the green earth? ’Tis not the hour of slumber:--why so pale? ■ What hast thou!— .thou wert full, of life this morn! Abel! I pray thee, mock me not! I smote Too fiercely, but not fatally. Ah, why Wouldst thou oppose? This is mockery; 1 ^ £e>- £it., p. 94- 208 And done only to daunt me;— ’twas a blow— And but a blow. Stir— stir--nay, only stir I Why, so— that’s wellI thou breathest, breathe upon me. Oh God’ Oh God’186 When Abel has spoken again, only to repeat forgiveness, Cain continues to soliloquize, alone with death, a know ledge of which he has pursued. Slowly, like light that comes through lifting fog, the full truth grows upon him: His brother is never to rise again; never more will be heard the soft tones of his "gentle voice."187 Yet Cain, in agony, prays for just one word, that he may bear to hear his own voice again. Zillah comes. Though she is a newly- made widow, the reader but barely glances at her. His eyes are still upon Cain; and Cain's thoughts become his thoughts. Tragic pity and terror prevail. To Zillah's pronouncement, "Death is in the world:", Cain replies: And who hath brought him there?— I— who abhor The name of Death so deeply, that the thought Empoisoned all my life, before I knew His aspect— I have led him here, and given My brother to his cold and still embrace, As if he would not have asserted his Inexorable claim without my aid. I am awake at last--a dreary dream Had maddened me;--but he_ shall ne'er awake 1138 186 III, I, 321ff. 137 hi, i, 356. I88 III, i, 371ff. In Gessner it is a dream that a- rouses Cain to the murder. 209 All the family gather now around ihe first dead mortal. The first chair has been lert vacant in the first human family. Adam says little, except to confirm the curse of Eve, a curse so bitter as to be defective to the drama and to disgrace the curser, the first pattern of motherhood. The angel’s brand upon the brow comes as a hind of anti-climax to the mother’s curse. The old bitterness and dislike of life surge briefly up in Cain. Yet there, is an unselfishness in his desire to die that Abel might live. And Cam stands 189 now facing ’ ’Eastward from Eden.” "’Tis the most desolate....” D. Love versus Knowledge Cain stands where his wild and inordinate pursuit of knowledge has led him. Knowledge he has chosen, and its pur suit has brought him here. But an alternative had been of fered him. He had rejected it. Lucifer, with all the deceit of his guileful sophism, puts the matter thus: And if the higher knowledge quenches love, What must he be you cannot love when known? Since the. all-knowing Cherubim love least, The Seraphs’ love can be but ignorance: That they are not compatible, the doom Of thy fond parents, for their daring, proves. lS9 III, i, 5§3. 210 Choose betwixt Love and Knowledge--since there is No other choice: your sire hath chosen already: His worship is but fear.190 All the passion or her soul, all the clearness of her vision, are in Adah’s plea: ”0h, Cain’ choose Love.”191 For thee, my Adah, I choose not— it was Born with me--but I love nought else. Our parents? Did they love us when they snatched from the Tree That which has driven us all from Paradise? We were not born then--and if we had been - Should we not love them--and our children, Ca i n ? 1 9 2 Following a long speech in which Cain laments that their chil dren' are to ’ ’inherit agonies accumulated by ages, ”193 the conversation still turns on love: 0. A. C. A. A. I am not wretched, Cain, and if thou Wert happy-- C. Be thou' happy, then, alone— I will have nought to do with happiness, which humbles me and mine. A. Alone I could not JNor would be happy: but. with those around us, I think I could be so, despite of Death.... C. And thou couldst not Alone, thou say'st be happy? •^■90 ij i t 423'ff. Italics not in original. 191 x, i, 431. In Browning's Paracelsus there is a similar conflict between love and knowledge. Browning’s early admiration of Byron is well known. One wonders whether Cain inspired the chief theme of Browning's poem. 192 i , i, 4^2ff. 193 I, I, 449f. 211 A. Alone! uh, my God! Who could De happy and alone, or good? To me my solitude seems sin; unless• I think how soon I shall see my brother, His brother, and our children, and our parents,194 There, from a beautiful and charming woman, is the doctrine of family love, of social love, overlooked by critics of Cain. What else can joy be, but the spreading joy?195 But Lucifer will not let Cain's mind dwell here; he turns immed iately to the forbidden tree, to tears, of which "oceans will be shed, "196 anC| _ to "the o’erpeopled nelltT of which Adah’s "bosom is the germ."197 To the warning, "0 Cain, This spirit curseth us," Cain says, "Let him say on: him will I follow."193 He has made his choice. And each re reading of the drama makes it clear that Byron, even in this first act, intends that the reader should disapprove the choice. In the dread abode of the dead of past worlds, Lucifer, remembering beautiful and lovely Adah, would, ere his return to earth, secure his conquest of Cain by convincing him that beauty shall perish, and with it, love. When Cain, rapt with the glorious orbs which people the immense inane, breaks 194 I, i, 463ff*. 195 i> if 48i. 196 jt ±t 520. 197 i, i, 524. 193 j, i, 524f. 212 forth in typical Byronic fashion in admiration of their beauty, Lucifer says that they are beautiful only Decause seen from afar. Cain tells him: The loveliest thing I know is loveliest nearest.199 Lucifer, assuring him that "there must be delusion," would know What is that Which being nearest to thine eyes is still More beautiful than beauteous things remote?2" Cain informs him in the language of genuine passion and of purest poetry, reminiscent of the great nature poetry of Manfred and Childe Harold: My sister Adah,--All the stars of heaven, The deep blue noon of night, lit by an orb Which looks a spirit, or a spirit’s world— The hues of twilight— the Sun's gorgeous coming— His setting indescribable, which fills My eyes with pleasant tears as 1 behold Him sink, and feel my heart float softly with him Along that western paradise of clouds-- The forest shade--the green bough--the bird’s voice-- The vesper’s bird, which seems to sing of love, And mingles with the song of Cherubim, As the day closes over Eden’s walls;— All these are nothing to my -eyes and heart, Like Adah’s face* I turn from earth and heaven To gaze on It.2" 199 n > 251. 200 II, II, 252ff. 201 II, ii, 255ff. 213 Lucifer again Insists, "...Still it is delusion."202 what you love, you love Because ’tis beautiful, As was the apple In thy mother’s eye; And when It ceases to be so, thy Love-will cease, like any other appetite. 203 Thy mother was deluded by the beauty of mutable tilings: why not you? Shades of lago! The eternal villainy of the fiend! The stroke is bold and shrewd. But Cain has at least tasted the sweet fruits of love, though knowledge has been his choice. He feels that though beauty should perish, love must yet abide. Thus to Lucifer’s ”1 pity thee who lovest what must perish," he rejoins, "And I pity thee who lovest nothing."204 Cain is persuaded that love must exist and endure In the world. In amazement he asks Lucifer, "Dost thou love nothing?"205 And again, "But dost thou not love something like thyself?”206 p0 ^he fiend’s ques tion, "And dost thou love thyself?", his answer is: 202 II, ii, 272. 2°3 II, ii, 323. 204 11, 11, 3371. 2°5 11, ii, 310. 206 II, ii, 3191- 214 Yes, but love more What makes my reelings more endurable, And is more than myself, because I love it.207 Act I closes with Adah’s words; during Act II Cain wanders with Lucifer; Act III opens with Adah’s words again. And how gently: A. Hush! tread softly, Cain! C. I will— but wherefore? A. Our little Enoch sleeps upon yon bed Of leaves, beneath the c y p r e s s . 208 It is again the scene of love, and love is to plead eloquently, though somewhat futilely, its own caiise: A. Dear Cain! Nay, do not whisper o’er our son Such melancholy yearnings o'er the past: Why wilt thou always mourn for Paradise? Can we not make another? C. Where? Here or A. Where’er thou wilt: Where’er thou art, I feel not The want of this so much regretted Eden. Have I not thee--our boy--our sire, and brother, And Zillah--our sweet sister, and our Eve, To whom we owe so much besides our birth?209 But Cain answers, ,rYes--death,” and thinks his old thoughts, made darker by the demon. It is here that he speaks of dash ing little Enoch against the rocks. But when Adah, fearful, intercedes, he replies with all the tenderness of a gentle father’s heart: 207 II, ii, 320ff. 208 III, i, Iff. 209 III, i, 215 Fear not I for all the stars, ana all the power Which sways them, I would not accost yon Infant With ruder greeting than a father’s kiss.210 Upon Cain’s exclamation that it had been better for Enoch never to have been born, Love makes its strongest plea: Oh, do not say sol Where were then the joys,- The mother’s joys of watching, nourishing, And loving him? Soft! he awakes. Sweet Enoch! Oh, Cain! Look on him; see how full of life, Of strength, of bloom of beauty, and of joy, But how like to me--how like to thee, when gentle— ^or then we are all alike; is’t not so, Cain? Mother, and sire, and son, our features are Reflected in each other; as they are In the clear waters, when they are gentle, and When thou are gentle. Love us, then, my Cain! And love thy self for our sates, for we love thee. Look! how he laughs and stretches out his arms, And opens wide his blue eyes upon thine, To hail his father; while his little rorm Flutters as winged with joy. Talk not of pain! The childless cherubs might well envy thee, The pleasures of a parent! Bless him, Cain! As yet he hath no word to thank thee but his heart will, and thine own too.211 * There is the cause well pleaded. And who could plead It better than lovely Adah? It wo'uld be no digression to look Into the psyche of the man who penned these lines and others like them. Unforgettable are the stanzas on Ada in Childe Harold: 210III, I, 128ff. 211 III, I, 137ff. 2 1 6 is tny race 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, hut with a hope. My daughter! with thy name this song begun— My daughter! with thy name thus much shall end!-- 1 see thee not— I hear thee not--but none Can be so rapt 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 they future visions blend, And reach into thy heart,— when mine is cold-- A token and a tone, even from thy father’s mould. To aid thy mind’s development,— to watch Thy dawn of little joys,— to sit and see Almost thy very growth,--to view thee catch ^knowledge of objects,— wonders yet to thee! To hold thee lightly on a, gentle knee, And print on. thy soft cheek a parent’s kiss,-- This, it should seem, was not reserved for me — Yet this was in my nature:--as it is, I know not what is there, yet something like to this. The child of Love! though born in bitterness, 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, And far 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! 212 ”Yet this was in my nature.” Possibly no English poet has intuitively loved home and children more than Bjrron, who, be cause of other conflicting constitutional urges, enjoyed so little of them. Only he vdio has loved little children, who has spent hours watching their every move, could write as 212 III, i, 115, 116, 118. 217 Byron wrote of Enoch and Ada. Kennedy reports that one day as he and Byron rode, a child fell in fright. After Byron had taken it gently into his arms, he said "in a hurried manner," "I cannot'bear to look at an English child, I am so reminded of my own, whom I have not seen for a long time."213 In 1811-— even so early--Byron wrote, "My friends fall around me, and I shall be left a lonely tree before I am withered. Other men can always take refuge in their families--I have no resource but my own reflections...”214 In Chllde Harold, Canto IV, he laments that should he "gather from the wave- worn shore" enough for a rude, boat of hope, "there woos no home..."215 Yes, there was deep in Byron a love of home and children. Something within his nature led him to write in a journal in 1814, "A wife would be my ■ salvation"; 216 an(j to say to Tom Moore, "Swift says 'no wise man ever married’; but, for a fool, I still think it the most ambrosial of all possi ble future states."217 To him who knows this of Byron; who knows that his boyhood home with his terribly passionate 213 ££. cit., p. 264. Betters and Journals, II, 52. 215 st. 105. 216 Life. I, 372. 217 Letters and Journals, III, 175* 218 mother was really no home; who knows the tragedy of his mis- marriage; to one who knows these things, even the clumsy prose of Fletcher’s account of the poet’s death assumes something of the dignity and passion of poetry: Oh, my poor dear child.’4£-my dear Ada.' My God! could I but have seen her! Give her my blessing— and my dear sister Augusta and her children;--and you will go to Lady Byron, and say--tell her everything;--you are friends with her...... My wife! my childe! my sister 1218 Those who knew Byron in his late years attest that there was in his life a great void, a void which he had hoped home would fill, but which, once having been partially filled, left him emptier of comfort and hope than before. Byron’s suffering in the early months of separation have already been pointed out through statements by Hobhouse and Hunt.219 But the suffering in the later.years was deeper, because more hopeless. Even the Countess Guiccieli could not fill up the emptiness left by the loss of Lady Byron and Ada. Lady Blessington, especially, refers repeatedly to Byron’s loneliness and anguish, and to the pleasurable nature of his reminiscences of Annabelle and Ada. She writes: It is evident that Lady Byron occupies his attention continually; he introduces her name frequently; is fond of recurring to the brief period of their living to gether; dwells with complacency on her personal attrac tions, saying, that though not regularly handsome, he PI P Reprinted in Edgcumbe, o£. cit., p. 196. 219 Supra, pp.lQ.&f. 219 likes her looks, lie is very inquisitive about her; was much disappointed that I had never seen her, nor could give any account of her appearance at present. In short, a thousand indescribable circumstances have left the impression on my inind that she occupies much of his thoughts, and that they appear to revert con tinually to her and his child.220 The Countess insists that Byron’s "conversations relative to Lady Byron...are frequent.”221 even records, "I do not recollect ever having met Byron that he did not, in some way or other, introduce the subject of Lady Byron.”222 Concern ing his "domestic misfortunes" the Countess Blessington states that Byron at times "dwelt in a sort of unmanly strain of lamen tation on it, that all present felt to be unworthy of him."223 So strong was his urge to talk of home and home desolation that the presence of strangers did not inhibit him. Concern ing one occasion the Countess writes; He seemed pleased and gratified by the reflections I had made, insensibly fell into a tone of tenderness in speaking of Lady Byron, and pressed my hand with more than unusual cordiality. On bidding me good bye, his parting words were, "you probe old and half-healed wounds, but though you give pain, you excite a healthy action, and do good..."224 Byron's yearning for Ada is deeply tragic. Lady Bless ington says, "There is something tender and beautiful in the 220 Op. cit ’ • > p. 83. 221 Ibid., P. 22. 222 Ibid., P. 162. 223 Ibid., P* 45 224 Ibid., P. 89. 220 deep love with’ which poor Byron turns to his daughter. This is his last resting place, and on her heart has he cast his last anchor of h o p e ."225 Medwin reports that on one occasion Byron said, "This is Ada's birthday, and might have been the happiest day of my life: as it is...."226 Byron, "seemingly ashamed of having betrayed his feeling,... tried in vain to rally his spirits by turning the conversation; but he created a laugh in which he could not join, and soon relapsed into his former reverie."227 Countess Blessington reiterates} "His heart yearns to see his child; all children of the same age remind him of her, and he loves to recur to the subject."228 Count G-amba reports that when Byron received word of Ada’s illness, it "made him melancholy for several days."229 He adds, "He left off his journal, nor did he again continue it till a second letter informed him of her recovery."230 According to Lady Blessington, Byron looked with pleasure to the years when Ada should turn to her father’s works and there learn of him whose portrait had been zealously kept from her.231. 225 Ibid., p. 335. 226 Conversations, p. 145* 227 Loc. cit. °Ib., p. 89. 229 Op. cit.. p. 49* 230 Loc. cit. 231 Op. cit., p. 335* 221 Then he felt: The triumph will be mine; and the tears of my child will drop over expressions wrung from me by mental agony,— the certainty that she will enter into the senti ments which dictated the various allusions to her and myself in my works,— consoles me in many a gloomy h o u r . 2 3 2 With pleasure one hears report that Ada, when she learned of her father’s works, shut up herself from all others to read her father’s poems and weep;233 and with further pleasure one recalls that Ada requested that she rest in death in the same tomb with Byron, where she now r e p o s e s .234 Thus, in light of these references to Lady Byron and Ada, one is not surprised to read from Medwin: Notwithstanding the tone of raillery with which he sometimes speaks in Don Juan of his separation from Lady Byron, and his saying, as he did today, that the only thing he thanks Lady Byron for is that he cannot marry, it is evident that it is the thorn in his side,--, the poison in his cup of life I The veil is easily seen through. He endeavours to mask his griefs, and to fill up the void of his heart, by assuming a gaiety that does not belong to it. All the tender and endearing ties of social and domestic life rudely torn asunder, he has been wandering on from place to place, without finding any to rest in.235 Neither is one surprised to hear that Byron ’ ’frequently ex pressed a wish to return to England,”' saying, ”1 wish to see Loc. cit. 233 See Edgcumbe, op. cit. , pp. 43f* 234 Loc. cit. 235 Ojd . cit. , p. 159. 222 Lady Byron and my child, because I firmly believe that I shall never return from Greece, and that I anxiously desire to forgive, and be forgiven, by the former, and to embrace Ada.”236 Most striking of all is Byron’s statement to Lady Blessington: It is painful to find oneself growing old without— that which should accompany old age, As honor, love, obedience, troops of friends. I feel this keen, reckless as I appear, though there are few to whom I would avow it, and certainly not to a man. 237 Thus, one can see that out of the feelings and yearnings of his own nature Byron wrote the Adah-Enoch scenes.238 .And the pleasure of the writing is obvious. It is largely through these scenes, through Adah’s eloquent arguments for the beauty of love, that Byron emphasizes the tragedy of Cain's choice. Mr. Chew has said of Cain that Byron ’ ’pleads here as always'for freedom of thought,” that he ’’seeks-. . .to assert man’s right to the employment of the gift of reason.”239 That this critic’s view may be made clear, lengthy quotation Is necessary: 23 Lady Blessington, o£. cit., p. 400. 237 Ibid., p. 116f. 238 9L' > Manfred. II, i, 63ff. 239 0£. cit., p. 125. 223 As Adam and Abel represent the intellectual abasement or mere conformity, so Adah represents the attractions or comfortable acquiescence. All the rorce or her sweet nature is put forth in the effort to make Cain happy in the little joys of common life and to make him renounce the vision of infinity that is constantly Defore his eyes. The temptation is an ethical one. Cn the one hand is verity and freedom, on the other placid conformity, sub mission to comfortable' illusion at the sacrifice of in tellectual freedom. Cain's choice is Byron’s choice, -tie exhibits the same integrity, candor, and ’ ’fierce intrepid scorn of compromise and comfort”, which informs the poetry of Byron with its ’’splendid and - imperishable excellence of sincerity and strength.” Is not this the final message of Cain? Is it not an inspiring one? The intellectual position taken is removed as far as possible from that of the easy optimist who cultivates his garden In tranquility, unmindful of the problems of the universe. Comfortable acquiescence can be bought only at the price of stilling the ceaseless and restless activity of the intellect. Such a prostitution of the reason Byron never submitted to.^0 This is, to my mind, a misinterpretation of the drama. Gerard has more accurately sensed the force of the drama than has Chew or Brandes, whom Chew echoes. Having quoted Adah’s words, ’ ’Would I could die for them as they might live,” Gerard writes: ’ ’And how much wiser in her feeling than Cain's reasoning: Here is no unreflecting love. Its note is clear-sightedness. It reasons, and therefore wisely will not reason.”241 Cain's thirst.to know has been uncontrolled. His mind has been too dissatisfied. His Insistence on reason has produced catastrophe and tragedy. 2^° Ibid. , p. 133- ^41 0j3. cit., p. 97* 224 Wot that Byron did not believe in being free to reason. In poetry and prose he orten glorified freedom of thought: Yet let us , ponder boldly--’tis a base Abandonment of reason to resign Uur right of thought— our last and only place Of refuge; this, at least, shall still be mine....242 It is useless to tell me not to reason, but to believe. You might as well tell a man not to wake, but sleep.