Don Juan
Page 10
Sounds ill in love, whate’er it may in money.
108
When people say, ‘I’ve told you fifty times,’
They mean to scold and very often do.
When poets say, ‘I’ve written fifty rhymes,’
They make you dread that they’ll recite them too.
In gangs of fifty, thieves commit their crimes.
At fifty love for love is rare,’tis true;
But then no doubt it equally as true is,
A good deal may be bought for fifty louis.
109
Julia had honour, virtue, truth, and love
For Don Alfonso, and she inly swore
By all the vows below to powers above,
She never would disgrace the ring she wore
Nor leave a wish which wisdom might reprove.
And while she pondered this, besides much more,
One hand on Juan’s carelessly was thrown,
Quite by mistake – she thought it was her own.
110
Unconsciously she leaned upon the other,
Which played within the tangles of her hair.
And to contend with thoughts she could not smother,
She seemed by the distraction of her air.
’Twas surely very wrong in Juan’s mother
To leave together this imprudent pair,
She who for many years had watched her son so.
I’m very certain mine would not have done so.
111
The hand which still held Juan’s, by degrees
Gently but palpably confirmed its grasp,
As if it said, ‘Detain me, if you please.’
Yet there’s no doubt she only meant to clasp
His fingers with a pure Platonic squeeze.
She would have shrunk as from a toad or asp,
Had she imagined such a thing could, rouse
A feeling dangerous to a prudent spouse.
112
I cannot know what Juan thought of this,
But what he did is much what you would do.
His young lip thanked it with a grateful kiss
And then abashed at its own joy, withdrew
In deep despair, lest he had done amiss.
Love is so very timid when ‘tis new.
She blushed and frowned not, but she strove to speak
And held her tongue, her voice was grown so weak.
113
The sun set, and up rose the yellow moon.
The devil’s in the moon for mischief; they
Who called her chaste, methinks, began too soon
Their nomenclature. There is not a day,
The longest, not the twenty-first of June,
Sees half the business in a wicked way,
On which three single hours of moonshine smile,
And then she looks so modest all the while.
114
There is a dangerous silence in that hour,
A stillness, which leaves room for the full soul
To open all itself, without the power
Of calling wholly back its self-control.
The silver light which, hallowing tree and tower,
Sheds beauty and deep softness o’er the whole,
Breathes also to the heart and o’er it throws
A loving languor, which is not repose.
115
And Julia sate with Juan, half embraced
And half retiring from the glowing arm,
Which trembled like the bosom where’twas placed.
Yet still she must have thought there was no harm,
Or else’twere easy to withdraw her waist.
But then the situation had its charm,
And then – God knows what next – I can’t go on;
I’m almost sorry that I e’er begun.
116
Oh Plato, Plato, you have paved the way
With your confounded fantasies to more
Immoral conduct by the fancied sway
Your system feigns o’er the controlless core
Of human hearts than all the long array
Of poets and romancers. You’re a bore,
A charlatan, a coxcomb, and have been
At best no better than a go-between.
117
And Julia’s voice was lost, except in sighs,
Until too late for useful conversation.
The tears were gushing from her gentle eyes;
I wish indeed they had not had occasion,
But who, alas, can love and then be wise?
Not that remorse did not oppose temptation;
A little still she strove and much repented,
And whispering, ‘I will ne’er consent’ – consented.
118
’Tis said that Xerxes offered a reward
To those who could invent him a new pleasure.
Methinks the requisition’s rather hard
And must have cost His Majesty a treasure.
For my part I’m a moderate-minded bard,
Fond of a little love (which I call leisure);
I care not for new pleasures, as the old
Are quite enough for me, so they but hold.
119
Oh pleasure, you’re indeed a pleasant thing,
Although one must be damned for you no doubt.
I make a resolution every spring
Of reformation, ere the year run out,
But somehow this my vestal vow takes wing;
Yet still I trust it may be kept throughout.
I’m very sorry, very much ashamed,
And mean next winter to be quite reclaimed.
120
Here my chaste Muse a liberty must take.
Start not, still chaster reader, she’ll be nice hence—
Forward, and there is no great cause to quake.
This liberty is a poetic licence,
Which some irregularity may make
In the design, and as I have a high sense
Of Aristotle and the rules,’tis fit
To beg his pardon when I err a bit.
121
This licence is to hope the reader will
Suppose from June the sixth (the fatal day,
Without whose epoch my poetic skill
For want of facts would all be thrown away),
But keeping Julia and Don Juan still
In sight, that several months have passed. We’ll say
’Twas in November, but I’m not so sure
About the day; the era’s more obscure.
