William Tell

Stories for Children

Stories of William Tell and His Friends Told to the Children by Henrietta Marshall.

Beacon Reader (1932).

Heroes Every Child Should Know by Hamilton Wright Mabie (Doubleday, 1907).

Legends of Switzerland

Poetry

William Tell by William Cullen Bryant (1794–1878)

William Tell by Friedrich von Schiller (1759–1805)

These verses accompanied a copy of his play.

Tell’s Birthplace by Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772–1834)

In the town of Bürglen, you may visit the William Tell Chapel, its exterior painted with frescoes.

William Tell by Friedrich von Schiller (1759–1805)

This poem refers to Küssnacht, the home of Austrian Bailiff Gessler, Gesslerburg Castle, and yet a third Tellskapelle. Enjoy this nicely documented visit to the Tellskapelle at Hohle Gasse.

The Chapel of Tell (On the Lake of Lucerne) by Aubrey Thomas de Vere (1814–1902)

Another Tellskapelle on Lake Lucerne marks where William Tell leaped from the boat of his captors. It preserves frescoes by Ernst Stückelberg. Look at the painting of the chapel by Johann Heinrich Neukomm (see below under “Art”). Enjoy this photo album of a visit to the chapel.

Song of the Battle of Morgarten by Felicia Hemans (1793–1835)

Tell was purportedly at the Battle of Morgarten in 1315, and here he shoots the first arrow.

The Death of Tell by Henry Morford (1823–1881)

This poems takes place in the Schächental, the valley of the River Schächen. Enjoy this video of a stunning waterfall that you may there visit.

Effusion in Presence of the Painted Tower of Tell, at Altorf by William Wordsworth (1770–1850)

Wordsworth likely refers to the tower before which Kissling’s statue of William Tell and his son stands (but which postdates this poem; see below under “Art”). According to the English Wikipedia article on the town of Altdorf, the Türmli preserves “rude frescoes,” but no other information about them can be found.

Drama

William Tell by Friedrich von Schiller (excerpts here)

Music

The William Tell Overture (background) to the opera William Tell by Gioacchino Rossini (background) based on Schiller’s play.

Art

Wallfahrt zur Tellskapelle in Brunnen (ca. 1830) by Johann Heinrich Neukomm

There are many such paintings. Here is another by an unnamed artist.

The Tell Monument (1895) by Richard Kissling in Altdorf.

Wilhelm Tell (1896-1897) by Ferdinand Hodler.

Arrest of William Tell (1901) a mosaic by Hans Sandreuter at the Landesmuseum in Zurich

Other Works of Art Depicting William Tell at the Landesmuseum in Zurich

Works of Art at the British Museum Depicting William Tell

Swiss Geography – Fribourg

Map

Gruyère

Ranz des Vaches

Read in French of the “Origine du Ranz des Vaches.” Read the song in full, in Patois and French, and listen to it here.

Morat (Murten)

The Battle of Murten by Veit Weber (d. 1483)

Veit Weber was assumed as a pseudonym for an 18th to 19th-century author, Leonhard Wächter, but he borrowed it from an 15th-century soldier-poet of the Burgundian War. The Battle of Murten de facto ended the Burgundian War and the defeat of Charles the Bold’s ambitions. “The Battle of Murten” is the final of his five battle poems on the War. Here it is in its original German from the collection of German songs, Des Knaben Wunderhorn, there from the Beschreibung der Burgundischen Kriege of Diebold Schilling. A 19th-century panorama depicts the Battle. (Here find an alternate printing of the poem with an introduction).

Morat by Lord Byron (1788–1824)

Learn more about the town of Morat (also here, both in French).

Murist


Passe-moi les jumelles’s Video – La tour de la Molière – La Suisse mysterieuse

Longfellow’s Poems of Places – Turkey

Map

XIX: Greece and Turkey in Europe (The scanning of the section with poems about Turkey is unusable, so for most of the poems in this volume, the link will be to Bartleby.com.)

XXII: Asia: Asia Minor, Mesopotamia, Arabia, Turkestan, Afghanistan

I will here include only poems about modern Turkey, not those from or about ancient Greece, unless about the ruins of ancient Greek sites.

Volume XIX

The Bosphorus

The Wail and Warning of the Three Khalendeers 

Longfellow identifies this as an “Ottoman” poem, presumably meaning that it was written in Ottoman Turkish, which is Turkish written in Arabic script, as it was until 1928, and James Clarence Mangan as its translator; Mangan was more likely its composer, perhaps inspired by Turkish poetry. Its opening and repeated line expresses the oneness of God – Tawhid – in opposition to the Blessed Trinity of Christianity: “None has the right to be worshipped but Allah.” Enjoy this collection of authentic Ottoman poetry. Kalender means carefree; khalendeer is of uncertain meaning.

The Bosphorus Revisited by Samuel Green Wheeler Benjamin (1837–1914)

Enjoy this cruise on the Bosphorus.

The Launching of the Bashtardah by Anonymous

A bastarda is a special galley used by the commander of an Ottoman fleet. A giaour is an “infidel.”

