No More Learning

LXXXVI
Now by straight way and now by crooked wound
Frontino, now by wood and wide champaign;
And all night with his rider paced that round,
Who never ceased a moment to complain:
He called on Death, and therein comfort found;
Since broke by him alone is stubborn pain;
Nor saw, save Death, what other power could close
The account of his insufferable woes.

LXXXVII
"Whereof should I complain," he said, "wo is me!
So of my every good at once forlorn?
Ah! if I will not bear this injury
Without revenge, against whom shall I turn?
For I, besides myself, none other see
That hath inflicted on me scathe and scorn.
Then I to take revenge for all the harm
Done to myself, against myself must arm.

LXXXVIII
"Yet was but to myself this injury done,
Myself to spare (because this touched but me)
I haply could, yet hardly could, be won;
Nay, I will say outright, I could not be.
Less can I be, since not to me alone,
But Bradamant, is done this injury;
Even if I could consent myself to spare,
It fits me not unvenged to leave that fair.

LXXXIX
"Then I the damsel will avenge, and die,
(Nor this disturbs me) whatsoe'er betide;
For, bating death, I know not aught, whereby
Defence against my grief can be supplied.
But I lament myself alone, that I
Before offending her, should not have died.
O happier Fortune! had I breathed my last
In Theodora's dungeon prisoned fast!

XC
"Though she had slain, had tortured me before
She slew, as prompted by her cruelty,
At least the hope would have remained in store
That I by Bradamant should pitied be:
But when she knows that I loved Leo more
Than her, that, of my own accord and free,
Myself of her, I for his good, deprive,
Dead will she rightly hate me or alive. "

XCI
These words he said and many more, with sigh
And heavy sob withal accompanied,
And, when another sun illumed the sky,
Mid strange and gloomy woods himself espied;
And, for he desperate was and bent to die,
And he, as best he could, his death would hide;
This place to him seemed far removed from view,
And fitted for the deed that he would do.
XCII
He entered into that dark woodland, where
He thickest trees and most entangled spied:
But first Frontino was the warrior's care,
Whom he unharnessed wholly, and untied.
"O my Frontino, if thy merits rare
I could reward, thou little cause" (he cried)
"Shouldst have to envy him, so highly graced,
Who soared to heaven, and mid the stars was placed.

XCIII
"Nor Cillarus, nor Arion, was whilere
Worthier than thee, nor merited more praise;
Nor any other steed, whose name we hear
Sounded in Grecian or in Latin lays.
Was any such in other points thy peer,
None of them, well I know, the vaunt can raise;
That such high honour and such courtesy
Were upon him bestowed, as were on thee.

XCIV
"Since to the gentlest maid, of fairest dye,
And boldest that hath been, or evermore
Will be, thou wast so dear, she used to tie
Thy trappings, and to thee thy forage bore:
Dear wast thou to my lady-love: Ah! why
Call I her mine, since she is mine no more?
If I have given her to another lord,
Why turn I not upon myself this sword? "

XCV
If him these thoughts so harass and torment,
That bird and beast are softened by his cries;
(For, saving these, none hears the sad lament,
Nor sees the flood that trickles form his eyes)
You are not to believe that more content
The Lady Bradamant in Paris lies;
Who can no longer her delay excuse,
Nor Leo for her wedded lord refuse.

XCVI
Ere she herself to any consort tie,
Beside her own Rogero, she will fain
Do what so can be done; her word belie;
Anger friends, kindred, court, and Charlemagne;
And if she nothing else can do, will die,
By poison or her own good faulchion slain:
For not to live appears far lesser woe,
Than, living, her Rogero to forego.

XCVII
"Rogero mine, ah! wonder gone" (she cried)
"Art thou; and canst thou so far distant be,
Thou heardest not this royal edict cried,
A thing concealed from none, expecting thee?
Faster than thee would none have hither hied,
I wot, hadst thou known this; ah! wretched me!
How can I e'er in future think of aught,
Saving the worst that can by me be thought?

XCVIII
"How can it be, Rogero, thou alone
Hast read not what by all the world is read?
If thou hast read it not, nor hither flown,
How canst thou but a prisoner be, or dead?