No More Learning

Then Rodomont -- "The steed I may my own;
Since him a champion rides of such renown.

XXXVI
"If he, as you relate, be of such force,
That he surprises all beside in might,
I needs must pay the hire as well as horse;
And be this at the pleasure of the knight!
That I am Rodomont, to him discourse;
And, if indeed with me he lists to fight,
Me shall to find; in that I shine confest,
By my own light, in motion or at rest.

XXXVII
"I leave such vestige wheresoe'er I tread,
The volleyed thunder leaves not worse below. "
He had thrown back, over Frontino's head,
The courser's gilded reins, in saying so,
Backed him, and left Hippalca sore bested;
Who, bathed in tears, and goaded by her woe,
Cries shame on him, and threats the king with ill:
Rodomont hearkens not, and climbs the hill:

XXXVIII
Whither the dwarf conducts him on the trace
Of Doralice and Mandricardo bold.
Behind, Hippalca him in ceaseless chase,
Pursues with taunt and curses manifold.
What came of this is said in other place.
Turpin, by whom this history is told,
Here makes digression, and returns again
Thither, where faithless Pinnabel was slain.

XXXIX
Duke Aymon's daughter scarce had turned away
From thence, who on her track in haste had gone,
Ere thither by another path, astray,
Zerbino came, with that deceitful crone,
And saw the bleeding body where it lay:
And, though the warrior was to him unknown,
As good and courteous, felt his bosom swell,
With pity at that cruel sight and fell.

XL
Dead lay Sir Pinnabel, and bathed in gore;
From whom such streams of blood profusely flow,
As were a cause for wonderment, had more
Swords than a hundred joined to lay him low.
A print of recent footsteps to explore
The cavalier of Scotland was not slow;
Who took the adventure, in the hope to read
Who was the doer of the murderous deed.

XLI
The hag to wait was ordered by the peer,
Who would return to her in little space.
She to the body of the count drew near,
And with fixt eye examined every place;
Who willed not aught, that in her sight was dear,
The body of the dead should vainly grace;
As one who, soiled with every other vice,
Surpassed all womankind in avarice.

XLII
If she in any manner could have thought,
Or hoped to have concealed the intended theft,
The bleeding warrior's surcoat, richly wrought,
She would, together with his arms, have reft;
But at what might be safely hidden, caught,
And, grieved at heart, forewent the glorious weft.
Him of a beauteous girdle she undrest,
And this secured between a double vest.
XLIII
Zerbino after some short space came back,
Who vainly Bradamant had thence pursued
Through the green holt; because the beaten track
Was lost in many others in the wood;
And he (for daylight now began to lack)
Feared night should catch him 'mid those mountains rude,
And with the impious woman thence, in quest
Of inn, from the disastrous valley prest.

XLIV
A spacious town, which Altaripa hight,
Journeying the twain, at two miles' distance spy:
There stopt the pair, and halted for the night,
Which, at full soar, even now went up the sky:
Nor long had rested there ere, left and right,
They from the people heard a mournful cry;
And saw fast tears from every eyelid fall,
As if some cause of sorrow touched them all.

XLV
Zerbino asked the occasion, and 'twas said
Tidings had been to Count Anselmo brought,
That Pinnabel, his son, was lying dead
In a streight way between two mountains wrought.
Zerbino feigned surprise, and hung his head,
In fear lest he the assassin should be thought;
But well divined this was the wight he found
Upon his journey, lifeless on the ground.

XLVI
After some little time, the funeral bier
Arrives, 'mid torch and flambeau, where the cries
Are yet more thick, and to the starry sphere
Lament and noise of smitten hands arise;
And faster and from fuller vein the tear
Waters all cheeks, descending from the eyes;
But in a cloud more dismal than the rest,
Is the unhappy father's visage drest.

XLVII
While solemn preparation so was made
For the grand obsequies, with reverence due,
According to old use and honours paid,
In former age, corrupted by each new;
A proclamation of their lord allayed
Quickly the noise of the lamenting crew;
Promising any one a mighty gain
That should denounce by whom his son was slain.

XLVIII
From voice to voice, from one to other ear,
The loud proclaim they through the town declare;
Till this the wicked woman chanced to hear,
Who past in rage the tyger or the bear;
And hence the ruin of the Scottish peer,
Either in hatred, would the crone prepare,
Or were it she alone might boast to be,
In human form, without humanity;

XLIX
Or were it but to gain the promised prize; --
She to seek out the grieving county flew,
And, prefacing her tale in likely wise,
Said that Zerbino did the deed; and drew
The girdle forth, to witness to her lies;
Which straight the miserable father knew;
And on the woman's tale and token built
A clear assurance of Zerbino's guilt.

L
And, weeping, with raised hands, was heard to say,
He for his murdered son would have amends.
To block the hostel where Zerbino lay,
For all the town is risen, the father sends.
The prince, who deems his enemies away,
And no such injury as this attends,
In his first sleep is seized by Anselm's throng,
Who thinks he has endured so foul a wrong.

LI
That night in prison, fettered with a pair
Of heavy letters, is Zerbino chained.
For before yet the skies illuminated are,
The wrongful execution is ordained;
And in the place will he be quartered, where
The deed was done for which he is arraigned.
No other inquest is on this received;
It is enough that so their lord believed.

LII
When, the next morn, Aurora stains with dye
Red, white, and yellow, the clear horizon,
The people rise, to punish ("Death! " their cry)
Zerbino for the crime he has not done:
They without order him accompany,
A lawless multitude, some ride, some run.
I' the midst the Scottish prince, with drooping head,
Is, bound upon a little hackney, led.