by Lord Byron
Like Peter the Apostle, — and he fish’d
For wandering merchant-vessels, now and then,
And sometimes caught as many as he wish’d;
The cargoes he confiscated, and gain
He sought in the slave-market too, and dish’d
Full many a morsel for that Turkish trade,
By which, no doubt, a good deal may be made.
CXXVII
He was a Greek, and on his isle had built
(One of the wild and smaller Cyclades)
A very handsome house from out his guilt,
And there he lived exceedingly at ease;
Heaven knows what cash he got or blood he spilt,
A sad old fellow was he, if you please;
But this I know, it was a spacious building,
Full of barbaric carving, paint, and gilding.
CXXVIII
He had an only daughter, call’d Haidée,
The greatest heiress of the Eastern Isles;
Besides, so very beautiful was she,
Her dowry was as nothing to her smiles:
Still in her teens, and like a lovely tree
She grew to womanhood, and between whiles
Rejected several suitors, just to learn
How to accept a better in his turn.
CXXIX
And walking out upon the beach, below
The cliff, towards sunset, on that day she found,
Insensible, — not dead, but nearly so, —
Don Juan, almost famish’d, and half drown’d;
But being naked, she was shock’d, you know,
Yet deem’d herself in common pity bound,
As far as in her lay, ‘to take him in,
A stranger’ dying, with so white a skin.
CXXX
But taking him into her father’s house
Was not exactly the best way to save,
But like conveying to the cat the mouse,
Or people in a trance into their grave;
Because the good old man had so much “nous,”
Unlike the honest Arab thieves so brave,
He would have hospitably cured the stranger,
And sold him instantly when out of danger.
CXXXI
And therefore, with her maid, she thought it best
(A virgin always on her maid relies)
To place him in the cave for present rest:
And when, at last, he open’d his black eyes,
Their charity increased about their guest;
And their compassion grew to such a size,
It open’d half the turnpike-gates to heaven
(St. Paul says, ‘t is the toll which must be given).
CXXXII
They made a fire, — but such a fire as they
Upon the moment could contrive with such
Materials as were cast up round the bay, —
Some broken planks, and oars, that to the touch
Were nearly tinder, since so long they lay,
A mast was almost crumbled to a crutch;
But, by God’s grace, here wrecks were in such plenty,
That there was fuel to have furnish’d twenty.
CXXXIII
He had a bed of furs, and a pelisse,
For Haidée stripped her sables off to make
His couch; and, that he might be more at ease,
And warm, in case by chance he should awake,
They also gave a petticoat apiece,
She and her maid — and promised by daybreak
To pay him a fresh visit, with a dish
For breakfast, of eggs, coffee, bread, and fish.
CXXXIV
And thus they left him to his lone repose:
Juan slept like a top, or like the dead,
Who sleep at last, perhaps (God only knows),
Just for the present; and in his lull’d head
Not even a vision of his former woes
Throbb’d in accursed dreams, which sometimes spread
Unwelcome visions of our former years,
Till the eye, cheated, opens thick with tears.
CXXXV
Young Juan slept all dreamless: — but the maid,
Who smooth’d his pillow, as she left the den
Look’d back upon him, and a moment stay’d,
And turn’d, believing that he call’d again.
He slumber’d; yet she thought, at least she said
(The heart will slip, even as the tongue and pen),
He had pronounced her name — but she forgot
That at this moment Juan knew it not.
CXXXVI
And pensive to her father’s house she went,
Enjoining silence strict to Zoë, who
Better than her knew what, in fact, she meant,
She being wiser by a year or two:
A year or two’s an age when rightly spent,
And Zoë spent hers, as most women do,
In gaining all that useful sort of knowledge
Which is acquired in Nature’s good old college.
CXXXVII
The morn broke, and found Juan slumbering still
Fast in his cave, and nothing clash’d upon
His rest; the rushing of the neighbouring rill,
And the young beams of the excluded sun,
Troubled him not, and he might sleep his fill;
And need he had of slumber yet, for none
Had suffer’d more — his hardships were comparative
To those related in my grand-dad’s “Narrative.”
CXXXVIII
Not so Haidée: she sadly toss’d and tumbled,
And started from her sleep, and, turning o’er
Dream’d of a thousand wrecks, o’er which she stumbled,
And handsome corpses strew’d upon the shore;
And woke her maid so early that she grumbled,
And call’d her father’s old slaves up, who swore
In several oaths — Armenian, Turk, and Greek —
They knew not what to think of such a freak.