*43 But this is not the theme of Cain. Already has been pointed out the devilish effect of mockery created by Lucifer’s advice that Cain cling to reason in his desire to solve the riddle of the universe. Cain’s thirst for knowledge is inordinate. It is not presented in the drama as the -quality of a heroic mind, nor as worthy of Imitation. It is the ’’tragic flaw” of the protagonist. His desire to know is a good quality carried to a destructive extreme. The reviewer of Grant’s Notes writes: "But as the most useful privileges are ever liable to the great est abuses,— so this sublime power (Speculative Reason) is liable to enormous misapplication.”244 Jeffrey, with all his adverse criticism, writes: ...The acts of guilt and folly Into which Cain Is hurried are not treated as accidental, or as occasioned by passing causes, out as springing from an Internal rury, a morbid state akin the phrensy, a mind dissatis fied with Itself and all things, and haunted by an 242 ffhilde Harold, IV, 127- 243 Letters and Journals, V, 457- 244 Fraser’s Magazine, 3:30Y» April, 183-1. 225 insatiable, stubborn longing after knowledge ratner tnan happiness, ana a fatal proneness to awe11 on the evil side of things rather than the good. We here see the dreadful consequences of not curbing this disposition..., exemplified in a striking point of view; and we so far think, that the moral to be derived from a perusal of this Mystery is a valuable one . 245 As this discussion shows throughout, Cain is not an assertion of "man's right to the employment of the gift of reason.”246 Adah and Cain both perceive Cain’s mistake, see where his wild thirst has brought him. Adah had wished that Cain would return from his journey with his mind composed "into the calm of a contented knowledge."247 Cain confesses, "A dreary dream had maddened me."248 iiis last speech but one is: Ana he wno lieth there was childless. I Have dried the fountain of a gentler race, Which might have graced his recent marriage couch, And mj.ght have tempered this stern blood of mine, Uniting with our children Abel’s offspring! 0 Abel’2^ Thus, through the tragedy of murder, he has been brought to realize that his dissatisfaction with "what is" needs the tem pering of those who are "gentler". This tempering Adah has always undertaken, in the past with out success. The reader is left to feel that in the future her success may be greater. And the mind rejoices that as Cain turns 245 Edinburgh Review, 36: 439, February, 1822. 246 See Chew’s statement, supra, p. 222. 247 III, i, 49f. 248 ill, i, 37gf. 249 ill, i, 555ff. Italics not in the original. 226 into the raoi-e desolate region east of Eden, Adan walks beside Him. Adah has been throughout ”a pure redeeming ardour.”250 But here at the end she rises to such heights as to rival the greatest heroines of tragedy. Yet Chew dismisses her with one deprecatory sentence! Brandes, on the other hand, says, ’ ’The best thing in Cain is the character of Adah-.251 When the ban ishment has been proclaimed, her words are: Cain! thou hast heard, we must forth. I am ready. So shall our children be. I will bear Enoch, And you his sister. - Ere the sun declines Let us depart, nor walk the wilderness Under the cloud of night.--Nav, speak to me, To me--thine own.252 Early in the act, upon Cain’s order to leave him, she replied, ’’ Never, though thy God left thee. ”253 And not it is not ’ ’you must forth”, but ”we must forth.” There is no choice to be made; love made it long ago. She is to leave with one who now can say: No more of threats: we have had too many of them: Go to our children--! will follow t h e e .254 Henceforth ”to dry up tears, and not to shed them” is to be her o f f i c e .255 "i will divide thy burden with thee.”256 Her 25® p^e statement is made about Cordelia by Edward Dowden in Shakespeare: His Mind and Art, p. 230. 251 0£. cit., p. 335- 252 m } p, 455ff. 253 ill, i, 95f. 254 h i , i, 525f. 255 h i , i, 547f. 256 hi, 1, 551. 227 last speech Is, "Peace he with him (AbelJ.” And. Cain adds, in the very last line of the poem, the tremendous, "But with me I" Yet as they trudge their way, bearing each a child, there comes'to the reader's mind: Why wilt thou always mourn for Paradise? Can we not make another? Where? Here, or Where’er thou wilt: where’er thou art, I feel not The want of this so much regretted Eden. Have I not thee...?257 E. Confirmation by Byron Byron’s own statements concerning Cain have been thus far withheld because It was felt that they would be most effective when presented in support of the arguments which have been made. A letter to Murray solidifies the Interpretations in this study of the chief characters and the development of the plot: Cain Is proud: if Lucifer promised him kingdoms, etc., it would elate him; the object of the Demon is "k° depress him still further In his own estimation than he was before, by showing him infinite things and his own abasement, till he falls into the frame of mind that leads to the Catastrophe, from mere in ternal irritation, i l o ' t ' premeditation, or envy of Abel (which would have made him contemptible), but from the rage and fury against the inadequacy of his state to his conceptions, and which'discharges Itself rather against Life, and the Author of Life, than the mere living. His subsequent remorse Is the natural effect of A. C. A. 257 III, i, 37ff. looking on his sudden deed. Had.the deed been pre meditated , his repentence would have been t a r d i e r . 258 Furthermore, the emphases or this study enable one to understand why Byron could say to Medwin.with assurance, "I defy any one to question my' moral ."2 59 One can also understand his amazement that Cain should be preached against "from Kentish Town and uxi’ ord to Pisa";260 "This war of ’Church and State’ has astonished me more than it disturbs; for I really thought Cain a speculative and hardy, but still a harmless, production."261 And of Murray he would know, "...Do you really think such things ever led anybody a.stray?"202 He wrote further to Murrays Cain is notning more than a drama, not a piece of argument: if Lucifer and Cain speak as the first Mur derer and the first Rebel may be supposed to speak, surely all the rest of the personages talk also accord ing to their characters--and the stronger passions have ever been permitted to the drama."263 Many agreed with him. Thomas Mulock wrote to the Morning Post Letters and Journals, V, 470. 259 Thomas Medwin, ojd. cit. , p. 128. 200 Letters and Journals, VI, 24. 201 Ibid., VI, 38. 202 ibid., V, 469. 203 Ibid., VI, 16. 229 I do not perceive a single blasphemy, in Gain for example, the ascription of. which to the talk ing transgressors introduced in the so styled Mystery, is not perfectly justified by the author ity of Holy Writ.264 Isaac Disraeli informed Byron in July, 1822J ’ ’The dread of your ’Mystery1' is dying away; the perfect moral misery of Cain will now be found instructive for those who are capable of being instructed.”265 In 1822 Byron wrote to Moore: With respect to ’ ’ Religion”, can I never convince you that I have no such opinions as the characters in that drama, which seems to have frightened everybody?...My ideas of a character may run away with me: like all imaginative men, I, of course, embody rnyself with the character while I draw it, but not a moment after the pen is from off the paper. 266 He insists: ”...There is no creed nor personal hypothesis of mine in all this ....”267 IV Summary One cannot, it seems, escape the conclusion that the entire weight and force of the drama points to the unwisdom of Cain’s attitudes and acts, and that Byron so intended. Cain himself confesses the inordinate nature of his pursuit of understanding, his too strong dis-s at is faction with ’ ’ what 26^ Quoted in Letters and Journals, V, 593- 265 Ibid., VI, 83, note. 266 Ibid., VI, 3If. 267 Ibid., V, 470. 230 is”. This study, it is believed, has refuted Braudes’ state ment that Lucifer is a bringer of light. Lucifer is the father of lies, the past-master of deceit, the archironist,— ' he is indeed the devil. His end and purpose is to destroy the soul of Cain and the happiness of all who love him and whom he loves. . The total effect produced by the drama is that Cain has been unwise. And throughout Cain Byron has preached the wisdom of a ’ ’contented knowledge,” of a satis faction with living in a world of inevitable mysteries, many of them seemingly insoluble. To struggle unwisely against things as they are is to break oneself, needlessly and futilely, is to destroy v/hat hope for happiness and peace earth offers. Obviously Byron has not intended to set forth Cain as a heroic figure whose pursuit of knowledge is to be emulated. Rather Byron has emphasized the folly of such inordinate yearnings as Cain’s. Cain’s flaw of character has brought tragedy, tragedy which engulfs lovely Adah, the two innocent children, all the human family. This, it appears, is the inevitable conclusion produced by a true analysis of the drama. Cain presents-a protagonist in whom are illustrated the words spoken by a spirit about Manfred: This is to be a Mortal, And seek the things beyond Mortality.274 268 II, iv, 157f. 231 As a foil to Cain’s rebellion to ’ ’ what is," there is Adah’s more clear-sighted insistence upon the redeeming beauty of love. When Lucifer calls upon Cain to choose knowledge in stead of love, Adah wisely pleads with Cain to choose love. She has seen the folly of inordinate thirst for knowledge; she has felt deeply that somehow she and Cain and all whom they love will suffer if Cain should choose knowledge rather than love. And Byron intends that his reader should condemn Cain’s choice. Cain himself, at the end, sees the unwisdom of his acts. He admits that a mixture of Abel’s blood and his would tame down his rebellious spirit. He comes to see the superior wisdom of a ’ ’contented knowledge . "269 Thus the Inevitable message of Cain is that man must accept ’ ’ what is”; that though man must retain his right and freedom to think and reason, he must recognize his mortal limitations; and that however strong the thirst for greater knowledge may become, there must be a classic restraint which withholds one from such wildness Of thought and action as is found in Cain. It is indeed true that in this sense Cain, though in some ways one of Byron’s most romantic productions, is definitely classic in emphasis and effect. 269 hi, I, 50. CHAPTER VII DON JUAN Byron makes it clear that in Don Juan his eye is con stantly on man. He says: Besides, my Muse by no means deals in fiction: She gathers a repertory of facts, Of course with some reserve and slight restriction, But mostly sings of human things and acts.l Pope, whom Byron praised too highly and who influenced Byron greatly, especially in the early years, had insisted that the proper study of mankind is man.2 And though in all his earlier poetry Byron is interested in studying the human species, he, now, in Don Juan, looks at him more intently; he places him under the microscope, dissecting him carefully, watching and analyzing every move, seeking for inner urges which produce exterior reactions. Byron insists: "I write the world,"^ He states further: "I sketch your world exactly as it goes,”4 He contends, with some facetiousness, that his epic has advan tage over previous epics in that his is "actually true?3 He 11 XIV, 13. 2 Essay on Man, 3 XV, 60. 4 XIII, 89. 5 I, 202. 233 could appeal, he says, to history, tradition, facts, news papers, plays, operas to prove his trueness to human life as he observed it# Man could not bear the close inspection. Under close scrutiny his follies and evils were made more evident and more reprehensible* Mortality was magnified# Byron insisted that no fear could restrain him from "holding up the nothingness of life.**6 In his close exami nation of man he senses a futility in human striving. He saw man wasting his life in vanities or struggling by war and con flict to better himself, either by overcoming a disadvantage or by increasing an advantage over others. He found man long ing for an answer to his constantly recurring questions con cerning the why*s and wherefore*s of human existence. All cosmic questionings ended in agnosticism. And, as we shall see, to Byron the agnosticism was troublesome# Various critics have discovered the predominant and con trolling sense of human limitation in this work of Byron*s ma ture years# Fuess writes: As a corollary to this recognition of the futility of human endeavor, the doctrine of mutability, to com mon in Shelley’s poetry, appears frequently in Bon Juan, ringing in the note of sadness which Byron would have us believe was his underlying mood.7. 6 VII, 6# 7 Claude M. Fuess, Lord Byron as a, Satirist in Versef P. 64. 234 Esteve has expressed the same thing in greater detail. His excellent manner of bringing together varied elements which render immediately obvious the pervasive stress on mortality in the poem justifies lengthy quotation: Mais le temps est lent, la d^esse est sourde: Byron se chargea lui-mSme.de sa vengeance. C’est son Don Juan, c’est l’ironie impitoyable avec laquelle il raille toutes vanites, ruine toutes les grandeurs, devoile toutes les turpitudes de ce monde. L'homme s’enorgueillit de sa science? "Que savez-vous, si ee n'est peut-'S'tre que vous Stes nes pour mourir?”— De sa puissance? "Les empereurs ne sont que des e'poux aux yeinc de leurs femmes, et rois et maris sont souventsmystifies."— De sa glorie? A quoi aboutitelle, si non "a remplir un certain espace sur un pap^Ler ineertain"? Sa forme la plus brillante, la renom- mee des armes, n’est que "la erScelle d’un enfant du meurtre". Elle a pour symbole le monument eleve'a Gaston de Foix: line colonne cimentee" de sang humain et souill^ d’immondices humains. Un grand guerrier es "un boucher en grande".— De sa vertu? Don Juan observe "ce microcosme monte' sur des echassds qu’on nomme le grand monde”: , il n'a vu que des coeurs occupds de vils int^r#ts ou de basses intrigues, ce'l^bataires pourchassant une dot ou convoitant l'epouse de vo^isin, jeunes et vieilles filles courant apr&s un mari, pecheresses de haut parage sauvant leur reputation par un leger vernis d’hypocrisie. "Les apparences semblent former le pivot sur lequel on ; tourne dans la haute socie'te"; si l’on pouvait dire la verite', combien de fois le^ vice et la vertu changeraient de place"!— De son geni? Qu’est-ce qu’une intelligence "dont 1*usage de'pend si fort du sue gastrique"? Byron insist© a plaisir sur les ne'cessites' les plus humilantes &ux- quelles l’humanite' est sujette.... Que^si on reproche au poete de ravaler et de tourner en de'rision la nature humaine, il revendique insolement le droit que tant d’autres ont pris avant lui, "qui savaient^ que cette vie ne vaut pas une patate", de proclamer le neant de toute science et de toute grandeur "Hurlez done, s*ecrai-t-il, dans votre inutile rage, chiens ou hommens,— car e’est vous faire trop d'honneur que de vous appeler chiens: vous ne les valez pasv *8 8 Edmond Esteve, Byron et le Romantisme Francais. p. Ilf. 235 Miss MacKenzie, in her study entitled Byrons Laugh- ter, has over-emphasized the ironic detachment which Byron was able to attain during the period in which he produced Don Juan. She writes: "He examined life with the detached view of a spectator from another world— a god or a devil looking on from cosmic space,"9 But she does not give suf ficient attention to Cain. Heaven and Earth, and other works of the period* In analyzing and criticising Don Juan, one is never to forget that while he was composing Don Juan Byron wrote Cain, in which there is no laughter except the unex pressed demoniac glee within Lucifer, All else is tears. There is no comic detachment, Byron is at grips with life and its mysteries. And he is the same Byron who was composing Don Juan, He who would understand Byron completely must not focus at tention merely upon the longer epic. Both Don Juan and Cain must be considered; and he who reads Cain, which breathes the tragedy of human suffering and stresses the inability of mor tality to "comprehend the Universe," cannot feel that Byron in 1821 had achieved to any considerable degree an ability to es cape reality through laughter, iven More has erred so much as to say that Byron "went beyond the limitations of destiny by laughter, as Homer and Virgil and Milton had arisen by t ? 9 Harriet Margaret MacKenzie, Byron1s Laughter, p. 232. 236 10 the imagination*" Byron spoke more truth than MacKenzie and More realized when he wrote the lines aldrady quoted: And if 1 laughl at any mortal thing, Ais that X may not weep.il Byron is, of course, in his facetiousness so characteristic of the poem, overstating the case; hut there is yet truth in the lines. More was more nearly right when he said, "That poem is indeed ’prolific of melancholy merriment. ’ Though there are moments when Byron experiences really comic laughter, the pervasive tone of melancholy and mortality sets down the keys which determine the pitch of the music. The laughter is often hollow and unconvincing. Especially is this true when Byron attempts to shrug off the very problems "which he strug gled with in Cain* it appears best to discuss the emphasis upon mortali ty in Don Juan in three divisions. First we shall point out the stress which Byron lays upon mutability anSfcleath. Sec ond we shall study his emphasis upon the follies and vani ties and evils constantly and predominantly characteristic of human activity. Finally we shall examine the many digres sions which deal with man’s inability to attain unto any cer tain theory of knowledge. The cumulative effect of the three Y 10 Paul Elmer More, ShelburneEssays. Ill, 176* ^ IV, 4. 12 Op* cit., p. 174. 237 divisions of study will be strong in enforcing how con scious Byron was, in spite of his laughter, of the evils and limitations of the mortal state* I. MUTABILITY AND DEATH We have seen that in Childe Harold Byron is constantly aware of the transience and the perishability of every mortal thing, and that to escape the mutability of things human he often turns to the mountains and to the "dark blue Ocean,” boundless, endless, and sublime— The image of Eternity--the throne Of the Invisible,13 3-n Juan there is the same emphasis upon mutability and death, but only an occasional resort to nature as a Zuflucht. The most famous lines on nature are: My altars are the mountains and the Ocean, Earth— air— stars,— all that springs from the great Whole, . Who hath produced, and will receive the soul. 4 When such passages appear, as they do very rarely, they lack the zest and intensity of the pantheistic stanzas in Childe Harold. Typical of many passages on mutability is Stanza 82 of Canto XI: Talk not of seventy years as age; in seven I have seen more changes, down from monarch to 13 IV, <1§3. 14 III, 104. 238 The humblest individual under heaven, Than might suffice a moderate century through. I know wall that nought was lasting, but even now Change grows too changeable, without being new. Nought’s permanent among the human race, Except the Whigs not getting into place* A few stanzas earlier Byron wrote: "Where is the world?” cries Young, at eighty— "Where The World in which a man was born?” Alas! Where is the world of eight years past? "Twas there— I look for it— ’tis gone, a globe of glassI Cracked, shivered, vanished, saarcely gazed on, ere A silent change dissolves the glittering mass. Statesmen, Chiefs, Orators, Queens, Patriots, Kings, And Bandies— all are gone on the Wind’s wings.15 He would know where are Napoleon, Castlereagh, Grattan, Sheridan, the Queen, Brummel, Kllesley, Lord This, and Lord That, the Lady Carolines and Franceses? The scenes have shif ted, the settings are different, new actors con their roles. Mutability has swept all away. The entire history of Juan is an illustration of Byron’s lines: Men are the sport of circumstances, when The circumstances seem the sport of m a n.16 The lad, A little curly-headed, good-for-nothing. And mischief-making monkey from his birth,17 is first the victim of miseducation by Donna Inez, who is a flagrant satire on Lady Byron. At sixteen he is the victim of 15 XI, 76. 16 V, 17. 17 I, 25. 239 beautiful Donna Julia, a married lady of experience. Byron blames Juan’s fall on "a lady-mother, mathematical," a tutor who is "an old ass," a pretty woman, A husband rather old, not much in unity With his young wife— a time, and opportunity. And immediately he writes: Well-well; the World must turn upon its axis, And all Mankind turn with it, heads or tails, And live and die, make love and pay our taxes, And as the veering wind shifts, shift our sails; The King commands us, and the Doctor quacks us, The Priest instructs, and so our life exhales, A little breath, love, wine, ambition, fame, Fighting, devotion, dust,— perhaps a name .19 From the time Julia goes to a convent and Bonna Inez sends Juan to Cadiz to embark for France and Italy "to mend his former morals, and get n e w , " ^ 0 Juan is constantly the victim of "the veering winds," which force the shifting of his sails. He becomes largely the pawn of Circumstance, though usually 21 the too-willing pawn; "Fate is a good excuse for our own Will? Circumstance tosses him upon the island where he and Haidee love; and Mutability sends him away a slave. Byron points out Juan’s lack of control over his fate: The world is full of strange vicissitudes, And here was one exceedingly unpleasant: 18 II, 3. 