148, 3–4 ]
That for so long opposed this gaming evil>
148, 6 ]
]
148, 7–8 Is it for this that General Count O’Reilly, / Who took Algiers ‘Donna Julia here made a mistake. Count O’Reilly did not take Algiers – but Algiers very near took him…’ (Byron, 1819). Alexander O’Reilly (?1722–94), Spanish general, born in Ireland, commanded a disastrous expedition against Algiers in 1775.
149, 1–3 Musico Cazzani /… Count Corniani Both names are puns. The Cambridge Italian Dictionary (ed. B. Reynolds, 1922) labels ‘cazzo’ vulgar and gives two definitions: ‘penis, simpleton’. In seventeenth–century English slang, ‘catso’ or ‘catzo’ kept the Italian sense and also meant ‘rogue’ (O E D). ‘Musico’ here probably denotes simply a musician. For another possible usage that may be inappropriate here, see the note to IV 86, 2. ‘Cornuto’, meaning ‘horned’, refers to a cuckold.
149, 6 Count Strongstroganoff According to E. M. Butler, Count Alexander Stroganov had been one of Byron’s companion revellers in Venice ( Byron and Goethe (1956), 52–3, 152). Butler drew his information from Gespräche mit Goethe (1948), which he regarded as not entirely reliable. In Canto VII 15, Byron recalled the Count in his jest about Russian names, among them ‘strongenoff’ and ‘Strokonoff’.
149, 7 Lord Mount Coffeehouse, the Irish peer Byron is making fun of the ‘Union Peers’ of Ireland. When the legislative union of Ireland with England and Scotland was achieved by Pitt’s government in 1801, profuse grants of peerages were made to compensate the Irish for the loss of their parliament. The Mount was a celebrated coffeehouse near Grosvenor Square. See also Marchand, II 628.
150, 4 I wonder in what quarter now the moon is For centuries certain phases of the moon supposedly turned men’s wits and made them irascible and irrational (hence the early derivation of lunacy from the Latin word for moon – ‘luna’).
153, 4 ] The Chimney –
The chimney
158, 1–8 She ceased and turned upon her pillow… /… beats her heart Julia’s anger suggests one of the tantrums of La Fornarina, who was living in Byron’s palace at about the time he was writing this canto. See letter to Murray, 29 June 1819, for his description of her on the steps of the Mocenigo Palace during a storm, ‘her great black eyes flashing through her tears, and the long dark hair, which was streaming drenched with rain over her brows and breasts’(LJ IV 333).
158, 2–5 ]
Reluctant past her bright eyes rolled – as a veil
Like Summer rains through Sunshine> fragment ]
Wooing her cheek – the black curls strive but fail>
159, 6 Achates faithful to the tomb This companion of Aeneas was so often termed ‘fidus Achates’ by Virgil that his fidelity has become proverbial.
160, 1 ] With prying
160, 8 competent false witnesses ]
162, 4 ]
162, 6 Alfonso saw his wife and thought of Job’s Job’s wife said, ‘Dost thou still retain thine integrity? curse God, and die. But he said unto her, Thou speakest as one of the foolish women speaketh’ (ii 9–10).
164, 1 posse comitatus The power or force of the country.
165, 5 ] Nothing so
Nothing so
an unfilched good name See Othello III iii 159–61.
166, 7–8 ]
In preference sure to Clarence’ Malmsey Butt.> ]
Twere better sure to the so than be put
To drown with Clarence in his Malmsey Butt.
See Richard III I iv 276: ‘I’ll drown you in the malmsey–butt within.’ Malmsey was a sweet aromatic wine, originally made in Cyprus, but now made in Spain, Italy and elsewhere, from the malvasia grape.
168, 2 ’Tis written in the Hebrew chronicle I Kings i 1–3.
170, 4 ]
171, 1–2 ] Pooh
Already one too many – and Heaven knows> ]
172, 2 (Come, make haste) Antonia addresses this parenthesis, as well as the next two, to Juan.
