Original subtitles

Are we all agreed?

It’s impossible, John.

For the sake of the man’s reputation,

- his family... - Even if it’s true?

Especially if it’s true.

Luncheon, milady.

Good afternoon.

Tambourgi!

Tambourgi!

From whom is your letter?

Je si hene e bukur, hene e bukur, My sister.

kjo per syte e mi!

Tambourgi!

He got up eventually.

Tambourgi!

That’s a good sign.

My mistress rises every day at six.

I should rather like to explore the ridge.

It appears the temple is Doric in structure. Bloody hell.

The poet Nestor mentions it

when he describes the journey home from Troy. I wish to make your happiness the first object in life.

He speaks of... Please tell me what you expect of me, and I will try.

Sounion, the sacred promontory of Athens.

I only want a woman to laugh.

- Have you tried the woodcock, Fletcher? - It’s all bones, milord. I don’t care what she is besides.

I could make Augusta laugh at anything.

If my calculations are correct, the dimensions of Sounion I daresay I might laugh if you said something funny.

are precisely the same as Hephaestion.

Possibly built by the same man.

When Greeks were men, not slaves for the Turks. Well then, climb that ledge. I’ll race you.

Well, I’d like to sketch it. - What? - To the top there.

Later. One, two, three, go!

I’m stuck!

Oh, you’re reading the Bible!

Yes. But it will do no good.

You have married a fallen angel.

I think that is what Mr Hobhouse calls “an affectation”.

What is that? Do you?

By order of the governor of Athens, let us pass. Well, proselytize, then.

Come along.

It is filth, Greek filth. Sit down and convert me.

You may find it a problem.

Our orders are to throw it into the sea. I’m an accomplished solver of problems.

And you reckon you can solve me?

I’m a peer of the realm. With your fraction of theology...

Open it. I warm to the challenge.

Alas, my dear. I already have a great mind to believe in Christianity.

As I thought.

Merely for the pleasure of fancying myself damned.

You’ve seen my mark. You know how wicked I am.

You were born with a minor deformity, nothing more.

- You are not wicked. - Oh, I am a villain, Belle.

I could convince you over it in three words.

If you please, you bastard.

Open it.

Byron.

You obstructed an officer of my guard in the pursuance of his duty.

Were you an ordinary man, Lord Byron, you would not be sitting here now.

How very fortunate, then.

When I was ten, I inherited a peerage.

Have you enjoyed your time in Turkey?

I had thought myself in Greece.

To us the whole empire is Turkey, and has been for 300 years.

What is the purpose of your visit here?

Merely to observe the manner of life in the East. Come back to bed.

You’ll wake the staff.

I should not believe what they say, then:

that in your land true pleasure is forbidden.

Only women are allowed.

Customs vary.

So you... come here?

Tonight, your excellency, Your head should have a softer pillow than my heart.

I have come to plead for a woman’s freedom.

- Women are worthless. - Possibly so,

I wonder which will break first –

yet, to take a life, for an hour of lust...

yours or mine.

She is guilty.

I’m not a brutal man, but the law of the sultan is specific.

Why are you so miserable, B.?

How much would it take to make it...

Annabella, you are good to me.

less specific? I could not have hoped for a fonder wife.

- I’ll do anything for you. - Would you?

Name it. I’ll do it.

Take me to visit your sister. That’s what I should like.

It’s a devil of a long way to Newmarket, Belle.

Well, that’s what I should like.

Got a bad feeling in my water, Miss Rood.

Last of the money is gone.

It’s time to go home, Hobby.

Well...

And what should we find now, and... - What is the matter? - I need a drink.

Why?

What should we do with our lives? Must one give reasons for a drink?

Augusta. My wife.

- Lady Byron. - Mrs Leigh.

I’ve heard so much about you.

I trust you had a wonderful honeymoon?

It is very unusual. A treacle moon.

The lands of the Mediterranean, Mr Murray, are rich in mystery. Well, we waded through it, didn’t we, Belle?

This is Medora?

“Hints from Horace” is a pretty title,

She’s lovely.

but I confess I have reservations as to its merit. Medora? The girl in The Corsair?

You won’t publish it?

I regret to say that the, uh... taste of the town Definitely a Byron, isn’t she?

has changed during your two years abroad.

B. has promised he will not go out so much as he was used to.

We shall stay home and read.

You may keep the tortoise, Mr Murray.

Oh, we’re looking forward to a quiet life in Piccadilly, aren’t we?

As a small beam of sunshine in the murk of your grub street life.

Milord, are these “hints” and this creature... I intend to start him on Locke’s Reasonableness of Christianity.

the sole products of your Tour? Let him try arguing with that.

You have seen exotic places. Did you not write about them? I wonder how the fashions go, this season.

I did. Are the women wearing drawers or are they not?

- I have another poem. - May I read it? That is the question.

What is it called? To bare arse or not to bare arse.

It’s called “Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage”. He’s a fond tease, isn’t he, sis?

Though I doubt it will suit. Will you take up drawers, Belle? Augusta has.

The taste of the town being so damned modern.

You’ll save that kind of talk for your club, if you don’t mind.

I don’t know where you get these ideas.

- Where’re you headed? - To Newstead. I get them from the month we spent at Newstead, in the snow.

My mother claims to be unwell.

But, as I’ve never known her not to claim to be unwell,

I make no particular haste. I’ve never been to Newstead.

She will still be her usual malignant self when I get there. No, and you never will, because I’m forced to sell it.

If you hadn’t been so profligate, you wouldn’t have to.

Well, you are the chief architect of my fate.

A fate that can only be described as benevolent.

You have married felicitously, George.

I should not have married at all.

Well, I’m tired. I think I shall go to bed.

Are you coming?

Fetch the gloves. Indeed the old fool fancies himself a poet,

and composes Durham Doggerel in my honour.

While her mother, who could crack walnuts with her buttocks

and weeps tears of glass,

is as gentile a trollop as one might wish to meet.

You are vile.

Oh, it was a jolly charade.

How long, I wonder, can I go on playing my part?

Now that I have you.

No.

- Gus... - No.

And when, alas! our brains are gone, What nobler substitute than wine? Your wife is under my roof.

I think I should give up poetry, Fletcher. Don’t you?

What are you doing?

Yes, milord. It’s perfectly normal.

Why the devil are you yawning? Oh, is it?

Don’t you like it?

It’s three o’clock in the morning, milord.

And you want to crawl back under the blankets with Mrs Fletcher, do you?

Mrs Fletcher is dead, milord. Have you heard from Seaham? How is your papa?

Dead? His gout is troubling him.

When?

It’s when we was on our travels, milord. Tiresome, gout. But rarely fatal.

Damnit, man, you should have told me!

Do see out at the first sign of terminal illness, though, won’t you?

I find it completely perplexing, this extraordinary sollicitude

What about the serving girl? The young one.

as to my prospects of fortune.

