rest, Zerbino leapt to ground,
And from his deathlike face the vizor raised;
And he, as wakened out of sleep profound,
In silence, hard upon Zerbino gazed;
Then cried, "It does not me, in truth, confound,
To think that I am overthrown by thee,
Who seem'st the flower of errant chivalry.

XII
"But it with reason grieves me this is done
Upon account of a false woman's spite;
Whose wicked cause I know not why you own,
An office ill according with your might:
And when to you the occasion shall be known
Which urges me her wickedness to quite,
Whene'er you think on it, you will repent
How she by you was saved, and I was shent.

XIII
"And if enough of breath, although I fear
The contrary, is left me to expound
Her evil actions, I shall make appear
She in all guilt transgresses every bound.
I had a brother once: the youthful peer
Set out from Holland's isle, our natal ground,
To serve Heraclius, 'mid his knights arrayed,
Who then the Grecian empire's sceptre swayed.

XIV
"Brother in arms and bosom-friend installed
Here was he by a baron of that court,
Who, in a pleasant site, and strongly walled,
On Servia's distant frontier had a fort.
Argaeus he of whom I tell was called,
Husband of that ill hag, whom in such sort
He loved, as passed all mean, and misbecame
One of his worth and honourable fame.

XV
"But she, more volatile than leaf, when breeze
Of autumn most its natural moisture dries,
And strips the fluttering foliage from the trees,
Which, blown about, before its fury flies,
Changes her humour, and her husband sees,
Whom she some time had loved, with other eyes,
And in her every wish and every thought
Schemes how my brother's love may best be bought.

XVI
"But not Acroceraunus fronts the brine,
-- Ill-famed -- against whose base the billow heaves,
Nor against Boreas stands the mountain pine,
That has a hundred times renewed its leaves,
And towering high on Alp or Apennine,
With its fast root the rock as deeply cleaves,
So firmly as the youth resists the will
Of that foul woman, sink of every ill.

XVII
"Now, as it oft befalls a cavalier
Who seeks and finds adventure, high and low,
It happened that my gentle brother near
His comrade's fort was wounded by a foe;
Where often, uninvited by the peer,
He guested, was his host with him or no;
And thither he resorted from the field,
Th