Portraits Of Lord Byron, In Order Of Lord Byron-ness

by Mallory Ortberg · April 22, 2015

byron8

Ver-r-r-y Byron. At first glance, you might be tempted to think, “Not very Byron,” because there are other people in the picture, and his alabaster brow isn’t the focal point. This is an error. “You there, boy, fetch into this dinghy and sail into yon exhilarating storm, while I stand here and clench my fist over this rock. If you drown in the background, it will make for a very exciting painting.” He’s wearing like eighteen ascots and they’re all flowing in a tempest, plenty of Byron here.

byron7

SOLID POUTY BYRON. He’s got some secret freaky brocade vest on under his cloak, which is probably full of dildos, his brow situation is ferociously organized, his out-of-frame hand is probably jerking off the devil, because there’s some sort of flame situation going on in the lower right-hand corner.

byron6

Eight out of ten Byrons. Look at his SEXUAL SNEERING.
What is this woman doing in my portrait
ss her hair more luxurious than mine
I hope she falls down this hill and dies so I can be alone with my dog 
what is she LOOKING at even
why isn’t it me

byron5

Just enough Byron. “I will not make eye contact during this portrait sitting,” his contract reads. “You may only color in my mouth, so that people can make out with this painting of me.” End of contract.

byron4

Medium Byron, which is perhaps the least amount of Byron you can get. It’s better to be almost no Byron than just regular Byron, so this is actually zero Byrons. He’s almost smiling?? And like, reading letters, like someone with a job would do? Why don’t you just paint KEATS and DIE.

byron3

ALL POSSIBLE BYRONS. ONE BILLION PERCENT would Lord Byron grow a mustache and demand that everyone notice it. He would never come out and say “What do you think of my mustache?” but he would make it clear in a thousand small ways that you were expected to notice and compliment it, and if you withheld that pleasure from him, you would never be invited to dinner again. Lord Byron was the thirstiest man alive, but he always pretended he didn’t want anything to drink.

byron2

SEMI-Byron?? Obviously the lute and the laurel wreath and the funereal sheet draped like a Roman toga are mightily sick touches and whatnot, but you can’t even see his death erection, which I feel like would have been really important to him, that even in death people were thinking about and looking at his dick.

byron1

MOST BYRON. “Hello, are you Greece, I am here to run your army? Don’t worry, I’m a poet. Thank you for the gifts I assume are on their way.”

byron9

JUST MAKE IT LOOK LIKE I’M THINKING REAL FIERCELY
LIKE MY BRAIN IS TRYING TO FUCK THE SHIT OUT OF SOME THOUGHTS, OKAY

[Images via]

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133 Comments

    1. Lapremierefemme +15

      Thank the Gods that I am safely ensconced in my office, hooting like a lunatic at this series. #byron4evah

  3. tigrrmilk +78

    at the risk of having this become the one thing i talk about online, i v strongly recommend this article about byron’s enbalmed penis. if you’re, er, interested in that: http://blogs.forteana.org/node/147

    also, i want to put all of these paintings on my wall. except the one where he’s dying, probably.

    1. winterbymorning +94

      “Look, I’ve been in the Army, I’ve been in bathhouses, I’ve seen men. But I never saw nothing like him.” He stopped again, and nodding his head, meaningfully, as novelists say, began to tap a spot just above his knee. “He was built like a pony.”

      I don’t know much about decomposition, but…a whole 114 years after Byron’s death, his dick was intact and still capable of awing onlookers with its size? How does that work? What the hell kind of supernatural dick magic was he weaving here? “You can take my life, but you’ll never take my boner! Lil Byron is hard enough to pierce through the veil of death!”

      1. tigrrmilk +22

        welll… it was embalmed! with fluid! that made it swell and kept it… that way.

    2. drladybusiness +27

      Look, if this is the thing you talk about online, I think you’ve lived a good life.

    3. juliadomna +22

      I’m loving the image of embalmed penises “dancing in a stately sort of way”, like a scene cut from a gruesome re-make of a Jane Asten novel.
      Nodding ther little heads in the dark…

    4. sudden_eyes +8

      OH, MY GOD.

      How did I not know about this?! Ten thousand thanks.

      I want the mustache turban painting, mostly.

    5. bignorseblog +2

      Wow. I’m trying to imagine what Sigurður Hjartarson would have given to have that as the final member for the Icelandic Phallological Museum. The human penises donated so far have proven to be…hard to preserve. (Read the description of the first attempt at your peril.)
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Icelandic_Phallolog…

  4. perianwen +169

    Why don’t you just paint KEATS and DIE.