- Susan, milord. - Is she married? You have wealth of your own.

My dear, I cannot sell Newstead.

Susan is unattached.

I have nothing but debt.

I don’t suppose Susan could prepare me a plate of eggs. I will not let something as dull as debt cause doubts and miss between us.

She is retired to bed, milord.

- I’m very loyal, you know. - Oh, God...

But I don’t think she’s asleep. Will you please stop this blaspheming?

Your master seems vapourish.

Oh, he’s a decent sort-a.

There’s som’ ’bout this marrying that don’t agree with him.

- Married yourself, are ye? - Me?

Susan?

Widower.

Betsy, your lordship.

I’m Susan. Sorry to hear it.

Ah... - Most of the time he’s a darling. - Is he?

We were happy at Seaham, but then we came here and...

And I swam the Hellespont, from Sestos to Abydos!

Well...

- You swam the Hellespont? - He did. He swims like a fish. I boss him about.

And the women? Were they fair? Silly goose resents it.

- Dark, in the main. - Dark, Scrope, and above all cheap. He’s the gentlest man.

But when he’s in his black mood, he’s horrid.

It was two years of bliss. Bliss and debauchery.

- Did you tell him to marry me? - Of course.

- And now what? - What indeed? I had to get rid of him somehow.

At twenty-three the best of life is over, and its bitters double.

We must reform. You said it yourself.

And after the East, England seems a pale imitation of life.

- Augusta, I need you. - That is over. In the past.

- Aren’t you writing? - I’ve a couple of canto’s, - Medora is not in the past. - Medora is nothing to do with you.

concerning the adventures of one Childe Harold.

Manly specimen, rather passionate, who journeys to Greece and Albania. - Medora is the Colonel’s child. - Oh, is she?

This is a very sudden interest you have in little babies.

Hobby may recognise a deal of it. I’d laid down with you, Gus. We were lovers!

Does he sigh a lot and mope after girls? But now you are married. And it is ancient history.

Does he have a limp, by any chance?

Christ...

- I hate being married. - You may not hate it.

My God, it does me good to see you.

Thank you for coming all this way. You must try to be content, try to be a good husband.

- Will you try? - Tell me why I should!

I bring bad news.

If you love me as you say, you would try.

Matthews is dead.

He dived into the Cam and was caught in a bed of weeds. I do love you.

Then try.

But Charlie Matthews was a fine swimmer.

Well, he drowned. At least, that’s the Cambridge version. Goodbye.

- Suicide? - He was an atheist, a republican,

and something too fond of small boys. Bye, George.

What future had he? Here?

- Goodbye! - Goodbye!

Let us just say that he drowned in the Cam.

- To the dead. - The dead.

The dead.

And now what’s left to live for?

Well, I have my dice and cards, you your... scribbling.

I wish often that I were a gambler. She’s a darling, I like her enormously.

Win or lose, you feel something. She tells me she’s been made a lady-in-waiting to Queen Charlotte,

But I feel nothing. And I am sunk as a poet. so she’ll be often up to town.

Hobhouse has his politics. I said to come up to us in Piccadilly.

Hobhouse, as we all know, is a fool.

- And what’s wrong with politics? - Nothing wrong with them, Hobby,

provided that you remember they are a futile pursuit.

B., I think I’m expecting a child.

I addressed the House of Lords the other day,

rather a finely-wrought speech, as a matter of fact, Oh, God...

but one which made bugger-all difference to anything.

You don’t make a difference in a day.

- And your theme, George? - Well, do you see...

The learned Fletcher informed me

that the machines in Nottingham are putting our stocking-weavers out of work.

The men are rampaging at night, smashing the new equipment. Nice place.

Marriage has its perquisites, eh?

The government wants to make this “frame-breaking” a capital offence. Well, I got a wife and a cold on the same day.

Well, we cannot have the wanton destruction of private property, can we? And I got rid of the cold pretty speedily.

Yes, but they are starving, don’t you see? I don’t think there’s any need for that.

You haven’t lived here for six months.

They’re starving.

It is a disgrace to a civilised country! We hope for a boy, of course.

We are most contented, aunt.

I have been in some of the most oppressed provinces of Turkey,

Well, to be frank we were a little discomposed at Six Mile Bottom,

but never, even under that most despotic government,

but we seem to have weathered that.

did I behold such wretchedness as I have seen since my return! Keep your eye on Mrs Leigh.

The woman is very clever and very wicked.

And how will your lordships implement this bill?

Erect a gibbet in every field, and hang up men like scarecrows? - Good morning, captain Hobhouse. - Plain Mr Hobhouse now, Lady Byron.

Bravo! I had to resign my commission.

Oratory of the old school! Did it cost a lot, getting elected? Most of my inheritance, I’m afraid.

I must be good at something, mustn’t I, Scrope? But I rather suspect it was worth it.

I’m now in a position where I may have some influence upon the fate of this country.

And that is where I have always wanted to be.

Are you familiar with the doctrine of predestination, Fletcher?

- Not as to the detail, milord. - Well, I am. What have you got against living in Piccadilly, George?

Wouldn’t expect no less, milord. It’s seven hundred a year, that’s what.

My mother made it very clear: And the day before last, I found a grey hair on my head.

we are the damned of Aberdeen. Christ...

Twenty-eight, insolvent and grey.

Put Mr Davies in his bed.

Who’s that, talking to Shelley?

Gently, man!

I owe him 4,800 pounds. A Greek fellow.

Drumming up money for some lost cause.

Tambourgi! I trust Shelley to fall for it.

Tambourgi!

- Uh, milord, there are... - Not now, Fletcher.

W-We’re having a little trouble... w-with...

bailiffs, milord.

Mama will hear this news.

No doubt the heavenly host have contacted her already.

Have the civility not to mock the pious.

You’re mother is about as pious as a boiled egg.

What is it you expect of me, B.?

Am I not good enough for you?

- You are too good. - You could be better.

Lord Holland’s compliments to Lord Byron. You make me worse.

- What is that? - Laudanum.

For my nerves.

Hobby!

- Solved the Irish question yet? - Working on it, George.

What the deuce is going on? Half of London has left its card.

I woke one morning to find myself famous.

Famous? For what?

For Childe Harold, the gloomy little ponce.

- Murray published it. - And it sold?

It sold out. In three days.

One is very much in demand. - Good morning. - Are you working?

I search in vain for its appeal. No, I am thinking of killing myself.

I mean, it reads like a... a map of the Mediterranean, I only forbear from a consideration of the pleasure it’d give my mother-in-law.

larded with gods and heroes from a schoolboy’s grammar. My name is Claire Clairmont. I’m a friend of Shelley’s.

And the half-rhymes! Oh, and the dedications! Oh. I have read his “Queen Mab”.

And why are you here, Miss Clairmont?

Horrors. I want to go to bed with you.

