The Curse Of Minerva. Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: AB A C B B D B D C E B B B F G H B G BBI H J A K B L F L J AL M HHLLAADDNNAAAAHHOO LLPPDDAAQQLLDD RRSSPPLLLLTUVVDDWQLL DD RRQQXXAA DDLLYYLLAALL LLLLZZAAA2A2DDDD KKLLLLFB2C2D2RRLLLLK KAAE2F2HHLLGGLLNNKK DDKKLLAALLLLG2G2LLRR AALLIIF2E2G2G2H2H2LL AA QQNNLL LLFFAALLDDLLLLFFAAFF OODDI2I2J2 AAAAFFK2K2LLL2M2NNLL N2N2LLHHFFLLLLGG AALLLLH2H2 AADDDDHHLL FFAALLO2O2FFLLAALLP2 LL FFQ2Q2LLFFLLAAM2M2LL LLDD RRAAAAAAR2R2DDAALLLL HHKKLLS2S2AANNLLT2T2| Pallas te hoc vulnere Pallas | A |
| Immolat et poenam scelerato ex sanguine sumit | B |
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| Aeneid lib xii | A |
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| Note I | C |
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| In 'The Malediction of Minerva New Monthly Magazine' vol iii p additional footnotes are appended | B |
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| to line recording the obliteration of Lord Elgin's name which had been inscribed on a pillar of one of the principal temples while that of Lady Elgin had been left untouched and | B |
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| to line giving quotations from pp of Eustace's 'Classical Tour in Italy' | D |
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| After line which reads And well I know within that murky land 'i e' Caledonia the following apology for a hiatus was inserted | B |
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| Here follows in the original certain lines which the editor has exercised his discretion by suppressing inasmuch as they comprise national reflections which the bard's justifiable indignation has made him pour forth against a people which if not universally of an amiable is generally of a respectable character and deserves not in this case to be censured 'en masse' for the faults of an individual | D |
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| NOTE II | C |
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| The text of 'The Curse of Minerva' is based on that of the quarto printed by T Davison in With the exception of the variants as noted the text corresponds with the MS in the possession of Lord Stanhope Doubtless it represents Byron's final revision The text of an edition of 'The Curse etc' Philadelphia vo printed by De Silver and Co was followed by Galignani third edit etc The same text is followed but not invariably in the selections printed by Hone in lines Wilson lines and Knight and Lacy lines It exhibits the following variants from the quarto of | E |
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| Line Variant | B |
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| 'lands and main ' | - |
| 'Her helm was deep indented and her lance ' | - |
| 'Seek'st thou the cause O mortal look around ' | - |
| 'That Hadrian ' | - |
| 'The last base brute ' | - |
| 'Ten thousand schemes of petulance and pride ' | - |
| ' victors o'er the grave ' | - |
| ' Time shall tell the rest ' | - |
| 'Loath'd throughout life scarce pardon'd in the dust ' | - |
| 'Erostratus and Elgin etc ' | - |
| ' viler than the first | B |
| 'Shall shake your usurpation to its base ' | - |
| 'While Lusitania ' | - |
| 'Then in the Senates ' | - |
| ' decorate his fall ' | - |
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| The following variants may also be noted | B |
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| Line Variant Publisher | F |
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| 'Slow sinks now lovely etc ' Hone | G |
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| 'The Gothic monarch and the British ' Wilson | H |
| ' and his fit compeer ' | - |
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| 'And well I know within that murky land | B |
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| Dispatched her reckoning children far and wide Hone | G |
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| And well I know albeit afar the land | B |
| Where starving Avarice keeps her chosen band | B |
| Or sends their hungry numbers eager forth | I |
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| And aye accursed etc ' Wilson | H |
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| Introduction To The Curse Of Minerva | J |
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| 'The Curse of Minerva' which was written at Athens and is dated March remained unpublished as a whole in this country during Byron's life time The arrangement which had been made with Cawthorn to bring out a fifth edition of 'English Bards' included the issue of a separate volume containing 'Hints from Horace' and 'The Curse of Minerva ' and as Moore intimates it was the withdrawal of the latter in deference to the wishes of Lord Elgin or his connections which led to the suppression of the other satires | A |
