l.

LX
Whate'er that sword takes-in it shears outright,
And in the Tartar's side inflicts a wound:
He curses Heaven and raves in such despite,
Less horribly the boisterous billows sound.
He now prepares to put forth all his might:
The shield, with argent bird and azure ground,
He hurls, with rage transported, from his hand,
And grasps with right and left his trenchant brand.

LXI
"Marry," (Rogero cried,) "it needs no more
To prove your title to that ensign vain,
Which now you cast away, and cleft before;
Nor can you more your right in it maintain."
So saying, he parforce must prove how sore
The danger and the dint of Durindane;
Which smites his front, and with such weight withal,
A mountain lighter than that sword would fall.

LXII
If cleft his vizor through the midst; 'twas well
That from the sight diverged the trenchant blade,
Which on the saddle's plated pommel fell;
Nor yet its double steel the faulchion stayed:
It reached his armour (like soft wax, the shell
Oped, and the skirts wherewith 'twas overlaid)
And trenched upon his thigh a grievous wound;
So that 'twas long ere he again waxed sound.

LXIII
The spouting blood of either cavalier
Their arms had crimsoned in a double drain:
Hence diversly the people guessed, which peer
Would have the better of the warlike twain:
But soon Rogero made the matter clear
With that keen sword, so many a champion's bane:
With this he at that part in fury past
Whence Mandricardo had his buckler cast.

LXIV
He the left side of his good cuirass gored,
And found a passage to the heart below;
Which a full palm above the flank he bored;
So that parforce the Tartar must forego
His every title to the famous sword,
The blazoned buckler, and its bird of snow,
And yield, together with these seeds of strife,
-- Dearer than sword and shield -- his precious life.

LXV
Not unavenged the unhappy monarch dies;
For in the very moment he is smit,
The sword -- for little period his -- he plies,
And good Rogero's vizor would have split.
But that he stopt the stroke in wary wise,
And broke its force and vigour ere it lit;
Its force and vigour broke: for he, below
The better arm, first smote his Tartar foe.

LXVI
Smit was the Child by Mandricardo's hand,
At the same moment he that monarch slew:
He, albeit thick, divides an iron band
And good steel cap beneath