Lord Byron!

And captain Hobhouse!

- How did he take it? - Rather keen, I think.

- But isn’t he married? - Oh, married, what is that?

I can never resist the temptation of throwing a pebble at it as I pass by.

I shall marry Shelley, you know?

What prevented you from coming across and saying hello?

Lord Byron?

Will you take tea? Not everyone at the club approves of your membership.

And you listen to them, do you?

Look, because I’m a revolutionist,

I’m dragged to the courts for exposing their frauds and scorning their power.

And they will tear from me my children, my property, my liberty, and my fame.

I assure you, I have seen mankind in various countries,

and I find them all equally despicable. But how can I keep silent, when there is this?

If anything, the balance is slightly in favour of the Turks.

But they are not Christian. All religion is business in superstition.

Oh, dear...

Your friend is much in demand, captain. Priests are agents of state power, poetry our weapon against them.

So it appears, Lady Melbourne. More, Claire. More.

I will have nothing to do with your immortality. We want a new society. For all men.

Are we not miserable enough in this life

without the absurdity of speculating upon another? And women too. Can man be free if woman be a slave?

Besides, if we are meant to live forever,

Tambourgi!

why do we bother to die at all?

Then are you a Platonist, Lord Byron?

Tambourgi!

- I am nothing at all. - You must be something.

Just a poor poet. Tambourgi!

And how did you learn to be that?

For a man to become a poet

he must be in love.

Fletcher!

Or miserable.

Which are you? Ah! Fletcher!

Now Harold felt himself at length alone,

And bade to Christian tongues a long adieu:

Now he adventured on a shore unknown,

Which all admire, but many dread to view: Brandy and soda,

if you please.

His breast was armed ’gainst fate, his wants were few:

Yes, milord.

Peril he sought not, but ne’er shrank to meet:

The scene was savage, but the scene was new;

This made the ceaseless toil of travel sweet,

Beat back keen winter’s blast; and welcomed summer’s heat.

Your parrot bit my finger.

It is splendidly written.

But all of society is asking: is it you, enjoying these adventures?

I have done some odd things in my time.

They say at Cambridge you procured a bear.

Oh, my bear was adorable.

But what did you intend to do with the creature?

I intended it to sit for a fellowship.

But the dons disagreed.

I thought the bear had a good chance, myself.

I will take no mutton, thank you.

- Will you take fish? - Not fish, no.

Then what may I offer you?

I eat only potatoes.

Mashed in a little vinegar, if they could manage that.

I can get along with anyone.

And a glass of soda water. Why can’t I get along with her?

We’re like to parallel lines, belonging to infinity.

You are vain, I think.

I detest fat. Side by side, but destined never to meet.

My mother was fat.

- And I’m behaving like a swine. - Any idea why?

I fear for you, Byron. - Oh, because I’m a Byron. - And you’re all doomed.

You have leapt to a sudden celebrity.

You engineer it, man.

Your youth, your looks, your wanderings in Greece

You can’t get up in the morning without digging a pit for yourself.

combine to make you a prize, a trophy.

I simply won’t accept all this predestination guff!

- But be cautious. - In what respect cautious?

I don’t believe that any man is damned unequivocally to hell.

In respect of falling in love. No, well...

Oh, I fall in love before breakfast. You’re not from Aberdeen, are you?

I fall in love with my dogs. And everything is ready for your accouchement?

Nevertheless... We are all prepared. Mama is sending Mrs Curtin.

Certain things are allowed, certain things are not.

And I have asked Mrs Leigh to come up.

Usually go for the latter.

Mrs Leigh?

Usually so do I. She and her brother are awfully close.

But they have some secret, Caro, that I do not share.

My dear Lady Melbourne,

were there fewer years between us... I do love Augusta, but it is so frustrating;

Were there fewer years between us,

dinner would have ended long ago. it is like a private language between them –

one that I am not allowed to learn.

Fletcher!

Hock and soda!

And a plate of meat!

Milord, the post.

And milord, ehm...

There’s a naked lady in the bedroom. What?

I will keep ’till tomorrow, milord.

I’ll have it in a minute.

I may not be here tomorrow.

What do you want, Fletcher?

It’s Miss Rood.

She and me have an inclination to marry.

And I wish to ask for your Lordship’s permission.

Beware. The place is full of Lady Milbanke’s spies.

- Good evening, Miss Milbanke. - Do you not dance, Lord Byron?

Does it look like I do? This new music is monstrous.

The worst is Mrs Curtin – a bitch from hell.

Oh, I understand.

I’m sure she’s nothing of the kind.

May I inquire what you are writing now?

No, you may not. You had been to your wife?

I have a black soul, Miss Milbanke, I had rather not risk its corrupting you.

If you could endeavour to control your natural sarcasm, milord,

I daresay I should judge you quite sincere.

You are too good for me, Miss Milbanke; I am dreadfully perverted.

The newsletters have it in black and white.

I do not read the newspapers.

And I do not think you are such a dangerous person. Dear sis.

Your excellent poem proves you can feel nobly, I’ve just this minute seen him.

but for some reason you discourage your own good nature. He is behaving oddly.

I think you play a part for the ladies, if the truth be known. I have asked my doctors to conduct an examination.

- What is it prompts such frankness? - My Christian duty, merely. I think he has some malady.

If I could persuade you to look inside yourself, perhaps... But they found nothing, did they, Mrs Curtin?

Do you think that there is one person here who’d dare to do that? Nothing they could prove.

You don’t know what a fool I’ve been about him.

Oh, I’m such a silly-billy.

- Mr and Mrs Fletcher. - Hear-hear.

Mr and Mrs Fletcher!

I have some friends desire your acquaintance.

This is Miss Milbanke’s first season.

She seeks a husband.

Could she not find one in Jane Austen?

I paid a call on cousin Annabella.

My niece is a most intelligent young woman. I believe she’s finally found a sum she can’t do.

She stands to inherit. Pray, don’t talk in riddles, Caro. You know I abhor riddles.

And her figure is, I would say, passable.

She is perfect. It is a curious addition: Byron + a sister = ...

I’d like her more were she a little... less perfect.

Mrs Leigh has come to town?

I am sure you know Tom Moore, also a poet? And installed at Piccadilly, for the birth.

- No, I don’t. Hello. - Tom Moore.

He has long caught a disaster. She is his catastrophy.

Oh, have you met my daughter-in-law, Lady Caroline?

- At what are you hinting? - What do you think?

Oh, I hardly know.

An outrage, which no person of taste will find themselves able to stomach.

I’d leave it go, milord. Plenty more where that one come from.

It was a snub, Fletcher.

Every other woman in London wants to know me. They are not attached?

A rose in March.

How unusual.

I am told your Ladyship likes everything that is new and rare...

for a moment.

You have the face of an angel.

Bad angel.

- Why did you run away? - I saw you whispering with my cousin.

