Remembering Lord Byron (1788-1824)

The Evolution Of Punk Part 1 - A Prologue

So while people may claim that punk is a relatively recent phenomenon, they are of course not strictly correct, at least when it comes to the prevailing mentality behind the music. So many historical figures were imbued with the drive to defy the Establishment, to offend those in power and to topple the accepted societal order. When Watt Tyler led the Peasants' Revolt in 1381, he led a charge not only against the oppression of the feudal masters, but also against the very fabric of the status quo. A challenge to feudalism was a challenge to society as a whole, since the entire mechanism of mediaeval governance relied upon the performance of your feudal duties. When Lord Byron decamped to Greece to fight against the Ottomans, he had, in effect, exiled himself from Britain at least in part because of his political radicalism. In addition, he cared little for the prescribed behavior of a man of stature, his rebellion was not so much rising against the establishment, but readily ignoring it. His sexual appetite was legendary, causing him to embark on affairs with married women, sodomy and, if you believe certain interpretations of his personal letters, incest. In a society that prided itself on its modesty and chastity, such behavior from a landed aristocrat was incendiary. The longer you look at it, the more clear it is that the tinderbox concept of the punk scene has been with us for centuries; it was only logical that its anarchic sentiments would eventually make it into the sphere of music.


When we two parted (WWTP_Final_DivX)

An adaption of the famous poem of loss and longing by Lord Byron.

Created using Machinima techniques more commonly associated with computer games!


Greece to Mark Anniversary of Byron`s Death (Reuters)

Greece has declared the anniversary of the death of Lord Byron, the British Romantic poet who fought in its 19th century war of independence, as a day of celebration to hail Greek culture. Byron died of pneumonia fighting Ottoman rule on April 19, 1824, and a parliament statement said this day would now be marked by events to keep alive the memory of "a man who believed deeply in democratic values and Hellenism."

Byron was a celebrity during his own lifetime for his Romantic poetry and his support of revolutionary causes. He paid for the refitting of the Greek fleet and refunded part of the ragged revolutionary army after arriving in Greece in 1823.

He died a year later in Messolonghi in western Greece, where a cenotaph is said to contain his heart. His support for the Greek cause helped inspire young men from Britain, Italy and the United States to join the uprising.

Greece won its war of independence in 1832 following the intervention of the Great powers: Britain, France and Russia.

Though Byron enjoys hero status in Greece, he was shunned in Britain. Westminster Abbey in London refused to inter his remains in its Poets' Corner because of his Bohemian lifestyle. He was famously described by a contemporary as "mad, bad and dangerous to know".


Philhellenism Day events

The celebration of Philhellenism and International Solidarity Day in the Greek Parliament, regularly observed on April 19 in compliance with a Presidential Decree signed last year, will this year be postponed until the following week so as not to coincide with the Orthodox Easter Sunday.

April 19 was proclaimed Philhellenism and International Solidarity Day at the initiative of Parliament President Dimitris Sioufas, commemorating the anniversary of the death of the famous poet and philhellene Lord Byron, a human rights advocate and among the first to voice opposition to the looting of the Parthenon Marbles by Lord Elgin.

A collector stamp will be issued within the framework of the scheduled events, while a special publication will feature the engraved figure of Lord Byron by artist Tassos, including texts on his participation in the Greek liberation struggle.

Lord Byron was a great philhellene and his early poetry had contributed to sensitizing the Europeans to the plight of Greece under the Ottoman Turks. In 1824, he joined the Greek liberation fighters at Messolonghi, where he died of malarial fever on April 19.

This year's celebration coincides with the 200th anniversary of Lord Byron's first visit to Greece.


Why Byron, lord of romance, needed a phrasebook for love

He was the ultimate Don Juan, but it seems that even Lord Byron needed a bit of help when it came to the language of love.

A handwritten leather-bound phrasebook, filled with expressions of love in Greek, belonging to the poet has come to light. Phrases such as “I love you with all my Heart” were intended to help him to woo women during his first visit to Greece.