19 II, 4. 20 I, 191. 21 XIII, 12. 240 A gentleman so rich, in the world's goods, Handsome and young, enjoying all the present, Just at the very time when he least broods On such a thing, is suddenly to sea sent, Wounded and ehained, so that he cannot move, And all because a lady fell in love with him.22 And when Haid4e dies with grief because She was not made Through years or moons the inner weight to bear, Which colder hearts endure till they are laid By age in earth,23 Byron gives a universality to her tragedy by picturing how completely mutability was to sweep away not only the idyllic happiness which Juan and Haidee so briefly enjoyed but every trace of human habitation: That isle is now all desolate and bare, Its dwellings down, its tenants passed away; None but her own and father's grave is there, And nothing outward tells of human clay; Ye could not know where lies a thing so fair, No stone is there to show, no tongue to say, What was; no dirge, except the hollow sea's, Mourns o'er the beauty of the Cyclades*24 Juan is captured by the Turks, dressed as a girl, wooed by the Sultana, all under circumstances which control him. Without choice he finds himself in the terrible siege of . . ’ Ismail: But here he was*— where each tie that can bind Humanity must yield to steal and flame: 22 IV, 51. 23 IV, 71. 24 IV, 72. 241 And. he whose very body was all mind., Flung here hy Fate and Circumstance, which tame The loftiest, hurried by the time andplace, Dashed on like a spurred blood-horse in a race,25 With Catherine the Great in Russia he must bow to convention and to the approaches of the queen* And though in England he is freer to act, social custom, somewhat with his yielding as sent, controls not only him but all in the higher crust of so ciety: Manners now make men— Pinned like a flock, and fleeced too in their fold, At least nine, and a ninth beside of ten.26 The earth turns "upon its axis," and Juan turns with it. All is change and mutability with him and those around him. Byron through Juan and his experiences emphasizes the vicissitudes to which all men are to a greater or lesser degree subject* The last change on earth is death. It is the end of mutability, an end to which, Byron often exclaims, all must come. At the close of Canto I Byron writes: But. I, being fond of true philosophy, Say very often to myself, "AlasI All things that have been born were born to die, And flesh(whieh Death mows down to hay) is grass; You’ve passed your youth not so unpleasantly, And if you had it o’er again— ’twould pass-- So thank your stars that matters are no worse, And read your Bible sir, and mind your purse."27 25 VIII, 54 26 XV, 26. 27 I, 220. 242 When Byron decides that Juan and Haidee are to separate, he addresses the following apostrophe to Love: Oh, Lovel what is it in this world of ours Which makes it fatal to be loved? Ah why With cypress branches hast thou wreathed thy bowers, And made thy best interpreter a sigh? As those who dote on odours pluck the flowers, And place them on their breats— but place to die— Thus the frail beings we would fondly cherish Are laid within our bosoms but to perish.28 In Canto IV, which, it is significant to note, was composed at about the same time as Cain, the emphasis upon death is especially strong. When Byron contemplates the vanity of glory, he laments: And so great names are nothing more than nominal, And love of Glory's but an airly lust, Too often in its fury overcoming all Who would as *t were identify their dust From out the wide destruction, which, entombing all, Leaves nothing till L'the coming of the just"— Save change: I've stood upon Achilles’ tomb, And heard Troy doubted; Time will doubt of Rome* The very generations of the dead Are swept away, and tomb inherits tomb, Until the memory of an Age is fled, And, buried, sinks beneath its offspring's doom: Where are the epitaphs our fathers read? Save a few gleaned from the sepulchral gloom Which once-named myriads nameless lie beneath, And lose their own in universal Death.29 To multiply these passages is unnecessary; throughout the poem Byron returns repeatedly to the theme. He insists that 28 111,2. 29 IV, lOlf. 243 MWe know where things and men must end at best: A moral(like all morals) melancholy.30 Death is the "sovereign's sovereign..who levels" all men to "one small grass-grown patch...."31 Death is the "dunnest of all duns," as inescapable as the bill-collector, who, though he first approaches modestly, finally insists, in terms unhandsome, On ready money, or a "draft on Ransom."32 Thus throughout Don Juan Byron is conscious, almost at every turn— and, with his love of degression, the turns are many— of the temporary and uncertain state of all mortal affairs. Only death is certain ohi^arth. Mutability leads all to the inevitable hour. II. VANITY AND EVIL IN MAN We have seen that Byron proposed to hold the mirror up to man, that man might see himself as he is, and the world "exactly as it goes." Be would cause men to be aware of their pettiness, their follies, their vain-glory, their cant and hypocrisy, their debauchery, their greed, their cruelty, their futile striving after knowledge,— all of which Byron calls the "nothingness of life."33 More is right in saying that Byron's 30 V, 63. 31 X, 25. 32 XV, 8. Ransom was onf of gyron's Bankers. 33 VII, 6. reaction, to the vices of men is different from the "saeva indignatio which devoured the heart and brain of poor Swift,"34 hut he too greatly minimizes Byron!s concern about human re formation. He says: Occasionally Byron pretends to lash himself into a fury over the vices of the age, but we know that this is all put on, and that the real savageness of his nature _ comes out only when he thinks of his own personal wrongs. 0 It is true that Byron is no great moralist: his own conduct would prohibit his beihg one. He is certainly no ardent cru sader for reform in many of the matters of which he writes. But occasionally he is furious "over the vices of the age." He is especially so when he talks of tyrants and militarists who butcher thousands and impoverish nations, that a small cir cle of the powerful may for a time reven in wealth and glory. Byron in ■Pon Juan is chiefly interested in the revelation of man to man, in turning the spotlight on that phase of mortality comprising the pettiness, the vanity, the cruelty and all the other qualities named or suggested earlier in this paragraph. And no English poet, in any one poem, has made quite so accu rate and complete a revelation of this particular side of man’s nature. Already we have quoted Byron’s statement that he in tended Don Juan to be a "Satire on abuses of the present 245 states of Society."36 He proposed to present "that bitter draught, the human species."37 The first episode in the poem is the intrigue with Donna Julia, which Byron prefaces with a description of Juan's parents and a report of his education. The father does not count for much. The mother, Donna Inez, is one of Byron's bitterest satires against cant and hypocrisy. She is "Morality's prim personification,"38 so good that she makes the cleverest people quite ashamed, And even the good with inward envy groan.39 40 She has "a great opinion of her own good qualities," delight ing to have her "magnanimity" increased through her hus- 41 band's misery. Her son's education must be "strictly moral," his books being carefully purged of any "immoral" material. The satire lies in the fact that though Donna Inez parades as perfection, and is interested in the morals of her son, she, before Don Alfonso's marriage to Julia, "forgot with him . v 246 her very prudent carriage,"42 and with all her emphasis on morals, is "still keeping up the old connection." For pri vate gain she maintains friendship with Julia, who is "charm ing, chaste, and twenty-three."44 When Juan and Julia have become attracted to each other, Inez selfishly decides to let the affair develop, to open Don Alfonso’s eyes, In case he thought his wife too great a prize.45 When Alfonso finds Juan in Julia’s bedroom and is knocked down, Inez wishes to avert a seandal. At first she thinks 46 that she will vow "to Virgin Mary several pounds of candles," but finally decides to send her son to France or Italy. And while he is away, she is to "set up a Sunday school for naugh ty children."47 The "Satire on the abuses of the present states of So- M M M M —MM—M * ciety" is too evident in the ease of Inez and Julia, in their episodef, to need extended comment. In Inez Byron, besides 42 I, 66. 43 I, 67. 44 I, 59. 45 I, 101. 46 I, 190. 47 II, 10. £47 caricaturing Lady Byron, is mirroring to pretentious persons the ridiculous nature of their pretense. Inez typifies many parents who have been disillusioned but would keep up a face before the world and especially befdre their children. Her real interest is not in being moral, but in maintaining a thin protective veneer of cant and hypocrisy. The storm which strikes the ship on which Bon Juan sails from Cadiz gives Byron further opportunity to picture the ways of man. Men often reveal their true nature when faced with the threat of death. When the sailors perceive that death appeafcs certain, they cry, "Give us more grog," thinking that it would be "becoming to die drunk."4® Even old Pedrillo, his most reverent tutor, Was for some rum a disappointed suitor. The good old gentleman was quite aghast, And made a loud and pious lamentation; Repented all his sins, and made a last Irrevocable vow of reformation*49 The dear fellow so forgot his serious profession as to tell a man "to be darn’d" who asked for absolution. Some who had first thought of rum, finally took themselves to prayer. Byron does not let pass anopportunity to satirize the prac-r tise of redeeming with money souls suffering in Purgatory: 48 II, 35f. 49 II, 56f• 50 II, 44. 248 All the rest perished; near two hundred souls Had left their bodies; and what’s worse, alas! When over Catholics the Ocean rolls, They must wait several weeks before a mass Takes off one peck of purgatorial coals, Because, till people know what’s come to pass, They won't lay out their money on the dead,— 5, It costs three francs for every mass that’s said. When starvation grips those in the life-boat, the men begin to look at each other in selfish hunger. Finally Byron skil fully reveals that each person has been looking at all others as objects:: of future meals.^2 Obviously throughout the hap penings during and after the storm Byron has been almost al together interested in that ”bitter draught, the human spe cies.”53 The next picture of human depravity follows the ten der but fatal scenes of the happiness of Juan and Haidee. Old Larabro, Haidee's pirate father, is introduced as better than a prime minister: Let not his mode of raising cash seem strange, Although he fleeced the flags of every nation, For into a Prime Minister but change His title, and ’t is nothing but taxation; But he, more modest, took an humbler range Of life, and in an honester vocation Pursued o’er the high seas his watery journey, Ahd merely practised as a sea-attorney.54 51 II, 55. 52 II, 73. 53 See supra, p.245. 54 III 14. 249 Although Lambro is the mildest mannered man That ever scuttled ship or cut a throat, he could with no remorse toss overboard an old man because he was ’ ’unsaleable.*155 At the slave market the hardness and selfishness of men are strikingly presented: No lady e*:er is ogled by a lover, Horse by a blackleg, broadcloth by a tailor, Fee by a counsel, felon by a jailor, As is a slave by his intended bidder. ’Tis pleasant purchasing our fellow-creatures....56 The buyers and sellers act As though they were in a mere Christian fair, Cheapening an ox, an ass, a lamb, or kid; So that their bargain sounded like a battle For this superior yoke of human cattle.5'7 Ready for sale The females stood, as one by one they picked ’em To make a mistress, or fourth wife, or victim.58 The satire becomes even more pointed: Some went off dearly; fifteen hundred dollars For one Circassian, a sweet girl, were given, Warranted Virgin; Beauty’s brightest colours Had decked her out in all the hues of heaven: Her sale sent home some disappointed bawlers, Who bade on till the hundreds reached eleven; But when the offer went beyond, they knew ’Twas for the Sultan, and at once withdrew.59 55 III,16. 56 V, 26f. 57 V, 28. 58 IV, 116. 59 IV, 114. 250 This is man as he often is, and as Byron pictured him. This is the truth which Byron said many would find too true. And Byron intends that the satire should extend beyond the buyers and sellers to the governmental leaders who permit ted traffic in human beings as in cattle. Passing over the experiences of Don Juan, when, dres sed like a girl, he is tempted by the Sultana, we come to Byron*s picture of the terrible Russian siege of Ismail. Byron always deplored way, aggressive war. He often pre sents war as a great game of strategy between national leaders, a game in which the people pay the price of blood and life# At the beginning of the description of the siege Byron tells men, "I am now assaying to show ye? what ye are fil in every way;” and he feels that heowes dogs an apology for likening men to them.6*2 When Byron has quoted official orders to take the city at any priee, he writes: ’ ’ Let there be Light I said God, and there was Light 1” "Let there be Blood!" says man, and there’s a seal The fiat of this spoiled childof the night (For Day ne’er saw his merits) could decree More evil in an hour, than thirty bright Summers could renovate, though they should be Lovely as those whiGh ripened Eden’s fruit: For War cuts up not only branch, but root.®3 60 Betters:and Journals. V, 97. 61 VII, 7. T»OQ» oit. 63 vii, 41. 251 Suwarrow, the general, is a great man for Exclaiming, fooling, swearing at the inert, And lecturing on the noble art of killing,— For deeming human clay but common dirt....64 The battle wr as long: "The work of glory still went on."65 Byron’s evaluation of the glory of any war fought for any thing but freedom is unmistakably clear: Medals, rank, ribands, lace, embroidery, scarlet, Are things immortal to immortal man, As purple to the Babylonian harlot: An uniform to boys is like a fan To women; there is scarce a crimson varlet But deems himself the first in Glory’s van. But Glory’s glory; and if you would find What that is— ask the pig who sees the wind! 65 In one brilliant stanza Byron sums up all the horrors of Ismail and of every such conflict: All that the mind would shrink from of excesses— All that the body perpetrates of bad ? All that we read— hear— dream, of man’s distresses— All that the Devil would do if run stark mad; All that defies the worst which pen expresses,— All by which Hell is peopled, or as sad As Hell— mere mortals who their power abuse— Was here(as heretofore and since) let loose. 67 The space given to the siege is too great and the passages like those quoted above are too numerous for one to agree with More that Byron was never serious about human vieious- 64 VII, 58. 65 VII, 78. 66 VII, 84. 67 VIII, 123. 252 ness except when he himself had been personally wronged.68 Again at Ismail Byron has pictured the world "exactly as it goes." And the picture presents another unpleasant phase of mortality. At the Russion court Byron portrays the persons and the pleasures for which the people were sent to the slaughter. His satire on Catherine is hitter and extended. He says: And carcasses that lay as thick as thatch O’er silenced cities, merely served to flatter Fair Catherine’s pastime— who looked on the match Between these nations as a main of cocks, Wherein she liked her own to stand like rocks.6® When the queen, "the grand Epitome of that great cause of 70 War," received Juan’s dispatch announcing victory, Great joy was hers, or rather joys: the first Was a ta’en city, thirty thousand slain: Glory and triumph o’er her aspect burst, As an East Indian sunrise on the main.71 But Catherine liked courtly glamour as well as martial victory: She could repay each amatory look you lent With interest....7^ Her actions were in every way such as to cause the poet to ejaculate: 68 See iupra p. 244. 69 IX, 29. 70 IX, 57. 71 IX, 59. 72 IX, 62. 253 What a curious way „„ The whole thing is of clothing souls in clay! The great ones in court loved glory as did the queen. To get it they bowed to her wants and wishes. But Byron reserves his great descriptive genius for the society that Juan was to find when he should go to England, to aid in making a treaty be tween Russia and Britain, which they "maintained will all the due prevarication...."7^ Juan’s reception in London is colorful: I say, Don Juan, wrapped in contemplation, Walked on behind his carriage, o’er the summit, And lost in wonder of so great a nation, Gave way to it, since he could not overcome it, "And here," he cried, "is Freedom's chosen station; Here peals the People's voice, nor can entomb it Racks— prisons— inquisitions; Resurrection Awaits it, each new meeting or election. "Here are chaste wives, pure lives; here people pay But what they please; and if that things be dear, ’T is only that they love to throw away Their cash, to show how much they have a-year. Here laws are all inviolate— none lay Traps for the traveller— every highway's clear— Here"— he was interrupted by a knife, „5 With— "Damn your eyes! your money or your life."— For the rest of the poem Juan revels in the high society of London. And in describing English life of the highest level, Byron knows first hand what he presents. Many stanzas are al most altogether autobiographical. 73 IX, 75 74 X, 45 75 XI, 9. 254 Byron chooses as the center of the circle in which Juan is to move, Lord Henry and Lady Adeline Amundeville, whose castle is described on the pattern of Newstead. Their group is presented as worthless, lolling in luxury and vanity, amounting to exactly nothing of real value in the world. Among the ladies who are guests at the castle where the Amundevilles go to be alone are Countess Crabby, Lady Scilly, Misses Bombazeen, Mackstay, and 0*Tabby* Also there is the Countess of Blank. Of the other sex there are the poet Rackrhyme, Sir John Pottledeep, the Duke of Dash, Dick Dubious, Jack Jargon, and Kit-Cat. The ladies spend their time in the following valuable ways: The ladies--some rouged, some a little pale— Met the morn as they might. If fine, they rode. Or walked; if foul, they read, or told a tale, Sung or rehearsed the laist dance from abroad; Discussed the fashion which might next prevail, And settled bonnets by the newest code, Or crammed twelve sheets into one little letter, To make each correspondent a new debtor. The names of most of the men suggest sufficiently what their great daily contributions were to the state of society. Such idleness is dangerous; and the devil is in his workshop. The Duchess of Fitz-Fulke, "afine and somewhat full-blown blonde,"77 is enamoured of Juan. The women begin 76 XII1, 104 77 XIV, 42. 255 to wag the tongue: The circle smiled, then whispered, and then sneered; The misses bridled, and the matrons frowned; Some hoped things might not turn out as they feared; Some would not deem such women could be found; Some ne’er believed one half of what they heard; Some looked perplexed, and others looked profound; And-several pitied with sincere regret Poor Lord Augustus Fitz-Plantagenet*78 Byron records the result of such activity, and non-activity: And hence high life is oft a dreary void, A rack of pleasures, where we must invent A something wherewithal to be annoyed. Bards may sing what they please about Content; Contented, when translated, means but cloyed; And hence arise the woes of Sentiment, Blue-devils— and Blue-stockings— and Romances Reduced to practise, and performed like dances.79 Don Juan’s experiences since he was a “little curly- he^ded, good-for-nothing” have been varied. He has seen the world as it is, many sides of it. Man’s folly, his vain-glory, his selfishness, his cruelty, his pursuit of the worthless, all this and more the lad has seen. He has turned as the earth turned. In it all he has followed advice found in the poem: Be wary, watch the time, and always serve it; Give gently way, when there’s too great a press; And for your conscience, only nearn to nerve it; For, like a racer, or a boxer training, p0 It will make, if proved, vast efforts without paining. 78 XIV, 44. 79 XIV, 79. 80 XIII, 18 256 The essential ugliness of much of hupan society and activity Byron has nowhere pictured so completely and so satirically as in Don Juan. The poem is indeed the work of maturity, written during those years of life when many men have be come disillusioned. The follies and evils mirrored in the poem Byron finds as fruits of mortality. III. MAN’S "CABINED,,. CRIBBED, CONFINED" INTELLECT Throughout the preceding studies of Byron’s greatest works we have seen that he is always interested in the in tellectual or philosophical limitations of mortality. In Childe Harold man is pictured as standing on the earth lift- 81 ing his eyes to heaven, yearning for greater understanding. Byron agrees with "Athena’s wisest son": "All that we know is, nothing can be known."82 Manfred and Astarte have minds to "comprehend the Universe," but both illustrate what it means to "be a mortal, and seek the things beyond mortality."83 Cain knocks at the very gates of hell and of heaven for an explanation of the mys teries of life. He learns nothing, except that he has too wildly thirsted after knowledge. In Don Juan many of the most striking passages deal with theories of knowledge. 