“Though fairest captives daily met his eye,
He shunn’d, nor sought, but coldly pass’d them by;”
and even Gulnare, his deliverer, fails to seduce him.
Mr. Ruskin observes that Byron makes much of courage. It is Conrad, the
leader, who undertakes the dangerous errand of surprising Seyd; it is he
who determines to save the harem. His courage is not the mere excitement
of battle. When he is captured—
“A conqueror’s more than captive’s air is seen,”
and he is not insensible to all fear.
“Each has some fear, and he who least betrays,
The only hypocrite deserving praise.
* * * * *
One thought alone he could not—dared not meet—
‘Oh, how these tidings will Medora greet?’”
Gulnare announces his doom to him, but he is calm. He cannot stoop even
to pray. He has deserted his Maker, and it would be baseness now to
prostrate himself before Him.
“I have no thought to mock his throne with prayer
Wrung from the coward crouching of despair;
It is enough—I breathe—and I can bear.”
He has no martyr-hope with which to console himself; his endurance is of
the finest order—simple, sheer resolution, a resolve that with no reward,
he will never disgrace himself. He knows what it is
“To count the hours that struggle to thine end,
With not a friend to animate, and tell
To other ears that death became thee well,”
but he does not break down.
Gulnare tries to persuade him that the only way by which he can save
himself from tortures and impalement is by the assassination of Seyd, but
he refuses to accept the terms—
“Who spares a woman’s seeks not slumber’s life”—
and dismisses her. When she has done the deed and he sees the single
spot of blood upon her, he, the Corsair, is unmanned as he had never been
in battle, prison, or by consciousness of guilt.
“But ne’er from strife—captivity—remorse—
From all his feelings in their inmost force—
So thrill’d—so shudder’d every creeping vein,
As now they froze before that purple stain.
That spot of blood, that light but guilty streak,
Had banish’d all the beauty from her cheek!”
The Corsair’s misanthropy had not destroyed him. Small creatures alone
are wholly converted into spite and scepticism by disappointment and
repulse. Those who are larger avenge themselves by devotion. Conrad’s
love for Medora was intensified and exalted by his hatred of the world.
“Yes, it was Love—unchangeable—unchanged,
Felt but for one from whom he never ranged;”
and she was worthy of him, the woman who could sing—
“Deep in my soul that tender secret dwells,
Lonely and lost to light for evermore,
Save when to thine my heart responsive swells,
Then trembles into silence as before.
There, in its centre, a sepulchral lamp
Burns the slow flame, eternal—but unseen;
Which not the darkness of despair can damp,
Though vain its ray as it had never been.”