The notebook, dating from 1809, has been discovered in the archives of the National Library of Scotland. Experts found it while cataloguing the 10,000 Byron documents in the recently acquired John Murray archive, which includes the poet’s correspondence with his publisher and other related material.

Dividing 169 phrases of “Familiar Dialogue”, as Byron described it, into headings such as “Tender expressions of love”, he listed the Greek words for “My Heart!” and “My Love!” – with the exclamation marks crossed out. He also translated “My dear Soul” and “My Life”.

He did, however, include more practical phrases for travel, such as “My dear Sir, do me that favour”, “Give me something to eat” and “It appears to me three days since I have eaten”.

David McClay, curator of the John Murray Archive, described the notebook as very important. “You can imagine him saying these words. Anyone who knows his correspondence knows he communicated in a forthright and colourful way. This is the closest we come to hearing his voice,” he said.

Mr McClay said that Byron had a love affair with the Greek people and their culture, which influenced his creative work and understanding of language. “Byron was fascinated by languages and learnt several, including Albanian. This gives you the actual evidence,” he said.

Byron learnt classical Greek at school and he commented on the differences between it and the 18th-centu-ry Greek in his letters, writing: “I speak the Romaic or modern Greek, tolerably, it does not differ from the ancient dialects so much as you would conceive, but the pronunciation is diametrically opposite.”

Byron, who died in 1824 aged 36, was the most influential English poet of his day. He personified Romanticism at its most brooding. He was adored by women and envied by men, and when his life became the subject of incessant gossip and scandal loomed he made his escape, going first to Switzerland and Italy before travelling to Greece, Albania and Malta.


Top ten destinations for pilgrims: Jerusalem, Rome, Lourdes and Iona

5 Mount Athos No woman has been allowed within 500m of this Greek peninsula peppered with Orthodox monasteries since AD1060 when a series of apparitions of the Virgin Mary prompted the Church to dedicate the island to her and declare all earthly females banned. the Prince of Wales is a fan, as was Lord Byron, describing the Holy Mountain as: “A quiet refuge from each earthly care/ Whence the rapt spirit may ascend to Heaven!”


British poets and the French Revolution. Part Three: Byron - "Mad, bad and dangerous to know"

The poetic spirit rebels against the constraints of tradition and habit and seeks to reshape the world in a new image. Thus, conservative poets are generally bad poets. The later writings of Wordsworth are proof enough of this assertion. But not all those poets who set out as revolutionaries deserted the cause. Lord Byron died in Greece, where he had gone to fight for the cause of national liberation. Shelley, whom Marx greatly admired, remained a consistent revolutionary democrat until his death. And the great national poet of Scotland, Robert Burns, also remained a fierce opponent of monarchy, religion and oppression.

Of the three, it was Byron (1788-1824) who made the biggest impact during his lifetime. His poems acted as a major source of inspiration for generations of Romantics, from Alfred de Musset in France to Alexander Pushkin in Russia. Unfortunately, his verses have not lasted well. His most famous poems are very long and belong to a more leisurely age when people had the time and inclination to read such things. But Don Juan still sparkles with a wit that is most un-English, and the shorter lyrical verses can still give much pleasure.

Don Juan begins with a rebuke to those poets who had sold their soul to the Devil, like Robert ("Bob") Southey who had, like so many others, abandoned his revolutionary ideals and become a hack writer, and was finally rewarded for services rendered with a pension from the English government, which made him Poet Laureate, although in practice he had given up poetry for more lucrative journalism and politicking. To this creature, and with a pointed reference to the "Lakers", (the "Lake poets", Wordsworth and Coleridge) Byron ironically dedicates his epic poem:

"Bob Southey! You're a poet-Poet laureate,
And representative of all the race;
Although 'tis true that you turn'd out a Tory at
Last - yours has lately been a common case;
And now, my Epic Renegade! What are ye at?
With all the Lakers, in and out of place?
A nest of tuneful persons, to my eye,
Like 'four and twenty blackbirds in a pye;

"Which pye being open'd they began to sing'
(This old song and new simile holds good)
A dainty dish to set before the King.'
Or Regent, who admires such kind of food;-
And Coleridge, too, has lately taken wing,
But like a hawk encumber'd with his hood-
Explaining metaphysics to the nation-
I wish he would explain his Explanation."

