THE GIAOUR: A FRAGMENT OF A TURKISH TALE. "One fatal remembrance-one sorrow that throws Its bleak shade alike o'er our joys and our woes- VOL. III. B ΤΟ SAMUEL ROGERS, ESQ. AS A SLIGHT BUT MOST SINCERE TOKEN OF ADMIRATION FOR HIS GENIUS, RESPECT FOR HIS CHARACTER, AND GRATITUDE FOR HIS FRIENDSHIP, This Production is Enscribed, BY HIS OBLIGED AND AFFECTIONATE SERVANT, LONDON, May, 1813. BYRON. ADVERTISEMENT. THE tale which these disjointed fragments present, is founded upon circumstances now less common in the East than formerly; either because the ladies are more circumspect than in the "olden time," or because the Christians have better fortune, or less enterprise. The story, when entire, contained the adventures of a female slave, who was thrown, in the Mussulman manner, into the sea for infidelity, and avenged by a young Venetian, her lover, at the time the Seven Islands were possessed by the Republic of Venice, and soon after the Arnauts were beaten back from the Morea, which they had ravaged for some time subsequent to the Russian invasion. The desertion of the Mainotes, on being refused the plunder of Misitra, led to the abandonment of that enterprise, and to the desolation of the Morea, during which the cruelty exercised on all sides was unparalleled even in the annals of the faithful. INTRODUCTION TO THE GIAOUR. IN the "Hints from Horace," written in 1811, Lord Byron expressed his preference for the octosyllabic metre : "Though at first view eight feet may seem in vain Form'd, save in ode, to bear a serious strain, Yet Scott has shown our wondering isle of late Heroic rhyme, but most in love and war, Whose fluctuations, tender or sublime, Are curb'd too much by long recurring rhyme." With this opinion of the merits of the measure-which he admits that he borrowed from Scott, as Scott, in his turn, confessed to have derived it from the "Christabel " of Coleridge-Lord Byron naturally tested its compass in his earliest tale. The fragmentary form of the composition was suggested by the then new "Columbus" of Rogers. As to the scene, it was not his recent travels alone that recommended it to Byron, for he had always dwelt fondly upon Eastern subjects, of which the realities harmonised with his imaginative dreams. "Old Knolles," he said, at Missolonghi, 66 was one of the first books that gave me pleasure when a child; and I believe it had much influence on my future wishes to visit the Levant, and gave, perhaps, the Oriental colouring which is observed in my poetry." An incident which occurred while the author was at Athens was the foundation of the "Giaour." His Turkish servant tampered with a female slave, and, on his return from bathing, Lord Byron met an escort who carried the girl, sewn up in a sack, to throw her into the sea. He afterwards said, "that to describe the feelings of the situation was impossible, and that to recollect them even, was icy." Happily the catastrophe was not as tragical as in the tale. He threatened to shoot the leader of the band unless they took back their victim to the governor's house, where, by a combination of menaces, entreaties, and bribery, he obtained her release. The first draught of the poem was the work of a week; but it then consisted of only four hundred lines, which, in the process of printing, and in future editions, grew to fourteen hundred. When once the vein of sentiment was opened, he found it hard to check the flow. "I have," he wrote to Mr. Murray, during the progress of the fifth edition, "but with some difficulty, not added any more to this snake of a poem, which has been lengthening its rattles every month." It was published in May, 1813, and was in the fifth edition by September. The sensation created by the "Pilgrimage" was abundantly sustained. The comparison between ancient and modern Greece-now softly pathetic, and now fiercely indignant—the terrible conflicts of a mind torn by passion, revenge, and remorse, |