I awoke one morning to find myself famous.

Lord Byron, will you take tea?

In what respect cautious?

In respect of falling in love.

I want you.

Well, seduce me then.

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

I am dreadfully perverted.

I think you play a part for the ladies, if the truth be known.

Your damn crinkum-crankum.

You know how sinful this is.

Have you entirely lost your wits?

You need a wife.

Well, you're a wife, I'll have you.

Caro, Fletcher!

-Get off me!

-[hysterical screaming] I love you!

At last.

[dramatic music] [birds chirping] [birds squawking] [clock chiming] [door creaking open] [butler] Luncheon, my lady.

[dramatic music] Good afternoon.

[soft chuckling] From whom is your letter?

My sister.

[soft music] He got up eventually.

That's a good sign.

My mistress rises every day at six.

Bloody hell.

I wish to make your happiness the first object in life.

Please tell me what you expect of me and I'll try.

I only want a woman to laugh.

I don't care what she is besides.

I could make Augusta laugh at anything.

I daresay I might laugh if you said something funny.

Well, then climb that ledge.

I'll race you.

What?

To the top there.

One, two, three, go.

[chuckling] [Annabella laughing] [gentle music] I'm stuck.

[door creaking open] 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.

Do you?

Well, proselytize then.

Come along, sit down and convert me.

You may find it a problem.

I'm an accomplished solver of problems.

And you reckon you can solve me with your fraction of theology?

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, Bell.

I could convince you of it in three words.

[dramatic music] [door creaking open] [dramatic music] [heavy breathing] Come back to bed.

You'll wake the staff.

You head should have a softer pillow than my heart.

I wonder which will break first, yours or mine.

Why are you so miserable, B?

Annabella, you are good to me.

I could not have hoped for a fonder wife.

I would 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, Bell.

But that's what I should like.

[dramatic music] I got a bad feeling in my water, Miss Rood.

What is the matter?

I need a drink.

Why?

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?

The treaclemoon.

Well, we waded through it, didn't we, Bell?

And this is Medora.

She's lovely.

Medora, the girl in the corsair.

Definitely a Byron, isn't she?

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

We shall stay home and read.

Oh, we are quite looking forward to a quiet life in Piccadilly, aren't we?

I intend to start him on Locke's Reasonableness of Christianity.

Let him try arguing with that.

I wonder how the fashions go this season.

Are the women wearing drawers or are they not?

That is the question: to bear arse or not to bear arse.

He's a rotten tease, isn't he, Sis?

Will you take up drawers, Bell?

Augusta has.

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

I don't know where you get these ideas.

I get them from the month we spent at Newstead in the snow.

[Annabella] I've never been to Newstead.

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?

[Byron and Augusta laughing] [sighs] Indeed the old fool fancies himself a poet and composes Durham doggerel in my honor while her mother who could crack walnuts with her buttocks and weeps tears of glass is as genteel 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.

Your wife is under my roof.

[Annabella gasping] What are you doing?

It's perfectly normal.

Oh, is it?

Don't you like it?

Have you heard from Seaham?

How is your papa?

His gout is troubling him.

Tiresome gout but rarely fatal.

Do sing out at first sign of terminal illness though, won't you?

I find it completely perplexing this extraordinary solicitude as to my prospects of fortune.

You have wealth of your own.

My dear, I cannot sell Newstead.

I have nothing but debt.

I will not let something as dull as debt cause doubts and rifts between us.

-I'm very loyal, you know.

-Oh, God.

Will you please stop this blaspheming?

Your master seems vaporish.

He's a descent sort, Ann.

But there's something about this marrying that don't agree with him.

Married yourself, are you?

Me, widower.

Sorry to hear it.

Most of the time, he's a darling.

Is he?

We were happy at Seaham, but then we came here and... Well, I boss him about.

The silly goose resents it.

He's the gentlest man.

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

Did you tell him to marry me?

Of course.

I had to get rid of him somehow.

[chuckles] [Augusta] We must reform.

You said it yourself.

-Augusta, I need you.

-That is over in the past.

Medora is not in the past.

Medora is nothing to do with you.

-Medora's the Colonel's child.

-Oh, is she?

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

I laid down with you, Gus, we were lovers.

But now you are married, and it is ancient history.

Christ, I hate being married.

You may not hate it.

You must try to be content, try to be a good husband.

Will you try?

Tell me why I should?

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

I do love you.

[Augusta] Then try.

Goodbye.

[soft music] Goodbye, George.

[baby crying] -Goodbye.

-Goodbye.

[Annabell] She's a darling.

I like her enormously.

She tells me she's been made a lady-in-waiting to Queen Charlotte, so she'll be often up to town.

I said to come up to us in Piccadilly.

[soft music] B, I think I'm expecting a child.

Oh, God.

[bells tolling] [man] Come on there.

Come on.

Nice place.

Marriage has its perquisites, eh?

Well, I got a wife and a cold on the same day.

But I got rid of the cold pretty speedily.

I don't think there's any need for that.

You haven't lived here for six months.

We hope for a boy, of course.

We are most contented, Aunt.

Well, to be frank, we were a little discomposed at Six Mile Bottom, but we seem to have weathered that.

Keep your eye on Mrs. Leigh.

The woman is very clever and very wicked.

Good morning, Captain Hobhouse.

Plain Mr. Hobhouse now, Lady Byron.

I had to resign my commission.

Did it cost a lot getting elected?

Most of my inheritance, I'm afraid.

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.

What have you got against living in Piccadilly, George?

It's 700 a year, that's what.

And the day before last, I found a gray hair on my head.

-Christ, 28, insolvent and gray.

-[chuckles] Who's that talking to Shelley?

[Hobhouse] A Greek fellow drumming up money for some lost cause.

[scoffs] Trust Shelley to fall for it.

-My Lord, there are-- -Not now, Fletcher.

We're having a little trouble with the bailiffs, my Lord.

[dramatic music] Mama will hear this news.

No doubt the heavenly host have contacted her already.

Have the civility not to mock the pious.

Your mother is about as pious as a boiled egg.

What is it you expect of me, B?

[soft music] Am I not good enough for you?

-You are too good.

-You could be better.

You make me worse.

What is that?

Laudanum.

For my nerves.

[soft music] [parrot squawking] [door creaking open] [Byron] Good morning.

Are you working?

No, I am thinking of killing myself.

I only forbear from a consideration of the pleasure it would give my mother-in-law.

My name is Claire Clairmont.

I'm a friend of Shelley's.

Oh, I have read his Queen Mab.

And why are you here, Miss Clairmont?

I want to go to bed with you.

How did he take it?

Rather keen, I think.

But isn't he married?

Oh, marriage, 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?

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 through the courts for exposing their frauds and scorning their power.

They would tear from me my children, my property, my liberty, and my fame.

But how can I keep silent when there's this?

All religion's based on superstition.

Priests are agents of state power.

Poetry, our weapon against them.

More, Claire, more.

He wants a new society for all men and women too.

Can man be free if women be a slave?

♪ Tambourgi ♪ ♪ Tambourgi ♪ [dramatic music] ♪ Tambourgi ♪ Fletcher!

[door creaking open] Ah, Fletcher.

[door creaking closed] Brandy and soda, if you please.

Yes, my Lord.

[dramatic music] Your parrot bit my finger.

[parrot screeching] [door slamming] [sighs] I can get along with anyone.

Why can't I get along with her?

We're like two parallel lines prolonged to infinity, side by side but destined never to meet, and I'm behaving like a swine.

[Hobhouse] Any idea why?

Oh, because I'm a Byron.

And you're all doomed.

You engineer it, man.

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

I simply won't accept all this predestination guff.

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

No, well, you're not from Aberdeen, are you?

And everything is ready for your accouchement?

We are all prepared.

Mama is sending Mrs. Curtin and I have asked Mrs. Leigh to come up.