I was jealous.

I deny whispering with your cousin.

- Who is your cousin? - Annabella Milbanke.

You and she were stationed in a corner.

Discussing the purification of my soul, if I recall. Show me her feet.

You’ve never discussed that with me.

Lady Caroline, I’ve only this minute met you.

That’s no excuse. What were you doing down there?

Are we to be lovers? Were you trying to kill us both?

I said, “are we to be lovers?” They’re perfect.

- Are you mad? - I don’t know.

Are you? I hope you will be happy.

- Do you keep abreast of the latest stuff? - Why, yes!

I will never be happy, Mrs Leigh.

Whenever I hear of a good new book, I rush out and buy an old one.

And nor will you.

Hello, Tom.

I hope you don’t mind I’ve brought a guest. We are mired in the nightmare of our delinquencies.

Mr Murray you know...

and uhm, this is a fellow scribbler – Rodgers;

Lord Byron.

We are all somewhat in awe of you, milord.

You have found that rare treasure –

your own voice. I suggest I take Ada to the Seaham and recover there.

By accident, I assure you.

That’s a long journey for a new-born child.

I don’t think “Childe Harold” my very best work.

Oh, I think you should go. Lady or mama pamper you a little.

I rather like “Hints from Horace”.

And, when the opportunity arises,

We meet every Thursday. aquaint Lady Milbanke with the wrongs he’s done you.

- I and my most famous authors. - Well, we were your most famous authors;

You will feel better.

some upstart has come and knocked us off our perch.

Go... I would marry a poet, wouldn’t I, Caro?

Thank you. - I suppose I deserve it. - No.

- Well done. - Well done. Tell your mother everything.

- Well done. - Well done.

Thank you, gentlemen.

Thank you.

Goodnight.

I leave tomorrow.

Good.

That is good.

Some time apart.

Caro!

I want you. For reflection.

If you’re seen, you’re ruined.

I don’t care.

Well, seduce me, then.

I dare you. If I thought it would change anything,

I’d throw myself at your feet and tell you I love you.

And beg you to start our marriage over again.

You know what I do to boys with tight little arses, don’t you?

This is the object I treasure most in the world.

It went all around Greece with me.

Good morning, Miss Milbanke.

You are leaving Lady Caroline’s very early, Lord Byron.

I hope she has not been rude. She can be, you know.

I’m just on my way to discuss with her

some mathematical problems I’ve been attempting.

Are you keen on mathematics, by any chance?

I am content to admire them at an incomprehensible distance.

I know that two and two make four,

and should be glad to prove it, if I could.

Though I must say, if I could get them to make five,

it would give me much greater pleasure.

Why ever would you wish to do that?

I have told you before, Miss Milbanke:

perverted.

What would it take to convince you?

You will never convince me, Lord Byron.

Good day.

Caro, are you not up?

Oh, my dear child!

Oh, papa!

Caro?

He did what?!

- I’m for a reconciliation. - Absolutely no question of it.

His crime is in the deepest catalogue of human law.

My coat, please. What the deuce is it, then?

Hm?

I did not know it was wrong, papa.

Hello, Georgie. I’m ashamed of you, George!

Is it true, you’re famous? - You should go out more. - Is it true?

You sodomized your wife?

Will you not come up? - Everyone does it in Turkey. - But...

To a gentleman’s apartment? Alone?

Not here! Here you can still be hanged for it!

It is no impropriety, I think, for me to entertain my sister. Oh, that is is a load of cant!

It is entirely common, as everybody knows.

Just been to the bank. Nothing in it, and... But entirely uncommon to be cited in the divorce of the sixth Baron Byron.

sshh, secret...

another baby due. Her lawyers are insisting on a deed of separation,

You’re to be an uncle again. But I don’t absolutely know how to cope. and if you do not sign it, if it comes to court,

there’ll be the most appalling scandal!

Where’s the Colonel? And God knows what else will get out.

Following the horses.

He has an incurable passion for losing money,

and only returns to Six Mile Bottom when Newmarket races are one. My dear cousin,

It is hard for me to write this,

Don’t think I’ve made a clever match, George. but as news of your probable separation is on everybody’s lips,

Still, on with the show, etcetera, silver linings, and all of that...

I must offer my condolence and support.

I myself am in debt to the tune of twenty-five thousand or thereabouts. The man we have both loved is intolerable.

Clearly you cannot continue this travesty of a marriage

I shall have to sell Newstead.

whilst his base feeling for his sister remains as potent as ever.

Perhaps then I may be in the position...

Oh, I didn’t come to beg for help.

I’m a silly old goose, but I’ll manage.

You’ve acted most bravely, Belle,

Brain like boiled cabbage. But never mind...

in attempting to curtail their lawless union

Will you quit your damned crinkum-crankum, you lunatic? by the example of your piety and virtue.

But is was not in your power to prevent them.

They bonded tight and evil, and you must break away.

Oh, Georgie...

How long has it been? It is a hard wrench, I know, but it is just.

One hundred and thirteen thousand...

- Come on... come on... - Any advance on 113,000 guinnees

for Newstead Abbey, Nottinghamshire, with its park, grounds, and game? My thoughts and love are with you. Your devoted cousin.

I hear rumours of you and a certain lady.

Any further bids?

Gentlemen, for the last time: any further bids?

I think she’s spreading them herself. - Your wife has signed. - Get out of the country for a spell.

Then I declare the lot withdrawn, Scroop’s right. Stay away from the public eye.

as the reserve price has not been reached. - But why? - Because you were their little Greek god.

Oh, bad luck. And they delight in pulling you down and tearing you to pieces.

Still, I’m sure some “little lamb” will console you. - There are awful rumours, George. - Go abroad tonight, please.

Abroad? I’m expected at Lady Jersey’s.

Mrs Leigh’s name has been mentioned.

My sister is beyond reproach.

And I will not slink off like a leper.

Blood of Christ, I’ve done nothing wrong!

Stop!

Stop!

Lord Byron does not care to waltz.

You must run away.

Get away! Run!

Come with me.

But you loved her once?

After a few days it went away. I can’t, Georgie.

Rather like a sore throat. - Please, come with me. - It is impossible, I can’t.

Her reputation’s pretty well shot to pieces.

- Watch out for your own. - I can’t get rid of her, Hobby. - But soon, you’ll come soon? - Where?

She hangs around my neck like Coleridge’s wretched bird.

I’ll write, I’ll tell you where.

She thinks if she’s with me, she has to be outrageous. Do write, Georgie, do.

No, well, can’t have that, can we?

Well, don’t be cross. Do you know how much I love you?

I know I’m a fool.

How’s the army? Fought any battles?

God, I fancy a battle.

It’s a stepping-stone, that’s all.

As soon as I inherit, I shall resign my commission

and run for Parliament.

I reckon I can get elected.

I just need to consolidate my politics.

