Between September 7 and 15 Byron and Mary Chaworth were considering the desirability of marriage for Byron, and letters were passing between the distracted poet and two young ladies – Miss Milbanke and another – with that object in view. Although Byron was still in love with Mary Chaworth, he had come to understand that her determination to break the dangerous intimacy was irrevocable, so he resolved to follow her advice and marry. The tone of his letter to Moore, written on September 15, shows that he was not very keen about wedlock. He was making plans for a journey to Italy in the event of his proposal being rejected.
It is possible that, in a conversation between Mary and himself, the former may have spoken of the risks they had incurred in the past, and of her resolve never to transgress again. To which Byron replied:
Harmodia
‘The things that were – and what and whence are they?
Those clouds and rainbows of thy yesterday?
Their path has vanish’d from th’ eternal sky,
And now its hues are of a different dye.
Thus speeds from day to day, and Pole to Pole,
The change of parts, the sameness of the whole;
And all we snatch, amidst the breathing strife,
But gives to Memory what it takes from Life:
Despoils a substance to adorn a shade —
And that frail shadow lengthens but to fade.
Sun of the sleepless! Melancholy Star!
Whose tearful beam shoots trembling from afar —
That chang’st the darkness thou canst not dispel —
How like art thou to Joy, remembered well!
Such is the past – the light of other days
That shines, but warms not with its powerless rays —
A moonbeam Sorrow watcheth to behold,
Distinct, but distant – clear, but death-like cold.
‘Oh! as full thought comes rushing o’er the Mind
Of all we saw before – to leave behind —
Of all! – but words, what are they? Can they give
A trace of truth to thoughts while yet they live?
No – Passion – Feeling speak not – or in vain —
The tear for Grief – the Groan must speak for Pain —
Joy hath its smile – and Love its blush and sigh —
Despair her silence – Hate her lip and eye —
These their interpreters, where deeply lurk —
The Soul’s despoilers warring as they work —
The strife once o’er – then words may find their way,
Yet how enfeebled from the forced delay!
‘But who could paint the progress of the wreck —
Himself still clinging to the dangerous deck?
Safe on the shore the artist first must stand,
And then the pencil trembles in his hand.’
When, four years later, Byron was writing the first canto of ‘Don Juan,’ with feelings chastened by suffering and time, he recurred to that period – never effaced from his memory – the time when he wrote:
‘When thou art gone – the loved – the lost – the one
Whose smile hath gladdened – though, perchance, undone!’
Time could not change the feelings of his youth, nor keep his thoughts for long from the object of his early love.
‘They tell me ’tis decided you depart:
’Tis wise – ’tis well, but not the less a pain;
I have no further claim on your young heart,
Mine is the victim, and would be again:
To love too much has been the only art
I used.’
‘I loved, I love you, for this love have lost
State, station, Heaven, Mankind’s, my own esteem,
And yet can not regret what it hath cost,
So dear is still the memory of that dream;
Yet, if I name my guilt, ’tis not to boast,
None can deem harshlier of me than I deem.’
‘All is o’er
For me on earth, except some years to hide
My shame and sorrow deep in my heart’s core:
These I could bear, but cannot cast aside
The passion which still rages as before —
And so farewell – forgive me, love me – No,
That word is idle now – but let it go.’
*******
‘My heart is feminine, nor can forget —
To all, except one image, madly blind;
So shakes the needle, and so stands the pole,
As vibrates my fond heart to my fixed soul.’
It was early in 1814 that Byron also wrote his farewell verses to Mary Chaworth, which appeared in the second edition of ‘The Corsair’:
I
‘Farewell! if ever fondest prayer
For other’s weal availed on high,
Mine will not all be lost in air,
But waft thy name beyond the sky.
’Twere vain to speak – to weep – to sigh:
Oh! more than tears of blood can tell,
When wrung from Guilt’s expiring eye,
Are in that word – Farewell! Farewell!
