from Canto VI

31

Whether she was a “mother,” I know not,
     Or whether they were “maids” who called her mother;
But this is her seraglio title, got
     I know not how, but good as any other;
So Cantemir can tell you, or De Tott:
     Her office was, to keep aloof or smother
All bad propensities in fifteen hundred
Young women, and correct them when they blundered.

32

A goodly sinecure, no doubt! but made
     More easy by the absence of all men
Except his Majesty, who, with her aid,
     And guards, and bolts, and walls, and now and then
A slight example, just to cast a shade
     Along the rest, contrived to keep this den
Of beauties cool as an Italian convent,
Where all the passions have, alas! but one vent.

33

And what is that? Devotion, doubtless—how
     Could you ask such a question?—but we will
Continue. As I said, this goodly row
     Of ladies of all countries at the will
Of one good man, with stately march and slow,
     Like water-lilies floating down a rill
Or rather lake—for rills do not run slowly,—
Paced on most maiden-like and melancholy.

34

But when they reached their own apartments, there,
    Like birds, or boys, or bedlamites broke loose,
Waves at spring-tide, or women any where
     When freed from bonds (which are of no great use
After all) or like Irish at a fair,
     Their guards being gone, and as it were a truce
Established between them and bondage, they
Began to sing, dance, chatter, smile and play.

35

Their talk of course ran most on the new comer,
     Her shape, her hair, her air, her every thing:
Some thought her dress did not so much become her,
     Or wondered at her ears without a ring;
Some said her years were getting nigh their summer,
     Others contended they were but in spring;
Some thought her rather masculine in height,
While others wished that she had been so quite.

36

But no one doubted on the whole, that she
    Was what her dress bespoke, a damsel fair,
And fresh, and “beautiful exceedingly,”
     Who with the brightest Georgians might compare:
They wondered how Gulbeyaz too could be
     So silly as to buy slaves who might share
(If that his Highness wearied of his bride)
Her throne and power and every thing beside.

37

But what was strangest in this virgin crew,
     Although her beauty was enough to vex,
After the first investigating view,
     They all found out as few, or fewer, specks
In the fair form of their companion new,
     Than is the custom of the gentle sex,
When they survey, with Christian eyes or Heathen,
In a new face “the ugliest creature breathing.”

38

And yet they had their little jealousies
     Like all the rest; but upon this occasion,
Whether there are such things as sympathies
     Without our knowledge or our approbation,
Although they could not see through his disguise,
     All felt a soft kind of concatenation,
Like Magnetism, or Devilism, or what
You please—we will not quarrel about that:

39

But certain ‘tis they all felt for their new
     Companion something newer still, as ‘twere
A sentimental friendship through and through,
     Extremely pure, which made them all concur
In wishing her their sister, save a few
     Who wished they had a brother, just like her,
Whom, if they were at home in sweet Circassia,
They would prefer to Padisha or Pacha.

40

Of those who had most genius for this sort
     Of sentimental friendship, there were three,
Lolah, Katinka, and Dud; in short,
     (To save description) fair as fair can be
Were they, according to the best report,
     Though differing in stature and degree,
And clime and time, and country and complexion;
They all alike admired their new connexion.