Don Juan
Page 50
And you will be perhaps surprised to find
All things pursue exactly the same route
As now with those of soi-disant sound mind.
This I could prove beyond a single doubt,
Were there a jot of sense among mankind,
But till that point d’appui is found, alas,
Like Archimedes, I leave earth as ‘twas.
85
Our gentle Adeline had one defect;
Her heart was vacant, though a splendid mansion.
Her conduct had been perfectly correct,
As she had seen nought claiming its expansion.
A wavering spirit may be easier wrecked,
Because ‘tis frailer doubtless than a stanch one,
But when the latter works its own undoing,
Its inner crash is like an earthquake’s ruin.
86
She loved her lord or thought so, but that love
Cost her an effort, which is a sad toil,
The stone of Sisyphus, if once we move
Our feelings ‘gainst the nature of the soil.
She had nothing to complain of or reprove,
No bickerings, no connubial turmoil;
Their union was a model to behold,
Serene and noble, conjugal, but cold.
87
There was no great disparity of years,
Though much in temper, but they never clashed.
They moved like stars united in their spheres,
Or like the Rhone by Leman’s waters washed,
Where mingled and yet separate appears
The river from the lake, all bluely dashed
Through the serene and placid glassy deep,
Which fain would lull its river child to sleep.
88
Now when she once had ta’en an interest
In anything, however she might flatter
Herself that her intentions were the best –
Intense intentions are a dangerous matter.
Impressions were much stronger than she guessed
And gathered as they run like growing water
Upon her mind, the more so, as her breast
Was not at first too readily imprest.
89
But when it was, she had that lurking demon
Of double nature and thus doubly named:
Firmness yclept in heroes, kings, and seamen,
That is, when they succeed, but greatly blamed
As obstinacy both in men and women
Whene’er their triumph pales or star is tamed;
And ‘twill perplex the casuists in morality
To fix the due bounds of this dangerous quality.
90
Had Bonaparte won at Waterloo,
It had been firmness; now ‘tis pertinacity.
Must the event decide between the two?
I leave it to your people of sagacity
To draw the line between the false and true,
If such can e’er be drawn by man’s capacity.
My business is with Lady Adeline,
Who in her way too was a heroine.
91
She knew not her own heart; then how should I?
I think not she was then in love with Juan.
If so, she would have had the strength to fly
The wild sensation, unto her a new one.
She merely felt a common sympathy
(I will not say it was a false or true one)
In him, because she thought he was in danger,
Her husband’s friend, her own, young, and a stranger.
92
She was, or thought she was, his friend and this
Without the farce of friendship or romance
Of Platonism, which leads so oft amiss
Ladies who have studied friendship but in France
Or Germany, where people purely kiss.
To thus much Adeline would not advance,
But of such friendship as man’s may to man be,
She was as capable as woman can be.
93
No doubt the secret influence of the sex
Will there, as also in the ties of blood,
An innocent predominance annex
And tune the concord to a finer mood.
If free from passion, which all friendship checks,
And your true feelings fully understood,
No friend like to a woman earth discovers,
So that you have not been nor will be lovers.
94
Love bears within its breast the very germ
Of change; and how should this be otherwise?
That violent things more quickly find a term
Is shown through nature’s whole analogies.
And how should the most fierce of all be firm?
Would you have endless lightning in the skies?
Methinks love’s very title says enough;
How should the tender passion e’er be tough?
95
Alas, by all experience, seldom yet
(I merely quote what I have heard from many)
Had lovers not some reason to regret
The passion which made Solomon a zany.
I’ve also seen some wives (not to forget
The marriage state, the best or worst of any)
Who were the very paragons of wives,
Yet made the misery of at least two lives.
96
I’ve also seen some female friends (’tis odd,
But true as, if expedient, I could prove)
That faithful were through thick and thin, abroad,
At home, far more than ever yet was love,
Who did not quit me when oppression trod
Upon me, whom no scandal could remove,
Who fought and fight in absence too my battles,
Despite the snake society’s loud rattles.
97
Whether Don Juan and chaste Adeline
Grew friends in this or any other sense
Will be discussed hereafter I opine.
At present I am glad of a pretence
To leave them hovering, as the effect is fine
And keeps the atrocious reader in suspense,
The surest way for ladies and for books
To bait their tender or their tenterhooks.
