The Podcast of the Lotus Eaters - August 08, 2026


PREVIEW： Chronicles #58 ｜ Childe Harold's Pilgrimage with Rory： Part II


Episode Stats


Length

24 minutes

Words per minute

153.76

Word count

3,782

Sentence count

142

Harmful content

Misogyny

4

sentences flagged

Toxicity

2

sentences flagged

Hate speech

42

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Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
Toxicity classifications generated with s-nlp/roberta_toxicity_classifier .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
00:00:00.000 So then we come to Canto II, as it's laid out here. Now obviously, just to say, these first
00:00:20.640 two cantos were written simultaneously and published both together in 1812. And actually,
00:00:27.440 at the very end of the second canto he says something along the lines of oh and if you'd
00:00:33.680 like to read more about child harold's uh pilgrimage then perhaps the writer might
00:00:40.160 in the future revisit it which he obviously goes on to do but these are written in very
00:00:45.640 different personal circumstances to the later can quite different voicing as well yes definitely
00:00:50.680 so of course those later cantos were written under very different personal circumstances
00:00:55.920 But for this one, you immediately feel the passion of it because, of course, Byron was, for all intents and purposes, a phile hyrenic.
00:01:05.920 He was someone who adored Greece. He adored antiquity.
00:01:10.920 Well, basically every stanza in this poem has got a reference or two to ancient Greece.
00:01:17.920 Yeah. And so him coming to Greece for the first time and seeing the genuine dismay
00:01:27.660 and the broken spirit of the Greek people after 400 years of Ottoman Turk occupation
00:01:37.620 was really crushing to him. He hated to see a people who had not just been once proud and 0.92
00:01:45.640 innovative but as far as he saw the cradle of all that was good and moral and you know and the arts
00:01:54.140 the literature the cultural developments that greece obviously contributed to uh its political
00:01:59.460 representation in athenian democracy all of these sorts of things byron obviously doted on yeah and
00:02:05.440 so to see them all bastardized and taken away and one of the things that he he comments on um
00:02:11.500 And originally, because these first few stanzas, he starts talking about the Acropolis in Athens. 0.83
00:02:18.520 And one of the things that I think is actually very cutting is the fact that it's not that the Turk is going around desecrating these places. 0.88
00:02:29.320 It's the fact that he's indifferent to them. 0.96
00:02:31.320 Yes.
00:02:31.620 Because they're not his civilization.
00:02:33.560 It's not his people's achievements.
00:02:35.900 Stanza.
00:02:36.560 Sorry, if you want to start over, I'm going to read out stanza 10.
00:02:39.660 Sure.
00:02:39.960 here let me sit upon this massy stone the marble columns yet unshaken base here son of saturn was
00:02:46.340 thy favorite throne mightiest of many such hence let me trace the latent grandeur of thy dwelling
00:02:51.920 place it may not be nor even can fancy's eye restore what time hath labored to deface yet
00:02:57.880 these proud pillars claim no passing sight unmoved the muslim sits the light greek carols by so it's 0.99
00:03:04.560 Not only the Turks, it's the Greeks as well, who are indifferent. 0.99
00:03:09.080 If you've read Island of Four, you'll know what the Fellaheen are. 1.00
00:03:13.860 Yeah, I might.
00:03:14.780 That is the Fellaheen right there.
00:03:16.620 Right.
00:03:16.840 Which, again, goes on to be developed by Spengler.
00:03:20.720 And the beat poets took that up in the 50s and 60s.
00:03:25.680 Jacques, Karak, especially.
00:03:28.180 Just people who've been entirely removed from any sense of history.
00:03:33.800 or their presence in it.
00:03:35.760 They do not understand the context.
00:03:37.040 The goat herd is on the roaming forum and all that. 1.00
00:03:43.600 But obviously, this is entirely helpful for the occupying Ottomans 0.97
00:03:49.980 because it's in actually recovering,
00:03:53.060 and this is what Byron invokes throughout this canto time and time again,
00:03:56.980 remember who you are, remember your history, remember your strength,
