with loathing strangely mixed,
On wild or hateful objects fixed.
Fantastic passions! maddening brawl!
And shame and terror over all!"]

[25] {79}[For the story of Semiramis and Ninya, see _Justinus Hist_.,
lib. i. cap. ii.]

[26] {81}[See Diod. Siculi _Bibl. Hist._, lib. ii. 80 c. Cotta was not a
kinsman, but a loyal tributary.]

[af] {82} The MS. inserts--(_But I speak only of such as are virtuous_.)

[27] [Byron must often have pictured to himself an unexpected meeting
with his wife. In certain moods he would write letters to her which were
never sent, or never reached her hands. The scene between Sardanapalus
and Zarina reflects the sentiments contained in one such letter, dated
November 17, 1821, which Moore printed in his _Life_, pp. 581, 582. See
_Letters_, 1901, v. 479.]

[ag] {84} _Bravely and won wear wisely--not as I_.--[MS. M, erased.]

[ah] {88}

_Which thou hast lighted up at once? but leavest_
_One to grieve o'er the other's change--Zarina_.-[MS. M, erased.]

[ai] {89} ----_natural_.--[MS. M. The first edition reads "mutual."]

[aj] {91} _Is heavier sorrow than the wrong which_--[MS. M. erased.]

[ak] {93} _A leech's lancet would have done as much_.--[MS. M. erased.]

[28] {94}[Myrrha's apostrophe to the sunrise may be compared with the
famous waking vision of the "Solitary" in the Second Book of the
_Excursion_ (_Works of Wordsworth_, 1889, p. 439)--

"The appearance, instantaneously disclosed,
Was of a mighty city--boldly say
A wilderness of building, sinking far
And self-withdrawn into a boundless depth,
Far sinking into splendour--without end!
Fabric it seemed of diamond and of gold,
With alabaster domes, and silver spires,
And blazing terrace upon terrace, high
Uplifted."

But the difference, even in form, between the two passages is more
remarkable than the resemblance, and the interpretation, the moral of
Byron's vision is distinct from, if not alien to, Wordsworth's. The
"Solitary" sees all heaven opened; the revealed abode of spirits in
beatitude--a refuge and a redemption from "this low world of care;"
while Myrrha drinks in "enough of heaven," a medicament of "Sorrow and
of Love," for the invigoration of "the common, heavy, human hours" of
mortal existence. For a charge of "imitation," see _Works of Lord
Byron_, 1832, xiii. 172, note I. See, too, _Poetical Works, etc._, 1891,
p. 271, note 2.]

[al] {95}

_Sunrise