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 hanged than crowned.
CLIV
His Majesty saluted his fourth spouse
With all the ceremonies of his rank,
Who cleared her sparkling eyes and smoothed her brows,
As suits a matron who has played 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.506
CLV
His Highness cast around his great black eyes,
And looking, as he always looked, perceived
Juan amongst the damsels in disguise,
At which he seemed no whit surprised nor grieved,
But just remarked with air sedate and wise,507
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.”
CLVI
This compliment, which drew all eyes upon
The new-bought virgin, made her blush and shake.
Her comrades, also, thought themselves undone:
Oh! Muhammad! 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.
CLVII
The Turks do well to shut—at least, sometimes—
The women up—because, in sad reality,
Their chastity in these unhappy climes508
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.
CLVIII
Thus in the East they are extremely strict,
And wedlock and a padlock mean the same:
Excepting only when the former’s picked
It ne’er can be replaced in proper frame;
Spoilt, as a pipe of claret is when pricked:
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?509
CLIX
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.510
Canto VI511
I
“There is a tide in the affairs of men,
Which—taken at the flood,”—you know the rest,512
And most of us have found it now and then:
At least we think so, though but few have guessed
The moment, till too late to come again.
But no doubt everything is for the best—
Of which the surest sign is in the end:
When things are at the worst they sometimes mend.
II
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 currents to a hair;
Not all the reveries of Jacob Behmen513
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!514
III
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 free515
As are the billows when the breeze is brisk—
Though such a She’s a devil (if there be one),
Yet she would make full many a Manichean.
IV
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 Anthony be well remembered yet,
’Tis not his conquests keep his name in fashion,
But Actium, lost for Cleopatra’s eyes,
Outbalances all Caesar’s victories.516
V
He died at fifty for a queen of forty;
I wish their years had been fifteen and twenty,517
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;518 as the world went, I
Gave what was worth a world; for worlds could never
Restore me those pure feelings, gone for ever.
VI
’Twas the boy’s “mite,” and, like the “widow’s,” may
Perhaps be weighed 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.
VII
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.519
VIII
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.
IX
I am not, like Cassio, “an arithmetician,”
But by “the bookish theoric”520 it appears,
If ’tis summed up with feminine precision,
That, adding to the account his Highness’ years,
The fair Sultana erred from inanition;
For,
