No More Learning

At the mighty sound
Alone, the Scotsmen trembled, and in dread
Abandoned honour, order, and their ground:
Lurcanio, Ariodantes, and their head,
Zerbino, there alone the torrent bound;
And haply he, who was afoot, had died,
But that in time his need Rinaldo spied.

LXXIX
Elsewhere the paladin was making fly
A hundred banners: while the cavalier
So chased the quailing Saracens, the cry
Of young Zerbino's peril smote the ear;
For, single and afoot, his chivalry
Amid the Africans had left the peer.
Rinaldo turned about and took his way
Where he beheld the Scots in disarray.

LXXX
He plants his courser, where their squadrons yield
To the fierce paynims, and exclaims: "Where go
Your bands, and why so basely quit the field,
Yielding so vilely to so vile a foe?
Behold the promised trophies, spear and shield,
Spoils which your loaded churches ought to show!
What praise! what glory! that alone, and reft
Of his good horse, your monarch's son is left!

LXXXI
He from a squire receives a lance, and spies
King Prusion little distant, sovereign
Of the Alvaracchiae, and against him hies;
Whom he unhorses, dead upon the plain.
So Agricalt, so Bambirago dies;
And next sore wounded is Sir Soridane;
Who had been slain as well amid the throng,
If good Rinaldo's lance had proved more strong.

LXXXII
That weapon broken, he Fusberta rears,
And smites Sir Serpentine, him of the star.
Though charmed from mischief are the cavalier's
Good arms, he falls astounded by the jar,
And thus Rinaldo round Zerbino clears
The field so widely, where those champions war,
That without more dispute he takes a horse
Of those, who masterless, at random, course.

LXXXIII
That he in time remounted it was well,
Who haply would not, if he more delayed:
For Agramant at once, and Dardinel,
Sobrino, and Balastro thither made;
But he, who had in time regained the sell,
Wheeled, here and there his horse, with brandished blade,
Dispatching into hell the mixt array,
That how men live above their ghosts might say.

LXXXIV
The good Rinaldo, who to overthrow
The strongest of the foeman covets still,
At Agramant directs a deadly blow,
-- Who seems too passing-proud, and greater ill
Works there, than thousand others of the foe --
And spurs his horse, the Moorish chief to spill.
He smote the monarch, broadside charged the steed,
And man and horse reversed upon the mead.
LXXXV
What time, without, in such destructive frays
Hate, Rage, and Fury, all offend by turns,
In Paris Rodomont the people slays,
And costly house, and holy temple burns:
While Charles elsewhere anther duty stays,
Who nothing hears of this, nor aught discerns.
He, in the town, receives the British band,
Which Edward and Sir Ariman command.

LXXXVI
To him a squire approached, who pale with dread,
Scarce drew his breath, and cried: "Oh, well away!
Alas! alas! " (and thus he often said,
Ere he could utter aught beside). "To-day,
To-day, sire, is the Roman empire sped,
And Christ to the heathen makes his flock a prey.
A fiend from air to-day has dropt, that none
Henceforth may in this city make their won.

LXXXVII
"Satan (in sooth, it can no other be)
Destroys and ruins the unhappy town.
Turn, and the curling wreaths of vapour see,
From the red flames which wander up and down;
List to those groans, and be they warrantry
Of the sad news thy servant now makes known!
One the fair city wastes with sword and fire,
Before whose vengeful fury all retire. "

LXXXVIII
Even such as he, who hears the tumult wide,
And clatter of church-bells, ere he espy
The raging fire, concealed from none beside
Himself, to him most dangerous, and most nigh;
Such was King Charles; who heard, and then descried
The new disaster with his very eye.
Hence he the choicest of his meiny steers
Thither, where he the cry and tumult hears.

LXXXIX
With many peers and chiefs, who worthiest are,
Summoned about him, Charlemagne is gone:
He bids direct his standards to the square
Whither the paynim had repaired; hears groan
And tumult, spies the horrid tokens there
Of cruelty, sees human members strown.
-- No more -- Let him return another time,
Who willingly will listen to this rhyme.


CANTO 17

ARGUMENT
Charles goes, with his, against King Rodomont.