# The Works of Lord Byron (ed. Coleridge, Prothero)/Poetry/Volume 3/The Giaour

INTRODUCTION TO THE GIAOUR.
In a letter to Murray, dated Pisa, December 12, 1821 (Life, p. 545), Byron avows that the "Giaour Story" had actually "some foundation on facts." Soon after the poem appeared (June 5, 1813), "a story was circulated by some gentlewomen . . . a little too close to the text" (Letter to Moore, September 1, 1813, Letters, 1898, ii. 258), and in order to put himself right with his friends or posterity, Byron wrote to his friend Lord Sligo, who in July, 1810, was anchored off Athens in "a twelve-gun brig, with a crew of fifty men" (see Letters, 1898, i. 289, note 1), requesting him to put on paper not so much the narrative of an actual event, but "what he had heard at Athens about the affair of that girl who was so near being put an end to while you were there." According to the letter which Moore published (Life, p. 178), and which is reprinted in the present issue (Letters, 1898, ii. 257), Byron interposed on behalf of a girl, who "in compliance with the strict letter of the Mohammedan law," had been sewn in a sack and was about to be thrown into the sea. "I was told," adds Lord Sligo, "that you then conveyed her in safety to the convent, and despatched her off at night to Thebes." The letter, which Byron characterizes as "curious," is by no means conclusive, and to judge from the designedly mysterious references in the Journal, dated November 16 and December 5, and in the second postscript to a letter to Professor Clarke, dated December 15, 1813 (Letters, 1898, ii. 321, 361, 311), "the circumstances which were the groundwork" are not before us. "An event," says John Wright (ed. 1832, ix. 145), "in which Lord Byron was personally concerned, undoubtedly supplied the groundwork of this tale; but for the ​story so circumstantially set forth (see Medwin's Conversations, 1824, pp. 121, 124) of his having been the lover of this female slave, there is no foundation. The girl whose life the poet saved at Athens was not, we are assured by Sir John Hobhouse {Westminster Review, January, 1825, iii. 27), an object of his Lordship's attachment, but of that of his Turkish servant." Nevertheless, whatever Byron may have told Hobhouse (who had returned to England), and he distinctly says (Letters, 1898, ii. 393) that he did not tell him everything, he avowed to Clarke that he had been led "to the water's edge," and confided to his diary that to "describe the feelings of that situation was impossible—it is icy even to recollect them."
For the allusive and fragmentary style of the Giaour, The Voyage of Columbus, which Rogers published in 1812, is in part responsible. "It is sudden in its transitions," wrote the author, in the Preface to the first edition, ". . . leaving much to be imagined by the reader." The story or a part of it is told by a fellow-seaman of Columbus, who had turned "eremite" in his old age, and though the narrative itself is in heroic verse, the prologue and epilogue, as they may be termed, are in "the romance or ballad-measure of the Spanish." The resemblance between the two poems is certainly more than accidental. On the other hand, a vivid and impassioned description of Oriental scenery and customs was, as Gifford observed, new and original, and though, by his own admission, Byron was indebted to Vathek (or rather S. Henley's notes to Vathek) and to D'Herbelot's Bibliothéque Orientale for allusions and details, the "atmosphere" could only have been reproduced by the creative fancy of an observant and enthusiastic traveller who had lived under Eastern skies, and had come within ken of Eastern life and sentiment.
In spite, however, of his love for the subject-matter of his poem, and the facility, surprising even to himself, with which he spun his rhymes, Byron could not persuade himself that a succession of fragments would sort themselves and grow into a complete and connected whole. If his thrice-repeated depreciation of the Giaour is not entirely genuine, it is plain that he misdoubted himself. Writing to Murray (August 26, ​1813) he says, "I have, but with some difficulty, not added any more to this snake of a poem, which has been lengthening its rattles every month;" to Moore (September 1), "The Giaour I have added to a good deal, but still in foolish fragments;" and, again, to Moore (September 8), "By the coach I send you a copy of that awful pamphlet the Giaour."
But while the author doubted and apologized, or deprecated "his love's excess In words of wrong and bitterness," the public read, and edition followed edition with bewildering speed.
The Giaour was reviewed by George Ellis in the Quarterly (No. xxxi., January, 1813 [published February 11, 1813]) and in the Edinburgh Review by Jeffrey (No. 54, January, 1813 [published February 24, 1813]).
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE ON THE GIAOUR.
