No More Learning

CVIII
He can defend himself; nor need he crave
Another warrior's help that course to run;
And 'tis his hope to show him he would have
Enough, perhaps would have too much, of one.
Thither Orlando and Rinaldo, brave
Olivier, and his white and sable son,
Thither good Dudon and Marphisa wend;
Who fain with that fierce paynim will contend.

CIX
They tell Rogero that, as newly wed
The combat he in person should refuse.
"Take ye no further pains," the warrior said,
"For such would be for me a foul excuse. "
The Tartar's arms were brought, which cut the thread
Of more delay and of all further truce:
With spurs Orlando deck'd the youthful lord,
King Charlemagne begirt him with the sword.

CX
Marphisa and Bradamant in corslet case
His breast, and clothe him in his other gear.
Astolpho led his horse of noble race:
Sir Dudon held his stirrup: far and near
Rinaldo and Namus made the mob give place,
Assisted by the Marquis Olivier.
All from the crowded lists they drive with speed,
Evermore kept in order for such need.

CXI
The pale-faced dames and damsels troop, in guise
Of pigeons round the lists, a timid show;
When, homeward bound, from fruitful field they rise,
Scared by wide-sweeping winds, which loudly blow,
Mid flash and clap; and when the sable skies
Threat hail and rain, the harvest's waste and woe:
A timid troop, they for Rogero fear,
Ill matched they deem with that fierce cavalier.

CXII
So him deemed all the rabble; and so most
Of those bold cavalier and barons thought;
In that they had not yet the memory lost
Of what that paynim had in Paris wrought,
When singly fire and sword the warrior tost,
And much of that fair town to ruin brought;
Whose signs remained, and yet will long remain:
Nor ever greater havoc plagued that reign.

CXIII
Bradamant's heart above those others' beat:
Not that she deemed the Saracen in might,
Or valour which in the heart-core hath its seat,
Was of more prowess than the youthful knight;
Nor (what oft gives success in martial feat
That with the paynim was the better right.
Yet cannot she her some ill misgivings quell.
But upon those that love such fear sits well.

CXIV
Oh! in her fear for him, how willingly
She battle for Rogero would have done!
If lifeless on the listed field to lie
Surer than sure, -- in fight with Ulien's son.
More than one death would she consent to die,
If she withal could suffer more than one,
Rather than she in that unhappy strife
Would see her cherished consort risk his life.

CXV
But prayer availed not on the damsel's part
To make Rogero leave to her the quest:
She then with mournful face and beating heart
Stood by to view that pair to fight addrest.
From right and left the peer and paynim start,
And at each other run with lance in rest.
The spears seem ice, as they in shivers fly.
The fragments birds, that mount through middle sky.

CXVI
Rodomont's lance which smote in the career
Upon mid-shield, yet harmed it little; so
Perfect was famous Hector's iron gear,
Hardened by Vulcan's hand, and safe from blow.
As well against the shield his levelled spear
Rogero guides, and that good buckler -- though
Well steeled within and out, with bone between,
And nigh a palm in thickness -- pierces clean;

CXVII
And -- but his lance resists not that fierce shock,
And at the first assault its splinters fly,
And bits and fragments of the shivered stock
Seem fledged with feathers they ascend so high;
Were his arms hewn from adamantine rock,
The spear would pierce the paynim's panoply;
And end that battle: but it breaks withal,
And on their croups both staggering coursers fall.

CXVIII
With bridle and with spur the martial pair
Raise their proud horses nimbly from the ground;
And having broke their spears, with faulchions bare
Return, to bandy fierce and cruel wound.
Wheeling with wondrous mastery, here and there,
The bold and ready coursers in a round,
The warriors with their biting swords begin
To try where either's armour is most thin.

CXIX
Rodomont had not that hard dragon-hide
Which heretofore had cased the warrior's breast;
Nor Nimrod's trenchant sword was at his side;
Nor the accustomed helm his temples prest.
For on that bridge which spanned the narrow tide,
A loser to Dordona's lady, vest
And arms suspended from the votive stone
He left; as I, meseems, erewhile have shown.

CXX
Clad was the king in other goodly mail;
Yet not like that first panoply secure:
But neither this, nor that, nor harder scale
Could Balisarda's deadly dint endure;
Against which neither workmanship avail,
Enchantment, temper, nor prime steel and pure.
So here so there Rogero plied his sword,
He more than once the paynim's armour bored.

CXXI
When Rodomont beholds in that fierce close
His widely crimsoned arms, nor can restrain
The greater portion of those griding blows
From biting to the quick, through plate and chain,
He with more fury, with more rage o'erflows,
Than in mid winter the tempestrous main
Flings down his shield, and with both hands outright
Lays at Rogero's helm with all his might.

CXXII
With that excessive force, wherewith the gin,
Erected in two barges upon Po,
And raised by men and wheels, with deafening din
Descends upon the sharpened piles below,
With all his might he smote the paladin
With either hand; was never direr blow:
Him the charmed helmet helped, or -- such its force --
The stroke would have divided man and horse.