II
‘These lips are mute, these eyes are dry;
But in my breast, and in my brain,
Awake the pangs that pass not by,
The thought that ne’er shall sleep again.
My soul nor deigns nor dares complain,
Though Grief and Passion there rebel:
I only know we loved in vain —
I only feel – Farewell! Farewell!’
Even in the ‘Hebrew Melodies,’ which were probably begun in the autumn of 1814, and finished after Byron’s marriage in January, 1815, there are traces of that deathless remorse and love, whose expression could not be altogether repressed. We select some examples at random. In the poem ‘Oh, snatched away in Beauty’s bloom,’ the poet had added two verses which were subsequently suppressed:
‘Nor need I write to tell the tale,
My pen were doubly weak.
Oh! what can idle words avail,
Unless my heart could speak?
‘By day or night, in weal or woe,
That heart, no longer free,
Must bear the love it cannot show,
And silent turn for thee.’
In ‘Herod’s Lament for Mariamne’ we find:
‘She’s gone, who shared my diadem;
She sunk, with her my joys entombing;
I swept that flower from Judah’s stem,
Whose leaves for me alone were blooming;
And mine’s the guilt, and mine the Hell,
This bosom’s desolation dooming;
And I have earned those tortures well,
Which unconsumed are still consuming!’
While admitting that Byron’s avowed object was to portray the remorse of Herod, we suspect that the haunting image of one so dear to him – one who had suffered through guilt which he so frequently deplored in verse – must have been in the poet’s mind when these lines were written.
On January 17, 1814, Byron went to Newstead with Augusta Leigh, and stayed there one month.
‘A busy month and pleasant, at least three weeks of it… “The Corsair” has been conceived, written, published, etc., since I took up this journal. They tell me it has great success; it was written con amore, and much from existence.’
On the following day Byron wrote to his friend Wedderburn Webster:
‘I am on my way to the country on rather a melancholy expedition. A very old and early connexion [Mary Chaworth], or rather friend of mine, has desired to see me; and, as now we can never be more than friends, I have no objection. She is certainly unhappy and, I fear, ill; and the length and circumstances attending our acquaintance render her request and my visit neither singular nor improper.’
This strange apology for what might have been considered a very natural act of neighbourly friendship, inevitably reminds us of a French proverb, Qui s’excuse s’accuse. It is worthy of note that, after Byron had been ten days at Newstead with his sister, he wrote to his lawyer – who must have been surprised at the irrelevant information – to say that Augusta Leigh was ‘in the family way.’ The significance of this communication has hitherto passed unnoticed. We gather from Byron’s letters that he was much depressed by Mary Chaworth’s state of health, involving all the risks of discovery.
‘My rhyming propensity is quite gone,’ he writes, ‘and I feel much as I did at Patras on recovering from my fever – weak, but in health, and only afraid of a relapse.’
Soon after his return to London Byron wrote to Moore: ‘Seriously, I am in what the learned call a dilemma, and the vulgar, a scrape…’
Moore took care, with his asterisks, that we should not know the nature of that scrape, which certainly had nothing to do with his ‘Lines to a Lady Weeping’ which appeared in the first edition of ‘The Corsair.’ If the reader has any doubts on this point, let him refer to Byron’s letters to Murray, notably to that one in which the angry poet protests against the suppression of those lines in the second edition of ‘The Corsair’:
‘You have played the devil by that injudicious suppression, which you did totally without my consent… Now, I do not, and will not be supposed to shrink, although myself and everything belonging to me were to perish with my memory.’
Moore’s asterisks veiled the record of a deeper scrape, as Byron’s letter to him, written three weeks later, plainly show.
On April 10, 1814, Byron wrote in his journal:
‘I do not know that I am happiest when alone; but this I am sure of, that I am never long in the society even of her I love (God knows too well, and the Devil probably too), without a yearning for the company of my lamp, and my utterly confused and tumbled-over library.’
