Boatswain: Byron's Epitaph for His Dog (Bonus episode)

This time, Songs from the Dead is doing something unusual. Instead of an old song, this bonus episode begins with a poem.

In 1808, twenty-year-old George Gordon Byron's Newfoundland dog Boatswain died of rabies at Newstead Abbey. Byron had nursed him through the disease despite knowing the danger, then built him an extraordinary monument and wrote an epitaph that begins with the death of a dog and ends as an attack on humanity itself.

The monument is still there at Newstead Abbey today.

This episode tells the story of Boatswain, the poem Byron wrote for him, and the strange fact that Byron intended to be buried beside his dog but never was. It ends with a new musical setting of Byron's words.