CXXXIX
But up she got, and up she made them get,
With some pretence about the sun, that makes
Sweet skies just when he rises, or is set;
And ‘t is, no doubt, a sight to see when breaks
Bright Phoebus, while the mountains still are wet
With mist, and every bird with him awakes,
And night is flung off like a mourning suit
Worn for a husband, — or some other brute.
CXL
I say, the sun is a most glorious sight,
I’ve seen him rise full oft, indeed of late
I have sat up on purpose all the night,
Which hastens, as physicians say, one’s fate;
And so all ye, who would be in the right
In health and purse, begin your day to date
From daybreak, and when coffin’d at fourscore,
Engrave upon the plate, you rose at four.
CXLI
And Haidée met the morning face to face;
Her own was freshest, though a feverish flush
Had dyed it with the headlong blood, whose race
From heart to cheek is curb’d into a blush,
Like to a torrent which a mountain’s base,
That overpowers some Alpine river’s rush,
Checks to a lake, whose waves in circles spread;
Or the Red Sea — but the sea is not red.
CXLII
And down the cliff the island virgin came,
And near the cave her quick light footsteps drew,
While the sun smiled on her with his first flame,
And young Aurora kiss’d her lips with dew,
Taking her for a sister; just the same
Mistake you would ha
ve made on seeing the two,
Although the mortal, quite as fresh and fair,
Had all the advantage, too, of not being air.
CXLIII
And when into the cavern Haidée stepp’d
All timidly, yet rapidly, she saw
That like an infant Juan sweetly slept;
And then she stopp’d, and stood as if in awe
(For sleep is awful), and on tiptoe crept
And wrapt him closer, lest the air, too raw,
Should reach his blood, then o’er him still as death
Bent with hush’d lips, that drank his scarce-drawn breath.
CXLIV
And thus like to an angel o’er the dying
Who die in righteousness, she lean’d; and there
All tranquilly the shipwreck’d boy was lying,
As o’er him the calm and stirless air:
But Zoë the meantime some eggs was frying,
Since, after all, no doubt the youthful pair
Must breakfast — and betimes, lest they should ask it,
She drew out her provision from the basket.
CXLV
She knew that the best feelings must have victual,
And that a shipwreck’d youth would hungry be;
Besides, being less in love, she yawn’d a little,
And felt her veins chill’d by the neighbouring sea;
And so, she cook’d their breakfast to a tittle;
I can’t say that she gave them any tea,
But there were eggs, fruit, coffee, bread, fish, honey,
With Scio wine, — and all for love, not money.
CXLVI
And Zoë, when the eggs were ready, and
The coffee made, would fain have waken’d Juan;
But Haidée stopp’d her with her quick small hand,
And without word, a sign her finger drew on
Her lip, which Zoë needs must understand;
And, the first breakfast spoilt, prepared a new one,
Because her mistress would not let her break
That sleep which seem’d as it would ne’er awake.
CXLVII
For still he lay, and on his thin worn cheek
A purple hectic play’d like dying day
On the snow-tops of distant hills; the streak
Of sufferance yet upon his forehead lay,
Where the blue veins look’d shadowy, shrunk, and weak;
And his black curls were dewy with the spray,
Which weigh’d upon them yet, all damp and salt,
Mix’d with the stony vapours of the vault.
CXLVIII
And she bent o’er him, and he lay beneath,
Hush’d as the babe upon its mother’s breast,
Droop’d as the willow when no winds can breathe,
Lull’d like the depth of ocean when at rest,
Fair as the crowning rose of the whole wreath,
Soft as the callow cygnet in its nest;
In short, he was a very pretty fellow,
Although his woes had turn’d him rather yellow.
CXLIX
He woke and gazed, and would have slept again,
But the fair face which met his eyes forbade
Those eyes to close, though weariness and pain
Had further sleep a further pleasure made;
For woman’s face was never form’d in vain
For Juan, so that even when he pray’d
He turn’d from grisly saints, and martyrs hairy,
To the sweet portraits of the Virgin Mary.
CL
And thus upon his elbow he arose,
And look’d upon the lady, in whose cheek
The pale contended with the purple rose,
As with an effort she began to speak;
Her eyes were eloquent, her words would pose,
Although she told him, in good modern Greek,
With an Ionian accent, low and sweet,
That he was faint, and must not talk, but eat.
CLI
Now Juan could not understand a word,
Being no Grecian; but he had an ear,
And her voice was the warble of a bird,
So soft, so sweet, so delicately clear,
That finer, simpler music ne’er was heard;
The sort of sound we echo with a tear,
Without knowing why — an overpowering tone,
Whence Melody descends as from a throne.