Mrs. Leigh?

She and her brother are awfully close.

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

I do love Augusta, but it is so frustrating.

It is like a private language between them.

One that I am not allowed to learn.

What?

It will keep till tomorrow, my Lord.

I may not be here tomorrow.

What do you want, Fletcher?

-It's Miss Rood.

-[dramatic music] She and me have an inclination to marry, and I wish to ask for Your Lordship's permission.

[laughing] Whoa there.

Thank you.

Beware.

The place is full of Lady Milbanke's spies.

The worst is Mrs. Curtin, a bitch from hell.

I'm sure she's nothing of the kind.

Will you hand me into your wife?

Dearest sis.

I have just this minute seen him.

He is behaving oddly.

I've asked my doctors to conduct an examination.

I think he has some malady.

But they found nothing, did they, Mrs. Curtin?

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.

[all] Mr. and Mrs. Fletcher.

[cheering and applause] I paid a call on Cousin Annabella.

I believe she's finally found a sum she can't do.

Pray don't talk in riddles, Caro, you know I abhor riddles.

It is a curious addition.

Byron plus a sister equals... Mrs. Leigh has come to town?

And installed at Piccadilly for the birth.

He has long courted disaster.

She is his catastrophe.

At what are you hinting?

-What do you think?

-I hardly know.

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

They are not attached.

[laughs] [groaning] [dramatic music] [Annabella screaming] Show me her feet.

What were you doing down here?

Were you trying to kill us both?

They're perfect.

I hope you will be happy.

I will never be happy, Mrs. Leigh, and nor will you.

We are mired in the nightmare of our delinquencies.

[blows nose] He suggests I take Ada to Seaham and recover there.

That's a long journey for a newborn child.

Oh, I think you should go.

Let your mama pamper you a little, and when the opportunity arises, acquaint Lady Milbanke with the wrongs he has done you.

You will feel better.

I would marry a poet, wouldn't I, Caro?

I suppose I deserve it.

No.

Tell your mother everything.

[door creaking open] [soft music] I leave tomorrow.

Good.

That is good.

Some time apart.

For reflection.

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.

This is the object I treasure most in the world.

It went all around Greece with me.

[somber music] [dramatic music] Whoa.

[horse neighing] [sobbing] Oh, my dear child.

Oh, Papa.

[sobbing] He did what?

I'm for a reconciliation.

Absolutely no question of it.

His crime is in the deepest catalog of human law.

Well, what the deuce is it then, eh?

I did not know it was wrong, Papa.

[Hobhouse] I'm ashamed of you, George.

-You should get out more.

-Is it true?

You sodomized your wife.

Everyone does it in Turkey.

But not here.

Here you can still be hanged for it.

Oh, that is a lot of can't.

It is entirely common as everybody knows.

But entirely uncommon to be cited in the divorce of the sixth Baron Byron.

Her lawyers are insisting on a deed of separation.

If you do not sign it, if it comes to court, there will be the most appalling scandal, and God knows what else will get out.

[dramatic music] [Camilla] My dear cousin, it is hard for me to write this but as news of your probable separation is on everybody's lips, I must offer my condolences and support.

The man we have both loved is intolerable.

Clearly you cannot continue this travesty of a marriage whilst his base feeling for his sister remains as potent as ever.

You have acted most bravely, Bell, in attempting to curtail their lawless union by the example of your piety and virtue.

But it was not in your power to prevent them.

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

It is a hard wrench, I know, but it is just.

My thoughts and love are with you, your devoted cousin.

-Your wife has signed.

-Get out of the country for a spell.

Scrope's right, stay away from the public eye.

-But why?

-Because you were their little Greek god, and they'll delight in pulling you down and tearing you to pieces.

There are awful rumors, 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!

[people chatting loudly] [dramatic music] You must run away.

Get away, run.

[sobbing] Come with me.

I can't, Georgie.

Please come with me.

It isn't possible, I can't.

