Canto I LXXXII
Such the ungentle sport that oft invitesThe Spanish maid, and cheers the Spanish swain:Nurtured in blood betimes, his heart delightsIn vengeance, gloating on another's pain.What private feuds the troubled village stain!Though now one phalanxed host should meet the foe,Enough, alas, in humble homes remain,To meditate 'gainst friends the secret blow,For some slight cause of wrath, whence life's warm stream must flow.
But Jealousy has fled: his bars, his bolts,His withered sentinel, duenna sage!And all whereat the generous soul revolts,Which the stern dotard deemed he could encage,Have passed to darkness with the vanished age.Who late so free as Spanish girls were seen(Ere War uprose in his volcanic rage),With braided tresses bounding o'er the green,While on the gay dance shone Night's lover-loving Queen?
Oh! many a time and oft had Harold loved,Or dreamed he loved, since rapture is a dream;But now his wayward bosom was unmoved,For not yet had he drunk of Lethe's stream:And lately had he learned with truth to deemLove has no gift so grateful as his wings:How fair, how young, how soft soe'er he seem,Full from the fount of joy's delicious springsSome bitter o'er the flowers its bubbling venom flings.
Words in this poem
- ungentle a.
- Not gentle; lacking good breeding or delicacy; harsh.
- betimes adv.
- In good season or time; before it is late; seasonably; early. [Pref. be- (for by) + time; that is, by the proper time. The -s is an adverbial ending.]
- duenna n.
- The chief lady in waiting on the queen of Spain. Brande. [Sp. dueña, doña, fr. L. domina. See Dame.]
- whereat adv.
- At which; upon which; whereupon; -- used relatively.
- generous a.
- Of honorable birth or origin; highborn. [F. généreux, fr. L. generous of noble birth, noble, excellent, magnanimous, fr. genus birth, race: cf. It. generoso. See 2d Gender.]
- encage v. t.
- To confine in a cage; to coop up. [Pref. en- + cage: cf. F. encager.]
- wayward a.
- Taking one's own way; disobedient; froward; perverse; willful. [OE. weiward, for aweiward, i. e., turned away. See Away, and -ward.]
- unmoved a.
- Not moved; fixed; firm; unshaken; calm; apathetic.
- deem v. t.
- To decide; to judge; to sentence; to condemn. [OE. demen to judge, condemn, AS. d, fr. d doom; akin to OFries. d, OS. ad, D. doemen, OHG. tuommen, Icel. dæma, Sw. dömma, Dan. dömme, Goth. d. See Doom, n., an]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Canto I LXXXII is in the public domain. This text is taken from Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, Project Gutenberg ebook #5131; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Lord Byron, Canto I LXXXII, in Childe Harold's Pilgrimage (1812–1818), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #5131, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/byron-childe-harold/canto-i-lxxxii.html, id L06503.
Form and metre
Canto I LXXXII is 27 lines in 3 stanzas of 9 lines each. Every stanza rhymes ABABBCBCC, the Spenserian stanza. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 91%). 96% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 10.2 syllables. 18% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
See other poems in the Spenserian stanza, other poems in iambic pentameter.
Measured by Laurel's pipeline, not copied from a handbook: how stress and metre are counted, how rhyme is lettered, how a drifted rhyme is found. Where the dictionary cannot confirm a rhyme the letter is withheld, not guessed.
Rhyme words, stanza by stanza
The word that ends each line, lettered by the rhyme it makes; a dash is a line whose rhyme the dictionary could not confirm.
- 1 ABABBCBCC invitesA · swainB · delightsA · painB · stainB · foeC · remainB · blowC · flowC
- 2 ABABBCBCC boltsA · sageB · revoltsA · encageB · ageB · seenC · rageB · greenC · queenC
- 3 ABABBCBCC lovedA · dreamB · unmovedA · streamB · deemB · wingsC · seemB · springsC · flingsC
Scansion, line by line
Each line with its syllable count and the stresses the words themselves fix: / stressed, ˘ unstressed, · a syllable the word leaves free and the metre decides. Read against iambic pentameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| Such the ungentle sport that oft invites | 10 | ··˘/˘···˘/ |
| The Spanish maid, and cheers the Spanish swain: | 10 | ·/˘····/˘· |
| Nurtured in blood betimes, his heart delights | 10 | /˘······˘/ |
| In vengeance, gloating on another's pain. | 10 | ·/˘/˘·˘/˘· |
| What private feuds the troubled village stain! | 10 | ·/˘··/˘/˘· |
| Though now one phalanxed host should meet the foe, | 10 | ···/˘····· |
| Enough, alas, in humble homes remain, | 10 | ˘/˘/·/˘·˘/ |
| To meditate 'gainst friends the secret blow, | 10 | ·/˘····/˘· |
| For some slight cause of wrath, whence life's warm stream must flow. | 12 | ············ |
| But Jealousy has fled: his bars, his bolts, | 10 | ·/˘˘······ |
| His withered sentinel, duenna sage! | 10 | ·/˘/˘˘˘/˘· |
| And all whereat the generous soul revolts, | 10 | ··˘/·/˘·˘/ |
| Which the stern dotard deemed he could encage, | 10 | ···/˘···˘/ |
| Have passed to darkness with the vanished age. | 10 | ···/˘··/˘· |
| Who late so free as Spanish girls were seen | 10 | ·····/˘··· |
| (Ere War uprose in his volcanic rage), | 10 | ······˘/˘· |
| With braided tresses bounding o'er the green, | 10 | ·/˘/˘/˘··· |
| While on the gay dance shone Night's lover-loving Queen? | 12 | ·······/˘/˘· |
| Oh! many a time and oft had Harold loved, | 10 | ·/·····/˘· |
| Or dreamed he loved, since rapture is a dream; | 10 | ·····/˘··· |
| But now his wayward bosom was unmoved, | 10 | ···/˘/˘·˘/ |
| For not yet had he drunk of Lethe's stream: | 9 | ········· |
| And lately had he learned with truth to deem | 10 | ·/˘······· |
| Love has no gift so grateful as his wings: | 10 | ·····/˘··· |
| How fair, how young, how soft soe'er he seem, | 9 | ········· |
| Full from the fount of joy's delicious springs | 10 | ······˘/˘· |
| Some bitter o'er the flowers its bubbling venom flings. | 12 | ·/˘··/·/˘/˘· |
Notes from the edition 3
E. H. Coleridge's notes to Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, The Works of Lord Byron, Poetry vol. II (John Murray, 1899; Project Gutenberg #25340). Bracketed passages are the editor's; unbracketed are Byron's own (Cantos I-III) or John Cam Hobhouse's (Canto IV, his 'Historical Notes'). Digit footnotes ('[17]') are informational and numbered continuously through the whole book; end-notes keyed '[n.B.]' (Byron) or '[n.H.]' (Hobhouse) follow each canto and are numbered afresh from 1 there. Both kinds are placed here by matching each note's own quoted words against the site's text, not by the number or stanza the note states, because the site's text (Gutenberg #5131) and this edition (#25340) are different editions with different stanza counts in Canto I. Lettered footnotes ('[h]', '[dn]') are manuscript and edition variant readings and are not harvested, matching the treatment of Don Juan's and byron-works-3's lettered notes.
- Stanza 1, line 9 "The Spaniards are as revengeful as ever. At Santa Otella, I heard a young peasant threaten to stab a woman (an old one, to be sure, which mitigates the offence), and was told, on expressing some small surprise, that this ethic was by no means uncommon."--[MS.]
- Stanza 2, line 2 [Byron's "orthodoxy" of the word "centinel" was suggested by the Spanish centinela, or, perhaps, by Spenser's "centonell" (Faerie Queene, bk. i. c. ix. st. 41, line 8).]
- Stanza 3, line 9 "Medio de fonte leporum Surgit amari aliquid quod in ipseis floribus angat." Lucr., iv. 1133.
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