ogero from the scabbard snatched,
And with the martial Dane his valour matched.

LXXX
But for the gentle youth was ever willed
To offend his lady-love the least he could,
And knew he should offend her, if he spilled,
In that disastrous battle, Dudon's blood
(Well in the lineage of French houses skilled
He wist of Beatrice's sisterhood,
-- Bradamant's mother she -- with Armelline,
The mother of the Danish paladine).

LXXXI
He therefore never thrust in that affray,
And rarely smote an edge on plate and chain.
Now warding off the mace, now giving way,
Before the fall of that descending bane.
Turpin believes it in Rogero lay
Sir Dudon in few sword-strokes to have slain.
Yet never when the Dane his guard foregoes,
Save on the faulchion's flat descend the blows.

LXXXII
The flat as featly as the edge he plies,
Of that good faulchion forged of stubborn grain;
And, at strange blindman's bluff, in weary wise,
Hammers on Dudon with such might and main,
He often dazzles so the warrior's eyes,
That hardly he his saddle can maintain.
But to win better audience for my rhyme,
My canto I defer to other time.

CANTO 41

ARGUMENT
His prisoners to the Child the Danish peer
Consigns, who, homeward bound, are wrecked at sea;
By swimming he escapes, and a sincere
And faithful servant now of Christ is he.
Meanwhile bold Brandimart, and Olivier,
And Roland fiercely charge the hostile three.
Sobrino is left wounded in the strife;
Gradasso and Agramant deprived of life.

I
The odour which well-fashioned bear or hair,
Of that which find and dainty raiment steeps
Of gentle stripling, or of damsel fair,
-- Who often love awakens, as she weeps --
If it ooze forth and scent the ambient air,
And which for many a day its virtue keeps,
Well shows, by manifest effects and sure,
How perfect was its first perfume and pure.

II
The drink that to his cost good Icarus drew
Of yore his sun-burned sicklemen to cheer,
And which ('tis said) lured Celts and Boi through
Our Alpine hills, untouched by toil whilere,
Well shows that cordial was the draught, when new;
Since it preserves its virtue through the year.
The tree to which its wintry foliage cleaves,
Well shows that verdant were its spring tide leaves.

III
The famous lineage, for so many years
Of courtesy the great and lasting light,
Which ever, brightenin