Not thinking, howsoe’er, she was a maid,
Who in no look or act the maid confest;
Duke Aymon’s daughter, loth to be delayed,
Refuses, as a traveller that is pressed.
But they so often and so sorely prayed,
That she could ill refuse the kings’ request.
Her lance she levels, at three strokes extends
All three on earth, and thus the warfare ends:
For Bradamant no more her courser wheeled,
But turned her back upon the foes o’erthrown.
They, that intent to gain the golden shield,
Had sought a land so distant from their own,
Rising in sullen silence from the field
(For speech with all their hardihood was gone)
Appeared as stupefied by their surprise,
Nor to Ulania dared to lift their eyes.
For they, as thither they their course addrest,
Had vaunted to the maid in boasting vein,
“No paladin or knight with lance in rest,
Against the worst his saddle could maintain.”
To make them vail yet more their haughty crest,
And look upon the world with less disdain,
She tells them, by no paladin or peer
Were they unhorsed, but by a woman’s spear.
“Now what of Roland’s and Rinaldo’s might,
Not without reason held in such renown,
Ought you to think (she said) when thus in fight
Ye by a female hand are overthrown?
Say, if the buckler one of these requite,
—Better than by a woman ye have done,
Will ye by those redoubted warriors do?
So think not I, nor haply think so you.
“This may suffice you all; and need in none
A clearer proof of prowess to display;
And who desires, if rashly any one
Desires, again his valour to assay,
Would add but scathe to shame, now made his own;
Now; and the same to-day as yesterday.
Unless perchance he thinks it praise and gain,
By such illustrious warriors to be slain.”
When they by Ulany were certified
A woman’s hand had caused their overthrow,
Who with a deeper black than pitch had dyed
Their honour, heretofore so fair of show;
And more than ten her story testified,
Where one sufficed—with such o’erwhelming woe
Were they possest, they with such fury burned,
They well nigh on themselves their weapons turned.
What arms they had upon them, they unbound,
And cast them, strung by rage and fury sore,
Into the moat which girt that castle round,
Nor even kept the faulchions which they wore;
And, since a woman them had cast to ground,
O’erwhelmed with rage and shame, the warriors swore,
Themselves of such a crying shame to clear,
“They, without bearing arms, would pass a year;
“And that they evermore afoot would fare
Up hill or down, by mountain or by plain,
Nor, when the year was ended, would they wear
The knightly mail or climb the steed again;
Save that from other they by force should bear,
In battle, other steeds and other chain.
So, without arms, to punish their misdeeds,
These wend afoot, those others on their steeds.”
Lodged in a township at the fall of night,
Duke Aymon’s daughter, journeying Paris-ward,
Hears how King Agramant was foiled in fight.
Good harbourage withal of bed and board,
She in her hostel found; but small delight
This and all comforts else to her afford.
For the sad damsel meat and sleep foregoes,
Nor finds a resting place; far less repose.
But so I will not on her story dwell,
As not to seek anew the valiant twain;
Who, by consent, beside a lonely well,
Had tied their goodly coursers by the rein.
I of their war to you somedeal will tell,
A war not waged for empire or domain,
But that the best should buckle to his side
Good Durindana, and Bayardo ride.
No signal they, no trumpet they attend,
To blow them to the lists, no master who
Should teach them when to foin and when to fend,
Or wake their sleeping wrath; their swords they drew:
Then, one against the other, boldly wend,
With lifted blades, the quick and dext’rous two.
Already ’gan the champions’ fury heat,
And fast and hard their swords were heard to beat.
None e’er by proof two other faulchions chose
For sound and solid, able to endure
Three strokes alone of such conflicting foes,
Passing all means and measure; but so pure,
So perfect was their temper, from all blows
By such repeated trial so secure,
They in a thousand strokes might clash on high,
—Nay more, nor yet the solid metal fly.
With mickle industry, with mighty pain
And art, Rinaldo, shifting here and there,
Avoids the deadly dint of Durindane,
Well knowing how ’tis wont to cleave and tear.
Gradasso struck with greater might and main,
But well nigh all his strokes were spent in air;
Of, if he sometimes smote, he smote on part,
Where Durindana wrought less harm than smart.
Rinaldo with more skill his blade inclined,
And stunned the arm of Sericana’s lord.
Him oft he reached where casque and coat confined,
And often raked his haunches with the sword:
But adamantine was his corslet’s rind,
Nor link the restless faulchion broke or bored.
If so impassive was the paynim’s scale,
Know, charmed by magic was the stubborn mail.
Without reposing they long time had been,
Upon their deadly battle so intent,
That, save on one another’s troubled mien,
Their angry eyes the warriors had not bent.
When such despiteous war and deadly spleen,
Diverted by another strife, were spent,
Hearing a mighty noise, both champions turn,
And good Bayardo, sore bested, discern.
They good Bayardo by a monster view,
—A bird, and bigger than that courser—prest.
Above three yards in length appeared to view
The monster’s beak; a bat in all the rest.
Equipt with feathers, black as ink in hue,
And piercing talons was the winged pest;
An eye of fire it had, a cruel look,
And, like ship-sails, two spreading pinions shook.
Perhaps it was a bird; but when or where
Another bird resembling this was seen
I know not, I, nor have I any
