Don Juan
Page 27
But he had got Haidée into his head.
However strange, he could not yet forget her,
Which made him seem exceedingly ill-bred.
Gulbeyaz, who looked on him as her debtor
For having had him to her palace led,
Began to blush up to the eyes and then
Grow deadly pale and then blush back again.
125
At length, in an imperial way, she laid
Her hand on his and bending on him eyes,
Which needed not an empire to persuade,
Looked into his for love, where none replies.
Her brow grew black, but she would not upbraid,
That being the last thing a proud woman tries.
She rose and pausing one chaste moment, threw
Herself upon his breast, and there she grew.
126
This was an awkward test, as Juan found,
But he was steeled 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 prisoned eagle will not pair, nor I
Serve a sultana’s sensual phantasy.
127
‘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.’
128
This was a truth to us extremely trite;
Not so to her, who ne’er had heard such things.
She deemed 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.
129
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.
130
Remember or (if you cannot) 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.
131
Suppose, but you already have supposed,
The spouse of Potiphar, the Lady Booby,
Phedra, 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.
132
A tigress robbed of young, a lioness,
Or any interesting beast of prey,
Are similes at hand for the distress
Of ladies who cannot 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?
133
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.
And this extreme effect (to tire no longer
Your patience) shows the cause must still be stronger.
134
If I said fire flashed from Gulbeyaz’ eyes,
’Twere nothing, for her eyes flashed 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 checked desire.
Even ye who know what a checked woman is
(Enough, God knows!) would much fall short of this.
135
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.
136
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 pitched 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 quenched in tears.
137
A storm it raged, and like the storm it passed,
Passed 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 flowed in natural and fast,
As water through an unexpected leak,
For she felt humbled; and humiliation
Is sometimes good for people in her station.
138
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.
139
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.
140
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.
141
Juan was moved; he had made up his mind
For dogs, or to be slain with pangs refined,
Or thrown to lions, or made baits for fish,
And thus heroically stood resigned,
Rather than sin – except to his own wish.
But all his great preparatives for dying
Dissolved like snow before a woman crying.
142
As through his palms Bob Acres’ valour oozed,
So Juan’s virtue ebbed, I know not how.
And first he wondered 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.
143
So he began to stammer some excuses,
But words are not enough in such a matter,
Although you borrowed 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 entered.
144
‘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.’
145
‘Is it’, exclaimed 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!’
146
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 emperor,
She was of course the favourite of the four.
147
His Highness was a man of solemn port,
Shawled to the nose and bearded to the eyes,
Snatched 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 mentioned in the histories
Of Cantemir or Knolles, where few shine
Save Solyman, the glory of their line.
148
He went to mosque in state and said his prayers
With more than ‘Oriental scrupulosity’.
He left to his vizier all state affairs
And showed 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.
149
If now and then there happened a slight slip,
Little was heard of criminal or crime.
The story scarcely passed 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.
150
He saw with his own eyes the moon was round,
Was also certain that the earth was square,
Because he had journeyed 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 pashas and encroaching giaours,
But then they never came to ‘the Seven Towers’,
151
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, ycleped dispatches, without risk or
The singeing of a single inky whisker.
152
He had fifty daughters and four dozen sons,
Of whom all such as came of age were stowed,
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 this seems odd,
’Tis true; the reason is that the bashaw
Must make a present to his sire-in-law.
153
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 hanged than crowned.
154
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.
155
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,
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.’
156
This compliment, which drew all eyes upon
The new-bought virgin, made her blush and shake.
Her comrades, also, thought themselves undone.
Oh 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.
157
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.
158
Thus in the East they are extremely strict,
And wedlock and a padlock mean the same;
Excepting only whe
n 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?
159
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.
‘Dost thou think, because thou art virtuous, there shall be no more cakes and ale?’
‘Yes, by St Anne; and ginger shall be hot i’ the mouth too!’
Shakespeare, Twelfth Night, or What You Will
Preface to Cantos VI–VIII
The details of the Siege of Ismail in two of the following cantos (i.e., the 7th and 8th) are taken from a French work entitled Histoire de la Nouvelle Russie. Some of the incidents attributed to Don Juan really occurred, particularly the circumstance of his saving the infant, which was the actual case of the late Duc de Richelieu, then a young volunteer in the Russian service, and afterwards the founder and benefactor of Odessa, where his name and memory can never cease to be regarded with reverence.
In the course of these cantos, a stanza or two will be found relative to the late Marquis of Londonderry, but written some time before his decease. Had that person’s oligarchy died with him, they would have been suppressed; as it is, I am aware of nothing in the manner of his death or of his life to prevent the free expression of the opinions of all whom his whole existence was consumed in endeavouring to enslave. That he was an amiable man in private life may or may not be true, but with this the public have nothing to do; and as to lamenting his death, it will be time enough when Ireland has ceased to mourn for his birth. As a minister, I, for one of millions, looked upon him as the most despotic in intention and the weakest in intellect that ever tyrannized over a country. It is the first time indeed since the Normans that England has been insulted by a minister (at least) who could not speak English, and that Parliament permitted itself to be dictated to in the language of Mrs Malaprop.
Of the manner of his death little need be said, except that if a poor radical, such as Waddington or Watson, had cut his throat, he would have been buried in a crossroad, with the usual appurtenances of the stake and mallet. But the minister was an elegant lunatic, a sentimental suicide; he merely cut the ‘carotid artery’ (blessings on their learning), and lo! the pageant and the Abbey! and ‘the syllables of dolour yelled forth’ by the newspapers, and the harangue of the coroner in an eulogy over the bleeding body of the deceased (an Anthony worthy of such a Caesar), and the nauseous and atrocious cant of a degraded crew of conspirators against all that is sincere or honourable. In his death he was necessarily one of two things by the law – a felon or a madman – and in either case no great subject for panegyric. In his life he was what all the world knows, and half of it will feel for years to come, unless his death prove a ‘moral lesson’ to the surviving Sejani of Europe. It may at least serve as some consolation to the nations that their oppressors are not happy, and in some instances judge so justly of their own actions as to anticipate the sentence of mankind. Let us hear no more of this man; and let Ireland remove the ashes of her Grattan from the sanctuary of Westminster. Shall the patriot of humanity repose by the Werther of politics!