98
Whether they rode or walked or studied Spanish
To read Don Quixote in the original,
A pleasure before which all others vanish,
Whether their talk was of the kind called ‘small’,
Or serious, are the topics I must banish
To the next canto, where perhaps I shall
Say something to the purpose and display
Considerable talent in my way.
99
Above all, I beg all men to forbear
Anticipating aught about the matter.
They’ll only make mistakes about the fair
And Juan too, especially the latter.
And I shall take a much more serious air
Than I have yet done in this epic satire.
It is not clear that Adeline and Juan
Will fall, but if they do, ‘twill be their ruin.
100
But great things spring from little. Would you think
That in our youth as dangerous a passion
As e’er brought man and woman to the brink
Of ruin rose from such a slight occasion
As few would ever dream could form the link
Of such a sentimental situation?
You’ll never guess, I’ll bet you millions, milliards –
It all sprung from a harmless game at billiards.
101
’Tis strange, but true, for truth is always strange,
Stranger than fiction. If it could be told,
How much would novels gain by the exchange!
How differently the world would men behold!
H
ow oft would vice and virtue places change!
The new world would be nothing to the old,
If some Columbus of the moral seas
Would show mankind their soul’s antipodes.
102
What ‘antres vast and deserts idle’ then
Would be discovered in the human soul!
What icebergs in the hearts of mighty men
With self-love in the centre as their pole!
What anthropophagi in nine of ten
Of those who hold the kingdoms in control!
Were things but only called by their right name,
Caesar himself would be ashamed of fame.
Canto XV
1
Ah! What should follow slips from my reflection.
Whatever follows ne’ertheless may be
As apropos of hope or retrospection
As though the lurking thought had followed free.
All present life is but an interjection,
An ‘oh!’ or ‘ah!’ of joy or misery
Or a ‘ha, ha!’ or ‘bah!’ a yawn or ‘pooh!’
Of which perhaps the latter is most true.
2
But more or less the whole’s a syncope
Or a singultus, emblems of emotion,
The grand antithesis to great ennui,
Wherewith we break our bubbles on the ocean,
That watery outline of eternity
Or miniature at least, as is my notion,
Which ministers unto the soul’s delight
In seeing matters which are out of sight.
3
But all are better than the sigh supprest,
Corroding in the cavern of the heart,
Making the countenance a mask of rest
And turning human nature to an art.
Few men dare show their thoughts of worst or best;
Dissimulation always sets apart
A corner for herself, and therefore fiction
Is that which passes with least contradiction.
4
Ah, who can tell? Or rather, who cannot
Remember, without telling, passion’s errors?
The drainer of oblivion, even the sot,
Hath got blue devils for his morning mirrors.
What though on Lethe’s stream he seem to float,
He cannot sink his tremors or his terrors.
The ruby glass that shakes within his hand
Leaves a sad sediment of time’s worst sand.
5
And as for love – oh love! We will proceed.
The Lady Adeline Amundeville,
A pretty name as one would wish to read,
Must perch harmonious on my tuneful quill.
There’s music in the sighing of a reed,
There’s music in the gushing of a rill,
There’s music in all things, if men had ears,
Their earth is but an echo of the spheres.
6
The Lady Adeline, right honourable
And honoured, ran a risk of growing less so,
For few of the soft sex are very stable
In their resolves. Alas, that I should say so!
They differ as wine differs from its label,
When once decanted. I presume to guess so,
But will not swear; yet both upon occasion,
Till old, may undergo adulteration.
7
But Adeline was of the purest vintage,
The unmingled essence of the grape, and yet
Bright as a new napoleon from its mintage,
Or glorious as a diamond richly set,
A page where Time should hesitate to print age,
And for which Nature might forego her debt,
Sole creditor whose process doth involve in’t
The luck of finding everybody solvent.
8
Oh Death, thou dunnest of all duns, thou daily
Knockest at doors, at first with modest tap
Like a meek tradesman when approaching palely
Some splendid debtor he would take by sap;
But oft denied, as patience ‘gins to fail, he
Advances with exasperated rap
And (if let in) insists in terms unhandsome
On ready money or a draft on Ransom.
9
Whate’er thou takest, spare awhile poor beauty.
