George Gordon aka Lord Byron (1788–1824)

Don Juan – Canto The First

He died: and most unluckily, because,
According to all hints I could collect
From counsel learned in those kinds of laws
(Although their talk 's obscure and circumspect),
His death contrived to spoil a charming cause;
A thousand pities also with respect
To public feeling, which on this occasion
Was manifested in a great sensation.

But, ah! he died; and buried with him lay
The public feeling and the lawyers' fees:
His house was sold, his servants sent away,
A Jew took one of his two mistresses,
A priest the other--at least so they say:
I ask'd the doctors after his disease--
He died of the slow fever call'd the tertian,
And left his widow to her own aversion.

Yet Jose was an honourable man,
That I must say who knew him very well;
Therefore his frailties I 'll no further scan
Indeed there were not many more to tell;
And if his passions now and then outran
Discretion, and were not so peaceable
As Numa's (who was also named Pompilius),
He had been ill brought up, and was born bilious.

Whate'er might be his worthlessness or worth,
Poor fellow! he had many things to wound him.
Let 's own--since it can do no good on earth--
It was a trying moment that which found him
Standing alone beside his desolate hearth,
Where all his household gods lay shiver'd round him:
No choice was left his feelings or his pride,
Save death or Doctors' Commons--so he died.

Dying intestate, Juan was sole heir
To a chancery suit, and messuages, and lands,
Which, with a long minority and care,
Promised to turn out well in proper hands:
Inez became sole guardian, which was fair,
And answer'd but to nature's just demands;
An only son left with an only mother
Is brought up much more wisely than another.

Sagest of women, even of widows, she
Resolved that Juan should be quite a paragon,
And worthy of the noblest pedigree
(His sire was of Castile, his dam from Aragon):
Then for accomplishments of chivalry,
In case our lord the king should go to war again,
He learn'd the arts of riding, fencing, gunnery,
And how to scale a fortress--or a nunnery.

But that which Donna Inez most desired,
And saw into herself each day before all
The learned tutors whom for him she hired,
Was, that his breeding should be strictly moral;
Much into all his studies she inquired,
And so they were submitted first to her, all,
Arts, sciences, no branch was made a mystery
To Juan's eyes, excepting natural history.

The languages, especially the dead,
The sciences, and most of all the abstruse,
The arts, at least all such as could be said
To be the most remote from common use,
In all these he was much and deeply read;
But not a page of any thing that 's loose,
Or hints continuation of the species,
Was ever suffer'd, lest he should grow vicious.

His classic studies made a little puzzle,
Because of filthy loves of gods and goddesses,
Who in the earlier ages raised a bustle,
But never put on pantaloons or bodices;
His reverend tutors had at times a tussle,
And for their AEneids, Iliads, and Odysseys,
Were forced to make an odd sort! of apology,
For Donna Inez dreaded the Mythology.

Ovid 's a rake, as half his verses show him,
Anacreon's morals are a still worse sample,
Catullus scarcely has a decent poem,
I don't think Sappho's Ode a good example,
Although Longinus tells us there is no hymn
Where the sublime soars forth on wings more ample:
But Virgil's songs are pure, except that horrid one
Beginning with 'Formosum Pastor Corydon.'

Lucretius' irreligion is too strong,
For early stomachs, to prove wholesome food;
I can't help thinking Juvenal was wrong,
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?

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,
And pitying sore his mutilated case,
They only add them all in an appendix,
Which saves, in fact, the trouble of an index;

For there we have them all 'at one fell swoop,'
Instead of being scatter'd through the Pages;
They stand forth marshall'd in a handsome troop,
To meet the ingenuous youth of future ages,
Till some less rigid editor shall stoop
To call them back into their separate cages,
Instead of standing staring all together,
Like garden gods--and not so decent either.

The Missal too (it was the family Missal)
Was ornamented in a sort of way
Which ancient mass-books often are, and this all
Kinds of grotesques illumined; and how they,
Who saw those figures on the margin kiss all,
Could turn their optics to the text and pray,
Is more than I know--But Don Juan's mother
Kept this herself, and gave her son another.

Sermons he read, and lectures he endured,
And homilies, and lives of all the saints;
To Jerome and to Chrysostom inured,
He did not take such studies for restraints;
But how faith is acquired, and then ensured,
So well not one of the aforesaid paints
As Saint Augustine in his fine Confessions,
Which make the reader envy his transgressions.

This, too, was a seal'd book to little Juan--
I can't but say that his mamma was right,
If such an education was the true one.
She scarcely trusted him from out her sight;
Her maids were old, and if she took a new one,
You might be sure she was a perfect fright;
She did this during even her husband's life--
I recommend as much to every wife.

Young Juan wax'd in goodliness and grace;
At six a charming child, and at eleven
With all the promise of as fine a face
As e'er to man's maturer growth was given:
He studied steadily, and grew apace,
And seem'd, at least, in the right road to heaven,
For half his days were pass'd at church, the other
Between his tutors, confessor, and mother.

At six, I said, he was a charming child,
At twelve he was a fine, but quiet boy;
Although in infancy a little wild,
They tamed him down amongst them: to destroy
His natural spirit not in vain they toil'd,
At least it seem'd so; and his mother's joy
Was to declare how sage, and still, and steady,
Her young philosopher was grown already.

I had my doubts, perhaps I have them still,
But what I say is neither here nor there:
I knew his father well, and have some skill
In character--but it would not be fair
From sire to son to augur good or ill:
He and his wife were an ill-sorted pair--
But scandal 's my aversion--I protest
Against all evil speaking, even in jest.

For my part I say nothing--nothing--but
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),
'T is not with Donna Inez I would shut
Him up to learn his catechism alone,
No--no--I 'd send him out betimes to college,
For there it was I pick'd up my own knowledge.

For there one learns--'t is not for me to boast,
Though I acquired--but I pass over that,
As well as all the Greek I since have lost:
I say that there 's the place--but 'Verbum sat.'
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.

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 everybody but his mother deem'd
Him almost man; but she flew in a rage
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.

Amongst her numerous acquaintance, all
Selected for discretion and devotion,
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, or his bow to Cupid
(But this last simile is trite and stupid).

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);
When proud Granada fell, and, forced to fly,
Boabdil wept, of Donna Julia's kin
Some went to Africa, some stay'd in Spain,
Her great-great-grandmamma chose to remain.

She married (I forget the pedigree)
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,
Marrying their cousins--nay, their aunts, and nieces,
Which always spoils the breed, if it increases.

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
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,
'T is said that Donna Julia's grandmamma
Produced her Don more heirs at love than law.

However this might be, the race went on
Improving still through every generation,
Until it centred in an only son,
Who left an only daughter; my narration
May have suggested that this single one
Could be but Julia (whom on this occasion
I shall have much to speak about), and she

Was married, charming, chaste, and twenty-three.

Her eye (I 'm very fond of handsome eyes)
Was large and dark, suppressing half its fire
Until she spoke, then through its soft disguise
Flash'd an expression more of pride than ire,
And love than either; and there would arise
A something in them which was not desire,
But would have been, perhaps, but for the soul
Which struggled through and chasten'd down the whole.

Her glossy hair was cluster'd o'er a brow
Bright with intelligence, and fair, and smooth;
Her eyebrow's shape was like th' aerial bow,
Her cheek all purple with the beam of youth,
Mounting at times to a transparent glow,
As if her veins ran lightning; she, in sooth,
Possess'd an air and grace by no means common:
Her stature tall--I hate a dumpy woman.

Wedded she was some years, and to a man
Of fifty, and such husbands are in plenty;
And yet, I think, instead of such a ONE
'T were better to have TWO of five-and-twenty,
Especially in countries near the sun:
And now I think on 't, 'mi vien in mente,'
Ladies even of the most uneasy virtue
Prefer a spouse whose age is short of thirty.

'T is a sad thing, I cannot choose but say,
And all the fault of that indecent sun,
Who cannot leave alone our helpless clay,
But will keep baking, broiling, burning on,
That howsoever people fast and pray,
The flesh is frail, and so the soul undone:
What men call gallantry, and gods adultery,
Is much more common where the climate 's sultry.

Happy the nations of the moral North!
Where all is virtue, and the winter season
Sends sin, without a rag on, shivering forth
('T was snow that brought St. Anthony to reason);
Where juries cast up what a wife is worth,
By laying whate'er sum in mulct they please on
The lover, who must pay a handsome price,
Because it is a marketable vice.

Alfonso was the name of Julia's lord,
A man well looking for his years, and who

Was neither much beloved nor yet abhorr'd:
They lived together, as most people do,
Suffering each other's foibles by accord,
And not exactly either one or two;
Yet he was jealous, though he did not show it,
For jealousy dislikes the world to know it.

Julia was--yet I never could see why--
With Donna Inez quite a favourite friend;
Between their tastes there was small sympathy,
For not a line had Julia ever penn'd:
Some people whisper but no doubt they lie,
For malice still imputes some private end,
That Inez had, ere Don Alfonso's marriage,
Forgot with him her very prudent carriage;

And that still keeping up the old connection,
Which time had lately render'd much more chaste,
She took his lady also in affection,
And certainly this course was much the best:
She flatter'd Julia with her sage protection,
And complimented Don Alfonso's taste;
And if she could not (who can?) silence scandal,
At least she left it a more slender handle.

I can't tell whether Julia saw the affair
With other people's eyes, or if her own
Discoveries made, but none could be aware
Of this, at least no symptom e'er was shown;
Perhaps she did not know, or did not care,
Indifferent from the first or callous grown:
I 'm really puzzled what to think or say,
She kept her counsel in so close a way.

Juan she saw, and, as a pretty child,
Caress'd him often--such a thing might be
Quite innocently done, and harmless styled,
When she had twenty years, and thirteen he;
But I am not so sure I should have smiled
When he was sixteen, Julia twenty-three;
These few short years make wondrous alterations,
Particularly amongst sun-burnt nations.

Whate'er the cause might be, they had become
Changed; for the dame grew distant, the youth shy,
Their looks cast down, their greetings almost dumb,
And much embarrassment in either eye;
There surely will be little doubt with some
That Donna Julia knew the reason why,

But as for Juan, he had no more notion
Than he who never saw the sea of ocean.

Yet Julia's very coldness still was kind,
And tremulously gentle her small hand
Withdrew itself from his, but left behind
A little pressure, thrilling, and so bland
And slight, so very slight, that to the mind
'T was but a doubt; but ne'er magician's wand
Wrought change with all Armida's fairy art
Like what this light touch left on Juan's heart.

And if she met him, though she smiled no more,
She look'd a sadness sweeter than her smile,
As if her heart had deeper thoughts in store
She must not own, but cherish'd more the while
For that compression in its burning core;
Even innocence itself has many a wile,
And will not dare to trust itself with truth,
And love is taught hypocrisy from youth.

But passion most dissembles, yet betrays
Even by its darkness; as the blackest sky
Foretells the heaviest tempest, it displays
Its workings through the vainly guarded eye,
And in whatever aspect it arrays
Itself, 't is still the same hypocrisy;
Coldness or anger, even disdain or hate,
Are masks it often wears, and still too late.

Then there were sighs, the deeper for suppression,
And stolen glances, sweeter for the theft,
And burning blushes, though for no transgression,
Tremblings when met, and restlessness when left;
All these are little preludes to possession,
Of which young passion cannot be bereft,
And merely tend to show how greatly love is
Embarrass'd at first starting with a novice.

Poor Julia's heart was in an awkward state;
She felt it going, and resolved to make
The noblest efforts for herself and mate,
For honour's, pride's, religion's, virtue's sake;
Her resolutions were most truly great,
And almost might have made a Tarquin quake:
She pray'd the Virgin Mary for her grace,
As being the best judge of a lady's case.

She vow'd she never would see Juan more,

And next day paid a visit to his mother,
And look'd extremely at the opening door,
Which, by the Virgin's grace, let in another;
Grateful she was, and yet a little sore--
Again it opens, it can be no other,
'T is surely Juan now--No! I 'm afraid
That night the Virgin was no further pray'd.

She now determined that a virtuous woman
Should rather face and overcome temptation,
That flight was base and dastardly, and no man
Should ever give her heart the least sensation;
That is to say, a thought beyond the common
Preference, that we must feel upon occasion
For people who are pleasanter than others,
But then they only seem so many brothers.

And even if by chance--and who can tell?
The devil 's so very sly--she should discover
That all within was not so very well,
And, if still free, that such or such a lover
Might please perhaps, a virtuous wife can quell
Such thoughts, and be the better when they 're over;
And if the man should ask, 't is but denial:
I recommend young ladies to make trial.

And then there are such things as love divine,
Bright and immaculate, unmix'd and pure,
Such as the angels think so very fine,
And matrons who would be no less secure,
Platonic, perfect, 'just such love as mine;'
Thus Julia said--and thought so, to be sure;
And so I 'd have her think, were I the man
On whom her reveries celestial ran.

Such love is innocent, and may exist
Between young persons without any danger.
A hand may first, and then a lip be kist;
For my part, to such doings I 'm a stranger,
But hear these freedoms form the utmost list
Of all o'er which such love may be a ranger:
If people go beyond, 't is quite a crime,
But not my fault--I tell them all in time.

Love, then, but love within its proper limits,
Was Julia's innocent determination
In young Don Juan's favour, and to him its
Exertion might be useful on occasion;
And, lighted at too pure a shrine to dim its

Ethereal lustre, with what sweet persuasion
He might be taught, by love and her together--
I really don't know what, nor Julia either.

Fraught with this fine intention, and well fenced
In mail of proof--her purity of soul--
She, for the future of her strength convinced.
And that her honour was a rock, or mole,
Exceeding sagely from that hour dispensed
With any kind of troublesome control;
But whether Julia to the task was equal
Is that which must be mention'd in the sequel.

Her plan she deem'd both innocent and feasible,
And, surely, with a stripling of sixteen
Not scandal's fangs could fix on much that 's seizable,
Or if they did so, satisfied to mean
Nothing but what was good, her breast was peaceable--
A quiet conscience makes one so serene!
Christians have burnt each other, quite persuaded
That all the Apostles would have done as they did.

And if in the mean time her husband died,
But Heaven forbid that such a thought should cross
Her brain, though in a dream! (and then she sigh'd)
Never could she survive that common loss;
But just suppose that moment should betide,
I only say suppose it--inter nos.
(This should be entre nous, for Julia thought
In French, but then the rhyme would go for naught.)

I only say suppose this supposition:
Juan being then grown up to man's estate
Would fully suit a widow of condition,
Even seven years hence it would not be too late;
And in the interim (to pursue this vision)
The mischief, after all, could not be great,
For he would learn the rudiments of love,
I mean the seraph way of those above.

So much for Julia. Now we 'll turn to Juan.
Poor little fellow! he had no idea
Of his own case, and never hit the true one;
In feelings quick as Ovid's Miss Medea,
He puzzled over what he found a new one,
But not as yet imagined it could be
Thing quite in course, and not at all alarming,
Which, with a little patience, might grow charming.

Silent and pensive, idle, restless, slow,
His home deserted for the lonely wood,
Tormented with a wound he could not know,
His, like all deep grief, plunged in solitude:
I 'm fond myself of solitude or so,
But then, I beg it may be understood,
By solitude I mean a sultan's, not
A hermit's, with a haram for a grot.

'Oh Love! in such a wilderness as this,
Where transport and security entwine,
Here is the empire of thy perfect bliss,
And here thou art a god indeed divine.'
The bard I quote from does not sing amiss,
With the exception of the second line,
For that same twining 'transport and security'
Are twisted to a phrase of some obscurity.

The poet meant, no doubt, and thus appeals
To the good sense and senses of mankind,
The very thing which every body feels,
As all have found on trial, or may find,
That no one likes to be disturb'd at meals
Or love.--I won't say more about 'entwined'
Or 'transport,' as we knew all that before,
But beg 'Security' will bolt the door.

Young Juan wander'd by the glassy brooks,
Thinking unutterable things; he threw
Himself at length within the leafy nooks
Where the wild branch of the cork forest grew;
There poets find materials for their books,
And every now and then we read them through,
So that their plan and prosody are eligible,
Unless, like Wordsworth, they prove unintelligible.

He, Juan (and not Wordsworth), so pursued
His self-communion with his own high soul,
Until his mighty heart, in its great mood,
Had mitigated part, though not the whole
Of its disease; he did the best he could
With things not very subject to control,

And turn'd, without perceiving his condition,
Like Coleridge, into a metaphysician.

He thought about himself, and the whole earth
Of man the wonderful, and of the stars,
And how the deuce they ever could have birth;

And then he thought of earthquakes, and of wars,
How many miles the moon might have in girth,
Of air-balloons, and of the many bars
To perfect knowledge of the boundless skies;--
And then he thought of Donna Julia's eyes.

In thoughts like these true wisdom may discern
Longings sublime, and aspirations high,
Which some are born with, but the most part learn
To plague themselves withal, they know not why:
'T was strange that one so young should thus concern
His brain about the action of the sky;
If you think 't was philosophy that this did,
I can't help thinking puberty assisted.

He pored upon the leaves, and on the flowers,
And heard a voice in all the winds; and then
He thought of wood-nymphs and immortal bowers,
And how the goddesses came down to men:
He miss'd the pathway, he forgot the hours,
And when he look'd upon his watch again,
He found how much old Time had been a winner--
He also found that he had lost his dinner.

Sometimes he turn'd to gaze upon his book,
Boscan, or Garcilasso;--by the wind
Even as the page is rustled while we look,
So by the poesy of his own mind
Over the mystic leaf his soul was shook,
As if 't were one whereon magicians bind
Their spells, and give them to the passing gale,
According to some good old woman's tale.

Thus would he while his lonely hours away
Dissatisfied, nor knowing what he wanted;
Nor glowing reverie, nor poet's lay,
Could yield his spirit that for which it panted,
A bosom whereon he his head might lay,
And hear the heart beat with the love it granted,
With--several other things, which I forget,
Or which, at least, I need not mention yet.

