Why Romantic love is for Italy, not Britain ーなぜロマンティックな愛はイタリアのために、イギリスではなくてー

Why do the Italians have a reputation for being passionate lovers?  How easy it is to imagine a man in Italy standing in the garden of his lover, calling up to her as she sits by her window above!

And why do the British have a reputation as calm, tea-drinking people who wait patiently in queues and try not to show their feelings?

Maybe Lord Byron, a British Romantic poet of the 19^th century, had the answer.  He thought that it was all to do with the weather.  I recently read a poem of his, in which he complained about a lady who expected him to wait for her in a garden in the cold British winter.  I thought it was very funny, so I have printed some extracts below.

From, “To a lady who presented to the author a lock of hair braided with his own, and appointed a night in December to meet him in the garden”.:

“[Why should you]

Doom the lover you have chosen,

On winter nights to sigh half-frozen?”

“Shakespeare set the precedent.

Oh, would some modern Muse inspire,

And seat her by a [warm] coal fire?”

“In Italy I’ve no objection,

Warm nights are proper for reflection.

But here our climate is so rigid,

That love itself is rather frigid.

Think on our chilly situation,

And curb this love of imitation.” 

*
So Byron blames Shakespeare for setting scenes of love in a garden, as he does in Romeo and Juliet.  He wishes that British women would stop trying to imitate these romantic scenes, which are not suitable to our climate.  And he wishes that another great writer would set a scene of love indoors, next to a warm fire.

Vocabulary:

to present something to someone – to give something to someone

to be braided – of threads, hair etc., to be woven together into a decorative pattern

to doom someone or something – to ensure that someone or something meets a terrible fate

a precedent – an example which will be followed or copied

“Oh, would some modern Muse inspire” – If only some modern Muse would inspire

a Muse – a Greek goddess responsible for inspiring artists

an objection – an expression or feeling of disapproval or opposition

reflection – serious thought or consideration

rigid – hard and unbending

frigid – very cold in temperature

chilly – uncomfortably or unpleasantly cold

to curb something - to restrain or hold something back