"

XL
In such and such like words, with wary art,
With hope of quickly winning back his reign,
Sobrino soothed the king, while in his heart
He other thought perchance did entertain.
Well knows he to what pass, what evil mart
That lord is brought; how often sighs in vain,
Whoe'er foregoes the sceptre which he swayed,
And to barbarians hath recourse for aid.

XLI
Jugurtha, martial Hannibal, and more
In ancient times, good proof of this afford:
In our own era, Lewis, hight the Moor,
Delivered into other Lewis' ward.
Your brother, Duke Alphonso, wiser lore
Learned from their fate; -- I speak to you, my lord --
Wont them as very madmen to decry,
That more on others than themselves rely;

XLII
And therefore aye, throughout that warfare drear
Waged by the pontiff, in his fierce disdain,
Albeit upon his feeble powers the peer
Could ill depend, though from Italian plain
Was driven the friend that aided him whilere,
And by the foe possessed was Naples' reign,
He against menace, against promise steeled,
Ne'er to another would his dukedom yield.

XLIII
Eastward King Agramant had turned his prow;
And seaward steered his bark, of Africk wide;
When from the land a wicked wind 'gan blow,
And took the reeling vessel on one side:
The master, seated at the helm, his brow
Raised towards heaven, and to the monarch cried:
"I see so fell and fierce a tempest form,
Our pinnace cannot face the pelting storm.

XLIV
"If you, my lords, will listen to my lore,
An isle is on our left-hand; and to me
It seems that it were well to make that shore
Till overblown the tempest's fury be."
To his advice assents the royal Moor,
And makes the larboard land, from peril free;
Which, for the sailor's weal, when tempests rise,
'Twixt Vulcan's lofty forge and Africk lies.

XLV
With juniper and myrtle overgrown,
Of habitations is that islet bare;
A pleasing solitude; and where alone
Harbour wild stag and roebuck, deer and hare;
And, save to fishermen, is little known,
That oftentimes on the shorn brambles there
Hang their moist nets; meanwhile, untroubled sleep
The scaly fishes in their quiet deep.

XLVI
Here other vessel, sheltered from the main,
They found, by tempest tost upon that land,
Which had conveyed the king of Sericane
Erewhile from Arles; on one and the other hand,
In reverent wise and worthy of the twain