Between a Friesland mare and nag of Spain.
King Mandricardo, armed from foot to head,
Leapt on the steed and galloped o’er the plain,
And swore upon the camp to turn his back
Till he should find the champion clad in black.
The king encounters many of the crew
Whom good Orlando’s arm had put to flight;
And some a son, and some a brother rue,
Who in the rout had perished in their sight;
And in the coward’s cheek of pallid hue
Is yet portrayed the sad and craven sprite:
—Yet, through the fear endured, they far and nigh,
Pallid, and silent, and insensate fly.
Nor he long was had rode, ere he descried
A passing-cruel spectacle and sore;
But which the wonderous feats well testified,
That were recounted Agramant before.
Now on this hand, now that, the dead he eyed,
Measured their wounds, and turned their bodies o’er;
Moved by strange envy of the knight whose hand
Had strown the champaign with the slaughtered band.
As wolf or mastiff-dog, who comes the last
Where the remains of slaughtered bullock lie,
And finds but horn and bones, where rich repast
Had fed the ravening hound and vulture nigh,
Glares vainly on the scull, unsmacked; so passed
The barbarous Tartar king those bodies by;
And grudged, lamenting, like the hungry beast,
To have come too late for such a sumptuous feast.
That day, and half the next, in search he strayed
Of him who wore the sable vest and shield.
When lo! he saw a mead, o’ertopt with shade,
Where a deep river wound about the field,
With narrow space between the turns it made
Where’er from side to side the water wheeled.
Even such a spot as this with circling waves
Below Otricoli the Tyber laves.
Where this deep stream was fordable, he scanned
A crowd of cavaliers that armour bore:
And these the paynim questioned, “Who had manned,
With such a troop, and to what end, the shore?”
To him replied the captain of the band,
Moved by his lordly air, and arms he wore,
Glittering with gold and jewels—costly gear,
Which showed him an illustrious cavalier.
“In charge” (he said) “we of the daughter go
Of him our king, who fills Granada’s throne,
Espoused by Rodomont of Sarza, though
To fame the tidings are as yet unknown.
And we, departing when the sun is low,
And the cicala hushed, which now alone
Is heard, shall bring her where her father keeps
I’ the Spanish camp; meanwhile the lady sleeps.”
He who for scorn had daffed the world aside,
Designs to see at once, how able were
Those horsemen to defend the royal bride,
Committed by their sovereign to their care.
“The maid, by what I hear, is fair:” (he cried)
“Fain would I now be certified, how fair:
Then me to her, or her to me convey,
For I must quickly wend another way.”
“Thou needs art raving mad,” replied in few
The chief—nor more. But with his lance in rest,
The Tartar monarch at the speaker flew,
And with the levelled spear transfixed his breast.
For the point pierced the yielding corslet through,
And lifeless he, perforce, the champaign prest.
The son of Agrican his lance regained,
Who weaponless without the spear remained.
Now sword nor club the warlike Tartar bore,
Since, when the Trojan Hector’s plate and chain
He gained, because the faulchion lacked, he swore
(To this obliged), nor swore the king in vain,
That save he won the blade Orlando wore,
He would no other grasp—that Durindane,
Held in high value by Almontes bold,
Which Roland bears, and Hector bore of old.
Great is the Tartar monarch’s daring, those
At such a disadvantage to assay.
He pricks, with levelled lance, among his foes,
Shouting, in fury—“Who shall bar my way?”—
Round and about him suddenly they close;
These draw the faulchion, and those others lay
The spear in rest: a multitude he slew,
Before his lance was broke upon the crew.
When this he saw was broke, the truncheon sound
And yet entire, he took, both hands between,
And with so many bodies strewed the ground,
That direr havoc never yet was seen:
And as with that jaw-bone, by hazard found,
The Hebrew Samson slew the Philistines,
Crushed helm and shield; and often side by side,
Slain by the truncheon, horse and rider died.
In running to their death the wretches vie,
Nor cease because their comrades perish near:
Yet bitterer in such a mode to die,
Than death itself, does to the troop appear.
They grudge to forfeit precious life, and lie
Crushed by the fragment of a broken spear;
And think foul scorn beneath the pounding stake
Strangely to die the death of frog or snake.
But after they at their expense had read
That it was ill to die in any way,
And near two thirds were now already dead,
The rest began to fly in disarray.
As if with what was his the vanquished fled,
The cruel paynim, cheated of his prey,
Ill bore that any, from the murderous strife
Of that scared rabble, should escape with life.
As in the well-dried fen or stubble-land,
Short time the stalk endures, or stridulous reed,
Against the flames, which careful rustic’s hand
Scatters when Boreas blows the fires to feed;
What time they take, and by the north-wind fanned
Crackle and snap, and through the furrow speed;
No otherwise, with little profit, those
King Mandricardo’s kindled wrath oppose.
When afterwards he marks the entrance free,
Left ill-secured, and without sentinel,
He, following prints (which had been recently
Marked on the mead), proceeds, amid the swell
Of loud laments, Granada’s dame to see,
If she as beauteous were as what they tell.
He wound his way ’mid corpses, where the wave,
Winding from side to side, a passage gave:
And in the middle of the mead surveyed
Doralice (such the gentle lady’s name),188
Who, at the root of an old ash-tree laid,
Bemoaned her: fast her lamentations came,
And
