by Lord Byron
To their own whims and passions, and what not;
Society itself, which should create
Kindness, destroys what little we had got:
To feel for none is the true social art
Of the world’s stoics — men without a heart.”
XXVI
Just now a black old neutral personage
Of the third sex stept up, and peering over
The captives, seem’d to mark their looks and age,
And capabilities, as to discover
If they were fitted for the purposed cage:
No lady e’er is ogled by a lover,
Horse by a blackleg, broadcloth by a tailor,
Fee by a counsel, felon by a jailor,
XXVII
As is a slave by his intended bidder.
’T is pleasant purchasing our fellow-creatures;
And all are to be sold, if you consider
Their passions, and are dext’rous; some by features
Are bought up, others by a warlike leader,
Some by a place — as tend their years or natures;
The most by ready cash — but all have prices,
From crowns to kicks, according to their vices.
XXVIII
The eunuch, having eyed them o’er with care,
Turn’d to the merchant, and begun to bid
First but for one, and after for the pair;
They haggled, wrangled, swore, too — so they did!
As though they were in a mere Christian fair
Cheapening an ox, an ass, a lamb, or kid;
So that their bargain sounded like a battle
For this superior yoke of human cattle.
XXIX
At last they settled into simple grumbling,
And pulling out reluctant purses, and
Turning each piece of silver o’er, and tumbling
Some down, and weighing others in their hand,
And by mistake sequins with paras jumbling,
Until the sum was accurately scann’d,
And then the merchant giving change, and signing
Receipts in full, began to think of dining.
XXX
I wonder if his appetite was good?
Or, if it were, if also his digestion?
Methinks at meals some odd thoughts might intrude,
And conscience ask a curious sort of question,
About the right divine how far we should
Sell flesh and blood. When dinner has opprest one,
I think it is perhaps the gloomiest hour
Which turns up out of the sad twenty-four.
XXXI
Voltaire says “No:” he tells you that Candide
Found life most tolerable after meals;
He’s wrong — unless man were a pig, indeed,
Repletion rather adds to what he feels,
Unless he’s drunk, and then no doubt he’s freed
From his own brain’s oppression while it reels.
Of food I think with Philip’s son, or rather
Ammon’s (ill pleased with one world and one father);
XXXII
I think with Alexander, that the act
Of eating, with another act or two,
Makes us feel our mortality in fact
Redoubled; when a roast and a ragout,
And fish, and soup, by some side dishes back’d,
Can give us either pain or pleasure, who
Would pique himself on intellects, whose use
Depends so much upon the gastric juice?
XXXIII
The other evening (‘t was on Friday last) —
This is a fact and no poetic fable —
Just as my great coat was about me cast,
My hat and gloves still lying on the table,
I heard a shot — ‘t was eight o’clock scarce past —
And, running out as fast as I was able,
I found the military commandant
Stretch’d in the street, and able scarce to pant.
XXXIV
Poor fellow! for some reason, surely bad,
They had slain him with five slugs; and left him there
To perish on the pavement: so I had
Him borne into the house and up the stair,
And stripp’d and look’d to — But why should I ad
More circumstances? vain was every care;
The man was gone: in some Italian quarrel
Kill’d by five bullets from an old gun-barrel.
XXXV
I gazed upon him, for I knew him well;
And though I have seen many corpses, never
Saw one, whom such an accident befell,
So calm; though pierced through stomach, heart, and liver,
He seem’d to sleep, — for you could scarcely tell
(As he bled inwardly, no hideous river
Of gore divulged the cause) that he was dead:
So as I gazed on him, I thought or said —
XXXVI
“Can this be death? then what is life or death?
Speak!” but he spoke not: “Wake!” but still he slept: —
“But yesterday and who had mightier breath?
A thousand warriors by his word were kept
In awe: he said, as the centurion saith,
’Go,’ and he goeth; ‘come,’ and forth he stepp’d.
The trump and bugle till he spake were dumb —
And now nought left him but the muffled drum.”
XXXVII
And they who waited once and worshipp’d — they
With their rough faces throng’d about the bed
To gaze once more on the commanding clay
Which for the last, though not the first, time bled:
And such an end! that he who many a day
Had faced Napoleon’s foes until they fled, —
The foremost in the charge or in the sally,
Should now be butcher’d in a civic alley.