00:04:01.440 remember what you're able to achieve because he wants some he wants to snap them out of that
00:04:08.540 malaise that fellahine state marx sorry spring it's marx uh i'll bring the bring the conversation
00:04:16.200 down but marx this is where marx traces for marx there's two romantic poets really byron and
00:04:25.300 Percy Shelley
00:04:26.320 and this is
00:04:28.540 where he sees
00:04:30.040 in Byron
00:04:30.600 if Byron had lived
00:04:32.240 Byron would have
00:04:34.260 become a conservative
00:04:35.040 this kind of
00:04:37.680 he would have become 1.00
00:04:38.360 the Spenglarian 0.94
00:04:39.300 yes 0.97
00:04:39.780 right
00:04:40.280 Marx didn't say that
00:04:41.760 because obviously
00:04:42.160 Spenglar was after Marx
00:04:43.140 but that's what
00:04:43.880 Byron would have become
00:04:45.380 he would have become
00:04:46.200 a reactionary
00:04:46.940 as Coleridge did
00:04:49.560 in his later life
00:04:50.580 and Marx sees
00:04:51.240 it as a good thing
00:04:52.760 that he died 0.57
00:04:53.200 when he did
00:04:53.740 because he didn't
00:04:55.040 devolve into that, as opposed to Shelley, who was on his way to and would have become
00:05:00.160 a revolutionary, right?
00:05:02.500 Because Marx sees Shelley as the revolutionary out of the two of them, and that's where his
00:05:08.640 thought was going.
00:05:09.740 Yeah, that's very interesting.
00:05:10.980 And you can see evidence for that throughout, particularly Canto 2.
00:05:15.280 Yeah, definitely.
00:05:16.360 So let's start here.
00:05:17.380 so he's at the um the acropolis in athens and he begins the second canto by saying in the second
00:05:25.860 stanza of it ancient of days august athena where where are thy men of might thy grand in soul
00:05:33.320 gone glimmering through the dream of things that were first in the race that led to glory's goal
00:05:40.000 they won and passed away is this the hole a schoolboy's tale the wonder of an hour the
00:05:46.560 warrior's weapon and the sophist stole are sought in vain and o'er each moldering tower dim with the
00:05:53.040 mist of years gray flits the shade of power sun of the morning rise approach you here come but
00:06:01.600 molest not yon defenseless urn look on this spot a nation's sepulchre abode of gods whose shrines
00:06:09.040 no longer burn even gods must yield religions take their turn twas joves tis mahomets and other
00:06:17.460 creeds will rise with other years till man shall learn vainly his incense soars his victim bleeds
00:06:25.180 poor child of doubt and death whose hope is built on reeds tremendous just absolutely tremendous
00:06:32.440 and i i love the fact that he's also appealing to the fact here he's invoking the old olympian
00:06:38.560 gods right his ain't those old pagan rituals and worship and he's saying even these almighty zeus
00:06:48.000 once thought to be eternal and governor of all of all the world even he is where are they now
00:06:55.360 where are they now with these abandoned temples all of these things you know fallen into disrepute
00:07:00.960 no one's worshiping there anymore because no one believes and again so it just speaks to that that
00:07:06.320 consistent theme of the poem of just a state of impermanence and the fragility marks all that
00:07:11.840 solid turns to dust yeah the fragility of civilization yeah i mean it's all there and
00:07:17.440 as well as they say the um that um you know the race that led to glory's goal you know in his eyes
00:07:25.200 the first to achieve something to be truly proud of um i mean to be fair here i i think once again
00:07:34.640 This speaks to Byron's biases, and he certainly has.
00:07:42.260 On the one hand, in Canto 1, you get a total departure from idealism.
00:07:48.680 He's just looking at things in grim reality. 0.94
00:07:51.200 Whereas when he's dealing with the Greeks, it's all romance.
00:07:55.300 It's all, oh, you were the first people, you were so freeing, you fought the Persians, 0.73
00:07:59.480 as if the Athenians didn't start colonies around the entirety of the Mediterranean.
00:08:04.540 It's more like a displaced idealism because fundamentally, he thinks the Greeks can be reborn and return to what they were.
