Filippo. The world knows the prowess of your Holiness.
Eugenius. Not mine, not mine, Filippo! but His who gave me the sword and the keys, and the will and the discretion to use them. I trust the canonico did not misapply his station and power, by taking the fish at any unreasonably low price; and that he gave his blessing to the remainder, and to the poor fishermen and to their nets.
Filippo. He was angry at observing that the vessel, while he thought it was within hail, stood out again to sea.
Eugenius. He ought to have borne more manfully so slight a vexation.
Filippo. On the contrary, he swore bitterly he would have the master’s ear between his thumb and forefinger in another half-hour, and regretted that he had cut his nails in the morning lest they should grate on his guitar. ‘They may fish well,’ cried he, ‘but they can neither sail nor row; and, when I am in the middle of that tub of theirs, I will teach them more than they look for.’ Sure enough he was in the middle of it at the time he fixed: but it was by aid of a rope about his arms and the end of another laid lustily on his back and shoulders. ‘Mount, lazy long-chined turnspit, as thou valuest thy life,’ cried Abdul the corsair, ‘and away for Tunis.’ If silence is consent, he had it. The captain, in the Sicilian dialect, told us we might talk freely, for he had taken his siesta. ‘Whose guitars are those?’ said he. As the canonico raised his eyes to heaven and answered nothing, I replied, ‘Sir, one is mine: the other is my worthy friend’s there.’ Next he asked the canonico to what market he was taking those young slaves, pointing to the abbates. The canonico sobbed and could not utter one word. I related the whole story; at which he laughed. He then took up the music, and commanded my reverend guest to sing an air peculiarly tender, invoking the compassion of a nymph, and calling her cold as ice. Never did so many or such profound sighs accompany it. When it ended, he sang one himself in his own language, on a lady whose eyes were exactly like the scimitars of Damascus, and whose eyebrows met in the middle like the cudgels of prize-fighters. On the whole she resembled both sun and moon, with the simple difference that she never allowed herself to be seen, lest all the nations of the earth should go to war for her, and not a man to be left to breathe out his soul before her. This poem had obtained the prize at the University of Fez, had been translated into the Arabic, the Persian, and the Turkish languages, and was the favourite lay of the corsair. He invited me lastly to try my talent. I played the same air on the guitar, and apologized for omitting the words, from my utter ignorance of the Moorish. Abdul was much pleased, and took the trouble to convince me that the poetry they conveyed, which he translated literally, was incomparably better than ours. ‘Cold as ice!’ he repeated, scoffing: ‘anybody might say that who had seen Atlas: but a genuine poet would rather say, “Cold as a lizard or a lobster.”’ There is no controverting a critic who has twenty stout rowers, and twenty well-knotted rope-ends. Added to which, he seemed to know as much of the matter as the generality of those who talked about it. He was gratified by my attention and edification, and thus continued: ‘I have remarked in the songs I have heard, that these wild woodland creatures of the west, these nymphs, are a strange fantastical race. But are your poets not ashamed to complain of their inconstancy? whose fault is that? If ever it should be my fortune to take one, I would try whether I could not bring her down to the level of her sex; and if her inconstancy caused any complaints, by Allah! they should be louder and shriller than ever rose from the throat of Abdul.’ I still thought it better to be a disciple than a commentator.
Eugenius. If we could convert this barbarian and detain him awhile at Rome, he would learn that women and nymphs (and inconstancy also) are one and the same. These cruel men have no lenity, no suavity. They who do not as they would be done by, are done by very much as they do. Women will glide away from them like water; they can better bear two masters than half one; and a new metal must be discovered before any bars are strong enough to confine them. But proceed with your narrative.
Filippo. Night had now closed upon us. Abdul placed the younger of the company apart, and after giving them some boiled rice, sent them down into his own cabin. The sailors, observing the consideration and distinction with which their master had treated me, were civil and obliging. Permission was granted me, at my request, to sleep on deck.
Eugenius. What became of your canonico?
Filippo. The crew called him a conger, a priest, and a porpoise.
Eugenius. Foul-mouthed knaves! could not one of these terms content them? On thy leaving Barbary was he left behind?