The latter portion of the journal at this period is much mutilated. There is a gap between April 10 and 19, when, four days after the birth of Medora, he writes in deep dejection:
‘There is ice at both poles, north and south – all extremes are the same – misery belongs to the highest and the lowest, only… I will keep no further journal … and, to prevent me from returning, like a dog, to the vomit of memory, I tear out the remaining leaves of this volume… “O! fool! I shall go mad.”’
It was at this time that Byron wrote the following lines, in which he tells Mary Chaworth that all danger of the discovery of their secret is over:
‘There is no more for me to hope,
There is no more for thee to fear;
And, if I give my sorrow scope,
That sorrow thou shalt never hear.
Why did I hold thy love so dear?
Why shed for such a heart one tear?
Let deep and dreary silence be
My only memory of thee!
When all are fled who flatter now,
Save thoughts which will not flatter then;
And thou recall’st the broken vow
To him who must not love again —
Each hour of now forgotten years
Thou, then, shalt number with thy tears;
And every drop of grief shall be
A vain remembrancer of me!’
On May 4, 1814, Byron sent to Moore the following verses. We quote from Lady Byron’s manuscript:
‘I speak not – I trace not – I breathe not thy name —
There is love in the sound – there is Guilt in the fame —
But the tear which now burns on my cheek may impart
The deep thoughts that dwell in that silence of heart.
‘Too brief for our passion – too long for our peace —
Was that hour – can its hope – can its memory cease?
We repent – we abjure – we will break from our chain:
We must part – we must fly to – unite it again!
‘Oh! thine be the gladness – and mine be the Guilt!
Forgive me – adored one – forsake if thou wilt —
But the heart which is thine shall expire undebased,
And Man shall not break it whatever thou mayst.
‘Oh! proud to the mighty – but humble to thee
This soul in its bitterest moment shall be,
And our days glide as swift – and our moments more sweet
With thee at my side – than the world at my feet.
‘One tear of thy sorrow – one smile of thy love —
Shall turn me or fix – shall reward or reprove —
And the heartless may wonder at all I resign:
Thy lip shall reply – not to them – but to mine.’
These verses were not published until Byron had been five years in his grave. They tell the story plainly, and the manuscript in Mr. Murray’s possession speaks plainer still. Before Byron gave the manuscript to his wife, he erased the following lines:
‘We have loved – and oh! still, my adored one, we love!’
‘Oh! the moment is past when that passion might cease.’
‘But I cannot repent what we ne’er can recall.’
After Medora’s birth Byron became more and more dejected, and on April 29 he wrote a remarkable letter to Murray, enclosing a draft to redeem the copyrights of his poems, and releasing Murray from his engagement to pay £1,000, agreed on for ‘The Giaour’ and ‘The Bride of Abydos.’ Byron was evidently afraid that Mr. Chaworth Musters would discover the truth, and that a duel and disgrace would be the inevitable consequence.
‘If any accident occurs to me, you may do then as you please; but, with the exception of two copies of each for yourself only, I expect and request that the advertisements be withdrawn, and the remaining copies of all destroyed; and any expense so incurred I will be glad to defray. For all this it may be well to assign some reason. I have none to give except my own caprice, and I do not consider the circumstance of consequence enough to require explanation. Of course, I need hardly assure you that they never shall be published with my consent, directly or indirectly, by any other person whatsoever, and that I am perfectly satisfied, and have every reason so to be, with your conduct in all transactions between us, as publisher and author. It will give me great pleasure to preserve your acquaintance, and to consider you as my friend.’
Two days later Byron seems to have conquered his immediate apprehensions, and, in reply to an appeal from Murray, writes:
‘If your present note is serious, and it really would be inconvenient, there is an end of the matter; tear my draft, and go on as usual: in that case we will recur to our former basis. That I was perfectly serious in wishing to suppress all future publication is true; but certainly not to interfere with the convenience of others, and more particularly your own. Some day I will tell you the reason of this apparently strange resolution.’
