No More Learning

As hard as he can smite, he smites; and woe
To thee, Marphisa, if he plants the blow!

LVIII
I cannot tell you truly in what wise,
That faulchion swerves against a cypress-stock,
In such close-serried ranks the saplings rise,
Buried above a palm within the block.
As this the mountain and the plain that lies
Beneath it, with a furious earthquake rock;
And from that marble monument proceeds
A voice, that every mortal voice exceeds.

LIX
The horrid voice exclaims, "Your quarrel leave;
For 'twere a deed unjust and inhumane,
That brother should of life his sister reave,
Or sister by her brother's hand be slain.
Rogero and Marphisa mine, believe!
The tale which I deliver is not vain.
Seed of one father, on one womb ye lay;
And first together saw the light of day.

LX
"Galaciella's children are ye, whom
She to Rogero, hight the second, bare.
Whose brothers, having, by unrighteous doom,
Of your unhappy sire deprived that fair,
Not heeding that she carried in her womb
Ye, who yet suckers of their lineage are,
Her in a rotten carcase of a boat,
To founder in mid ocean, set afloat.

LXI
"But Fortune, that had destined you whilere,
And yet unborn, to many a fair emprize,
Your mother to that lonely shore did steer,
Which overright the sandy Syrtes lies.
Where, having given you birth, that spirit dear
Forthwith ascended into Paradise.
A witness of the piteous case was I,
So Heaven had willed, and such your destiny!

LXII
"I to the dame as descent burial gave
As could be given upon that desert sand.
Ye, well enveloped in my vest, I save,
And bear to Mount Carena from the strand;
And make a lioness leave whelps and cave,
And issue from the wood, with semblance bland.
Ye, twice ten months, with mickle fondness bred,
And from her paps the milky mother fed.
LXIII
"Needing to quit my home upon a day,
And journey through the country, (as you can
Haply remember ye) we are on our way,
Were overtaken by an Arab clan.
Those robbers thee, Marphisa, bore away:
While young Rogero 'scaped, who better ran.
Bereaved of thee, they woful loss I wept,
And with more watchful care thy brother kept.

LXIV
"Rogero, if Atlantes watched thee well,
While yet he was alive, thou best dost know.
I the fixed stars had heard of thee foretell,
That thou shouldst perish by a treacherous foe
In Christian land; and still their influence fell
Was ended, laboured to avert the blow;
Nor having power in fine thy will to guide,
I sickened sore, and of my sorrow died.

LXV
"But here, before my death, for in this glade
I knew thou should'st with bold Marphisa fight,
I with huge stones, amassed by hellish aid,
Had this fair monument of marble dight;
And I to Charon with loud outcries said;
I would not he should hence convey my sprite,
Till here, prepared in deadly fray to strive,
Rogero and his sister should arrive.

LXVI
"Thus has my spirit for this many a day
Waited thy coming in these beauteous groves;
So be no more to jealous fears a prey,
O Bradamant, because Rogero loves.
But me to quit the cheerful realms of day,
And seek the darksome cloisters it behoves. "
Here ceased the voice; which in the Child amazed
And those two damsels mighty marvel raised.

LXVII
Gladly a sister in the martial queen
Rogero, she in him a brother knows;
Who now embrace, nor move her jealous spleen,
That with the love of young Rogero glows;
And citing what, and when, and where had been
Their childish deeds, as they to memory rose,
In summing up past times, more sure they hold
The things whereof the wizard's spirit told.

LXVIII
Rogero from Marphisa does not hide,
How Bradamant to him at heart is dear;
And by what obligations he is tied
In moving words relates the cavalier;
Nor ceases till he has, on either side,
Turned to firm love the hate they bore whilere.
When, as a sign of peace, and discord chased,
They, at his bidding, tenderly embraced.

LXIX
Marphisa to Rogero makes request
To say what sire was theirs, and what their strain;
And how he died; by banded foes opprest,
Or at close barriers, was the warrior slain?
And who it was had issued the behest
To drown their mother in the stormy main?
For of the tale, if ever heard before,
Little or nothing she in memory bore.

LXX
"Of Trojan ancestors are we the seed,
Through famous Hector's line," (Rogero said,)
"For after young Astyanax was freed,
From fierce Ulysses and the toils he spread,
Leaving another stripling in his stead,
Of his own age, he out of Phrygia fled.