Narcissus. What means this sudden dreadful change, I wonder?
Pan. It means, great Pan is outraged!
Omnes. Pan!
Pan. Ah, Pan!
Beware his hate and jealousy, young man.
Blight shall o'erwhelm ye! See, your native corn
Turns into ashes with my withering scorn.
Your wheat shall shrink and shrivel, every sheaf;
Your cattle swell the cattlelogue of grief;
With murrain all your sheep rot in their pens,
The pip shall finish all your cocks and hens;
Dry rot shall spoil your flails, your ploughs, and harrows,
Break up your waggons; even your wheel-barrows
Shall come to woe.
Your land shall grow so hard, in vain you tills.
Like lazy volunteers, with weakish wills,
It will object to being bored by drills.
Your turnip-tops shan't spring up from the roots,
Your rye shall grow awry, your corn shan't shoot,
Your peas, towards which the Arcadian feeder leans,
Become things of the past, and all turn beans,
Ha, ha! the prospect cuts you to the core,
Probes, punctures, penetrates.—Pour, torrents, pour!
Descend, ye hailstones, bumpers, thumpers, fizzers;
It cuts you like a knife, doesn't it, Nar-scissors?
This is a very fair specimen of Byron's rather careless method; and another is at hand in the following lines, which are spoken after the Carian captain has shown to Pan a jar of wine:—
Captain. That's wine.
Pan. What's wine?
Captain.A fluid very rare;
It's unknown here; we bring it from afar;
Don't speak a word of thanks—there, hold your jar....
Pan. The jar's a most uncommon sort of shape,
(Smells it) Oh, oh! may I be shot if it ain't grape!
[Tastes it, and smacks his lips.
Gollopshus! (drinks). More gollopshus than the first!
It quenches, yet somehow increases, thirst.
(Drinks) Talk about nectar. These celestial fellers
Have no such drink as this stuff in their cellars.
I must bid Ganymede to earth to fly—
Ganymede, brin-g an immed-iate supply.
[Drinks, and becomes gradually elevated—hiccups.
Nectar celestial drink's supposed to be;
It's called divine—this is de vine for me!
(Sings) We'll drown it in the bowl! (Staggers) I see two bottles!
I only wish I'd got a pair of throttles!
My, everything's in two! As for that there tree,
It was a single tree, it's now a pair tree.
That bay I thought Arcadian—but, I say,
It seems to me, my friend, you're Dublin bay.
Fact, 'tis a pair of bays. The earth seems reeling,
While this is still so gently o'er me stealing.
To the burlesques by William Brough already mentioned may be added "Endymion, or the Naughty Boy who cried for the Moon" (St. James's, 1860), and "Pygmalion, or the Statue Fair" (Strand, 1867). The former,[12] of course, has to do with the fabled fondness of Diana for Endymion, and vice versâ. The goddess sees the youth lying asleep upon Mount Latmos, and, descending, kisses him:-