Lord Byron, who died in Greece when he was still young (he was 36), was seen by his contemporaries as a complete rebel. His generation was forged under the hammer-blows of the great events that flowed from the French revolution. But Byron's revolutionism needed no external source. It flowed from his innermost nature. His active involvement in radical politics began at a very young age.


The Luddites

Luddism gradually spread to Yorkshire, Lancashire, Leicestershire and Derbyshire. In Yorkshire, croppers, a small and highly skilled group of cloth finishers, turned their anger on the new shearing frame that they feared would put them out of work. In February and March, 1812, factories were attacked by Luddites in Huddersfield, Halifax, Wakefield and Leeds.

In February 1812 the government of Spencer Perceval proposed that machine-breaking should become a capital offence. Despite a passionate speech by Lord Byron in the House of Lords, Parliament passed the Frame Breaking Act that enabled people convicted of machine-breaking to be sentenced to death. As a further precaution, the government ordered 12,000 troops into the areas where the Luddites were active.

On of the most serious Luddite attacks took place at Rawfolds Mill near Brighouse in Yorkshire. William Cartwright, the owner of Rawfolds Mill, had been using cloth-finishing machinery since 1811. Local croppers began losing their jobs and after a meeting at Saint Crispin public house, they decided to try and destroy the cloth-finishing machinery at Rawfolds Mill. Cartwright was suspecting trouble and arranged for the mill to be protected by armed guards.

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(3) Lord Byron, speech in the House of Lords (27th February, 1812)

During the short time I recently passed in Nottingham, not twelve hours elapsed without some fresh act of violence; and on that day I left the the county I was informed that forty Frames had been broken the preceding evening, as usual, without resistance and without detection.

Such was the state of that county, and such I have reason to believe it to be at this moment. But whilst these outrages must be admitted to exist to an alarming extent, it cannot be denied that they have arisen from circumstances of the most unparalleled distress: the perseverance of these miserable men in their proceedings, tends to prove that nothing but absolute want could have driven a large, and once honest and industrious, body of the people, into the commission of excesses so hazardous to themselves, their families, and the community.

They were not ashamed to beg, but there was none to relieve them: their own means of subsistence were cut off, all other employment preoccupied; and their excesses, however to be deplored and condemned, can hardly be subject to surprise.

As the sword is the worst argument than can be used, so should it be the last. In this instance it has been the first; but providentially as yet only in the scabbard. The present measure will, indeed, pluck it from the sheath; yet had proper meetings been held in the earlier stages of these riots, had the grievances of these men and their masters (for they also had their grievances) been fairly weighed and justly examined, I do think that means might have been devised to restore these workmen to their avocations, and tranquillity to the country.


Dead City Dealers: "We'll Go No More A'Roving"

Literary Kicks: Lord Byron

George Gordon Byron, better known as Lord Byron (the sixth Baron Byron, if you're counting), was nothing if not the prototype of the conflicted Romantic hero. His persona has influenced artists, from Beat writers to rock stars (think of dark dandies like Jim Morrison and Trent Reznor), possibly more than his art itself.

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But it wasn't just his politics that made him appealing-- Byron was titled. When he read his poetry, people listened. Since Byron was so like a rock star, I find it appropriate to quote a rocker (Joe Strummer when he was with the Clash), "I wasn't born so much as I fell out." That was Lord Byron. Falling into things, seeing where the wind carried him. Poetry, the Greeks, Napoleonic politics-- they all fell into step easily with his life.

An adverse review to his poems Hours of Idleness in the Edinburgh Review sent him into a vengeful tizzy producing the satirical English Bards and Scotch Reviewers in 1809. In that same year, in the midst of one of his first controversies, he took his seat in the House of Lords. His liberal politics weren't exactly welcomed. Suddenly, a trip abroad seemed quite desirable. And so began his two year of tour of Portugal, Spain, and Greece. These settings were to permeate many of his subsequent poems-- like Childe Harold, which featured the proverbial "Byronic hero," a tormented Don Juan.

