The Curse of Minerva *

Parthenon by Costa-Gavras
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aGitmYl6U90&spfreload=10


約4分30秒起開始朗誦
The Curse of Minerva ^*

by George Gordon, Lord Byron

(composed: 17 March 1811, Athens)

http://mykeep.com/lordbyron/curseofminerva.html

：89行起：

1.   “Mortal!”—’twas thus she spake—“that blush of shame
2.   Proclaims thee Briton, once a noble name;
3.      First of the mighty, foremost of the free,
4.      Now honour’d less by all, and least by me;
5.   Chief of thy foes shall Pallas still be found.
6.   Seek’st thou the cause of loathing?—look around.
7.      Lo! here, despite of war and wasting fire,
8.      I saw successive tyrannies expire.
9.   ’Scaped from the ravage of the Turk and Goth,
10.   Thy country sends a spoiler worse than both.
11.      Survey this vacant, violated fane;
12.      Recount the relics torn that yet remain:
13.   These Cecrops placed, this Pericles adorn’d,
14.   That Adrian rear’d when drooping Science mourn’d.
15.      What more I owe let gratitude attest—
16.      Know, Alaric and Elgin did the rest.
17.   That all may learn from whence the plunderer came,
18.   The insulted wall sustains his hated name:
19.   For Elgin’s fame thus grateful Pallas pleads,
20.   Below, his name—above, behold his deeds!
21.      Be ever hailed with equal honour here
22.      The Gothic monarch and the Pictish peer:
23.   arms gave the first his right, the last had none,
24.   But basely stole what less barbarians won.
25.      So when the lion quits his fell repast,
26.      Next prowls the wolf, the filthy jackal last;
27.   Flesh, limbs, and blood the former make their own,
28.   The last poor brute securely gnaws the bone.
29.      Yet still the gods are just, and crimes are cross’d:
30.      See here what Elgin won, and what he lost!
31.   Another name with his pollutes my shrine:
32.   Behold where Dian’s beams disdain to shine!
33.      Some retribution still might Pallas claim,
34.      When Venus half avenged Minerva’s shame.”
35.   She ceased awhile, and thus I dared reply,
36.   To soothe the vengeance kindling in her eye:
37.      “Daughter of Jove! in Britain’s injured name,
38.      A true-born Briton may the deed disclaim.
39.   Frown not on England; England owns him not:
40.   Athena, no! thy plunderer was a Scot.
41.      Ask’st thou the difference? From fair Phyles’ towers
42.      Survey Bœotia;—Caledonia’s ours.
43.   And well I know within that bastard land
44.   Hath Wisdom’s goddess never held command;
45.      A barren soil, where Nature’s germs, confined
46.      To stern sterility, can stint the mind;
47.   Whose thistle well betrays the niggard earth,
48.   Emblem of all to whom the land gives birth;
49.      Each genial influence nurtured to resist;
50.      A land of meanness, sophistry, and mist.
51.   Each breeze from foggy mount and marshy plain
52.   Dilutes with drivel every drizzly brain,
53.      Till, burst at length, each wat’ry head o’er-flows,
54.      Foul as their soil, and frigid as their snows.
55.   Then thousand schemes of petulance and pride
56.   Despatch her scheming children far and wide:
57.      Some east, some west, some everywhere but north,
58.      In quest of lawless gain, they issue forth.
59.   And thus—accursed be the day and year!
60.      Yet Caledonia claims some native worth,
61.      As dull Bœotia gave a Pindar birth;
62.   So may her few, the letter’d and the brave,
63.   Bound to no clime, and victors of the grave,
64.      Shake off the sordid dust of such a land,
65.      And shine like children of a happier strand;
66.   As once, of yore, in some obnoxious place,
67.   Ten names (if found) had saved a wretched race.”