Analysis of Don Juan: Canto The Seventeenth
George Gordon Lord Byron 1788 (London) – 1824 (Missolonghi, Aetolia)
The world is full of orphans: firstly, those
Who are so in the strict sense of the phrase
(But many a lonely tree the loftier grows
Than others crowded in the forest's maze);
The next are such as are not doomed to lose
Their tender parents in their budding days,
But merely their parental tenderness,
Which leaves them orphans of the heart no less.
The next are 'only children', as they are styled,
Who grow up children only, since the old saw
Pronounces that an 'only' 's a spoilt child.
But not to go too far, I hold it law
That where their education, harsh or mild,
'Transgresses the great bounds of love or awe,
The sufferers, be't in heart or intellect,
Whate'er the cause are orphans in effect.
But to return unto the stricter rule
(As far as words make rules), our common notion
Of orphans paints at once a parish school,
A half-starved babe, a wreck upon life's ocean,
A human (what the Italians nickname) 'mule',
A theme for pity or some worse emotion;
Yet, if examined, it might be admitted
The wealthiest orphans are to be more pitied.
Too soon they are parents to themselves; for what
Are tutors, guardians, and so forth, compared
With Nature's genial genitors, so that
A child of Chancery, that Star Chamber ward
(I'll take the likeness I can first come at),
Is like a duckling by Dame Partlett reared
And frights, especially if 'tis a daughter,
The old hen by running headlong to the water.
There is a commonplace book argument,
Which glibly glides from every vulgar tongue
When any dare a new light to present:
'If you are right, then everybody's wrong.'
Suppose the converse of this precedent
So often urged, so loudly and so long:
'If you are wrong, then everybody's right.'
Was ever everybody yet so quite?
Therefore I would solicit free discussion
Upon all points, no matter what or whose,
Because as ages upon ages push on,
The last is apt the former to accuse
Of pillowing its head on a pincushion,
Heedless of pricks because it was obtuse.
What was a paradox becomes a truth or
A something like it, as bear witness Luther.
The sacraments have been reduced to two
And witches unto none, though somewhat late
Since burning aged women (save a few,
Not witches, only bitches, who create
Mischief in families, as some know or knew,
Should still be singed, but slightly let me state)
Has been declared an act of inurbanity,
Malgé Sir Matthew Hale's great humanity.
Great Galileo was debarred the sun,
Because he fixed it, and to stop his talking
How earth could round the solar orbit run,
Found his own legs embargoed from mere walking.
The man was well nigh dead, ere men begun
To think his skull had not some need of caulking,
But now it seems he's right, his notion just,
No doubt a consolation to his dust.
Pythagoras, Locke, Socrates - but pages
Might be filled up, as vainly as before,
With the sad usage of all sorts of sages,
Who in his lifetime each was deemed a bore.
The loftiest minds outrun their tardy ages;
This they must bear with and perhaps much more.
The wise man's sure when he no more can share it, he
Will have a firm post~obit on posterity.
If such doom waits each intellectual giant,
We little people in our lesser way
To life's small rubs should surely be more pliant,
And so for one will I, as well I may.
Would that I were less bilious - but oh fie on't!
Just as I make my mind up everyday
To be a totus teres stoic, sage,
The wind shifts and I fly into a rage.
Temperate I am, yet never had a temper;
Modest I am, yet with some slight assurance;
Changeable too, yet somehow idem semper;
Patient, but not enamoured of endurance;
Cheerful, but sometimes rather apt to whimper;
Mild, but at times a sort of Hercules furens;
So that I almost think that the same skin
For one without has two or three within.
Our hero was in canto the sixteenth
Left in a tender moonlight situation,
Such as enables man to show his strength
Moral or physical On this occasion
Whether his virtue triumphed, or at length
His vice - for he was of a kindling nation -
Is more than I shall venture to describe,
Unless some beauty with a kiss should bribe.
I leave the thing a problem, like all things.
The morning came, and breakfast, tea and toast,
Of which most men partake, but no one sings.
The company, whose birth, wealth, worth have cost
My trembling lyre already several strings,
Assembled with our hostess and mine host.
The g
Scheme | ABABCBXX DEDEDXFF GHGHGHXX XXIXIXJJ KXKLKLMM HCXCHXNJ OPOPOPDQ HRHRHRSS TNXNTNQQ KUKUQUVV JWJWJAXX XHYHYHZZ 1 2 1 X1 2 Q |
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Poetic Form | |
Metre | 0111110101 1110011101 110010101001 1101000101 0111111111 1101001101 1101010100 1111010111 01110101111 11110101011 01011101011 1111111111 111010111 0100111111 01001101110 1001110001 1101100101 111111101010 1101110101 01110101110 0101001011 01110111010 11010111010 01001011111 11111010111 11010001101 11010111 01110011101 1101011111 110101111 0101011010 01111011010 110101100 11011100101 1101011110 111111001 0101011100 1101110011 111111001 110100111 1110101010 0111110111 01110011011 0111010101 1111101 111011101 1101001011 01011111010 0100110111 0101011111 110110101 1101010101 10010011111 1111110111 11011111 1110110100 10101101 01111011110 1111010101 11110101110 0111111101 11111111110 1111111101 110010111 1110110 1111110101 10110111110 101111101 0110111010 1111100111 011111111111 110111010100 11111010010 11010010101 11111101110 0111111111 1110110011111 1111111101 11011101 0110110101 10111101010 10111111010 10011111 101111100 10101101110 1111011101 111111011 1101111101 10101010001 100101010 1101011111 10110011010 1011010111 11111101010 1111110101 0111010111 1101010111 0101010101 1111011111 0100111111 11001010101 01011010011 01 |
Closest metre | Iambic pentameter |
Characters | 4,317 |
Words | 799 |
Sentences | 25 |
Stanzas | 13 |
Stanza Lengths | 8, 8, 8, 8, 8, 8, 8, 8, 8, 8, 8, 8, 7 |
Lines Amount | 103 |
Letters per line (avg) | 33 |
Words per line (avg) | 8 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 261 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 61 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 18, 2023
- 4:03 min read
- 52 Views
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"Don Juan: Canto The Seventeenth" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 14 May 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/15062/don-juan%3A-canto-the-seventeenth>.
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