Part 14

This was an awkward test, as Juan found, But he was steel’d by sorrow, wrath, and pride: With gentle force her white arms he unwound, And seated her all drooping by his side, Then rising haughtily he glanced around, And looking coldly in her face, he cried, ‘The prison’d eagle will not pair, nor Serve a Sultana’s sensual phantasy.

‘Thou ask’st if I can love? be this the proof How much I have loved—that I love not thee! In this vile garb, the distaff, web, and woof, Were fitter for me: Love is for the free! I am not dazzled by this splendid roof, Whate’er thy power, and great it seems to be; Heads bow, knees bend, eyes watch around a throne, And hands obey—our hearts are still our own.’

This was a truth to us extremely trite; Not so to her, who ne’er had heard such things: She deem’d her least command must yield delight, Earth being only made for queens and kings. If hearts lay on the left side or the right She hardly knew, to such perfection brings Legitimacy its born votaries, when Aware of their due royal rights o’er men.

Besides, as has been said, she was so fair As even in a much humbler lot had made A kingdom or confusion anywhere, And also, as may be presumed, she laid Some stress on charms, which seldom are, if e’er, By their possessors thrown into the shade: She thought hers gave a double ‘right divine;’ And half of that opinion ’s also mine.

Remember, or (if you can not) imagine, Ye, who have kept your chastity when young, While some more desperate dowager has been waging Love with you, and been in the dog-days stung By your refusal, recollect her raging! Or recollect all that was said or sung On such a subject; then suppose the face Of a young downright beauty in this case.

Suppose,—but you already have supposed, The spouse of Potiphar, the Lady Booby, Phaedra, and all which story has disclosed Of good examples; pity that so few by Poets and private tutors are exposed, To educate—ye youth of Europe—you by! But when you have supposed the few we know, You can’t suppose Gulbeyaz’ angry brow.

A tigress robb’d of young, a lioness, Or any interesting beast of prey, Are similes at hand for the distress Of ladies who can not have their own way; But though my turn will not be served with less, These don’t express one half what I should say: For what is stealing young ones, few or many, To cutting short their hopes of having any?

The love of offspring ’s nature’s general law, From tigresses and cubs to ducks and ducklings; There’s nothing whets the beak, or arms the claw Like an invasion of their babes and sucklings; And all who have seen a human nursery, saw How mothers love their children’s squalls and chucklings; This strong extreme effect (to tire no longer Your patience) shows the cause must still be stronger.

If I said fire flash’d from Gulbeyaz’ eyes, ’Twere nothing—for her eyes flash’d always fire; Or said her cheeks assumed the deepest dyes, I should but bring disgrace upon the dyer, So supernatural was her passion’s rise; For ne’er till now she knew a check’d desire: Even ye who know what a check’d woman is (Enough, God knows!) would much fall short of this.

Her rage was but a minute’s, and ’twas well— A moment’s more had slain her; but the while It lasted ’twas like a short glimpse of hell: Nought ’s more sublime than energetic bile, Though horrible to see yet grand to tell, Like ocean warring ’gainst a rocky isle; And the deep passions flashing through her form Made her a beautiful embodied storm.

A vulgar tempest ’twere to a typhoon To match a common fury with her rage, And yet she did not want to reach the moon, Like moderate Hotspur on the immortal page; Her anger pitch’d into a lower tune, Perhaps the fault of her soft sex and age— Her wish was but to ‘kill, kill, kill,’ like Lear’s, And then her thirst of blood was quench’d in tears.

A storm it raged, and like the storm it pass’d, Pass’d without words—in fact she could not speak; And then her sex’s shame broke in at last, A sentiment till then in her but weak, But now it flow’d in natural and fast, As water through an unexpected leak; For she felt humbled—and humiliation Is sometimes good for people in her station

It teaches them that they are flesh and blood, It also gently hints to them that others, Although of clay, are yet not quite of mud; That urns and pipkins are but fragile brothers, And works of the same pottery, bad or good, Though not all born of the same sires and mothers: It teaches—Heaven knows only what it teaches, But sometimes it may mend, and often reaches.

