University of Virginia Library

BOOK II.

I.— HOW FERGANT WENT TO BE WITH MANO: AND OF OTHER THINGS.

Love teacheth many things, and answereth
To many questions which the soul outspieth;
Because that God is love, and witnesseth
To his own image, in the soul which lieth:
Therefore in knowledge he doth most abound
Whoever upon love's strong pinion flieth.
And when that love with fair success is crowned,
Then is man's state made perfect upon earth:
But most unhappiness in love is found.
Then fullest plenty feels the curse of dearth;
And, if not worse, yet this is bitterer
Than to have tasted of love's sweets is worth.
In that great knight whether should I prefer
Dolour or sweetness to have borne the sway
When I from Gerbert came as comforter?
His eye fell fiercely on me, when my way
I found into his lodging and began
On some pretence some timid words to say.
Full wroth he seemed, but as a gentle man:
And I observed that though he chafed at heart,
And balked anger through his pulses ran,
Yet neither Blanche nor Giroie's name did part
His lips with bitterness: to noble mind
Fate's fullest quiver holds not envy's dart.
But Gerbert's name he shunned, as if unkind
His part herein had been: and, truth to own,
This first began their friendship to unbind.
And when lord Gerbert's comfort I made known,
This seemed to stir him, and he would not hear:
Then silent sat I, while he chafed alone;
Till the rage seemed to leave him; and with cheer
Quite altered, he gan suddenly to say
That thence to Italy his course was clear.
Then, when I answered that my journey lay
Wherever his, he took it in good part,
And we made pact to travel the next day.
Now in good truth I have not to impart
The time when Gerbert that sad marriage made
Which cast on Mano such a scald of heart:
Nor whether rightly deemed himself betrayed
The knight, as having shown his love before
To Gerbert, and from him expecting aid.
But a stern coldness certainly did lower
Upon his eyelids, whenso'er the thought
Of Gerbert came upon him in that hour.
But this do I suspect, that all was wrought
By cunning of that damsel false and fair
Whom first from Italy Sir Mano brought,
The wild Diantha, haunting everywhere,
And hating Mano in her secret mind,
Who for her ends no enginry would spare.
She then, when Blanche and Giroie she divined
In secret wedlock to desire to be,
With Gerbert that strong knot to tie combined.
Not that for them she toiled; her industry
Was by their means to compass her desire,
And of all laws of God and man be free.
For this bad daughter of a better sire
With a vile losel dweller of the wild
Was playing now, drawn on by evil fire;
To whom she fled, and thence was domiciled
Long time in savagery with evil men,
And many a month from honesty exiled.
Of that adventure shall be heard again,
For much came of it: note ye only here,
When Gerbert lay at Rouen, that 'twas then.
For in that time, as after did appear
To me much searching, on some embassy
She came from Féchamp, where the others were.
Attended well she came, but secretly,
And saw lord Gerbert: then from thence alone
Into the widespread woods escaped hard by.
Now as to Mano, who to me was known
More closely from the time that Gerbert bade
That I should share his expedition,
Concerning Mano thus much shall be said,
That he my love so drew that never I
What faults in him I noted open laid:
And when lord Gerbert questioned privily,
Of me he got but little: least of all
Upon that noble knight would I be spy.
For good his purpose was though great his fall,
When fiery passion, reason's opposite,
Working through subtle fate, did him inthrall.
He was of all the most for action fit;
The same contemplative, and highly wrought:
Magnanimous he was, and fine of wit.
The practices of others feared he nought;
Placable as to open enmity,
But, once deceived, never to be resought.
Never would he, save but for treachery
His friend forsake, or make his faith unsure
For vice or folly, or calamity.
While Gerbert of mere friendship had less cure;
Who held that there might come occasions great,
When even a good man might that name abjure;
And that who feared himself to separate
From his best fellow, if the time were nigh,
Was but infirm, nor fit for things of state.
So diversely they held of amity.

II.— HOW MANO SET FORTH FOR ITALY.

