Canto II LIV
No city's towers pollute the lovely view;Unseen is Yanina, though not remote,Veiled by the screen of hills: here men are few,Scanty the hamlet, rare the lonely cot;But, peering down each precipice, the goatBrowseth: and, pensive o'er his scattered flock,The little shepherd in his white capoteDoth lean his boyish form along the rock,Or in his cave awaits the tempest's short-lived shock.
Oh! where, Dodona, is thine aged grove,Prophetic fount, and oracle divine?What valley echoed the response of Jove?What trace remaineth of the Thunderer's shrine?All, all forgotten--and shall man repineThat his frail bonds 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?
Epirus' bounds recede, and mountains fail;Tired of up-gazing still, the wearied eyeReposes gladly on as smooth a valeAs ever Spring yclad in grassy dye:E'en on a plain no humble beauties lie,Where some bold river breaks the long expanse,And woods along the banks are waving high,Whose shadows in the glassy waters dance,Or with the moonbeam sleep in Midnight's solemn trance.
Words in this poem
- unseen a.
- Not seen or discovered.
- veiled a.
- Covered by, or as by, a veil; hidden.
- precipice n.
- A sudden or headlong fall. Fuller. [F. précipice, L. praecipitium, fr. praeceps, - cipitis, headlong; prae before + caput, capitis, the head. See Pre-, and Chief.]
- capote n.
- A long cloak or overcoat, especially one with a hood. [Sp. capote (cf. F. capote.), fr. LL. capa cape, cloak. See Cap.]
- boyish a.
- Resembling a boy in a manners or opinions; belonging to a boy; childish; trifling; puerile.
- oracle v. i.
- To utter oracles.
- jove n.
- The chief divinity of the ancient Romans; Jupiter. [L. Jupiter, gen. Jovis, OL. Jovis, nom. & gen. for Djovis; akin to E. Tuesday. See Tuesday, and cf. Jupiter.]
- shall v. i.
- To owe; to be under obligation for. [OE. shal, schal, imp. sholde, scholde, AS. scal, sceal, I am obliged, imp. scolde, sceolde, inf. sculan; akin to OS. skulan, pres. skal, imp. skolda, D. zullen,]
- repine v. i.
- To fail; to wane. [Pref. re- + pine to languish.]
- broke v. i.
- To transact business for another. Brome. [See Broker, and cf. Brook.]
- gladly adv.
- Preferably; by choice. [From Glad, a.]
- vale n.
- A tract of low ground, or of land between hills; a valley. [OE. val, F. val, L. vallis; perhaps akin to Gr. Avalanche, Vail to lower, Valley.]
- moonbeam n.
- A ray of light from the moon.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Canto II LIV is in the public domain. This text is taken from Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, Project Gutenberg ebook #5131; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Lord Byron, Canto II LIV, in Childe Harold's Pilgrimage (1812–1818), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #5131, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/byron-childe-harold/canto-ii-liv.html, id L06523.
Form and metre
Canto II LIV is 27 lines in 3 stanzas of 9 lines each. Every stanza rhymes ABABBCBCC, the Spenserian stanza. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 93%). 95% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 10.2 syllables. 18% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
See other poems in the Spenserian stanza, other poems in iambic pentameter.
Measured by Laurel's pipeline, not copied from a handbook: how stress and metre are counted, how rhyme is lettered, how a drifted rhyme is found. Where the dictionary cannot confirm a rhyme the letter is withheld, not guessed.
Rhyme words, stanza by stanza
The word that ends each line, lettered by the rhyme it makes; a dash is a line whose rhyme the dictionary could not confirm.
- 1 ABABBCBCC viewA · remoteB · fewA · cotB · goatB · flockC · capoteB · rockC · shockC
- 2 ABABBCBCC groveA · divineB · joveA · shrineB · repineB · brokeC · thineB · oakC · strokeC
- 3 ABABBCBCC failA · eyeB · valeA · dyeB · lieB · expanseC · highB · danceC · tranceC
Scansion, line by line
Each line with its syllable count and the stresses the words themselves fix: / stressed, ˘ unstressed, · a syllable the word leaves free and the metre decides. Read against iambic pentameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| No city's towers pollute the lovely view; | 10 | ·/˘/˘/·/˘· |
| Unseen is Yanina, though not remote, | 10 | ˘/······˘/ |
| Veiled by the screen of hills: here men are few, | 10 | ·········· |
| Scanty the hamlet, rare the lonely cot; | 10 | /˘·/˘··/˘· |
| But, peering down each precipice, the goat | 10 | ·/˘··/˘˘·· |
| Browseth: and, pensive o'er his scattered flock, | 10 | /˘·/˘··/˘· |
| The little shepherd in his white capote | 10 | ·/˘/˘···˘/ |
| Doth lean his boyish form along the rock, | 10 | ···/˘·˘/·· |
| Or in his cave awaits the tempest's short-lived shock. | 12 | ····˘/·/˘··· |
| Oh! where, Dodona, is thine aged grove, | 9 | ········· |
| Prophetic fount, and oracle divine? | 10 | ˘/˘··/˘˘˘/ |
| What valley echoed the response of Jove? | 10 | ·/˘/˘·˘/·· |
| What trace remaineth of the Thunderer's shrine? | 11 | ··˘/˘······ |
| All, all forgotten--and shall man repine | 10 | ··˘/˘···˘/ |
