Don Juan
Page 59
50, 4–6 They tamed him down… / At least it seemed so Byron may be remembering the strictness of the Scottish Presbyterians in Aberdeen, which made him always resentful of constraint.
53, 4 verbum sat A word to the wise is sufficient. Byron repeats the rhyme in Canto XV 16. The adage in varied Latin forms was common among English writers. It appears in Plautus as ‘dictum sapienti sat est’, The Persian, 729, trans. P. Nixon (1924), III 506–7. Terence also used the same phrasing in Phormio, 541, trans. J. Sargeaunt (1918), II 62–3.
54, 5 she flew in a rage In his early letters Byron describes his mother as having ungovernable fits of temper.
55, 3 Donna Julia W. A. Borst points out that the portrait of Donna Julia may have some relationship to Doña Josepha Beltram, with whom Byron and Hobhouse lodged in Seville (Lord Byron’s First Pilgrimage 1809–1811 (1948), 30).
55, 7 Her zone to Venus The magical girdle of Aphrodite had the power of making its wearer sexually attractive.
55, 7 ]
56, 6 Boabdil wept Boabdil (Mohammed XI) was the last Sultan to rule over Granada. The hill from which he looked for the last time on the palaces and pleasure-gardens of Granada is known as ‘the last sigh of the Moor’.
57, 2 hidalgo See note to Canto I 9, 2.
61, 4 ] Her cheek
all
61, 5–6 Mounting at times to a transparent glow, / As if her veins ran lightning J. C. Collins thought that these lines were an echo of Spenser’s Faerie Queene III ii 5:
And ever and anon the rosy red
Flash’d through her face, as it had been a flake
Of lightning through bright heaven fulmined
(Studies in Poetry and Criticism (1905), 103)
61, 8 I hate a dumpy woman Lady Byron was usually described as not tall.
62, 1–2 Wedded she was some years and to a man / Of fifty The ‘Julian adventure’, Byron wrote to a friend (25 Jan. 1819), was based on the scandal of an acquaintance’s intrigues ‘as a boy’ with the wife of the Prefect of Bassano.
62, 6 mi vien in mente it comes to my mind.
62, 7–8 ] Spouses from twenty years of age to thirty
Are
Are most admired by woman of the strictest virtue
64, 4 ’Twas snow that brought St Anthony to reason Byron confused St Antony of Padua with St Francis of Assisi. ‘At the beginning of his conversion, finding himself assailed with violent temptations against purity, he [St Francis] sometimes cast himself naked into ditches full of snow’ (Butler’s Lives of the Saints, ed. and rev. H. Thurston and D. Attwater (1956) IV 25). A note attributed by Coleridge to Byron (VI 32) but not on the manuscripts implies that the poet was thinking of another legend not in Butler: ‘I am not sure it was not St Francis who had the wife of snow – in that case the line must run, “St Francis back to reason’”. See DJ, note to VI 17, 6, which refers to ‘the wife of snow’.
64, 6 mulet a fine or penalty.
66, 6 ] For Malice still suspects some
71, 7 Armida’s fairy art Byron refers to the ‘Bower of Armida’ in a letter to Webster, 10 October 1811 (LJ II 49). Armida, the sorceress in Tasso’s Jerusalem Delivered, leads Rinaldo to forget his vow as a crusader.
75, 6 made a Tarquin quake In Roman legend one of a family to which belonged the seventh king, Lucius Tarquinius Superbus, who was noted for his tyranny and arrogance. Byron may have in mind Shakespeare’s Tarquin Sextus, in his Rape of Lucrece .
75, 8 ] Thinking that She might understand her case. ]
Thinking
76, 8 That night the Virgin was no further prayed See Dante’s episode of Paolo and Francesca: “That day we read in it no further’ (Inferno V 138).
78, 2 The devil’s so very sly ‘… that sly devil, / That broker, that still breaks the pate of faith’ (King John II ii 567–8).
82, 4 ]
86, 4 Ovid’s Miss Medea ‘… and when by reason she could not rid herself of her madness she cried, “In vain, Medea, do you fight, Some god or other is opposing you’” (Ovid, Metamorphoses VII 10–12, trans. F. J. Miller (1946), 342–3).
