No More Learning

"
So spake the sightless king of Nubia's reign,
And sought to kiss the stranger's feet in vain.

CXVII
"Nor angel" -- good Astolpho made reply --
"Nor new Messiah, I from heaven descend;
No less a mortal and a sinner I,
To such high grace unworthy to pretend.
To slay the monsters I all means will try,
Or drive them from the realm which they offend.
If I shall prosper, be thy praises paid
To God alone, who sent me to thine aid.

CXVIII
"Offer these vows to God, to him well due;
To him thy churches build, thine altars rear. "
Discoursing so, together wend the two,
'Mid barons bold, that king and cavalier.
The Nubian prince commands the menial crew
Forthwith to bring the hospitable cheer;
And hopes that now the foul, rapacious band,
Will not dare snatch the victual from his hand.

CXIX
Forthwith a solemn banquet they prepare
Within the gorgeous palace of the king.
Seated alone here guest and sovereign are,
And the attendant troop the viands bring.
Behold! a whizzing sound is heard in air,
Which echoes with the beat of savage wing.
Behold! the band of harpies thither flies,
Lured by the scent of victual from the skies.

CXX
All bear a female face of pallid dye,
And seven in number are the horrid band;
Emaciated with hunger, lean, and dry;
Fouler than death; the pinions they expand
Ragged, and huge, and shapeless to the eye;
The talon crook'd; rapacious is the hand;
Fetid and large the paunch; in many a fold,
Like snake's, their long and knotted tails are rolled.

CXXI
The fowls are heard in air; then swoops amain
The covey well nigh in that instant, rends
The food, o'erturns the vessels, and a rain
Of noisome ordure on the board descends.
To stop their nostrils king and duke are fain;
Such an insufferable stench offends.
Against the greedy birds, as wrath excites,
Astolpho with his brandished faulchion smites.

CXXII
At croup or collar now he aims his blow,
Now strikes at neck or pinion; but on all,
As if he smote upon a bag of tow,
The strokes without effect and languid fall.
This while nor dish nor goblet they forego;
Nor void those ravening fowls the regal hall,
Till they have feasted full, and left the food
Waste or polluted by their rapine rude.

CXXIII
That king had firmly hoped the cavalier
Would from his royal seat the harpies scare.
He now, that hope foregone, with nought to cheer,
Laments, and sighs, and groans in his despair.
Of his good horn remembers him the peer,
Whose clangours helpful aye in peril are,
And deems his bugle were the fittest mean
To free the monarch from those birds unclean;

CXXIV
And first to fill their ears, to king and train,
With melted wax, Astolpho gives command;
That every one who hears the deafening strain
May not in panic terror fly the land.
He takes the reins, his courser backs again,
Grasps the enchanted bugle in his hand;
And to the sewer next signs to have the board
Anew with hospitable victual stored.

CXXV
The meats he to an open galley bears,
And other banquet spreads on other ground.
Behold, as wont, the harpy-squad appears;
Astolpho quickly lifts the bugle's round;
And (for unguarded are their harassed ears)
The harpies are not proof against the sound;
In terror form the royal dome they speed,
Nor meat nor aught beside the monsters heed.

CXXVI
After them spurs in haste the valiant peer:
And on the winged courser forth is flown,
Leaving beneath him, in his swift career,
The royal castle and the crowded town;
The bugle ever pealing, far and near.
The harpies fly toward the torrid zone;
Nor light until they reach that loftiest mountain
Where springs, if anywhere, Nile's secret fountain.

CXXVII
Almost at that aerial mountain's feet,
Deep under earth, extends a gloomy cell.
The surest pass for him, as they repeat,
That would at any time descend to hell.
Hither the predatory troop retreat,
As a safe refuge from the deafening yell.
As far, and farther than Cocytus' shore
Descending, till that horn is heard no more.