Identities in Byron's Don Juan
--Byron, Narrator and Juan--
Itsuyo HIGASHINAKA
In the Preface to Don Juan, first printed by R. E. Prothero in 1901,
Byron says, "the following epic narrative is told by a Spanish gentleman
in a village in the Sierra Morena on the road between Monasterio and
(1)
Seville", and furthermore, requests the reader to suppose that 'the storyteller' is "either an Englishman settled in Spain---or a Spaniard who had
(2)
travelled in England-perhaps one of the Liberals". Byron also mentions
two foreign travellers who have just arrived at this village, one of whom
is present at the story· telling, whom we suspect to be his friend, John
Cam Hobhouse; and the other, mesmerized by the movements of one of
the peasant girls, does seem to be no other person than Byron himself.
Apparently Byron is not the story-teller at this stage. He and Hobhouse
were, as is well·known, travelling in Spain in 1809.
Presumably their
travelling together furnished the material for this setting in Spain.
It is worth noting the fact that Byron's preface to Don Juan is a
parody of the note Wordsworth attached to his The Thorn.
This is
evident from Byron's critique of this poem. Byron quotes from the note
appended to The Thorn as follows: "the courteous Reader is desired to
extend his usual courtesy so far as to suppose that the narrative is
narrated by 'the Captain of a Merchantman or small trading vessel lately
retired upon a small annuity to some inland town-&c. &c'. I quote from
memory but conceive the above to be the sense ... of the note or preface
(3)
to be the aforesaid poem-as far as it is a poem".
Byron follows this
example and says in his own preface that Wordsworth "degraded Pope"
by such lines in The Thorn as "I measure it from side to side/'Tis three
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Identities in Byron's Don Juan(HIGASHINAKA)
feet long, and two feet wide". Though he thinks Wordsworth is capable
of doing better, nevertheless, Byron calls him 'a Thraso of poetry and a
(4)
Gnatho in politics'. He denigrates Wordsworth's political attitude because
he has used "his more downright and unmeasured prose to the aid of a
political party". Thus Byron disparages Wordworth on account of his
poetry and politics. In the last section of the preface Byron singles out
Robert Southey to taunt him for changing his political stance, and for
his poetry which is written off as "the writings of a weakly human
(5)
creature conscious of owing its worldly elevation to its own debasement".
Thus Southey is also attacked in terms of poetry and politics. This
concern of Byron with poetry and politics is running through Don Juan
as a whole, and eventually comes to be re:8.ected in the words of the
narrator.
The Preface also gives information about who penned the Dedication
to the poem. The reader is asked to suppose, "the Dedication to Mr.
Southey, and several stanzas of the poem itself, are interpolated by the
English editor". But Byron adds in the same breath that the Dedication
(6)
may be 'the production of a present Whig' or 'the work of a rival poet',
thus giving a clear pointer to the identity of the English editor. Furthermore, this poet, Byron says, "may have a cause of aversion from the said
(7)
Southey-for some personal reason ... a gross calumny".
Evidently this
refers to Southey spreading the rumor about what is called 'the league
(8)
of incest'. It is very tempting even at this stage to consider the English
interpolater who is a Whig and a rival poet to be Byron himself. Its
general tenor is carried over to that of the Dedication in that Byron
attacks the lake poets, especially Southey in the Dedication. Again poetry
and politics are Byron's reason for attacking them. Wordsworth, Southey
and to a lesser degree, Coleridge are contrasted with Milton as their
antithesis, since Milton "did not loathe the sire to laud the son,/
But closed the tyran-thater he begun". (Dedication, 10) They are also
contrasted with such modern poets as Scott, Rogers, Campbell, Moore
and Crabbe who are all Byron's favourite poets as not detracting what
Byron considers as the right direction of English poetry.
Byron is
especially incensed by the lake poets because they have sided with the
party of 'The intellectual eunuch Castlereagh', (11) who is said to be
"Cold-blooded, smooth-faced, placid miscreant! / Dabbling its its sleek
hands in Erin's gore", (12) and 'cobbling at manacles for all mankind'.
(14) He ends the Dedication by calling Southey 'my Tory ultra-Julian'.
(17) Thus in Byron's mind, manifested in the Preface and Dedication,
the kind of poetry which is new and popular in England is produced by
the lake poets, who have turned renegades, and now espouse the Tory
government and their reactionary policies. He himself endorses the Whig
policies and considers Milton as an exemplary poet because of his
unwavering political stance~
Byron also honours Alexander Pope among
others, as well as some contemporary poets mentioned above.
Now this
message conveyed by the Preface and the Dedication is also to be
reflected in the poem that is to follow throughout
The paper will trace the identity of the narrator first, in order to
see how soon the narrator merges with Byron himself, and uses Byron's
opinions and experiences as his own without any qualm.
Talking about
Canto I, Professor Anne Barton says, "By stanza 82 (of 222), the Spanish
gentleman has faded away ... From then on, the narrator. .. is undisguisedly Byron himself: the master of an infinite variety of moods and
(9)
vocal tone, in one moment serious, flippant in the next ... "
Though I
differ only slightly from her view, let me go over this fairly well-trodden
path yet again. I would just treat the first four cantos, because I believe,
by the end of Canto IV, Byron's method is well established, and the
narrator has unmistakably become Byron himself.
This paper will also
examine how the narrator makes use of Byron's values, experiences and
his allusive nature, because they are contributive to identifying the
narrator with Byron, and to constituting the essential traits of Don Jnan.
In Canto I the narrator does appear in some scenes and acts as a
character of the poem. In stanza 14 the narrator says, "But this I heard
her [Inez] say, and can't be wrong". This is where he says, Inez "liked
the English and the Hebrew tongue, / And said there was analogy between
'em". (14)
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This is the first time that the narrator was at the scene.
Identities in Byron's Don Juan(HIGASHINAKA)
When Juan's parents quarrel, we see him more deeply involved in the
action, because he says, "And so I interfered, and with the best / Intentions, but their treatment was not kind".
(24) Unluckily for the kind
narrator, "the worst's behind,/ For little Juan o'er me threw, down stairs';
A pair of housemaid's water unawares". (24) At least the incident shows
that he is a friend of the family and knows Juan personally.
furthermore, "he knew his (Juan's] father well".
He says
(51) When Juan is
found alone with Julia, the narrator says, "I know not well / How this
same interview had taken place, / And even if I knew, I should not tell
... " (105) Though this is spoken with his tongue in his cheek, it does
show that he is in the position to know what goes on in Juan's family
as their friend except that he would not tell the reader about it. From
then on he becomes almost omniscient, narrating the love of Julia and
Juan, until towards the end of Canto I, he says, "myself, and several
now in Seville, / Saw Juan's last elopement with the devil".
narrator italicizes the word 'saw'.
(203) The
This is where he stresses the truth-
fulness of his narrative. So, at the end of Canto I, the narrator still puts
forward the claim that he be considered as one of the characters of the
poem, independent of the poet Byron, though he becomes more and more
omniscient and omnipresent, and comes very close to Byron himself.
In Canto II, the shipwreck canto, the narrator comes even closer to
Byron himself. Yet, there are certain stanzas in which the narrator uses
a pronoun 'our' rather intriguingly, as if he were indicating he was
part of the struggling seafarers. For instance he says, "And thus it was
with this our hapless crew".
(68) This use of 'our' here implies a
possibility that the narrator might be sharing the ordeal with the other
passengers, though it could also apply just to the people he is describing.
Elsewhere he says, "Our shipwreck'd seamen thought it a good omen
(93) or 'the tackle of our shatter'd bark'. (95)
Again this use of 'our'
indicates that the narrator could be a fellow passenger.
But then Juan
turns out to be the only survivor, and if the narrator had been one of
the crew, he ought to have drowned and could not have continued to
write his poem. Dr Peter Cochran draws our attention to stanza 32 where
we read, "the ship still lay
I
(9)
Like a mere log, and baffled our intent".
Here the narrator sounds again as if he really were part of the crew.
Dr Cochran also notices Byron's use of 'methought' and 'ours' a few times
elsewhere in the poem. Whether Byron willfully did this to intrigue the
reader, or still thought he was a Spanish gentleman or an English gentleman with strong Spanish connection, it is hard to tell.
On the whole,
however, one can say that the narrator has become Byron himself from
the second canto on.
