{
 "id": "lord-byron/canto-xvii",
 "title": "Canto XVII",
 "ordinal": null,
 "subtitle": null,
 "poet": "Lord Byron",
 "poet_slug": "lord-byron",
 "language": "en",
 "book": "Don Juan",
 "book_slug": "don-juan",
 "book_kind": "volume",
 "sequence": 19,
 "container": null,
 "epigraph": null,
 "first_published": {
  "year": 1824,
  "venue": "Don Juan (1824)",
  "note": "First located printing is this volume; an earlier periodical printing has not been established.",
  "uncertain": false,
  "sources": [
   "https://github.com/standardebooks/lord-byron_don-juan",
   "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/18762"
  ]
 },
 "source": {
  "kind": "standard-ebooks",
  "repo": "standardebooks/lord-byron_don-juan",
  "file": "canto-17.xhtml",
  "upstream": [
   "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/18762",
   "https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/000667686"
  ],
  "rights": "public domain (SE dedication; underlying text pre-1931)"
 },
 "verification": {
  "level": "structural-only",
  "last_checked": "2026-08-20"
 },
 "stats": {
  "n_lines": 112,
  "n_stanzas": 14,
  "n_parts": 14,
  "longest_line_chars": 52,
  "max_indent": 1
 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [
  {
   "ordinal": "I",
   "title": null,
   "stanza_range": [
    0,
    1
   ]
  },
  {
   "ordinal": "II",
   "title": null,
   "stanza_range": [
    1,
    2
   ]
  },
  {
   "ordinal": "III",
   "title": null,
   "stanza_range": [
    2,
    3
   ]
  },
  {
   "ordinal": "IV",
   "title": null,
   "stanza_range": [
    3,
    4
   ]
  },
  {
   "ordinal": "V",
   "title": null,
   "stanza_range": [
    4,
    5
   ]
  },
  {
   "ordinal": "VI",
   "title": null,
   "stanza_range": [
    5,
    6
   ]
  },
  {
   "ordinal": "VII",
   "title": null,
   "stanza_range": [
    6,
    7
   ]
  },
  {
   "ordinal": "VIII",
   "title": null,
   "stanza_range": [
    7,
    8
   ]
  },
  {
   "ordinal": "IX",
   "title": null,
   "stanza_range": [
    8,
    9
   ]
  },
  {
   "ordinal": "X",
   "title": null,
   "stanza_range": [
    9,
    10
   ]
  },
  {
   "ordinal": "XI",
   "title": null,
   "stanza_range": [
    10,
    11
   ]
  },
  {
   "ordinal": "XII",
   "title": null,
   "stanza_range": [
    11,
    12
   ]
  },
  {
   "ordinal": "XIII",
   "title": null,
   "stanza_range": [
    12,
    13
   ]
  },
  {
   "ordinal": "XIV",
   "title": null,
   "stanza_range": [
    13,
    14
   ]
  }
 ],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "The world is full of orphans: firstly, those",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Who are so in the strict sense of the phrase;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "But many a lonely tree the loftier grows",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Than others crowded in the Forest’s maze⁠—",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "The next are such as are not doomed to lose",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Their tender parents, in their budding days,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "But, merely, their parental tenderness,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Which leaves them orphans of the heart no less.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "The next are “only Children,” as they are styled,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Who grow up Children only, since th’ old saw",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Pronounces that an “only’s” a spoilt child⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But not to go too far, I hold it law,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "That where their education, harsh or mild,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Transgresses the great bounds of love or awe,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "The sufferers⁠—be ’t in heart or intellect⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Whate’er the cause, are orphans in effect.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "But to return unto the stricter rule⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "As far as words make rules⁠—our common notion",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Of orphan paints at once a parish school,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "A half-starved babe, a wreck upon Life’s ocean,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "A human (what the Italians nickname) “Mule!”",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "A theme for Pity or some worse emotion;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Yet, if examined, it might be admitted",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The wealthiest orphans are to be more pitied.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Too soon they are Parents to themselves: for what",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Are Tutors, Guardians, and so forth, compared",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "With Nature’s genial Genitors? so that",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "A child of Chancery, that Star-Chamber ward,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "(I’ll take the likeness I can first come at,)",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Is like⁠—a duckling by Dame Partlett reared,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "And frights⁠—especially if ’tis a daughter,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Th’ old Hen⁠—by running headlong to the water.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "There is a common-place book argument,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Which glibly glides from every tongue;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "When any dare a new light to present,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "“If you are right, then everybody’s wrong”!",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Suppose the converse of this precedent",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "So often urged, so loudly and so long;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "“If you are wrong, then everybody’s right”!