I could nothing take."

LXVII
The knight of Clermont buried in this mood,
Who lifted not his visage from the floor,
A mariner with much attention viewed,
That overright was seated at his oar;
And, for he deemed he fully understood
The thought that prest the cavalier so sore,
Made him (well-spoken was the man and bold)
Wake from his muse, some talk with him to hold.

LXVIII
The substance of the talk between the two
Was, that the husband little wit possest,
Who, wishing to assay if she was true,
Had tried his wife by too severe a test:
For woman, proof to gold and silver, who,
Armed but with modesty, defends her breast,
This from a thousand faulchions will defend
More surely, and through burning fires will wend.

LXIX
The mariner subjoined: "Thou saidest well;
With gifts so rich he should not her have prest;
For, these assaults, these charges, to repel,
Not good alike is every human breast.
I know not if of wife thou has heard tell
(For haply not with us the tale may rest)
That in the very sin her husband spied,
For which she by his sentence should have died.

LXX
"My lord should have remembered, gold and meed
Have upon every hardest matter wrought:
But he forgot this truth in time of need;
And so upon his head this ruin brought,
Ah! would that he in proof, like me, a deed
Done in this neighbouring city had been taught,
His country and mine own; which lake and fen,
Brimming with Mincius' prisoned waters, pen.

LXXI
"I of Adonio speak, that in a hound
A treasure on the judge's wife conferred."
"Thereof," replied the paladin, "the sound
Hath not o'erpast the Alps; for never word
Of this neighbouring France, nor in my round
Through far and foreign countries have I heard:
So tell, if telling irks not," said the peer,
"What willingly I bown myself to hear.

LXXII
The boatman then: "Erewhile was of this town
One Anselm, that of worthy lineage came;
A wight that spent his youth in flowing gown,
Studying his Ulpian: he of honest fame,
Beauty, and state assorting with his own,
A consort sought, and one of noble name:
Nor vainly; in a neighbouring city, crowned
With superhuman beauty, one he found.

LXXIII
"She such fair manners and so graceful shows,
She seems all love and beauty; and much more
Perchance than maketh for her lord's repose;
Then well befits the reverend charge he bore.