Page:The Works of Lord Byron (ed. Coleridge, Prothero) - Volume 2.djvu/379

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CANTO IV.]
CHILDE HAROLD’S PILGRIMAGE.
339

Better be whelmed beneath the waves, and shun,
Even in Destruction's depth, her foreign foes,[1]
From whom Submission wrings an infamous repose.


XIV.

In youth She was all glory,—a new Tyre,—
Her very by-word sprung from Victory,
The "Planter of the Lion,"[2] which through fire

And blood she bore o'er subject Earth and Sea;

    since its annexation to Italy, in 1866, a revival of trade and the re-establishment of the arsenal have brought back a certain measure of prosperity.]

  1. Even in Destruction's heart——.—[MS. M.]
  2. That is, the Lion of St. Mark, the standard of the republic, which is the origin of the word Pantaloon—Piantaleone, Pantaleon, Pantaloon.
    [The Venetians were nicknamed Pantaloni. Byron, who seems to have relied on the authority of a Venetian glossary, assumes that the "by-word" may be traced to the patriotism of merchant-princes "who were reputed to hoist flags with the Venetian lion waving to the breeze on every rock and barren headland of Levantine waters" (Memoirs of Count Carlo Gozzi, translated by J. Addington Symonds, 1890, Introd. part ii. p. 44), and that in consequence of this spread-eagleism the Venetians were held up to scorn by their neighbours as "planters of the lion"—a reproach which conveyed a tribute to their prowess. A more probable explanation is that the "by-word," with its cognates "Pantaleone," the typical masque of Italian comedy—progenitor of our "Pantaloon;" and "pantaloni," "pantaloons," the typical Venetian costume—derive their origin from the baptismal name "Pantaleone," frequently given to Venetian children, in honour of St. Pantaleon of Nicomedia, physician and martyr, whose cult was much in vogue in Northern Italy, and especially in Venice, where his relics, which "coruscated with miracles," were the object of peculiar veneration.

    St. Pantaleon was known to the Greek Church as Παντελεήμων, that is, the "all-pitiful;" and in Latin his name is spelled Pantaleymon and Pantaleemon. Hagiologists seem to have been puzzled, but the compiler of the Acta Sanctorum,