The bibliography of the Giaour is beset with difficulties, and it is doubtful if more than approximate accuracy can be secured. The composition of the entire poem in its present shape was accomplished within six months, May—November, 1813, but during that period it was expanded by successive accretions from a first draft of 407 lines (extant in MS.) to a seventh edition of 1334 lines. A proof is extant of an edition of 28 pages containing 460 lines, itself an enlargement on the MS.; but whether (as a note in the handwriting of the late Mr. Murray affirms) this was or was not published is uncertain. A portion of a second proof of 38 pages has been preserved, but of the publication of the poem in this state there is no record. On June 5 a first edition of 41 pages, containing 685 lines, was issued, and of this numerous copies are extant. At the end of June, or the beginning of July, 1813, a second edition, entitled, a "New Edition with some Additions," appeared. This consisted of 47 pages, and numbered 816 lines. Among the accretions is to be found the famous passage beginning, "He who hath bent him o'er the dead." Two MS. copies of his pannus vere purpureus are in Mr. Murray's possession. At the end of July, and during the first half of August, two or more issues of a third edition were set up in type. The first issue amounted to 53 pages, containing 950 lines, was certainly published in this form, and possibly a second issue of 56 pages, containing 1004 lines, may have followed at a brief interval. A revise of this second issue, dated August 13, is extant. In the last fortnight of August a fourth edition of 58 pages, containing 1048 lines, undoubtedly saw the light. Scarcely more than a few days can have elapsed before a fifth edition of 66 pages, ​containing 1215 lines, was ready to supplant the fourth edition. A sixth edition, a reproduction of the fifth, may have appeared in October. A seventh edition of 75 pages, containing 1334 lines, which presented the poem in its final shape, was issued subsequently to November 27, 1813 (a seventh edition was advertised in the Morning Chronicle, December 22, 1813), the date of the last revise, or of an advance copy of the issue. The ninth, tenth, eleventh, and twelfth editions belong to 1814, while a fourteenth edition is known to have been issued in 1815. In that year and hence-forward the Giaour was included in the various collected editions of Byron's works. The subjoined table assigns to their several editions the successive accretions in their order as now published:—
| Lines. | Giaour.Edition of——— |
| 0001—0006. | MS. First edition of 28 pages. |
| 0007—0020. | Second edition. [47 pages, 816 lines.] Approximate date, June 24, 1813. |
| 0021—0045. | Third edition. [53 pages, 950 lines.] July 30, 1813. |
| 0046—0102. | Second edition. |
| 0103—0167. | Fifth edition. [66 pages, 1215 lines.] August 25, 1813. |
| 0168—0199. | MS. First edition of 28 pages. |
| 0200—0250. | Third edition. |
| 0251—0252. | Seventh edition. [75 pages, 1334 lines.] November 27, 1813. |
| 0253—0276. | Third edition. |
| 0277—0287. | MS. First edition of 28 pages. |
| 0288—0351. | Third edition. (Second issue?) August 11, 1813. [56 pages, 1004,? 1014 lines.] |
| 0352—0503. | MS. First edition of 28 pages. |
| 0504—0518. | Third edition. |
| 0519—0619. | MS. First edition of 28 pages. |
| 0620—0654. | Second edition. |
| 0655—0688. | MS. First edition of 28 pages. |
| 0689—0722. | Fourth edition. [58 pages, 1048 lines.] August 19. |
| 0723—0737. | MS. First edition of 28 pages. 733-4 not in the MS., but in First edition of 28 pages. ​ |
| 0738—0745. | First edition of 41 pages. June 5, 1813. |
| 0746—0786. | First edition of 28 pages. Not in the MS. |
| 0787—0831. | MS. First edition of 28 pages. |
| 0832—0915. | Seventh edition. |
| 0916—0998. | First edition of 41 pages. 937-970 no MS. |
| 0999—1023. | Second edition. |
| 1024—1028. | Seventh edition. |
| 1029—1079. | First edition of 41 pages. |
| 1080—1098. | Third edition. |
| 1099—1125. | First edition of 41 pages. |
| 1126—1130. | Seventh edition. |
| 1131—1191. | Fifth edition. |
| 1192—1217. | Seventh edition. |
| 1218—1256. | Fifth edition. |
| 1257—1318. | First edition of 41 pages. |
| 1319—1334. | MS. First edition of 28 pages. |
Note.
The first edition is advertised in the Morning Chronicle, June 5; a third edition on August 11, 13, 16, 31; a fifth edition, with considerable additions, on September 11; on November 29 a "new edition;" and on December 27, 1813, a seventh edition, together with a repeated notice of the Bride of Abydos. These dates do not exactly correspond with Murray's contemporary memoranda of the dates of the successive issues.
TO
SAMUEL ROGERS, ESQ.
AS A SLIGHT BUT MOST SINCERE TOKEN
OF ADMIRATION OF HIS GENIUS,
RESPECT FOR HIS CHARACTER,
AND GRATITUDE FOR HIS FRIENDSHIP,
THIS PRODUCTION IS INSCRIBED
BY HIS OBLIGED
AND AFFECTIONATE SERVANT,
BYRON.
London, May, 1813.
ADVERTISEMENT.
The tale which these disjointed fragments present, is founded upon circumstances now less common in the East than formerly; either because the ladies are more circumspect than in the "olden time," or because the Christians have better fortune, or less enterprise. The story, when entire, contained the adventures of a female slave, who was thrown, in the Mussulman manner, into the sea for infidelity, and avenged by a young Venetian, her lover, at the time the Seven Islands were possessed by the Republic of Venice, and soon after the Arnauts were beaten back from the Morea, which they had ravaged for some time subsequent to the Russian invasion. The desertion of the Mainotes, on being refused the plunder of Misitra, led to the abandonment of that enterprise, and to the desolation of the Morea, during which the cruelty exercised on all sides was unparalleled even in the annals of the faithful.
THE GIAOUR.
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