Those lonely walks, and lengthening reveries,
Could not escape the gentle Julia's eyes;
She saw that Juan was not at his ease;
But that which chiefly may, and must surprise,
Is, that the Donna Inez did not tease
Her only son with question or surmise:
Whether it was she did not see, or would not,

Or, like all very clever people, could not.

This may seem strange, but yet 't is very common;
For instance--gentlemen, whose ladies take
Leave to o'erstep the written rights of woman,
And break the--Which commandment is 't they break?
(I have forgot the number, and think no man
Should rashly quote, for fear of a mistake.)
I say, when these same gentlemen are jealous,
They make some blunder, which their ladies tell us.

A real husband always is suspicious,
But still no less suspects in the wrong place,
Jealous of some one who had no such wishes,
Or pandering blindly to his own disgrace,
By harbouring some dear friend extremely vicious;
The last indeed 's infallibly the case:
And when the spouse and friend are gone off wholly,
He wonders at their vice, and not his folly.

Thus parents also are at times short-sighted;
Though watchful as the lynx, they ne'er discover,
The while the wicked world beholds delighted,
Young Hopeful's mistress, or Miss Fanny's lover,
Till some confounded escapade has blighted
The plan of twenty years, and all is over;
And then the mother cries, the father swears,
And wonders why the devil he got heirs.

But Inez was so anxious, and so clear
Of sight, that I must think, on this occasion,
She had some other motive much more near
For leaving Juan to this new temptation;
But what that motive was, I sha'n't say here;
Perhaps to finish Juan's education,
Perhaps to open Don Alfonso's eyes,
In case he thought his wife too great a prize.

It was upon a day, a summer's day;-
Summer's indeed a very dangerous season,
And so is spring about the end of May;
The sun, no doubt, is the prevailing reason;
But whatsoe'er the cause is, one may say,
And stand convicted of more truth than treason,
That there are months which nature grows more merry in,--
March has its hares, and May must have its heroine.

'T was on a summer's day--the sixth of June:--
I like to be particular in dates,

Not only of the age, and year, but moon;
They are a sort of post-house, where the Fates
Change horses, making history change its tune,
Then spur away o'er empires and o'er states,
Leaving at last not much besides chronology,
Excepting the post-obits of theology.

'T was on the sixth of June, about the hour
Of half-past six--perhaps still nearer seven--
When Julia sate within as pretty a bower
As e'er held houri in that heathenish heaven
Described by Mahomet, and Anacreon Moore,
To whom the lyre and laurels have been given,
With all the trophies of triumphant song--
He won them well, and may he wear them long!

She sate, but not alone; I know not well
How this same interview had taken place,
And even if I knew, I should not tell--
People should hold their tongues in any case;
No matter how or why the thing befell,
But there were she and Juan, face to face--
When two such faces are so, 't would be wise,
But very difficult, to shut their eyes.

How beautiful she look'd! her conscious heart
Glow'd in her cheek, and yet she felt no wrong.
O Love! how perfect is thy mystic art,
Strengthening the weak, and trampling on the strong,
How self-deceitful is the sagest part
Of mortals whom thy lure hath led along--
The precipice she stood on was immense,
So was her creed in her own innocence.

She thought of her own strength, and Juan's youth,
And of the folly of all prudish fears,
Victorious virtue, and domestic truth,
And then of Don Alfonso's fifty years:
I wish these last had not occurr'd, in sooth,
Because that number rarely much endears,
And through all climes, the snowy and the sunny,
Sounds ill in love, whate'er it may in money.

When people say, 'I've told you fifty times,'
They mean to scold, and very often do;
When poets say, 'I've written fifty rhymes,'
They make you dread that they 'll recite them too;
In gangs of fifty, thieves commit their crimes;
At fifty love for love is rare, 't is true,

But then, no doubt, it equally as true is,
A good deal may be bought for fifty Louis.

Julia had honour, virtue, truth, and love,
For Don Alfonso; and she inly swore,
By all the vows below to powers above,
She never would disgrace the ring she wore,
Nor leave a wish which wisdom might reprove;
And while she ponder'd this, besides much more,
One hand on Juan's carelessly was thrown,
Quite by mistake--she thought it was her own;

Unconsciously she lean'd upon the other,
Which play'd within the tangles of her hair:
And to contend with thoughts she could not smother
She seem'd by the distraction of her air.
'T was surely very wrong in Juan's mother
To leave together this imprudent pair,
She who for many years had watch'd her son so--
I 'm very certain mine would not have done so.

The hand which still held Juan's, by degrees
Gently, but palpably confirm'd its grasp,
As if it said, 'Detain me, if you please;'
Yet there 's no doubt she only meant to clasp
His fingers with a pure Platonic squeeze:
She would have shrunk as from a toad, or asp,
Had she imagined such a thing could rouse
A feeling dangerous to a prudent spouse.

I cannot know what Juan thought of this,
But what he did, is much what you would do;
His young lip thank'd it with a grateful kiss,
And then, abash'd at its own joy, withdrew
In deep despair, lest he had done amiss,--
Love is so very timid when 't is new:
She blush'd, and frown'd not, but she strove to speak,
And held her tongue, her voice was grown so weak.

The sun set, and up rose the yellow moon:
The devil 's in the moon for mischief; they
Who call'd her CHASTE, methinks, began too soon
Their nomenclature; there is not a day,
The longest, not the twenty-first of June,
Sees half the business in a wicked way
On which three single hours of moonshine smile--
And then she looks so modest all the while.

There is a dangerous silence in that hour,

A stillness, which leaves room for the full soul
To open all itself, without the power
Of calling wholly back its self-control;
The silver light which, hallowing tree and tower,
Sheds beauty and deep softness o'er the whole,
Breathes also to the heart, and o'er it throws
A loving languor, which is not repose.

And Julia sate with Juan, half embraced
And half retiring from the glowing arm,
Which trembled like the bosom where 't was placed;
Yet still she must have thought there was no harm,
Or else 't were easy to withdraw her waist;
But then the situation had its charm,
And then--God knows what next--I can't go on;
I 'm almost sorry that I e'er begun.

O Plato! Plato! you have paved the way,
With your confounded fantasies, to more
Immoral conduct by the fancied sway
Your system feigns o'er the controulless core
Of human hearts, than all the long array
Of poets and romancers:--You 're a bore,
A charlatan, a coxcomb--and have been,
At best, no better than a go-between.

And Julia's voice was lost, except in sighs,
Until too late for useful conversation;
The tears were gushing from her gentle eyes,
I wish indeed they had not had occasion,
But who, alas! can love, and then be wise?
Not that remorse did not oppose temptation;
A little still she strove, and much repented
And whispering 'I will ne'er consent'--consented.

'T is said that Xerxes offer'd a reward
To those who could invent him a new pleasure:
Methinks the requisition 's rather hard,
And must have cost his majesty a treasure:
For my part, I 'm a moderate-minded bard,
Fond of a little love (which I call leisure);
I care not for new pleasures, as the old
Are quite enough for me, so they but hold.

O Pleasure! you are indeed a pleasant thing,
Although one must be damn'd for you, no doubt:
I make a resolution every spring
Of reformation, ere the year run out,
But somehow, this my vestal vow takes wing,

Yet still, I trust it may be kept throughout:
I 'm very sorry, very much ashamed,
And mean, next winter, to be quite reclaim'd.

Here my chaste Muse a liberty must take--
Start not! still chaster reader--she 'll be nice hence--
Forward, and there is no great cause to quake;
This liberty is a poetic licence,
Which some irregularity may make
In the design, and as I have a high sense
Of Aristotle and the Rules, 't is fit
To beg his pardon when I err a bit.

This licence is to hope the reader will
Suppose from June the sixth (the fatal day,
Without whose epoch my poetic skill
For want of facts would all be thrown away),
But keeping Julia and Don Juan still
In sight, that several months have pass'd; we 'll say
'T was in November, but I 'm not so sure
About the day--the era 's more obscure.

We 'll talk of that anon.--'T is sweet to hear
At midnight on the blue and moonlit deep
The song and oar of Adria's gondolier,
By distance mellow'd, o'er the waters sweep;
'T is sweet to see the evening star appear;
'T is sweet to listen as the night-winds creep
From leaf to leaf; 't is sweet to view on high
The rainbow, based on ocean, span the sky.

'T is sweet to hear the watch-dog's honest bark
Bay deep-mouth'd welcome as we draw near home;
'T is sweet to know there is an eye will mark
Our coming, and look brighter when we come;
'T is sweet to be awaken'd by the lark,
Or lull'd by falling waters; sweet the hum
Of bees, the voice of girls, the song of birds,
The lisp of children, and their earliest words.

Sweet is the vintage, when the showering grapes
In Bacchanal profusion reel to earth,
Purple and gushing: sweet are our escapes
From civic revelry to rural mirth;
Sweet to the miser are his glittering heaps,
Sweet to the father is his first-born's birth,
Sweet is revenge--especially to women,
Pillage to soldiers, prize-money to seamen.

Sweet is a legacy, and passing sweet
The unexpected death of some old lady
Or gentleman of seventy years complete,
Who 've made 'us youth' wait too--too long already
For an estate, or cash, or country seat,
Still breaking, but with stamina so steady
That all the Israelites are fit to mob its
Next owner for their double-damn'd post-obits.

'T is sweet to win, no matter how, one's laurels,
By blood or ink; 't is sweet to put an end
To strife; 't is sometimes sweet to have our quarrels,
Particularly with a tiresome friend:
Sweet is old wine in bottles, ale in barrels;
Dear is the helpless creature we defend
Against the world; and dear the schoolboy spot
We ne'er forget, though there we are forgot.

But sweeter still than this, than these, than all,
Is first and passionate love--it stands alone,
Like Adam's recollection of his fall;
The tree of knowledge has been pluck'd--all 's known--
And life yields nothing further to recall
Worthy of this ambrosial sin, so shown,
No doubt in fable, as the unforgiven
Fire which Prometheus filch'd for us from heaven.

Man 's a strange animal, and makes strange use
Of his own nature, and the various arts,
And likes particularly to produce
Some new experiment to show his parts;
This is the age of oddities let loose,
Where different talents find their different marts;
You 'd best begin with truth, and when you 've lost your
Labour, there 's a sure market for imposture.

What opposite discoveries we have seen!
(Signs of true genius, and of empty pockets.)
One makes new noses, one a guillotine,
One breaks your bones, one sets them in their sockets;
But vaccination certainly has been
A kind antithesis to Congreve's rockets,
With which the Doctor paid off an old pox,
By borrowing a new one from an ox.

Bread has been made (indifferent) from potatoes;
And galvanism has set some corpses grinning,
But has not answer'd like the apparatus
Of the Humane Society's beginning

By which men are unsuffocated gratis:
What wondrous new machines have late been spinning!
I said the small-pox has gone out of late;
Perhaps it may be follow'd by the great.

'T is said the great came from America;
Perhaps it may set out on its return,--
The population there so spreads, they say
'T is grown high time to thin it in its turn,
With war, or plague, or famine, any way,
So that civilisation they may learn;
And which in ravage the more loathsome evil is--
Their real lues, or our pseudo-syphilis?

This is the patent-age of new inventions
For killing bodies, and for saving souls,
All propagated with the best intentions;
Sir Humphry Davy's lantern, by which coals
Are safely mined for in the mode he mentions,
Tombuctoo travels, voyages to the Poles,
Are ways to benefit mankind, as true,
Perhaps, as shooting them at Waterloo.

Man 's a phenomenon, one knows not what,
And wonderful beyond all wondrous measure;
'T is pity though, in this sublime world, that
Pleasure 's a sin, and sometimes sin 's a pleasure;
Few mortals know what end they would be at,
But whether glory, power, or love, or treasure,
The path is through perplexing ways, and when
The goal is gain'd, we die, you know--and then--

What then?--I do not know, no more do you--
And so good night.--Return we to our story:
'T was in November, when fine days are few,
And the far mountains wax a little hoary,
And clap a white cape on their mantles blue;
And the sea dashes round the promontory,
And the loud breaker boils against the rock,
And sober suns must set at five o'clock.

'T was, as the watchmen say, a cloudy night;
No moon, no stars, the wind was low or loud
By gusts, and many a sparkling hearth was bright
With the piled wood, round which the family crowd;
There 's something cheerful in that sort of light,
Even as a summer sky 's without a cloud:
I 'm fond of fire, and crickets, and all that,
A lobster salad, and champagne, and chat.

'T was midnight--Donna Julia was in bed,
Sleeping, most probably,--when at her door
Arose a clatter might awake the dead,
If they had never been awoke before,
And that they have been so we all have read,
And are to be so, at the least, once more;--
The door was fasten'd, but with voice and fist
First knocks were heard, then 'Madam--Madam--hist!

'For God's sake, Madam--Madam--here 's my master,
With more than half the city at his back--
Was ever heard of such a curst disaster!
'T is not my fault--I kept good watch--Alack!
Do pray undo the bolt a little faster--
They 're on the stair just now, and in a crack
Will all be here; perhaps he yet may fly--
Surely the window 's not so very high!'

By this time Don Alfonso was arrived,
With torches, friends, and servants in great number;
The major part of them had long been wived,
And therefore paused not to disturb the slumber
Of any wicked woman, who contrived
By stealth her husband's temples to encumber:
Examples of this kind are so contagious,
Were one not punish'd, all would be outrageous.

I can't tell how, or why, or what suspicion
Could enter into Don Alfonso's head;
But for a cavalier of his condition
It surely was exceedingly ill-bred,
Without a word of previous admonition,
To hold a levee round his lady's bed,
And summon lackeys, arm'd with fire and sword,
To prove himself the thing he most abhorr'd.

Poor Donna Julia, starting as from sleep
(Mind--that I do not say--she had not slept),
Began at once to scream, and yawn, and weep;
Her maid Antonia, who was an adept,
Contrived to fling the bed-clothes in a heap,
As if she had just now from out them crept:
I can't tell why she should take all this trouble
To prove her mistress had been sleeping double.

But Julia mistress, and Antonia maid,
Appear'd like two poor harmless women, who
Of goblins, but still more of men afraid,

Had thought one man might be deterr'd by two,
And therefore side by side were gently laid,
Until the hours of absence should run through,
And truant husband should return, and say,
'My dear, I was the first who came away.'

Now Julia found at length a voice, and cried,
'In heaven's name, Don Alfonso, what d' ye mean?
Has madness seized you? would that I had died
Ere such a monster's victim I had been!
What may this midnight violence betide,
A sudden fit of drunkenness or spleen?
Dare you suspect me, whom the thought would kill?
Search, then, the room!'--Alfonso said, 'I will.'

He search'd, they search'd, and rummaged everywhere,
Closet and clothes' press, chest and window-seat,
And found much linen, lace, and several pair
Of stockings, slippers, brushes, combs, complete,
With other articles of ladies fair,
To keep them beautiful, or leave them neat:
Arras they prick'd and curtains with their swords,
And wounded several shutters, and some boards.

Under the bed they search'd, and there they found--
No matter what--it was not that they sought;
They open'd windows, gazing if the ground
Had signs or footmarks, but the earth said nought;
And then they stared each other's faces round:
'T is odd, not one of all these seekers thought,
And seems to me almost a sort of blunder,
Of looking in the bed as well as under.

During this inquisition, Julia's tongue
Was not asleep--'Yes, search and search,' she cried,
'Insult on insult heap, and wrong on wrong!
It was for this that I became a bride!
For this in silence I have suffer'd long
A husband like Alfonso at my side;
But now I 'll bear no more, nor here remain,
If there be law or lawyers in all Spain.

'Yes, Don Alfonso! husband now no more,
If ever you indeed deserved the name,
Is 't worthy of your years?--you have threescore--
Fifty, or sixty, it is all the same--
Is 't wise or fitting, causeless to explore
For facts against a virtuous woman's fame?
Ungrateful, perjured, barbarous Don Alfonso,

How dare you think your lady would go on so?

'Is it for this I have disdain'd to hold
The common privileges of my sex?
That I have chosen a confessor so old
And deaf, that any other it would vex,
And never once he has had cause to scold,
But found my very innocence perplex
So much, he always doubted I was married--
How sorry you will be when I 've miscarried!

'Was it for this that no Cortejo e'er
I yet have chosen from out the youth of Seville?
Is it for this I scarce went anywhere,
Except to bull-fights, mass, play, rout, and revel?
Is it for this, whate'er my suitors were,
I favor'd none--nay, was almost uncivil?
Is it for this that General Count O'Reilly,
Who took Algiers, declares I used him vilely?

'Did not the Italian Musico Cazzani
Sing at my heart six months at least in vain?
Did not his countryman, Count Corniani,
Call me the only virtuous wife in Spain?
Were there not also Russians, English, many?
The Count Strongstroganoff I put in pain,
And Lord Mount Coffeehouse, the Irish peer,
Who kill'd himself for love (with wine) last year.

'Have I not had two bishops at my feet,
The Duke of Ichar, and Don Fernan Nunez?
And is it thus a faithful wife you treat?
I wonder in what quarter now the moon is:
I praise your vast forbearance not to beat
Me also, since the time so opportune is--
O, valiant man! with sword drawn and cock'd trigger,
Now, tell me, don't you cut a pretty figure?

'Was it for this you took your sudden journey.
Under pretence of business indispensable
With that sublime of rascals your attorney,
Whom I see standing there, and looking sensible
Of having play'd the fool? though both I spurn, he
Deserves the worst, his conduct 's less defensible,
Because, no doubt, 't was for his dirty fee,
And not from any love to you nor me.

'If he comes here to take a deposition,
By all means let the gentleman proceed;

You 've made the apartment in a fit condition:
There 's pen and ink for you, sir, when you need--
Let every thing be noted with precision,
I would not you for nothing should be fee'd--
But, as my maid 's undrest, pray turn your spies out.'
'Oh!' sobb'd Antonia, 'I could tear their eyes out.'

'There is the closet, there the toilet, there
The antechamber--search them under, over;
There is the sofa, there the great arm-chair,
The chimney--which would really hold a lover.
I wish to sleep, and beg you will take care
And make no further noise, till you discover
The secret cavern of this lurking treasure--
And when 't is found, let me, too, have that pleasure.

