shimyereh reblogged
Charles Ricketts - Don Juan challenging the Commander (1928)
shimyereh reblogged
DON JUAN by Lord Byron. (London/ New York: John Lane Bodley Head/Dodd Mead, 1927) Illustrated by John Austen
Birthday Anniversary: George Gordon Lord Byron, January 22, 1788
The poet George Gordon Lord Byron was born on this day in 1788. Today we share Byron’s epic work of satire, Don Juan. This edition of the poem was published in 1926 by John Lane the Bodley Head and reprinted in 1927. It contains more than 90 illustrations and decorations by English book illustrator John Austen.
In the poem, Lord Byron satirizes types of stories, elements of society, and even his fellow writers. Byron sends Don Juan through all sorts of trials: affairs with married women, kidnapping by pirates, wars, more affairs, foreign lands, royal courts, and more affairs. Despite its allegedly immoral content, Don Juan was immensely popular and remains one of Lord Byron’s most well known works.
From Canto III of Byron’s Don Juan:
LXXXVII. Thus sung, or would, or could, or should have sung, The modern Greek, in tolerable verse; If not like Orpheus quite, when Greece was young, Yet in these times he might have done much worse: His strain displayed some feeling — right or wrong; And feeling, in a poet, is the source Of others’ feeling; but they are such liars, And take all colours — like the hands of dyers.
LXXXVIII. But words are things, and a small drop of ink, Falling like dew, upon a thought, produces That which makes thousands, perhaps millions, think; ‘Tis strange, the shortest letter which man uses Instead of speech, may form a lasting link Of ages; to what straits old Time reduces Frail man, when paper — even a rag like this, Survives himself, his tomb, and all that’s his!
LXXXIX. And when his bones are dust, his grave a blank, His station, generation, even his nation, Become a thing, or nothing, save to rank In chronological commemoration, Some dull MS. Oblivion long has sank, Or graven stone found in a barrack’s station In digging the foundation of a closet, May turn his name up, as a rare deposit.
XC. And Glory long has made the sages smile; ‘Tis something, nothing, words, illusion, wind — Depending more upon the historian’s style Than on the name a person leaves behind: Troy owes to Homer what whist owes to Hoyle: The present century was growing blind To the great Marlborough’s skill in giving knocks, Until his late Life by Archdeacon Coxe.
XCI. Milton’s the Prince of poets — so we say; A little heavy, but no less divine: An independent being in his day — Learned, pious, temperate in love and wine; But, his life falling into Johnson’s way, We’re told this great High Priest of all the Nine Was whipped at college — a harsh sire — odd spouse, For the first Mrs. Milton left his house.
XCII. All these are, certes, entertaining facts, Like Shakespeare’s stealing deer, Lord Bacon’s bribes; Like Titus’ youth, and Cæsar’s earliest acts; Like Burns (whom Doctor Currie well describes); Like Cromwell’s pranks; — but although Truth exacts These amiable descriptions from the scribes, As most essential to their Hero’s story, They do not much contribute to his glory.
I’ve been noticing so many nautical metaphors in Don Juan, that I’ve started actively tracking them. (Byron lived a lot of his life near the sea, and traveled a lot by ship; it’s not surprising this would be a significant feature of his mental landscape.) Here are some of my favorites so far:
2/IV. Well — well; the World must turn upon its axis, And all Mankind turn with it, heads or tails, And live and die, make love and pay our taxes, And as the veering wind shifts, shift our sails; The King commands us, and the Doctor quacks us, The Priest instructs, and so our life exhales, A little breath, love, wine, ambition, fame, Fighting, devotion, dust, — perhaps a name.
4/CVI. Yet there will still be bards: though Fame is smoke, Its fumes are frankincense to human thought; And the unquiet feelings, which first woke Song in the world, will seek what then they sought; As on the beach the waves at last are broke, Thus to their extreme verge the passions brought Dash into poetry, which is but Passion, Or, at least, was so ere it grew a fashion.
