ACT II, SCENE I This scene, of relatively inferior interest, seems intended to reveal, through the contrast with the simple and honest nature of the Chamois Hunter, more of the complexity and pathos of Manfred's temperament, as well as to suggest the new spirit of indomitable endurance with which he renews his quest for selfoblivion after having been defeated in his previous attempts. 1817 ff. The allusions of this speech suggest fully the mediæval atmosphere and setting of the poem, only partially suggested before in the diction, the magic, and the indications of the scene in the beginning. 181:21 ff. Suggested perhaps by Lady Macbeth's exclamations in the sleep-walking scene, Macbeth,' V, i. 182 29. blood. . . Colouring the clouds. For the image, cf. Marlowe's Faustus,' sc. xvi, 78: "O, I'll leap up to my God! Who pulls me down? See, see where Christ's blood streams in the firmament!" Cf. Shelley, The Cenci' (1819), III, i, 13, "The beautiful blue heaven is flecked with blood." 182: 51 ff. Cf. Childe Harold,' III, v: "grown aged in this world of woe, In deeds, not years." Cf. Bailey, Festus,' "We live in deeds, not years; in thoughts, not breaths; In feelings, not in figures on a dial. We should count time by heart-throbs." -and Sheridan, Pizarro,' IV, i: "A life spent worthily should be measured by a nobler line,-by deeds, not years." (Rolfe.) 182 58. the salt-surf weeds of bitterness. The involution of metaphor within metaphor-" salt-surf" and "bitterness to be taken in both their literal and their metaphorical senses-is extremely effective. 183 63 ff. It is for the sake of the contrast here explicitly stated, but felt throughout the scenes in which he appears, that the character of the Chamois Hunter is introduced into the drama at all. 18379-81. Manfred, of course, is full of traits of Byronic self portraiture. With the sentiment of these lines, cf. Byron's Swiss Journal: "Storm came on, thunder, lightning, hail; all in perfection and beautiful. I was on horseback; guide wanted to carry my cane; I was going to give it him, when I recollected that it was a sword-stick, and I thought the lightning might be attracted towards him; kept it myself." Lady Blessington's impression of his "cautious feeling for another's pain" she reports in these words: "He is peculiarly compassionate to the poor. I remarked that he rarely, in our rides, passed a mendicant without giving him charity, which was invariably bestowed with gentleness and kindness. "Unlike the world in general, Byron never makes light of the griefs of others, but shows commiseration and kindness." : 183 85. quell'd is here used in the older sense of "killed," "destroyed" (A. S. cwellan), as occasionally in Spenser, Shakspere, etc. ACT II, SCENE II A central scene for its nature passages and for its exposition of the perplexities of Manfred's mind and history. Passionate soliloquy, despair, and self-analysis are here carried almost to their highest reach. Manfred, like his creator Byron and like all of the Romanticists, is a lover of solitude, and naturally turns to it for help in his grief. He thinks perhaps to find, like Wordsworth, consolation and balm for hurt minds in Nature. The beautiful Witch of the Alps, who perhaps symbolizes the charm and the healing power of Nature in her solitudes, offers to help him, if he "Will swear obedience to my will." But Manfred will not yield his will to any outside power. And So, in spite of his passionate love for Nature, she cannot cure him. Byron, in spite of his alienation from society, perpetually asserts the overlordship of humanity. In mankind, in the phenomena of human energy and will, and not in Nature, is his primary interest; and so the Wordsworthian philosophy of Nature is not for him. Cf. the Letters to Bowles.' -The Cataract, which is the home of the Witch of the Alps, is probably the Staubbach, near Lauterbrunnen. : ... 184 1-8. The germ of this passage again is to be found in Byron's Swiss Journal (Sept. 22 and 23): "Before ascending the mountain, went to the torrent (seven in the morning) again; the sun upon it, forming a rainbow of the lower part of all colours, but principally purple and gold; the bow moving as you move; I never saw anything like this; it is only in the sunshine." "The torrent is in shape curving over the rock, like the tail of a white horse streaming in the wind such as it might be conceived would be that of the 'pale horse' on which Death is mounted in the Apocalypse [cf. 11. 7-8]. It is neither mist nor water, but a something between both; its immense height (nine hundred feet) gives it a wave or curve, a spreading here or condensation there, wonderful and indescribable." 184: 13. The Witch of the Alps is a witch of an entirely different conception from Shakspere's witches, as in Macbeth.' Witches of course need not be old and ugly, as witness the witch Nannie of the cutty sark in Burns' 'Tam O'Shanter.' Byron's witch, however, is a “beautiful Spirit” and rather akin to Shelley's Witch of Atlas (1820)—of whom, too, we read that "she first was changed into a vapour." Compare also the beautiful young witch whom Faust meets in the Walpurgisnacht. -The description that follows, while applied to the "Spirit" in human form, is partly applicable also, by metaphor, to the Cataract itself. 