Then in what way can the narrator be identified with Byron? Canto
I is peppered with events from Byron's personal life, especially from the
winter of 1815 to 1816. His memory of the events of this period was still
'green' when he started to write Canto 1. Therefore, when he introduces
Juan's mother, Inez, he builds up her character partly on that of Lady
Byron.
Donna Inez is called 'a learned lady' with her 'virtues only
equall'd by her wit alone'.
(10) What is more, "Her favorite science
was the the mathematical, I Her noblest virtue was her magnanimity".
(11) We know that Byron thought that Lady Byron lacked this virtue.
Inez is also said to be 'perfect past all parallel'. (17) This piling up of
hyperbolic praises suggests at once that Inez is not a very desirable
person.
His obsession with Lady Byron continues. Yes, he laments the
match between a wife who enjoys scientific conversation and the husband
who grows tired of it. The narrator also goes out of his way by saying,
"I hate a dumpy woman", (61) while admiring Julia's tall stature. Lady
(u)
Byron was not tall.
Inez is also said to like dimity, (12) the material
Lady Byron was fond of.
The narrator spends some stanzas on his
quarrel with his wife, which is a fairly detailed account. Inez brings in
druggists and physicians to prove "her loving lord was mad". (27) These
biographical data are all familiar in the Byron scholarship. What is most
interesting is the fact that Bryon brings in the name of Sir Samuel
Romilly, 'The Law's expounder, and the State's corrector', (15)
who
committed suicide shortly before Byron wrote this stanza. We know that
Romilly sided with Lady Byron during the separation proceedings. When
Julia's husband searches Julia's bedroom, the narrator makes a point of
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Identities in Byron's Don Juan(HIGASHINAKA)
introducing a lawyer who casts his inquisitive eye at her bedroom.
He
is said to have outstayed his welcome "With much suspicious in his
attitude".
(160) So part of Byron goes into the depiction of Don Jose,
and Lady Byron supplied good material for writing about Inez.
As for Juan, firstly he is depicted as "An only son left with an only
mother", (37) definitely reminding the reader that Juan is modelled on
Byron himself.
The narrator does not recommend the life of an only
son with an only mother.
Rather, he would send "him out betimes to
college, I For there it was I pick'd up my own knowledge". (53)
narrator is talking about Byron's blase life in college.
The
He continues to
tell how he did not acquire much in college, but that he got knowledge
of matters.
(ibid.) He takes the trouble to say that he never married.
(53) This piece of information perhaps raises a smile among his readers
because of his failed marriage.
The narrator often negates some facts
that, as the reader well knows, perfectly apply to the poet. This is one of
his tricks to draw the reader's attention to his narrative. Talking about
Julia, the narrator traces her genealogy, and says she is again 'an only
daughter' begotten by 'an only son'. (59) Here Byron is perhaps talking
about himself and his own daughter. We know that in Childe Harold's
Pilgrimage, Byron's daughter, Ada, is apostrophized as "the only daughter
of my house and heart". (111-1) Later on, Haidee is also said to be 'only
daughter
I
Of an old man'.
Thus Juan, Julia and Haidee are all only
children like Byron and his daughter. In this respect Byron's biographical
material is used in his depiction of Juan, Julia and Haidee.
Apart from this, there is some unmistakably Byronic information.
This comes at the end of Canto I. There the narrator quotes a Horatian
sentence, which he translates as "some six or seven good years ago I
(Long ere I dreamt of dating from the Brenta) I was most ready to
return a blow ... In my hot youth-when George the Third was King".
(212) In the next stanza he tells the reader exactly how old he is: "now
at thirty years my hair is gray", and that he thinks of wearing 'a peruke'.
(213) Byron arrived in Venice in late 1816 and he is writing this canto
in 1818.
Most likely he is alluding to the time when he wrote English
Bards and Edinburgh Reviewers which was published in 1809, since he
did 'return a blow' by this satire.
In the subsequent few stanzas, now
that 'his glittering youth' is over, he ponders upon the notion of fame
as he looks back upon his years of fame.
Though the narrator seems to be more conversant with what is going
on in Spain, judging from the preface, he is quite knowledgeable about
things English too, which makes the reader wonder to what extent he is
Spanish as he pretends to be.
products or inventions.