5/CLIX. Thus far our chronicle; and now we pause, Though not for want of matter; but ‘tis time, According to the ancient epic laws, To slacken sail, and anchor with our rhyme. Let this fifth canto meet with due applause, The sixth shall have a touch of the sublime; Meanwhile, as Homer sometimes sleeps, perhaps You’ll pardon to my muse a few short naps.
6/CVIII. Her face declined and was unseen; her hair Fell in long tresses like the weeping willow, Sweeping the marble underneath her chair, Or rather sofa (for it was all pillow, A low, soft ottoman), and black Despair Stirred up and down her bosom like a billow, Which rushes to some shore whose shingles check Its farther course, but must receive its wreck.
10/IV. In the wind’s eye I have sailed, and sail; but for The stars, I own my telescope is dim; But at the least I have shunned the common shore, And leaving land far out of sight, would skim The Ocean of Eternity: the roar Of breakers has not daunted my slight, trim, But still sea-worthy skiff; and she may float Where ships have foundered, as doth many a boat.
15/XCIX. Between two worlds Life hovers like a star, ‘Twixt Night and Morn, upon the horizon’s verge. How little do we know that which we are! How less what we may be! The eternal surge Of Time and Tide rolls on, and bears afar Our bubbles; as the old burst, new emerge, Lashed from the foam of ages; while the graves Of Empires heave but like some passing waves.
***
BONUS: This extended shipwreck metaphor from one of my favorite parts of Childe Harold (the Tomb of Metella sequence, 4/XCIX-CVI):
4/CIV. […] Yet could I seat me by this ivied stone Till I had bodied forth the heated mind Forms from the floating wreck which Ruin leaves behind:
4/CV. And from the planks, far shattered o’er the rocks, Built me a little bark of hope, once more To battle with the Ocean and the shocks Of the loud breakers, and the ceaseless roar Which rushes on the solitary shore Where all lies foundered that was ever dear: But could I gather from the wave-worn store Enough for my rude boat, where should I steer? There woos no home, nor hope, nor life, save what is here.
shimyereh reblogged
I just saw Suvorov’s name transliterated three different ways on the same page. All of which are different from the way I’m accustomed to transliterating it, haha.
Byron spells it “Suwarrow” within stanza 5/XV. In a footnote to that same line, E. H. Coleridge spells it “Suwarof” — and then quotes a passage from an 1814 book titled The Life of Field-Marshal Souvarof. (To be fair, that last one looks like it passed through French.) Looking ahead at Canto VII, when Juan ends up involved in the Siege of Izmail and the Field-Marshal himself makes an appearance, I see Byron also occasionally uses the spelling “Souvaroff”.
Four more transliterations spotted in the footnotes to Canto VII: Suvóroff, Suwaroff, Souvorow, Souwarow. Come on, now, this is getting ridiculous.
That last one (Souwarow) shows up in material quoted from a book which seems to have been Byron’s main source of information on the Siege of Izmail: Essai sur l’Histoire ancienne et moderne de la Nouvelle Russie (Essay on the ancient and modern history of Novorossiya), by the Marquis Gabriel de Castelnau.
Maybe Byron’s own preferred “Suwarrow” is a (deliberate?) mutation of Castelnau’s French transliteration “Souwarow”, for rhymes. Over the course of Canto VII, Byron manages to rhyme “Suwarrow” with: “marrow”, “harrow”, “to-morrow”, and “sorrow”. In 7/XXXIX, he switches to “Souvaroff” to rhyme with “lover of”. In 7/LI, he uses “Souvaroff” mid-line, and then “Suwaroff” in a footnote to this same stanza. Meanwhile, our friendly editor E. H. Coleridge seems to have changed his mind since the last cantos, and now has a preference for “Suvóroff” in his footnotes.
