2. But worse than steel and flame, and ages slow, bestow. Stanza i. line 6. common with many of his countrymen-for, lost as they are, they yet feel on this occasion-thus may Lord Elgin boast of having ruined Athens. An Italian painter of the first eminence, named Lusieri, is the agent of devastation; and like the Greek finder of Verres in Sicily, who followed the same profession, he has proved the able instrument of We can all feel, or imagine, the regret with plunder. Between this artist and the French Conwhich the ruins of cities, once the capitals of snl Fauvel, who wishes to rescue the remains for empires, are beheld; the reflections suggested by his own government, there is now a violent dispute such objects are too trite to require recapitulation. concerning a car employed in their conveyance, the But never did the littleness of man, and the vanity wheel of which-I wish they were both broken upon of his very best virtues of patriotism to exalt, and it has been locked up by the Consul, and Lusieri of valor to defend his country, appear more con- has laid his complaint before the Waywode. Lord spicuous than in the record of what Athens was, Elgin has been extremely happy in his choice of and the certainty of what she now is. This theatre Signor Lusieri. During a residence of ten years in of contention between mighty factions, of the Athens, he never had the curiosity to proceed as far struggles of orators, the exaltation and deposition as Sunium, till he accompanied us in our second of tyrants, the triumph and punishment of gen- excursion. However, his works, as far as they go, erals, is now become a scene of petty intrigue and are most beautiful; but they are almost all unfinperpetual disturbance, between the bickering agents ished. While he and his patrons confine themof certain British nobility and gentry. "The wild selves to tasting medals, appreciating cameos, foxes, the owls and serpents in the ruins of Baby- sketching columns, and cheapening gems, their lon," were surely less degrading than such inhab- little absurdities are as harmless as insect or foxitants. The Turks have the plea of conquest for hunting, maiden speechifying, barouche-driving, or their tyranny, and the Greeks have only suffered any such pastime; but when they carry away three the fortune of war, incidental to the bravest; but or four shiploads of the most valuable and massy how are the mighty fallen, when two painters relics that time and barbarism have left to the most contest the privilege of plundering the Parthenon, injured and most celebrated of cities; when they and triumph in turn, according to the tenor of each destroy, in a vain attempt to tear down, those works succeeding firman Sylla could but punish, Philip which have been the admiration of ages, I know no subdue, and Xerxes burn Athens; but it remained motive which can excuse, no name which can desigfor the paltry antiquarian, and his despicable nate, the perpetrators of this dastardly devastation. agents, to render her contemptible as himself and his pursuits. The Parthenon, before its destruction in part, by fire, during the Venetian siege, had been a temple, a church, and a mosque. In each point of view it is an object of regard: it changed its worshippers; but still it was a place of worship thrice sacred to devotion; its violation is a triple sacrilege. But "Man, vain man, Drest in a little brief authority, Plays such fantastic tricks before high heaven As make the angels weep." 3. Far on the solitary shore he sleeps. Stanza v. line 2. It was not the least of the crimes laid to the charge manner since imitated at Athens. The most unof Verres, that he had plundered Sicily, in the blushing impudence could hardly go farther than to affix the name of its plunderer to the walls of the Acropolis; while the wanton and useless defacement of the whole range of the basso-relievos, in one compartment of the temple, will never permit that name to be pronounced by an observer without execration. On this occasion I speak impartially: I am not a collector or admirer of collections, consequently no rival; but I have some early prepossession in favor of Greece, and do not think the honor of England advanced by plunder, whether of India or Attica. Another noble Lord has done better, because he has done less; but some others, more or less noble, yet "all honorable men," have done best, because, after a deal of excavation and execration, bribery to It was not always the custom of the Greeks to burn their dead; the greater Ajax, in particular, was interred entire. Almost all the chiefs became gods after their decease; and he was indeed negfected, who had not annual games near his tomb, or festivals in honor of his memory by his countrymen, as Achilles, Brasidas, &c., and at last even Antinous, whose death was as heroic as his life was in-conversations will not be unwelcome; and the traveller will be struck with famous. 