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| The quarto edition of The 'Curse of Minerva' printed by T Davison in was probably set up at the same time as Murray's quarto edition of 'Childe Harold' and reserved for private circulation With or without Byron's consent the poem as a whole was published in Philadelphia by De Silver and Co vo for variants see p 'note' In a letter to Murray March he says that he disowns 'The Curse etc ' as stolen and published in a miserable and villainous copy in the magazine The reference is to 'The Malediction of Minerva or The Athenian Marble Market' which appeared in the 'New Monthly Magazine' for April vol iii It numbers lines and is signed Steropes The Lightner a Cyclops The text of the magazine with the same additional footnotes but under the title of 'The Curse' etc was republished in the eighth edition of 'Poems on His Domestic Circumstances' W Hone London vo and thenceforth in other piratical issues Whatever may have been his feelings or intentions in four years later Byron was well aware that 'The Curse of Minerva' would not increase his reputation as a poet while the object of his satire the exposure and denunciation of Lord Elgin had been accomplished by the scathing stanzas canto ii with their accompanying note in 'Childe Harold' Disown it as he might his words were past recall and both indictments stand in his name | K |
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| Byron was prejudiced against Elgin before he started on his tour He had perhaps glanced at the splendid folio 'Specimens of Ancient Sculpture' which was issued by the Dilettanti Society in Payne Knight wrote the preface in which he maintains that the friezes and metopes of the Parthenon were not the actual work of Phidias but architectural studies probably by workmen scarcely ranked among artists So judged the leader of the 'cognoscenti' and in accordance with his views Elgin and Aberdeen are held up to ridicule in 'English Bards' second edition October and 'note' as credulous and extravagant collectors of maimed antiques It was however not till the first visit to Athens December March when he saw with his own eyes the ravages of barbarous and antiquarian despoilers Lord Broughton's 'Travels in Albania' i that contempt gave way to indignation and his wrath found vent in the pages of 'Childe Harold' | B |
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| Byron cared as little for ancient buildings as he did for the authorities or for patriotic enterprise but he was stirred to the quick by the marks of fresh and as he was led to believe wanton injury to Athena's poor remains The southern side of the half wrecked Parthenon had been deprived of its remaining metopes which had suffered far less from the weather than the other sides which are still in the building all that remained of the frieze had been stripped from the three sides of the cella and the eastern pediment had been despoiled of its diminished and mutilated but still splendid group of figures and though five or six years had gone by the blank spaces between the triglyphs must have revealed their recent exposure to the light and the shattered edges of the cornice which here and there had been raised and demolished to permit the dislodgment of the metopes must have caught the eye as they sparkled in the sun Nor had the removal and deportation of friezes and statues come to an end The firman which Dr Hunt the chaplain to the embassy had obtained in which empowered Elgin and his agents to take away 'qualche pezzi di pietra' still ran and Don Tita Lusieri the Italian artist who remained in Elgin's service was still like the 'canes venatici' American smell dogs employed by Verres in Sicily see 'Childe Harold' canto ii st 'note' finding fresh relics and still bewailing to sympathetic travellers the hard fate which compelled him to despoil the temples 'malgr lui' The feelings of the inhabitants themselves were not much in question but their opinions were quoted for and against the removal of the marbles Elgin's secretary and prime agent W R Hamilton testifies from personal knowledge that so far from exciting any unpleasant sensations the people seemed to feel it as the means of bringing foreigners into the country and of having money spent there 'Memoir on the Earl of Elgin's Pursuits in Greece' On the other hand the traveller Edward Daniel Clarke with whom Byron corresponded see 'Childe Harold' canto ii st 'note' speaks of the attachment of the Turks to the Parthenon and their religious veneration for the building as a mosque and tells a pathetic story of the grief of the Disdar when a metope was lowered and the adjacent masonry scattered its white fragments with thundering noise among the ruins 'Travels in Various Countries' part ii sect ii p | L |