81 II, 4. 82 II, 7. 85 II, iv, 157. 257 MacKenzie and others emphasize too strongly Byron’s QA success in laughing off his agnosticism. Of all the im portant themes touched upon in the innumerable digressions in the sixteen cantos, man’s inability to arrive at a satisfac tory theory of essence and knowledge dominates. Byron’s mind can find no rest until it discovers a certainty to which to anchor itself. We repeat that Manfred was written just be fore Byron began Don Juan and that Cain is contemporaneous with parts of the epic. Furthermore, Byron held his conver sations on religion with Kennedy at about the time he com pleted the sixteenth canto: and the evidence is preponderant that Byron longed for answers to the questions which had troubled him, but which Kennedy was unable to satisfy. Byron’s scoffing at his own inability, and the inability of others, to know the answers to the eternal questionings of man’s mind is empty seoffing. His laughter is hollow laughter. Cain dra matizes man’s finite limitations, and implicitly, if not ex- 85 plicitly, advises him to accept ’ ’what .is.” Don Juan merely expresses the intellectual limitations of mortality, without especially advising an attitude of willing acceptation. Thus the poem, in this respect, lacks the moral force of Cain. Ostensibly Byron is constantly reproaching himself for 84 See supra. p.235. Cain» I* i» 45. 258 waxing metaphysical: But here again,, why will I thus entangle Myself with Metaphysics? None can hate So much as I do any kind of wrangle; And yet, such is my folly, or my fate, I always knock my head against some angle About the present, past, or future state: Yet I wish well to Trojan and to Tyrian, For I was bred a moderate Presbyterian*°6 In Canto IX Byron with obvious facetiousness apologizes: on But I am apt to grow too metaphysical* And again he says: But I am relapsing into Metaphysics*88 The first significant lapse is in Canto I: Man’s a phenomenon, one knows not what, And wonderful beyond all wT ondrous measure; ’T is pity though, in this sublime world, that Pleasure’s a sin, and sometimes Sin’s a pleasure; Few mortals know what end they would be at, But whether Glory, Power, or Love, or Treasure, The path is through perplexing ways, and when The goal is gained, we die, you know— and then— Thr : : g ■ What then?— I do not know, no more do you— And so good night.— Return we to our story.... y Most of the other metaphysical disquisitions are of the same nature. In Canto IX we find: ”To be, or not to be?”— Ere I decide, I should be glad to know that which is being* 86 XV, 91. 87 St. 41. 88 XII, 72. 89 I, 153f. 259 'T is true we speculate both far and wide, And deem, because we see, we are al1-seeing: For my part, I’ll enlist on neither side, Until I see both sides for once agreeing. For me, I sometimes think that Life is Death, Rather than Life a mere affair of breath. "Que scais-je?” was the motto of Montaigne, As also of the first academicians: That all is dubious which man may attain, Was one of their most favourite positions. There’s no such thing as certainty, that’s plain As any of Mortality’s conditions; So little do we know what we’re about in This world, I doubt if doubt itself be doubting. 0 Canto XI opens with typical facetiousness: When Bishop Berkeley said "there is no matter," And proved it— *t was no matter what he said: They say his system ’t is in vain to batter, Too subtle for the airest human head; And yet who can believe it? I would shatter Gladly all matters down to stone or lead, Or adamant, to find the World a spirit, And wear my head, denying that I wear it. What a sublime discovery * t was to make the Universe universal egotism, That all’s ideal— all ourselves!— I’ll stake the World(be it what you will) that that’s no schism. Oh Doubt!— if thou be’st Doubt, for which some take thee, But which I doubt extremely— thou sole prism Of the Truth’s rays, spoil not my draught of spirit! Heaven’s brandy, though our brain can hardly bear it. x Throughout are many short metaphysical "lapses": And I can give my whole soul up to mind; Though what ^is soul or mind, their birth or growth, Is more than I know— the deuce tg^© them both!92 90 IX, 16f. 91 XI, If. 92 _ VI, 2£* 260 But still the spouseless virgin Knowledge flies. What are we? and whence came we? what shall be Our ultimate existence? what's our present? Are questions answerless, and yet incessant.93 We live and die But which is best, you know no more than I 94 If from great Nature's or our own abyss Of thought we could but snatch a certainty, g(- Perhaps mankind might find the path they miss.... In a few passages Byron indicates that the answer to his "incessant " questions may lie in religion; but he is not certain, -tie asks: But what’s Keality? who has its clue? Philosophy? no: she too much rejects. Religion? Yes; but which of all her sects?9® Earlier he says that if the world came by chance it is a "glorious blunder,"9,7 but that if it "be according to the old text, it is better."98 But these passages are outweighed by the predominant agnosticism of the poem. A closing quota tion expresses Byron's prevailing attitude concerning know ledge: 93 Vl, 63. 94 VII, 4. 95 XIV, 1. 96 XV, 89. 97 XI, 3. 261 For me, I know nought; nothing I deny, Admit— reject— contemn: and -what know you, Except perhaps that you were born to die? And both may after all turn out untrue. An:age may come, Font of Eternity, When nothing shall be either old or new* Death, so called, is a thing which makes men weep, And yet a third of Life is passed in sleep*99 In Don Juan Byron has with great effect and in great detail impressed upon his readers the evils and limitations of mortality. Mutability and death sweep all things away. Man spends most time and energy in futilely pursuing worth less baubles, in magnifying the worthless, in destroying others and himself. And in the mad whirl of it all he knows nothing as a certainty, what was, or is, or shall be. Yet in this poem, as in Ghilde Harold, Byron recalls a few who, in his judgment, have arisen above the evils to which most have succumbed. Among them are Kosciusko, Leonidas, and Washington. But discussion ;o:f them belongs to the next chapter* CHAPTER VII% THE LAST PHASE: "WELL-RECORDED WORTH" In Marino Ealiero Byron wrote: "They never fail who die in a great cause.This line inevitably comes to one’s mind as one considers the final phase in Byron’s life,— the Greek episode. This study thus far has emphasized Byron's tendency to dwell upon man’s limitations,— upon mortality. Byron was especially aware of his own limitations, of his unhappy and unadmirable yieldings to recalcitrant forces of evil within himself, of the manner in which his noblest urges had been "cabined, cribbed, confined" by his most ignoble passions and desires. Few persons have been as conscious of the nightmare of their delinquencies as was Byron of his. Byron believed that in the opportunity for unselfish and heroic conduct offered by the Greek struggle for independence lay a sure means of somewhat atoning for years of yielding to evil and for the sadness which he had brought upon others and upon himself. It is well known that Byron, always a fatalist, intuitively felt that he would never return from Greece. But to Greece he went. And in' going, he may have recalled the line written about three years before his departure: "They never fail who die in a great cause." Not all of Byron's contemporaries and critics have 1 II, ii, 93f concluded that Byron went to Greece because he was seriously and unselfishly devoted to the love of liberty. Lady Blessington says: "His whole manner and conversation on this subject are calculated to chill the admiration such an enter prise ought to create, and to reduce it to a more ordinary o standard." She writes further: Talking of his proposed expedition to Greece, Byron said that, as the moment approached for undertaking it, he almost wished he had never thought of it. "This is one of the many scrapes into which my poetical temper ament has drawn me. Ion smile; but it is nevertheless true... And 1 may awaken to find that this, my present ruling passion, as 1 have always found my last, was the most worthless of all, with the soothing reflection that it has left me minus some thousands, hut X am fairly in for it, and it is useless to repine; but, 1 repeat, this scrape, which may be my last, has been caused by my poetical temperament,— the devil take it, X say."3 Galt has also surmised that .Byron was notivated not so much by love of freedom as by such "exoterical motives as V' the love of glory or the aspirations of heroism."4 Galt adds that Byron went to Greece for yet two other motives: to renew interest; in his poetry, which had fallen, according to Galt, into "the sear and yellow, the mildew and decay"; and to be free of 5 uountess Guiccioli, of whom Galt believes he was tiring. Thus to the man who traveled with him in 1809 from uilbraltar 2 Qp. oit.. p. 138. 3 Mi-, P« 317* 4 Op. cit., p. 261. 264 to Malta, Byron went to Greece because "the Greek cause seemed to offer...a better chance for distinction than any other pursuit in which he could then engage...."6 Spender finds that Byron "always had a touch of the histrionic in him”; and that the "lure of heroism" was the "only rival of his 7 other ruling passion— Woman." Nicolson, who,like Spender, has made a special study of the Greek episode, says: I have...discarded the legend that Byron went to Greece inspired solely by Philhellenic enthusiasms, or that his sojourn in Missolonghi was anything but a succession of humiliating failures."8 Nicolson insists that "it would be idle to pretend that Byron set out upon his last journey with any very spirited enthus iasm, either for the cause which he was embracing or for the particular functions which he would be called upon to ful- 9 fill." Like Galt, Nicolson finds that Byron was mistakenly convinced that he was unpopular in England as a poet and that he hoped to reinspire interest in his writings.10 Nicolson does say, however: "Lord Byron accomplished nothing at Missolonghi except his own suicide; but by that single act 6 Op. cTt., p. 261. 7 Harold Spender, Byron and Greece. p. 17. 8 Harold George Nicolson, Byron: The Last Journey. p. ix. 9 Ibia*. P. 90. 10 Ifria., p. 43. 265 of heroism he secured the liberation of Greece.”11 But over against those who would detract from the glory of Byron’s last great achievement there stand the ma jority of Byron’s biographers and critics, as well as the larger number of those who knew him, those of his friends both before and during the last months of his life. Countess Guiccioli, who knew his mind intimately, and who found her self unable to persuade him to remain with her, writes: , ’ ’But no illusion, no enthusiasm, impelled him towards Greece; naught save the satisfaction caused in a noble mind by the performance of a great action.”12 Count Gamba, Guiccoli’s brother, says: ”Doubtless, he bewailed the calamities of Greece, and none could have more earnestly desired her liber ation from that shameful yoke which had reduced her to a state so degraded and deplorable.”13 The Count adds: He carefully avoided every appearance of osten tation, and had a great dread of being taken for a searcher for adventures. By perseverance and dis cernment he hoped to assist in the liberation: to know arid to be known was consequently, in the out set, his principal object.”14 11 IbidT, p. ix. 12 0£. cit., II, 93. 13 0]D. cit., p. 2. 14 Ibid., p. 35f. 266 Gamba makes it clear that Byron’s wish to be known eame from a desire that a wider acquaintance should increase the scope of his influence and usefulness. Maurois, though conceding that the Greek situation appealed to Byron’s ’ ’craving for sensation,” writes: His heart leapt towards those high ideals which had always lurked beneath the dross of his charac ter. With a noble enthusiasm he was set on fire by the desire to assist them to recover their liberty, and offered himself as a volunteer in the Greek Army.”!6 This chapter proposes to show that the second group of critics quoted above have correctly and accurately inter preted the motivating force behind Byron’s volunteering with the Greeks. Byron desired to do that something which he had 1 7 for years said that he would yet do. ' He would redeem the past. Lord Macaulay has well expressed what lay within Byron’s heart: Sick of inaction,— degraded in his own eyes by his private vices, and by his literary failures,— pining for untried excitement and honorable distinc tion,— he carried his exhausted body and his wounded spirit to the Grecian Camp.”18 Certainly Byron would welcome increased and renewed popular ity in England (for he loved England, all his statements to 15 Andre' Maurois, Byron. p. 494. 3-6 Ibid. , p.497. 17 See Section II of this chapter. Infra, p. 273. 18 Edinburg Review. 53: 551, June, 1831. 267 the contrary notwithstanding), and certainly he would wel come distinction, yet it must be, in Macaulayfs words, an "honorable distinction"; but it is believed that this chap ter will make clear the depth and earnestness of Byron’s interest in Greek independence. Trelawney, who was with Byron at death and during several months early in Byron’s participation in the struggle, wrote to Stanhope, another companion of the poet’s last year, that Byron’s "ruling passion became...by one great effort to wipe out the memory of those deeds, which his enemies had begun to descant on rather freely in the public prints, and to make his name as great in glorious acts, as it already was by his writ ings."19 Byron’s genuine interest in the Greek struggle for independence will become more obvious as a result of a study of four things: 1. Byron’s repeated emphasis throughout life on the value of "well-recorded Worth"; 2. His lifelong love of li berty, as revealed in his letters, journals, and poems; 3. His early and sustained love of Greece; 4. The material found in such great volume in his last letters, journals, and poems. I. "THE MOUNTAIN -MAJESTY OF WJ3RTH" Although Byron often emphasized the darker and more limited side of man’s nature and achievements, he was always very greatly impressed by any single act or any single life 19 Colonel Leicester Stanhope, Greece in 1823 and 1824, p. 323. 268 20 whioh rose above "the common tale." Already Byron’s ad- 0 *1 miration of unselfishness and heroism has been touched upon; here it will be elaborated. In Childe Harold II Byron, as he meditated the muta bility of all earthly things, with his heart stirred by the fanes and temples of Athens, which commingled slowly with heroic earth, Broke by the share of every rustic plough, 2 expressed a conviction which grew upon him as he continued to live and observe man, evaluating his ways and his world: So perish monuments of mortal birth, So perish all in turn, save well-recorded Worth. Throughout the poetry, from the earliest to the latest, recur passages which show Byron’s admiration for heroism, for unselfishness, for service. In one of the poems in Hours of Idleness, appears the following stanza: Then do not say the common lot Of all lies deep in Lethe’s wave; Some few who ne’er will be forgot Shall burst the bondage of the grave. In Childe Harold II Byron finds Greece to be a "sad relic of ” 20 LfAmTtie’ Est L’Amour sans Ailes, st. 5. 21 Supra, p. 1, 37. 22 St. 85. 23 Loc. cit. 24 An Answer to a Beautiful Poem. Entitled "The Common Lot." St. 11. 269 departed Worth."25 And he remembers "the helpless warriors of a willing doom" who fought "in bleak Thermopylae*s sepul chral strait.”26 In Childe Harold III the Pilgrim thinks on worth, and is saddened by "the very knowledge that he lived 27 xn vain." One of Byron’s highest evaluations of genuine worth is found in a stanza praising the deeds done at Morat and Marathon: But these are deeds which should not pass away, And names that must not wither, though the Earth Forgets her empires with a just decay, The enslavers and the enslaved— their death and birth; The high, the mountain-majesty of Worth Should be— and shall, survivor of its woe, And from its immortality, look forth In the sun’s face, like yonder Alpine snow, Imperishably pure beyond all things below.28 OQ In the same canto he writes, "We are not what we should be," a conviction which was strong in Byron, and undoubtedly helped inspire him to go to Greece. In Don Juan Byron states with emphasis: The drying up a single tear has more Of honest fame, than shedding seas of gore.*50 25 St. 73. ^6 koc. cit. 27 St. 16. 28 Childe Harold, III, 67. 29 St. 3. 30 yin, 3. 270 These passages make clear that Byron had thought much about what is of real value in life. And though he found that most mortals spend their time and energies foolishly, he be lieved that it is in man to rise through heroic accomplish ment above the "common lot" of those who yield so easily to weight of clay which clogs the ethereal essense. Byron was convinced that War’s a brain-spattering, windpipe-slitting art, Unless her cause by right be sanctified.31 Believing Greece’s cause to be thus sanctified, and desiring to be less what he had been and more what he should be, he embarked upon the expedition, hoping to bring into his life, so empty and so lacking, much of "the mountain-majesty of Worth."32 Scattered throughout the letters and journals are spontaneous statements revealing the value which Byron felt real virtue merits. These statements make clear that Byron believed that each individual has a mission in life, which only he can fulfill, and only by deeds of "well-recorded Worth." In his twentieth year Byron wrote to Augusta: I live here (Newstead) much in my own manner, that is, alone. for I could not bear the company of my best friend, above a month; there is such a sameness in mankind upon the whole, and they grow so much more disgusting every day, that 51 Don Juan, IX, 4. 32 See supra. p. 269. 271 were it not for a portion of Ambition, and a con viction that in times like the present we ought to perform our respective duties, I should live here all my life, in unvaried Solitude.35 Two years later Byron had learned "that nothing but virtue will do in this damned world.”34 In 1813 he writes that no one should be a rhymer who "could be anything better,” and is annoyed that Scott, Moore, Campbell, and Rogers, who should be "agents and leaders" in society, are "mere specta- 36 tors.” Such expressions become more numerous during the last eight years of Byron’s life. One can but believe that the incidents connected with the Separation eaused Byron to feel more'strongly than ever his personal failing; over him, it seems, there hung a spirit of desolation at his not rising above his worst self to accomplish what was always latent with in his best self. In 1817 he writes to Tom Moore: If I live ten years longer, you will see, however, that it is not over with me-I don’t mean in literature, for that is nothing; and it may seem odd enough to say, I do not think it my vocation. But you will see that I shall do something or other— the times and fortune permitting— that "like the cosmogony, or creation of the world, will puzzle the philosophers of all ages." But I doubt whether my constitution will hold out. I have at intervals, exorcised it most devilishly.37 33 Letters and Journals. I, 204. 34 ibid.. I, 272. 35 Ibia., II, 238. 3^ 1*00* clt. 37 Ifcia., IV, 62f. 272 On his thirty-third birthday Byron went to bed "with a heavi ness of heart at having lived so long, and to so little pur pose."®8 Well known is the quatrain which he composed on this day: Through life’s road, so dim and dirty, I have dragged to three-and-thirty. What have these years left to me? Nothing— except thirty-three.39 In an imaginary epitaph which he wrote on this same day he refers to an "ill-spent life."40 Byron always admired individuals who strikingly over came the limitations of mortality to which most men succumb. Especially did he admire Marceau,41 Leonidas and the Three Hundred,42 Koseiusco,43 Daniel Boone,44 and possibly above all, George Washington. Washington was Yes--One— the first— the last— the best— The Cincinnatus of the West, Whom Envy dared not hate Bequeath the name of Washington, _ To make man blush there was but one 140 58 Ibid.. V, 181. 39 Ibid.. V, 182. 40 Loo« clt. 41 Childe Harold. Ill, 56ff. 42 Doii Juan. VIII, 5. See also Poetry. Ill, 21. 43 Don Juan. X, 59. See Poetry. V, 550f. 44 222 £222* VIII, 61ff. 43 Ode to Napoleon Buonaparte. XiX. Byron admired Mavrocordato because he ’ ’was the only Washington and Kosciusko kind of man amongst them (the Greeks)....’ *4S In Don Juan Washington is paired with Leonidas they are men Whose every battle-field is holy ground. Which breathes of nations saved, not worlds undone. How sweetly on the ear such echoes sound! While the mere victor’s may appal or stun The servile and the vain— such names will be A watchword till the Future shall be free.4' Washington inspired Byron because as a reward for his ser vices to his nation he had thanks, and nought beside, Except the all-cloudless glory (which few men’s is) To free his country....48 One can well surmise that Byron, according to his ability and opportunity, should hope to do for Greece what Washington had done for America, what Leonidas had done for ancient Greece, and what Koseiusco had tried against such odds to do for Poland. II. Love of Liberty If one is aware of the early-established, deep-rooted unfailing love that Byron had for liberty, one can better understand Byron’s giving himself in the Greek struggle. / 46 Letters and Journals, VI, 259. 