-But soon, you'll come soon?

-Where?

I'll write, I'll tell you where.

Do write, Georgie, do.

Do you know how much I love you?

[bells tolling] [people chatting in Italian] My Lord Byron.

[clerk] Palazzo Mocenigo.

Si.

[clerk] Prego.

[soft music] [Byron] Though the day of my destiny's over, And the star of my fate hath declined, 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, In the wide waste there still is a tree, And a bird in the solitude singing, Which speaks to my spirit of thee.

[speaking in Italian] [heavy breathing] Mr. Shelley is here, my Lord.

Shelley, my dear good fellow.

[speaking in Italian] Her name is Margarita, built to breed gladiators from.

And illiterate, thank Christ.

But how wonderful that you're here.

Sit down.

What do you think of my little palazzo?

I hadn't really expected to find you in such company, to be honest.

The learned Fletcher feels the same.

Do you not, Fletcher?

My Lord?

You mislike my Venetians.

[Fletcher] I hold not against Venetians.

Except they're foreign, of course.

Of course.

How is our dinner today?

Unspeakably filthy and oily, my Lord, as usual.

I don't know where I'd be without Fletcher.

He reminds me so much of home.

Now, why are you in Venice?

Miss Clairmont wants her daughter.

[Byron] No, I will not surrender her.

But she lives among catamites and prostitutes.

Which is why I'm resolved to place her in a convent, when she's a year or two older.

A Catholic convent?

Yes, my daughter will become a good Catholic, and it may be even a nun, a character somewhat wanted in our family.

Claire will be mortified.

Claire Claremont, to express it delicately, is a damned bitch who had the very bad taste to fall pregnant after I inadvertently lay in her bed.

I never loved her or pretended to love her, so you can disabuse Miss Claire bloody Claremont of any-- My God, look at her.

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 6,000, she may perhaps marry respectably.

I do know what I do.

Do you ride, Shelley?

-What makes you write?

-My inability to prevent it.

You?

My dream of revolution, when the poor of every nation will rise up and throw off their chains.

[laughs] Your problem is your intellect.

You gaze from your palace at the minnows below and you find their efforts meaningless, their state unalterable, their misery unending.

But it is not so.

The material can be altered.

No.

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.

So you hold no hope?

For what?

We live a little and then goodnight.

I believe in the perfectibility of man.

You talk utopia, Shelley.

You don't think anything can be changed?

Oh, 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 lagoon, you'll simply accept it, will you?

If the gondola goes down, I'll swim.

You?

I can't swim.

You can't swim.

What will you do?

Well, I shall solve the great riddle, shan't I?

[yelling in Italian] Christ, I'd forgotten about her.

Your hot milk, sir.

You have been his Lordship's man a long time, I think.

Yes, I have, sir.

Does it surprise you to see him fettered away 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.

My Lord.

[Shelley] So, how do you calm your courtesan?

What did you say?

Say?

Why, nothing at all.

It's an oratorical skill I call the eloquence of action.

It's the one way I could silence my wife.

Now, here is something for you to read, if you would be gracious enough.

No one has ever written a poem like that before.

I just don't accept that there exists such a thing as a subject unsuited for verse.

But now at 30 years my hair is gray-- I wonder what it'll be like at 40.

I thought of a peruke the other day-- My heart is not much greener; and, in short, I've squandered my whole summer while 'twas May, And feel no more the spirit to retort; I have spent my life, both interest and principal, And deem not, what I deemed, my soul invincible.

What is the end of fame?

'Tis but to fill a certain portion of uncertain paper.

Some liken it to climbing up a hill, Whose summit, like all hills, is lost in vapor.

For this men write, speak, preach, and heroes kill, And bards burn what they call their midnight taper, to have when the original is dust, A name, a wretched picture, and worse... ...bust.

You should not sit in solitude in Italy.

You are needed in your own country.

Mrs. Fletcher, do please cure Ada of that filthy habit.

Listen to me, Bell.

She's making us look foolish.