The next day after Mano had resumed
His former cheer to me so suddenly,
When the first beam the ready sky illumed,
Our common voyage into Italy
We gan to hasten: and I found thereto
That Mano had done much in secrecy.
For he was one who what he would pursue
Achieved with little noise; others there are
Whose tools are in their mouths, their work to do.
Some marvels happened great and singular
Upon that voyage, which is now to tell,
Nigh the feared advent of Christ's second star.
But nothing shall be told that not befell
In very truth, as God my Saviour be,
Albeit the truth full many shall repel.
For wondrous truth is taken diversely:
With credence by the nobler is she met,
And bears fair issue to expectancy:
Base things on her the baser sort beget.—
But here, to make short tale, with sundry men
Out of the town our early feet we set.
Those who on travel with us entered then
Were they who to the venture had agreed;
And on the road we took up more again.
As we from town to town began proceed,
They waited for us all the way along,
Until we had as many as were need:
And were at last above five hundred strong,
Poor knights the most, with servants two or three:
Few arms were seen this company among,
Though arms there were: nor any bravery,
But all was hidden under pilgrim gown,
Ere the last following received had we;
Then we began to skirt round every town,
The safer so to hold upon our way,
Like simple pilgrims, clothed in black or brown.
But neither signs were wanting to display
Peril to us, and evils manifold;
For when we passed where the dark valley lay
Of that poor peasant whose sad tale was told,
One that among us was in company
Felt his knees smitten with a senseless cold,
And in his hips such pain, that like to die
From horse he fell to ground, nor could be raised
Ere that a monk, who was a priest, rode nigh,
And signed the cross upon the man amazed:
Whereon he forthy rose and sat upright:
And for his strange deliverance God be praised.
This was the working of that evil wight
Who haunted in the lonely country there,
And made it ill to pass by day or night.
Likewise to Paris when we gotten were,
There was strange darkness cast o'er every street,
And all was stiller than a sepulchre.
Unlit the houses were: none did we meet,
When Mano with the men most near to him
Rode by that church which is Saint Dennis' seat:
And, passing by the church door great and dim,
One of the men by hand invisible
Was smitten, that he loudly gan blaspheme,
And rolled in raging madness from his sell.
Whereat the door was opened from within,
And a strong light upon the dark did swell.
And a great man and woman there were seen,
Who knelt before the altar: there was none
Beside them in the church all trim and clean,
Where service was prepared, and the altar shone
With gold and silver: he who then knelt there
Slowly arose, and issued forth anon:
And we beheld that he a crown did wear;
Large-faced and sad was he, of royal cheer:
And to that cursing one, whom black despair
Had overwhelmed with madness, he drew near
And took him by the hand, and from the ground
Raised, and some secret words dropped in his ear.
When, lo, the oppressed grew straightway sane and sound.
Then to Sir Mano said the man royal,
“Me, whom thou seest recure the sinner's wound,
“And sweep the garner demoniacal,
Know for that king whom late the unkind decree
Of excommunication made to fall.
“Robert am I; on whose head Gregory
Hath fulminated for the marriage made
With her who now is put away from me.”
Then Mano, “Hast thou then, sire king, obeyed
That hard compulsion? this much pities me.”—
“Yea,” the other said, “to Rome be this conveyed,
“If thitherward, rider, thy journey be:
For all men fly from me and yon poor queen,
And on us both the curse sits heavily:
“To us and to our land it happens e'en
As if the leprosy upon us lay.
This tell in Rome which thou hast heard and seen,
“King Robert and his wife now put away:
Her, to whose former son at baptism I
By sponsorship contracted in new way
“A fatal kinship, full of mystery;
Becoming by that rite to him, 'twas said,
More than a father in affinity;
“And to his mother, whom my wife I made,
Akin within prohibited degree:
Which sin of ignorance is against me laid.
“Say that thou hast beheld my penalty,
Say that thou hast beheld us lying here
In penitential woe and misery.
“For with the morning's light we shall appear
No more as man and wife in all men's sight;
But first before the people taste that cheer
“To which the Saviour doth his own invite,
Then part for evermore: this final woe
Remains to us with coming of the light.”
Then Mano answered, “If it must be so,
Nor better may be, I shall do thy mind,
Since I to Rome am mainly bent to go;
“But wroth am I, oh king, pious and kind,
That German pope, imperial minion,
On thee should have this power to loose and bind.”
Then back into the church the king anon
His heavy steps betook; and from the gate
Sir Mano rode, and on his way was gone.
Thence onward we traversed the kingdom great
Of Burgundy; which Eudes, queen Bertha's son,
That son who caused king Robert's wretched fate,
Thought lately from the empire to have won,
But lost his life in battle: and, I ween,
With him that kingdom ever is foredone.
There in our passage through the land were seen
On every knoll and rock the castles high
Of the great seigneurs each in his domain:
There wretched serfs at labour in the eye
Of the hard villicus on every plain,
We saw in the shadow of each sovereignty.
We saw at every dawn the struggling train
From their small hamlets led to drudge the day,
And by the ganger urged with heavy pain.
They who thus toiled in pitiful array,
By night were hutted into noisome fold,
And, being forbidden lights, in darkness lay.
Their only light, the sun, did they behold,
Their great taskmaster rising in the east,
From course diurnal into annual rolled;
Their days into their lives with toil increased.
Ah, Lord, how many days saw we that throng
In garments drab, with cramped limbs uneased!
We saw their faces dark with hopeless wrong;
And oftentimes their lords with merry cheer
Drove their brave hunts the wretched troop among.
And on our way there fell this omen drear.
Riding by night (as it was our usage,
Whenever to a city we drew near)
That we might safer make our pilgrimage,
We skirted round a city great and high;
But with the morning held a plain voyage:
Where in the open land beneath the sky,
Walking around a lake's inclosing bank,
Behold of half-clad men a company!
Long spears they bore, which into the deep tank
They still pushed down among the sedge and reeds.
Then Mano said to me: “Mark yon poor rank,
And know thou whence that industry proceeds.
They walk the fishpond with their staves all night,
Seeking the places where the frog most breeds,
Whose chanting might their masters' sleep affright.”—
While thus he spake, there came a mournful cry
From those half-clothed purveyors of delight;
And when we turned the occasion to descry,
Behold in that strange fishing one had struck
His spear into a bundle, which on high
The reeds held from the wave: the cruel hook
Was bedded in an infant's tender breast,
Exposed through want: such prey such angle took.
This to the pale-faced fisher drew the rest:
And in the gasping babe that fisher found
One whom his own life did with life invest.
Fast then a priest of ours came to the ground,
The sacrament of baptism to apply:
But, ere he reached, in death the babe was wound.
No sign more evil could have been, perdy;
But in this very thing, of which I tell,
Many concerning Mano strangely lie:
That in his arms was found a child of hell,
A demon under form of infant dead,
Which, ere the holy drops upon it fell,
Shrank suddenly to nought, and vanished:
Of all which not a jot by me was seen,
Who present was, and all things witnessed,
And should have known, if such a thing had been.

