(stanzas from Lord Byron’s Don Juan)
This path appeared as a three-way fork in my journey with the numbers 124, 1247, and 12479 written in bright neon white universal code; “remember” they seemed to be urging me, blinking, fritzing, remember, remember, they kept, and keep whispering.
I have ventured forth and back on each digital path since May 24, 2015; when the long expired Lord (Byron) stepped up, rising from the dead in a small Northern Ontario cemetery. I will not say more about the aftermath of that electrified, hallowed experience, other than that was 7 years, 7 books, and at least one entire infinity ago.
After spending much of the last 7 years researching, writing, and charting; after spending the last 2 years religiously working 15-18 hours a day, writing and publishing the series amalgamation B00K 45/45 Iam……..12479 Ants Marching on April 20, 2021, it was time to work in the “real” world again, after 2 years away.
On April 19th, 2021 (Lord Byron’s birthday) I began working in an Italian bakery/deli, 6 days a week, then in October, I worked for the government for about 9 weeks, then back to the bakery/deli and funeral home (which I left back in 2019, due to illness), and I have spent the last 2.5 months like that: working two jobs 7 days a week, with very few days off.
4 days ago I left the bakery; I will focus on one, and focus on taking care of myself, and my 18 year-old who is planning to leave for university in the fall. As for the timing of this post…I realize there are other things going on in the world, what can I do but send love, and positive, peaceful thoughts, what can I do but keep living and working towards my dreams. So, I am back to work here…on this epic little Don Juan 36 project of mine…Right, March 4th….marching forth.
I was thinking of Byron a few weeks ago, thinking it was time to get back to reading and research, back to following my soul’s lament; back to finding an answer to the unanswered call within. It was time to begin work on the unnamed B00K V1 of the WH1TEW0LF V1S10NS series finale which is to be focussed on the sixth Baron Byron, George Gordon, Lord (Noel) Byron born 234 years ago on January 22, 1788.
With work in mind, I turned to the last work of literature he published, Don Juan, with 16 cantos, and incomplete 17th , left as such due to his sudden death in Missolonghi, Greece on Easter Monday, April 19th, 1824, Year of the Wood Monkey…at the age of 36. It is time to reread every Byron word at my disposal, again.
It was because of the birth and death numbers of Lord Byron, his family, and friends that I found this cosmic path of light and darkness. So to begin this journey into the future I had to take a few steps back…
Diving numerically into Don Juan, I decided to take a look at the 36th stanza of each Canto, and the 9th of the 17th canto because there are only 16 completed stanzas, 9 because 9 x 4 = 36…36 for the age the enigmatic Lord Byron died, 36 for the daughter who also died at the age of 36, Ada, Countess of Lovelace (heralded by many as a mathematical genius).
I find the 36s of Don Juan weave a lovely little story themselves…BUT first, I share 4 letters written by Lord Byron:
February 21, 1820 to John Murray from Ravenna, Italy
February 23, 1824 to Augusta Leigh (mentions age 36) from Missolonghi, Greece
February 28, 1817 to Thomas Moore from Venice, Italy
March 4, 1824 to Thomas Moore (Lord Byron would die in Missolonghi, Greece, 53 days later at the age of 36).
Also shared is Lord Byron’s poem “On This Day I Complete My Thirty-Sixth Year” written January 22, 1788 on his 36th birthday, and to be part of the journey I added stanza 45 from Canto I, as I am 45…and stanza 45 begins…”For there we have them all at one fell swoop…”
Dear [John] Murray, Ravenna, February 21, 1820
…By Saturday’s post I sent you four packets, containing Cantos third and fourth of D[on] J[uan]; recollect that these two cantos reckon only as one with you and me, being in fact, the third Canto cut into two, because I found it too long. Remember this, and don’t imagine that there could be any other motive. The whole is about 225 stanzas, more or less, and a lyric of 96 lines, so that they are no longer than the first single cantos: but the truth is, that I made the first too long, and should have cut those down also had I thought better. Instead of saying in future for so many cantos, say so many Stanzas or pages: it was Jacob Tomson’s way, and certainly the best: it prevents mistakes. I might have sent you a dozen cantos of 40 Stanzas each,–those of the Minstrel (Beattie’s) are no longer,–and ruined you at once, if you don’t suffer as it is; but recollect you are not pinned down to anything you say in a letter, and that, calculating even those two cantos as one only (which they were and are to be reckoned with), you are not bound by your offer: act as may seem fair to all parties.