'And now, Hidalgo! now that you have thrown
Doubt upon me, confusion over all,
Pray have the courtesy to make it known
Who is the man you search for? how d' ye cal
Him? what 's his lineage? let him but be shown--
I hope he 's young and handsome--is he tall?
Tell me--and be assured, that since you stain
My honour thus, it shall not be in vain.

'At least, perhaps, he has not sixty years,
At that age he would be too old for slaughter,
Or for so young a husband's jealous fears
(Antonia! let me have a glass of water).
I am ashamed of having shed these tears,
They are unworthy of my father's daughter;
My mother dream'd not in my natal hour
That I should fall into a monster's power.

'Perhaps 't is of Antonia you are jealous,
You saw that she was sleeping by my side
When you broke in upon us with your fellows:
Look where you please--we 've nothing, sir, to hide;
Only another time, I trust, you 'll tell us,
Or for the sake of decency abide
A moment at the door, that we may be
Drest to receive so much good company.

'And now, sir, I have done, and say no more;
The little I have said may serve to show
The guileless heart in silence may grieve o'er
The wrongs to whose exposure it is slow:
I leave you to your conscience as before,
'T will one day ask you why you used me so?

God grant you feel not then the bitterest grief!-
Antonia! where 's my pocket-handkerchief?'

She ceased, and turn'd upon her pillow; pale
She lay, her dark eyes flashing through their tears,
Like skies that rain and lighten; as a veil,
Waved and o'ershading her wan cheek, appears
Her streaming hair; the black curls strive, but fail,
To hide the glossy shoulder, which uprears
Its snow through all;--her soft lips lie apart,
And louder than her breathing beats her heart.

The Senhor Don Alfonso stood confused;
Antonia bustled round the ransack'd room,
And, turning up her nose, with looks abused
Her master and his myrmidons, of whom
Not one, except the attorney, was amused;
He, like Achates, faithful to the tomb,
So there were quarrels, cared not for the cause,
Knowing they must be settled by the laws.

With prying snub-nose, and small eyes, he stood,
Following Antonia's motions here and there,
With much suspicion in his attitude;
For reputations he had little care;
So that a suit or action were made good,
Small pity had he for the young and fair,
And ne'er believed in negatives, till these
Were proved by competent false witnesses.

But Don Alfonso stood with downcast looks,
And, truth to say, he made a foolish figure;
When, after searching in five hundred nooks,
And treating a young wife with so much rigour,
He gain'd no point, except some self-rebukes,
Added to those his lady with such vigour
Had pour'd upon him for the last half-hour,
Quick, thick, and heavy--as a thunder-shower.

At first he tried to hammer an excuse,
To which the sole reply was tears and sobs,
And indications of hysterics, whose
Prologue is always certain throes, and throbs,
Gasps, and whatever else the owners choose:
Alfonso saw his wife, and thought of Job's;
He saw too, in perspective, her relations,
And then he tried to muster all his patience.

He stood in act to speak, or rather stammer,

But sage Antonia cut him short before
The anvil of his speech received the hammer,
With 'Pray, sir, leave the room, and say no more,
Or madam dies.'--Alfonso mutter'd, 'D--n her,'
But nothing else, the time of words was o'er;
He cast a rueful look or two, and did,
He knew not wherefore, that which he was bid.

With him retired his 'posse comitatus,'
The attorney last, who linger'd near the door
Reluctantly, still tarrying there as late as
Antonia let him--not a little sore
At this most strange and unexplain'd 'hiatus'
In Don Alfonso's facts, which just now wore
An awkward look; as he revolved the case,
The door was fasten'd in his legal face.

No sooner was it bolted, than--Oh shame!
O sin! Oh sorrow! and oh womankind!
How can you do such things and keep your fame,
Unless this world, and t' other too, be blind?
Nothing so dear as an unfilch'd good name!
But to proceed--for there is more behind:
With much heartfelt reluctance be it said,
Young Juan slipp'd half-smother'd, from the bed.

He had been hid--I don't pretend to say
How, nor can I indeed describe the where--
Young, slender, and pack'd easily, he lay,
No doubt, in little compass, round or square;
But pity him I neither must nor may
His suffocation by that pretty pair;
'T were better, sure, to die so, than be shut
With maudlin Clarence in his Malmsey butt.

And, secondly, I pity not, because
He had no business to commit a sin,
Forbid by heavenly, fined by human laws,
At least 't was rather early to begin;
But at sixteen the conscience rarely gnaws
So much as when we call our old debts in
At sixty years, and draw the accompts of evil,
And find a deuced balance with the devil.

Of his position I can give no notion:
'T is written in the Hebrew Chronicle,
How the physicians, leaving pill and potion,
Prescribed, by way of blister, a young belle,
When old King David's blood grew dull in motion,

And that the medicine answer'd very well;
Perhaps 't was in a different way applied,
For David lived, but Juan nearly died.

What 's to be done? Alfonso will be back
The moment he has sent his fools away.
Antonia's skill was put upon the rack,
But no device could be brought into play--
And how to parry the renew'd attack?
Besides, it wanted but few hours of day:
Antonia puzzled; Julia did not speak,
But press'd her bloodless lip to Juan's cheek.

He turn'd his lip to hers, and with his hand
Call'd back the tangles of her wandering hair;
Even then their love they could not all command,
And half forgot their danger and despair:
Antonia's patience now was at a stand--
'Come, come, 't is no time now for fooling there,'
She whisper'd, in great wrath--'I must deposit
This pretty gentleman within the closet:

'Pray, keep your nonsense for some luckier night--
Who can have put my master in this mood?
What will become on 't--I 'm in such a fright,
The devil 's in the urchin, and no good--
Is this a time for giggling? this a plight?
Why, don't you know that it may end in blood?
You 'll lose your life, and I shall lose my place,
My mistress all, for that half-girlish face.

'Had it but been for a stout cavalier
Of twenty-five or thirty (come, make haste)--
But for a child, what piece of work is here!
I really, madam, wonder at your taste
(Come, sir, get in)--my master must be near:
There, for the present, at the least, he's fast,
And if we can but till the morning keep
Our counsel--(Juan, mind, you must not sleep).'

Now, Don Alfonso entering, but alone,
Closed the oration of the trusty maid:
She loiter'd, and he told her to be gone,
An order somewhat sullenly obey'd;
However, present remedy was none,
And no great good seem'd answer'd if she stay'd:
Regarding both with slow and sidelong view,
She snuff'd the candle, curtsied, and withdrew.

Alfonso paused a minute--then begun
Some strange excuses for his late proceeding;
He would not justify what he had done,
To say the best, it was extreme ill-breeding;
But there were ample reasons for it, none
Of which he specified in this his pleading:
His speech was a fine sample, on the whole,
Of rhetoric, which the learn'd call 'rigmarole.'

Julia said nought; though all the while there rose
A ready answer, which at once enables
A matron, who her husband's foible knows,
By a few timely words to turn the tables,
Which, if it does not silence, still must pose,--
Even if it should comprise a pack of fables;
'T is to retort with firmness, and when he
Suspects with one, do you reproach with three.

Julia, in fact, had tolerable grounds,--
Alfonso's loves with Inez were well known,
But whether 't was that one's own guilt confounds--
But that can't be, as has been often shown,
A lady with apologies abounds;--
It might be that her silence sprang alone
From delicacy to Don Juan's ear,
To whom she knew his mother's fame was dear.

There might be one more motive, which makes two;
Alfonso ne'er to Juan had alluded,--
Mention'd his jealousy but never who
Had been the happy lover, he concluded,
Conceal'd amongst his premises; 't is true,
His mind the more o'er this its mystery brooded;
To speak of Inez now were, one may say,
Like throwing Juan in Alfonso's way.

A hint, in tender cases, is enough;
Silence is best, besides there is a tact
(That modern phrase appears to me sad stuff,
But it will serve to keep my verse compact)-
Which keeps, when push'd by questions rather rough,
A lady always distant from the fact:
The charming creatures lie with such a grace,
There 's nothing so becoming to the face.

They blush, and we believe them; at least I
Have always done so; 't is of no great use,
In any case, attempting a reply,
For then their eloquence grows quite profuse;

And when at length they 're out of breath, they sigh,
And cast their languid eyes down, and let loose
A tear or two, and then we make it up;
And then--and then--and then--sit down and sup.

Alfonso closed his speech, and begg'd her pardon,
Which Julia half withheld, and then half granted,
And laid conditions he thought very hard on,
Denying several little things he wanted:
He stood like Adam lingering near his garden,
With useless penitence perplex'd and haunted,
Beseeching she no further would refuse,
When, lo! he stumbled o'er a pair of shoes.

A pair of shoes!--what then? not much, if they
Are such as fit with ladies' feet, but these
(No one can tell how much I grieve to say)
Were masculine; to see them, and to seize,
Was but a moment's act.--Ah! well-a-day!
My teeth begin to chatter, my veins freeze--
Alfonso first examined well their fashion,
And then flew out into another passion.

He left the room for his relinquish'd sword,
And Julia instant to the closet flew.
'Fly, Juan, fly! for heaven's sake--not a word--
The door is open--you may yet slip through
The passage you so often have explored--
Here is the garden-key--Fly--fly--Adieu!
Haste--haste! I hear Alfonso's hurrying feet--
Day has not broke--there 's no one in the street:

None can say that this was not good advice,
The only mischief was, it came too late;
Of all experience 't is the usual price,
A sort of income-tax laid on by fate:
Juan had reach'd the room-door in a. trice,
And might have done so by the garden-gate,
But met Alfonso in his dressing-gown,
Who threaten'd death--so Juan knock'd him down.

Dire was the scuffle, and out went the light;
Antonia cried out 'Rape!' and Julia 'Fire!'
But not a servant stirr'd to aid the fight.
Alfonso, pommell'd to his heart's desire,
Swore lustily he'd be revenged this night;
And Juan, too, blasphemed an octave higher;
His blood was up: though young, he was a Tartar,
And not at all disposed to prove a martyr.

Alfonso's sword had dropp'd ere he could draw it,
And they continued battling hand to hand,
For Juan very luckily ne'er saw it;
His temper not being under great command,
If at that moment he had chanced to claw it,
Alfonso's days had not been in the land
Much longer.--Think of husbands', lovers' lives!
And how ye may be doubly widows--wives!

Alfonso grappled to detain the foe,
And Juan throttled him to get away,
And blood ('t was from the nose) began to flow;
At last, as they more faintly wrestling lay,
Juan contrived to give an awkward blow,
And then his only garment quite gave way;
He fled, like Joseph, leaving it; but there,
I doubt, all likeness ends between the pair.

Lights came at length, and men, and maids, who found
An awkward spectacle their eyes before;
Antonia in hysterics, Julia swoon'd,
Alfonso leaning, breathless, by the door;
Some half-torn drapery scatter'd on the ground,
Some blood, and several footsteps, but no more:
Juan the gate gain'd, turn'd the key about,
And liking not the inside, lock'd the out.

Here ends this canto.--Need I sing, or say,
How Juan naked, favour'd by the night,
Who favours what she should not, found his way,
And reach'd his home in an unseemly plight?
The pleasant scandal which arose next day,
The nine days' wonder which was brought to light,
And how Alfonso sued for a divorce,
Were in the English newspapers, of course.

If you would like to see the whole proceedings,
The depositions, and the cause at full,
The names of all the witnesses, the pleadings
Of counsel to nonsuit, or to annul,
There 's more than one edition, and the readings
Are various, but they none of them are dull;
The best is that in short-hand ta'en by Gurney,
Who to Madrid on purpose made a journey.

But Donna Inez, to divert the train
Of one of the most circulating scandals
That had for centuries been known in Spain,

At least since the retirement of the Vandals,
First vow'd (and never had she vow'd in vain)
To Virgin Mary several pounds of candles;
And then, by the advice of some old ladies,
She sent her son to be shipp'd off from Cadiz.

She had resolved that he should travel through
All European climes, by land or sea,
To mend his former morals, and get new,
Especially in France and Italy
(At least this is the thing most people do).
Julia was sent into a convent: she
Grieved, but, perhaps, her feelings may be better
Shown in the following copy of her Letter:--

'They tell me 't is decided; you depart:
'T is wise--'t is well, but not the less a pain;
I have no further claim on your young heart,
Mine is the victim, and would be again;
To love too much has been the only art
I used;--I write in haste, and if a stain
Be on this sheet, 't is not what it appears;
My eyeballs burn and throb, but have no tears.

'I loved, I love you, for this love have lost
State, station, heaven, mankind's, my own esteem,
And yet can not regret what it hath cost,
So dear is still the memory of that dream;
Yet, if I name my guilt, 't is not to boast,
None can deem harshlier of me than I deem:
I trace this scrawl because I cannot rest--
I 've nothing to reproach, or to request.

'Man's love is of man's life a thing apart,
'T is woman's whole existence; man may range
The court, camp, church, the vessel, and the mart;
Sword, gown, gain, glory, offer in exchange
Pride, fame, ambition, to fill up his heart,
And few there are whom these cannot estrange;
Men have all these resources, we but one,
To love again, and be again undone.

'You will proceed in pleasure, and in pride,
Beloved and loving many; all is o'er
For me on earth, except some years to hide
My shame and sorrow deep in my heart's core;
These I could bear, but cannot cast aside
The passion which still rages as before--
And so farewell--forgive me, love me--No,

That word is idle now--but let it go.

'My breast has been all weakness, is so yet;
But still I think I can collect my mind;
My blood still rushes where my spirit 's set,
As roll the waves before the settled wind;
My heart is feminine, nor can forget--
To all, except one image, madly blind;
So shakes the needle, and so stands the pole,
As vibrates my fond heart to my fix'd soul.

'I have no more to say, but linger still,
And dare not set my seal upon this sheet,
And yet I may as well the task fulfil,
My misery can scarce be more complete:
I had not lived till now, could sorrow kill;
Death shuns the wretch who fain the blow would meet,
And I must even survive this last adieu,
And bear with life, to love and pray for you!'

This note was written upon gilt-edged paper
With a neat little crow-quill, slight and new:
Her small white hand could hardly reach the taper,
It trembled as magnetic needles do,
And yet she did not let one tear escape her;
The seal a sun-flower; 'Elle vous suit partout,'
The motto cut upon a white cornelian;
The wax was superfine, its hue vermilion.

This was Don Juan's earliest scrape; but whether
I shall proceed with his adventures is
Dependent on the public altogether;
We 'll see, however, what they say to this:
Their favour in an author's cap 's a feather,
And no great mischief 's done by their caprice;
And if their approbation we experience,
Perhaps they 'll have some more about a year hence.

My poem 's epic, and is meant to be
Divided in twelve books; each book containing,
With love, and war, a heavy gale at sea,
A list of ships, and captains, and kings reigning,
New characters; the episodes are three:
A panoramic view of hell 's in training,
After the style of Virgil and of Homer,
So that my name of Epic 's no misnomer.

All these things will be specified in time,
With strict regard to Aristotle's rules,

The Vade Mecum of the true sublime,
Which makes so many poets, and some fools:
Prose poets like blank-verse, I 'm fond of rhyme,
Good workmen never quarrel with their tools;
I 've got new mythological machinery,
And very handsome supernatural scenery.

There 's only one slight difference between
Me and my epic brethren gone before,
And here the advantage is my own, I ween
(Not that I have not several merits more,
But this will more peculiarly be seen);
They so embellish, that 't is quite a bore
Their labyrinth of fables to thread through,
Whereas this story 's actually true.

If any person doubt it, I appeal
To history, tradition, and to facts,
To newspapers, whose truth all know and feel,
To plays in five, and operas in three acts;
All these confirm my statement a good deal,
But that which more completely faith exacts
Is that myself, and several now in Seville,
Saw Juan's last elopement with the devil.

If ever I should condescend to prose,
I 'll write poetical commandments, which
Shall supersede beyond all doubt all those
That went before; in these I shall enrich
My text with many things that no one knows,
And carry precept to the highest pitch:
I 'll call the work 'Longinus o'er a Bottle,
Or, Every Poet his own Aristotle.'

Thou shalt believe in Milton, Dryden, Pope;
Thou shalt not set up Wordsworth, Coleridge, Southey;
Because the first is crazed beyond all hope,
The second drunk, the third so quaint and mouthy:
With Crabbe it may be difficult to cope,
And Campbell's Hippocrene is somewhat drouthy:
Thou shalt not steal from Samuel Rogers, nor
Commit--flirtation with the muse of Moore.

Thou shalt not covet Mr. Sotheby's Muse,
His Pegasus, nor anything that 's his;
Thou shalt not bear false witness like 'the Blues'
(There 's one, at least, is very fond of this);
Thou shalt not write, in short, but what I choose:
This is true criticism, and you may kiss--

Exactly as you please, or not,--the rod;

If any person should presume to assert
This story is not moral, first, I pray,
That they will not cry out before they 're hurt,
Then that they 'll read it o'er again, and say
(But, doubtless, nobody will be so pert)
That this is not a moral tale, though gay;
Besides, in Canto Twelfth, I mean to show
The very place where wicked people go.

If, after all, there should be some so blind
To their own good this warning to despise,
Led by some tortuosity of mind,
Not to believe my verse and their own eyes,
And cry that they 'the moral cannot find,'
I tell him, if a clergyman, he lies;
Should captains the remark, or critics, make,
They also lie too--under a mistake.

The public approbation I expect,
And beg they 'll take my word about the moral,
Which I with their amusement will connect
(So children cutting teeth receive a coral);
Meantime, they 'll doubtless please to recollect
My epical pretensions to the laurel:
For fear some prudish readers should grow skittish,
I 've bribed my grandmother's review--the British.

I sent it in a letter to the Editor,
Who thank'd me duly by return of post--
I 'm for a handsome article his creditor;
Yet, if my gentle Muse he please to roast,
And break a promise after having made it her,
Denying the receipt of what it cost,
And smear his page with gall instead of honey,
All I can say is--that he had the money.

