from Canto V

101

“Not to admire is all the art I know”
     (Plain truth, dear Murray, needs few flowers of speech)
“To make men happy, or to keep them so”;
     (So take it in the very words of Creech).
Thus Horace wrote we all know long ago;
     And thus Pope quotes the precept to re-teach
From his translation; but had none admired,
Would Pope have sung, or Horace been inspired?

102

Baba, when all the damsels were withdrawn,
     Motioned to Juan to approach, and then
A second time desired him to kneel down,
     And kiss the lady’s foot; which maxim when
He heard repeated, Juan with a frown
     Drew himself up to his full height again,
And said, “It grieved him, but he could not stoop
To any shoe, unless it shod the Pope.”

103

Baba, indignant at this ill-timed pride,
    Made fierce remonstrances, and then a threat
He muttered (but the last was given aside)
     About a bow-string—quite in vain; not yet
Would Juan bend, though ‘twere to Mahomet’s bride:
     There’s nothing in the world like etiquette
In kingly chambers or imperial halls,
As also at the race and county balls

104

He stood like Atlas, with a world of words
    About his ears, and nathless would not bend;
The blood of all his line’s Castilian lords
     Boiled in his veins, and rather than descend
To stain his pedigree, a thousand swords
     A thousand times of him had made an end;
At length perceiving the “foot” could not stand,
Baba proposed that he should kiss the hand.

105

Here was an honourable compromise,
     A half-way house of diplomatic rest,
Where they might meet in much more peaceful guise;
    And Juan now his willingness exprest,
To use all fit and proper courtesies,
    Adding, that this was commonest and best,
For through the South, the custom still commands
The gentleman, to kiss the lady’s hands.

106

And he advanced, though with but a bad grace,
     Though on more thorough-bred or fairer fingers
No lips e’er left their transitory trace:
     On such as these the lip too fondly lingers,
And for one kiss would fain imprint a brace,
     As you will see, if she you love shall bring hers
In contact; and sometimes even a fair stranger’s
An almost twelvemonth’s constancy endangers.

107

The lady eyed him o’er and o’er, and bade
     Baba retire, which he obeyed in style,
As if well-used to the retreating trade;
     And taking hints in good part all the while,
He whispered Juan not to be afraid,
     And looking on him with a sort of smile,
Took leave, with such a face of satisfaction,
As good men wear who have done a virtuous action.

108

When he was gone, there was a sudden change:
     I know not what might be the lady’s thought,
But o’er her bright brow flashed a tumult strange,
     And into her clear cheek the blood was brought,
Blood-red as sunset summer clouds which range
     The verge of Heaven; and in her large eyes wrought
A mixture of sensations might be scanned,
Of half-voluptuousness and half command.

109

Her form had all the softness of her sex,
     Her features all the sweetness of the devil,
When he put on the cherub to perplex
     Eve, and paved (God knows how) the road to evil;
The sun himself was scarce more free from specks
    Than she from aught at which the eye could cavil;
Yet, somehow, there was something somewhere wanting,
As if she rather ordered than was granting.—

110

Something imperial, or imperious, threw
     A chain o’er all she did; that is, a chain
Was thrown as ‘twere about the neck of you,—
     And rapture’s self will seem almost a pain
With aught which looks like despotism in view:
     Our souls at least are free, and ‘tis in vain
We would against them make the flesh obey—
The spirit in the end will have its way.