The Curse of Minerva
*
by George Gordon, Lord Byron
(composed: 17 March 1811, Athens)
- Slow sinks, more lovely ere his race be run,
- Along Moreas hills the setting sun;
- Not, as in northern climes, obscurely bright,
- But one unclouded blaze of living light;
- Oer the hushd deep the yellow beam he throws,
- Gilds the green wave that trembles as it glows;
- On old Aeginas rock and Hydras isle
- The god of gladness shed his parting smile
- Oer his own regions lingering loves to shine,
- Though there his altars are no more divine.
- Descending fast, the mountain-shadows kiss
- Thy glorious gulf, unconquerd Salamis!
- Their azure arches through the long expanse
- More deeply purpled, meet his mellowing glance,
- And tenderest tints, along their summits driven,
- Mark his gay course, and own the hues of heaven;
- Till darkly shaded from the land and deep,
- Behind his Delphian rock he sinks to sleep.
- On such an eve his palest beam he cast
- When, Athens! here thy wisest lookd his last,
- How watchd thy better sons his farewell ray,
- That closed their murderd sages latest day!
- Not yetnot yetSol pauses on the hill.
- The precious hour of parting lingers still;
- But sad his light to agonising eyes,
- And dark the mountains once delightful dyes;
- Gloom oer the lovely land he seemd to pour,
- The land where Phoebus never frownd before;
- But ere he sunk below Citherons head,
- The cup of woe was quaffdthe spirit fled;
- The soul of him that scornd to fear or fly,
- Who lived and died as none can live or die.
- But, lo! from high Hymettus to the plain
- The queen of night asserts her silent reign;
- No murky vapour, herald of the storm,
- Hides her fair face, or girds her glowing form,
- With cornice glimmering as the moonbeams play,
- There the white column greets her grateful ray,
- And bright around, with quivering beams beset,
- her emblem sparkles oer the minaret:
- The groves of olive scatterd dark and wide,
- Where meek Cephisus sheds his scanty tide,
- the cypress saddening by the sacred mosque,
- The gleaming turret of the gay kiosk,
- And sad and sombre mid the holy calm,
- Near Theseus fane, yon solitary palm;
- All, tinged with varied hues, arrest the eye;
- and dull were his that passd them heedless by.
- Again the Aegean, heard no more afar,
- Lulls his chafed breast from elemental war;
- Again his waves in milder tints unfold
- Their long expanse of sapphire and of gold,
- Mixd with the shades of many a distant isle
- That frown, where gentler oceans deigns to smile.
- As thus, within the walls of Pallas fane,
- I markd the beauties of the land and main,
- Alone, and friendless, on the magic shore,
- Whose arts revive, whose arms avenge no more;
**
Oft as the matchless dome I turnd to scan,
Sacred to gods, but not secure from man,
The past returnd, the present seemd to cease,
And Glory knew no clime beyond her Greece!
Hours rolld along, and Dians orb on high
Had gaind the centre of her softest sky;
And yet unwearied still my footsteps trod
Oer the vain shrine of many a vanishd god:
But chiefly, Pallas! thine, when Hecates glare,
Checkd by thy columns, fell more sadly fair
Oer the chill marble, where the starling tread
Thrills the lone heart like echoes from the dead.
Long had I mused, and treasured every trace
The wreck of Greece recorded of her race,
When, lo! A giant form before me strode,
And Pallas hailed me in her own abode!
Yes, twas Minervas self; but ah! how changed,
Since oer the Darman field in arms she ranged!
Not such as erst, by her divine command,
Her form appeared from Phidias plastic hand:
Gone were the terrors of her awful brow,
Her idle aegis bore no Gorgon now;
Her helm was dinted, and the broken lance
Seemd weak and shaftless een to mortal glance;
The olive branch, which still she deignd to clasp,
Shrunk from her touch, and witherd in her grasp;
And, ah! though still the brightest of the sky,
Celestial tears bedimmd her large blue eye:
Round the rent casque her owlet circled slow,
And mournd his mistress with a shriek of woe!
Mortal!twas thus she spakethat blush of shame
Proclaims thee Briton, once a noble name;
First of the mighty, foremost of the free,
Now honourd less by all, and least by me;
Chief of thy foes shall Pallas still be found.
Seekst thou the cause of loathing?look around.
Lo! here, despite of war and wasting fire,
I saw successive tyrannies expire.
Scaped from the ravage of the Turk and Goth,
Thy country sends a spoiler worse than both.
Survey this vacant, violated fane;
Recount the relics torn that yet remain:
These Cecrops placed, this Pericles adornd,
That Adrian reard when drooping Science mournd.
What more I owe let gratitude attest
Know, Alaric and Elgin did the rest.
That all may learn from whence the plunderer came,
The insulted wall sustains his hated name:
For Elgins fame thus grateful Pallas pleads,
Below, his nameabove, behold his deeds!
Be ever hailed with equal honour here
The Gothic monarch and the Pictish peer:
arms gave the first his right, the last had none,
But basely stole what less barbarians won.
So when the lion quits his fell repast,
Next prowls the wolf, the filthy jackal last;
Flesh, limbs, and blood the former make their own,
The last poor brute securely gnaws the bone.
Yet still the gods are just, and crimes are crossd:
See here what Elgin won, and what he lost!
Another name with his pollutes my shrine:
Behold where Dians beams disdain to shine!
Some retribution still might Pallas claim,
When Venus half avenged Minervas shame.
She ceased awhile, and thus I dared reply,
To soothe the vengeance kindling in her eye:
Daughter of Jove! in Britains injured name,
A true-born Briton may the deed disclaim.
Frown not on England; England owns him not:
Athena, no! thy plunderer was a Scot.
Askst thou the difference? From fair Phyles towers
Survey Bœotia;Caledonias ours.
And well I know within that bastard land
Hath Wisdoms goddess never held command;
A barren soil, where Natures germs, confined
To stern sterility, can stint the mind;
Whose thistle well betrays the niggard earth,
Emblem of all to whom the land gives birth;
Each genial influence nurtured to resist;
A land of meanness, sophistry, and mist.
Each breeze from foggy mount and marshy plain
Dilutes with drivel every drizzly brain,
Till, burst at length, each watry head oer-flows,
Foul as their soil, and frigid as their snows.
Then thousand schemes of petulance and pride
Despatch her scheming children far and wide:
Some east, some west, some everywhere but north,
In quest of lawless gain, they issue forth.
And thusaccursed be the day and year!
Yet Caledonia claims some native worth,
As dull Bœotia gave a Pindar birth;
So may her few, the letterd and the brave,
Bound to no clime, and victors of the grave,
Shake off the sordid dust of such a land,
And shine like children of a happier strand;
As once, of yore, in some obnoxious place,
Ten names (if found) had saved a wretched race.
Mortal! the blue-eyed maid resumed, once more
Bear back my mandate to thy native shore.
Though fallen, alas! this vengeance yet is mine,
to turn my counsels far from lands like thine.
Hear then in silence Pallas stern behest;
Hear and believe, for time will tell the rest.
First on the head of him who did this deed
My curse shall light,on him and all his seed:
Without one spark of intellectual fire,
Be all the sons as senseless as the sire:
If one with wit the parent brood disgrace,
Believe him bastard of a brighter race;
Still with his hireling artists let him prate,
and Follys praise repay for Wisdoms hate;
Long of their patrons gusto let them tell,
Whose noblest, native gusto isto sell;
To sell and makemay shame record the day!
The state receiver of his pilferd prey.
Meantime, the flattering, feeble dotard, West,
Europes worst dauber, and poor Britains best,
With palsied hand shall turn each model oer
And own himself an infant of fourscore.
Be all the bruisers culld from all St. Giles,
That art and nature may compare their styles;
While brawny brutes in stupid wonder stare,
And marvel at his lordships stone shop there.
Round the throngd gate shall sauntering coxcombs creep,
To lounge and lucubrate, to prate and peep;
While many a languid maid, with longing sigh,
On giant statues casts the curious eye;
The room with transient glance appears to skim
Yet marks the mighty back and length of limb;
Mourns oer the difference of now and then;
Exclaims These Greeks indeed were proper men!
Draws slight comparisons of these with those,
And envies Laïs all her Attic beaux.
When shall a modern maid have swains like these!
Alas! Sir Harry is no Hercules!
And last of all, amidst the gaping crew,
Some calm spectator, as he takes his view,
In silent indignation mixd with grief,
Admires the plunder, but abhors the thief.
Oh, loathd in life, nor pardond in the dust,
May hate pursue his sacrilegious lust!
Linkd with the fool that fired the Ephesian dome,
Shall vengeance follow far beyond the tomb,
And Eratostratus and Elgin shine
In many a branding page and burning line;
Alike reserved for aye to stand accursed,
Perchance the second blacker than the first.
So let him stand, through, ages yet unborn,
Fixd statue on the pedestal of Scorn
Though not for him alone revenge shall wait,
But fits thy country for her coming fate:
Hers were the deeds that taught her lawless son
To do what oft Britannias self had done.
