No More Learning

Thus each bestirs himself like valorous knight,
Who follows Clermont's banner to the fight.

LVI
Seven hundred men with good Rinaldo speed,
Drawn from Mount Alban and the townships nigh
-- No fiercer erst obeyed Achilles' lead --
Enured to summer and to winter sky:
So stout each warrior is, so good at need,
A hundred would not from a thousand fly;
And, better than some famous cavaliers,
Many amid that squadron couch their spears.

LVII
If good Rinaldo gathers small supplies
From rents or cities, which his rule obey,
So these he bound by words and courtesies,
And sharing what he had with his array,
Is none that ever from his service buys
Deserter by the bribe of better pay.
Of Montalbano these are left in care,
Save pressing need demands their aid elsewhere.

LVIII
Them now in succour of King Charles he stirred,
And left with little guard his citadel.
Among the Africans that squadron spurred,
That squadron, of whose doughty feats I tell,
Doing by them what wolf on woolly herd
Does where Galesus' limpid waters well,
Or lion by the bearded goat and rank,
That feeds on Cinyphus's barbarous bank.

LIX
Tidings to Charles Rinaldo had conveyed,
That he for Paris with his squadron steers,
To assail, by night, the paynims ill purveyed;
And ready and in arms the king appears.
He, when his help is needed, comes in aid,
With all his peerage, and, beside his peers,
Brings Monodantes' son, amid that crew,
Of Flordelice the lover chaste and true;

LX
Whom by such long and by such tedious way
She sought throughout the realm of France in vain;
Here by the cognizance, his old display,
Afar, by her distinguished from the train.
At the first sight of her he quits the fray,
And wears a semblance loving and humane.
He clipt her round with many a fond caress,
And kissed a thousand times, or little less.

LXI
To dame and damsel in that ancient age
They trusted much, that, in their wandering vein,
Roved, unescorted, many a weary stage,
Through foreign countries and by hill and plain;
Whom they returning hold for fair and sage,
Nor of their faith suspicion entertain.
Here Brandimart by Flordelice was taught
How Roland wandered, of his wits distraught.

LXII
Had he such strange and evil tidings heard
From other lips, he scarce had these believed:
But credited fair Flordelice's word,
From whom more wondrous things he had received,
Nor this, as told by other, she averred;
This had she seen, and ill could be deceived;
For well as any she Orlando knows;
And both the when and where that damsel shows.

LXIII
She tells him how the perilous bridge's floor
From cavaliers king Rodomont defends;
Where, on a pompous sepulchre, the Moor
His prisoners' ravished arms and vest suspends;
Tells how she saw Orlando, raging sore,
Do fearful deeds, and her relation ends,
Describing how the paynim fell reversed,
To his great peril, in the stream immersed.

LXIV
Brandimart, who the Country loves as dear
As man can love a brother, friend, or son,
Disposed to seek Orlando, far and near,
Nor pain nor peril in the adventure shun,
Till something for the comfort of that peer
By wizard's or by leech's art be done,
Armed as he is, leaps lightly on his steed,
And takes his way beneath the lady's lead.
LXV
Thitherward were Orlando she had spied,
In company the knight and lady made.
They daily post till to that bridge they ride,
Which Argier's king maintained, in arms arraid,
To him the guard their coming signified;
Courser and arms his squires as well conveyed;
And Brandimart no sooner is at hand
Than Rodomont is armed and at his stand.

LXVI
With lofty voice the sovereign of Argier,
Assorting with his moody rage, 'gan say:
" -- Whoe'er thou art, sir knight, and whencesoe'er --
Brought by mistake of purpose or of way,
Light from thine horse and doff thy warlike gear,
To deck this sepulchre, ere thee I slay,
An offering to its lovely tenant's spirit;
And thou in thy forced homage have no merit. "

LXVII
Brandimart, at the paynim's proud discourse,
His weapon in the rest, for answer, layed;
He good Batoldo spurred, his gentle horse,
And at the champion with such fury made,
As showed that he, for courage and for force,
With any warrior in the world had weighed.
King Rodomont as well, with rested spear,
Thundered along the bridge, in fierce career.

LXVIII
The paynim's courser, ever used to go
Upon that bridge's fearful pass, where one
Fell prone parforce into the stream below,
Securely to the fierce encounter run:
While, trembling, and irresolute in show,
That other to the unwonted course is gone.
Quivers the bridge beneath, as it would sink:
Narrow that passage is, unfenced the brink!

LXIX
With heavy spears, the growth of forest hoar,
Saplings rough-hewn, those masters of the just,
Upon the perilous bridge encountering sore,
Exchange, on either side, no gentle thrust.
Nor much their mighty strength or manege-lore
Avails the steeds; for, prostrate in the dust,
Crumbles each knight and charger in mid-course;
Whelmed in one fate, the rider and his horse.

LXX
When either steed would nimbly spring from ground,
As the spur galled and gored his bleeding flank,
He on that little bridge no footing found;
For all to narrow was the scanty plank.
Hence both fall headlong, and the deafening sound
Re-echo vaulted skies and grassy bank.
So rang our stream, when from the heavenly sphere
Was hurled the sun's ill-fated charioteer.

LXXI
With all their weight, down hurtled from the steep,
Coursers and cavaliers, who sate them well;
And dived into the river's darksome deep,
To search for beauteous nymph in secret cell.
Nor this the first nor yet the second leap
Which from the bridge had made that infidel!
Who, often floundering in its oozy bed,
Well in the soundings of that stream was read.

LXXII
He where 'tis hand and where 'tis softer knows,
Where shallow is the water, where profound:
With breast and flanks above the waves he rose,
And Brandimart assailed on safer ground.