Those robbers thee, Marphisa, bore away;
While young Rogero ’scaped, who better ran.
Bereaved of thee, they woful loss I wept,
And with more watchful care thy brother kept.
“Rogero, if Atlantes watched thee well,
While yet he was alive, thou best dost know.
I the fixed stars had heard of thee foretell,
That thou shouldst perish by a treacherous foe
In Christian land; and still their influence fell
Was ended, laboured to avert the blow;
Nor having power in fine thy will to guide,
I sickened sore, and of my sorrow died.
“But here, before my death, for in this glade
I knew thou should’st with bold Marphisa fight,
I with huge stones, amassed by hellish aid,
Had this fair monument of marble dight;
And I to Charon with loud outcries said;
‘I would not he should hence convey my sprite,
Till here, prepared in deadly fray to strive,
Rogero and his sister should arrive.’
“Thus has my spirit for this many a day
Waited thy coming in these beauteous groves;
So be no more to jealous fears a prey,
O Bradamant, because Rogero loves.
But me to quit the cheerful realms of day,
And seek the darksome cloisters it behoves.”
Here ceased the voice; which in the Child amazed
And those two damsels mighty marvel raised.
Gladly a sister in the martial queen
Rogero, she in him a brother knows;
Who now embrace, nor move her jealous spleen,
That with the love of young Rogero glows;
And citing what, and when, and where had been
Their childish deeds, as they to memory rose,
In summing up past times, more sure they hold
The things whereof the wizard’s spirit told.
Rogero from Marphisa does not hide,
How Bradamant to him at heart is dear;
And by what obligations he is tied
In moving words relates the cavalier;
Nor ceases till he has, on either side,
Turned to firm love the hate they bore whilere.
When, as a sign of peace, and discord chased,
They, at his bidding, tenderly embraced.
Marphisa to Rogero makes request
“To say what sire was theirs, and what their strain;
And how he died; by banded foes opprest,
Or at close barriers, was the warrior slain?
And who it was had issued the behest
To drown their mother in the stormy main?
For of the tale, if ever heard before,
Little or nothing she in memory bore.”
“Of Trojan ancestors are we the seed,
Through famous Hector’s line,” (Rogero said,)
“For after young Astyanax was freed,445
From fierce Ulysses and the toils he spread,
Leaving another stripling in his stead,
Of his own age, he out of Phrygia fled.
Who, after long and wide sea-wandering, gained
Sicily’s shore, and in Messina reigned.
“Part of Calabria within Faro held
The warrior’s heirs, who after a long run
Of successors, departed thence and dwelled
In Mars’ imperial city: more than one
Famed king and emperor, who that list have swelled,
In Rome and other part has filled the throne;
And from Constantius and good Constantine,
Stretched to the son of Pepin, is their line.
“Rogero, Gambaron, Buovo hence succeed;
And that Rogero, second of the name,
Who filled our fruitful mother with his seed;
As thou Atlantes may’st have heard proclaim.
Of our fair lineage many a noble deed
Shalt thou hear blazed abroad by sounding Fame.”
“Of Agolant’s inroad next the stripling told,
With Agramant and with Almontes bold;
“And how a lovely daughter, who excelled
In feats of arms, that king accompanied;
So stout she many paladins had quelled;
And how, in fine, she for Rogero sighed;
And for his love against her sire rebelled;
And was baptised, and was Rogero’s bride;
And how a traitor loved (him Bertram name)
His brother’s wife with an incestuous flame;
“And country, sire, and brethren two betrayed,
Hoping he so the lady should have won;
How Risa open to the foe he laid,
By whom all scathe was on those kinsmen done;
How Agolant’s two furious sons conveyed
Their mother, great with child, and six months gone,
Aboard a helmless boat, and with its charge,
In wildest winter, turned adrift the barge.”
Valiant Marphisa, with a tranquil face,
Heard young Rogero thus his tale pursue,
And joyed to be descended of a race
Which from so fair a font its waters drew:
Whence Clermont, whence renowned Mongrana trace
Their noble line, the martial damsel knew;
Blazoned through years and centuries by Fame,
Unrivalled, both, in arms of mighty name.
When afterwards she from her brother knew
Agramant’s uncle, sire, and grandsire fell,
In treacherous wise, the first Rogero slew
And brought to cruel pass Galacielle,
Marphisa could not hear the story through:
To him she cries, “With pardon, what you tell,
Brother, convicts you of too foul a wrong,
In leaving thus our sire unvenged so long.
“Could’st thou not in Almontes and Troyane,
As dead whilere, your thirsty faulchion plant,
By you those monarch’s children might be slain.
Are you alive, and lives King Agramant?
Never will you efface the shameful stain,
That ye, so often wronged, not only grant
Life to that king, but as your lord obey;
Lodge in his court, and serve him for his pay?
“Here heartily in face of Heaven I vow,
That Christ my father worshipped, to adore;
And till I venge my parents on the foe
To wear this armour, and I will deplore
Your deed, Rogero, and deplore even now,
That you should swell the squadrons of the Moor,
Or other follower of the Moslem faith,
Save sword in hand, and to the paynim’s scathe.”
Ah! how fair Bradamant uplifts again
Her visage at that speech, rejoiced in sprite!
Rogero she exhorts in earnest vein
To do as his Marphisa counsels right;
And bids him seek the camp of Charlemagne,
And have himself acknowledged in his sight,
Who so reveres and lauds his father’s worth,
He even deems him one unmatched on earth.
“In the beginning so he should have done,”
(Warily young Rogero answer made,)
“But, for the
