Canto III XXI
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 beThe patched-up idol of enlightened days?Shall we, who struck the Lion down, shall wePay the Wolf homage? proffering lowly gazeAnd servile knees to thrones? No; PROVE before ye praise!
If not, o'er one fall'n despot boast no more!In vain fair cheeks were furrowed with hot tearsFor Europe's flowers long rooted up beforeThe trampler of her vineyards; in vain yearsOf death, depopulation, bondage, fears,Have all been borne, and broken by the accordOf roused-up millions: all that most endearsGlory, is when the myrtle wreathes a swordSuch as Harmodius drew on Athens' tyrant lord.
There was a sound of revelry by night,And Belgium's capital had gathered thenHer Beauty and her Chivalry, and brightThe lamps shone o'er fair women and brave men;A thousand hearts beat happily; and whenMusic arose with its voluptuous swell,Soft eyes looked love to eyes which spake again,And all went merry as a marriage bell;But hush! hark! a deep sound strikes like a rising knell!
Words in this poem
- champ v. t.
- To bite with repeated action of the teeth so as to be heard. [Prob, of Scand. orgin; cf. dial. Sw. kämsa to chew with difficulty, champ; but cf. also OF. champier, champeyer, champoyer, to graze in fields, fr. F. champ fie]
- 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,]
- thraldom n.
- The condition of a thrall; slavery; bondage; state of servitude. [Icel. . See Thrall, and -dom.]
- idol n.
- An image or representation of anything. [OE. idole, F. idole, L. idolum, fr. Gr. Wit, and cf. Eidolon.]
- trampler n.
- One who tramples; one who treads down; as, a trampler on nature's law.
- depopulation n.
- The act of depopulating, or condition of being depopulated; destruction or explusion of inhabitants. [L. depopulatio pillaging: cf. F. dépopulation depopulation.]
- happily adv.
- By chance; peradventure; haply. Piers Plowman. [From Happy.]
- went n.
- Course; way; path; journey; direction.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Canto III XXI 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 III XXI, in Childe Harold's Pilgrimage (1812–1818), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #5131, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/byron-childe-harold/canto-iii-xxi.html, id L06545.
Form and metre
Canto III XXI 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 84%). 90% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 10.3 syllables. 1 line ends on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 44% 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 bitA · freeB · submitA · sovereigntyB · beB · daysC · weB · gazeC · praiseC
- 2 ABABBCBCC moreA · tearsB · beforeA · yearsB · fearsB · accordC · endearsB · swordC · lordC
- 3 ABABBCBCC nightA · thenB · brightA · menB · whenB · swellC · againB · bellC · knellC
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Fit retribution! Gaul may champ the bit, | 10 | ··˘/˘····· |
| And foam in fetters, but is Earth more free? | 10 | ···/˘····· |
| Did nations combat to make ONE submit; | 10 | ·/˘/˘···˘/ |
| Or league to teach all kings true sovereignty? | 10 | ·······/˘˘ |
| What! shall reviving thraldom again be | 10 | ··˘/˘/˘˘/· |
| The patched-up idol of enlightened days? | 10 | ···/˘·˘/˘· |
| Shall we, who struck the Lion down, shall we | 10 | ·····/˘··· |
| Pay the Wolf homage? proffering lowly gaze | 10 | ···/˘/˘/˘· |
| And servile knees to thrones? No; PROVE before ye praise! | 12 | ·/˘········· |
| If not, o'er one fall'n despot boast no more! | 10 | ·····/˘··· |
| In vain fair cheeks were furrowed with hot tears | 10 | ·····/˘··· |
| For Europe's flowers long rooted up before | 10 | ·/˘/·/˘··· |
| The trampler of her vineyards; in vain years | 10 | ·/˘··/˘··· |
| Of death, depopulation, bondage, fears, | 10 | ··˘·˘/˘/˘· |
| Have all been borne, and broken by the accord | 11 | ·····/˘··˘/ |
| Of roused-up millions: all that most endears | 10 | ···/˘···˘/ |
| Glory, is when the myrtle wreathes a sword | 10 | /˘···/˘··· |
| Such as Harmodius drew on Athens' tyrant lord. | 12 | ·······/˘/˘· |
| There was a sound of revelry by night, | 10 | ·····/˘˘·· |
