Athens--Byron's Character of the modern Athenians--Visit to Eleusis--
Visit to the Caverns at Vary and Keratea--Lost in the Labyrinths of
the latter
It has been justly remarked, that were there no other vestiges of the
ancient world in existence than those to be seen at Athens, they are
still sufficient of themselves to justify the admiration entertained
for the genius of Greece. It is not, however, so much on account of
their magnificence as of their exquisite beauty, that the fragments
obtain such idolatrous homage from the pilgrims to the shattered
shrines of antiquity. But Lord Byron had no feeling for art, perhaps
it would be more correct to say he affected none: still, Athens was
to him a text, a theme; and when the first rush of curiosity has been
satisfied, where else can the palled fancy find such a topic.
To the mere antiquary, this celebrated city cannot but long continue
interesting, and to the classic enthusiast, just liberated from the
cloisters of his college, the scenery and the ruins may for a season
inspire delight. Philosophy may there point her moral apophthegms
with stronger emphasis, virtue receive new incitements to
perseverance, by reflecting on the honour which still attends the
memory of the ancient great, and patriotism there more pathetically
deplore the inevitable effects of individual corruption on public
glory; but to the man who seeks a solace from misfortune, or is "a-
weary of the sun"; how wretched, how solitary, how empty is Athens!
Yet to the remnants of thy splendour past
Shall pilgrims, pensive, but unwearied throng;
Long shall the voyager, with th' Ionian blast,
Hail the bright clime of battle and of song;
Long shall thy annals and immortal tongue
Fill with thy fame the youth of many a shore;
Boast of the aged! lesson of the young!
Which sages venerate and bards adore,
As Pallas and the Muse unveil their awful lore!
Of the existing race of Athenians Byron has observed, that they are
remarkable for their cunning: "Among the various foreigners resident
in Athens there was never a difference of opinion in their estimate
of the Greek character, though on all other topics they disputed with
great acrimony. M. Fauvel, the French consul, who has passed thirty
years at Athens, frequently declared in my hearing, that the Greeks
do not deserve to be emancipated, reasoning on the ground of their
national and individual depravity--while he forgot that such
depravity is to be attributed to causes which can only be removed by
the measures he reprobates.
"M. Roque, a French merchant of respectability long settled in
Athens, asserted with the most amusing gravity, 'Sir, they are the
same canaille that existed in the days of Themistocles.' The
ancients banished Themistocles; the moderns cheat Monsieur Roque:
thus great men have ever been treated.
"In short, all the Franks who are fixtures, and most of the
Englishmen, Germans, Danes, etc., of passage, came over by degrees to
their opinion, on much the same grounds that a Turk in England would
condemn the nation by wholesale, because he was wronged by his lackey
and overcharged by his washerwoman. Certainly, it was not a little
staggering when the Sieurs Fauvel and Lusieri, the two greatest
demagogues of the day, who divide between them the power of Pericles
and the popularity of Cleon, and puzzle the poor Waywode with
perpetual differences, agreed in the utter condemnation of the Greeks
in general, and of the Athenians in particular."
I have quoted his Lordship thus particularly because after his
arrival at Athens he laid down his pen. Childe Harold there
disappears. Whether he had written the pilgrimage up to that point
at Athens I have not been able to ascertain; while I am inclined to
think it was so, as I recollect he told me there that he had then
described or was describing the reception he had met with at
Tepellene from Ali Pasha.
After having halted some time at Athens, where they established their
headquarters, the travellers, when they had inspected the principal
antiquities of the city (those things which all travellers must
visit), made several excursions into the environs, and among other
places went to Eleusis.
On the 13th of January they mounted earlier than usual, and set out
on that road which has the site of the Academy and the Colonos, the
retreat of OEdipus during his banishment, a little to the right; they
then entered the Olive Groves, crossed the Cephessus, and came to an
open, well-cultivated plain, extending on the left to the Piraeus and
the sea. Having ascended by a gentle acclivity through a pass, at
the distance of eight or ten miles from Athens, the ancient
Corydallus, now called Daphnerouni, they came, at the bottom of a
piney mountain, to the little monastery of Daphne, the appearance and
situation of which are in agreeable unison. The monastery was then
fast verging into that state of the uninhabitable picturesque so much
admired by young damsels and artists of a romantic vein. The pines
on the adjacent mountains hiss as they ever wave their boughs, and
somehow, such is the lonely aspect of the place, that their hissing
may be imagined to breathe satire against the pretensions of human
vanity.
After passing through the hollow valley in which this monastic
habitation is situated, the road sharply turns round an elbow of the
mountain, and the Eleusinian plain opens immediately in front. It
is, however, for a plain, but of small dimensions. On the left is
the Island of Salamis, and the straits where the battle was fought;
but neither of it nor of the mysteries for which the Temple of Ceres
was for so many ages celebrated, has the poet given us description or
suggestion; and yet few topics among all his wild and wonderful
subjects were so likely to have furnished such "ample room, and verge
enough" to his fancy.
The next excursion in any degree interesting, if a qualification of
that kind can be applied to excursions, in Attica, was to Cape
Colonna. Crossing the bed of the Ilissus and keeping nearer to Mount
Hymettus, the travellers arrived at Vary, a farm belonging to the
monastery of Agios Asomatos, and under the charge of a caloyer. Here
they stopped for the night, and being furnished with lights, and
attended by the caloyer's servant as a guide, they proceeded to
inspect the Paneum, or sculptured cavern in that neighbourhood, into
which they descended. Having satisfied their curiosity there, they
proceeded, in the morning, to Keratea, a small town containing about
two hundred and fifty houses, chiefly inhabited by rural Albanians.
The wetness of the weather obliged them to remain several days at
Keratea, during which they took the opportunity of a few hours of
sunshine to ascend the mountain of Parne in quest of a cave of which
many wonderful things were reported in the country. Having found the
entrance, kindled their pine torches, and taken a supply of strips of
the same wood, they let themselves down through a narrow aperture;
creeping still farther down, they came into what seemed a large
subterranean hall, arched as it were with high cupolas of crystal,
and divided into long aisles by columns of glittering spar, in some
parts spread into wide horizontal chambers, in others terminated by
the dark mouths of deep and steep abysses receding into the interior
of the mountain.
The travellers wandered from one grotto to another until they came to
a fountain of pure water, by the side of which they lingered some
time, till, observing that their torches were wasting, they resolved
to return; but after exploring the labyrinth for a few minutes, they
found themselves again close beside this mysterious spring. It was
not without reason they then became alarmed, for the guide confessed
with trepidation that he had forgotten the intricacies of the cave,
and knew not how to recover the outlet.
Byron often described this adventure with spirit and humour,
magnifying both his own and his friend's terrors; and though, of
course, there was caricature in both, yet the distinction was
characteristic. Mr Hobhouse, being of a more solid disposition
naturally, could discern nothing but a grave cause for dread in being
thus lost in the bowels of the earth; Byron, however, described his
own anxiety as a species of excitement and titillation which moved
him to laughter. Their escape from starvation and being buried alive
was truly providential.
While roaming in a state of despair from cave to cell; climbing up
narrow apertures; their last pine-torch fast consuming; totally
ignorant of their position, and all around darkness, they discovered,
as it were by accident, a ray of light gleaming towards them; they
hastened towards it, and arrived at the mouth of the cave.
Although the poet has not made any use of this incident in
description, the actual experience which it gave him of what despair
is, could not but enrich his metaphysical store, and increase his
knowledge of terrible feelings; of the workings of the darkest and
dreadest anticipations--slow famishing death--cannibalism and the
rage of self-devouring hunger.