88, 5 The bard I quote from does not sing amiss ‘Campbell’s Gertrude of Wyoming (I think) the opening of Canto II; but quote from memory [from III 1, 1–4]’ (Byron, 1819).
90, 7 plan and prosody are eligible The adjective, uncommon in this context, denotes a plan and prosody so suitable as to be desirable – what we like and approve.
91, 2–4 His self-communion with his own high soul … Had mitigated part Note the Wordsworthian phrasing.
91, 8 Like Coleridge into a metaphysician See note to Dedication 2, 6.
92, 6 Of air balloons The craze for air–ballooning at the end of the eighteenth century in France spread to England in the early part of the nineteenth century.
93, 2 ]
93, 5–8 ]
But if you’re angry – reader – pass it by –
Such if Juan’s thoughts returned back from above
’Twas all the fault of > fragment
93, 6] His brain
95, 2 Boscán or Garcilasso Juan Boscán Almogáver of Barcelona (died c. 1543), with his friend Garcilaso de la Vega, of a noble Toledo family, introduced the Italian style into Castilian poetry by writing sonnets in the manner of Petrarch. Garcilaso, who was also a warrior, was killed in battle in 1536.
95, 4 ]
96, 7 ]
99, 1 A real husband ] A real
100, 4 Young Hopeful’s mistress or Miss Fanny’s lover Stock characters of eighteenth–century fiction and drama.
103, 5 ] Change horses,
103, 7–8 ] Leaving
Except the
Except the promises of true theology. See Appendix.
post–obits of theology See note to Preface to Cantos I and II, 101. A Christian has borrowed his life from God and given a bond to Him for it, guaranteeing payment with interest after death. God eventually collects the debt.
104, 4–5 heathenish heaven / Described by… Anacreon Moore Though only fragments of the amatory and convivial odes of Anacreon (born about 550 BC) survive, about sixty imitative lyrics attributed to him were translated by Thomas Moore while he was at Trinity College, Dublin, and later published in England (1800). Byron may also here refer to Moore’s tale of Paradise and the Peri’ in Lalla Rookh (1817), and to some of the lyrics he brought out under the pseudonym of Thomas Little in 1802:
Oh, Susan…
I devoutly believe there’s a heaven on earth,
And believe that that heaven’s in thee.
(The Catalogue)
104, 7]
104, 8 He won them well, and may he wear them long Byron’s early amatory verse, Hours of Idleness, was influenced by Moore.
106, 1 Her conscious heart Julia was aware of her feelings and sensations.
106, 7–8 ]
creed Belief, without religious connotation here. OED labels this usage rare and quotes Byron’s verse.
107, 6 ] Because
110, 2 played within the tangles of her hair Jump (NQ, 302) suggests that Byron was recalling Milton’s ‘tangl
es of Neaera’s hair’ (Lycidas 69). See also Canto I 170, 2.
110, 3–4 And to contend… / … her air The sense is clear if the inversion is recognized: ‘She seemed by the distraction… to contend with thoughts…’
110, 6 ] To leave
114, 5–7 The silver light which
Colouring tree and tower
118, 1–2 ’Tis said that Xerxes offered a reward / To those who could invent him a new pleasure ‘Xerxes was a fool, who, wrapped in all human pleasures… offered a prize to anyone who would find him others’ (Montaigne, ‘Of experience’, 849). Both Montaigne and Byron may have read Cicero: ‘Xerxes… though loaded with all the… gifts that fortune bestows… was not content with cavalry, with infantry, with a host of ships, with boundless stores of gold, but offered a reward to anyone who should discover a new pleasure: and had it really been found he would not have been content; for lust will never discover its limit’ (Tusculan Disputations V, section 7, trans. J. E. King (1927), 444–6). The pedagogic Valerius Maximus, who borrowed freely from Cicero and moralized about the sybaritic Xerxes, seems a less likely source (Factorum Dictorumque Memorabilium IX, ch. 1, De Luxuria et Libidine, Externa, section 3 (1823), I 829).