| And Belgium's capital had gathered then | 10 | ·/˘/˘˘·/˘· |
| Her Beauty and her Chivalry, and bright | 10 | ·/˘··/˘˘·· |
| The lamps shone o'er fair women and brave men; | 10 | ·····/˘··· |
| A thousand hearts beat happily; and when | 10 | ·/˘··/˘˘·· |
| Music arose with its voluptuous swell, | 10 | /˘˘/··˘/˘· |
| Soft eyes looked love to eyes which spake again, | 10 | ········˘/ |
| And all went merry as a marriage bell; | 10 | ···/˘··/˘· |
| But hush! hark! a deep sound strikes like a rising knell! | 12 | ·········/˘· |
Notes from the edition 4
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 2 [With this "obstinate questioning" of the final import and outcome of "that world-famous Waterloo," compare the Ode from the French, "We do not curse thee, Waterloo," written in 1815, and published by John Murray in Poems (1816). Compare, too, The Age of Waterloo, v. 93, "Oh, bloody and most bootless Waterloo!" and Don Juan, Canto VIII. stanzas xlviii.-l., etc. Shelley, too, in his sonnet on the Feelings of a Republican on the Fall of Bonaparte (1816), utters a like lament (Shelley's Works, 1895, ii. 385)--
"I know Too late, since thou and France are in the dust, That Virtue owns a more eternal foe Than Force or Fraud: old Custom, legal Crime, And bloody Faith, the foulest birth of Time."
Even Wordsworth, after due celebration of this "victory sublime," in his sonnet Emperors and Kings, etc. (Works, 1889, p. 557), solemnly admonishes the "powers"--
"Be just, be grateful; nor, the oppressor's creed Reviving heavier chastisement deserve Than ever forced unpitied hearts to bleed."
But the Laureate had no misgivings, and in The Poet's Pilgrimage, iv. 60, celebrates the national apotheosis--
"Peace hath she won ... with her victorious hand Hath won thro' rightful war auspicious peace; Nor this alone, but that in every land The withering rule of violence may cease. Was ever War with such blest victory crowned! Did ever Victory with such fruits abound!"] - Stanza 2, line 9 See the famous song on Harmodius and Aristogeiton. The best English translation is in Bland's Anthology, by Mr. Denman--
"With myrtle my sword will I wreathe," etc.
[Translations chiefly from the Greek Anthology, etc., 1806, pp. 24, 25. The Scholium, attributed to Callistratus (Poetae Lyrici Graeci, Bergk. Lipsiae, 1866, p. 1290), begins thus--
E)n my/rtou kladi\ to\ xi/phos phore/so, O(\sper A(rmo/dios kai\ A)ristogei/ton, O(/te to\n y/rannon ktaneten I)sono/mous t' A)the/nas e)poiesa/ten
"Hence," says Mr. Tozer, "'the sword in myrtles drest' (Keble's Christian Year, Third Sunday in Lent) became the emblem of assertors of liberty."--Childe Harold, 1885, p. 262.] - Stanza 3, line 1 [The most vivid and the best authenticated account of the Duchess of Richmond's ball, which took place June 15, the eve of the Battle of Quatrebras, in the duke's house in the Rue de la Blanchisserie, is to be found in Lady de Ros's (Lady Georgiana Lennox) Personal Recollections of the Great Duke of Wellington, which appeared first in Murray's Magazine, January and February, 1889, and were republished as A Sketch of the Life of Georgiana, Lady de Ros, by her daughter, the Hon. Mrs. J. R. Swinton (John Murray, 1893). "My mother's now famous ball," writes Lady de Ros (A Sketch, etc., pp. 122, 123), "took place in a large room on the ground-floor on the left of the entrance, connected with the rest of the house by an ante-room. It had been used by the coachbuilder, from whom the house was hired, to put carriages in, but it was papered before we came there; and I recollect the paper--a trellis pattern with roses.... When the duke arrived, rather late, at the ball, I was dancing, but at once went up to him to ask about the rumours. 'Yes, they are true; we are off to-morrow.' This terrible news was circulated directly, and while some of the officers hurried away, others remained at the ball, and actually had not time to change their clothes, but fought in evening costume."]
- Stanza 3, line 8 On the night previous to the action, it is said that a ball was given at Brussels. [See notes to the text.]
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