Canto IV XVIII
When Athens' armies fell at Syracuse,And fettered thousands bore the yoke of war,Redemption rose up in the Attic Muse,Her voice their only ransom from afar:See! as they chant the tragic hymn, the carOf the o'ermastered victor stops, the reinsFall from his hands--his idle scimitarStarts from its belt--he rends his captive's chains,And bids him thank the bard for freedom and his strains.
Thus, Venice, if no stronger claim were thine,Were all thy proud historic deeds forgot,Thy choral memory of the bard divine,Thy love of Tasso, should have cut the knotWhich ties thee to thy tyrants; and thy lotIs shameful to the nations,--most of all,Albion! to thee: the Ocean Queen should notAbandon Ocean's children; in the fallOf Venice think of thine, despite thy watery wall.
I loved her from my boyhood: she to meWas as a fairy city of the heart,Rising like water-columns from the sea,Of joy the sojourn, and of wealth the martAnd Otway, Radcliffe, Schiller, Shakspeare's art,Had stamped her image in me, and e'en so,Although I found her thus, we did not part,Perchance e'en dearer in her day of woe,Than when she was a boast, a marvel, and a show.
Words in this poem
- syracuse n.
- A red wine of Italy.
- fettered a.
- Seeming as if fettered, as the feet pf certain animals which bend backward, and appear unfit for walking.
- afar adv.
- At, to, or from a great distance; far away; -- often used with from preceding, or off following; as, he was seen from afar; I saw him afar off. [Pref. a-.(for on or of) + far.]
- scimitar n.
- A saber with a much curved blade having the edge on the convex side, -- in use among Mohammedans, esp., the Arabs and persians. [F. cimeterre, cf. It. scimitarra, Sp. cimitarra; fr. Biscayan cimetarry with a sharp edge; or corrupted from Per. shimshir.]
- thank n.
- A expression of gratitude; an acknowledgment expressive of a sense of favor or kindness received; obligation, claim, or desert, or gratitude; -- now generally used in the plural. [AS. Þanc, Þonc, thanks, favor, thought; akin to OS. thank favor, pleasure, thanks, D. & G. dank thanks, Icel. Þ\'94kk, Dan. tak, Sw. tack, Goth. Þagks thanks; -]
- historic a.
- Of or pertaining to history, or the record of past events; as, an historical poem; the historic page. [L. historicus, Gr. historique. See History.]
- choral a.
- Of or pertaining to a choir or chorus; singing, sung, or adapted to be sung, in chorus or harmony. Choral service, a service of song. [LL. choralis, fr. L. chorus. See Chorus.]
- albion n.
- An ancient name of England, still retained in poetry. [Prob. from the same root as Gael. alp a height or hill. "It may have been bestowed on the land lying behind the white cliffs visible from the coast of Gaul. Alb]
- boyhood n.
- The state of being a boy; the time during which one is a boy. [Boy + -hood.]
- sojourn v. i.
- To dwell for a time; to dwell or live in a place as a temporary resident or as a stranger, not considering the place as a permanent habitation; to delay; to tarry. [OE. sojornen, sojournen, OF. sojorner, sejorner, F. séjourner, fr. L. sub under, about + diurnus belonging to the day. See Journal, Diurnal.]
- wealth n.
- Weal; welfare; prosperity; good. [OE. welthe, from wele; cf. D. weelde luxury. See Weal prosperity.]
- mart v. t.
- To buy or sell in, or as in, a mart.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Canto IV XVIII 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 IV XVIII, in Childe Harold's Pilgrimage (1812–1818), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #5131, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/byron-childe-harold/canto-iv-xviii.html, id L06584.
