The works of Lord Byron A new, revised and enlarged edition, with illustrations. Edited by Ernest Hartley Coleridge and R. E. Prothero |
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MAID OF ATHENS, ERE WE PART. |
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 | The works of Lord Byron |  |
MAID OF ATHENS, ERE WE PART.
1
Maid of Athens, ere we part,Give, oh give me back my heart!
Keep it now, and take the rest!
Hear my vow before I go,
Ζωη μου, σας αγαπω.
2
By those tresses unconfined,Wooed by each Ægean wind;
Kiss thy soft cheeks' blooming tinge;
By those wild eyes like the roe,
Ζωη μου, σας αγαπω.
3
By that lip I long to taste;By that zone-encircled waist;
By all the token-flowers that tell
What words can never speak so well;
By love's alternate joy and woe,
Ζωη μου, σας αγαπω.
4
Maid of Athens! I am gone:Think of me, sweet! when alone.
Though I fly to Istambol,
Athens holds my heart and soul:
Can I cease to love thee? No!
Ζωη μου, σας αγαπω.
Romaic expression of tenderness. If I translate it, I shall affront the gentlemen, as it may seem that I supposed they could not; and if I do not, I may affront the ladies. For fear of any misconstruction on the part of the latter, I shall do so, begging pardon of the learned. It means, “My life, I love you!” which sounds very prettily in all languages, and is as much in fashion in Greece at this day as, Juvenal tells us, the two first words were amongst the Roman ladies, whose erotic expressions were all Hellenised.
In the East (where ladies are not taught to write, lest they should scribble assignations), flowers, cinders, pebbles, etc., convey the sentiments of the parties, by that universal deputy of Mercury— an old woman. A cinder says, “I burn for thee;” a bunch of flowers tied with hair, “Take me and fly;” but a pebble declares— what nothing else can.
| The works of Lord Byron | |