119, 5 ] But – God knows how – this wise resolve takes wing. See Appendix.
121, 6 that several months have passed The subject and verb that go with this clause are in lines 1–2: ‘the reader will Suppose……/… that several months have passed.’ Such syntactical interruptions as the two in lines 2–6 become more numerous and even longer in later cantos.
121, 7 ] ’Twas
122, 3 The song and oar of Adria’s gondolier Byron in CH IV 3 lamented that the gondoliers of Venice (on the Adriatic) no longer sang.
123, 1–2 ’Tis sweet to hear the watchdog’s honest bark / Bay deep–mouthed welcome as we draw near home Maxwell (NQ, 302–3) contributes the following analogue from The Vicar of Wakefield (ch. 22, para. 2): ‘no sounds were heard but of the shrilling cock, and the deep–mouthed watch–dog, at hollow distance. I approached my little abode of pleasure, and, before I was within a furlong of the place, our honest mastiff came running to welcome me.’
124, 8 prize money to seamen See note to Canto II 196, 5.
125, 1 ] Sweet is a
125, 2 The unexpected death of some old lady Lady Noel, Lady Byron’s mother, was ‘not of those who die – the amiable only do; and those whose death would do good live’ (letter to Murray, 7 September 1820, LJ V 71). Lady Noel died at seventy in 1822.
125, 4 ‘us youth’ ‘They hate us youth’(Falstaff in Henry IV Part I II ii 93).
125, 6–8 ] Wishing them
Wishing them
Wishing them –
Knows nought of grief who has not so been worried –
’Tis strange old people dont like to be buried.
125, 8 their double–damned post–obits Byron’s post–obit obligations made when he was at Cambridge contributed to his financial difficulties for many years after they were incurred. See note to Preface to Cantos I and II, 101.
126, 6–7 Dear is the helpless creature we defend / Against the world Byron may have had in mind his friendship with William Harness, whom he defended against the ragging of the older boys at Harrow.
126, 7 dear the schoolboy spot A place on the river Cam near Grantchester is still called ‘Byron’s Pool’. Byron may also be thinking of the flat limestone tomb of John Peachey in the Harrow churchyard. From this point on the hill, there was a good view of the countryside. In melancholy moods, Byron used to sit here for hours under an elm (LJ VI 69; Marchand, 172). One of his early poems is entitled Lines Written beneath an Elm in the Churchyard of Harrow .
127, 8 Prometheus See note to Canto II 75, 4.
128–32 Man’s a strange animal…/… at Waterloo
F. L. Beaty showed that this passage derived from Byron’s reading of the Essay on the Principle of Population (1798–1817) by Thomas Robert Malthus (‘Byron on Malthus and the Population Problem’, Keats–Shelley Journal, XVII (1969), 20–21). The reference to recent inventions in the ensuing four stanzas are typical of Byron’s scientific dilettantism. Although he reveals his customary scepticism of the importance of scientific discoveries, he was proud of keeping up with what took place outside the narrow world of the litterateur.
129–31 Because of the comments on venereal disease, Murray excluded from the 1819 edition all of stanza 131 and the concluding couplets of stanzas 129 and 130. See Appendix.
129, 3 One makes new noses The remedy of an American quack, Benjamin Charles Perkins, founder of the Perkinean Institution, whose metallic ‘tractors’ were a ‘cure for all disorders, Red Noses, Gouty–toes, Windy Bowels, Broken Legs, Hump Backs’.
129, 6 Congreve’s rockets Sir William Congreve (1772–1828) was the inventor (1808) of the Congreve rocket, which was used at the Battle of Leipzig in 1813. Although it did little actual damage, the noise and the bright glare frightened the French and threw them into confusion.
129, 7 the Doctor paid off an old pox Edward Jenner (1749–1823) first vaccinated against smallpox in 1796 and by his subsequent experiments attained a Continental reputation. There was still controversy concerning his experiments at the time Byron was writing. See Appendix.
