TheIslesofGreecewithnotes

The Isles of Greece by Lord ByronThe isles of Greece, the isles of Greece!Where burning Sappho loved and sung, Where grew the arts of war and peace,Where Delos rose, and Phoebus sprung Eternal summer gilds them yet,But all, except their sun, is set.The Scian and the Teian Muse,The hero‘s harp, the lover’s lute,Have found the fame your shores refuse: Their place of birth aloe is muteTo sounds which echo further westThan your sires’ ‘Islands of the Blest.’The mountains look on Marathon,And Marathon looks on the sea;And musing there an hour alone,I dreamed that Greece might still be free; For standing on the Persian’s grave,I could not deem myself a slave.A king sate on the rocky browWhich looks o’er sea-born Salamis; And ships, by thousands, lay below,And men in nations--all were his!He counted them at break of day,And when the sun set where were they?And where are they? and where art thou, My country? On the voiceless shore The heroic lay is tuneless now--The heroic bosom beats no more!And must thy lyre, so long divine, Degenerate into hands like mine?‘Tis something, in the dearth of fame,Though linked among a fettered race, To feel at least a patriot’s shame,Even as I sing, suffuse my face;For what is left the poet here?For Greeks a blush--for Greece a tear.Must we but weep o‘er days more blest?Must we but blush?--Our fathers bled. Earth! render back from out thy breastA remnant of our Spartan dead!Of the three hundred grant but three,To make a new Thermopylae!What, silent still? and silent all?Ah! no;--the voices of the dead Sound like a distant torrent‘s fall,And answer, “Let one living head,But one arise,--we come, we come!“‘T is but the living who are dumb.In vain--in vain: strike-other chords:Fill high the cup with Samian wine! Leave battles to the Turkish hordes,And shed the blood of Scio‘s vine! Hark! rising to the ignoble call--How answers each bold bacchanal!You have the Pyrrhic dance as yet;Where is the Pyrrhic phalanx gone? Of two such lessons, why forgetThe nobler and the manlier one?You have the letters Cadmus gave-- Think ye he meant them for a slave?Fill high the bowl with Samian wine!We will not think of themes like these! It made Anacreon’s song divine:He served--but served Polycrates--A tyrant; but our masters thenWere still at least our countrymen.The tyrant of the ChersoneseWas freedom’s best and bravest friend; That tyrant was Miltiades!Oh that the present hour would lend Another despot of the kind!Such chains as his were sure to bind.Fill high the bowl with Samian wine!On Suli’s rock, and Parga’s shore, Exists the remnant of a lineSuch as the Doric mothers bore;And there, perhaps, some seed is sown, The Heracleidan blood might own.Trust not for freedom to the Franks;They have a king who buys and sells. In native swords, and native ranksThe only hope of courage dwells,But Turkish force, Latin fraudWould break your shield, however broad. Fill high the bowl with Samian wine!Our virgins dance beneath the shade.I see their glorious black eyes shine,But gazing on each glowing maid,My own the burning tear-drop laves,To think such breasts must suckle slaves.Place me on Sunium‘s marbled steep,Where nothing, save the waves and I,May hear our mutual murmurs sweep;There, swan-like, let me sing and die:A land of slaves shall ne’er be mine--Dash down yon cup of Samian wine!Persian Wars1 500 B.C.–449 B.C., series of conflicts fought between Greek states and the Persian Empire.The writings of Herodotus, who was born c.484 B.C., are the great source of knowledge of the history of the wars. At their beginning the Persian Empire of Darius I included all of W Asia as well as Egypt. On the coast of Asia Minor were a few Greek city-states, and these revolted (c.500) against Darius’ despotic rule. Athens and Eretria in Euboea (now Évvoia) gave the Ionian cities some help but not enough, and they were subdued (494) by the Persians. Darius decided to punish Athens and Eretria and to add Greece to his vast empire. In 492 a Persian expedition commanded by Mardonius conquered Thrace andMacedon, but its fleet was crippled by a storm.2A second expedition, commanded by Artaphernes and Datis, destroyed (490) Eretria andthen proceeded against Athens. The Persians encamped 20 mi (32 km) from the city, on the coast plain of Marathon. Here they were attacked and decisively defeated (Sept.) by the Athenian army of 10,000 men aided by 1,000 men from Plataea. The Athenians were heavily outnumbered, but fought