Rome in the Footsteps of an XVIIIth Century Traveller

Foreword

George Gordon, Lord Byron lived in Italy (mainly in Venice, Ravenna and Pisa) between 1817 and 1823, when he decided to join the Greek fight for independence. The fourth canto (the term used for the three parts of Dante's Commedia) of his poem Childe Harold's Pilgrimage is a sort of poetical guide of Italy.
This page contains excerpts of Childe Harold's Pilgrimage - Canto IV related to Rome and its monuments. You may wish to read also excerpts from John Cam Hobhouse - Historical Illustrations of the Fourth Canto of Childe Harold: containing Dissertations on the Ruins of Rome - 1818

Excerpts

• Initial Ode to Rome : LXXVIII-LXXIX
• Tomb of Cecilia Metella : XCIX-CIV
• Egeria's Fountain : CXV-CXIX
• Coliseum : CXL-CXLV
• Pantheon : CXLVI-CXLVII
• Hadrian's Mole : CLII
• St. Peter's : CLIII - CLIX
• Nemi : CLXXIII
• Albano : CLXXIV

Childe Harold's Pilgrimage Canto the Fourth      LXXVIII      Oh Rome! my country! city of the soul!      The orphans of the heart must turn to thee,      Lone mother of dead empires! and control      In their shut breasts their petty misery.      What are our woes and sufferance? Come and see      The cypress, hear the owl, and plod your way      O'er steps of broken thrones and temples, Ye!      Whose agonies are evils of day -- A world is at our feet as fragile as our clay.      LXXIX      The Niobe of nations! there she stands,      Childless and crownless, in her voiceless woe;      An empty urn within her wither'd hands,      Whose holy dust was scatter'd long ago;      The Scipios' tomb contains no ashes now;      The very sepulchres lie tenantless      Of their heroic dwellers: dost thou flow,      Old Tiber! through a marble wilderness? Rise, with thy yellow waves, and mantle her distress. ...........      XCIX      There is a stern round tower of other days,      Firm as a fortress, with its fence of stone,      Such as an army's baffled strength delays,      Standing with half its battlements alone,      And with two thousand years of ivy grown,      The garland of eternity, where wave      The green leaves over all by time o'er thrown; --      Where was this tower of strength? within its case What treasure lay, so lock'd, so hid? -- A woman's grave.      C      But who was she, the lady of the dead,      Tomb'd in a palace? Was she chaste and fair?      Worthy a king's, or more -- a Roman's bed?      What race of chiefs and heroes did she bear?      What daughter of her beauties was she heir?      How lived, how loved, how died she? Was she not      So honoured -- and conspicuously there,      Where meaner relics must not dare to rot, Placed to commemorate a more than mortal lot?      CI      Was she as those who love their lords, or they      Who love the lords of others? such have been      Even in the olden time, Rome's annals say.      Was she a matron of Cornelia's mien,      Or the light air of Egypt's graceful queen,      Profuse of joy -- or 'gainst it did she war      Inveterate in virtue? Did she lean      To the soft side of the heart, or wisely bar Love from amongst her griefs? -- for such the affections are.      CII      Perchance she died in youth: it may be, bow'd      With woes far heavier than the ponderous tomb      That weigh'd upon her gentle dust, a cloud      Might gather o'er her beauty, and a gloom      In her dark eye, prophetic of the doom      Heaven gives its favourites -- early death; yet shed      A sunset charm around her, and illume      With hectic light, the Hesperus of the dead, Of her consuming cheek the autumnal leaf-like red.      CIII      Perchance she died in age -- surviving all,      Charms, kindred, children -- with the silver gray      On her long tresses, which might yet recall,      It may be, still a something of the day      When they were braided, and her proud array      And lovely form were envied, praised, and eyed      By Rome -- But whither would Conjecture stray?      Thus much alone we know -- Metella died, The wealthiest Roman's wife: Behold his love or pride!      CIV      I know not why -- but standing thus by thee      It seems as if I had thine inmate known,      Thou Tomb! and other days come back on me      With recollected music, though the tone      Is changed and solemn, like the cloudy groan      Of dying thunder on the distant wind;      Yet could I set me by this ivied stone      Till I had bodied forth the heated mind, Forms from the floating wreck which Ruin leaves behind; ......      CXV      Egeria! sweet creation of some heart      Which found no mortal resting-place so fair      As thine ideal breast; whate'er thou art      Or wert, -- a young Aurora of the air,      The nympholepsy of some fond despair;      Or, it might be, a beauty of the earth,      Who found a more than common votary there      Too much adoring; whatsoe'er thy birth, Thou wert a beautiful thought, and softly bodied forth.      