To which this captain clears the monarch’s way;
But on his country, not himself, that fee
Shall he bestow, which is his labour’s pay;
And beg her freedom, where himself perchance
Another would to sovereign rule advance.203
“The pious love he bears his native land
Honours him more than any battle’s gain
Which Julius ever won on Afric’s strand,
Or in thine isle,204 France, Thessaly, or Spain.
Nor great Octavius does more praise command,
Nor Anthony who jousted for the reign,
With equal arms: in that the wrong outweighs
—Done to their native land—their every praise.
“Let these, and every other wight who tries
To subject a free country, blush for shame,
Nor dare in face of man to lift his eyes,
Where he hears Andrew Doria’s honoured name!
To him I see Charles other meed supplies;
For he beside his leaders’ common claim,
Bestows upon the chief the sumptuous state,
Whence Norman bands their power in Puglia date.205
“Not only to this captain courtesy
Shall Charles display, still liberal of his store;
But to all those who for the empery
In his emprizes have not spared their gore.
Him to bestow a town—a realm—I see,
Upon a faithful friend, rejoicing more,
And on all such as have good service done,
Than in new kingdom and new empire won.”
Thus of the victories, by land and main,
Which, when long course of years shall be complete,
Charles’ worthy captains for their lord will gain,
Andronica did with Astolpho treat.
This while, now loosening, tightening now, the rein
On the eastern winds, which blow upon their feet,
Making this serve or that, her comrade stands;
While the blasts rise or sink as she commands.
This while they saw, as for their port they made,
How wide the Persian sea extends to sight;
Whence in few days the squadron was conveyed
Nigh the famed gulf from ancient Magi hight;206
Here they found harbourage; and here were stayed
Their wandering barks, which stern to shore were dight.
Secure from danger from Alcina’s wrath,
The duke by land continued hence his path.
He pricks through many a field and forest blind,
By many a vale and many a mountain gray;
Where robbers, now before and now behind,
Oft threat the peer by night or open day;
Lion and dragon oft of poisonous kind,
And other savage monsters cross his way:
But he no sooner has his bugle wound,
Than these are scared and scattered by the sound.
Through Araby the blest he fares, where grow
Thickets of myrrh, and gums odorous ooze,
Where the sole phoenix makes her nest, although
The world is all before her where to choose;
And to the avenging sea which whelmed the foe
Of Israel, his way the duke pursues;
In which King Pharaoh and his host were lost;
From whence he to the land of heroes crost.207
Astolpho along Trajan’s channel goes,208
Upon that horse which has no earthly peer,
And moves so lightly, that the soft sand shows
No token of the passing cavalier;
Who prints not grass, prints not the driven snows,
—Who dry-shod would the briny billows clear,
And strains so nimbly in the course, he wind
And thunderbolt and arrow leaves behind:—
Erst Argalìa’s courser, which was born
From a close union of the wind and flame,
And, nourished not by hay or heartening corn,
Fed on pure air, and Rabican his name.
His way the bearer of the magic horn
Following, where Nile received that river, came;
But ere he at its outlet could arrive,
Towards him saw a pinnace swiftly drive.
A hermit in the poop the bark did guide
With snowy beard descending to mid breast;
Who when from far the Paladin be spied,
Him to ascend his ready pinnace prest.
“My son, unless thou loathest life, (he cried)
And wouldst that Death to-day thy course arrest,
Content thee in my bark to cross the water;
For yonder path conducts thee straight to slaughter.
“Within six miles, no further, shalt thou light”
(Pursued the hermit) “on the bloody seat,
Where dwells a giant, horrible to sight,
Exceeding every stature by eight feet.
From him wayfaring man or errant knight
Would vainly hope with life to make retreat;
For some the felon quarters, some he flays,
And some he swallows quick, and some he slays.
“He, ’mid the cruel horrors he intends,
Takes pleasure in a net, by cunning hands
Contrived, which near his mansion he extends;
So well concealed beneath the crumbling sands,
That whoso uninstructed thither wends,
Nought of the subtle mischief understands;
And so the giant scares him with his cries,
That he within the toils in terror flies;
“Whom with loud laughter, to his seat hard by
He drags along, enveloped in his snare;
And knight and damsel views with equal eye,
And for his prisoners’ worth has little care.
Then, having sucked their brains and life-blood dry,
Casts forth their bones upon the desert lair;
And round about his griesly palace pins,
For horrid ornament, their bloody skins.
“Take this—my son, oh! take this other way,
Which thee will to the sea in safety guide.”
“I thank thee, holy father, for thy say,”
(To him the fearless cavalier replied)
“But cannot peril against honour weigh,
Far dearer than my life. To the other side
Me vainly dost thou move to pass the wave;
Rather for this I seek the giant’s cave.
“I with dishonour life to flight may owe;
But worse than death loath thus to save my head.
The worst that can befall me if I go,
Is I my blood shall with the others shed:
But if on me such mercy God bestow,
That I remain alive, the giant dead,
Secure for thousands shall I make the ways;
So that the greater good the risk o’erpays.
“I peril but the single life of one
Against safety of the countless rest.”
—“Go then in peace,” (the other said) “my son,
And to thy
