Buoyant with a sense of affinity with my bestie, Byron, in the summer of 2022, having swum a mile in open water (well, open-ish) – I thought I’d look into the mad and the bad boy’s 1810 swim across the Hellespont, and discovered this poem. Light-hearted and playful, it’s easy to hear Byron’s elation at having succeeded in his daring do. He was enormously proud of his success and fondly referred to his two mile swim from Europe to Asia, across the turbulent Dardanelles, as his biggest ever achievement.
The story goes like this: hampered on shore by a club foot (as I am hampered on shore by my aging knees), Byron was over the moon to have discovered a sport in which he could excel. A good enough story as stories go, but I suspect there was more to it than that. Having been out there myself – not the Dardanelles you understand, but the Solent (the stretch of water between Portsmouth and the Isle of Wight) – I suspect he felt amazing! I suspect he felt positively reborn!
After Swimming the Hellespont
By Lord Byron (1788–1824)
IF, in the month of dark December,
Leander, who was nightly wont
(What maid will not the tale remember?)
To cross thy stream, broad Hellespont;
If, when the wint’ry tempest roar’d,
He sped to Hero nothing loath,
And thus of old thy current pour’d,
Fair Venus! how I pity both!
For me, degenerate, modern wretch,
Though in the genial month of May,
My dripping limbs I faintly stretch,
And think I’ve done a feat to-day,
But since he crossed the rapid tide,
According to the doubtful story,
To woo—and—Lord knows what beside,
And swam for Love, as I for Glory;
’Twere hard to say who fared the best:
Sad mortals, thus the gods still plague you!
He lost his labour, I my jest;
For he was drowned, and I’ve the ague.