No More Learning

Of our fair lineage many a noble deed
Shalt thou hear blazed abroad by sounding Fame. "
Of Agolant's inroad next the stripling told,
With Agramant and with Almontes bold;

LXXIII
And how a lovely daughter, who excelled
In feats of arms, that king accompanied;
So stout she many paladins had quelled;
And how, in fine, she for Rogero sighed;
And for his love against her sire rebelled;
And was baptized, and was Rogero's bride;
And how a traitor loved (him Bertram name)
His brother's wife with an incestuous flame;

LXXIV
And country, sire, and brethren two betrayed,
Hoping he so the lady should have won;
How Risa open to the foe he laid,
By whom all scathe was on those kinsmen done;
How Agolant's two furious sons conveyed
Their mother, great with child, and six months gone,
Aboard a helmless boat, and with its charge,
In wildest winter, turned adrift the barge.

LXXV
Valiant Marphisa, with a tranquil face,
Heard young Rogero thus his tale pursue,
And joyed to be descended of a race
Which from so fair a font its waters drew:
Whence Clermont, whence renowned Mongrana trace
Their noble line, the martial damsel knew;
Blazoned through years and centuries by Fame,
Unrivalled, both, in arms of mighty name.

LXXVI
When afterwards she from her brother knew
Agramant's uncle, sire, and grandsire fell,
In treacherous wise, the first Rogero slew
And brought to cruel pass Galacielle,
Marphisa could not hear the story through:
To him she cries, "With pardon, what you tell,
Brother, convicts you of too foul a wrong,
In leaving thus our sire unvenged so long.

LXXVII
"Could'st thou not in Almontes and Troyane,
As dead whilere, your thirsty faulchion plant,
By you those monarch's children might be slain.
Are you alive, and lives King Agramant?
Never will you efface the shameful stain,
That ye, so often wronged, not only grant
Life to that king, but as your lord obey;
Lodge in his court, and serve him for his pay?

LXXVIII
"Here heartily in face of Heaven I vow,
That Christ my father worshipped, to adore;
And till I venge my parents on the foe
To wear this armour, and I will deplore
Your deed, Rogero, and deplore even now,
That you should swell the squadrons of the Moor,
Or other follower of the Moslem faith,
Save sword in hand, and to the paynim's scathe. "

LXXIX
Ah! how fair Bradamant uplifts again
Her visage at that speech, rejoiced in sprite!
Rogero she exhorts in earnest vein
To do as his Marphisa counsels right;
And bids him seek the camp of Charlemagne,
And have himself acknowledged in his sight,
Who so reveres and lauds his father's worth,
He even deems him one unmatched on earth.

LXXX
In the beginning so he should have done,
(Warily young Rogero answer made,)
But, for the tale was not so fully known,
As since, the deed had been too long delaid.
Now, seeing it was fierce Troyano's son
That had begirt him with the knightly blade,
He, as a traitor, well might be abhorred,
If he slew one, accepted as his lord.

LXXXI
But, as to Bradamant whilere, he cries,
He will all measures and all means assay,
Whereby some fair occasion may arise
To leave the king; and had there been delay,
And he whilere had done in otherwise,
She on the Tartar king the fault must lay:
How sorely handled that redoubted foe
Had left him in their battle, she must know;

LXXXII
And she, that every day had sought his bed,
Must of this truth the fittest witness be.
Much upon this was answered, much was said,
Between those damsels, who at last agree;
And as their last resolve, last counsel read,
He should rejoin the paynim's ensignry,
Till he found fair occasion to resort
From Agramant's to Charles's royal court.
LXXXIII
To Bradamant the bold Marphisa cries:
"Let him begone, nor doubt am I, before
Many days pass, will manage in such wise,
That Agramant shall be his lord no more. "
So says the martial damsel, nor implies
The secret purpose which she has in store.
Making his congees to the friendly twain,
To join his king Rogero turns the rein.

LXXXIV
When a complaint is heard from valley near:
All now stand listening, to the noise attent;
And to that plaintive voice incline their ear,
A woman's (as 'twould seem) that makes lament.
But I this strain would gladly finish here,
And, that I finish it, be ye content:
For better things I promise to report,
If ye to hear another strain resort.


CANTO 37

ARGUMENT
Lament and outcry loud of some that mourn,
Attract Rogero and the damsels two.
They find Ulania, with her mantle shorn
By Marganor, amid her moaning crew.
Upon that felon knight, for his foul scorn,
A fierce revenge Marphisa takes: a new
Statute that maid does in the town obtain,
And Marganor is by Ulania slain.


I
If, as in seeking other gift to gain,
(For Nature, without study, yieldeth nought)
With mighty diligence, and mickle pain,
Illustrious women day and night have wrought;
And if with good success the female train
To a fair end no homely task have brought,
So -- did they for such other studies wake --
As mortal attributes immortal make;

II
And, if they of themselves sufficient were
Their praises to posterity to show,
Nor borrowed authors' aid, whose bosoms are
With envy and with hate corroded so,
That oft they hide the good they might declare,
And tell in every place what ill they know,
To such a pitch would mount the female name,
As haply ne'er was reached by manly fame.

III
To furnish mutual aid is not enow,
For many who would lend each other light.
Men do their best, that womankind should show
Whatever faults they have in open sight;
Would hinder them of rising from below,
And sink them to the bottom, if they might;
I say the ancients; as if glory, won
By woman, dimmed their own, as mist the sun.

IV
But hands or tongue ne'er had, nor has, the skill,
Does voice or lettered page the thought impart,
Though each, with all its power, increase the ill,
Diminishing the good with all its art,
So female fame to stifle, but that still
The honour of the sex survives in part:
Yet reacheth not its pitch, nor such its flight,
But that 'tis far below its natural height.

V
Not only Thomyris and Harpalice,
And who brought Hector, who brought Turnus aid,
And who, to build in Lybia crost the sea,
By Tyrian and Sidonian band obeyed;
Not only famed Zenobia, only she
Who Persian, Indian, and Assyrian frayed;
Not only these and some few others merit
Their glory, that eternal fame inherit:

VI
Faithful, chaste, and bold, the world hath seen
In Greece and Rome not only, but where'er
The Sun unfolds his flowing locks, between
The Hesperides and Indian hemisphere;
Whose gifts and praise have so extinguished been,
We scarce of one amid a thousand hear;
And this because they in their days have had
For chroniclers, men envious, false, and bad.

VII
But ye that prosper in the exercise
Of goodly labours, aye your way pursue;
Nor halt, O women, in your high emprise,
For fear of not receiving honour due:
For, as nought good endures beneath the skies,
So ill endures no more; if hitherto
Unfriendly by the poet's pen and page,
They now befriend you in our better age.

VIII
Erewhile Marullo and Pontante for you
Declared, and -- sire and son -- the Strozzi twain;
Capello, Bembo, and that writer, who
Has fashioned like himself the courtier train;
With Lewis Alamanni, and those two,
Beloved of Mars and Muses, of their strain
Descended, who the mighty city rule,
Which Mincius parts, and moats with marshy pool.

IX
One of this pair (besides that, of his will,
He honours you, and does you courtesies;
And makes Parnassus and high Cynthus' hill
Resound your praise, and lift it to the skies)
The love, the faith, and mind, unconquered still,
Mid threats of ruin, which in stedfast wise
To him his constant Isabel hath shown,
Render yet more your champion than his own.