Her first thought was to cut off Juan’s head; Her second, to cut only his—acquaintance; Her third, to ask him where he had been bred; Her fourth, to rally him into repentance; Her fifth, to call her maids and go to bed; Her sixth, to stab herself; her seventh, to sentence The lash to Baba:—but her grand resource Was to sit down again, and cry of course.

She thought to stab herself, but then she had The dagger close at hand, which made it awkward; For Eastern stays are little made to pad, So that a poniard pierces if ’tis stuck hard: She thought of killing Juan—but, poor lad! Though he deserved it well for being so backward, The cutting off his head was not the art Most likely to attain her aim—his heart.

Juan was moved; he had made up his mind To be impaled, or quarter’d as a dish For dogs, or to be slain with pangs refined, Or thrown to lions, or made baits for fish, And thus heroically stood resign’d, Rather than sin—except to his own wish: But all his great preparatives for dying Dissolved like snow before a woman crying.

As through his palms Bob Acres’ valour oozed, So Juan’s virtue ebb’d, I know not how; And first he wonder’d why he had refused; And then, if matters could be made up now; And next his savage virtue he accused, Just as a friar may accuse his vow, Or as a dame repents her of her oath, Which mostly ends in some small breach of both.

So he began to stammer some excuses; But words are not enough in such a matter, Although you borrow’d all that e’er the muses Have sung, or even a Dandy’s dandiest chatter, Or all the figures Castlereagh abuses; Just as a languid smile began to flatter His peace was making, but before he ventured Further, old Baba rather briskly enter’d.

‘Bride of the Sun! and Sister of the Moon!’ (’Twas thus he spake) ‘and Empress of the Earth! Whose frown would put the spheres all out of tune, Whose smile makes all the planets dance with mirth, Your slave brings tidings—he hopes not too soon— Which your sublime attention may be worth: The Sun himself has sent me like a ray, To hint that he is coming up this way.’

‘Is it,’ exclaim’d Gulbeyaz, ‘as you say? I wish to heaven he would not shine till morning! But bid my women form the milky way. Hence, my old comet! give the stars due warning— And, Christian! mingle with them as you may, And as you’d have me pardon your past scorning—’ Here they were interrupted by a humming Sound, and then by a cry, ‘The Sultan ’s coming!’

First came her damsels, a decorous file, And then his Highness’ eunuchs, black and white; The train might reach a quarter of a mile: His majesty was always so polite As to announce his visits a long while Before he came, especially at night; For being the last wife of the Emperour, She was of course the favorite of the four.

His Highness was a man of solemn port, Shawl’d to the nose, and bearded to the eyes, Snatch’d from a prison to preside at court, His lately bowstrung brother caused his rise; He was as good a sovereign of the sort As any mention’d in the histories Of Cantemir, or Knolles, where few shine Save Solyman, the glory of their line.

He went to mosque in state, and said his prayers With more than ‘Oriental scrupulosity;’ He left to his vizier all state affairs, And show’d but little royal curiosity: I know not if he had domestic cares— No process proved connubial animosity; Four wives and twice five hundred maids, unseen, Were ruled as calmly as a Christian queen.

If now and then there happen’d a slight slip, Little was heard of criminal or crime; The story scarcely pass’d a single lip— The sack and sea had settled all in time, From which the secret nobody could rip: The Public knew no more than does this rhyme; No scandals made the daily press a curse— Morals were better, and the fish no worse.

He saw with his own eyes the moon was round, Was also certain that the earth was square, Because he had journey’d fifty miles, and found No sign that it was circular anywhere; His empire also was without a bound: ’Tis true, a little troubled here and there, By rebel pachas, and encroaching giaours, But then they never came to ‘the Seven Towers;’

Except in shape of envoys, who were sent To lodge there when a war broke out, according To the true law of nations, which ne’er meant Those scoundrels, who have never had a sword in Their dirty diplomatic hands, to vent Their spleen in making strife, and safely wording Their lies, yclep’d despatches, without risk or The singeing of a single inky whisker.

