from Canto V

1

When amatory poets sing their loves
    In liquid lines mellifluously bland,
And pair their rhymes as Venus yokes her doves,
     They little think what mischief is in hand;
The greater their success the worse it proves,
    As Ovid’s verse may give to understand;
Even Petrarch’s self, if judged with due severity,
Is the Platonic pimp of all posterity.

2

I therefore do denounce all amorous writing,
     Except in such a way as not to attract;
Plain—simple—short, and by no means inviting,
     But with a moral to each error tacked,
Formed rather for instructing than delighting,
     And with all passions in their turn attacked;
Now, if my Pegasus should not be shod ill,
This poem will become a moral model.

3

The European with the Asian shore
     Sprinkled with palaces; the ocean stream
Here and there studded with a seventy-four;
    Sophia’s cupola with golden gleam;
The cypress groves; Olympus high and hoar;
     The twelve isles, and the more than I could dream,
Far less describe, present the very view
Which charmed the charming Mary Montagu.

4

I have a passion for the name of “Mary,”
     For once it was a magic sound to me;
And still it half calls up the realms of fairy,
     Where I beheld what never was to be;
All feelings changed, but this was last to vary,
     A spell from which even yet I am not quite free:
But I grow sad—and let a tale grow cold,
Which must not be pathetically told.

5

The wind swept down the Euxine, and the wave
    Broke foaming o’er the blue Symplegades;
‘Tis a grand sight from off “the Giant’s Grave”
     To watch the progress of those rolling seas
Between the Bosphorus, as they lash and lave
     Europe and Asia, you being quite at ease;
There’s not a sea the passenger e’er pukes in,
Turns up more dangerous breakers than the Euxine.

6

‘Twas a raw day of Autumn’s bleak beginning,
     When nights are equal, but not so the days;
The Parcae then cut short the further spinning
    Of seamen’s fates, and the loud tempests raise
The waters, and repentance for past sinning
     In all, who o’er the great deep take their ways:
They vow to amend their lives, and yet they don’t;
Because if drown’d, they can’t—if spared, they won’t.

7

A crowd of shivering slaves of every nation,
     And age, and sex, were in the market ranged;
Each bevy with the merchant in his station:
     Poor creatures! their good looks were sadly changed.
All save the blacks seem’d jaded with vexation,
     From friends, and home, and freedom far estranged;
The negroes more philosophy display’d,—
Used to it, no doubt, as eels are to be flay’d.

8

Juan was juvenile, and thus was full,
     As most at his age are, of hope, and health;
Yet I must own, he looked a little dull,
     And now and then a tear stole down by stealth;
Perhaps his recent loss of blood might pull
     His spirit down; and then the loss of wealth,
A mistress, and such comfortable quarters,
To be put up for auction amongst Tartars,

9

Were things to shake a stoic; ne’ertheless,
     Upon the whole his carriage was serene:
His figure, and the splendour of his dress,
     Of which some gilded remnants still were seen,
Drew all eyes on him, giving them to guess
     He was above the vulgar by his mien;
And then, though pale, he was so very handsome;
And then—they calculated on his ransom.

10

Like a backgammon board the place was dotted
     With whites and blacks, in groups on show for sale,
Though rather more irregularly spotted:
     Some bought the jet, while others chose the pale.
It chanced amongst the other people lotted,
     A man of thirty, rather stout and hale,
With resolution in his dark gray eye,
Next Juan stood, till some might choose to buy.