I’ve managed to consolidate my politics into an utter detestation of all governments.

I cannot bear...

A page below with a letter for your Lordship.

Must be given personal, he says.

- Bit late for a page, isn’t it? - I’ve recently had mail from my sister.

- She may be back in town. - I’d no idea you had a sister.

Half-sister. Different mothers.

I haven’t seen her for thirteen years, until...

Caro!

- Out, Fletcher! - Get off me! - Lord Byron. - Palazzo Mocenigo?

I have a gig waiting, we can elope tonight! Ehm, sì.

Elope? What a stupid idea! Prego.

Oh, are you tired of me?

Yes, I am tired of you, Caroline! Yes, I am! Arriverderci.

- But I love you! - Get off me! Get out!

- Let me try and reason with her. - There’s no reasoning with her,

she’s insane! Though the day of my destiny’s over,

And the star of my fate hath declined,

Please! Please let me come in! Please! Thy soft heart refused to discover

The faults which so many could find;

Though thy soul with my grief was acquainted,

It shrunk not to share it with me,

And the love which my spirit hath painted

It never hath found but in thee.

In the desert a fountain is springing,

She was never my type. In the wide waste there still is a tree,

Too small and thin. And a bird in the solitude singing,

Which speaks to my spirit of thee.

And thinks herself intellectual, having once read the preface to a novel.

William has removed her to Ireland, where she threatens to kill herself.

Or you, or both.

However nobody believes her.

Her stratagems are all too charmingly familiar.

- Now, what will you do? - I shall leave town.

Have you fallen in love?

I am quite done with falling in love.

Prendimi con te.

George!

I hope you like children.

Fervent admirer of King Herod, as a matter of fact.

Mr Shelley is here, milord.

Shelley! Oh, my dear good fellow!

Questo è il mio amico che viene dall’Inghilterra.

Vai al cucina,

e prepare qualcosa da mangiare e bere.

Her name is Margarita.

Built to breed gladiators from.

Five months, I think, since we’ve seen the Colonel. And illiterate, thank Christ.

But how wonderful that you are here!

How do you survive?

Sit down.

It’s very hard. But we bear up, somehow.

All fuddle and muddle, that’s me. What do you think of my little pallazzo?

I haven’t really expected to find you in such company, to be honest.

We come from a long line of financial disasters, Gus.

The learned Fletcher feels the same, do you not, Fletcher?

To be a Byron, my mother said, is to be doomed.

- Milord? - You mislike my Venetians.

I’m a Byron. Am I doomed? I ought naught against Venetians.

- Except they’re foreign, of course. - Of course.

Come and fly the kite, uncle!

How is our dinner today?

Unspeakingly filthy and oily, milord.

As usual.

Here we go. Right, right, give me the kite... I don’t know where I’d be without Fletcher.

Yes, right. Ready? And run. He reminds me so much of home.

Run! Run! Run! Faster! Faster! Faster! Oh! Now...

Nearly... Nearly... Why are you in Venice?

Miss Clairmont wants her daughter.

No, I will not surrender her.

But she lives among catamites and prostitutes.

Penny for your thoughts.

Do be more original. Which is why I’m resolved to place her in a convent,

when she’s a year or two older.

I beg your pardon, Augusta. - A catholic convent? - Yes.

My daughter will become a good catholic.

What happened to you in London? And it may even be a nun –

I was made a fool of. a character somewhat wanted in our family.

You must make plans. Making plans is fun. Claire will be mortified.

Claire Clairmont, to express it delicately, is a damned bitch,

I want to do something with my life, and this... who had the very bad taste to fall pregnant after I inadvertedly lay in her bed.

isn’t it.

Of course it isn’t.

All this Thrasybulus and Thermopylae and what have you... I never loved her, or pretended to love her,

so you can disabuse Miss Claire bloody Clairmont today...

Why is everyone so fussed about Greece, anyway?

It’s an ideal. An ideal place.

Well, I don’t like ideals. My God. Look at her.

I like things I can see and smell and feel.

She’s fine. Aren’t you, Allegra?

- She’s filthy. - Well, she’s alive.

Unlike most of yours.

Do you not think perhaps she would be better with her mother?

Claire has no money. The child is illegitimate.

In England she would be grossly disadvantaged.

In Italy, with a fair education and a settlement of five or six thousand,

she may perhaps marry respectably.

I do know what I do.

There must’ve been lots and lots of girls. Do you ride, Shelley?

There were.

From each I took a little clipping of her hair.

From here?

- What makes you write? - My inability to prevent it.

You?

From here. My dream of revolution.

When the poor of every nation will rise up and throw off their chains.

Oh.

Oh aye, it’s hectic life, up London.

Never get in before three in the morning. Your problem is your intellect.

Three in the morning? And what about breakfast? You gaze from your palace at the minnows below and you find their efforts meaningless,

Well, we have breakfast after lunch. their state unalterable, their misery unending, but it is not so.

What time do you give your husband breakfast? - The material can be altered. - No.

I haven’t no husband. All that holds us back is we ourselves.

If we were not weak, we might be all we dream of.

Oh, “if we were not weak”...

But man is born wicked and dies a sinner.

Fletcher!

- So you hold no hope? - For what?

Fletcher! We live a little, and then...

good night.

I believe in the perfectibility of man.

You talk Utopia, Shelley.

You don’t think anything can be changed?

No, things may change.

But whether our actions have any effect on the process, is quite another matter.

So if the gondola goes down, halfway across the lagune,

Fucking books... you’ll simply accept it, will you?

If the gondola goes down, I’ll swim.

Carriage is ready, milord.

And you?

I can’t swim.

You can’t swim?

- What will you do? - Well...

I shall solve the great riddle, shan’t I?

Christ...

I’ve forgotten about her.

- Do you know how sinful this is? - Sinful? Why?

It does no harm to anyone. Your hot milk, sir.

It is forbidden fruit. You have been His Lordship’s man a long time, I think.

- I am a bad man, Augusta. - Oh, you silly goose. Yes, I have, sir.

We hardly know each other. Does it surprise you to see him fettered by a back-alley whore?

On the contrary, sir.

Any woman can manage Lord Byron.

Excepting Lady Byron, of course.

She couldn’t get the hang of it at all.

Ah, Fletcher.

- Hock and soda, if you please. - Milord.

Sir?

How did you calm your courtisane?

- What did you say? - Say?

Why, nothing at all.

It’s an oratorial skill I call “The Eloquence of Action”.

- Who is the woman? - That must remain my secret. The one way I could silence my wife.

I don’t like secrets. Now.... Here is something for you to read,

- So you say there is some danger? - Very great danger. if you would be gracious enough.

- Then give it up. Give it up at once. - I cannot.

- Then she must give you up. - She cannot.

Then I don’t think very highly of this person. No one has ever written a poem like that before.

Lady Melbourne, it is not her fault. It is mine, my folly.