III.— WHAT BEFELL IN THE ALPS.

Now entered we among that desert pile
That overhangs with steeps the Italian plain:
By many a craggy way and long defile
Ascending through the passes of the chain.
Hard was that voyage: colder grew the air;
On either hand the dark trees seemed in pain,
And strove their stiffened branches to upbear:
At every turn came forth the mountain mass,
Girded with pines, snow-wrapped, with brows severe:
But higher when we clomb the endless pass,
Then the locked mountains either hand that stood
Met knee to knee; and passage scarce there was.
Then, lest the hillmen who thereby abode
Should stay the march of larger company,
Sir Mano bade us some to quit the road,
And them who kept it to go two and three;
The more, because the savage Saracens
Held stations on the side next Italy.
Wherefore along that Alpine region thence
We rode divided: Mano for his part
Turned sharply toward the nighest eminence;
And him I followed from the road apart,
Ascending steeply, with some few beside,
And slowly travelling the mountain swart.
Thus mounting to the top we gan to ride
O'er stony places clogged with frozen snow,
A dreadful desert, through the which no guide
Of kindly voice heartened our footsteps slow:
In clouds the pale sun hung, which more and more
Gathered, and caused a dusk o'er all to grow;
And the white waste changed colour: then down bore
Of thick and heavy snow a hideous fall,
Through which we went in blindness evermore.
Then each to other full of fear did call,
For every step was frightful in that waste,
Where prospect was obliterated all,
Nor now indeed knew we to halt or haste;
And painfully our trembling beasts we drew,
Which were by demons into terror cast,
Who with strange sounds and voices round us flew,
And opened chasms suddenly at our feet,
And stones against us from each quarter threw.
But God of all their malice made defeat,
For when for hours we had suffered this distress,
The darkness, and the storm that on us beat,
At last the fiends had spent their wickedness,
And the blithe sun looked out on our array,
What time he sought the Hesperian recess:
He cast on us a golden beam full gay,
But darkened into blood-red, as he sank,
And left the heavens purple and curdled grey:
Then we refitted our equipments dank.
But, soon was turned to woe our brief delight.
Mano himself was missing from our rank,
Nor anywhere beheld we him in sight,
Nor search nor shout recovered him to us:
Upon our bootless toils came down the night,
And wrapped us on the summit ruinous.

