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<div style="background:#fff;border:#bbb dashed 1px;padding:5px"><a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=396078" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><div style="margin:10px 0"><strong>Don Juan: Canto The Sixth</strong></div><div style="margin:10px 0">'There is a tide in the affairs of men<br>Which,--taken at the flood,'--you know the rest,<br>And most of us have found it now and then;<br>At least we think so, though but few have guess'd<br>The moment, till too late to come again.<br>But no doubt every thing is for the best-<br>Of which the surest sign is in the end:<br>When things are at the worst they sometimes mend. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">There is a tide in the affairs of women<br>Which, taken at the flood, leads- God knows where:<br>Those navigators must be able seamen<br>Whose charts lay down its current to a hair;<br>Not all the reveries of Jacob Behmen<br>With its strange whirls and eddies can compare:<br>Men with their heads reflect on this and that-<br>But women with their hearts on heaven knows what! </div><div style="margin:10px 0">And yet a headlong, headstrong, downright she,<br>Young, beautiful, and daring- who would risk<br>A throne, the world, the universe, to be<br>Beloved in her own way, and rather whisk<br>The stars from out the sky, than not be free<br>As are the billows when the breeze is brisk-<br>Though such a she 's a devil (if that there be one),<br>Yet she would make full many a Manichean. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Thrones, worlds, et cetera, are so oft upset<br>By commonest ambition, that when passion<br>O'erthrows the same, we readily forget,<br>Or at the least forgive, the loving rash one.<br>If Antony be well remember'd yet,<br>'T is not his conquests keep his name in fashion,<br>But Actium, lost for Cleopatra's eyes,<br>Outbalances all Caesar's victories. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">He died at fifty for a queen of forty;<br>I wish their years had been fifteen and twenty,<br>For then wealth, kingdoms, worlds are but a sport- I<br>Remember when, though I had no great plenty<br>Of worlds to lose, yet still, to pay my court, I<br>Gave what I had- a heart: as the world went, I<br>Gave what was worth a world; for worlds could never<br>Restore me those pure feelings, gone forever. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">'T was the boy's 'mite,' and, like the 'widow's,' may<br>Perhaps be weigh'd hereafter, if not now;<br>But whether such things do or do not weigh,<br>All who have loved, or love, will still allow<br>Life has nought like it. God is love, they say,<br>And Love 's a god, or was before the brow<br>Of earth was wrinkled by the sins and tears<br>Of- but Chronology best knows the years. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">We left our hero and third heroine in<br>A kind of state more awkward than uncommon,<br>For gentlemen must sometimes risk their skin<br>For that sad tempter, a forbidden woman:<br>Sultans too much abhor this sort of sin,<br>And don't agree at all with the wise Roman,<br>Heroic, stoic Cato, the sententious,<br>Who lent his lady to his friend Hortensius. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">I know Gulbeyaz was extremely wrong;<br>I own it, I deplore it, I condemn it;<br>But I detest all fiction even in song,<br>And so must tell the truth, howe'er you blame it.<br>Her reason being weak, her passions strong,<br>She thought that her lord's heart (even could she claim it)<br>Was scarce enough; for he had fifty-nine<br>Years, and a fifteen-hundredth concubine. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">I am not, like Cassio, 'an arithmetician,'<br>But by 'the bookish theoric' it appears,<br>If 't is summ'd up with feminine precision,<br>That, adding to the account his Highness' years,<br>The fair Sultana err'd from inanition;<br>For, were the Sultan just to all his dears,<br>She could but claim the fifteen-hundredth part<br>Of what should be monopoly- the heart. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">It is observed that ladies are litigious<br>Upon all legal objects of possession,<br>And not the least so when they are religious,<br>Which doubles what they think of the transgression:<br>With suits and prosecutions they besiege us,<br>As the tribunals show through many a session,<br>When they suspect that any one goes shares<br>In that to which the law makes them sole heirs. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Now, if this holds good in a Christian land,<br>The heathen also, though with lesser latitude,<br>Are apt to carry things with a high hand,<br>And take what kings call 'an imposing attitude,'<br>And for their rights connubial make a stand,<br>When their liege husbands treat them with ingratitude:<br>And as four wives must have quadruple claims,<br>The Tigris hath its jealousies like Thames. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Gulbeyaz was the fourth, and (as I said)<br>The favourite; but what 's favour amongst four?<br>Polygamy may well be held in dread,<br>Not only as a sin, but as a bore:<br>Most wise men, with one moderate woman wed,<br>Will scarcely find philosophy for more;<br>And all (except Mahometans) forbear<br>To make the nuptial couch a 'Bed of Ware.' </div><div style="margin:10px 0">His Highness, the sublimest of mankind,-<br>So styled according to the usual forms<br>Of every monarch, till they are consign'd<br>To those sad hungry jacobins the worms,<br>Who on the very loftiest kings have dined,-<br>His Highness gazed upon Gulbeyaz' charms,<br>Expecting all the welcome of a lover<br>(A 'Highland welcome' all the wide world over). </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Now here we should distinguish; for howe'er<br>Kisses, sweet words, embraces, and all that,<br>May look like what is- neither here nor there,<br>They are put on as easily as a hat,<br>Or rather bonnet, which the fair sex wear,<br>Trimm'd either heads or hearts to decorate,<br>Which form an ornament, but no more part<br>Of heads, than their caresses of the heart. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">A slight blush, a soft tremor, a calm kind<br>Of gentle feminine delight, and shown<br>More in the eyelids than the eyes, resign'd<br>Rather to hide what pleases most unknown,<br>Are the best tokens (to a modest mind)<br>Of love, when seated on his loveliest throne,<br>A sincere woman's breast,- for over-warm<br>Or over-cold annihilates the charm. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">For over-warmth, if false, is worse than truth;<br>If true, 't is no great lease of its own fire;<br>For no one, save in very early youth,<br>Would like (I think) to trust all to desire,<br>Which is but a precarious bond, in sooth,<br>And apt to be transferr'd to the first buyer<br>At a sad discount: while your over chilly<br>Women, on t' other hand, seem somewhat silly. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">That is, we cannot pardon their bad taste,<br>For so it seems to lovers swift or slow,<br>Who fain would have a mutual flame confess'd,<br>And see a sentimental passion glow,<br>Even were St. Francis' paramour their guest,<br>In his monastic concubine of snow;-<br>In short, the maxim for the amorous tribe is<br>Horatian, 'Medio tu tutissimus ibis.' </div><div style="margin:10px 0">The 'tu' 's too much,- but let it stand,- the verse<br>Requires it, that 's to say, the English rhyme,<br>And not the pink of old hexameters;<br>But, after all, there 's neither tune nor time<br>In the last line, which cannot well be worse,<br>And was thrust in to close the octave's chime:<br>I own no prosody can ever rate it<br>As a rule, but truth may, if you translate it. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">If fair Gulbeyaz overdid her part,<br>I know not- it succeeded, and success<br>Is much in most things, not less in the heart<br>Than other articles of female dress.<br>Self-love in man, too, beats all female art;<br>They lie, we lie, all lie, but love no less;<br>And no one virtue yet, except starvation,<br>Could stop that worst of vices- propagation. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">We leave this royal couple to repose:<br>A bed is not a throne, and they may sleep,<br>Whate'er their dreams be, if of joys or woes:<br>Yet disappointed joys are woes as deep<br>As any man's day mixture undergoes.<br>Our least of sorrows are such as we weep;<br>'T is the vile daily drop on drop which wears<br>The soul out (like the stone) with petty cares. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">A scolding wife, a sullen son, a bill<br>To pay, unpaid, protested, or discounted<br>At a per-centage; a child cross, dog ill,<br>A favourite horse fallen lame just as he 's mounted,<br>A bad old woman making a worse will,<br>Which leaves you minus of the cash you counted<br>As certain;- these are paltry things, and yet<br>I 've rarely seen the man they did not fret. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">I 'm a philosopher; confound them all!<br>Bills, beasts, and men, and- no! not womankind!<br>With one good hearty curse I vent my gall,<br>And then my stoicism leaves nought behind<br>Which it can either pain or evil call,<br>And I can give my whole soul up to mind;<br>Though what is soul or mind, their birth or growth,<br>Is more than I know- the deuce take them both! </div><div style="margin:10px 0">As after reading Athanasius' curse,<br>Which doth your true believer so much please:<br>I doubt if any now could make it worse<br>O'er his worst enemy when at his knees,<br>'T is so sententious, positive, and terse,<br>And decorates the book of Common Prayer,<br>As doth a rainbow the just clearing air. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Gulbeyaz and her lord were sleeping, or<br>At least one of them!- Oh, the heavy night,<br>When wicked wives, who love some bachelor,<br>Lie down in dudgeon to sigh for the light<br>Of the gray morning, and look vainly for<br>Its twinkle through the lattice dusky quite-<br>To toss, to tumble, doze, revive, and quake<br>Lest their too lawful bed-fellow should wake! </div><div style="margin:10px 0">These are beneath the canopy of heaven,<br>Also beneath the canopy of beds<br>Four-posted and silk curtain'd, which are given<br>For rich men and their brides to lay their heads<br>Upon, in sheets white as what bards call 'driven<br>Snow.' Well! 't is all hap-hazard when one weds.<br>Gulbeyaz was an empress, but had been<br>Perhaps as wretched if a peasant's quean. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Don Juan in his feminine disguise,<br>With all the damsels in their long array,<br>Had bow'd themselves before th' imperial eyes,<br>And at the usual signal ta'en their way<br>Back to their chambers, those long galleries<br>In the seraglio, where the ladies lay<br>Their delicate limbs; a thousand bosoms there<br>Beating for love, as the caged bird's for air. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">I love the sex, and sometimes would reverse<br>The tyrant's wish, 'that mankind only had<br>One neck, which he with one fell stroke might pierce:'<br>My wish is quite as wide, but not so bad,<br>And much more tender on the whole than fierce;<br>It being (not now, but only while a lad)<br>That womankind had but one rosy mouth,<br>To kiss them all at once from North to South. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Oh, enviable Briareus! with thy hands<br>And heads, if thou hadst all things multiplied<br>In such proportion!- But my Muse withstands<br>The giant thought of being a Titan's bride,<br>Or travelling in Patagonian lands;<br>So let us back to Lilliput, and guide<br>Our hero through the labyrinth of love<br>In which we left him several lines above. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">He went forth with the lovely Odalisques,<br>At the given signal join'd to their array;<br>And though he certainly ran many risks,<br>Yet he could not at times keep, by the way<br>(Although the consequences of such frisks<br>Are worse than the worst damages men pay<br>In moral England, where the thing 's a tax),<br>From ogling all their charms from breasts to backs. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Still he forgot not his disguise:- along<br>The galleries from room to room they walk'd,<br>A virgin-like and edifying throng,<br>By eunuchs flank'd; while at their head there stalk'd<br>A dame who kept up discipline among<br>The female ranks, so that none stirr'd or talk'd<br>Without her sanction on their she-parades:<br>Her title was 'the Mother of the Maids.' </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Whether she was a 'mother,' I know not,<br>Or whether they were 'maids' who call'd her mother;<br>But this is her seraglio title, got<br>I know not how, but good as any other;<br>So Cantemir can tell you, or De Tott:<br>Her office was to keep aloof or smother<br>All bad propensities in fifteen hundred<br>Young women, and correct them when they blunder'd. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">A goodly sinecure, no doubt! but made<br>More easy by the absence of all men-<br>Except his majesty, who, with her aid,<br>And guards, and bolts, and walls, and now and then<br>A slight example, just to cast a shade<br>Along the rest, contrived to keep this den<br>Of beauties cool as an Italian convent,<br>Where all the passions have, alas! but one vent. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">And what is that? Devotion, doubtless- how<br>Could you ask such a question?- but we will<br>Continue. As I said, this goodly row<br>Of ladies of all countries at the will<br>Of one good man, with stately march and slow,<br>Like water-lilies floating down a rill-<br>Or rather lake, for rills do not run slowly-<br>Paced on most maiden-like and melancholy. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">But when they reach'd their own apartments, there,<br>Like birds, or boys, or bedlamites broke loose,<br>Waves at spring-tide, or women anywhere<br>When freed from bonds (which are of no great use<br>After all), or like Irish at a fair,<br>Their guards being gone, and as it were a truce<br>Establish'd between them and bondage, they<br>Began to sing, dance, chatter, smile, and play. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Their talk, of course, ran most on the new comer;<br>Her shape, her hair, her air, her everything:<br>Some thought her dress did not so much become her,<br>Or wonder'd at her ears without a ring;<br>Some said her years were getting nigh their summer,<br>Others contended they were but in spring;<br>Some thought her rather masculine in height,<br>While others wish'd that she had been so quite. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">But no one doubted on the whole, that she<br>Was what her dress bespoke, a damsel fair,<br>And fresh, and 'beautiful exceedingly,'<br>Who with the brightest Georgians might compare:<br>They wonder'd how Gulbeyaz, too, could be<br>So silly as to buy slaves who might share<br>(If that his Highness wearied of his bride)<br>Her throne and power, and every thing beside. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">But what was strangest in this virgin crew,<br>Although her beauty was enough to vex,<br>After the first investigating view,<br>They all found out as few, or fewer, specks<br>In the fair form of their companion new,<br>Than is the custom of the gentle sex,<br>When they survey, with Christian eyes or Heathen,<br>In a new face 'the ugliest creature breathing.' </div><div style="margin:10px 0">And yet they had their little jealousies,<br>Like all the rest; but upon this occasion,<br>Whether there are such things as sympathies<br>Without our knowledge or our approbation,<br>Although they could not see through his disguise,<br>All felt a soft kind of concatenation,<br>Like magnetism, or devilism, or what<br>You please- we will not quarrel about that: </div><div style="margin:10px 0">But certain 't is they all felt for their new<br>Companion something newer still, as 't were<br>A sentimental friendship through and through,<br>Extremely pure, which made them all concur<br>In wishing her their sister, save a few<br>Who wish'd they had a brother just like her,<br>Whom, if they were at home in sweet Circassia,<br>They would prefer to Padisha or Pacha. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Of those who had most genius for this sort<br>Of sentimental friendship, there were three,<br>Lolah, Katinka, and Dudu; in short<br>(To save description), fair as fair can be<br>Were they, according to the best report,<br>Though differing in stature and degree,<br>And clime and time, and country and complexion;<br>They all alike admired their new connection. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Lolah was dusk as India and as warm;<br>Katinka was a Georgian, white and red,<br>With great blue eyes, a lovely hand and arm,<br>And feet so small they scarce seem'd made to tread,<br>But rather skim the earth; while Dudu's form<br>Look'd more adapted to be put to bed,<br>Being somewhat large, and languishing, and lazy,<br>Yet of a beauty that would drive you crazy. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">A kind of sleepy Venus seem'd Dudu,<br>Yet very fit to 'murder sleep' in those<br>Who gazed upon her cheek's transcendent hue,<br>Her Attic forehead, and her Phidian nose:<br>Few angles were there in her form, 't is true,<br>Thinner she might have been, and yet scarce lose;<br>Yet, after all, 't would puzzle to say where<br>It would not spoil some separate charm to pare. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">She was not violently lively, but<br>Stole on your spirit like a May-day breaking;<br>Her eyes were not too sparkling, yet, half-shut,<br>They put beholders in a tender taking;<br>She look'd (this simile 's quite new) just cut<br>From marble, like Pygmalion's statue waking,<br>The mortal and the marble still at strife,<br>And timidly expanding into life. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Lolah demanded the new damsel's name-<br>'Juanna.'- Well, a pretty name enough.<br>Katinka ask'd her also whence she came-<br>'From Spain.'- 'But where is Spain?'- 'Don't ask such stuff,<br>Nor show your Georgian ignorance- for shame!'<br>Said Lolah, with an accent rather rough,<br>To poor Katinka: 'Spain 's an island near<br>Morocco, betwixt Egypt and Tangier.' </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Dudu said nothing, but sat down beside<br>Juanna, playing with her veil or hair;<br>And looking at her steadfastly, she sigh'd,<br>As if she pitied her for being there,<br>A pretty stranger without friend or guide,<br>And all abash'd, too, at the general stare<br>Which welcomes hapless strangers in all places,<br>With kind remarks upon their mien and faces. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">But here the Mother of the Maids drew near,<br>With, 'Ladies, it is time to go to rest.<br>I 'm puzzled what to do with you, my dear,'<br>She added to Juanna, their new guest:<br>'Your coming has been unexpected here,<br>And every couch is occupied; you had best<br>Partake of mine; but by to-morrow early<br>We will have all things settled for you fairly.' </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Here Lolah interposed- 'Mamma, you know<br>You don't sleep soundly, and I cannot bear<br>That anybody should disturb you so;<br>I 'll take Juanna; we 're a slenderer pair<br>Than you would make the half of;- don't say no;<br>And I of your young charge will take due care.'<br>But here Katinka interfered, and said,<br>'She also had compassion and a bed. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">'Besides, I hate to sleep alone,' quoth she.<br>The matron frown'd: 'Why so?'- 'For fear of ghosts,'<br>Replied Katinka; 'I am sure I see<br>A phantom upon each of the four posts;<br>And then I have the worst dreams that can be,<br>Of Guebres, Giaours, and Ginns, and Gouls in hosts.'<br>The dame replied, 'Between your dreams and you,<br>I fear Juanna's dreams would be but few. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">'You, Lolah, must continue still to lie<br>Alone, for reasons which don't matter; you<br>The same, Katinka, until by and by;<br>And I shall place Juanna with Dudu,<br>Who 's quiet, inoffensive, silent, shy,<br>And will not toss and chatter the night through.<br>What say you, child?'- Dudu said nothing, as<br>Her talents were of the more silent class; </div><div style="margin:10px 0">But she rose up, and kiss'd the matron's brow<br>Between the eyes, and Lolah on both cheeks,<br>Katinka, too; and with a gentle bow<br>(Curt'sies are neither used by Turks nor Greeks)<br>She took Juanna by the hand to show<br>Their place of rest, and left to both their piques,<br>The others pouting at the matron's preference<br>Of Dudu, though they held their tongues from deference. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">It was a spacious chamber (Oda is<br>The Turkish title), and ranged round the wall<br>Were couches, toilets- and much more than this<br>I might describe, as I have seen it all,<br>But it suffices- little was amiss;<br>'T was on the whole a nobly furnish'd hall,<br>With all things ladies want, save one or two,<br>And even those were nearer than they knew. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Dudu, as has been said, was a sweet creature,<br>Not very dashing, but extremely winning,<br>With the most regulated charms of feature,<br>Which painters cannot catch like faces sinning<br>Against proportion- the wild strokes of nature<br>Which they hit off at once in the beginning,<br>Full of expression, right or wrong, that strike,<br>And pleasing or unpleasing, still are like. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">But she was a soft landscape of mild earth,<br>Where all was harmony, and calm, and quiet,<br>Luxuriant, budding; cheerful without mirth,<br>Which, if not happiness, is much more nigh it<br>Than are your mighty passions and so forth,<br>Which some call 'the sublime:' I wish they 'd try it:<br>I 've seen your stormy seas and stormy women,<br>And pity lovers rather more than seamen. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">But she was pensive more than melancholy,<br>And serious more than pensive, and serene,<br>It may be, more than either- not unholy<br>Her thoughts, at least till now, appear to have been.<br>The strangest thing was, beauteous, she was wholly<br>Unconscious, albeit turn'd of quick seventeen,<br>That she was fair, or dark, or short, or tall;<br>She never thought about herself at all. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">And therefore was she kind and gentle as<br>The Age of Gold (when gold was yet unknown,<br>By which its nomenclature came to pass;<br>Thus most appropriately has been shown<br>'Lucus a non lucendo,' not what was,<br>But what was not; a sort of style that 's grown<br>Extremely common in this age, whose metal<br>The devil may decompose, but never settle: </div><div style="margin:10px 0">I think it may be of 'Corinthian Brass,'<br>Which was a mixture of all metals, but<br>The brazen uppermost). Kind reader! pass<br>This long parenthesis: I could not shut<br>It sooner for the soul of me, and class<br>My faults even with your own! which meaneth, Put<br>A kind construction upon them and me:<br>But that you won't- then don't- I am not less free. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">'T is time we should return to plain narration,<br>And thus my narrative proceeds:- Dudu,<br>With every kindness short of ostentation,<br>Show'd Juan, or Juanna, through and through<br>This labyrinth of females, and each station<br>Described- what 's strange- in words extremely few:<br>I have but one simile, and that 's a blunder,<br>For wordless woman, which is silent thunder. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">And next she gave her (I say her, because<br>The gender still was epicene, at least<br>In outward show, which is a saving clause)<br>An outline of the customs of the East,<br>With all their chaste integrity of laws,<br>By which the more a haram is increased,<br>The stricter doubtless grow the vestal duties<br>Of any supernumerary beauties. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">And then she gave Juanna a chaste kiss:<br>Dudu was fond of kissing- which I 'm sure<br>That nobody can ever take amiss,<br>Because 't is pleasant, so that it be pure,<br>And between females means no more than this-<br>That they have nothing better near, or newer.<br>'Kiss' rhymes to 'bliss' in fact as well as verse-<br>I wish it never led to something worse. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">In perfect innocence she then unmade<br>Her toilet, which cost little, for she was<br>A child of Nature, carelessly array'd:<br>If fond of a chance ogle at her glass,<br>'T was like the fawn, which, in the lake display'd,<br>Beholds her own shy, shadowy image pass,<br>When first she starts, and then returns to peep,<br>Admiring this new native of the deep. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">And one by one her articles of dress<br>Were laid aside; but not before she offer'd<br>Her aid to fair Juanna, whose excess<br>Of modesty declined the assistance proffer'd:<br>Which pass'd well off- as she could do no less;<br>Though by this politesse she rather suffer'd,<br>Pricking her fingers with those cursed pins,<br>Which surely were invented for our sins,- </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Making a woman like a porcupine,<br>Not to be rashly touch'd. But still more dread,<br>Oh ye! whose fate it is, as once 't was mine,<br>In early youth, to turn a lady's maid;-<br>I did my very boyish best to shine<br>In tricking her out for a masquerade;<br>The pins were placed sufficiently, but not<br>Stuck all exactly in the proper spot. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">But these are foolish things to all the wise,<br>And I love wisdom more than she loves me;<br>My tendency is to philosophise<br>On most things, from a tyrant to a tree;<br>But still the spouseless virgin Knowledge flies.<br>What are we? and whence came we? what shall be<br>Our ultimate existence? what 's our present?<br>Are questions answerless, and yet incessant. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">There was deep silence in the chamber: dim<br>And distant from each other burn'd the lights,<br>And slumber hover'd o'er each lovely limb<br>Of the fair occupants: if there be sprites,<br>They should have walk'd there in their sprightliest trim,<br>By way of change from their sepulchral sites,<br>And shown themselves as ghosts of better taste<br>Than haunting some old ruin or wild waste. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Many and beautiful lay those around,<br>Like flowers of different hue, and dime, and root,<br>In some exotic garden sometimes found,<br>With cost, and care, and warmth induced to shoot.<br>One with her auburn tresses lightly bound,<br>And fair brows gently drooping, as the fruit<br>Nods from the tree, was slumbering with soft breath,<br>And lips apart, which show'd the pearls beneath. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">One with her flush'd cheek laid on her white arm,<br>And raven ringlets gather'd in dark crowd<br>Above her brow, lay dreaming soft and warm;<br>And smiling through her dream, as through a cloud<br>The moon breaks, half unveil'd each further charm,<br>As, slightly stirring in her snowy shroud,<br>Her beauties seized the unconscious hour of night<br>All bashfully to struggle into light. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">This is no bull, although it sounds so; for<br>'T was night, but there were lamps, as hath been said.<br>A third's all pallid aspect offer'd more<br>The traits of sleeping sorrow, and betray'd<br>Through the heaved breast the dream of some far shore<br>Beloved and deplored; while slowly stray'd<br>(As night-dew, on a cypress glittering, tinges<br>The black bough) tear-drops through her eyes' dark fringes. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">A fourth as marble, statue-like and still,<br>Lay in a breathless, hush'd, and stony sleep;<br>White, cold, and pure, as looks a frozen rill,<br>Or the snow minaret on an Alpine steep,<br>Or Lot's wife done in salt,- or what you will;-<br>My similes are gather'd in a heap,<br>So pick and choose- perhaps you 'll be content<br>With a carved lady on a monument. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">And lo! a fifth appears;- and what is she?<br>A lady of a 'certain age,' which means<br>Certainly aged- what her years might be<br>I know not, never counting past their teens;<br>But there she slept, not quite so fair to see,<br>As ere that awful period intervenes<br>Which lays both men and women on the shelf,<br>To meditate upon their sins and self. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">But all this time how slept, or dream'd, Dudu?<br>With strict inquiry I could ne'er discover,<br>And scorn to add a syllable untrue;<br>But ere the middle watch was hardly over,<br>Just when the fading lamps waned dim and blue,<br>And phantoms hover'd, or might seem to hover,<br>To those who like their company, about<br>The apartment, on a sudden she scream'd out: </div><div style="margin:10px 0">And that so loudly, that upstarted all<br>The Oda, in a general commotion:<br>Matron and maids, and those whom you may call<br>Neither, came crowding like the waves of ocean,<br>One on the other, throughout the whole hall,<br>All trembling, wondering, without the least notion<br>More than I have myself of what could make<br>The calm Dudu so turbulently wake. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">But wide awake she was, and round her bed,<br>With floating draperies and with flying hair,<br>With eager eyes, and light but hurried tread,<br>And bosoms, arms, and ankles glancing bare,<br>And bright as any meteor ever bred<br>By the North Pole,- they sought her cause of care,<br>For she seem'd agitated, flush'd, and frighten'd,<br>Her eye dilated and her colour heighten'd. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">But what was strange- and a strong proof how great<br>A blessing is sound sleep- Juanna lay<br>As fast as ever husband by his mate<br>In holy matrimony snores away.<br>Not all the clamour broke her happy state<br>Of slumber, ere they shook her,- so they say<br>At least,- and then she, too, unclosed her eyes,<br>And yawn'd a good deal with discreet surprise. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">And now commenced a strict investigation,<br>Which, as all spoke at once and more than once,<br>Conjecturing, wondering, asking a narration,<br>Alike might puzzle either wit or dunce<br>To answer in a very clear oration.<br>Dudu had never pass'd for wanting sense,<br>But, being 'no orator as Brutus is,'<br>Could not at first expound what was amiss. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">At length she said, that in a slumber sound<br>She dream'd a dream, of walking in a wood-<br>A 'wood obscure,' like that where Dante found<br>Himself in at the age when all grow good;<br>Life's half-way house, where dames with virtue crown'd<br>Run much less risk of lovers turning rude;<br>And that this wood was full of pleasant fruits,<br>And trees of goodly growth and spreading roots; </div><div style="margin:10px 0">And in the midst a golden apple grew,-<br>A most prodigious pippin,- but it hung<br>Rather too high and distant; that she threw<br>Her glances on it, and then, longing, flung<br>Stones and whatever she could pick up, to<br>Bring down the fruit, which still perversely clung<br>To its own bough, and dangled yet in sight,<br>But always at a most provoking height;- </div><div style="margin:10px 0">That on a sudden, when she least had hope,<br>It fell down of its own accord before<br>Her feet; that her first movement was to stoop<br>And pick it up, and bite it to the core;<br>That just as her young lip began to ope<br>Upon the golden fruit the vision bore,<br>A bee flew out and stung her to the heart,<br>And so- she awoke with a great scream and start. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">All this she told with some confusion and<br>Dismay, the usual consequence of dreams<br>Of the unpleasant kind, with none at hand<br>To expound their vain and visionary gleams.<br>I 've known some odd ones which seem'd really plann'd<br>Prophetically, or that which one deems<br>A 'strange coincidence,' to use a phrase<br>By which such things are settled now-a-days. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">The damsels, who had thoughts of some great harm,<br>Began, as is the consequence of fear,<br>To scold a little at the false alarm<br>That broke for nothing on their sleeping car.<br>The matron, too, was wroth to leave her warm<br>Bed for the dream she had been obliged to hear,<br>And chafed at poor Dudu, who only sigh'd,<br>And said that she was sorry she had cried. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">'I 've heard of stories of a cock and bull;<br>But visions of an apple and a bee,<br>To take us from our natural rest, and pull<br>The whole Oda from their beds at half-past three,<br>Would make us think the moon is at its full.<br>You surely are unwell, child! we must see,<br>To-morrow, what his Highness's physician<br>Will say to this hysteric of a vision. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">'And poor Juanna, too- the child's first night<br>Within these walls to be broke in upon<br>With such a clamour! I had thought it right<br>That the young stranger should not lie alone,<br>And, as the quietest of all, she might<br>With you, Dudu, a good night's rest have known;<br>But now I must transfer her to the charge<br>Of Lolah- though her couch is not so large.' </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Lolah's eyes sparkled at the proposition;<br>But poor Dudu, with large drops in her own,<br>Resulting from the scolding or the vision,<br>Implored that present pardon might be shown<br>For this first fault, and that on no condition<br>(She added in a soft and piteous tone)<br>Juanna should be taken from her, and<br>Her future dreams should all be kept in hand. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">She promised never more to have a dream,<br>At least to dream so loudly as just now;<br>She wonder'd at herself how she could scream-<br>'T was foolish, nervous, as she must allow,<br>A fond hallucination, and a theme<br>For laughter- but she felt her spirits low,<br>And begg'd they would excuse her; she 'd get over<br>This weakness in a few hours, and recover. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">And here Juanna kindly interposed,<br>And said she felt herself extremely well<br>Where she then was, as her sound sleep disclosed<br>When all around rang like a tocsin bell:<br>She did not find herself the least disposed<br>To quit her gentle partner, and to dwell<br>Apart from one who had no sin to show,<br>Save that of dreaming once 'mal-a-propos.' </div><div style="margin:10px 0">As thus Juanna spoke, Dudu turn'd round<br>And hid her face within Juanna's breast:<br>Her neck alone was seen, but that was found<br>The colour of a budding rose's crest.<br>I can't tell why she blush'd, nor can expound<br>The mystery of this rupture of their rest;<br>All that I know is, that the facts I state<br>Are true as truth has ever been of late. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">And so good night to them,- or, if you will,<br>Good morrow- for the cock had crown, and light<br>Began to clothe each Asiatic hill,<br>And the mosque crescent struggled into sight<br>Of the long caravan, which in the chill<br>Of dewy dawn wound slowly round each height<br>That stretches to the stony belt, which girds<br>Asia, where Kaff looks down upon the Kurds. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">With the first ray, or rather grey of morn,<br>Gulbeyaz rose from restlessness; and pale<br>As passion rises, with its bosom worn,<br>Array'd herself with mantle, gem, and veil.<br>The nightingale that sings with the deep thorn,<br>Which fable places in her breast of wail,<br>Is lighter far of heart and voice than those<br>Whose headlong passions form their proper woes. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">And that 's the moral of this composition,<br>If people would but see its real drift;-<br>But that they will not do without suspicion,<br>Because all gentle readers have the gift<br>Of closing 'gainst the light their orbs of vision;<br>While gentle writers also love to lift<br>Their voices 'gainst each other, which is natural,<br>The numbers are too great for them to flatter all. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Rose the sultana from a bed of splendour,<br>Softer than the soft Sybarite's, who cried<br>Aloud because his feelings were too tender<br>To brook a ruffled rose-leaf by his side,-<br>So beautiful that art could little mend her,<br>Though pale with conflicts between love and pride;-<br>So agitated was she with her error,<br>She did not even look into the mirror. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Also arose about the self-same time,<br>Perhaps a little later, her great lord,<br>Master of thirty kingdoms so sublime,<br>And of a wife by whom he was abhorr'd;<br>A thing of much less import in that clime-<br>At least to those of incomes which afford<br>The filling up their whole connubial cargo-<br>Than where two wives are under an embargo. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">He did not think much on the matter, nor<br>Indeed on any other: as a man<br>He liked to have a handsome paramour<br>At hand, as one may like to have a fan,<br>And therefore of Circassians had good store,<br>As an amusement after the Divan;<br>Though an unusual fit of love, or duty,<br>Had made him lately bask in his bride's beauty. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">And now he rose; and after due ablutions<br>Exacted by the customs of the East,<br>And prayers and other pious evolutions,<br>He drank six cups of coffee at the least,<br>And then withdrew to hear about the Russians,<br>Whose victories had recently increased<br>In Catherine's reign, whom glory still adores, </div><div style="margin:10px 0">But oh, thou grand legitimate Alexander!<br>Her son's son, let not this last phrase offend<br>Thine ear, if it should reach- and now rhymes wander<br>Almost as far as Petersburgh and lend<br>A dreadful impulse to each loud meander<br>Of murmuring Liberty's wide waves, which blend<br>Their roar even with the Baltic's- so you be<br>Your father's son, 't is quite enough for me. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">To call men love-begotten or proclaim<br>Their mothers as the antipodes of Timon,<br>That hater of mankind, would be a shame,<br>A libel, or whate'er you please to rhyme on:<br>But people's ancestors are history's game;<br>And if one lady's slip could leave a crime on<br>All generations, I should like to know<br>What pedigree the best would have to show? </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Had Catherine and the sultan understood<br>Their own true interests, which kings rarely know<br>Until 't is taught by lessons rather rude,<br>There was a way to end their strife, although<br>Perhaps precarious, had they but thought good,<br>Without the aid of prince or plenipo:<br>She to dismiss her guards and he his haram,<br>And for their other matters, meet and share 'em. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">But as it was, his Highness had to hold<br>His daily council upon ways and means<br>How to encounter with this martial scold,<br>This modern Amazon and queen of queans;<br>And the perplexity could not be told<br>Of all the pillars of the state, which leans<br>Sometimes a little heavy on the backs<br>Of those who cannot lay on a new tax. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Meantime Gulbeyaz, when her king was gone,<br>Retired into her boudoir, a sweet place<br>For love or breakfast; private, pleasing, lone,<br>And rich with all contrivances which grace<br>Those gay recesses:- many a precious stone<br>Sparkled along its roof, and many a vase<br>Of porcelain held in the fetter'd flowers,<br>Those captive soothers of a captive's hours. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Mother of pearl, and porphyry, and marble,<br>Vied with each other on this costly spot;<br>And singing birds without were heard to warble;<br>And the stain'd glass which lighted this fair grot<br>Varied each ray;- but all descriptions garble<br>The true effect, and so we had better not<br>Be too minute; an outline is the best,-<br>A lively reader's fancy does the rest. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">And here she summon'd Baba, and required<br>Don Juan at his hands, and information<br>Of what had pass'd since all the slaves retired,<br>And whether he had occupied their station;<br>If matters had been managed as desired,<br>And his disguise with due consideration<br>Kept up; and above all, the where and how<br>He had pass'd the night, was what she wish'd to know. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Baba, with some embarrassment, replied<br>To this long catechism of questions, ask'd<br>More easily than answer'd,- that he had tried<br>His best to obey in what he had been task'd;<br>But there seem'd something that he wish'd to hide,<br>Which hesitation more betray'd than mask'd;<br>He scratch'd his ear, the infallible resource<br>To which embarrass'd people have recourse. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Gulbeyaz was no model of true patience,<br>Nor much disposed to wait in word or deed;<br>She liked quick answers in all conversations;<br>And when she saw him stumbling like a steed<br>In his replies, she puzzled him for fresh ones;<br>And as his speech grew still more broken-kneed,<br>Her cheek began to flush, her eyes to sparkle,<br>And her proud brow's blue veins to swell and darkle. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">When Baba saw these symptoms, which he knew<br>To bode him no great good, he deprecated<br>Her anger, and beseech'd she 'd hear him through-<br>He could not help the thing which he related:<br>Then out it came at length, that to Dudu<br>Juan was given in charge, as hath been stated;<br>But not by Baba's fault, he said, and swore on<br>The holy camel's hump, besides the Koran. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">The chief dame of the Oda, upon whom<br>The discipline of the whole haram bore,<br>As soon as they re-enter'd their own room,<br>For Baba's function stopt short at the door,<br>Had settled all; nor could he then presume<br>(The aforesaid Baba) just then to do more,<br>Without exciting such suspicion as<br>Might make the matter still worse than it was. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">He hoped, indeed he thought, he could be sure<br>Juan had not betray'd himself; in fact<br>'T was certain that his conduct had been pure,<br>Because a foolish or imprudent act<br>Would not alone have made him insecure,<br>But ended in his being found out and sack'd,<br>And thrown into the sea.- Thus Baba spoke<br>Of all save Dudu's dream, which was no joke. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">This he discreetly kept in the background,<br>And talk'd away- and might have talk'd till now,<br>For any further answer that he found,<br>So deep an anguish wrung Gulbeyaz' brow:<br>Her cheek turn'd ashes, ears rung, brain whirl'd round,<br>As if she had received a sudden blow,<br>And the heart's dew of pain sprang fast and chilly<br>O'er her fair front, like Morning's on a lily. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Although she was not of the fainting sort,<br>Baba thought she would faint, but there he err'd-<br>It was but a convulsion, which though short<br>Can never be described; we all have heard,<br>And some of us have felt thus 'all amort,'<br>When things beyond the common have occurr'd;-<br>Gulbeyaz proved in that brief agony<br>What she could ne'er express- then how should I? </div><div style="margin:10px 0">She stood a moment as a Pythones<br>Stands on her tripod, agonised, and full<br>Of inspiration gather'd from distress,<br>When all the heart-strings like wild horses pull<br>The heart asunder;- then, as more or lees<br>Their speed abated or their strength grew dull,<br>She sunk down on her seat by slow degrees,<br>And bow'd her throbbing head o'er trembling knees. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Her face declined and was unseen; her hair<br>Fell in long tresses like the weeping willow,<br>Sweeping the marble underneath her chair,<br>Or rather sofa (for it was all pillow,<br>A low soft ottoman), and black despair<br>Stirr'd up and down her bosom like a billow,<br>Which rushes to some shore whose shingles check<br>Its farther course, but must receive its wreck. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Her head hung down, and her long hair in stooping<br>Conceal'd her features better than a veil;<br>And one hand o'er the ottoman lay drooping,<br>White, waxen, and as alabaster pale:<br>Would that I were a painter! to be grouping<br>All that a poet drags into detail<br>Oh that my words were colours! but their tints<br>May serve perhaps as outlines or slight hints. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Baba, who knew by experience when to talk<br>And when to hold his tongue, now held it till<br>This passion might blow o'er, nor dared to balk<br>Gulbeyaz' taciturn or speaking will.<br>At length she rose up, and began to walk<br>Slowly along the room, but silent still,<br>And her brow clear'd, but not her troubled eye;<br>The wind was down, but still the sea ran high. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">She stopp'd, and raised her head to speak- but paused,<br>And then moved on again with rapid pace;<br>Then slacken'd it, which is the march most caused<br>By deep emotion:- you may sometimes trace<br>A feeling in each footstep, as disclosed<br>By Sallust in his Catiline, who, chased<br>By all the demons of all passions, show'd<br>Their work even by the way in which he trode. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Gulbeyaz stopp'd and beckon'd Baba:- 'Slave!<br>Bring the two slaves!' she said in a low tone,<br>But one which Baba did not like to brave,<br>And yet he shudder'd, and seem'd rather prone<br>To prove reluctant, and begg'd leave to crave<br>(Though he well knew the meaning) to be shown<br>What slaves her highness wish'd to indicate,<br>For fear of any error, like the late. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">'The Georgian and her paramour,' replied<br>The imperial bride- and added, 'Let the boat<br>Be ready by the secret portal's side:<br>You know the rest.' The words stuck in her throat,<br>Despite her injured love and fiery pride;<br>And of this Baba willingly took note,<br>And begg'd by every hair of Mahomet's beard,<br>She would revoke the order he had heard. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">'To hear is to obey,' he said; 'but still,<br>Sultana, think upon the consequence:<br>It is not that I shall not all fulfil<br>Your orders, even in their severest sense;<br>But such precipitation may end ill,<br>Even at your own imperative expense:<br>I do not mean destruction and exposure,<br>In case of any premature disclosure; </div><div style="margin:10px 0">'But your own feelings. Even should all the rest<br>Be hidden by the rolling waves, which hide<br>Already many a once love-beaten breast<br>Deep in the caverns of the deadly tide-<br>You love this boyish, new, seraglio guest,<br>And if this violent remedy be tried-<br>Excuse my freedom, when I here assure you,<br>That killing him is not the way to cure you.' </div><div style="margin:10px 0">'What dost thou know of love or feeling?- Wretch!<br>Begone!' she cried, with kindling eyes- 'and do<br>My bidding!' Baba vanish'd, for to stretch<br>His own remonstrance further he well knew<br>Might end in acting as his own 'Jack Ketch;'<br>And though he wish'd extremely to get through<br>This awkward business without harm to others,<br>He still preferr'd his own neck to another's. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Away he went then upon his commission,<br>Growling and grumbling in good Turkish phrase<br>Against all women of whate'er condition,<br>Especially sultanas and their ways;<br>Their obstinacy, pride, and indecision,<br>Their never knowing their own mind two days,<br>The trouble that they gave, their immorality,<br>Which made him daily bless his own neutrality. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">And then he call'd his brethren to his aid,<br>And sent one on a summons to the pair,<br>That they must instantly be well array'd,<br>And above all be comb'd even to a hair,<br>And brought before the empress, who had made<br>Inquiries after them with kindest care:<br>At which Dudu look'd strange, and Juan silly;<br>But go they must at once, and will I- nill I. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">And here I leave them at their preparation<br>For the imperial presence, wherein whether<br>Gulbeyaz show'd them both commiseration,<br>Or got rid of the parties altogether,<br>Like other angry ladies of her nation,-<br>Are things the turning of a hair or feather<br>May settle; but far be 't from me to anticipate<br>In what way feminine caprice may dissipate. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">I leave them for the present with good wishes,<br>Though doubts of their well doing, to arrange<br>Another part of history; for the dishes<br>Of this our banquet we must sometimes change;<br>And trusting Juan may escape the fishes,<br>Although his situation now seems strange<br>And scarce secure, as such digressions are fair,<br>The Muse will take a little touch at warfare.</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=396078" data-title="Don Juan: Canto The Sixth de Byron" data-description="'There is a tide in the affairs of men
Which,--taken at the flood,'--you know the rest,
And most of us have found it now and then;
At least we think so, though but few have guess'd
The moment, till too late to come again.
But no doubt every thing ..."></div>
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