It had evidently dawned on Byron’s mind that a sudden suppression of his poems would have aroused public curiosity, and that a motive for his action would either have been found or invented. This would have been fatal to all concerned. If trouble were to come, it would be wiser not to meet it halfway. Happily, the birth of Medora passed unnoticed.
As time wore on, Byron’s hopes that Mary would relent grew apace. But he was doomed to disappointment. Mary Chaworth had the courage and the wisdom to crush a love so disastrous to both. Byron in his blindness reproached her:
‘Thou art not false, but thou art fickle.’
He tells her that he would despise her if she were false; but he knows that her love is sincere:
‘When she can change who loved so truly!’
‘Ah! sure such grief is Fancy’s scheming,
And all the Change can be but dreaming!’
He could not believe that her resolve was serious. Time taught him better. Love died, and friendship took its place. The same love that tempted her to sin was that true love that works out its redemption.
Between April 15 and 21, 1816, before signing the deed of separation, Byron went into the country to take leave of Mary Chaworth. It was their last meeting, and the parting must have been a sad one. The hopes that Mary had formed for his peace and happiness in marriage had suddenly been dashed to the ground. And now he was about to leave England under a cloud, which threatened for a time to overwhelm them both. A terrible anxiety as to the issue of investigations, which were being made into his conduct previous to and during his marriage, oppressed her with the gravest apprehension. Everything seemed to depend upon the silence both of Byron and Augusta. Under this awful strain the mind of Mary Chaworth was flickering towards collapse. By the following verses, which must have been written soon after their final meeting, we find Byron,
‘Seared in heart – and lone – and blighted,’
reproaching, with a lover’s injustice, the woman he adored, for that act of renunciation which, under happier auspices, might have proved his own salvation:
I
‘When we two parted
In silence and tears,
Half broken-hearted
To sever for years,
Pale grew thy cheek and cold,
Colder thy kiss;
Truly that hour foretold
Sorrow to this.
II
‘The dew of the morning
Sunk chill on my brow —
It felt like the warning
Of what I feel now.
Thy vows are all broken,
And light is thy fame:
I hear thy name spoken,
And share in its shame.
III
‘They name thee before me,
A knell to mine ear;
A shudder comes o’er me —
Why wert thou so dear?
They know not I knew thee,
Who knew thee too well:
Long, long shall I rue thee,
Too deeply to tell.
IV
‘In secret we met —
In silence I grieve,
That thy heart could forget,
Thy spirit deceive.
If I should meet thee
After long years,
How should I greet thee?
With silence and tears.’
In the first draft Byron had written, after the second verse, the following words:
‘Our secret lies hidden,
But never forgot.’
In ‘Fare Thee Well,’ written on March 17, 1816, there are only four lines which have any bearing on the point under consideration.
Byron tells his wife that if she really knew the truth, if every inmost thought of his breast were bared before her, she would not have forsaken him.
That is true. Lady Byron might, in time, have forgiven everything if the doctors had been able to declare that her husband was not wholly accountable for his actions. But when they pronounced him to be of sound mind, and, as will be seen presently, she subsequently convinced herself that he had committed, and might even then be committing adultery with his sister under her own roof, she resolved never again to place herself in his power. If, in the early stages of disagreement, without betraying Mary Chaworth, it could have been avowed that Mrs. Leigh was not the mother of Medora, Lady Byron might not have seen in her husband’s strange conduct towards herself ‘signs of a deep remorse.’ She would certainly have been far more patient under suffering, and the separation might have been avoided. But this avowal was impracticable. Augusta had committed herself too far for that, and the idle gossip of her servants subsequently convinced Lady Byron that Byron was the father of Augusta’s child. It is clear that neither Augusta nor Byron made any attempts to remove those suspicions; in fact, they acted in a manner most certain to confirm them. Whether the secret, which they had pledged themselves to keep, could long have been withheld from Lady Byron, if matters had been patched up, is doubtful. Meanwhile, as everything depended on premat nox alta, they dared not risk even a partial avowal of the truth.