4. Marathon, there is no scene more interesting than Cape Colonna. To the Now Cape Colonna. In all Attica, if we except Athens itself, and antiquary and artist, sixteen columns are an inexhaustible source of observa tion and design; to the philosopher, the supposed scene of some of Plato's the beauty of the prospect over" Isles that crown the Ægean deep:" but for an Englishman, Colonna has yet an additional interest, as the actual spot of Falconer's Shipwreck. Pallas and Plato are forgotten, in the recol lection of Falconer and Campbell: "Here in the dead of night by Lonna's steep, The seaman's cry was heard along the deep." This temple of Minerva may be seen at sea from a great distance. In two either side, by land, was less striking than the approach from the isles. In Journeys which I made, and one voyage to Cape Colonna, the view from our second land excursion, we had a narrow escape from a party of Minotes, Colonna is no less a resort of painters than of pirates: there "The hireling artist plants his paltry desk, But there Nature, with the aid of Art, has done that for herself. I was At this moment, (January 3, 1809,) besides what has been already deposited in London, an Hydriot fortunate enough to engage a very superior German artist; and hope to vessel is in the Pyræus to receive every portable renew my acquaintance with this and many other Levantine scenes, by the relic Thus, as I heard a young Greek observe, in arrival of his performances. the Waywode, mining and countermining, they have and adds Pyrrhus to the list, in speaking of his exdone nothing at all. We had such ink-shed, and wine-ploits. shed, which almost ended in bloodshed! Lord E.'s Of Albania Gibbon remarks, that a country prig "-see Jonathan Wild for the definition of "within sight of Italy is less known than the inte"priggism"-quarrelled with another, Gropius by rior of America." Circumstances, of little consename, (a very good name too for his business,) and quence to mention, led Mr. Hobhouse and myself muttered something about satisfaction, in a verbal into that country before we visited any other part answer to a note of the poor Prussian: this was of the Ottoman dominions; and, with the exception stated at table to Gropius, who laughed, but could of Major Leake, then officially resident at Joannina eat no dinner afterwards. The rivals were not no other Englishmen have ever advanced beyond reconciled when I left Greece. I have reason to re- the capital into the interior, as that gentleman very member their squabble, for they wanted to make me lately assured me. Ali Pacha was at that time (Octheir arbitrator. tober, 1899), carrying on war against Ibraham Pacha, whom he had driven to Berat, a strong fortress which he was then besieging: on our arrival at Joannina we were invited to Tepoleni, his highness's birthplace, and favorite Serai, only one day's distance from Berat; at this juncture the Vizier had made it his head-quarters. 7. Her sons too weak the sacred shrine to guard, I cannot resist availing myself of the permission of my friend Dr. Clarke, whose name requires no comment with the public, but whose sanction will add tenfold weight to my testimony, to insert the following extract from a very obliging letter of his to me, as a note to the above lines. After some stay in the capital, we accordingly followed; but though furnished with every accommodation, and escorted by one of the vizier's secre taries, we were nine days (on account of the rains) barely occupied four. in accomplishing a journey which, on our return, "When the last of the Metopes was taken from the Parthenon, and in moving of it, great part of On our route we passed two cities, Argyrocastro the superstructure with one of the triglyphs was and Libochabo, apparently little inferior to Yanina thrown down by the workmen whom Lord Elgin in size; and no pencil or pen can ever do justice to employed, the Disdar, who beheld the mischief the scenery in the vicinity of Zitza and Delvinachi, done to the building, took his pipe from his mouth, dropped a tear, and, in a supplicating tone of voice, said to Lusieri, Téos !