Page 28 - GALIET EMPATHY and Byron´s Hero IV

compassionate. Though Manfred’s soul is scorched, he would not exchange his lots with any being. He would not burden nor bear to wrong others. He feels it is still better to bear in life what others could not dare dream.58 “And listening to the Hunter of Chamois’ acute perceptions, ill-fated Manfred denies an existence of revenge and blood-guilt:
This cautious feeling for another’s pain,
Cans’t thou be black with evil? – say not so.
Can one of gentle thoughts have wreaked revenge Upon his enemies?”
(Manfred II.1.79-83)
“Oh! No, no, no!
My injuries came down on those who loved me – On those whom I best loved: I never quelled
An enemy, save in just defence –
But my embrace was fatal!”
(Manfred, II.1.84-88)
Hero of infinite contradictions and abysses, at times, declaring himself apathetic, at others sympathetic, at times pitiless, at others tender and pitiful, at once denying the very pity that in his heart the First Destiny, perplexingly, insinuates:
58 Manfred. I.1.74-79, Heath, William. Major British Poets of the Romantic Period. New York: McMillan Publishing Co., 1973.
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