me descend,)
His men with rods shall on the shoulders whale,
And into exile from those countries send;
But first their gowns shall clip, and parts unveil
That decency and natural shame offend;
And if with escort of an armed knight
Any wend thither, they are slain outright.

LXXXIV
"Those that an armed warrior's escort have,
By this ill man, to piety a foe,
Are dragged as victims to his children's grave,
Where his own hand inflicts the murderous blow.
Stript ignominiously of armour, glaive,
And steed, their champions to his prisons go;
And this can he compel; for, night and day,
A thousand men the tyrant's hest obey.

LXXXV
"And I will add, moreover, 'tis his will,
Does he free any one, he first shall swear
Upon the holy wafer, that he still
To woman, while he lives, will hatred bear.
If then these ladies and yourself to spill
Seem good to you, to yonder walls repair;
And put to proof withal, if prowess more
Or cruelty prevails in Marganor."

LXXXVI
So saying, in those maids of martial might
First she such pity moved and then disdain,
That they (had it been day instead of night)
Would then have gone against that castellain.
There rest the troop; and when Aurora's light
Serves as a signal to the starry train,
That they should all before the sun recede,
They don the cuirass and remount the steed:

LXXXVII
And now, in act to go, that company
Behind them hear the stony road resound
With a long trample, when those warlike three
Look down the vale and roll their eyes around;
And they from thence, a stone's-throw distant, see
A troop, which through a narrow pathway wound:
A score they are perhaps in number, who
On horseback, or on foot, their way pursue.

LXXXVIII
They with them on a horse a woman haul,
(Whom stricken sore in years her visage shows,)
In guise wherein some doleful criminal
Condemned to gallows, fire, or prison goes;
Who, notwithstanding that wide interval,
Is by her features known, as well as clothes:
They of the village, mid the cavalcade,
Know her for fair Drusilla's chamber maid.

LXXXIX
The chamber wench, made prisoner with his prize,
By the rapacious stripling, as I shewed,
Who being trusted with that ill emprize,
The poisoned draught of foul effect had brewed.
From the others she and those solemnites
Had kept away, suspecting what ensued:
Yea, this while, from th