#byron#don juan#oh dear god he also rhymed 'Nikolaiew' (Nikolayev) with 'you' and 'to' (7/LXVI)#I had to stop and stare at that one for a while — really? really??#I wonder how much of this is on purpose to be silly#and how much of it is Byron knowing very little about Russian#it's very much in the same spirit as what he does to the Spanish names in Canto I
My favorite opening line so far is that flippant “Hail, Muse! et cetera.” at the top of Canto III. Perfectly captures the tone.
Second place is probably the opening of Canto IV: “Nothing so difficult as a beginning / In poesy, unless perhaps the end…”
#byron#don juan#Cantos II and IV are my favorites so far#the shipwreck! the romance! the dream sequences! the confrontation!#that random interlude with the Italian opera singers on the pirate ship!#but there are also some passages in Canto V that I keep coming back to#like the death of the military commandant (5/XXXIII-XXXIX)#and Juan's conversation with the Englishman (5/XIII-XXV)#(love reading that part aloud and doing different voices for them)#I will be very sad if Byron kills off John Johnson at Izmail
I’m fascinated by the element of translation in Don Juan.
Sometimes Byron will casually translate part of a foreign text and weave it into his poem. The coolest example of this I’ve seen so far is stanza 3/CVIII, where the first 6 lines are a translation of two tercets from Dante’s Divine Comedy (Purgatory, first two tercets of Canto VIII), but into the rhyme scheme of the first 6 lines of an ottava, and then Byron finishes with his own ending couplet.
3/CVIII. Soft Hour! which wakes the wish and melts the heart Of those who sail the seas, on the first day When they from their sweet friends are torn apart; Or fills with love the pilgrim on his way As the far bell of Vesper makes him start, Seeming to weep the dying day’s decay; Is this a fancy which our reason scorns? Ah! surely Nothing ends but Something mourns!
from:
Era già l’ora che volge il disio Ai navicanti e ‘ntenerisce il core Lo dì c’ han detto ai dolci amici addio;
E che lo novo peregrin d’amore Punge, se ode squilla di lontano Che paia il giorno pianger che si more…
I also love this stanza in Canto I, where he quotes Horace and then immediately translates him… with a twist:
1/CCXII. “Non ego hoc ferrem calida juventâ 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.
*[I would not have endured this in [my] hot youth, when Plancus was Consul.]
Then there are the places where he translates various prose source materials into poetry, to add details from outside his personal experience: the shipwreck in Canto II, the festivities in Canto III, the Siege of Izmail in Cantos VII and VIII… It’s so interesting to look at the source texts in parallel and see what he pulled from them, and how he adapted it.
#byron#don juan#E. H. Coleridge's footnotes are very good#they make navigating this space much much easier#SO COOL to see examples of this kind of metaliterary adaptation of other texts into poetry#bc I have some similar instincts I've been exploring over the past few yrs#I am definitely learning things here!
Finished Canto VI of Don Juan tonight, and one of my biggest impressions was that this canto felt particularly metaphor-dense, just metaphor after metaphor in rapid succession. Byron even calls himself out for this at one point, after an amusingly frantic and varied clustering of attempts at describing a sleeping harem girl: “My similes are gathered in a heap, / So pick and choose…” (6/LXVIII). (I thought the most interesting of those images was “the snow minaret on an Alpine steep” — what a fascinating blend of Switzerland and Turkey!)
And then there’s this one, where he gets carried away and has to correct himself mid-metaphor:
6/XXXIII. […] …As I said, this goodly row Of ladies of all countries at the will Of one good man, with stately march and slow, Like water-lilies floating down a rill — Or rather lake — for rills do not run slowly, — Paced on most maiden-like and melancholy.
I kept thinking of Ogden Nash’s poem “Very like a whale”:
…No, no, Lord Byron, before I'll believe that this Assyrian was actually like a wolf I must have some kind of proof;
Did he run on all fours and did he have a hairy tail and a big red mouth and big white teeth and did he say Woof Woof?
Frankly I think it is very unlikely, and all you were entitled to say, at the very most,
Was that the Assyrian cohorts came down like a lot of Assyrian cohorts about to destroy the Hebrew host.
But that wasn't fancy enough for Lord Byron, oh dear me no, he had to invent a lot of figures of speech and then interpolate them,
With the result that whenever you mention Old Testament soldiers to people they say Oh yes, they're the ones that a lot of wolves dressed up in gold and purple ate them…
shimyereh reblogged
Birthday Anniversary: George Gordon Lord Byron, January 22, 1788
The poet George Gordon Lord Byron was born on this day in 1788. Today we share Byron’s epic work of satire, Don Juan. This edition of the poem was published in 1926 by John Lane the Bodley Head and reprinted in 1927. It contains more than 90 illustrations and decorations by English book illustrator John Austen.
In the poem, Lord Byron satirizes types of stories, elements of society, and even his fellow writers. Byron sends Don Juan through all sorts of trials: affairs with married women, kidnapping by pirates, wars, more affairs, foreign lands, royal courts, and more affairs. Despite its allegedly immoral content, Don Juan was immensely popular and remains one of Lord Byron’s most well known works.
Byron, in a letter to Douglas Kinnaird (Oct. 26, 1819):
As to ‘Don Juan’ — confess — confess — you dog — and be candid — that it is the sublime of that there sort of writing — it may be bawdy — but is it not good English? — it may be profligate — but is it not life, is it not the thing?
I spotted some creative and haunting extensions of the metaphor FLESH IS CLAY in the last two cantos I read of Don Juan, and I can’t stop thinking about them.
First, from the final idyllic moments of Juan and Haidée’s romance (before they’re suddenly and tragically interrupted by her pirate father and his henchmen):
4/XI. The Heart — which may be broken: happy they! Thrice fortunate! who of that fragile mould, The precious porcelain of human clay, Break with the first fall: they can ne’er behold The long year linked with heavy day on day, And all which must be borne, and never told; While Life’s strange principle will often lie Deepest in those who long the most to die.
A canto later, a captive Juan breaks down in tears before the sultana Gulbeyaz, who is not used to being refused, or having to deal with other people’s emotions.
5/CXXXVII. […] For she felt humbled — and humiliation Is sometimes good for people in her station.
5/CXXXVIII. It teaches them that they are flesh and blood, It also gently hints to them that others, Although of clay, are yet not quite of mud; That urns and pipkins are but fragile brothers, And works of the same pottery, bad or good, Though not all born of the same sires and mothers; It teaches — Heaven knows only what it teaches, But sometimes it may mend, and often reaches.
In both of these, Byron plays with the implications of specifying particular types of clay (“precious porcelain”, “not quite mud”), and the application of forming clay into pottery. Thinking about this reminded me of a recurring motif in the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, of animate winecups, and mortal clay being constantly repurposed and recycled into other things. Here’s one of my favorite passages in that vein — from the Avery and Heath-Stubbs translation (1979), because that’s what I have on hand:
69. I passed by a potter the day before last, He was ceaselessly plying his skill with the clay, And, what the blind do not see, I could — My father’s clay in every potter’s hand.
70. Stop, potter, if you have any sense, How long will you debase man’s clay? You have put Feridun’s finger and Kaikhosrau’s hand On the wheel — what do you think you’re doing?
71. I watched a potter in his work-place, Saw the master, his foot on the wheel’s treddle; Unabashed, he was making a jug’s lid and handle From a king’s head and a beggar’s hand.
Byron probably wasn’t familiar with the Rubaiyat; looks like the first English translation came out almost 40 years after his death. I wonder what he would have thought of it, though.
I just saw Suvorov’s name transliterated three different ways on the same page. All of which are different from the way I’m accustomed to transliterating it, haha.
Byron spells it “Suwarrow” within stanza 5/XV. In a footnote to that same line, E. H. Coleridge spells it “Suwarof” — and then quotes a passage from an 1814 book titled The Life of Field-Marshal Souvarof. (To be fair, that last one looks like it passed through French.) Looking ahead at Canto VII, when Juan ends up involved in the Siege of Izmail and the Field-Marshal himself makes an appearance, I see Byron also occasionally uses the spelling “Souvaroff”.