-I was present." The Disdar alluded to was the father of the present Disdar. 8. Where was thine Ægis, Pallas! that appall'd According to Zosimus, Minerva and Achilles frightened Alaric from the Acropolis; but others relate that the Gothic king was nearly as mischievous as the Scottish peer.-See CHANDLER. 9. -the netted canopy. Stanza xviii. line 2. The netting to prevent blocks or splinters from falling on deck during action. 10. the frontier village of Epirus and Albania Proper. On Albania and its inhabitants I am unwilling to descant, because this will be done so much better by my fellow-traveller, in a work which may probably precede this in publication, that I as little wish to follow as I would to anticipate him. But some few observations are necessary to the text. The Arnaouts, or Albanese, struck me forcibly by their resemblance to the Highlanders of Scotland, in dress, figure, and manner of living. Their very mountains seemed Caledonian, with a kinder cliform; their dialect, Celtic in its sound, and their mate. The kilt, though white; the spare, active hardy habits, all carried me back to Morven. No nation are so detested and dreaded by their neighbors as the Albanese; the Greeks hardly regard them as Christians, or the Turks as Moslems; and in fact they are a mixture of both, and sometimes neither. Their habits are predatory-all are armed; and the red-shawled Arnaouts, the Montenegrins, Chimariots, and Gegdes, are treacherous; the others differ somewhat in garb, and essentially in character. As far as my own experience goes, I can speak favorably. I was attended by two, an Infidel and a Mussulman, to Constantinople and every other part of Turkey which came within my observation; and more faithful in peril, or indefatigable in service, are rarely to be found. The Infidel was named Basilius, the Moslem, Dervish Tahiri; the former a man of middle age, and the latter about my own. Basili was strictly charged by Ali Pacha in person to attend us; and Dervish was one of fifty who acAlbania comprises part of Macedonia, Illyria, companied us through the forests of Acarnania to Chaonia, and Epirus. Iskander is the Turkish the banks of Achelous, and onward to Messalonghi word for Alexander; and the celebrated Scander- in Etolia. There I took him into my own service, berg (Lord Alexander) is alluded to in the third and and never had occasion to repent it till the moment fourth lines of the thirty-eighth stanza. I do not of my departure. But not in silence pass Calypso's isles Stanza xxix. line 1. Goza is said to have been the island of Calypso. 11. Land of Albania! let me bend mine eyes know whether I am correct in making Scanderberg When, in 1810, after the departure of my friend the countryman of Alexander, who was born at Mr. H. for England, I was seized with a severe fever Pella in Macedon, but Mr. Gibbon terms him so, in the Morea, these men saved my life by frightening away my physician, whose throat they threat the abused sanction of that most respectable name, been treading at humble • This Sir Groplus was employed by a noble Lord for the sole purpose of ened to cut if I was not cured within a given time. sketching, in which he excels; but I am sorry to say, that he has, through To this consolatory assurance of posthumous retridistance in the steps of Sr. Lugieri. A shipfull of his trophies was detained, bution, and a resolute refusal of Dr. Romanelli's and I believe confiscated, at Constantinople, in 1810. I am most happy to prescriptions, I attributed my recovery. I had left be now enabled to state, that "this was not in his bond;" that he was my last remaining English servant at Athens; my employed solely as a painter, and that his noble patron disavows all connex-dragoman was as ill as myself, and my poor Ar ion with him, except as an artist. If the error in the first and second edition naouts nursed me with an attention that would of this poem has given the noble lord a moment's pain I am very sorry for it; have done honor to civilization. Sr. Gropius has assumed for years the name of his agent: and though I cannot much condemn myself for sharing in the mistake of so many, I