This poem will become a moral model.
3
The European with the Asian shore
Sprinkled with palaces, the ocean stream
Here and there studded with a seventy-four,
Sophia’s cupola with golden gleam,
The cypress groves, Olympus high and hoar,
The twelve isles, and the more than I could dream,
Far less describe, present the very view
Which charmed the charming Mary Montagu.
4
I have a passion for the name of Mary,
For once it was a magic sound to me,
And still it half calls up the realms of fairy,
Where I beheld what never was to be;
All feelings changed, but this was last to vary,
A spell from which even yet I am not quite free.
But I grow sad and let a tale grow cold,
Which must not be pathetically told.
5
The wind swept down the Euxine, and the wave
Broke foaming o’er the blue Symplegades.
’Tis a grand sight from off the Giant’s Grave
To watch the progress of those rolling seas
Between the Bosphorus, as they lash and lave
Europe and Asia, you being quite at ease.
There’s not a sea the passenger e’er pukes in,
Turns up more dangerous breakers than the Euxine.
6
‘Twas a raw day of autumn’s bleak beginning,
When nights are equal, but not so the days.
The Parcae then cut short the further spinning
Of seamen’s fates, and the loud tempests raise
The waters, and repentance for past sinning
In all who o’er the great deep take their ways.
They vow to amend their lives, and yet they don’t,
Because if drowned, they can’t – if spared, they won’t.
7
A crowd of shivering slaves of every nation
And age and sex were in the market ranged,
Each bevy with the merchant in his station.
Poor creatures! Their good looks were sadly changed.
All save the blacks seemed jaded with vexation,
From friends and home and freedom far estranged;
The Negroes more philosophy displayed,
Used to it, no doubt, as eels are to be flayed.
8
Juan was juvenile, and thus was full,
As most at his age are, of hope and health;
Yet I must own, he looked a little dull,
And now and then a tear stole down by stealth.
Perhaps his recent loss of blood might pull
His spirit down; and then the loss of wealth,
A mistress, and such comfortable quarters,
To be put up for auction amongst Tartars,
9
Were things to shake a stoic; ne’ertheless,
Upon the whole his carriage was serene.
His figure and the splendour of his dress,
Of which some gilded remnants still were seen,
Drew all eyes on him, giving them to guess
He was above the vulgar by his mien,
And then, though pale, he was so very handsome.
And then – they calculated on his ransom.
10
Like a backgammon board the place was dotted
With whites and blacks in groups on show for sale,
Though rather more irregularly spotted;
Some bought the jet, while others chose the pale.
It chanced amongst the other people lotted,
A man of thirty, rather stout and hale,
With resolution in his dark grey eye,
Next Juan stood, till some might choose to buy.
11
He had an English look; that is, was square
In make, of a complexion white and ruddy,
Good teeth, with curling rather dark brown hair,
And, it might be from thought or toil or study,
An open brow a little marked with care.
One arm had on a bandage rather bloody;
And there he stood with such sang-froid that greater
Could scarce be shown even by a mere spectator.
12
But seeing at his elbow a mere lad,
Of a high spirit evidently, though
At present weighed down by a doom which had
O’erthrown even men, he soon began to show
A kind of blunt compassion for the sad
Lot of so young a partner in the woe,
Which for himself he seemed to deem no worse
Than any other scrape, a thing of course.
13
‘My boy, ’ said he, ‘amidst this motley crew
Of Georgians, Russians, Nubians, and what not,
All ragamuffins differing but in hue,
With whom it is our luck to cast our lot,
The only gentlemen seem I and you,
So let us be acquainted, as we ought.
If I could yield you any consolation,
’Twould give me pleasure. Pray, what is your nation?’
14
When Juan answered, ‘Spanish, ’ he replied,
‘I thought in fact you could not be a Greek;
Those servile dogs are not so proudly eyed.
Fortune has played you here a pretty freak,
But that’s her way with all men till they’re tried;
But never mind, she’ll turn, perhaps, next week.
She has served me also much the same as you,
Except that I have found it nothing new.’
15
‘Pray, sir, ’ said Juan, ‘if I may presume,
What brought you here?’ ‘Oh nothing very rare.
Six Tartars and a drag-chain.’ ‘To this doom
But what conducted, if the question’s fair,
Is that which I would learn.’ ‘I served for some
Months with the Russian army here and there
And taking lately, by Suwarrow’s bidding,
A town, was ta’en myself instead of Widdin.’
