To imperial place and puissance, Maximine:
Hence Thebes to cruel Creon bent her knees,
Mezentius ruled the subject Agiline,
Fattening his fields with blood. To pests like these
Our Italy was given in later day,
To Lombard, Goth, and Hun a bleeding prey.
What shall I of fierce Attila, what say
Of wicked Ezzeline, and hundreds more?
Whom, because men still trod the crooked way,
God sent them for their pain and torment sore.
Of this ourselves have made a clear assay,
As well as those who lived in days of yore;
Consigned to ravening wolves, ordained to keep
Us, his ill-nurturing and unuseful sheep;
Who, as if having more than served to fill
Their hungry maw, invite from foreign wood
Beyond the mountain, wolves of greedier will,
With them to be partakers of their food.
The bones which Thrasymene and Trebbia fill,
And Cannae, seem but few to what are strewed
On fattened field and bank, where on their way
Adda and Mella, Ronco and Tarro stray.
Now God permits that we should feel the spite
Of people, who are haply worse than we,
For errors multiplied and infinite,
And foul and pestilent iniquity.
The time will come we may such ill requite
Upon their shores, if we shall better be,
And their transgressions ever prove above
The long endurance of Eternal Love.
The Christian people then God’s placid front
Must have disturbed with their excesses sore;
Since them with slaughter, rape, and rapine hunt,
Through all their quarters, plundering Turk and Moor:
But the unsparing rage of Rodomont
Proves worse than all the ills endured before.
I said that Charlemagne had made repair
In search of him towards the city square.
Charles, by the way, his people’s butchery
Beholds—burnt palaces and ruined fanes—
And sees large portion of the city lie
In unexampled wreck.—“Ye coward trains,
Whither in heartless panic would ye fly?
Will none his loss contemplate? what remains
To you—what place of refuge, say, is left,
If this from you so shamefully be reft?
“Then shall one man alone, a prisoned foe,
Who cannot scale the walls which round him spread,
Unscathed, unquestioned, from your city go,
When all are by his vengeful arm laid dead?”
Thus Charlemagne, whose veins with anger glow,
And shame, too strong to brook, in fury said;
And to the spacious square made good his way,
Where he beheld the foe his people slay.
Thither large portion of the populace,
Climbing the palace roof, had made resort;
For strongly walled, and furnished was the place
With ammunition, for their long support.
Rodomont, mad with pride, had, in his chase
Of the scared burghers, singly cleared the court;
He with one daring hand, which scorned the world,
Brandished the sword;—his other wildfire hurled;
And smote and thundered, ’mid a fearful shower,
At the sublime and royal house’s gate.
To their life’s peril, crumbling roof and tower
Is tost by them that on the summit wait:
Nor any fears to ruin hall or bower;
But wood and stone endure one common fate,
And marbled column, slab, and gilded beam,
By sire and grandsire held in high esteem.214
Rodomont stands before the portal, bright
With steel, his head and bust secured in mail,
Like to a serpent,215 issued into light,
Having cast off his slough, diseased and stale:
Who more than ever joying in his might,
Renewed in youth, and proud of polished scale,
Darts his three tongues, fire flashing from his eyes;
While every frighted beast before him flies.
Nor bulwark, stone, nor arbalest, nor bow,
Nor what upon the paynim smote beside,
Sufficed to arrest the sanguinary foe;
Who broke and hewed, and shook that portal wide,
And in his fury let such daylight through,
’Twas easy to espy—and might be spied—
In visages o’ercast in deathlike sort,
That full of people was the palace court.
Through those fair chambers echoed shouts of dread,
And feminine lament from dame distrest;
And grieving, through the house, pale women fled,
Who wept, afflicted sore, and beat their breast.
And hugged the door-post and the genial bed,216
Too soon to be by stranger lords possest.
The matter in this state of peril hung
When thither came the king, his peers among.
Charles turned him round to these, of vigorous hand,
Whom he had found in former peril true.
“Are you not those that erst with me did stand
’Gainst Agolant in Aspramont? In you
Is vigour now so spent, (he said), the band,
Who him, Troyano, and Almontes slew,217
With hundreds more, that you now fear to face
One of that very blood, that very race?
“Why should I now in contest with the foe
Less strength in you behold than them? Your might
Upon this hound (pursued the monarch) show;
This hound who preys on man.—A generous sprite
The thought of death—approach he fast or slow—
So that he dies but well, holds cheap and light.
But where you are, I doubt my fortune ill,
For by your succour, have I conquered still.”
This said, he spurred his courser, couched his spear,
And charged the paynim; nor of life less free,
Sir Ogier joined the king in his career;
Namus and Oliver; and, with the three,
Avino, Avolio, Otho, and Berlinghier;
(For one without the rest I never see)
And on the bosom, flanks, and on the front,
All smote together at King Rodomont.
But let us, sir, for love of Heaven, forego
Of anger and of death the noisome lore;
And be it deemed that I have said enow,
For this while, of that Saracen, not more
Cruel than strong; ’tis time in trace to go
Of Gryphon, left with Origille, before
Damascus’ gate, and him who with her came,
The adulterer, not the brother of the dame.
Of all the cities under eastern skies,
Most wealthy, populous, and fairly dight,
’Tis said, Damascus is; which distant lies
From Salem seven days’ journey; its fair site,
A fertile plain, abundant