IV.— OF AN ADVENTURE WHICH FELL TO MANO.

V.— HOW WE CAME INTO ITALY.

Betwixt or vice or virtue ye who live
The trembling balanced life, both pure and frail,
Will ye not to that man some pity give
Whomever dark temptations do assail?
Or doth the leaf still hanging on the bough
Laugh at his brother driven down the gale?
Another blast, and it alike may bow.
From you I ask for pity, and not scorn:
Shame's touch in turn may redden every brow.
Brave Mano now, full long of love forlorn,
Turned greedily to solace wild and free,
Seeming to have the thought of Blanche outworn.
Love's rebel he against love's tyranny;
For hope being gone left the soul desolate,
And the heart ready for conspiracy.
Now came occasion: now was sent by fate
This woman terrible, whose haughty will
And shameless daring matched her beauty great.
Her cruel story, all contrary still
To what he knew of women, on him threw
A deadly charm and irresistible;
And to the same effect and purpose drew
His own part in that story: he gan fail
From his youth's purity; and evil knew:
And miserable desires pierced his mind's mail,
Though love erewhile so fitted close his heart,
That nought of base to enter might avail:
Love from that fort had governed every part.
But now that false-named love, that regent vile,
Whose drunken shaft usurps the fire-winged dart,
With lust for reverence, and for honour guile,
Worked in him reckless mood, and unrestraint,
And changed his mien from what it was erewhile.
Now in our journeying the hills more faint
Lay far and white behind us, and the way
Turned downward to the plain by passes quaint.
Known were those paths from earth's primæval day
To such rude men which in those hills abode:
But we passed fairly without check or stay.
Pace with the streams we kept, that marked the road,
And thus descending looked on valleys fair
Enlaced with terraced vines, that darkly glowed.
The purple sky, high rolled in æstive air,
The grass, the budded flowers gave more delight,
The laughing bursten broom seemed yellower.
And now our scattered fellows gan unite,
Where the long passes ended; and the way
Suddenly brought the Italian plain in sight,
The glorious golden country, for whose sway
Fierce nations strive: yea, even as the shores
Lead to the boundless sea, and therewith stay;
So suddenly the hills their rocky doors
Behind us shut, and left us on that plain,
Which, like the sea, rolled far his swelling floors.
There vine and olive-crested grass and grain:
Cities, the Roman works, stood fair and high,
Like islands, in the golden-billowed main.
This glorious sight brought joy to every eye:
But in our hearts was woe and trouble found
Because of Mano and that harlotry.
He in that woman's snare a slave was bound:
All day by her he rode in disarray,
And their loud laughter did the vales confound.
For nought beside vain dalliance cared they,
And their light folly was before our eyes,
Which mixed in our contentment sore dismay.
Those of our pilgrims who were good and wise,
The holy men who on this quest repaired,
Were often mocked by her with gaieties.
For in the toilsome march they never spared
Of prayers, fastings, and austerity,
And, as they rode, to stripes their shoulders bared,
Or read in holy books, which verily
Good store they carried on each patient beast,
To solace them with godly history:
All which full oft she turned to scurril jest.
Thus murmurs grew among us day by day,
Though fear of Mano still their voice repressed.
But one thing only of her evil play
Shall here be told: that she to Mano gave
A talisman, that in her bosom lay;
A broidery of colours bright and brave,
But stained with a blot of sanguine hue:
Which she had plucked out of the sudden grave,
Where that fair body lay the which she slew.
She gave it him but as a gift of price,
Nor told him from what wealth her gift she drew.
Fair was the cloth, and wrought in costly wise:
And from the same in time great marvel fell,
Ere we had quittance of her sorceries.
Thus travelled we the plain, e'en as I tell:
Nor long behind us Gerbert left the land
Whence we so far were come: he steering well
By sea to avoid the Saracenic band,
Which we atween the hills had safely passed,
Arrived before us on the Roman strand:
And there it was we met him at the last.

