The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 4

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LXXX.[232]

Oh, Mirth and Innocence! Oh, Milk and Water!
Ye happy mixtures of more happy days!
In these sad centuries of sin and slaughter,
Abominable Man no more allays
His thirst with such pure beverage. No matter,
I love you both, and both shall have my praise:
Oh, for old Saturn's reign of sugar-candy!---
Meantime I drink to your return in brandy.

LXXXI.

Our Laura's Turk still kept his eyes upon her,
Less in the Mussulman than Christian way,
Which seems to say, "Madam, I do you honour,
And while I please to stare, you'll please to stay."
Could staring win a woman, this had won her,
But Laura could not thus be led astray;
She had stood fire too long and well, to boggle
Even at this Stranger's most outlandish ogle.

LXXXII.

The morning now was on the point of breaking,
A turn of time at which I would advise
Ladies who have been dancing, or partaking
In any other kind of exercise,
To make their preparations for forsaking
The ball-room ere the Sun begins to rise,
Because when once the lamps and candles fail,
His blushes make them look a little pale.

LXXXIII.

I've seen some balls and revels in my time,
And stayed them over for some silly reason,
And then I looked (I hope it was no crime)
To see what lady best stood out the season;
And though I've seen some thousands in their prime
Lovely and pleasing, and who still may please on,
I never saw but one (the stars withdrawn)
Whose bloom could after dancing dare the Dawn.

LXXXIV.

The name of this Aurora I'll not mention,
Although I might, for she was nought to me
More than that patent work of God's invention,
A charming woman, whom we like to see;
But writing names would merit reprehension,
Yet if you like to find out this fair _She,_
At the next London or Parisian ball
You still may mark her cheek, out-blooming all.

LXXXV.

Laura, who knew it would not do at all
To meet the daylight after seven hours' sitting
Among three thousand people at a ball,
To make her curtsey thought it right and fitting;
The Count was at her elbow with her shawl,
And they the room were on the point of quitting,
When lo! those cursed Gondoliers had got
Just in the very place where they _should not._

LXXXVI.

In this they're like our coachmen, and the cause
Is much the same--the crowd, and pulling, hauling,
With blasphemies enough to break their jaws,
They make a never intermitted bawling.
At home, our Bow-street gem'men keep the laws,
And here a sentry stands within your calling;
But for all that, there is a deal of swearing,
And nauseous words past mentioning or bearing.

LXXXVII.

The Count and Laura found their boat at last,
And homeward floated o'er the silent tide,
Discussing all the dances gone and past;
The dancers and their dresses, too, beside;
Some little scandals eke; but all aghast
(As to their palace-stairs the rowers glide)
Sate Laura by the side of her adorer,[bq]
When lo! the Mussulman was there before her!

LXXXVIII.

"Sir," said the Count, with brow exceeding grave,
"Your unexpected presence here will make
It necessary for myself to crave
Its import? But perhaps 'tis a mistake;
I hope it is so; and, at once to waive
All compliment, I hope so for _your_ sake;
You understand my meaning, or you _shall._"
"Sir," (quoth the Turk) "'tis no mistake at all:

LXXXIX.

"That Lady is _my wife!_" Much wonder paints
The lady's changing cheek, as well it might;
But where an Englishwoman sometimes faints,
Italian females don't do so outright;
They only call a little on their Saints,
And then come to themselves, almost, or quite;
Which saves much hartshorn, salts, and sprinkling faces,
And cutting stays, as usual in such cases.

XC.

She said,--what could she say? Why, not a word;
But the Count courteously invited in
The Stranger, much appeased by what he heard:
"Such things, perhaps, we'd best discuss within,"
Said he; "don't let us make ourselves absurd
In public, by a scene, nor raise a din,
For then the chief and only satisfaction
Will be much quizzing on the whole transaction."

XCI.

They entered, and for Coffee called--it came,
A beverage for Turks and Christians both,
Although the way they make it's not the same.
Now Laura, much recovered, or less loth
To speak, cries "Beppo! what's your pagan name?
Bless me! your beard is of amazing growth!
And how came you to keep away so long?
Are you not sensible 'twas very wrong?

XCII.

"And are you _really, truly,_ now a Turk?
With any other women did you wive?
Is't true they use their fingers for a fork?
Well, that's the prettiest Shawl--as I'm alive!
You'll give it me? They say you eat no pork.
And how so many years did you contrive
To--Bless me! did I ever? No, I never
Saw a man grown so yellow! How's your liver?

XCIII.