am They had a variety of adventures; for the Mos happy in being one of the first to be undeceived. Indeed, I have as much lem, Dervish, being a remarkably handsome man, was always squabbling with the husbands of Athens pleasure in contradicting this as I felt regret in stating it. insomuch that four of the principal Turks paid me maika, the dull round-about of the Greeks, of whica a visit of remonstrance at the Convent, on the sub- our Athenian party had so many specimens. ject of his having taken a woman from the bath- The Albanians in general (I do not mean the culwhom he had lawfully bought, however-a thing tivators of the earth in the provinces, who have quite contrary to etiquette. also that appellation, but the mountaineers), have Basili, also, was extremely gallant among his own a fine cast of countenance; and the most beautiful persuasion, and had the greatest veneration for the women I ever beheld, in stature and in features, we church, mixed with the highest contempt of church-saw levelling the road broken down by the torrents men, whom he cuffed upon occasion in a most het-between Delvinachi and Libochabo. Their manner erodox manner. Yet he never passed a church of walking is truly theatrical; but this strut is without crossing himself; and I remember the risk probably the effect of the capote, or cloak, dependhe ran in entering St. Sophia, in Stambol, because ing from one shoulder. Their long hair reminds it had once been a place of his worship. On remon- you of the Spartans, and their courage in desultory strating with him on his inconsistent proceedings, warfare is unquestionable. Though they have some he invariably answered, "our church is holy, our cavalry amongst the Gegdes, I never saw a good priests are thieves;" and then he crossed himself Arnaout horseman; my own preferred the English as usual, and boxed the ears of the first "papas saddles, which, however, they could never keep who refused to assist in any required operation, as But on foot they are not to be subdued by fatigue. was always found to be necessary where a priest had any influence with the Cogia Bashi of his village. Indeed, a more abandoned race of miscreants cannot exist than the lower order of the Greek clergy. 12. -and pass'd the barren spot, Where sad Penelope o'erlook'd the wave. Stanza xxxix. lines 1 and 2. Ithica. 13. When preparations were made for my return, my Albanians were summoned to receive their pay. Basili took his with an awkward show of regret at my intended departure, and marched away to his quarters, with his bag of piastres. I sent for DerActium, Lepanto, fatal Trafalgar. vish, but for some time he was not to be found; at] Stanza xl. line 5. last he entered, just as Signor Logotheti, father to the ci-devant Anglo-consul of Athens, and some The battle of Lepanto, equally bloody and considActium and Trafalgar need no further mention. other of my Greek acquaintances, paid me a visit. erable, but less known, was fought in the Gulf of Dervish took the money, but on a sudden dashed it Patras. Here the author of Don Quixote lost his to the ground; and clasping his hands, which he left hand. raised to his forehead, rushed out of the room, weeping bitterly. From that moment to the hour of my embarkation, he continued his lamentations, and all our efforts to console him only produced this « Μά φείνει," "He leaves me.' Signor Lotheti, who never wept before for anything less than the loss of a para, melted; the padre of the convent, my attendants, my visitors-and I verily believe that even Sterne's "foolish fat scullion would have left her "fish-kettle," to sympathize with the unaffected and unexpected sorrow of this barbarian. answer, 14. And hail'd the last resort of fruitless love. Stanza xli. line 3. Leucadia, now Santa Maura. From the promontory (the Lover's Leap) Sappho is said to have thrown herself. 15. -many a Roman chief and Asian king. Stanza xlv. line 4. It is said, that on the day previous to the battle For my own part, when I remembered that, a of Actium, Anthony had thirteen kings at his levee. short time before my departure from England, a noble and most intimate associate had excused himself from taking leave of me because he had to attend a relation to a milliners," I felt no less surprised than humiliated by the present occurrence and the past recollection. 