The-Isles-of-Greece-with-notes.doc

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 DelosAn island of southeast Greece in the southern Aegean Sea. In Greek mythology, Leto gave birth to Apollo and Artemis on Delos; and the island was particularly sacred to Apollo. rose, and PhoebusGreek Mythology Apollo, the god of the sun sprungEternal summer gilds them yet,But all, except their sun, is set.The Scian and the TeianAnacreon (Greek ) (570 BC-488 BC) was a Greek lyric poet, notable for his drinking songs and hymns. Later Greeks included him in the canonical list of nine lyric poets. Anacreon was born at Teos, an Ionian city on the coast of Asia Minor. Muse,The heros harp, the lovers 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 BlestThe Islands of the Blest is a place where the virtuous dwell after death, retaining their faculties and enjoying a life free of care. This is probably the last abode of the righteous soul (and no reincarnation seems to affect those living in these islands). According to some, the Islands of the Blest were by the western limits of Libya, that is, beyond the pillars of Hercules (Gibraltar) in the Atlantic Ocean.The mountains look on Marathonvillage and plain, ancient Greece, 20 mi (32 km) NE of Athens. Here the Athenians and Plataeans under Miltiades defeated a Persian army in 490 B.C.,And Marathon looks on the sea;And musing there an hour alone,I dreamed that Greece might still be free;For standing on the Persians grave,I could not deem myself a slave.A king sate on the rocky browWhich looks oer 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 shoreThe 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 patriots 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 oer 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 Thermopylaea famous battle in 480 BC; a Greek army under Leonidas was annihilated by the Persians who were trying to conquer Greece!What, silent still? and silent all?Ah! no;-the voices of the deadSound like a distant torrents 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 SamianOf or pertaining to the island of Samos. wine!Leave battles to the Turkish hordes,And shed the blood of Scios vine!Hark! rising to the ignoble call-How answers each bold bacchanal!You have the Pyrrhic an ancient Greek dance imitating the motions of warfaredance as yet;Where is the Pyrrhic phalanxA formation of infantry carrying overlapping shields and long spears, developed by Philip II of Macedon and used by Alexander the Great gone?Of two such lessons, why forgetThe nobler and the manlier one?You have the letters CadmusA Phoenician prince who killed a dragon and sowed its teeth, from which sprang up an army of men who fought one another until only five survived. With these five men Cadmus founded the city of Thebes. 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 Anacreons song divine:He served-but served Polycrates-A tyrant; but our masters thenWere still at least our countrymen.The tyrant of the ChersoneseA peninsula; a tract of land nearly surrounded by water, but united to a larger tract by a neck of land or isthmus; as, the Cimbric Chersonese, or Jutland; the Tauric Chersonese, or CrimeaWas freedoms best and bravest friend;That tyrant was MiltiadesAthenian general who defeated the Persians at Marathon (540-489)!Oh that the present hour would lendAnother despot of the kind!Such chains as his were sure to bind.Fill high the bowl with Samian wine!On Sulia historic mountain settlement 73 km southeast of Igoumenitsa in Thesprotia and its surrounding areas in the mountains of Mourgana in Epirus in northwestern Greece.s rock, and PargaA town in Greece located in the Preveza prefectures 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 FranksDo 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);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 Suniums 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 neer be mine-Dash down yon cup of Samian wine!Persian Wars500 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 vvoia) 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 and Macedon, but its fleet was crippled by a storm.1A second expedition, commanded by Artaphernes and Datis, destroyed (490) Eretria and then 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 Spartan forces, however, failed to reach Marathon until the day after the battle.2The 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 the Persians.3Shortly afterward the Persian fleet was crushed in the straits off the island of Salamis by a Greek force. The Greek victory was aided by the strategy of Themistocles. Xerxes returned 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 Thvai) 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 and Asia Minor, under Athenian leadership (see Delian League) strengthened their position without 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 Byrons 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 Byrons 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