No More Learning

"How can it be," (each to his fellow cried)
"That one so weak could master one so strong? "
Scarce can Astolpho put the press aside,
So close from every part their numbers throng;
While all admire him as a cavalier
Of mighty worth, and make him goodly cheer.

LXIII
Then Cairo was not such, as common cry
Pronounces in our age that costly seat;
-- That eighteen thousand districts ill supply
Lodging to those who in her markets meet;
-- And though the houses are three stories high,
Numbers are forced to sleep in the open street;
And that the soldan has a palace there
Of wonderous size, and passing rich and fair;

LXIV
And therein (Christian renegadoes all)
Keeps fifteen thousand vassals, for his needs,
Beneath one roof supplied with bower and stall,
Themselves, and wives, and families, and steeds.
The duke desired to see the river's fall,
And how far Nile into the sea proceeds.
At Damietta; where wayfaring wight,
He heard, was prisoner made or slain outright.

LXV
For at Nile's outlet there, beside his bed,
A sturdy thief was sheltered in a tower,
Alike the native's and the stranger's dread,
Wont even to Cairo's gate the road to scower.
Him no one could resist, and, it was said,
That man to slay the felon had no power.
A hundred thousand wounds he had in strife
Received, yet none could ever take his life.

LXVI
To see if he could break the thread which tied
The felon's life, upon his way the knight
Set forward, and to Damietta hied,
To find Orrilo, so the thief was hight;
Thence to the river's outlet past, and spied
The sturdy castle on the margin dight;
Harboured in which the enchanted demon lay,
The fruit of a hobgoblin and a fay.

LXVII
He here Orrilo and two knights in mail
Found at fierce strife: the two ill held their own
Against him; so Orrilo did assail
The warlike pair, although himself alone;
And how much either might in arms avail,
Fame through the universal world had blown.
Of Oliviero's seed was either plant;
Gryphon the white, and sable Aquilant.

LXVIII
The necromancer had this while (to say
The truth) with vantage on his side, begun
The fight, who brought a monster to the fray,
Found only in those parts, and wont to won
Ashore or under water, and to prey,
For food, on human bodies; feeding on
Poor mariners and travelling men, who fare,
Of the impending danger, unaware.

LXIX
The monster, slaughtered by the brethren two,
Upon the sand beside the haven lies;
And hence no wrong they to Orrilo do,
Assailing him together in this guise.
Him they dismembered often and not slew:
Now he, -- because dismembered, -- ever dies;
For he replaces leg or hand like wax,
Which the good faulchion from his body hacks.

LXX
Gryphon and Aquilant by turns divide,
Now to the teeth, now breast, the enchanted wight.
The fruitless blow Orrilo does deride,
While the two baffled warriors rage for spite.
Let him who falling silver has espied
(Which mercury by alchymists is hight)
Scatter, and reunite each broken member,
Hearing my tale, what he has seen remember.

LXXI
If the thief's head be severed by the pair,
He lights and staggers till he finds it; now
Uptaken by the nose or by the hair,
And fastened to the neck, I know not how.
This sometimes Gryphon takes, and whirled through air,
Whelms in the stream; but bootless is the throw:
For like a fish can fierce Orrilo swim;
And safely, with the head, regains the brim.

LXXII
Two ladies, meetly clad in fair array,
One damsel was in black and one in white,
And who had been the occasion of that fray,
Stood by to gaze upon the cruel fight:
Either of these was a benignant fay,
Whose care had nourished one and the other knight,
Oliver's children; when the babes forlorn
They from the claws of two huge birds had torn.

LXXIII
Since, from Gismonda they had these conveyed,
Borne to a distance from their native sky.
But more to say were needless, since displaid
To the whole world has been their history.
Though the author has the father's name mis-said;
One for another (how I know not, I)
Mistaking. Now this fearful strife the pair
Of warriors waged at both the ladies' prayer.

LXXIV
Though it was noon in the happy islands, day
Had vanished in this clime, displaced by night;
And, underneath the moon's uncertain ray,
And ill-discerned, were all things hid from sight;
When to the fort Orrilo took his way.
Since both the sable sister and the white
Were pleased the furious battle to defer,
Till a new sun should in the horizon stir.

LXXV
The duke, who by their ensigns, and yet more
Had by the sight of many a vigorous blow,
Gryphon and Aquilant long time before
Agnized, to greet the brethren was not slow:
And they, who in the peer, victorious o'er
The giant, whom he led a captive, know
The BARON OF THE PARD, (so styled at court)
Him to salute, with no less love resort.

LXXVI
The ladies to repose the warriors led
To a fair palace near, their sumptuous seat:
Thence issuing courtly squire and damsel sped,
Them with lit torches in mid-way to meet.
Their goodly steeds they quit, there well bested,
Put off their arms, and in a garden sweet
Discern the ready supper duly laid
Fast by, where a refreshing fountain played.

LXXVII
Here they bid bind the giant on the green,
Fast-tethered by a strong and weighty chain
To a tough oak, whose ancient trunk they ween
May well be proof against a single strain;
With that, by ten good serjeants overseen,
Lest he by night get loose, and so the train
Assault and haply harm; while careless they
Without a guard and unsuspecting lay.

LXXVIII
At the abundant and most sumptuous board,
With costly viands (its least pleasure) fraught,
The longest topic for discourse afford
Orrilo's prowess, and the marvel wrought;
For head or arm dissevered by the sword,
They (who upon the recent wonder thought)
Might think a dream to see him re-unite,
And but return more furious to the fight.