Don Juan

by Lord George Gordon Byron

  79, 2–3 ‘sin no more, / And be thy sins forgiven’ When the Scribes and Pharisees maintained that according to law an adulteress should be stoned, Jesus replied, ‘He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her.’ After her accusers left, he asked, ‘“Woman… hath no man condemned thee?” She said, “No man, Lord.” And Jesus said unto her, “Neither do I condemn thee: go and sin no more”’ (John viii 3–11). Byron merged with this episode another about the sinful woman who bathed the feet of Jesus with her tears and to whom he said, ‘Thy sins are forgiven’ (Luke vii 47–8). He may also have recalled that Jesus said to the man ‘sick of the palsy’, ‘thy sins be forgiven thee’ (Matthew ix 2; Mark ii 5).

  82, 5–6 those northern lights, / Which flashed as far as where the musk bull browses The brilliance of the parliamentary debaters flashed as far as the Arctic Circle, thus reversing the usual experience of seeing in England the northern lights coming from the Arctic regions.

  For a picture and description of the musk bull, Byron’s 1823 note referred the reader to Sir W. E. Parry’s Journal of a Voyage for the Discovery of a North-West Passage… 1819–20 (1821), 257.

  82, 8 But Grey was not arrived, and Chatham gone The Earl of Chatham (William Pitt the Elder) died in 1778, some years before Juan came to London. Juan antedated Charles, second Earl Grey (1764–1845), who did not become Foreign Secretary until after the death of William Pitt the Younger (23 January 1806).

  84, 1–4 (whate’er he may be now) / A Prince… / And full of promise Juan saw the Prince of Wales in the early 1790s, when George was about thirty. Twenty years later in 1812, Byron, after a conversation with the Prince, ‘had a very high idea of his abilities and accomplishments, which [he] had hitherto considered as confined to manners’ (LJ II 134–5). Whatever promise this ‘first gentleman of Europe’ showed in 1790, he was by 1812 dissolute, unprincipled and without talent except in ‘manners’. To induce Parliament to pay his debts in 1795, he married Caroline, a German princess, who was as worthless as her husband. A year later they separated. In 1811 when George became Regent, he excluded her from the court, and in 1814 she went abroad to live. In 1820 when he became King he tried to divorce her on grounds of adultery. Though historians later seemed certain of her guilt, Byron and many others sympathized with her as an injured woman and opposed the King during the notoriety of the trial. The only part George took in government was to oppose reforms.

  86, 8 As Philip’s son proposed to do with Athos The son of Philip (382–336 BC), King of Macedon, was Alexander the Great. ‘A sculptor projected to hew Mount Athos [a mountain over a mile high in north-east Greece] into a statue of Alexander, with a city in one hand, and I believe a river in his pocket, with various other similar devices. But Alexander’s gone, and Athos remains, I trust ere long to look over a nation of free men’ (Byron, 1823).

  89, 2–4 the public hedge hath scarce a stake, … To show the people the best way to break Ordinary people no longer can make a profitable sale or investment that will secure or compensate them for a possible loss in another speculation (sale or purchase). Therefore Byron will write a canto on economic theory (88, 7–8) to show the public how to withdraw from the market (break away), or to cause prices to decline sharply, or to go bankrupt, or to change direction, that is, make a different and profitable transaction. Several meanings may be possible for ‘break’.

  CANTO XIII

  Byron began the first draft of Canto XIII (Tn-PM) at Genoa on 12 February 1823 and completed it on 19 February 1823. Stanza 88 was written later than the others. This canto was published by John Hunt with Cantos XII and XIV on 13 December 1823. All variants are taken from Tn-PM.

  2, 1–5 The Lady Adeline Amundeville … Was highborn Since Byron never called her Lady Henry Amundeville but always Lady Adeline, he indicated that she outranked her husband. (For Lord Henry’s rank, see note to Canto XIII, 20, 1.) The wife of a younger son of a duke or marquess, if her husband’s father was of higher rank than her father, was addressed as ‘Lady’, followed by the Christian name and surname of her husband. But a daughter of a peer ranked one degree higher than a younger son of the same grade. If she married a peer’s younger son of the same grade as herself (or lower than herself) she retained ‘her own tide of Lady with her Christian name’. Titles and Forms of Address, A Guide to Their Correct Use, nth edn (London, 1961), 49, 51–2, 57, 59–60.