XXXVIII
The scars of his old wounds were near his new,
Those honourable scars which brought him fame;
And horrid was the contrast to the view —
But let me quit the theme; as such things claim
Perhaps even more attention than is due
From me: I gazed (as oft I have gazed the same)
To try if I could wrench aught out of death
Which should confirm, or shake, or make a faith;
XXXIX
But it was all a mystery. Here we are,
And there we go: — but where? five bits of lead,
Or three, or two, or one, send very far!
And is this blood, then, form’d but to be shed?
Can every element our elements mar?
And air — earth — water — fire live — and we dead?
We whose minds comprehend all things? No more;
But let us to the story as before.
XL
The purchaser of Juan and acquaintance
Bore off his bargains to a gilded boat,
Embark’d himself and them, and off they went thence
As fast as oars could pull and water float;
They look’d like persons being led to sentence,
Wondering what next, till the caïque was brought
Up in a little creek below a wall
O’ertopp’d with cypresses, dark-green and tall.
XLI
Here their conductor tapping at the wicket
Of a small iron door, ‘t was open’d, and
He led them onward, first through a low thicket
Flank’d by large groves, which tower’d on either hand:
They almost lost their way, and had to pick it —
For night was dosing ere they came to land.
The eunuch made a sign to those on b
oard,
Who row’d off, leaving them without a word.
XLII
As they were plodding on their winding way
Through orange bowers, and jasmine, and so forth
(Of which I might have a good deal to say,
There being no such profusion in the North
Of oriental plants, “et cetera,”
But that of late your scribblers think it worth
Their while to rear whole hotbeds in their works
Because one poet travell’d ‘mongst the Turks) —
XLIII
As they were threading on their way, there came
Into Don Juan’s head a thought, which he
Whisper’d to his companion: — ‘t was the same
Which might have then occurr’d to you or me.
“Methinks,” said he, “it would be no great shame
If we should strike a stroke to set us free;
Let’s knock that old black fellow on the head,
And march away — ‘t were easier done than said.”
XLIV
“Yes,” said the other, “and when done, what then?
How get out? how the devil got we in?
And when we once were fairly out, and when
From Saint Bartholomew we have saved our skin,
To-morrow’d see us in some other den,
And worse off than we hitherto have been;
Besides, I’m hungry, and just now would take,
Like Esau, for my birthright a beef-steak.
XLV
“We must be near some place of man’s abode; —
For the old negro’s confidence in creeping,
With his two captives, by so queer a road,
Shows that he thinks his friends have not been sleeping;
A single cry would bring them all abroad:
’T is therefore better looking before leaping —
And there, you see, this turn has brought us through,
By Jove, a noble palace! — lighted too.”
XLVI
It was indeed a wide extensive building
Which open’d on their view, and o’er the front
There seem’d to be besprent a deal of gilding
And various hues, as is the Turkish wont, —
A gaudy taste; for they are little skill’d in
The arts of which these lands were once the font:
Each villa on the Bosphorus looks a screen
New painted, or a pretty opera-scene.
XLVII
And nearer as they came, a genial savour
Of certain stews, and roast-meats, and pilaus,
Things which in hungry mortals’ eyes find favour,
Made Juan in his harsh intentions pause,
And put himself upon his good behaviour:
His friend, too, adding a new saving clause,
Said, “In Heaven’s name let’s get some supper now,
And then I’m with you, if you’re for a row.”
XLVIII
Some talk of an appeal unto some passion,
Some to men’s feelings, others to their reason;
The last of these was never much the fashion,
For reason thinks all reasoning out of season.
Some speakers whine, and others lay the lash on,
But more or less continue still to tease on,
With arguments according to their “forte;”
But no one dreams of ever being short. —
XLIX
But I digress: of all appeals, — although
I grant the power of pathos, and of gold,
Of beauty, flattery, threats, a shilling, — no
Method’s more sure at moments to take hold
Of the best feelings of mankind, which grow
More tender, as we every day behold,
Than that all-softening, overpowering knell,
The tocsin of the soul — the dinner-bell.
L
Turkey contains no bells, and yet men dine;
And Juan and his friend, albeit they heard
No Christian knoll to table, saw no line
Of lackeys usher to the feast prepared,
Yet smelt roast-meat, beheld a huge fire shine,
And cooks in motion with their clean arms bared,
And gazed around them to the left and right
With the prophetic eye of appetite.