I just don’t accept that there exists such a thing

as a subject unsuited for verse.

I’m a thousand times more to blame.

In my experience the man is never to blame.

“But now at thirty years my hair is grey –

When you’ve tired of these childish secrets, Byron,

come and see me. “(I wonder what it will be like at forty?

“I thought of a peruke the other day – )

Good evening, milord. “My heart is not much greener; and, in short, I

Miss Milbanke. Do you object if I rest here? “Have squandered my whole summer while ’twas May,

Not if you talk to me. “And feel no more the spirit to retort; I

What is life for, do you think?

“Have spent my life, both interest and principal,

Tis a way to do good, to make people happy,

and to serve God. “And deem not, what I deemed, my soul invincible.

It took me three hours to dress, this morning.

Subtract the buttoning and unbuttoning,

the sleeping and eating and swilling –

and what is left of real existence?

“What is the end of Fame? ’tis but to fill

The summer of a dormouse.

A few minutes only, of sensation. “A certain portion of uncertain paper:

I do not think sensation so terribly important. “Some liken it to climbing up a hill,

It is our only proof that we exist. “Whose summit, like all hills, is lost in vapour;

That is why we crave it.

You seem to me extremely bewildered, Lord Byron. “For this men write, speak, preach, and heroes kill,

To a mind such as yours, Miss Milbanke,

I am sure I am quite unfathomable. “And bards burn what they call their ‘midnight taper’,

“To have, when the original is dust,

“A name, a wretched picture and worse bust.”

George, will you raise?

You should not sit in solitude in Italy.

You are needed in your own country.

You had a winning hand, you idiot. Mrs Fletcher, do please cure Ada of that filthy habit.

You had a winning hand, and you threw it away.

Listen to me, Belle.

She’s making us look foolish.

She’s still a lady-in-waiting,

she has quarters at the palace of St. James’, why...

The woman maintains the full sufficiency of her social circuit.

I’m very much afraid this weather will make it impossible for me to get home.

Despite everything she has done.

I shall be trapped here. And for the Regent’s Fête I shall wear mauve.

I shall burrow down like a little bunny-rabbit, Such a feminine colour.

and I shall only come out for snowball fights. With a stole, perhaps.

What do you think, sis?

Your damned crinkum-crankum. I think we have talked enough of gauzes and satins.

I can’t do without it. I’m surprised to find you’re going to town at all.

But the Regent’s Fête I have to attend.

In my official what-not.

I’m surprised you can show your face in public!

Dearest Belle, I never meant to harm you.

You have destroyed my life!

My daughter will never know her father!

I am stared at where ever I go!

- I’ve been thinking... - Don’t strain yourself. Why, there’re all cartoons in the newspapers!

- You should marry. - Why? But I have not wronged you.

- I’ve never abused you. - Yes, you have!

- You need a wife. - Well, you’re a wife. What have I done?

I’ll have you.

If you marry, you might keep this place. You had...

What, by finding some golden dolly, relations with my husband.

and ennobling the dirty puddle of her mercantile blood? - Mama. - It’s all right, Medora.

No. A girl of equal rank, and not in debt like us. Medora? Oh, this is Medora?

Why, I’m surprised she has not got two heads!

There is a further reason, not just the money.

What do you want here?

I want a confession, that’s what I want!

I shall be having another child.

Why are you not contrite?

Do you think that the laws that apply to others do not apply to Augusta Leigh?

“Behold, thou hast driven me out this day from the face of the earth, I never meant to hurt you, Belle.

“and from thy face shall I be hid, You will tell me everything.

“and I shall be a fugitive and a vagabond in the earth.”

You remember well. Is there post, Fletcher?

Not today, milord.

Did you ever meet my nurse, May Gray from Aberdeen?

I believe I saw her once.

She beat scripture into me. My sweet sister,

We may have been very wrong, but I repent of nothing.

A few months with May Gray and you’d remember every word of it.

except that cursed marriage.

I’m sure she was just doing her job,

it is heart-breaking to think of our long separation –

fitting you for adult life.

and, I am sure, more than punishment enough for all our sins.

Yes.

I expect that’s why she used to take her clothes off, Needn’t I reply? He seems so sad.

get into my bed and make me spend in her hand.

All part of the training.

Did she?

Yes.

She’d thrash me in the daytime, and toss me off at night.

I have ever since then had a curious gloss on matters biblical.

I must have been about nine, I suppose.

You poor lamb.

I bet you were scared.

What are you doing?

I was scared. Is the story of your life. Sì?

And I was... - You told me you could not read. - I try. I take lesson.

- Lesson? - Sì! Then I read Lord Byron.

thrilled.

Lady Charlotte Leveson-Gower has refused you. Margarita, it’s time for you to go.

Phew. No!

Mercer Elphinstone you will not consider. Why?!

Eats like a horse. Couldn’t afford her. I really am not interested in women who can read.

Which leaves us with Annabella Milbanke. Please, our time is over.

What? Thank you very much, I enjoyed it.

The princess of parallelograms? She’ll want to barter for my soul! But you’ve become quite ungovernable.

I don’t think that would do any harm, would it? So adieu.

I kill you!

Did you write?

Yes.

Very beautiful letter.

Fletcher!

I neither wish you to promise or pledge yourself to anything.

Breakfast, please, Fletcher.

I merely wish to learn if there is a possibility...

- Eggs, I think. - Very good, milord.

O, Madonna!

No! Let me go! Byron! I no fight!

- You give your word? - Sì!

Very well, Tita.

- Good morning, Mrs Leigh. - Good morning, Fletcher.

I’ve the post, milord.

Well?

It is from Miss Milbanke.

Does she accept?

Here, here...

Never rains, but it pours, does it?

here and here.

We are going to bake the cake, papa. And Newstead Abbey finally is sold.

Can’t eat cake. Doctor’s orders.

- The wedding cake. - Ah! The poetic wedding cake! Splendid!

For how long was I in the water, Fletcher,

when I beat the cavalier Mengaldo at swimming?

I was thinking of composing an epithalamium in his honour.

From half past four to a quarter past eight in the evening, milord.

He will, no doubt, be thrilled.

Of course, it might assist me, in my labours Plus I had a piece in the morning, and another at ten at night.

if I knew a little more about him. It’s not hard to come by, then.

Well, his last work, “The Corsair”, Only I had a couple of hundreds since carnival.

sold ten thousand copies on the day of publication.

Won’t go short of a guinea, then. What I earn by my brains, I spend on my bollocks.

Oh no, he won’t take payment for his verses, papa.

It is beneath a gentleman, he says.

You see, in secret he’s the zealous friend of all the finer feelings.

But in society he tries to disguise the best points of his character.

So he’s continually making the most sudden transitions

from good to evil and from evil to good.

I’ve heard him describe himself as half dust, half deity. Come, Lady. He’s dangerous to look at.

