No sigh for safety, but a prayer for thee! The war of elements no fears impart To love, whose deadliest bane is human art: XXI. "His head and faith from doubt and death No deed they've done, nor deed shall do, But yet, though thou art plighted mine, XXII. Zuleika, mute and motionless, Another and another-and another "Oh! fly-no more-yet now my more than brother!" Far, wide, through every thicket spread, The fearful lights are gleaming red; XXIII. Dauntless he stood-"'tis come-soon past- But yet my band not far from shore Forth to the cavern mouth he stept, His pistol's echo rang on high; Zuleika started not, nor wept, Despair benumb'd her breast and eye!- That sound hath drawn my foes more nigh XXIV. One bound he made, and gain'd the sand. Already at his feet hath sunk The foremost of the prying band, A gasping head, a quivering trunk: And almost met the meeting wave: His feet the foremost breakers lave; His band are plunging in the bay, Their sabres glitter through the spray Wet-wild-unwearied to the strand They struggle-now they touch the land! They come !-'tis but to add to slaughterHis heart's best blood is on the water. XXV. Escaped from shot, unharm'd by steel, For her his eye but sought in vain? Hath doom'd his death, or fix'd his chain Sad proof, in peril and in pain, The son hath found a quicker fate: Fast from his breast the blood is bubbling, XXVI. Morn slowly rolls the clouds away; That strand of strife may bear, May there be mark'd; nor far remote 'Tis rent in twain-one dark red stain But where is he who wore ? And cast on Lemnos' shore: His head heaves with the heaving billow; What recks it, though that corse shall lie The bird that tears that prostrate form Had bled or wept to see him die, And mourned above his turban-stone,40 That heart hath burst-that eye was closedYea-closed before his own! XXVII. By Helle's stream there is a voice of wail! Thy destined lord is come too late; The loud Wul-wulleh 4 warn his distant ear? Thou didst not view thy Selim fall! That fearful moment when he left the cave He was thy hope-thy joy-thy love-thine all- Burst forth in one wild cry-and all was still. Thrice happy! ne'er to feel nor fear the force Thought of the gloomy day and ghastly night, Vainly thou heap'st the dust upon thy head, Within the place of thousand tombs A single rose is shedding there lus onely lustre, meek and pale. It looks as planted by despair So white-so faint-the slightest gale Might whirl the leaves on high; And yet, though storms and blight assail, And hands more rude than winter sky May wring it from the stem-in vain― To-morrow sees it bloom again! The stalk some spirit gently rears, And waters with celestial tears; For well may maids of Helle deem That this can be no earthly flower, Which mocks the tempest's withering hour, And buds unshelter'd by a bower; Nor droops, though spring refuse her shower, To it the livelong night there sings But soft as harp that Houri strings It were the bulbul; but his throat, Though mournful, pours not such a strain: And longer yet would weep and wake, But when the day-blush bursts from high And some have been who could believe He is an Arab to my sight. Page 123, line 95. The Turks abhor the Arabs (who return the compliment a hundred fold), even more than they hate the Christians. 6. After all, this is rather to be felt than described; still I think there are some who will understand it, at least they would have done, had they beheld the countenance whose speaking harmony suggested the idea; for this passage is not drawn from imagina tion, but memory, that mirror which affliction dashes to the earth, and looking down upon the fragments, only beholds the reflection multiplied. 7. But yet the line of Carasman. Page 124, line 24. Carasman Oglou, or Cara Osman Oglou, is the principal landholder in Turkey: he governs Magnesia: those who, by a kind of feudal tenure, possess land on condition of service, are called Timariots: they serve as Spahis, according to the extent of territory, and bring a certain number into the field, generally cavalry. 8. And teach the messenger what fate. Page 124, line 36. When a Pacha is sufficiently strong to resist, the single messenger, who is always the first bearer of the order for his death, is strangled instead, and sometimes five or six, one after the other, on the same errand, by command of the refractory patient; if, on the contrary, he is weak or loyal, he bows, kisses the Sultan's respectable signature, and is bowstrung with great complacency. In 1810, several of these presents were exhibited in the niche of the Seraglio gate; among others, the head of the Pacha of Bagdat, a brave young man, cut off by treachery, after a desperate resistance. The mind, the music breathing from her face. Page 124, line 2. This expression has met with objections. I will not refer to him who hath not music in his soul," but merely request the reader to recollect, for ten seconds, the features of the woman whom he believes to be the most beautiful; and if he then does not comprehend fully what is feebly expressed in the above line, I shall be sorry for us both. For Thrice clapp'd his hands, and call'd his steed. Page 124, line 55. an eloquent passage in the latest work of the first female writer of this, perhaps of any age, on the Clapping of the hands calls the servants. analogy (and the immediate comparison excited by Turks hate a superfluous expenditure of voice, and that analogy), between "painting and music,' see they have no bells. 