Baron George Gordon Byron Byron

“ Don Juan saw that Microcosm on stilts,
Yclept the Great World; for it is the least,
Although the highest: but as swords have hilts
By which their power of mischief is increased,
When Man in battle or in quarrel tilts,
Thus the low world, north, south, or west, or east,
Must still obey the high [635] —which is their handle,
Their Moon, their Sun, their gas, their farthing candle. ”

“ No one can take up the book without being struck and arrested by these violations of modesty and decorum; but no one can master its contents and become possessed of it as a whole without perceiving that the mirror is held up to nature, that it reflects spots and blemishes which, on a survey of the vast and various orb, dwindle into natural and so comparative insignificance. Byron was under no delusion as to the grossness of Don Juan. ”

“ DON JUAN
CANTO THE FIRST. [14]
I.
I want a hero: an uncommon want,
When every year and month sends forth a new one,
Till, after cloying the gazettes with cant,
The age discovers he is not the true one;
Of such as these I should not care to vaunt,
I'll therefore take our ancient friend Don Juan—
We all have seen him, in the pantomime, [15]
Sent to the Devil somewhat ere his time. ”

“ Which meet the gaze, whate'er it may regard—
The groan, the roll in dust, the all-white eye
Turned back within its socket,—these reward
Your rank and file by thousands, while the rest
May win perhaps a riband at the breast!
XIV.
Yet I love Glory;—Glory's a great thing:—
Think what it is to be in your old age
Maintained at the expense of your good King:
A moderate pension shakes full many a sage,
And Heroes are but made for bards to sing,
Which is still better—thus, in verse, to wage
Your wars eternally, besides enjoying
Half-pay for life, make Mankind worth destroying. ”

“ Nor turn his very talent to a crime;
He did not loathe the Sire to laud the Son,
But closed the tyrant-hater he begun.
XI.
Think'st thou, could he—the blind Old Man—arise
Like Samuel from the grave, to freeze once more [7]
The blood of monarchs with his prophecies,
Or be alive again—again all hoar
With time and trials, and those helpless eyes,
And heartless daughters—worn—and pale [7] —and poor;
Would he adore a sultan? he obey
The intellectual eunuch Castlereagh? [8]
XII.
Cold-blooded, smooth-faced, placid miscreant! ”

“ If you have acted once a generous part,
The World, not the World's masters, will decide,
And I shall be delighted to learn who,
Save you and yours, have gained by Waterloo?
V.
I am no flatterer—you've supped full of flattery: [482]
They say you like it too—'t is no great wonder.
He whose whole life has been assault and battery,
At last may get a little tired of thunder;
And swallowing eulogy much more than satire, he
May like being praised for every lucky blunder,
Called "Saviour of the Nations"—not yet saved,—
And "Europe's Liberator"—still enslaved. [483]
[376]
VI.
I've done. ”

“ None had read less than he; few people were better informed.... One while he formed the project of becoming Duke of Courland; at another he thought of bestowing on himself the crown of Poland. He frequently gave intimations of an intention to make himself a bishop, or even a simple monk. He built a superb palace, and wanted to sell it before it was finished. In his youth he had pleased her [Catherine] by the ardour of his passion, by his valour, and by his masculine beauty.... Become the rival of Orloff, he performed for his sovereign whatever the most romantic passion could inspire. ”

“ Who seemed to have turned Haidée into a matron.
XLV.
"I know not," quoth the fellow, "who or what
He is, nor whence he came—and little care;
But this I know, that this roast capon's fat,
And that good wine ne'er washed down better fare;
And if you are not satisfied with that,
Direct your questions to my neighbour there;
He'll answer all for better or for worse,
For none likes more to hear himself converse." ”

“ Don Juan stood, and, gazing from the stern,
Beheld his native Spain receding far:
First partings form a lesson hard to learn,
Even nations feel this when they go to war; [85]
There is a sort of unexpressed concern,
A kind of shock that sets one's heart ajar,
At leaving even the most unpleasant people
And places—one keeps looking at the steeple. ”