00:08:14.520 But right now, he's dealing with the horror of how far they've fallen, really.
00:08:24.860 Yeah, it's a grievous wound to him.
00:08:27.900 The gods have disappeared. He's trying to call the Greek to remember himself.
00:08:32.680 he's begging them to wake up in a sense he then another momentum or he comes into this which
00:08:40.300 probably my favorite one out of the entire piece yeah and the one that's most deliberate i think
00:08:46.800 he says bear in mind there's always all these remnants of greek civilization around and yes
00:08:52.340 why not in sansa five or burst the vanished heroes lofty mound far on the solitary shore he sleeps
00:08:58.540 he fell and falling nations mourned around but now not one of the seven thousand weeps nor warlike
00:09:04.900 worshiper his vigil keeps where demigods appeared as records tell remove yon skull from out of the
00:09:10.200 scattered heaps is that a temple where a god may dwell why even the worm at last disdains her
00:09:15.240 shattered cell so he's saying this king under the mound or whoever this person was this person who
00:09:21.780 represented a concrete institution, something concrete back then. Now even his skull, which is
00:09:28.800 the kind of seat of the soul, the seat of the mind, is now occupied by a worm who doesn't even 0.72
00:09:34.160 recognize it as a skull. Yeah, it's powerful imagery. And also as well, you get to the point
00:09:42.280 where, especially with that part about where it says, but now not one of saddening thousands weep.
00:09:48.980 And this is not just true of Greece as well.
00:09:51.740 This is obviously true of the entire Christian world.
00:09:56.480 In 1453, with the fall of Constantinople to, you know, 0.68
00:10:01.740 Mehmed II, obviously the entire Christian world
00:10:05.640 fell into a state of shock and despair. 0.94
00:10:08.900 Now, why the shock?
00:10:10.740 I'm not entirely sure, given that the writing was on the wall
00:10:13.940 and there'd been options available for decades
00:10:16.780 to try and help the Byzantines who were obviously dwindling to this final rump of an empire
00:10:23.740 that had once stood since Rome.
00:10:27.080 Well, I mean, you could make the argument the Catholic Church didn't want it to survive.
00:10:30.840 Well, you could also make the argument, I suppose, that if the Catholic Church forced it to survive,
00:10:36.000 they could change the religion of it.
00:10:38.720 But nonetheless, anyway, one for the historians.
00:10:41.280 The point is that this entire idea of weeping, this passivity that has now entirely gone about,
00:10:51.000 and also as well, this idea that certain events seem to happen in history, and 1453 is a great
00:10:58.180 example of this, where this, I mean, for many historians, that moment marks the beginning of
00:11:06.080 the early modern period, right? It is the end of the medieval age.
00:11:09.980 the end of the medieval age and the beginning of the early modern, and by extent, the beginning of
00:11:15.280 the time period of modernism, of modern life that we now too are but vessels of. And also the fact
00:11:24.460 that, well, in all of this weeping, where are Latias 400 years on for Greece now after it got
00:11:31.340 captured by the Ottomans? He's talking about the fact that all of these civilizations, not just
00:11:37.320 Greece, but all of them around, who by rights should have every interest in seeing a free 1.00
00:11:44.480 and independent Greece, not only because you obviously want to weaken a powerful Muslim 0.99
00:11:50.860 empire, but also as well, are we so uncaring about the Western cradle of civilization that 0.94
00:11:59.260 we would leave it in the hands of these Turks, that we would leave the Greeks in a state 0.97
00:12:06.500 of slavery and submission, does Greece mean so little to us 1.00
00:12:10.640 that we wouldn't shed a tear over that being its future
00:12:14.300 as it has been for the past 400 years?
00:12:17.520 And so I think it's not just a critique of the Greek spirit
00:12:20.960 and their lack of willingness to rebel,
00:12:23.140 though of course it is right around the corner,
00:12:25.060 nor of the Ottomans, but also of the wider West
00:12:27.640 and its ambivalence about the future of Greece.
00:12:32.260 Sorry to use a pun, but it opens a whole can of worms