9. 10. Resign'd his gem-adorn'd chibouque. The Page 124, line 56, Chibouque, the Turkish pipe, of which the amber, Pacha; a Waywode is the third; and then come nouth-piece and sometimes the ball which contains the Agas. the leaf, is adorned with precious stones, if in poswession of the wealthier orders. 21. Was he not bred in Egripo? Page 125, line 71. Egripo-the Negropont,-According to the prov erb the Turks of Egripo, the Jews of Salonica, and the Greeks of Athens, are the worst of their respective races. 22. Ah! yonder see the Tchocadar. Page 126, line 13. "Tchocadar"-one of the attendants who pre Page 124, line 59. Deli, bravos who form the forlorn hope of the cavalry, and always begin the action. cedes a man of authority." 23. 13. Careering cleave the folded felt. 14. Page 124, line 71. Nor heard their Ollahs wild and loud. Thine own "broad Hellespont" still dashes. Page 126, line 83. The wrangling about this epithet "the broad or the "boundless Hellespont," A twisted fold of felt is used for scimitar practice Hellespont by the Turks, and few but Mussulman arms can cut whether it means one or the other, or what it means through it at a single stroke: sometimes a tough at all, has been beyond all possibility of detail. I turban is used for the same purpose. The jerreed have even heard it disputed on the spot; and, not is a game of blunt javelins, animated and graceful. foreseeing a speedy conclusion to the controversy, amused myself with swimming across it in the mean time, and probably may again before the point is settled. Indeed, the question as to the truth of the tale of Troy divine" still continues, much of it resting upon the talismanic word "amɛɩpus : Ollahs," Alla il Allah, the "Leilies," as the probably Homer had the same notion of distance Spanish poets call them, the sound is Ollah; a cry that a coquette has of time, and when he talks of of which the Turks, for a silent people, are some-boundless, means half a mile; as the latter, by a what profuse, particularly during the jerreed, or in like figure, when she says eternal attachment, sim the chase, but mostly in battle. Their animation ply specifies three weeks. in the field, and gravity in the chamber, with their: pipes and comboloios form an amusing contrast. 15. Page 124, line 74. The Persian Atar-gul's perfume. "Atar-gul," ottar of roses. finest. 24. Before his Persian invasion, and crowned the al tar with laurel, &c. He was afterwards imitated by Caracalla in his race. It is believed that the last also poisoned a friend, named Festus, for the sak of new Patroclan games. I have seen the sheep feeding on the tombs of sietes and Antilochus the first is in the centre of the plain. 25. O'er which her fairy fingers ran. The pictured roof and marble floor. Page 124, line 95. The ceiling and wainscots, or rather walls, of the Massulman apartments are generally painted, in great houses, with one eternal and highly colored view of Constantinople, wherein the principal feature is a noble contempt of perspective; below. arms, scimitars, &c., are in general fancifully and fume, which is slight but not disagreeable. not inelegantly disposed. Page 126, line 113. When rubbed, the amber is susceptible of a per 26. Her mother's sainted amulet. Page 126, line 116. The belief in amulets engraved on gems, or enclosed in gold boxes, containing scraps from the Koversal in the East. The Koorsee (throne) verse in ran worn round the neck, wrist, or arm, is still unithe second chapter of the Koran describes the attributes of the Most High, and is engraved in this manner, and worn by the pious, as the most esteem. ed and sublime of all sentences. 27. And by her Comboloio lies. Page 126, line 119 "Comboloio"-a Turkish rosary. The MSS. par ticularly those of the Persians, are richly adorned and illuminated. The Greek females are kept in utter ignorance; but many of the Turkish girls are highly accomplished, though not actually qualified for a Christian coterie; perhaps some of our own "blues might not be the worse for bleaching. 