came, alone with thee to fight;
Because I grudged that king so puissant shou'd
Exist on earth, save he observed my rite.
Hence reek they ravaged fields with Christian blood;
And yet with greater rancour and despite,
Like cruel foe, I purposed to offend,
But that it chanced, one changed me to a friend.

XIV
"When to worst harm and scaith thy bands I doom,
I find (as at my leisure I will show)
Rogero of Risa was my father, whom
An evil brother traitorously laid low.
Me my sad mother carried in her womb
Beyond the sea, and bore in want and woe.
Till my seventh year by wizard nourished, I
Was stolen from him by thieves of Araby.

XV
"They to a king in Persia vended me,
That after died beneath my faulchion, who
Would fain have taken my virginity.
When grown, that king and all his court I slew;
Chased his ill race, and seized his royalty;
And -- such my fortune -- by a month or two,
I eithteen years had not o'erpast, before
I added to my realm six kingdoms more;

XVI
"And, moved by envy of thy glorious fame
I in my heart resolved (as thou hast heard)
To abate the grandeur of they mighty name:
I haply so had done; I haply erred.
But now a chance has served that will to tame,
And clip my fury's wings; the having heard
Since I arrived in Christendom, how we
Are bound by ties of consanguinity;

XVII
"And, for my father thee, as kinsman, served,
So thou a kin and servant hast in me;
And I that envy, that fierce hate, which nerved
Mine arm whilere, now blot from memory.
Nay, these for evil Agramant reserved,
And for his sire's and uncle's kin shall be;
They who were whilom guilty of the death
Of that unhappy pair, who gave me breath."

XVIII
She adds, the Christian faith she will receive,
And, after having spent king Agramant,
Will home return, with royal Charles's leave,
Her kingdom to baptize in the Levant,
And war upon whatever nation cleave
To cheating Mahound or to Termagant;
Promising that whate'er her arms obtain
Shall be the Christian faith's and empire's gain.

XIX
Charles, no less eloquent upon his side,
Than bold in deed and prudent in design,
Much that illustrious lady magnified,
And much her father, much her noble line:
He courteously to every point replied;
And of his heart his open front was sign.
As his last words, that he received the maid
As kinswoman and child, the m