Note 299 — THE AGE OF BRONZE.
Reading edition
{556}[The capitulation of Athens was signed June 21, 1822. "Three days after the Greeks had sworn to observe the capitulation, they commenced murdering their helpless prisoners.... The streets of Athens were stained with the blood of four hundred men, women, and children."—History of Greece, by George Finlay, 1877, vi. 283. The sword was hid in the myrtle bough. Hence the allusion. (Compare Childe Harold, Canto III. stanza xx. line 9, Poetical Works, 1899, ii. 228, and 291, note 2.)]