Thus in the East they are extremely strict, And wedlock and a padlock mean the same: Excepting only when the former's picked It ne'er can be replaced in proper frame; Spoilt, as a pipe of claret is when pricked: But then their own polygamy's to blame; Why don't they knead two virtuous souls for life Into that moral centaur, man and wife?[318] CLIX. Thus far our chronicle; and now we pause, Though not for want of matter; but 't is time, According to the ancient epic laws, To slacken sail, and anchor with our rhyme. Let this fifth canto meet with due applause, The sixth shall have a touch of the sublime; Meanwhile, as Homer sometimes sleeps, perhaps You'll pardon to my muse a few short naps.[ga] End of Canto 5^th^ Finished Ravenna, Nov. 27^th^ 1820. Begun Oct. 16, 1820. and finished copying out, Dec. 26. with some intermediate additions, 1820. B. FOOTNOTES: {218}[270] [Canto V. was begun at Ravenna, October the 16th, and finished November the 20th, 1820. It was published August 8, 1821, together with Cantos III. and IV.] [271] This expression of Homer has been much criticized. It hardly answers to our Atlantic ideas of the ocean, but is sufficiently applicable to the Hellespont, and the Bosphorus, with the Aegean intersected with islands. [_Vide_ _Iliad_, xiv. 245, etc. Homer's "ocean-stream" was not the Hellespont, but the rim of waters which encircled the disk of the world.] {219}[272] ["The pleasure of going in a barge to Chelsea is not comparable to that of rowing upon the canal of the sea here, where, for twenty miles together, down the Bosphorus, the most beautiful variety of prospects present themselves. The Asian side is covered with fruit trees, villages, and the most delightful landscapes in nature; on the European stands Constantinople, situated on seven hills; showing an agreeable mixture of gardens, pine and cypress trees, palaces, mosques, and public buildings, raised one above another, with as much beauty and appearance of symmetry as your ladyship ever saw in a cabinet adorned by the most skilful hands, where jars show themselves above jars, mixed with canisters, babies, and candlesticks. This is a very odd comparison: but it gives me an exact idea of the thing."--See letter to Mr. Pope, No. xl. June 17, 1717, and letter to the Countess of Bristol, No. xlvi. n.d., _Letters of the Lady Mary Worthy Montagu,_ 1816, pp. 183-219. See, too, letter to Mrs. Byron, June 28, 1810, _Letters,_ 1890, i. 280, note 1.] [273] [For Byron's "Marys," see _Poetical Works,_ 1898, i. 192, note 2.] [274] The "Giant's Grave" is a height on the Asiatic shore of the Bosphorus, much frequented by holiday parties; like Harrow and Highgate.