With him King Baliverzo, Farurant,
Soridan, Bambirago, Prusion;
And next so many more of little vaunt,
Whose blood will form a lake ere day be done,
That I could count each leaf with greater ease
When autumn of their mantle strips the trees.
Agramant from the wall a numerous band
Of horse and foot withdraws, and sends the array
Beneath the king of Fez, with a command
Behind the Moorish tents to make his way,
And those of Ireland in their march withstand,
Whom he sees hurrying with what haste they may,
And with wide wheel and spacious compass wind,
To fall upon the Paynim camp behind.
The king of Fez upon this service prest;
For all delay might sore his work impede.
This while King Agramant unites the rest,
And parts the troops who to the battle speed.
He sought himself the river, where he guessed
The Moorish host might most his presence need;
And, from that quarter, had a courier prayed,
By King Sobrino sent, the monarch’s aid.
He more than half his camp behind him led,
In one deep phalanx. At the mighty sound
Alone, the Scotsmen trembled, and in dread
Abandoned honour, order, and their ground:
Lurcanio, Ariodantes, and their head,
Zerbino, there alone the torrent bound;
And haply he, who was afoot, had died,
But that in time his need Rinaldo spied.
Elsewhere the paladin was making fly
A hundred banners: while the cavalier
So chased the quailing Saracens, the cry
Of young Zerbino’s peril smote the ear;
For, single and afoot, his chivalry
Amid the Africans had left the peer.
Rinaldo turned about and took his way
Where he beheld the Scots in disarray.
He plants his courser, where their squadrons yield
To the fierce paynims, and exclaims: “Where go
Your bands, and why so basely quit the field,
Yielding so vilely to so vile a foe?
Behold the promised trophies, spear and shield,
Spoils which your loaded churches ought to show!
What praise! what glory! that alone, and reft
Of his good horse, your monarch’s son is left!”
He from a squire receives a lance, and spies
King Prusion little distant, sovereign
Of the Alvaracchiae, and against him hies;
Whom he unhorses, dead upon the plain.
So Agricalt, so Bambirago dies;
And next sore wounded is Sir Soridane;
Who had been slain as well amid the throng,
If good Rinaldo’s lance had proved more strong.
That weapon broken, he Fusberta rears,
And smites Sir Serpentine, him of the star.
Though charmed from mischief are the cavalier’s
Good arms, he falls astounded by the jar,
And thus Rinaldo round Zerbino clears
The field so widely, where those champions war,
That without more dispute he takes a horse
Of those, who masterless, at random, course.
That he in time remounted it was well,
Who haply would not, if he more delayed;
For Agramant at once, and Dardinel,
Sobrino, and Balastro thither made;
But he, who had in time regained the sell,
Wheeled, here and there his horse, with brandished blade,
Dispatching into hell the mixt array,
That how men live above their ghosts might say.
The good Rinaldo, who to overthrow
The strongest of the foeman covets still,
At Agramant directs a deadly blow,
—Who seems too passing-proud, and greater ill
Works there, than thousand others of the foe—
And spurs his horse, the Moorish chief to spill.
He smote the monarch, broadside charged the steed,
And man and horse reversed upon the mead.
What time, without, in such destructive frays
Hate, Rage, and Fury, all offend by turns,
In Paris Rodomont the people slays,
And costly house, and holy temple burns:
While Charles elsewhere anther duty stays,
Who nothing hears of this, nor aught discerns.
He, in the town, receives the British band,
Which Edward and Sir Ariman command.
To him a squire approached, who pale with dread,
Scarce drew his breath, and cried; “Oh, well away!
Alas! alas!” (and thus he often said,
Ere he could utter aught beside) “To-day,
To-day, sire, is the Roman empire sped,
And Christ to the heathen makes his flock a prey.
A fiend from air to-day has dropt, that none
Henceforth may in this city make their won.
“Satan (in sooth, it can no other be)
Destroys and ruins the unhappy town.
Turn, and the curling wreaths of vapour see,
From the red flames which wander up and down;
List to those groans, and be they warrantry
Of the sad news thy servant now makes known!
One the fair city wastes with sword and fire,
Before whose vengeful fury all retire.”
Even such as he, who hears the tumult wide,
And clatter of church-bells, ere he espy
The raging fire, concealed from none beside
Himself, to him most dangerous, and most nigh;
Such was King Charles; who heard, and then descried
The new disaster with his very eye.
Hence he the choicest of his meiny steers
Thither, where he the cry and tumult hears.
With many peers and chiefs, who worthiest are,
Summoned about him, Charlemagne is gone:
He bids direct his standards to the square
Whither the paynim had repaired; hears groan
And tumult, spies the horrid tokens there
Of cruelty, sees human members strown.
—No more—Let him return another time,
Who willingly will listen to this rhyme.
Canto XVII
Charles goes, with his, against King Rodomont.
Gryphon in Norandino’s tournament
Does mighty deeds; Martano turns his front,
Showing how recreant is his natural bent;
And next, on Gryphon to bring down affront,
Stole from the knight the arms in which he went;
Hence by the kindly monarch much esteemed,
And Gryphon scorned, whom he Martano deemed.
God, outraged by our rank iniquity,
Whenever crimes have past remission’s bound,
That mercy may with justice mingled be,
Has monstrous and destructive tyrants crowned;
And gifted them with force and subtlety,
A sinful world to punish and confound.
Marius and Sylla to this end were nursed,
Rome with two Neros and a Caius213 cursed;
Domitian and the latter Antonine;
