No More Learning

And now alone, intent upon his flight,
The thought of Rabicane detained the knight.

XXIX
Good cause he had to love that Rabicane,
For better horse was not to run with lance,
And him had he from the remotest reign
Of India ridden even into France:
After much thought, he to some friend would fain
Present him, rather than so, left to chance,
Abandon there the courser, as a prey,
To the first stranger who should pass that way.

XXX
He stood upon the watch if he could view
Some hunter in the forest, or some hind,
To whom he might commit the charge, and who
Might to some city lead the horse behind.
He waited all that day and till the new
Had dawned, when, while the twilight yet was blind,
He thought he saw, as he expecting stood,
A cavalier approaching through the wood.

XXXI
But it behoves that, ere the rest I say,
I Bradamant and good Rogero find.
After the horn had ceased, and, far away,
The beauteous pair had left the dome behind,
Rogero looked, and knew what till that day
He had seen not, by Atlantes rendered blind.
Atlantes had effected by his power,
They should not know each other till that hour.

XXXII
Rogero looks on Bradamant, and she
Looks on Rogero in profound surprise
That for so many days that witchery
Had so obscurred her altered mind and eyes.
Rejoiced, Rogero clasps his lady free,
Crimsoning with deeper than the rose's dyes,
And his fair love's first blossoms, while he clips
The gentle damsel, gathers from her lips.

XXXIII
A thousand times they their embrace renew,
And closely each is by the other prest;
While so delighted are those lovers two,
Their joys are ill contained within their breast.
Deluded by enchantments, much they rue
That while they were within the wizard's rest,
They should not e'er have one another known,
And have so many happy days foregone.

XXXIV
The gentle Bradamant, who was i' the vein
To grant whatever prudent virgin might,
To solace her desiring lover's pain,
So that her honour should receive no slight;
-- If the last fruits he of her love would gain,
Nor find her ever stubborn, bade the knight,
Her of Duke Aymon through fair mean demand;
But be baptized before he claimed her hand.

XXXV
Rogero good, who not alone to be
A Christian for the love of her were fain,
As his good sire had been, and anciently
His grandsire and his whole illustrious strain,
But for her pleasure would immediately
Resign whatever did of life remain,
Says, "I not only, if 'tis thy desire,
Will be baptized by water, but by fire. "

XXXVI
Then on his way to be baptized he hied,
That he might next espouse the martial may,
With Bradamant; who served him as a guide
To Vallombrosa's fane, an abbey gray,
Rich, fair, nor less religious, and beside,
Courteous to whosoever passed that way;
And they encountered, issuing from the chase,
A woman, with a passing woful face.

XXXVII
Rogero, as still courteous, still humane
To all, but woman most, when he discerned
Her dainty visage furrowed by a rain
Of lovely tears, sore pitied her, and burned
With the desire to know her grievous pain;
And having to the mournful lady turned,
Besought her, after fair salute, to show
What cause had made her eyes thus overflow.
XXXVIII
And she, uplifting their moist rays and bright,
Most kindly to the inquiring Child replied;
And of the cause of her unhappy plight,
Him, since he sought it, fully satisfied.
"Thou hast to understand, O gentle knight,
My visage is so bathed with tears," she cried,
"In pity to a youth condemned to die
This very day, within a town hard by.

XXXIX
"Loving a gentle lady and a gay,
The daughter of Marsilius, king of Spain,
And feigning, veiled in feminine array,
The modest roll of eye and girlish strain,
With her each night the amorous stripling lay,
Nor any had suspicion of the twain:
But nought so hidden is, but searching eye
In the long run the secret will espy.

XL
"One first perceived it, and then spoke with two,
Those two with more, till to the king 'twas said;
Of whom but yesterday a follower true
Gave order to surprise the pair in bed,
And in the citadel the prisoners new,
To separate dungeons in that fortress led;
Nor think I that enough of day remains
To save the lover from his cruel pains.

XLI
"I fled, not to behold such cruelty,
For they alive the wretched youth will burn;
Nor think I aught could more afflicting be
Than such fair stripling's torment to discern,
Or that hereafter thing can pleasure me
So much, but that it will to trouble turn,
If memory retrace the cruel flame
Which preyed upon his fair and dainty frame. "

XLII
Touched deeply, Bradamant his danger hears,
In heart sore troubled at the story shown;
As anxious for the lover, it appears,
As if he were a brother of her own:
Nor certes wholly causeless are her fears,
As in an after verse will be made known,
Then, to Rogero: "Him to keep from harms,
Meseems we worthily should turn our arms. "

XLIII
And to that melancholy damsel said:
"Place us but once within the walls, and I,
So that the youth be not already dead,
Will be your warrant that he shall not die. "
Rogero, who the kindly bosom read
Of Bradamant, still full of piety,
Felt himself but all over with desire
To snatch the unhappy stripling from the fire.

XLIV
And to the maid, whose troubled face apears
Bathed with a briny flood, "Why wait we? -- need
Is here of speedy succour, not of tears.
Do you but where the youth is prisoned lead;
Him from a thousand swords, a thousand spears,
We vow to save; so it be done with speed.
But haste you, lest too tardy be our aid,
And he be burnt, which succour is delayed. "

XLV
The haughty semblance and the lofty say
Of these, who with such wondrous daring glowed,
That hope, which long had ceased to be her stay,
Again upon the grieving dame bestowed:
But, for she less the distance of the way
Dreaded, than interruption of the road,
Lest they, through this, should take that path in vain,
The damsel stood suspended and in pain.

XLVI
Then said: "If to the place our journey lay
By the highroad, which is both straight and plain,
That we in time might reach it, I should say,
Before the fire was lit; but we must strain
By path so foul and crooked, that a day
To reach the city would suffice with pain;
And when, alas! we thither shall have sped,
I fear that we shall find the stripling dead. "

XLVII
"And wherefore take we not the way most near?