For
From Don Juan
by Lord Byron
LXXII
The seventh day, and no wind -- the burning sun
Blister'd and scorch'd, and, stagnant on the sea,
They lay like carcasses; and hope was none,
Save in the breeze that came not; savagely
They glared upon each other -- all was done,
Water, and wine, and food, -- and you might see
The longings of the cannibal arise
(Although they spoke not) in their wolfish eyes.
LXXIII
At length one whisper'd his companion, who
Whisper'd another, and thus it went round,
And then into a hoarser murmur grew,
An ominous, and wild, and desperate sound;
And when his comrade's thought each sufferer knew,
'T was but his own, suppress'd till now, he found:
And out they spoke of lots for flesh and blood,
And who should die to be his fellow's food.
LXXIV
But ere they came to this, they that day shared
Some leathern caps, and what remain'd of shoes;
And then they look'd around them and despair'd,
And none to be the sacrifice would choose;
At length the lots were torn up, and prepared,
But of materials that much shock the Muse --
Having no paper, for the want of better,
They took by force from Juan Julia's letter.
LXXV
The lots were made, and mark'd, and mix'd, and handed,
In silent horror, and their distribution
Lull'd even the savage hunger which demanded,
Like the Promethean vulture, this pollution;
None in particular had sought or plann'd it,
'T was nature gnaw'd them to this resolution,
By which none were permitted to be neuter --
And the lot fell on Juan's luckless tutor.
LXXVI
He but requested to be bled to death:
The surgeon had his instruments, and bled
Pedrillo, and so gently ebb'd his breath,
You hardly could perceive when he was dead.
He died as born, a Catholic in faith,
Like most in the belief in which they're bred,
And first a little crucifix he kiss'd,
And then held out his jugular and wrist.
LXXVII
The surgeon, as there was no other fee,
Had his first choice of morsels for his pains;
But being thirstiest at the moment, he
Preferr'd a draught from the fast-flowing veins:
Part was divided, part thrown in the sea,
And such things as the entrails and the brains
Regaled two sharks, who follow'd o'er the billow --
The sailors ate the rest of poor Pedrillo.
LXXVIII
The sailors ate him, all save three or four,
Who were not quite so fond of animal food;
To these was added Juan, who, before
Refusing his own spaniel, hardly could
Feel now his appetite increased much more;
'T was not to be expected that he should,
Even in extremity of their disaster,
Dine with them on his pastor and his master.
LXXIX
'T was better that he did not; for, in fact,
The consequence was awful in the extreme;
For they, who were most ravenous in the act,
Went raging mad -- Lord! how they did blaspheme!
And foam and roll, with strange convulsions rack'd,
Drinking salt water like a mountain-stream,
Tearing, and grinning, howling, screeching, swearing,
And, with hyaena-laughter, died despairing.
LXXX
Their numbers were much thinn'd by this infliction,
And all the rest were thin enough, Heaven knows;
And some of them had lost their recollection,
Happier than they who still perceived their woes;
But others ponder'd on a new dissection,
As if not warn'd sufficiently by those
Who had already perish'd, suffering madly,
For having used their appetites so sadly.
LXXXIII
And if Pedrillo's fate should shocking be,
Remember Ugolino condescends [*]
To eat the head of his arch-enemy
The moment after he politely ends
His tale: if foes be food in hell, at sea
'T is surely fair to dine upon our friends,
When shipwreck's short allowance grows too scanty,
Without being much more horrible than Dante.
--------
Sex, death and politics, not necessarily in that order...
From this morning's New York Times, David Brooks on Americans and Money.
My "Dawn" review at TrekNation: Tucker, His Arms Wide
Your Livejournal Analysis
Your Livejournal's Age
According to the information you provided, your Livejournal was created on 2002-10-29, meaning that your journal has been around for 74 days. What does this mean?
Being in the 1-6 month range means that you've likely settled into a routine as far as your posting habits are concerned. By now you probably have most of the functions figured out, though you might still learn a trick or two along the way. You probably still add friends on a regular basis, though that's not always the case. You are still something of a youngin in the LJ community, but at least you are not a newbie.
Your Livejournal Friends
Now let's talk about your friends list. You indicated that you have 47 LJ friends.
A good, considerable number of friends. You've collected quite a few of them in the relatively short time that you've had your journal. Perhaps you gleefully added a bunch of people you found with similar interests, or simply added everyone that you remotely know. Not that it's a bad thing, mind you.
You also have been listed as a friend by 40 users.
That's a decent amount of people paying attention to your journal. Given the fact that your journal is still young, you've done a fairly good job of advertising yourself. Probably got all your friends to add you, maybe joined a few LJ communities to meet some new folks. All in all, a large list for the time you've been around.
Finally in this category, you have a friends to friends-of ratio of 1.175.
This is an average ratio, meaning you have nearly (or maybe exactly) the same number of friends as people who have listed you as a friend. There's a good chance you add back everyone who has added you, and only add people who haven't added you if they are a good friend and chances are they'll be adding you back anyway.
Your Posting Habits
You have indicated that to date, you have made 224 entries into your Livejournal. This gives us an average post rate of 3.027027027027 posts per day.
You are posting more than twice a day, making you quite the busy and avid LJ user. You don't hesitate to make your daily updates, telling the world what's been going on, and you may even update a few times in the day. More than likely you are throwing in webquizzes and random thoughts from time to time, and you might even see it fit to hop on to the computer and update with every little mood swing you encounter!
Your Commenting Habits
According to your information, you have posted 441 comments and have recieved 521 of them over the lifetime of your journal. Let's see what this information can mean.
First of all, this indicates that you have been getting an average of 2.3258928571429 comments for every Livejournal entry that you make.
With an average of at least 2 comments per post or greater, you enjoy a healthy dialogue with your friends and get a lot of response to what you have to say. You might also be posting those silly web quizzes, or making entries that are so interesting or so unusual that people can't help but to comment. Either that, or you just have a buttload of friends.
A more fair measure of how many comments you get might be your average number of comments per post per friend, which is 0.049487082066869. This may seem low to you, especially if you have lots of friends.
The final statistic is the ratio of your comments to comments you get. Your ratio is 0.84644913627639. The higher the ratio, the more talkative you are compared to your friends, comment-wise.
That's it for now! Perhaps there was something insightful in this analasys, and perhaps you learned absolutely nothing. Feel free to post your results on your own Livejournal, and invite your friends to take the Livejournal Analasys today!
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