I have finished my translation of the first Canto of the “Morgante Maggiore” of Pulci, which I will transcribe and send; it is the parent, not only of Whistlecraft but of all jocose Italian poetry. You must print it side by side with the original Italian, because I wish the reader to judge of the fidelity: it is stanza for stanza, and often line for line, if not word for word.
You ask me for a volume of manners, etc., on Italy: perhaps I am in the case to know more of them than most Englishmen, because I have lived among the natives, and in parts of the country where Englishmen never resided before (I speak of Romagna and this place particularly); but there are many reasons why I do not choose to touch in print on such a subject. I have lived in their houses and in the heart of their families, sometimes merely as “amico di casa,” and sometimes as “Amico di cuore” of the Dama, and in neither case do I feel myself authorized in making a book of them. Their moral is not your moral; their life is not your life; you would not understand it; it is not English, nor French, nor German, which you would all understand. The Conventual education, the Cavalier Servitude, the habits of thought and living are so entirely different, and the difference becomes so much more striking the more you live intimately with them, that I know not how to make you comprehend a people, who are at once temperate and profligate, serious in their character and buffoons in their amusements, capable of impressions and passions, which are at once sudden and durable (what you find in no other nation), and who actually have no society (what we would call so), as you may see by their Comedies: they have no real comedy, not even in Goldoni; and that is because they have no Society to draw it from.
Their Conversazioni are not Society at all. They go to the theatre to talk, and into company to hold their tongues. The women sit in a circle, and the men gather into groupes, or they play a dreary Faro or “Lotto reale,” for small sums. Their Academie are Concerts like our own, with better music and more form. Their best things are the Carnival balls and masquerades, when every body runs mad for six weeks. After their dinners and suppers, they make extempore verses and buffoon one another; but it is in a humour which you would not enter into, ye of the North.
In their houses it is better. I should know something of the matter, having had a pretty general experience among their women, from the fisherman’s wife up to the Mobil Donna, whom I serve. Their system has its rules, and its fitnesses, and decorums, so as to be reduced to a kind of discipline or game at hearts, which admits few deviations, unless you wish to lose it. They are extremely tenacious, and jealous as furies; not permitting their lovers even to marry if they can help it, and keeping them always close to them in public as in private whenever they can. In short, they transfer marriage into adultery, and strike the not out of that commandment. The reason is, that they marry for their parents, and love for themselves. They exact fidelity from a lover as a debt of honour, while they pay the husband as a tradesman, that is, not at all. You hear a person’s character, male or female, canvassed, not as depending on their conduct to their husbands or wives, but to their mistress or lover. And—and—that’s all. If I wrote a quarto, I don’t know that I could do more than amplify what I have here noted. It is to be observed that while they do all this, the greatest outward respect is to the paid to the husbands, not only by the ladies, but by their Serventi—particularly if the husband serves no one himself (which is not often then case, however): so that you would often suppose them relations—the Servente making the figure of one adopted into the family. Sometimes the ladies run a little restive and elope, or divide, or make a scene; but this is at starting, generally when they know no better, or when they fall in love with a foreigner, or some such anomaly,—and is always reckoned unnecessary and extravagant….
Yours ever,
B
TO THE HON. AUGUSTA LEIGH
Missolonghi, [Monday] February 23, 1824.
MY DEAREST AUGUSTA,
I received a few days ago yours and Lady B’s report of Ada’s health, with other letters from England for which ought to be and am (I hope) sufficiently thankful, as they were of great comfort and I wanted some, having been recently unwell, but am now much better. So that you need not be alarmed.
You will have heard of our journeys and escapes, and so forth, perhaps with some exaggeration; but it is all very well now, and I have been for some time in Greece, which is in as good a state as could be expected considering circumstances. But I will not plague you with politics, wars, or earthquakes, though we had another very smart one three nights ago, which produced a scene ridiculous enough, as no damage was done except to those who stuck fast in the struggle to get first out of the doors or windows, amongst whom some recent importations, fresh from England, who had been used to quieter elements, were rather squeezed in the press for precedence.