Form and metre
Canto IV XVIII 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 90%). 98% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 10.2 syllables. 33% 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 syracuseA · warB · museA · afarB · carB · reinsC · scimitarB · chainsC · strainsC
- 2 ABABBCBCC thineA · forgotB · divineA · knotB · lotB · allC · notB · fallC · wallC
- 3 ABABBCBCC meA · heartB · seaA · martB · artB · soC · partB · woeC · showC
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 |
|---|---|---|
| When Athens' armies fell at Syracuse, | 10 | ·/˘/˘··/˘· |
| And fettered thousands bore the yoke of war, | 10 | ·/˘/˘····· |
| Redemption rose up in the Attic Muse, | 10 | ˘/˘····/˘· |
| Her voice their only ransom from afar: | 10 | ···/˘/˘·˘/ |
| See! as they chant the tragic hymn, the car | 10 | ·····/˘··· |
| Of the o'ermastered victor stops, the reins | 10 | ·····/˘··· |
| Fall from his hands--his idle scimitar | 10 | ·····/˘··· |
| Starts from its belt--he rends his captive's chains, | 10 | ·······/˘· |
| And bids him thank the bard for freedom and his strains. | 12 | ·······/˘··· |
| Thus, Venice, if no stronger claim were thine, | 10 | ·/˘··/˘··· |
| Were all thy proud historic deeds forgot, | 10 | ····˘/˘·˘/ |
| Thy choral memory of the bard divine, | 10 | ·/˘/˘···˘/ |
| Thy love of Tasso, should have cut the knot | 10 | ···/······ |
| Which ties thee to thy tyrants; and thy lot | 10 | ·····/˘··· |
| Is shameful to the nations,--most of all, | 10 | ·/˘··/˘··· |
| Albion! to thee: the Ocean Queen should not | 10 | /˘˘···/··· |
| Abandon Ocean's children; in the fall | 10 | ˘/˘/˘/˘··· |
| Of Venice think of thine, despite thy watery wall. | 12 | ·/˘···˘/·/˘· |
| I loved her from my boyhood: she to me | 10 | ·····/···· |
| Was as a fairy city of the heart, | 10 | ···/˘/˘··· |
| Rising like water-columns from the sea, | 10 | /˘·/˘/˘··· |
| Of joy the sojourn, and of wealth the mart | 10 | ···/˘····· |
| And Otway, Radcliffe, Schiller, Shakspeare's art, | 10 | ···/˘/˘··· |
| Had stamped her image in me, and e'en so, | 10 | ···/˘····· |
| Although I found her thus, we did not part, | 10 | ·········· |
| Perchance e'en dearer in her day of woe, | 10 | ˘/·/˘····· |
| Than when she was a boast, a marvel, and a show. | 12 | ·······/˘··· |
Notes from the edition 3
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 3 [The story is told in Plutarch's Life of Nicias, cap. xxix. (Plut. Vit., Lipsiae, 1813, v. 154). "The dramas of Euripides were so popular throughout all Sicily, that those Athenian prisoners who knew ... portions of them, won the affections of their masters.... I cannot refrain from mentioning this story, though I fear its trustworthiness ... is much inferior to its pathos and interest."--Grote's History of Greece, 1869, vii. 186.]
- Stanza 2, line 7 [By the Treaty of Paris, May 3, 1814, Lombardy and Venice, which since the battle of Austerlitz had formed part of the French kingdom of Naples, were once more handed over to Austria. Great Britain was represented by "a bungler even in its disgusting trade" (Don Juan, Dedication, stanza xiv.), Lord Castlereagh.]
- Stanza 3, line 5 Venice Preserved; Mysteries of Udolpho; The Ghost-Seer, or Armenian; The Merchant of Venice; Othello.
[For Venice Preserved, vide ante, stanza iv. line 7, note. To the Mysteries of Udolpho Byron was indebted for more than one suggestion, vide ante, stanza i. line 4, note, and Mysteries, etc., London, 1794, 2. 39: "The air bore no sounds, but those of sweetness echoing along each margin of the canal and from gondolas on its surface, while groups of masks were seen dancing on the moonlit terraces, and seemed almost to realize the romance of fairy-land." The scene of Schiller's Der Geisterseher (Werke, 1819, x. 97, sq.) is laid at Venice. "This [the Doge's palace] was the thing that most struck my imagination in Venice--more than the Rialto, which I visited for the sake of Shylock; and more, too, than Schiller's Armenian, a novel which took a great hold of me when a boy. It is also called the Ghost Seer, and I never walked down St. Mark's by moonlight without thinking of it, and 'at nine o'clock he died!' [For allusion to the same incident, see Rogers's Italy (Poems, 1852, ii. 73).] But I hate things all fiction; and therefore the Merchant and Othello have no great associations for me: but Pierre has."--Letter to Murray, Venice, April 2, 1817. (For an earlier reference to the Ghost-seer, see Oscar of Alva: Poetical Works, 1898, i. 131, note.)]
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