| That his frail bonds to fleeting life are broke? | 10 | ·····/˘··· |
| Cease, fool! the fate of gods may well be thine: | 10 | ·········· |
| Wouldst thou survive the marble or the oak, | 10 | ··˘/·/˘··· |
| When nations, tongues, and worlds must sink beneath the stroke? | 12 | ·/˘········· |
| Epirus' bounds recede, and mountains fail; | 10 | ····˘/·/˘· |
| Tired of up-gazing still, the wearied eye | 10 | /··/˘··/˘· |
| Reposes gladly on as smooth a vale | 10 | /·˘/˘····· |
| As ever Spring yclad in grassy dye: | 10 | ·/˘····/˘· |
| E'en on a plain no humble beauties lie, | 10 | ·····/˘/˘· |
| Where some bold river breaks the long expanse, | 10 | ···/˘···˘/ |
| And woods along the banks are waving high, | 10 | ··˘/···/˘· |
| Whose shadows in the glassy waters dance, | 10 | ·/···/˘/˘· |
| Or with the moonbeam sleep in Midnight's solemn trance. | 12 | ···/···/·/˘· |
Notes from the edition 5
E. H. Coleridge's notes to Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, The Works of Lord Byron, Poetry vol. II (John Murray, 1899; Project Gutenberg #25340). Bracketed passages are the editor's; unbracketed are Byron's own (Cantos I-III) or John Cam Hobhouse's (Canto IV, his 'Historical Notes'). Digit footnotes ('[17]') are informational and numbered continuously through the whole book; end-notes keyed '[n.B.]' (Byron) or '[n.H.]' (Hobhouse) follow each canto and are numbered afresh from 1 there. Both kinds are placed here by matching each note's own quoted words against the site's text, not by the number or stanza the note states, because the site's text (Gutenberg #5131) and this edition (#25340) are different editions with different stanza counts in Canto I. Lettered footnotes ('[h]', '[dn]') are manuscript and edition variant readings and are not harvested, matching the treatment of Don Juan's and byron-works-3's lettered notes.
- Stanza 1, line 7 Albanese cloak.
[The capote (feminine of capot, masculine diminutive of cope, cape) was a long shaggy cloak or overcoat, with a hood, worn by soldiers, etc.--N. Eng. Dict., art. "Capote."] - Stanza 2, line 1 [The site of Dodona, a spot "at the foot of Mount Tomaros" (Mount Olytsika) in the valley of Tcharacovista, was finally determined, in 1876, by excavations carried out, at his own expense, by M. Constantin Carapanos, a native of Arta. In his monograph, Dodone et ses Ruines (Paris, 1878, 4to), M. Carapanos gives a detailed description of the theatre, the twofold Temenos (I. L'Enceinte du Temple, II. Temenos, pp. 13-28), including the Temple of Zeus and a sanctuary of Aphrodite, and of the numerous ex voto offerings and inscriptions on lead which were brought to light during the excavations, and helped to identify the ruins. An accompanying folio volume of plates contains (Planches, i., ii.) a map of the valley of Tcharacovista, and a lithograph of Mount Tomaros, "d'un aspect majestueux et pittoresque ... un roc nu sillonne par le lit de nombreux torrents" (p. 8). Behind Dodona, on the summit of the many-named chain of hills which confronts Mount Tomaros, are "bouquets de chene," sprung it may be from the offspring of the [Greek: prose/goroi dry/es] (AEsch., Prom., 833), the "talking oaks," which declared the will of Zeus. For the "prophetic fount" (line 2), Servius, commenting on Virgil, AEneid, iii. 41-66, seems to be the authority: "Circa hoc templum quercus immanis fuisse dicitur ex cujus radicibus fons manebat, qui suo murmure instinctu Deorum diversis oracula reddebat" (Virgilii Opera, Leovardiae, 1717, i. 548).
Byron and Hobhouse, on one of their excursions from Janina, explored and admired the ruins of the "amphitheatre," but knew not that "here and nowhere else" was Dodona (Travels in Albania, i. 53-56).] - Stanza 2, line 6 [The sentiment that man, "whose breath is in his nostrils," should consider the impermanence of all that is stable and durable before he cries out upon his own mortality, may have been drawn immediately from the famous letter of consolation sent by Sulpitius Severus to Cicero, which Byron quotes in a note to Canto IV. stanza xliv., or, in the first instance, from Tasso's Gerusalemme Liberata, xv. 20--
"Giace l'alta Cartago; appena i segni Dell' alte sue ruini il lido serba. Muojono le citta; muojono i regni: Copre i fasti, e le pompe, arena ed erba; E l'uom d'esser mortal par cue si sdegni!"
Compare, too, Addison's "Reflections in Westminster Abbey," Spectator, No. 26.] - Stanza 3, line 1 [The six days' journey from Zitza to Tepeleni is compressed into a single stanza. The vale (line 3) may be that of the Kalama, through which the travellers passed (October 13) soon after leaving Zitza, or, more probably, the plain of Deropoli ("well-cultivated, divided by rails and low hedges, and having a river flowing through it to the south"), which they crossed (October 15) on their way from Delvinaki, the frontier village of Illyria, to Libokhovo.]
- Stanza 3, line 4 ["Yclad," used as a preterite, not a participle (compare Coleridge's "I wis" [Christabel, part i. line 92]), is a Byronism--"archaisme incorrect," says M. Darmesteter.]
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