'Tis melancholy, and a fearful sign Of human frailty, folly, also crime, 35 That love and marriage rarely can combine, Although they both are born in the same clime; Marriage from love, like vinegar from wine?
1. Signifying sorrow. 3. Abandoned (from the French planter la, to 2. An epigram that Bvron translates from the leave in the lurch). 17th-century French wit Francois de la Rochefou-4. Another epigram from la Rochefoucauld.
cauld.
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DO N JOAN , CANT O 2 / 71 9 40A sad, sour, sober beverage?by time Is sharpen'd from its high celestial flavour Down to a very homely household savour. 6 There's something of antipathy, as 'twere, Between their present and their future state; A kind of flattery that's hardly fair Is used until the truth arrives too late? 45 Yet what can people do, except despair? The same things change their names at such a rate; For instance?passion in a lover's glorious, But in a husband is pronounced uxorious. 7 5055Men grow ashamed of being so very fond; They sometimes also get a little tired (But that, of course, is rare), and then despond: The same things cannot always be admired, Yet 'tis 'so nominated in the bond,'5 That both are tied till one shall have expired. Sad thought! to lose the spouse that was adorning Our days, and put one's servants into mourning. 8 60There's doubtless something in domestic doings, Which forms, in fact, true love's antithesis; Romances paint at full length people's wooings, But only give a bust of marriages; For no one cares for matrimonial cooings, There's nothing wrong in a connubial kiss: Think you, if Laura had been Petrarch's wife, He would have written sonnets all his life?6 9 6570 All tragedies are finish'd by a death, All comedies are ended by a marriage; The future states of both are left to faith, For authors fear description might disparage The worlds to come of both, or fall beneath, And then both worlds would punish their miscarriage; So leaving each their priest and prayer-book ready, They say no more of Death or of the Lady.7 10 75The only two that in my recollection Have sung of heaven and hell, or marriage, are Dante and Milton, and of both the affection Was hapless in their nuptials, for some bar Of fault or temper ruin'd the connexion (Such things, in fact, it don't ask much to mar);
5. Spoken by Shylock in Shakespeare's The Mer-Laura the subject of his sonnets but loved her only chant of Venice 4.1.254: 'Is it so nominated in the from afar. bond?' 7. Alluding to a popular ballad, 'Death and the 6. The 14th-century Italian poet Petrarch made Lady.'
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720 / GEORGE GORDON, LORD BYRON
But Dante's Beatrice and Milton's Eve so Were not drawn from their spouses, you conceive.
11
Some persons say that Dante meant theology By Beatrice, and not a mistress?I, Although my opinion may require apology, Deem this a commentator's phantasy, 85 Unless indeed it was from his own knowledge he
Decided thus, and show'd good reason why; I think that Dante's more abstruse ecstatics Meant to personify the mathematics.
12
Haidee and Juan were not married, but 90 The fault was theirs, not mine: it is not fair, Chaste reader, then, in any way to put The blame on me, unless you wish they were; Then if you'd have them wedded, please to shut The book which treats of this erroneous pair, 95 Before the consequences grow too awful; 'Tis dangerous to read of loves unlawful.
'3
Yet they were happy,?happy in the illicit Indulgence of their innocent desires; But more imprudent grown with every visit, IOO Haidee forgot the island was her sire's; When we have what we like,'tis hard to miss it,
At least in the beginning, ere one tires; Thus she came often, not a moment losing, Whilst her piratical papa was cruising.
14
105 Let not his mode of raising cash seem strange, Although he fleeced the flags of every nation, For into a prime minister but change His title, and 'tis nothing but taxation; But he, more modest, took an humbler range
110 Of life, and in an honester vocation Pursued o'er the high seas his watery journey, And merely practised as a sea-attorney.
15
The good old gentleman had been detain'd By winds and waves, and some important captures; 115 And, in the hope of more, at sea remain'd, Although a squall or two had damp'd his raptures,
By swamping one of the prizes; he had chain'd His prisoners, dividing them like chapters In number'd lots; they all had cuffs and collars,
120 And averaged each from ten to a hundred dollars.
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DON JUAN, CANTO 4 / 721
101
145 Then having settled his marine affairs,
Despatching single cruisers here and there,
His vessel having need of some repairs,
He shaped his course to where his daughter fair
Continued still her hospitable cares;
150 But that part of the coast being shoal and bare,
And rough with reefs which ran out many a mile,
