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<div style="background:#fff;border:#bbb dashed 1px;padding:5px"><a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=396069" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><div style="margin:10px 0"><strong>Don Juan: Canto The Fifth</strong></div><div style="margin:10px 0">When amatory poets sing their loves<br>In liquid lines mellifluously bland,<br>And pair their rhymes as Venus yokes her doves,<br>They little think what mischief is in hand;<br>The greater their success the worse it proves,<br>As Ovid's verse may give to understand;<br>Even Petrarch's self, if judged with due severity,<br>Is the Platonic pimp of all posterity. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">I therefore do denounce all amorous writing,<br>Except in such a way as not to attract;<br>Plain- simple- short, and by no means inviting,<br>But with a moral to each error tack'd,<br>Form'd rather for instructing than delighting,<br>And with all passions in their turn attack'd;<br>Now, if my Pegasus should not be shod ill,<br>This poem will become a moral model. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">The European with the Asian shore<br>Sprinkled with palaces; the ocean stream<br>Here and there studded with a seventy-four;<br>Sophia's cupola with golden gleam;<br>The cypress groves; Olympus high and hoar;<br>The twelve isles, and the more than I could dream,<br>Far less describe, present the very view<br>Which charm'd the charming Mary Montagu. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">I have a passion for the name of 'Mary,'<br>For once it was a magic sound to me;<br>And still it half calls up the realms of fairy,<br>Where I beheld what never was to be;<br>All feelings changed, but this was last to vary,<br>A spell from which even yet I am not quite free:<br>But I grow sad- and let a tale grow cold,<br>Which must not be pathetically told. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">The wind swept down the Euxine, and the wave<br>Broke foaming o'er the blue Symplegades;<br>'T is a grand sight from off 'the Giant's Grave<br>To watch the progress of those rolling seas<br>Between the Bosphorus, as they lash and lave<br>Europe and Asia, you being quite at ease;<br>There 's not a sea the passenger e'er pukes in,<br>Turns up more dangerous breakers than the Euxine. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">'T was a raw day of Autumn's bleak beginning,<br>When nights are equal, but not so the days;<br>The Parcae then cut short the further spinning<br>Of seamen's fates, and the loud tempests raise<br>The waters, and repentance for past sinning<br>In all, who o'er the great deep take their ways:<br>They vow to amend their lives, and yet they don't;<br>Because if drown'd, they can't- if spared, they won't. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">A crowd of shivering slaves of every nation,<br>And age, and sex, were in the market ranged;<br>Each bevy with the merchant in his station:<br>Poor creatures! their good looks were sadly changed.<br>All save the blacks seem'd jaded with vexation,<br>From friends, and home, and freedom far estranged;<br>The negroes more philosophy display'd,-<br>Used to it, no doubt, as eels are to be flay'd. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Juan was juvenile, and thus was full,<br>As most at his age are, of hope and health;<br>Yet I must own he looked a little dull,<br>And now and then a tear stole down by stealth;<br>Perhaps his recent loss of blood might pull<br>His spirit down; and then the loss of wealth,<br>A mistress, and such comfortable quarters,<br>To be put up for auction amongst Tartars, </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Were things to shake a stoic; ne'ertheless,<br>Upon the whole his carriage was serene:<br>His figure, and the splendour of his dress,<br>Of which some gilded remnants still were seen,<br>Drew all eyes on him, giving them to guess<br>He was above the vulgar by his mien;<br>And then, though pale, he was so very handsome;<br>And then- they calculated on his ransom. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Like a backgammon board the place was dotted<br>With whites and blacks, in groups on show for sale,<br>Though rather more irregularly spotted:<br>Some bought the jet, while others chose the pale.<br>It chanced amongst the other people lotted,<br>A man of thirty rather stout and hale,<br>With resolution in his dark grey eye,<br>Next Juan stood, till some might choose to buy. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">He had an English look; that is, was square<br>In make, of a complexion white and ruddy,<br>Good teeth, with curling rather dark brown hair,<br>And, it might be from thought or toil or study,<br>An open brow a little mark'd with care:<br>One arm had on a bandage rather bloody;<br>And there he stood with such sang-froid, that greater<br>Could scarce be shown even by a mere spectator. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">But seeing at his elbow a mere lad,<br>Of a high spirit evidently, though<br>At present weigh'd down by a doom which had<br>O'erthrown even men, he soon began to show<br>A kind of blunt compassion for the sad<br>Lot of so young a partner in the woe,<br>Which for himself he seem'd to deem no worse<br>Than any other scrape, a thing of course. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">'My boy!' said he, 'amidst this motley crew<br>Of Georgians, Russians, Nubians, and what not,<br>All ragamuffins differing but in hue,<br>With whom it is our luck to cast our lot,<br>The only gentlemen seem I and you;<br>So let us be acquainted, as we ought:<br>If I could yield you any consolation,<br>'T would give me pleasure.- Pray, what is your nation?' </div><div style="margin:10px 0">When Juan answer'd- 'Spanish!' he replied,<br>'I thought, in fact, you could not be a Greek;<br>Those servile dogs are not so proudly eyed:<br>Fortune has play'd you here a pretty freak,<br>But that 's her way with all men, till they 're tried;<br>But never mind,- she 'll turn, perhaps, next week;<br>She has served me also much the same as you,<br>Except that I have found it nothing new.' </div><div style="margin:10px 0">'Pray, sir,' said Juan, 'if I may presume,<br>What brought you here?'- 'Oh! nothing very rare-<br>Six Tartars and a drag-chain.'- 'To this doom<br>But what conducted, if the question's fair,<br>Is that which I would learn.'- 'I served for some<br>Months with the Russian army here and there,<br>And taking lately, by Suwarrow's bidding,<br>A town, was ta'en myself instead of Widdin.' </div><div style="margin:10px 0">'Have you no friends?'- 'I had- but, by God's blessing,<br>Have not been troubled with them lately. Now<br>I have answer'd all your questions without pressing,<br>And you an equal courtesy should show.'<br>'Alas!' said Juan, ''t were a tale distressing,<br>And long besides.'- 'Oh! if 't is really so,<br>You 're right on both accounts to hold your tongue;<br>A sad tale saddens doubly, when 't is long. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">'But droop not: Fortune at your time of life,<br>Although a female moderately fickle,<br>Will hardly leave you (as she 's not your wife)<br>For any length of days in such a pickle.<br>To strive, too, with our fate were such a strife<br>As if the corn-sheaf should oppose the sickle:<br>Men are the sport of circumstances, when<br>The circumstances seem the sport of men.' </div><div style="margin:10px 0">''T is not,' said Juan, 'for my present doom<br>I mourn, but for the past;- I loved a maid:'-<br>He paused, and his dark eye grew full of gloom;<br>A single tear upon his eyelash staid<br>A moment, and then dropp'd; 'but to resume,<br>'T is not my present lot, as I have said,<br>Which I deplore so much; for I have borne<br>Hardships which have the hardiest overworn, </div><div style="margin:10px 0">'On the rough deep. But this last blow-' and here<br>He stopp'd again, and turn'd away his face.<br>'Ay,' quoth his friend, 'I thought it would appear<br>That there had been a lady in the case;<br>And these are things which ask a tender tear,<br>Such as I, too, would shed if in your place:<br>I cried upon my first wife's dying day,<br>And also when my second ran away: </div><div style="margin:10px 0">'My third-'- 'Your third!' quoth Juan, turning round;<br>'You scarcely can be thirty: have you three?'