185: 50 ff. Portions of the long self-characterization which follows present us the personal Byron with little disguise; other portions give us Byron idealized into Manfred, interwoven with the Faust-motive. For the conception of the poetical idealist here outlined cf. Childe Harold' III, sts. xii-xv; cf. also st. cxiii. 186: 62 ff. Contrast with Byron's enumeration of the typical pleasures to be found in Nature, those recited, for example, by Milton in 'L'Allegro' and 'Il Penseroso,' or by Wordsworth in Tintern Abbey,' 6 "The sounding cataract 186 89-91. Cf. Childe Harold' III, st. xiv: 186: 92. The story of the 1 raising of Eros and Anteros may be found in his life by Eunapius." [Byron's note.—The story is that Jamblichus, while near two springs at Gadara in Syria, which were named Eros and Anteros, astonished his disciples by putting his hand into the water, muttering a spell, and thus calling up out of each spring a Cupid, one golden-haired, the other dark-haired. Then at his bidding they returned to their places. 187 105-113. The description of the kindred spirit is somewhat in the manner of Shelley. Cf., for example, 'Alastor' (1815) 151 ff. "Her voice was like the voice of his own soul," etc. Cf. also the Epipsy chidion.' : 187 118. So in Faust, Gretchen's heart is broken by Faust's treatment of her. This perhaps provided the germ of Byron's conception, although there is nothing of Goethe in other points in the situation of the mysterious mistress of Manfred. 187: 119 ff. Remorse is a constant motive in Byron's poetry. It underlies The Giaour,' where we have the similar situation of a hero, proud in will but despairing, rejecting the consolations of the church, and a lost mistress. Cf. also The Corsair' (esp. II, x), 'Cain,' etc. Galt ('Life of Byron,' 1830, p. 217) makes the romantic but improbable suggestion that the reference here to the shedding of blood is to the voluntary sacrifice of herself by Astarte, so that, through the shedding of blood, Manfred might acquire mastery over all orders of spirits, and so reach that knowledge and power he was seeking. Human blood and a willing sacrifice were prerequisite to this last degree in magic. Clinton ('Life of Byron,' 1827, p. 384) suggests that Astarte's suicide is hinted at. 189 171. In life there is no present. Cf. Tennyson, The How and Why': "In time there is no present." 189: 181. Cf. I 'Samuel' xxviii, 7-20: the witch of Endor calls up the spirit of Samuel before Saul, and the spirit foretells Saul's downfall and death. Byron has treated the subject in a short lyric entitled 'Saul' in the Hebrew Melodies.' 189: 182–191. "The story of Pausanias, king of Sparta . . . and Cleonice is told in Plutarch's Life of Cimon, and in the La conics of Pausanias the sophist, in his description of Greece." [Byron's note.-Pausanias, while at Byzantium and in love with Cleonice, a beautiful maiden of that city, mistaking her in the night for an assassin, slew her. "Howbeit she never let Pausanias take rest after that, because her spirit came every night and appeared unto him. And because that this maiden's spirit would never let him rest, but vexed him continually, he fled unto the city of Heraclea, where there was a temple that conjured dead spirits, and there was the spirit of Cleonice conjured to pray her to be contented. So she appeared unto him, and told him that he should be delivered of all his troubles so soon as he came to Sparta; signifying thereby (in my opinion) the death which he should suffer there." So North's Plutarch. In Pausanias ('Description of Greece,' trans. A. R. Shilleto, London, 1886, Bk. III, ch. xvii, Laconia) the story is told substantially as in Plutarch, except that Pausanias adds: "This guilt Pausanias could not clear himself from, though he endeavoured in every way to propitiate Zeus the Acquitter,* and even went to Phigalia in Arcadia to the necromancers; but he paid to Cleonice and the deity the fit penalty." Besides the present lines it is probable that these passages suggested to Byron Astarte's appearance to Manfred in sc. iv, her prediction to him in 1. 151, and also, as already noted, the germ of the idea of the relations of Manfred and Astarte referred to so frequently throughout the poem. 189: 189. to depose her wrath. Depose in the Latin sense of deponere to lay aside, to lay down. ACT II, SCENE III The Summit of the Jungfrau Mountain is a fit scene for the presence of the awful beings of the world of spirits which here appear. It was not completely inaccessible to man even in Byron's day, for the first ascent was made in 1811, although (1. 2) the poet seems to ignore this fact. In choosing the mountain top for his scene Byron may have been thinking of Goethe's similar use of the Brocken in 'Faust.' This place, however, is more stupendous 46 *Zeus púžios, Zeus who favors flight, or Zeus the rescuer. Byron's Phyxian Jove." |