The narrator often mentions British
For instance, he says that Inez's memory is so
fine that "Feinagle's were an useless art". (I, 11)
G~egor
Von Feinaigle
lectured on the art of memory in 1811 m England and Scotland.
Furthermore, her perfect conduct is likened to a clock: "Her minutest
motions went as well / As those of the best time-piece made by Harrison:
/ In virtues nothing earthly could surpass her, / Save thine 'incomparable
oil', Macassar"! (17)
chronometer.
John Harrison
1S
an horologist who invented a
He died in 1776, but a feature of his invention, a device
that keeps the clock running, while it is being wound, seems to be still
treasured in Byron's time. As for the Macassar oil, Byron actually used
it as the following quotation from his letter of May 20 1819 to Kinnaird
u»
shows: "Tell Mr. Murray to bring me some bottles of Macassar oil".
Then on the next day he writes to Murray himself, asking him to bring
~
"some Macassar or Russia Oil, as I begin to get venerable". Notice these
letters were written in May 1819.
He was sending a proof of the first
two cantos of Don Juan on 15 May 1819.
This is another case of his
daily life going into his poetry.
In one section of Canto I the narrator says, "This is an age of
oddities", (128) and makes a list of things invented recently in a
humorous way:
What opposite discoveries we have seen!
(Signs of true genius, and of empty pockets.)
One makes new noses, one a guillotine,
One breakes your bones, one sets them in their sockets;
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Identities in Byron's Don Juan(HIGASHINAKA)
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...
(I, 129-30)
William Congreve "invented a rocket which was first used against
~
the French in the battle of Leipzig (1813)". The first vaccinations against
smallpox were made by Edward Jenner in 1793, and McGann says,
"Galvanism ... was an enormously popular and controversial subject
M
throughout the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries". The narrator
also mentions "Sir Humphrey Davy's lantern, by which coals / Are safely
mined for in the mode he mentions". (132)
It was invented in 1815.
When the narrator writes about the bedroom farce, he introduces William
Brodie Gurnie, the official shorthand clerk to the house of Parliament,
whom the narrator makes visit Seville and write about the scandal.
(I, 189) He knows rather too much about England for a Spanish gentleman as he purports to be.
As he ends this canto, the narrator comes
back once again to the lake poets and quotes four lines from Southey,
and bids farewell to the reader, telling him that the acceptance of the
poem will decide whether he will continue to write or not. Thus Byron
reveals himself clearly there.
From the second canto on, the narrator sounds pretty much like
Byron himself. For one thing, he talks a lot about what Byron has done
and felt.
For instance, when Juan embarks from Cadiz, the narrator
writes, "I said, that Juan had been sent to Cadis ... / "A pretty town, I
recollect it well ... Such sweet girls-I mean, such graceful ladies ... I
never saw the like." (II,5) Yes, the narrator says, "I recollect it well". We
know how Byron raved about Cadiz in his letters sent home. He writes
to Francis Hodgson for instance: "Cadiz, sweet Cadiz, sweet Cadiz !-it
is the first spot in the creation.
The beauty of its streets and mansions
~$
is only excelled by the loveliness of its inhabitants". In the same letter,
he says, "damn description", and in the poem he says, "I can't describe
it, though so much it strike, / Nor liken it-I never saw the like". (5)
Even in his letter to his mother he enthusiastically writes especially
about a lady in Cadiz, Signorita Cordova, at the expense of English
M
women.
He recollects something else too.
When the narrator makes
Juan embark, he says, "I recollect Great Britain's coast looks white".(12)
Byron remembers his own departures and says, "I can't but say it is an
awkward sight / To see one's native land receding through / The growing
waters". (11) So England is his native land. He adds that one is unhappy
at embarking even when he is "leaving the most unpleasant people / And
places". (14)
1816.
This alludes to his departures from England in 1809 and
Another recollection of Byron about Cadiz results in the episode
of the master's mate who luckily escapes from becoming food for the
famished passengers, because he is found. to be indisposed on account of
"a small present made to him at Cadiz, / By general subscription of the
ladies". (81)
According to Peter Cochran, this refers to Hobhouse
~~
contracting a certain unwlcome disease in this sweet city of Cadiz.
