No More Learning

LXII
Leo will enter not the town; but nigh
Pitches his broad pavilions on the plain;
And his arrival by an embassy
Makes known that day to royal Charlemagne.
Well pleased is he; and visits testify
And many gifts the monarch's courteous vein.
His journey's cause the Grecian prince displayed,
And to dispatch his suit the sovereign prayed:

LXIII
To send afield the damsel, who denied
Ever to take in wedlock any lord
Weaker than her: for she should be his bride,
Or he would perish by the lady's sword.
Charles undertook for this; and, on her side,
The following day upon the listed sward
Before the walls, in haste, enclosed that night,
Appeared the martial maid, equipt for fight.

LXIV
Rogero past the night before the day
Wherein by him the battle should be done,
Like that which felon spends, condemning to pay
Life's forfeit with the next succeeding sun:
He made his choice to combat in the fray
All armed; because he would discovery shun:
Nor barded steed he backed, nor lance he shook;
Nor other weapon than his faulchion took.

LXV
No lance he took: yet was it not through fear
Of that which Argalia whilom swayed;
Astolpho's next; then hers, that in career
Her foemen ever upon earth had laid:
Because none weened such force was in the spear,
Nor that it was by necromancy made;
Excepting royal Galaphron alone;
Who had it forged, and gave it to his son.

LXVI
Nay, bold Astolpho, and the lady who
Afterwards bore it, deemed that not to spell,
But simply to their proper force, was due
The praise that they in knightly joust excel;
And with whatever spear they fought, those two
Believed that they should have performed as well.
What only makes that knight the joust forego
Is that he would not his Frontino show.

LXVII
For easily that steed of generous kind
She might have known, if him she had espied;
Whom in Montalban, long to her consigned,
The gentle damsel had been wont to ride.
Rogero, that but schemes, but hath in mind
How he from Brandamant himself shall hide,
Neither Frontino nor yet other thing.
Whereby he may be known, afield will bring.

LXVIII
With a new sword will he the maid await;
For well he knew against the enchanted blade
As soft as paste would prove all mail and plate;
For never any steel its fury stayed;
And heavily with hammer, to rebate
Its edge, as well he on this faulchion layed.
So armed, Rogero in the lists appeared,
When the first dawn of day the horizon cheered.

LXIX
To look like Leo, o'er his breast is spread
The surcoat that the prince is wont to wear;
And the gold eagle with its double head
He blazoned on the crimson shield doth bear;
And (what the Child's disguisement well may stead)
Of equal size and stature are the pair.
In the other's form presents himself the one;
That other lets himself be seen of none.
LXX
Dordona's martial maid is of a vein
Right different from the gentle youth's, who sore
Hammers and blunts the faulchion's tempered grain,
Lest it his opposite should cleave or bore.
She whets her steel, and into it would fain
Enter, that stripling to the quick to gore:
Yea, would such fury to her strokes impart,
That each should go directly to his heart.

LXXI
As on the start the generous barb in spied,
When he the signal full of fire attends;
And paws now here now there; and opens wide
His nostrils, and his pointed ears extends;
So the bold damsel, to the lists defied,
Who knows not with Rogero she contends,
Seemed to have fire within her veins, nor found
Resting-place, waiting for the trumpet's sound.

LXXII
As sometimes after thunder sudden wind
Turns the sea upside down; and far and nigh
Dim clouds of dust the cheerful daylight blind,
Raised in a thought from earth, and whirled heaven-high;
Scud beasts and herd together with the hind;
And into hail and rain dissolves the sky;
So she upon the signal bared her brand,
And fell on her Rogero, sword in hand.

LXXIII
But well-built wall, strong tower, or aged oak,
No more are moved by blasts that round them rave,
No more by furious sea is moved the rock,
Smote day and night by the tempestuous wave,
Than in those arms, secure from hostile stroke,
Which erst to Trojan Hector Vulcan gave,
Moved was he by that ire and hatred rank
Which stormed about his head, and breast, and flank.

LXXIV
Now aims that martial maid a trenchant blow,
And now gives point; and wholly is intent
'Twixt plate and plate to reach her hated foe;
So that her stifled fury she may vent:
Now on this side, now that, now high, now low
She strikes, and circles him, on mischief bent;
And evermore she rages and repines;
As balked of every purpose she designs.

LXXV
As he that layeth siege to well-walled town,
And flanked about with solid bulwarks, still
Renews the assault; now fain would batter down
Gateway or tower; now gaping fosse would fill;
Yet vainly toils (for entrance is there none)
And wastes his host, aye frustrate of his will;
So sorely toils and strives without avail
The damsel, nor can open plate or mail.

LXXVI
Sparks now his shield, now helm, now cuirass scatter,
While straight and back strokes, aimed now low, now high,
Which good Rogero's head and bosom batter,
And arms, by thousands and by thousands fly
Faster than on the sounding farm-roof patter
Hailstones descending from a troubled sky.
Rogero, at his ward, with dexterous care,
Defends himself, and ne'er offends the fair.

LXXVII
Now stopt, now circled, now retired the knight,
And oft his hand his foot accompanied;
And lifted shield, and shifted sword in fight,
Where shifting he the hostile hand espied.
Either he smote her not, or -- die he smite --
Smote, where he deemed least evil would betide.
The lady, ere the westering sun descend,
Desires to bring that duel to an end.

LXXVIII
Of the edict she remembered her, and knew
Her peril, save the foe was quickly sped:
For if she took not in one day nor slew
Her claimant, she was taken; and his head
Phoebus was now about to hide from view,
Nigh Hercules' pillars, in his watery bed,
When first she 'gan misdoubt her power to cope
With the strong foe, and to abandon hope.

LXXIX
By how much more hope fails the damsel, so
Much more her anger waxes; she her blows
Redoubling, yet the harness of her foe
Will break, which through that day unbroken shows;
As he, that at his daily drudgery slow,
Sees night on his unfinished labour close,
Hurries and toils and moils without avail,
Till wearied strength and light together fail.

LXXX
Didst thou, O miserable damsel, trow
Whom thou wouldst kill, if in that cavalier
Matched against thee thou didst Rogero know,
On whom depend thy very life-threads, ere
Thou killed him thou wouldst kill thyself; for thou,
I know, dost hold him than thyself more dear;
And when he for Rogero shall be known,
I know these very strokes thou wilt bemoan.

LXXXI
King Charles and peers him sheathed in plate and shell
Deem not Rogero, but the emperor's son;
And viewing in that combat fierce and fell
Such force and quickness by the stripling shown;
And, without e'er offending her, how well
That knight defends himself, now change their tone;
Esteem both well assorted; and declare
The champions worthy of each other are.