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| Other travellers of less authority than Clarke Dodwell for instance who visited the Parthenon before it had been dismantled and afterwards was present at the removal of metopes and Hughes who came after Byron autumn make use of such phrases as shattered desolation wanton devastation and avidity of plunder Even Michaelis the great archaeologist who denounces 'The Curse of Minerva' as a 'libellous' poem and affirms that only blind passion could doubt that Lord Elgin's act was an act of preservation admits that the removal of several metopes and of the statue from the Erechtheion had severely injured the surrounding architecture 'Ancient Marbles in Great Britain' by A Michaelis translated by C A M Fennell p Highly coloured and emotional as some of these phrases may be they explain if they do not justify the 's va indignatio' of Byron's satire | F |
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| It is almost if not quite unnecessary to state the facts on the other side History regards Lord Elgin as a disinterested official who at personal loss at least thirty five thousand pounds on his own showing and in spite of opposition and disparagement secured for his own country and the furtherance of art the perishable fragments of Phidian workmanship which but for his intervention might have perished altogether If they had eluded the clutches of Turkish mason and Greek dealer in antiquities if by some happy chance they had escaped the ravages of war the gradual but gradually increasing assaults of rain and frost would have already left their effacing scars on the Elgin marbles As it is the progress of decay has been arrested and all the world is the gainer Byron was neither a prophet nor an archaeologist and time and knowledge have put him in the wrong But in the gaps in the entablature of the Parthenon were new the Phidian marbles were huddled in a damp dirty penthouse in Park Lane see 'Life of Haydon' i and the logic of events had not justified a sad necessity | L |
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| The Curse Of Minerva | J |
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| Pallas te hoc Vulnere Pallas | A |
| Immolat et poenam scelerato ex Sanguine Sumit | L |
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| ATHENS CAPUCHIN CONVENT March | M |
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| Slow sinks more lovely ere his race be run | H |
| Along Morea's hills the setting Sun | H |
| Not as in northern climes obscurely bright | L |
| But one unclouded blaze of living light | L |
| O'er the hushed deep the yellow beam he throws | A |
| Gilds the green wave that trembles as it glows | A |
| On old gina's rock and Hydra's isle | D |
| The God of gladness sheds his parting smile | D |
| O'er his own regions lingering loves to shine | N |
| Though there his altars are no more divine | N |
| Descending fast the mountain shadows kiss | A |
| Thy glorious Gulf unconquered Salamis | A |
| Their azure arches through the long expanse | A |
| More deeply purpled meet his mellowing glance | A |
| And tenderest tints along their summits driven | H |
| Mark his gay course and own the hues of Heaven | H |
| Till darkly shaded from the land and deep | O |
| Behind his Delphian rock he sinks to sleep | O |
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| On such an eve his palest beam he cast | L |
| When Athens here thy Wisest looked his last | L |
| How watched thy better sons his farewell ray | P |
| That closed their murdered Sage's latest day | P |
| Not yet not yet Sol pauses on the hill | D |
| The precious hour of parting lingers still | D |
| But sad his light to agonizing eyes | A |
| And dark the mountain's once delightful dyes | A |
| Gloom o'er the lovely land he seemed to pour | Q |
| The land where Phoebus never frowned before | Q |
| But ere he sunk below Cithaeron's head | L |
| The cup of Woe was quaffed the Spirit fled | L |
| The soul of Him that scorned to fear or fly | D |
| Who lived and died as none can live or die | D |
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| But lo from high Hymettus to the plain | R |
| The Queen of Night asserts her silent reign | R |
| No murky vapour herald of the storm | S |
| Hides her fair face or girds her glowing form | S |
| With cornice glimmering as the moonbeams play | P |
| There the white column greets her grateful ray | P |
| And bright around with quivering beams beset | L |
| Her emblem sparkles o'er the Minaret | L |
| The groves of olive scattered dark and wide | L |
| Where meek Cephisus sheds his scanty tide | L |
| The cypress saddening by the sacred mosque | T |
