No More Learning

But she directs not all by certain plan;
Rather, upon a nearer view, I see,
In naming her, she ill can act aright,
Since Nature is herself a female hight.

CXXI
"Yet be not therefore proud and full of scorn
Women, because man issues from your seed;
For roses also blossom on the thorn,
And the fair lily springs from loathsome weed.
Despiteous, proud, importunate, and lorn
Of love, of faith, of counsel, rash in deed,
With that, ungrateful, cruel and perverse,
And born to be the world's eternal curse! "

CXXII
These plaints and countless others to the wind
Poured forth the paynim knight, to fury stirred;
Now easing in low tone his troubled mind,
And now in sounds which were at distance heard,
In shame and in reproach of womankind;
Yet certes he from sober reason erred:
For we may deem a hundred good abound,
Where one or two perchance are evil found.

CXXIII
Though none for whom I hitherto have sighed
-- Of those so many -- have kept faith with me,
All with ingratitude, or falsehood dyed
I deem not, I accuse my destiny.
Many there are, and have been more beside
Unmeriting reproach: but if there be,
'Mid hundreds, one or two of evil way,
My fortune wills that I should be their prey.

CXXIV
Yet will I make such search before I die,
Rather before my hair shall wax more white,
That haply on some future day, even I
Shall say, "That one has kept her promise plight. "
And should not the event my trust belie,
(Nor am I hopeless) I with all my might
Will with unwearied pain her praise rehearse
With pen and ink and voice, in prose and verse.

CXXV
The Saracen, whom rage no less profound
Against his sovereign lord than lady swayed,
And who of reason thus o'erpast the bound,
And ill of one and of the other said,
Would fain behold that monarch's kingdom drowned
With such a tempest, with such scathe o'erlaid,
As should in Africk every house aggrieve,
Nor one stone standing on another leave.

CXXVI
And would that from his realm, in want and woe,
King Agramant a mendicant should wend;
That through his means the monarch, brought thus low,
His fathers' ancient seat might reascend:
And thus he might the fruit of fealty show,
And make his sovereign see, a real friend
Was aye to be preferred in wrong or right,
Although the world against him should unite;

CXXVII
And thus the Saracen pours forth his moan,
With rage against his liege and love possest;
And on his way is by long journeys gone,
Giving himself and courser little rest.
The following day or next, upon the Saone
He finds himself, who has his course addrest
Towards the coast of Provence, with design
To his African domain to cross the brine.

CXXVIII
From bank to bank the stream was covered o'er
With boat of little burden, which conveyed,
For the supply of the invading Moor,
Victual, from many places round purveyed:
Since even from Paris to the pleasant shore
Of Acquamorta, all his rule obeyed;
And -- fronting Spain -- whate'er of level land
Was seen, extending on the better hand.

CXXIX
The victual, disembarked from loaded barge,
Was laid on sumpter-horse or ready wain;
And sent, with escort to protect the charge,
Where barges could not come; about the plain,
Fat herds were feeding on the double marge,
Brought thither from the march of either reign;
And, by the river-side, at close of day,
In different homesteads lodged, the drovers lay.

CXXX
The king of Argier (for the dusky air
Of night began upon the world to close)
Here listened to a village-landlord's prayer,
That in his inn besought him to repose.
-- His courser stalled -- the board with plenteous fare
Is heaped, and Corsic wine and Grecian flows;
For, in all else a Moor, the Sarzan drank
Of the forbidden vintage like a Frank.
CXXXI
To warlike Rodomont, with goodly cheer
And kindlier mien, the landlord honour paid;
For he the port of an illustrious peer
In his guest's lofty presence saw pourtrayed.
But, sore beside himself, the cavalier
Had scarce his heart within him, which had strayed
To her -- whilere his own -- in his despite;
Nor word escaped the melancholy knight.

CXXXII
Mine host, most diligent in his vocation
Of all the trade who throughout France were known,
(In that he had, 'mid strange and hostile nation,
And every chance of warfare, kept his own)
-- Prompt to assist him in his occupation,
Some of his kin had called; whereof was none
Who dared before the warrior speak of aught,
Seeing that paynim mute and lost in thought.

CXXXIII
From thought to thought the Sarzan's fancy flies,
Himself removed from thence a mighty space,
Who sits so bent, and with such downcast eyes,
He never once looks any in the face.
Next, after silence long, and many sighs,
As if deep slumber had but then given place,
His spirits he recalls, his eyelids raises,
And on the family and landlord gazes.

CXXXIV
Then silence broke, and with a milder air,
And visage somewhat less disturbed, applied
To him, the host, and those by-standers there,
To know if any to a wife were tied;
And landlord and attendants, -- that all were,
To Sarza's moody cavalier replied:
He asked what each conceited of his spouse,
And if he deemed her faithful to her vows.

CXXXV
Except mine host, those others were agreed
That chaste and good their consorts they believed.
-- "Think each man as he will, but well I read,"
(The landlord said,) "You fondly are deceived:
Your rash replies to one conclusion lead,
That you are all of common sense bereaved;
And so too must believe this noble knight,
Unless he would persuade us black is white.

CXXXVI
"Because, as single is that precious bird
The phoenix, and on earth there is but one,
So, in this ample world, it is averred,
One only can a woman's treason shun.
Each hopes alike to be that wight preferred,
The victor who that single palm has won.
-- How is it possible that what can fall
To one alone, should be the lot of all?

CXXXVII
"Erewhile I made the same mistake as you,
And that more dames than one were virtuous thought,
Until a gentleman of Venice, who,
For my good fortune, to this inn was brought,
My ignorance by his examples true
So ably schooled, he better wisdom taught.
Valerio was the name that stranger bore;
A name I shall remember evermore.

CXXXVIII
"Of wives and mistresses the treachery
Was known to him, with all their cunning lore.
He, both from old and modern history,
And from his own, was ready with such store,
As plainly showed that none to modesty
Could make pretension, whether rich or poor;
And that, if one appeared of purer strain,
'Twas that she better hid her wanton vein.

CXXXIX
"He of his many tales, among the rest,
(Whereof a third is from my memory gone)
So well one story in my head imprest,
It could not be more firmly graved in stone:
And what I thought and think, would be professed
For that ill sex, I ween by every one
Who heard; and, Sir -- if pleased to lend an ear --
To their confusion yon that tale shall hear.