(Another’s evil deed) proclaim aloud.
They take their prisoner thence, and so repair
In front of temple, dwelling-house, and store;
Nor any cruel name of mockery spare,
Nor leave unsaid a word of filthy lore;
And him at last without the city bear:
The foolish rabble, trusting evermore
Their thrall to banish to the sound of blows,
Who passing little of its prisoner knows.
The warrior’s gyves no sooner they undo,
And from their manacles free either hand,
Than Gryphon seizes shield and sword, and, through
The rabble, makes long furrows with his brand.
With pike and spear unfurnished was the crew,
Who without weapons came, a witless band.
The rest for other canto I suspend,
For, sir, ’tis time this song should have an end.
Canto XVIII
Gryphon is venged. Sir Mandricardo goes
In search of Argier’s king. Charles wins the fight.
Marphisa Norandino’s men o’erthrows.
Due pains Martano’s cowardice requite.
A favouring wind Marphisa’s gallery blows,
For France with Gryphon bound and many a knight.
The field Medoro and Cloridano tread,
And find their monarch Dardinello dead.
High minded lord! your actions evermore
I have with reason lauded, and still laud;
Though I with style inapt, and rustic lore,
You of large portion of your praise defraud:
But, of your many virtues, one before
All others I with heart and tongue applaud,
—That, if each man a gracious audience finds,
No easy faith your equal judgment blinds.
Often, to shield the absent one from blame,
I hear you this, or other, thing adduce;
Or him you let, at least, an audience claim,
Where still one ear is open to excuse:
And before dooming men to scaith and shame,
To see and hear them ever is your use;
And ere you judge another, many a day,
And month, and year, your sentence to delay.
Had Norandine been with your care endued,
What he by Gryphon did, he had not done.
Profit and fame have from your rule accrued;
A stain more black than pitch he cast upon
His name: through him, his people were pursued
And put to death by Olivero’s son;
Who at ten cuts or thrusts, in fury made,
Some thirty dead about the waggon laid.
Whither fear drives, in rout, the others all,
Some scattered here, some there, on every side,
Fill road and field; to gain the city-wall
Some strive, and smothered in the mighty tide,
One on another, in the gateway fall.
Gryphon, all thought of pity laid aside,
Threats not nor speaks, but whirls his sword about,
Well venging on the crowd their every flout.
Of those who to the portal foremost fleed,
The readiest of the crowd their feet to ply,
Part, more intent upon their proper need
Than their friends’ peril, raise the drawbridge high:
Part, weeping and with deathlike visage, speed,
Nor turn their eyes behind them as they fly:
While, through the ample city, outcry loud,
And noise, and tumult rises from the crowd.
Two nimble Gryphon seizes, mid the train,
When to their woe the bridge is raised; of one,
Upon the field the warrior strews the brain,
Which he beats out on a hard grinding stone;
Seized by the breast, the other of the twain
Over the city-wall by him is thrown.
Fear chills the townsmen’s marrow, when they spy
The luckless wretch descending from the sky.
Many there were who feared in their alarms,
Lest o’er the wall Sir Gryphon would have vaulted;
Nor greater panic seized upon those swarms,
Than if the sultan had the town assaulted.
The sound of running up and down, of arms,
Of cry of Muezzins, on high exalted;
Of drums and trumpets, heaven, ’twould seem, rebounded,
And that the world was by the noise confounded.
But I will to another time delay,
What chanced on this occasion, to recount.
’Tis meet I follow Charles upon his way,
Hurrying in search of furious Rodomont,
Who did the monarch’s suffering people slay.
I said, with him, the danger to affront,
Went Namus, Oliver, the Danish peer,225
Avino, Avolio, Otho and Berlinghier.
Eight lances’ shock, that eight such warriors guide,
Which all at once against the king they rest,
Endured the stout and scaly serpent’s hide,
In which the cruel Moor his limbs had drest.
As a barque rights itself—the sheet untied,
Which held its sail—by growing wind opprest;
So speedily Sir Rodomont arose,
Though a hill had been uprooted by the blows.
Rainier and Guido, Richard, Salomon,
Ivan, Ughetto, Turpin, and the twain—
Angiolin, Angelier—false Ganellon,
And Mark and Matthew from St. Michael’s plain,
With the eight of whom I spake, all set upon
The foe, with Edward and Sir Arimane;
Who leading succours from the English shore,
Had lodged them in the town short time before.
Not so, well-keyed into the solid stone,
Groans upon Alpine height the castle good,
When by rude Boreas’ rage or Eurus’ strown,
Uptorn are ash and fir in mountain-wood,
As groans Sir Rodomont, with pride o’erblown,
Inflamed with anger and with thirst of blood:
And, as the thunder and the lightning’s fire
Fly coupled, such his vengeance and his ire.
He at his head took aim who stood most nigh;
Ughetto was the miserable wight,
Whom to the teeth he clove, and left to die;
Though of good temper was his helmet bright.
As well the others many strokes let fly
At him, himself; which all the warrior smite,
But harm (so hard the dragon’s hide) no more,
Than needle can the solid anvil score.
All the defences, round, abandoned are,
The unpeopled city is abandoned all;
For, where the danger is the greater, there
The many give their aid, at Charles’ call:
Through every street they hurry to the square,
Since flying nought avails, from work and wall.
Their bosoms so the monarch’s presence warms,
That each again takes courage, each takes arms.
As when within the closely-fastened cage
Of an old lioness, well used to fight,
An untamed bull is prisoned, to engage
The savage monster,
