Here march supplies of foot, and there of horse:
Her mantle green for robe of crimson hue
Earth shifts, ensanguined where the warriors course:
And there were azure flowers and yellow sprung,
Now slaughtered men lie stretched their steeds among.
Zerbino was more wonders seen to do
Than ever stripling of his age; he strowed
The ground with heaps of dead, and overthrew
The paynim numbers which about him flowed.
The valiant Ariodantes to his new
Entrusted squadron mighty prowess showed;
Filling with dread and wonder, near and far,
The squadrons of Castile and of Navarre.
Chelindo and Mosco (bastards were the twain
Of Calabrun, late king of Arragon),
And one esteemed among the valiant train,
Calamidor, of Barcellona’s town,
Leaving their standards, in the hope to gain,
By young Zerbino’s death, a glorious crown,
Attacked the warrior with united force,
And wounded in his flanks the prince’s horse.
Pierced by three lances lay the courser strong,
But bold Zerbino quickly rose anew;
And, eager to avenge his charger’s wrong,
The assailants, where he sees them, will pursue.
Zerbino at Mosco first, that overhung
Him, in the hope to make him prisoner, flew,
And pierced him in the flank; who from his sell,
Pallid and cold, upon the champaign fell.
When him so killed, as ’twere by stealthy blow
Chelindo viewed, to avenge his brother slain,
He charged, intent the prince to overthrow;
But he seized fast his courser by the rein,
And, thence to rise not, laid the charger low,
Destined no more to feed on hay or grain;
For at one stroke, so matchless was his force,
Zerbino cleft the rider and his horse.
When that fell blow Calamidor espied,
He turned the bridle short to speed away,
But him with downright cut Zerbino plied
Behind, and cried withal, “Stay, traitor, stay.”
Nor from its aim the sword-stroke wandered wide,
Though from the mark it went somedeal astray;
The falchion missed the rider as he fled,
But reached the horse’s croup, and stretched him dead.
He quits the horse, and thence for safety crawls;
But he with little boot escapes his foe;
For him Duke Thraso’s horse o’erturns and mawls,
Opprest the ponderous courser’s weight below.
Where the huge crowd upon Zerbino falls,
Ariodantes and Lurcanio go;
And with them many a cavalier and count,
Who do their best Zerbino to remount.
Then Artalìco and Margano knew
The force of Ariodantes’ circling brand:
While Casimir and Enearco rue
More deeply yet the puissance of his hand.
Smote by the knight, escaped the former two;
The others were left dead upon the strand.
Lurcanio shows what are his force and breath;
Who charges, smites, o’erturns, and puts to death.
Sir, think not that more inland on the plain
The warfare is less mortal than along
The stream, nor that the troops behind remain
Which to the duke of Lancaster belong.
He valiantly assailed the flags of Spain,
And long in even scale the battle hung.
For Horse and Foot, and Captains of those bands,
On either side, could deftly ply their hands.
Forward Sir Oldrad pricks and Fieramont;
This Glocester’s duke, and York’s the other knight;
With them conjoined is Richard, Warwick’s count,
And the bold duke of Clarence, Henry hight.
These Follicon and Matalista front,
And Baricond, with all they lead to fight.
Almeria this, and that Granada guides,
And o’er Marjorca Baricond presides.
Well matched awhile the Christian and the Moor
Appeared, without advantage in the fray.
Not this, now that gave ground, like corn before
The light and fickle breeze which blows in May:
Or as the sea which ripples on the shore,
Still comes and goes, nor keeps one certain way,
When hollow Fortune thus had sported long,
She proved disastrous to the paynim throng.
The duke of Glocester Matalista bold
Assailed this while, and hurtled from his sell;
Fieramont Follicon o’erturned and rolled,
In the right shoulder smit, on earth as well.
The advancing English either Paynim hold,
And bear their prisoners off to dungeon-cell.
This while, Sir Baricond is, in the strife,
By Clarence’s bold duke deprived of life.
Hence ’tis among the Moors amazement all,
While hence the Christians take such heart and pride,
The bands do nought but quit their ground and fall,
And break their order on the Paynim side,
What time the Christian troops come on, and gall
Their flying rants, which nowhere will abide:
And had not one arrived to aid their host,
The Paynim camp had on that side been lost.
But Ferraù, who till this time ever nigh
Marsilius, scarce had quitted him that day,
When half destroyed he marked his chivalry,
And saw that baffled banner born away,
Pricked his good courser forth, in time to spy,
(Where mid those squadrons hottest waxed the fray)
With his head severed in a griesly wound,
Olympio de la Serra fall to ground:
A stripling he, who such sweet musick vented,
Accorded to the horned lyre’s soft tone;
That at the dulcet melody relented
The hearer’s heart, though harder than a stone.
Happy! if, with such excellence contented,
He had pursued so fair a fame alone,
And loathed shield, quiver, helmet, sword and lance;
Destined by these to die a youth in France.
When bold French beheld his cruel plight,
For whom he love and much esteem profest,
He felt more pity at the doleful sight
Than, ’mid those thousands slain, for all the rest.
And smote the foe who slew him with such might,
That he his helm divided from the crest;
Cut front, eyes, visage, and mid bosom through,
And cast him down amid the slaughtered crew.
Nor stops he here, nor leaves a corslet whole,
Nor helm unbroken, where his sword is plied,
Of this the front or cheek, of that the poll,
The arm of other foe his strokes divide;
And he, of these divorcing body and soul,
Restores the wavering battle on that side;
Whence the disheartened and ignoble throng
Are scattered wide, and broke, and driven along.
Into the medley pricks King Agramant,