172, 3 what piece of work is here An echo of Hamlet’s ‘What a piece of work is a man!’ (II ii 309–10).
173, 7 with slow and sidelong view ] with
173, 8 ] She
174, 8 Of rhetoric, which the learned call rigmarole On M Byron indicated that ‘rhetoric’ and ‘learned’ were to be read as ‘rhet’ric’ and ‘learn’d’, one of his rare acknowledgements of elision.
175, 4–5 words… /… Which if it does not silence still must pose In DJ Byron does not use ‘pose’ in its more common senses, but almost always to mean ‘perplex’ or ‘nonplus’. The same usage occurs in IX 58; XV 37; XVI 28.
175, 8 do you reproach ] do you accuse PM ] do you retort M
178, 2 there is a tact OED cites Sydney Smith (1804–6): ‘We have begun, though of late years, to use the word tact .’
179, 7 A tear or two, and then we make it up The stanza may be a reminiscence of Byron’s quarrels and reconciliations with Lady Caroline Lamb.
179, 8 ] And then –
180, 5 He stood like Adam lingering near his garden
Whereat
In either hand the hastening angel caught
Our lingering parents, and to the eastern gate
Led them direct.
(Milton, Paradise Lost XII 636–9)
180, 6 ]
With base suspicion now no longer haunted
183, 4 income tax The income tax had been introduced in Great Britain as a war tax in 1799, less than twenty years before Byron wrote this line. It was not reintroduced until 1842.
184, 7 a Tartar A person of violent temper, who in a fight will unexpectedly be too strong for his opponent. OED quoted Byron’s verse.
186, 7 He fled, like Joseph, leaving it ‘And he left his garment in her hand, and fled, and got him out.’ See the story of Joseph and Potiphar’s wife (Genesis xxxix 7–18). Byron makes more farcical use of the Bible in Canto I than in later cantos. His familiarity with the Bible was gained early in life, under the tutelage of May Gray, his Scottish nurse.
186, 8 ]
189, 1–2 ]
In giving Juan a chaste education>
The idea that Byron discarded here he used later in II I, 5–6.
189, 4 to nonsuit To deliver a judgement against the plaintiff because of his inability to provide evidence sufficient to establish his allegations at the trial.
189, 7 ] short hand
William Brodie Gurney (1777–1855), the official shorthand writer to the Houses of Parliament, from 1813, reported trials and speeches throughout the United Kingdom, 1803–44.
189 Byron at one time intended seven stanzas on Brougham to follow stanza 189. Spelling, capitalization and punctuation of the following version have been modernized. Otherwise it is based on the MSS, which provide many variants not here recorded.
I
’Twas a fine cause for those in law delighting;
’Tis pity that they had no Brougham in Spain,
Famous for always talking and ne’er fighting,
For calling names and taking them again,
For blustering, bungling, trimming, wrangling, wr
iting,
Groping all paths to power and all in vain,
Losing elections, character, and temper,
A foolish clever fellow – idem semper .
2
Bully in senates, skulker in the field,
The adulterer’s advocate when duly feed,
The libeller’s gratis counsel, dirty shield,
Which law affords to many a dirty deed,
A wondrous warrior against those who yield,
A rod to weakness, to the brave a reed,
The people’s sycophant, the prince’s foe,
And serving him the more by being so.
3
Tory by nurture, Whig by circumstance,
A democrat some once or twice a year,
Whene’er it suits his purpose to advance
His vain ambition in its vague career.
A sort of orator by sufferance,
Less for the comprehension than the ear,
With all the arrogance of endless power,
Without the sense to keep it for an hour.
4
The House of Commons’ Damocles of words
Above him hanging by a single hair.
On each harangue depends some hostile swords,
And deems he that we always will forbear?
Although defiance oft declined affords
A blotted shield no shire’s true knight would wear,
Thersites of the House, Parolles of law,
The double Bobadil takes scorn for awe.
5
How noble is his language, never pert,
How grand his sentiments which ne’er run riot,
As when he swore by God he’d sell his shirt
To head the poll. I wonder who would buy it?