She is so rare and thou hast so much prey.
What though she now and then may slip from duty,
The more’s the reason why you ought to stay.
Gaunt gourmand, with whole nations for your booty,
You should be civil in a modest way.
Suppress then some slight feminine diseases
And take as many heroes as heaven pleases.
10
Fair Adeline, the more ingenuous
Where she was interested (as was said)
Because she was not apt like some of us
To like too readily or too high bred
To show it (points we need not now discuss),
Would give up artlessly both heart and head
Unto such feelings as seemed innocent,
For objects worthy of the sentiment.
11
Some parts of Juan’s history, which rumour,
That live gazette, had scattered to disfigure,
She had heard, but women hear with more good humour
Such aberrations than we men of rigour.
Besides, his conduct, since in England, grew more
Strict, and his mind assumed a manlier vigour,
Because he had, like Alcibiades,
The art of living in all climes with ease.
12
His manner was perhaps the more seductive
Because he ne’er seemed anxious to seduce,
Nothing affected, studied, or constructive
Of coxcombry or conquest. No abuse
Of his attractions marred the fair perspective
To indicate a Cupidon broke loose
And seem to say, ‘resist us if you can’,
Which makes a dandy while it spoils a man.
13
They are wrong; that’s not the way to set about it,
As, if they told the truth, could well be shown.
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.
14
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.
Perhaps ’twas hardly quite assured enough,
But modesty’s at times its own reward,
Like virtue, and the absence of pretension
Will go much further than there’s need to mention.
15
Serene, accomplished, cheerful but not loud,
Insinuating without insinuation,
Observant of the foibles of the crowd,
Yet ne’er betraying this in conversation,
Proud with the proud, yet courteously proud
So as to make them feel he knew his station
And theirs; without a struggle for priority,
He neither brooked nor claimed superiority,
16
That is, with men. With women he was what
They pleased to make or take him for, and their
Imagination’s quite enough for that.
So that the outline’s tolerably fair,
They fill the canvas up; and verbum sat.
If once their phantasies be brought to bear
Upon an object, whether sad or playful,
They can transfigure brighter than a
Raphael.
17
Adeline, no deep judge of character,
Was apt to add a colouring from her own.
’Tis thus the good will amiably err
And eke the wise, as has been often shown.
Experience is the chief philosopher,
But saddest when his science is well known.
And persecuted sages teach the schools
Their folly in forgetting there are fools.
18
Was it not so, great Locke and greater Bacon?
Great Socrates? And Thou diviner still,
Whose lot it is by man to be mistaken
And thy pure creed made sanction of all ill?
Redeeming worlds to be by bigots shaken,
How was thy toil rewarded? We might fill
Volumes with similar sad illustrations,
But leave them to the conscience of the nations.
19
I perch upon an humbler promontory
Amidst life’s infinite variety
With no great care for what is nicknamed glory,
But speculating as I cast mine eye
On what may suit or may not suit my story
And never straining hard to versify,
I rattle on exactly as I’d talk
With anybody in a ride or walk.
20
I don’t know that there may be much ability
Shown in this sort of desultory rhyme,
But there’s a conversational facility,
Which may round off an hour upon a time.
Of this I’m sure at least, there’s no servility
In mine irregularity of chime,
Which rings what’s uppermost of new or hoary,
Just as I feel the improvvisatore.
21
Omnia vult belle Matho dicere; die aliquando
Et bene; dic neutrum; dic aliquando male.
The first is rather more than mortal can do;
The second may be sadly done or gaily;
The third is still more difficult to stand to;
The fourth we hear and see and say too daily.
The whole together is what I could wish
To serve in this conundrum of a dish,
22
A modest hope, but modesty’s my forte
And pride my feeble. Let us ramble on.
I meant to make this poem very short,
But now I can’t tell where it may not run.
No doubt if I had wished to pay my court
To critics or to hail the setting sun
Of tyranny of all kinds, my concision
Were more, but I was born for opposition.
23
But then ’tis mostly on the weaker side,
So that I verily believe if they
Who now are basking in their full-blown pride
Were shaken down and ‘dogs had had their day’,
Though at the first I might perchance deride
Their tumble, I should turn the other way
And wax an ultraroyalist in loyalty,
Because I hate even democratic royalty.