I think that with this holy new alliance
I may ensure the public, and defy
All other magazines of art or science,
Daily, or monthly, or three monthly; I
Have not essay'd to multiply their clients,
Because they tell me 't were in vain to try,
And that the Edinburgh Review and Quarterly
Treat a dissenting author very martyrly.

'Non ego hoc ferrem calida juventa
Consule Planco,' Horace said, and so

Say I; by which quotation there is meant a
Hint that some six or seven good years ago
(Long ere I dreamt of dating from the Brenta)
I was most ready to return a blow,
And would not brook at all this sort of thing
In my hot youth--when George the Third was King.

But now at thirty years my hair is grey
(I wonder what it will be like at forty?
I thought of a peruke the other day)--
My heart is not much greener; and, in short, I
Have squander'd my whole summer while 't was May,
And feel no more the spirit to retort; I
Have spent my life, both interest and principal,
And deem not, what I deem'd, my soul invincible.

No more--no more--Oh! never more on me
The freshness of the heart can fall like dew,
Which out of all the lovely things we see
Extracts emotions beautiful and new,
Hived in our bosoms like the bag o' the bee:
Think'st thou the honey with those objects grew?
Alas! 't was not in them, but in thy power
To double even the sweetness of a flower.

No more--no more--Oh! never more, my heart,
Canst thou be my sole world, my universe!
Once all in all, but now a thing apart,
Thou canst not be my blessing or my curse:
The illusion 's gone for ever, and thou art
Insensible, I trust, but none the worse,
And in thy stead I 've got a deal of judgment,
Though heaven knows how it ever found a lodgment.

My days of love are over; me no more
The charms of maid, wife, and still less of widow,
Can make the fool of which they made before,--
In short, I must not lead the life I did do;
The credulous hope of mutual minds is o'er,
The copious use of claret is forbid too,
So for a good old-gentlemanly vice,
I think I must take up with avarice.

Ambition was my idol, which was broken
Before the shrines of Sorrow, and of Pleasure;
And the two last have left me many a token
O'er which reflection may be made at leisure:
Now, like Friar Bacon's brazen head, I 've spoken,
'Time is, Time was, Time 's past:'--a chymic treasure

Is glittering youth, which I have spent betimes--
My heart in passion, and my head on rhymes.

What is the end of Fame? 't is but to fill
A certain portion of uncertain paper:
Some liken it to climbing up a hill,
Whose summit, like all hills, is lost in vapour;
For this men write, speak, preach, and heroes kill,
And bards burn what they call their 'midnight taper,'
To have, when the original is dust,
A name, a wretched picture, and worse bust.

What are the hopes of man? Old Egypt's King
Cheops erected the first pyramid
And largest, thinking it was just the thing
To keep his memory whole, and mummy hid;
But somebody or other rummaging,
Burglariously broke his coffin's lid:
Let not a monument give you or me hopes,
Since not a pinch of dust remains of Cheops.

But I being fond of true philosophy,
Say very often to myself, 'Alas!
All things that have been born were born to die,
And flesh (which Death mows down to hay) is grass;
You 've pass'd your youth not so unpleasantly,
And if you had it o'er again--'t would pass--
So thank your stars that matters are no worse,
And read your Bible, sir, and mind your purse.'

But for the present, gentle reader! and
Still gentler purchaser! the bard--that 's I--
Must, with permission, shake you by the hand,
And so 'Your humble servant, and good-b'ye!'
We meet again, if we should understand
Each other; and if not, I shall not try
Your patience further than by this short sample--
'T were well if others follow'd my example.

'Go, little book, from this my solitude!
I cast thee on the waters--go thy ways!
And if, as I believe, thy vein be good,
The world will find thee after many days.'
When Southey's read, and Wordsworth understood,
I can't help putting in my claim to praise--
The four first rhymes are Southey's every line:
For God's sake, reader! take them not for mine.

About the author:
Source: Poetryfoundation.org

The most flamboyant and notorious of the major Romantics, George Gordon, Lord Byron, was likewise
the most fashionable poet of the day. He created an immensely popular Romantic hero—defiant,
melancholy, haunted by secret guilt—for which, to many, he seemed the model. He is also a Romantic
paradox: a leader of the era’s poetic revolution, he named Alexander Pope as his master; a worshiper of
the ideal, he never lost touch with reality; a deist and freethinker, he retained from his youth a Calvinist
sense of original sin; a peer of the realm, he championed liberty in his works and deeds, giving money,
time, energy, and finally his life to the Greek war of independence. His faceted personality found
expression in satire, verse narrative, ode, lyric, speculative drama, historical tragedy, confessional
poetry, dramatic monologue, seriocomic epic, and voluminous correspondence, written in Spenserian
stanzas, heroic couplets, blank verse, terza rima, ottava rima, and vigorous prose. In his dynamism,
sexuality, self-revelation, and demands for freedom for oppressed people everywhere, Byron captivated
the Western mind and heart as few writers have, stamping upon nineteenth-century letters, arts, politics,
even clothing styles, his image and name as the embodiment of Romanticism.

George Gordon Noel Byron was born, with a clubbed right foot, in London on 22 January 1788, the
son of Catherine Gordon of Gight, an impoverished Scots heiress, and Captain John ("Mad Jack")
Byron, a fortune-hunting widower with a daughter, Augusta. The profligate captain squandered his
wife’s inheritance, was absent for the birth of his only son, and eventually decamped for France, an
exile from English creditors, where he died in 1791 at thirty-six, the mortal age for both the poet and
his daughter Ada.

In the summer of 1789 Byron moved with his mother to Aberdeen. (His half sister had earlier been sent
to her maternal grandmother.) Emotionally unstable, Catherine Byron raised her son in an atmosphere
variously colored by her excessive tenderness, fierce temper, insensitivity, and pride. She was as likely
to mock his lameness as to consult doctors about its correction. From his Presbyterian nurse Byron
developed a lifelong love for the Bible and an abiding fascination with the Calvinist doctrines of innate
evil and predestined salvation. Early schooling instilled a devotion to reading and especially a "grand
passion" for history that informed much of his later writing.

With the death in 1798 of his great-uncle, the "Wicked" fifth Lord Byron, George became the sixth
Baron Byron of Rochdale, heir to Newstead Abbey, the family seat in Nottinghamshire. He enjoyed the
role of landed nobleman, proud of his coat of arms with its mermaid and chestnut horses surmounting
the motto "Crede Byron" ("Trust Byron").

An "ebullition of passion" for his cousin Margaret Parker in 1800 inspired his "first dash into poetry."
When she died two years later, he composed "On the Death of a Young Lady"; throughout his life
poetic expression would serve him as a catharsis of strong emotion.

At Harrow (1801-1805), he excelled in oratory, wrote verse, and played sports, even cricket. (After a
quack doctor subjected him to painful, futile treatments for his foot, London specialists prescribed a
corrective boot, later fitted with a brace, which the patient often refused to wear.) He also formed the
first of those passionate attachments with other, chiefly younger, boys that he would enjoy throughout
his life; before reaching his teen years he had been sexually initiated by his maid. There can be little
doubt that he had strong bisexual tendencies, though relationships with women seem generally, but not
always, to have satisfied his emotional needs more fully.

In the summer of 1803 he fell so deeply in love with his distant cousin, the beautiful-and engaged-Mary
Chaworth of Annesley Hall, that he interrupted his education for a term to be near her. His unrequited
passion found expression in such poems as "Hills of Annesley" (written 1805), "The Adieu" (written
1807), "Stanzas to a Lady on Leaving England" (written 1809), and "The Dream" (written 1816). Years
later he told Thomas Medwin that all his "fables about the celestial nature of women" originated from
"the perfection" his imagination created in Mary Chaworth.

Early in 1804 he began an intimate correspondence with his half sister, Augusta, five years his senior.
He asked that she consider him "not only as a Brother" but as her "warmest and most affectionate
Friend." As he grew apart from his coarse, often violent, mother, he drew closer to Augusta.

Byron attended Trinity College, Cambridge, intermittently from October 1805 until July 1808, when he
received an M.A. degree. During "the most romantic period of [his] life," he experienced a "violent,
though pure, love and passion" for John Edleston, a choirboy at Trinity two years younger than he.
Intellectual pursuits interested him less than such London diversions as fencing and boxing lessons, the
theater, demimondes, and gambling. Living extravagantly, he began to amass the debts that would
bedevil him for years. In Southwell, where his mother had moved in 1803, he prepared his verses for
publication.

In November 1806 he distributed around Southwell his first book of poetry. Fugitive Pieces, printed at
his expense and anonymously, collects the poems inspired by his early infatuations, friendships, and
experiences at Harrow, Cambridge, and elsewhere. When his literary adviser, the Reverend John
Thomas Becher, a local minister, objected to the frank eroticism of certain lines, Byron suppressed the
volume. A revised and expurgated selection of verses appeared in January 1807 as Poems on Various
Occasions, in an edition of one hundred copies, also printed privately and anonymously. An augmented
collection, Hours of Idleness, "By George Gordon, Lord Byron, A Minor," was published in June. The
new poems in this first public volume of his poetry are little more than schoolboy translations from the
classics and imitations of such pre-Romantics as Thomas Gray, Thomas Chatterton, Robert Burns, and
James Macpherson’s Ossian, and of contemporaries including Walter Scott and Thomas Moore.
Missing were the original flashes of eroticism and satire that had enlivened poems in the private
editions that were omitted from Hours of Idleness. The work has value for what it reveals about the
youthful poet’s influences, interests, talent, and direction. In "On a Change of Masters at a Great Public
School," he employs heroic couplets for satiric effect in the manner—if without the polish—of
Alexander Pope, a model for Byron throughout his career. In obviously autobiographical poems Byron
experiments with personae, compounded of his true self and of fictive elements, which both disclose
and disguise him. Groups of verses on a single subject show his understanding of the effectiveness of
multiple points of view. He continued to refine these techniques in works from Childe Harold’s
Pilgrimage and the Oriental tales through the dramas to Don Juan.

The imitativeness and sentimentality in Hours of Idleness were not excused by a preface that, with
pompous mock modesty, pleaded the poet’s youth and inexperience, while disclaiming any intention of
his undertaking a poetic career. A second edition, on Byron’s instructions retitled Poems Original and
Translated, appeared in 1808; the contents had been altered slightly and the preface omitted.

It was as a published poet that Byron returned to Cambridge in June 1807. Besides renewing
acquaintances, he formed an enduring friendship with John Cam Hobhouse—his beloved "Hobby."
Inclined to liberalism in politics, Byron joined Hobhouse in the Cambridge Whig Club.

In February 1808 the influential Whig journal the Edinburgh Review, published anonymously (in an

issue dated January 1808) Henry Brougham’s notice of Hours of Idleness, which combined justifiable
criticism of the book with unwarranted personal assaults on the author. The scornfully worded review
had a beneficial effect. Stung and infuriated, Byron set aside mawkish, derivative, occasional verse and
began avenging himself through satire, expanding his poetic commentary on present-day "British
Bards," started the previous year, to include a counterblast against "Scotch Reviewers."

In March 1809, two months after attaining his majority, he took his seat in the House of Lords; seven
times that spring he attended sessions of Parliament.

Shortly thereafter, Byron’s first major poetic work, English Bards, and Scotch Reviewers. A Satire, was
published anonymously in an edition of one thousand copies. Inspired by the Dunciad (1728, 1742) of
his idol, Pope, and modeled largely on William Gifford’s Baviad (1791) and Maeviad (1795), the poem,
in heroic couplets, takes indiscriminate aim at most of the poets and playwrights of the moment,
notably Walter Scott, Robert Southey, William Wordsworth, and Samuel Taylor Coleridge, sparing only
Gifford, Samuel Rogers, and Thomas Campbell, who deferred to Pope, along with dramatists George
Colman the Younger, Richard Cumberland, and Richard Brinsley Sheridan. His main target is the
critics. From these "harpies that must be fed" he singles out for condemnation "immortal" Francis
Jeffrey, whom he mistakenly assumed had written the offending comments on Hours of Idleness in the
Edinburgh Review.

The satire created a stir and found general favor with the reviewers. The Gentleman’s Magazine (March
1809) praised the poem as "unquestionably an original work," replete with a "mingled genius, good
sense, and spirited animadversion" unseen in many years. By May English Bards, and Scotch
Reviewers had gone into a second, revised and enlarged edition in which Byron abandoned his
anonymity. Third and fourth editions followed in 1810. He suppressed a fifth edition in 1812, as he had
come to know and respect some of his victims and to regret many of his critical and personal jabs.

The overall aim, as stated in the preface, is "to make others write better." Of the major Romantic poets,
Byron most sympathized with neoclassicism, with its order, discipline, and clarity. The importance of
English Bards, and Scotch Reviewers lies not only in its vigor and vitality but in Byron’s lively
advocacy of the neoclassical virtues found in such seventeenth- and eighteenth-century poets as Dryden
and Pope, and, from his own day, in Gifford. His admiration for Pope never wavered, nor did he ever
totally abandon the heroic couplet and Augustan role of censor and moralist, as seen in Hints from
Horace (written 1811), The Curse of Minerva (written 1811), and The Age of Bronze (written 1822-
1823).

Feeling revenged on the reviewers, Byron was anxious to realize a long-held dream of traveling abroad.
Though in debt, he gathered together sufficient resources to allow him to begin a tour of the eastern
Mediterranean. On 2 July 1809 he sailed from England on the Lisbon packet, accompanied by
Hobhouse and three servants, including William Fletcher, who remained as valet until Byron’s death,
and Robert Rushton, the "little page" of Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage, Canto I. Their route took them
from Lisbon on horseback across Spain, the scene of Wellington’s Peninsular Campaign and of Spanish
partisans’ resistance to the French. Once in Greece, Byron and Hobhouse pushed by boat and horseback
into virtually unvisited Albania; in Jannina, Byron bought several magnificent native costumes (in one
of which Thomas Phillips painted him in 1814). In Tepelene they were entertained by Ali Pasha,
effective ruler, with his son Veli, of Albania and western Greece as far south as the Peloponnesus.
Ruthless, sophisticated, and sensuous, the "Lion of Ioannina" represented the type of romantic villain
Byron later drew in his Oriental tales and in the character of Lambro, Haidée’s "piratical papa" in Don
Juan (Canto III).

Anxious to set down the myriad experiences the trip afforded him, Byron began an autobiographical
poem in Jannina on 31 October 1809, wherein he recorded the adventures and reflections of Childe
Burun (a combination of the archaic title for a youth of noble birth and an ancient form of his own
surname); he subsequently renamed the hero Harold. The Spenserian stanza in which he cast his
impressions no doubt derived from his readings in Edmund Spenser’s Faerie Queene (1590, 1596)
reprinted in an anthology he had carried to Albania. Byron completed the first canto in Athens at the
end of the year.

Turning southward, he and Hobhouse journeyed through fateful Missolonghi and rode into Athens on
Christmas night 1809. They lodged at the foot of the Acropolis with Mrs. Tarsia Macri, widow of a
Greek who had been British vice consul. Byron soon fell in love with her three daughters, all under the
age of fifteen, but especially with Theresa, only twelve, his "Maid of Athens."

Near the end of English Bards, and Scotch Reviewers, Byron had scoffed at Thomas Bruce, Earl of
Elgin’s waste of money on the "Phidian freaks, / Mis-shapen monuments and maimed antiques" he was
removing from the Acropolis and shipping to England. Now, the Parthenon and other ruins of Greece’s
golden age, everywhere to be seen, increasingly filled Byron with sorrow, while the despoilation of the
country’s treasures and its people’s enslavement by the Turks fueled his indignation. His anger at the
ignoble Elgin would flash forth in Childe Harold (Canto II) and in The Curse of Minerva. Excursions in
January 1810 to Cape Sounion, overlooking the green islands of the Cyclades, and to Marathon, where
the Athenians defeated the invading Persians in 490 B.C., reinforced for him the appalling contrast
between the glory and might of ancient Greece and its contemporary disgrace under Turkish
domination. He movingly evoked these scenes and sentiments a decade later in the often-quoted
stanzas on "The Isles of Greece" and on Marathon in Don Juan (Canto III).

In March 1810 Byron and Hobhouse extended their tour into Turkey. On 28 March, in Smyrna, he
completed the second canto of Childe Harold, incorporating his adventures in Albania and his thoughts
on Greece. He visited the plain of Troy and on 3 May, while Hobhouse read Ovid’s Hero and Leander,
imitated Leander’s feat of swimming the Hellespont; within a week, lines "Written After Swimming
from Sestos to Abydos" commemorated his pride in this exploit. During the two months he spent in
Constantinople amid Oriental splendor, filth, and cruelty, his distaste for the Turks grew. In July he
parted with Hobhouse, who was bound for England, and traveled back to Athens, where he settled in
the Capuchin monastery below the Acropolis. Here, he studied Italian and modern Greek, just as he
would learn Armenian from monks in Venice six years later. He also moved easily in the cosmopolitan
society of Athens.

Stirred to literary composition, he first produced explanatory notes for Childe Harold; then, in February
and March 1811, he wrote two poems in heroic couplets. Hints from Horace, an inferior sequel to
English Bards, and Scotch Reviewers, satirizes contemporary poetry and drama, while praising Dryden,
Pope, Swift, and Butler. The Curse of Minerva, in its attack on Lord Elgin for pillaging Greece’s
heritage, records for the first time the full extent of Byron’s sympathy for classical Greek culture as
well as for modern Greece and her people.

When he sailed for England in April 1811, he traveled for a time aboard the transport ship Hydra,
which also carried the last large shipments of Lord Elgin’s marbles. He arrived at Sheerness, Kent, on
14 July, two years and twelve days after his departure. To Augusta he wrote on 9 September that he had
probably acquired nothing by his travels but "a smattering of two languages & a habit of chewing
Tobacco," but this claim was disingenuous. "If I am a poet," he mused, "... the air of Greece has made

me one." He had accumulated source material for any number of works. More, exposure to all manner
of persons, behavior, government, and thought had transformed him into a citizen of the world, with
broadened political opinions and a clear-sighted view of prejudice and hypocrisy in the "tight little
island" of England. Significantly, he would select as the epigraph for Childe Harold a passage from Le
Cosmopolite, ou, le Citoyen du Monde (1753), by Louis Charles Fougeret de Monbron, that, in part,
compares the universe to a book of which one has read but the first page if he has seen only his own
country.