00:12:34.660 as to whether Greece was really of the West.
00:12:38.660 And this is what Spengler and all these people since have contended with.
00:12:44.140 Is the West we know as Western Europe, Britain, Germany, France,
00:12:51.960 is that the same thing as Greece?
00:12:55.020 Is it of the same lineage or is it something entirely different,
00:12:58.980 although carrying over the philosophy and the artworks and what else?
00:13:04.380 Well, I mean, that's a question that obviously comes to be answered
00:13:07.420 just after Byron's lifetime, I suppose.
00:13:10.380 Yeah, yeah.
00:13:11.020 With all of the Western powers, France and Britain, finally intervening.
00:13:15.260 And let's not deny it.
00:13:17.120 I'm not saying it was all of the reason,
00:13:19.740 but for better or worse,
00:13:21.880 to come back to what you were saying about Marx and Byron,
00:13:24.700 the fact that Byron did die at Missolonghi
00:13:28.520 in the Greek War of Independence,
00:13:31.380 and the fact that he hadn't been back to Britain,
00:13:35.340 he'd personally self-exiled himself from it for nearly a decade,
00:13:40.160 is the fact that the public anguish at the fact that this man
00:13:43.540 had thrown himself into what was seen as such a pure
00:13:46.780 and glorious and noble moment of rebellion,
00:13:52.120 was something that plagued on the public's heartstrings
00:13:55.700 enough to kind of galvanise public sentiment in Britain
00:14:00.100 for the Greek War of Independence and the Allies interceding in it.
00:14:04.980 There is a strain of thinking.
00:14:06.760 There always is.
00:14:07.900 Which I've seen, which is that Byron was actually a British intelligence asset.
00:14:13.360 And he was there essentially as a spy.
00:14:16.320 He's basically James Bond already.
00:14:18.060 Yeah, yeah.
00:14:18.620 So he was there for a specific reason,
00:14:21.620 and this was something the British wanted to do.
00:14:24.380 So there is a kind of materialist geopolitical lens you could put onto it
00:14:28.940 and say, actually, he was there
00:14:31.200 because they were going to intervene anyway.
00:14:35.800 You could, but whenever we get into discussions like that...
00:14:39.820 I don't want to get into that.
00:14:41.220 I'm just saying.
00:14:42.800 Normally, we have those sorts of discussions
00:14:44.820 over a few pints at the pub
00:14:47.080 about whether or not there was a materialistic reason,
00:14:50.380 an economic reason,
00:14:51.680 or whether there was more of a sentimental virtue
00:14:55.220 for something.
00:14:56.480 It's probably a bit of both.
00:14:57.360 It's a bit of both.
00:14:58.260 Of course it is.
00:14:58.940 Because I don't think anyone can deny the fact that Byron didn't believe.
00:15:02.460 Oh, no, no, 100%.
00:15:04.780 So we come, anyway, so what we were going to say was,
00:15:07.820 then we get to a part where he turns his pen against the British again.
00:15:13.740 In Stansory 11, where he says,
00:15:16.380 But who, of all the plunderers of yon Thane,
00:15:19.340 On high where Pelas lingered, loath to flee? 1.00
00:15:22.860 The latest relic of her ancient reign,
00:15:25.340 The last, the worst, dull spoiler,
00:15:28.060 Who was he?
00:15:29.500 Blush, Caledonia, such thy son could be. 1.00
00:15:32.700 England, I joy no child he was of thine.
00:15:35.960 Thy free-born men could spare what once was free.
00:15:39.680 Yet they could violate each saddening shrine,
00:15:42.500 And bear these altars o'er the long reluctant brine.
00:15:46.040 But most modern pyxig noble boast 0.90
00:15:48.520 To writhe what Goth and Turk and time hath spared. 0.98
00:15:52.520 Cold as a crag upon his native coast, 0.96
00:15:54.860 His mind as barren and his heart as hard,
00:15:57.760 is he whose head conceived, whose hand prepared, ought to displace Athena's poor remains,
00:16:04.200 her sons too weak the sacred shine to guard, yet felt some portion of their mother's pains,
00:16:09.900 and never knew till then the weight of despot's chains. What, shall it ere be said by British
00:16:17.540 tongue, Albion was happy in Athena's tears, though in thy name the slaves her bosom wrung,
00:16:23.580 Till not the deed to blushing Europe's ears
00:16:26.420 The ocean queen, the free Britannia