| The gleaming turret of the gay kiosk | U |
| And sad and sombre 'mid the holy calm | V |
| Near Theseus' fane yon solitary palm | V |
| All tinged with varied hues arrest the eye | D |
| And dull were his that passed them heedless by | D |
| Again the gean heard no more afar | W |
| Lulls his chafed breast from elemental war | Q |
| Again his waves in milder tints unfold | L |
| Their long expanse of sapphire and of gold | L |
| Mixed with the shades of many a distant isle | D |
| That frown where gentler Ocean deigns to smile | D |
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| As thus within the walls of Pallas' fane | R |
| I marked the beauties of the land and main | R |
| Alone and friendless on the magic shore | Q |
| Whose arts and arms but live in poets' lore | Q |
| Oft as the matchless dome I turned to scan | X |
| Sacred to Gods but not secure from Man | X |
| The Past returned the Present seemed to cease | A |
| And Glory knew no clime beyond her Greece | A |
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| Hour rolled along and Dian's orb on high | D |
| Had gained the centre of her softest sky | D |
| And yet unwearied still my footsteps trod | L |
| O'er the vain shrine of many a vanished God | L |
| But chiefly Pallas thine when Hecate's glare | Y |
| Checked by thy columns fell more sadly fair | Y |
| O'er the chill marble where the startling tread | L |
| Thrills the lone heart like echoes from the dead | L |
| Long had I mused and treasured every trace | A |
| The wreck of Greece recorded of her race | A |
| When lo a giant form before me strode | L |
| And Pallas hailed me in her own Abode | L |
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| Yes 'twas Minerva's self but ah how changed | L |
| Since o'er the Dardan field in arms she ranged | L |
| Not such as erst by her divine command | L |
| Her form appeared from Phidias' plastic hand | L |
| Gone were the terrors of her awful brow | Z |
| Her idle gis bore no Gorgon now | Z |
| Her helm was dinted and the broken lance | A |
| Seemed weak and shaftless e'en to mortal glance | A |
| The Olive Branch which still she deigned to clasp | A2 |
| Shrunk from her touch and withered in her grasp | A2 |
| And ah though still the brightest of the sky | D |
| Celestial tears bedimmed her large blue eye | D |
| Round the rent casque her owlet circled slow | D |
| And mourned his mistress with a shriek of woe | D |
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| Mortal 'twas thus she spake that blush of shame | K |
| Proclaims thee Briton once a noble name | K |
| First of the mighty foremost of the free | L |
| Now honoured 'less' by all and 'least' by me | L |
| Chief of thy foes shall Pallas still be found | L |
| Seek'st thou the cause of loathing look around | L |
| Lo here despite of war and wasting fire | F |
| I saw successive Tyrannies expire | B2 |
| 'Scaped from the ravage of the Turk and Goth | C2 |
| Thy country sends a spoiler worse than both | D2 |
| Survey this vacant violated fane | R |
| Recount the relics torn that yet remain | R |
| 'These' Cecrops placed 'this' Pericles adorned | L |
| 'That' Adrian reared when drooping Science mourned | L |
| What more I owe let Gratitude attest | L |
| Know Alaric and Elgin did the rest | L |
| That all may learn from whence the plunderer came | K |
| The insulted wall sustains his hated name | K |
| For Elgin's fame thus grateful Pallas pleads | A |
| Below his name above behold his deeds | A |
| Be ever hailed with equal honour here | E2 |
| The Gothic monarch and the Pictish peer | F2 |
| Arms gave the first his right the last had none | H |
| But basely stole what less barbarians won | H |
| So when the Lion quits his fell repast | L |
| Next prowls the Wolf the filthy Jackal last | L |
| Flesh limbs and blood the former make their own | G |
| The last poor brute securely gnaws the bone | G |
| Yet still the Gods are just and crimes are crossed | L |
| See here what Elgin won and what he lost | L |
| Another name with his pollutes my shrine | N |
| Behold where Dian's beams disdain to shine | N |
| Some retribution still might Pallas claim | K |
| When Venus half avenged Minerva's shame | K |
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| She ceased awhile and thus I dared reply | D |
| To soothe the vengeance kindling in her eye | D |
| Daughter of Jove in Britain's injured name | K |
| A true born Briton may the deed disclaim | K |
| Frown not on England England owns him not | L |
| Athena no thy plunderer was a Scot | L |
| Ask'st thou the difference From fair Phyles' towers | A |
| Survey Boeotia Caledonia's ours | A |
| And well I know within that bastard land | L |
| Hath Wisdom's goddess never held command | L |
| A barren soil where Nature's germs confined | L |