Within three weeks of his return, Byron was plunged into a period of prolonged mourning. His mother
died on 2 August, before he set out for Newstead. Whatever her failings, she had loved her son, taken
pride in his accomplishments, and managed Newstead economically in his absence. "I had but one
friend in the world," he exclaimed, "and she is gone." News of the deaths of two classmates followed
hard upon this sorrow. Then, in October, he learned of the death from consumption that May of John
Edleston, the former choirboy at Trinity College. Deeply affected, he lamented his loss in the lines "To
Thyrza" (1811), a woman’s name concealing the subject’s true identity and gender. This was the first of
several "Thyrza" poems, among them, "Away, Away, Ye Notes of Woe" (written 1811), "One Struggle
More, and I Am Free" (written 1812), and "And Thou Art Dead, As Young and Fair" (written 1812). He
also commemorated Edleston in additions to Childe Harold (Canto II).

In January 1812 Byron resumed his seat in the House of Lords, allying himself with the Liberal Whigs
represented by Henry Richard Vassall Fox, Lord Holland. During his political career he spoke but three
times in the House of Lords, taking unpopular sides. In his maiden speech on 27 February he defended
stocking weavers in his home area of Nottinghamshire who had broken the improved weaving
machinery, or frames, that deprived them of work and reduced them to near starvation; he opposed as
cruel and unjust a government-sponsored bill that made frame breaking a capital offense. On 21 April
he made a plea for Catholic emancipation, the most controversial issue of the day. On 1 June he stood
to present the petition of Major John Cartwright for the right to petition for the reform of Parliament.

Upon his return to England in July 1811, Byron had given the manuscript of Childe Harold to R.C.
Dallas, his adviser in the publication of English Bards, and Scotch Reviewers. Dallas enthusiastically
showed the poem to John Murray II, the respected publisher of Scott and Southey, who agreed to
publish Byron, beginning a rich association between publisher and poet.

On 10 March 1812 Murray published Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage, Cantos I and II. Five hundred quarto
copies, priced at thirty shillings each, sold out in three days. An octavo edition of three thousand copies
at twelve shillings was on the market within two days. Shortly after Childe Harold appeared, Byron
remarked, "I awoke one morning and found myself famous." Murray brought out five editions of the
poem in 1812 alone, and published the tenth, and last, separate edition in 1815. In less than six months
sales had reached forty-five hundred copies. In the Edinburgh Review (February 1812), Francis Jeffrey
commented that Byron had "improved marvellously since his last appearance at our tribunal." While
noting Byron’s statements of unorthodox political and religious opinions and the poem’s "considerable
marks of haste and carelessness," Jeffrey cited as the "chief excellence" of Childe Harold "a singular
freedom and boldness, both of thought and expression, and a great occasional force and felicity of
diction." Byron promptly apologized for his unfair attack on Jeffrey in English Bards, and Scotch
Reviewers. In the Quarterly Review (March 1812), George Ellis concluded that the poem exhibited
"some marks of carelessness, many of caprice, but many also of sterling genius."

Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage, Cantos I and II, can with profit be read as Byron’s poetic journal of his
Mediterranean and Eastern tour in 1809-1811. Color and energy animate descriptions of the familiar

(Spain and Portugal), the exotic (Albania and Greece), and the violent (a Spanish bullfight and feuding
Albanians). But the international popularity of the work’s eventual four cantos (represented in the
nineteenth century by partial and complete translations into no fewer than ten languages) derived less
from its appeal as a travelogue than from its powerful articulation of the Weltschmerz, or "World-
weariness," born of the chaos of the French Revolution and Napoléonic Wars that disrupted all of
European society. The poem is the record of the contemporary quest for moral and intellectual certainty
and positive self-assertion. The route for many was through sensation and emotional experience.

In Canto I Harold, "sore sick at heart" with his life of "revel and ungodly glee," leaves his native Albion
on pilgrimage to find peace and spiritual rebirth. As befits a quest poem, Childe Harold is subtitled A
Romaunt, recalling the medieval romances whose knighted heroes go in search of holy objects, and is
cast in the stanza and archaic language of Spenser’s Faerie Queene. Byron soon abandoned the
linguistic pretense for a more modern, if highly literary, style, but he continued to use the Spenserian
stanza effectively throughout the poem’s four cantos of observation, description, sentiment, and
meditation.

In Childe Harold Byron began to blend narration and digression to produce a type of descriptive-
meditative poetry which he would use to greater advantage in Don Juan. Scenes Harold and the
narrator describe often spur them to moral reflections. Sites associated with the Napoléonic campaign,
such as Cintra, Talavera, and Albuera, elicit comments on the follies of war (Canto I); the ruins of
Greece evoke thoughts on the evils of tyranny and on the transience of powerful civilizations and "men
of might" (Canto II). Byron’s sic transit gloria mundi theme—from the Latin maxim translated "Thus
passes away the glory of the world"—figures prominently in the remaining cantos of Childe Harold and
in Don Juan. The work repeatedly stresses the rich heritage of poetry and liberty which contemporary
Europe has received from classical Greece. The country’s ancient greatness serves as a standard by
which modern Greeks are measured: "Hereditary bondsmen! know ye not / Who would be free
themselves must strike the blow? / ... / Greece! change thy lords, thy state is still the same; / Thy
glorious day is o’er, but not thine years of shame" (Canto II).

Harold was introduced, Byron wrote in the preface, "for the sake of giving some connexion to the
piece." By labeling Harold "a fictitious character" Byron sought to dissociate himself from his
protagonist, but his readers, noting many and striking similarities, persisted in equating the artist with
his hero. Though he, too, speculated on such a relationship, Walter Scott, reviewing the third canto of
Childe Harold and The Prisoner of Chillon, and Other Poems in the Quarterly Review (October 1816),
recognized that in Harold Byron had created a new and significant Romantic character type which
reappeared in almost all his heroes.

Harold is the first "Byronic Hero." Of complicated ancestry (admirably traced by Peter L. Thorslev,
Jr.), he descends, with inherited traits, from Prometheus, Milton’s Satan, the sentimental heroes found
in Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, hero-villains in Gothic novels by Horace
Walpole and Ann Radcliffe, Friedrich von Schiller’s Karl Moor, and Sir Walter Scott’s Marmion.
Thorslev insists that, as befits their complex genealogy, Byron’s various heroes exhibit not uniformity,
but considerable diversity. To stress their distinctions he classifies Byron’s protagonists under such
rubrics as "Gothic Hero-Villains," "Heroes of Sensibility," and "Noble Outlaws." Among their possible
traits are romantic melancholy, guilt for secret sin, pride, defiance, restlessness, alienation, revenge,
remorse, moodiness, and such noble virtues as honor, altruism, courage, and pure love for a gentle
woman. Their later Byronic incarnations include the heroes of the Eastern tales—the Giaour, Selim,
Conrad, Lara, Alp, and Hugo—as well as Manfred and Cain.

According to Thorslev, Harold in Cantos I and II evidences characteristics of such hero types as the
Gloomy Egoist, meditating on ruins, death, and the vanity of life; the Man of Feeling, concerned with
the suffering caused by war or oppression; and the Gothic Villain, unregenerate or remorseful. Harold
likewise reflects Byron’s occasional melancholy and loneliness. The narrator embodies Byron’s more
usual attractive personality. In Cantos III and IV, the Gothic traits are diminished, and those of the
Gloomy Egoist and the Man of Feeling combine to form the Hero of Sensibility. He, in turn, is
absorbed into the narrator, to produce a sensitive, meditative, melancholy observer-narrator of his
pilgrimage.

The drawing rooms and salons of Whig society vied for Byron’s presence and lionized him. At Holland
House, he met the spirited, impulsive Lady Caroline Lamb, who initially judged him "mad—bad—and
dangerous to know." Their tempestuous affair lasted through the summer, until Byron rejected her; she
continued the pursuit, burned "effigies" of his picture, and transformed their relationship into a Gothic
romance in her novel Glenarvon (1816).

Despite its outcome, his connection with Lady Caroline left him on friendly terms with her mother-in-
law, the witty Elizabeth Milbanke Lamb, Lady Melbourne. Through her, in September, he proposed
marriage to her niece, Anne Isabella (Annabella) Milbanke, as a possible means of escaping the
insistent Caroline. A twenty-year-old bluestocking, Annabella was widely read in literature and
philosophy and showed a talent for mathematics. She declined the proposal in the belief that Byron
would never be "the object of that strong affection" which would make her "happy in domestic life."
With good humor and perhaps relief Byron accepted the refusal; in a letter of 18 October 1812 he
thanked Lady Melbourne for her efforts with his "Princess of Parallelograms." By November he was
conducting an affair with the mature Jane Elizabeth Scott, Lady Oxford, a patroness of the Reform
Movement.

Between June 1813 and February 1816, Byron completed and had published six extremely popular
verse tales, five of them influenced by his travels in Greece and Turkey: The Giaour (June 1813), The
Bride of Abydos (December 1813), The Corsair (February 1814), Lara (August 1814), and The Siege
of Corinth and Parisina (February 1816). Walter Scott had created the market for Romantic narratives
in verse, but Byron outrivaled him with his erotic fare set in exotic climes, to the extent that Scott gave
up the genre in favor of novel writing; Waverley appeared in 1814.

Byron’s Eastern tales received mixed, even contradictory, notices. Critics commended their structure,
phrasing, and versification (Monthly Review, June 1813, January and February 1814; Edinburgh
Review, July 1813, April 1814) and faulted them in these technical areas (Eclectic Review, February
1814; Monthly Review, February 1816); found their characters well delineated (Eclectic Review, April
1814) and too vague, melodramatic, and incredible (Examiner, July 1821); censured their plots as
immoral (Eclectic Review, November 1813, March 1816; British Critic, April 1816) and praised them
as virtuous (Eclectic Review, April and October 1814); judged them inferior to, and ranked them higher
than, Childe Harold (Monthly Review, February 1814; Quarterly Review, July 1814, respectively); and
encouraged Byron to continue the series of narratives (Edinburgh Review, July 1813), only to
complain, when he did so, of their monotony (British Critic, March 1814; Eclectic Review, March
1816).

The Giaour, written in the spring of 1813, rapidly went through eight editions before the end of the
year, and through twelve editions in eighteen months. During July and August Byron made additions to
his "snake of a poem" which lengthened "its rattles every month," from a 407-line sketch to 685 lines in
the first edition to the final 1,334 lines of the seventh edition. In this tale, the Turkish lord Hassan

punishes the infidelity of his wife Leila by drowning her in a sack (Byron had prevented a similar death
at Piraeus in 1810). In revenge, her lover, the Giaour (or non-Moslem), slays Hassan.

The story’s fascination as well as its occasional confusion lies in its sudden shifts in time, place, and
speaker. Many events are presented out of sequence in a series of what Byron termed "disjointed
fragments" ("Advertisement"). Especially striking is his narration of the story from multiple points of
view—those of the poet-traveler, of a Moslem fisherman, of a monk, and of the Giaour himself.
Thorslev identifies the hero as a remorseful and sympathetic Gothic Villain, who experiences no guilt
for killing Hassan but suffers deep anguish for causing Leila’s death.

In June 1813 Byron began an affair with his twenty-nine-year-old half sister, Augusta. Married since
1807 to her spendthrift cousin, Colonel George Leigh, she had three daughters and lived at Six Mile
Bottom, near Cambridge. With his mother’s death in 1811, Augusta became Byron’s sole remaining
close relative, a situation which doubtless increased his sense of identity with her. While no legal proof
exists, the circumstantial evidence in Byron’s letters dating from August 1813 to his horrified
confidante Lady Melbourne strongly suggests an incestuous connection with Augusta.

In the midst of this relationship, Byron received a letter from Annabella Milbanke, who confessed her
mistake in rejecting his proposal and cautiously sought to renew their friendship. Correspondence
ensued. He later wrote Lady Melbourne that Augusta wished him "much to marry—because it was the
only chance of redemption for two persons."

Through poetry he found relief from his involvement with Augusta and from an inconclusive flirtation
in the autumn of 1813 with Lady Frances Wedderburn Webster. In November he wrote Thomas Moore,
"All convulsions end with me in rhyme; and to solace my midnights, I have scribbled another Turkish
Tale." The Bride of Abydos, published by Murray on 2 December, sold six thousand copies in one
month. Zuleika, engaged daughter of the Pasha Giaffir, is also loved by Selim, her supposed half
brother (actually, her cousin), the leader of a pirate band. When they are discovered together, Selim is
shot by Giaffir’s men, and Zuleika dies of a broken heart. For the first time Byron dealt with the theme
of incest, his "perverse passion," as he told Lady Melbourne, to which he would return in such poems
as Parisina, Manfred, and Cain.

To Thorslev, Selim represents another variation on the Byronic hero—the Hero of Sensibility. Like the
Giaour, he is associated with illicit love, violence, and death. But he also enjoys stories and songs,
responds to the beauty in nature, and, out of consideration for Zuleika, refrains from avenging his
father, murdered by Giaffir.

Another burst of poetic creativity overlapped the success of The Bride of Abydos. Between 18 and 31
December Byron produced a third Oriental tale, The Corsair. For the first time he used heroic couplets
for extended romantic narrative rather than for Popean satire. On the day of publication in February
1814 ten thousand copies were sold, "a thing," Murray excitedly assured him, "perfectly
unprecedented." Driven by love, the harem queen Gulnare saves Conrad the Corsair from impalement
by killing her master the Pasha. Fleeing to the pirate’s stronghold, they discover Conrad’s beloved
Medora dead of heartbreak. United by guilt, Conrad and Gulnare disappear.

Conrad’s personality is that of the Gothic Villain. He is "The man of loneliness and mystery" (Canto I),
whose name is "Linked with one virtue, and a thousand crimes" (Canto III). Conrad also embodies
traits of the Noble Outlaw and the Hero of Sensibility. He displays true chivalry in his rescue of the
women in the Pasha’s harem, a deed which causes his defeat and capture (Canto II); in his recoil from

"Gulnare, the homicide" (Canto III); and in his "love—unchangeable—unchanged" for Medora (Canto
I).

On 10 April 1814, amid rumors of the abdication and exile of the emperor Napoléon (which in fact
occurred the next day), Byron wrote and copied Ode to Napoléon Buonaparte. On the sixteenth it was
published anonymously, though the inscription to Hobhouse revealed its parentage. Since Harrow,
Byron had had mixed feelings about Napoléon. He admired the titanic qualities of the brilliant
strategist, dynamic soldier, and statesman, but he was repelled by his brutal conquest of Iberia and his
perversion of liberal ideals. That ambivalence colors the poem. Recalling Napoléon’s military triumphs,
Byron admits "It is enough to grieve the heart, / To see thine own unstrung," but he also denounces his
fallen hero as "a nameless thing," "All Evil Spirit," and "Timor." In the final stanza, Byron celebrates
George Washington as "the first—the last—the best—/ The Cincinnatus of the West, / Whom envy
dared not hate."

On 15 April 1814 Augusta gave birth to a little girl, Elizabeth Medora. When Medora Leigh grew up,
she believed herself to be Byron’s daughter, although Byron never acknowledged the paternity, as he
did for his other illegitimate off-spring, either because of uncertainty or concern for his and Augusta’s
reputations. There is no extant proof on either. On 14 May Byron began a sequel to The Corsair entitled
Lara, the new name of Conrad the pirate. Murray published the work anonymously in August in a
volume with Samuel Rogers’s sentimental tale Jacqueline, but Byron’s authorship was soon known,
and the book sold six thousand copies in three editions. The fourth edition of Lara was a separate
printing. Forsaking the name of Corsair, Lara returned to the feudal castle of his youth, followed by his
page Kaled (Gulnare in disguise). When Lara is suspected of murdering a man who would reveal his
past crimes, he joins a serf uprising and is killed in battle. Kaled, her true identity discovered, goes mad
and dies.

In this melodramatic piece, containing much tortured Byronic self-analysis and self-defense, the action
is shifted away from the Mediterranean locales of the earlier Oriental tales apparently to an inland
region of Spain. A less sympathetic outlaw than Conrad, Lara is proud, scornful, brooding, alienated;
his leadership of the peasants’ revolt makes him a representative of Byron’s liberalism.

Byron spent much of the summer of 1814 with Augusta, while continuing to correspond with
Annabella. In a letter dated 9 September, he made a tentative proposal of marriage; she promptly
accepted it. In marriage Byron hoped to find a rational pattern of living and to reconcile the conflicts
that plagued him. After inauspicious hesitations and postponements, many of his own making, Byron
married Annabella on 2 January 1815 in the parlor of her parents’ home in Seaham; there was no
reception. Halnaby Hall, the Milbankes’ Yorkshire seat forty miles distant, was the site of Lord and
Lady Byron’s three-week "treaclemoon," as the poet called it. Toward his bride the groom was by turns
tender and abusive.

At Halnaby Hall Byron resumed work on the Hebrew Melodies, lyrics for airs Jewish composer Isaac
Nathan was adapting from the music of the synagogue. The project held much personal appeal for the
poet. Throughout his life he was a fervent reader of the Bible and a lover of traditional songs and
legends. As a champion of freedom, he may also have responded instinctively to the oppression long
suffered by the Jewish people. To the "nine or ten" short poems he had already written he now added
several more. He also began Parisina, based on an account in Edward Gibbon of a fifteenth-century
tragedy of incest. In April, after a tempestuous visit with Augusta, Lord and Lady Byron settled in the
Duchess of Devonshire’s London house, at 13 Piccadilly Terrace.

