Selections from Byron: The prisoner of Chillon, Mazeppa, and other poems: ed., with introduction and notes . lding, rendered famous by his genius, Byron lays the scene of hi:Prisoner of Chillon. The hero of the poem is an entirely fictitiouipersonage, whose dreadful captivity bears little resemblance to thaof Bonnivard, although the latter is often and wrongly supposed t<be the hero. But Byron himself says in the advertisement prefixed to The Prisoner of Chillon : When this poem was composedwas not sufficiently aware of the history of Bonnivard, or I shoulihave endeavoured to dignify the su
Selections from Byron: The prisoner of Chillon, Mazeppa, and other poems: ed., with introduction and notes . lding, rendered famous by his genius, Byron lays the scene of hi:Prisoner of Chillon. The hero of the poem is an entirely fictitiouipersonage, whose dreadful captivity bears little resemblance to thaof Bonnivard, although the latter is often and wrongly supposed t<be the hero. But Byron himself says in the advertisement prefixed to The Prisoner of Chillon : When this poem was composedwas not sufficiently aware of the history of Bonnivard, or I shoulihave endeavoured to dignify the subject by an attempt to celebrathis courage and his virtues. But, although the whole story is purely imaginary, we must alloithe poem —in addition to its high poetic truth— a certain measurof historical probability, when we remember the deeds done in th:days of religious intolerance and persecution, before men had learne*to acknowledge the freedom of the individual conscience. Byron wrote The Prisoner of Chillon in two days —June 26 and1816, while detained by bad weather at the village of Ouchy, ne. < OF CHILLONExterior THE PRISONER OF CHILLON 19 Bausanne. In dignity of theme and in descriptive power it far sur-passes any of the narrative poems preceded it. The hopelesscaptivity, the deaths of the two young brothers, the prisoners grief,lis unconsciousness of time and space in A sea of stagnant idleness, Blind, boundless, mute, and motionless; the carol of the bird arousing him from his despair, his contentmentwith captivity, and at last — the crown of his desolation — his regain-ing his freedom with a sigh,— all these are scenes that could beadequately pictured only by the hand of a great master. MY hair is grey, but not with years,Nor grew it whiteIn a single night,As mens have grown from sudden fears:My limbs are bowed, though not with toil, But rusted with a vile repose,For they have been a dungeons spoil, And mine has been the fate of thoseTo who
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