| To stern sterility can stint the mind | L |
| Whose thistle well betrays the niggard earth | G2 |
| Emblem of all to whom the Land gives birth | G2 |
| Each genial influence nurtured to resist | L |
| A land of meanness sophistry and mist | L |
| Each breeze from foggy mount and marshy plain | R |
| Dilutes with drivel every drizzly brain | R |
| Till burst at length each wat'ry head o'erflows | A |
| Foul as their soil and frigid as their snows | A |
| Then thousand schemes of petulance and pride | L |
| Despatch her scheming children far and wide | L |
| Some East some West some everywhere but North | I |
| In quest of lawless gain they issue forth | I |
| And thus accursed be the day and year | F2 |
| She sent a Pict to play the felon here | E2 |
| Yet Caledonia claims some native worth | G2 |
| As dull Boeotia gave a Pindar birth | G2 |
| So may her few the lettered and the brave | H2 |
| Bound to no clime and victors of the grave | H2 |
| Shake off the sordid dust of such a land | L |
| And shine like children of a happier strand | L |
| As once of yore in some obnoxious place | A |
| Ten names if found had saved a wretched race | A |
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| Mortal the blue eyed maid resumed once more | Q |
| Bear back my mandate to thy native shore | Q |
| Though fallen alas this vengeance yet is mine | N |
| To turn my counsels far from lands like thine | N |
| Hear then in silence Pallas' stern behest | L |
| Hear and believe for Time will tell the rest | L |
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| First on the head of him who did this deed | L |
| My curse shall light on him and all his seed | L |
| Without one spark of intellectual fire | F |
| Be all the sons as senseless as the sire | F |
| If one with wit the parent brood disgrace | A |
| Believe him bastard of a brighter race | A |
| Still with his hireling artists let him prate | L |
| And Folly's praise repay for Wisdom's hate | L |
| Long of their Patron's gusto let them tell | D |
| Whose noblest native gusto is to sell | D |
| To sell and make may shame record the day | L |
| The State Receiver of his pilfered prey | L |
| Meantime the flattering feeble dotard West | L |
| Europe's worst dauber and poor Britain's best | L |
| With palsied hand shall turn each model o'er | F |
| And own himself an infant of fourscore | F |
| Be all the Bruisers culled from all St Giles' | A |
| That Art and Nature may compare their styles | A |
| While brawny brutes in stupid wonder stare | F |
| And marvel at his Lordship's 'stone shop' there | F |
| Round the thronged gate shall sauntering coxcombs creep | O |
| To lounge and lucubrate to prate and peep | O |
| While many a languid maid with longing sigh | D |
| On giant statues casts the curious eye | D |
| The room with transient glance appears to skim | I2 |
| Yet marks the mighty back and length of limb | I2 |
| Mourns o'er the difference of now and then | J2 |
| Exclaims 'These Greeks indeed were proper men ' | - |
| Draws slight comparisons of 'these' with 'those' | A |
| And envies La s all her Attic beaux | A |
| When shall a modern maid have swains like these | A |
| Alas Sir Harry is no Hercules | A |
| And last of all amidst the gaping crew | F |
| Some calm spectator as he takes his view | F |
| In silent indignation mixed with grief | K2 |
| Admires the plunder but abhors the thief | K2 |
| Oh loathed in life nor pardoned in the dust | L |
| May Hate pursue his sacrilegious lust | L |
| Linked with the fool that fired the Ephesian dome | L2 |
| Shall vengeance follow far beyond the tomb | M2 |
| And Eratostratus and Elgin shine | N |
| In many a branding page and burning line | N |
| Alike reserved for aye to stand accursed | L |
| Perchance the second blacker than the first | L |
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| So let him stand through ages yet unborn | N2 |
| Fixed statue on the pedestal of Scorn | N2 |
| Though not for him alone revenge shall wait | L |
| But fits thy country for her coming fate | L |
| Hers were the deeds that taught her lawless son | H |
| To do what oft Britannia's self had done | H |
| Look to the Baltic blazing from afar | F |
| Your old Ally yet mourns perfidious war | F |
| Not to such deeds did Pallas lend her aid | L |
| Or break the compact which herself had made | L |
| Far from such counsels from the faithless field | L |
| She fled but left behind her Gorgon shield | L |
| A fatal gift that turned your friends to stone | G |
| And left lost Albion hated and alone | G |
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| Look to the East where Ganges' swarthy race | A |
| Shall shake your tyrant empire to its base | A |
| Lo there Rebellion rears her ghastly head | L |