In 1815, partly to escape an incestuous relationship with his married half-sister, Byron married the prim Annabella Milbanke Noel (1792-1860), whom he'd known primarily through letters. (I wrote a Byron inspired poem here.) After giving birth to a daughter, the remarkable Augusta Ada who in collaboration with Charles Babbage became the first person ever to write a computer program.


A Dictionary of Lord Byron's Wit and Wisdom

Absurdity
My turn of mind is so given to taking things in the absurd point of view, that it breaks out in spite of me every now and then. (Remark to the poet Thomas Moore. Quoted in: Doris Langley Moore, The Late Lord Byron, ch. 8 (1961; rev. ed., 1976))

Adultery
What men call gallantry, and gods adultery,
Is much more common where the climate's sultry.
(Don Juan, canto 1, stanza 63.)

Adventure
And yet a little tumult, now and then, is an agreeable quickener of sensation; such as a revolution, a battle, or an adventure of any lively description. (Journal entry for 22 Nov. 1813).

Adversity
It is odd but agitation or contest of any kind gives a rebound to my spirits and sets me up for a time. (8 March 1816, to Thomas Moore)

Anarchy
There is, in fact, no law or government at all [in Italy]; and it is wonderful how well things go on without them. (Jan., 1821, to Moore)

Byron on Byron
I have not loved the world, nor the world me;
I have not flatter'd its rank breath, nor bow'd
To its idolatries a patient knee.
(Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, canto 3, stanza 113).

I stood among them, but not of them; in a shroud
Of thoughts which were not their thoughts.
Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, canto 3, stanza 113).

Chaos
Out of chaos God made a world, and out of high passions comes a people. (Ravenna journal, 5 Jan. 1821).

Europe
There is no freedom in Europe--that's certain--it is besides a worn out portion of the globe.
(3 Oct. 1819).

Gold
O Gold! I still prefer thee unto paper,
Which makes bank credit like a bark of vapour.
(Don Juan, canto 12, stanza 4).

Greece and the Greeks
Ancient of days! august Athena! where,
Where are thy men of might? thy grand in soul?
Gone--glimmering through the dream of things that were.
(Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, canto 2, stanza 2).

The isles of Greece, the isles of Greece!
Where burning Sappho loved and sung.
Where grew the arts of war and peace,
Where Delos rose, and Phoebus sprung!
Eternal summer gilds them yet,
But all, except their sun, is set.
(Don Juan, canto 3, stanza 86).

Politics
God will not be always a Tory .... (Feb. 2, 1821, to Murray)

... after all it is better playing at Nations than gaming at Almacks or Newmarket or in piecing or dinnering .... (Dec. 28, 1818, to Kinnard)

... [M]y parliamentary schemes are not much to my taste--I spoke twice last Session--& was told it was well enough--but I hate the thing altogether--& have no intention to "strut another hour" on that stage. (Mar., 1818, to Augusta Leigh)

But Men never advance beyond a certain point;--and here we are, retrograding to the dull, stupid old system,--balance of Europe-- poising straws upon kings' noses instead of wringing them off! Give me a republic, or a despotism of one, rather than the mixed government of one, two, three. A Republic!--look in the history of the Earth .... To be the first man--not the Dictator--not the Sylla, but the Washington or the Aristides--the leader in talent and truth--is next to the Divinity! (Journal, Nov. 28, 1818)

... I have simplified my politics into an utter detestation of all existing governments; and, as it is the shortest and most agreeable and summary feeling imaginable, the first moment of an universal republic would convert me into an advocate for single and uncontradicted despotism. The fact is, riches are power, and poverty is slavery all over the earth, and one sort of establishment is no better, nor worse, for a people than another. (Journal, Jan. 16, 1815)

Weather cold--carriage open, and inhabitants somewhat savage-- rather treacherous and highly inflamed by politics. Fine fellows, though,--good materials for a nation. Out of chaos God made a world, and out of high passions comes a people. (Ravenna Journal, Jan. 5, 1821)

Society
Society is now one polished horde,
Formed of two mighty tribes, the Bores and Bored.
(Don Juan, canto 13, stanza 95).