I have been obtaining the release of about nine and twenty Turkish prisoners—men, women, and children—and have sent them at my own expense home to their friends, but one, a pretty little girl of nine years of age named Hato or Hatagée, has expressed a strong wish to remain with me, or under my care, and I have nearly determined to adopt her. If I thought that Lady B, would let her come to England as a Companion to Ada—(they are about the same age), we could easily provide for her; if not, I can send her to Italy for education. She is very lively and quick, and with great black oriental eyes, and Asiatic features. All her brothers were killed in the Revolution; her mother wishes to return to her husband who is at Prevesa, but says that she would rather entrust the child to me in the present state of the Country. Her extreme youth and sex hitherto saved her life, but there is no saying what might occur in the course of the war (and such a war), and I shall probably commit her to the charge of some English lady in the islands for the present. The Child herself has the same wish, and seems to have a decided character for her age. You can mention this matter if you think it worth while. I merely wish her to be respectable educated and treated, and, in my years and all things considered, I presume, it would be difficult to conceive me to have any other views.
With regards to Ada’s health, I am glad to hear that it is so much better. But I think it right that Lady B. should be informed, and guard against it accordingly, that her description of much of her indisposition and tendencies very nearly resemble my own at a similar age, except that I was much more impetuous. Her preference of prose (strange as it may seem) was and indeed is mine (for I hate reading verse, and always did), and I never invented anything but ‘boats—ships’ and generally relating to the Ocean. I showed the report to Col. Stanhope, who was struck with the resemblance of parts of it to the paternal line even now. But it is also fit, though unpleasant, that I should mention that my recent attack, and a very severe one, had a strong appearance of epilepsy. Why—I know not, for it is late in life—and its first appearance at thirty-six (36)—and, as far as I know, it is not hereditary, and it is that it may not become so, that you should tell Lady B. to take some precautions in the case of Ada. My attack has not yet returned, and I am fighting it off with abstinence and exercise, and thus far with success; if merely casual, it is all very well.
TO THOMAS MOORE
Venice, February 28, 1817.
You will perhaps, complain as much of the frequency of my letters now, as you were wont to do of their rarity. I think this is the fourth within as many moons. I feel anxious to hear from you, even more than usual, because your last indicated that you were unwell. At present, I am on the invalid regimen myself. The Carnival—that is, the latter part of it, and sitting up late o’nights, had knocked me up a little. But it is over—and it is now Lent, with all its abstinence and sacred music. The mumming closed with a masked ball at the Fenice, where I went, as also to most of the ridottos, etc., etc.; and, though I not dissipate much upon the whole, yet, I find “the sword wearing out the scabbard”, though I have but just turned the corner of twenty-nine.
So we’ll go no more a roving
So late into the night,
Though the heart be still as loving,
And the moon be still as bright.
For the sword outwears its sheath,
And the soul wears out the breast,
And the heart must pause to breathe,
And Love itself have rest.
Though the night was made for loving,
And the day returns too soon,
Yet we’ll go no more a roving
By the light of the moon.
…..
If I live ten years longer, you will see, however, that it is not over with me—I don’t mean in literature, for that is nothing: and it may seem odd enough to say, I do not think it my vocation. But you will see that I shall do something or other—the times and fortune permitting—that, “like the cosmogony, or creation of the world, will puzzle the philosophers of all ages.” But I doubt whether my constitution will hold out. I have, at intervals, exorcised it most devilishly.
To Thomas Moore Messolonghi, Western Greece, March 4, 1824.
My dear Moore,
Your reproach is unfounded—I have received two letters from you, and answered both previous to leaving Cephalonia. I have not been “quiet” in an Ionian island, but much occupied with business, as the Greek deputies (if arrived) can tell you. Neither have I continued Don Juan, nor any other poem. You go, as usual, I presume, by some newspapers report or other.
When the proper moment to be of some use arrived I came here; and am told that my arrival (with some circumstances) has been of, at least, temporary advantage to the cause. I had a narrow escape from the Turks, and, another from shipwreck, on my passage. On the 15th (or 16th) of February I had an attack of apoplexy, or epilepsy,—the physicians have not exactly decided which, but the alternative is agreeable. My constitution, therefore, remains between two opinions, like Mahomet’s sarcophagus between the magnets. All that I can say is, that they nearly bled me to death, by placing the leeches too near the temporal artery, so that the blood could with difficulty be stopped, even with caustic. I am supposed to be getting better, slowly, however. But my homilies will, I presume, for the future, be like the Archbishop Grenada’s—in this case, “I order you a hundred ducats from my treasurer, and wish you a little more taste.”