| And glares the Nemesis of native dead | L |
| Till Indus rolls a deep purpureal flood | L |
| And claims his long arrear of northern blood | L |
| So may ye perish Pallas when she gave | H2 |
| Your free born rights forbade ye to enslave | H2 |
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| Look on your Spain she clasps the hand she hates | A |
| But boldly clasps and thrusts you from her gates | A |
| Bear witness bright Barossa thou canst tell | D |
| Whose were the sons that bravely fought and fell | D |
| But Lusitania kind and dear ally | D |
| Can spare a few to fight and sometimes fly | D |
| Oh glorious field by Famine fiercely won | H |
| The Gaul retires for once and all is done | H |
| But when did Pallas teach that one retreat | L |
| Retrieved three long Olympiads of defeat | L |
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| Look last at home ye love not to look there | F |
| On the grim smile of comfortless despair | F |
| Your city saddens loud though Revel howls | A |
| Here Famine faints and yonder Rapine prowls | A |
| See all alike of more or less bereft | L |
| No misers tremble when there's nothing left | L |
| 'Blest paper credit ' who shall dare to sing | O2 |
| It clogs like lead Corruption's weary wing | O2 |
| Yet Pallas pluck'd each Premier by the ear | F |
| Who Gods and men alike disdained to hear | F |
| But one repentant o'er a bankrupt state | L |
| On Pallas calls but calls alas too late | L |
| Then raves for' ' to that Mentor bends | A |
| Though he and Pallas never yet were friends | A |
| Him senates hear whom never yet they heard | L |
| Contemptuous once and now no less absurd | L |
| So once of yore each reasonable frog | P2 |
| Swore faith and fealty to his sovereign 'log ' | - |
| Thus hailed your rulers their patrician clod | L |
| As Egypt chose an onion for a God | L |
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| Now fare ye well enjoy your little hour | F |
| Go grasp the shadow of your vanished power | F |
| Gloss o'er the failure of each fondest scheme | Q2 |
| Your strength a name your bloated wealth a dream | Q2 |
| Gone is that Gold the marvel of mankind | L |
| And Pirates barter all that's left behind | L |
| No more the hirelings purchased near and far | F |
| Crowd to the ranks of mercenary war | F |
| The idle merchant on the useless quay | L |
| Droops o'er the bales no bark may bear away | L |
| Or back returning sees rejected stores | A |
| Rot piecemeal on his own encumbered shores | A |
| The starved mechanic breaks his rusting loom | M2 |
| And desperate mans him 'gainst the coming doom | M2 |
| Then in the Senates of your sinking state | L |
| Show me the man whose counsels may have weight | L |
| Vain is each voice where tones could once command | L |
| E'en factions cease to charm a factious land | L |
| Yet jarring sects convulse a sister Isle | D |
| And light with maddening hands the mutual pile | D |
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| 'Tis done 'tis past since Pallas warns in vain | R |
| The Furies seize her abdicated reign | R |
| Wide o'er the realm they wave their kindling brands | A |
| And wring her vitals with their fiery hands | A |
| But one convulsive struggle still remains | A |
| And Gaul shall weep ere Albion wear her chains | A |
| The bannered pomp of war the glittering files | A |
| O'er whose gay trappings stern Bellona smiles | A |
| The brazen trump the spirit stirring drum | R2 |
| That bid the foe defiance ere they come | R2 |
| The hero bounding at his country's call | D |
| The glorious death that consecrates his fall | D |
| Swell the young heart with visionary charms | A |
| And bid it antedate the joys of arms | A |
| But know a lesson you may yet be taught | L |
| With death alone are laurels cheaply bought | L |
| Not in the conflict Havoc seeks delight | L |
| His day of mercy is the day of fight | L |
| But when the field is fought the battle won | H |
| Though drenched with gore his woes are but begun | H |
| His deeper deeds as yet ye know by name | K |
| The slaughtered peasant and the ravished dame | K |
| The rifled mansion and the foe reaped field | L |
| Ill suit with souls at home untaught to yield | L |
| Say with what eye along the distant down | S2 |
| Would flying burghers mark the blazing town | S2 |
| How view the column of ascending flames | A |
| Shake his red shadow o'er the startled Thames | A |
| Nay frown not Albion for the torch was thine | N |
| That lit such pyres from Tagus to the Rhine | N |
| Now should they burst on thy devoted coast | L |
| Go ask thy bosom who deserves them most | L |
| The law of Heaven and Earth is life for life | T2 |
| And she who raised in vain regrets the strife | T2 |
George Gordon Byron
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