CXVI      The mosses of thy fountain still are sprinkled      With thine Elysian water-drops; the face      Of thy cave-guarded spring with years unwrinkled,      Reflects the meek-eyed genius of the place,      Whose green, wild margin now no more erase      Art's works; nor must the delicate waters sleep,      Prison'd in marble -- bubbling from the base      Of the cleft statue, with a gentle leap The rill runs o'er -- and round -- fern, flowers, and ivy creep,      CXVII      Fantastically tangled: the green hills      Are clothed with early blossoms, through the grass      The quick-eyed lizard rustles, and the bills      Of summer-birds sing welcome as ye pass;      Flowers fresh in hue, and many in their class,      Implore the pausing step, and with their dyes,      Dance in the soft breeze in a fairy mass;      The sweetness of the violet's deep blue eyes, Kiss'd by the breath of heaven, seems colour'd by its skies.      CXVIII      Here didst thou dwell, in this enchanted cover,      Egeria! thy all heavenly bosom beating      For the far footsteps of thy mortal lover;      The purple Midnight veil'd that mystic meeting      With her most starry canopy, and seating      Thyself by thine adorer, what befell?      This cave was surely shaped out for the greeting      Of an enamour'd Goddess, and the cell Haunted by holy Love -- the earliest oracle!      CXIX      And didst thou not, thy breast to his replying,      Blend a celestial with a human heart;      And Love, which dies as it was born, in sighing,      Share with immortal transports? could thine art      Make them indeed immortal, and impart      The purity of heaven to earthly joys,      Expel the venom and not blunt the dart --      The dull satiety which all destroys -- And root from out the soul the deadly weed which cloys? .......      CXL      I see before me the Gladiator lie:      He leans upon his hand -- his manly brow      Consents to death, but conquers agony,      And his droop'd head sinks gradually low --      And through his side the last drops, ebbing slow      From the red gash, fall heavy, one by one,      Like the first of a thunder-shower; and now      The arena swims around him -- he is gone, Ere ceased the inhuman shout which hail'd the wretch who won.      CXLI      He heard it, but he heeded not -- his eyes      Were with his heart, and that was far away;      He reck'd not of the life he lost nor prize,      But where his rude hut by the Danube lay,      There where his young barbarians all at play,      There was their Dacian mother -- he, their sire,      Butcher'd to make a Roman holiday --      All this rush'd with his blood -- Shall he expire And unavenged? Arise! ye Goths, and glut your ire!      CXLII      But here, where Murder breathed her bloody steam;      And here, where buzzing nations choked the ways,      And roar'd or murmur'd like a mountain stream      Dashing or winding as its torrent strays;      Here, where the Roman million's blame or praise      Was death or life, the playthings of a crowd,      My voice sounds much -- and fall the stars faint rays      On the arena void -- seats crush'd -- walls bow'd -- And galleries, where my steps seem echoes strangely loud.      CXLIII      A ruin -- yet what a ruin! from its mass      Walls, palaces, half-cities, have been rear'd;      Yet oft the enormous skeleton ye pass,      And marvel where the spoil could have appear'd.      Hath it indeed been plunder'd, or but clear'd?      Alas! developed, opens the decay,      When the colossal fabric's form is near'd:      It will not bear the brightness of the day, Which streams too much on all -- years -- man -- have reft away.      CXLIV      But when the rising moon begins to climb      Its topmost arch, and gently pauses there;      When the stars twinkle through the loops of time,      And the low night-breeze waves along the air      The garland-forest, which the gray walls wear,      Like laurels on the bald first Cæsar's head;      When the light shines serene but doth not glare,      Then in this magic circle raise the dead: Heroes have trod this spot -- 'tis on their dust ye tread.      CXLV      'While stands the Coliseum, Rome shall stand;      'When falls the Coliseum, Rome shall fall;      'And when Rome falls -- the World.' From our own land      Thus spake the pilgrims o'er this mighty wall      In Saxon times, which we are wont to call      Ancient; and these three mortal things are still      On their foundations, and unalter'd all;      Rome and her Ruin past Redemption's skill, The World, the same wide den -- of thieves, or what ye will.      CXLVI      Simple, erect, severe, austere, sublime --      Shrine of all saints and temple of all gods,      From Jove to Jesus -- spared and blest by time;      Looking tranquillity, while falls or nods      Arch, empire, each thing round thee, and man plods      His way through thorns to ashes -- glorious dome!      Shalt thou not last? Time's scythe and tyrants' rods      Shiver upon thee -- sanctuary and home Of art and piety -- Pantheon! -- pride of Rome!      CXLVII      Relic of nobler days, and noblest arts!      Despoil'd yet perfect, with thy circle spreads      A holiness appealing to all hearts --      To art a model; and to him who treads      Rome for the sake of ages, Glory sheds      Her light through thy sole aperture; to those      Who worship, here are altars for their beads;      And they who feel for genius may repose Their eyes on honour'd forms, whose busts around them close. .......      