a post in honor of lord byron's 200th death anniversary —
the greeks were very fond of byron, who when he died in 1824 was a military commander and notable influence in their war of independence. as one of the most (if not the most) famous members of the philhellenist movement, byron used his poetic platform to try to remind people of greece's reputation as the source of western traditions in art and culture. the greeks then honored byron by decorating his coffin with a laurel wreath (below). they also erected statues for him, like this one below in athens depicting him being crowned with a laurel wreath (a symbol of greatness, especially in poetry/music [which historically overlapped]) by a female personification of greece. to this day, some statues of byron are annually wreathed in tradition, and the names byron/vyron/vyronas are still used in greece for roads, towns, and people in his honor.
"’Tis sweet to win, no matter how, one’s laurels,
By blood or ink; ’tis sweet to put an end
To strife; ’tis sometimes sweet to have our quarrels,
Particularly with a tiresome friend:
Sweet is old wine in bottles, ale in barrels;
Dear is the helpless creature we defend
Against the world; and dear the schoolboy spot
We ne’er forget, though there we are forgot.
But sweeter still than this, than these, than all,
Is first and passionate love — it stands alone,
Like Adam’s recollection of his fall;
The tree of knowledge has been pluck’d — all ’s known —
And life yields nothing further to recall
Worthy of this ambrosial sin, so shown,
No doubt in fable, as the unforgiven
Fire which Prometheus filch’d for us from heaven."
— excerpt from Lord Byron's Don Juan, Canto the First (writ 1818, pub. 1819).
"The mountains look on Marathon –
And Marathon looks on the sea;
And musing there an hour alone,
I dreamed that Greece might still be free;
For standing on the Persians' grave,
I could not deem myself a slave."
— excerpt from Lord Byron's Don Juan, Canto the Third (writ 1819, pub 1821) — this stanza is part of a section often published on its own under the title "The Isles of Greece."
"Byron was at once a romantic dreamer, who wanted life to square up to his illusions, and a satirical realist, who saw what was before him with unusual clarity and found its contradictoriness amusing. The clash between the two Byrons is nowhere more noticeable than in his last writings, done on Cephalonia and at Missolonghi during the months before his death. There we see the Greece he dreams of, and the Greece which, in different ways, destroys him."
— excerpt from Peter Cochran's "Byron's Writings in Greece, 1823-4."
"Oh, talk not to me of a name great in story;
The days of our youth are the days of our glory;
And the myrtle and ivy of sweet two and twenty
Are worth all your laurels, though ever so plenty.
What are garlands and crowns to the brow that is wrinkled?
'Tis but as a dead-flower with May-dew besprinkled.
Then away with all such from the head that is hoary!
What care I for the wreaths that can only give glory!
Oh FAME! - if I e'er took delight in thy praises,
'Twas less for the sake of thy high-sounding phrases,
Than to see the bright eyes of the dear one discover,
She thought that I was not unworthy to love her.
There chiefly I sought thee, there only I found thee;
Her glance was the best of the rays that surround thee;
When it sparkled o'er aught that was bright in my story,
I knew it was love, and I felt it was glory."
— Lord Byron's "Stanzas Written on the Road Between Florence and Pisa" (November, 1821). What is illustrated here, and what I try to illustrate all throughout this assortment, is Byron's conflation of love and glory, and the idea that poetry and politics are both ways to deserve and achieve — not fame, but what fame seems to promise — love.
"But 'tis not thus—and 'tis not here
Such thoughts should shake my Soul, nor now,
Where Glory decks the hero's bier,
The Sword, the Banner, and the Field,
Glory and Greece around us see!
The Spartan borne upon his shield
Awake (not Greece—she is awake!)
Awake, my Spirit! Think through whom
Thy life-blood tracks its parent lake
— excerpt from Lord Byron's "On This Day I Complete My Thirty-Sxith Year" (1824).
"What are to me those honours and renown
Past or to come, a new-born people's cry
Albeit for such I could despise a crown
Of aught save Laurel, or for such could die;
I am the fool of passion, and a frown
Of thine to me is as an Adder's eye
To the poor bird whose pinion fluttering down
Wafts unto death the breast it bore so high –
Such is this maddening fascination grown –
So strong thy Magic - or so weak am I."
— although the much more popular and published "On This Day I Complete My Thirty-Sxith Year" is often believed to be Byron's last poem, the above is likely Byron's actual last poem. Like the former, it wasn't solely written for Greece, but for his page Lukas Chalandritsanos who he was in unrequited love (or lust) with. It is sometimes titled "Last Words on Greece" (named so by his friend and sometimes-editor Hobhouse).
