_Beauties that need not fear a broken vow_.--[MS. erased.] ----_a lecher's vow_.--[MS.] [79] [The summit of Parnassus is not visible from Delphi or the neighbourhood. Before he composed "these stanzas" (December 16), (see note 13.B.) at the foot of Parnassus, Byron had first surveyed its "snow-clad" majesty as he sailed towards Vostizza (on the southern shore of the Gulf of Corinth), which he reached on the 5th, and quitted on the 14th of December. "The Echoes" (line 8) which were celebrated by the ancients (Justin, _Hist._, lib. xxiv. cap. 6), are those made by the Phædriades, or "gleaming peaks," a "lofty precipitous escarpment of red and grey limestone" at the head of the valley of the Pleistus, facing southwards.--_Travels in Albania_, i. 188, 199; _Geography of Greece_, by H. F. Tozer, 1873, p. 230.] [cu] _Not in the landscape of a fabled lay_.--[MS. D.] [80] {61} ["Upon Parnassus, going to the fountain of Delphi (Castri) in 1809, I saw a flight of twelve eagles (Hobhouse said they were vultures--at least in conversation), and I seized the omen. On the day before, I composed the lines to Parnassus [in _Childe Harold_] and, on beholding the birds, had a hope that Apollo had accepted my homage. I have, at least, had the name and fame of a poet during the poetical period of life (from twenty to thirty). Whether it will last is another matter; but I have been a votary of the deity and the place, and am grateful for what he has done in my behalf, leaving the future in his hands, as I left the past" (B. _Diary_, 1821).] [cv] {62} _And walks with glassy steps o'er Aganippe's wave_.--[MS. erased.] [cw] _Let me some remnant of thy Spirit bear_ _Some glorious thought to my petition grant_.--[MS. erased, D.] [81] ["Parnassus ... is distinguished from all other Greek mountains by its mighty mass. This, with its vast buttresses, almost fills up the rest of the country" (_Geography of Greece_, by H.F. Tozer, 1873, p. 226).] [82] {63} [In his first letter from Spain (to F. Hodgson, August 6, 1809) Byron exclaims, "Cadiz, sweet Cadiz!--it is the first spot in the creation ... Cadiz is a complete Cythera." See, too, letter to Mrs. Byron, August 11, 1809 (Letters, 1898, i. 234, 239).] [cx] _While boyish blood boils gaily, who can 'scape_ _The lurking lures of thy enchanting gaze_.--[MS. erased.] [83] {64} [It must not be supposed that the "thousand altars" of Cadiz correspond with and are in contrast to the "one dome" of Paphos. The point is that where Venus fixes her shrine, at Paphos or at Cadiz, altars blaze and worshippers abound (compare _Æneid_, i. 415-417)-- "Ipsa Paphum sublimis abit, sedesque revisit Læta suas, ubi templum illi, centumque Sabæo Ture calent aræ."] [84] [Compare Milton's _Paradise Lost_, i.-- ... from morn To noon he fell, from noon to dewy eve.]