16
‘Have you no friends?’ ‘I had, but by God’s blessing,
Have not been troubled with them lately. Now
I have answered all your questions without pressing,
And you an equal courtesy should show.’
‘Alas, ’ said Juan, ‘’twere a tale distressing,
And long besides.’ ‘Oh if ‘tis really so,
You’re right on both accounts to hold your tongue;
A sad tale saddens doubly when ‘tis long.
17
‘But droop not; Fortune at your time of life,
Although a female moderately fickle,
Will hardly leave you (as she’s not your wife)
For any length of days in such a pickle.
To strive too with our fate were such a strife
As if the corn-sheaf should oppose the sickle.
Men are the sport of circumstances, when
The circumstances seem the sport of men.’
18
‘ ’Tis not, ’ said Juan, ‘for my present doom
I mourn, but for the past; I loved a maid.’
He paused, and his dark eye grew full of gloom;
A single tear upon his eyelash stayed
A moment and then dropped. ‘But to resume,
’Tis not my present lot, as I have said,
Which I deplore so much; for I have borne
Hardships which have the hardiest overworn
19
‘On the rough deep. But this last blow –’and here
He stopped again and turned away his face.
‘Ay, ’ quoth his friend, ‘I thought it would appear
That there had been a lady in the case;
And these are things which ask a tender tear,
Such as I too wou
ld shed if in your place.
I cried upon my first wife’s dying day,
And also when my second ran away.
20
‘My third –’ ‘ Your third!’ quoth Juan, turning round,
‘You scarcely can be thirty, have you three?’
‘ No, only two at present above ground.
Surely ’tis nothing wonderful to see
One person thrice in holy wedlock bound.’
‘Well then your third, ’ said Juan, ‘what did she?
She did not run away too, did she, sir?’
‘No, faith.’ ‘What then?’ ‘I ran away from her.’
21
‘ You take things coolly, sir, ’ said Juan. ‘Why, ’
Replied the other, ‘what can a man do?
There still are many rainbows in your sky,
But mine have vanished. All, when life is new,
Commence with feelings warm and prospects high;
But time strips our illusions of their hue,
And one by one in turn, some grand mistake
Casts off its bright skin yearly like the snake.
22
‘’Tis true, it gets another bright and fresh,
Or fresher, brighter; but the year gone through,
This skin must go the way too of all flesh
Or sometimes only wear a week or two.
Love’s the first net which spreads its deadly mesh;
Ambition, avarice, vengeance, glory glue
The glittering lime-twigs of our latter days,
Where still we flutter on for pence or praise.’
23
‘All this is very fine and may be true, ’
Said Juan, ‘but I really don’t see how
It betters present times with me or you.’
‘No?’ quoth the other, ‘yet you will allow
By setting things in their right point of view,
Knowledge at least is gained; for instance, now
We know what slavery is, and our disasters
May teach us better to behave when masters.’
24
‘Would we were masters now, if but to try
Their present lessons on our pagan friends here, ’
Said Juan, swallowing a heart-burning sigh.
‘Heaven help the scholar whom his fortune sends here!’
‘Perhaps we shall be one day, by and by, ’
Rejoined the other, ‘when our bad luck mends here.
Meantime (yon old black eunuch seems to eye us)
I wish to God that somebody would buy us.
25
‘But after all what is our present state?
’Tis bad and may be better – all men’s lot.
Most men are slaves, none more so than the great,
To their own whims and passions and what not.
Society itself, which should create
Kindness, destroys what little we had got.
To feel for none is the true social art
Of the world’s stoics – men without a heart.’
26
Just now a black old neutral personage
Of the third sex stepped up and peering over
The captives, seemed to mark their looks and age
And capabilities, as to discover
If they were fitted for the purposed cage.
No lady e’er is ogled by a lover,
Horse by a blackleg, broadcloth by a tailor,
Fee by a counsel, felon by a jailor,
27
As is a slave by his intended bidder.
’Tis pleasant purchasing our fellow creatures,
And all are to be sold, if you consider
Their passions and are dextrous. Some by features
Are bought up, others by a warlike leader,
Some by a place, as tend their years or natures,
The most by ready cash; but all have prices
From crowns to kicks according to their vices.
28
The eunuch, having eyed them o’er with care,
Turned to the merchant and begun to bid,
First but for one, and after for the pair.
They haggled, wrangled, swore too – so they did!
As though they were in a mere Christian fair
Cheapening an ox, an ass, a lamb, or kid
So that their bargain sounded like a battle
For this superior yoke of human cattle.