Constantinople

The Greek at Constantinople by Richard Monckton Milnes, Lord Houghton (1809–1885)

The poem begins by describing the cypress trees in the Scutari Cemetary, in the area of Istanbul now known as Üsküdar, in which the poet encounters a young Greek man, who discourses on various historical moments when Christian Europe was threatened by Muslim forces.

The Turk at Constantinople to the Frank by Richard Monckton Milnes, Lord Houghton (1809–1885)

This poem, also by Milnes, again explores the theme of the Muslim threat to Christian Europe.

The Empire of the East by Edna Dean Proctor (1829–1923)

Continuing the theme of Christian-Muslim relations, Proctor looks forward to when Hagia Sophia (see also this photo gallery) might once again be a Christian church. This idea is of current import as the Turkish government turns it from a museum back into a mosque. Robert Ousterhout, a Byzantine architectural historian, explores the topic from an academic viewpoint in his article, “Museum or Mosque?” Proctor wrote many poems, not without political consequence in her own time, including several you may read in the final section of this volume.

Verses by Lady Mary Wortley Montagu (1689–1762)

Wife of the British Ambassador to Turkey, Lady Montagu wrote letters detailing her experiences. Here is a volume of select letters, but you may also find volumes I and II of her complete letters.

Volume XXII

Abydos

Abydos by Lord Byron (1788–1824)

Located on the Asian side of the Hellespont at the narrowest point of the strait, where Leander lived across from Hero in Sestos, whose story you can read here by 6th century Byzantine poet, Musaeus Grammaticus. Lord Byron swam across as Leander did and wrote another poem about it, “Written after Swimming from Sestos to Abydos.”

Cyprus

Sonnet by James Montgomery (1771–1854)

This sonnet is about the seige of Venetian Famagusta by the Ottomans in August of 1571. Learn more about Famagusta in The Stones of Famagusta and look at more images of the walled city in this photo gallery.

Wine of Cyprus by Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806–1861)

Browning’s poem abounds in references as it contemplates famous Greek speakers while drinking Cypriot wine. Mythological references dominate, but she also mentions ancient Greek playwrights, Plato, and the goddess/idea of Ατη, as well as Church Fathers who carried forth the Greek language into the Byzantine period – Saint John Chrysostom, Saint Basil of Caesarea, Saint Gregory of Nazianzus, and Synesius, a bishop in North Africa. She also refers to Saint Gregory of Nyssa’s De virginitate and Saint Simeon Stylites.

Catterina Cornaro by Robert, Lord Lytton (1831–1891)

Caterina Cornaro was the last monarch of Cyprus (1454-1510). Her portrait was painted by Gentile Bellini, Titian, and Albrecht Dürer, and she is the model for Saint Catherine of Alexandria in an Adoration of the Child by Lorenzo Lotto. You can also hunt for her in a painting of a miracle by a relic of the True Cross by Gentile Bellini. And in the nineteenth century, Donizetti composed an opera about her.

Ephesus 

Ephesus by Nicholas Michell (1807–1880)

This poem on Ephesus comes from an entire volume of poetry on Ruins of Many Lands. It highlights the Temple of Artemis (photo gallery of the Temple of Artemis; photo gallery of Ephesus).

Karaman

The Karamanian Exile by James Clarence Mangan (1803–1849)

The poet comes from Karaman, a city in south-central Turkey (photo gallery), to fight in Erzerum, a battle between Ottomans and Persians. One might be inclined to dismiss an Irishman writing about a land he only knew through its texts (see above), but at least one Turkish reader of his poetry feels such affinity with it to claim, with seeming sincerity, that Mangan was a Turk in a past life.

Izmir

Smyrna by Samuel Green Wheeler Benjamin (1837–1914)

Bayram is the Turkish word for holiday. Izmir is traditionally associated with Homer, as is a River Meles, at the source of which is the cave in which he composed his epics. You may read Benjamin’s own note on this poem (the note for page 89).

Smyrna by Bayard Taylor (1825–1878)

What does Izmir look like today? Enjoy this video on Turkish street food in Izmir.

Mount Ida

Mount Ida by Samuel Green Wheeler Benjamin (1837–1914)

The Mount Ida in Turkey (there is another in Greece) is called, in Turkish, Kazdağı. Enjoy this view from the summit.

Mount Latmos

Mount Latmos by John Keats (1795–1821)

In Turkish, Mount Latmos is known as Beşparmak Dağı, meaning five fingers. The archaeological site there of Herakleia preserves many remains, including a sanctuary to Endymion. It overlooks the picturesque Lake Bafa.

Mount Tmolus

An Epistle from Mount Tmolus to Richard Henry Stoddard by Bayard Talor

Known in Turkish as Bozdağ, gray mountain, known now for climbing.

Rhodes

The Turkish Lady by Thomas Campbell (1777–1844)

This poem tells a story, told times before, of a kidnapped Christian knight ransomed by a Muslim woman who then becomes his bride. A paynim is a pagan, defined by this context as a Muslim. Bannat is a region that straddles Serbia, Romania, and Hungary, and the occasion for the knight’s capture was the Battle of Belgrade of 1456. In the 15th century, the island of Rhodes, where the poem concludes, was still in Crusader hands.