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IX.— CONCERNING A KNIGHT WHOM MANO MET IN THE BATTLE.

Upon the field, when Mano put to flight
The Ungrian enemy, as hath been told,
He found himself encountered by a knight
Of Italy, who met with him full bold:
And yet when but few strokes were struck, and both
Full breathed as yet, on sudden cried he, “Hold!
“Say first what favour of the embroidered cloth
Unto the camail hangs from thy high crest.”—
“None,” answered Mano, “that should make thee loth
“In battle with me for to do thy best:
From her it is who once deluded me,
And whom too well thou knowest: guard now thy breast.”
(He wore the token of that lady free,
Till him he found with whom she fled away:
And well he knew that knight of Italy.)
Then heaved his sword: yet cried the other, “Stay!
There is no other napkin upon earth
Like that which in thy helm I see to-day.
“My foster-sister wore it, whom from birth
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I and my brothers knew on yonder hill.
Blood-stained I see it: if thou be of worth,
“Say whence it bears those bloody signs of ill.”
Then Mano, “Now to me doth truth appear:
Thy leman did thy foster-sister kill.”
The other then, “This strife a while forbear,
That elsewhere I may that dear blood requite.”
Then Mano, “Rather stand thou fast for her
“Whom, like a thief, thou took'st away by night.”
The other said, “I will go far as thou
In any noble deed and proof of might:
“Grant therefore to me what I ask thee now,
The meaning of thy doubtful words declare,
Which cause my hand to pause, my heart to bow.”
Then Mano told of her who arms did wear
On the hill; for whom he cast another down,
Who likewise seemed a knight in armour fair,
Whom yet he spared: but who, when he was gone
To meet another champion, cruelly
Was put to death by the first-named one;
Who stabbed her in the neck without mercy,
And took that curious napkin from her throat,
As now he guessed, but knew not formerly.
Then said the knight, “In turn I bid thee note
The history that I to thee shall show,
What to my father chanced in days remote.
As he one day into the woods did go,
Where the pine-forests on yon mountains spread,
He heard a woman's voice in wailing low:
Long hearkened he, while weary, and nigh dead
It sounded: but he stood in doubtful fear
By some hill-woman to be murdered:
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The which hath happed ere now in places drear
To wandering knight, by shrieks and piteous moans
Drawn into woody brake and tangled brere,
And there rent piecemeal, when the mournful tones
Were changed to yells, and his torn body there
Reeled into bleeding flesh and white-seen bones.—
Of this he thought, but soon took better cheer;
And, following, found indeed a woman laid,
Whose groans were carried by the heedless air.
Upon her empty breast an infant played:
And, questioned, she complained, ‘Of Normandy
Am I: but of that land shall nought be said:
‘For that land was my peace and innocency.
Oh! let my dying heart a while yet hold,
Then break in this hard land of Italy.
‘Nay, of both lands my story must be told:
For from the one, expelled by traitorous love,
Hither I came with sorrows manifold;
‘Here nature by my torment doubly throve;
For at one birth two babes of me were born,
A boy, and this soon to be nestless dove.
‘The one I left upon a heap of corn
Which a brave miller in his boat had stored,
A better refuge than my breast forlorn:
‘Then through the wildness of this land abhorred
With this poor babe my steps I hither drew.—
To her I ask that pity thou afford.’
No more she spake: but groans to silence grew,
And the end came: then my good father took
The child, and gave the poor corpse burial due:
But first this very cloth on which I look
He from her neck unwound, that all might see
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By token of what rank the babe partook.
And so henceforth the little maid with me
And with my brothers twain was nursed and reared,
Nor ever less than sister seemed to be,
Till lovely beauty in her face appeared,
And we were men: then love inflamed us all,
And broke our peace with jealousies unheard.
But soon our strife again to peace did fall:
For she the youngest for her bridegroom chose,
And took with him departure from our hall.
Unto those hills she passed that round us close,
Where she the Saracens to concord bent,
And lived in peace amid those heathen foes:
And with them both my other brother went.”
Thus spake that knight upon the bloody plain:
And Mano answered: “To that argument
“Add this: thy other brother by me slain,
Since none but he rode with her to my spear:
And eke thy youngest brother dead, certain,
“By her whom thou hast leman: for by her
Was the other woman's husband stricken dead
From secret ambush in the hills, or e'er
“The battle chanced upon the mountain head,
Wherein I stood forth the deliverer
Of her by whom all is to ruin led.
“And to this woe exceeding add by her
Likewise thy foster-sister done to death:
And know that I, who to thine eyes appear,
“Am son of her who died upon the heath,
And brother of thy foster-sister so.
The compt between us sadly tallieth.
“Wherefore now fight we not: hence to her go,
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Who brought this ruin both for thee and me.
Go not in love: go as an armed foe:
“Spare not; but smite her for this misery.
Then, after that, our reckoning shall be made.—
I slew thy brother, as our sister she:
“And of my love by thee I am betrayed.
But older kindness sometimes may prevail:
(Thy father to my mother gave his aid):
“If honour stand full satisfied, nor fail,
When ancient benefits with it be weighed,
Albeit these bring down the doubtful scale:
“In sleep, perchance, may enmity be laid.”
Then the knight bowed his head, and turned away.
But ere he parted, once more Mano said,
“Of him who was my father canst thou say:
Or else no knowledge hast, nor sign to bring?”
The other answered, “Nought save this I may:
“That he of some high lineage did spring:
But of his rank or country and estate
I from my father never heard a thing.”
The other answered, “Truly of the great
Fair bounty have I in my life received.
The son of such a father fits my fate.”
So parted they: and, be it well believed,
The Italian knight rode to his death that day.
For travelling alone, in spirit grieved,
Far from the Ungrians, who were fled away,
Unto his lodging lone he weened to ride,
Where the false woman, whom he cherished, lay.
He found himself upon a country wide,
Travelling a road paven with stones full great,
Through which the long grass grew with lonely pride.
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So went he, till the night grew very late,
And met with none: till last he saw a tomb,
Which by the roadside stood with ruined gate.
Like a bastile it stood with spacious room
And rounded rampires high, which had been made
By the old pagans in the days of Rome:
And evil spirits there their dwellings had.
He entered, since no better might be found,
Stabling his beast within the noisome shade;
And went to sleep lodged in the thick-walled mound.
But in the night (whether by secret ways
She issued, or by passage underground,
Or by the fiends carried through cloudy haze;
And whether knowing of his altered mind,
Or of his love grown weary, nothing says
The history) she whom with purpose blind
He meant to slay, with bursting laughter woke
His sleep: certain she was of hellish kind:
And in the morning with his bones y-broke
Thus was he found by men who came that way,
Whose fearful ears gathered the words he spoke,
Ere that he died: and thus that fiend did slay
Those brothers three, and Mano's sister dear:
And over Mano by her evil play
Wove a dark web of wretchlessness and fear.
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