For public matters I refer you to Colonel Stanhope’s and Capt. Parry’s reports,—and to all other reports whatsoever. There is plenty to do—war without, and tumult within—they “kill a man a week,” like Bob Acres in the country. Parry’s artificers have gone away in alarm, on account of a dispute in which some of the natives and foreigners engaged, and a Swede was killed, and Suliote wounded. In the middle of their fright there was a strong earthquake; so, between that and the sword, they boomed off in a hurry, in despite of all dissuasions on the contrary. A Turkish brig run ashore, etc., etc., etc.
You, I presume, are either publishing or meditating the same. Let me hear from and of you, and believe me, in all events.
Ever and affectionately yours, N.B.
P.S.—Tell Mr. Murray that I wrote to him the other day, and hope that he has received, or will receive the letter.
Lord Byron, Don Juan, Canto I, 36
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 shivered round him.
No choice was left his feelings or his pride
Save death or Doctors’ Common – so he died.
Lord Byron, Don Juan, Canto II, 36
‘Give us more grog,’ they cried, ‘for it will be
All one an hour hence.’ Juan answered, ‘No!
’Tis true that death awaits both you and me,
But let us die like men, not sink below
Like brutes.’ And this his dangerous post kept he,
And none liked to anticipate the blow,
And even Pedrillo, his most reverend tutor,
Was for some rum a disappointed suitor.
Lord Byron, Don Juan, Canto III, 36
Ah, what is man? What perils still environ
The happiest mortals even after dinner!
A day of gold from out an age of iron
Is all that life allows the luckiest sinner.
Pleasure (where’er she sings at least)’s a siren,
The lures to flay alive the young beginner.
Lambro’s reception at his people’s banquet
Was such as fire accords to a wet blanket.
Lord Byron, Don Juan, Canto IV, 36
Then shrieking, she arose and shrieking fell,
With joy and sorrow, hope and fear, to see
Him whom she deemed a habitant where dwell
The ocean-buried, risen from death, to be
Perchance the death of one she loved too well.
Dear as her father had been to Haidée,
It was a moment of that awful kind –
I have seen such, but must not call to mind.
Lord Byron, Don Juan, Canto V, 36
‘Can this be death? Then what is life or death?
Speak!’ but he spoke not. ‘Wake!’ but still he slept.
‘But yesterday and who had mightier breath?
A thousand warrior by his word were kept
In awe. He said as the centurion saith,
“Go” and he goeth; “come” and forth he stepped.
The trump and bugle till he spake were dumb,
And now nought left him but a muffled drum.’
Lord Byron, Don Juan, Canto VI, 36
But no one doubted on the whole that she
Was what her dress bespoke, a damsel fair
And fresh and ‘beautiful exceedingly’,
Who with the brightest Georgians might compare.
They wondered how Gulbeyaz too could be
So silly as to buy slaves who might share
(If that His Highness wearied of his bride)
Her throne and power and everything beside.
Lord Byron, Don Juan, Canto VII, 36
There was a man, if that he was a man,
Not that his manhood could be called into question,
For had he not been Hercules, his span
Had been as short in youth as indigestion
Made his last illness, when all worn and wan,
He died beneath a tree, as much unblest on
The soil of the green province he had wasted
As e’er was locust on the land it blasted.
Lord Byron, Don Juan, Canto VIII, 36
And so when his corps were dead or dying,
Except Don Juan – a mere novice, whose
More virgin valour never dreamt of flying,
From ignorance of danger, which indues
Its votaries, like innocence relying
On its own strength, with careless nerves and thews –
Johnson retired a little just to rally
Those who catch cold in ‘shadows of death’s valley’.
Lord Byron, Don Juan, Canto IX, 36
Oh ye great authors! Apropos des bottes,
I have forgotten what I meant to say,
As sometimes have been greater sages’ lots.
‘Twas something calculated to allay
All wrath in barracks, palaces, or cots.
Certes it would have been but thrown away,
And that’s one comfort for my lost advice,
Although no doubt it was beyond all price.
