As since, the deed had been too long delayed.
Now, seeing it was fierce Troyano’s son
That had begirt him with the knightly blade,
He, as a traitor, well might be abhorred,
If he slew one, accepted as his lord.”
But, as to Bradamant whilere, he cries,
“He will all measures and all means assay,
Whereby some fair occasion may arise
To leave the king; and had there been delay,
And he whilere had done in otherwise,
She on the Tartar king the fault must lay:
How sorely handled that redoubted foe
Had left him in their battle, she must know;
“And she, that every day had sought his bed,
Must of this truth the fittest witness be.”
Much upon this was answered, much was said,
Between those damsels, who at last agree;
And as their last resolve, last counsel read,
He should rejoin the paynim’s ensignry,
Till he found fair occasion to resort
From Agramant’s to Charles’s royal court.
To Bradamant the bold Marphisa cries:
“Let him begone, nor doubt am I, before
Many days pass, will manage in such wise,
That Agramant shall be his lord no more.”
So says the martial damsel, nor implies
The secret purpose which she has in store.
Making his congees to the friendly twain,
To join his king Rogero turns the rein.
When a complaint is heard from valley near:
All now stand listening, to the noise attent;
And to that plaintive voice incline their ear,
A woman’s (as ’twould seem) that makes lament.
But I this strain would gladly finish here,
And, that I finish it, be ye content:
For better things I promise to report,
If ye to hear another strain resort.
Canto XXXVII
Lament and outcry loud of some that mourn,
Attract Rogero and the damsels two.
They find Ulania, with her mantle shorn
By Marganor, amid her moaning crew.
Upon that felon knight, for his foul scorn,
A fierce revenge Marphisa takes: a new
Statute that maid does in the town obtain,
And Marganor is by Ulania slain.
If, as in seeking other gift to gain,
(For Nature, without study, yieldeth nought)
With mighty diligence, and mickle pain,
Illustrious women day and night have wrought;
And if with good success the female train
To a fair end no homely task have brought,
So—did they for such other studies wake—
As mortal attributes immortal make;
And, if they of themselves sufficient were
Their praises to posterity to show,
Nor borrowed authors’ aid, whose bosoms are
With envy and with hate corroded so,
That oft they hide the good they might declare,
And tell in every place what ill they know,
To such a pitch would mount the female name,
As haply ne’er was reached by manly fame.
To furnish mutual aid is not enow,
For many who would lend each other light.
Men do their best, that womankind should show
Whatever faults they have in open sight;
Would hinder them of rising from below,
And sink them to the bottom, if they might;
I say the ancients; as if glory, won
By woman, dimmed their own, as mist the sun.
But hands or tongue ne’er had, nor has, the skill,
Does voice or lettered page the thought impart,
Though each, with all its power, increase the ill,
Diminishing the good with all its art,
So female fame to stifle, but that still
The honour of the sex survives in part:
Yet reacheth not its pitch, nor such its flight,
But that ’tis far below its natural height.
Not only Thomyris and Harpalicé,
And who brought Hector, who brought Turnus aid,
And who, to build in Lybia crost the sea,
By Tyrian and Sidonian band obeyed;
Not only famed Zenobia, only she
Who Persian, Indian, and Assyrian frayed;
Not only these and some few others merit
Their glory, that eternal fame inherit:
Faithful, chaste, and bold, the world hath seen
In Greece and Rome not only, but where’er
The Sun unfolds his flowing locks, between
The Hesperides and Indian hemisphere;
Whose gifts and praise have so extinguished been,
We scarce of one amid a thousand hear;
And this because they in their days have had
For chroniclers, men envious, false, and bad.
But ye that prosper in the exercise
Of goodly labours, aye your way pursue;
Nor halt, O women, in your high emprise,
For fear of not receiving honour due:
For, as nought good endures beneath the skies,
So ill endures no more; if hitherto
Unfriendly by the poet’s pen and page,
They now befriend you in our better age.
Erewhile Marullo446 and Pontante for you
Declared, and—sire and son—the Strozzi twain;
Capello, Bembo, and that writer, who
Has fashioned like himself the courtier train;
With Lewis Alamanni, and those two,
Beloved of Mars and Muses, of their strain
Descended, who the mighty city rule,
Which Mincius parts, and moats with marshy pool.447
One of this pair (besides that, of his will,
He honours you, and does you courtesies;
And makes Parnassus and high Cynthus’ hill
Resound your praise, and lift it to the skies)
The love, the faith, and mind, unconquered still,
Mid threats of ruin, which in steadfast wise
To him his constant Isabel hath shown,448
Render yet more your champion than his own.
So that he never more will wearied be
With quickening in his verse your high renown;
And, if another censures you, than he
Prompter to arm in your defence is none;
Nor knight, in this wide world, more willingly
Life in the cause of virtue would lay down:
Matter as well for other’s pen he gives,
As in his own another’s glory lives;
And well he merits, that a dame so blest,
(Blest with all worth, which in this earthly round
Is seen in them who don the female vest,)
To him hath evermore been faithful found;
Of a sure pillar of pure truth possest
In her, despising Fortune’s every wound.449
Worthy of one another