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Was ever everybody yet so quite?",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Therefore I would solicit free discussion",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Upon all points⁠—no matter what, or whose⁠—",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Because as Ages upon Ages push on,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The last is apt the former to accuse",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Of pillowing its head on a pin-cushion,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Heedless of pricks because it was obtuse:",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "What was a paradox becomes a truth or",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "A something like it⁠—witness Luther!",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "The Sacraments have been reduced to two,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And Witches unto none, though somewhat late",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Since burning agèd women (save a few⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Not witches only b⁠—ches⁠—who create",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Mischief in families, as some know or knew,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Should still be singed, but lightly, let me state,)",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Has been declared an act of inurbanity,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Malgré Sir Matthew Hales’s great humanity.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Great Galileo was debarred the Sun,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Because he fixed it; and, to stop his talking,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "How Earth could round the solar orbit run,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Found his own legs embargoed from mere walking:",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "The man was well-nigh dead, ere men begun",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To think his skull had not some need of caulking;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "But now, it seems, he’s right⁠—his notion just:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "No doubt a consolation to his dust.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Pythagoras, Locke, Socrates⁠—but pages",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Might be filled up, as vainly as before,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "With the sad usage of all sorts of sages,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Who in his life-time, each, was deemed a Bore!",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "The loftiest minds outrun their tardy ages:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "This they must bear with and, perhaps, much more;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "The wise man’s sure when he no more can share it, he",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Will have a firm Post Obit on posterity.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "If such doom waits each intellectual Giant,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "We little people in our lesser way,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "In Life’s small rubs should surely be more pliant,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And so for one will I⁠—as well I may⁠—",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Would that I were less bilious⁠—but, oh, fie on ’t!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Just as I make my mind up every day,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "To be a “totus, teres,” Stoic, Sage,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The wind shifts and I fly into a rage.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Temperate I am⁠—yet never had a temper;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Modest I am⁠—yet with some slight assurance;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Changeable too⁠—yet somehow “Idem semper:”",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Patient⁠—but not enamoured of endurance;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Cheerful⁠—but, sometimes, rather apt to whimper:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Mild⁠—but at times a sort of “Hercules furens:”",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "So that I almost think that the same skin",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "For one without⁠—has two or three within.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Our Hero was, in Canto the Sixteenth,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Left in a tender moonlight situation,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Such as enables Man to show his strength",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Moral or physical: on this occasion",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Whether his virtue triumphed⁠—or, at length,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "His vice⁠—for he was of a kindling nation⁠—",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Is more than I shall venture to describe;⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Unless some Beauty with a kiss should bribe.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "I leave the thing a problem, like all things:⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The morning came⁠—and breakfast, tea and toast,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Of which most men partake, but no one sings.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The company whose birth, wealth, worth, has cost",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "My trembling Lyre already several strings,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Assembled with our hostess, and mine host;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "The guests dropped in⁠—the last but one, Her Grace,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The latest, Juan, with his virgin face.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Which best it is to encounter⁠—Ghost, or none,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "’Twere difficult to say⁠—but Juan looked",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "As if he had combated with more than one,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Being wan and worn, with eyes that hardly brooked",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "The light, that through the Gothic window shone:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Her Grace, too, had a sort of air rebuked⁠—",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Seemed pale and shivered, as if she had kept",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "A vigil, or dreamt rather more than slept.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}