CXXXIII
Rodomont filled with spite and rage, his foe
Takes by the neck and shoulders, and now bends
Towards him, and now pushes from him; now
Raises from earth, and on his chest suspends;
Whirls here and there and grapples; and to throw
The stripling sorely in that strife contends.
Collected in himself, Rogero wrought,
To keep his vantage taxing strength and thought.
CXXXIV
So shifting oft his hold, about the Moor
His arms the good and bold Rogero wound;
Against his left flank shoved his breast, and sore
Strained him with all his strength engirdled round.
At once he past his better leg before
Rodomont's knees and pushed, and from the ground
Uplifted high in air the Moorish lord;
Then hurled him down head foremost on the sward.
CXXXV
Such was the shock wherewith King Rodomont
With battered head and spine the champion smote,
That, issuing from his wounds as from a font,
Streams of red blood the crimsoned herbage float.
Rogero, holding Fortune by the front,
Lest he should rise, with one hand griped his throat,
With one a dagger at his eyes addrest;
And with his knees the paynim's belly prest.
CXXVI
As sometimes where they work the golden vein
Within Pannonian or Iberian cave,
In unexpected ruin whelm the train
By impious avarice there condemned to slave,
So with the load they lie opprest, with pain
A passage can their prisoned spirit have:
No less opprest the doughty paynim lay,
Pinned to the ground in that disastrous fray.
CXXXVII
Rogero at his vizor doth present
His naked poniard's point, with threatening cry,
That he will slay him, save he yields, content
To let him live, if he for grace apply.
But Rodomont, who rather than be shent
For the least deed of shame, preferred to die,
Writhed, struggled, and with all his vigour tried
To pull Rogero down, and nought replied.
CXXXVIII
As mastiff that below the deer-hound lies,
Fixed by the gullet fast, with holding bite,
Sorely bestirs himself and vainly tries,
With lips besmeared with foam and eyes alight,
And cannot from beneath the conqueror rise,
Who foils his foe by force, and not despite;
So vainly strives the monarch of Argier
To rise from underneath the cavalier.
CXXXIX
Yet Rodomont so twists and strives, he gains
The freedom of his better arm anew;
And with the right hand, which his poniard strains,
For he had drawn his deadly dagger too,
Would wound Rogero underneath the reins:
But now the wary youth the error knew
Through which he might have died, by his delay
That impious Saracen forthwith to slay;
CXL
And smiting twice or thrice his horrid front,
Raising as high as he could raise in air
His dagger, buried it in Rodomont;
And freed himself withal from further care.
Loosed from the more than icy corse, to font
Of fetid Acheron, and hell's foul repair,
The indignant spirit fled, blaspheming loud;
Erewhile on earth so haughty and so proud.