THE GIAOUR.
That rolls below the Athenian's grave,
That tomb[decimal 1] which, gleaming o'er the cliff,
First greets the homeward-veering skiff
High o'er the land he saved in vain;
When shall such Hero live again?
*****
Notes
- ↑ A tomb above the rocks on the promontory, by some supposed the sepulchre of Themistocles.
["There are," says Cumberland, in his Observer, "a few lines by Plato upon the tomb of Themistocles, which have a turn of elegant and pathetic simplicity in them, that deserves a better translation than I can give—"'By the sea's margin, on the watery strand, Thy monument, Themistocles, shall stand: By this directed to thy native shore, The merchant shall convey his freighted store; And when our fleets arc summoned to the fight Athens shall conquer with thy tomb in sight.'"
Note to Edition 1832.The traditional site of the tomb of Themistocles, "a rock-hewn grave on the very margin of the sea generally covered with water," adjoins the lighthouse, which stands on the westernmost promontory of the Piræus, some three quarters of a mile from the entrance to the harbour. Plutarch, in his Themistocles (cap. xxxii.), is at pains to describe the exact site of the "altar-like tomb," and quotes the passage from Plato (the comic poet, B.C. 428-389) which Cumberland paraphrases. Byron and Hobhouse "made the complete circuit of the peninsula of Munychia," January 18, 1810.—Travels in Albania, 1858, i. 317, 318.]
