XVII
Meantime, Sir Laureate, I proceed to dedicate,
In honest simple verse, this song to you.
And, if in flattering strains I do not predicate,
’Tis that I still retain my “buff and blue;”21
My politics as yet are all to educate:
Apostasy’s so fashionable, too,
To keep one creed’s a task grown quite Herculean;
Is it not so, my Tory, ultra-Julian?22
Don Juan
Canto I23
I
I want a hero: an uncommon want,
When every year and month sends forth a new one,
Till, after cloying the gazettes with cant,
The age discovers he is not the true one;
Of such as these I should not care to vaunt,
I’ll therefore take our ancient friend Don Juan—
We all have seen him, in the pantomime,24
Sent to the Devil somewhat ere his time.
II
Vernon,25 the butcher Cumberland, Wolfe, Hawke,
Prince Ferdinand, Granby, Burgoyne, Keppel, Howe,
Evil and good, have had their tithe of talk,
And filled their sign-posts then, like Wellesley now;
Each in their turn like Banquo’s monarchs stalk,
Followers of Fame, “nine farrow”26 of that sow:
France, too, had Buonaparté27 and Dumourier28
Recorded in the Moniteur and Courier.
III
Barnave, Brissot, Condorcet, Mirabeau,
Petion, Clootz, Danton, Marat, La Fayette29
Were French, and famous people, as we know;
And there were others, scarce forgotten yet,
Joubert, Hoche, Marceau, Lannes, Desaix, Moreau,30
With many of the military set,
Exceedingly remarkable at times,
But not at all adapted to my rhymes.
IV
Nelson was once Britannia’s god of War,
And still should be so, but the tide is turned;
There’s no more to be said of Trafalgar,
’Tis with our hero quietly inurned;
Because the army’s grown more popular,
At which the naval people are concerned;
Besides, the Prince is all for the land-service,
Forgetting Duncan, Nelson, Howe, and Jervis.
V
Brave men were living before Agamemnon31
And since, exceeding valorous and sage,
A good deal like him too, though quite the same none;
But then they shone not on the poet’s page,
And so have been forgotten:—I condemn none,
But can’t find any in the present age
Fit for my poem (that is, for my new one);
So, as I said, I’ll take my friend Don Juan.
VI
Most epic poets plunge “in medias res”32
(Horace makes this the heroic turnpike road),
And then your hero tells, whene’er you please,
What went before—by way of episode,
While seated after dinner at his ease,
Beside his mistress in some soft abode,
Palace, or garden, paradise, or cavern,
Which serves the happy couple for a tavern.
VII
That is the usual method, but not mine—
My way is to begin with the beginning;
The regularity of my design
Forbids all wandering as the worst of sinning,
And therefore I shall open with a line
(Although it cost me half an hour in spinning),
Narrating somewhat of Don Juan’s father,
And also of his mother, if you’d rather.
VIII
In Seville was he born, a pleasant city,
Famous for oranges and women—he
Who has not seen it will be much to pity,
So says the proverb33—and I quite agree;
Of all the Spanish towns is none more pretty,
Cadiz perhaps—but that you soon may see;—
Don Juan’s parents lived beside the river,
A noble stream, and called the Guadalquivir.
IX
His father’s name was José—Don, of course—
A true Hidalgo, free from every stain
Of Moor or Hebrew blood, he traced his source
Through the most Gothic gentlemen of Spain;
A better cavalier ne’er mounted horse,
Or, being mounted, e’er got down again,
Than José, who begot our hero, who
Begot—but that’s to come—Well, to renew:
X34
His mother was a learnèd lady, famed
For every branch of every science known—
In every Christian language ever named,
With virtues equalled by her wit alone:
She made the cleverest people quite ashamed,
And even the good with inward envy groan,
Finding themselves so very much exceeded,
In their own way, by all the things that she did.
XI
Her memory was a mine: she knew by heart
All Calderon and greater part of Lopé;
So, that if any actor missed his part,
She could have served him for the prompter’s copy;
For her Feinagle’s were an useless art,35
And he himself obliged to shut up shop—he
Could never make a memory so fine as
That which adorned the brain of Donna Inez.
XII
Her favourite science was the mathematical,
Her noblest virtue was her magnanimity,
Her wit (she sometimes tried at wit) was Attic all,
Her serious sayings darkened to sublimity;36
In short, in all things she was fairly what I call
A prodigy—her morning dress was dimity,
Her evening silk, or, in the summer, muslin,
And other stuffs, with which I won’t stay puzzling.
XIII
She knew the Latin—that is, “the Lord’s prayer,”
And Greek—the alphabet—I’m nearly sure;
She read some French romances here and there,
Although her mode of speaking was not pure;
For native Spanish she had no great care,
At least her conversation was obscure;
Her thoughts were theorems, her words a problem,
As if she deemed that mystery would ennoble ’em.
XIV
She liked the English and the Hebrew tongue,
And said there was analogy between ’em;
She proved it somehow out of sacred song,
But I must leave the proofs to those who’ve seen ’em;
But this I heard her say, and can’t be wrong,
And all may think which way their judgments lean ’em,
“ ’Tis strange—the Hebrew noun which means ‘I am,’
The English always use to govern d⸺n.”
XV
Some women use their tongues—she looked a lecture,
Each eye a sermon, and her brow a homily,
An all-in-all sufficient self-director,
Like the lamented late Sir Samuel Romilly,37
The Law’s expounder, and the State’s corrector,
Whose suicide was almost an anomaly—
One sad example more, that “All is vanity,”—
(The jury brought their verdict in “Insanity!”)