"Beppo! that beard of yours becomes you not;
It shall be shaved before you're a day older:
Why do you wear it? Oh! I had forgot--
Pray don't you think the weather here is colder?
How do I look? You shan't stir from this spot
In that queer dress, for fear that some beholder
Should find you out, and make the story known.
How short your hair is! Lord! how grey it's grown!"

XCIV.

What answer Beppo made to these demands
Is more than I know. He was cast away
About where Troy stood once, and nothing stands;
Became a slave of course, and for his pay
Had bread and bastinadoes, till some bands
Of pirates landing in a neighbouring bay,
He joined the rogues and prospered, and became
A renegade of indifferent fame.

XCV.

But he grew rich, and with his riches grew so
Keen the desire to see his home again,
He thought himself in duty bound to do so,
And not be always thieving on the main;
Lonely he felt, at times, as Robin Crusoe,
And so he hired a vessel come from Spain,
Bound for Corfu: she was a fine polacca,
Manned with twelve hands, and laden with tobacco.

XCVI.

Himself, and much (heaven knows how gotten!) cash,
He then embarked, with risk of life and limb,
And got clear off, although the attempt was rash;
_He_ said that _Providence_ protected him--
For my part, I say nothing--lest we clash
In our opinions:--well--the ship was trim,
Set sail, and kept her reckoning fairly on,
Except three days of calm when off Cape Bonn.[233]

XCVII.

They reached the Island, he transferred his lading,
And self and live stock to another bottom,
And passed for a true Turkey-merchant, trading
With goods of various names--but I've forgot 'em.
However, he got off by this evading,
Or else the people would perhaps have shot him;
And thus at Venice landed to reclaim
His wife, religion, house, and Christian name.

XCVIII.

His wife received, the Patriarch re-baptised him,
(He made the Church a present, by the way;)
He then threw off the garments which disguised him,
And borrowed the Count's smallclothes for a day:
His friends the more for his long absence prized him,
Finding he'd wherewithal to make them gay,
With dinners, where he oft became the laugh of them,
For stories--but _I_ don't believe the half of them.

XCIX.

Whate'er his youth had suffered, his old age
With wealth and talking made him some amends;
Though Laura sometimes put him in a rage,
I've heard the Count and he were always friends.
My pen is at the bottom of a page,
Which being finished, here the story ends:
'Tis to be wished it had been sooner done,
But stories somehow lengthen when begun.

FOOTNOTES:

[191] {153}["Although I was in Italie only ix. days, I saw, in that
little tyme, more liberty to sin than ever I heard tell of in our noble
citie of London in ix. yeares."--_Schoolmaster_, bk. i. _ad fin_. By
Roger Ascham.]

[192] {155}

["I've often wish'd that I could write a book,
Such as all English people might peruse;
I never shall regret the pains it took,
That's just the sort of fame that I should choose:
To sail about the world like Captain Cook,
I'd sling a cot up for my favourite Muse,
And we'd take verses out to Demerara,
To New South Wales, and up to Niagara.

"Poets consume exciseable commodities,
They raise the nation's spirit when victorious,
They drive an export trade in whims and oddities,
Making our commerce and revenue glorious;
As an industrious and pains-taking body 'tis
That Poets should be reckoned meritorious:
And therefore I submissively propose
To erect one Board for Verse and one for Prose.

"Princes protecting Sciences and Art
I've often seen in copper-plate and print;
I never saw them elsewhere, for my part,
And therefore I conclude there's nothing in't:
But every body knows the Regent's heart;
I trust he won't reject a well-meant hint;
Each Board to have twelve members, with a seat
To bring them in per ann. five hundred neat:--

"From Princes I descend to the Nobility:
In former times all persons of high stations,
Lords, Baronets, and Persons of gentility,
Paid twenty guineas for the dedications;
This practice was attended with utility;
The patrons lived to future generations,
The poets lived by their industrious earning,--
So men alive and dead could live by Learning.

"Then twenty guineas was a little fortune;
Now, we must starve unless the times should mend:
Our poets now-a-days are deemed importune
If their addresses are diffusely penned;
Most fashionable authors make a short one
To their own wife, or child, or private friend,
To show their independence, I suppose;
And that may do for Gentlemen like those.

"Lastly, the common people I beseech--
Dear People! if you think my verses clever,
Preserve with care your noble parts of speech,
And take it as a maxim to endeavour
To talk as your good mothers used to teach,
And then these lines of mine may last for ever;
And don't confound the language of the nation
With long-tailed words in _osity_ and _ation_."

Canto I. stanzas i.-vi.]

[193] {156}[For some admirable stanzas in the metre and style of
_Beppo_, by W.S. Rose, who passed the winter of 1817-18 in Venice, and
who sent them to Byron from Albaro in the spring of 1818, see _Letters_,
1900 iv. 211-214, note 1.]