16. Look where the second Cæsar's trophies rose! Stanza xlv. line 6. Nicopolis, whose ruins are most extensive, is at some distance from Actium, where the wall of the Hippodrome survives in a few fragments. 17. That Dervish would leave me with some regret was to be expected; when master and man have been scrambling over the mountains of a dozen provinces together, they are unwilling to separate; but his present feelings, contrasted with his native ferocity, improved my opinion of the human heart. I believe this almost feudal fidelity is frequent among them. One day, on our journey over Par- According to Pouqueville the lake of Yanina; nassus, an Englishman in my service gave him a but Pouqueville is always out. -Archerusia's lake. 18. Stanza xlvii. line 1. To greet Albania's chief. Stanza xlvii. line 4. push in some dispute about the baggage, which he unluckily mistook for a blow; he spoke not, but sat down, leaning his head upon his hands. Fereseeing the consequences, we endeavored to explain away the affront, which produced the following answer-I have been a robber; I am a soldier; The celebrated Ali Pacha. Of this extraordinary no captain ever struck me; you are my master, I man there is an incorrect account in Pouqueville's have eaten your bread, but by that bread! (an usual Travels. oath) had it been otherwise, I would have stabbed the dog your servant, and gone to the mountains." So the affair ended, but from that day forward he never thoroughly forgave the thoughtless fellow who insulted him. Dervish excelled in the dance of his country, conjectured to be a remnant of the ancient Pyrrhic: be that as it may, it is manly, and requires wonderful agility. It is very distinct from the stupid Ro • Para, about the fourth of a farthing. 19. Yet here and there some daring mountain band Disdain his power, and from their rocky hold Hurl their defiance far, nor yield, unless to gold. Stanza xlvii. lines 7, 8 and 9. Five thousand Suliotes, among the rocks and in the castle of Suli, withstood thirty thousand Albanians for eighteen years; the castle at last was taken by bribery. In this contest there were several acts performed not unworthy of the better days of Greece. 20. Monastic Zitza, &c. Stanza xlviii. line 1. As a specimen of the Albanian or Arnaout dialect of the Illyric, I here insert two of their most popular choral songs, which are generally chanted in dancing by men or women indiscriminately. The first words are merely a kind of chorus without 1. The convent and village of Zitza are four hours' journey from Joannina, or Yanina, the capital of meaning, like some in the Pachalick. In the valley of the river Kalamas languages. (once the Acheron) flows, and not far from Zitza forms a fine cataract. The situation is perhaps the finest in Greece, though the approach to Delvinachi Bo, Bo, Bo, Bo, Bo, Bo, and parts of Acarnania and Etolia may contest the Naciarura, popuso. palm. Delphi, Parnassus, and, in Attica, even Cape Colonna and Port Raphti, are very inferior; 2. as also every scene in Ionia, or the Troad; I am Naciarura na civin 21. Here dwells the caloyer. Stanza xlix. line 6. The Greek monks are so called. 22. Nature's volcanic amphitheatre. Stanza li. line 2. 3. Ha pe uderi escrotini 4. Caliriote me surme 5. The Chimariot mountains appear to have been Bo, Bo, Bo, Bo, Bo, And Laor wide and fierce came roaring by. Gi egem spirta esimiro. 6. Caliriote vu le funde 7. Caliriote me surme 8. Se ti puta citi mora 9. Va la ni il che cadale Celo more, more celo. 10. The river Laos was full at the time the author passed it; and immediately above Tepalen, was to the eye as wide as the Thames at Westminster; at least in the opinion of the author and his fellow- Plu hari ti tirete traveller, Mr. Hobhouse. In the summer it must Plu huron cia pra seti. be much narrower. It certainly is the finest river in the Levant; neither Achelous, Alpheus, Acheron, Schamander, nor Cayster, approached it in breadth or beauty. The last stanza would puzzle a commentator; the men have certainly buskins of the most beautiful texture, but the ladies (to whom the above is supposed to be addressed) have nothing under their little yellow boots and slippers but a well-turned and sometimes very white ankle. The Arnaout girls are much handsomer than the Greeks, and their dress is far more picturesque. They preserve their shape much longer also, from being always in the open air. It is to be observed, that the Arnaout is not a written language; the words of this song, therefore, as well as the one which follows, are spelt according to their pronunciation. They are copied by one who speaks and understands the dialect perfectly, and who is a native of Athens. 