Nay, did her best the encounter to withstand;
Yet with her helmed head she smote the sand.
Bradamant who will die, or in that just
Will put to death Marphisa, rages so,
She has no mind again with lance to thrust,
Again that martial maid to overthrow:
But thinks her head to sever from the bust,
Where it half buried lies, with murderous blow:
Away the enchanted lance that damsel flings,
Unsheathes the sword, and from her courser springs.
But is too slow withal; for on her feet
She finds Marphisa, with such fierce disdain
Inflamed, at being in that second heat
So easily reversed upon the plain,
She hears in vain exclaim, in vain entreat,
Rogero, who beholds their strife with pain.
So blinded are the pair with spite and rage,
That they with desperate fury battle wage.
At half-sword’s engage the struggling foes;
And—such their stubborn mood—with shortened brand
They still approach, and now so fiercely close,
They cannot choose but grapple, hand to hand.
Her sword, no longer needful, each foregoes;
And either now new means of mischief planned.
Rogero both implores with earnest suit;
But supplicates the twain with little fruit.
When he entreaties unavailing found,
The youth prepared by force to part the two;
Their poniards snatched away, and on the ground,
Beneath a cypress-tree, the daggers threw.
When they no weapons have wherewith to wound,
With prayer and threat, he interferes anew:
But vainly; for, since better weapons lack,
Each other they with fists and feet attack.
Rogero ceased not from his task; he caught,
By hand or arm, the fiercely struggling pair,
Till to the utmost pitch of fury wrought
The fell Marphisa’s angry passions were.
She, that this ample world esteemed at nought,
Of the Child’s friendship had no further care.
Plucked from the foe, she ran to seize her sword,
And fastened next upon that youthful lord.
“Like a discourteous man and churl ye do,
Rogero, to disturb another’s fight;
A deed (she cried) this hand shall make ye rue,
Which I intend, shall vanquished both.” The knight
Sought fierce Marphisa’s fury to subdue
With gentle speech; but full of such despite
He found her, and inflamed with such disdain,
All parley was a waste of time and pain.
At last his faulchion young Rogero drew;
For ire as well had flushed that cavalier:
Nor is it my belief, that ever shew
Athens or Rome, or city whatsoe’er
Witnessed, which ever so rejoiced the view,
As this rejoices, as this sight is dear
To Bradamant, when, through their strife displaced,
Every suspicion from her breast is chased.
Bradamant took her sword, and to descry
The duel of those champions stood apart.
The god of war, descended from the sky,
She deemed Rogero, for his strength and art:
If he seemed Mars, Marphisa to the eye
Seemed an infernal Fury, on her part.
’Tis true, that for a while the youthful knight
Against that damsel put not forth his might.
He knew the virtues of that weapon well,
Such proof thereof the knight erewhile had made.
Where’er it falls parforce is every spell
Annulled, or by its stronger virtue stayed.
Hence so Rogero smote, it never fell
Upon its edge or point, but still the blade
Descended flat: he long this rule observes;
Yet once he from his patient purpose swerves.
In that, a mighty stroke Marphisa sped,
Meaning to cleave the brainpan of her foe:
He raised the buckler to defend his head,
And the sword smote upon its bird of snow,
Nor broke nor bruised the shield, by spell bested;
But his arm rang astounded by the blow;
Nor aught but Hector’s mail the sword had stopt,
Whose furious blow would his left arm have lopt;
And had upon his head descended shear,
Whereat designed to strike the savage fair.
Scarce his left arm can good Rogero rear;
Can scarce the shield and blazoned bird upbear.
All pity he casts off, and ’twould appear
As in his eyes a lighted torch did glare.
As hard as he can smite, he smites; and woe
To thee, Marphisa, if he plants the blow!
I cannot tell you truly in what wise
That faulchion swerves against a cypress-stock,
In such close-serried ranks the saplings rise,
Buried above a palm within the block.
As this the mountain and the plain that lies
Beneath it, with a furious earthquake rock;
And from that marble monument proceeds
A voice, that every mortal voice exceeds.
The horrid voice exclaims, “Your quarrel leave;
For ’twere a deed unjust and inhumane,
That brother should of life his sister reave,
Or sister by her brother’s hand be slain.
Rogero and Marphisa mine, believe!
The tale which I deliver is not vain.
Seed of one father, on one womb ye lay;
And first together saw the light of day.
“Galaciëlla’s children are ye, whom
She to Rogero, hight the second, bare.
Whose brothers, having, by unrighteous doom,
Of your unhappy sire deprived that fair,
Not heeding that she carried in her womb
Ye, who yet suckers of their lineage are,
Her in a rotten carcase of a boat,
To founder in mid ocean, set afloat.
“But Fortune, that had destined you whilere,
And yet unborn, to many a fair emprize,
Your mother to that lonely shore did steer,
Which overright the sandy Syrtes lies.
Where, having given you birth, that spirit dear
Forthwith ascended into Paradise.
A witness of the piteous case was I,
So Heaven had willed, and such your destiny!
“I to the dame as descent burial gave
As could be given upon that desert sand.
Ye, well enveloped in my vest, I save,
And bear to Mount Carena from the strand;
And make a lioness leave whelps and cave,
And issue from the wood, with semblance bland.
Ye, twice ten months, with mickle fondness bred,
And from her paps the milky mother fed.
“Needing to quit my home upon a day,
And journey through the country, (as you can
Haply remember ye) we are on our way,
Were overtaken
