No More Learning

"

XCV
If him these thoughts so harass and torment,
That bird and beast are softened by his cries;
(For, saving these, none hears the sad lament,
Nor sees the flood that trickles form his eyes)
You are not to believe that more content
The Lady Bradamant in Paris lies;
Who can no longer her delay excuse,
Nor Leo for her wedded lord refuse.

XCVI
Ere she herself to any consort tie,
Beside her own Rogero, she will fain
Do what so can be done; her word belie;
Anger friends, kindred, court, and Charlemagne;
And if she nothing else can do, will die,
By poison or her own good faulchion slain:
For not to live appears far lesser woe,
Than, living, her Rogero to forego.

XCVII
"Rogero mine, ah! wonder gone" (she cried)
"Art thou; and canst thou so far distant be,
Thou heardest not this royal edict cried,
A thing concealed from none, expecting thee?
Faster than thee would none have hither hied,
I wot, hadst thou known this; ah! wretched me!
How can I e'er in future think of aught,
Saving the worst that can by me be thought?

XCVIII
"How can it be, Rogero, thou alone
Hast read not what by all the world is read?
If thou hast read it not, nor hither flown,
How canst thou but a prisoner be, or dead?
But well I wot, that if the truth were known,
This Leo will for thee some snare have spread:
The traitor will have barred thy way, intent
Thou shouldst not him by better speed prevent.

XCIX
"From Charles I gained the promise, that to none
Less puissant than myself should I be given;
In the reliance thou wouldst be that one,
With whom I should in arms have vainly striven.
None I esteemed, excepting thee alone:
But well my rashness is rebuked by Heaven:
Since I by one am taken in this wise
Unfamed through life for any fair emprize.

C
"If I am held as taken, since the knight
I had not force to take nor yet to slay;
A thing that is not, in my judgment, right;
Nor I to Charles's sentence will give way,
I know that I shall be esteemed as light,
If what I lately said, I now unsay;
But of those many ladies that have past
For light, I am not, I, the first or last.

CI
"Enough I to my lover faith maintain,
And, firmer than a rock, am still found true!
And far herein surpass the female train,
That were in olden days, or are in new!
Nor, if they me as fickle shall arraign,
Care I, so good from fickleness ensue;
Though I am lighter than a leaf be said,
So I be forced not with that Greek no wed. "

CII
These things and more beside the damsel bright
('Twixt which oft sobs and tears were interposed),
Ceased not to utter through the livelong night
Which upon that unhappy day had closed.
But, when within Cimmeria's caverned height
Nocturnus with his troops of shades reposed,
Heaven, which eternally had willed the maid
Should be Rogero's consort, brought him aid:

CIII
This moves the haught Marphisa, when 'tis morn,
To appear before the king; to whom that maid
Saith, to the Child, her brother, mighty scorn
Was done; nor should he be so ill appaid,
That from him should his plighted wife be torn;
And nought thereof unto the warrior said;
And on whoever lists she will in strife
Prove Bradamant to be Rogero's wife;

CIV
And this, before all others, will prove true
On her, if to deny it she will dare;
For she had to Rogero, in her view,
Spoken those words, which they that marry swear;
And with all ceremony wont and due
So was the contract sealed between the pair,
They were no longer free; nor could forsake
The one the other, other spouse to take.

CV
Whether Marphisa true or falsely spake,
I well believe that, rather with intent
Young Leo's purpose, right or wrong, to break,
Than tell the truth, she speaks; and with consent
Of Bradamant doth that avowal make:
For to exclude the hated Leo bent,
And of Rogero to be repossest,
This she believes her shortest way and best.

CVI
Sorely by this disturbed, King Charlemagne
Bade Bradamant be called, and to her told
That which the proud Marphisa would maintain;
And Aymon present in the press behold!
-- Bradamant drops her head, nor treats as vain,
Nor vouches what avows that virgin bold,
In such confusion, they may well believe
That fierce Marphisa speaks not to deceive.

CVII
Joy good Orlando and joy Rinaldo show,
Who view in valorous Marphisa's plea
A cause the alliance shall no further go,
Which sealed already Leo deemed to be;
And yet, in spite of stubborn Aymon's no,
Bradamant shall Rogero's consort be;
And they may, without strife, without despite
Done to Duke Aymon's, give her to the knight.

CVIII
For if such words have pass'd between the twain,
Fast is the knot and cannot be untied;
They what they vowed more fairly will obtain,
And without further strife are these affied.
"This is a plot, a plot devised in vain;
And ye deceive yourselves (Duke Aymon cried)
For, were the story true which ye have feigned,
Believe not therefore that your cause is gained.

CIX
"For granting what I will not yet allow,
And what I to believe as yet demur;
That weakly to Rogero so her vow
Was plighted, as Rogero's was to her;
Where was the contract made, and when and how?
More clearly this to me must ye aver.
Either it was not so, I am advised;
Or was before Rogero was baptized.

CX
"But if it were before the youthful knight
A Christian was, I will not heed it, I;
For 'twixt a faithful and a paynim wight,
I deem that nought avails the marriage-tie.
For this not vainly in the doubtful fight
Should Constantine's fair son have risked to die;
Nor Charlemagne for this, our sovereign lord
Will forfeit, I believe, his plighted word.

CXI
"What now you say you should before have said,
While yet the matter was unbroke, and ere
Charles at my daughter's prayer that edict made
Which has drawn Leo to the combat here. "
Orlando and Rinaldo were gainsayed
So before royal Charles by Clermont's peer;
And equal Charlemagne heard either side,
But neither would for this nor that decide.