Women
Wives in their husbands' absences grow subtler,
And daughters sometimes run off with the butler.
(Don Juan, canto 3, stanza 22).


She walks in Beauty by Lord Byron

She walks in beauty, like the night
Of cloudless climes and starry skies;
And all that 's best of dark and bright
Meet in her aspect and her eyes:
Thus mellow'd to that tender light Which heaven to gaudy day denies.
One shade the more, one ray the less,
Had half impair'd the nameless grace
Which waves in every raven tress,
Or softly lightens o'er her face;
Where thoughts serenely sweet express
How pure, how dear their dwelling-place.

And on that cheek, and o'er that brow,
So soft, so calm, yet eloquent,
The smiles that win, the tints that glow, But tell of days in goodness spent,
A mind at peace with all below,
A heart whose love is innocent!


George Gordon Byron, 6th Baron Byron

Byron in Italy and Greece

From 1821 to 1822, he finished Cantos 6–12 of Don Juan at Pisa, and in the same year he joined with Leigh Hunt and Percy Bysshe Shelley in starting a short-lived newspaper, The Liberal, in the first number of which appeared The Vision of Judgment. His last Italian home was Genoa, where he was still accompanied by the Countess Guiccioli, and where he met Charles John Gardiner, 1st Earl of Blessington, and Marguerite, Countess of Blessington and provided the material for her work Conversations with Lord Byron, an important text in the reception of Byron in the period immediately after his death.

Byron lived in Genoa until 1823, when, growing bored with his life there and with the Countess[citation needed], he accepted overtures for his support from representatives of the movement for Greek independence from the Ottoman Empire.[citation needed] On 16 July, Byron left Genoa on the Hercules, arriving at Kefalonia in the Ionian Islands on 4 August. He spent £4000 of his own money to refit the Greek fleet, then sailed for Messolonghi in western Greece, arriving on 29 December to join Alexandros Mavrokordatos, a Greek politician with military power.[citation needed] During this time, Byron pursued his Greek page, Lukas Chalandritsanos, but the affections went unrequited.[12] When the famous Danish sculptor Thorvaldsen heard about Byron's heroics in Greece, he voluntarily resculpted his earlier bust of Byron in Greek marble.[25]

Death

Mavrokordatos and Byron planned to attack the Turkish-held fortress of Lepanto, at the mouth of the Gulf of Corinth. Byron employed a fire-master to prepare artillery and took part of the rebel army under his own command, despite his lack of military experience, but before the expedition could sail, on 15 February 1824, he fell ill, and the usual remedy of bleeding weakened him further.[citation needed] He made a partial recovery, but in early April he caught a violent cold which therapeutic bleeding, insisted on by his doctors, aggravated. It is suspected this treatment, carried out with unsterilized medical instrumentation, may have caused him to develop sepsis. He developed a violent fever, and died on 19 April.[citation needed] It has been said that had Byron lived, he might have been declared King of Greece.[12]

Byronic hero

The figure of the Byronic hero pervades much of his work, and Byron himself is considered to epitomize many of the characteristics of this literary figure.[12] Scholars have traced the literary history of the Byronic hero from John Milton, and many authors and artists of the Romantic movement show Byron's influence during the 19th century and beyond, including Charlotte and Emily Bronte.[12] The Byronic hero presents an idealised, but flawed character whose attributes include[citation needed]: great talent; great passion; a distaste for society and social institutions; a lack of respect for rank and privilege; being thwarted in love by social constraint or death; rebellion; exile; an unsavory secret past; arrogance; overconfidence or lack of foresight; and, ultimately, a self-destructive manner.