122
We’ll talk of that anon.’Tis sweet to hear
At midnight on the blue and moonlit deep
The song and oar of Adria’s gondolier,
By distance mellowed, o’er the waters sweep.
’Tis sweet to see the evening star appear;
’Tis sweet to listen as the nightwinds creep
From leaf to leaf.’Tis sweet to view on high
The rainbow, based on ocean, span the sky.
123
’Tis sweet to hear the watchdog’s honest bark
Bay deep-mouthed welcome as we draw near home;
’Tis sweet to know there is an eye will mark
Our coming and look brighter when we come.
’Tis sweet to be awakened by the lark
Or lulled by falling waters; sweet the hum
Of bees, the voice of girls, the song of birds,
The lisp of children and their earliest words.
124
Sweet is the vintage, when the showering grapes
In bacchanal profusion reel to earth,
Purple and gushing. Sweet are our escapes
From civic revelry to rural mirth.
Sweet to the miser are his glittering heaps.
Sweet to the father is his first-born’s birth.
Sweet is revenge, especially to women,
Pillage to soldiers, prize money to seamen.
125
Sweet is a legacy, and passing sweet
The unexpected death of some old lady
Or gentleman of seventy years complete,
Who’ve made ‘us youth’ wait too, too long already
For an estate or cash or country-seat,
Still breaking, but with stamina so steady
That all the Israelites are fit to mob its
Next owner for their double-damned post-obits.
126
’Tis sweet to win, no matter how, one’s laurels
By blood or ink.’Tis sweet to put an end
160;To strife;’tis sometimes sweet to have our quarrels,
Particularly with a tiresome friend.
Sweet is old wine in bottles, ale in barrels.
Dear is the helpless creature we defend
Against the world; and dear the schoolboy spot
We ne’er forget, though there we are forgot.
127
But sweeter still than this, than these, than all
Is first and passionate love. It stands alone,
Like Adam’s recollection of his fall.
The tree of knowledge has been plucked; all’s known,
And life yields nothing further to recall
Worthy of this ambrosial sin, so shown
No doubt in fable as the unforgiven
Fire which Prometheus filched for us from heaven.
128
Man’s a strange animal and makes strange use
Of his own nature and the various arts,
And likes particularly to produce
Some new experiment to show his parts.
This is the age of oddities let loose,
Where different talents find their different marts.
You’d best begin with truth, and when you’ve lost your
Labour, there’s a sure market for imposture.
129
What opposite discoveries we have seen,
Signs of true genius and of empty pockets!
One makes new noses, one a guillotine,
One breaks your bones, one sets them in their sockets.
But vaccination certainly has been
A kind antithesis to Congreve’s rockets,
With which the Doctor paid off an old pox,
By borrowing a new one from an ox.
130
Bread has been made (indifferent) from potatoes;
And galvanism has set some corpses grinning,
But has not answered like the apparatus
Of the Humane Society’s beginning,
By which men are unsuffocated gratis.
What wondrous new machines have late been spinning!
I said the smallpox has gone out of late;
Perhaps it may be followed by the great
131
’Tis said the great came from America;
Perhaps it may set out on its return.
The population there so spreads, they say
’Tis grown high time to thin it in its turn
With war or plague or famine, any way,
So that civilization they may learn.
And which in ravage the more loathsome evil is –
Their real lues or our pseudo-syphilis?
132
This is the patent age of new inventions
For killing bodies and for saving souls,
All propagated with the best intentions.
Sir Humphry Davy’s lantern, by which coals
Are safely mined for in the mode he mentions,
Timbuctoo travels, voyages to the poles
Are ways to benefit mankind, as true
Perhaps as shooting them at Waterloo.
133
Man’s a phenomenon, one knows not what,
And wonderful beyond all wondrous measure.
’Tis pity though in this sublime world that
Pleasure’s a sin and sometimes sin’s a pleasure.
Few mortals know what end they would be at,
But whether glory, power or love or treasure,
The path is through perplexing ways, and when
The goal is we die you know – and then?
134
What then? I do not know, no more do you,
And so good night. Return we to our story.
’Twas in November when fine days are few,
And the far mountains wax a little hoary
And clap a white cape on their mantles blue,
And the sea dashes round the promontory
And the loud breaker boils against the rock,
And sober suns must set at five o’clock.