28. In him was some voung_Galiongee Page 127, line 77. "Galiongée "-or Galiongi, a sailor, that is, a Turkish sailor the Greeks navigate, the Turks in 1789-90 for the independence of his country work the guns Their dress is picturesque; and I abandoned by the Russians, he became a pirate, and have seen the Capitan Pacha more than once wear- the Archipelago was the scene of his enterprises ing it as a kind of incog. Their legs, however, are He is said to be still alive at Petersburgh. lic and generally naked. The buskins described in the Riga are the two most celebrated of the Greck text as sheathed behind with silver, are those of an revolutionists. Arnaut robber, who was my host, (he had quitted the profession,) at his Pyrgo, near Gastouni in the Morea; they were plated in scales one over the other, like the back of an armadillo. 29. So may the Koran verse display'd. Page 127, line 116. 36. To snatch the Rayahs from their fate. Page 129, line 62. "Rayahs" all who pay the capitation tax, called the Haratch." 37. Ay. let me like the ocean-patriarch ream. 38. Page 129, line 66. The characters on all Turkish scimitars contain sometimes the name of the place of their man- the Mussulmans profess much acquaintance. The first of voyages is one of the few with which ufacture, but more generally a text from the Koran, in letters of gold. Among those in my possession, is one with a blade of singular construction; it is very broad, and the edge notched into serpenOr only know on land the Tartar's home. tine curves like the ripple of water, or the wavering Page 129, line 67. of flame. I asked the Armenian who sold it, what The wandering life of the Arabs, Tartars, and possible use such a figure could add: he said, in Turkomans, will be found well detailed in any book Italian, that he did not know; but the Mussulmans of Eastern travels. That it possesses a charm pehad an idea that those of this form gave a severer culiar to itself cannot be denied. A young French wound; and liked it because it was "piu feroce." renegado confessed to Chateaubriand, that he never 1 did not much admire the reason, but bought it for found himself alone, galloping in the desert, withits peculiarity. out a sensation approaching to rapture, which was indescribable. 30. Bu like the nephew of a Cain. 39. Blooming as Aden in its earliest hour. 40. And mourn'd above his turban-stone. Page 128, line 8. It is to be observed, that every allusion to anything or personage in the Old Testament, such as the Ark, or Cain, is equally the privilege of Mussulman and Jew: indeed, the former profess to be much better acquainted with the lives, true and fabulous, of the patriarchs, than is warranted by our own sacred writ, and not content with Adam, they have a biography of Pre-Adamites. Solomon is the men only. monarch of all necromancy, and Moses a prophet inferior only to Christ and Mahomet. Zuleika is the Persian name of Potiphar's wife, and her amour with Joseph constitutes one of the finest poems in the language. It is therefore no violation of costume to put the names of Cain, or Noah, into ⚫he mouth of a Moslem. Ali He drank one draught, nor needed more. Page 128, line 49. Giaffir, Pacha of Argyro Castro, or Scutari, I am not sure which, was actually taken off by the Albanian Ali, in the manner described in the text. Pacha, while I was in the country, married the daughter of his victim, some years after the event had taken place, at a bath in Sophia, or Adrianople. The poison was mixed in the cup of coffee, which is presented before the sherbet by the bath-keeper, after dressing. 34. I sought by turns and saw them all. 35. The last of Lambro's patriots there. 42. "Where is my child?”- friends of my youth, where are they?' and an Echo "I came to the place of my birth and cried, the answered, Where are they?'"-From an Arabic MS. The above quotation (from which the idea in the text is taken) must be already familiar to every reader-it is given in the first annotation, page 57, of "The Pleasures of Memory a poem so well known as to render a reference almost superfluous; but to whose pages all will be delighted to recur. 43. Into Zuleika's name. "And airy tongues that syllable men's names." Milton For a belief that the souls of the dead inhabit the form of birds, we need not travel to the east. Lord Lyttleton's ghost story, the belief of the Dutchess of Kendal that George I. flew into her window in the shape of a raven, (see Orford's Reminiscences,) and many other instances, bring this superstition nearer home. The most singular was the whim of a Worcester lady, who, believing her daughter to exist in the shape of a singing bird, literally furnished her pew in the Cathedral with cages-full of the kind; and as she was rich, and a benefactress in beautifying the church, no objection was made to her harmless folly. For this anecdote see Orford's Letters. |