  5, 2 placemen A placeman is a political opportunist, whose competence and patriotism are specious. He seeks or holds a government appointment solely for his own advantage.

  5, 6 To irrigate the dryness ] To the ] To liquify the dryness

  6, 3 The struggle to be pilots in a storm George Canning wrote verse to be recited at a dinner on Pitt’s birthday, 28 May 1822. The refrain was ‘The Pilot [Pitt] that weathered the storm’. Byron a few weeks earlier had used the refrain in The Age of Bronze 540.

  7, 2 ‘he liked an honest hater’ Dr Johnson speaking to Mrs Thrale [Piozzi] said that Dr Bathurst ‘was a man to my very heart’s content: he hated a fool and he hated a rogue, and he hated a whig; he was a very good hater’ (Boswell (1748), I 190 note).

  8, 8 Quixote Byron anglicized the pronunciation and thus rhymed ‘Quixote’ with ‘thick sought’ (stanza 10, 8).

  9, 5 ] His guerdon– mad

  10, 1–2 ]
  Is told he fights with Windmills> fragment ]

  Redressing injur–revenging wrong

  Caitiff

  10, 4 ] From foreign native

  10, 7 thin and thick ] thick and thin 1833 and some later editions

  11, 4–8 ] Has Spain had Heroes;–
  Was such–while yet Romance had all her charms>

  And therefore
  Deserves more praise as a> Composition

  purchased…

  12, 1 ‘at my old lunes’ Mrs Page in The Merry Wives of Windsor complains that Mrs Ford’s husband ‘is in his old lunes again’–in his fits of frenzy, railing and cursing and buffeting himself on the forehead (IV ii 19–23).

  13, 2 Davus sum The slave Davus, in answer to a question, said ‘Davus sum, non Oedipus’, alluding to the fact that Oedipus alone was able to solve the riddle of the Sphinx (Terence, The Lady of Andros I ii 23).

  13, 5 the glass of all that’s fair Ophelia praises Hamlet as ‘the glass of fashion’ (Hamlet III i 162).

  17, 3–4 the laws of Persians / And Medes ‘Now, O king, establish the decree, and sign the writing, that it be not changed, according to the law of the Medes and Persians, which altereth not’ (Daniel vi 8).

  17, 5 those strange fits, like tertians see note to Canto I 34, 7.

  17, 7–8 ] What they should laugh at –
  Advances or repulses, they behold>

  18, 1–2 ‘’Tis not in mortals to command success, / But do you more, Sempronius, don’t deserve it’ ‘’Tis not in mortals to command success; / But we’ll do more, Sempronius–we’ll deserve it’ (Joseph Addison, Cato I 2).

  20, 1 In birth, in rank Since Byron never specified that Henry held one of the five grades of peerage and never referred to him as Lord Amundeville, we may infer that he was not a peer of the realm. By consistently using a courtesy title ‘Lord’ before the Christian name, Byron identified him as a younger son of a duke or marquess. Byron also had the Morning Post announce the departure of ‘Lord H. Amundeville and Lady A.’ (Canto XIII 51). Had Henry been the son of a viscount or baron or the younger son of an earl, he would have been called the Honourable Henry Amundeville. Thus the son of the Earl of Giftgabbit is the Honourable Dick Dicedrabbit (Canto XVI 70). Had Henry been a baron, Byron could have referred to him as Henry, Lord Amundeville, but not as Lord Henry Amundeville nor Lord Henry. Titles and Forms of Address, A Guide to Their Correct Use, IIth edn (London, 1961), 49, 57, 66, 72
, 73, 77, 79. See also the entry ‘lord’, definition 13, in OED.

  21, 8 a placeman see note to Canto 5, 2, above.

  22, 8 For then they are The metre requires a contraction here (‘For then they’re’) and in the following: we’ve borrowed (34, 8); you’ve broken (38, 8); I’ve seen (83, 1); I’ve named (83, 5); To this we’ve added (100, 3).

  23, 8 Could back a horse ‘The colt that’s backed and burthened being young’ (Venus and Adonis 419).

  24, 4 As in Freemasonry a higher brother Byron is comparing Juan’s acceptance into English society with the position of the Freemason who has gone through degrees enough to make him honoured in his fraternal order.

  24, 8 marches Tn ] matches 1833 and later editions

  25, 1 we will break no squares To break square or squares: to interrupt or violate the regular order; proverbially ‘it breaks no square’, does no harm. The latest use given in OED is 1760, in Sterne’s Tristram Shandy.