47 VII, 5. 48 ibid., IX, 8. 274 Byron is one of England’s greatest Poets of Liberty. Byron’s lines in praise of liberty are not only numerous; they are often strikingly beautiful and of lofty and highly elevated sentiment. Before Childe Harold Byron had written little concern ing liberty; but in this poem he gives much attention to the enslaved people among whom he travels. In Canto I the poet bewails the fate of Spain. Because "pride points the path that leads to Liberty,in Spain "they fight for freedom who were never free."50 When he thinks of "all the blood at Talavera shed," without gaining for Spain "her well-asserted right," Byron asks: When shall her Olive-Branch be free from blight? When shall she breathe her from the blushing toil? How many a doubtful day shall sink in night, Ere the Frank robber turn him from his spoil, And Freedom’s stranger-tree grow native of the soil!51 Byron especially laments in the second Canto the enslaved state of Greece. He writes: Spirit of Freedom! when on Phyle’s brow Thou sat’st with Thrasybulus and his train, Couldst thou forebode the dismal hour which now Dims the green beauties of thine Attic plain? Not thirty tyrants now enforce the chain, But every carle can lord it o’er they land; Nor rise thy sons, but idly rail in vain, 49 St. 86. 50 Loo, cit. 51 St. 90. 275 Trembling beneath the scourge of Turkish hand, From birth till death enslaved; in word, in deed, unmanne d. In all save form, alone, how changed! and who That marks the fire still sparkling in each eye, Who but would deem their bosoms burned anew With thy unquenched beam, lost Liberty! And many dream withal the hour is nigh That gives them back their fathers’ heritage: For foreign arms and aid they fondly sigh, Nor solely dare encounter hostile rage, Or tear their name defiled from Slavery’s mournful page. Hereditary Bondsmen! know ye not Who would be free themselves must strike the blow? By their right arms the conquest must be wrought? • Will Gaul or Muscovite redress ye? No! True— they may lay your proud despoilers low, But not for you will Freedom’s Altars flame. Shades of the Helots! triumph o’er your foe! Greece! change thy lords, thy state is still the same; Thy glorious day is o’er, but not thine years of shame.52 s As Byron stands on the battle field at Waterloo his great question is, ”But is Earth more free?”33 He further inquires: Shall we, Who struck the Lion down, shall we Pay the Wolf homage? proffering lowly gaze And servile knees to Thrones?54 We have seen that, in contrast to Waterlo and Cannae, Morat and Marathon are praised because there stainless victories were Won by the unambitious heart and hand Of a proud, brotherly, and civic band, 52 Sts. 74ff. 55 III, 19. 54 Loc. cit. 276 All unbought champions in no princely cause Of vice-entailed Corruption....55 In Canto IV Byron curses Caesar as a tyrant who caused tears and blood to become on earth "an universal Deluge.”®6 Byron thinking about Rome, recalls France and the Revolution; like Wordsworth and Coleridge, he rejoices in the early successes against unbearable tyranny, but regrets that ”Franee got 57 drunk with blood to vomit crime.” ' Also his thoughts turn to the American Revolution, "where nursing Nature smiled on infant Washington."58 He asks: Has earth no more Such seeds within her breast, or Hurope no such shore?5* Recalling great deeds and great men, Byron is inspired to write possibly his greatest stanza on Freedom: Yet, Freedom! yet thy banner, torn, but flying, Streams like the thunder-storm against the wind; 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 seed we find Sown deep, even in the bosom of the North; So shall a better spring less bitter fruit bring forth.60 55 St. 64. 56 st. 92. 57 St. 97. 58 st. 96. 59 i»°o* cit. 50 st. 98. 277 The Prisoner of Chillon is, throughout, an implicit curse against tyranny. The dungeon has been the place of martyrdom to many besides the gray-haired prisoner of the poem. The Sonnet on Chilion Byron has fittingly prefixed to the poem: Eternal Spirit of the chainless Mind! Brightest in dungeons, Liberty!, thou art, For there thy habitation is the heart— The heart which love of thee alone can bind; And when thy sons to fetters are consigned— To fetters, and the damp vault’s dayless gloom, Their country conquers with their martyrdom, And Freedom’s fame finds wings on every wind. Chillon! thy prison is a holy place, And thy sad floor an altar— for *twas trod, Until his very steps have left a trace Worn, as if thy cold pavement were a sod, By Bonnivard!— May none those marks efface! For they appeal from tyranny to God. In Italy during the years before departure for Greece Byron was interested in the various rebellious efforts of Italian states to free themselves from northern domination, especially by the Austrians. Byron’s interest was such as .to cause the governments controlling Italy to-keep spies obh-*\. stantly shadowing him.61 One typical excerpt from Byron’s diary shows the nature of his interest: Today I have had no communication with my Carboni cronies; but, in the meantime, my lower apartments are full of their bayonets, fusils, cartridges, and what not. I suppose that they consider me as a depot, to be sacrificed, in case of accidents. It is no great matter, 61 Prothero reprints many reports from government - papers, Letters and Journals. IV, 454ff* 278 supposing that Italy could toe liberated, who or what is sacrificed. It is a grand object— the very poetry of politics. Only think— a free Italy!!I Why, there has been nothing like it since the days of Augustus.®2 When Naples was defeated by the Austrians, and when the re bellious movements throughout Italy failed because, as Byron was wise enough to predict, they had "no plan— nothing fixed among themselves, how, when, or what to d o , ” ® 3 Byron wrote to Shelley: "...This late failure of the Italians has latterly disappointed me for many reasons...,n®4 A study of Byron’s love of liberty would not be com plete without attention to his three parliamentary addresses. The first was made in defense of laborers in Nottinghamshire who were destroying frames which enabled fewer workmen to weave the cloth requisite to consume the raw material or meet the demand of the market. Byron felt that the workers were receiving too unsympathetic and too harsh treatment. Through out this speech there is a warmth of interest in the common people characteristic of all real patriots and lovers of lib erty. In his second speech Byron is pleading for greater liberty for Catholics, for greater toleration. To his peers Byron says: 62 Letters and Journals. V, 205. 63 I k M * » V, 183* 64 Ibid,, V, 269. 279 .•.Better had it been for the country that the Cath olics possessed at this moment their proportion of our privileges, that their nobles held their due weight in our councils, than that we should be assembled to dis cuss their claims.65 Referring to certain schools, Byron writes: Schools do you call them?”Chll them rather dunghills, where the viper of intolerance deposits her young, that when their teeth are cut and their poison is mature, they may issue^forth, filthy, and venomous, to sting the Catholic.66 Byron last speech was delivered during a debate on a petition made by one John Cartwright, who urged the Parliament to grant reforms in certain areas -where the right of petition was being obstructed. Byron’s speech was brief, but firm and pointed* He said to the Lords: It is in the cause of the Parliament and people that the rights of this venerable freeman have been violated, and it is, in my opinion, the highest mark of respect that could be paid to the House, that to your justice, rather than by appeal to any inferior court, he now commits him- Byron is again defending the rights and liberties of the peo ple. All three of these speeches are on just the subjects and are of just the quality and type that one would expect from a great poet of liberty. The Creek Revolution offered Byron an opportunity to express&n action .the love of liberty which he had so often and so sincerely expressed in words. 65 Ibid., II, 451. 66 Ibid.. II, 437. 67 I M d . . II, 445. III. INTEREST IN GREECE 280 In 1824, 8 few months before his death, Byron wrote the following letter to Andreas Londos, a Greek patriot: Dear Friend,— The sight of your handwriting gave me the greatest pleasure. Greece has ever been for me, as it must be for all men of any feeling or education, the prom ised land of valour, of the arts, and of liberty; nor did the time I passed in my youth in travelling among her ruins at all chill my affectation for the birthplace of heroes.... To see myself serving, by your side and under your eyes, in the cause of Greece, will be to me one of the happiest events of my life....68 : The words "has ever been for me," in the first sentence of this letter, indicate that Byron*s love for Greece began early in life. And so it did. In a note to Canto II of Childe Harold Byron says that he has had "early prepossessions in 69 favour of Greece...." Byron had a discipline of thirteen years in the classics, in which he learned to love Greek lit erature, parts of which he translated or paraphrased and pub lished. Byron also became interested in Greece through read ing Mitford*s famous history of the country, which Byron listed 70 among the works read before he was twenty. v Mitford’s work Byron called the best history of Greece, and Mitford himself he named "the best, parhaps, of all modern historians whatsp- 71 ever...." 6 8 IbidT. VI, 320f., note. 69 Poetry. II, 170. 70 Life. I, 79. 71 Don Juan. XII, 19, note. 281 When Byron began his Grand Tour he was eager to reach Greece; and while in Athens, he wrote to his mother: "...I am at Athens again, a place which I think I prefer, upon the whole, to any I have seen.,’ ’^ As one would expect, many stanzas of Childe Harold I and II are dedicated to Greece* The spirit which breathes through most that Byron wrote about Greece is found in two lines: Cold is the heart, fair Greecel that looks on Thee, Nor feels as Lovers o’er the dust they loved...*73 On this first visit to Greece Byron longs for her freedom: Fair Greecel sad relic of departed Worth! Immortal, though no more; though fallen, great! Who now shall lead thy scattered children forth, And long accustomed bondage uncreate? Not such thy sons who whilome did await, The hopeless warriors of a willing doom, In bleak Thermopylae’s sepulchral strait*— Oh! who that gallant spirit shall resume, 74 Leap from Eurotas’ banks, and call thee from the tomb? In the Giaour the spirit is the same: ’Tis Greece, but living Greece no more! So coldly sweet, so deadly fair, We start, for Soul is wanting there. Here is the loveliness of death, That parts not quite with parting breath; But beauty with that fearful bloom, That hue which hanuts it to the tomb, Expression's last receding ray, A gilded Halo hovering round decay, The farewell beam of Feeling past away! Spark of that flame, perchance of heavenly birth, Which gleams but warms no more its cherished earth! 72 Letters and Journals, I, 289. 73 Chiiae Harold. II, 15. 74 Ibid*. II, 73. 282 Clime of the unforgotten braveI Whose land from plain to mountain-cave Was Freedom*s home or Glory*s gravel Shrine of the mightyI can it be, That this is all remains of thee? Approach, thou craven crouching slave: Say, is not this Thermopylae? These waters blue that round you lave,— Oh servile offspring of the free— Pronounce what sea, what shore is this? The gulf, the rock of SalamisJ These scenes, their story not unknown, Arise, and make again your own; Snatch from the ashes of your Sires The embers of their former fires; And he who in the strife expires will add to theirs names of fear That Tyranny shall quake to hear, And leave his sons a hope, a fame, They too will rather die than shame: For Freedom’s battle once begun,' Bequeathed by bleeding Sire to Son, Though baffled oft is ever won. Bear witness, Greece, thy living pagel Attest it many a deathless age! While Kings, in dusty darkness hid, Have left a nameless pyramid, Thy Heroes, though the general doom Hath swept the column from their tomb, A mightier monument command, The mountains of their native landl There points thy Muse to stranger’s eye The graves of those that cannot diel/5 Possibly most famous of Byron's poems on Greece is the song in Don Juan, Canto III: The Isles of Greece, the Isles of Greece! Where burning Sappho loved and sung, Where grew the arts of War and Peace,— Where Delos rose, and Phoebus sprung! Eternal summer gilds them yet, But all, except their Sun, is set. 75 it. 91ff 283 The mountains look on Marathon— And Marathon looks on the sea; And musing there an hour alone, I dream*d that Greece might still be free; For standing on the Persian's grave, I could not deem myself a slave. Must wa but weep o'er days more blest? Must we but blush?— Our fathers bled. Earth1 render back from out thy breast A remnant of our Spartan dead! Of the three hundred grant but three, I'o make a new Thermopylae.76 These three stanzas, composed between 1819 and 1821, reveal that Byron's interest in Greek freedom was not a sudden ob session which seized him in 1823; and this brief survey of Byron's constant enthusiasm for Greece makes clear that it was inevitable that Byron should take his opportunity to aid Greece when that opportunity came. IV. THE END: APOTHEOSIS As early as 1821 Byron began to think of going to Greece. In this year he wrote to Moore: The Greeks! what think you? They are my old acquaint ances— but what to think I know not. Let us hope how soever.77 Later in the same year he explained to Moore: I wanted to go to Greece lately(as everything seems up here) with her(Countess Guiccioli's} brother, who is a very fine, brave fellow(I have seen him put to prodf)* 76 St. 86, sts. 1, 3, and 7 of the song. 77 Letters and Journals. V, 306f. 284 and wild about liberty. But the tears of a woman who has left her husband for a man, and the weakness of one’s own heart, are paramount to these projects, and I can hardly indulge them.7® By "everything seems up here" Byron refers to the failure of the liberty movement in Italy. It was not until 1823, about a year before his death, that Byron’s interest in Greece expressed itself in definite action. In this year a Greek Committee was formed in England, under the urge of Andreas Luriottis, a patriot, who went to England to stir up zeal for the Greek cause. Edward Blaquiere, a representative of the Greek Committee, went to Greece, taking with him papers which indicated that the Com mittee, hearing of Byron’s enthusiasm, had unanimously elec ted him a committeeman. Byron in reply to a note from Blaquiere, wrote that he was eager to see him, adding: I cannot express to you how much I feel interested in the cause, and nothing but the hopes entertained of wit nessing the liberation of Italy itself prevented me long ago from returning to do what little I could, as an in dividual, in that land which it is an honour to have visited.79 This is one of many expressions in Byron’s letters which re veal the genuine zeal which he had for the Greek cause. We shall quote several of these statements, believing that when they are considered together they will leave little room 78 Ibid., V, 365. 79 Ibid., VI, 186 285 for one to doubt the real love of liberty and of Greece which caused Byron to take part in the Revolution. In May, Byron said to John Bowring, an honorary secretary to the Greek Committee: To this project the only objection is of a domestic nature, and I shall try to get over it;— if I fail in this, I must do what I can where I am; but it will be always a source of regret to me , to think that I might perhaps have done more for the cause on the spot*80 A month later Byron urged Trelawney: Pray come, for I am at last determined to go to Greece.... I am serious, and did not write before, as I might have given you a journey for nothing; they all say I can be of use in Greece. I do not know how, nor do they; but at all events let us go.8l Four days after this letter Byron inscribed the following lines in a journal: The dead have been awakened— shall I sleep? The World’s at war with tyrants— shall I crouch? The harvest's ripe— and shall I pause to reap? I slumber not; the thorn is in my Couch; Each day a trumpet soundeth inmine ear, Its echo in my heart— 82 In October Byron insists: "...I have not any motive...but the well-wishing of Greece...."83 To the General Government of Greece he says almost exactly the same thing: "...I I desire the well-being of Greece, and nothing else; I will 80 Ibid.. VI, 206. 81 Ibid.. VI, 224. DO Ibid.. VI, 238. 83 Ibid., VI, 252. 286 do all I can to secure it....n84 He informs Charles F. Barry: I have no intention of an immediate return; and cir cumstances do not seem to render it probable: I must see this Greek business out (or it_ me) , and you might have surmised as much from the timeT have already been in the vicinity.©5 Byron, after entering the struggle, is determined to stand by his guns. He writes to Bowring: We will do our best— and I pray you to stir your English hearts at home to more general exertion; for my part, I will stick by the cause while a plank remains which can be honorably clung to.86 Just a short time before his death Byron says to Murray: My health is now better, and I ride about again. My office here is no sinecure, so many parties and diffi culties of every kind; but I will do what I can.... Still we have great hopes of the success of the contest.87 With death almost upon him, Byron writes to Kennedy: I am not unaware of the precarious state of my health, nor am, nor have been, deceived on that subject. But it is proper that I should remain in Greece; and it were better to die doing something than nothing.88 We quote once more, from a letter to Samuel Barff, a banker at Zante: 84 Ibid., VI, 278 85 Ibid.. <j H 290 86 Ibid.. H i> 293 87 Ibid.. VI, 335 88 Ibid.. VI, 338 287 I am extremely obliged by your offer of your country house (as for all other kindness) in case my health should require my removal; but I cannot quit Greece while there is a change of my being of any (even sup posed) utility; there is a stake worth millions such as I am, and while I ean:,stand at all, I must stand by the cause. 9 These quotations have been multiplied because it is only when one sees them all together that one can judge the sincerity of Byron's interest in Greece. The cumulative force of these state ments should effectively refute any charge that Byron was primarily histrionic or vain-glorious in his last great under taking. There is yet another type of evidence of Byron's sincere interest in Greek independence: he spent much money. And it is to be remembered that as Byron grew older he became much more concerned about financial matters. Although in the early years he refused to accept money for his poems, later he drove hard bargains with Murray. Yet the amount which he spent during the brief period of active participation is stupendous. Byron sailed for Greece with ten thousand pounds, stating: "...I shall continue, during my absence at least, to apply such portions of my income, present and future, as may forward the object...”90 In January of the year of his death Byron says that he will ”stand paymaster” to the "wants of the state.”91 89 Ibid.,"VI, 343f. 90 Ifria-. VI, 229. 91 Ibid., VI, 308. 288 Three days earlier he indicated that "upwards of an hundred thousand dollars" stood ready as needs should arisei9^ Byron 93 spent at least two thousand dollars a week on rations alone.- On April 7, 1824, he says that he has spent fifty-nine thousand 94 dollars in three months. One can readily see what the sum would have finally amounted to had Byron lived. Men usually spend their money where their interests lie. Although some might contend that Byron was merely paying the price for a theater in which to act and gain glory, the statements in the preceding paragraph should forestall such a charge; and their evident spontaneity attests the genuine unselfishness of Byronfs purpose. The ureeks were strongly convinced that Byron was enthu siastic in their cause. The reception of the news of his death is decisive evidence of ureek appreciation for Byron’s cham pioning them in their struggle. Brinkwater states that the effect upon ureece of the report of Byron’s death was over- Q K whelming. ^ Be adds: "The sense of public loss, amounting almost to panic, was reinforced by an intense personal emotion 96 throughout the town. A governmental proclamation ordered 92 Ibid.. VI, 307. 93 Ibid.. VI, 344, note. 94 Ibid., VI, 372. 