Some episodes that the narrator recounts unmistakably are taken from
Byron's life.
The narrator talks about the trouble he experienced with
a Jewish money-lenders: "In my young days they lent me cash ... Which
I found very troublesome to repay". (1, 65)
Byron's trouble began in
1805. McGann writes, "Mrs Massingberd and her daughter signed as
joint guarantors of his loan, and in the next few years they acted as
mediators with the usurers until his debts amounted to nine or ten
~!i
thousand pounds before he left England on his Eastern voyage in 1809".
Interestingly in the same stanza, the narrator says, "some, I really think,
do never die", and of course he means Annabella's mother, Lady Noel,
upon whose death he was to receive his share of the inheritance.
There are other Byron's personal episodes that have gone into the
narrative.
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What makes the narrator unquestionably Byron himself is
Identities in Byron's Don Juan(HIGASHINAKA)
when he refers to 'my grandad's Narrative', A Narrative of the Honourable
John Byron. Furthermore the narrator makes Juan a good swimmer as
he made the hero of The Island, and he says that Juan "could have
passed the Hellespont, / At once (a feat on which ourselves we prided) /
Leander, Mr. Ekenhead, and I did". (l05) Proudly he wrote about this
~
feat repeatedly in his letters.
Another indication that the narrator is
Byron himself comes from stanza 166 where he says, he is "a wanderer
from the British world of fashion, / Where I, like other 'dogs, have had
my day ... / Like other men too, may have had my passion ... " He is
referring to his years of fame. Increasingly he expresses his own opinions
which are surely those of Byron himself.
In Canto IV especially, Byron seems to be occupied with his own
life both past and present. This can be ascertained by those comments,
which directly express his experiences and opinions we know as his. At
the very beginning of the canto, he says, "As boy, I thought myself a
clever fellow", and claims he has had his day. (3) In fact, the first
seven stanzas show the rise and fall of Byron the poet as he himself
looks back on it.
For instance, talking about Lambro's and Haidee's
hand, the narrator says, "they were alike ... even to the delicacy of their
hand". (45) The delicacy of Lambro's hand comes from his own experience in which Ali Pacha commented on his small hand as a sign of
~
nobility.
Talking about 'the young De Foix,' he says, I canter by the
spot each afternoon / Where perish'd in his fame the hero-boy". (103)
Or he says, "I pass each day where Dante's bones are laid". (104)
The
place is Ravenna to which he moved in December 1819, and he was
writing this portion of Don Juan there. We recall that Byron also writes
about his evening ride rather sentimentally: "Sweet hour of twilight!in the solitude / Of the pine forest, and the silent shore / Which bounds
Ravenna's immemorial wood / Rooted where once the Adrian wave :8ow'd
o'er ... " (III, 105) Or, he brings in the topic of the whereabouts of
Troy and says, "where I sought for Ilion's walls, / The quiet sheep feeds,
and the tortoise crawls". (101) Or there is a stanza where he talks about
'the Laocon's all eternal throes, / And ever-dying gladiator'S air", re:8ect-
ing the few stanzas on these treasures in Childe Harold IV, which are
recounted by Byron himself who has already effaced the nominal narrator.
In fact, he has this to say, "What, can I prove a 'lion' then no more?
/ A ball·room bard, a fooscap, hot·press darling"? (109) These are the
narrator's comments that derive directly from Byron's own experiences
and opinions.
So by the end of Canto IV it is clear that Byron has
come forward to replace the semi· fictional narrator completely, and then
on, without any reserve, yes, undisguisedly talks about his 'things and
acts'.
One other aspect that identifies the narrator with Byron is the fact
that Don Juan is full of literary allusions.
This is also the case with
his letters and journals, which are abundant in literary allusions and
echoes.
In other words, the narrator of the poem and the Byron in his
letters and journals share the same literary traits to such an extent that
they can be said as identical. When Juan drops his salt tears in to salt
sea, the narrator quotes Gertrude's phrase for the dead Ophelia, "Sweets
to the sweet;' (I like so much to quote; / You must excuse this extract
~~
... " (11,17) Thus he reveals how much he likes to quote and pepper
his poem with various extracts.