The separation was inevitable, and in this case it was eternal. It is hard to believe that there had ever been any real love on either side. Under these circumstances we feel sure that any attempts at reconciliation would have ended disastrously for both. Byron’s love for Mary Chaworth was strong as death. Many waters could not have quenched it, ‘neither could the floods drown it.’
The last verses written by Byron before he left England for ever were addressed to his sister. The deed of separation had been signed, and Augusta Leigh, who had stood at his side in those dark hours when all the world had forsaken him, was about to leave London.
‘When all around grew drear and dark,
And Reason half withheld her ray —
And Hope but shed a dying spark
Which more misled my lonely way;
When Fortune changed, and Love fled far,
And Hatred’s shafts flew thick and fast,
Thou wert the solitary star
Which rose, and set not to the last.
And when the cloud upon us came
Which strove to blacken o’er thy ray—
Then purer spread its gentle flame
And dashed the darkness all away.
Still may thy Spirit dwell on mine,
And teach it what to brave or brook—
There’s more in one soft word of thine
Than in the world’s defied rebuke.
******
Then let the ties of baffled love
Be broken– thine will never break;
Thy heart can feel.’
These ingenuous words show that Byron’s affection for his sister, and his gratitude for her loyalty, were both deep and sincere. If, as Lord Lovelace asserts, Byron had been her lover, we know enough of his character to be certain that he would never have written these lines. He was not a hypocrite – far from it – and it was foreign to his naturally combative nature to attempt to conciliate public opinion. These lines were written currente calamo, and are only interesting to us on account of the light they cast upon the situation at the time of the separation. Evidently Byron had heard a rumour of the baseless charge that was afterwards openly made. He reminds Augusta that a cloud threatened to darken her existence, but the bright rays of her purity dispelled it. He hopes that even in absence she will guide and direct him as in the past; and he compliments her by saying that one word from her had more influence over him than the whole world’s censure. Although his love-episode with Mary was over, yet so long as Augusta loves him he will still have something to live for, as she alone can feel for him and understand his position.
In speaking of his sister, in the third canto of ‘Childe Harold,’ he says:
‘For there was soft Remembrance, and sweet Trust
In one fond breast, to which his own would melt.’
‘And he had learned to love– I know not why,
For this in such as him seems strange of mood —
The helpless looks of blooming Infancy,
Even in its earliest nurture; what subdued,
To change like this, a mind so far imbued
With scorn of man, it little boots to know;
But thus it was; and though in solitude
Small power the nipped affections have to grow,
In him this glowed when all beside had ceased to glow.’
If these words bear any significance, Byron must mean that, since the preceding canto of ‘Childe Harold’ was written, he had formed (learned to love) a strong attachment to some child, and, in spite of absence, this affection still glowed. That child may possibly have been Ada, as the opening lines seem to suggest. But this is not quite certain. According to Lord Lovelace, Byron never saw his child after January 3, 1816, when the babe was only twenty-four days old. Byron himself states that it was not granted to him ‘to watch her dawn of little joys, or hold her lightly on his knee, and print on her soft cheek a parent’s kiss.’ All this, he tells us, ‘was in his nature,’ but was denied to him. His sole consolation was the hope that some day Ada would learn to love him. On the other hand, the child mentioned in ‘Childe Harold’ had won his love by means which ‘it little boots to know.’ If Byron had alluded to his daughter Ada, there need have been no ambiguity. Possibly the child here indicated may have been little Medora, then three years old, with whom he had often played, and who was then living with that sister of ‘Soft Remembrance and sweet Trust.’
If that conjecture be correct, this is the only allusion to Medora in Byron’s poetry. But she is indicated in prose. In reference to the death of one of Moore’s children, Byron wrote (February 2, 1818):
‘I know how to feel with you, because I am quite wrapped up in my own children. Besides my little legitimate, I have made unto myself an illegitimate since, to say nothing of one before; and I look forward to one of them as the pillar of my old age, supposing that I ever reach, as I hope I never shall, that desolating period.’
In the one before Moore will have recognized Medora. In spite of the ‘scarlet cloak and double figure,’ Moore had no belief in the story that Byron became a father while at Harrow School!
‘The Dream,’ which was written in July, 1816, is perhaps more widely known than any of Byron’s poems. Its theme is the remembrance of a hopeless passion, which neither Time nor Reason could extinguish. Similar notes of lamentation permeate most of his poems, but in ‘The Dream’ Byron, for the first time, takes the world into his confidence, and tells his tale of woe with such distinctness that we realize its truth, its passion, and its calamity. The publication of that poem was an indiscretion which must have been very disconcerting to his sister. Fortunately, it had no disastrous consequences. It apparently awakened no suspicions, and its sole effect was to incense Mary Chaworth’s husband, who, in order to stop all prattle, caused the ‘peculiar diadem of trees’ to be cut down. In Byron’s early poems we see how deeply Mary Chaworth’s marriage affected him; but this was known only to a small circle of Southwell friends. In ‘The Dream’ we realize that she was in fact a portion of his life, and that his own marriage had not in the least affected his feelings towards her. He had tried hard to forget her, but in vain; she was his destiny. Whether Byron, when he wrote this poem, had any idea of publishing it to the world is not known. It may possibly have been written to relieve his overburdened mind, and would not have seen the light but for Lady Byron’s treatment of Mrs. Leigh on the memorable occasion when she extracted, under promise of secrecy, the so-called ‘Confession,’ to which we shall allude presently. In any case, Byron became aware of what had happened in September, 1816. In some lines addressed to his wife, he tells her that she bought others’ grief at any price, adding:
‘The means were worthy, and the end is won;
I would not do by thee as thou hast done.’
Possibly, Byron may have thought that the publication of this poem would act as a barb, and would wound Lady Byron’s stubborn pride. Its appearance in the circumstances was certainly contra bonos mores, but we must remember that ‘men in rage often strike those who wish them best.’ Whatever may have been Byron’s intention, ‘The Dream’ affords a proof that Mary Chaworth was never long absent from his thoughts. At this time, when he felt a deep remorse for his conduct towards Mary Chaworth, he asks himself:
‘What is this Death? a quiet of the heart?
The whole of that of which we are a part?
For Life is but a vision – what I see
Of all which lives alone is Life to me,
And being so – the absent are the dead
Who haunt us from tranquillity, and spread
A dreary shroud around us, and invest
With sad remembrancers our hours of rest.
The absent are the dead – for they are cold,
And ne’er can be what once we did behold;
And they are changed, and cheerless, – or if yet
The unforgotten do not all forget,
Since thus divided– equal must it be
If the deep barrier be of earth, or sea;
It may be both– but one day end it must
In the dark union of insensate dust.’
It was at this time also that Byron wrote his ‘Stanzas to Augusta,’ which show his complete confidence in her loyalty:
‘Though human, thou didst not deceive me,
Though woman, thou didst not forsake,
Though loved, thou forborest to grieve me,
Though tempted, thou never couldst shake;
Though trusted, thou didst not betray me,
Though parted, it was not to fly,
Though watchful, ’twas not to defame me,
Nor, mute, that the world might belie.’
