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- For which joy hath no balm-and affliction no sting."-MOOR 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 Inscribed, BY HIS OBLIGED AND AFFECTIONATE SERVANT, LONDON, May, 1813. BYRON. 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. |