Discoursing all this while, the martial maid
Spake with her beavor up, without disguise:
Ferraù, as that fair visage he surveyed,
Perceived he was half vanquished by its eyes.
And to himself, in under tone, he said,
“He seems an angel sent from Paradise;
And, though he should not harm me with his lance,
I am already quelled by that sweet glance.”
They take their ground, and to the encounter ride,
And, like those others, Ferraù goes to ground;
His courser Bradamant retained, and cried,
“Return, and keep thy word with me as bound.”
Shamed, he returned, and by his monarch’s side,
Among his peers, the young Rogero found;
And let the stripling know the stranger knight,
Without the walls, defied him to the fight.
Rogero (for not yet that warrior knows
What champion him in duel would assail)
Nigh sure of victory, with transport glows,
And bids his followers bring his plate and mail;
Nor having seen beneath those heavy blows
The rest dismounted, makes his spirit quail.
But how he armed, how sallied, what befell
That knight, in other canto will I tell.
Canto XXXVI
While with the fierce Marphisa at despite
Duke Aymon’s daughter wages fierce affray,
One and the other host engage in fight.
With Bradamant Rogero wends his way.
With other war disturbs their great delight
Marphisa bold; but when that martial may
Has for her brother recognized the peer,
They end their every strife with joyous cheer.
Where’er they be, all hearts of gentle strain
Still cannot choose but courtesy pursue;
For they from nature and from habit gain
What they henceforth can never more undo.
Alike the heart that is of churlish vein,
Where’er it be, its evil kind will shew.
Nature inclines to ill, through all her range,
And use is second nature, hard to change.
Among the warriors of antiquity
Much gentleness and courtesy appear,
Virtues but seldom seen with us; while we
Of evil ways, on all sides, see and hear.
Hippolytus, when you, with ensignry
Won from the foe, and with his captive gear
Adorned our temples; and his galleys bore,
Laden with prey, to your paternal shore;
All the inhuman deeds which wrought by hand
Of Moor, or Turk, or Tartar ever were,
(Yet not by the Venetians’ ill command,
That evermore the praise of justice bear,)
Were practised by that foul and evil band
Of soldiers, who their mercenaries are.
Of those so many fires not now I tell
Which on our farms and pleasant places fell.
Though a foul vengeance in that blow was meant
Mainly at you, who being at Caesar’s side,
When Padua by his leaguering host was pent,
’Twas known, that oft, through you, was turned aside
More than one ravening flame, and oft was spent
The fire, in fane and village blazing wide:
What time the destined mischief ye withstood,
As to your inborn courtesy seemed good.
This will I pass, nor their so many more
Discourteous and despiteous doings tell,
Save one alone, whereat from rock-stone hoar
Whene’er the tale is told warm tears might well.
That day you sent your family before,
Thither, my lord, where, under omens fell,
Your foes into a well-protected seat,
Abandoning their barks, had made retreat.
As Hector and Aeneas, mid the flood,
Fire to the banded fleet of Greece applied,
I Hercules and Alexander viewed,
Urged by too sovereign ardour, side by side,
Spurring before all others in their mood,
Even within the hostile ramparts ride;
And prick so far, the second ’scaped with pain,
And on the foremost closed the opposing train.
Feruffine ’scaped, the good Cantelmo left,
What counsel, Sora’s duke, was thine, what heart,
When thy bold son thou saw’st, of helm bereft,
Amid a thousand swords, when—dragged apart—
Thou saw’st his young head from his shoulders cleft,
A shipboard, on a plank? I, on my part,
Marvel, that seeing but the murder done,
Slew thee not, as the faulchion slew thy son.
Cruel Sclavonian! say, whence hast thou brought
Thy ways of warfare? By what Scythian rite
To slay the helpless prisoner is it taught,
Who yields his arms, nor fends himself in fight?
Was it a crime he for his country fought?
Ill upon thee the sun bestows his light.
Remorseless era, which hast filled the page
With Atreus’, Tantalus’, Thyestes’ rage!
Barbarian! thou madest shorter by the head
The boldest of his age, on whom did beam
The sun ’twixt pole and pole, ’twixt Indus’ bed
And where he sinks in Ocean’s western stream;
Whose years and beauty might have pity bred
In Anthropophagus, in Polypheme;
Not thee; that art in wickedness outdone
By any Cyclops, any Lestrigon.
I ween, mid warriors in the days of yore,
No such example was; they all, in field,
Were full of gentleness and courteous lore,
Nor against conquered foe their bosom steeled.
Not only gentle Bradamant forbore
To harm the knights whom, smitten on the shield,
Her lance unhorsed; but for the vanquished crew
Detained their steeds, that they might mount anew.
I of that lady fair, of mickle might,
Told you above, how she had overthrown
Serpentine of the Star in single fight,
Grandonio and Ferraù, and then upon
Their coursers had replaced each baffled knight.
I told moreover how the third was gone
Rogero to defy to the career,
Upon her call, who seemed a cavalier.
Rogero heard the call in joyous vein,
And bade his arms be brought; now while in view
Of Agramant he donned the plate and chain,
Those lords the former question moved anew;
“Who was the knight, that on the martial plain
The manage of the lance so quaintly knew?”
And of Ferraù, who spake with him whilere,
Craved, if to him was known that cavalier.
“Be ye assured,” to them Ferraù replied,
“He is not one of those I hear you cite
To me (for I his open face descried).
Rinaldo’s youthful brother seemed the knight.
But since his doughty valour I have tried,
And wot not such is Richardetto’s might,
I ween