CLII
And Juan gazed as one who is awoke
By a distant organ, doubting if he be
Not yet a dreamer, till the spell is broke
By the watchman, or some such reality,
Or by one’s early valet’s curséd knock;
At least it is a heavy sound to me,
Who like a morning slumber — for the night
Shows stars and women in a better light.
CLIII
And Juan, too, was help’d out from his dream,
Or sleep, or whatso’er it was, by feeling
A most prodigious appetite: the steam
Of Zoë’s cookery no doubt was stealing
Upon his senses, and the kindling beam
Of the new fire, which Zoë kept up, kneeling
To stir her viands, made him quite awake
And long for food, but chiefly a beef-steak.
CLIV
But beef is rare within these oxless isles;
Goat’s flesh there is, no doubt, and kid, and mutton;
And, when a holiday upon them smiles,
A joint upon their barbarous spits they put on:
But this occurs but seldom, between whiles,
For some of these are rocks with scarce a hut on;
Others are fair and fertile, among which
This, though not large, was one of the most rich.
CLV
I say that beef is rare, and can’t help thinking
That the old fable of the Minotaur —
From which our modern morals rightly shrinking
Condemn the royal lady’s taste who wore
A cow’s shape for a mask — was only (sinking
The allegory) a mere type, no more,
That Pasiphaë promoted breeding cattle,
To make the Cretans bloodier in battle.
CLVI
For we all know that English people are
Fed upon beef — I won’t say much of beer,
Because ‘t is liquor only, and being far
From this my subject, has no business here;
We know, too, they very fond of war,
A pleasure — like all pleasures — rather dear;
So were the Cretans — from which I infer
That beef and battles both were owing to her.
CLVII
But to resume. The languid Juan raised
His head upon his elbow, and he saw
A sight on which he had not lately gazed,
As all his latter meals had been quite raw,
Three or four things, for which the Lord he praised,
And, feeling still the famish’d vulture gnaw,
He fell upon whate’er was offer’d, like
A priest, a shark, an alderman, or pike.
CLVIII
He ate, and he was well supplied: and she,
Who watch’d him like a mother, would have fed
Him past all bounds, because she smiled to see
Such appetite in one she had deem’d dead;
But Zoë, being older than Haidée,
Knew (by tradition, for she ne’er had read)
That famish’d people must be slowly nurst,
And fed by spoonfuls, else they always burst.
CLIX
And so she took the liberty to state,
Rather by deeds than words, because the case
Was urgent, that the gentleman, whose fate
Had made her mistress quit her bed to trace
The sea-shore at this hour, must leave his plate,
Unless he wish’d to die upon the place —
She snatch’d it, and refused another morsel,
Saying, he had gorged enough to make a horse ill.
CLX
Next they — he being naked, save a tatter’d
Pair of scarce decent trowsers — went to work,
And in the fire his recent rags they scatterd,
And dress’d him, for the present, like a Turk,
Or Greek — that is, although it not much matter’d,
Omitting turban, slippers, pistols, dirk, —
They furnish’d him, entire, except some stitches,
With a clean shirt, and very spacious breeches.
CLXI
And then fair Haidée tried her tongue at speaking,
But not a word could Juan comprehend,
Although he listen’d so that the young Greek in
Her earnestness would ne’er have made an end;
And, as he interrupted not, went eking
Her speech out to her protégé and friend,
Till pausing at the last her breath to take,
She saw he did not understand Romaic.
CLXII
And then she had recourse to nods, and signs,
And smiles, and sparkles of the speaking eye,
And read (the only book she could) the lines
Of his fair face, and found, by sympathy,
The answer eloquent, where soul shines
And darts in one quick glance a long reply;
And thus in every look she saw exprest
A world of words, and things at which she guess’d.
CLXIII
And now, by dint of fingers and of eyes,
And words repeated after her, he took
A lesson in her tongue; but by surmise,
No doubt, less of her language than her look:
As he who studies fervently the skies
Turns oftener to the stars than to his book,
Thus Juan learn’d his alpha beta better
From Haidée’s glance than any graven letter.
CLXIV
‘T is pleasing to be school’d in a strange tongue
By female lips and eyes — that is, I mean,
When both the teacher and the taught are young,
As was the case, at least, where I have been;
They smile so when one’s right, and when one’s wrong
They smile still more, and then there intervene
Pressure of hands, perhaps even a chaste kiss; —
I learn’d the little that I know by this:
CLXV
That is, some words of Spanish, Turk, and Greek,
Italian not at all, having no teachers;
Much English I cannot pretend to speak,
Learning that language chiefly from its preachers,