95 > P« 96 , Loc. cit. 289 thirty-seven funeral shots fired at dawn, all public offices closed for three days, all Easter services suspended, prayers and funeral services offered in all churches, and general 97 mourning observed for twenty-one days. Greece wished to bury him in a shrine in the land for which he gave himself; but the body was returned to England, where its arrival created comparatively little stir and where it now lies in a tomb with Boatswaip, his Saint Bernard, and with Ada, who, in Byron’s dreaming of what might yet be, gave him. great pleasure in the eight years following the separation. Thus, in the swamps of Missolonghi, Byron "went the way of all the earth”: he was overtaken by mortality. But death took only his body; the spirit of the man lived on, partly because he died under just the circumstances which destroyed his life. The activities of his last year robbed mortality of much of its tiumph. Not fearing death as Gain had feared it, Byron had come to love life more and more for 98 its opportunities to do ’ ’deeds of well-recorded Worth.” He had learned that what is morrtal in man must, through the ”mountain-majesty of Worth,”99 struggle against that which is mortal. And in his struggle he had begun a conquest of self 97 For a fuller presentation of the effect of Byron’s death on Greece, see Mayne, op. pit., pp. 437ff* 98 Chllde Harold. II, 85. 99 Ibid. # HI* 67. 290 and of mortality which, one feels, was so successful as to I suggest that, had he lived, the classical tendency always latent in him would have been more influential in both his life and his poetry. We have insisted that in going to Greece Byron hoped to atone for his failings, for his yielding to weaknesses - common to mortality. The materials presented in this chapter should establish this fact beyond doubt. Mayne asserts that "the ruling idea in Byron’s mind— once the Greek expedition was decided on— was to clean the slate."100 Byron said to Lady Blessington: But if I live, and return from Greece with something better and higher than the reputation and the glory of a poet, opinions may change, as the successful are always judged honorably in our country; my laurels may cover my faults better than the bays have done, and give a totally different reading to my thoughts, words, and deeds.101 It is fitting that the final stanzas of Byron’s last poem a'shoiild close this special study of Byron and Greece: The Sword, the Banner, and the Field, Glory and Greece, around me see! The Spartan, borne upon his shield, Was not more free. Awake! (not Greece, --she is awake!) Awake, my spirit! .Think through whom Thy life-blood tracks its parent lake, And then strike home! 1°° oit.. pp. 413. 101 0£. cit., pp. 402f* 291 sts. Tread those reviving passions down, Unworthy manhood!— unto thee Indifferent should the smile or frown Of Beauty he. If thou regretfst thy youth, why live? The land of honourable death Is here:— up to the Field, and give Away thy breath! Seek out--less often sought than found— A soldiers grave, for thee the best; Then look around, and choose thy ground, And take thy Rest*102 102 On This Day I Complete My Thirty-sixth Birthday, 6ff. CHAPTER IX CONCLUSION The .purpose of this investigation, as stated in the beginning, has been?to determine the extent of the influence of the concept of mortality oh Byron* s thought and poetry. We have been concerned particularly with the significance of mortality as a theme, and as a shaping force, an informing power, in ByronTs major works. It has been our purpose to ascertain to what degree Byron’s poems were inspired or mot ivated by his strong consciousness of death and mutability, by his special awareness of man’s tendency to yield to res ident forces in his "degraded form"*which cause him to lapse into the "first elements,"2 and by his increasing certainty that man’s "cabined, cribbed, confined"3 intellect cannot "comprehend the Universe."^ The studies of the juvenilia and the major poems have been such that definite conclusions have been reached in each. This brief concluding chapter will seek to restate and to point the significance of the findings in each unit of the study. Such a statement, in compact form, will enable the reader to plot with clarity and with a sense of wholeness the influence of mortality on Byron’s thought 1 ChildeHarold. Ill, 74. 2 The Deformed Transformed. I, ii, 319. 3 Childe Harold. IV, 127. 4 Manfred. II, ii, 111. 293 and poetry throughout his life. In Byron*s early poetry he is especially concerned, as are most young poets, especially romanticists, with.death and mutability. Among the works of the five most famous ro mantic poets of the first quarter of the nineteenth century, only ShelleyTs early poetry is more concerned with death than Byron*s. Besides the emphasis upon death, Byron*s early poetry shows a strong consciousness of the influence of "clay," which ’ ’clogs the ethereal essence."6 Man is "cooped in clay,"6 a partial victim of inherent recalci trant forces which are part of a fated "state of mortal bon dage."7 In the words of Manfred, Byron sees men Contending with low wants and lofty will, Till our Mortality predominates, And men are— what they name not to themselves, And trust not to each other....8 The strongest statement of man's yielding to his grosser impulses is found in the inscription which Byron writes to his dog. One must grant that Byron, as a young romanticist, delights in the radical and unusually strong indictment of man; but Byron's consciousness of man's yielding to the "low 5 Manfred. II, iv, 56f. 6 Ibid., I, i, 157. 7 Childe Harold. IV, 5. 6 Manfred. I, ii, 44ff. 9 See supra. p. 11. 294 wants” of mortality increases throughout his poetry. He is really more serious in Childe Harold and Don Juan about man’s yielding to the weakness of clay-bound mortality than he is in the juvenilia. The inability of man to "comprehend the Universe" receives no certain emphasis in the early poetry; there is no stressing of the "cabined, cribbed, con fined" intellect of man. This stress comes later in Childe Harold, and increases in Manfred and Cain, producing the agnosticism of Don Juan. During this early period Byron's religious faith:* in grained during the youthful years of indoctrination,10 eased the shock produced by the impact of his special conscious ness of mortality. In many of the early poems there is a definite turning toward heaven for consolation and hope.11 And the spirit of the religious passages is so genuine that Marjarum, as we have seen, calls the poems "orthodox Chris tian lyrics."12 ln Ch11^® Harold the stress upon the two phases of mortality strongly present in the early poetry is intensi fied*13 Byron's journeyings through Europe from 1809 to 1818 10 See supra, p.67. 11 See supra. p.68. 12 See supra. p.69. 13 See supra. pp. 82ff. 295 more deeply impressed upon him the mutability of all things. Scenes in Athens, Venice, and Rome especially stirred him with an increased consciousness of the instability and perishabil ity of the works of mortals* Athens is "a nation’s sepul chre, "14: Rome the "Niobe of nations."15 "Assyria— Greece— 1 Rome— Carthage— what are they?" Repeatedly the poet’s theme is vanitas vanitatum. But during the years from 1809 to 1818 Byron’s trav els and observations led him to conclude that man himself is the great troubler of the universe; that man’s folly is the source of earth’s tragedy; that it is man who produces ’ ’Death in the front, Destruction in the rear.”17 The child of earth, in his mixed essence, has yielded too greatly to that part of mortality which Manfred Galls "dust.’ ’18 Most men have become merely"dingy denizens."19 It is Byron’s awareness of the extent of man's yielding to the baser qual ities of hismortal nature that ultimately produces his mis anthropy* As we have seen, in the early poetry Byron, to lessen 14 Childe Harold. II, 3. 15 Ibid., IV, 79. 16 Ibid.. IV, 182. 17 Ibid., IV, 90. 18 Manfred. I, ii, 40. 19 Childe Harold. I, 17. 296 the pain born of the evils of mortality, turns to a formal belief in Christianity. In Childe Harold he has left behind, at least to a great degree, the faith of his boyhood. Now a love of nature, which had its inception among the hills of Aberdeenshire and by the wild northern waters, becomes a Zufluohtt to which Byron turns for relief from his Weltschmerz. Throughout the cantos of Childe Harold Byron turns from the unloveliness of the world of mortals to the beauty of nature; and often it is a special consciousness of the ugliness and mutability of the world of men which causes an immediate re sort to nature.2® A love of nature which is genuine in Can tos I and II reaches pantheistic enthusiasm under the in fluence of Shelley in 1816, the year of the composition of Canto III. From pantheism Byron apostatizes, but he contin ues to love the beauties of nature, leaving the Pilgrim on the shores of the boundless deep, "the image of Eternity, "2- L which is not subjeet to the "vile strength" which man "wields 22 for Earth*s destruction." In Childe Harold there is present a third aspect of mortality unstressed in the early poetry. Byron during the years when he composed Cantos I and II of Childe Harold be— 20 See supra,p. 79. 21 Childe Harold. IV, 185. 22 Ibid., IV, 80. 297 came especially aware of the "cabined, cribbed, confined” nature of the human intellect. As long as Byron accepted a faith which answered certain of his problems he was not so greatly aware of the numerous questionings— he calls them "incessant questionings— 23which arise unanswered in the mind of mortals. Byron reaches the conclusion that "All that we know is, nothing can be known."24 Though man "lifts his eye to Heaven," he is "bound to the Earth."28 In Manfred, although there is emphasis upon man’s yielding to "dust" until "Mortality predominates,"26 the chief stress is upon man’s inability to "comprehend the Uni- P 7 verse.”61' Manfred would transcend the bounds of mortal knowledge: as he expresses it, he would have his mind"strip- ped of this mortality."28 With any knowledge which Manfred thinks he achieves, there grows a "thirst of knowledge."29 And though he, Faust-like, has dealings with spirits of evil, he does not achieve understanding much beyond that of other 25 Don Juan, VI, 86. 24 Childe Harold. II, 7. 25 Ibid., II, 4. 26 I, ii, 42. 27 II, iii, 111. 28,III, iv, 133. 29 II, ii, 94f• 298 mortals, who when they cross his path cause him to he "de- 30 graded hack to them” and to feel that he is ”all clay again.” All that he has learned is that "The Tree of Knowledge is not that of Life."®3- Although he is a man "of no common order,”®2 and although his knowledge is "such as clay hath seldom borne,"3® he has not in reality gained any significant under standing beyond that achieved by the mortals whom his pride L-'-" causes him so to disdain. Manfred himself realizes the truth of what the Hunter says: "This is convulsion, and no health ful life."34 Thus in Manfred Byron has effectively drama tized the inability of mortals intellectually to transcend this "state of mortal bondagg#”®3 During the approximately four years between Manfred and Ohin Byron continued his thinking on mortality. And, as a result, the thirst to transcend the limits of mortal know ledge is more strongly emphasized as a characteristic of Cain than of Manfred. Manfred particularizes interest upon him self; Gain is more symbolical of the race. Manfred deals only slightly with Christian metaphysics; Cain endeavours to re- : 30 II, ii, 78f • 31 II, i, 12. 52 II, iv, 52. 33 II, iv, 57. 34 * II, i, 43. ®® Childe Harold, IV, 5. 29 9 late all the limitations and evils of mortality to the na ture of whatever gods may he* Cain is far more conscious of "mortal nature’s nothingness."36 The purpose of all Luci fer’s machinations is, not to bring light as Brandes, Ghew, and Marjarum have suggested,®7 but so to depress the mind of Cain that in deep mental agony he confesses, "I seem noth ing* ’ *®8 Lucifer magnifies mortality. The emphasis in Cain upon toil and sweat, suffering and death, as part of the fated inheritance of mortals, though a strong emphasis, is nevertheless subordinate to and contributory to Byron’s stress upon the limitations of human powers of comprehension* An element in Cain to which sufficient attention has not ordinarily been given is the doctrine that it is wiser to choose love rather than knowledge as the ultimate in human life and attainment. It is to be regretted that Byron does not more fully and more dramatically develop the conflict be tween love and knowledge* It is true that Adah does urge the superior wisdom of accepting as inevitable "what is."®9 and it is true that Cain does come to feel that his inordi nate thirst for knowledge has produced his unhappiness and 56 Cain* II, ii, 422. 37 See supra.pp. 162ff• 38 II, ii, 420f• 39 I, i, 45* 300 brought calamity upon those whom he loves; but the drama would be far more significant and its present tremendous power would be greatly increased had Byron possessed the genius, or what ever else was requisite, to give added development to the sig nificance of the power and beauty of love in human life and society. An emphasis upon the power of love to dissolve evils of the mortal state, such as the emphasis in Shelley’s Prometheus Unbound, could be achieved without destroying the effectiveness of elements contributing to the greatness of the play as it now stands. In Don Juan Byron emphasizes all three of the phases of mortality considered in this study. Many stanzas stress mutability and death. Throughout the journeyings of Don Juan Byron impresses the reader with the tendency of man to "relapse into the first elements."40 Everywhere the young Don goes there is the "common tale" of the evils which his tory reveals as constant in the record of man. And in one after another of the numerous digressions, there appears in terest in a theory of knowledge, but also a certainty that neither Byron nor anyone else really knows the answers to the incessant questionings of the human spirit. Although Byron is facetious, although he pretends that philosophical theories are neither here nor there, although he laughs in an 40 The Defromed Transformed. I, ii, 319. 301 attempt to shrug off any interest in the questions which he posed in Cain, yet the laughter of Don Juan is but repres sion of an interest which rears its head very clearly, de manding attention; but the repeated lapses into metaphysical thoughts are evidence sufficient to enable the student of Byron to perceive that the poet is,in fact, really inter ested in the questions which he raises for the pretended pur pose of shrugging them aside in laughter. In Don Juan there is no serious effort to seek escape in either nature or re ligion, for they avail not. Although attention in this study has been limited chiefly to the juvenilia and to Byron’s major works, we have in brief survey discovered in the Eastern Tales, written be tween 1812 and 1816, a spirit of gloom and melancholy simi lar to that in Childe Harold. Manfred. and Cain. In these poems also there are direct statements which reveal Byron's consciousness of the problems of mortality.^ We have dis covered that in his more metaphysical dramas— Manfred. Cain, 1 » Heaven and Earth— there is stronger emphasis upon mortality than in such plays as The Two Foscari. Sardanapalus, and Marino Faliero, although certain passages in works like the latter group have much in common with ideas expressed in the 4-2 former. 41 See supra. pp. 104ff 42 See supra, p. 21. 302 As we now briefly survey the poetry as a whole, we find in the Juvenilia an emphasis upon death and mutability, and upon man's yielding to the downward pull of clay. In this early poetry Byron resorts to nature, but more especi ally to religion, for an escape from the shock of mortality*43 In Childe Harold Byron is still conscious of the elements of mortality stressed in the early poetry; and partly because of his loss of early faith, he has decided that all man can know is that he knows nothing. In Cantos I and II the love of nature has increased beyond that of the early poems. In the third canto Byron makes a serious effort to accept pan theism, but rejects it in Canto XV, closing the poem in a mis anthropic mood induced by a historic consciousness of man's lapsing into the "first elements." In Manfred the phase of mortality most strongly emphasizes is the "cabined, cribbed, confined" nature of the mind of mortals. Man is unable to "comprehend the Universe". In Cain there is yet stronger dramatization of the intellectual limitations of mortality. There is a greater cosmic interest achieved in Cain than in Manfred. As we have just seen, agnosticism, as well as mut ability and man's yielding to his grosser nature, is a strong theme in Bon Juan. In these last three works studied there is lacking the religion of the early volumes, as well as the pantheism of the third canto of Childe Harold. 43 Supra. p. 67 303 From 1816 to bis death Byron became more and more con scious of the beauty of unselfish and heroic deeds: So perish monuments of mortal birth, So perish all in turn, save well-recorded Worth.44 All his life an admirer of the few who seemed to rise above the "state of mortal bondage,"45 Byron late in life turns to :the "mountain-majesty of Worth”46 as a means of triumphing over mortality— not merely ibver death but over his worse self, which dominated much of his earlier activity. Byron*s native disposition, his failings in the past, and his inner sense of the value of real worth were of such nature as to cause the opportunity in Greece to have a genuine appeal to themore un selfish elements of his character. When Byron went to Greece he had no certain or formal religious faith; he had no as sured philosophical system. But he had become more and more 47 persuaded that "they never fail who die in a great cause*” His gift of himself and of hismeans to Greece was a kind of high sacrifice in atonement for the nightmare of his delin quencies, for his yieldings to the grosser first elements, 48 to the "clay-cold bonds" of mortality. And even the un- 44 Childe Harold. II, 85. 45 Ibid., IV, 5. 46 Ibid., Ill, 67. 47 Marino Faliero. II, ii, 93f. Childe Harold. Ill, 73. 3q4 sentimental can see that by his death in Greece Byron, to a great degree, triumphed over mortality, both by atoning some what for his past and by adding the effect of a noble death to the immortality which his poetry has given him. Among Byron*s contemporaries, as already indicated,49 Shelley was most concerned with mortality.50 Kurtz, who has made a special study of the influence of death in Shelley's poetry, says: "Therefore his life-long struggle was a strug gle to conquer the pain with which he witnessed all ugliness and the fading and death of all fair things."5- * - Shelley in his juvenilia is concerned chiefly with the mutability of all things; in Q.ueen Mab. the first poem written beyond his lit 49 Supra, pp. 26ff. 50 Concerning the attitudes of Wordsworth, Coleridge, and Keats ^toward death, Kurtz writes: "In varying moods these young romantic poets imagined the issue of living— death. Wordsworth, in his philosophy of homely contentment seldom dwelling upon it, regarded it as the quiet crowning of a tran quil life. There is no need of victory; only the welcoming of a greater tranquillity, the peace of benediction. Coleridge, given to a dreamy compassion for those who suffer and die, idealized death as the great revealer of eternity and of hidden unity of all things. Keats has little to say about death, though more than either Wordsworth or Coleridge. When he does treat it, he keeps close to his rule that poetry should ease the heart. Sensuous beauty is his antidote to imperfection, change, and sorrow; death is disguised with beautiful enchant ment of the picturesque and mysterious. The after-life is ro manticized— a pastoral idyl projected into the skies. And the very intensity of his love of love, and of all other gracious delicate things, is interpreted as a mystical union with the spirit of loveliness, a triumph over death. Immortality lies where unreal voices lead." ('Op. cit., p. 76f) . 5- * - 0]D. cit.. p. 104. 305 erary nonage, there is a strong emphasis upon the tendency among mortals to yield to the cruelty of tyranny and intol erance, a cruelty which produces most mortal ills. In Alastor Shelley is seeking a satisfaction for his Romantic Ideal; but there is no victory gained over death and ugli ness, phases of mortality. In Ozymandias and his two poems entitled Mutability there is effective poetic emphasis upon the transiency of all things; in the first Mutability the emphasis is that ’ ’ Nought may endure but Mutability,” a tragic thought which, in the second Mutability, produces the con clusion that from every dream man may only ’ ’wake to weep.” As we have seen in Byron’s ease, when thoughtful men are so con scious of the effects of mortality, they set about to find or establish a defense against the shock of its ugliness. Few men have sought more determinedly for triumph over mortality than did Shelley. Shelley gained the victory over mortality in several ways. First he came to realize the power of Intellectual Beauty, which he identified with Love. Like most mystics, he found it difficult to maintain the heights which he aehieV' ed, but he was always conscious that the antithesis of love produces the evils of society. In The Revolt of Islam. Julian and Maddalo, and the Hymn to Intellectual Beauty Shelley partially develops the concept that love has power to unbind mankind from the toils of mortal ills; in Frometh- 306 eus Unbound he teaches that the perfectibility of man will come through the beneficent influence of love. It is love that will make righteousness cover the earth as the waters cover the ddep. The famous paean which closes the Prometheus expresses the Victory. A second source of Shelley* s triumph is his realization that as the music of the skylark increased the poelt’s consciousness of the beauty and loveliness in the world, so Shelley’s music would cause men to*turn from hate to love; and that as the West Wind charioted the seeds to their wintry beds, his dead thoughts should quicken a new birth, a regeneration through love, in the hearts of men. Shelley* s third source of victoryover death came from his mystical, his pantheistic, doctrine of the One and the Many, a doctrine most clearly enunciated in Adonais. Though Keat’s personality has returned, in a sense, into the Whole, his 52 spirit lives on. He is "one with Nature." "Death is dead, not he."53 Shelley, thus, through a life-time of wrestling with death and ugliness, achieved a victory which: satisfied him and gave him serenity of spirit, however inadequate his victory may be to others. Shelley philosophically elaborated a system of thought beyond anything which Byron developed. As a result, his spirit 52 Adonais.42. 