The skin has passed through such a deal of dirt
In grovelling on to power, such stains now dye it,
So black the long worn lion’s hide in hue,
You’d swear his very heart had sweated through.
6
Panting for power, as harts for cooling streams,
Yet half afraid to venture for the draught.
A go–between, yet blundering in extremes,
And tossed along the vessel fore and aft,
Now shrinking back, now midst the first he seems,
Patriot by force and courtesan by craft,
Quick without wit and violent without strength,
A disappointed lawyer at full length.
7
A strange example of the force of law,
And hasty temper on a kindling mind.
Are these the dreams his young ambition saw?
Poor fellow, he had better far been blind.
I’m sorry thus to probe a wound so raw,
But then as bard my duty to mankind
For warning to the rest compels these raps,
As geographers lay down a shoal in maps.
NOTES TO REJECTED STANZAS
1–7 Byron was angered when he learned piecemeal in Italy that Brougham at the time of the separation from Lady Byron had spoken and written with hostility towards him. Though Byron would not print the stanzas because Brougham could not claim redress from an absent foe, he wanted Brougham to see them and for a long time promised to meet his ‘persecutor’ in a duel should he return to England.
1, 7 Losing elections In 1812 Brougham lost the seat in Parliament to which he had been elected in 1810. He later lost elections at Westminster and in Westmorland. See G. T. Garrut, Lord Brougham (1935), 60, 65, 85, 110.
2, 1 Bully in senates, skulker in the field For Brougham’s bad manners in Parliament and his reluctance on the field of honour, see note to Canto XIII 84, 1–4.
2, 2–3 The adulterer’s advocate… / The libeller’s gratis counsel From 1811 on, Brougham was a staunch defender of Queen Caroline, whose morals were under attack by the Prince Regent, seeking grounds for a divorce. Early in his legal career, Brougham specialized in sedition cases in an attempt to bring the law of seditious libel into disrepute. He was the unsuccessful defender of the Hunts, who were tried for libelling the Prince Regent in 1812.
4, 1–4 The House of Commons’ Damocles of words After extolling the power, wealth and happiness of the elder Dionysius of Syracuse, Damocles was seated by that King at a sumptuous banquet beneath a sword, suspended by a single horse–hair, in an attempt to convince Damocles how precarious good fortune was. See Horace, Ode III I, 17. His name has become traditional for a flatterer and the sword a symbol of impending danger.
4, 7–8 Thersites of the House, Parolles of law, / The double Bobadil takes scorn for awe Thersites was an insolent, scurrilous ranter among the Greeks at Troy (Iliad, trans. E. V. Rieu (1950), II 45–7). He was also abusive in Shakespeare’s Troilus and Cressida . Parolles in All’s Well That Ends Well was a worthless braggart. See also note to Canto XIII 84, 1–4. Captain Bobadil in Jonson’s Every Man in His Humour was a braggart soldier, vain and cowardly.
5, 4 Brougham entered the House of Commons in 1810 by appointment to a seat at Lord Holland’s request. In 1812 he was defeated when he ran for a Liverpool seat, but was back in Parliament in 1814, this time when Lord Darlington appointed him. In 1818, Brougham challenged the power of the Lowther family in Westmorland and was defeated in his most exciting contest, finishing third in that race. However, Lord Darlington then appointed Brougham to the Winchelsea seat in 1818.
6, 1 Panting for power, as harts for cooling streams ‘As the hart panteth after the water brooks, so panteth my soul after thee, O God’ (Psalm xlii 1).
6, 6 courtesan This use of courtesan for courtier was common in the seventeenth century, but archaic by Byron’s day.
190–98 The present text uses many of the revisions that Byron made on M 1, a fair copy that he submitted for publication. When this copy was mislaid, Byron sent another copy, M 2, that he made from his first draft (PM) and that lacked his revisions. The first and later editions printed the unrevised text of M 2. The following notes include the phrasing of M 2 and 1819, wherever it differs from that of M 1 and the present text.
