No More Learning

XXXIX
Rinaldo seeking out the sage anew
For his reply -- he would dissuade the knight
From loving more that Indian lady, who
Now waited on a vile barbarian wight;
And was so distant he could ill pursue;
If he would chase the damsel on her flight,
Who must have measured than half her way
Homeward, with young Medoro to Catay.

XL
In that bold lover no displeasure deep
The journey of Angelica would move;
Nor yet would mar or break the warrior's sleep
To think that he again must eastward rove:
But that a stripling Saracen should reap
The first fruits of that faithless lady's love
In him such passion bred, such heart-ache sore,
He never in his life so grieved before.

XLI
No power hath he to make one sole reply;
His heart, his lip, is quivering with disdain;
His tongue no word is able to untie;
His mouth is bitter, and 'twould seem with bane.
He flung from the magician suddenly,
And, as by fury stirred and jealous pain,
He after mighty plaint and mighty woe
Resolved anew to eastern realms to go.

XLII
Licence he asks of Pepin's royal son,
Upon the ground, since with his courser dear
To Sericane is King Gradasso gone,
Against the use of gallant cavalier,
Him honour moves the selfsame course to run,
In the end he may prevent the paynim peer
From ever vaunting, that with sword or lance
He took him from a Paladin of France.

XLIII
Charles gives him leave to go; though, far and nigh,
With him all France laments he thence should wend;
But he in fine that prayer can ill deny,
So honest seems the worthy warrior's end.
Him Dudon, Guido, would accompany;
But he refuses either valiant friend:
From Paris he departs, and wends alone,
Plunged in his grief and heaving many a groan.

XLIV
Ever in memory dwells the restless thought,
He might a thousand times have had the fair;
And -- mad and obstinate -- had, when besought,
A thousand times refused such beauty rare;
And such sweet joy was whilom set at nought,
Such bright, such blessed moments wasted were;
And now he life would gladly give away
To have that damsel but for one short day.

XLV
The thought will never from his mind depart,
How for a sorry footpage she could slight,
-- Flinging their merit and their love apart --
The service of each former loving wight.
Vext by such thought, which racked and rent his heart,
Rinaldo wends towards the rising light:
He the straight road to Rhine and Basle pursued,
Till he arrived in Arden's mighty wood.

XLVI
When within that adventurous wood has hied
For many a mile Montalban's cavalier,
Of lonely farm or lordly castle wide,
Where the rude place was roughest and most drear,
The sky disturbed he suddenly descried,
He saw the sun's dimmed visage disappear,
And spied forth issuing from a cavern hoar
A monster, which a woman's likeness wore.

XLVII
A thousand lidless eyes are in her head:
She cannot close them, nor, I think, doth sleep:
She listens with as many ears, and spread
Like hair, about her forehead serpents creep.
Forth issued into day that figure dread
From devilish darkness and the caverned deep.
For tail, a fierce and bigger serpent wound
About her breast, and girt the monster round.

XLVIII
What in a thousand, thousand quests had ne'er
Befal'n Rinaldo, here befel the knight;
Who, when he sees the horrid form appear,
Coming to seek him and prepared for fight,
Feels in his inmost veins such freezing fear,
As haply never fell on other wight;
Yet wonted daring counterfeits and feigns,
And with a trembling hand the faulchion strains.
XLIX
The monster so the fierce assault did make
Therein her master was well descried,
It might be said; she shook a poisonous snake,
And now on this, now on the other side,
Leapt at the knight; at her Rinaldo strake
Ever meanwhile with random blows and wide;
With forestroke, backstroke, he assails the foe;
He often smites, but never plants a blow.

L
The monster threw a serpent at his breast,
That froze his heart beneath its iron case:
Now through the vizor flung the poisonous pest,
Which crept about his collar and his face.
Dismaid, Rinaldo fled the field, and prest
With all his spurs his courser through the chase:
But not behind the hellish monster halts,
Who in a thought upon the crupper vaults.

LI
Wend where the warrior will, an-end or wide,
Ever with him is that accursed Pest:
Nor knows he how from her to be untied,
Albeit his courser plunges without rest.
Like a leaf quakes his heart within his side,
Not that the snakes in other mode molest,
But they such horror and such loathing bred,
He shrieks, he groans, and gladly would be dead.

LII
By gloomiest track and blindest path he still
Threaded the tangled forest here and there;
By thorniest valley and by roughest hill,
And wheresoever darkest was the air;
Thus hoping to have rid him of that ill,
Hideous, abominable, poisonous Care;
Beneath whose gripe he foully might have fared,
But that one quickly to his aid repaired.

LIII
But aid, and in good time, a horseman bore,
Equipt with arms of beauteous steel and clear:
For crest, a broken yoke the stranger wore;
Red flames upon his yellow shield appear:
So was the courser's housing broidered o'er,
As the proud surcoat of the cavalier.
His lance he grasped, his sword was in its place,
And at his saddle hung a burning mace.

LIV
That warrior's mace a fire eternal fills,
Whose lasting fuel ever blazes bright;
And goodly buckler, tempered corslet thrills,
And solid helm; then needs the approaching knight
Must make him way, wherever 'tis his will
To turn his inextinguishable light.
Nor of less help in need Rinaldo stands,
To save him from the cruel monster's hands.

LV
The stranger horseman, like a warrior bold,
Where he that hubbub hears, doth thither swoop,
Until he sees the beast, whose snakes enfold
Rinaldo, linked in many a loathsome loop,
Who sweats at once with heat and quakes with cold,
Nor can he thrust the monster from his croup.
Arrived the stranger smote her in the flank,
Who on the near side of the courser sank:

LVI
But scarcely was on earth extended, ere
She rose and shook her snakes in volumed spire.
The knight no more assails her with the spear;
But is resolved to plague the foe with fire:
He gripes the mace and thunders in her rear
With frequent blows, like tempest in its ire;
Nor leaves a moment to that monster fell
To strike one stroke in answer, ill or well;

LVII
And, while he chases her or holds at bay,
Smites her and venges many a foul affront,
Counsels the paladin, without delay,
To take the road which scales the neighbouring mount:
He took that proffered counsel and that way,
And without stop, or turning back his front,
Pricked furiously till he was out of sight;
Though hard to clamber was the rugged height.

LVIII
The stranger, when he to her dark retreat
Had driven from upper light that beast of hell
(Where she herself doth ever gnaw and eat,
While from her thousand eyes tears ceaseless well)
Followed the knight, to guide his wandering feet;
And overtook him on the highest swell;
Then placed himself beside the cavalier
Him from those dark and gloomy parts to steer.

LIX
When him returned beheld Montalban's knight,
That countless thanks were due to him, he said,
And that at all times, as a debt of right,
His life should be for his advantage paid.
Of him he next demands, how he is hight,
That he may know and tell who brought him aid;
And among worthy warriors, and before
King Charles, exalt his prowess evermore.