]
THE BLUES:
A LITERARY ECLOGUE.
THE BLUES:
A LITERARY ECLOGUE.
Byron
4) made a note of Messenian
maidens hymning his victory over the Lacedaemonians--
"From the heart of the plain he drove them,
And he drove them back to the hill:
To the top of the hill he drove them,
As he followed them, followed them still! "
Byron was familiar with Thomas Taylor's translation of the _Periegesis
Graeciae_ (_vide ante_, p. 109, and "Observations," etc. , _Letters_, v.
Appendix III. p. 574), and with Mitford's _Greece_ (_Don Juan_, Canto
XII. stanza xix. line 7). Hence his knowledge of Aristomenes. The
thought expressed in lines 5-11 was, possibly, suggested by Coleridge's
translation of the famous passage in Schiller's _Piccolomini_ (act ii.
sc. 4, lines 118, _sq. _, "For fable is Love's world, his home," etc. ),
which is quoted by Sir Walter Scott, in the third chapter of _Guy
Mannering_.
]
THE BLUES:
A LITERARY ECLOGUE.
"Nimium ne crede colori. "--Virgil, [_Ecl_. ii. 17]
O trust not, ye beautiful creatures, to hue,
Though your _hair_ were as _red_, as your _stockings_ are _blue_.
INTRODUCTION TO _THE BLUES_.
Byron's correspondence does not explain the mood in which he wrote _The
Blues_, or afford the slightest hint or clue to its _motif_ or occasion.
In a letter to Murray, dated Ravenna, August 7, 1821, he writes, "I send
you a thing which I scribbled off yesterday, a mere buffoonery, to quiz
'The Blues. ' If published it must be _anonymously_. . . . You may send me a
proof if you think it worth the trouble. " Six weeks later, September 20,
he had changed his mind. "You need not," he says, "send _The Blues_,
which is a mere buffoonery not meant for publication. " With these
intimations our knowledge ends, and there is nothing to show why in
August, 1821, he took it into his head "to quiz The Blues," or why,
being so minded, he thought it worth while to quiz them in so pointless
and belated a fashion.
maidens hymning his victory over the Lacedaemonians--
"From the heart of the plain he drove them,
And he drove them back to the hill:
To the top of the hill he drove them,
As he followed them, followed them still! "
Byron was familiar with Thomas Taylor's translation of the _Periegesis
Graeciae_ (_vide ante_, p. 109, and "Observations," etc. , _Letters_, v.
Appendix III. p. 574), and with Mitford's _Greece_ (_Don Juan_, Canto
XII. stanza xix. line 7). Hence his knowledge of Aristomenes. The
thought expressed in lines 5-11 was, possibly, suggested by Coleridge's
translation of the famous passage in Schiller's _Piccolomini_ (act ii.
sc. 4, lines 118, _sq. _, "For fable is Love's world, his home," etc. ),
which is quoted by Sir Walter Scott, in the third chapter of _Guy
Mannering_.
]
THE BLUES:
A LITERARY ECLOGUE.
"Nimium ne crede colori. "--Virgil, [_Ecl_. ii. 17]
O trust not, ye beautiful creatures, to hue,
Though your _hair_ were as _red_, as your _stockings_ are _blue_.
INTRODUCTION TO _THE BLUES_.
Byron's correspondence does not explain the mood in which he wrote _The
Blues_, or afford the slightest hint or clue to its _motif_ or occasion.
In a letter to Murray, dated Ravenna, August 7, 1821, he writes, "I send
you a thing which I scribbled off yesterday, a mere buffoonery, to quiz
'The Blues. ' If published it must be _anonymously_. . . . You may send me a
proof if you think it worth the trouble. " Six weeks later, September 20,
he had changed his mind. "You need not," he says, "send _The Blues_,
which is a mere buffoonery not meant for publication. " With these
intimations our knowledge ends, and there is nothing to show why in
August, 1821, he took it into his head "to quiz The Blues," or why,
being so minded, he thought it worth while to quiz them in so pointless
and belated a fashion.