190, 4 ] Since
Since Roderic’s Goth’s or older Genseric’s Vandals M 1
190, 8 to be embarked at Cadiz M 1 ] to be shipped off from Cadiz PM, M 2, 1819
191, 3 or get new PM, M1 ] and get new M 2, 1819
191, 6–7 sent into a nunnery And there perhaps M l ] sent into a convent; she Grieved, but perhaps PM, M 2, 1819
192, 4 Mine was M 1 ] Mine is PM, M 2, 1819
193, 1 for that love M 1 ] for this love PM, M 2, 1819
194, 1 of his life M 1 ] of man’s life PM, M 2, 1819
194, 2 ’Tis woman’s whole existence Madame de Staël in De l’Influence des Passions (1796) makes the same contrast. The content of lines 3–8 also appears in her Corinne (1807), ch. 5. A contemporary journalist cited this as an example of Byron’s plagiarism.
194, 4 ]
194, 7 Man has all M 1 ] Men have all PM, M 2, 1819
194, 8 See Appendix.
195, 1 beauty PM, M 1] pleasure M 2, 1819
195, 4]
195, 6 rends it as before M1 ] rages as before PM, M2, 1819
195, 8 word is idle now, but ] word is
196, 2] But still I think I can collect my mind PM, M2, 1819
196, 3 My blood still rushes where ] My blood still
196, 5 My brain PM, M1 ] My heart M1, 1819
196, 6 except your image M1 ] except one image PM, M1, 1819
196, 7–8 ] So shakes the needle, and so stands the pole,
As vibrates my fond heart to my fixed soul. PM, M2, 1819
197, 6 Death flies the wretch M1 ] Death shuns the wretch PM, M1
198, 3] Her small white hand could hardly reach the
taper PM, M2, 1819 Julia used a candle to melt wax to seal her letter.
198, 4 But trembled M1 ] It trembled PM, M2 1819
198, 6 Elle vous suit partout The motto of Byron’s own seal: ‘She follows you everywhere.’
200, 1 My poem’s epic Medwin quotes Byron: ‘If you must have an epic, there’s “Don Juan” for you. I call that an epic: it is an epic as much in the spirit of our day as the Iliad was in Homer’s. Love, religion, and politics form the argument, and are as much the cause of quarrels now as they were then’ (164).
200, 6–8 ]
Which shall be specified in fitting time
With good discretion & in current rhyme.>
201 There are three manuscripts of this stanza: PM 1, the first draft on a PM addendum scrap; PM 2, a crosswise copy on the last page of the main PM manuscript; M, the main fair copy that he sent to his publisher.
201, 7–8 ] I’ve
And Devils for my supernatural Scenery PM1
202, 8 Whereas this story’s actually true ‘There should always be some foundation of fact for the most airy fabric, and pure invention is but the talent of a liar’ (letter to Murray, 2 April 1817, LJ IV 93).
203, 3–4 ] To Newspapers – & Sermons which the zeal
Of pious men have published on his acts
203, 7–8 myself… in Seville / Saw Juan’s last elopement with the devil Byron did not see Tirso de Molina’s El Burlador de Sevilla . During the three days Byron spent in Seville (July 1809), the theatres were closed. In the evenings he and his party were confined to their lodging. Because of the French invasion of Spain, the city was congested and social life restricted (W. A. Borst, Lord Byron’s First Pilgrimage 1809–1811 (1948), 26–30; Marchand, I 189–90).
204, 2 ]
I’ll write
204, 7 ]
205, 1 Thou shalt believe in Milton, Dryden, Pope The parody of the Ten Commandments called forth cries of blasphemy from some contemporary readers. Byron himself was worried about the effect of the passage: ‘Recollect that if you put my name to Don Juan in these canting days, any lawyer might oppose my guardian right of my daughter in Chancery, on the plea of its containing the parody ; such are the perils of a foolish jest’ (letter to Murray, 8 October 1820, LJ V 22).
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