1. Ndi sefda tinde ulavossa 2. Ah vaisisso mi privi lofse 1. I am wounded by thy love, and have loved but to scorch myself. 2. Thou hast consumed me Ah, maid! thou hast struck me to the heart. The Albanese, particularly the women, are frequently termed "Calich otes;" for what resson I inquired in vain. 3. Uti tasa roba stua Sitti eve tulati dua. 4. Roba stinori ssidua 5. Qurmini dua civileni 6. Ultara pisa vaisisso me simi rin ti hapti Eti mi bire a piste si gui dendroi tiltati. 7. 3. I have said I wish no 4. 37. Thy vales of ever-green, thy hills of snowStanza lxxxv. line 3. On many of the mountains, particularly Liakura, the snow never is entirely melted, notwithstanding the intense heat of the summer; but I never saw it The accursed dowry I lie on the plains, even in winter. 5. Give me thy charms, and I 6. 38. Save where some solitary column mourns Of Mount Pentelicus, from whence the marble 7. 39. When Marathon became a magic word. Stanza lxxxix. line 7. on thy bosom, what "Siste Viator-heroa calcas!" was the epitaph have I gained? my on the famous count Merci;-what then must be hand is withdrawn, but our feelings when standing on the tumulus of the two hundred (Greeks) who fell on Marathon? The I believe the two last stanzas, as they are in a vel; few or no relics, as vases, &c., were found by principal barrow has recently been opened by Faudifferent measure, ought to belong to another bal- the excavator. The plain of Marathon was offered lad. An idea something similar to the thought in to me for sale at the sum of sixteen thousand the last lines was expressed by Socrates, whose arm piastres, about nine hundred pounds! Alas!having come in contact with one of his "OKUARIO," Expende,-quot libras in duce summo-inveCritobulus or Cleobodus, the philosopher com-nies!"-was the dust of Miltiades worth no more? plained of a shooting pain as far as the shoulder for It could scarcely have fetched less if sold by weight. some days after, and therefore very properly resolved Before I say any thing about a city of which every body, traveller or not, has thought it necessary to say something, I will request Miss Owenson, when she next borrows an Athenian heroine for her four volumes, to have the goodness to marry her to somebody more of a gentleman than a "Disdar Aga," (who by the by is not an Aga,) the most impolite of petty officers, the greatest patron of larceny Athens ever saw, (except Lord E.) and the unworthy occupant of the Acropolis, on a handsome annual stipend of 150 piastres, (eight pounds sterling,) out of which he has only to pay his garrison, the most ill-regulated corps in the ill-regulated Ottoman Empire. I speak it tenderly, seeing I was once the cause of the husband of "Ida of Athens nearly suffering the bastinado; and because the said "Disdar" is a turbulent husband and beats his wife; so that I exhort and beseech Miss Owenson to sue for a separate maintenance in behalf of "Ida." Having premised thus much, on a matter of such import to the readers of romances, may now leave Ida, to mention her birthplace. those associations which it would be pedantic and Setting aside the magic of the name, and all superfluous to recapitulate, the very situation of Athens would render it the favorite of all who have eyes for art or nature. The climate, to me at least, appeared a perpetual spring; during eight months on horseback; rain is extremely rare, snow never I never passed a day without being as many hours lies in the plains, and a cloudy day is an agreeable rarity. In Spain, Portugal, and every part of the East which I visited, except Ionia and Attica, I perceived no such superiority of climate to our own; and at Constantinople, where I passed May, June, and part of July, (1810,) you might "damn the Mecca and Medira were taken some time ago by climate, and complain of spleen," five days out of the Wahabees, a sect yearly increasing. Phyle, which commands a beautiful view of 35. Receive the fiery Frank, her former quest. Stanza Ixxvii. line 4. When taken by the Latins, and retained Beveral years.-See GIBBON. 36. The prophet's tomb of all its pious spoil. Stanza Ixxvii. line 6. of for I seven. |