[194] {159}[The MS. of _Beppo_, in Byron's handwriting, is now in the
possession of Captain the Hon. F. L. King Noel. It is dated October 10,
1817.]

[195] [The use of "persuasion" as a synonime for "religion," is,
perhaps, of American descent. Thomas Jefferson, in his first inaugural
address as President of U.S.A., speaks "of whatever state or persuasion,
political or religious." At the beginning of the nineteenth century
theological niceties were not regarded, and the great gulph between a
religion and a sect or party was imperfectly discerned. Hence the
solecism.]

[196] [Compare the lines which Byron enclosed in a letter to Moore,
dated December 24, 1816 (_Letters_, 1900, iv. 30)--

"But the Carnival's coming,
Oh Thomas Moore,
* * * * *
Masking and humming,
Fifing and drumming,
Guitarring and strumming,
Oh Thomas Moore."]

[197] {160}[Monmouth Street, now absorbed in Shaftesbury Avenue (west
side), was noted throughout the eighteenth century for the sale of
second-hand clothes. Compare--

"Thames Street gives cheeses, Covent Garden fruits,
Moorfields old books, and Monmouth Street old suits."

Gay's _Trivia_, ii. 547, 548.

Rag Fair or Rosemary Lane, now Royal Mint Street, was the Monmouth
Street of the City. Compare--

"Where wave the tattered ensigns of Rag Fair."

Pope's _Dunciad_, i. 29, _var_.

The Arcade, or "Piazza," so called, which was built by Inigo Jones in
1652, ran along the whole of the north and east sides of the _Piazza_ or
Square of Covent Garden. The Arcade on the north side is still described
as the "Piazzas."--_London Past and Present_, by H. B. Wheatley, 1891,
i. 461, ii. 554, iii. 145.]

[198] {162}["At Florence I remained but a day.... What struck me most
was ... the mistress of Titian, a portrait; a Venus of Titian in the
Medici Gallery ..."--Letter to Murray, April 27, 1817, _Letters_, 1900,
iv. 113. Compare, too, _Childe Harold_, Canto IV. stanza xlix. line i,
_Poetical Works_, 1899, ii. 365, note 2.]

[199] ["I know nothing of pictures myself, and care almost as little:
but to me there are none like the Venetian--above all, Giorgione. I
remember well his Judgment of Solomon in the Mareschalchi Gallery [in
the Via Delle Asse, formerly celebrated for its pictures] in
Bologna."--Letter to William Bankes, February 26, 1820, _Letters_, 1900,
iv. 411.]

[200] ["I also went over the Manfrini Palace, famous for its pictures.
Among them, there is a portrait of Ariosto by Titian [now in the
possession of the Earl of Rosebery], surpassing all my anticipations of
the power of painting or human expression: it is the poetry of portrait,
and the portrait of poetry. There was also one of some learned lady,
centuries old, whose name I forget, but whose features must always be
remembered. I never saw greater beauty, or sweetness, or wisdom:--it is
the kind of face to go mad for, because it cannot walk out of its
frame.... What struck me most in the general collection was the extreme
resemblance of the style of the female faces in the mass of pictures, so
many centuries or generations old, to those you see and meet every day
amongst the existing Italians. The Queen of Cyprus and Giorgione's wife,
particularly the latter, are Venetians as it were of yesterday; the same
eyes and expression, and, to my mind, there is none finer,"--Letter to
Murray, April 14, 1817, _Letters_, 1900, iv. 105. The picture which
caught Byron's fancy was the so-called _Famiglia di Giorgione_, which
was removed from the Manfrini Palace in 1856, and is now in the Palazzo
Giovanelli. It represents "an almost nude woman, probably a gipsy,
seated with a child in her lap, and a standing warrior gazing upon her,
a storm breaking over the landscape."--_Handbook of Painting_, by Austen
H. Layard, 1891, part ii. p. 553.]

[201] {163}[According to Vasari and others, Giorgione (Giorgio
Barbarelli, b. 1478) was never married. He died of the plague, A.D.
1511.]

[202] {164} "Quae septem dici, sex tanien esse solent."--Ovid.,
[_Fastorum_, lib. iv. line 170.]

[202A] [Carlo Goldoni (1707-1793). His play, _Belisarius_, was
first performed November 24, 1734; _Le Bourru Bienfaisant_, November 4,
1771. _La Bottega del Caffe_, _La Locandiera, etc_., still hold the
stage. His _Memoires_ were published in 1787.]