Parthenon marbles

Byron was a bitter opponent of Lord Elgin's removal of the Parthenon marbles from Greece, and "reacted with fury" when Elgin's agent gave him a tour of the Parthenon, during which he saw the missing friezes and metopes. He penned a poem, The Curse of Minerva, to denounce Elgin's actions.[37]


Neurotic Poets: Lord Byron (1788 - 1824)

Byron fell in love with the young Countess Teresa Guiccioli in Italy. He became involved in the Italian nationalism movement through her father and brother. Eventually Teresa's husband, who had allowed her affairs with Byron, applied for a separation. Shelley visited the couple in 1821 and commented on Byron's unusual lifestyle in a letter to a friend:

Lord Byron gets up at two. I get up, quite contrary to my usual custom . . . at 12. After breakfast we sit talking till six. From six to eight we gallop through the pine forest which divide Ravenna from the sea; we then come home and dine, and sit up gossiping till six in the morning. I don't suppose this will kill me in a week or fortnight, but I shall not try it longer. Lord B.'s establishment consists, besides servants, of ten horses, eight enormous dogs, three monkeys, five cats, an eagle, a crow, and a falcon; and all these, except the horses, walk about the house, which every now and then resounds with their unarbitrated quarrels, as if they were the masters of it. . . . [P.S.] I find that my enumeration of the animals in this Circean Palace was defective . . . . I have just met on the grand staircase five peacocks, two guinea hens, and an Egyptian crane. I wonder who all these animals were before they were changed into these shapes.

"The boy was sprung to manhood: in the wilds / Of fiery climes he made himself a home, / And his Soul drank their sunbeams; he was girt / With strange and dusky aspects; he was not / Himself like what he had been; on the sea / And on the shore he was a wanderer." ~ Byron in 'The Dream' ~

Shelley died in 1822, shortly after another visit to Byron. In 1823, Byron's daughter Allegra died of a fever in the convent school at the age of five. Facing the death of loved ones, and almost foreshadowing his own death, Byron wrote the following lines in On This Day I Complete My Thirty-Sixth Year (Jan 22, 1824):

'Tis time this heart should be unmoved,
Since others hath it ceased to move:
Yet, though I cannot be beloved,
Still let me love!

My days are in the yellow leaf;
The flowers and fruits of love are gone;
The worm, the canker, and the grief
Are mine alone!


The Life of Lord Byron

On 16 July, Byron left Genoa on a chartered ship, arriving at the Ionian island of Cephalonia on 2 August; he settled in Metaxata. He sent 4000 pounds of his own money to prepare the Greek fleet for sea service and then sailed for Missolonghi on 29 December to join Prince Alexandros Mavrokordatos, leader of the forces in western Greece. With tremendous passion he entered into the plans to attack the Turkish-held fortress of Lepanto. He employed a fire master to prepare artillery and took under his own command and pay the Souliot soldiers, reputedly the bravest of the Greeks. In addition he made dedicated but ultimately fruitless efforts to unite eastern and western Greece. On 15 February 1824 he fell ill (he possibly had two epileptic fits in a fortnight) and the usual remedy of bleeding weakened him at the same time that an insurrection of the Souliots opened his eyes to their cupidity. Though his enthusiasm for the Greek cause was undiminished, he now possessed a more realistic view of the obstacles facing the army. He was also suffering from the emotional strain of his friendship with Loukas Chalandritsanos, a Greek boy, whom he had brought as a page from Cephalonia and to whom he addressed his final poems.

The spring of 1824 was wet and miserable, and it unfortunately caught Byron while he was still weak from the convulsive fits of mid-February. He continued to carry out his duties and seemed on the path to certain recovery. But in early April he was caught outdoors in a rainstorm; though drenched and chilled, he did not hurry home. Unfortunately, he caught a violent cold which was soon aggravated by the bleeding insisted on by the doctors. Though he briefly rallied, the cold grew worse; he eventually slipped into a coma. Around six o'clock in the evening of 19 April 1824, he passed away.

