No More Learning

To unravel that first cause of enmity
The king began -- the strife which had ensued,
Because of beauteous Doralice, between
The king of Scythia and her Algerine.

CIII
King Agramant oft moved, between the pair,
Now here now there, to bring them to accord;
Now there now here, admonishing that pair,
Like faithful brother and like righteous lord:
But when he found that neither would forbear,
Deaf and rebellious to his royal word,
Nor would consent that lady to forego,
The cause of strife, in favour of his foe,

CIV
As his best lore, at length the monarch said,
And to obey his sentence both were fain;
That he who was by her preferred, should wed
The beauteous daughter of King Stordilane:
And that what was established on his head
Should not be changed, to either's loss or gain.
The compromise was liked on either side,
Since either hoped she would for him decide.

CV
The mighty king of Sarza, who long space
Before the Tartar, had loved Doralice,
(Who had preferred that sovereign to such grace
As modest lady may, nor do amiss)
Believed, when she past sentence on the case,
She must pronounce what would ensure his bliss.
Nor thus alone King Rodomont conceived,
But all the Moorish host with him believed.

CVI
All know what exploits wrought by him had been
For her in joust and war; they all unsound
And weak King Mandricardo's judgment ween;
But he, who oft was with her on their round,
And oftener private with the youthful queen,
What time the tell-tale sun was under ground,
He, knowing well how sure he was to speed,
Laughed at the silly rabble's idle creed.

CVII
They, after, ratify the king's award,
Between his hands, and next the suitors twain
Before that damsel go, that on the sward
Fixing her downcast eyes, in modest vein,
Avows her preference of the Tartar lord;
At which sore wondering stand the paynim train;
And Rodomont remains so sore astound,
He cannot raise his visage from the ground.

CVIII
But wonted anger chasing shame which dyed
The Sarzan's face all over, he arraigned
The damsel's sentence, of the faulchion, tied
About his manly waist, the handle strained,
And in the king's and others' hearing cried:
"By this the question shall be lost or gained;
And not by faithless woman's fickle thought,
Which thither still inclines, where least it ought. "

CIX
Kind Mandricardo on his feet once more,
Exclaims, "And be it as it pleases thee. "
So that ere yet the vessel made the shore
Unploughed remained a mighty space of sea;
But that this king reproved the Sarzan sore,
Ruling that to appeal upon that plea
No more with Mandricardo could avail,
And made the moody Sarzan strike his sail.

CX
Branded with double scorn, before those peers,
By noble Agramant, whose sovereign sway
He, as in loyal duty bound, reveres,
And by his lady on the selfsame day,
There will no more the monarch of Algiers
Abide, but of his band -- a large array --
Two serjeants only for his service takes,
And with that pair the paynim camp forsakes.

CXI
As the afflicted bull who has foregone
His heifer, nor can longer warfare wage,
Seeks out the greenwood-holt and stream most lone,
Or sands at distance from his pasturage;
There ceases not, in sun or shade to moan;
Yet not for that exhales his amorous rage:
So parts, constrained his lady to forego,
The king of Argier, overwhelmed with woe.

CXII
Rogero moved, his courser to regain,
And had already donned his warlike gear,
Then recollecting, that on listed plain
At Mandricardo he must couch the spear,
Followed not Rodomont, but turned his rein,
To end his quarrel with the Tartar, ere
He met in combat Sericana's lord
Within close barriers, for Orlando's sword.

CXIII
To have Frontino ravished in his sight,
And be unable to forbid the deed,
He sorely grieves; but, when he shall that fight
Have done, resolves he will regain the steed;
But Sacripant, whom, like the youthful knight,
No quarrels in the Moor's pursuit impede,
And who was unengaged in other quest,
Upon the Sarzan's footsteps quickly prest;

CXIV
And would have quickly joined him that was gone,
But for the chance of an adventure rare;
Which him detained until the day was done,
And made him lose the track of Ulien's heir:
A woman who had fallen into the Saone,
And who without his help had perished there,
The warrior drowning in that water found,
And stemmed the stream and dragged the dame aground.

CXV
When afterwards he would remount the sell,
From him his restless charger broke astray,
Who fled before his lord till evening fell,
Nor lightly did the king that courser stay.
At last he caught him; but no more could spell
Where he had wandered from the beaten way:
Two hundred miles he roved, 'twist hill and plain,
Ere he came up with Rodomont again.

CXVI
How he by Sacripant was overtaken,
And fought by him, to his discomfit sore,
And how he lost his courser, how was taken,
I say not now, who have to say before,
With what disdain and with what anger shaken,
Against his liege and love, the Sarzan Moor
Forth from the Saracen cantonments sped,
And what he of the one and other said.

CXVII
Wherever that afflicted paynim goes,
He fills the kindling air with sighs that burn;
And Echo oft, for pity of his woes,
With him from hollow rock is heard to mourn:
"O female mind! how lightly ebbs and flows
Your fickle mood," (he cries,) "aye prone to turn!
Object most opposite to kindly faith!
Lost, wretched man, who trusts you to his scathe!

CXVIII
"Neither my love nor length of servitude,
Though by a thousand proofs to you made clear,
Had power even so to fix your faithless mood,
That you at least so lightly should not veer:
Nor am I quitted, because less endued
With worth than Mandricardo I appear;
Nor for your conduct cause can I declare,
Save this alone, that you a woman are.

CXIX
"I think that nature and an angry God
Produced thee to the world, thou wicked sex,
To be to man a plague, a chastening rod;
Happy, wert thou not present to perplex.
So serpent creeps along the grassy sod;
So bear and ravening wolf the forest vex;
Wasp, fly, and gad-fly buzz in liquid air,
And the rich grain lies tangled with the tare.

CXX
"Why has not bounteous Nature willed that man
Should be produced without the aid of thee,
As we the pippin, pear, and service can
Engraft by art on one another's tree?
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.