By whose sole touch unhorsed all champions were.
Needless anew I deem it to unfold
Why by Astolpho given, and when and where,
Or how that spear obtained the warrior bold.
The lady took the lance, but nothing guessed
Of the stupendous virtue it possessed.
Without attendants, without squire, alone,
The hill descending by the nearest way,
Toward Paris is the mournful damsel gone,
Where camped erewhile the Moorish forces lay;
For yet to her the tidings were unknown,
That good Rinaldo and his bold array
Had raised, with Charles’ and Malagigi’s aid,
The siege the paynims had to Paris laid.
—Cadurci, and Cahors382 city left behind—
Bradamant sees the mountain, far and near,
Whence Dordogne’s waters to the valley wind;
And Montferrant’s and Clermont’s towers appear:
When she, a lady fair, of semblance kind,
Beholds, by that same road, towards her steer.
Three knights were nigh, and—at the pommel hung—
A buckler from the damsel’s saddle swung.
Before the lady and behind her ride
More squires and maids, a numerous company.
Fair Bradamant of one that past beside
Demanded, “who the stranger dame might be?”
“That lady to the king of France” (replied
The squire) “is sent upon an embassy
From The Lost Isle, which lies mid seas that roll
Their restless waves beyond the northern pole.
“Some The Lost Isle, some Iceland call the reign
Whereof a royal lady fills the throne;
Whose charms (before those charms all beauties wane)
Are such as Heaven had dealt to her alone.
The shield you see she sends to Charlemagne,
But with the pact and purpose plainly shown,
He should confer it on the knight, whose worth
Is, in his judgment, fairest upon earth.
“She, as she deems herself (and it is true
She is the fairest of all womankind),
A cavalier, that should in heart and thew
Surpass all other warriors, fain would find;
Resolved, should her a hundred thousand woo,
None shall unfix the purpose of her mind;
—But he, held worthiest by the world’s accord,
Alone shall be her lover and her lord.
“In France, in royal Charles’s famous court,
The damsel hopes to find the cavalier,
Who in a thousand feats of high report
Has shown that he excels each puissant peer.
All three are monarchy who the dame escort,
And what their kingdoms ye as well shall hear.
One Sweden rules, one Gothland, Norway one;
Surpast in martial praise by few or none.
“These three, whose kingdoms at some distance lie,
Yet the least distant lie from the Lost Isle,
(Because few mariners its shore descry,
As little known, that island so they style),
Wooed and yet woo her for a wife, and vie
In valour, and, to win the lady’s smile,
Illustrious deeds have done, which Fame shall sound,
While Heaven shall circle in its wonted round.
“Yet she not these will wed, nor cavalier
That does not, as she deems, all else excell.
—‘Lightly I hold your proof of valour here,’
(Those northern monarchs was she wont to tell)
‘And if, like sun amid the stars, one peer
Outshines his fellows, him I honour well:
But therefore hold him not, in fierce alarms,
Of living men the bravest knight at arms.
“ ‘To Charlemagne, whom I esteem and hold
As wisest among reigning kings, by me
Shall be dispatched a costly shield of gold,
On pact and on condition, that it be
Bestowed on him, deemed boldest of the bold,
Amid the martial ranks of chivalry.
Serves the king Charlemagne or other lord,
I will be governed by that king’s award.
“ ‘If when King Charles the buckler shall receive
And give to one so stout, that best among
All others he that warrior shall believe,
Do they to his or other court belong.
For me the golden buckler shall retrieve
One of you three, in his own virtue strong;
My every love and thought shall he possess;
Him for my spouse and lord will I confess.’
“Moved by these stirring speeches, hither hie
From that wide-distant sea, those monarchs bold,
Resolved to win the buckler, or to die
Beneath his hand who has that shield of gold.”
Bradamant ponders much the squire’s reply:
He give his horse the head—his story told—
And plies him so with restless heel and hand,
He overtakes the damsel’s distant band.
After him gallops not, nor hurries ought,
Bradamant, who pursues her road at ease:
Much evermore evolving in her thought
Things that may chance, she finally foresees
That through the buckler by that damsel brought,
Will follow strife and boundless enmities,
Amid king Charles’s peerage and the rest,
If with that shield he shall reward the best.
This grieved the damsel’s heart, but far above
That grief, the former fear her heard did goad;
That young Rogero had withdrawn his love
From her, and on the warlike queen383 bestowed.
So buried in the thoughts wherewith she strove,
Was Bradamant, she heeded nor her road,
Nor took she care where, at the close of light,
To find befitting shelter for the night.
As when from squall, or other chance, a barge
Drives from the river-side, where late it lay,
Under no mariner or pilot’s charge,
The winds and waves at will transport their prey;
So Rabican with Bradamant, at large,
—She musing on Rogero—wends his way.
For thence, by many miles, was distant wide
That mind which should her courser’s bridle guide.
She raised her eyes at last, and saw the sun
Had turned his back on Bocchus’ towers and wall;384
Then, like a cormorant, his journey done,
Into his nurse’s lap beheld him fall,
Beyond Marocco; and for her to run
To tree, for shelter from the rising squall,
Had been a foolish thought: for now ’gan blow
A blustering wind, which threatened rain or snow.
To better speed fair Bradamant aroused
Her courser, yet but little way did ride,
When with his flock, which on the champaign browsed,
Leaving the fields, a shepherd she espied.
To him where, well or ill, she
