from Canto II

21

He felt that chilling heaviness of heart,
     Or rather stomach, which, alas! attends,
Beyond the best apothecary’s art,
     The loss of love, the treachery of friends,
Or death of those we dote on, when a part
     Of us dies with them as each fond hope ends:
No doubt he would have been much more pathetic,
But the sea acted as a strong emetic.

22

Love’s a capricious power; I’ve known it hold
     Out through a fever caused by its own heat,
But be much puzzled by a cough and cold,
    And find a quinsy very hard to treat;
Against all noble maladies he’s bold,
     But vulgar illnesses don’t like to meet,
Nor that a sneeze should interrupt his sigh,
Nor inflammations redden his blind eye.

23

But worst of all is nausea, or a pain
     About the lower region of the bowels;
Love, who heroically breathes a vein,
     Shrinks from the application of hot towels,
And purgatives are dangerous to his reign,
     Sea-sickness death: his love was perfect, how else
Could Juan’s passion, while the billows roar,
Resist his stomach, ne’er at sea before?

24

The ship, call’d the most holy “Trinidada,”
     Was steering duly for the port Leghorn;
For there the Spanish family Moncada
     Were settled long ere Juan’s sire was born:
They were relations, and for them he had a
     Letter of introduction, which the morn
Of his departure had been sent him by
His Spanish friends for those in Italy.

25

His suite consisted of three servants and
    A tutor, the licentiate Pedrillo,
Who several languages did understand,
     But now lay sick and speechless on his pillow,
And, rocking in his hammock, long’d for land,
     His headache being increased by every billow;
And the waves oozing through the port-hole made
His birth a little damp, and him afraid.

26

‘Twas not without some reason, for the wind
     Increased at night, until it blew a gale;
And though ‘twas not much to a naval mind,
    Some landsmen would have look’d a little pale,
For sailors are, in fact, a different kind:
     At sunset they began to take in sail,
For the sky show’d it would come on to blow,
And carry away, perhaps, a mast or so.

27

At one o’clock the wind with sudden shift
     Threw the ship right into the trough of the sea,
Which struck her aft, and made an awkward rift,
     Started the stern-post, also shatter’d the
Whole of her stern-frame, and ere she could lift
     Herself from out her present jeopardy
The rudder tore away: ‘twas time to sound
The pumps, and there were four feet water found.

28

One gang of people instantly was put
     Upon the pumps, and the remainder set
To get up part of the cargo, and what not,
     But they could not come at the leak as yet;
At last they did get at it really, but
     Still their salvation was an even bet:
The water rush’d through in a way quite puzzling,
While they thrust sheets, shirts, jackets, bales of muslin,

29

Into the opening; but all such ingredients
     Would have been vain, and they must have gone down,
Despite of all their efforts and expedients,
     But for the pumps: I’m glad to make them known
To all the brother tars who may have need hence,
    For fifty tons of water were upthrown
By them per hour, and they had all been undone
But for the maker, Mr. Mann, of London.

30

As day advanced the weather seem’d to abate,
     And then the leak they reckon’d to reduce,
And keep the ship afloat, though three feet yet
     Kept two hand and one chain-pump still in use.
The wind blew fresh again: as it grew late
     A squall came on, and while some guns broke loose,
A gust—which all descriptive power transcends—
Laid with one blast the ship on her beam ends.