53 Ibid., 41. 307 is more completely a free spirit. In Childe Harold III Byron does urge the beauty of love, such as the Alps made him feel, and in Cain he holds up through Adah’s words the superiority P\A of love over knowledge;^ but he does not dream of the day when love shall free the race. Yet he, like Shelley, is strongly aware that man, through cruelty and tyranny, has produced his own suffering and tragedy. Byron’s concept of immortality, in his most sure moments, is more of a personal immortality than is Shelley*s. But in the end Byron is deter mined that man’s most practical way of gaining a victory over the evil and ugliness of mortality is by doing "deeds of well' recorded W o r t h .”55 In going to Greece he practised Shelley’s doctrine of the power of self-control and of love to unbind oneself and others, and to make beauty prevail in the world* 54 See supra. pp. 209ff. 55 Childe Harold. II, 85. .BIBLIOGRAPHY SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY I. PRIMARY SOURCES A. Byron1s Works , Letters and Journals. New, revised, and enlarged edition; Rowland E. Frothero, editor, 6 vols.; London: John Murray, 1900-1904. , Lord Byron* s Correspondenoe, chiefly with Lady Mel bourne, Mr. Hobhouse, the Honorable Douglas Kinnard, and P. B. Shelley. John Murray, editor, 2 vols.; London: John'Murray, 1922. , Poetry. New, revised, and enlarged edition; Ernest Hartley Coleridge, editor, 7 vols.; London: John Murray, 1900-1904. , The Poetical Works. Collected and arranged with illustrative notes by Thomas Moore et al.; New York: P. E. Collier, n. d. B. Works by Other Authors Browning, Robert, The Complete Poetical and Dramatic Works. Studentfs Cambridge edition; Boston: Stoughton Mifflin Company, 1895. Gessner, Salomon, La Mort D'Abel. Sixth edition; Paris: Desaint and Saillant, 1775. Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von, Eaust. E. W. Bredt, editor; Mtinchen: Schmidt, n. d. _______ , Conversations with Eokermann. Washington: M. Walter Dunne, 1901. Milton, John, Paradise Lost. Merrit Y. Hughes, editor; New York: Doubleday, Doran, and Company, 1935. Pope, Alexander, The Poetical Works. New edition; Philadelphia: Crissy and Markley, n. d. 310 Shelley, Percy Bysshe, Letters. Koger lngpen, editor, 2 , . vols.; London: Sir Isaac Pitman and Sons, Ltd., 1909. _______ , The Complete Poetical Works. Student’s Cambridge edition; George Edward Woodberry, editor; Boston: ■^■oughton Mifflin Company, 1901.' Swift, Jonathan, GulliverT s Travels. Arthur E, Case, editor; New York: Thomas Nelson and Sons, L938. Wordsworth, William, Poems. Thomas Hutchinson, editor; London: Oxford University Press, 1926* II. SECONDARY SOURCES A. Books Treating Romanticism or the Romantic Period in England Abercrombie, Lascelles, Romanticism. London': Martin Seeker, 1926. Babbitt, Irving, Rousseau and Romanticism* Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1919. Brandes, Georg Morris Cohen, Naturalism in England* Vol. TV* Main Currents in Nineteenth Century Literature, 6 vols.; New York: The MacMillan Company, 1901-1906* Fairchild, Hoxie Neale, The Romantic Quest* New York: The Columbia University Press, 1931. Gingerioh, Salomon Francis, Essays in the Romantic Poets. New York: The MacMillan Company, .1924, Lucas, Frank Laurence, The Decline and Fall of the Romantic Ideal* Cambridge, England: The University Press, 1936. Phelps, William Lyon, The Beginnings of the English Romantic Movement: A Study in Eighteenth Century Literature. Boston: Ginn and Company, 1893. Rose, William, From Goethe to Byron: The Development of Weltschmerz in German Literature* London: George Rutledge and Sons, Ltd., 1924* B. Books on Byron, Chiefly Biographical Ackermann, Richard, Lord Byron* Heidelberg: Carl Winter, 1901. Blessington, Marguerite (Power) Farmer Gardiner, Countess of, Conversations of Lord Byron with the Countess of Bless ing ton. London: Henry Colburn, 1834. Brecnock, Albert, Byron— A Study of the Pnet in the Light of New Discoveries. New York: D.Tppleton and CompanyV 1927. Broughton, John Cam Hobhouse, 1st Baron, Recollections of a^ Long Life. Vol. IX. Lady Dorchester" editor; 6 voTs.; London: John Murray, 1909-1910. _______ , Travels in Albania and Other Provinces of Turkey in 1809 and 1810. New edition, revised and corrected; 2 voTs. London: John Murray, 1858. Clarke, Isabel C., Shelley and Byron: A Tragic Friendship. London: Hutchinson and Company, 1934. Dallas, R. C. and A. R. C., Recollections of the Life of Lord Byron from the Year 1808 to the end of 1814. London: Charles Knight, 1824. Drinkwater, John, Byron, a Pilgrim of Eternity: Byron— a Conflict. New York: George H. Doran, 1925. Du Bos, Charles, Byron and the Need of Fatality. London: Putnam, 1932. Edgcumbe, Richard, Byron: the Last Phase. Second edition; London: John Murray, 1910. Eimer, Manfred, Die PersOnlichen Beziehungen zwisohen Byron und den Shelleys: eine Kritisohe Studie. Heidelberg: Carl Winter, 1910. Elze, Karl, Lord Byron: A Biography, with a critical essay on his place in literature. London: John Murray, 1872. Fox, Sir John C., The Byron Mystery. London: Grant Richards, Ltd., 1924. 312 Galt, John, The Life of Byron. London: Colburn and Bentley: 1830. Gamba, Count Pietro, A Narrative of Lord Byron* s Last Jour ney to Greece, extracted from the Journal of Count Peter Gamba. London: John Murray, 1825. Grebanier, Frances(Vinciguerra), Frances Winwar, pseudonym. The Romantic Rebels. Boston: Little, Brown, and Com pany, 1935. Guiccioli, The Countess of(Mme. de Boissy) , My Recollections of Lord Byron. and Th0se of Lye-Witnesses of His Life. London: &ichard Sentley, 1869. Hodgson, J. T., editor, Memoirs of the Reverend Francis Hodgson, B. D., Scholar, Poet, and ^ivine♦ Blvolsa:p London :,The "MacMillan Company, 1878. Hunt, Leigh, Autobiography.of Leigh Hunt, with Reminiscences of Friends and Contemporaries. New York: Harper and Brothers, 1850. . Lord Lyron and Some of His Contemporaries. Philadelphia: Carey, Lea, and Carey, 1828. Jeaffreson, John Cordy, The Real Lord Byron: New Views of the Poet * s Lj fe. London: James - t i . Osgood, 1883. Kennedy, James, Conversations on Religion, with Lord Byron and Others. London: John Murray, 1830. Koeppel, Emil, Lord Byron. Berlin: Ernst Hofmann and Company* 1903. Lovelace, Ralph Gordon Noel Milbanke, 2nd Earl of, Astarte: A Fragment of Truth concerning George Gordon Byron, sixth Lord Byron, recorded by his Grandson, Ralph Milbanke, Earl of Lovelace. New edition, with many additional let ters, Mary, Countess of Lovelace, editor; London: Christophers, 1921. Maurois, Andre', Byron. New York: D. -Appleton and Company, 1930. Mayne, Ethel Colburn, Byron. Second edition, revised; London: Methuen and Company, Ltd., 1924. , The Life and Letters of Anne Isabella. Lady Noel Byron. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons', 1929. Medwin, Thomas, Journal of the Conversations of Lord Byron» London: Henry Colburn, 1824. Moore, Sir Thomas, The Life of Lord **yron, with His Letters and Journals. 2 vols.; Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott, and dompany, 1857. Nichol, John, Byron. English Men of Letters Series. London MacMillan and Company, Limited, 1926. Nicolson, Harold, The Last Journey: April 1823— April 1824. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1924. Parry, William, The Last Days of Lord Byron. London: Knight and Lacy, 1825. Quennel, Peter, Byron in Italy. New York: The Viking Press, 1941. _______ , Byron: the Years of Fame. New York: The diking Press, 1935. Raymond, Dora Neill, The Political Career of Lord Byron. London: George Allen and Unwin, Ltd.7 n. d. Richter, Helen, Lord Byron: Pers9nlichkeit und Werk. Halle, Salle: N. Niemeyer, 1929. Spender, Harold, Byron and Greece. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1924. Stowe, Hariet Elizabeth(Beecher), Lady Byron Vindicated: a History of the £yron Controversy, from its Beginning in 1816 to the Present I'ime. Boston: fields, Osgood, and Company, 1870. Syrnon, J. D., Byron in Perspective. New York: Frederick A. Stokes, 1925. Trelawny, Edward John, Recollections of the Last Days of Shelley and Byron. London: Humphrey Milford, 1931. _______ , Records of Shelley. Byron, and the Author. London: Pickering, 1878. 314 C. Books on Byron and His Works, Chiefly Crltioal Briscoe, Walter, editor, Byron the Poet, a collection of essays by Viscount Haldane et al. London: George Rout- ledge and Sons, Ltd., 1924. Calvert, William J*., Byron: Romantic Paradox. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1935. Chew, Samuel C., Byron in England, His Fame and After-fame. London: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1924. _______ , The Dramas of Lord Byron: a. Critical Study. Baltimore: The John Hopkins Press, 1915. Donner, Joakim Otto Evert, Lord Byrons Weltanschauung. Helsingfors: 1897. Eichler, Albert, John Hoodman Frere. sein Leben und seine Werke, sein einfluss auf Lord Byron. Weiner Beitrag zur Englisehen Philologie. Band XX. Wein und Leipzig: Wilhelm Braumuller, 1905. Eimer, Manfred, Byron und der Kosmos. Heidelberg: Carl Winter, 1912. Est'eve, Edmond, Byron et le Romantisme Francais. Essai sur la Fortune et 1*Influence de L*Oeuvre de Byron en France de 1812 a 1850. Second edition; Paris: Boivin et Cie, 1929. Fuess, Claude M., Lord Byron as a Satirist in Verse. New York: Columbia University Press, 1912. Fuhrmann, Ludwig, Die Belesenheit des Jungen Byron. Friede- nau bei Berlin: Martin Kindler, 1903. Gerard, William, Byron Re-studied in His Dramas. London: F. V. White and Company, 1886. Gillardon, Heinrich, Shelley’s Einwirkung auf Byron. Karlsruhe: M. Gillardon, 1898. Kraeger, Heinrich, Der Byronische Heldentypus. Miinchen: Carl Haushalter, 1898. Kurtz, Benjamin P., The Pursuit of Death, a Study of Shelley’s Poetry. New York: Oxford University Press, 1933. 3 1 5 Mackenzie, Harriet Margaret, Byron1s Laughter: In Life and Poetry* Los Angeles: Lymanhouse, 1939. Marjarum, Edward Wayne, Byron as Skeptic and Believer. Princeton Studies in English, No. 16. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1938. Oeftering, Wilhelm Engelbert, Wordsworths and Byrons Natur- Dichtung. Karlsruhe: 0. F. Thiergarten, 1901. Pughe, Francis Heveringham, Studien tlber Byron und Words worth. Heidelberg: Carl Winter, 1902. Schaffner, Alfred, Lord Byronf s Cain und seine Q.uellen. Strassburg: Karl J. Trubner, 1880. Tozer, Henry Fanshawe, editor, Childe Harold* s Pilgrimage. Third edition; Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1916. Weiser, Karl, Popes Einfluss auf Byrons Jugenddichtungen. Halle: E. Karras, 1877. Wilmink, Ernest, Lord Byrons Naturgeftihl. BQrna-Leipzig: R. Noske, 1913. Wilmsen, Freidrich, Ossians Einfluss auf Byrons Jugendge- dichte. Berlin: Felber, 1903. D. Articles, Essays, Pamphlets, Reviews Arnold, Matthew, ’ ’ Preface,*’ Poetry of Byron. Matthew Arnold, editor; MacMillan and Company, 1927. pp. xii-xxxi. Austin, Alfred, ’ ’Wordsworth and Byron," Quarterly Review, 154:53-82, July, 1882. Babcock, R. W. , "Inception and Reception of Byron’s Cain.’ * South Atlantic Quarterly, 26:178-88, April, 1927. Bayle, Pierre, "Manicheans,'* A General dictionary. Historical and Critical, VII, 396-402. , "Paulicians,” A General Dictionary, Historical and Critical. VIII, 213-29. Brooke, Stopford, "Byron’s Cain," Hibbert Journal, 18:74-94, October, 1919. 316 Chambers, R. W., "Ruskin (and others) on Byron," English Association Pamphlet, No. 6£, November, 19£5. Eimer, Manfred, "Byrons Pantheismus vom Jahre 1816," Englische Studien. 43:396-4£5, 1910. ______ , "Das.Apokryphe Buch Henoch und Byrons Mysterien," Englische Studien. 44:18-31, 1911. Ellis, George, Review of Childe Harold I and II, Quarterly Review. 7:180-£0Q, March, 181E. Farrand, M. L., "Udolpho and Childe Harold." Modern Language Notes. 45:££0-£l, April, 1930. Garrod, H. W., "Byron: 18£4-19£4, a Lecture Delivered before the University of Oxford," Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 19£4. Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von, "Cain, a Mystery by Lord Byron." Vol. IV, pp. £63—£67. S^mtliche Werke. 40 vols.; Stuttgart: J. J. Cotta. "Grant*s Notes on Byron*s Cain." Fraser*s Magazine. 3:£85-304, April, 1831. Greef, A., "Byron’s Lucifer," Englische Studien, 36:64-74, 1906. Heber, Reginald, Review of Sardanapalus, The Two Foscari, and Cain, Quarterly Review. £7:476-5£4, July, 18££. Jeffrey, Francis, Review of Childe Harold I and II, Edinburgh Review, 19:466-77, February, 181£. ________ , Review of Childe Harold III, Edinburgh, Review* £7:£77-310, December, 1816. ________ , Review of Manfred, Edinburgh Review. £8:418-431, August 1817. ________ , Review of Sardanapalus. The Two Foscari, and Cain, Edinburgh Review, 36:413-§£, February, 18££. Knobbe, A., "Faust-Idea in Byron’s Poetry," Englisohe Studien, 38:98-100, 1907. Kolbing, E., "Zu Byrons Manfred," Englische Studien, ££:140-4£, 1896. 3 1 7 Macaulay, Thomas Babbington, Lord, Review of Moore’s Life of Lord ^yron, Edinburgh Review, 53:544-572, June, 1831. Messac, Regis, "Cain et le Probleme du Mai dans Voltaire, Byron, et Leconte de Lisle,” ReVue de Litt^rature Comparee, 41:620-52, October, 1924. More, Paul Elmer, ”A H0te on Byron’s Don Juan,” Shelburne Essays, third series, Vol, III; New York: G. P. Pitman's Sons, 1909, pp. 166-76. Scott, Sir Walter, Review of ^hUde Harold III, Quarterly Review, 16:172-208, October, 1816. ________ , Review of Childe Harold IV, Quarterly Review, 19:215-232, April, 1818. Swinburne, Charles Algernon, ’ ’Byron,” Essays and Studies; London: Chatto and Windus, 1875. Pp. 238-258. Wenzel, G. , ’ ’ Miltons und Byrons- Satan,” Arohiv ftir das Studium der Neueren Sprachen und Literaturen, 83:67-90, 1889. Wilson, John, Review of Childe Harold IV, Edinburgh Review, 30:87-120, June, 1818. E. Miscellaneous Dowden, Edward, Shakespeare, a Critical Study of His Mind and Art. New York: Harper and Brothers, 1905. Finlay, George, History of the Greek Revolution. Edinburgh: William Blackwood andUons, 1861. Harrington, Leicester Fitzgerald Charles., 5th earl, Greece in 1825 and 1824, 2 vols. London: Sherwood, Gilbert, and Piper, 1825. Robinson, Henry Crabbe, Diary, Reminiscences, and Corres pondence , Thomas Sadler, editor; London: The MacMillan Company, 1872. APPENDICES APPENDIX A Heaven and Earth and Other Works Written during the Composition of Don Juan During the six years in which he produced Don Juan, Byron wrote all the dramas except Manfred, which he completed a year before beginning his epic. Most significant of the poems of the period are The Prophecy of Dante. The Morgante Maggiore. The Vision of Judgment. The Age of Bronze, and The Island. None of the poems named above is sufficiently signi ficant to merit special study; not much would be taken away from Byron* s poetic stature or fame should any one of them be lost. Nor is the group as a whole of sufficient value to deserve extended analysis in this study. Had they come during a period when Byron wrote nothing else, the case would be different. It is true that we are interested in Byron*s zeal for translation in The Morgante Maggiore. in his love of Italy and confidence in her future in The Prophecy of Dante, and in his satire on Southey in The Vision of Judgment; but these works are completely overshadowed by the greater exhibi tions of genius in Cain and Don Juan. And these latter two, with the letters and journals, give a sufficiently clear in sight into what Byron was thinking during his last years.1 1 For passages emphasizing mortality see The Prophecy of Dante, I, 1-14, 150-141, 151-178; II, 71-90. With, the exception of Cain, Which we have studied, and Heaven and Earth, which has the poetic elevation of Manfred and Cain, Byron's dramas aTe weak, both in dramatic power and poetic quality. Byron lacked intuitive dramatic sense. Manfred, Cain, and Heaven and Earth in their greatest moments achieve real dramatic intensity. It appears that Byron needed the inspiration of cosmic thought, the mysterious force of the supernatural, to inspire him to powerful dramatic expression; and in his regular dramas these are laoking, except in The Deformed Transformed, in which there is not found the breadth and height and sweep which inform the three great philosophi cal dramatic poems. Gingerich has, I believe, correctly dis covered that another cause of the low level of achievement in Marino Faliero and The Two Fosoari is their objectivity, their impersonality.2 In Manfred and Cain Byron was writing more subjectively than in the more regular dramas; he identi fied himself, in many ways, with the protagonists. Thus in this study of mortality in Byron's works a detailed analysis of the more regular dramas is omitted. In none of them is the emphasis on mortality comparable to that in Manfred and Cain. Only occasionally is Byron particularly critical of man as he is in the world; and the very absence of satiric force may account for the lack of spark and fire 2 Solomon Francis Gingerich, Essays in the Romantic Poets, p. 272. 321 in the dramas, for Byron is often most effective when he is most satiric. In Marino Faliero there are war and jealousy, but Byron*s interest is more in developing plot and charac ter than in emphasizing the evil in man or the limitations of man. In Sardanapalus Byron turns only occasionally to theme of mortality: on one occasion, he calls dogs "better” and ’ ’more faithful” than men, and at another time writes: Sar. , Oh, Myrrhal if Sleep shows such things, what may not death disclose? Myr. I know no evil death can show, which life Has not already shown to those who live Embodied longest. If there be indeed A shore where mind survives, ’twill be as mind, All unincorporate: of it there flits A shadow of this cumbrous clog of clay, Which stalks, methinks, between our souls and heaven, And fetters us to earth— at least the phantom, Whate’er it have to fear, will not fear death. Sar. I fear it not; but I have felt— have seen— A legion of the dead. Myr. And so have I. The dust we tread upon was once alive, And wretched.4 In Th® Two Foscari Byron alludes only briefly to the inability of man to comprehend the universe, a theme so greatly developed in Gain, which was published in the same year. When Marina tells the Doge that he is a ’ ’ mystery,” he replies, ’ ’ All -things 3 1, ii, 345. 4 IV, i, 52ff. 322 c are so to mortals*” Doge says that man is a "loathsome volume,” and that his brain and heart are "black and bloody l@aves.”6 In The Deformed Transformed the stranger in the body of the deformed Arnold addresses to Arnold a speech similar to the worst of Lucifer’s in Cain: Think*st thou that 1 pass from thee with my presence? Or that this crooked coffer, which contain’d Thy principle of life, is aught to me Except a mask? And these are men, forsooth! Heroes and chiefs, the flower of Adam’s bastards! This is the consequence of giving matter The power of thought. It is a stubborn substance, And thinks chaotically, as it acts, Ever relapsing into its first elements. Well! I must play with these poor puppets: *tis the Spirit’s pastime in his idler hours. When I grow weary of it, I have business Amongst the stars, which these poor creatures deem Were made for them to look at. ’Twere a jest now To bring one down amongst them, and set fire Unto their anthill: how the pismires then Would scamper o’er the scalding soil, and,ceasing From tearing^down each other’s nests, pipe forth One universan orison. Ha! Ha!7 In Werner there is even less attention to mortality. Thus Byron, in the so-called regular dramas, is not greatly con cerned with mortality. It is only in-the more poetical, more philosophical dramas, Manfred. Cain, and Heaven and Earth, that his mind is strongly attracted to the evils and limitations common to mortals. 5 II, i, 331f. 6 Supra, p. 5. 7 I, ii, 311ff. 323 Heaven and Earth, because of its superior poetic power, deserves more, detailed attention than the dramas just men tioned. In this poem there is great emphasis upon mortality. Earth's women look upward to the love of the seraphs, rather than downward to the love of men. When Anah's "heart grows impious” at loving an angel, Aholibamah tells her: Then wed thee Unto some son of clay, and toil and spint There's Japhet loves thee well, hath loved thee long: Marry, and bring forth dust.