That same month, Isaac Nathan published A Selection of Hebrew Melodies, with Byron’s verses and
Nathan and John Braham’s music. Despite the high price of one guinea for a thin folio, the work sold
ten thousand copies in two editions. In the summer, Murray brought out the poetry separately as
Hebrew Melodies. Despite the title of the volume, some of Byron’s contributions are not at all Hebrew
(or even religious) in theme. Along with verses inspired by the Old Testament are love songs and
reflective pieces, some written before the book’s conception, though in their expressions of sadness,
longing, and desolation, they voice sentiments found in the biblical poems bewailing the lost Jewish
homeland. The work opens with the now-famous lyric, "She Walks in Beauty," written in 1814 after
Byron saw a cousin at a party wearing a dress of mourning with spangles on it. The themes dear to
Byron recur in the lyrics based on scripture. A lament for a homeless race can be heard in such poems
as "The Wild Gazelle" and "Oh! Weep for Those." The battle cry for Jewish nationalism sounds in "On
Jordan’s Banks," "On the Day of the Destruction of Jerusalem by Titus," "By the Rivers of Babylon,"
and, especially, in "The Destruction of Sennacherib" (with its memorable opening simile, "The
Assyrian came down like the wolf on the fold").

Throughout 1815 financial problems and heavy drinking drove Byron into rages and fits of irrational
behavior. When Annabella was in an advanced stage of pregnancy, he made her the scapegoat for his
troubles. On 10 December 1815, she gave birth to Augusta Ada Byron (the first name was later
dropped). Early in the new year, increased money worries forced Byron to suggest that they move from
their expensive Piccadilly Terrace address. Lady Byron and Augusta Ada would precede him to her
family’s estate in Leicestershire, Kirkby Mallory, while he attempted to placate the creditors. Because
of his anger and violent utterances, Lady Byron had concluded that her husband was mentally
deranged; she drew up a list of his symptoms, which she submitted to two doctors. In Don Juan, Donna
Inez, based in part on Annabella, "called some druggists and physicians / And tried to prove her loving
lord was mad" (Canto I). Early in the morning of 15 January 1816, Lady Byron and Augusta Ada left
London by carriage for Kirkby Mallory before Byron had risen. He never saw them again.

In February Murray published The Siege of Corinth and Parisina in a single volume. The anonymous
first edition comprised six thousand copies. The Siege of Corinth, the last of the Eastern tales, recounts,
in often slovenly octosyllabic couplets, the Turks’ bloody attack in 1715 on the Venetian held citadel.
Alp, the poem’s hero, is a renegade from Christian Venice, who, as the proud leader of the besiegers,
seeks revenge on the countrymen who wronged him.

In the companion piece, Azo, Marquis of Este, discovers an incestuous affair between his wife,
Parisina, and his illegitimate son, Hugo, the Byronic hero. Hugo is beheaded, and Parisina is
condemned to an unrevealed fate. In construction, situation, and characterization, the poem is arguably
superior to Byron’s earlier narrative tales. The psychological drama advances without the usual
digressive descriptions and intense self-analysis; passions are realized with poetic eloquence.
Especially compelling in the triangular relationship which gives the work its strength is the tension
between father and son.

From Kirkby Mallory Lady Byron wrote affectionately to her husband in London, urging him to join
her. Her subsequent revelations to her parents about Byron’s threatening speech and cruel behavior
turned them against him. On 2 February her father wrote Byron to propose a quiet separation. Byron
was shocked. Unavailing was his protest, in a letter to his wife on the fifteenth, that he loved his
"dearest Bell ... to the dregs of [his] memory & existence." A week later, Lady Byron probably
confessed to her lawyer her suspicion of incest between Byron and Augusta, adding it to the prior
charges of adultery and cruelty; by the end of the month, the rumors about brother and sister were
widespread. On 17 March the terms for the legal separation were agreed upon.

During the separation crisis, Byron had a casual liaison with Claire (Jane) Clairmont. That she was the
stepdaughter of the philosopher William Godwin and the stepsister of Mary Godwin, with whom Percy
Bysshe Shelley had eloped in 1814, may have induced him to tolerate her determined advances, which
he had no intention of encouraging.

Byron signed the final deed of separation on 21 April, having decided to go abroad with the completion
of this formality. He had bid farewell to Augusta on the fourteenth, Easter Sunday. On his trip he was
accompanied by Fletcher the valet, his personal physician, Dr. John Polidori ("Pollydolly"), Robert
Rushton, and a Swiss servant. He also traveled with a huge coach, copied from one Napoléon captured
at Genappe. On the twenty-fifth they sailed from Dover bound for Ostend. Byron would never see
England again.

The party reached Geneva on 25 May 1816. Byron was unaware that waiting for him were Claire
Clairmont, pregnant with his child, Shelley, and Mary Godwin. A genuine friendship and mutual high
regard flourished between the two poets. They passed the time agreeably by boating on Lake Leman
and conversing at the Villa Diodati, which Byron had rented, with its commanding view of the lake and
the Juras beyond. In this environment Mary wrote Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus, published
in 1818.

In June Byron and Shelley sailed to the fortified Château de Chillon. The story of François Bonivard, a
sixteenth-century Swiss patriot and political prisoner in the château’s dungeon, inspired Byron to
compose one of his most popular poems, The Prisoner of Chillon. The work represents Byron’s finest
verse tale. For the first time he recounts a dramatic story, adapted from fact, about a historical person
(as he would do in such later works as Mazeppa and his historical tragedies). The simplicity and
directness of Bonivard’s dramatic monologue throw into relief the powerful theme of political tyranny.
Bonivard, shackled to a pillar by civil authorities for his religious beliefs, reminds the reader of the
mythological Prometheus, chained to a rock by Zeus for his gift of fire to mortals, both figures
resolutely suffering for their principles and ennobled by their courageous defiance of tyrannical
authority. Bonivard’s incarceration is effectively contrasted with Nature’s liberty as glimpsed through
his barred window. Given his engrossing story, his closing confession startles:

My very chains and I grew friends,

So much a long communion tends

To make us what we are: —even I

Regain’d my freedom with a sigh.

A testament to Byron’s abilities within the narrow compass of a form he disliked, "The Sonnet on
Chillon," preceding the poem proper and treating the same theme, celebrates the "Eternal spirit of the
chainless mind! / Brightest in dungeons, Liberty! thou art."

In Bonivard, Byron created a protagonist free from the traits of the typical "Byronic hero," one who

possessed greater credibility and maturity than his predecessors. The poem, in turn, expresses deeper
human understanding and advances more positive values than earlier works.

On 4 July, three days after returning from his boat tour of Lake Leman, Byron completed the third
canto of Childe Harold, which he had begun in early May in Brussels after a visit to Waterloo. Its
framework is a poetic travelogue based on his journey from Dover to Waterloo, then along the Rhine
and into Switzerland. Having failed to maintain a convincing distinction between himself and his hero
in the previous cantos, Byron drops the pretense and speaks in his own right. Harold becomes a
shadowy presence who disappears in the middle of the canto, absorbed into the narrator. The new
protagonist, a Hero of Sensibility, expresses the melancholy, passion, and alienation of the original
Harold, as well as Byronic liberalism, sensitivity, and meditation. If, occasionally, he irritatingly hints
at sins and sorrows or descends to bathos, Byron also infuses the canto with titanic power and an
elevated style. Because of their many references to lightning, flame, and Prometheus, Cantos III and IV
are called the "fire cantos." In a letter to Moore on 28 January 1817, Byron judged this work "a fine
indistinct piece of poetical desolation, and my favourite."

Four major themes inform the third canto. The invocation in the opening stanza—made not to the Muse
or another classical figure but to Ada, "sole daughter of my house and heart"—sounds the theme of
personal sorrow. The poet-hero is alone, in voluntary exile, "grown aged in this world of woe." "Still
round him clung invisibly a chain / Which gall’d for ever, fettering though unseen, / And heavy though
it clank’d not ...." He remains "Proud though in desolation."

The sight of the field of Waterloo, "this place of skulls, / The grave of France," prompts the second
theme, an analysis of the strengths and flaws of genius in Napoléon and Rousseau. Byron recognized
himself in the characters of both men. Like Napoléon he was "antithetically mixt," "Extreme in all
things," and possessed of "a fire / And motion of the soul" that "Preys upon high adventure." Like "the
self-torturing sophist, wild Rousseau, / The apostle of affliction," he "threw / Enchantment over
passion, and from woe / Wrung overwhelming eloquence."

Rousseau, whose writings helped to kindle the French Revolution, and Napoléon, whose campaigns
doomed the hopes born of that struggle, relate directly to the canto’s theme of war. Byron despised
wars of aggression waged for personal gain while championing as honorable those conflicts that
defended freedom, such as the battles of Marathon and Morat and the French Revolution. Bravura
rhetoric animates the stanzas on Waterloo, from the memorable recreation of the Duchess of
Richmond’s ball in Brussels on the night before the battle, to Byron’s grim evocation of war—a
contemplation of the futility of bravery and of the blood shed in purposeless slaughter.

Inspired by Rousseau’s Lake Leman, the Alpine scenery, and by Shelley’s presentation of
Wordsworthian pantheism, the pilgrim-poet temporarily experiences the thrill of a transcendental
concept of nature, the fourth theme of the canto:

I live not in myself, but I become

Portion of that around me; and to me,

High mountains are a feeling....

.............................

And thus I am absorb’d, and this is life [.]

But Byron’s affinity with reality prevented him from "Spurning the clay-cold bonds which round our
being cling." Nature would provide him with no permanent escape from himself, no remedy for his
suffering.

Near the end he returns to his first theme, of personal sorrow defiantly borne by a Promethean rebel:

I have not loved the world, nor the world me;

I have not flattered its rank breath, nor bow’d

To its idolatries a patient knee [.]

He closes the canto as he began it, with an apostrophe to his daughter, "The child of love."

July 1816 represents a remarkably creative month for Byron. Among other pieces written at this time
appear three notable short poems. "The Dream" concisely traces his emotional development from
idealism to despair in his love for Mary Chaworth; "Darkness" imagines the last days of the
disintegrating universe; "Prometheus" celebrates the triumph of the defiant spirit over torture.

The arrival of Hobhouse at the end of August coincided with the departure of Shelley, Mary, and Claire,
who returned to England with the manuscripts of the third canto of Childe Harold, The Prisoner of
Chillon, and the shorter poems; at Bath on 12 January 1817, Claire gave birth to a daughter Byron
named Clara Allegra, and called by her second name. When a tour of the Bernese Alps with Hobhouse
failed to "lighten the weight" on his heart or enable him to lose his "own wretched identity," Byron
turned, as usual, to poetry to purge his broodings and guilt over the separation, Augusta, and his exile.
The catharsis assumed a form new to him—blank-verse drama. He would write, "not a drama properly
—but a dialogue," set in the high Alps he had recently visited. He rewrote the third act during a trip to
Rome the following May. Manfred, the eponymous protagonist, is essentially Byron, the drama’s
conflict a fusion of the personal and the cosmic, its goal relief.

Count Manfred, tortured by "the strong curse" on his soul for some unutterable, inexpiable, "half-
maddening sin" (II.i), seeks "Forgetfulness—/ ... / Of that which is within me" (I.i). In the first scene,
proud and defiant, he revels in the supremacy of his will over the spirits he raises who are powerless
over the inner self:

The mind, the spirit, the Promethean spark,

The lightning of my being, is as bright,

Pervading, and far-darting as your own,

And shall not yield to yours, though coop’d in clay!

The poetic drama signals Byron’s rejection of the Wordsworthian belief in the benevolence of Nature.
In act I, scene 2, Manfred on the Jungfrau finds no solace among the crags, torrents, and pines.
Beautiful and glorious, Nature is also destructive, sending avalanches crashing down "on things which
still would live; / On the young flourishing forest, or the hut / And hamlet of the harmless villager."

A passing eagle underscores the Romantic quandary—that the putative "sovereigns" of Nature are
"Half dust, half deity, alike unfit / To sink or soar." Frustrated by the limitations mortality imposes on
his soaring aspirations, Manfred starts to leap from the cliff, only to be saved by a chamois hunter.

In the underworld of Arimanes, spirit of evil, to whom he will not kneel, Manfred seeks out the
phantom Astarte, object of his tragic, seemingly incestuous, love, but for him she has no words of
endearment or forgiveness, only the prophecy of his death the next day (II.iv).

As a "metaphysical" poem, in Byron’s term, Manfred has as its theme defiant humanism, represented
by the hero’s refusal to bow to supernatural authority, and by his insistence on the independence and
self-sufficiency of the human mind. Unable to find consolation for his guilt in this world or in the
supernatural, Manfred does not know what to do at first. With its Miltonic echoes, his great speech to
the fiends near the end of the play contains the answer he has discovered:

What I have done is done; I bear within

A torture which could nothing gain from thine:

The mind which is immortal makes itself

Requital for its good or evil thoughts—

Is its own origin of ill and end—

And its own place and time ... [.]

As an abbot witnesses his stoic demise, Manfred explains: "Old man! ‘tis not so difficult to die." The
unconquerable individual to the end, Manfred gives his soul to neither heaven nor hell, only to death.

As Thorslev notes, Manfred conceals behind a Gothic exterior the tender heart of the Hero of
Sensibility; but as a rebel, like Satan, Cain, and Prometheus, he embodies Romantic self-assertion. In
Manfred Byron voiced his most profound opinions to date on the aspirations and fate of the human
creature. His title character recognizes the mind’s boundaries but also its Promethean invincibility and
integrity.

After four months in Switzerland, Byron, accompanied by Hobhouse, lumbered in the Napoléonic
coach toward Italy in October 1816. Following a sojourn in Milan, they reached Venice the next month.
The watery city enchanted Byron with its canals, gondolas, and palaces, becoming "the greenest island

of my imagination." For now, he felt that he had written himself out. He began an affair with Marianna
Segati, his landlord’s wife, attended the conversazione of Countess Isabella Teotochi Albrizzi, the
center of Venetian literary-social life, and studied Armenian at the Armenian monastery on the island of
San Lazzaro near the Lido.

Murray published Childe Harold, Canto III, on 18 November, and The Prisoner of Chillon, and Other
Poems on 5 December. Within a week of publication, seven thousand copies of each volume had been
sold. Reviewing these works in the December 1816 number of the Edinburgh Review, Jeffrey
proclaimed that "in force of diction, and inextinguishable energy of sentiment," Byron took
"precedence of all his distinguished contemporaries," Scott, Campbell, Crabbe, and Moore.

Byron set out in mid April 1817 to join Hobhouse in Rome. In Ferrara, his visit to the cell where the
sixteenth-century poet Torquato Tasso had been confined for madness inspired an impassioned
dramatic monologue, The Lament of Tasso. Byron identified with this "eagle-spirit of a Child of Song"
who, through "Long years of outrage, calumny, and wrong," "found resource" in "the innate force" of
his own spirit. Byron was "delighted" with the Eternal City, which he reached at the end of the month.

On 16 June Murray published Manfred, fearful of public reaction to its unorthodox speculations and
overtones of unnatural love. To Jeffrey (Edinburgh Review, August 1817), the work suffered from "the
uniformity of its terror and solemnity" as well as from its "painful and offensive" theme of incest.
Despite these flaws, he said, Manfred remained "undoubtedly a work of genius and originality," its
"obscurity" and "darkness" serving only "to increase its majesty, to stimulate our curiosity, and to
impress us with deeper awe." Writing in 1817, Goethe considered the poem "a wonderful phenomenon"
(London Magazine, May 1820).

Byron settled in mid June at the Villa Foscarini at La Mira on the Brenta, seven miles from Venice.
Here, he began to distill his memories of Rome into poetry. Composing rapidly, he had completed the
first draft for 126 stanzas of Childe Harold, Canto IV, by mid July, but he revised and expanded the
manuscript for the rest of the year.

Continuing the pilgrimage format of the earlier cantos, the framework for this longest of the sections is
a spirited Italian journey from Venice through Arqua (where Byron had seen the house and tomb of
Petrarch) and Ferrara (city of Tasso and Ludovico Ariosto) to Florence and on to Rome, the setting for
half of the canto.

In the prefatory letter to Hobhouse, who provided historical annotations and to whom the poem is
dedicated, Byron addressed directly the matter of the hero-narrator. In this canto would be found "less
of the pilgrim than in any of the preceding, and that little slightly, if at all, separated from the author
speaking in his own person." Byron had "become weary of drawing a line which every one seemed
determined not to perceive." A Hero of Sensibility, the pilgrim-narrator of Canto IV focuses sharply on
the contrast between the transience of mighty empires, exemplified by Venice and Rome, and the
transcendence of great art over human limitations, change, and death. An elegiac tone evoked by
"Fall’n states and buried greatness" suffuses the verses. "A ruin amidst ruins," the pilgrim-narrator
digresses easily from scenes of shattered columns and broken arches to considerations of his own
sufferings and of war and liberty. Throughout, Nature is valued, not for any Wordsworthian pantheism,
but for its intrinsic beauty.

The principal theme is immediately established. The days of Venice’s glory are no more, "but Beauty
still is here. / ... Nature doth not die." Literature, too, is permanent and beneficial:

The beings of the mind are not of clay;

Essentially immortal, they create

And multiply in us a brighter ray

And more beloved existence...[.]

The "mighty shadows" of William Shakespeare’s Shylock and Othello and of Thomas Otway’s Pierre
repeople the Rialto and, unlike the bridge, "can not be swept or worn away." Transcendent also is
sculpture—"poetic marble ... array’d / With an eternal glory"—as shown by the Venus de’ Medici, the
Laocoön, and the Apollo Belvedere. Architecture particularly demonstrates this transcendence. There is
"A spirit’s feeling," "a power / And magic" in such structures as the Colosseum seen by moonlight (also
described in Manfred, III. iv); the "sublime" Pantheon, and St. Peter’s Basilica.

The sic transit gloria mundi theme in Childe Harold finds its finest Byronic expression in this canto,
which traces through their history and ruins the "dying Glory" of Venice and, especially, the fall of
Rome. Inviting the reader to plod with him "O’er steps of broken thrones and temples," the pilgrim-
narrator is careful to point out that "A world is at our feet as fragile as our clay," leading to the
inevitable ending: "‘tis thus the mighty falls."