Among those writers he quotes or alludes to, Shakespeare has the
pride of place. This is a list of Shakespearean plays which Byron makes
use of in the first four cantos: Macbeth, 1 Henry IV, Julius Caesar,
King John, Othello, Richard III, Hamlet, Antony and Cleopatra, The
Merchant of Venice, Twelfth Night, Two Gentlemen of Verona, Romeo
and Juliet, Richard II, A Midsummer Night's Dream, and there may
be others. This is quite a list, to say the least. To give a few instances,
Juan's father is equated somewhat facetiously to Julius Caesar; "Jose
was an honourable man" (1,35). As is well·known, Antony repeatedly
~
says, "Brutus is an honourable man" in his funeral oration to Caesar.
The narrator says that one very sweet thing to him is "The unexpected
death of some old lady / Or gentleman of seventy years comoplete, /
Who've made 'us youth' wait too-too long ... " (I, 125). The expression
'us youth' comes from I Henry IV, where in a totally different context
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Identities in Byron's Don Juan(HIGASHINAKA)
Falstaff says, "Ah, whoreson caterpillars, bacon-fed knaves, they hate us
~~
youth"! When Julia vehemently defends her innocence in front of her
husband, Byron ironically utters, "Nothing so dear as an unfilch'd good
name!" (165). The expression, 'an unfilch'd good name' is derived with
some modification from the scene in which Iago cunningly makes Othello
feel jealous of Cassio: "But he that filches from me [Othello] my good
name / Robs me of that which not enriches him / And makes me poor
~~
indeed".
When Juan is half· smothered by the legs of that pretty pair, Julia
and Antonia, Byron tragic-comicall y recalls Clarence in Richard III,
"Twere better, sure, to die so, than be shut / With maudlin Clarence in
his Malmsey butt". (166) The First Murderer in King Richard III says,
(1$
"I'll drown you [Clarence] in the malmsey but within". Another tragedy,
Hamlet, is also Byron's favorite.
He makes Julia's maid (Antonia)
comment on Juan's appearance, "What piece of work is here"! (172)
While we are reminded of Hamlet meditaqng on man's existence philosophically, saying "What a piece of work is man! How noble in reason,
~
how infinite in faculties ... ", we feel Antonia is the last person to quote
from Hamlet, let alone philosophize about 'this quintessence of dust'. All
these quotations are somewhat facetiously and inappropriately conveyed,
and more often than not, the seriousness implicit or explicit in the
Shakespearean lines are deftly and comically ignored.
There is one play, however, that stands out among others, when it
em
comes to allusion, and that is Macbeth. This is the case with his letters
and journals too.
It is a play more often mentioned and quoted than
Hamlet, Othello or two parts of Henry IV. What characterizes his use
of Macbeth is rather serious in tone and very often not facetious as in
the case of other plays. Canto IV especially shows Byron's use of Macbeth
in a striking manner.
In this canto Lambro returns home, and ends up
separating Juan and Haidee and bringing about her death.
Ths is also
the canto in which Byron looks back on his life and feels that he is not
young any more, and that he is not popular in England. He recalls the
following lines uttered by Macbeth towards the end of the play: ..... my
way of life / Is fall'n into the sear, the yellow leaf, / And that which
should accompany old age, / As honour, love, obedience, troops of friends,/
I must not look to have" (V, iii, 22-3).
Byron's allusion is this: "Now
my sere fancy 'falls into the yellow! Leaf', and imagination droops her
pinion". (IV, 3)
The idea of glory and its mutability possesses Byron
in this canto: "love of glory'S but an airy lust, / Too often in its fury
overcoming all / Who would as 'twere identify their dust ... " (101) The
lines echo Macbeth's famous speech: "tomorrow, tomorrow and tomorrow.
... And all our yesterdays have lighted fools / The way to dusty death".
(V, v, 26-7) If Byron's own plight makes him recall lines from fl,facbeth,
Haidee's last moment owes its description again to lines from Macbeth.
This time appropriately Lady Macbeth is remembered.
Haidee's vein
bursts and "her sweet lips' pure dyes / Were dabbled with the deep blood
which ran o'er ... " (59)
When she she ultimately dies, the narrator
says, "she sleeps well / By the sea shore whereon she loved to dwell".
