When she had twenty years, and thirteen he;
But I am not so sure I would have smiled
When he was sixteen, Julia twenty-three.
These few short years make wondrous alterations,
Particularly amongst the sunburnt nations.
Their relationship grows from a childish affection, with a young woman petting a beautiful young boy like a favored animal, to where puberty kicks in and as a teenager he and Julia become shy with one another as silent love blossoms. At this stage Julia realizes that she is in love with Juan although he is blissfully unaware of this.
“Whate’er the cause might be, they had become
Changed, for the dame grew distant, the youth shy”
Stanza 70.
With love burning in his (Juan’s) heart
“Like what this light touch left on Juan’s heart”
The same effect took Julia
“As if her heart had deeper thoughts in store”
Julia tries to repress her feelings for Juan and tried to “rather face and overcome temptation” (Stanza 77) than let it eat away at her.
Their love is seemingly platonic at this point –
“Such love is innocent and may exist
Between young persons without any danger;” (Stanza 80)
although Julia is thinking that perhaps if her husband should die (at this point she does not mention any kind of foul play so methinks she is merely pondering wildly) and she should be a widow, that Juan would be a good man for her to marry, being of good family and wealthy.
“Juan being then grown up to man’s estate
Would fully suit a widow of condition.” (Stanza 85)
For Juan it was a new feeling that he was not able to puzzle out the meaning of.
“Poor little fellow, he had no idea
Of his own case and never hit the true one.” (Stanza 86)
He wanders through woods wanting no one but himself for company in Stanza 87-96 and whilst thinking of higher thoughts – such as those of the earth and the stars although he is incapable of blocking Julia out completely – “And then he thought of Donna Julia’s eyes” (Stanza 92)
Donna Inez has plotted this little tete a tete from the beginning as her revenge on Don Alfonso. Another idea for why she has engineered this is that she wants to complete her son’s education with this act of lovemaking. She has turned to a married woman for this so her son is not taken away from her.
“She had some other motive much more near
For leaving Juan to this new temptation.” (Stanza 101)
Now we see the lover’s once more alone within the leafy bower as Donna Inez has arranged. Julia is compared to a houri (beautiful female companion to the faithful in the Muslim paradise) “As e’er held houri in that heathenish heaven” (Stanza 104)
Both are so much in love with each other at this stage that
“But there were she and Juan face to face.
When two such faces are so, ‘twould be wise,
But very difficult, to shut their eyes.” (Stanza 105)
They both have eyes only for each other and although Julia knows what is happening at this stage she feels that she is doing no wrong.
“How beautiful she looked! Her conscious heart
Glowed in her cheek, and yet she felt no wrong.” (Stanza 106)
Love is making her blind to the consequences of her actions.
“How self deceitful is sagest part.” (Stanza 106)
And her naivety still shines through even though she is married.
“So was her creed in her own innocence.” (Stanza 106)
But now she thinks of herself and Juan and her fifty year old husband and how she is not at all in love with him and was effectively bought by him.
“At fifty love for love is rare, ‘tis true;
But then no doubt it equally as true is,
A good deal may be bought for fifty louis.” (Stanza 108)
Following this she says that she has “honour, virtue, truth and love for Don Alfonso.” (Stanza 109) and that “she would never disgrace the ring she wore.” But this is completely false, as by the end of the stanza she has thrown a “careless” hand over Juan’s – supposedly by accident. Now she is fully aware of her actions and is trying to justify what she is doing under a screen of naivety and accident.
The stanza 111 presents Julia as still being innocent and
“Yet there’s no doubt she only meant to clasp
His fingers with a pure Platonic squeeze.”
Although before she “gently but palpably confirmed its grasp, As if it said, ‘Detain me, if you please.’” The sweet and seemingly innocent Julia is actually desperate for Juan but still trying to imply that she doesn’t want to dishonour her husband.
“A feeling dangerous to a prudent spouse.”
Juan appears within Stanza 112 and takes the limelight from Julia as he kisses her spontaneously then recoils as if he has done wrong. He is the one more in control of his feelings at this stage and is sure that he has done wrong.
“And then abashed at its own joy, withdrew”
She is completely speechless, enraptured at her love kissing her and hardly knows what she is doing.
“She blushed and frowned not, but she strove to speak
And held her tongue, her voice was grown so weak.”
Even at this stage Julia is kidding herself by thinking that it is just a bit of fun that could be stopped at any moment even after being kissed by Juan and with his arm round her.
“Yet still she must have thought there was no harm,
Or else ‘twere easy to withdraw her waist.”
But she stops fooling around and agrees, “the situation had its charm,”
Now Byron comes in with one of his favourite phrases – “I can’t go on;”
This suggests a sexual encounter in progress as Byron repeatedly uses this phrase throughout the poem to suggest a situation where something rude or risqué may be happening. (****I need to find another usage of I can’t go on – in the book somewhere*****).
Finally in Stanza 17 Julia gives in to the urges that had been plaguing her for along while like she always knew she would and surrenders to Juan’s clumsy advances though claiming to have repentance that seems to be a little tongue in cheek.
“Not that remorse did not oppose temptation;
A little still she strove and much repented,”
The lovers are presented as young, innocents within the context of these stanzas although it is my own personal view (aided with numerous hints from the poem – such as “but then the situation had its charm”) that Julia was intending to sleep with Juan all along and was just making him work for it. Both of them are naïve in their own way – Julia in thinking that Juan’s advances on her and her love for him were just a game and Juan for being ignorant of all things sexual with Julia being the first, attractive girl near his own age whom he’d ever met on a social, regular basis.