It’s fascinating.

But does the fellow shoot?

I do detest the English more with every year that passes.

I harm nobody.

Miss Elphinstone.

I make love with but one woman at a time.

- How is your appetite? - For what, milord?

And as quietly as possible.

Why, for lobster salad and champagne.

Oh, food... Who cares for food? And the English lie through thick and thin.

I had half a hope your inference was indelicate. And invent every kind of absurdity.

I fear you are too late for that. I’m fairly certain it’s a Tintoretto.

But in this light... I’m damned if I may be sure.

Who is that? Come and give me your opinion.

Oh, that’s Shelley. Bysshe Shelley. I have no opinion on painting, I detest painting.

On the scrounge for money. The most pointless of all the arts.

Got sent down from Oxford, apparently.

For what?

Atheism.

It is your sister, the mystery woman.

You were alone with her at Newstead.

You besieged her farm when her husband was away.

- It is your sister, Augusta Leigh. - Half-sister.

- Have you entirely lost your wits? - On the contrary. I am only...

I grew tired of promiscuous concubinage,

You may not consort with your sister!

so I have quited Venice.

It is a thing abhorrent to persons of taste.

Standard practice in ancient Greece.

We’re not in ancient Greece, we’re in Mayfair. I went in pursuit of a contessa –

a young beauty, married to a rich old man of sixty.

What are your feelings towards Mrs Leigh at the present moment? Teresa is as fair as sunrise, and as warm as noon.

At the present moment half good, half diabolical. She wants me for her cavaliere servente.

This is a curious Italian custom where a wife may take an admirer,

What do you propose to do? with the husband’s full knowledge,

I propose to run off with her, abroad. so long as certain niceties are observered.

However...

my sister is not so delinquent as I. She will not abscond.

I am permitted to hold her fan at the opera, for example.

And so I am shortly to be married

to Annabella Milbanke. And I accompany her to mass on occasion,

but absolutely nothing more.

I’m only doing it for the pleasure of calling you aunt.

That is not a sound basis for marriage.

- Marriage is a holy bond. - I confess I find it hard I lived for a year at her palace in Ravenna,

to accept your authority on the subject, Lady Melbourne. where I wrote a poem called “Don Juan”,

which you may or may not like.

Good evening. I am run to fat, dear Augusta,

and the crow’s-foot has been rather lavish of its indelible steps.

“My hair, though not gone, seems going,

“and my teeth remain only by way of courtesy.

I saw Byron. Silly-billy. So fretful about his appearance.

He has settled on your cousin from Yorkshire.

Good. I always believed the whole affair might terminate unexpectedly,

- Marriage will be his salvation. - Oh? for they are liberal with the knife in Ravenna.

I cannot see him pulling with a woman who goes to church punctually, But had Count Guiccioli murdered me,

understands statistics and has a rotten figure. Can you? I should hardly have complained, for I am done with passion.

Teresa is my last attachment.

I thank you very much for your suggestion on religion,

but I must tell you, at the hazard of losing However, the marriage was annulled, by papal decree, no less.

whatever good opinion you have of me,

that it is a source from which I never did,

and believe I never can, derive comfort. And we have come to Pisa, to the Casa Lanfranchi.

Why I came here, I know not. We have acquaintance here –

Where I shall go, it is useless to inquire. Shelley and his wife, some others from England –

In the midst of myriads of the living and the dead worlds, a circle of friends.

stars, systems, infinity, The weather is splendid.

why should I be anxious about an atom? Life is slow.

“But I will read what books you please, hear what arguments you please. It is all entirely congenial.

“You shall be my guide philosopher and friend.” Dearest Gus, when you write to me,

tell me you love me.

And does he say he loves you? I miss you terribly.

Oh, yes, he says that...

somewhere.

And when does he set out?

He will set out... Do you know what I perpetually wonder?

today.

No, sis.

Mama, he is setting out today!

Perpetually wonder whether your carnal relations with my husband

Hobby, would you mind spending Christmas in Cambridge? continued after we were married.

Oh, goodness me, no.

Cambridge? Good heavens.

You have no objection, have you?

But... they expect us at Seaham House.

Well, the Princess of Parallelograms can square some roots while she waits.

Don Juan indeed.

We may image what that is like.

“A feast of indelicacy”.

“Too bawdy for publication”.

It may be bawdy, but is it not good English?

It may be profligate, but is it not life?

Is it not the thing?

- From Murray? - No, from junior Minister Hobhouse!

His prick’s still wet from the stews of Venice.

- But for the sake of his career... - Don’t give way to them.

I will not give way to all the cants of Christendom!

I will not submit to have Don Juan cut about. Christ!

England is decrepit.

Europe is decrepit. A worn-out portion of the globe.

I don’t know. There is Greece.

Gus! - Ferocious fighting in Greece. - Well, well...

Who would have thought Greeks could be heroes again?

This is not lyric poetry. This is politics and battle.

Colonel Leigh. And it’ll all amount to nothing, as usual.

My respects. Why would it all come to nothing?

You’re welcome, milord. Because the forces of reaction are too strong.

- There is no racing, then? - At Christmas? For God’s sake, George, you must have hope.

No-no. We husbands must return home some time. Hope? What’s hope?

A paint on the face of existence.

The least touch of truth rubs it off.

I am on my way to get married. And then we see what hollow-cheeked harlot we got hold of.

Congratulations!

I must of course reform thoroughly. Gentlemen, come in.

I’m betrothed to such a good person, that uh... Williams I think you know, And this is Edward Trelawny.

in short: I wish I was a better.

My God! My corsair!

The Greeks were besieging the Turkish garrison and the Acropolis.

The Turks ran out of lead for their bullets.

Go to Yorkshire. But they reckoned they’d find some if they smashed open the columns of the Parthenon.

You must.

It is the purest folly. But when the Greeks heard this, they sent the Turks some lead,

How can I marry this girl? which was used to make the bullets, which were then shot back at them.

That’s what the Parthenon means to these Greek fellows.

I do not possess you.

I have no desire to possess you, I simply want you to be happy. Why, Elgin should never have touched it.

And that’s why they’ll win in the end.

And why we ought to go.

Only you make me happy.

Contessa?

Byron, there is a bad news.

Allegra is dead.

Allegra?

So sorry. Your daughter is dead.

Nobody will blame you.

You think not?

I’m certain the physicians did their best.

Yes, I do.

But I doubt Miss Clairmont will believe that she died of fever.

Once knew a fellow – believe he was a vintner –

God, I...

took sixteen days to travel from London to Norwich.

I miss the child.

Ran into a party at Chelmsford, apparently, who hailed from the Low Countries.

Such brilliant, brilliant eyes.

Importunate little tramp she was, too.

And in two shakes of a lambs tail he’s on a dock at Harwich... So?

Why do you think she’s gone?

Well...

