VIII
To honour and to hold Rogero dear,
Him, Sir Rinaldo thought, this debt constrained;
And that he could not so have done whilere,
The warlike lord was sorely grieved and pained;
When one for Africk's monarch couched the spear,
And one the cause of royal Charles maintained:
Now he Rogero for a Christian knew,
What could not then be done he now would do.
IX
Welcome, with endless proffers, on his side,
And honour he to good Rogero paid.
The prudent sire that in such kindness spied
An opening made for more, the pass assayed:
"And nothing else remains," that hermit cried,
"Nor will, I trust, my counsel be gainsaid)
But that, conjoined by friendship, you shall be
Yet faster coupled by affinity.
X
"That from the two bright progenies, which none
Will equal in illustrious blood below,
A race may spring, that brighter than the sun
Will shine, wherever that bright sun may glow;
And which, when years and ages will have run
Their course, will yet endure and fairer show,
While in their orbits burn the heavenly fires:
So me, for your instruction, God inspires."
XI
And his discourse pursuing still, the seer
So spake, he moves Rinaldo by his rede
To give his sister to the cavalier;
Albeit with either small entreaties need.
Together with Orlando, Olivier
The counsel lauds, and would that union speed:
King Charles and Aymon will, he hopes, approve,
And France will welcome wide their wedded love.
XII
So spake together peer and paladine:
Nor knew that Aymon, with King Charles' consent,
Unto the Grecian emperor Constantine
To give his gentle daughter had intent;
Who for young Leo, of his lofty line
The heir and hope, to crave the maid had sent.
Such warmth the praises of her worth inspired,
With love of her unseen was Leo fired.
XIII
To him hath Aymon answered: he, alone,
Cannot conclude thereon in other sort,
Until he first hath spoken with his son,
Rinaldo, absent then from Charles's court;
Who with winged haste, he deems, will thither run,
And joy in kinsman of such high report;
But from the high regard he bears his heir,
Can nought resolve till thither he repair.
XIV
Now good Rinaldo, of his father wide,
And of the imperial practice knowing nought,
Promised his beauteous sister as a bride,
Upon his own, as well as Roland's thought
And the others, harboured in that cell beside;
But most of all on him the hermit wrought;
And by such marriage, 'twas the peer's belief,
He could not choose but pleasure Clermont's chief.
XV
That day and night, and of the following day
Great part, with that sage monk the warriors spent;
Scarce mindful that the crew their coming stay,
Albeit the wind blew fair for their intent,
But these, impatient at their long delay,
More than one message to the warriors sent;
And to return those barons urged so sore,
Parforce they parted from the hermit hoar.
XVI
The Child who, so long banished, had not stayed
From the lone rock, whereon the waters roared,
His farewell to that holy master made,
Who taught him the true faith: anew with sword
Orlando girt his side, and with the blade,
Frontino and martial Hector's arms restored;
As knowing horse and arms were his whilere,
As well as out of kindness to the peer;
XVII
And, though the enchanted sword with better right
Would have been worn by good Anglantes' chief,
Who from the fearful garden by his might
Had won the blade with mickle toil and grief,
Than by Rogero, who that faulchion bright
Received with good Frontino, from the thief,
He willingly thereof, as with the rest,
As soon as asked, the warrior repossest.