from Canto IX

51

An English lady asked of an Italian,
     What were the actual and official duties
Of the strange thing some Women set a value on,
     Which hovers oft about some married Beauties,
Called “Cavalier Servente”?—a Pygmalion
     Whose statues warm (I fear, alas! too true ‘tis)
Beneath his Art. The dame, pressed to disclose them,
Said—”Lady, I beseech you to suppose them.”

52

And thus I supplicate your supposition,
     And mildest, Matron-like interpretation
Of the Imperial Favourite’s Condition.
     ‘Twas a high place, the highest in the nation
In fact, if not in rank; and the suspicion
     Of any one’s attaining to his station,
No doubt gave pain, where each new pair of shoulders,
If rather broad, made stocks rise and their holders.

53

Juan, I said, was a most beauteous Boy,
     And had retained his boyish look beyond
The usual hirsute seasons which destroy,
     With beards and whiskers and the like, the fond
Parisian aspect which upset old Troy
     And founded Doctors’ Commons:—I have conned
The history of divorces, which, though chequered,
Calls Ilion’s the first damages on record.

54

And Catherine, who loved all things (save her lord,
     Who was gone to his place) and passed for much,
Admiring those (by dainty dames abhorred)
     Gigantic Gentlemen, yet had a touch
Of Sentiment; and he She most adored
    Was the lamented Lanskoi, who was such
A lover as had cost her many a tear,
And yet but made a middling grenadier.

55

Oh, thou “teterrima Causa” of all “belli”—
     Thou gate of Life and Death—thou nondescript!
Whence is our exit and our entrance,—well I
    May pause in pondering how all Souls are dipt
In thy perennial fountain:—how man fell, I
    Know not, since Knowledge saw her branches stript
Of her first fruit; but how he falls and rises
Since, Thou hast settled beyond all surmises.

56

Some call thee “the worst Cause of war,” but I
     Maintain thou art the best: for after all
From thee we come, to thee we go, and why
     To get at thee not batter down a wall,
Or waste a world? Since no one can deny
     Thou dost replenish worlds both great and small:
With, or without thee, all things at a stand
Are, or would be, thou Sea of Life’s dry Land!

57

Catherine, who was the grand Epitome
     Of that great Cause of war, or peace, or what
You please (it causes all the things which be,
     So you may take your choice of this or that)—
Catherine, I say, was very glad to see
     The handsome herald, on whose plumage sat
Victory; and, pausing as she saw him kneel
With his dispatch, forgot to break the seal.

58

Then recollecting the whole Empress, nor
     Forgetting quite the woman (which composed
At least three parts of this great whole) she tore
     The letter open with an air which posed
The Court, that watched each look her visage wore,
     Until a royal smile at length disclosed
Fair weather for the day. Though rather spacious,
Her face was noble, her eyes fine, mouth gracious.

59

Great joy was her’s, or rather joys; the first
     Was a ta’en city—thirty thousand slain.
Glory and triumph o’er her aspect burst,
     As an East Indian Sunrise on the main.
These quenched a moment her Ambition’s thirst—
     So Arab Deserts drink in Summer’s rain:
In vain!—As fall the dews on quenchless sands,
Blood only serves to wash Ambition’s hands!

60

Her next amusement was more fanciful;
     She smiled at mad Suwarrow’s rhymes, who threw
Into a Russian couplet rather dull
     The whole gazette of thousands whom he slew.
Her third was feminine enough to annul
     The shudder which runs naturally through
Our veins, when things called Sovereigns think it best
To kill, and Generals turn it into jest.