(71) We immediately recall Macbeth's words on Duncan; "Duncan is in
his grave; / After life's fitful fever he sleeps well". (III, ii, 23-4) Surely
Haidee has had her share of 'life's fitful fever'.
Juan is also depicted
with Macbeth in mind, since he also finds himself "Wounded and fetter'd,
'cabin'd, confined"', to be sent to the slave market. (75) The difference
is that while Macbeth is figuratively 'cabined and cribbed, confined'
(III, iv, 24), Juan is literally so.
Byron uses Macbeth in the other cantos as well.
At the beginning
of Canto I where the narrator makes a list of heroes, he says, "Each in
their turn like Banquo's monarchs stalk, / Followers of fame, 'nine farrow'
of that sow" (2).
These lines are taken from the lines uttered by the
first Witch in Macbeth, "Pour in sow's blood, that hath eaten / Her nine
farrow; grease that's sweaten / From the murderer's gibbet throw / Into
the flame (IV, i, 65-6).
A stage direction in the same scene has this:
(Enter) a show of Eight Kings, the last with a glass in his hand (;
Banquo's Ghost following (ibid., between lines 110 and 111). This IS
Byron's favorite scene from Macbeth, which he also uses to describe
e>.$
Laura in Beppo commenting on the women she sees in the street.
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Identities in Byron's Don Juan(HIGASHINAKA)
Lambro's love of Haidee is described thus: "There wanted but the loss
of this [his affection towards Haidee] to wean / His feelings from all
milk of human kindness" (III, 57).
The lines of course are taken from
Lady Macbeth's words to her husband; "yet do I fear thy nature; / It
1S
too full
1S
0'
the milk of human kindness" (I, v, 14-5).
Lambro's fury
compared to "The ocean when its yeasty war is waging / Is awful to the
vessel near the rock" (III, 58), and the lines allude to "Though the
yeasty waves / Confound and swallow navigation up". (IV, i, 52-3) There
are more allusions from Macbeth.
To conclude, the narrator who is a friend of Inez and Jose and knows
personally the child Juan too, starts out to be either a Spanish gentleman
or an Englishman with strong Spanish connection.
He, however, soon
ends up revealing himself as the poet Byron himself. This narrator does
not hesitate to use Byron's personal experiences and opinions as well as
his allusive nature galore as he follows Juan's adventures, and they
become the matter of Byron's song, Don Juan and decide the tenor of
the poem to a great extent.
* This
article is based upon a paper I read at the 33rd International
Byron Conference held in Venice, Italy in July 2007.
Notes
The Preface to Don Juan in Lord Byron: The Complete Poetical Works,
(1)
ed. Jerome J. McGann (Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1980-93), 7 vols, Vol. V, p.
82.
All the quotations from Don Juan and other Byron's poems are cited
from this edition, hereafter abbreviated as CPW.
(2)
(3)
Ibid., p.83.
Ibid., p.81. Byron's quotation from Wordsworth is not uqite correct though
its gist is true to Wordsworth's note. Wordsworth says, "The character
which I have here introduced speaking is sufficiently common. The Reader
will perhaps have a general notion of it, if he had ever known a man, a Captain
of a small trading vessel, for example, who being past the middle age of
life, had retired upon an annuity or small independent income to some village
or country town of which he was not a native, or in which he had not been
accustomed to live". See The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, ed.
E. de Selincourt (Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1954), 6 vols, II, p. 512. The second
edition.
(4) CPW, V, p.82. McGann's note says, "Thraso, the braggart soldier, and
Gnatho the parasite: both in Terence's Eunuchus". See his note in ibid., p.684.
(5) Ibid., p.84.
(6) Ibid.
(7) Ibid.
(8) "I understand the scoundrel said, on his return from Switzerland two years
ago, that 'Shelley and I were in a league of Incest, etc., etc'. He is a burning
liar! For the women to whom he alludes are not sisters-one being Godwin's
daughter, by Mary W ollstonecraft, and the other daughter of the present
(second) Mrs. G, by a former husband; and in the next place, if they had
been so, there was no promiscuous intercoure whatever". See Byron's letter
to John Murray of November 24 1818 in Byron's Letters and Journals, ed.