29
At last they settled into simple grumbling
And pulling out reluctant purses and
Turning each piece of silver o’er and tumbling
Some down and weighing others in their hand,
And by mistake sequins with paras jumbling,
Until the sum was accurately scanned,
And then the merchant giving change and signing
Receipts in full, began to think of dining.
30
I wonder if his appetite was good
Or if it were, if also his digestion.
Methinks at meals some odd thoughts might intrude,
And conscience ask a curious sort of question
About the right divine how far we should
Sell flesh and blood. When dinner has opprest one,
I think it is perhaps the gloomiest hour
Which turns up out of the sad twenty-four.
31
Voltaire says ‘No’; he tells you that Candide
Found life most tolerable after meals.
He’s wrong; unless man were a pig, indeed,
Repletion rather adds to what he feels,
Unless he’s drunk, and then no doubt he’s freed
From his own brain’s oppression while it reels.
Of food I think with Philip’s son, or rather
Ammon’s (ill pleased with one world and one father);
32
I think with Alexander that the act
Of eating, with another act or two,
Makes us feel our mortality in fact
Redoubled. When a roast and a ragout
And fish and soup, by some side dishes backed,
Can give us either pain or pleasure, who
Would pique himself on intellects, whose use
Depends so much upon the gastric juice?
33
The other evening (’twas on Friday last) –
This is a fact and no poetic fable –
Just as my greatcoat was about me cast,
My hat and gloves still lying on the table,
I heard a shot – ’twas eight o’clock scarce past –
And running out as fast as I was able,
I found the military commandant
Stretched in the street and able scarce to pant.
34
Poor fellow! For some reason, surely bad,
They had slain him with five slugs and left him there
To perish on the pavement; so I had
Him borne into the house and up the stair
And stripped and looked to. But why should I add
More circumstances? Vain was every care;
The man was gone; in some Italian quarrel
Killed by five bullets from an old gun barrel.
35
I gazed upon him, for I knew him well;
And though I have seen many corpses, never
Saw one, whom such an accident befell,
So calm. Though pierced through stomach, heart, and liver,
He seemed to sleep, for you could scarcely tell
(As he bled inwardly, no hideous river
Of gore divulged the cause) that he was dead;
So as I gazed on him, I thought or said,
36
‘Can this be death? Then what is life or death?
Speak!’ but he spoke not. ‘Wake!’ but still he slept.
‘But yesterday and who had mightier breath?
A thousand warriors by his word were kept
In awe. He
said as the centurion saith,
“Go,”and he goeth; “come, ” and forth he stepped.
The trump and bugle till he spake were dumb,
And now nought left him but the muffled drum.’
37
And they who waited once and worshipped, they
With their rough faces thronged about the bed
To gaze once more on the commanding clay,
Which for the last though not the first time bled.
And such an end! That he who many a day
Had faced Napoleon’s foes until they fled,
The foremost in the charge or in the sally,
Should now be butchered in a civic alley.
38
The scars of his old wounds were near his new,
Those honourable scars which brought him fame;
And horrid was the contrast to the view.
But let me quit the theme; as such things claim
Perhaps even more attention than is due
From me. I gazed (as oft I have gazed the same)
To try if I could wrench aught out of death
Which should confirm or shake or make a faith;
39
But it was all a mystery. Here we are,
And there we go, but where? Five bits of lead,
Or three or two or one send very far!
And is this blood then formed but to be shed?
Can every element our elements mar?
And air – earth – water – fire live – and we dead?
We, whose minds comprehend all things? No more;
But let us to the story as before.
40
The purchaser of Juan and acquaintance
Bore off his bargains to a gilded boat,
Embarked himself and them, and off they went thence
As fast as oars could pull and water float.
They looked like persons being led to sentence,
Wondering what next, till the caïque was brought
Up in a little creek below a wall
O’ertopped with cypresses dark green and tall.
41
Here their conductor tapping at the wicket
Of a small iron door, ’twas opened, and
He led them onward, first through a low thicket
Flanked by large groves, which towered on either hand.
They almost lost their way and had to pick it,
For night was closing ere they came to land.
The eunuch made a sign to those on board,
Who rowed off, leaving them without a word.
42
As they were plodding on their winding way
Through orange bowers and jasmine and so forth
(Of which I might have a good deal to say,
There being no such profusion in the North
Of oriental plants et cetera,
But that of late your scribblers think it worth
Their while to rear whole hotbeds in their works
Because one poet travelled ’mongst the Turks) –
Don Juan Page 24