His delineation of the dictators of ancient Rome prompts him to consider anew tyranny and liberty in
his own time. He brands Napoléon as "The fool of false dominion—and a kind / Of bastard Caesar,"
praises George Washington and the "undefiled" origins of the United States, and blames "vile
Ambition" for the failure of the French Revolution. Yet Freedom’s banner still flies, and in Freedom’s
tree the sap still flows—"So shall a better spring less bitter fruit bring forth."

The fourth canto, begun with a view of a prison, ends at the edge of a free ocean. The poet is heartened:

There is a pleasure in the pathless woods,

There is a rapture on the lonely shore,

There is society, where none intrudes,

By the deep Sea, and music in its roar:

I love not Man the less, but Nature more [.]

"To mingle with the Universe" becomes a substitute for the Wordsworthian transcendental leap. In his
famous apostrophe to the ocean, beginning "Roll on, thou deep and dark blue ocean—roll!," Byron
contrasts its permanence, power, and freedom with vanished civilizations: "Thy shores are empires,
changed in all save thee—/ Assyria, Greece, Rome, Carthage, what are they?" The ocean remains,
"Dark-heaving;—boundless, endless, and sublime—/ The image of Eternity...."

Melancholy colors the farewell; Byron knew that the Childe Harold theme had "died into an echo." As
William J. Calvert writes, "The fourth canto is Byron’s final, complete break with the past.... He is from
now on committed to truth and reason." Life in Venice had lifted his spirits. Before he finished this
canto, he had begun the spritely Beppo, with which he returned to satire and prepared the way for Don
Juan.

Late summer 1817 marks a significant development in Byron’s literary career. On 29 August he heard
about the return of a supposedly deceased husband to his Venetian wife; she had meanwhile taken an
amoroso, and then had to choose her husband, her lover, or solitary life on a pension. At this time,
serendipitously, he happened to see John Hookham Frere’s Whistlecraft (1817), a mock-heroic satire in
ottava rima modeled on the Italian burlesque manner of Luigi Pulci, Francesco Berni, and Abate
Giambattista Casti. The demanding rhyme scheme of ottava rima—a b a b a c c—encourages comic
rhymes. Its couplet allows the stanza to end with a witty punch line, with a reversal in tone from high to
low, or with a clever rhyme to surprise the reader. The seriocomic mood, colloquial style, and
digressions of ottava rima, no less than his fondness for couplets in his Popean satires, attracted Byron
to this verse form as the medium for his witty version of the story of Venetian customs and light
morals. By 10 October he had finished Beppo. His new poem, he assured Murray on 25 March 1818,
would show the public that he could "write cheerfully, & repel the charge of monotony & mannerism."

The story Byron tells is slight. Beppo, a Venetian merchant, returns home during Carnival after years of
Turkish captivity, to discover that his wife, Laura, has taken a count for her lover. After the three
pleasantly discuss the amatory triangle, the husband and wife reunite, and Beppo befriends the count.
Filling out the slender narrative are the poet’s digressions and pointed commentaries. In his asides he
particularly contrasts climate, language, attitudes, and customs in Italy and England, to the detriment of
the latter; his homeland receives ironic praise. He especially prefers the relaxed moral code of Italy, as
illustrated by his heroine Laura who, having "waited long, and wept a little, / And thought of wearing
weeds, as well she might" for her missing Beppo, finally "thought it prudent to connect her / With a
vice-husband, chiefly to protect her."

In its gaiety, verve, and absence of rhetoric, Beppo signaled a break with Byron’s earlier, darker works.
Banished is the soul-ravaged hero with his pride and pessimism, replaced by the poet-narrator—
conversational, digressive, witty, observant, cynical. The poem’s seriocomic manner and idiom reflect
with greater clarity and honesty the facets of Byron’s mind and emotions as well as his view of the
world: satiric, urbane, cosmopolitan, self-deprecating. Though inconsequential, Byron’s first attempt at
the Italian "medley poem" allowed him to experiment with the style most congenial to his spirit and
best suited to his talents. In this fresh, realistic voice he would create his comic masterpiece Don Juan.

Murray published Beppo, A Venetian Story, without Byron’s name on the title page, on 28 February
1818, to immediate success. The Monthly Review (March 1818) found Byron’s "satire, though at times
a little tinged with vulgarity, ... usually good-humoured and often well pointed." In the Edinburgh
Review (February 1818), Jeffrey commended "the matchless facility" with which the "unknown writer"
"cast into regular, and even difficult versification ... the most light, familiar, and ordinary
conversations." The author’s "digressions and dissertations"—the bulk of the poem—formed its "most
lively and interesting part." Jeffrey even suggested that the anonymous poet had "caught a spark from
the ardent genius of Byron."

On 28 April 1818 Murray brought out Childe Harold, Canto IV; the five printings of the first edition
comprise ten thousand copies. In the Quarterly Review (April 1818) Scott judged that the last part of

"this great poem ... sustained Lord Byron’s high reputation," though it possessed less passion and more
"deep thought and sentiment" than the earlier cantos.

Early in June Byron moved into the Palazzo Mocenigo, his spacious residence overlooking the Grand
Canal (whose length he swam), within sight of the Rialto Bridge. Living with him was his daughter
Allegra (brought to Venice by the Shelley party in April), whom he had agreed to support and educate.
Here, too, he lodged his fourteen servants, a menagerie, and a veritable harem. His housekeeper was
the passionate Margarita Cogni (called "La Fornarina" as she was a baker’s wife), Byron’s latest
inamorata.

In a letter to Murray dated 10 July 1818, he mentioned that he had completed an ode on Venice, and
that he had "two stories—one serious & one ludicrous (a la Beppo) not yet finished—& in no hurry to
be so." The "serious" poem was Mazeppa, a Cossack verse tale of illicit love and a wild horseback ride.
The "ludicrous" work was the lengthy first canto of his comic epic Don Juan, pronounced, for the sake
of the humor, to rhyme with "new one" and “true one.” In this opening canto, the sixteen-year-old Juan
has a first love affair with a married woman and then is sent by his mother on an extended European
tour. Over the next five years Byron added fifteen more cantos to the poem, leaving a seventeenth
unfinished at his death. In November he sent Murray the canto along with Mazeppa (published in June
1819 with "Ode on Venice"), and soon was at work on Canto II, an account of Juan’s sea voyage,
shipwreck, and rescue by Haidée. Hobhouse and other friends in England praised the poetry and satire
in Don Juan, Canto I, but voiced alarm at its indecencies and attacks on religion, writers, and Lady
Byron (in the character of Donna Inez, Juan’s "mathematical" mother). They urged that the manuscript
be suppressed. Murray was willing, and eager, to publish the piece, especially if some of the
"indelicacies" were omitted. But Byron would have none of his "damned cutting and slashing"; the
poem would succeed or fail on its own merits.

Byron, exhausted by debauchery, cut and slashed in his personal life, getting rid of "La Fornarina" and
his harem. In early April 1819 at the Benzoni conversazione, he encountered the Countess Teresa
Guiccioli, whom he had met casually on his thirtieth birthday at the Countess Albrizzi’s. Now nineteen,
she had been married for just over a year to a rich count of fifty-eight. A strong mutual attraction
quickly developed between Byron and Teresa. Having given up "miscellaneous harlotry," he settled for
"strictest adultery" as cavalier servente to Teresa, his "last attachment." For the next four years, until his
departure for Greece in July 1823, they lived in several Italian cities and towns—Venice, La Mira,
Ravenna, Filetto, Pisa, and Genoa—as dictated by her husband, by her health and desires, and, after her
separation from her husband in July 1820, by her father.

In June, in Ravenna, the site of the Palazzo Guiccioli and Dante’s tomb, Byron wrote at Teresa’s
request The Prophecy of Dante, in the terza rima of the Commedia. In Byron’s poem the exiled
Florentine poet—with whom Byron, for personal and literary reasons, was sympathetic—laments the
political factions of his day, champions Italian nationalism, and urges his nineteenth-century
countrymen to unite against the oppressor. Since the Congress of Vienna (1815), Austria had been an
overlord in part of Italy. Byron had had his first view of Austrian tyranny in Milan, where his
associations brought him under the surveillance of the Austrian secret police.

On 15 July 1819, Murray, after some hesitation, cautiously published the first two cantos of Don Juan
in an expensive quarto format of fifteen hundred copies. Missing were Byron’s savage "Dedication" to
the poet laureate Robert Southey (first published in The Works of Lord Byron, 1832) and the names of
the author and publisher on the title page; only the printer, Thomas Davison, was identified, as required
by English law. By tacitly admitting, through anonymous publication, that Don Juan was disreputable,

Murray intensified the outcry against the work. The critics hit back with a fury virtually unprecedented,
vilifying both poet and poem. Typical was the review in Blackwood’s Magazine (August 1819), which
branded Byron as "a cool unconcerned fiend" who derided love, honor, patriotism, and religion in his
"filthy and impious poem"; the "coldblooded mockery" of his injured wife was "brutally, fiendishly,
inexpiably mean." Not all the notices were negative. In a pseudonymous Letter to the Right Hon. Lord
Byron (1821), "John Bull" (John Gibson Lockhart) encouraged him to "Stick to Don Juan: it is the only
sincere thing you have ever written; ... it is by far the most spirited, the most straightforward, the most
interesting, and the most poetical." In a German review written in 1819 but not published until 1821,
Goethe praised Don Juan as "a work of boundless energy."

Byron’s serious poems and Childe Harold had given but limited voice to his complex personality; his
comic masterpiece Don Juan permitted him full expression. It is at once a satire on his age, a
picaresque novel in poetry, and arguably the greatest verse epic in English since Paradise Lost.

The dazzling range of subjects, incidents, and moods in his "versified Aurora Borealis" (Canto VII),
and its geographical sweep, no less than its genre, justify his claim that "My poem’s epic" (Canto I). the
stanzas teem with Byronic observations on liberty, tyranny, war, love, hypocrisy, cant, and much more.
The landscape stretches from Juan’s native Spain across the Mediterranean to the Greek Cyclades, up
to Constantinople and on to Russia, with a digression to Kentucky, before stopping in England. Byron’s
literary models include the classical epics of Homer and Virgil and the Renaissance Italian epics of
Ariosto and Tasso. He drew, too, on satiric prose romances as written by Françis Rabelais, Miguel de
Cervantes, Jonathan Swift, and Laurence Sterne, and on the picaresque novels of Henry Fielding. He
humorously claims that his poem will adhere to epic conventions, all arranged "With strict regard to
Aristotle’s rules" (Canto I), but, in fact, he writes a modern epic, indebted to the older forms but not in
thrall to them.

In a "slight difference" from his "epic brethern," Byron does not make Don Juan a "labyrinth of fables"
but a story that is "actually true" (Canto I), based, as he told Murray, almost entirely on "real life—
either my own—or from people I knew." He told Marguerite, Lady Blessington, that he always wrote
best when "truth" inspired him. The Juan-Julia affair is derived from events in an acquaintance’s
boyhood; the architecture of Norman Abbey owes much to Newstead Abbey; and the narrator’s
digressive thoughts and opinions are Byron’s. For the sake of accuracy he also referred to source books
for particulars in such episodes as the shipwreck and the siege of Ismail.

Related to Byron’s insistence on truth is his "mobility," which he defined in a note to Canto XVI,
stanza 97, as "an excessive susceptibility of immediate impressions—at the same time without losing
the past." Byron himself, like his character Lady Adeline Amundeville, was "strongly acted on by what
is nearest," for all he saw and experienced seemed to imprint itself on his memory and to reappear later,
often little changed, in his writings.

For the discursive, digressive manner of Don Juan, Byron returned to the versatile ottava rima he had
first used in Beppo , ideally suited to the conversational style of the "Improvisatore" (Canto XV). The
rapidity of the stanza facilitates the poem’s myriad changing tones—serious, cynical, sentimental,
humorous, satiric, bawdy—as the verse shifts from narrative to commentary, from romance to
burlesque, from banter to invective.

"I want a hero," Byron declares in the poem’s opening line, but finding that the modern age does not
provide a "true one," he will "therefore take our ancient friend Don Juan." The anglicized pronunciation
of the name, as dictated by the rhyme, signals the first of several significant Byronic alterations in the

figure familiar from works by Tirso de Molina, Molière, and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Lorenzo
Da Ponte. Whereas the legendary Juan is a libertine and a heartless despoiler of women, deserving of
his eternal perdition, Byron’s young don is friendly, innately good, courteous, impulsive, and sensuous
—more the seduced than the seducer. He experiences shipwreck, slavery, war, dissipation, and illness
in his travels, gaining worldly wisdom and discretion as he goes. Though he gradually becomes gaté
and blasé in the process, the Juan of Canto XVI retains his good qualities from Canto I.

In Don Juan Byron successfully dissociates himself from his title character, as he had sought in vain to
do in Childe Harold. The poem’s structure contributes to the separation of creator and creation. Juan’s
picaresque adventures occupy one level; on a second occasionally exists Byron the narrator, behind the
partial persona of friend of Juan’s family; on a third level, superintending all, Byron, in his own voice,
digresses at will on favorite subjects.

A dual time scheme lengthens the distance between Juan and Byron. The hero lives in the 1790s, Byron
as narrator-digressor in the 1820s. These ages are juxtaposed in the "English Cantos," which place Juan
in the aristocratic society of Byron’s native land. In the "Ubi sunt" stanzas (Canto XI, stanzas 76-84),
Byron looks back over the period of his exile, wondering "Where is the world of eight years past?" In
Canto I Byron is concerned that at thirty he has gray hair; in the meditation on middle age that opens
Canto XII, he laments that he is thirty-five. If Juan preserves essentially the same nature throughout the
poem, the poet obviously changes and ages.

For many critics, the pervading theme of Don Juan is Nature versus Civilization, which allows Byron
to realize his serious purpose for the poem, as explained to Murray in a letter on Christmas Day 1822:
to satirize "abuses of the present states of Society." His depictions of contrasting types of love
repeatedly reveal the larger theme. In Canto I he presents both the loveless marriage of Donna Julia and
Don Alfonso, and Juan’s sentimental, comic initiation into love by Julia. Beside these examples drawn
from Civilization he sets the idyll of Juan and Haidée in their island Eden (Cantos II-IV), which
Lambro, symbolizing Eastern society, destroys, along with his daughter, Haidée, "Nature’s bride"
(Canto II), and her unborn child by Juan (Canto IV.) He exposes the English commercial marriage,
which conceals sexuality behind hypocritical convention, and juxtaposes the frustrated passion of Lady
Adeline Amundeville and the amorality of "her frolic Grace," the Duchess of Fitz-Fulke, with the
ingenuousness and purity of Aurora Raby.

Byron reserves his most graphic illustration of the grand theme for his denunciation of the brutality and
futility of wars of conquest, represented by the Russo-Turkish War, in which Juan participates (Cantos
VII-VIII). In Canto VIII, in the midst of the siege of Ismail, Byron digresses for seven stanzas to praise
Daniel Boone, "back-woodsman of Kentucky," and his "sylvan tribe of children of the chace": "Simple
they were, not savage; and their rifles, / Though very true, were not yet used for trifles." Abruptly
Byron ends this scene with an ironic transition:

So much for Nature:—by way of variety,

Now back to thy great joys, Civilization!

And the sweet consequence of large society,

War, Pestilence, the despot’s desolation,

The kingly scourge, the Lust of Notoriety,

The millions slain by soldiers for their ration[.]

War, tyranny, and the pretense and corruption in society are the major butts of Byron’s satire in Don
Juan . Even as he assails political and social constraints on human freedom, he writes an inherently
positive poem. As Paul G. Trueblood notes, Don Juan exalts "the indestructibility of the human spirit,
the creative power of human love, and the supreme importance of personal and national liberty." As an
epic-satire on all obstructions to that liberty, Don Juan represents "the flowering of Byron’s essentially
satiric genius."

At La Mira with Teresa and Allegra in September 1819 Byron proceeded with the third canto of Don
Juan. To Moore, his visitor in October, he presented the manuscript of his memoirs, begun in Venice the
previous year and not to be published during Byron’s lifetime. They were intended to be "Memoranda
—and not Confessions," containing, among other things, "a detailed account" of his marriage and its
"consequences." Moore sold them to Murray; on 17 May 1824, three days after news of Byron’s death
reached England, Hobhouse and Murray, over Moore’s objections, had the memoirs burned in Murray’s
parlor to protect Byron’s reputation from his indiscretions.

In February 1820, while in residence at the Palazzo Guiccioli, Byron sent Murray, along with other
works, the third and fourth cantos of Don Juan, depicting the love between Juan and Haidée, her tragic
death, and his captivity on a ship bound for the slave market at Constantinople.

Byron’s life and writing in 1820-1821 evidenced a shared political theme. Influenced by Teresa’s
father, Count Ruggero Gamba Ghiselli, and his son, Count Pietro Gamba, both ardent patriots, he
began to take a serious interest in the Carbonari, one of the secret revolutionary societies seeking to
overthrow Austrian despotism. In time Byron became an honorary Capo (Chief) of a workmen’s group
of the Carbonari; he supplied them with arms and made his house their arsenal. The Austrian secret
police increased their observation of Byron’s activities and opened his mail. Uncertain about the future
of Don Juan, he expended a portion of his creative energy on a trio of historical tragedies based on
political subjects and modeled on neoclassical principles. These blank-verse plays were, he maintained,
closet dramas, not designed for the stage. Marino Faliero, which he began in April and finished in July
1820, concerns the doge of Venice beheaded in 1355 for plotting with the oppressed plebeians to
overthrow the oligarchical Republic; Faliero—like Byron, an aristocrat—hates tyranny but, in a
reflection of Byron’s dilemma, must ally himself with the mob and oppose noble friends in the cause of
liberty. Sardanapalus (written January-May 1821) recounts the final hours of the quasi-historical last
king of Assyria, a benevolent voluptuary who scorns the lust for power and forcefully indicts war;
spurred to military action only by a plot to depose him, he avoids capture through self-immolation. In
The Two Foscari (written June and July 1821), a sense of duty compels a fifteenth-century doge to
sentence his son to torture and perpetual exile for crimes against the state; his daughter-in-law, Marina,
is the voice of rebellion that cannot be intimidated into silence.