135
’Twas, as the watchmen say, a cloudy night,
No moon, no stars; the wind was low or loud
By gusts. And many a sparkling hearth was bright
With the piled wood, round which the family crowd.
There’s something cheerful in that sort of light,
Even as a summer sky’s without a cloud.
I’m fond of fire and crickets and all that,
A lobster salad and champagne and chat.
136
’Twas midnight, Donna Julia was in bed,
Sleeping, most probably, when at her door
Arose a clatter might awake the dead,
If they had never been awoke before,
And that they have been so we all have read,
And are to be so, at the least, once more.
The door was fastened, but with voice and fist
First knocks were heard, then ‘Madam – Madam – hist!
137
‘For God’s sake, Madam – Madam – here’s my master
With more than half the city at his back.
Was ever heard of such a curst disaster!
’Tis not my fault – I kept good watch – alack!
Do, pray undo the bolt a little faster.
They’re on the stair just now and in a crack
Will all be here. Perhaps he yet may fly.
Surely the window’s not so very high!’
138
By this time Don Alfonso was arrived
With torches, friends, and servants in great number.
The major part of them had long been wived
And therefore paused not to disturb the slumber
Of any wicked woman, who contrived
By stealth her husband’s temples to encumber.
Examples of this kind are so contagious,
Were one not punished, all would be outrageous.
139
I can’t tell how or why or what suspicion
Could enter into Don Alfonso’s head,
But for a cavalier of his condition
It surely was exceedingly ill-bred,
Without a word of previous admonition,
To hold a levee round his lady’s bed
And summon lackeys, armed with fire and sword,
To prove himself the thing he most abhorred.
140
Poor Donna Julia, starting as from sleep
(Mind – that I do not say she had not slept),
Began at once to scream and yawn and weep.
Her maid Antonia, who was an adept,
Contrived to fling the bedclothes in a heap,
As if she had just now from out them crept.
I can’t tell why she should take all this trouble
To prove her mistress had been sleeping double.
141
But Julia mistress and Antonia maid
Appeared like two poor harmless women, who
Of goblins, but still more of men afraid,
Had thought one man might be deterred by two,
And therefore side by side were gently laid,
Until the hours of absence should run through,
And truant husband should return and say,
‘My dear, I was the first who came away.’
142
Now Julia found at length a voice and cried,
/> ‘In heaven’s name, Don Alfonso, what d’ye mean?
Has madness seized you? Would that I had died
Ere such a monster’s victim I had been!
What may this midnight violence betide,
A sudden fit of drunkenness or spleen?
Dare you suspect me, whom the thought would kill?
Search then the room!’ Alfonso said, ‘I will.’
143
He searched, they searched and rummaged everywhere,
Closet and clothespress, chest and window seat,
And found much linen, lace, and several pair
Of stockings, slippers, brushes, combs, complete
With other articles of ladies fair,
To keep them beautiful or leave them neat.
Arras they pricked and curtains with their swords
And wounded several shutters and some boards.
144
Under the bed they searched and there they found –
No matter what; it was not that they sought.
They opened windows, gazing if the ground
Had signs or footmarks, but the earth said nought;
And then they stared each others’ faces round.
’Tis odd, not one of all these seekers thought,
And seems to me almost a sort of blunder,
Of looking in the bed as well as under.
145
During this inquisition Julia’s tongue
Was not asleep. ‘Yes, search and search,’ she cried,
‘Insult on insult heap, and wrong on wrong!
It was for this that I became a bride!
For this in silence I have suffered long
A husband like Alfonso at my side,
But now I’ll bear no more nor here remain,
If there be law or lawyers in all Spain.
146
‘Yes, Don Alfonso, husband now no more,
If ever you indeed deserved the name,
Is’t worthy of your years? You have threescore,
Fifty or sixty – it is all the same.
Is’t wise or fitting causeless to explore
For facts against a virtuous woman’s fame?
Ungrateful, perjured, barbarous Don Alfonso,
How dare you think your lady would go on so?
147
‘Is it for this I have disdained to hold
The common privileges of my sex?
That I have chosen a confessor so old
And deaf that any other it would vex,
And never once he has had cause to scold,
But found my very innocence perplex
So much, he always doubted I was married.
How sorry you will be when I’ve miscarried!
148
‘Was it for this that no cortejo ere
I yet have chosen from out the youth of Seville?
Is it for this I scarce went anywhere,
Except to bullfights, mass, play, rout, and revel?
Is it for this, whate’er my suitors were,
I favoured none – nay, was almost uncivil?