Those sweet tears, glittering in their humid ray,
And that sweet moan, from lips more deeply dyed
Than crimson rose, himself in tears, replied.
“Alack! my dearest life! take thou no dread,
Alack! for love of Heaven! of thing so light:
For if (to my sole harm) with banners spread,
Their following of the Frank or paynim rite
King Agramant and Charles united led,
This need not cause you matter for affright.
What poor account you make of me is clear
If this one, sole, Rogero breeds such fear.
“And yet should you remember how alone
(Nor had I scimetar or sword in hand)
Of knights, with a spear’s truncheon overthrown,
I singly cleared the field, an armed band.
Though to his shame and sorrow this he own,
Gradasso tells to them who make demand,
He was my prisoner in the Syrian tower:
Yet other than Rogero’s is his power.
“Not King Gradasso will the truth deny:
Sacripant knows it and your Isolier:
I say King Sacripant of Circassy,
And Aquilant, and Gryphon, famous peer;
With hundreds—yea and more—from far and nigh
Made prisoners at that fearful pass whilere,
Baptised or Infidel; and all by me
From prison on the selfsame day set free.
“And even yet they marvel evermore
At the great feat which I performed that day;
Greater than if the squadrons of the Moor
And Frank united I had held at bay;
And shall Rogero, new to martial lore,
Me, onto to one, with scathe or scorn appay?
And me shall now this young Rogero scare,
When Hector’s sword and Hector’s arms I wear?
“Ah! as I might have won you from my foe,
Why did I not for you in arms contend?
I so had them my valour shown, I know,
You would have well foreseen Rogero’s end.
For heaven’s sake dry your tears, nor by such woe
—An evil omen for my arms—offend;
And learn, ’tis Honour pricks me to the field,
And not an argent bird and blazoned shield.”
So said he; and with reasons passing good
To him that dame replied, with saddest face;
Nor only would have changed his sullen mood,
But would have moved a pillar from its place.
She would the champion quickly have subdued,
Though she was gowned, he locked in iron case;
And make him satisfy the Moorish lord,
If Agramant spake further of accord;
And had; but that Aurora—on his way
Ushering aye the sun—no sooner stirred,
Than young Rogero, anxious to display
That rightfully he bore Jove’s beauteous bird,
To cut the quarrel short, and lest delay
Be further interposed, in act or word,
Where round the palisade the people close,
Appears in armour and his bugle blows.
When that loud sound is by the Tartar heard,
Which the proud warrior to the strife defies,
No more of treaty will he hear a word:
From bed upspringing, “Arms,” the monarch cries,
And shows a visage with such fury stirred,
Doralice dares no longer peace advise,
Nor speak of treaty or of truce anew;
And now parforce the battle must ensue.
The Tartar arms himself in haste; with pain
The wonted service of his squires he tarries:
This done, he springs upon the steed amain,
Erewhile the champion’s who defended Paris;369
And him with speed towards the listed plain,
Fixt for that fierce assay, the courser carries.
Even then the king and barons thither made,
So that the strife was little time delayed.
Put on and laced the shining helmets were,
And given to either champion was the spear:
Quickly the trumpet’s blast was heard in air,
Whose signal blanched a thousand cheeks with fear.
Levelled those cavaliers their lances bear,
Spurring their warlike steeds to the career,
And, in mid champaign, meet with such a shock,
That Earth appears to rive and Heaven to rock.
From this side and from that, the eagle flew,
Which Jove in air was wonted to sustain;
So hurtled, but with plumes of different hue,
Those others often on Thessalian plain.370
The beamy lances, rested by the two,
Well warranted the warriors’ might and main,
And worse than that encounter had withstood:
So towers resist the wind, so rocks the flood.
As Turpin truly writes, into the sky
Upwent the splinters, broke in the career;
For two or three fell flaming from on high,
Which had ascended to the starry sphere.371
The knights unsheathed their faulchions from the thigh,
And, like those who were little moved by fear,
For new encounter wheeled, and, man to man,
Pointing at one another’s vizor ran.
They, pointing at the vizors’ sight, attacked,
Nor with their faulchions at the steeds took aim,
Each other to unhorse, unseemly act!
Since in that quarrel they are nought to blame.
Those err, nor know the usage, why by pact
Deem they were bound their horses not to maim:
Without pact made, ’twas reckoned a misdeed,
And an eternal blot to smite a steed.
They level at the vizor, which is double,
And yet resists such mighty blows with pain.
The champions evermore their strokes redouble
Faster than pattering hail, which mars the grain,
And bruises branch and leaf, and stalk and stubble,
And cheats the hopes of the expecting swain.
To you is known the force of either brand,
And known the force of either warrior’s hand.
But yet no stroke well worthy of their might
Those peers have dealt, so cautious are the twain.
The Tartar’s faulchion was the first to bite,
By which was good Rogero well nigh slain.
By one of those fell blows which either knight
So well could plant, his shield was cleft in twain;
Beneath, his cuirass opened to the stroke,
And to the quick the cruel weapon broke.
The assistants’ hearts were frozen at the blow,
So did Rogero’s danger them appal,
On whom the many’s favour, well they know,
And wishes rest, if not of one and all.
And then (had Fortune ordered matters so,
As the most part desired they should