He had fifty daughters and four dozen sons, Of whom all such as came of age were stow’d, The former in a palace, where like nuns They lived till some Bashaw was sent abroad, When she, whose turn it was, was wed at once, Sometimes at six years old—though it seems odd, ’Tis true; the reason is, that the Bashaw Must make a present to his sire in law.

His sons were kept in prison, till they grew Of years to fill a bowstring or the throne, One or the other, but which of the two Could yet be known unto the fates alone; Meantime the education they went through Was princely, as the proofs have always shown: So that the heir apparent still was found No less deserving to be hang’d than crown’d.

His majesty saluted his fourth spouse With all the ceremonies of his rank, Who clear’d her sparkling eyes and smooth’d her brows, As suits a matron who has play’d a prank; These must seem doubly mindful of their vows, To save the credit of their breaking bank: To no men are such cordial greetings given As those whose wives have made them fit for heaven.

His Highness cast around his great black eyes, And looking, as he always look’d, perceived Juan amongst the damsels in disguise, At which he seem’d no whit surprised nor grieved, But just remark’d with air sedate and wise, While still a fluttering sigh Gulbeyaz heaved, ‘I see you’ve bought another girl; ’tis pity That a mere Christian should be half so pretty.’

This compliment, which drew all eyes upon The new-bought virgin, made her blush and shake. Her comrades, also, thought themselves undone: O! Mahomet! that his majesty should take Such notice of a giaour, while scarce to one Of them his lips imperial ever spake! There was a general whisper, toss, and wriggle, But etiquette forbade them all to giggle.

The Turks do well to shut—at least, sometimes— The women up, because, in sad reality, Their chastity in these unhappy climes Is not a thing of that astringent quality Which in the North prevents precocious crimes, And makes our snow less pure than our morality; The sun, which yearly melts the polar ice, Has quite the contrary effect on vice.

Thus in the East they are extremely strict, And Wedlock and a Padlock mean the same; Excepting only when the former ’s pick’d It ne’er can be replaced in proper frame; Spoilt, as a pipe of claret is when prick’d: But then their own Polygamy ’s to blame; Why don’t they knead two virtuous souls for life Into that moral centaur, man and wife?

Thus far our chronicle; and now we pause, Though not for want of matter; but ’tis time According to the ancient epic laws, To slacken sail, and anchor with our rhyme. Let this fifth canto meet with due applause, The sixth shall have a touch of the sublime; Meanwhile, as Homer sometimes sleeps, perhaps You’ll pardon to my muse a few short naps.

CANTO THE SIXTH.

‘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 is for the best— Of which the surest sign is in the end: When things are at the worst they sometimes mend.

There is a tide in the affairs of women Which, taken at the flood, leads—God knows where: Those navigators must be able seamen Whose charts lay down its current to a hair; Not all the reveries of Jacob Behmen With its strange whirls and eddies can compare: Men with their heads reflect on this and that— But women with their hearts on heaven knows what!

And yet a headlong, headstrong, downright she, Young, beautiful, and daring—who would risk A throne, the world, the universe, to be Beloved in her own way, and rather whisk The stars from out the sky, than not be free As are the billows when the breeze is brisk— Though such a she ’s a devil (if that there be one), Yet she would make full many a Manichean.

Thrones, worlds, et cetera, are so oft upset By commonest ambition, that when passion O’erthrows the same, we readily forget, Or at the least forgive, the loving rash one. If Antony be well remember’d yet, ’Tis not his conquests keep his name in fashion, But Actium, lost for Cleopatra’s eyes, Outbalances all Caesar’s victories.

