[332] {449} [The introductory lines, 1-45, are not included in the copy of the poem in Lady Byron's handwriting, nor were they published in the First Edition. On Christmas Day, 1815, Byron, enclosing this fragment to Murray, says, "I send some lines written some time ago, and intended as an opening to the _Siege of Corinth_. I had forgotten them, and am not sure that they had not better be left out now;--on that you and your Synod can determine." They are headed in the MS., "The Stranger's Tale," October 23rd. First published in _Letters and Journals_, 1830, i. 638, they were included among the _Occasional Poems_ in the edition of 1831, and first prefixed to the poem in the edition of 1832.] [333] [The metrical rendering of the date (miscalculated from the death instead of the birth of Christ) may be traced to the opening lines of an old ballad (Kölbing's _Siege of Corinth_, p. 53)-- "Upon the sixteen hunder year Of God, and fifty-three, From Christ was born, that bought us dear, As writings testifie," etc. See "The Life and Age of Man" (_Burns' Selected Poems_, ed. by J. L. Robertson, 1889, p. 191).] [334] [Compare letter to Hodgson, July 16, 1809: "How merrily we lives that travellers be!"--_Letters_, 1898, i. 233.] [335] {450} [For "capote," compare _Childe Harold_, Canto II. stanza lii. line 7, and Byron's note (24.B.), _Poetical Works_, 1899, ii. 132, 181. Compare, too, letter to Mrs. Byron, November 12, 1809 (_Letters_, 1899, i. 253): "Two days ago I was nearly lost in a Turkish ship of war.... I wrapped myself up in my Albanian capote (an immense cloak), and lay down on deck to wait the worst."] [336] The last tidings recently heard of Dervish (one of the Arnauts who followed me) state him to be in revolt upon the mountains, at the head of some of the bands common in that country in times of trouble. [nz] {451} _But those winged days_----.--[MS.] [337] [Compare Kingsley's _Last Buccaneer_-- "If I might but be a sea-dove, I'd fly across the main-- To the pleasant isle of Aves, to look at it once again."] [oa] _The kindly few who love my lay_.--[MS.] [338] [The MS. is dated J^y (January) 31, 1815. Lady Byron's copy is dated November 2, 1815.] [ob] _Many a year, and many an age_.--[MS. G. Copy.] [oc] _A marvel from her Moslem bands_.--[MS. G.] [339] {452} [Timoleon, who had saved the life of his brother Timophanes in battle, afterwards put him to death for aiming at the supreme power in Corinth. Warton says that Pope once intended to write an epic poem on the story, and that Akenside had the same design (_Works_ of Alexander Pope, Esq., 1806, ii. 83).] [od] _Or could the dead be raised again_.--[MS. G. erased.] [oe] ----_through yon clear skies_ _Than tower-capt Acropolis_.--[MS. G.] [of] _Stretched on the edge----.--[MS. G. erased.]_ [340] [Turkish holders of military fiefs.] [og] _The turbaned crowd of dusky hue_ _Whose march Morea's fields may rue_.--[MS. G. erased.]