  25, 3 sow an author’s wheat with tares ‘The kingdom of heaven is likened unto a man which sowed good seed in his field: But while men slept, his enemy came and sowed tares among the wheat.…’ After both the wheat and the tares (weeds, perhaps darnel) had grown, the weeds were gathered, bundled and burnt (Matthew xiii 24–30).

  26, 1 there bin another pious reason Byron, 1823: ‘With every thing that pretty bin, / My lady sweet arise. Shakespeare’ [ Cymbeline II iii 28–9; so in editions of Warburton (1737) and Thomas Hanmer (1743–4)].

  27, 1 Piccadilly In 1815–16, the year of his marriage, Byron rented 13 Piccadilly Terrace from the Duchess of Devonshire, of notorious reputation.

  29, 1–2 ‘there’s safety in a multitude / Of counsellors’ Proverbs xi 14; xxiv 6.

  30, 3–8 ] let not slumber

  Or –the Choice will more perplex

 
  The path down hill is something gained>

  And thus howsoeer it shocks some’s

  Coxcombs.

  32, 6 ]

  33, 7] oer the laurel-browed

  34, 2 ] That –in the

  34, 7–8 ] That anything
  And such is Europe’s fashionable Ease.>

  35, 1 His nil admirari see note to Canto V 100, 8.

  36, 4 et cetera ] et caetera 1823 and later editions

  38, 3 ] A hidden presence

  39, 5–6 ] Though

  Thus Gentlemen may

  (Though Parry’s efforts look a lucky presage) Sir William Parry (1790–1855) commanded several expeditions in search of a north-west passage (1819–25).

  40, 6 The dreary fuimus the dreary ‘we have been’–our dreary past.

  40, 8] Between Gout

  41, 5–6 devilish doctrine of the Persian, / Of the two Principles The Persian prophet Zoroaster (sixth century BC) anticipated the Manichaeans of the early Christian era (see note to Canto VI 3, 8) by his doctrine of the constant war of Ormazd (the Principle of light, creation, goodness) against Ahriman (the Principle of darkness, destruction, evil), a conflict that would eventually end in the triumph of Ormazd. A year and a half before Canto XIII Byron had adapted these ideas in Cain.

  42, 3 ] fly!

  43, 5–7 ] of Weatherology

  For Parliament is our thermometer

 

  44, 3 Carlton palace to Soho For Carlton palace see note to Canto X 85, 3. Soho, near Oxford Street, contained a famous bazaar.

  44, 5 Rotten Row A road in Hyde Park used as a fashionable resort for horse or carriage exercise.

  45, 1 They and their bills, Arcadians both The tradesmen and their bills are as similar as two Arcadians. see note to Canto IV 93, 8. For some reason Byron thought this epithet so comical he repeated it not only here, but in at least one MS cancellation, and in letters (LJ III 137).

  45, 2 the Greek kalends A humorous expression for ‘never’. The kalends in the Roman calendar fell on the first of the month, but the Greeks had no kalends.

  46, 7 the watered wheels Water was poured in the spokes and rims of carriage wheels to keep them tight and prevent their rattling.

  47, 1 the valet mounts the dickey Usually the driver’s seat; there was also a seat at the back of the carriage that was sometimes called the dickey, where the valet might sit.

  47, 5 Cosi viaggino i ricchi thus the rich travel.

  53, 2 the Thirty-nine The Thirty-nine Articles to which those who take orders in the Church of England subscribe.

  53, 6 those mho, Pope says, ‘greatly daring dine’ ‘Judicious drank, and greatly-daring dined’ (The Dunciad IV 318).

  55, 1 Norman Abbey Byron’s description of the Abbey is a nostalgic memory of Newstead.

  56, 2 the Druid oak Byron’s great-uncle, the ‘Wicked Lord’ Byron, had felled the oak forest at Newstead, but one tree, sometimes known as the ‘Pilgrim’s Oak’, had been purchased by his neighbours and preserved.

  56, 3–4 Caractacus in act to rally / His host Caractacus, or Caradoc, was a king of the Silures in Britain who withstood the Roman arms for nine years but was finally betrayed and led captive to Rome in AD 51.

  56, 7] The all his herd

  59, 8 that venerable arch ] that Arch

  60, 2 sanctified in stone ] in Stone

  60, 5 fortalice fortress.