He died at fifty for a queen of forty; I wish their years had been fifteen and twenty, For then wealth, kingdoms, worlds are but a sport—I Remember when, though I had no great plenty Of worlds to lose, yet still, to pay my court, I Gave what I had—a heart: as the world went, I Gave what was worth a world; for worlds could never Restore me those pure feelings, gone forever.

’Twas the boy’s ‘mite,’ and, like the ‘widow’s,’ may Perhaps be weigh’d hereafter, if not now; But whether such things do or do not weigh, All who have loved, or love, will still allow Life has nought like it. God is love, they say, And Love ’s a god, or was before the brow Of earth was wrinkled by the sins and tears Of—but Chronology best knows the years.

We left our hero and third heroine in A kind of state more awkward than uncommon, For gentlemen must sometimes risk their skin For that sad tempter, a forbidden woman: Sultans too much abhor this sort of sin, And don’t agree at all with the wise Roman, Heroic, stoic Cato, the sententious, Who lent his lady to his friend Hortensius.

I know Gulbeyaz was extremely wrong; I own it, I deplore it, I condemn it; But I detest all fiction even in song, And so must tell the truth, howe’er you blame it. Her reason being weak, her passions strong, She thought that her lord’s heart (even could she claim it) Was scarce enough; for he had fifty-nine Years, and a fifteen-hundredth concubine.

I am not, like Cassio, ‘an arithmetician,’ But by ‘the bookish theoric’ it appears, If ’tis summ’d up with feminine precision, That, adding to the account his Highness’ years, The fair Sultana err’d from inanition; For, were the Sultan just to all his dears, She could but claim the fifteen-hundredth part Of what should be monopoly—the heart.

It is observed that ladies are litigious Upon all legal objects of possession, And not the least so when they are religious, Which doubles what they think of the transgression: With suits and prosecutions they besiege us, As the tribunals show through many a session, When they suspect that any one goes shares In that to which the law makes them sole heirs.

Now, if this holds good in a Christian land, The heathen also, though with lesser latitude, Are apt to carry things with a high hand, And take what kings call ‘an imposing attitude,’ And for their rights connubial make a stand, When their liege husbands treat them with ingratitude: And as four wives must have quadruple claims, The Tigris hath its jealousies like Thames.

Gulbeyaz was the fourth, and (as I said) The favourite; but what ’s favour amongst four? Polygamy may well be held in dread, Not only as a sin, but as a bore: Most wise men, with one moderate woman wed, Will scarcely find philosophy for more; And all (except Mahometans) forbear To make the nuptial couch a ‘Bed of Ware.’

His Highness, the sublimest of mankind,— So styled according to the usual forms Of every monarch, till they are consign’d To those sad hungry jacobins the worms, Who on the very loftiest kings have dined,— His Highness gazed upon Gulbeyaz’ charms, Expecting all the welcome of a lover (A ‘Highland welcome’ all the wide world over).

Now here we should distinguish; for howe’er Kisses, sweet words, embraces, and all that, May look like what is—neither here nor there, They are put on as easily as a hat, Or rather bonnet, which the fair sex wear, Trimm’d either heads or hearts to decorate, Which form an ornament, but no more part Of heads, than their caresses of the heart.

A slight blush, a soft tremor, a calm kind Of gentle feminine delight, and shown More in the eyelids than the eyes, resign’d Rather to hide what pleases most unknown, Are the best tokens (to a modest mind) Of love, when seated on his loveliest throne, A sincere woman’s breast,—for over-warm Or over-cold annihilates the charm.

For over-warmth, if false, is worse than truth; If true, ’tis no great lease of its own fire; For no one, save in very early youth, Would like (I think) to trust all to desire, Which is but a precarious bond, in sooth, And apt to be transferr’d to the first buyer At a sad discount: while your over chilly Women, on t’ other hand, seem somewhat silly.