Leslie A. Marchand, 12 vols (London, John Murray, 1973-82), VII, p.82. This
edition is cited hereafter as BLl.
(9) Anne Barton, Byron: Don Juan (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press,
1992), p.7.
(Ie) "Lady Byron was usually described as not tall". See Lord Byron: Don Juan,
ed. T. G. Steff an, and W. W. Pratt (Harmondsworth, Middlesex, Penguin Books,
1982), p.576. This note is quoted in CPW, V, p.676.
(II) BLl, VI. p.137.
~ BLl, p. 138.
(Q See McGann's note to Stanza 129, CPW, p. 678.
(I41 See Stanza 130, ibid.
(L$ BLl, I. p.216.
M BLl,
I. p.220. Though the narrator says that he cannot describe "such
sweet. .. graceful girls" of Cadiz, Byron does describe in this letter to his
mother what constitutes a Spanish beauty: "Long black hair, dark languishing
eyes, clear olive complexions, and forms more graceful in motion than can
be conceived by an Englishman used to the drowsy listless air of his country·
women, added to the most becoming dress & at the same time the most
decent in the world, render a Spanish beauty irresistible".
(I;; Peter Cochran says in the note to st.81 in his edition of Don Juan on the
International Byron Society website: "On August 2nd, while Byron is in the
box at the Cadiz Opera with Signorita Cordova, Hobhouse records that he
leaves the building: and then writes and erases the single word "Xapac-ru7C7j"·
"Hamaitupe", the Greek for "whore." Three days later, when he and Byron
have arrived at Gibraltar, he gets up at three in the afternoon and discovers
"luem minimem"-"a slight illness". On August 10th "lues minimis" has become
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Identities in Byron's Don Juan- (HIGASHINAKA)
"lues pergravis"-"very serious iIIness" and Hobhouse, unless he takes a treatment which he does not record, may be imagined as being diseased for much
of the rest of the journey. <http:/,'www.internationalbyronsociety.org/images/
stories/pdf fiIes/donjuan2a. pdf>
U$ See McGann's note to Byron's letter to Augusta of December 27 1805 in BLJ,
I, p.87.
For instance, he writes to his mother again about the exploit in his letter
of May 24 1810, "I believe I mentioned to you in my last that my only
notable exploit lately, has been swimming from Sestos to Abydos on the 3d.
of this month, in humble imitation of Leander of amorous memory, though
I had no Hero to receive me on the oher shore of the HeIlespont". Likewise,
he writes of this feat to several of his friends.
(zQ Byron writes to his mother on 12 November 1809 about Ali Pacha: "He
said he was certain I was a man of birth because I had smaIl ears, curling
hair, & little white hands, and expressed himself pleased with my appearance
& garb~'. (BLJ, I, p.227)
(J.~
(2~
Gertrude says, "Sweets to the sweet, fareweIl". (V, i, 210) The quotation
is from Shakespeare: Hamlet, ed. Philip Edwards (Cambridge, Cambridge,
Cambridge University Press, 1985).
~ See Antony's speech in Shakespeare: Julius Caesar, ed. Marvin Spevack
(Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1988), III, ii, 65-99.
~ Shakespeare: The First Part of King Henry IV, ed. Herbert Weil and
Judith Weil (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1990), II, ii, 68-9.
(2~ Shakespeare: Othello, ed. Norman Sanders (Cambridge, University Press,
1984), III, iii, 160-2.
(2$ Shakespeare: King Richard III, ed. James LuIl (Cambridge University
Press, 1999), I, iv, 260. The First Murderer says earlier in the scene " ... throw
him into the malmsely butt in the next room". (ibid., 146).
~
Hamlet, II,ii,287-7.
AIl the quotations from Macbeth are from Shakespeare, Macbeth, ed. A.
R. BraunmuIler (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1997).
~ "One has false curls, anothers too much paint, / A third-where did she buy
that frightful turban? / A fourth's so pale she fears she's going to faint, / A
fifth's look's vulgar, dowdyish, and suburban, / A sixth's white silk has got
a yellow taint, / A seventh's thin muslin surely wiII be her bane, / And 10 !
an eighth appears,-'I'Il see no more!' / For fear, like Banquo's kings, they
reach a score". (Beppo, 66). See CPW, IV.
(27)