Vulgar words in The Works of Lord Byron. Vol. 6 (Page 1)
This book at a glance
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This was an easy matter with a man Oft in the wrong, and never on his guard; And even the wisest, do the best they can, Have moments, hours, and days, so unprepared, That you might "brain them with their lady's fan;"[34] And sometimes ladies hit exceeding hard, And fans turn into falchions in fair hands, And why and wherefore no one understands.
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[34] ["'Zounds, an I were now by this rascal, I could brain him with his lady's fan."
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465-470; and letter to Murray, August 24, 1819, ibid., p. 348: "I wrote to you by last post, enclosing a buffooning letter for publication, addressed to the buffoon Roberts, who has thought proper to tie a canister to his own tail.
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["Don't swear again--the third 'damn.'"--[H.]
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I can't say that it puzzles me at all, If all things be considered: first, there was His lady-mother, mathematical, A----never mind;--his tutor, an old ass; A pretty woman--(that's quite natural, Or else the thing had hardly come to pass) A husband rather old, not much in unity With his young wife--a time, and opportunity.
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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.
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Afar, a dwarf buffoon stood telling tales To a sedate grey circle of old smokers, Of secret treasures found in hidden vales, Of wonderful replies from Arab jokers, Of charms to make good gold and cure bad ails, Of rocks bewitched that open to the knockers, Of magic ladies who, by one sole act, Transformed their lords to beasts (but that's a fact).
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[220] Or if, too classic for his vulgar brain, He feared his neck to venture such a nag on, And he must needs mount nearer to the moon, Could not the blockhead ask for a balloon?
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But I'm digressing; what on earth has Nero, Or any such like sovereign buffoons,[dg] To do with the transactions of my hero, More than such madmen's fellow man--the moon's?
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_The Golden Ass of Apuleius; in English verse, entitled Cupid and Psyche_, by Hudson Gurney, 1799.]
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[dg] _But I'm digressing--what on earth have Nero And Wordsworth--both poetical buffoons, etc._--[MS.] {182}[229] [See _De Poeticâ_, cap.
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But theirs was Love in which the Mind delights To lose itself, when the old world grows dull, And we are sick of its hack sounds and sights, Intrigues, adventures of the common school, Its petty passions, marriages, and flights, Where Hymen's torch but brands one strumpet more, Whose husband only knows her not a whore.
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"And then there are the dancers; there's the Nini, With more than one profession gains by all; Then there's that laughing slut the Pelegrini, She, too, was fortunate last Carnival, And made at least five hundred good _zecchini_, But spends so fast, she has not now a paul; And then there's the Grotesca--such a dancer!
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"The tenor's voice is spoilt by affectation; And for the bass, the beast can only bellow-- In fact, he had no singing education, An ignorant, noteless, timeless, tuneless fellow; But being the prima donna's near relation, Who swore his voice was very rich and mellow, They hired him, though to hear him you'd believe An ass was practising recitative.
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WHEN amatory poets sing their loves In liquid lines mellifluously bland, And pair their rhymes as Venus yokes her doves, They little think what mischief is in hand; The greater their success the worse it proves, As Ovid's verse may give to understand; Even Petrarch's self, if judged with due severity, Is the Platonic pimp of all posterity.
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As though they were in a mere Christian fair, Cheapening an ox, an ass, a lamb, or kid; So that their bargain sounded like a battle For this superior yoke of human cattle.
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[fv] _Because he kept them wrapt up in his closet, he_ _Ruled fair wives and twelve hundred whores, unseen,_ _More easily than Christian kings one queen_.--[MS.]
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[go] _I'm a philosopher; G--d damn them all_.--[MS.
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{275}[gq] _Is more than I know, and, so, damn them both_.--[MS.
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'T is not their fault, nor mine, if this be so,-- For my part, I pretend not to be Cato, Nor even Diogenes.--We live and die, But which is best, _you_ know no more than I. V. Socrates said, our only knowledge was[366] "To know that nothing could be known;" a pleasant Science enough, which levels to an ass Each man of wisdom, future, past, or present.
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'T is strange that he should further "Damn his eyes," For they are damned; that once all-famous oath Is to the Devil now no further prize, Since John has lately lost the use of both.
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Suwarrow chiefly was on the alert, Surveying, drilling, ordering, jesting, pondering; For the man was, we safely may assert, A thing to wonder at beyond most wondering; Hero, buffoon, half-demon, and half-dirt, Praying, instructing, desolating, plundering--Now Mars, now Momus--and when bent to storm A fortress, Harlequin in uniform.
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Byron's epithet "buffoon" (line 5) may, perhaps, be traced to the following anecdote recorded by Tranchant de Laverne (p. 281): "During the first war of Poland ... he published, in the order of the day, that at the first crowing of the cock the troops would march to attack the enemy, and caused the spy to send word that the Russians would be upon them some time after midnight.
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Juan, who had no shield to snatch, and was No Cæsar, but a fine young lad, who fought He knew not why, arriving at this pass, Stopped for a minute, as perhaps he ought For a much longer time; then, like an ass (Start not, kind reader, since great Homer[427] thought This simile enough for Ajax, Juan Perhaps may find it better than a new one); XXX.
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Then, like an ass, he went upon his way, And, what was stranger, never looked behind; But seeing, flashing forward, like the day Over the hills, a fire enough to blind Those who dislike to look upon a fray, He stumbled on, to try if he could find A path, to add his own slight arm and forces To corps, the greater part of which were corses.
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[427] ["As near a field of corn, a stubborn ass ... E'en so great Ajax son of Telamon."
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{339}[ic] _Nor care a single damn about his corps_.--[MS.
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And that's enough, for Love is vanity, Selfish in its beginning as its end,[jp] Except where 't is a mere insanity, A maddening spirit which would strive to blend Itself with Beauty's frail inanity, On which the Passion's self seems to depend; And hence some heathenish philosophers Make Love the main-spring of the Universe.
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Here laws are all inviolate--none lay Traps for the traveller--every highway's clear-- Here"--he was interrupted by a knife, With--"Damn your eyes!
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Juan, who did not understand a word Of English, save their shibboleth, "God damn!
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They are young, but know not Youth--it is anticipated; Handsome but wasted, rich without a sou;[lc] Their vigour in a thousand arms is dissipated; Their cash comes _from_, their wealth goes _to_ a Jew; Both senates see their nightly votes participated Between the Tyrant's and the Tribunes' crew; And having voted, dined, drunk, gamed, and whored, The family vault receives another Lord.
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But these are few, and in the end they make Some devilish escapade or stir, which shows That even the purest people may mistake Their way through Virtue's primrose paths of snows; And then men stare, as if a new ass spake To Balaam, and from tongue to ear o'erflows Quicksilver small talk, ending (if you note it) With the kind World's Amen--"Who would have thought it?"
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[lj] _He played and paid, made love without much sin_.--[MS.
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True, _she_ said little--'twas the rest that broke Forth into universal epigram; But then 'twas to the purpose what she spoke: Like Addison's "faint praise,"[806] so wont to damn, Her own but served to set off every joke, As music chimes in with a melodrame.
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[806] ["Damn with faint praise, assent with civil leer, And without sneering, teach the rest to sneer."
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{609}[814] The Italians, at least in some parts of Italy, call bastards and foundlings the _mules--why_, I cannot see, unless they mean to infer that the offspring of matrimony are asses.