#byron#don juan#I guess transliteration systems weren't as well-established back then#(I've seen Byron's name transliterated into Cyrillic a few diff. ways by his Russian contemporaries)#but 'Suwarrow' feels particularly wacky to me#he probably did it for the rhymes ('sorrow' 'tomorrow' etc.)#this is the same guy who rhymes 'Juan' with 'new one' right in the Very First Stanza
shimyereh reblogged
It’s worth noting that, as he continued working with Onegin and pondered how to get him into a quarrel with Lensky, Pushkin was intensely preoccupied with the duel, to which that quarrel must inevitably lead. In this preoccupation, there may well have been some secret foreboding. On the other hand, it also reflects Byron’s influence over him. He was afraid the writer of Don Juan would beat him to the punch and put a duel in his own poem. Pushkin feverishly and uneasily awaited the appearance of each new canto, seeking confirmation or disproval of his fear. He would say that after Byron, nobody would dare set up two opponents to fight. Finally convinced that there was no duel in Don Juan, he prepared two pistols and gave them that very day to his pair of enemies, who had yesterday been a pair of friends. The poet’s efforts were not in vain. The duel in his poem is a tableau of highest artistic quality; Lensky’s death and everything the poet says about it, some of Pushkin’s best and most moving verse.
—P. A. Vyazemsky, “Mickiewicz on Pushkin” [1873]
Not a duel within the story, per se, but I did notice this:
4/XL. “Young man, your sword;” so Lambro once more said: Juan replied, “Not while this arm is free.” The old man’s cheek grew pale, but not with dread, And drawing from his belt a pistol he Replied, “Your blood be then on your own head.” Then looked close at the flint, as if to see ‘Twas fresh — for he had lately used the lock — And next proceeded quietly to cock.
4/XLI. It has a strange quick jar upon the ear, That cocking of a pistol, when you know A moment more will bring the sight to bear Upon your person, twelve yards off, or so; A gentlemanly distance, not too near, If you have got a former friend for foe; But after being fired at once or twice, The ear becomes more Irish, and less nice.
I continue to be very curious about Byron’s duels. So far, I’ve seen a reference in Medwin’s Conversations to two duels as principal (one with Hobhouse) as of 1821-2, and some commentary directly from Byron himself in letters from 1809-10 about a narrowly-averted duel with an officer in Malta.
#byron#don juan#pushkin#eugene onegin#vyazemsky#shimyereh translates#I am tickled by that phrase 'gentlemanly distance'#used that exact phrase myself in translating 6/XXXIII of 'Onegin'#(one of the very 1st stanzas I translated and *long* before I'd read much of anything from Byron)#amusing coincidence! maybe future readers will think I did it on purpose to echo this stanza of 'Don Juan'
Four cantos in now (35% by pagecount), and this might just be one of the best things I have ever read. What an incredible mix of silly and sublime.
3/LXXXVIII. But words are things, and a small drop of ink, Falling like dew, upon a thought, produces That which makes thousands, perhaps millions, think; ‘Tis strange, the shortest letter which man uses Instead of speech, may form a lasting link Of ages; to what straits old Time reduces Frail man, when paper — even a rag like this, Survives himself, his tomb, and all that’s his!
[Byron, Don Juan]
This description of Haidée’s “piratical papa” in Canto III of Don Juan:
3/XIV. Let not his mode of raising cash seem strange, Although he fleeced the flags of every nation, For into a Prime Minister but change His title, and ‘tis nothing but taxation; But he, more modest, took an humbler range Of Life, and in an honester vocation Pursued o’er the high seas his watery journey, And merely practised as a sea-attorney.
…reminds me of the Pirate King’s song from The Pirates of Penzance:
When I sally forth to seek my prey I help myself in a royal way. I sink a few more ships, it’s true, Than a well-bred monarch ought to do; But many a king on a first-class throne, If he wants to call his crown his own, Must manage somehow to get through More dirty work than ever I do.