George Gordon Lord Byron (1788-1824)
Don Juan: Canto the Fourth
(excerpt)
LXXIV
585But let me change this theme, which grows too sad,
586 And lay this sheet of sorrows on the shelf;
587I don't much like describing people mad,
588 For fear of seeming rather touch'd myself--
589Besides, I've no more on this head to add;
590 And as my Muse is a capricious elf,
591We'll put about, and try another tack
592With Juan, left half-kill'd some stanzas back.
LXXV
593Wounded and fetter'd, "cabin'd, cribb'd, confin'd,"
594 Some days and nights elaps'd before that he
595Could altogether call the past to mind;
596 And when he did, he found himself at sea
597Sailing six knots an hour before the wind;
598 The shores of Ilion lay beneath their lee--
599Another time he might have lik'd to see 'em,
600But now was not much pleas'd with Cape Sigeum.
LXXVI
601There, on the green and village-cotted hill, is
602 (Flank'd by the Hellespont, and by the sea)
603Entomb'd the bravest of the brave, Achilles;
604 They say so--(Bryant says the contrary):
605And further downward, tall and towering still, is
606 The tumulus--of whom? Heaven knows! 't may be
607Patroclus, Ajax, or Protesilaus;
608All heroes, who if living still would slay us.
LXXVII
609High barrows, without marble, or a name,
610 A vast, untill'd and mountain-skirted plain
611And Ida in the distance, still the same,
612 And old Scamander (if 'tis he) remain;
613The situation seems still form'd for fame--
614 A hundred thousand men might fight again.
615With ease; but where I sought for Ilion's walls,
616The quiet sheep feeds, and the tortoise crawls:
LXXVIII
617Troops of untended horses; here and there
618 Some little hamlets, with new names uncouth;
619Some shepherds (unlike Paris) led to stare
620 A moment at the European youth
621Whom to the spot their school-boy feelings bear;
622 A Turk, with beads in hand, and pipe in mouth,
623Extremely taken with his own religion,
624Are what I found there--but the devil a Phrygian.
LXXIX
625Don Juan, here permitted to emerge
626 From his dull cabin, found himself a slave;
627Forlorn, and gazing on the deep blue surge,
628 O'ershadow'd there by many a hero's grave;
629Weak still with loss of blood, he scarce could urge
630 A few brief questions; and the answers gave
631No very satisfactory information
632About his past or present situation.
LXXX
633He saw some fellow captives, who appear'd
634 To be Italians, as they were in fact;
635From them, at least, their destiny he heard,
636 Which was an odd one; a troop going to act
637In Sicily--all singers, duly rear'd
638 In their vocation, had not been attack'd
639In sailing from Livorno by the pirate,
640But sold by the impresario at no high rate.
LXXXI
641By one of these, the buffo of the party,
642 Juan was told about their curious case;
643For although destin'd to the Turkish mart, he
644 Still kept his spirits up--at least his face;
645The little fellow really look'd quite hearty,
646 And bore him with some gaiety and grace,
647Showing a much more reconcil'd demeanour,
648Than did the prima donna and the tenor.
LXXXII
649In a few words he told their hapless story,
650 Saying, "Our Machiavelian impresario,
651Making a signal off some promontory,
652 Hail'd a strange brig; Corpo di Caio Mario!
653We were transferr'd on board her in a hurry,
654 Without a single scudo of salario;
655But if the Sultan has a taste for song,
656We will revive our fortunes before long.
LXXXIII
657"The prima donna, though a little old,
658 And haggard with a dissipated life,
659And subject, when the house is thin, to cold,
660 Has some good notes; and then the tenor's wife,
661With no great voice, is pleasing to behold;
662 Last carnival she made a deal of strife,
663By carrying off Count Cesare Cicogna
664From an old Roman Princess at Bologna.
LXXXIV
665"And then there are the dancers; there's the Nini,
666 With more than one profession gains by all;
667Then there's that laughing slut the Pelegrini,
668 She, too, was fortunate last Carnival,
669And made at least five hundred good zecchini,
670 But spends so fast, she has not now a paul;
671And then there's the Grotesca--such a dancer!
672Where men have souls or bodies she must answer.