    Why not indeed. Definitely the spot where the uncontrollable laughter started.

  5. winterbymorning +130

    That pedostache is an aberration, but I never fully realized before what a BABE Byron was. No wonder he’s also my favourite Pike triplet.

    3. Ethylbenzene +10

      ::dies laughing:: Yeah I mean, if I HAD to pick a Pike, I guess it’d be Byron.

    4. saraallain +15

      OH GOD I had a crush on Byron Pike and I told my mom that if I ever had a son I would name it Byron and I hope that was not a binding contract.

      1. saraallain +35

        I have been caught in the Classic Toast trap, forgive me for my 51-weeks-late comment.

    5. alula_auburn +12

      I know this is a year old, but this comment is literally perfect.

      (In fandom he is totally and forever hooking up with Jeff Schafer. FOREVER.)

  6. bighairnoheart +84

    Welp. This is definitely going on the list of Things to Not Surreptitiously Read During a Meeting.

  7. deleted182847 +107

    He’s probably pissed that someone put him in a Pre-Raphaelite painting with The Pre-Raphaelite Woman. “Ain’t fuckin’ here to slum it in someone ELSE’S genre, Ford.”

    And speaking of the opening scene of “Bride Of Frankenstein” as we almost were: Elsa Lanchester FOREVER

    1. bighairnoheart +11

      Elsa Lanchester FOREVER AND EVER. Infinite Elsa Lanchester. (I am definitely the kind of person who will watch a movie just because she is in it, no matter how small the role.)

      1. projectbeks +16

        Might I recommend Blackbeard’s Ghost? Hard to find Disney live-action, with Elsa Lanchester as a DELIGHTFUL proprietor of the seaside inn where Blackbeard died. 10/10, would Elsa again.

        2. Elizabeth +2

          I ADORED this movie when I was a kid! I haven’t thought about it in years. Thanks for the reminder 🙂

  8. builtahouse +71

    “Why don’t you just paint KEATS and DIE?”

    My lunch-pita got entangled in my lungs, due to gasping laughter, so I nearly did, thank you.

  9. kay_hay +48

    I dressed as Lady Caroline Lamb dressing as #6 in grad school. For a party. Not just for Tuesday night Seminar: Romanticism, Aestheticism, and Eroticism or for teaching Comp 101.

    1. sausagedog +31

      I’m guessing you mean a sex (carrier) pigeon but I imagine Byron also would have been down with a Hatoful Boyfriend-type sitch.

        1. femaelstrom +25

          I never thought i would see something from Hatoful Boyfriend on the Toast. What a meeting of the minds.

    3. cgrimann +1

      Is a sex pigeon the courier of, like some sort of sext, but with glass plate negatives or ink prints?

    2. alula_auburn +5

      I know I’m late, but I totally heard these words to “A Heart Full of Love” from Les Miz.

      1. sorrycassandra +27

        I automatically think of it whenever anyone brings up Byron in any context, but I punctuate it a little more dirtbaggily in my mind:

        ok, so
        try to find a place here
        that I haven’t put my penis in

        IT’S NOT EASY

    5. LadyWoman +19

      Was definitely going to post this. I randomly quote this cartoon at my husband just to confuse and entertain him. “I’m sad. Our baby died. I don’t want to have sex with your friends.”

    1. Natalie +37

      You haven’t established a duel was fought! You haven’t established it was with Byron! For god’s sake, Bernard, you haven’t established that Byron was even here!

      1. threatqualitypress +17

        Look we’ve got the letters and be real IS IT CONCEIVABLE that the letters were in the book when Byron borrowed it?

        1. miprisci +38

          So he must have borrowed the book, written the review, posted it, seduced Mrs. Chater, fought a duel and departed, all in the space of two or three days. Who would do that?

          BYRON!

  15. eva_lee +53

    I laughed so hard I wept.
    I humbly request Lord Byron: SEXPOT DIRTBAG.
    Please, deliver this unto me so that I can laughweep again.

  16. deleted182847 +4

    “Who is #2 making me think of?” I wondered. Got it. Judy Gold.
    Old School Judy Gold.

    Would he be flattered?

    “It’s Georgie’s SHOW-OOOW!”

    (yeah, probably not flattered)

  17. Blanche de Shambles +50

    “Greek people! I wore your national costume! Are you not impressed?”

  18. Unreadaethel +78

    “Why don’t you paint KEATS and DIE?” is my new go-to insult.

    And that is a lyre not a lute and you know it and stop trolling, Ortberg.