[202B]
["Look to't:
* * * * *
In Venice they do let heaven see the pranks
They dare not show their husbands; their best conscience
Is not to leave't undone, but keep't unknown."

_Othello_, act iii. sc. 3, lines 206-208.]

[203] {165}[Compare--

"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 't is)
Beneath his art. The dame, pressed to disclose them,
Said--'Lady, I beseech you to _suppose them_.'"

_Don Juan_, Canto IX. stanza li.

A critic, in the _Monthly Review_ (March, 1818, vol. lxxxv. p. 286),
took Byron to task for omitting the _e_ in _Cavaliere_. In a letter to
Murray, April 17, 1818, he shows that he is right, and takes his revenge
on the editor (George Edward) Griffiths, and his "scribbler Mr.
Hodgson."--_Letters_, 1900, iv. 226.]

[204] ["An English abbreviation. Rialto is the name, not of the bridge,
but of the island from which it is called; and the Venetians say, _Il
ponti di Rialto_, as we say Westminster Bridge. In that island is the
Exchange; and I have often walked there as on classic ground.... 'I
Sopportichi,' says Sansovino, writing in 1580 [_Venetia_, 1581, p. 134],
'sono ogni giorno frequentati da i mercatanti Fiorentini, Genovesi,
Milanesi, Spagnuoli, Turchi, e d'altre nationi diverse del mondo, i
quali vi concorrono in tanta copia, che questa piazza e annoverata fra
le prime dell' universo.' It was there that the Christian held discourse
with the Jew; and Shylock refers to it when he says--

"'Signer Antonio, many a time and oft,
In the Rialto you have rated me.'

'Andiamo a Rialto,'--' L'ora di Rialto,' were on every tongue; and
continue so to the present day, as we learn from the Comedies of
Goldoni, and particularly from his _Mercanti_."--Note to the _Brides of
Venice_, Poems, by Samuel Rogers, 1852, ii. 88, 89. See, too, _Childe
Harold_, Canto IV. stanza iv. line 6, _Poetical Works_, 1899, ii. 331.]

[205] {166}[Compare "At the epoch called a certain age she found herself
an old maid."--Jane Porter, _Thaddeus of Warsaw_ (1803), cap. xxxviii.
(See _N. Eng. Dict_., art. "Certain.")

Ugo Foscolo, in his article in the _Quarterly Review_, April, 1819, vol.
xxi. pp. 486-556, quotes these lines in illustration of a stanza from
Forteguerri's _Ricciardetto_, iv. 2--

Quando si giugne ad una certa eta,
Ch'io non voglio descrivervi qual e," etc.]

[206] {167}[A clean bill of health after quarantine. Howell spells the
word "pratic," and Milton "pratticke."]

[207] Beppo is the "Joe" of the Italian Joseph.

[208] {168}["The general state of morals here is much the same as in the
Doges' time; a woman is virtuous (according to the code) who limits
herself to her husband and one lover; those who have two, three, or
more, are a little wild; but it is only those who are indiscriminately
diffuse, and form a low connection ... who are considered as
over-stepping the modesty of marriage.... There is no convincing a woman
here, that she is in the smallest degree deviating from the rule of
right, or the fitness of things, in having an _Amoroso._"--Letter to
Murray, January 2, 1817, _Letters,_ 1900, iv. 40, 41.]

[bk] {169}

_A Count of wealth inferior to his quality,_
_Which somewhat limited his liberality_.--[MS.]

[209]["Some of the Italians liked him [a famous improvisatore], others
called his performance '_seccatura_' (a devilish good word, by the way),
and all Milan was in controversy about him."--Letter to Moore, November
6, 1816, _Letters_, 1899, iii. 384.]

[210] {170}[The saying, "Il n'y a point de heros pour son valet de
chambre," is attributed to Marechal (Nicholas) Catinat (1637-1712). His
biographer speaks of presenting "_le heros en deshabille_." (See his
_Memoires_, 1819, ii. 118.)]

[211] {171}[The origin of the word is obscure. According to the _Vocab.
della Crusca_, "cicisbeo" is an inversion of "bel cece," beautiful chick
(pea). Pasqualino, cited by Diez, says it is derived from the French
_chiche beau_.--_N. Eng. Dict._, art. "Cicisbeo."]

[212] Cortejo is pronounced Corte_h_o, with an aspirate, according to
the Arabesque guttural. It means what there is as yet no precise name
for in England, though the practice is as common as in any tramontane
country whatever.

[213] [Stanzas xxxviii., xxxix., are not in the original MS.]

[214] {172}[For the association of bread and butter with immaturity,
compare, "Ye bread-and-butter rogues, do ye run from me?" (Beaumont and
Fletcher, _The Humorous Lieutenant_, act iii. sc. 7). (See _N. Eng.
Dict._, art. "Bread.")]

[215] {173}[Compare--

" ... the Tuscan's siren tongue?
That music in itself, whose sounds are song,
The poetry of speech?"

_Childe Harold,_ Canto IV. stanza lviii. lines 4-6,
_Poetical Works,_ 1899, ii. 374, note i.]

[216] _Sattin,_ eh? Query, I can't spell it.--[MS.]

[bl] _From the tall peasant with her ruddy bronze_.--[MS.]

[bm] _Like her own clime, all sun, and bloom, and skies_.--[MS.]

[217] {174}[For the received accounts of the cause of Raphael's death,
see his Lives. "Fidem matrimonii quidem dederat nepti cuidam Cardinal.
Bibiani, sed partim Cardinalatus spe lactatus partim pro seculi locique
more, Romae enim plerumque vixit, vagis amoribus delectatus, morbo hinc
contracto, obiit A.C. 1520, aetat. 37."--Art. "Raphael," _apud_ Hofmann,
_Lexicon Universale_. It would seem that Raphael was betrothed to Maria,
daughter of Antonio Divizio da Bibiena, the nephew of Cardinal Bibiena
(see his letter to his uncle Simone di Battista di Ciarla da Urbino,
dated July 1, 1514), and it is a fact that a girl named Margarita,
supposed to be his mistress, is mentioned in his will. But the "causes
of his death," April 6, 1520, were a delicate constitution, overwork,
and a malarial fever, caught during his researches among the ruins of
ancient Rome" (_Raphael of Urbino_, by J. D. Passavant, 1872, pp. 140,
196, 197. See, too, _Raphael_, by E. Muntz, 1888).]

[218] [Compare the lines enclosed in a letter to Murray, dated November
25, 1816--

"In this beloved marble view,
Above the works and thoughts of man,
What Nature _could_ but _would not_ do,
And Beauty and Canova can."]

[219]

["(In talking thus, the writer, more especially
Of women, would be understood to say,
He speaks as a Spectator, not officially,
And always, Reader, in a modest way;
Perhaps, too, in no very great degree shall he
Appear to have offended in this lay,
Since, as all know, without the Sex, our Sonnets
Would seem unfinished, like their untrimmed bonnets.)
"(Signed) Printer's Devil."]

[220] [_The Task_, by William Cowper, ii. 206. Compare _The Farewell_,
line 27, by Charles Churchill--

"Be England what she will,
With all her faults, she is my Country still."]

[221] {175}[The allusion is to Gally Knight's _Ilderim,_ a Syrian Tale.
See, too, Letter to Moore, March 25, 1817, _Letters,_ 1900, iv. 78:
"Talking of tail, I wish you had not called it [_Lalla Rookh_] a
'_Persian Tale_.' Say a 'Poem,' or 'Romance,' but not 'Tale.' I am very
sorry that I called some of my own things 'Tales.' ... Besides, we have
had Arabian, and Hindoo, and Turkish, and Assyrian Tales." _Beppo_, it
must be remembered, was published anonymously, and in the concluding
lines of the stanza the satire is probably directed against his own
"Tales."]

[222] {176}["The expressions '_blue-stocking_' and '_dandy_' may furnish
matter for the learning of a commentator at some future period. At this
moment every English reader will understand them. Our present ephemeral
dandy is akin to the maccaroni of my earlier days. The first of these
expressions has become classical, by Mrs. Hannah More's poem of
'_Bas-Bleu_' and the other by the use of it in one of Lord Byron's
poems. Though now become familiar and rather trite, their day may not be
long.

' ... Cadentque
Quae nunc sunt in honore vocabula.'"

--Translation of Forteguerri's _Ricciardetto_, by Lord Glenbervie, 1822
(note to stanza v.).

Compare, too, a memorandum of 1820. "I liked the Dandies; they were
always very civil to _me_, though in general they disliked literary
people ... The truth is, that, though I gave up the business early, I
had a tinge of Dandyism in my minority, and probably retained enough of
it to conciliate the great ones at four-and-twenty."--_Letters_, 1901,
v. 423.]

[223] {177}[The _Morning Chronicle_ of June 17, 1817, reports at length
"Mrs. Boehm's Grand Masquerade." "On Monday evening this distinguished
lady of the _haut ton_ gave a splendid masquerade at her residence in
St. James's Square." "The Dukes of Gloucester, Wellington, etc., were
present in plain dress. Among the dominoes were the Duke and Duchess of
Grafton, etc." Lady Caroline Lamb was among the guests.]