00:16:28.980 Bears the last poor plunderer from a bleeding land 0.98
00:16:32.300 Yes, she, whose generous aid her name endears 1.00
00:16:36.880 Tore down those remnants with a harpy's hand 1.00
00:16:39.800 Which envious eld forbore and tyrants left to stand 1.00
00:16:43.940 It's powerful stuff
00:16:45.420 For those of you who couldn't quite follow along with the floweriness of his language
00:16:49.880 He's talking about the Elgin marbles
00:16:51.780 He's talking about Elgin
00:16:52.980 Right, and Elgin specifically.
00:16:55.160 Blush Caledonia.
00:16:56.060 The Caledonia.
00:16:57.000 Such thy son could be. 1.00
00:16:58.180 The Pict.
00:16:59.240 Bloody Picts, eh, Rory?
00:17:00.960 As a fellow Picts, I do not like Elgin.
00:17:04.960 But he's calling out the removal of the Elgin marbles, right,
00:17:09.280 and taking them back to Britain,
00:17:11.160 which at the time of writing this had only happened about a decade prior.
00:17:14.820 Yeah.
00:17:15.600 And he's really, and I have to say, I entirely agree with Byron on this point.
00:17:21.140 I do.
00:17:21.720 What he's saying is, look, this is a land that is already at its lowest low.
00:17:28.460 It is already a land that is at the depths of a lack of self-belief, a lack of spirit, a lack of vitality,
00:17:37.820 no consideration for its former glories or its strength or what it could achieve,
00:17:43.000 and has been subjugated for the past 400 years.
00:17:46.440 and you're coming here like a common looter,
00:17:51.200 kicking them while they're already fully down
00:17:53.820 and now taking what few precious things they still have left.
00:17:59.040 Yes, the Brits did it everywhere they went. 0.63
00:18:01.180 Egypt.
00:18:02.400 There is now an obelisk standing on the side of the River Thames.
00:18:05.740 Oh, yes, I've seen it.
00:18:06.560 An ancient Egyptian one.
00:18:08.100 Its sister is in New York, I think. 0.99
00:18:10.460 Right.
00:18:11.960 But yeah, I know a lot of people,
00:18:14.060 I remember a couple of years ago or three years ago,
00:18:16.440 four years ago when i used to news reports there was a lot of right wingers crying about potentially
00:18:24.380 sending the elgin marbles back they never should have been taken in my opinion well no i agree with
00:18:31.200 that entirely um one thing i suppose to to actually just have a bit of a conversation about
00:18:36.840 this because i'd like to is the fact that as well when you look at it's funny in a way because as he
00:18:43.300 says there, you know, in that stanza, he talks about the fact that there was no Greek to guard
00:18:47.760 it, to say no, to say, actually, this belongs to us. There was obviously a deal made between Lord
00:18:55.080 Elgin and his associates and the Turkish administration. But the Greeks were not 0.84
00:19:00.800 consulted on this. And I suppose the point about basically exploiting the Greeks at their weakest 0.99
00:19:08.060 moment is actually a feeling that we in turn know ourselves now very well as well when we actually
00:19:14.880 look back to go back to what you were saying about the culture wars and whether or not britain
00:19:19.640 should remove this thing or that thing or give back this out of the other from the british museum
00:19:24.760 my answer would be i would deal with it case by case right that is genuinely my answer um but
00:19:33.480 One of the reasons why I think it rankled so many people, and rightly so, and I agree with them on this, is because we ourselves were being exploited at a moment of enormous national weakness.
00:19:46.800 This was not a healthy, robust British society having a serious conversation about what we owed to other nations. 0.83
00:19:55.740 This was entirely a result of incessant left-wing campaigning in which they always knee-jerk side with the foreigners in every instance.
00:20:09.480 And so these are not the same thing.
00:20:11.560 It's one thing for the British to say, we will give you back the Elgin marbles.
00:20:16.020 It's one thing for a committee made up of people 0.95
00:20:18.620 who have no ancestry in Britain, you know, beyond the last 40 years, 0.99
00:20:23.320 dictating for us about where our national conversation is going to go.
00:20:27.520 To be fair, I think a lot of it comes from white people within academia.
