No More Learning

And this besought he of his consort fair,
As thinking, that the rustics, which on down
Pasture their flocks, or fruitful fallows till,
Could ne'er contaminate her honest will.

XCIII
"Her fearful husband still embracing close,
Her arms about his neck Argia threw:
A burst of tears her visage overflows:
For from her eyes two streams their way pursue.
She grieves, he guilty should his wife suppose;
As if she hath already been untrue:
For his suspicion to its source she traced;
That in her faith no faith Anselmo placed.

XCIV
"Citing their long farewell, I should exceed.
`-- To thee at length,' he so the dame addrest,
`I recommend my honour'; -- and indeed
Took leave, and on his road in earnest prest;
And truly felt, on wheeling round his steed,
As if his heart was issuing from his breast.
She follows him as long as she can follow
With eyes whose tears her furrowed visage hollow.

XCV
"Poor, pale, unshorn, and wretched (as whilere
To you in former strain by me was said),
Homeward meanwhile the wandering cavalier,
Hoping he there should be unknown, had made.
Beside the lake that pilgrim journeyed, near
The city, where he gave the serpent aid,
In that thick brake besieged by village swain,
Who with his staff the reptile would have slain.

XCVI
"Arriving here, upon the dawn of light,
For yet some stars were glimmering in the skies,
Approaching him, in foreign vesture dight,
Along the shore, a damsel he espies.
Though neither squire nor waiting wench in sight
Appears, yet noble is the lady's guise.
With pleasing visage she Adonio boards,
And then breaks silence in the following words.

XCVII
"Albeit thou know'st me not, O cavalier
I am thy kin, and greatly bound to thee:
I am thy kin; for of the lineage clear
Derived of haughty Cadmus' seed are we.
I am the fairy Manto, that whilere
Laid the first stone of this rude villagery;
And (as thou haply mayst have heard it famed)
Mantua from me the rising town was named.

XCVIII
" `O' the fairies am I one: with that to show
Our fatal state, and what it doth import;
We to all other kinds of ill below
Are subject by our natal influence, short
Of death; but with immortal being such woe
Is coupled, death is not of direr sort.
For every seventh day we all must take
By certain law, the form of spotted snake.
XCIX
" `So sad it is that loathsome coil to fill,
And prone, at length, upon the ground to crawl;
Equal to this here is no worldly ill;
So that immortal life is cursed by all.
And thou the debt I owe thee (for my will
Is to inform thee of its cause withal)
Shalt know as well; how on that fatal day
Of change we are to countless ills a prey.

C
" `So hated as the serpent beast is none;
And we that wear its evil form, alarm,
Outrage, and war endure from every one:
For all that see us, hunt and do us harm:
Unless we can to ground for shelter run,
We feel how heavy falls man's furious arm.
Happier it were to die, than languish -- broke,
Battered, and crippled by the cruel stroke.

CI
" `My mighty obligation due to thee
Is that, when once thou didst this greenwood thread,
Thou from a rustic's fury rescuedst me,
By whose ill handling was I sore bested.
But for thine aid, I should not have got free,
Without a broken spine or battered head:
With body crooked and crushed I should have lain,
Albeit I could not by his arm be slain.

CII
" `Because thou hast to know upon the day
We sprang from earth with scales of dragon dight,
-- Subject to us at other times -- to obey
The heavens refuse; and we are void of might:
At other seasons, at our simple say
The circling sun stands still, and dims its light:
Fixt earth is moved, and in a circle wheels:
Ice at our word takes fire, and fire congeals.

CIII
" `Now here, prepared to render thee the meed
Of benefit then done to me, I stand;
For now, dismantled of my dragon weed,
Vainly no grace of me wilt thou demand.
Even now, thrice richer art thou by my deed,
Than when thou heirdst erewhile thy father's land:
Now will I that henceforth thou shalt be poor;
But wealth, the more 'tis spent, augment the more:

CIV
" `And because with that ancient knot thou still,
I know, art tangled, which by Love was tied,
The mode and order, how thou mayst fulfil
Thy wishes, shall by me be signified.
Now that her lord is absent, 'tis my will
My scheme without delay by thee be tried;
Go forth the lady at her farm to find,
Without the town; nor will I say behind. '

CV
"She her discourse continuing, 'gan advise
What form he to that lady's eyes should take:
I say, what vesture wear, and in what wise
Should speak, how tempt her; what entreaties make:
And said, how she her figure would disguise;
For, save the day wherein she was a snake,
Upon all others went the fairy drest
In whatsoever figure pleased her best.

CVI
"She in a pilgrim's habit clothed the knight,
Such as from door to door our alms entreat:
Into a dog she changed herself to sight;
The smallest ever seen, of aspect sweet,
Long hair, than ermine's fur more snowy white;
And skilled withal in many a wondrous feat.
Towards Agria's villa, so transmewed,
The fairy and the knight their way pursued;

CVII
"And at the labourer's cabins in his round
The stripling halts, before he stops elsewhere;
And certain rustic reeds begins to sound;
His dog is up, and dances to the air.
The dame, that hears the voice and cry rebound,
Is by the rumour moved to see the pair.
Into her court she has the pilgrim brought,
As Anselm's evil destiny had wrought:

CVIII
"And here Adonio gives the dog command;
And here by that obedient dog is shown
Dance of our country and of foreign land,
With paces, graces, fashions of his own;
And finally he does, amid that band,
With winning ways what else is to be done,
With such attention of the admiring crew,
None winked their eyes, their breath they scarcely drew.

CIX
"Great marvel in the dame, then longing, bred
That gentle dog: she one that her had nursed
With no mean offer to his master sped.