LXXVII
"Love, pity, sorrow, anger, and desire
Of death and vengeance, all together rend
And rack the childless and unhappy sire,
Who groans like sea, when wind and waves contend:
Towards the dame, with vengeful thoughts afire,
He goes, but sees that life is at an end;
And, goaded by his rage and hatred hot,
Seeks to offend her corse that feels it not.
LXXVIII
"As serpent, by the pointed spear pinned down,
Fixes his teeth in it, with fruitless spire;
Or as the mastiff runs towards a stone,
Which has been flung by some wayfaring wight,
And gnaws it in his rage, nor will be gone
Until he venge himself; 'tis so the knight,
Than any mastiff, any serpent, worse
Offends Drusilla's cold and lifeless corse.
LXXIX
"And, for he venteth not, nor slakes his mood,
By foul abuse upon the carcase done,
Among the women, a large multitude,
He springs, and there shows mercy unto none.
Mown are we with his impious sword, as strewed
Is grass with scythe, when dried by summer sun.
There is no 'scape; for straightways of our train
Are full a hundred maimed, and thirty slain.
LXXX
"He of his vassals is so held in dread,
There is no man who dares to lift his eyes:
The women with the meaner sort are fled,
And whosoever can, the temple flies.
His friends against the furious fit make head,
At last, with kind constraint and suppliant cries;
And, leaving every thing in tears below,
Him in his castle on the rock bestow.
LXXXI
"His wrath enduring still, to send away
The wretch determines all the female band:
In that, his will us utterly to slay
His people and his friends, with prayer, withstand;
And he bids punish, on that very day,
An order for us all to leave his land;
Placed such his pleasures on these confines: woe
To them that nearer to his castle go!
LXXXII
"Thus husbands from their wives divided are,
Mothers from sons: if hither to resort,
Despite that order, any one should dare,
Let none know this, who might the deed report!
For sorely mulcted for the transgression were
Many, and many slain in cruel sort.
A statute for his town next made the peer:
Of fouler law we neither read nor hear.
LXXXIII
"It wills, all women found within the vale,
(For thither even yet will some descend,)
His men with rods shall on the shoulders whale,
And into exile from those countries send;
But first their gowns shall clip, and parts unveil
That decency and natural shame offend;
And if with escort of an armed knight
Any wend thither, they are slain outright.
LXXXIV
"Those that an armed warrior's escort have,
By this ill man, to piety a foe,
Are dragged as victims to his children's grave,
Where his own hand inflicts the murderous blow.
Stript ignominiously of armour, glaive,
And steed, their champions to his prisons go;
And this can he compel; for, night and day,
A thousand men the tyrant's hest obey.
LXXXV
"And I will add, moreover, 'tis his will,
Does he free any one, he first shall swear
Upon the holy wafer, that he still
To woman, while he lives, will hatred bear.
If then these ladies and yourself to spill
Seem good to you, to yonder walls repair;
And put to proof withal, if prowess more
Or cruelty prevails in Marganor."
LXXXVI
So saying, in those maids of martial might
First she such pity moved and then disdain,
That they (had it been day instead of night)
Would then have gone against that castellain.
There rest the troop; and when Aurora's light
Serves as a signal to the starry train,
That they should all before the sun recede,
They don the cuirass and remount the steed: