{"product_id":"2940014250320","title":"DON JUAN","description":"CANTO THE FIRST\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e     I want a hero: an uncommon want,\u003cbr\u003e       When every year and month sends forth a new one,\u003cbr\u003e     Till, after cloying the gazettes with cant,\u003cbr\u003e       The age discovers he is not the true one;\u003cbr\u003e     Of such as these I should not care to vaunt,\u003cbr\u003e       I 'll therefore take our ancient friend Don Juan--\u003cbr\u003e     We all have seen him, in the pantomime,\u003cbr\u003e     Sent to the devil somewhat ere his time.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e     Vernon, the butcher Cumberland, Wolfe, Hawke,\u003cbr\u003e       Prince Ferdinand, Granby, Burgoyne, Keppel, Howe,\u003cbr\u003e     Evil and good, have had their tithe of talk,\u003cbr\u003e       And fill'd their sign posts then, like Wellesley now;\u003cbr\u003e     Each in their turn like Banquo's monarchs stalk,\u003cbr\u003e       Followers of fame, 'nine farrow' of that sow:\u003cbr\u003e     France, too, had Buonaparte and Dumourier\u003cbr\u003e     Recorded in the Moniteur and Courier.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e     Barnave, Brissot, Condorcet, Mirabeau,\u003cbr\u003e       Petion, Clootz, Danton, Marat, La Fayette,\u003cbr\u003e     Were French, and famous people, as we know:\u003cbr\u003e       And there were others, scarce forgotten yet,\u003cbr\u003e     Joubert, Hoche, Marceau, Lannes, Desaix, Moreau,\u003cbr\u003e       With many of the military set,\u003cbr\u003e     Exceedingly remarkable at times,\u003cbr\u003e     But not at all adapted to my rhymes.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e     Nelson was once Britannia's god of war,\u003cbr\u003e       And still should be so, but the tide is turn'd;\u003cbr\u003e     There 's no more to be said of Trafalgar,\u003cbr\u003e       'T is with our hero quietly inurn'd;\u003cbr\u003e     Because the army 's grown more popular,\u003cbr\u003e       At which the naval people are concern'd;\u003cbr\u003e     Besides, the prince is all for the land-service,\u003cbr\u003e     Forgetting Duncan, Nelson, Howe, and Jervis.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e     Brave men were living before Agamemnon\u003cbr\u003e       And since, exceeding valorous and sage,\u003cbr\u003e     A good deal like him too, though quite the same none;\u003cbr\u003e       But then they shone not on the poet's page,\u003cbr\u003e     And so have been forgotten:--I condemn none,\u003cbr\u003e       But can't find any in the present age\u003cbr\u003e     Fit for my poem (that is, for my new one);\u003cbr\u003e     So, as I said, I 'll take my friend Don Juan.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e     Most epic poets plunge 'in medias res'\u003cbr\u003e       (Horace makes this the heroic turnpike road),\u003cbr\u003e     And then your hero tells, whene'er you please,\u003cbr\u003e       What went before--by way of episode,\u003cbr\u003e     While seated after dinner at his ease,\u003cbr\u003e       Beside his mistress in some soft abode,\u003cbr\u003e     Palace, or garden, paradise, or cavern,\u003cbr\u003e     Which serves the happy couple for a tavern.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e     That is the usual method, but not mine--\u003cbr\u003e       My way is to begin with the beginning;\u003cbr\u003e     The regularity of my design\u003cbr\u003e       Forbids all wandering as the worst of sinning,\u003cbr\u003e     And therefore I shall open with a line\u003cbr\u003e       (Although it cost me half an hour in spinning)\u003cbr\u003e     Narrating somewhat of Don Juan's father,\u003cbr\u003e     And also of his mother, if you 'd rather.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e     In Seville was he born, a pleasant city,\u003cbr\u003e       Famous for oranges and women--he\u003cbr\u003e     Who has not seen it will be much to pity,\u003cbr\u003e       So says the proverb--and I quite agree;\u003cbr\u003e     Of all the Spanish towns is none more pretty,\u003cbr\u003e       Cadiz perhaps--but that you soon may see;\u003cbr\u003e     Don Juan's parents lived beside the river,\u003cbr\u003e     A noble stream, and call'd the Guadalquivir.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e     His father's name was Jose--Don, of course,--\u003cbr\u003e       A true Hidalgo, free from every stain\u003cbr\u003e     Of Moor or Hebrew blood, he traced his source\u003cbr\u003e       Through the most Gothic gentlemen of Spain;\u003cbr\u003e     A better cavalier ne'er mounted horse,\u003cbr\u003e       Or, being mounted, e'er got down again,\u003cbr\u003e     Than Jose, who begot our hero, who\u003cbr\u003e     Begot--but that 's to come--Well, to renew:\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e     His mother was a learned lady, famed\u003cbr\u003e       For every branch of every science known\u003cbr\u003e     In every Christian language ever named,\u003cbr\u003e       With virtues equall'd by her wit alone,\u003cbr\u003e     She made the cleverest people quite ashamed,\u003cbr\u003e       And even the good with inward envy groan,\u003cbr\u003e     Finding themselves so very much exceeded\u003cbr\u003e     In their own way by all the things that she did.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e     Her memory was a mine: she knew by heart\u003cbr\u003e       All Calderon and greater part of Lope,\u003cbr\u003e     So that if any actor miss'd his part\u003cbr\u003e       She could have served him for the prompter's copy;\u003cbr\u003e     For her Feinagle's were an useless art,\u003cbr\u003e       And he himself obliged to shut up shop--he\u003cbr\u003e     Could never make a memory so fine as\u003cbr\u003e     That which adorn'd the brain of Donna Inez.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e     Her favourite science was the mathematical,\u003cbr\u003e       Her noblest virtue was her magnanimity,\u003cbr\u003e     Her wit (she sometimes tried at wit) was Attic all,\u003cbr\u003e       Her serious sayings darken'd to sublimity;\u003cbr\u003e     In short, in all things she was fairly what I call","brand":"SAP","offers":[{"title":"Default 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