from Canto XIV

101

‘Tis strange—but true; for Truth is always strange,
     Stranger than Fiction: if it could be told,
How much would novels gain by the exchange!
     How differently the world would men behold!
How oft would vice and virtue places change!
     The new world would be nothing to the old,
If some Columbus of the moral seas
Would show mankind their soul’s Antipodes.

102

What “Antres vast and desarts idle,” then
     Would be discover’d in the human soul!
What Icebergs in the hearts of mighty men,
     With Self-love in the centre as their Pole!
What Anthropophagi in nine of ten
    Of those who hold the kingdoms in controul!
Were things but only call’d by their right name,
Caesar himself would be ashamed of Fame.