Look to the Balticblazing from afar,
Your old ally yet mourns perfidious war.
Not to such deed did Pallas lend her aid,
Or break the compact which herself had made;
Far from such councils, from the faithless field
She fledbut left behind her Gorgon shield;
A fatal gift that turnd your friends to stone,
And left lost Albion hated and alone.
Look to the East, where Ganges swarthy race
Shall shake your tyrant empire to its base;
Lo! There Rebellion rears her ghastly head
And glares the Nemesis of native dead;
Till Indus rolls a deep purpureal flood
And claims his long arrear of northern blood.
So may ye perish! Pallas, when she gave
Your free-born rights, forbade ye to enslave.
Look on your Spain!she clasps the hand she hates,
But boldly clasps, and thrusts you from her gates.
But Lusitania, kind and dear ally,
Can spare a few to fight, and sometimes fly,
Oh glorious field! by Famine fiercely won,
The Gaul retires for once, and all is done!
But when did Pallas teach, that one retreat
Retrieved three long olympiads of defeat?
Look last at homeye love not to look there;
On the grim smile of comfortless despair:
Your city saddens: loud though Revel howls,
Here Famine faints, and yonder Rapine prowls.
See all alike of more or less bereft;
No misers tremble when theres nothing left.
Blest paper credit; who shall dare to sing?
It clogs like lead Corruptions weary wing.
Yet Pallas pluckd each premier by the ear,
Who gods and men alike disdaind to hear;
But one, repentant oer a bankrupt state,
On Pallas calls,but calls, alas! Too late:
Then raves for...; to that Mentor bends,
Though he and Pallas never yet were friends.
Him senates hear, whom never yet they heard,
Contemptuous once, and now no less absurd.
So, once of yore, each reasonable frog
Swore faith and fealty to his sovereign log.
Thus hailed your rulers their patrician clod,
As Egypt chose an onion for a god.
Now fare ye well! enjoy your little hour;
Go, grasp the shadow of your vanishd power;
Gloss oer the failure of each fondest scheme;
Your strength a name, your bloated wealth a cream.
Gone is that gold, the marvel of mankind,
And pirates barter all thats left behind.
No more the hirelings, purchased near and far,
Crowd to the ranks of mercenary war.
The idle merchant on the useless quay
Droops oer the bales no bark may bear away;
Or back returning, sees rejected stores
Rot piecemeal on his own encumberd shores:
The starved mechanic breaks his rusting loom,
And desperate mans him gainst the coming doom.
Then in the senate of your sinking state
Show me the man whose counsels may have weight.
Vain is each voice where tones could once command;
Een factions cease to charm a factious land:
Yet jarring sects convulse a sister isle,
And light with maddening hands the mutual pile.
Tis done, tis past, since Pallas warns in vain;
The Furies seize her abdicated reign:
Wide oer the ream they wave their kindling brands,
And wring her vitals with their fiery hands.
But one convulsive struggle still remains,
And Gaul shall weep ere Albion wear her chains.
The bannerd pomp of war, the glittering files,
Oer whose gay trappings stern Bellona smiles;
The brazen trump, the spirit-stirring drum,
That bid the foe defiance ere they come;
The hero bounding at his countrys call,
The glorious death that consecrates his fall,
Swell the young heart with visionary charms,
And bid it antedate the joys of arms.
But know, a lesson you may yet be taught,
With death alone are laurels cheaply bought:
Not in the conflict Havoc seeks delight,
His day of mercy is the day of fight.
But when the field is fought, the battle won,
Though drenchd with gore, his woes are but begun:
His deeper deeds as yet ye know by name;
The slaughterd peasant and the ravishd dame,
The rifled mansion and the foe-reapd field,
Ill suit with souls at home, untaught to yield.
Say with what eye along the distant down
Would flying burghers mark the blazing town?
How view the column of ascending flames
Shake his red shadow oer the startled Thames?
Nay, frown not, Albion! for the torch was thine
That lit such pyres from Tagus to the Rhine:
Now should they burst on thy devoted coast,
Go, ask they bosom who deserves them most.
The law of heaven and earth is life for life,
And she who raised, in vain regrets, the strife.
*
(Poem was a Satire about the "Elgin Marbles," the
antiquities taken from the Acropolis in Athens
and shipped to England during that time.
Although Byron never intended to publish this poem,
a copy was stolen from him and printed without his approval)
**
(line amended from original:
Whose arts and arms but live in poets lore;
as Byron requested the following year, although it was not done.)
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