LI
And giving up all notions of resistance,
They follow’d close behind their sable guide,
Who little thought that his own crack’d existence
Was on the point of being set aside:
He motion’d them to stop at some small distance,
And knocking at the gate, ‘t was open’d wide,
And a magnificent large hall display’d
The Asian pomp of Ottoman parade.
LII
I won’t describe; description is my forte,
But every fool describes in these bright days
His wondrous journey to some foreign court,
And spawns his quarto, and demands your praise —
Death to his publisher, to him ‘t is sport;
While Nature, tortured twenty thousand ways,
Resigns herself with exemplary patience
To guide-books, rhymes, tours, sketches, illustrations.
LIII
Along this hall, and up and down, some, squatted
Upon their hams, were occupied at chess;
Others in monosyllable talk chatted,
And some seem’d much in love with their own dress.
And divers smoked superb pipes decorated
With amber mouths of greater price or less;
And several strutted, others slept, and some
Prepared for supper with a glass of rum.
LIV
As the black eunuch enter’d with his brace
Of purchased Infidels, some raised their eyes
A moment without slackening from their pace;
But those who sate ne’er stirr’d in anywise:
One or two stared the captives in the face,
Just as one views a horse to guess his price;
Some nodded to the negro from their station,
But no one troubled him with conversation.
LV
He leads them through the hall, and, without stopping,
On through a farther range of goodly rooms,
Splendid but silent, save in one, where, dropping,
A marble fountain echoes through the glooms
Of night which robe the chamber, or where popping
Some female head most curiously presumes
To thrust its black eyes through the door or lattice,
As wondering what the devil a noise that is.
LVI
Some faint lamps gleaming from the lofty walls
Gave light enough to hint their farther way,
But not enough to show the imperial halls,
In all the flashing of their full array;
Perhaps there’s nothing — I’ll not say appals,
But saddens more by night as well as day,
Than an enormous room without a soul
To break the lifeless splendour of the whole.
LVII
Two or three seem so little, one seems nothing:
In deserts, forests, crowds, or by the shore,
There solitude, we know, has her full growth in
The spots which were her realms for evermore;
But in a mighty hall or gallery, both in
More modern buildings and those built of yore,
A kind of death comes o’er us all alone,
Seeing what’s meant for many with but one.
LVIII
A neat, snug study on a winter’s night,
A book, frien
d, single lady, or a glass
Of claret, sandwich, and an appetite,
Are things which make an English evening pass;
Though certes by no means so grand a sight
As is a theatre lit up by gas.
I pass my evenings in long galleries solely,
And that’s the reason I’m so melancholy.
LIX
Alas! man makes that great which makes him little:
I grant you in a church ‘t is very well:
What speaks of Heaven should by no means be brittle,
But strong and lasting, till no tongue can tell
Their names who rear’d it; but huge houses fit ill —
And huge tombs worse — mankind, since Adam fell:
Methinks the story of the tower of Babel
Might teach them this much better than I’m able.
LX
Babel was Nimrod’s hunting-box, and then
A town of gardens, walls, and wealth amazing,
Where Nabuchadonosor, king of men,
Reign’d, till one summer’s day he took to grazing,
And Daniel tamed the lions in their den,
The people’s awe and admiration raising;
‘T was famous, too, for Thisbe and for Pyramus,
And the calumniated queen Semiramis.
LXI
That injured Queen by chroniclers so coarse
Has been accused (I doubt not by conspiracy)
Of an improper friendship for her horse
(Love, like religion, sometimes runs to heresy):
This monstrous tale had probably its source
(For such exaggerations here and there I see)
In writing “Courser” by mistake for “Courier:”
I wish the case could come before a jury here.
LXII
But to resume, — should there be (what may not
Be in these days?) some infidels, who don’t,
Because they can’t find out the very spot
Of that same Babel, or because they won’t
(Though Claudius Rich, Esquire, some bricks has got,
And written lately two memoirs upon’t),
Believe the Jews, those unbelievers, who
Must be believed, though they believe not you,
LXIII
Yet let them think that Horace has exprest
Shortly and sweetly the masonic folly
Of those, forgetting the great place of rest,
Who give themselves to architecture wholly;
We know where things and men must end at best:
A moral (like all morals) melancholy,
And “Et sepulchri immemor struis domos”
Shows that we build when we should but entomb us.
LXIV
At last they reach’d a quarter most retired,
Where echo woke as if from a long slumber;
Though full of all things which could be desired,