00:20:32.200 To be honest, the social context of modern-day Britain,
00:20:35.900 I don't think Byron would agree with.
00:20:38.180 No, I don't either.
00:20:38.600 However, I think the Elgin Marble's point, he would agree with.
00:20:41.860 There is an element of hypocrisy in it still, and again, Byron was socially progressive in a
00:20:54.020 not strictly modern sense.
00:20:59.220 But there's a note here that I wanted to read actually from one of these passages where Byron
00:21:04.420 himself writes, I cannot resist availing myself of the permission of my friend Dr. Clark, whose
00:21:10.180 whose name requires no comment with the public,
00:21:12.580 but whose sanction will add tenfold weight to my testimony,
00:21:16.540 to insert the following extract from a very obliging letter of his to me
00:21:20.760 as a note to the above lines.
00:21:23.300 Quote,
00:21:24.060 When the last of the metopes was taken from the Parthenon,
00:21:28.160 and in moving of it, a great part of the superstructure,
00:21:31.320 with one of triglyphs, was thrown down by the workmen whom Lord Elgin employed,
00:21:36.580 the Dizdar, who's kind of like the Turkish fortress commander,
00:21:41.220 who beheld the mischief done to the building,
00:21:43.760 took his pipe from his mouth, dropped a tear,
00:21:46.520 and said in a supplicating tone of voice,
00:21:49.100 said to Luseri, I was present.
00:21:52.380 The Dizdar alluded to was the father of the present Dizdar.
00:21:55.640 Yeah, wow. 0.99
00:21:56.200 And so even the Turk is just there like, what are you doing? 0.98
00:22:00.140 I could see in one of these standards, 0.98
00:22:03.060 I can't remember exactly which one,
00:22:04.040 but he's talking about how they've been there, these things,
00:22:08.480 apart from the Partham exploding, which he doesn't mention.
00:22:11.820 No, he does.
00:22:12.860 Oh, he does?
00:22:13.380 He talks about when the Venetians in the 1600s, very briefly, he does mention it.
00:22:19.740 Anyway, there's a stanza in here where he says they've been there
00:22:23.040 for basically a millennia without either Greek or Turk harming them. 0.95
00:22:27.580 As soon as the Brits arrive, not only do they steal them, 0.95
00:22:31.140 they graffiti everything as well. 0.99
00:22:32.440 Yeah.
00:22:33.000 Right?
00:22:34.040 And also, as well, the removal work is so shoddy that triglyphs are just falling off as well.
00:22:40.800 And so just total disregard for it.
00:22:44.440 And so obviously, yeah, point's been made.
00:22:47.300 Byron obviously cared about this a great deal.
00:22:49.380 As we move forward as well, I suppose we should start talking about the fact that it says if we come to...
00:22:55.600 Ah, yes, here we are.
00:22:56.960 Stanza 16.
00:22:57.940 but where is harold shall i then forget to urge the gloomy wanderer o'er the wave
00:23:04.360 little wrecked he of all that men regret no loved one now in feigned lament could rave
00:23:09.820 no friend the parting hand extended gave ere the cold stranger passed to other climes
00:23:15.700 hard is his heart whom charms may not enslave but harold felt not as in other times and left
00:23:22.540 without a sigh the land of war and crimes and so we we introduce harold back into the story again
00:23:28.260 and this is one of the things that from this moment on the entire pretense you can tell already
00:23:33.500 bear in mind again this is written at the same time as the canto the whole pretext of this being
00:23:39.660 harold's journey right just keeps kind of like coming and going and to the point where you almost
00:23:45.660 forget harold within all of this it really reminds me of a philip k dick novel called valis
00:23:53.900 i'm not familiar with it it's quite similar like right there's basically like four protagonists
00:23:59.340 including pkd himself and he just kind of flits between them it was weird the stanza before that
00:24:04.540 yeah again he's talking about british hands stealing things walls defaced moldering shrines
00:24:11.420 removed and snatch thy shrinking gods to northern climes abhorred right even the gods have been 0.82
00:24:17.500 snatched away to london yes if you enjoyed this piece of premium content from the lotus eaters
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