and for this end alone, were made
Helmet and shield as well as trenchant blade.

CXIX
Nor Rodomont to Nimrod yields in might,
Proud and untamed; and who would not forbear
To scale the lofty firmament till night,
Could he in this wide world descry the stair.
He stood not, he, to mark the bulwark's plight
Nor if the fosse of certain bottom were.
He past, ran, -- rather flew across the moat,
Plunging in filth and water to his throat.

CXX
Dripping and foul with water and with weeds,
'Mid fire and stone, and arbalests, and bows,
On drives the chief; as through the marshy reeds,
The wild-swine of our own Mallea goes;
Who makes large day-light wheresoe'er he speeds,
Parting the sedge with breast and tusk and nose.
The paynim, safe in buckler lifted high,
Scorns not the wall alone, but braves the sky.

CXXI
Rodomont has no sooner gained the shore,
Than on the wooden bartizan he stands,
Within the city walls, a bridge that bore
(Roomy and large) king Charles's Christian bands.
Here many a scull is riven, here men take more
Than monkish tonsure at the warrior's hands:
Heads fly and arms; and to the ditch a flood
Runs streaming from the wall of crimson blood.

CXXII
He drops the shield; and with two-handed sway
Wielding his sword, duke Arnulph he offends.
Who came from whence, into the briny bay,
The water of the rapid Rhine descends.
No better than the sulphur keeps away
The advancing flame, the wretch his life defends.
He his last shudder gives, and tumbles dead;
Cleft downwards, a full palm from neck and head.

CXXIII
At one back-stroke sir Spineloccio true,
Anselmo, Prando, and Oldrado fell;
The narrow place and thickly-swarming crew
Make the wide-circling blow so fully tell.
The first half Flemings were, the residue
Are Normans, who the list of slaughter swell.
Orghetto of Maganza, he from brow
To breast divides, and thence to paunch below.

CXXIV
Down from the wall Andropono and Moschine
He cast into the ditch: a priest the first;
The second, but a worshipper of wine,
Drained, at a draught, whole runlets in his thirst;
Aye wonted simple water to decline,
Like viper's blood or venom: now immersed
In this, he perishes amid that slaughter;
And, what breeds most affliction, dies by water.

CXXV
Lewis the Provencal is cleft in two;
Arnold of Thoulouse through the breast before;
Hubert