Jerusalem Delivered Part 6

LIII The herald Ligiere now from G.o.dfrey came, To will them stay and calm their courage hot; "Retire," quoth he, "G.o.dfrey commands the same; To wreak your ire this season fitteth not;"

Though loth, Rinaldo stayed, and stopped the flame, That boiled in his hardy stomach hot; His bridled fury grew thereby more fell, So rivers, stopped, above their banks do swell.

LIV The hands retire, not dangered by their foes In their retreat, so wise were they and wary, To murdered Dudon each lamenting goes, From wonted use of ruth they list not vary.

Upon their friendly arms they soft impose The n.o.ble burden of his corpse to carry: Meanwhile G.o.dfredo from a mountain great Beheld the sacred city and her seat.

LV Hierusalem is seated on two hills Of height unlike, and turned side to side, The s.p.a.ce between, a gentle valley fills, From mount to mount expansed fair and wide.

Three sides are sure imbarred with crags and hills, The rest is easy, scant to rise espied: But mighty bulwarks fence that plainer part, So art helps nature, nature strengtheneth art.

LVI The town is stored of troughs and cisterns, made To keep fresh water, but the country seems Devoid of gra.s.s, unfit for ploughmen's trade, Not fertile, moist with rivers, wells and streams; There grow few trees to make the summer's shade, To s.h.i.+eld the parched land from scorching beams, Save that a wood stands six miles from the town,'

With aged cedars dark, and shadows brown.

LVII By east, among the dusty valleys, glide The silver streams of Jordan's crystal flood; By west, the Midland Sea, with bounders tied Of sandy sh.o.r.es, where Joppa whilom stood; By north Samaria stands, and on that side The golden calf was reared in Bethel wood; Bethlem by south, where Christ incarnate was, A pearl in steel, a diamond set in bra.s.s.

LVIII While thus the Duke on every side descried The city's strength, the walls and gates about, And saw where least the same was fortified, Where weakest seemed the walls to keep him out; Ermina as he armed rode, him spied, And thus bespake the heathen tyrant stout, "See G.o.dfrey there, in purple clad and gold, His stately port, and princely look behold.

LIX "Well seems he born to be with honor crowned, So well the lore he knows of regiment, Peerless in fight, in counsel grave and sound, The double gift of glory excellent, Among these armies is no warrior found Graver in speech, bolder in tournament.

Raymond pardie in counsel match him might; Tancred and young Rinaldo like in fight."

LX To whom the king: "He likes me well therefore, I knew him whilom in the court of France When I from Egypt went amba.s.sador, I saw him there break many a st.u.r.dy lance, And yet his chin no sign of manhood bore; His youth was forward, but with governance, His words, his actions, and his portance brave, Of future virtue, timely tokens gave.

LXI "Presages, ah too true:" with that a s.p.a.ce He sighed for grief, then said, "Fain would I know The man in red, with such a knightly grace, A worthy lord he seemeth by his show, How like to G.o.dfrey looks he in the face, How like in person! but some-deal more low."

"Baldwin," quoth she, "that n.o.ble baron hight, By birth his brother, and his match in might.

LXII "Next look on him that seems for counsel fit, Whose silver locks betray his store of days, Raymond he hight, a man of wondrous wit, Of Toulouse lord, his wisdom is his praise; What he forethinks doth, as he looks for, hit, His stratagems have good success always: With gilded helm beyond him rides the mild And good Prince William, England's king's dear child.

LXIII "With him is Guelpho, as his n.o.ble mate, In birth, in acts, in arms alike the rest, I know him well, since I beheld him late, By his broad shoulders and his squared breast: But my proud foe that quite hath ruinate My high estate, and Antioch opprest, I see not, Boemond, that to death did bring Mine aged lord, my father, and my king."

LXIV Thus talked they; meanwhile G.o.dfredo went Down to the troops that in the valley stayed, And for in vain he thought the labor spent, To a.s.sail those parts that to the mountains laid, Against the northern gate his force he bent, Gainst it he camped, gainst it his engines played; All felt the fury of his angry power, That from those gates lies to the corner tower.

LXV The town's third part was this, or little less, Fore which the duke his glorious ensigns spread, For so great compa.s.s had that forteress, That round it could not be environed With narrow siege--nor Babel's king I guess That whilom took it, such an army led-- But all the ways he kept, by which his foe Might to or from the city come or go.

LXVI His care was next to cast the trenches deep, So to preserve his resting camp by night, Lest from the city while his soldiers sleep They might a.s.sail them with untimely flight.

This done he went where lords and princes weep With dire complaints about the murdered knight, Where Dudon dead lay slaughtered on the ground.

