No More Learning

I what I know right willingly display;
As well, that all fair actions should be shown,
As well that, gentle ladies, I am bent
Ye whom I love and honour, to content.

XXV
As said, in act to go Rogero stood;
And, having taken leave, the cavalier
Withdraws his trenchant faulchion from the wood,
Which holds no more the weapon, as whilere.
When, sounding loud amid that solitude,
A cry, not distant far, arrests the peer.
Then thitherward he with those damsels made,
Prompt, if 'twere needed, to bestow his aid.

XXVI
They rode an-end; and louder waxed the sound,
And plainer were the plaintive words they heard:
When in a valley they three women found
Making that plaint, who in strange garb appeared:
For to the navel were those three ungowned,
-- Their coats by some uncourteous varlet sheared --
And knowing not how better to disguise
Their shame, they sate on earth, and dared not rise.

XXVII
As Vulcan's son, that sprang (as it is versed)
Out of the dust, without a mother made,
Whom -- so Minerva bade -- Aglauros nursed
With sovereign care, too bold and curious maid,
Seated in car, by him constructed first
To hide his hideous feet, was erst conveyed;
So that which never is to sight revealed,
Sitting, those mournful damsels kept concealed.

XXVIII
At that dishonest sight and shameful, glows
Each martial damsel's visage, overspread
With the rich dyes of Paestum's crimson rose,
When vernal airs their gentle influence shed.
Bradamant marked them; and that one of those
Was Ulany, the damsel quickly read;
Ulany, that was sent with solemn train
From the LOST ISLE to royal Charlemagne;

XXIX
And recognised the other two no less;
From them she saw, when she saw Ulany;
But now to her directed her address.
As the most honoured of those ladies three,
Demanding, who so full of wickedness,
So lawless was and so unmannerly,
That he those secrets to the sight revealed,
Which Nature, as she could, 'twould seem, concealed.

XXX
Ulany, that in Bradamant descried,
-- Known both by voice and ensignry -- the maid,
Who some few days before those knights of pride
With her victorious lance on earth had laid,
How, in a town not far remote -- replied --
An evil race, by pity never swayed,
Besides that they their raiment thus had shorn,
Had beat them, and had done them other scorn.

XXXI
What of the shield became, she cannot say,
Nor knows she those three monarchs' destiny,
Who guided her so long upon her way;
If killed, or led into captivity;
And says that she herself has ta'en her way,
Albeit to fare a-foot sore irksome be,
To appeal to royal Charlemagne, assured
By him such outrage will not be endured.

XXXII
To hear, yet more to see, so foul a wrong,
Disturbed the Child and damsels' placid air
And beauteous visage, whose bold hearts and strong
No less compassionate than valiant were.
They now, all else forgetting, ere the tongue
Of Ulany prefers demand, or prayer,
That they would venge them on their cruel foe,
In haste towards the felon's castle go.

XXXIII
With one constant, the maids and cavalier,
By their great goodness moved, from plate and mail
Had stript their upper vests, well fitting gear
Those miserable ladies' shame to veil.
Bradamant suffers not, that, as whilere,
Sad Ulany shall tramp by hill and dale;
But seats her on her horse's croup; so do
Her comrades by those other damsels two.
XXXIV
To gentle Bradamant Ulania showed
The nearest way to reach the castle height;
While comfort Bradamant on her bestowed,
Promising vengeance for that foul despite.
They leave the vale, and by a crooked road
And long ascend, now wheeling left, now right:
Nor till the sun is hidden in the sea,
Upon their weary way repose the three.

XXXV
They to a hamlet on the summit wound,
Scaling the mountain's steep and rugged side;
And such good shelter and good supper found,
As could by such rude quarters be supplied.
Arriving there, they turned their eyes around,
And full of women every place espied,
Some old, some young; nor, mid so large a clan,
Appeared the visage of a single man.

XXXVI
Not more bold Jason wondered, and the train
Which sailed with him, that Argonautic crew,
Seeing those dames that had their husbands slain,
Fathers and sons and brethren, -- so that through
All Lemnos' pleasant isle, by hill or plain,
Of manly visage they beheld not two --
Than here Rogero, and the rest who go
With good Rogero, wonder at this show.

XXXVII
The martial damsels bid for Ulany,
And those who came with her, provide attire;
And gowns that eve are furnished for the three,
If meaner than their own, at least entire.
To him a woman of that villagery
Valiant Rogero summons, to inquire
Where are the men; in that he none descries;
And thus to him that village wife replies:

XXXVIII
"What haply is to you a wonderment,
This crowd of womankind, where man is none,
To us is grave and grievous punishment,
Who, banished here, live wofully alone;
And, that such exile us may more torment,
From those so loved, as brother, father, son,
A long divorce and cruel we sustain,
As our fell tyrant pleases to ordain.

XXXIX
"Sent to these confines from his land, which lies
But two leagues distant thence, where we were born,
Us in this place the fell barbarian sties,
Having first done us many a brutal scorn;
And has with death and all extremities
Threatened our kinsmen and ourselves forlorn,
If they come hither, or he hears report
We harbour them, when hither they resort.

XL
"He to our name is such a deadly foe,
He will not have us nearer than I shewed,
Now have us of our kin approached, as though
Infection from the female sex ensued.
Already have the greenwood trees laid low
Their leafy honours twice, and twice renewed,
Since our lord's fury to such pitch arose,
Now is there one his phrensy to oppose.

XLI
"For he has spread such passing fear among
The people, death can cause no worse affright;
In that, beside his natural love of wrong,
He is endowed with more than human might.
He than a hundred other men more strong,
In body is of a gigantic height:
Nor us his vassals he molests alone;
But worse by him to stranger dame is done.

XLII
"If your own honour, sir, and of those three,
Beneath your charge, to you in aught is dear,
'Twill safer, usefuller, and better be
To leave this road, and by another steer.
This leads you to his tower, described by me,
To prove the savage use that cruel peer
Has there established, to the shame and woe
Of dame or cavalier, who thither go.

XLIII
"This castellain or tyrant, Marganor
(So name the felon knight) than whom more fell
Nero was not, nor other heretofore,
If other be, whose actions Fame doth swell,
Thirsts for man's blood, but thirsts for woman's more
Than wolf for blood of lambs; and bids expel
With shame all females, that, in evil hour,
Their fortune has conducted to his tower. "

XLIV
How in that impious man such fury grew,
Asked young Rogero and those damsels twain,
And prayed she would in courtesy pursue,
Yea, rather from the first her tale explain.