  60, 7 The gallant Cavaliers The Byrons were raised to the peerage, because of their faithful service in the cause of the Stuarts.

  61, 2 The Virgin Mother of the God-born child This statue is still in its niche high above the ‘mighty window’ of the west front of Newstead Abbey.

  63, 4–5 a dying accent driven / Through the huge arch See On Leaving Newstead Abbey: ‘Through thy battlements, Newstead, the hollow winds whistle.’

  64, 1 original shape ] shape

  64, 3 Memnon’s statue Memnon, King of Ethiopia, aided Priam in the Trojan war. After he was slain by Achilles, Zeus immortalized him to console Eos, the mother of Memnon. The huge Egyptian statue of him at Thebes, when struck by the rays of the rising sun, emitted a strange sound, like the snapping of a chord, a phenomenon that some explained as an artifice of the priests.

  64, 8 I’ve heard it The sound is still occasionally heard.

  65, 1–8 a Gothic fountain played, /… vainer troubles This fountain, a composite of Gothic and eighteenth-century workmanship, was removed from a front courtyard, where it stood in Byron’s time, to its present situation within the cloisters.

  66, 5 An exquisite small chapel This tiny chapel, about twenty-four feet square, was the original chapter house of the priory. Its beautiful groined roof is supported by two columns of clustered and banded pillars.

  68, 1 barons, molten ] Barons–

  69, 6 Attorney Generals Tn ] Attornies-General 1823 ] attorneys-general 1833 and later editions

  69, 7–8 hinting more…/ Of the Star Chamber than of habeas corpus Aclosed secret court that tried ‘persons dangerous to the public safety’ ratherthan an open public court that recognized the right of habeas corpus, whichhad been suspended in 1817–18.

  70, 4–6 ]

  Lordlings with staves of white or keys of gold

 

  staves of white or keys of gold The symbol of treasurers and other state officials was a white staff, that of the Lord Chamberlain a gold key.

  70, 6 Nimrods See note to 78, 5, below.

  71–2 Among the ten artists that Byron put into the gallery at Norman Abbey, two were supreme geniuses. Titian (1477–1576) produced an en
ormous number of character portraits as well as a variety of paintings on Biblical subjects. Byron liked his portrait of Ariosto, which he called ‘the poetry of portrait and the portrait of poetry’. He also admired a Titian Venus at Florence (LJ IV 106, 113; Beppo, stanza 11). Rembrandt (1600–1669) was equally prolific and versatile, excelling in the characterization of both groups and individuals, and with his use of deep shadow making ‘darkness equal light’. The other eight artists are of variable merit; some who gratified the taste of the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries are no longer so highly regarded. Several shared a propensity for surrounding a very bright scene with a large area of black shadow; others had a common interest in spectacular vehemence. Carlo Dolci (1616–86) painted many saints and madonnas in soft colours, with refined detail but with little originality. Two heads by Dolci were in the Manfrini Palace, Venice, which Byron visited in 1817. Salvator Rosa (1615–73) had a reputation for being an erratic social rebel. He did many battle pictures, and peopled his wild, ‘sublime’ landscapes with shepherds and soldiers. Francesco Albani (1578–1660) painted frescoes in Rome, the best being on mythical subjects. Joseph Vernet (1712–89), the first marine painter in Europe, liked to do stormy seas, fires, sunsets and shipwrecks. Lo Spagnoletto (the little Spaniard, 1588–1652)–José (or Jusepe) Ribera–after working in Spain settled at Naples. He painted mythical scenes, episodes in the life of Jesus, and the agonized deaths of saints. He early followed the Caravaggio style of strongly contrasting light and darkness, but later became a colourist and was noted for his golden tones. Byron may here refer to his Martyrdom of St Laurence in the Vatican gallery. Claude Lorrain (1600–1682), who began the romantic tradition of French landscape painting, was mannered in both subject and technique, being fond of dark tree masses with a light on the horizon and stressing the idyllic in episodes from the Bible, myth and Italian romance. Byron thought that the autumnal charm of his friend Lady Oxford resembled the radiance of a sunset landscape by Claude. Caravaggio (1565–1609) liked to treat Biblical episodes violently, with extreme contrasts between very dark shadows and harsh light. His sensational realism appealed to the Romantics. Teniers (1610–90), a vigorous painter of common social life in Flanders, was popular in England.