      1. RoseCamelia +38

        Oh please let this be a new shirt:

        “And that is a lyre not a lute and you know it and stop trolling, Ortberg.”

  19. extrayarn +19

    So I was an English major but every now and then there’s a post here that makes me realize there’s a gaping hole in my knowledge. Like, this is funny to me in a general “know your Romantic poets” kind of way but CLEARLY there’s some stuff I’m missing that makes the dick jokes even funnier.

  20. Linette +53

    I have learned more about Byron’s penis today than I ever expected to know. I am now ashamed of my education, which has been revealed this day as woefully inadequate.

    1. winterbymorning +108

      You know what would never be described as woefully inadequate?

      Byron’s penis.

      HEYOOOO

    3. builtahouse +18

      Mmkay but I’m confused. The end of the article with the horrifying DISMEMBERED PENIS JAR (nightmares forever) seemed to say all ALL of them which had been injected with the embalming fluid were *huge*? And wasn’t Byron injected full of all that stuff? So isn’t it possible his legendary size was a post-mortem phenomenon?

      #realdicktalk

      (these are the kinds of things I get curious about that get me kicked out of polite establishments.)

      1. winterbymorning +35

        But the dismembered penises were floating in jars full of embalming fluid, whereas Byron was injected with whatever amount and then buried. That dude said that “He was bone from the elbows to his hands and from the knees down” so clearly a lot of his flesh DID decompose. Just… not his dick. His dick is too powerful even for Death to conquer it.

  21. maccrocodile +79

    “…his out-of-frame hand is probably jerking off the devil, because there’s some sort of flame situation going on in the lower right-hand corner.”

    His out-of-frame hand is definitely jerking off the devil, because it is Lord Byron, and what else is he supposed to do with his hands?

    1. Either_Ada +23

      He’s never not jerking off the devil. That was true during his life and it’s certainly true now, assuming the existence of an afterlife.

  22. Nausikaa +22

    Medium Byron may be only medium byronic, but as far as resemblance to Benedict Cumberbatch goes he’s got the rest of them beat.

    1. Either_Ada +44

      Cumberbatch playing Byron in some biopic would just be a couple of hours of pure fan service, as far as I can tell. I can’t even imagine the fan fiction that could then ensue. Byron IS slash fiction, embodied.

      1. sudden_eyes +31

        You make an excellent point.

        “You want homoerotic adventures? Deviant hetero sex? You want incest? You want orgies? You want drinking out of skulls? Here ya go.”

    2. grumblyqueer +5

      Similarly, Byron #2 is just one Sam Smith-looking motherfucker with that hair and chin.

  23. damanoid +47

    Why don’t you just paint KEATS and DIE.

    Your wit scintillates, do you know that? It is the arc of the Galaxy on a clear desert night; the glimmering majesty of a crystal cavern; the phosphorescent moonglow of a tropical beach; the carpet after a My Little Pony– themed birthday party.

    1. cuminafterall +37

      The timing works out, but he’s got blond hair. Perhaps a Teutonic Byron wannabe? (Byronnabe?)

      1. winterbymorning +32

        Byron would never want to have himself painted from behind, you could hardly see his dick at all from that angle.

        1. threatqualitypress +25

          Now wait a minute here, Byron had himself painted in a lot of ways, including:  deep in thought, consumed by romantic passion, pouty, VERY pouty, with a dog, dead, and dressed as a Turk (twice), but he never had a portrait painted where you could see his dick.

          He might have been a selfish egomaniacal sex maniac, but he was also a gentleman, for goodness’ sake.

    3. daisicles +9

      This painting is on the cover of my copy of Frankenstein, so even if it is just a Byronnabe, it works. Somehow.

      (I just like the painting, really.)

  26. auntymaim +6

    I have been waiting my entire life for someone to make righteous fun of that Ingres; the man had a profound gift for making lovely people so very punchable.

  27. lapidary6 +34

    Don’t you think he’s about to drag Pre-Raphaelite girl’s hand down into his lap, with her unknowing until she gets a handful of byron-weiner? I think that’s what his expression is all about in that painting.

  28. mkpatter +43

    OK everyone, Fuck Marry Kill these paintings of Byron.

    Fuck: Sketch Byron or jerking off the devil Byron
    Marry: Dog Byron (mostly for the dog)
    Kill: Roman Byron because that is a really lame painting.

    1. thegirlfrommarz +12

      “Kill: Roman Byron because that is a really lame painting.”
      Also, he’s already dead, so you’re ahead of the game.

  29. threatqualitypress +51

    Man, but that guy was good at sitting for portraits.