Lord Byron, Don Juan, Canto X, 36
I can’t complain, whose ancestors are there –
Erneis, Radulphus. Eighty-and-forty manors
(If that my memory doth not greatly err)
Were their reward for following Billy’s banners.
And though I can’t help thinking ‘twas scarce fair
To strip the Saxons of the hydes, like tanners,
Yet as they founded churches with the produce,
You’ll deem no doubt they put it to a good use
Lord Byron, Don Juan, Canto XI, 36
They erred, as aged men will do, but by
And by we’ll talk of that, and if we don’t,
’Twill be because our notion is not high
Of politicians and their double front,
Who live by lies, yet dare not boldly lie.
Now what I love in women is, they won’t
Or can’t do otherwise than lie, but do it
So well, the very truth seems falsehood to it.
Lord Byron, Don Juan, Canto XII, 36
Smart uniforms and sparkling coronets
Are spurned in turn, until her turn arrives,
After male loss of time and hearts and bets
Upon the sweepstakes for substantial wives.
And when at last the pretty creature gets
Some gentleman who fights or writes or drives,
It soothes the awkward squad of the rejected
To find how very badly she selected.
Lord Byron, Don Juan, Canto XIII, 36
But Adeline was not indifferent, for –
Now a commonplace – beneath the snow,
As a volcano holds the lava more
Within, et cetera. Shall I go on? No.
I hate to hunt down a tired metaphor,
So let the often used volcano go.
Poor thing. How frequently by me and others
It hath been stirred up till its smoke quite smothers.
Lord Byron, Don Juan, Canto XIV, 36
He also had a quality uncommon
To early risers after a long chase –
Who wake in winter ere the cock can summon
December’s drowsy day to his dull race –
A quality agreeable to woman,
When her soft, liquid words run on apace,
Who likes a listener, whether saint or sinner –
He did not fall asleep just after dinner.
Lord Byron, Don Juan, Canto XV, 36
Because he either meant to sneer at harmony
Or marriage by divorcing them thus oddly.
But whether reverend Rapp learned this in Germany
Or no, ‘tis said his sect is rich and godly,
Pious and pure, beyond what I can term any
Of ours, although they propagate more broadly.
My objection’s to his title, not his ritual,
Although I wonder how it grew habitual.
Lord Byron, Don Juan, Canto XVI, 36
Oh, have you never heard of the Black Friar,
The spirits of these walls?’ ‘In truth not I.’
‘Why fame – but fame you know’s sometimes a liar –
Tells an odd story, of which by the by.
Whether with time the spectre has grown shyer
Or that our sires had a more gifted eye
For such sights, though the tale is half believed,
The Friar of late has not been oft perceived.
Lord Byron, Don Juan, Canto XVII, 9
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.
On This Day I Complete My Thirty-Sixth Year
‘Tis time this heart should be unmoved,
Since others it hath ceased to move:
Yet though I cannot be beloved,
Still let me love!
My days are in the yellow leaf;
The flowers and fruits of Love are gone;
The worm—the canker and the grief
Are mine alone!
The fire that on my bosom preys
Is lone as some Volcanic Isle;
No torch is kindled at its blaze
A funeral pile!
The hope, the fear, the jealous care,
The exalted portion of the pain
And the Power of Love I cannot share,
But wear the chain.
But ‘tis not thus—and ‘tis not here
Such thoughts should shake my soul, nor now
Where glory decks the hero’s bier
Or binds his brow.
The Sword, the Banner, and the Field,
Glory and Greece around us see!
The Spartan borne upon his shield
Was not more free!
Awake (not Greece—she is awake!)
Awake, my Spirit! think through whom
They life-blood tracks its parent lake
And then strike home!
Tread those reviving passions down
Unworthy Manhood—unto thee
Indifferent should the smile or frown
Of Beauty be.
If those regret’st thy Youth, why live?
The land of honourable Death
Is here:–up to the Field, and give
Away they Breath’.
Seek out—less often sought than found—A Soldier’s Grave, for thee the best;
Then look around, and choose thy Ground,
And take thy Rest!
Missolonghi,
January 22, 1824
Lord Byron, Don Juan, Canto I, 45
For there we have them all at one fell swoop,
Instead of being scattered through the pages.
They stand forth marshalled 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 altogether
Like garden gods – and not so decent either.
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