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Notes
"Pallas te hoc vulnere, Pallas
Immolat, et poenam scelerato ex sanguine sumit."
_Aeneid_, lib. xii, 947, 948.
NOTE I.
In 'The Malediction of Minerva (New Monthly Magazine', vol. iii. p. 240)
additional footnotes are appended
(1) to line 106, 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
(2) to line 196, giving quotations from pp. 158, 269, 419 of Eustace's
'Classical Tour in Italy'.
After line 130, which reads, "And well I know within that murky land"
('i.e'. Caledonia), the following apology for a hiatus was inserted:
"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."
NOTE II.
The text of 'The Curse of Minerva' is based on that of the quarto
printed by T. Davison in 1813. 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, 1815, 8vo [printed by De
Silver and Co.], was followed by Galignani (third edit., 1818, etc.).
The same text is followed, but not invariably, in the selections printed
by Hone in 1816 (111 lines); Wilson, 1818 (112 lines); and Knight and
Lacy, 1824 (111 lines). It exhibits the following variants from the
quarto of 1813:--
Line. Variant.
56.----'lands and main.'
81. 'Her helm was deep indented and her lance.'
94. 'Seek'st thou the cause? O mortal, look around.'
102. 'That Hadrian----'
116. 'The last base brute----'
143. 'Ten thousand schemes of petulance and pride.'
152. '----victors o'er the grave.'
162. '----Time shall tell the rest.'
199. 'Loath'd throughout life--scarce pardon'd in the dust.'
203. 'Erostratus and Elgin, etc.'
206. '----viler than the first.
222. 'Shall shake your usurpation to its base.'
233. 'While Lusitania----'
273. 'Then in the Senates----'
290. '----decorate his fall.'
The following variants may also be noted:
Line. Variant.____ Publisher
1. 'Slow sinks now lovely, etc.' _____ Hone
110. 'The Gothic monarch and the British----.'______ Wilson
'----and his fit compeer.'
131. 'And well I know within that murky land.
...
Dispatched her reckoning children far and wide.___ Hone
And well I know, albeit afar, the land,
Where starving Avarice keeps her chosen band;
Or sends their hungry numbers eager forth.
...
And aye accursed, etc.'______ Wilson
Content of Notes [Lord Byron's poem: The Curse of Minerva]
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