4. “Mad, Bad, and Dangerous to Know“
Byron’s most famous affair was with the married Lady Caroline Lamb. She rejected him at first, describing him as “mad, bad, and dangerous to know“. She changed her mind, however, and had a torrid affair with the poet that became the scandal of Britain. When Byron dumped her, Lamb turned stalker, and pursued him relentlessly. She stopped at his house one time too many, and scribbled in a book on his desk “Remember me”. The exasperated Byron responded with a poem entitled Remember Thee! Remember Thee!: “Remember thee! remember thee! – Till Lethe quench life’s burning stream – Remorse and shame shall cling to thee, – And haunt thee like a feverish dream! – Remember thee! Aye, doubt it not. – Thy husband too shall think of thee: – By neither shalt thou be forgot, – Thou false to him, thou fiend to me!’
Scandal eventually forced Byron to flee Britain, so he roamed Europe for years at a stretch, including a seven-year stint in Italy. Restlessness eventually led him to join the Greeks in their war of independence from the Ottoman Turks. However, he was disappointed with the Greeks of his day, because they differed greatly from the heroic Hellenes described by Homer. While moping about that discrepancy, he caught a fever and died in a Greek backwater at the age of 36.
