103.]

[147] {115}[Astarte is the classical form (_vide_ Cicero, _De Natura
Deorum_, iii. 23, and Lucian, _De Syria Dea_, iv.) of Milton's

"Mooned Ashtaroth,
Heaven's queen and mother both."

Cicero says that she was married to Adonis, alluding, no doubt, to the
myth of the Phoenician Astoreth, who was at once the bride and mother of
Tammuz or Adonis.]

[bc] {116}_Or dost Qy?_--[Marginal reading in MS.]

[148] [Compare--

" ... illume
With hectic light, the Hesperus of the dead,
Of her consuming cheek the autumnal leaf-like red."

_Childe Harold_, Canto IV. stanza cii. lines 7-9.]

[149] {118}[Compare--

" ... a firm will, and a deep sense,
Which even in torture can descry
Its own concentered recompense."

_Prometheus_, iii. 55-57, _vide ante_, p. 51.]

[150] {119}[On September 22, 1816 (_Letters_, 1899, iii. 357, note 2),
Byron rode from Neuhaus, at the Interlaken end of Lake Thun, to the
Staubbach. On the way between Matten and Muellinen, not far from the
village of Wilderswyl, he passed the baronial Castle of Unspunnen, the
traditional castle of Manfred. It is "but a square tower, with flanking
round turrets, rising picturesquely above the surrounding brushwood." On
the same day and near the same spot he "passed a rock; inscription--two
brothers--one murdered the other; just the place for it." Here,
according to the Countess Guiccioli, was "the origin of _Manfred_." It
is somewhat singular that, on the appearance of _Manfred_, a paper was
published in the June number of the _Edinburgh Monthly Magazine_, 1817,
vol. i. pp. 270-273, entitled, "Sketch of a Tradition related by a Monk
in Switzerland." The narrator, who signs himself P. F., professes to
have heard the story in the autumn of 1816 from one of the fathers "of
Capuchin Friars, not far from Altorf." It is the story of the love of
two brothers for a lady with whom they had "passed their infancy." She
becomes the wife of the elder brother, and, later, inspires the younger
brother with a passion against which he struggles in vain. The fate of
the elder brother is shrouded in mystery. The lady wastes away, and her
paramour is found dead "in the same pass in which he had met his sister
among the mountains." The excuse for retelling the story is that there
appeared to be "a striking coincidence in some characteristic features
b