® Thus very early in the play begins an emphasis upon clay and dust; and throughout, the diction is so definitely pointed as to be possibly defective in its obviousness. Although Anah can feel her immortality o'ersweep All pains, all tears, all time, all fears, and peal, Like the eternal thunders of the deep, into her ears the words "Thou liv'st forever,"9 yet she is aware that "death and decay our mother Eve bequeath'd us.*’^® The spirit which visits Japhet has much in common with the Lucifer who visited Cain. Like Lucifer, he emphasizes the evil years that lie ahead of mankind: When the great barrier of the deep is rent, Shall thou and thine be good or happy?— NoI Thy new world and new race shall be of woe— 8 I, i, 15ff. 9 I, i, HOff. 10 I, i, 96f. 324 Less goodly in their aspect, in their years Less than the glorious giants, who Yet walk the world in pride, The Sons of Heaven by many a mortal bride. Thipe shall be nothing of the past, save tears, And art thou not ashamed Thus to survive, And eat and drink and wive? A later speech becomes more specific: Meantime still struggle in the mortal chain Till earth wax hoary; War with yourselves, and hell, and heaven, in vain, Until the clouds look gory With the blood reeking from each battle plain: New times, new climes, new arts, new men: but still, The same old tears, old crimes, and oldest ill, Shall be amongst your race in different forms; But the same mortal storms Shall oversweep the future, as the waves In a few hours the glorious giants* graves.12 Japhet stoically accepts what he deems the mortal state: 1 ^ **We are sent upon the earth to toil and die.” There are several speeches like those in which Lucifer preaches the omnipotent tyranny of a God who yearns for adula tion,— ”To whom the omission of a sacrifice is vice.”14 One of the bitterest speeches Byron ever wrote is that which the Chorus of Mortals sings just after a mother has pleaded with Japhet to take with him into the Ark her infant son. In the midst of their chorus the Mortals cry out: 11 I, iii, 127ff. 3-2 I, iii, 207ff. 1S 1/ iii, 371f. 14 I, iii, 168f. 325 Why should our hymn be raised, our knees be bent Before the implacable Omnipotent, Since we must fall the same? If he hath made earth, let itp.be his shame, To make a world for torture.15 In lines of mocking irony addressed to Japhet the Mortals close the chorus: Fly, son of Noah, flyl and take thine ease* In thine allotted ocean-tent; And view, all floating o*34 the element, The corpses of the world of thy young days; Then to Jehovah raise Thy song of praise.16 These skeptical and biting words are softened by the speech of a mortal who is not a part of the chorus: Blessed are the dead Who die in the Lordl And though the waters be ofer earth outspread, Yet, as his word, Be the decree adoredJ He gave me life— he taketh but The breath which is his ownl And though these eyes should be forever shut, Nor longer this weak voice before his throne Be heard in supplicating tone, Still blessed be the Lord, For what is past For that which is: For all are his, From first to last-- Time— space— eternity— life— death-— The vast known and immeasurable unknown. He made, and can unmake; And shall I, for a little gasp of breath, Blaspheme and groan? 15 I, iii, 859ff. 16 I, iii, 877ff. 3£6 No, let me die, as I have lived, in faith, Nor quiver, though the universe may quake!17 Earlier Japhet had looked forward to the Millennium, when The eternal will Shall deign to expound this dream Of good and evil; and redeem Unto himself all times, all things; And, gathered under his almighty wings, Abolish hell! And to the expiated Earth Restore the beauty of her birth, Her Eden in an endless paradise, Where man no more shall fall as once he fell, And even the very demons shall do well.18 These passages are more hopeful than any in Cain. Although the emphasis upon the limitations of dust and clay is strong, and although there is expressed no assured and confident justification of God’s bringing the terrible Deluge, there is the intimation that if man were not so finite, so limited, he might perceive an underlying mercy and justice somewhat like that which Japhet’s prophecy quoted above predicts. 17 I, iii, 883ff 18 I, iii, 193ff APPENDIX B Sources of Manfred Attention given here to sources of Manfred is of. ne cessity brief, being limited to the most important, or to those whose influence is most directly related to the analy sis of Manfred in the foregoing study* Those who are con cerned with detailed knowledge of all possible literary sources, such as Chateaubriand’s Rene* Walpole’s Castle of Otranto, and Mysterious Mother. Shelley’s St. Irvyne and Alastor. Coleridge’s Remorse, Maturin’s Betram, Beckford’s Yathek, Lewis’s Monk, and Schiller’s Die Raubers, should consult the works of Kraeger1 and Chew,2 of whom the latter seems to be less controlled by any ever-eagerness to find that for which he seeks. The similarity between Manfred and the best known versions of the Faust Legend is obvious. The reader who knows Coethe’s Faust and Marlowe’s Dr. Faustus immediately wonders concerning Byron’s knowledge of these two earlier works. The reviewers of Manfred aroused Byron by laying charges of ’ ’gross plagiary.”3 Jeffrey in his review defended 4 Byron’s originality. On October 12 Byron writes to Murray: 1 Heinrich Kraeger, Per Byronische Beldentypus. 2 The Dramas of Lord Byron, pp. 59ff. 3 Poetry, IV, (81'.. 4 Edinburgh Review, 28:430f., August, 1817. 328 Many thanks for the Edinburgh Review which is very kind about Manfred. and defends its origin-^ ality, which I did not know that any body has at tacked. I never read. and do not know that I ever saw, the Faustus of Marlow, and had, and have, no Dramatic works by me in English, except the re cent things which you sent me; but I heard Mr. Lewis translate verbally some scenes of Goethefs Faust (which were some good, and some bad) last summer;— which is all I know of the history of that magic personage; and as to the germs of Manfred, they may be found in the Journal which I sent Mrs. Leigh (part of which you saw) when I went over first the Dent de Jamont (sic), and then the Wengeren (sic) or Wengeberg Alp and Sheideck and made the giro of the Jungfrau, Shreck- horn, etc., etc., shortly before I l€lt Switzerland. I have the Yfaole scene of Manfred before me, as if it was but yesterday, and could point it out, spot by spot, torrent and all.... As to the Faustus of Marlow, I never read, never saw, nor heard of it— at least, thought of it ...........5 In his letter to Murray Byron shows his impatience at the charges of plagiarism: "The devil take both the Faustuses, German and English,--I have taken neither.”6 Three years later Byron writes concerning Goethe: Faust I never read, for I don't know German; but Matthew Monk Lewis, in 1816, at Coligny, trans lated most of it to me viva voce, and I was naturally much struck with it; but it was the Staubach and the Jungfrau, and something else, much more than Faustus, that made me write Manfred. The first scene, how ever, and that of Faustus are very similar.7 5 Letters and Journals, IV, 173f. 6 Ibid., IV, 177. 7 Ibid., V, 36. 329 Chew states: Byron studied German as a boy, but later forgot it completely and knew German literature only in trans lation. His first knowledge of Faust was probably through Mme. de Stael's De l'Allemagne, which consists of an analysis of the drama and a translation of sev eral scenes. Brandi suggests that when Byron told Medwin "All I know of that drama is from a sorry French translation,” he was refering to Mme. de Stael's. This seems likely.8 The quotations above suggest the three possible sources to be investigated here: (l) Marlowe's Dr. Faustus. (2) Goethe's Faust. (3) "the Staubach (sic) and the Jungfrau, and some thing else.” The first may be readily disposed of. It is generally conceded that Byron was uninfluenced by Marlowe's drama. Mr. Chew states that "there is no reason to doubt his repeated Q assertion that he knew nothing of Marlowe's Faustus." The dramas of both poets open with the protagonist in his study, meditating concerning knowledge; but the speeches are con trastingly different, Manfred having despaired of ever at taining a satisfactory knowledge of things as they are, Faustus being eagerly hopeful. The only obvious point of similarity between the closing scenes of Byron's and Marlowe's dramas— except that in both works the protagonist is to die— is that in each, religious persons endeavour to induce the 8 The Dramas of Lord Byron, p. 174. 9 Loc.•cit. dying man to turn to God. Manfred refuses to do so out of strong independence, Faustus out of a conviction that it is too late. Manfred finds it easy to die, whereas, as the clock strikes twelve, Faustus cowers in terror, and cries that he will burn his books. There can be no stronger con trast than that between Faustus’ fear before the devils, who bear him away, and Manfred’s banishment of the"baffled fiends, who flee his presence. Byron has no positive debt to Marlowe. His debt to Goethe in Manfred is considerable. We have already seen that Byron had never read Faust. his knowledge of the poem coming chiefly from a viva voce translation by 10 11 Lewis. But as Boyd has insisted.Faust made a striking impression upon Byron, as one would expect, Faust and Byron being just what they are. Ernest Hartley Coleridge writes that Byron must have had Ma predecessor, if not a progenitor,H and that ’ ’there can be no doubt whatever that the primary conception of the character, though by no means the inspira tion of the poem, is to be traced to the ’Monk’s* oral ren dering of Goethe’s Faust.♦ . Coleridge finds that the link between Manfred and Faust is ’ ’formal, not spiritual.”13 10 Supra, p. 328. 11 James Boyd, Goethe*s Knowledge of English Literature p . 1 6 3 . 13 Poetry. IT, 81. 13 Ibid., IT, 82. 331 Chew in a brief but adequate resuple^ of the scholarship con cerning Faust’s influence on Manfred has pointed out several similarities.14 First and most obvious is the opening scene of each drama, Manfred being "discoved in a Gothic gallery.” 15 Faust, ”in einem hochbewolbten engen gothischen Zimmer.” ^ Both Faust and Manfred have power over spirits; and both have been ceaselessly striving after knowledge, "with ever the same result— the realization of the falsity of the promise ’Britis sicut deus, scientes bonum et malum. *"16 in the search both end just where they began. Chew finds an analogy between the appearance of a "beautiful female figure” to 17 Manfred and the beautiful picture of a woman which Faust “ I Q saw in the Witch’s mirror.< Both Faust and Manfred are saved from suicide, the former by a chorus of angels, the latter by a Chamois-hunter. The scene in the Hall of Ari- manes19 is reminiscent of the Walpurgisnaoht.20 14 ^bile Dramas of Lord Byron, p. 174. 15 Ibid., IY, 82. 15 Loc. oit. 17 I, ii, 188. 18 I, vi. 19 II, iv, 20 Faust. I, xxi. 332 In spite of these similarities, which are not as many nor so striking as those between many highly original works and their sources, the originality of Manfred. which Jeffrey 21 defended, is readily perceivable. Goethe himself recognized this originality, although he considered Faust "as the source whence Byron derived the tone of his 'Manfred.'"22 In his review of the play Goethe wrote: Byron's tragedy, Manfred, was to me a wonderful phenomenon, and one that closely touched me. This singular intellectual poet has taken my Faustus to himself, and extracted from it the strongest nourishment for his hypochondriac humour. He has made use of the impelling principles in his own way, for his own purposes, so that no one of them remains the same; and it is particularly on this account that I cannot enough admire his genius. The whole is in this way so completely formed anew that it would be an interesting task for the critic to point out, not only the alter ations he has made, but their degree of resemblance with, or dissimilarity to, the original; in the course of which I cannot deny that the gloomy heat of an unbounded and exuberant despair becomes at last oppressive to us. Yet is the dissatisfaction we feel always connected with esteem and admiration. Thus, nowhere is there slavish following of Faust in either tone or circumstance. Byron’s work stands on its own feet and on its own merits. It is so definitely Byron's own that it does not lose any power when compared with any earlier similar work. 21 Edinburgh - .Review„ 28: 430, -'August:,'? 1822. CO Conversations. p. 9. 23 Goethe's review of Manfred is reprinted in Letters and Journals. Y, 303ff. This quotation is from p. 306._ 333 We have seen that Byron said that "it was the Stau- baoh(sio) and the Jungfrau, and something else, much more than Faustus, that made me write Manfred,’ 1^4 Over a year after his leaving Switzerland, the whole scene of Manfred lay before him, ttas if it was yesterday," and he "could point it out, spot by spot, torrent and all...."2^ One who reads Byron’s journal kept for Augusta during the tour of the Alps, and then studies the language and setting of Manfred, is struck by many obvious parallels. Clearly the inspiration for the nature scenes and apostrophes came from "the Stau- baeh(sic) and the Jungfrau." Several parallels from the Letters and Journals and Manfred are quoted below: la. The music of the Cow’s bells(for their wealth, like the Patriarch’s, is cattle) in pastures, (which reach a height far above any mountains in Britain), and the Shepherds’ shouting to us from crag to crag, and playing on their reeds where the steeps ap peared almost inaccessible, with the surrounding scenery, realized all t&at I have ever imagined of a pastoral existence....2® lb. ...Hark! the note, The natural music of the mountain reed— For here the patriarchal days are not A pastoral fable— pipes in the liberal air, Mixed with the sweet bells of the sauntering herd; My soul would drink those echoes....27 24 Supra. p. 328. 25 cit, 26 Letters and Journals. Ill, 255. 27 I, ii, 47. 334 2a. The torrent is in shape curving over the rock, like the tail of a white horse streaming in the wind, such as it might be conceived would be that of the "pale horse”’on which Death is mounted in the Apocalypse. 28 2b. It is not noon— the Sunbow's rays still arch 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 alone, And to and fro, like the pale courser's tail, The Giant steed, to be bestrode by Death, As told in the Apocalypse....29 3a. The height of Jungfrau is 13,000 feet above the sea, 11,000 above the valley; she is the highest in this range. Heard the Avalanche falling every five minutes nearly— as if God was pelting the Devil down from Heaven.with snow balls. From where we stood, on the Wengen Alp, we had all these in view on one side: on the other, the clouds rose from the opposite valley, curling up perpendicu lar precipices like the foam of the Ocean of Hell— * it was white, and sulphury, and immeasurably deep in appearance.30 3b. 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 wouldlive; On the young flourishing forest, or the hut And hamlet of the harmless villager. The mists boil up around the glaciers; clouds Rise curling fast beneath me, white and sulphury,. Like foam from the roused ooean of deep Hell....31 28 Letters and Journals. Ill, 358. 29 II, ii, Iff. Letters and Journals, III, 359. I, ii, 75ff• 335 4a. Passed whole woods of withered pines, all wither ed; trunks stripped and harkless, branches lifeless; done by a single winter*--their appearance*reminded me of me and my family. 4b. ...To be thus— Grey-haired with anguish, like these blasted pines, Wrecks of a single winter, barkless, branchless, A blighted trunk upon a cursed root, Which but supplied a feeling to Decay.... ^ These passages reveal how autobiographical is the setting of Manfred. how clearly Byron was turning into poetry what his eyes had beheld among the Alps. Byron obviously needed no inspiration from the mountain scenery of Faust or of Shelley’s Prometheus. His inspiration was more first-hand and more real. But besides ’ ’the Staubach(sic) and the Jungfrau” there was ’ ’something else” that made Byron write Manfred.34 What this ’ ’something else” was is a problem,--a problem in volving the issues of the famous Byron Controversy, which, fortunately, the purposes of this study do not demand resolv ing. Only the various possibilities of indentification of Astarte as some one in Byron's life, his treatment of whom produces the same sense of guilt which lies upon Manfred * s spirit, need be pointed out here. To Mrs. Stowe33Lord 58 Letters and Journals. Ill, 360. 33 I, ii, 66ff. 34- Supra, p.388. 35 Lady Byron Vindicated, passim. 3 3 6 Lovelace,36 Ethel C. Mayne,37 Sir John Eox,38 Astarte is Augusta Leigh, Byron's half-sister, with whom some would have it, his incestuous relations led, in one way or another, to the collapse of his home; to -^ichard Edgcumbe3® and Samuel C. Chew,40 Astarte is Mary Chaworth, Byron’s boyhood sweet heart. Edgcumbe contends that the unfortunate ^edora Leigh was Mary's daughter by Byron, and that to save Mary, Augusta Leigh accepted public shame by claiming Medora as her own.41 Chew bases his arguments chiefly upon the analogy be tween The Dream, the lady 6f which is generally accepted as Mary Chaworth, and Manfred, the early part of which was com posed immediately after The Dream.4^ Chew writes: The two poems are...nearly coincident in time and place of composition, and were the products of much the same mood and environment.... The Dream and Manfred are both from one point of view, the expression of remorse,”43 36 Lovelace, Ralph Milbanke, Earl of, Astarte. pp. 69ff. f? Lord Byron, pp. 228ff. 38 The Byron Controversy, passim. 39 Byron: The Last Phase, pp. 291ff. 40 0£. cit., pp. 70ff. 41 0£. cit.. pp. 291ff. 42 The Dream was composed in July, 1816. 3 3 7 Iii The Dream the Wanderer has married one lady, but his heart has always been with another whom he loved as a boy, but who did not return his love and who finally married another. Through grief the lady has become mad. Her lover, like jDhilcle Harold, has "made him friends of mountains," and has held his dialogues "with the stars and the quick spirit of the Uni verse."^ The relationship between Manfred and Astarte is much the same: he has loved her from boyhood, but has lost her. Chew interprets? certain lines to mean that Astarte was not physically dead, but dead to Manfred, as the Lady of The Dream was dead to the dreamer.40 In both poems the lover has sought for death, but has not found it. Chew finds signifi cance in the fact that in the first draft of Act II, Manfred is left alive and in misery like the Wanderer of The Dream.46 Although Chew concedes that the incestuous elements in Manfred need not in themselves give "warrant for autobiographical in terpretations," he believes that the real significance of the passages relating to incest is found in the following lines 4-7 from The Dream: 44 The Dream, II, 195ff. 45 Ojc. cit. , p. 70. 46 Ibid., p. 71. 47 Ibid.. p.73. 3 3 8 Her sighs were not for him; to her he was Even as a brother—^but ho more: * twas much, For brotlTerless she was, save in name Her infant friendship was bestowed on him.48 Thus, Edgcumbe would say, since Mary looked upon Byron as a brother, Byron,in betraying that friendship, committed what is called in Manfred the "deadliest" sin*49 i£<jgicumbe writes to Chew: I most cordially agree with your excellent reasoning, that Byronrs remorse was entirely due to the fact that he had, in a moment of weakness, abused her faith in him as a brother. The lines you quote are irresistible.... As proof that the crime for which Manfred reproaches himself is the betrayal of a sister, as mentioned in The Drearn-- not a sister except in name, that is the germ of previous misunderstanding....50 Edgcumbe's and Chew's conclusion, in the words of the latter Since Mary Chaworth is the Lady of The Dream and since Astarte*s history is identical with that of the lady, it follows that Astarte and the Lady and Mary Chaworth are one and the same. . . Yet concerning the involved mysteries of the Controversy Chew concludes: "External and internal evidence are thus contra dictory; such antinomies can be solved only in the dark union of insensate dust. There let us leave it the question(sic)."52 48 II, 64ff. 49 II, iv, 1E3. 50 Quoted in The Dramas of Lord Byron, p. 73, note 3. 51 IbiA«, P. 71. ^ Loc. cit. 339 Those who identify Astarte with Mrs. Leigh base their conclusions on letters and depositions of Lady Byron, on the report by Mrs. Stowe of her conversation with Lady Byron, and on the evidence put forward by Lord Lovelace in Astarte. Among the evidence to which Lord Lovelace claimed to have ac cess was an alleged confession by Mrs. Leigh,53 which confes sion Lovelace thought it not best or necessary to publish, a decision which Edgcumbe and others have denounced, since on such a confession, if it were truly made, much of the case would rest. Thus the ’ ’something else" which produced Manfred lies partly in the Byron Mystery. The whole conflux of circum stances immediately preceding Byron’s exile would seem to com pose this "something else." All that caused the Separation, whether it were incest, apparent insanity, or cruelty to Lady Byron, has its part in the mood and temper of Manfred. The loss of home, of Lady Byron, of Ada, the bitterness of self reproof and the deep anguish of loneliness,— all these "made" Byron write Manfred. 53 0£. cit., p. 65.

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