And all the soldiers sat lamenting round.

LXVII His wailing friends adorned the mournful bier With woful pomp, whereon his corpse they laid, And when they saw the Bulloigne prince draw near, All felt new grief, and each new sorrow made; But he, withouten show or change of cheer, His springing tears within their fountains stayed, His rueful looks upon the corpse he cast Awhile, and thus bespake the same at last;

LXVIII "We need not mourn for thee, here laid to rest, Earth is thy bed, and not the grave the skies Are for thy soul the cradle and the nest, There live, for here thy glory never dies: For like a Christian knight and champion blest Thou didst both live and die: now feed thine eyes With thy Redeemer's sight, where crowned with bliss Thy faith, zeal, merit, well-deserving is.

LXIX "Our loss, not thine, provokes these plaints and tears: For when we lost thee, then our s.h.i.+p her mast, Our chariot lost her wheels, their points our spears, The bird of conquest her chief feather cast: But though thy death far from our army hears Her chiefest earthly aid, in heaven yet placed Thou wilt procure its help Divine, so reaps He that sows G.o.dly sorrow, joy by heaps.

LXX "For if our G.o.d the Lord Armipotent Those armed angels in our aid down send That were at Dothan to his prophet sent, Thou wilt come down with them, and well defend Our host, and with thy sacred weapons bent Gainst Sion's fort, these gates and bulwarks rend, That so by hand may win this hold, and we May in these temples praise our Christ for thee."

LXXI Thus he complained; but now the sable shade Ycleped night, had thick enveloped The sun in veil of double darkness made; Sleep, eased care; rest, brought complaint to bed: All night the wary duke devising laid How that high wall should best be battered, How his strong engines he might aptly frame, And whence get timber fit to build the same.

LXXII Up with the lark the sorrowful duke arose, A mourner chief at Dudon's burial, Of cypress sad a pile his friends compose Under a hill o'ergrown with cedars tall, Beside the hea.r.s.e a fruitful palm-tree grows, Enn.o.bled since by this great funeral, Where Dudon's corpse they softly laid in ground, The priest sung hymns, the soldiers wept around.

LXXIII Among the boughs, they here and there bestow Ensigns and arms, as witness of his praise, Which he from Pagan lords, that did them owe, Had won in prosperous fights and happy frays: His s.h.i.+eld they fixed on the hole below, And there this distich under-writ, which says, "This palm with stretched arms, doth overspread The champion Dudon's glorious carcase dead."

LXXIV This work performed with advis.e.m.e.nt good, G.o.dfrey his carpenters, and men of skill In all the camp, sent to an aged wood, With convoy meet to guard them safe from ill.

Within a valley deep this forest stood, To Christian eyes unseen, unknown, until A Syrian told the duke, who thither sent Those chosen workmen that for timber went.

LXXV And now the axe raged in the forest wild, The echo sighed in the groves unseen, The weeping nymphs fled from their bowers exiled, Down fell the shady tops of shaking treen, Down came the sacred palms, the ashes wild, The funeral cypress, holly ever green, The weeping fir, thick beech, and sailing pine, The married elm fell with his fruitful vine.

LXXVI The shooter grew, the broad-leaved sycamore, The barren plantain, and the walnut sound, The myrrh, that her foul sin doth still deplore, The alder owner of all waterish ground, Sweet juniper, whose shadow hurteth sore, Proud cedar, oak, the king of forests crowned; Thus fell the trees, with noise the deserts roar; The beasts, their caves, the birds, their nests forlore.

FOURTH BOOK

THE ARGUMENT.

Satan his fiends and spirits a.s.sembleth all, And sends them forth to work the Christians woe, False Hidraort their aid from h.e.l.l doth call, And sends Armida to entrap his foe: She tells her birth, her fortune, and her fall, Asks aid, allures and wins the worthies so That they consent her enterprise to prove; She wins them with deceit, craft, beauty, love.

I While thus their work went on with lucky speed, And reared rams their horned fronts advance, The Ancient Foe to man, and mortal seed, His wannish eyes upon them bent askance; And when he saw their labors well succeed, He wept for rage, and threatened dire mischance.

He choked his curses, to himself he spake, Such noise wild bulls that softly bellow make.

II At last resolving in his d.a.m.ned thought To find some let to stop their warlike feat, He gave command his princes should be brought Before the throne of his infernal seat.

O fool! as if it were a thing of naught G.o.d to resist, or change his purpose great, Who on his foes doth thunder in his ire, Whose arrows hailstones he and coals of fire.