<br>'No- only two at present above ground:<br>Surely 't is nothing wonderful to see<br>One person thrice in holy wedlock bound!'<br>'Well, then, your third,' said Juan; 'what did she?<br>She did not run away, too,- did she, sir?'<br>'No, faith.'- 'What then?'- 'I ran away from her.' </div><div style="margin:10px 0">'You take things coolly, sir,' said Juan. 'Why,'<br>Replied the other, 'what can a man do?<br>There still are many rainbows in your sky,<br>But mine have vanish'd. All, when life is new,<br>Commence with feelings warm, and prospects high;<br>But time strips our illusions of their hue,<br>And one by one in turn, some grand mistake<br>Casts off its bright skin yearly like the snake. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">''T is true, it gets another bright and fresh,<br>Or fresher, brighter; but the year gone through,<br>This skin must go the way, too, of all flesh,<br>Or sometimes only wear a week or two;-<br>Love 's the first net which spreads its deadly mesh;<br>Ambition, Avarice, Vengeance, Glory, glue<br>The glittering lime-twigs of our latter days,<br>Where still we flutter on for pence or praise.' </div><div style="margin:10px 0">'All this is very fine, and may be true,'<br>Said Juan; 'but I really don't see how<br>It betters present times with me or you.'<br>'No?' quoth the other; 'yet you will allow<br>By setting things in their right point of view,<br>Knowledge, at least, is gain'd; for instance, now,<br>We know what slavery is, and our disasters<br>May teach us better to behave when masters.' </div><div style="margin:10px 0">'Would we were masters now, if but to try<br>Their present lessons on our Pagan friends here,'<br>Said Juan,- swallowing a heart-burning sigh:<br>'Heaven help the scholar whom his fortune sends here!'<br>'Perhaps we shall be one day, by and by,'<br>Rejoin'd the other, when our bad luck mends here;<br>Meantime (yon old black eunuch seems to eye us) </div><div style="margin:10px 0">'But after all, what is our present state?<br>'T is bad, and may be better- all men's lot:<br>Most men are slaves, none more so than the great,<br>To their own whims and passions, and what not;<br>Society itself, which should create<br>Kindness, destroys what little we had got:<br>To feel for none is the true social art<br>Of the world's stoics- men without a heart.' </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Just now a black old neutral personage<br>Of the third sex stept up, and peering over<br>The captives, seem'd to mark their looks and age,<br>And capabilities, as to discover<br>If they were fitted for the purposed cage:<br>No lady e'er is ogled by a lover,<br>Horse by a blackleg, broadcloth by a tailor,<br>Fee by a counsel, felon by a jailor, </div><div style="margin:10px 0">As is a slave by his intended bidder.<br>'T is pleasant purchasing our fellow-creatures;<br>And all are to be sold, if you consider<br>Their passions, and are dext'rous; some by features<br>Are bought up, others by a warlike leader,<br>Some by a place- as tend their years or natures;<br>The most by ready cash- but all have prices,<br>From crowns to kicks, according to their vices. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">The eunuch, having eyed them o'er with care,<br>Turn'd to the merchant, and begun to bid<br>First but for one, and after for the pair;<br>They haggled, wrangled, swore, too- so they did!<br>As though they were in a mere Christian fair<br>Cheapening an ox, an ass, a lamb, or kid;<br>So that their bargain sounded like a battle<br>For this superior yoke of human cattle. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">At last they settled into simple grumbling,<br>And pulling out reluctant purses, and<br>Turning each piece of silver o'er, and tumbling<br>Some down, and weighing others in their hand,<br>And by mistake sequins with paras jumbling,<br>Until the sum was accurately scann'd,<br>And then the merchant giving change, and signing<br>Receipts in full, began to think of dining. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">I wonder if his appetite was good?<br>Or, if it were, if also his digestion?<br>Methinks at meals some odd thoughts might intrude,<br>And conscience ask a curious sort of question,<br>About the right divine how far we should<br>Sell flesh and blood. When dinner has opprest one,<br>I think it is perhaps the gloomiest hour<br>Which turns up out of the sad twenty-four. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Voltaire says 'No:' he tells you that Candide<br>Found life most tolerable after meals;<br>He 's wrong- unless man were a pig, indeed,<br>Repletion rather adds to what he feels,<br>Unless he 's drunk, and then no doubt he 's freed<br>From his own brain's oppression while it reels.<br>Of food I think with Philip's son, or rather<br>Ammon's (ill pleased with one world and one father); </div><div style="margin:10px 0">I think with Alexander, that the act<br>Of eating, with another act or two,<br>Makes us feel our mortality in fact<br>Redoubled; when a roast and a ragout,<br>And fish, and soup, by some side dishes back'd,<br>Can give us either pain or pleasure, who<br>Would pique himself on intellects, whose use<br>Depends so much upon the gastric juice? </div><div style="margin:10px 0">The other evening ('t was on Friday last)-<br>This is a fact and no poetic fable-<br>Just as my great coat was about me cast,<br>My hat and gloves still lying on the table,<br>I heard a shot- 't was eight o'clock scarce past-<br>And, running out as fast as I was able,<br>I found the military commandant<br>Stretch'd in the street, and able scarce to pant. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Poor fellow! for some reason, surely bad,<br>They had slain him with five slugs; and left him there<br>To perish on the pavement: so I had<br>Him borne into the house and up the stair,<br>And stripp'd and look'd to- But why should I ad<br>More circumstances? vain was every care;<br>The man was gone: in some Italian quarrel<br>Kill'd by five bullets from an old gun-barrel. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">I gazed upon him, for I knew him well;<br>And though I have seen many corpses, never<br>Saw one, whom such an accident befell,<br>So calm; though pierced through stomach, heart, and liver,<br>He seem'd to sleep,- for you could scarcely tell<br>(As he bled inwardly, no hideous river<br>Of gore divulged the cause) that he was dead:<br>So as I gazed on him, I thought or said- </div><div style="margin:10px 0">'Can this be death? then what is life or death?<br>Speak!' but he spoke not: 'Wake!' but still he slept:-<br>'But yesterday and who had mightier breath?<br>A thousand warriors by his word were kept<br>In awe: he said, as the centurion saith,<br>'Go,' and he goeth; 'come,' and forth he stepp'd.<br>The trump and bugle till he spake were dumb-<br>And now nought left him but the muffled drum.' </div><div style="margin:10px 0">And they who waited once and worshipp'd- they<br>With their rough faces throng'd about the bed<br>To gaze once more on the commanding clay<br>Which for the last, though not the first, time bled:<br>And such an end! that he who many a day<br>Had faced Napoleon's foes until they fled,-<br>The foremost in the charge or in the sally,<br>Should now be butcher'd in a civic alley. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">The scars of his old wounds were near his new,<br>Those honourable scars which brought him fame;<br>And horrid was the contrast to the view-<br>But let me quit the theme; as such things claim<br>Perhaps even more attention than is due<br>From me: I gazed (as oft I have gazed the same)<br>To try if I could wrench aught out of death<br>Which should confirm, or shake, or make a faith; </div><div style="margin:10px 0">But it was all a mystery. Here we are,<br>And there we go:- but where? five bits of lead,<br>Or three, or two, or one, send very far!<br>And is this blood, then, form'd but to be shed?<br>Can every element our elements mar?<br>And air- earth- water- fire live- and we dead?<br>We whose minds comprehend all things? No more;<br>But let us to the story as before. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">The purchaser of Juan and acquaintance<br>Bore off his bargains to a gilded boat,<br>Embark'd himself and them, and off they went thence<br>As fast as oars could pull and water float;<br>They look'd like persons being led to sentence,<br>Wondering what next, till the caique was brought<br>Up in a little creek below a wall<br>O'ertopp'd with cypresses, dark-green and tall. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Here their conductor tapping at the wicket<br>Of a small iron door, 't was open'd, and<br>He led them onward, first through a low thicket<br>Flank'd by large groves, which tower'd on either hand:<br>They almost lost their way, and had to pick it-<br>For night was dosing ere they came to land.<br>The eunuch made a sign to those on board,<br>Who row'd off, leaving them without a word. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">As they were plodding on their winding way<br>Through orange bowers, and jasmine, and so forth<br>(Of which I might have a good deal to say,<br>There being no such profusion in the North<br>Of oriental plants, 'et cetera,'<br>But that of late your scribblers think it worth<br>Their while to rear whole hotbeds in their works<br>Because one poet travell'd 'mongst the Turks)- </div><div style="margin:10px 0">As they were threading on their way, there came<br>Into Don Juan's head a thought, which he<br>Whisper'd to his companion:- 't was the same<br>Which might have then occurr'd to you or me.<br>'Methinks,' said he, 'it would be no great shame<br>If we should strike a stroke to set us free;<br>Let 's knock that old black fellow on the head,<br>And march away- 't were easier done than said.' </div><div style="margin:10px 0">'Yes,' said the other, 'and when done, what then?<br>How get out? how the devil got we in?<br>And when we once were fairly out, and when<br>From Saint Bartholomew we have saved our skin,<br>To-morrow 'd see us in some other den,<br>And worse off than we hitherto have been;<br>Besides, I 'm hungry, and just now would take,<br>Like Esau, for my birthright a beef-steak. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">'We must be near some place of man's abode;-<br>For the old negro's confidence in creeping,<br>With his two captives, by so queer a road,<br>Shows that he thinks his friends have not been sleeping;<br>A single cry would bring them all abroad:<br>'T is therefore better looking before leaping-<br>And there, you see, this turn has brought us through,<br>By Jove, a noble palace!- lighted too.' </div><div style="margin:10px 0">It was indeed a wide extensive building<br>Which open'd on their view, and o'er the front<br>There seem'd to be besprent a deal of gilding<br>And various hues, as is the Turkish wont,-<br>A gaudy taste; for they are little skill'd in<br>The arts of which these lands were once the font:<br>Each villa on the Bosphorus looks a screen<br>New painted, or a pretty opera-scene. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">And nearer as they came, a genial savour<br>Of certain stews, and roast-meats, and pilaus,<br>Things which in hungry mortals' eyes find favour,<br>Made Juan in his harsh intentions pause,<br>And put himself upon his good behaviour:<br>His friend, too, adding a new saving clause,<br>Said, 'In Heaven's name let's get some supper now,<br>And then I 'm with you, if you 're for a row.' </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Some talk of an appeal unto some passion,<br>Some to men's feelings, others to their reason;<br>The last of these was never much the fashion,<br>For reason thinks all reasoning out of season.<br>Some speakers whine, and others lay the lash on,<br>But more or less continue still to tease on,<br>With arguments according to their 'forte;'<br>But no one dreams of ever being short.- </div><div style="margin:10px 0">But I digress: of all appeals,- although<br>I grant the power of pathos, and of gold,<br>Of beauty, flattery, threats, a shilling,- no<br>Method 's more sure at moments to take hold<br>Of the best feelings of mankind, which grow<br>More tender, as we every day behold,<br>Than that all-softening, overpowering knell,<br>The tocsin of the soul- the dinner-bell. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Turkey contains no bells, and yet men dine;<br>And Juan and his friend, albeit they heard<br>No Christian knoll to table, saw no line<br>Of lackeys usher to the feast prepared,<br>Yet smelt roast-meat, beheld a huge fire shine,<br>And cooks in motion with their clean arms bared,<br>And gazed around them to the left and right<br>With the prophetic eye of appetite. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">And giving up all notions of resistance,<br>They follow'd close behind their sable guide,<br>Who little thought that his own crack'd existence<br>Was on the point of being set aside:<br>He motion'd them to stop at some small distance,<br>And knocking at the gate, 't was open'd wide,<br>And a magnificent large hall display'd<br>The Asian pomp of Ottoman parade. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">I won't describe; description is my forte,<br>But every fool describes in these bright days<br>His wondrous journey to some foreign court,<br>And spawns his quarto, and demands your praise-<br>Death to his publisher, to him 't is sport;<br>While Nature, tortured twenty thousand ways,<br>Resigns herself with exemplary patience<br>To guide-books, rhymes, tours, sketches, illustrations. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Along this hall, and up and down, some, squatted<br>Upon their hams, were occupied at chess;<br>Others in monosyllable talk chatted,<br>And some seem'd much in love with their own dress.<br>And divers smoked superb pipes decorated<br>With amber mouths of greater price or less;<br>And several strutted, others slept, and some<br>Prepared for supper with a glass of rum. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">As the black eunuch enter'd with his brace<br>Of purchased Infidels, some raised their eyes<br>A moment without slackening from their pace;<br>But those who sate ne'er stirr'd in anywise:<br>One or two stared the captives in the face,<br>Just as one views a horse to guess his price;<br>Some nodded to the negro from their station,<br>But no one troubled him with conversation. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">He leads them through the hall, and, without stopping,<br>On through a farther range of goodly rooms,<br>Splendid but silent, save in one, where, dropping,<br>A marble fountain echoes through the glooms<br>Of night which robe the chamber, or where popping<br>Some female head most curiously presumes<br>To thrust its black eyes through the door or lattice,<br>As wondering what the devil a noise that is. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Some faint lamps gleaming from the lofty walls<br>Gave light enough to hint their farther way,<br>But not enough to show the imperial halls,<br>In all the flashing of their full array;<br>Perhaps there 's nothing- I 'll not say appals,<br>But saddens more by night as well as day,<br>Than an enormous room without a soul<br>To break the lifeless splendour of the whole. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Two or three seem so little, one seems nothing:<br>In deserts, forests, crowds, or by the shore,<br>There solitude, we know, has her full growth in<br>The spots which were her realms for evermore;<br>But in a mighty hall or gallery, both in<br>More modern buildings and those built of yore,<br>A kind of death comes o'er us all alone,<br>Seeing what 's meant for many with but one. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">A neat, snug study on a winter's night,<br>A book, friend, single lady, or a glass<br>Of claret, sandwich, and an appetite,<br>Are things which make an English evening pass;<br>Though certes by no means so grand a sight<br>As is a theatre lit up by gas.<br>I pass my evenings in long galleries solely,<br>And that 's the reason I 'm so melancholy. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Alas! man makes that great which makes him little:<br>I grant you in a church 't is very well:<br>What speaks of Heaven should by no means be brittle,<br>But strong and lasting, till no tongue can tell<br>Their names who rear'd it; but huge houses fit ill-<br>And huge tombs worse- mankind, since Adam fell:<br>Methinks the story of the tower of Babel<br>Might teach them this much better than I 'm able. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Babel was Nimrod's hunting-box, and then<br>A town of gardens, walls, and wealth amazing,<br>Where Nabuchadonosor, king of men,<br>Reign'd, till one summer's day he took to grazing,<br>And Daniel tamed the lions in their den,<br>The people's awe and admiration raising;<br>'T was famous, too, for Thisbe and for Pyramus,<br>And the calumniated queen Semiramis. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">That injured Queen by chroniclers so coarse<br>Has been accused (I doubt not by conspiracy)<br>Of an improper friendship for her horse<br>(Love, like religion, sometimes runs to heresy):<br>This monstrous tale had probably its source<br>(For such exaggerations here and there I see)<br>In writing 'Courser' by mistake for 'Courier:'<br>I wish the case could come before a jury here. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">But to resume,- should there be (what may not<br>Be in these days?) some infidels, who don't,<br>Because they can't find out the very spot<br>Of that same Babel, or because they won't<br>(Though Claudius Rich, Esquire, some bricks has got,<br>And written lately two memoirs upon't),<br>Believe the Jews, those unbelievers, who<br>Must be believed, though they believe not you, </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Yet let them think that Horace has exprest<br>Shortly and sweetly the masonic folly<br>Of those, forgetting the great place of rest,<br>Who give themselves to architecture wholly;<br>We know where things and men must end at best:<br>A moral (like all morals) melancholy,<br>And 'Et sepulchri immemor struis domos'<br>Shows that we build when we should but entomb us. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">At last they reach'd a quarter most retired,<br>Where echo woke as if from a long slumber;<br>Though full of all things which could be desired,<br>One wonder'd what to do with such a number<br>Of articles which nobody required;<br>Here wealth had done its utmost to encumber<br>With furniture an exquisite apartment,<br>Which puzzled Nature much to know what Art meant. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">It seem'd, however, but to open on<br>A range or suite of further chambers, which<br>Might lead to heaven knows where; but in this one<br>The movables were prodigally rich:<br>Sofas 't was half a sin to sit upon,<br>So costly were they; carpets every stitch<br>Of workmanship so rare, they made you wish<br>You could glide o'er them like a golden fish. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">The black, however, without hardly deigning<br>A glance at that which wrapt the slaves in wonder,<br>Trampled what they scarce trod for fear of staining,<br>As if the milky way their feet was under<br>With all its stars; and with a stretch attaining<br>A certain press or cupboard niched in yonder-<br>In that remote recess which you may see-<br>Or if you don't the fault is not in me,- </div><div style="margin:10px 0">I wish to be perspicuous; and the black,<br>I say, unlocking the recess, pull'd forth<br>A quantity of clothes fit for the back<br>Of any Mussulman, whate'er his worth;<br>And of variety there was no lack-<br>And yet, though I have said there was no dearth,<br>He chose himself to point out what he thought<br>Most proper for the Christians he had bought. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">The suit he thought most suitable to each<br>Was, for the elder and the stouter, first<br>A Candiote cloak, which to the knee might reach,<br>And trousers not so tight that they would burst,<br>But such as fit an Asiatic breech;<br>A shawl, whose folds in Cashmire had been nurst,<br>Slippers of saffron, dagger rich and handy;<br>In short, all things which form a Turkish Dandy. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">While he was dressing, Baba, their black friend,<br>Hinted the vast advantages which they<br>Might probably attain both in the end,<br>If they would but pursue the proper way<br>Which fortune plainly seem'd to recommend;<br>And then he added, that he needs must say,<br>''T would greatly tend to better their condition,<br>If they would condescend to circumcision. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">'For his own part, he really should rejoice<br>To see them true believers, but no less<br>Would leave his proposition to their choice.'<br>The other, thanking him for this excess<br>Of goodness, in thus leaving them a voice<br>In such a trifle, scarcely could express<br>'Sufficiently' (he said) 'his approbation<br>Of all the customs of this polish'd nation. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">'For his own share- he saw but small objection<br>To so respectable an ancient rite;<br>And, after swallowing down a slight refection,<br>For which he own'd a present appetite,<br>He doubted not a few hours of reflection<br>Would reconcile him to the business quite.'<br>'Will it?' said Juan, sharply: 'Strike me dead,<br>But they as soon shall circumcise my head! </div><div style="margin:10px 0">'Cut off a thousand heads, before-'- 'Now, pray,'<br>Replied the other, 'do not interrupt:<br>You put me out in what I had to say.<br>Sir!- as I said, as soon as I have supt,<br>I shall perpend if your proposal may<br>Be such as I can properly accept;<br>Provided always your great goodness still<br>Remits the matter to our own free-will.' </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Baba eyed Juan, and said, 'Be so good<br>As dress yourself-' and pointed out a suit<br>In which a Princess with great pleasure would<br>Array her limbs; but Juan standing mute,<br>As not being in a masquerading mood,<br>Gave it a slight kick with his Christian foot;<br>And when the old negro told him to 'Get ready,'<br>Replied, 'Old gentleman, I 'm not a lady.' </div><div style="margin:10px 0">'What you may be, I neither know nor care,'<br>Said Baba; 'but pray do as I desire:<br>I have no more time nor many words to spare.'<br>'At least,' said Juan, 'sure I may enquire<br>The cause of this odd travesty?'- 'Forbear,'<br>Said Baba, 'to be curious; 't will transpire,<br>No doubt, in proper place, and time, and season:<br>I have no authority to tell the reason.' </div><div style="margin:10px 0">'Then if I do,' said Juan, 'I 'll be-'- 'Hold!'<br>Rejoin'd the negro, 'pray be not provoking;<br>This spirit 's well, but it may wax too bold,<br>And you will find us not top fond of joking.'<br>'What, sir!' said Juan, 'shall it e'er be told<br>That I unsex'd my dress?' But Baba, stroking<br>The things down, said, 'Incense me, and I call<br>Those who will leave you of no sex at all. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">'I offer you a handsome suit of clothes:<br>A woman's, true; but then there is a cause<br>Why you should wear them.'- 'What, though my soul loathes<br>The effeminate garb?'- thus, after a short pause,<br>Sigh'd Juan, muttering also some slight oaths,<br>'What the devil shall I do with all this gauze?'<br>Thus he profanely term'd the finest lace<br>Which e'er set off a marriage-morning face. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">And then he swore; and, sighing, on he slipp'd<br>A pair of trousers of flesh-colour'd silk;<br>Next with a virgin zone he was equipp'd,<br>Which girt a slight chemise as white as milk;<br>But tugging on his petticoat, he tripp'd,<br>Which- as we say- or, as the Scotch say, whilk<br>(The rhyme obliges me to this; sometimes<br>Monarchs are less imperative than rhymes)- </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Whilk, which (or what you please), was owing to<br>His garment's novelty, and his being awkward:<br>And yet at last he managed to get through<br>His toilet, though no doubt a little backward:<br>The negro Baba help'd a little too,<br>When some untoward part of raiment stuck hard;<br>And, wrestling both his arms into a gown,<br>He paused, and took a survey up and down. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">One difficulty still remain'd- his hair<br>Was hardly long enough; but Baba found<br>So many false long tresses all to spare,<br>That soon his head was most completely crown'd,<br>After the manner then in fashion there;<br>And this addition with such gems was bound<br>As suited the ensemble of his toilet,<br>While Baba made him comb his head and oil it. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">And now being femininely all array'd,<br>With some small aid from scissors, paint, and tweezers,<br>He look'd in almost all respects a maid,<br>And Baba smilingly exclaim'd, 'You see, sirs,<br>A perfect transformation here display'd;<br>And now, then, you must come along with me, sirs,<br>That is- the Lady:' clapping his hands twice,<br>Four blacks were at his elbow in a trice. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">'You, sir,' said Baba, nodding to the one,<br>'Will please to accompany those gentlemen<br>To supper; but you, worthy Christian nun,<br>Will follow me: no trifling, sir; for when<br>I say a thing, it must at once be done.<br>What fear you? think you this a lion's den?<br>Why, 't is a palace; where the truly wise<br>Anticipate the Prophet's paradise. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">'You fool! I tell you no one means you harm.'<br>'So much the better,' Juan said, 'for them;<br>Else they shall feel the weight of this my arm,<br>Which is not quite so light as you may deem.<br>I yield thus far; but soon will break the charm<br>If any take me for that which I seem:<br>So that I trust for everybody's sake,<br>That this disguise may lead to no mistake.' </div><div style="margin:10px 0">'Blockhead! come on, and see,' quoth Baba; while<br>Don Juan, turning to his comrade, who<br>Though somewhat grieved, could scarce forbear a smile<br>Upon the metamorphosis in view,-<br>'Farewell!' they mutually exclaim'd: 'this soil<br>Seems fertile in adventures strange and new;<br>One 's turn'd half Mussulman, and one a maid,<br>By this old black enchanter's unsought aid.' </div><div style="margin:10px 0">'Farewell!' said Juan: 'should we meet no more,<br>I wish you a good appetite.'- 'Farewell!'<br>Replied the other; 'though it grieves me sore;<br>When we next meet we 'll have a tale to tell:<br>We needs must follow when Fate puts from shore.<br>Keep your good name; though Eve herself once fell.'<br>'Nay,' quoth the maid, 'the Sultan's self shan't carry me,<br>Unless his highness promises to marry me. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">And thus they parted, each by separate doors;<br>Baba led Juan onward room by room<br>Through glittering galleries and o'er marble floors,<br>Till a gigantic portal through the gloom,<br>Haughty and huge, along the distance lowers;<br>And wafted far arose a rich perfume:<br>It seem'd as though they came upon a shrine,<br>For all was vast, still, fragrant, and divine. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">The giant door was broad, and bright, and high,<br>Of gilded bronze, and carved in curious guise;<br>Warriors thereon were battling furiously;<br>Here stalks the victor, there the vanquish'd lies;<br>There captives led in triumph droop the eye,<br>And in perspective many a squadron flies:<br>It seems the work of times before the line<br>Of Rome transplanted fell with Constantine. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">This massy portal stood at the wide close<br>Of a huge hall, and on its either side<br>Two little dwarfs, the least you could suppose,<br>Were sate, like ugly imps, as if allied<br>In mockery to the enormous gate which rose<br>O'er them in almost pyramidic pride:<br>The gate so splendid was in all its features,<br>You never thought about those little creatures, </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Until you nearly trod on them, and then<br>You started back in horror to survey<br>The wondrous hideousness of those small men,<br>Whose colour was not black, nor white, nor grey,<br>But an extraneous mixture, which no pen<br>Can trace, although perhaps the pencil may;<br>They were mis-shapen pigmies, deaf and dumb-<br>Monsters, who cost a no less monstrous sum. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Their duty was- for they were strong, and though<br>They look'd so little, did strong things at times-<br>To ope this door, which they could really do,<br>The hinges being as smooth as Rogers' rhymes;<br>And now and then, with tough strings of the bow,<br>As is the custom of those Eastern climes,<br>To give some rebel Pacha a cravat;<br>For mutes are generally used for that. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">They spoke by signs- that is, not spoke at all;<br>And looking like two incubi, they glared<br>As Baba with his fingers made them fall<br>To heaving back the portal folds: it scared<br>Juan a moment, as this pair so small<br>With shrinking serpent optics on him stared;<br>It was as if their little looks could poison<br>Or fascinate whome'er they fix'd their eyes on. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Before they enter'd, Baba paused to hint<br>To Juan some slight lessons as his guide:<br>'If you could just contrive,' he said, 'to stint<br>That somewhat manly majesty of stride,<br>'T would be as well, and (though there 's not much in 't)<br>To swing a little less from side to side,<br>Which has at times an aspect of the oddest;-<br>And also could you look a little modest, </div><div style="margin:10px 0">''T would be convenient; for these mutes have eyes<br>Like needles, which may pierce those petticoats;<br>And if they should discover your disguise,<br>You know how near us the deep Bosphorus floats;<br>And you and I may chance, ere morning rise,<br>To find our way to Marmora without boats,<br>Stitch'd up in sacks- a mode of navigation<br>A good deal practised here upon occasion.' </div><div style="margin:10px 0">With this encouragement, he led the way<br>Into a room still nobler than the last;<br>A rich confusion form'd a disarray<br>In such sort, that the eye along it cast<br>Could hardly carry anything away,<br>Object on object flash'd so bright and fast;<br>A dazzling mass of gems, and gold, and glitter,<br>Magnificently mingled in a litter. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Wealth had done wonders- taste not much; such things<br>Occur in Orient palaces, and even<br>In the more chasten'd domes of Western kings<br>(Of which I have also seen some six or seven),<br>Where I can't say or gold or diamond flings<br>Great lustre, there is much to be forgiven;<br>Groups of bad statues, tables, chairs, and pictures,<br>On which I cannot pause to make my strictures. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">In this imperial hall, at distance lay<br>Under a canopy, and there reclined<br>Quite in a confidential queenly way,<br>A lady; Baba stopp'd, and kneeling sign'd<br>To Juan, who though not much used to pray,<br>Knelt down by instinct, wondering in his mind,<br>What all this meant: while Baba bow'd and bended<br>His head, until the ceremony ended. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">The lady rising up with such an air<br>As Venus rose with from the wave, on them<br>Bent like an antelope a Paphian pair<br>Of eyes, which put out each surrounding gem;<br>And raising up an arm as moonlight fair,<br>She sign'd to Baba, who first kiss'd the hem<br>Of her deep purple robe, and speaking low,<br>Pointed to Juan who remain'd below. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Her presence was as lofty as her state;<br>Her beauty of that overpowering kind,<br>Whose force description only would abate:<br>I 'd rather leave it much to your own mind,<br>Than lessen it by what I could relate<br>Of forms and features; it would strike you blind<br>Could I do justice to the full detail;<br>So, luckily for both, my phrases fail. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Thus much however I may add,- her years<br>Were ripe, they might make six-and-twenty springs;<br>But there are forms which Time to touch forbears,<br>And turns aside his scythe to vulgar things,<br>Such as was Mary's Queen of Scots; true- tears<br>And love destroy; and sapping sorrow wrings<br>Charms from the charmer, yet some never grow<br>Ugly; for instance- Ninon de l'Enclos. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">She spake some words to her attendants, who<br>Composed a choir of girls, ten or a dozen,<br>And were all clad alike; like Juan, too,<br>Who wore their uniform, by Baba chosen;<br>They form'd a very nymph-like looking crew,<br>Which might have call'd Diana's chorus 'cousin,'<br>As far as outward show may correspond;<br>I won't be bail for anything beyond. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">They bow'd obeisance and withdrew, retiring,<br>But not by the same door through which came in<br>Baba and Juan, which last stood admiring,<br>At some small distance, all he saw within<br>This strange saloon, much fitted for inspiring<br>Marvel and praise; for both or none things win;<br>And I must say, I ne'er could see the very<br>Great happiness of the 'Nil Admirari.' </div><div style="margin:10px 0">'Not to admire is all the art I know<br>(Plain truth, dear Murray, needs few flowers of speech)<br>To make men happy, or to keep them so'<br>(So take it in the very words of Creech)-<br>Thus Horace wrote we all know long ago;<br>And thus Pope quotes the precept to re-teach<br>From his translation; but had none admired,<br>Would Pope have sung, or Horace been inspired? </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Baba, when all the damsels were withdrawn,<br>Motion'd to Juan to approach, and then<br>A second time desired him to kneel down,<br>And kiss the lady's foot; which maxim when<br>He heard repeated, Juan with a frown<br>Drew himself up to his full height again,<br>And said, 'It grieved him, but he could not stoop<br>To any shoe, unless it shod the Pope.' </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Baba, indignant at this ill-timed pride,<br>Made fierce remonstrances, and then a threat<br>He mutter'd (but the last was given aside)<br>About a bow-string- quite in vain; not yet<br>Would Juan bend, though 't were to Mahomet's bride:<br>There 's nothing in the world like etiquette<br>In kingly chambers or imperial halls,<br>As also at the race and county balls. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">He stood like Atlas, with a world of words<br>About his ears, and nathless would not bend:<br>The blood of all his line 's Castilian lords<br>Boil'd in his veins, and rather than descend<br>To stain his pedigree a thousand swords<br>A thousand times of him had made an end;<br>At length perceiving the 'foot' could not stand,<br>Baba proposed that he should kiss the hand. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Here was an honourable compromise,<br>A half-way house of diplomatic rest,<br>Where they might meet in much more peaceful guise;<br>And Juan now his willingness exprest<br>To use all fit and proper courtesies,<br>Adding, that this was commonest and best,<br>For through the South the custom still commands<br>The gentleman to kiss the lady's hands. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">And he advanced, though with but a bad grace,<br>Though on more thorough-bred or fairer fingers<br>No lips e'er left their transitory trace;<br>On such as these the lip too fondly lingers,<br>And for one kiss would fain imprint a brace,<br>As you will see, if she you love shall bring hers<br>In contact; and sometimes even a fair stranger's<br>An almost twelvemonth's constancy endangers. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">The lady eyed him o'er and o'er, and bade<br>Baba retire, which he obey'd in style,<br>As if well used to the retreating trade;<br>And taking hints in good part all the while,<br>He whisper'd Juan not to be afraid,<br>And looking on him with a sort of smile,<br>Took leave, with such a face of satisfaction<br>As good men wear who have done a virtuous action. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">When he was gone, there was a sudden change:<br>I know not what might be the lady's thought,<br>But o'er her bright brow flash'd a tumult strange,<br>And into her dear cheek the blood was brought,<br>Blood-red as sunset summer clouds which range<br>The verge of Heaven; and in her large eyes wrought,<br>A mixture of sensations might be scann'd,<br>Of half voluptuousness and half command. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Her form had all the softness of her sex,<br>Her features all the sweetness of the devil,<br>When he put on the cherub to perplex<br>Eve, and paved (God knows how) the road to evil;<br>The sun himself was scarce more free from specks<br>Than she from aught at which the eye could cavil;<br>Yet, somehow, there was something somewhere wanting,<br>As if she rather order'd than was granting. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Something imperial, or imperious, threw<br>A chain o'er all she did; that is, a chain<br>Was thrown as 't were about the neck of you,-<br>And rapture's self will seem almost a pain<br>With aught which looks like despotism in view:<br>Our souls at least are free, and 't is in vain<br>We would against them make the flesh obey-<br>The spirit in the end will have its way. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Her very smile was haughty, though so sweet;<br>Her very nod was not an inclination;<br>There was a self-will even in her small feet,<br>As though they were quite conscious of her station-<br>They trod as upon necks; and to complete<br>Her state (it is the custom of her nation),<br>A poniard deck'd her girdle, as the sign<br>She was a sultan's bride (thank Heaven, not mine!). </div><div style="margin:10px 0">'To hear and to obey' had been from birth<br>The law of all around her; to fulfill<br>All phantasies which yielded joy or mirth,<br>Had been her slaves' chief pleasure, as her will;<br>Her blood was high, her beauty scarce of earth:<br>Judge, then, if her caprices e'er stood still;<br>Had she but been a Christian, I 've a notion<br>We should have found out the 'perpetual motion.' </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Whate'er she saw and coveted was brought;<br>Whate'er she did not see, if she supposed<br>It might be seen, with diligence was sought,<br>And when 't was found straightway the bargain closed;<br>There was no end unto the things she bought,<br>Nor to the trouble which her fancies caused;<br>Yet even her tyranny had such a grace,<br>The women pardon'd all except her face. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Juan, the latest of her whims, had caught<br>Her eye in passing on his way to sale;<br>She order'd him directly to be bought,<br>And Baba, who had ne'er been known to fail<br>In any kind of mischief to be wrought,<br>At all such auctions knew how to prevail:<br>She had no prudence, but he had; and this<br>Explains the garb which Juan took amiss. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">His youth and features favour'd the disguise,<br>And, should you ask how she, a sultan's bride,<br>Could risk or compass such strange phantasies,<br>This I must leave sultanas to decide:<br>Emperors are only husbands in wives' eyes,<br>And kings and consorts oft are mystified,<br>As we may ascertain with due precision,<br>Some by experience, others by tradition. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">But to the main point, where we have been tending:-<br>She now conceived all difficulties past,<br>And deem'd herself extremely condescending<br>When, being made her property at last,<br>Without more preface, in her blue eyes blending<br>Passion and power, a glance on him she cast,<br>And merely saying, 'Christian, canst thou love?'<br>Conceived that phrase was quite enough to move </div><div style="margin:10px 0">And so it was, in proper time and place;<br>But Juan, who had still his mind o'erflowing<br>With Haidee's isle and soft Ionian face,<br>Felt the warm blood, which in his face was glowing,<br>Rush back upon his heart, which fill'd apace,<br>And left his cheeks as pale as snowdrops blowing;<br>These words went through his soul like Arab-spears,<br>So that he spoke not, but burst into tears. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">She was a good deal shock'd; not shock'd at tears,<br>For women shed and use them at their liking;<br>But there is something when man's eye appears<br>Wet, still more disagreeable and striking;<br>A woman's tear-drop melts, a man's half sears,<br>Like molten lead, as if you thrust a pike in<br>His heart to force it out, for (to be shorter)<br>To them 't is a relief, to us a torture. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">And she would have consoled, but knew not how:<br>Having no equals, nothing which had e'er<br>Infected her with sympathy till now,<br>And never having dreamt what 't was to bear<br>Aught of a serious, sorrowing kind, although<br>There might arise some pouting petty care<br>To cross her brow, she wonder'd how so near<br>Her eyes another's eye could shed a tear. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">But nature teaches more than power can spoil,<br>And, when a strong although a strange sensation<br>Moves- female hearts are such a genial soil<br>For kinder feelings, whatsoe'er their nation,<br>They naturally pour the 'wine and oil,'<br>Samaritans in every situation;<br>And thus Gulbeyaz, though she knew not why,<br>Felt an odd glistening moisture in her eye. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">But tears must stop like all things else; and soon<br>Juan, who for an instant had been moved<br>To such a sorrow by the intrusive tone<br>Of one who dared to ask if 'he had loved,'<br>Call'd back the stoic to his eyes, which shone<br>Bright with the very weakness he reproved;<br>And although sensitive to beauty, he<br>Felt most indignant still at not being free. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Gulbeyaz, for the first time in her days,<br>Was much embarrass'd, never having met<br>In all her life with aught save prayers and praise;<br>And as she also risk'd her life to get<br>Him whom she meant to tutor in love's ways<br>Into a comfortable tete-a-tete,<br>To lose the hour would make her quite a martyr,<br>And they had wasted now almost a quarter. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">I also would suggest the fitting time<br>To gentlemen in any such like case,<br>That is to say in a meridian clime-<br>With us there is more law given to the chase,<br>But here a small delay forms a great crime:<br>So recollect that the extremest grace<br>Is just two minutes for your declaration-<br>A moment more would hurt your reputation. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Juan's was good; and might have been still better,<br>But he had got Haidee into his head:<br>However strange, he could not yet forget her,<br>Which made him seem exceedingly ill-bred.<br>Gulbeyaz, who look'd on him as her debtor<br>For having had him to her palace led,<br>Began to blush up to the eyes, and then<br>Grow deadly pale, and then blush back again. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">At length, in an imperial way, she laid<br>Her hand on his, and bending on him eyes<br>Which needed not an empire to persuade,<br>Look'd into his for love, where none replies:<br>Her brow grew black, but she would not upbraid,<br>That being the last thing a proud woman tries;<br>She rose, and pausing one chaste moment, threw<br>Herself upon his breast, and there she grew. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">This was an awkward test, as Juan found,<br>But he was steel'd by sorrow, wrath, and pride:<br>With gentle force her white arms he unwound,<br>And seated her all drooping by his side,<br>Then rising haughtily he glanced around,<br>And looking coldly in her face, he cried,<br>'The prison'd eagle will not pair, nor<br>Serve a Sultana's sensual phantasy. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">'Thou ask'st if I can love? be this the proof<br>How much I have loved- that I love not thee!<br>In this vile garb, the distaff, web, and woof,<br>Were fitter for me: Love is for the free!<br>I am not dazzled by this splendid roof,<br>Whate'er thy power, and great it seems to be;<br>Heads bow, knees bend, eyes watch around a throne,<br>And hands obey- our hearts are still our own.' </div><div style="margin:10px 0">This was a truth to us extremely trite;<br>Not so to her, who ne'er had heard such things:<br>She deem'd her least command must yield delight,<br>Earth being only made for queens and kings.<br>If hearts lay on the left side or the right<br>She hardly knew, to such perfection brings<br>Legitimacy its born votaries, when<br>Aware of their due royal rights o'er men. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Besides, as has been said, she was so fair<br>As even in a much humbler lot had made<br>A kingdom or confusion anywhere,<br>And also, as may be presumed, she laid<br>Some stress on charms, which seldom are, if e'er,<br>By their possessors thrown into the shade:<br>She thought hers gave a double 'right divine;'<br>And half of that opinion 's also mine. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Remember, or (if you can not) imagine,<br>Ye, who have kept your chastity when young,<br>While some more desperate dowager has been waging<br>Love with you, and been in the dog-days stung<br>By your refusal, recollect her raging!<br>Or recollect all that was said or sung<br>On such a subject; then suppose the face<br>Of a young downright beauty in this case. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Suppose,- but you already have supposed,<br>The spouse of Potiphar, the Lady Booby,<br>Phaedra, and all which story has disclosed<br>Of good examples; pity that so few by<br>Poets and private tutors are exposed,<br>To educate- ye youth of Europe- you by!<br>But when you have supposed the few we know,<br>You can't suppose Gulbeyaz' angry brow. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">A tigress robb'd of young, a lioness,<br>Or any interesting beast of prey,<br>Are similes at hand for the distress<br>Of ladies who can not have their own way;<br>But though my turn will not be served with less,<br>These don't express one half what I should say:<br>For what is stealing young ones, few or many,<br>To cutting short their hopes of having any? </div><div style="margin:10px 0">The love of offspring 's nature's general law,<br>From tigresses and cubs to ducks and ducklings;<br>There 's nothing whets the beak, or arms the claw<br>Like an invasion of their babes and sucklings;<br>And all who have seen a human nursery, saw<br>How mothers love their children's squalls and chucklings;<br>This strong extreme effect (to tire no longer<br>Your patience) shows the cause must still be stronger. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">If I said fire flash'd from Gulbeyaz' eyes,<br>'T were nothing- for her eyes flash'd always fire;<br>Or said her cheeks assumed the deepest dyes,<br>I should but bring disgrace upon the dyer,<br>So supernatural was her passion's rise;<br>For ne'er till now she knew a check'd desire:<br>Even ye who know what a check'd woman is<br>(Enough, God knows!) would much fall short of this. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Her rage was but a minute's, and 't was well-<br>A moment's more had slain her; but the while<br>It lasted 't was like a short glimpse of hell:<br>Nought 's more sublime than energetic bile,<br>Though horrible to see yet grand to tell,<br>Like ocean warring 'gainst a rocky isle;<br>And the deep passions flashing through her form<br>Made her a beautiful embodied storm. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">A vulgar tempest 't were to a typhoon<br>To match a common fury with her rage,<br>And yet she did not want to reach the moon,<br>Like moderate Hotspur on the immortal page;<br>Her anger pitch'd into a lower tune,<br>Perhaps the fault of her soft sex and age-<br>Her wish was but to 'kill, kill, kill,' like Lear's,<br>And then her thirst of blood was quench'd in tears. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">A storm it raged, and like the storm it pass'd,<br>Pass'd without words- in fact she could not speak;<br>And then her sex's shame broke in at last,<br>A sentiment till then in her but weak,<br>But now it flow'd in natural and fast,<br>As water through an unexpected leak;<br>For she felt humbled- and humiliation<br>Is sometimes good for people in her station </div><div style="margin:10px 0">It teaches them that they are flesh and blood,<br>It also gently hints to them that others,<br>Although of clay, are yet not quite of mud;<br>That urns and pipkins are but fragile brothers,<br>And works of the same pottery, bad or good,<br>Though not all born of the same sires and mothers:<br>It teaches- Heaven knows only what it teaches,<br>But sometimes it may mend, and often reaches. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Her first thought was to cut off Juan's head;<br>Her second, to cut only his- acquaintance;<br>Her third, to ask him where he had been bred;<br>Her fourth, to rally him into repentance;<br>Her fifth, to call her maids and go to bed;<br>Her sixth, to stab herself; her seventh, to sentence<br>The lash to Baba:- but her grand resource<br>Was to sit down again, and cry of course. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">She thought to stab herself, but then she had<br>The dagger close at hand, which made it awkward;<br>For Eastern stays are little made to pad,<br>So that a poniard pierces if 't is stuck hard:<br>She thought of killing Juan- but, poor lad!<br>Though he deserved it well for being so backward,<br>The cutting off his head was not the art<br>Most likely to attain her aim- his heart. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Juan was moved; he had made up his mind<br>To be impaled, or quarter'd as a dish<br>For dogs, or to be slain with pangs refined,<br>Or thrown to lions, or made baits for fish,<br>And thus heroically stood resign'd,<br>Rather than sin- except to his own wish:<br>But all his great preparatives for dying<br>Dissolved like snow before a woman crying. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">As through his palms Bob Acres' valour oozed,<br>So Juan's virtue ebb'd, I know not how;<br>And first he wonder'd why he had refused;<br>And then, if matters could be made up now;<br>And next his savage virtue he accused,<br>Just as a friar may accuse his vow,<br>Or as a dame repents her of her oath,<br>Which mostly ends in some small breach of both. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">So he began to stammer some excuses;<br>But words are not enough in such a matter,<br>Although you borrow'd all that e'er the muses<br>Have sung, or even a Dandy's dandiest chatter,<br>Or all the figures Castlereagh abuses;<br>Just as a languid smile began to flatter<br>His peace was making, but before he ventured<br>Further, old Baba rather briskly enter'd. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">'Bride of the Sun! and Sister of the Moon!'<br>('T was thus he spake) 'and Empress of the Earth!<br>Whose frown would put the spheres all out of tune,<br>Whose smile makes all the planets dance with mirth,<br>Your slave brings tidings- he hopes not too soon-<br>Which your sublime attention may be worth:<br>The Sun himself has sent me like a ray,<br>To hint that he is coming up this way.' </div><div style="margin:10px 0">'Is it,' exclaim'd Gulbeyaz, 'as you say?<br>I wish to heaven he would not shine till morning!<br>But bid my women form the milky way.<br>Hence, my old comet! give the stars due warning-<br>And, Christian! mingle with them as you may,<br>And as you 'd have me pardon your past scorning-'<br>Here they were interrupted by a humming<br>Sound, and then by a cry, 'The Sultan 's coming!' </div><div style="margin:10px 0">First came her damsels, a decorous file,<br>And then his Highness' eunuchs, black and white;<br>The train might reach a quarter of a mile:<br>His majesty was always so polite<br>As to announce his visits a long while<br>Before he came, especially at night;<br>For being the last wife of the Emperour,<br>She was of course the favorite of the four. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">His Highness was a man of solemn port,<br>Shawl'd to the nose, and bearded to the eyes,<br>Snatch'd from a prison to preside at court,<br>His lately bowstrung brother caused his rise;<br>He was as good a sovereign of the sort<br>As any mention'd in the histories<br>Of Cantemir, or Knolles, where few shine<br>Save Solyman, the glory of their line. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">He went to mosque in state, and said his prayers<br>With more than 'Oriental scrupulosity;'<br>He left to his vizier all state affairs,<br>And show'd but little royal curiosity:<br>I know not if he had domestic cares-<br>No process proved connubial animosity;<br>Four wives and twice five hundred maids, unseen,<br>Were ruled as calmly as a Christian queen. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">If now and then there happen'd a slight slip,<br>Little was heard of criminal or crime;<br>The story scarcely pass'd a single lip-<br>The sack and sea had settled all in time,<br>From which the secret nobody could rip:<br>The Public knew no more than does this rhyme;<br>No scandals made the daily press a curse-<br>Morals were better, and the fish no worse. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">He saw with his own eyes the moon was round,<br>Was also certain that the earth was square,<br>Because he had journey'd fifty miles, and found<br>No sign that it was circular anywhere;<br>His empire also was without a bound:<br>'T is true, a little troubled here and there,<br>By rebel pachas, and encroaching giaours,<br>But then they never came to 'the Seven Towers;' </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Except in shape of envoys, who were sent<br>To lodge there when a war broke out, according<br>To the true law of nations, which ne'er meant<br>Those scoundrels, who have never had a sword in<br>Their dirty diplomatic hands, to vent<br>Their spleen in making strife, and safely wording<br>Their lies, yclep'd despatches, without risk or<br>The singeing of a single inky whisker. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">He had fifty daughters and four dozen sons,<br>Of whom all such as came of age were stow'd,<br>The former in a palace, where like nuns<br>They lived till some Bashaw was sent abroad,<br>When she, whose turn it was, was wed at once,<br>Sometimes at six years old- though it seems odd,<br>'T is true; the reason is, that the Bashaw<br>Must make a present to his sire in law. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">His sons were kept in prison, till they grew<br>Of years to fill a bowstring or the throne,<br>One or the other, but which of the two<br>Could yet be known unto the fates alone;<br>Meantime the education they went through<br>Was princely, as the proofs have always shown:<br>So that the heir apparent still was found<br>No less deserving to be hang'd than crown'd. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">His majesty saluted his fourth spouse<br>With all the ceremonies of his rank,<br>Who clear'd her sparkling eyes and smooth'd her brows,<br>As suits a matron who has play'd a prank;<br>These must seem doubly mindful of their vows,<br>To save the credit of their breaking bank:<br>To no men are such cordial greetings given<br>As those whose wives have made them fit for heaven. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">His Highness cast around his great black eyes,<br>And looking, as he always look'd, perceived<br>Juan amongst the damsels in disguise,<br>At which he seem'd no whit surprised nor grieved,<br>But just remark'd with air sedate and wise,<br>While still a fluttering sigh Gulbeyaz heaved,<br>'I see you 've bought another girl; 't is pity<br>That a mere Christian should be half so pretty.' </div><div style="margin:10px 0">This compliment, which drew all eyes upon<br>The new-bought virgin, made her blush and shake.<br>Her comrades, also, thought themselves undone:<br>Oh! Mahomet! that his majesty should take<br>Such notice of a giaour, while scarce to one<br>Of them his lips imperial ever spake!<br>There was a general whisper, toss, and wriggle,<br>But etiquette forbade them all to giggle. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">The Turks do well to shut- at least, sometimes-<br>The women up, because, in sad reality,<br>Their chastity in these unhappy climes<br>Is not a thing of that astringent quality<br>Which in the North prevents precocious crimes,<br>And makes our snow less pure than our morality;<br>The sun, which yearly melts the polar ice,<br>Has quite the contrary effect on vice. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Thus in the East they are extremely strict,<br>And Wedlock and a Padlock mean the same;<br>Excepting only when the former 's pick'd<br>It ne'er can be replaced in proper frame;<br>Spoilt, as a pipe of claret is when prick'd:<br>But then their own Polygamy 's to blame;<br>Why don't they knead two virtuous souls for life<br>Into that moral centaur, man and wife? </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Thus far our chronicle; and now we pause,<br>Though not for want of matter; but 't is time<br>According to the ancient epic laws,<br>To slacken sail, and anchor with our rhyme.<br>Let this fifth canto meet with due applause,<br>The sixth shall have a touch of the sublime;<br>Meanwhile, as Homer sometimes sleeps, perhaps<br>You 'll pardon to my muse a few short naps.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br /></a><br />poem by <a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/by.php?a=Byron">Byron</a><div class=q>
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<script type="text/javascript" src="//s7.addthis.com/js/300/addthis_widget.js#pubid=citatepedia" async="async"></script><div style="display:inline-block" class="addthis_sharing_toolbox" data-url="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=396069" data-title="Don Juan: Canto The Fifth de Byron" data-description="When amatory poets sing their loves
In liquid lines mellifluously bland,
And pair their rhymes as Venus yokes her doves,
They little think what mischief is in hand;
The greater their success the worse it proves,
As Ovid's verse may give to underst..."></div>
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