“ Don Juan grew, I fear, a little dissipated;
Which is a sad thing, and not only tramples
On our fresh feelings, but—as being participated
With all kinds of incorrigible samples
Of frail humanity—must make us selfish,
And shut our souls up in us like a shell-fish.
XXIV.
This we pass over. ”

“ Bent, with hushed lips, that drank his scarce-drawn breath.
CXLIV.
And thus like to an Angel o'er the dying
Who die in righteousness, she leaned; and there
All tranquilly the shipwrecked boy was lying,
As o'er him lay the calm and stirless air:
But Zoe the meantime some eggs was frying,
Since, after all, no doubt the youthful pair
Must breakfast—and, betimes, lest they should ask it,
She drew out her provision from the basket.
CXLV.
She knew that the best feelings must have victual,
And that a shipwrecked youth would hungry be ”

“ The Asian side is covered with fruit trees, villages, and the most delightful landscapes in nature; on the European stands Constantinople, situated on seven hills; showing an agreeable mixture of gardens, pine and cypress trees, palaces, mosques, and public buildings, raised one above another, with as much beauty and appearance of symmetry as your ladyship ever saw in a cabinet adorned by the most skilful hands, where jars show themselves above jars, mixed with canisters, babies, and candlesticks. ”

“ If the Pineta of Ravenna, bois funèbre, invited Byron "to religious meditation," the mental picture of the "spectre huntsman" pursuing his eternal vengeance on "the inexorable dame"—"that fatal she," who had mocked his woes—must have set in motion another train of thought. Such lines as these would "speak comfortably" to him—
"Because she deem'd I well deserved to die,
And made a merit of her cruelty, ...
Mine is the ungrateful maid by heaven design'd:
Mercy she would not give, nor mercy shall she find." ”

“ Ten months after the death of Lanskoi, the Empress consoled herself with Iermolof, described, by Bezborodky, as "a modest refined young man, who cultivates the society of serious people." In less than a year this excellent youth is, in turn, displaced by Dmitrief Mamonof. His petit nom was Red Coat, and, for a time, he is a "priceless creature." "He has," says Catherine, "two superb black eyes, with eyebrows outlined as one rarely sees; about the middle height, noble in manner, easy in demeanour." ”

“ Bombs, drums, guns, bastions, batteries, bayonets, bullets—
Hard words, which stick in the soft Muses' gullets.
LXXIX.
Oh, thou eternal Homer! who couldst charm
All ears, though long; all ages, though so short,
By merely wielding with poetic arm
Arms to which men will never more resort,
Unless gunpowder should be found to harm
Much less than is the hope of every court,
Which now is leagued young Freedom to annoy;
But they will not find Liberty a Troy:—
LXXX.
Oh, thou eternal Homer! ”

“ Rank, fortune, wit, talent, acquired knowledge, and liberal accomplishments, with beauty of person, vigorous health, and constitutional hardihood,—all these advantages, elevated by the habits and sympathies of noble birth and national character, are supposed to have combined in Don Juan, so as to give him the means of carrying into all its practical consequences the doctrine of a godless nature, as the sole ground and efficient cause not only of all things, events, and appearances, but likewise of all our thoughts, sensations, impulses, and actions. ”

“ In that fair clime which don't depend on climate,
Quite independent of the Zodiac's signs,
Though certainly more difficult to rhyme at,
Because the Sun, and stars, and aught that shines,
Mountains, and all we can be most sublime at,
Are there oft dull and dreary as a dun—
Whether a sky's or tradesman's is all one.
XXX.
An in-door life is less poetical ”

“ It ne'er can be replaced in proper frame;
Spoilt, as a pipe of claret is when pricked:
But then their own polygamy's to blame;
Why don't they knead two virtuous souls for life
Into that moral centaur, man and wife? [318]
CLIX.
Thus far our chronicle; and now we pause,
Though not for want of matter; but 't is time,
According to the ancient epic laws,
To slacken sail, and anchor with our rhyme.
Let this fifth canto meet with due applause,
The sixth shall have a touch of the sublime;
Meanwhile, as Homer sometimes sleeps, perhaps
You'll pardon to my muse a few short naps. ”

