Kept till the time of Constantine in Rome:
That Constantine, whom thou shall ever rue
Fair Italy, while the heavens above are rolled.
Constantine to Byzantium, when he grew
Weary of Tyber, bore the tent of old.
Melissa from his namesake this withdrew,
Its pole of ivory and its cord of gold,
And all its cloth with beauteous figures fraught;
Fairer Apelles’ pencil never wrought.
Here the three Graces in gay vesture gowned
Assisted the delivery of a queen.581
Not in four ages in this earthly round
Was ever born a boy so fair of mien.
Jove, Venus, Mars, and Mercury renowned
For fluent speech, about the child are seen;
Him have they strewed, and stew with heaven’s perfume,
Ambrosial odours and aetherial bloom.
“Hippolytus” a little label said,
Inscribed upon the baby’s swaddling clothes.
By the hand him Fortune leads in age more staid;
And Valour as a guide before him goes.
An unknown band in sweeping vest arrayed,
With long descending locks, the tapestry shows,
Deputed by Corvinus to desire
The tender infant from his princely sire.582
He reverently parts from Hercules’ side,
From her, his lady mother, Eleanor;
And to the Danube wends; where far and wide
They meet the boy, and as a god adore.
The prudent king of Hungary is descried,
Who does due honour to his ripened lore,
In yet unripe, yea, raw and tender years,
And ranks the stripling above all his peers.
One is there that in his green age and new
Places Strigonia’s crozier in his hand.
Him ever at Corvinus’ side we view;
Whether he doth in court or camp command,
Whether against the Turk, or German crew
The puissant monarch leads his martial band,
Watchful Hippolytus is at his side,
And gathers virtue from his generous guide.
There is it seen, how he his blooming age
Divides mid arts and wholesome discipline:
The secret spirit of the ancient page
There Fuscus well instructs him to divine:583
“This must thou shun, that follow”—seems the sage
To say—“if thou immortally wouldst shine.”
Fashioned withal with so much skill and care
By her who wrought that work, their gestures were.
A cardinal he next is seen, though young
In years, at council in the Vatican;
Where for deep wisdom graced by eloquent tongue,
With wonder him the assembled conclave scan.
“What will he be”—they seem to say among
Themselves—“when he is ripened into man?
Oh! if on him St. Peter’s mantle fall,
What a blest era! what a happy call!”
That brave youth’s liberal pastimes are designed
In other place; on Alpine mountain hoar
Here he affronts the bear of rugged kind;
And there in rushy bottom bays the boar:
Now on his jennet he outgoes the wind,
And drives some goat or gallant hind before;
Which falls o’ertaken on the dusty plain,
By his descending faulchion cleft in twain.
He is descried, amid a fair array
Of poets and philosophers elsewhere
This pricks for him the wandering planets’ way;
These earth, these heaven for his instruction square.
Some chant sad elegies, some verses gay
Lays lyric or heroic; singers there
He with rich music hears; nor moves a pace
But what in every step is sovereign grace.
The first part of the storied walls portrayed
That noble prince’s gentle infancy.
Cassandra all beside had overlaid
With fears of justice, prudence, modesty,
Valour, and that fifty virtue, which hath made
With those fair sisters closest amity;
I speak of her that gives and that bestows.
With all these virtues gilt, the stripling glows.
In this part is the princely youth espied
With that unhappy duke, the Insubri’s head;584
In peace they sit in council at his side,
Together armed, the serpent-banner spread.
The youth by one unchanging faith is tied
To him for ever, well or ill bested;
His followers still in flight before the foe,
His guide in peril, his support in woe.
Him in another quarter you descry,
For his Ferrara and her duke in fear,
Who by strange proofs doth sift, and certify
To his just brother, vouched by tokens clear,
The close device of that ill treachery,
Hatched by those kinsmen whom he held most dear;
Hence justly he becomes that title’s heir,
Which Rome yet free bade righteous Tully bear.
Elsewhere in martial panoply he shone,
Hasting to help the church with lifted blade;
With scanty and tumultuous levy gone
Against well-ordered host in arms arrayed:
And lo! the coming of that chief alone
Affords the priestly band such present aid,
Extinguished are the fires before they spread.
He came, he saw, he conquered, may be said.
Elsewhere he stands upon his native strand,
Fighting against the mightiest armament,
That whensoever against Argive land,
Or Turkish, from Venetian harbour went;
Scatters and overthrows the hostile band,
And—spoil and prisoners to his brother sent—
Nothing reserves save that unfading bay;
The only prize he cannot give away.
Upon those figures gazed the courtly crew,585
But read no meaning in the storied wall:
Because there was not any one to shew
That these were things hereafter to befall.
Those fair and quaintly fashioned forms they view
With pleasure, and peruse the scrolls withal:
But Bradamant, to whom the whole was known,
By wise Melissa taught, rejoiced alone.
Though not instructed in that history
Like gentle Bradamant, the affianced knight
Remembers how amid his progeny
Atlantes often praised this Hippolyte.
—Who faithfully could verse such courtesy,
As Charlemagne vouchsafed to every wight?
With various games that solemn feast was cheered,
And charged with viands aye the board appeared.
Who is a valiant knight, is here descried;
For daily broke a thousand lances lay:
Singly to combat or in troops they ride;
On horseback or afoot, they mix in fray.
Worthiest of all Rogero is espied,
Who always conquers, jousting night and day;
And so, in wrestling, dance, and every deed,
Still from its rivals bears away the meed.
On the last day, when at their festive cheer
Was
