LXXIII
Rogero, when from far the ships he spied,
Believed they were the fleet of Agramant,
And, to know further, pricked his courser's side;
Then, nearer, mid those knights of mickle vaunt,
Nasamon's king a prisoner he desired,
Agricalt, Bambirago, Farurant,
Balastro, Manilardo, and Rimedont;
Who stood with weeping eyes and drooping front.
LXXIV
In their unhappy state to leave that crew
The Child, who loved those monarchs, cannot bear;
That useless is the empty hand he knew;
That where force is not, little profits prayer.
He couched his lance, their keeper overthrew,
Then proved his wonted might with faulchion bare;
And in a moment stretched upon the strand
Above a hundred of the Nubian band.
LXXV
The noise Sir Dudon hears, the slaughter spies,
But knows not who the stranger cavalier:
He marks how, put to rout, his people flies;
With anguish, with lament and mighty fear;
Quickly for courser, shield, and helmet cries,
(Bosom, and arms, and thighs, were mailed whilere)
Leaps on his horse, nor — having seized his lance —
Forgets he is a paladin of France.
LXXVI
He called on every one to stand aside,
And with the galling spur his courser prest;
Meanwhile a hundred other foes have died,
And filled with hope was every prisoner's breast;
And as Rogero holy Dudon spied
Approach on horseback, (footmen were the rest,)
Esteeming him their head, he charged the knight,
Impelled by huge desire to prove his might.
LXXVII
Already, on his part, had moved the Dane;
But when he saw the Child without a spear,
He flang is own far from him, in disdain
To take such vantage of the cavalier.
Admiring at Sir Dudon's courteous vein,
"Belie himself he cannot," said the peer,
"And of those perfect warriors must be one
That as the paladins of France are known.
LXXVIII
"If I my will can compass, he shall shew
His name, to me, ere further deed be done."
He made demand; and in the stranger knew
Dudon, the Danish Ogier's valiant son:
He from Rogero claimed an equal due,
And from the Child as courteous answer won.
— Their names on either side announced — the foes
A bold defiance speak, and come to blows.
LXXIX
Bold Dudon had with him that iron mace,
Which won him deathless fame in many a fight:
Wherewith he proved him fully of the race
Of that good Danish warrior, famed for might.
That best of faulchions, which through iron case
Of cuirass or of casque was wont to bite,
Youthful Rogero from the scabbard snatched,
And with the martial Dane his valour matched.
LXXX
But for the gentle youth was ever willed
To offend his lady-love the least he could,
And knew he should offend her, if he spilled,
In that disastrous battle, Dudon's blood
(Well in the lineage of French houses skilled
He wist of Beatrice's sisterhood,
— Bradamant's mother she — with Armelline,
The mother of the Danish paladine).
LXXXI
He therefore never thrust in that affray,
And rarely smote an edge on plate and chain.
Now warding off the mace, now giving way,
Before the fall of that descending bane.
Turpin believes it in Rogero lay
Sir Dudon in few sword-strokes to have slain.
Yet never when the Dane his guard foregoes,
Save on the faulchion's flat descend the blows.
LXXXII
The flat as featly as the edge he plies,
Of that good faulchion forged of stubborn grain;
And, at strange blindman's bluff, in weary wise,
Hammers on Dudon with such might and main,
He often dazzles so the warrior's eyes,
That hardly he his saddle can maintain.
But to win better audience for my rhyme,
My canto I defer to other time.