III The dreary trumpet blew a dreadful blast, And rumbled through the lands and kingdoms under, Through wasteness wide it roared, and hollows vast, And filled the deep with horror, fear and wonder, Not half so dreadful noise the tempests cast, That fall from skies with storms of hail and thunder, Not half so loud the whistling winds do sing, Broke from the earthen prisons of their King.

IV The peers of Pluto's realm a.s.sembled been Amid the palace of their angry King, In hideous forms and shapes, tofore unseen, That fear, death, terror and amazement bring, With ugly paws some trample on the green, Some gnaw the snakes that on their shoulders hing, And some their forked tails stretch forth on high, And tear the twinkling stars from trembling sky.

V There were Silenus' foul and loathsome route, There Sphinxes, Centaurs, there were Gorgons fell, There howling Scillas, yawling round about, There serpents hiss, there seven-mouthed Hydras yell, Chimera there spues fire and brimstone out, And Polyphemus blind supporteth h.e.l.l, Besides ten thousand monsters therein dwells Misshaped, unlike themselves, and like naught else.

VI About their princes each took his wonted seat On thrones red-hot, ybuilt of burning bra.s.s, Pluto in middest heaved his trident great, Of rusty iron huge that forged was, The rocks on which the salt sea billows beat, And Atlas' tops, the clouds in height that pa.s.s, Compared to his huge person mole-hills be, So his rough front, his horns so lifted he.

VII The tyrant proud frowned from his lofty cell, And with his looks made all his monsters tremble, His eyes, that full of rage and venom swell, Two beacons seem, that men to arms a.s.semble, His feltered locks, that on his bosom fell, On rugged mountains briars and thorns resemble, His yawning mouth, that foamed clotted blood, Gaped like a whirlpool wide in Stygian flood.

VIII And as Mount Etna vomits sulphur out, With cliffs of burning crags, and fire and smoke, So from his mouth flew kindled coals about, Hot sparks and smells that man and beast would choke, The gnarring porter durst not whine for doubt; Still were the Furies, while their sovereign spoke, And swift Cocytus stayed his murmur shrill, While thus the murderer thundered out his will:

IX "Ye powers infernal, worthier far to sit About the sun, whence you your offspring take, With me that whilom, through the welkin flit, Down tumbled headlong to this empty lake; Our former glory still remember it, Our bold attempts and war we once did make Gainst him, that rules above the starry sphere, For which like traitors we lie d.a.m.ned here.

X "And now instead of clear and gladsome sky, Of t.i.tan's brightness, that so glorious is, In this deep darkness lo we helpless lie, Hopeless again to joy our former bliss, And more, which makes my griefs to multiply, That sinful creature man, elected is; And in our place the heavens possess he must, Vile man, begot of clay, and born of dust.

XI "Nor this sufficed, but that he also gave His only Son, his darling to be slain, To conquer so, h.e.l.l, death, sin and the grave, And man condemned to restore again, He brake our prisons and would algates save The souls there here should dwell in woe and pain, And now in heaven with him they live always With endless glory crowned, and lasting praise.

XII "But why recount I thus our pa.s.sed harms?

Remembrance fresh makes weakened sorrows strong, Expulsed were we with injurious arms From those due honors, us of right belong.

But let us leave to speak of these alarms, And bend our forces gainst our present wrong: Ah! see you not, how he attempted hath To bring all lands, all nations to his faith?

XIII "Then, let us careless spend the day and night, Without regard what haps, what comes or goes, Let Asia subject be to Christians' might, A prey he Sion to her conquering foes, Let her adore again her Christ aright, Who her before all nations whilom chose; In brazen tables he his lore ywrit, And let all tongues and lands acknowledge it.

XIV "So shall our sacred altars all be his, Our holy idols tumbled in the mould, To him the wretched man that sinful is Shall pray, and offer incense, myrrh and gold; Our temples shall their costly deckings miss, With naked walls and pillars freezing cold, Tribute of souls shall end, and our estate, Or Pluto reign in kingdoms desolate.

XV "Oh, he not then the courage perished clean, That whilom dwelt within your haughty thought, When, armed with s.h.i.+ning fire and weapons keen, Against the angels of proud Heaven we fought, I grant we fell on the Phlegrean green, Yet good our cause was, though our fortune naught; For chance a.s.sisteth oft the ign.o.bler part, We lost the field, yet lost we not our heart.

XVI "Go then, my strength, my hope, my Spirits go, These western rebels with your power withstand, Pluck up these weeds, before they overgrow The gentle garden of the Hebrews' land, Quench out this spark, before it kindles so That Asia burn, consumed with the brand.