think Sappho's Ode a good example, Although Longinus3 tells us there is no hymn Where the sublime soars forth on wings more ample; 335 But Virgil's songs are pure, except that horrid one Beginning with 'Formosum Pastor Corydon. '4
2. Includes biology, physiology, and particularly Longinus praises a passage of erotic longing from botany, popular in the era in part because study of one of Sappho's odes. plants' stamens and pistils offered a form of sur-4. Virgil's Eclogue 2 begins: 'The shepherd, Correptitious sex education. ydon, burned with love for the handsome Alexis.' 3. In On the Sublime 10, the Greek rhetorician
67 6 / GEORGE GORDON, LORD BYRON
43
Lucretius' irreligion5 is too strong For early stomachs, to prove wholesome food; I can't help thinking Juvenal6 was wrong, 340
.
Although no doubt his real intent was good, For speaking out so plainly in his song,
So much indeed as to be downright rude; And then what proper person can be partial To all those nauseous epigrams of Martial?
44
345 Juan was taught from out the best edition,
Expurgated by learned men, who place, Judiciously, from out the schoolboy's vision, The grosser parts; but fearful to deface
Too much their modest bard by this omission,
350 And pitying sore his mutilated case, They only add them all in an appendix,7 Which saves, in fact, the trouble of an index.
For my part I say nothing?nothing?but 4io This I will say?my reasons are my own? That if I had an only son to put To school (as God be praised that I have none) 'Tis not with Donna Inez I would shut Him up to learn his catechism alone, 415 No?No?I'd send him out betimes to college, For there it was I pick'd up my own knowledge.
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For there one learns?'tis not for me to boast, Though I acquired?but I pass over that, As well as all the Greek I since have lost: 420 I say that there's the place?but 'Verbum sat,'8 I think I pick'd up too, as well as most,
Knowledge of matters?but no matter what? I never married?but, I think, I know That sons should not be educated so.
54
425 Young Juan now was sixteen years of age, Tall, handsome, slender, but well knit; he seem'd Active, though not so sprightly, as a page; And every body but his mother deem'd Him almost man; but she flew in a rage,
5. In De Rerum Natura (On the Nature of Things), and displayed its vices. Lucretius argues that the universe can be 7. Fact! There is, or was, such an edition, with all explained in entirely materialist terms without ref-the obnoxious epigrams of Martial placed by themerence to any god. selves at the end [Byron's note]. Martial, another 6. The Latin satires of Juvenal attacked the cor-Latin poet, was a contemporary of Juvenal. ruption of Roman society in the 1st century c.E. 8. A word [to the wise] is sufficient (Latin).
.
DO N JUAN, CANTO 1 / 677
430
And bit her lips (for else she might have scream'd), If any said so, for to be precocious Was in her eyes a thing the most atrocious.
55 Amongst her numerous acquaintance, all Selected for discretion and devotion, 435 There was the Donna Julia, whom to call Pretty were but to give a feeble notion Of many charms in her as natural As sweetness to the flower, or salt to ocean, Her zone to Venus,9 or his bow to Cupid, 440 (But this last simile is trite and stupid).
56 The darkness of her Oriental eye Accorded with her Moorish origin; (Her blood was not all Spanish, by the by; In Spain, you know, this is a sort of sin). 445 When proud Grenada fell, and, forced to fly,
Boabdil wept,1 of Donna Julia's kin Some went to Africa, some staid in Spain, Her great great grandmamma chose to remain.
57 She married (I forget the pedigree) 450 With an Hidalgo, who transmitted down His blood less noble than such blood should be; At such alliances his sires would frown, In that point so precise in each degree That they bred in and in, as might be shown, 455 Marrying their cousins?nay, their aunts and nieces, Which always spoils the breed, if it increases.
58 This heathenish cross restored the breed again, Ruin'd its blood, but much improved its flesh; For, from a root the ugliest in Old Spain 460 Sprung up a branch as beautiful as fresh; The sons no more were short, the daughters plain:
But there's a rumour which I fain would hush, 'Tis said that Donna Julia's grandmamma Produced her Don more heirs at love than law.
59 465 However this might be, the race0 went on family line Improving still through every generation, Until it center'd in an only son, Who left an only daughter; my narration May have suggested that this single one 470
Could be but Julia (whom on this occasion
9. The belt ('zone') of Venus made its wearer sex-enclave in Spain) wept when his capital fell and he ually irresistible. and his people were forced to emigrate to Africa 1. The Moorish king of Granada (the last Islamic