    I like how even in the regular one of him just sitting at a desk like a common rube he’s wearing an amulet with a ruby the size of a duck’s egg.

    1. meanchelled +60

      now what kind of man doesn’t have a sitting ruby

      i mean how do you SIT without your SITTING RUBY

      how do one’s letters open themselves if not by focusing one’s sexual-poetic prowess through the ruby at one’s throat

      HARRRRRRRRUMPHHHHHHHHH

      1. threatqualitypress +61

        POLIDORI!  I mean to glance at and then discard some letters from my admirers.  Fetch me my sitting ruby!
         
        –Is it this one?
         
        Good god man, that is plainly a boating ruby
         
        –oh yes sorry here we go–
         
        Not the going-out ruby are you even LISTENING to me?
         
        –right I’ve got it here.
         
        …
         
        –it’s not this one either is it
         
        Exactly how you’ve managed thirty years on this earth without knowing the difference between a sitting ruby and a picnic ruby is a mystery that will baffle historians for generations to come ASSUMING YOU EVEN MAKE IT INTO MY BIOGRAPHY.

        1. meanchelled +54

          DAMMIT BYRON I’M A DOCTOR, NOT A JEWELER. YOU’RE DRAINING THE LIFE FROM ME, LIKE- LIKE SOME KIND OF-

          -john you’re so obvious
          -where’s my emerald of disdain
          -i can hardly be expected to wear a ruby in this state

  31. threerings +7

    I am totally distracted by the magnificence of the Greeks’ skirts in that second to last one. Like, was this an Actual Thing that Greek men in the early 19th century wore magnificent skirts?

    Also in that one Byron reminds me of Mr. Collins from P&P.

  35. crawlkill +11

    so I’ve been reading The Stress of Her Regard which features Byron as a character and I decided I wanted to be reminded what he looked like so this is TWO TIMES TODAY Lord Byron’s just slightly unappealing face has entered my life

      1. crawlkill +4

        18 weeks later: I’m a huge fan of Unknown Armies, which is a tabletop RPG inspired by Tim Powers’ Last Call (to the point I’d recommend reading Unknown Armies first, and everyone should read UA, even if they don’t like RPGs, because it’s actually -fun to read,- like a good novel). I got turned on to Tim Powers about, oh, 18 weeks ago, and while Last Call was great…didn’t so much like The Stress or Declare. or Three Days to Never, although I disliked that less.

  36. dracjr +16

    Don’t you worry, those letters he’s reading are so scandalous they’re going to be burned after his death and his replies will be a thousand times more so (more scandalous, not more burned, probably the same amount of burned)

  38. Alina +16

    “Why don’t you just paint KEATS and DIE.”

    There is no word in this that isn’t perfect. This should be on every university English Department syllabus.

  39. herdoturtles +7

    This made me laugh-snort at my desk far too much — and I’m reasonably sure the fact that they are actually NOT in order is part of the joke, but I am also a little too anal to get that part. Maybe that should be one of the tags next time, e.g., #actually not in order which is part of the joke people that are a little too anal to get it

  41. Adam L Brinklow +35

    I’m just sad Byron was born too early to be the lead singer of a really intense goth band that broke up just as their second album was becoming known.

  42. ladlestein +7

    I’m not saying this is the -wrong- title-, Mallory, but you could have use “lordbyronity”.

  44. eviec +6

    Please Mallory let’s have a museum group to meet and tour and say such things!! It would be GLORIOUS.

  46. theburnersmydestination +19

    MOST BYRON. “Hello, are you Greece, I am here to run your army? Don’t worry, I’m a poet. Thank you for the gifts I assume are on their way.”

    Weren’t they, though? Greece was almost as in love with Byron as he was with himself, which is an extremely impressive feat. And they have a tradition of half-assed poet warriors, so it probably seemed like a good idea

    Also, no wonder Ada Lovelace was all “Yea, I’ll stick with math, thank you”

  47. alula_auburn +5

    “under his cloak, which is probably full of dildos”

    I feel like this is a mellifluous phrase on par with “cellar door” in sheer perfection.

    A++++

    Also lol at his toga over his suit he looks like such a dork! Like, I would expect that to be in a Hark, A Vagrant, picture, but this is real life!

  48. wild fruits +3

    LIKE MY BRAIN IS TRYING TO FUCK THE SHIT OUT OF SOME THOUGHTS,OKAY

    lol ok how’s this

  50. curiouskit10

    I dunno about that last one. It’s from his WRONG SIDE. Like he clearly believes he has a best side.