under Miltiades, whose strategy won the battle. They had sought the help of Sparta, by way of the Athenian courier Pheidippides, who covered the distance (c.150 mi; 241 km) from Athens to Sparta within two days. The Spartanforces, however, failed to reach Marathon until the day after the battle.3 The Persians did not continue the war, but Darius at once began preparations for a third expedition so powerful that the overwhelming of Greece would be certain. He died (486) before his preparations were completed, but they were continued by Xerxes I, his son and successor. The Athenians were persuaded by their leader Themistocles to strengthen their navy. In 480, Xerxes reached Greece with a tremendous army and navy, and considerable support among the Greeks. The route of the Persian land forces lay through the narrow pass of Thermopylae. The pass was defended by the Spartan Leonidas; his small army held back the Persians but was eventually trapped by a Persian detachment; the Spartan contingent chose to die fighting in the pass rather than flee. The Athenians put their trust in their navy and made little effort to defend their city, which was taken (480) by thePersians.Shortly afterward the Persian fleet was crushed in the straits off the island of Salamis bya Greek force. The Greek victory was aided by the strategy of Themistocles. Xerxesreturned to Persia but left a military force in Greece under his general, Mardonius. The defeat of this army in 479 at Plataea near Thebes (now Thívai) by a Greek army under the Spartan Pausanias (with Aristides commanding the Athenians) and a Greek naval victory at Mycale on the coast of Asia Minor ended all danger from Persian invasions of Europe.During the remaining period of the Persian Wars the Greeks in the Aegean islands andAsia Minor, under Athenian leadership (see Delian League) strengthened their positionwithout seeking conquest.1)“The Isles of Greece” (form Don Juan, iii)(A)Main idea“the Isles of Greece’, taken fro Canto iiiof Don Juan, is among Byron’s most effective poetical utterances on national freedom. All the 16 stanzas that constitute the song are supposed to have been sung by a Greek singer at the wedding feast of Don Juan and Haidee on an isle of Greece. In the song, by contrasting the freedom enjoyed by the ancient Greeks with the enslavement of the early 19th century Greeks under Turkish rule, the poet calls on the Greeks to struggle for their national liberation.(B)Comprehension notes(a)This song, included in the third canto of Byron’s Don Juan, is different from the rest of the poem metrically , consisting of sixteen six-lined stanzas of iambic tetrameter , with a rhyme scheme of ababcc.(b)‘But all, except their sun, is set”: But all their past glories are no more, only the sun still shines upon them.(c)“The Scian and the Teian muse”: referring to Homer and Anacreon. “Muse” here means poet. “Scian ‘-of Scio or Chios in the Grecian Archipolage, claimed to have been the birthplace of Homer. ‘Teian”- of Teos in ancient Ionis, where the poet Anaceron was born.(d)“Have found the fame your shores refuse “: have elsewhere received the honor which Greece itself failed to give.(e)“And, when the sun set, where were they?” Here it refers to the destruction of all the Persian ships at the naval battle of Salamis.(f)“For what is left a poet here?”: What is left for a poet to do here?(g)“Strike other chords“ means to play some other musical composition: here it implies to “deal with other themes”.(h)“Trust not for freedom to the Freedom to the Franks-/They have a king who buys and sells”: Do not depend on foreign countries to obtain freedom for you (i.e. the Greeks), they have a king who buys and sells the interests of others for his own profit (“the Frank” normally refers to France, but here obviously refers to western European countries in general).Canto III, 'The Isles of Greece' 2: Than your sires' "Islands of the Blest."The [blessed isles] of the Greek poets were supposed to have been the Cape de Verd islands or the Canaries.Canto III, 'The Isles of Greece' 4: And when the sun set where were they?Deep were the groans of Xerxes, when he sawThis havoc; for his seat, a lofty moundCommanding the wide sea, o'erlook'd the hosts.With rueful cries he rent his royal robes,And through his troops embattled on the shoreGave signal of retreat; then started wildAnd fled disorder'd. -- Æschylus.Canto III, 'The Isles of Greece' 16: There swan-like, let me sing and die.Soph. Ajax, v. 1217.。