“ The ear becomes more Irish, and less nice.
XLII.
Lambro presented, and one instant more
Had stopped this Canto, and Don Juan's breath,
When Haidée threw herself her boy before;
Stern as her sire: "On me," she cried, "let Death
Descend—the fault is mine; this fatal shore
He found—but sought not. I have pledged my faith;
I love him—I will die with him: I knew
Your nature's firmness—know your daughter's too." ”

“ Dammed from its fountain—the child from the knee
And breast maternal weaned at once for ever,—
Would wither less than these two torn apart; [DK]
Alas! there is no instinct like the Heart—
XI.
The Heart—which may be broken: happy they!
Thrice fortunate! who of that fragile mould,
The precious porcelain of human clay,
Break with the first fall: they can ne'er behold
The long year linked with heavy day on day,
And all which must be borne, and never told;
While Life's strange principle will often lie
Deepest in those who long the most to die. ”

“ Don Juan, when the midnight hour of pillows
Arrived, retired to his; but to despond
Rather than rest. Instead of poppies, willows
Waved o'er his couch; he meditated, fond
Of those sweet bitter thoughts which banish sleep,
And make the worldling sneer, the youngling weep. ”

“ By laying whate'er sum, in mulct, they please on
The lover, who must pay a handsome price,
Because it is a marketable vice.
LXV.
Alfonso was the name of Julia's lord,
A man well looking for his years, and who
Was neither much beloved nor yet abhorred:
They lived together as most people do,
Suffering each other's foibles by accord,
And not exactly either one or two;
Yet he was jealous, though he did not show it,
For Jealousy dislikes the world to know it. ”

“ And sharp Adversity, will teach at last
Man,—and, as we would hope,—perhaps the Devil,
That neither of their intellects are vast:
While Youth's hot wishes in our red veins revel,
We know not this—the blood flows on too fast ”

“ And thus for wider carnage taught to pant,
Transferred to gorge upon a sister shore,
The vulgarest tool that Tyranny could want,
With just enough of talent, and no more,
To lengthen fetters by another fixed,
And offer poison long already mixed.
XIII.
An orator of such set trash of phrase
Ineffably—legitimately vile,
That even its grossest flatterers dare not praise,
Nor foes—all nations—condescend to smile,—
Nor even a sprightly blunder's spark can blaze
From that Ixion grindstone's ceaseless toil, [8]
That turns and turns to give the world a notion
Of endless torments and perpetual motion. ”

“ Of wrath and rhyme, when juvenile and curly,
I railed at Scots to show my wrath and wit,
Which must be owned was sensitive and surly,
Yet 't is in vain such sallies to permit,
They cannot quench young feelings fresh and early:
I "scotched not killed" the Scotchman in my blood,
And love the land of "mountain and of flood." [537]
XX.
Don Juan, who was real, or ideal,—
For both are much the same, since what men think
Exists when the once thinkers are less real
Than what they thought, for Mind can never sink,
And 'gainst the Body makes a strong appeal ”

“ Don Juan grew a very polished Russian—
How we won't mention, why we need not say:
Few youthful minds can stand the strong concussion
Of any slight temptation in their way;
But his just now were spread as is a cushion
Smoothed for a Monarch's seat of honour: gay
Damsels, and dances, revels, ready money,
Made ice seem Paradise, and winter sunny.
XXII.
The favour of the Empress was agreeable ”

“ But, right or wrong, Don Juan was without it;
In fact, his manner was his own alone:
Sincere he was—at least you could not doubt it,
In listening merely to his voice's tone.
The Devil hath not in all his quiver's choice
An arrow for the Heart like a sweet voice.
XIV.
By nature soft, his whole address held off
Suspicion: though not timid, his regard
Was such as rather seemed to keep aloof,
To shield himself than put you on your guard: [548]
Perhaps 't was hardly quite assured enough,
But Modesty's at times its own reward,
Like Virtue ”