That is, we cannot pardon their bad taste, For so it seems to lovers swift or slow, Who fain would have a mutual flame confess’d, And see a sentimental passion glow, Even were St. Francis’ paramour their guest, In his monastic concubine of snow;— In short, the maxim for the amorous tribe is Horatian, ‘Medio tu tutissimus ibis.’

The ‘tu’ ’s too much,—but let it stand,—the verse Requires it, that ’s to say, the English rhyme, And not the pink of old hexameters; But, after all, there’s neither tune nor time In the last line, which cannot well be worse, And was thrust in to close the octave’s chime: I own no prosody can ever rate it As a rule, but truth may, if you translate it.

If fair Gulbeyaz overdid her part, I know not—it succeeded, and success Is much in most things, not less in the heart Than other articles of female dress. Self-love in man, too, beats all female art; They lie, we lie, all lie, but love no less; And no one virtue yet, except starvation, Could stop that worst of vices—propagation.

We leave this royal couple to repose: A bed is not a throne, and they may sleep, Whate’er their dreams be, if of joys or woes: Yet disappointed joys are woes as deep As any man’s day mixture undergoes. Our least of sorrows are such as we weep; ’Tis the vile daily drop on drop which wears The soul out (like the stone) with petty cares.

A scolding wife, a sullen son, a bill To pay, unpaid, protested, or discounted At a per-centage; a child cross, dog ill, A favourite horse fallen lame just as he ’s mounted, A bad old woman making a worse will, Which leaves you minus of the cash you counted As certain;—these are paltry things, and yet I’ve rarely seen the man they did not fret.

I’m a philosopher; confound them all! Bills, beasts, and men, and—no! not womankind! With one good hearty curse I vent my gall, And then my stoicism leaves nought behind Which it can either pain or evil call, And I can give my whole soul up to mind; Though what is soul or mind, their birth or growth, Is more than I know—the deuce take them both!

So now all things are d—n’d, one feels at ease, As after reading Athanasius’ curse, Which doth your true believer so much please: I doubt if any now could make it worse O’er his worst enemy when at his knees, ’Tis so sententious, positive, and terse, And decorates the book of Common Prayer, As doth a rainbow the just clearing air.

Gulbeyaz and her lord were sleeping, or At least one of them!—Oh, the heavy night, When wicked wives, who love some bachelor, Lie down in dudgeon to sigh for the light Of the gray morning, and look vainly for Its twinkle through the lattice dusky quite— To toss, to tumble, doze, revive, and quake Lest their too lawful bed-fellow should wake!

These are beneath the canopy of heaven, Also beneath the canopy of beds Four-posted and silk curtain’d, which are given For rich men and their brides to lay their heads Upon, in sheets white as what bards call ‘driven Snow.’ Well! ’tis all hap-hazard when one weds. Gulbeyaz was an empress, but had been Perhaps as wretched if a peasant’s quean.

Don Juan in his feminine disguise, With all the damsels in their long array, Had bow’d themselves before th’ imperial eyes, And at the usual signal ta’en their way Back to their chambers, those long galleries In the seraglio, where the ladies lay Their delicate limbs; a thousand bosoms there Beating for love, as the caged bird’s for air.

I love the sex, and sometimes would reverse The tyrant’s wish, ‘that mankind only had One neck, which he with one fell stroke might pierce:’ My wish is quite as wide, but not so bad, And much more tender on the whole than fierce; It being (not now, but only while a lad) That womankind had but one rosy mouth, To kiss them all at once from North to South.

O, enviable Briareus! with thy hands And heads, if thou hadst all things multiplied In such proportion!—But my Muse withstands The giant thought of being a Titan’s bride, Or travelling in Patagonian lands; So let us back to Lilliput, and guide Our hero through the labyrinth of love In which we left him several lines above.

He went forth with the lovely Odalisques, At the given signal join’d to their array; And though he certainly ran many risks, Yet he could not at times keep, by the way (Although the consequences of such frisks Are worse than the worst damages men pay In moral England, where the thing ’s a tax), From ogling all their charms from breasts to backs.