From his patronage of the theater and his year (1815-1816) on the Subcommittee of Management at
Drury Lane, Byron was acutely aware of the rant, Gothic melodramas, child-tragedians, and
performing animals that increasingly dominated the English stage and dimmed its luster. To reform the
drama, Byron in his history plays observed classical principles, finding his models in works by ancient
Greek, neoclassical French, and contemporary Italian playwrights, particularly Vittorio Alfieri.
Whenever possible, Byron observed the unities of time, place, and action.

On 28 December 1820 Byron forwarded to England the fifth canto of Don Juan retailing Juan’s
adventures, en travesti as a harem girl, with the love-starved sultana, Gulbeyez. Moore received
additional pages of Byron’s memoirs. In mid February he sent a fifty-five page Letter to **** *****
[John Murray] on the Rev. W. L. Bowles’ Strictures on the Life and Writings of Pope, refuting Bowles’s
attack on his idol.

In April 1821 Murray published in a single volume Marino Faliero and The Prophecy of Dante. The
critics thought the drama failed as play and poem. To Jeffrey, The Prophecy of Dante suffered from
obscurities in diction and undigested subject matter (Edinburgh Review, July 1821). Without Byron’s
permission, Marino Faliero was given seven performances at Drury Lane in April and May 1821, the
only one of his plays acted in his lifetime. Adaptations of Sardanapalus and Werner (1823) enjoyed
great success on the nineteenth-century stage.

With the completion of The Two Foscari in July, Byron began work on Cain, A Mystery, its subtitle an
allusion to the medieval dramas on biblical themes and, he told Moore, "in honour of what it probably
will remain to the reader." Grounding his play in the Old Testament and eighteenth-century rationalism,
Byron challenged accepted religious beliefs in good, evil, death, and immortality.

Adam and Eve inhabit a postlapsarian world with their sons, Cain and Abel; daughters, Adah (Cain’s
twin) and Zillah; and grandchild, Enoch, the son of Cain and Adah. In act 1, scene 1, Cain appears as
the first skeptic and a Romantic rebel, a blend of the rational and the Promethean, defiantly, even
blasphemously questioning his parents’ views of God’s goodness and justice.

Lucifer, too, is Promethean, championing humanity against an authoritarian and arbitrary God. The
underlying philosophy is Manichaean, based on the belief that two equal and irreconcilable forces
divide the rule of the universe: good (light, God, intellect) and evil (darkness, Satan, flesh). In making
Lucifer a rival of God, Byron reverses the associations, allying Lucifer with good, and God, the
"Omnipotent Tyrant," with all manner of evil—war, death, disease, pangs, and bitterness.

In act 3, scene 1, when God violently rejects his offering of fruit but accepts with gratitude Abel’s
animal sacrifice, Cain takes a Promethean stand for life, denouncing the death principle behind God’s
tyrannical "pleasure" in "The fumes of scorching flesh and smoking blood. “With tragic irony Cain
then sheds his brother’s blood in the human world’s first death. Remorseful and repentant, he goes into
exile accompanied by Adah and Enoch, without railing against an unjust God.

Cain was the product of Byron’s contemplation, in January 1821, of a drama on "a metaphysical
subject, something in the style of Manfred." Manfred’s complaint that man is "half dust, half deity"
assumed that escape from the dust into bodiless spirit would result in happiness. But Cain’s journey
through the "Abyss of Space" (II.i) and Hades (II.ii) in search of knowledge suggests that supernatural
beings might not be happy either: "sorrow seems / Half of his [Lucifer’s] immortality" (I.i). Cain learns
that he anticipates his own immortality by "suffering," and that "torture" is destined to be immortal
(II.i). All that remains is a sort of desperate stoicism based on his unconquerable will and his
acceptance of the futility of aspiration.

In publishing Don Juan, Cantos III, IV, and V, in August 1821, Murray still refused to attach his name
to the poem, though he had it printed in an octavo edition of 1500 copies, which gave it a wider
circulation among the middle-class reading public. To Shelley, "every word" of the fifth canto was
"pregnant with immortality." In another key the reviewer for the British Critic (September 1821)

denounced the poem, "begotten" and "spawned in filth and darkness," as an "obscure and ditch-
delivered foundling," whose father, though well known, forbore "to give it the full title of avowed
legitimacy."

In September, amid the confusion of packing for his move to Pisa, Byron took up a poem he had begun
in May and immediately set aside. On 4 October, he completed one of his greatest works, The Vision of
Judgment, a satiric riposte to Robert Southey’s A Vision of Judgment, which had appeared in April.
This solemn, sycophantic eulogy in limping hexameters commemorates the death, burial, and supposed
apotheosis of King George III. In his preface, chiefly concerning the poem’s metrics, Southey
virulently attacked Byron (without naming him) as the leader of the "Satanic school" of contemporary
writers, whose works mocked religion, represented "loathsome images of atrocities and horrors" and
exhibited "a Satanic spirit of pride and audacious impiety."

In his "true dream" or vision, Byron, under the pseudonym "Quevedo Redivivus," trains his telescope
on "the celestial gate" to espy the truth about George III’s arrival there for judgment. He discovers that,
during the mayhem caused by Southey’s reading from his Vision of Judgment, the decrepit king simply
"slipped into Heaven." Byron’s hatred of oppression finds a worthy target in George III, whom Satan
indicts as a warmonger and a symbol of tyranny in England, America, and Europe. Byron also directs
his despite at Southey’s poetry and politics: "He had written much blank verse, and blanker prose, /
And more of both than any body knows." A political apostate, Southey began as an exponent of
revolutionary views in Wat Tyler (written in 1795 but unpublished until 1817) only to become a voice
of conservative reaction: this "hearty antijacobin" had "turned his coat—and would have turned his
skin."

First published in the first number of The Liberal (15 October 1821), The Vision of Judgment is
distinguished from Byron’s other satires by its unity of structure and compactness of expression. A
single significant target is attacked with a specific satiric purpose and without excessive digression. The
fact that Byron leaves George III in heaven "practising the hundredth psalm" indicates that his satire
was aimed less at the mad king than at toady Southey. Byron’s biographer Leslie A. Marchand regards
The Vision of Judgment as "the masterpiece of his whole writing career" and "the rarest distillation of
his satiric genius."

Byron based Heaven and Earth, the "Mystery" he began in October, on Genesis 6:1-2, which records
that the "sons of God" (to Byron, angels) took as wives "the daughters of men" (women descended
from Cain, who were condemned to destruction in the Flood). Through Japhet, the elect but troubled
son of Noah, Byron questions the doctrine of predestination, which had disturbed him all his life. As in
Cain, this drama asks why evil exists, since Jehovah is good. Aholibamah, one of the women,
articulates the familiar Byronic theme of human aspiration for celestial existence free from the
limitations of the body: "where is the impiety of loving / Celestial natures?" (I.i).

The blank-verse evocations of the natural beauty of the earth and the defiant addresses to Jehovah
impress by their power and majesty. The work was printed in the second number of The Liberal (1
January 1823). A projected second part to the drama was never written.

In Pisa, which he reached in November, Byron was drawn into a delightful circle of friends that
included Percy and Mary Shelley, Edward and Jane Williams, and Shelley’s cousin Thomas Medwin.
They were joined in mid January by the flamboyant adventurer Edward John Trelawny.

On 19 December Murray published Sardanapalus, The Two Foscari, and Cain in a single volume (6,099

copies). In a letter of 26 January 1822, Shelley proclaimed Cain "apocalyptic—it is a revelation not
before communicated to man." His was a minority opinion. Byron wrote Moore that "the parsons
[were] all preaching at it from Kentish Town and Oxford to Pisa." To John Gibson Lockhart
(Blackwood’s Magazine, January 1822), Cain was "a wicked and blasphemous performance." To the
Gentleman’s Magazine (supplement to 1821), the play was "neither more nor less than a series of
wanton libels upon the Supreme Being and His attributes." Few critics embraced Sardanapalus and
fewer still The Two Foscari.

Byron had placed his daughter Allegra in a convent school in Bagnacavallo in March 1821; on 20 April
1822 she died there at the age of five, after a brief illness. Following Byron’s instructions, she was
buried in Harrow Church.

In July, the poet, critic, and editor Leigh Hunt accepted Shelley’s year-old invitation, extended in
Byron’s name, to come to Pisa with his family to help edit a new literary journal. Despite Shelley’s
drowning death in July, plans went forward to start The Liberal. Verse and Prose from the South, to be
published in London by Hunt’s brother, John. Byron contributed to each of its four issues (published in
1822 and 1823).

He was also proceeding rapidly with Don Juan. After the erotic seraglio scenes in the sixth canto, he
began to exhibit a new gravity. His satire on war and its false glory fills Cantos VII and VIII, on the
siege of Ismail (with its panegyric digression on Daniel Boone in VIII, stanzas 61-66). Canto IX sends
Juan with news of Ismail to Empress Catherine the Great of Russia.

In late September, the remnants of the Pisan Circle relocated to Genoa. Within a week of his arrival,
Byron had completed the tenth canto of Don Juan, which carries the hero to England, and started the
eleventh, with its satire on the shallowness and hypocrisy of the English aristocracy.

The first number of The Liberal appeared in mid October, leading with Byron’s Vision of Judgment.
Though published under a pseudonym and without the explanatory preface, the satire was immediately
recognized as Byron’s and deplored as slanderous, seditious, and impious. John Hunt was prosecuted
for libeling the late king; he remained the publisher of The Liberal but turned printing duties over to the
less radical printer C. H. Reynell.

Murray found Don Juan, Cantos VI, VII, and VIII "so outrageously shocking" that he refused to
publish them. Byron responded by withdrawing from Murray and turning to John Hunt as his publisher.
He analyzed the Englishwoman in the twelfth canto, completed by December 1822. Then, between
December and January 1823 he composed a slashing satire, The Age of Bronze (published by John
Hunt in 1823). As the title suggests, Byron voices disillusionment with the modern era, his targets
being both political and economic. He aims his scornful heroic couplets at the reactionary Congress of
Verona (November 1822), which had assembled to make Europe less free, and at "uncountry
gentlemen" who profited during the Napoleonic Wars. A long passage contains his final thinking on
Napoléon, who had died in 1821; the poet bemoans the what-might-have-been for this Promethean
figure: "A single step into the right had made / This man the Washington of worlds betrayed." The
evergreen theme of freedom fills the sixth section, with its hopes for liberation in Spain, the New
World, and Greece.

In January 1823, in the midst of his satire, he reverted briefly to his earlier manner—the verse
narrative. The Island; or, Christian and His Comrades is compounded from Captain William Bligh’s
Narrative of the Mutiny on ... [the] Bounty (1790) and the popular Romantic theme of the Noble

Savage, depicted in the idyll of Neuha, "the gentle savage of the wild," and Torquil, "The fair-hair’d
offspring of the Hebrides." Three editions, totaling three thousand copies, were published by John Hunt
in 1823.

In the summer of 1823 he told his guest "the most gorgeous" Marguerite, Countess of Blessington, that
"he who is only a poet has done little for mankind"; he would therefore "endeavour to prove in his own
person that a poet may be a soldier." To this end he devoted himself to the Greek War of Independence
from the Turks, begun in March 1821. In May he was elected to the London Greek Committee, recently
formed to aid the struggling insurgents. After a reluctant farewell to Teresa, he made good on his offer
of personal assistance to the patriots by sailing from Genoa on 16 July, bound for Leghorn and Greece.
He was accompanied by Pietro Gamba, Trelawny, and a considerable sum of money and medical
supplies for the Greek cause; he also packed gold and scarlet uniforms and heroic helmets for their
landing on Greek shores. On 3 August they reached the island of Cephalonia, then under British
protection. Byron did not immediately commit himself to any faction, preferring to wait for signs of
unity in the Greek effort. Intent on the war, he gave no time to poetry, adding nothing to the fourteen
stanzas of Don Juan, Canto XVII, he had started in Genoa.

Unknown to him, John Hunt published Don Juan, Cantos VI.—VII.—and VIII. in July. In Blackwood’s
Magazine (July 1823), "Timothy Tickler" (William Maginn) attacked them as "mere filth" for abusing
chastity, matrimony, monarchy, and lawful government. In the September number of Blackwood’s
"Odoherty" (John Gibson Lockhart) maintained that Cantos IX, X, and XI (published in August) were,
"without exception, the first of Lord Byron’s works," containing the finest specimens of his serious
poetry and of contemporary "ludicrous poetry"; Don Juan was "destined to hold a permanent rank" in
British literature. The Literary Gazette (6 December 1823) found the "sportive satirical vein" of Cantos
XII, XIII, and XIV (published that month) "very entertaining."

In November Byron agreed to loan four thousand pounds to the Greek fleet for its activation. In
January 1824 he joined the moderate leader Prince Alexander Mavrokordátos on the mainland in
swampy Missolonghi. Wearing his red military uniform, Byron was enthusiastically welcomed by
shouts, salutes, and salvos, and hailed as a "Messiah." On the eve of his birthday, he turned once more
to poetry to express his inner feelings on his life and the principles of freedom; the ten stanzas of "On
This Day I Complete My Thirty-Sixth Year" constitute one of his last poems. Over the next three and
one-half months, all occasions—military, political, physical, climatic, and amorous—seemed to
conspire against him: his leadership of a planned attack on the Turkish stronghold at Lepanto was
postponed for lack of soldiers; factions still prevented a unified war effort; his constitution, weakened
by years of dieting to combat congenital portliness, deteriorated under the constant strain and the cold
winter rains in Missolonghi; the emotional frustration of his unrequited love for his handsome fifteen-
year-old page boy, Loukas Chalandritsanos, seems to have inspired his final poem (posthumously titled
and published as "Love and Death") which concludes, "Nor can I blame thee, though it be my lot / To
strongly, wrongly, vainly love thee still." Despite uncertainty and reverses, he continued to commit
money and energy to Mavrokordátos and the Greek cause.

In March 1824, John and H. L. Hunt published the last complete sections of Don Juan, Cantos XV and
XVI. The Literary Gazette (3 April 1824) pronounced them "destitute of the least glimmering of talent"
and a "wretched" "piece of stuff altogether."

On 9 April, having been soaked by a heavy rain while out riding, Byron suffered fever and rheumatic
pains. By the twelfth he was seriously ill. Repeated bleedings, which he initially resisted, further
debilitated him. On Easter Sunday, he entered a comatose state. At six o’clock on the evening of Easter

Monday, 19 April 1824, during a violent electrical storm, Byron died.

In memorial services throughout the country, he was proclaimed a national hero of Greece. His death
proved effective in uniting Greece against the enemy and in eliciting support for its struggle from all
parts of the civilized world. In October 1827 British, French, and Russian forces destroyed the Turkish
and Egyptian fleets at Navarino, assuring Greek independence, which was acknowledged by the sultan
in 1829.

Byron’s body arrived in England on 29 June, and for two days lay in state in a house in Great George
Street, London. On Friday, 16 July 1824, Lord Byron was buried in the family vault beneath the
chancel of Hucknall Torkard Church near Newstead Abbey.

The fame to which Byron awoke in London in 1812 was spread rapidly throughout Europe and the
English-speaking world by scores of translations and editions. He was delighted to see his merits
argued in a Java gazette in 1814 and gratified some years later to find himself described as "the
favourite poet of the Americans." His influence was pervasive and prolonged. Alfred de Musset was his
disciple in France, Aleksandr Pushkin in Russia, Heinrich Heine in Germany, Adam Mickiewicz in
Poland. His poetry inspired musical compositions by Hector Berlioz, Robert Schumann, and Pyotr
Ilyich Tchaikovsky; operas by Gaetano Donizetti and Giuseppe Verdi; and paintings by J. M. W.
Turner, John Martin, Ford Madox Brown, and Eugène Delacroix. His spirit animated liberal
revolutionary movements: most of the officers executed following the unsuccessful 1825 Decembrist
uprising in Russia were Byronists; the Italian patriot Giuseppe Mazzini associated Byron with the
eternal struggle of the oppressed to be free. Shelley, Heine, and others adopted Byron’s open-necked
shirt, which he wears in Thomas Phillips’s striking 1814 painting.

Philosophically and stylistically, Byron stands apart from the other major Romantics. He was the least
insular, the most cosmopolitan of them. Poetic imagination was not for him, as for them, the medium of
revelation of ultimate truth. He wished that Coleridge would "explain his Explanation" of his thought
(Dedication to Don Juan). He did not embrace for long Wordsworth’s belief in the benevolence of
nature, espouse Shelley’s faith in human perfectibility, or experience Keats’s private vision. Yet, as
Leslie A. Marchand observes, "The core of his thinking and the basis of his poetry is romantic
aspiration," and he evidences a "romantic zest for life and experience." In narrative skill, Byron has no
superior in English poetry, save Geoffrey Chaucer; as Ronald Bottrall notes, Byron, like his illustrious
predecessor, could "sum up a society and an era." His subjects are fundamental ones: life and death,
growth and decay, humankind and nature. His "apotheosis of the commonplace" is, to Edward E.
Bostetter, "one of his great contributions to the language of poetry." Lacking the inhibitions of his
contemporaries, Byron created verse that is exuberant, spontaneous, expansive, digressive, concrete,
lucid, colloquial—in celebration of "unadorned reality."

"I was born for opposition," Byron proclaimed in Don Juan, Canto XV. The outstanding elements of his
poetry both support his self-analysis and insure his enduring reputation. As a major political and social
satirist, he starts, in the Classical and Augustan manner, with a fixed standard of judgment, then, in
either seriocomic or savage tones, repeatedly denounces war, tyranny, and hypocrisy. As an untiring
champion of liberty, he firmly believed that "Revolution / Alone can save the earth from hell’s
pollution"“(Don Juan, Canto VIII), a tenet he defended with his life.

The last word properly belongs to Byron, who perceptively captured his essence in Canto IV of Childe
Harold:

But I have lived, and have not lived in vain:

My mind may lose its force, my blood its fire,

And my frame perish even in conquering pain,

But there is that within me which shall tire

Torture and Time, and breathe when I expire [.]