Do Al Aaraaf's contents confirm and describe exactly the events taking placing in Greece during his visit?
Let's take first a brief glance at the greek situation during years 1826-27:
Greece's revolt of 1821 was instigated to counter Britain's alliance with the Sultan. The greek revolutionaries were soon divided , pro and against Britain (same as in the US at the time) and a civil war was fought as from 1823 simultaneously to the revolutionary war. In 1826 the "against" were negotiating a peace treaty with the progressive albanian ruler of Egypt Mehmet Ali whose forces, led by his son Ibrahim, had taken Morea and Missolonghi and were in control of most of "Greece" then with few exceptions. Egypt was aided by many enligthened royalist french-like Lafayette, himself aided by the US in 1824- who were against the jacobine french revolution,its product, Napoleon, and the puppet government that replaced him. Thus the fight was not really against "Greece to be" but resistance to the british conquest of the Levant.
Those same greeks who had started and fought for the revolution had already made their choice: By maintaining good relations with Egypt and negotiating next another peace treaty with the Sultan, they thought they could maintain their food sources and continue trading grain with both Egypt and the Black Sea, their traditional trading partners.
Edgar's "four bright suns" however had other plans('Twas a sweet time for Nesace- for there Her world lay lolling on the golden air, Near four bright suns- a temporary rest-An oasis in desert of the blest. Of the four bright suns only England, France and Russia have recognised historicaly their Navarino role, one "sun" is therefore missing! See further "Thy will is done, O God! The star hath ridden high Thro' many a tempest, but she rode Beneath thy burning eye " The star who rode so high as to get too close to the "burning eye" is Zante- Ianthe- Greece. For the "Star" and the "burning eye" see the end.)
Tzar Alexander of Russia, who had witnessed as a child the murder of his father through THE conspiracy at the turn of the century, was a weak Tzar controlled more or less by the brits and in constant fear of a revolution against him.
The joint fleets of Alexander's Russia, "puppet" France, Britain (and obvioulsy the USA-only Edgar and the ship's log document their participation as the Monroe Doctrine did not provide for "international intervention") destroyed the Egyptian fleet at Navarino.
Greece did not immediately become a british protectorate. Governor Capodistria, appointed shortly after Navarino, also maintained an "against" policy and was therefore murdered in 1831.
Coming back to Edgar:
He told us already that he "lived through" modern greek Ligeia, he learned the word from greeks, that he witnessed and discussed all their stress and agony, then in their 6th year of their revolt against the Sultan, in their 4th of the civil war, facing then in addition to all that, the fleets of the joined "suns".He confessed furthermore that he himself, "Angelo", had been long slumbered by Nesace's witchery, obviously not as strong as the "spell" cast against her in "Lemnos" as below:
"Ianthe, dearest, see- how dim that ray!
How lovely 'tis to look so far away!
She seem'd not thus upon that autumn eve
I left her gorgeous halls- nor mourn'd to leave.
That eve- that eve- I should remember well-
The sun-ray dropp'd in Lemnos, with a spell
On th' arabesque carving of a gilded hall
Wherein I sate, and on the draperied wall-
And on my eyelids- O the heavy light!
How drowsily it weigh'd them into night!
On flowers, before, and mist, and love they ran
With Persian Saadi in his Gulistan:
But O that light!- I slumber'd- Death, the while,
Stole o'er my senses in that lovely isle
So softly that no single silken hair
Awoke that slept- or knew that he was there.
After Ligeia's failure, he himself, Angelo, attempts to persuade his endangered beloved, yet then unfaithfull (On flowers, before, and mist, and love they ran, With Persian Saadi in his Gulistan) Ianthe-Zante before the battle, to give in to the superior strength before her but that she would not listen.
He calls her a beautifull but stubborn and unfaithfull witch, says he was not sorry for their separation, that he was in fact ever so gentle and discreet, like a ghost perhaps or something similar but......
"We came- and to thy Earth- but not to us
Be given our lady's bidding to discuss:
We came, my love; around, above, below,
Gay fire-fly of the night we come and go,
Nor ask a reason save the angel-nod
She grants to us, as granted by her God-
But, Angelo, than thine grey Time unfurl'd
Never his fairy wing O'er fairier world!
Dim was its little disk, and angel eyes
Alone could see the phantom in the skies,
When first Al Aaraaf knew her course to be
Headlong thitherward o'er the starry sea-
But when its glory swell'd upon the sky,
As glowing Beauty's bust beneath man's eye,
We paused before the heritage of men,
And thy star trembled- as doth Beauty then!"
Thus, in discourse, the lovers whiled away
The night that waned and waned and brought no day.
They fell: for Heaven to them no hope imparts
Who hear not for the beating of their hearts.
aaaah, Angelo, you can't have it both ways, you cannot be sarcastic to those who hear the beating of their hearts and call yourself a poet ....shame on you!
Anyway, the answer to the question above is Yes, they do.
End of Part II