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Written After Swimming from Sestos to Abydos

Lord Byron (1788–1824) · 1816

iambic tetrameter · ABAB · 20 lines · from The Giaour, and Other Poems

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If, in the month of dark December,Leander, who was nightly wont(What maid will not the tale remember?)To cross thy stream, broad Hellespont!

If, when the wintry tempest roared,He sped to Hero, nothing loth,And thus of old thy current poured,Fair Venus! how I pity both!

For me, degenerate modern wretch,Though in the genial month of May,My dripping limbs I faintly stretch,And think I've done a feat to-day.

But since he crossed the rapid tide,According to the doubtful story,To woo,--and--Lord knows what beside,And swam for Love, as I for Glory;

'Twere hard to say who fared the best:Sad mortals! thus the Gods still plague you!He lost his labour, I my jest:For he was drowned, and I've the ague.

Words in this poem

nightly a.
Of or pertaining to the night, or to every night; happening or done by night, or every night; as, nightly shades; he kept nightly vigils.
hellespont n.
A narrow strait between Europe and Asia, now called the Daradanelles. It connects the Ægean Sea and the sea of Marmora.
wintry a.
Suitable to winter; resembling winter, or what belongs to winter; brumal; hyemal; cold; stormy; wintery. [AS. wintrig.]
genial a.
Contributing to, or concerned in, propagation or production; generative; procreative; productive. [L. genialis: cf. OF. genial. See Genius.]
dripping n.
A falling in drops, or the sound so made.
jest n.
A deed; an action; a gest. [OE. jeste, geste, deed, action, story, tale, OF. geste, LL. gesta, orig., exploits, neut. pl. from L. gestus, p. p. of gerere to bear, carry, accomplish, perfor]

Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.

About this text

Written After Swimming from Sestos to Abydos is in the public domain. This text is taken from The Works of Lord Byron. Vol. 3, Project Gutenberg ebook #21811; 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, Written After Swimming from Sestos to Abydos, in The Giaour, and Other Poems (1816), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #21811, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/byron-works-3/written-after-swimming-from-sestos-to-abydos.html, id L23831.

Form and metre

Written After Swimming from Sestos to Abydos is 20 lines in 5 stanzas of 4 lines each. Every stanza rhymes ABAB. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 93%).

See other poems in iambic tetrameter.

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. 1 ABAB decemberA · wontB · rememberA · hellespontB
  2. 2 ABAB roaredA · lothB · pouredA · bothB
  3. 3 ABAB wretchA · mayB · stretchA · dayB
  4. 4 ABAB tideA · storyB · besideA · gloryB
  5. 5 ABAB bestA · youB · jestA · agueB
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 tetrameter. How this is done.

LineSyl.Stress
If, in the month of dark December,9······˘/˘
Leander, who was nightly wont8˘/˘··/˘·
(What maid will not the tale remember?)9······˘/˘
To cross thy stream, broad Hellespont!8·····/˘˘
If, when the wintry tempest roared,8···/˘/˘·
He sped to Hero, nothing loth,8···/˘/˘·
And thus of old thy current poured,8·····/˘·
Fair Venus! how I pity both!8·/˘··/˘·
For me, degenerate modern wretch,8··˘/˘/˘·
Though in the genial month of May,8···/˘···
My dripping limbs I faintly stretch,8·/˘··/˘·
And think I've done a feat to-day.8········
But since he crossed the rapid tide,8·····/˘·
According to the doubtful story,9˘/˘··/˘/˘
To woo,--and--Lord knows what beside,8······˘/
And swam for Love, as I for Glory;9·······/˘
'Twere hard to say who fared the best:8········
Sad mortals! thus the Gods still plague you!9·/˘······
He lost his labour, I my jest:8···/····
For he was drowned, and I've the ague.9·······/˘

On this poem

On the 3rd of May, 1810, while the Salsette (Captain Bathurst) was lying in the Dardanelles, Lieutenant Ekenhead, of that frigate, and the writer of these rhymes, swam from the European shore to the Asiatic--by the by, from Abydos to Sestos would have been more correct. The whole distance, from the place whence we started to our landing on the other side, including the length we were carried by the current, was computed by those on board the frigate at upwards of four English miles, though the actual breadth is barely one. The rapidity of the current is such that no boat can row directly across, and it may, in some measure, be estimated from the circumstance of the whole distance being accomplished by one of the parties in an hour and five, and by the other in an hour and ten minutes. The water was extremely cold, from the melting of the mountain snows. About three weeks before, in April, we had made an attempt; but having ridden all the way from the Troad the same morning, and the water being of an icy chillness, we found it necessary to postpone the completion till the frigate anchored below the castles, when we swam the straits as just stated, entering a considerable way above the European, and landing below the Asiatic, fort. [Le] Chevalier says that a young Jew swam the same distance for his mistress; and Olivier mentions its having been done by a Neapolitan; but our consul, Tarragona, remembered neither of these circumstances, and tried to dissuade us from the attempt. A number of the Salsette's crew were known to have accomplished a greater distance; and the only thing that surprised me was that, as doubts had been entertained of the truth of Leander's story, no traveller had ever endeavoured to ascertain its practicability. [See letter to Drury, dated May 3; to his mother, May 24, 1810, etc. (Letters, 1898, i. 262, 275). Compare the well-known lines in Don Juan, Canto II. stanza cv.--

"A better swimmer you could scarce see ever, He could perhaps have passed the Hellespont, As once (a feat on which ourselves we prided) Leander, Mr. Ekenhead, and I did."

Compare, too, Childe Harold, Canto IV. stanza clxxxiv. line 3, and the Bride of Abydos, Canto II. stanza i.: Poetical Works, 1899, ii. 461, note 2, et post, p. 178.]
Notes from the edition 1

E. H. Coleridge's notes to The Works of Lord Byron, Poetry, Vol. III (John Murray, 1900; Project Gutenberg #21811). Bracketed passages are the editor's; unbracketed are Byron's own or earlier editors'. Lettered variant readings (manuscript and edition collations) are not harvested here, matching the treatment of Coleridge's Don Juan notes.

  1. Stanza 5, line 4 [Hobhouse, who records the first attempt to cross the Hellespont, on April 16, and the successful achievement of the feat, May 3, 1810, adds the following note: "In my journal, in my friend's handwriting: 'The whole distance E. and myself swam was more than four miles--the current very strong and cold--some large fish near us when half across--we were not fatigued, but a little chilled--did it with little difficulty.--May, 6, 1810. Byron.'"--Travels in Albania, ii. 195.]

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