130, 2 galvanism has set some corpses grinning Galvanism (electricity generated by chemical action) was used for therapeutic purposes at the end of the eighteenth century. Galvanic experiments were performed on the body of Forster, a murderer, in 1803 by Professor Aldini, nephew of Luigi Galvani (1737–99).
130, 3–4 the apparatus / Of the Humane Society’s beginning The Royal Humane Society was founded for the rescue of drowning persons in 1774.
130, 8 it may be followed by the great The ‘great pox’ syphilis, was popularly supposed to have come from America (see 131, 1). See Appendix.
131, 3–6 The population there so spreads… /… civilization they may learn The methods he mentions for reducing American population may be a sarcastic allusion to Thomas Robert Malthus, Essay on the Principle of Population (1798). Byron wrote that, according to Malthus, battle, murder and pestilence are our best friends, that prevent our being overstocked and eaten alive (LJ I 332; II 36).
131, 7–8 ]
And which in ravages the mightier evil is> ]
And which in ravage the more
Their real lues or our pseudo–syphilis.
The distinction between ‘their real lues or our pseudo–syphilis’ may refer to 130, 7–8, to the great pox (‘lues venerea’, syphilis) and the smallpox (pseudo–syphilis). But perhaps war, famine and other civilized killers (lines 5–6) constitute ‘our pseudo–syphilis’. They ravage as terribly as the ‘real lues’.
132, 2 for saving souls Probably a reference to the British and Foreign Bible Society, which was founded in London in 1804 by the Reverend Thomas Charles of Bala. The society’s aim was to encourage a wider circulation of the Bible in order to ‘save more souls’.
132, 4 Sir Humphry Davy’s lantern In 1815 Sir Humphry Davy (1778–1829), whom Byron had met in London, invented the safety lamp for the use of miners against firedamp.
132, 6 Timbuctoo travels, voyages to the poles Typical books were J. G. Jackson, An Account of the Empire of Morocco… To which is added an… account of Timbuctoo (1809); Sir W. E. Parry, Journal of a Voyage of Discovery to the Arctic Regions… 1818 (1820); Sir John Ross, A Voyage of Discovery… for the purpose of Exploring Baffin’s Bay (1819). See Canto XII
I 39.
133, 1 ] Man’s
< animal strange enough>
133, 7 ] The path
The path is through forbidden ways & when
134, 5 ] And lose in shining snow their summits blue
135, 1 ]’Twas Midnight – dark & sombre was the night
135, 7 I’m fond of fire and crickets and all that ‘… a moral man and “all that, Egad”, as Bayes says’ (letter to Murray, 28 September 1820, LJ V 80). Bayes is a character in the Duke of Buckingham’s play The Rehearsal .
135, 8 ]
137, 6 in a crack An eighteenth–century colloquialism meaning ‘in a moment’ (the time occupied by a shot or crack). O E D cites ‘in a twinkle’ as an analogous phrase.
138, 6 her husband’s temples to encumber to cause a cuckold’s horns to grow on his head.
138, 8 ]
l39, 3 a cavalier of his condition The word ‘condition’ is here used in the sense of status according to wealth or heritage, hence rank or social position.
139, 6 levee ‘A reception of visitors on rising from bed’ (O E D cites Byron’s verse).
141, 8 ] <“My dear I’m sorry – but the game was long in Play”>
142, 4 ] Ere I the wife of such a wretch had been
145, 1 ]
146, 7 ]
Ungrateful monster – cruel Don Alfonso?
147, 4 ] That any other woman it would vex
148, 1 cortejo ‘The Spanish “Cortejo” is much the same as the Italian “Cavalier Servente” ’ (Byron, 1833). ‘I have settled into regular serventismo [of the Countess Guiccioli], and find it the happiest state of all.… I double a shawl with considerable alacrity; but have not yet arrived at the perfection of putting it on the right way; and I hand in and out, and know my post in a conversazione and theatre’ (letter to Hobhouse, Ravenna, 3 March 1820, Correspondence II 136). The social code required constancy of the lady’s friend and also a courteous regard of the husband, who pretended that there was no adultery. In letters and in Beppo, stanza 36, Byron described the relationship.