Deeply mourned by the Greeks, he became a hero throughout their land. His body was embalmed; the heart was removed and buried in Missolonghi. His remains were then sent to England and, refused burial in Westminster Abbey, placed in the vault of his ancestors near Newstead. Ironically, 145 years after his death, in 1969, a memorial to Byron was finally placed on the floor of the Abbey. Here is a contemporary newspaper account of the decision:

At Last Lord Byron Gets Place in Poets' Corner in Westminster Abbey
by Anthony Lewis, London correspondent for the NY Times

London, May 6 - A century and a half after his death, Lord Byron has at last become spiritually acceptable in his homeland. He is to have a plaque in the Poets' Corner of Westminster Abbey.
This quiet revolution has been carried out by the Dean of Westminster, the Very Rev. Eric Abbott. After private approaches, he approved a petition by the Poetry Society for a Byron memorial in the Abbey.
Three similar requests had been turned down. The last attempt was in 1924, when the Dean of the day, Bishop Herbert E. Ryle wrote:
"Byron, partly by his own openly dissolute life and partly by the influence of licentious verse, earned a worldwide reputation for immorality among English-speaking people. A man who outraged the laws of our Divine Lord, and whose treatment of women violated the Christian principles of purity and honor, should not be commemorated in Westminster Abbey."
An answering letter in Byron's behalf was sent to The Times of London by a group including Thomas Hardy, Rudyard Kipling and three former Prime Ministers - Balfour, Asquith, and Lloyd George. But the established church was unmoved.
A Change in Standards? No official reason was given for the present dean's attitude, but no one would consider Byron's poetry licentious by contemporary standards, and perhaps the Church of England is more charitable now towards eccentric behavior.

by the Sea i rest

Photographer's Note
I took this picture at the sea-lake of Messolonghi after sun’s set...the colours were calm, the scenery really amazing to stare at & peaceful enough to forget for a short time the noise of town…listen…only birds & gentle breeze live here…

Lord Byron, a British poet and a leading figure in Romanticism, on 16th of July left Genoa on the Hercules, arriving at Kefalonia in the Ionian Islands on 4 August. He spent £4000 of his own money to refit the Greek fleet, then sailed for Messolonghi in western Greece, arriving on 29 December to join Alexandros Mavrokordatos, a Greek politician with military power. During this time, Byron pursued his Greek page, Lukas Chalandritsanos, but the affections went unrequited. When the famous Danish sculptor Thorvaldsen heard about Byron's heroics in Greece, he voluntarily resculpted his earlier bust of Byron in Greek marble.

Alfred, Lord Tennyson would later recall the shocked reaction in Britain when word was received of Byron's death.The Greeks mourned Lord Byron deeply, and he became a hero. The national poet of Greece, Dionysios Solomos, wrote a poem about his unexpected loss, named To the Death of Lord Byron, Βύρων ("Vyron"), the Greek form of "Byron", continues in popularity as a masculine name in Greece, and a suburb of Athens is called Vyronas in his honour.

Byron's body was embalmed, but the Greeks wanted some part of their hero to stay with them. According to some sources, his heart remained at Messolonghi. According to others, it was his lungs, which were placed in an urn that was later lost when the city was sacked.

…but yesterday, as I was encouraged by the laugh of march
and I went to find again the roads to the ancient sites
the first fragrance of a distant rose in my path
brought tears to my eyes…

Kostis Palamas, Rose of fragrance from the “City & Loneliness”.


Vyronas

Vyronas (Ancient/Katharevousa), older forms: Viron and Vyron is a suburb in the northeastern part of Athens, Greece. The city is named after George Gordon Byron, 6th Baron Byron, the famous English poet and writer, who is a national hero of Greece. It is located S of Attiki Odos (number 65), also known as the Hymettus Ring, which opened in 2004 with the Katechaki interchange. It is also located SE of Athens and E and NE of Vouliagmenis Avenue.

Vyronas started as a commune and later became a municipality.

The area was made up of farmlands to the west and the rocky areas of the Hymettus to its east ; urban development replaced much farmland in the 1920s and the 1930s. Today, the area from the western to the east-central part of the municipality is urbanized, while the businesses are within its main avenues and streets. The forest of Hymettus lies to the east.