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and lawless companions, and a constant sense of danger, were full of poetry, and undoubtedly contributed to the formation of the peculiar taste of Byron's genius. As it has been said of Salvator Rosa, the painter, that he derived the characteristic savage force of his pencil from his youthful adventures with banditti; it may be added of Byron, that much of his most distinguished power was the result of his adventures as a traveller in Greece. His mind and memory were filled with stores of the fittest imagery, to supply becoming backgrounds and appendages, to the characters and enterprises which he afterward depicted with such truth of nature and poetical effect.

After leaving Rapthi, keeping Mount Pentilicus on the left, the travellers came in sight of the evercelebrated Plain of Marathon. The evening being advanced, they passed the barrow of the Athenian slain unnoticed, but next morning they examined minutely the field of battle, and fancied they had made antiquarian discoveries. In their return to Athens they inspected the different objects of research and fragments of antiquity, which still attract travellers, and with the help of Chandler and Pausanias, endeavoured to determine the local habitation and the name of many things, of which the traditions have perished and the forms have relapsed into rock.

Soon after their arrival at Athens, Mr. Hobhouse left Lord Byron, to visit the Negropont, where he was absent some few days. I think he had only been back three or four, when I arrived from Zante. My visit to Athens at that period was accidental. I had left Malta with the intention of proceeding to Candia, by Specia, and Idra; but a dreadful storm drove us up the Adriatic, as far as Valona; and in returning, being becalmed off the island of Zante, I landed there, and allowed the ship, with my luggage, to proceed to her destination, having been advised to go on by the Gulf of Corinth to Athens; from which, I was informed, there would be no difficulty in recovering my trunks.

In carrying this arrangement into effect, I was induced to go aside from the direct route, and to visit Velhi Pashaw, at Tripolizza, to whom I had letters. Returning by Argos and Corinth, I crossed the isthmus, and taking the road by Megara, reached Athens on the 20th of February. In the course of this journey, I heard of two English travellers being in the city; and on reaching the convent of the Propaganda, where I had been advised to take up my lodgings, the friar in charge of the house informed me of their names. Next morning, Mr. Hobhouse, having heard of my arrival, kindly called on me, and I accompanied him to Lord Byron, who then lodged with the widow of a Greek, who had been British Consul. She was, I believe, a respectable person, with several daughters; one of whom has been rendered more famous by his Lordship's verses, than her degree of beauty deserved. She was a pale and pensive-looking girl, with regular Grecian features. Whether he really cherished any sincere attachment to her I much doubt. I believe his passion was equally innocent and poetical, though he spoke of buying her from her mother. It was to this damsel that he addressed the stanzas beginning,

Maid of Athens, ere we part,
Give, oh! give me back my heart.

CHAPTER XIX.

Occupation at Athens-Mount Pentilicus-We descend into the Ca verns-Return to Athens-A Greek Contract of Marriage-Various Athenian and Albanian Superstitions-Effect of their Impression on the Genius of the Poet.

DURING his residence at Athens, Lord Byron made almost daily excursions on horseback, chiefly for exercise and to see the localities of celebrated spots.

He affected to have no taste for the arts, and he certainly took but little pleasure in the examination of the ruins.

The marble quarry of Mount Pentilicus, from which the materials for the temples and principal edifices of Athens are supposed to have been brought, was, in those days, one of the regular staple curiosities of Greece. This quarry is a vast excavation in the side of the hill; a drapery of woodbine hangs like the festoons of a curtain over the entrance; the effect of which, seen from the outside, is really worth looking at, but not worth the trouble of riding three hours over a road of rude and rough fragments to see: the interior is like that of any other cavern. To this place I one day was induced to accompany the two travellers.

We halted at a monastery close by the foot of the mountain, where we procured a guide, and ate a repast of olives and fried eggs. Dr. Chandler says, that the monks, or caloyers, of this convent, are summoned to prayers by a tune which is played on a piece of an iron hoop; and, on the outside of the church, we certainly saw a piece of crooked iron suspended. When struck, it uttered a bell-like sound, by which the hour of prayer was announced. What sort of tune could be played on such an instrument the doctor has judiciously left his readers to imagine.

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When we reached the mouth of the grotto, by that " very bad track" which the learned personage above mentioned clambered up, we saw the ruins of the building which the doctor at first thought had been possibly a hermit's cell; but which, upon more deliberate reflection, he became of opinion was designed, perhaps, for a sentinel to look out, and regulate, by signals, the approach of the men and teams employed in carrying marble to the city." This, we agreed, was a very sagacious conjecture. It was, indeed, highly probable that sentinels were

appointed to regulate, by signals, the manœuvres of carts coming to fetch away stones.

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Having looked at the outside of the quarry, and the guide having lighted candles, we entered into the interior, and beheld on all sides what Dr. Chandler saw, chippings of marble." We then descended, consecutively, into a hole, just wide enough to let a man pass; and when we had descended far enough, we found ourselves in a cell, or cave; it might be some ten or twelve feet square. Here we stopped, and, like many others who had been there before us, attempted to engrave our names, mine was without success; Lord Byron's was not much better; but Mr. Hobhouse was making some progress to immortality, when the blade of his knife snapped, or shutting suddenly, cut his finger. These attempts having failed, we inscribed our initials on the ceiling with the smoke of our candles. After accomplishing this notable feat, we got as well out of the scrape as we could, and returned to Athens by the village of Callandris. In the evening, after dinner, as there happened to be a contract of marriage performing in the neighbourhood, we went to see the ceremony.

Between the contract and espousal two years are generally permitted to elapse among the Greeks; in the course of which the bride, according to the circumstances of her relations, prepares domestic chattels for her future family. The affections are rarely consulted on either side, for the mother of the bridegroom commonly arranges the match for her son. In this case, the choice had been evidently made according to the principle on which Mrs. Primiose chose her wedding gown; viz. for the qualities that would wear well. For the bride was a stout household quean; her face painted with vermilion, and her person arrayed in uncouth embroidered garments. Unfortunately, we were disappointed of seeing the ceremony, as it was over before we arrived.

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This incident led me to inquire particularly into the existing usages and customs of the Athenians; and I find in the notes of my journal of the evening of that day's adventures, a memorandum of a curious practice among the Athenian maidens when they become anxious to get husbands. On the first evening of the new moon, they put a little honey, a little salt, and a piece of bread on a plate, which they leave at a particular spot on the east bank of the Ilissus, near the Stadium, and muttering some ancient words, to the effect that Fate may send them a handsome young man, return home, and long for the fulfilment of the charm. On mentioning this circumstance to the travellers, one of them informed me, that above the spot where these offerings are made, a statue of Venus, according to Pausanias, formerly stood. It is, therefore, highly probable that what is now a superstitious, was anciently a religious rite.

At this period my fellow-passengers were full of their adventures in Albania. The country was new, and the inhabitants had appeared to them a bold and singular race. In addition to the characteristic descriptions which I have extracted from Lord Byron's notes, as well as Mr. Hobhouse's travels, I am indebted to them, as well as to others, for a number of memoranda obtained in conversation, which they have themselves neglected to record, but which pro'bably became unconsciously mingled with the recollections of both; at least, I can discern traces of them in different parts of the poet's works.

The Albanians are a race of mountaineers, and it has been often remarked that mountaineers, more than any other people, are attached to their native land, while no other have so strong a thirst of adventure. The affection which they cherish for the scenes of their youth tends, perhaps, to excite their migratory spirit. For the motive of their adventures is to procure the means of subsisting in ease at home.

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