We left our hero and third heroine in A kind of state more awkward than uncommon, For gentlemen must sometimes risk their skin For that sad tempter, a forbidden woman: Sultans too much abhor this sort of sin, And don't agree at all with the wise Roman, Heroic, stoic Cato, the sententious, Who lent his lady to his friend Hortensius.[332] VIII. I know Gulbeyaz was extremely wrong; I own it, I deplore it, I condemn it; But I detest all fiction even in song, And so must tell the truth, howe'er you blame it. Her reason being weak, her passions strong, She thought that her Lord's heart (even could she claim it) Was scarce enough; for he had fifty-nine Years, and a fifteen-hundredth concubine. IX. I am not, like Cassio, "an arithmetician," But by "the bookish theoric"[333] it appears, If 't is summed up with feminine precision, That, adding to the account his Highness' years, The fair Sultana erred from inanition; For, were the Sultan just to all his dears, She could but claim the fifteen-hundredth part Of what should be monopoly--the heart. X. It is observed that ladies are litigious Upon all legal objects of possession, And not the least so when they are religious, Which doubles what they think of the transgression: With suits and prosecutions they besiege us, As the tribunals show through many a session, When they suspect that any one goes shares In that to which the law makes them sole heirs. XI. Now, if this holds good in a Christian land, The heathen also, though with lesser latitude,[gf] Are apt to carry things with a high hand, And take, what Kings call "an imposing attitude;" And for their rights connubial make a stand, When their liege husbands treat them with ingratitude; And as four wives must have quadruple claims, The Tigris hath its jealousies like Thames. XII. Gulbeyaz was the fourth, and (as I said) The favourite; but what's favour amongst four? Polygamy may well be held in dread, Not only as a sin, but as a bore: Most wise men with one moderate woman wed,[gg] Will scarcely find philosophy for more; And all (except Mahometans) forbear To make the nuptial couch a "Bed of Ware."[334] XIII. His Highness, the sublimest of mankind,--[gh] So styled according to the usual forms Of every monarch, till they are consigned To those sad hungry Jacobins the worms, Who on the very loftiest kings have dined,-- His Highness gazed upon Gulbeyaz' charms, Expecting all the welcome of a lover (A "Highland welcome"[335] all the wide world over). XIV.