oom has she none for comfort or for rest.
Yet, maugre her affliction, Hope will rise,
And form a lodgement in her harassed breast;
And to the damsel's memory still supplies
Rogero's parting words to her addrest;
So makes her, in all seeming facts' despite,
Await from hour to hour the youthful knight.

XXVII
For a month's space beyond those twenty days
This hope affords fair Bradamant content:
Hence sorrow not on her so heavy weighs
As it would else her harassed soul have shent.
She, one day that along the road she strays,
By which she oft to meet Rogero went,
Hears tidings, that of Hope -- last comfort left --
(Like every other good) her breast bereft.

XXVIII
Bound homeward from the hostile camp, where lay
King Agramant, she met a Gascon knight,
A prisoner to those paynims, from the day,
That fought nigh Paris was the famous fight.
The damsel prest him all he knew to say:
Then to the point she covets led the knight:
Asks of Rogero, on that theme abides,
Listens to that, not aught inquires besides.

XXIX
Of him a full account did he afford,
As well acquainted with the court; he said
How, matched with Mandricardo, strove that lord,
And layed the martial king in combat dead.
And how, sore wounded by the Tartar's sword,
Above a month the stripling kept his bed:
And had the stranger here but closed his news,
Well might his tale the missing knight excuse.

XXX
But then subjoins the Gascon cavalier
How in the Moorish camp a damsel lies,
By name Marphisa hight, of beauteous cheer,
Bold and as skilled in arms of every guise,
Who loves Rogero and to him is dear;
And then the host so rarely sundered spies,
That every one, throughout the paynim train,
Deems that betrothed in wedlock are the twain.

XXXI
And hope, when healed shall be the youthful knight,
The marriage of those lovers will succeed;
(For sure) with pleasure and sincere delight,
Those tidings paynim prince and monarch read:
Since, knowing either's superhuman might,
They augur, from their loins will spring a breed,
In little season, which shall pass in worth
The mightiest race that ever was on earth.

XXXII
What he rehearsed, the Gascon knight believed,
Nor without cause believed the news he bore,
A rumour universally received
And bruited through the squadrons of the Moor;
Who had that notion of their love conceived
From signs o