XIX
Of his sweet lady, of his passing fair,
And dearest Bradamant Rogero spies
The lovely visage of its helmet bare;
Towards whom, to deal her death, the giant hies:
So that, advancing with his sword in air,
To sudden battle him the Child defies,
But he, who will not wait for new alarm,
Takes the half-lifeless lady in his arm,
XX
And on his shoulder flings and bears away;
As sometimes wolf a little lamb will bear,
Or eagle in her crooked claws convey
Pigeon, or such-like bird, through liquid air.
Rogero runs with all the speed he may,
Who sees how needed is his succour there.
But with such strides the giant scours the plain,
Him with his eyes the knight pursues with pain.
XXI
This flying and that following, the two
Kept a close path which widened still, and they
Piercing that forest, issued forth to view
On a wide meadow, which without it lay.
— No more of this. Orlando I pursue,
That bore Cymosco's thunder-bolt away;
And this had in the deepest bottom drowned,
That never more the mischief might be found.
XXII
But with small boot: for the impious enemy
Of human nature, taught the bolt to frame,
After the shaft, which darting from the sky
Pierces the cloud and comes to ground in flame,
Who, when he tempted Eve to eat and die
With the apple, hardly wrought more scathe and shame,
Some deal before, or in our grandsires' day,
Guided a necromancer where it lay.
XXIII
More than a hundred fathom buried so,
Where hidden it had lain a mighty space,
The infernal tool by magic from below
Was fished and born amid the German race;
Who, by one proof and the other, taught to know
Its powers, and he who plots for our disgrace,
The demon, working on their weaker wit,
As last upon its fatal purpose hit.
XXIV
To Italy and France, on every hand
The cruel art among all people past:
And these the bronze in hollow mould expand,
First in the furnace melted by the blast:
Others the iron bore, and small or grand,
Fashion the various tube they pierce or cast.
And bombard, gun, according to its frame,
Or single cannon this, or double, name.
XXV
This saker, culverine, or falcon hight,
I hear (all names the inventor has bestowed);
Which splits or shivers steel and stone outright,
And, where the bullet passes, makes a road.
— Down to the sword, restore thy weapons bright,
Sad soldier, to the forge, a useless load;
And gun or carbine on thy shoulder lay,
Who without these, I wot, shalt touch no pay.
XXVI
How, foul and pestilent discovery,
Didst thou find place within the human heart?
Through thee is martial glory lost, through thee
The trade of arms became a worthless art:
And at such ebb are worth and chivalry,
That the base often plays the better part.
Through thee no more shall gallantry, no more
Shall valour prove their prowess as of yore.
XXVII
Through thee, alas! are dead, or have to die,
So many noble lords and cavaliers
Before this war shall end, which, Italy
Afflicting most, has drowned the world in tears,
That, if I said the word, I err not, I,
Saying he sure the cruellest appears
And worst, of nature's impious and malign,
Who did this hateful engine first design:
XXVIII
And I shall think, in order to pursue
The sin for ever, God has doomed to hell
That cursed soul, amid the unhappy crew,
Beside the accursed Judas there to dwell.
But follow we the good Orlando, who
So burns to seek Ebuda's island fell,
Whose foul inhabitants a monster sate
With flesh of women, fair and delicate.