Life of Lord Byron, Vol. 6: With His Letters and JournalsMoore, Thomas
General
Life of Lord Byron, Vol. 6: With His Letters and Journals
Moore, Thomas
Byron, George Gordon Byron, Baron, 1788-1824; Poets, English -- 19th century -- Biography
"Several inscriptions, which will be hereafter produced, will
tend to the confirmation of the idea that Ithaca was inhabited
about the time when the Romans were masters of Greece; yet
there is every reason to believe that few, if any, of the
present proprietors of the soil are descended from ancestors
who had long resided successively in the island. Even those
who lived, at the time of Ulysses, in Ithaca, seem to have
been on the point of emigrating to Argos, and no chief
remained, after the second in descent from that hero, worthy
of being recorded in history. It appears that the isle has
been twice colonised from Cephalonia in modern times, and I
was informed that a grant had been made by the Venetians,
entitling each settler in Ithaca to as much land as his
circumstances would enable him to cultivate."
Mr. Gell then proceeds to invalidate the authority of previous
writers on the subject of Ithaca. Sir George Wheeler and M. le
Chevalier fall under his severe animadversion; and, indeed, according
to his account, neither of these gentlemen had visited the island,
and the description of the latter is "absolutely too absurd for
refutation." In another place, he speaks of M. le C. "disgracing a
work of such merit by the introduction of such fabrications;" again,
of the inaccuracy of the author's maps; and, lastly, of his inserting
an island at the southern entry of the Channel between Cephalonia and
Ithaca, which has no existence. This observation very nearly
approaches to the use of that monosyllable which Gibbon[1], without
expressing it, so adroitly applied to some assertion of his
antagonist, Mr. Davies. In truth, our traveller's words are rather
bitter towards his brother tourist: but we must conclude that their
justice warrants their severity.
[Footnote 1: See his Vindication of the 15th and 16th chapters of the
_Decline and Fall_, &c.]
In the second chapter, the author describes his landing in Ithaca,
and arrival at the rock Korax and the fountain Arethusa, as he
designates it with sufficient positiveness.--This rock, now known by
the name of Korax, or Koraka Petra, he contends to be the same with
that which Homer mentions as contiguous to the habitation of Eumaeus,
the faithful swine-herd of Ulysses.--We shall take the liberty of
adding to our extracts from Mr. Gell some of the passages in Homer to
which he _refers_ only, conceiving this to be the fairest method of
exhibiting the strength or the weakness of his argument. "Ulysses,"
he observes, "came to the extremity of the isle to visit Eumusae, and
that extremity was the most southern; for Telemachus, coming from
Pylos, touched at the first south-eastern part of Ithaca with the
same intention."
[Greek: Kai tote de r' Odusea kakos pothen egage daimon
Agrou ep' eschatien, hothi domata naie subotes;
Enth' elthen philos uios Odusseos theioio,
Ek Pulou emathoenios ion sun nei melaine;
Odussei O.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account