torn up, and prepared,
590 But of materials that must shock the Muse? Having no paper, for the want of better, They took by force from Juan Julia's letter.
75 The lots were made, and mark'd, and mix'd, and handed, In silent horror, and their distribution 595 Lull'd even the savage hunger which demanded, Like the Promethean vulture,8 this pollution; None in particular had sought or plann'd it, 'Twas nature gnaw'd them to this resolution, By which none were permitted to be neuter? 600 And the lot fell on Juan's luckless tutor.
76 He but requested to be bled to death: The surgeon had his instruments, and bled Pedrillo, and so gently ebb'd his breath, You hardly could perceive when he was dead. 605 He died as born, a Catholic in faith,
Like most in the belief in which they're bred, And first a little crucifix he kiss'd, And then held out his jugular and wrist.
77 The surgeon, as there was no other fee, 610 Had his first choice of morsels for his pains; But being thirstiest at the moment, he Preferr'd a draught from the fast-flowing veins: Part was divided, part thrown in the sea, And such things as the entrails and the brains 615 Regaled two sharks, who follow'd o'er the billow? The sailors ate the rest of poor Pedrillo.
7? The sailors ate him, all save three or four, Who were not quite so fond of animal food; To these was added Juan, who, before 620
Refusing his own spaniel, hardly could Feel now his appetite increased much more;
'Twas not to be expected that he should, Even in extremity of their disaster, Dine with them on his pastor and his master.
8. Because Prometheus had stolen fire from heaven to give to humans, Zeus punished him by chaining him to a mountain peak, where an eagle fed on his ever-renewing iiver.
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DON JUAN, CANTO 1 / 703
625 'Twas better that he did not; for, in fact,
The consequence was awful in the extreme;
For they, who were most ravenous in the act,
Went raging mad?Lord! how they did blaspheme!
And foam and roll, with strange convulsions rack'd,
630 Drinking salt-water like a mountain-stream,
Tearing, and grinning, howling, screeching, swearing,
And, with hyaena laughter, died despairing. ? * ?
103
As they drew nigh the land, which now was seen
Unequal in its aspect here and there,
They felt the freshness of its growing green,
820 That waved in forest-tops, and smooth'd the air,
And fell upon their glazed eyes like a screen From glistening waves, and skies so hot and bare?
Lovely seem'd any object that should sweep
Away the vast, salt, dread, eternal deep.
104
825 The shore look'd wild, without a trace of man,
And girt by formidable waves; but they
Were mad for land, and thus their course they ran,
Though right ahead the roaring breakers lay:
A reef between them also now began
830 To show its boiling surf and bounding spray,
But finding no place for their landing better,
They ran the boat for shore, and overset her.
105
But in his native stream, the Guadalquivir,
Juan to lave? his youthful limbs was wont; bathe
835 And having learnt to swim in that sweet river,
Had often turn'd the art to some account:
A better swimmer you could scarce see ever,
He could, perhaps, have pass'd the Hellespont,