Imbecile! Great mystery.

Allegra has solved it before us.

Don’t go to Greece.

- Why not? - ’Cause I’ve heard what it’s like.

Oh?

What’s it like?

It’s a very decent place. When Tripolis fell, the Greeks butchered three thousand civilians.

Devilish hot. Pregnant women were ripped open.

Their babes hacked out, their heads struck off

I hear he ownes half the coal mines in Yorkshire. and placed on the bodies of dogs.

And this is the side we’re supporting?

It’s barbaric.

Mary, I’ve done nothing with my life except luxuriate.

Even if it is barbaric, I must, for God’s sake, do something.

A boat’s gone down.

Miss Milbanke.

It is a long time since we met.

At last! They’ve found a body.

But after ten days in the sea...

Society must advance, milord, surely.

Society never advances beyond a certain point. He called it “the great riddle”.

Look at us now, Reverend –

retrograding to the dull, stupid old system in Europe,

I lost two children.

putting kings back on their thrones.

We ran so far and then turned back. My mother died in childbirth.

We ran nowhere in England, as best I may recall.

Lord Byron is a great champion of Bonaparte, Lady Milbanke. Claire’s Allegra.

That filthy little bandit? Impossible. Shelley’s first wife.

Now Shelley too.

- It may be affectation, naturally. - Not at all!

Any devotion to a noble cause I admire.

Give me a republic or a despotism of one, like ancient Rome, It’s not a riddle.

rather than the ridiculous muddle of two’s and three’s we have here. It just hurts.

It is a confounded muddle, you’re quite right.

Could never make head to tail of it myself.

Perhaps that’s why you weren’t elected, Ralph.

Fact is: riches are power

and poverty is slavery, all over the earth.

I’m not sure I can agree.

There must be a system, after all, some rise to the top.

It is natural.

As you wish.

We frequent the theatre quite a bit.

Why, a fortnight ago we saw Kean play Macbeth.

- Did you like him? - I adored him. I adore the theatre.

Annabella’s taste is somewhat less gaudy.

She has always had the very finest of everything.

She does like the old poetry, though.

You’d do a great deal worse.

She’s a most representable young person.

But too silent.

I like a woman to talk.

Or I’m left with the suspicion she’s thinking.

This is our last night together, Hobby.

Drill them again tomorrow, Tita.

Damn this leg.

I’ll exchange legs if you give me some of your brains.

You’d regret it. Sometimes I can feel my brains boiling.

Like poor Shelley’s when we barbecued him.

I’m supposed to administer the funds from London.

But who am I to give them to?

Let the bride and groom come forward. How do I turn a gang of bandits into an army?

We came here to fight. But we’ve done nothing except drill.

Would you please kneel? War turns out to be anything but glamorous, doesn’t it?

But I’ve not seen war.

If I stay in Missolonghi, I never shall.

I’m going North. Find some action.

Trelawny, don’t go, please!

Can you find somewhere for this? - You’re my best officer. - This is pointless.

- Why, are you coming too, are ye? - Course. I want to fight, not dress up and march around.

- So, what’s your name? - Ann Rood.

Rood by name and rude by nature?

Don’t be saucy, you.

- Bath’s ready, milord. - Thank you, Fletcher.

That would be nice.

The ring, please.

I now pronounce you man and wife.

You may kiss. Do you think we will win?

I don’t know why we’re fighting, to tell the truth.

But it is at least something. Isn’t it?

Well...

There we are.

- Well done, George. God bless you. - Well done, indeed!

Splendid!

May you both be content for the rest of your days.

I have great hopes that we shall love each other all of our lives –

They will not go on without payment.

as much as if we had never married at all.

Bye, George.

George...

George!

Excellent, excellent.

What do you think, Judith?

What have we done?

We ought never to have married.

Why?

Because I am evil.

I have done evil. This rain don’t seem to stop, does it, milord?

Tambourgi! No, Fletcher.

Tambourgi! It’s much like Notts, in that respect.

- But they don’t play cricket here. - Not that we know of, milord. No.

Sometimes I dream of cricket.

- Welcome to Halnaby, milord. - Brandy and soda.

I find I dream of women rather more.

Lady Byron, we are all so pleased to see you here.

Yes.

I dream of them, too.

Tambourgi!

Tambourgi!

Hello. Je si hene e bukur, hene e bukur,

What did you mean when you said you had done evil? kjo per syte e mi!

Nothing, I was bored.

Tambourgi!

We are all sinners in the eyes of the Lord.

- Our daily task is to atone. - Shall we go down to dinner? Tambourgi!

Je si uje Burimi, uje Burimi...

You see, there are degrees of evil.

Some would say it was bad, for example, to eat meat on Friday’s, whereas others... I learned it at the court of Ali Pasha, in Albania.

Look, it was merely a casual remark.

But what did you mean by it?

Don’t you ever say things off-the-cuff, for no particular reason? I sang it to the wives of the gentry of England and Ireland.

Mama has taught me that I should first think,

As they undressed and stood before me.

and not act until I have considered the consequences of my actions.

Well, I favour acting first, and hoping the consequences fall within my budget.

Should that not be considered irresponsible?

Have you any sense of humour at all, Annabella?

My mother says I have.

- Oh, you doubt her judgement? - Absolutely not!

Lady Melbourne has many times warned me about it.

My aunt is a little more peppy than is apt for a lady of her years.

Now, I suppose that’s why we go along so well.

But when you said that we should never have married,

that you had done evil,

you implied a dreadful load of criminality weighing upon your mind.

I cannot help rehearsing those words in my head, and wondering...

Come here.

- Any change? - No, doctor.

Tis a mild marsh fever.

We shall bleed him and he will recover.

A more satisfactory day, milord.

If I might, I will offer my congratulations.

Thank you, Fletcher.

It cannot be counted an unbridled success, however,

as I have caught a cold.

What are you doing here?

- Why, I am coming to bed. - With me?

- I am your wife. - Yes, but...

surely you don’t intend to...

I never go to sleep with a woman.

Very well, good night!

Come back, please!

Come back.

You may do as you choose.

It is only, I’m a little...

inhibited.

You?

Your foot. Fucking Greece...

I do think...

if we are to spend the rest of our lives together...

There.

It isn’t so horrible, is it?

Sleep hath its own world,

A boundary between the things misnamed Death and existence:

Sleep hath its own world, And a wide realm of wild reality,

And dreams in their development have breath,

And tears, and tortures, and the touch of joy.

God!

Oh, God, I’m in hell!

But I have lived, and have not lived in vain:

My mind may lose its force, my blood its fire,

And my frame perish even in conquering pain;

But there is that within me which shall tire

Torture and Time, and breathe when I expire;

Something unearthly, which they deem not of,

Like the remember’d tone of a mute lyre,

Shall on their soften’d spirits sink, and move

In hearts all rocky now the late remorse of love.