CLII      Turn to the mole which Hadrian rear'd on high,      Imperial mimic of old Egypt's piles,      Colossal copyist of deformity      Whose travell'd phantasy from the far Nile's      Enormous model, doom'd the artist's toils      To build for giants, and for his vain earth,      His shrunken ashes, raise this dome: How smiles      The gazer's eyes with philosophic mirth, To view the huge design which sprung from such a birth!      CLIII      But lo! the dome -- the vast and wondrous dome,      To which Diana's marvel was a cell --      Christ's mighty shrine above his martyr's tomb!      I have beheld the Ephesian's miracle; --      Its columns strew the wilderness, and dwell      The hyæna and the jackal in their shade;      I have beheld Sophia's bright roofs swell      Their glittering mass i' the sun, and have survey'd Its sanctuary the while the usurping Moslem pray'd;      CLIV      But thou, of temples old, or altars new,      Standest alone, with nothing like to thee --      Worthiest of God, the holy and the true.      Since Zion's desolation, when that He      Forsook his former city, what could be,      Of earthly structures, in his honour piled,      Of a sublimer aspect? Majesty,      Power, Glory, Strength, and Beauty all are aisled In this eternal ark of worship undefiled.      CLV      Enter: its grandeur overwhelms thee not;      And why? It is not lessen'd; but thy mind,      Expanded by the genius of the spot,      Has grown colossal, and can only find      A fit abode wherein appear enshrined      Thy hopes of immortality; and thou      Shalt one day, if found worthy, so defined,      See thy God face to face, as thou dost now His Holy of Holies, nor be blasted by his brow.      CLVI      Thou movest, but increasing with the advance,      Like climbing some great Alp, which still doth rise,      Deceived by its gigantic elegance;      Vastness which grows, but grows to harmonise --      All musical in its immensities;      Rich marbles, richer painting -- shrines where flame      The lamps of gold -- and haughty dome which view      In air with Earth's chief structures, though their frame Sits on the firm-set ground, and this the clouds must claim.      CLVII      Thou seest not all; but piecemeal thou must break,      To separate contemplation, the great whole;      And as the ocean many bays will make      That ask the eye -- so here condense thy soul      To more immediate objects, and control      Thy thoughts until thy mind hath got by heart      Its eloquent proportions, and unroll      In mighty graduations, part by part, The glory which at once upon thee did not dart,      CLVIII      Not by its fault -- but thine: Our outward sense      Is but of gradual grasp -- and as it is      That what we have of feeling most intense      Outstrips our faint expression; even so this      Outshining and o'erwhelming edifice      Fools our fond gaze,and greatest of the great      Defies at first our Nature's littleness,      Till growing with its growth, we thus dilate Our spirits to the size of that they contemplate.      CLVIX      Then pause, and be enlighten'd; there is more      In such a survey than the sating gaze      Of wonder pleased, or awe which would adore      The worship of the place, or the mere praise      Of art and its great masters, who could raise      What former time, nor skill, nor thought could plan;      The fountain of sublimity displays      Its depth, and thence may draw the mind of man Its golden sands, and learn what great conceptions can. ..........      CLXXIII      Lo, Nemi! navell'd in the woody hills      So far, that the uprooting wind which tears      The oak from his foundation, and which spills      The ocean o'er its boundary, and bears      Its foam against the skies, reluctant spares      The oval mirror of thy glassy lake;      And calm as cherish'd hate, its surface wears      A deep cold settled aspect nought can shake, All coil'd into itself and round, as sleeps the snake.      CLXXIV      And near, Albano's scarce divided waves      Shine from a sister valley; -- and afar      The Tiber winds, and the broad ocean laves      The Latian coast where sprung the Epic war,      'Arms and the Man,' whose re-ascending star      Rose o'er an empire: -- but beneath thy right      Tully reposed from Rome; -- and where yon bar      Of girdling mountains intercepts the sight The Sabine farm was till'd, the weary bard's delight.

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The Dying Galatian (aka The Dying Gladiator), a marble Roman copy of a (lost) bronze statue made for Attalus I, King of Pergamum, to celebrate his victory against the Galatians who lived on the Anatolian tableland (Musei Capitolini from Horti Sallustiani)

Read What Dante Saw.
Read What Goethe Saw.
Read What Charles Dickens Saw.
Read What Henry James Saw.
Read What Mark Twain Saw.
Read What William Dean Howells Saw.
Read Their Travel Journals (excerpts from journals by British and American Travellers in 1594-1848).
Read Dan Brown's Spaghetti Bolognaise (excerpts from Angels and Demons)