Damaetas, by Lord Byron
In law an infant, and in years a boy,
In mind a slave to every vicious joy;
From every sense of shame and virtue wean’d;
In lies an adept, in deceit a fiend;
Versed in hypocrisy, while yet a child;
Fickle as wind, of inclinations wild;
Women his dupe, his heedless friend a tool;
Old in the world, though scarcely broke from school;
Damætas ran through all the maze of sin,
And found the goal when others just begin:
Even still conflicting passions shake his soul,
And bid him drain the dregs of pleasure’s bowl;
But, pall’d with vice, he breaks his former chain,
And what was once his bliss appears his bane
Damaetas was written by George Byron, the 6th Baron Byron (1788–1824). It tells the story of a boy’s decadent life. The first six lines explains the boy’s childhood; how he was easily tempted, and how he had lies by heart as he grew. Byron goes on describing the boy’s adulthood, which is equally decadent with sins and temptations. However, the plot experiences a sudden twist in the last two lines, where the character turns against everything that he has done and changes his lifestyle.
Stylistic devices abound in Damaetas. The rhyming scheme–AABBCC, and so on–is regular and strictly followed throughout the poem. No additional rhymes can be found. Like the rhyming scheme, the rhythm is very regular. Every line contains exactly ten syllables and is written as an iambic pentameter, except for line 13, which disturbs the pattern slightly. Despite this line, the regularity of the poem makes it fluent and easy to read. Further simplifying reading, Byron makes good use of assonances. Some examples are line four, “in deceit a fiend”, and the final line, “what was once”, which is also an alliteration.
It is worth to note that the poem contains just a single stanza. The effect of this is that it is read more as an ongoing story, as opposed to a story split into chapters, where there are pauses to make. This makes the end, which will be further discussed later, come more suddenly and have a larger element of surprise.
Mystery, danger and decadence are words which describe the tone of the poem. These must be used in conjunction, since only one of them cannot portray the whole atmosphere. What is dangerous is often mystical, and when it comes to this kind of long-term life-style-dependent danger, it is often referred to as decadent. Byron uses a certain vocabulary with the intention to enhance this feeling.
Words connected to magic and other mystic topics are used when other words would suffice, such as line four, “adept” and “fiend”, and line 13, “drain”. Line ten sees the metaphor of an abstract maze, which is often used to describe enigmatic situations. Grand words–for instance “virtue” (line three), “passions” (line 13) and “bliss” (line 15)–contribute to the atmosphere of decadence, since that word is often connected to whole life-styles, which are dangerous and morally questionable, instead of just dangerous actions.
It is reasonable to assume that the main character of the poem bears the name Damaetas. Despite extensive research, though, I was unable to find any information about that name. The only reference to Damaetas in literature is in the 1673 poem Lycidas by John Milton, in which the name is mentioned once: “And old Damaetas lov’d to hear our song”. Unfortunately, this brings no deeper understanding on why Lord Byron chose this name.
The first line of Byron’s poem is ambiguous. I interpret it as if Damaetas grows rapidly; when he was legally an infant, his body was that of a boy. However, it could be a simple observation of his age, i.e. He was an infant according to law, and just a couple of years old, that is, a boy. Line two tells of his tragic disposition to temptations, using the hyperbole “in mind a slave”. The fourth and fifth lines describe how he was brought up with lies, and how he learnt to use them himself.
Line six notes Damaetas’s impulsiveness; he would “fickle as wind”, and the wind is unreliable. This is yet another one of many attributes, which are associated with failures, given to the boy. The subsequent line tells of how he lived for women, which is also looked down upon. In line ten, Byron summarizes the main character by writing that he ran through the “maze of sin”.
At the beginning of line 14, the turning point of the poem, Damaetas is “pall’d with vice”. “pall’d”, which has an omitted E, is the past participle of “pall”. One meaning of that word is “to weaken”. A vice is a bad habit; the antonym of virtue. Thus, Damaetas, despite his former failures, starts afresh and, as the final line reads, turns his previous bliss to his bane.
I believe that what Lord Byron wants to convey is that it is never too late for change. He makes a very effective introduction, portraying the boy as the archetype of a failure, until he swiftly swings everything around.
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