She is still a lady-in-waiting.

She has quarters at the Palace of St. James's.

Why, the woman maintains the full sufficiency of her social circuit.

Despite everything she has done.

For the Regent's Fete I shall wear mauve.

It's such a feminine color.

With a stole perhaps.

What do you think, Sis?

I think we have talked enough of gauzes and satins.

I'm surprised to find you going to town at all.

But the Regent's Fete I have to attend.

In my official whatnot.

I am surprised you can show your face in public.

Dearest Bell, I never meant to harm you.

[glass breaking] You have destroyed my life.

My daughter will never know her father.

I am stared at wherever I go.

Why, there are cartoons in the newspapers.

I have not wronged you.

-I've never abused you.

-Yes, you have.

But what have I done?

You had relations with my husband.

-[Medora] Mama.

-It's alright, Medora.

Medora?

Oh, this is Medora.

Why, I'm surprised she has not got two heads.

What do you want here?

I want a confession, that's what I want.

Why are you not contrite?

Do you think that the laws that apply to others don't apply to Augusta Leigh?

I never meant to hurt you, Bell.

You will tell me everything.

[soft music] [Byron] Is there post, Fletcher?

Not today, my Lord.

[Byron] My sweet sister, we may have been very wrong, but I repent of nothing except that cursed marriage.

It is heart-breaking to think of our long separation, and I am sure more than punishment enough for our sins.

Might I reply?

He seems so sad.

[door closing] [soft music] What are you doing?

Is the story of your life, si?

You told me you could not read.

I try.

I take lesson.

A lesson?

Si, then I read Lord Byron.

Margarita, it's time for you to go.

No.

Why?

I really am not interested in women who can read.

Please, our time is over.

Thank you very much, I enjoyed it.

But you've become quite ungovernable, so adieu.

I kill you.

[chuckles] Fletcher!

Breakfast, please, Fletcher.

-Eggs, I think.

-Very good, my Lord.

Oh, Madonna!

No, let me go!

Byron, I no fight.

You give your word?

Si.

Very well, Tita.

[loud screaming] [yelling in Italian] Here, here.

Here and here.

And Newstead Abbey, finally, is sold.

For how long was I in the water, Fletcher, when I beat the Cavalier Mengaldo at swimming?

From half past 4:00 till a quarter past eight in the evening, my Lord.

Plus, I had a piece in the morning, and another at 10:00 at night.

[Hobhouse] It's not hard to come by, then?

Hobby, I've had a couple of hundred since Carnival.

What I earn by my brain I spend on my bollocks.

Come away, he's dangerous to look at.

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

I harm nobody.

I make love with but one woman at a time, and as quietly as possible, and the English lie through thick and thin and invent every kind of absurdity.

Hmm, I'm fairly certain it's a Tintoretto, but in this light, I'm damned if I may be sure.

Come and give me your opinion.

I have no opinion on painting.

I detest painting.

The most pointless of all the arts.

[man moaning] [dramatic music] [Byron and Augusta] I grew tired of promiscuous concubinage.

So I have quitted Venice.

[Byron] I went in pursuit of a contessa, a young beauty married to a rich old man of 60.

Teresa is as fair as sunrise and as warm as noon.

She wants me for her cavalier servente.

This is a curious Italian custom, where a wife may take an admirer with the husband's full knowledge, so long as certain niceties are observed.

[soft music] I am permitted to hold her fan at the opera, for example.

And I accompany her to Mass on occasion.

But absolutely nothing more.

I lived for a year at her palace in Ravenna, where I wrote a poem called Don Juan which you may or may not like.

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.

Silly billy so fretful about his appearance.

[Byron] I always believed the whole affair might terminate unexpectedly, for they are liberal with the knife in Ravenna.

But had Count Guccioli murdered me, I should hardly have complained for I am done with passion.

Teresa is my last attachment.

However, the marriage was annulled, by Papal decree no less, and we have come to Pisa to the Casa Lanfranchi.

