No More Learning

I' the midst the Scottish prince, with drooping head,
Is, bound upon a little hackney, led.

LIII
But HE who with the innocent oft sides,
Nor those abandons who make him their stay,
For prince Zerbino such defence provides,
There is no fear that he will die to-day;
God thitherward renowned Orlando guides;
Whose coming for his safety paves the way:
Orlando sees beneath him on a plain
The youth to death conducted by the train.

LIV
With him was wended she, that in the cell,
Prisoned, Orlando found; that royal maid,
Child of Gallicia's king, fair Isabel,
Whom chance into the ruffians' power conveyed,
What time her ship she quitted, by the swell
Of the wild sea and tempest overlaid:
The damsel, who, yet nearer her heart-core
Than her own vital being, Zerbino wore.

LV
She had beneath Orlando's convoy strayed,
Since rescued from the cave. When on the plain
The damsel saw the motley troop arrayed,
She asked Orlando what might be the train?
"I know not," said the Count; and left the maid
Upon the height, and hurried towards the plain.
He marked Zerbino, and at the first sight
A baron of high worth esteemed the knight,

LVI
And asked him why and wherefore him they led
Thus captive, to Zerbino drawing near:
At this the doleful prince upraised his head,
And, having better heard the cavalier,
Rehearsed the truth; and this so well he said,
That he deserved the succour of the peer.
Well Sir Orlando him, by his reply,
Deemed innocent, and wrongly doomed to die.

LVII
And, after he had heard 'twas at the hest
Of Anselm, Count of Altaripa, done,
Was certain 'twas and outrage manifest,
Since nought but ill could spring from him; and one,
Moreover, was the other's foe profest,
From ancient hate and enmity, which run
In Clermont and Maganza's blood; a feud
With injuries, and death and shame pursued.

LVIII
Orlando to the rabble cried, "Untie
The cavalier, unless you would be slain. "
-- "Who deals such mighty blows? " -- one made reply,
That would be thought the truest of the train;
"Were he of fire who makes such bold defy,
We wax or straw, too haughty were the strain":
And charged with that the paladin of France.
Orlando at the losel couched his lance.

LIX
The shining armour which the chief had rent
From young Zerbino but the night before,
And clothed himself withal, poor succour lent
Against Orlando in that combat sore.
Against the churl's right cheek the weapon went:
It failed indeed his tempered helm to bore,
But such a shock he suffered in the strife,
As broke his neck, and stretched him void of life.
LX
All at one course, of other of the band,
With lance unmoved, he pierced the bosom through;
Left it; on Durindana laid his hand,
And broke into the thicket of the crew:
One head in twain he severed with the brand,
(While, from the shoulders lopt, another flew)
Of many pierced the throat; and in a breath
Above a hundred broke and put to death.

LXI
Above a third he killed, and chased the rest,
And smote, and pierced, and cleft, as he pursued.
Himself of helm or shield one dispossest;
One with spontoon or bill the champaign strewed
This one along the road, across it prest
A fourth; this squats in cavern or in wood.
Orlando, without pity, on that day
Lets none escape whom he has power to slay.

LXII
Of a hundred men and twenty, in that crew,
(So Turpin sums them) eighty died at least.
Thither Orlando finally withdrew,
Where, with a heart sore trembling in his breast,
Zerbino sat; how he at Roland's view
Rejoiced, in verse can hardly be exprest:
Who, but that he was on the hackney bound,
Would at his feet have cast himself to ground.

LXIII
While Roland, after he had loosed the knight,
Helped him to don his shining arms again;
Stript from those serjeants' captain, who had dight
Himself with the good harness, to his pain;
The prince on Isabella turned his sight,
Who had halted on the hill above the plain:
And, after she perceived the strife was o'er,
Nearer the field of fight her beauties bore.

LXIV
When young Zerbino at his side surveyed
The lady, who by him was held so dear;
The beauteous lady, whom false tongue had said
Was drowned, so often wept with many a tear,
As if ice at his heart-core had been laid,
Waxed cold, and some deal shook the cavalier;
But the chill quickly past, and he, instead,
Was flushed with amorous fire, from foot to head.

LXV
From quickly clipping her in his embrace,
Him reverence for Anglantes' sovereign stayed;
Because he thought, and held for certain case,
That Roland was a lover of the maid;
So past from pain to pain; and little space
Endured the joy which he at first assayed.
And worse he bore she should another's be,
Than hearing that the maid was drowned at sea.

LXVI
And worse he grieved, that she was with a knight
To whom he owed so much: because to wrest
The lady from his hand, was neither right,
Nor yet perhaps would prove an easy quest.
He, without quarrel, had no other wight
Suffered to part, of such a prize possest;
But would endure, Orlando (such his debt)
A foot upon his prostrate neck should set.

LXVII
The three in silence journey to a font,
Where they alight, and halt beside the well;
His helmet here undid the weary Count,
And made the prince too quit the iron shell.
The youth unhelmed, she sees her lover's front,
And pale with sudden joy grows Isabel:
Then, changing, brightened like a humid flower,
When the warm sun succeeds to drenching shower.

LXVIII
And without more delay or scruple, prest
To cast her arms about her lover dear;
And not a word could draw-forth from her breast,
But bathed his neck and face with briny tear.
Orlando, who remarked the love exprest,
Needing no more to make the matter clear,
Could not but, by these certain tokens, see
The could no other but Zerbino be.