Made the quick coursers make that labour short.
Never had those assaulted to sustain
Encounter of so fell and fierce a sort;
Who held it for a grace, with loss of shield,
Harness and captive dame, to quit the field;
Even as the wolf, who, laden with his prey,
Is homeward to his secret cavern bound,
And, when he deems that safest is the way,
Beholds it crost by hunter and by hound,
Flings down his load, and swiftly darts away,
Where most o’ergrown with brushwood is the ground.
Nor quicker are that band to void the vale,
Than those bold three are quicker to assail.
Not only they the dame and martial gear,
But many horses they as well forsook;
And, as the surest refuge in their fear,
Cast themselves down from bank and caverned nook:
Which pleased the damsels and the youthful peer;
Who three of those forsaken horses took,
To mount those three, whom, through the day before,
Upon their croups the three good coursers bore.
Thence, lightened thus, their way they thither bend,
Where that despiteous, shameful, lordship lies;
Resolved the beldam in their band shall wend,
To see Drusilla venged; in vain denies
That woman, who misdoubts the adventure’s end,
And grieves, and shrieks, and weeps in piteous wise:
For flinging her upon Frontino’s croup,
Rogero bears her off amid the troop.
They reached a summit, and from thence espied
A town with many houses, large and rich;
With nought to stop the way on any side,
As neither compassed round by wall or ditch.
A rock was in the middle, fortified
With a tall tower, upon its topmost pitch.
Fearlessly thither pricked the warriors, who
Marganor’s mansion in that fortress knew.
As soon as in the town that cavalcade
Arrived, some footmen, who kept watch and ward,
Behind those warriors closed a barricade;
While that, before, they found already barred.
And lo! Sir Marganor, with men arrayed,
Some foot, some horsemen! armed was all the guard;
Who to the strangers, in few words, but bold,
The wicked custom of his lordship told.
Marphisa, who had planned the thing whilere
With Aymon’s daughter and the youthful knight,
For answer, spurred against the cavalier;
And, valiant as she was and full of might,
Not putting in the rest her puissant spear,
Or baring that good sword, so famed in fight,
So smote him with her fist upon the head,
That on his horse’s neck he fell half dead.
The maid of France is with Marphisa gone,
Nor in the rear it seen Rogero’s crest;
Who with those two his course so bravely run,
That, though his lance he raised not from the rest,
Six men he slew; transfixed the paunch of one,
Another’s head, of four the neck or breast;
I’ the sixth he broke it, whom in flight he speared:
It pierced his spine and at his paps appeared.
As many as are touched, so many lie
On earth, by Bradamant’s gold lance o’erthrown;
She seems a bolt, dismist form burning sky,
Which, in its fury, shivers and beats down
Whatever it encounters, far and nigh.
Some fly to plain, or castle from the town,
Others to sheltering church and house repair;
And none, save dead, are seen in street or square.
Meanwhile the hands of Marganor, behind
His back, the fierce Marphisa had made fast,
And to Drusilla’s maid the wretch consigned,
Well pleased that such a care on her was cast.
To burn the town ’twas afterwards designed,
Save it repented of its errors past,
Repealed the statute Marganor had made,
And a new law, imposed by her, obeyed.
Such end to compass is no hard assay;
For, besides fearing lest Marphisa yearn
To execute more vengeance—lest she say,
—“She one and all will slaughter and will burn,”—
The townsmen all were advised to the sway
And cruel statute of that tyrant stern;
But did, as others mostly do, that best
Obey the master whom they most detest.
Since none dares trust another, nor his will,
—Out of suspicion—to his comrades break,
They let him banish one, another kill,
From this his substance, that his honour take.
But the heart cries to Heaven, that here is still,
Till God and saints at length to vengeance wake:
Who, albeit they due punishment suspend,
By mighty pain the long delay amend.
The rabble, full of rage and enmity,
Now seeks the wretch with word and deed to grieve
As, it is said, all strip the fallen tree,
Which from its roots and wintry winds upheave:
Let rulers in his sad example see,
Ill doers in the end shall ill receive.
To view fell Marganor’s disastrous fall,
Fit penance for his sins, pleased great and small.
Many, of whom the sister had been slain,
The mother, or the daughter, or the wife,
Seeking no more their rebel wrath to rein,
Hurry, with their own hands to take his life;
And young Rogero and the damsels twain
Can scarce defend the felon in that strife;
Whom those illustrious three had doomed to die,
Mid trouble, fear, and lengthened agony.
To the hag, who bore such hatred to that wight,
As woman to an enemy can bear,
They give their prisoner naked, bound so tight,
He will not at one shake the cordage tear;
And she, her pains and sorrow to requite,
Crimsons the wretch’s body, here and there,
With a sharp goad, which, mid that village band,
A peasant churl had put into her hand.
Nor she the courier-maid, nor they that ride
With her, aye mindful how they had been shent,
Now let their hands hang idle by their side;
No less than that old crone on vengeance bent:
Such was their fierce desire, it nullified
The power to harm; but rage must have its vent.,
Him one with stones, another with her nails,
This with her teeth, with needles that, assails.
As torrent one while foams in haughty tide,
When fed with mighty rain or melted snow;
And, rending form the mountain’s rugged side