We have acquaintance here.

Shelley and his wife, some others from England, a circle of friends.

The weather is splendid.

Life is slow.

It is all entirely congenial.

Dearest Gus, when you write to me, tell me you love me.

I miss you terribly.

Do you know what I perpetually wonder?

No, Sis.

I perpetually wonder whether your carnal relations with my husband continued after we were married.

Oh, goodness me, no, good heavens.

Don Juan indeed.

We may imagine 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 still wet from the stews of Venice, who for the sake of his career-- Don't give way to them.

I will not give way to all the can't 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.

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.

It'll all amount to nothing, as usual.

Why will it all come to nothing?

[Byron] Because the forces of reaction are too strong.

For God's sake, George, you must have hope.

Hope?

What's hope?

The paint on the face of existence.

The least touch of truth rubs it off and then we see what a hollow-cheeked harlot we've got hold of.

Gentlemen, come in.

Williams I think you know and this is Edward Trelawney.

My God, my corsair.

The Greeks were besieging the Turkish garrison in the Acropolis.

The Turks ran out of lead for their bullets.

They reckoned they'd find some if they smashed open the columns of the Parthenon.

When the Greeks heard this, they sent the Turks some lead which was used to make the bullets which were then shot back at them.

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

Why Elgin should never have touched it.

That's why they'll win in the end and why we ought to go.

Contessa.

Byron, there is bad news.

Allegra is dead.

Allegra.

I'm so sorry.

Your daughter is dead.

Nobody will blame you.

You think not?

I'm certain the physicians did their best.

Yes, I too.

[bells tolling] But I doubt Miss Clairmont will believe that she died of fever.

God, I...

I miss the child.

Such brilliant, brilliant eyes.

So, where do you think she has gone?

Ah, well.

The great mystery.

Allegra has solved it before us.

Don't go to Greece.

Why not?

Because I've heard what it's like.

Oh, what's it like?

When Tripolis fell, the Greeks butchered 3,000 civilians.

Pregnant women were ripped open, their babes hacked out, their heads struck off 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.

[dog barking] A boat's gone down.

[soft music] Thank you.

They've found a body, but after ten days in the sea.

He called it the great riddle.

I lost two children.

My mother died in childbirth.

Claire's Allegra.

Shelley's first wife.

Now Shelley too.

It's not a riddle.

It just hurts.

[soft music] [retching] [foreign language spoken] Drill them again tomorrow, Tita.

Damn this leg.

I'll exchange legs if you'll 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?

How do I turn a gang of bandits into an army?

We came here to fight.

But we've done nothing except drill.

War turns out to be anything but glamorous, doesn't it?

I have not seen war, and if I stay in Missolonghi, I never shall.

I'm going north to find some action.

Trelawney, don't go, please.

-You're my best officer.

-This is pointless.

I want to fight, not dress up and march around.

Bath's ready, my Lord.

Thank you, Fletcher.

That will be nice.

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?

They will not go on without payment.

[men yelling angrily] -[thunder roaring] -[rain splashing] This rain don't seem to stop, does it, my Lord?

No, Fletcher.

Much like Notts in that respect.

But they don't play cricket here.

[Fletcher] Not that we know of, my Lord, no.

Sometimes I dream of cricket.

I find I dream of women rather more.

Yes.

I dream of them too.

♪ Tambourgi ♪ ♪ Tambourgi ♪ [singing in foreign language] ♪ Tambourgi ♪ ♪ Tambourgi ♪ I learned it at the court of Ali Pasha in Albania.

I sang it to the wives of the gentry of England and Ireland, as they undressed and stood before me.

[singing in foreign language] [whimpering] [door creaking open] Any change?

No, Doctor.

It is a mild marsh fever.

We shall bleed him and he will recover.

Fucking Greece.

[dramatic music] [Byron] 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 remembered tone of a mute lyre, Shall on their softened spirits sink, and move In hearts all rocky now the late remorse of love.

[soft music] [dramatic music]