LXXXV
673"As for the figuranti, they are like
674 The rest of all that tribe; with here and there
675A pretty person, which perhaps may strike,
676 The rest are hardly fitted for a fair;
677There's one, though tall and stiffer than a pike,
678 Yet has a sentimental kind of air
679Which might go far, but she don't dance with vigour,
680The more's the pity, with her face, and figure.
LXXXVI
681"As for the men, they are a middling set;
682 The musico is but a crack'd old basin,
683But, being qualified in one way yet,
684 May the seraglio do to set his face in,
685And as a servant some preferment get;
686 His singing I no further trust can place in:
687From all the Pope makes yearly 'twould perplex
688To find three perfect pipes of the third sex.
LXXXVII
689"The tenor's voice is spoilt by affectation;
690 And for the bass, the beast can only bellow;
691In fact, he had no singing education,
692 An ignorant, noteless, timeless, tuneless fellow;
693But being the prima donna's near relation,
694 Who swore his voice was very rich and mellow,
695They hir'd him, though to hear him you'd believe
696An ass was practising recitative.
LXXXVIII
697" `Twould not become myself to dwell upon
698 My own merits, and though young--I see, Sir--you
699Have got a travell'd air, which speaks you one
700 To whom the opera is by no means new:
701You've heard of Raucocanti?--I'm the man;
702 The time may come when you may hear me too;
703You was not last year at the fair of Lugo,
704But next, when I'm engag'd to sing there--do go.
LXXXIX
705"Our baritone I almost had forgot,
706 A pretty lad, but bursting with conceit;
707With graceful action, science not a jot,
708 A voice of no great compass, and not sweet,
709He always is complaining of his lot,
710 Forsooth, scarce fit for ballads in the street;
711In lover's parts his passion more to breathe,
712Having no heart to show, he shows his teeth."
XC
713Here Raucocanti's eloquent recital
714 Was interrupted by the pirate crew,
715Who came at stated moments to invite all
716 The captives back to their sad berths; each threw
717A rueful glance upon the waves (which bright all
718 From the blue skies deriv'd a double blue,
719Dancing all free and happy in the sun),
720And then went down the hatchway one by one.
Notes
585] Haidée's pirate-father has returned. Juan is captured and stowed in a slave-ship. Haidée, separated from her wounded lover, goes mad and dies. Stanza lxxiv begins at this point.
"cabin'd, cribb'd, confin'd": see Macbeth, III, iv, 24.
593 ff.] Ilion, ...: The ship approaches the Dardenelles (Hellespont) from the Aegean and, south-east of the entrance, passes Cape Sigeum (Janissary) near the site of Homer's Troy (Ilion). Mount Ida, where Paris (whose abduction of Helen precipitated the Trojan war) was brought up, is visible in the background; the river Scamander flows northward past the site. Byron writes to Henry Drury on May 3, 1810: "The only vestige of Troy, or her destroyers, are the barrows supposed to contain carcasses of Achilles, Antilochus, Ajax, etc.,--but Mount Ida is still in high feather, though the shepherds are now-a-days not much like Ganymede."
604] Bryant: Jacob Bryant, author of a Dissertation confirming the War of Troy ..., which denied not only the siege but even the existence of Troy.
624] Phrygian: native of ancient Phrygia, in which Troy was located.
641] buffo: comic singer (usually bass) in Italian opera buffa.
652] Corpo di Caio Mario: an unlikely oath. Gaius Marius was a Roman general and consul of the first century B.C.
673] figuranti: the corps de ballet (not solo dancers).
688] pipes of the third sex: male sopranos (eunuchs).
Online text copyright © 2009, Ian Lancashire (the Department of English) and the University of Toronto.
Published by the Web Development Group, Information Technology Services, University of Toronto Libraries.
Original text: Byron, Works. 17 vols. London: John Murray, 1832-33. PR 4351 M6 1832 ROBA
First publication date:
9
August
1821
Publication date note: published anonymously
RPO poem editor: M. T. Wilson
RP edition: 3RP 2.519.
Recent editing: 2:2002/1/10
Composition date:
1819
-
1820
Rhyme: abababcc
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