From Byron's Don Juan:
There was a man, if that he was a man,
Not that his manhood could be call'd in question,
For had he not been Hercules, his span
Had been as short in youth as indigestion
Made his last illness, when, all worn and wan,
He died beneath a tree, as much unblest on
The soil of the green province he had wasted,
As e'er was locust on the land it blasted.
What is the meaning of the phrase in bold, especially if that he was a man?
"If he was anything at all, he was first and foremost a man"? But why then the next line begins with Not that his manhood could be called in question?