The end, in Missolonghi, Greece was sad - Byron was bled to death by doctors who knew no better. The beginning, born in Aberdeen and attended Cambridge, was often uproarious but the man lived most of his thirty six years in exile. Some of his finest moments were spent in Venice.
The poet would swim home from evening engagements along the Grand Canal. His valet would accompany him in a gondola, holding his clothes. As Byron scholars will tell you, his complex about his club foot had contributed to his skill as a swimmer. In the water he gained grace - even in the waters of the Grand Canal.
He first came to Venice in 1816 at the age of 28. Byron described Venice as, next to the East, "the greenest island of my imagination". His first sojourn was fairly discreet by Byronic standards. He taught himself Armenian, attended performances at La Fenice opera - 'the finest I have ever seen.' By the time of his second visit in 1818, he was a celebrity- a superstar poet.
His friend, Hoppner, the British Consul describes British tourists in Venice, "eyeing him as they would a statue in a museum." Byron had at one point boasted of having a different woman on 200 consecutive evenings during his Venice stay which probably accounts for a lot of the fascination. But the man found time to work. Childe Harold's Pilgrimage Canto IV with its famous opening line:
"I stood in Venice on the "Bridge of Sighs",
A Palace and prison on each hand,"
was composed during this time. Ever the exile, Byron did not stand in Venice for long. By 1819 he was gone.
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