Byron’s remorse also found expression in ‘Manfred,’ where contrition is but slightly veiled by words of mysterious import, breathed in an atmosphere of mountains, magic, and ghost-lore. People in society, whose ears had been poisoned by insinuations against Mrs. Leigh, and who knew nothing of Byron’s intercourse with Mary Chaworth, came to the conclusion that ‘Manfred’ revealed a criminal attachment between Byron and his sister. Byron was aware of this, and, conscious of his innocence, held his head in proud defiance, and laughed his enemies to scorn. He did not deign to defend himself; and the public – forgetful of the maxim that where there is a sense of guilt there is a jealousy of drawing attention to it – believed the worst. When a critique of ‘Manfred,’ giving an account of the supposed origin of the story, was sent to Byron, he wrote to Murray:
‘The conjecturer is out, and knows nothing of the matter. I had a better origin than he can devise or divine for the soul of him.’
That was the simple truth. The cruel allegation against Mrs. Leigh seemed to be beneath contempt. As Sir Egerton Brydges pointed out at the time, Byron, being of a strong temperament, did not reply to the injuries heaped upon him by whining complaints and cowardly protestations of innocence; he became desperate, and broke out into indignation, sarcasm, and exposure of his opponents, in a manner so severe as to seem inexcusably cruel to those who did not realize the provocation. It was ‘war to the knife,’ and Byron had the best of it.
We propose to examine ‘Manfred’ closely, to see whether Astarte in any degree resembles the description which Lord Lovelace has given of Augusta Leigh.
Manfred tells us that his slumbers are ‘a continuance of enduring thought,’ since that ‘all-nameless hour’ when he committed the crime for which he suffers. He asks ‘Forgetfulness of that which is within him – a crime which he cannot utter.’ When told by the Seven Spirits that he cannot have self-oblivion, Manfred asks if Death would give it to him; and receives the sad reply that, being immortal, the spirit after death cannot forget the past.
Eventually the Seventh Spirit – typifying, possibly, a Magdalen – appears before Manfred, in the shape of a beautiful woman.
‘Manfred. Oh God! if it be thus, and thou
Art not a madness and a mockery,
I yet might be most happy.’
When the figure vanishes, Manfred falls senseless. In the second act, Manfred, in reply to the chamois-hunter, who offers him a cup of wine, says:
‘Away, away! there’s blood upon the brim!
Will it then never – never sink in the earth?
’Tis blood – my blood! the pure warm stream
Which ran in the veins of my fathers, and in ours
When we were in our youth, and had one heart,
And loved each other as we should not love,
And this was shed: but still it rises up.
Colouring the clouds that shut me out from Heaven.’
One may well wonder what all this has to do with Augusta. The blood that ran in Byron’s veins also ran in the veins of Mary Chaworth, and that blood, shed by Byron’s kinsman, had caused a feud, which was not broken until Byron came upon the scene, and fell hopelessly in love with ‘the last of a time-honoured race.’ Byron from his boyhood always believed that there was a blood-curse upon him.
When, two years later, he wrote ‘The Duel’ (December, 1818), he again alludes to the subject:
‘I loved thee – I will not say how,
Since things like these are best forgot:
Perhaps thou mayst imagine now
Who loved thee and who loved thee not.
And thou wert wedded to another,
And I at last another wedded:
I am a father, thou a mother,
To strangers vowed, with strangers bedded.
***** *
‘Many a bar, and many a feud,
Though never told, well understood,
Rolled like a river wide between —
And then there was the curse of blood,
Which even my Heart’s can not remove.
***** *
‘I’ve seen the sword that slew him; he,
The slain, stood in a like degree
To thee, as he, the Slayer stood
(Oh, had it been but other blood!)
In Kin and Chieftainship to me.
Thus came the Heritage to thee.’
Clearly, then, the Spirit, which appeared to Manfred in the form of a beautiful female figure, was Mary Chaworth; the crime for which he suffered was his conduct towards her; and the blood, which his fancy beheld on the cup’s brim, was the blood of William Chaworth, which his predecessor, Lord Byron, had shed. When asked by the chamois-hunter whether he had wreaked revenge upon his enemies, Manfred replies: