XLIV
“The palace proudly built,” quoth she, “behold,
That sits on top of yonder mountain’s height,
Of Christ’s true faith there lies the champion bold
In idleness, love, fancy, folly light;
When Phoebus shall his rising beams unfold,
Prepare you gainst the hill to mount upright,
Nor let this stay in your bold hearts breed care,
For, save that one, all hours unlucky are;
XLV
“But yet this evening, if you make good speed,
To that hill’s foot with daylight might you pass.”
Thus said the dame their guide, and they agreed,
And took their leave and leaped forth on the grass;
They found the way that to the hill doth lead,
And softly went that neither tired was,
But at the mountain’s foot they both arrived,
Before the sun his team in waters dived.
XLVI
They saw how from the crags and clefts below
His proud and stately pleasant top grew out,
And how his sides were clad with frost and snow,
The height was green with herbs and flowerets sout,
Like hairy locks the trees about him grow,
The rocks of ice keep watch and ward about,
The tender roses and the lilies new,
Thus art can nature change, and kind subdue.
XLVII
Within a thick, a dark and shady plot,
At the hill’s foot that night the warriors dwell,
But when the sun his rays bright, shining, hot,
Dispread of golden light the eternal well,
“Up, up,” they cried, and fiercely up they got,
And climbed boldly gainst the mountain fell;
But forth there crept, from whence I cannot say,
An ugly serpent which forestalled their way.
XLVIII
Armed with golden scales his head and crest
He lifted high, his neck swelled great with ire,
Flamed his eyes, and hiding with his breast
All the broad path, he poison breathed and fire,
Now reached he forth in folds and forward pressed,
Now would he back in rolls and heaps retire,
Thus he presents himself to guard the place,
The knights pressed forward with assured pace:
XLIX
Charles drew forth his brand to strike the snake;
Ubaldo cried, “Stay, my companion dear,
Will you with sword or weapon battle make
Against this monster that affronts us here?”
This said, he gan his charmed rod to shake,
So that the serpent durst not hiss for fear,
But fled, and dead for dread fell on the grass,
And so the passage plain, eath, open was.
L
A little higher on the way they met
A lion fierce that hugely roared and cried,
His crest he reared high, and open set
Of his broad-gaping jaws the furnace wide,
His stern his back oft smote, his rage to whet,
But when the sacred staff he once espied
A trembling fear through his bold heart was spread,
His native wrath was gone, and swift he fled.
LI
The hardy couple on their way forth wend,
And met a host that on them roar and gape,
Of savage beasts, tofore unseen, unkend,
Differing in voice, in semblance, and in shape;
All monsters which hot Afric doth forthsend,
Twixt Nilus, Atlas, and the southern cape,
Were all there met, and all wild beasts besides
Hyrcania breeds, or Hyrcane forest hides.
LII
But yet that fierce, that strange and savage host
Could not in presence of those worthies stand,
But fled away, their heart and courage lost,
When Lord Ubaldo shook his charming wand.
No other let their passage stopped or crossed;
Till on the mountain’s top themselves they land,
Save that the ice, the frost, and drifted snow,
Oft made them feeble, weary, faint and slow.
LIII
But having passed all that frozen ground,
And overgone that winter sharp and keen,
A warm, mild, pleasant, gentle sky they found,
That overspread a large and ample green,
The winds breathed spikenard, myrrh, and balm around,
The blasts were firm, unchanged, stable been,
Not as elsewhere the winds now rise now fall,
And Phoebus there aye shines, sets not at all.