VI.— OF A BATTLE WITH THE SARACENS: AND OF OUR COMING TO A LOMBARDIAN TOWN.

Now when our road left that high mountain stage,
And issued fair on the Lombardian plain,
The Saracens came on us, full of rage
That we had passed unspied their guardian chain.
And this last storm fell furious on our rear.
But soon our horsemen charged back amain,
And through the valley long, at point of spear
Repelled them: and so hotly them pursued,
That to their hills they wished themselves more near.
Thus in this region was again made good
The Norman fighting, which doth still prevail
O'er all that hath in war against it stood,—
The Saracen's curved sword and light-wrought mail,
The Teuton's straight sword and thick-forged plates,
The Greekish spear and targe: for, scale on scale
Of iron upon canvas stitched in plaits,
Strong and yet agile, swift but close in fight,
So clad 'gainst all himself the Norman mates.
We held the field and all confessed our might:
And, victory with little pain achieved,
We moved toward a town which rose in sight.
And to that pleasant place we were received
Right willingly by the Lombardian men,
Who through great fear had their high walls upheaved,
And from tall castles overlooked the plain:
Dreading an enemy more fierce and fell
Than the Alpine foe, than e'en the Saracen.
For here the Ungrian, who doth all excel
In cruelty and greed, still makes his road,
And drives the Lombard to his citadel.
Scarce might the land be tilled; and no abode
Outside the walled city lay secure:
The farmer in the walls his crop bestowed,
Then guarded it in arms: glad to immure
In the ripe season what his pains had sown:
For oftener the sowings immature
His hand was forced to reap ere they were grown.—
Ah, grass and leaves may flourish all the year,
But corn and fruit one season only own.
So entered we, as bringing hope to fear,
And strength to weakness: and with welcome kind
Our leader was received, and gentle cheer.
And some days there did we refreshment find;
And walked the streets amid the people there,
The Huns being gone with the cold wintry wind.
For frost was ceased from out the pleasant air:
The blue sky shone with those white clouds of Spring
Which the mild shepherd Zephyr drives with care;
That herd whose sweet milk fattens everything.
Such pleasantness we found within the walls
Which now begirt us with their lofty ring:
And the new-leaved trees hard by the halls
Where we were lodged, rose sweetly in the sky:
And in them made full many a bird his calls,
And from love's unseen echo got reply.—
So pleasant was the place which was the seat
Of the great teacher of an heresy;
For here abode that sophist false but sweet,
Vilgardus named, surnamed Grammarian,
Whose errors in all lands did Fame repeat.
Even he it was, of whom the story ran
That in the guise of poets to him came
The fiends by night, and seized upon the man:
Who thenceforth wicked blasphemies gan frame,
And everywhere the same with zeal to spread:
Whereby full many fell to sword and flame.
Him in this town we found, it is no dread:
An aged man, yet fresh as any child,
Bearing white hairs upon his ruddy head;
Firm-eyed, and of behaviour sweet and mild;
So that of him but little would be thought
That many his false teaching had beguiled.
And in those days Sir Mano to him sought,
And held with him much converse; which in part
I heard; and of the rest by Mano taught,
The sum of all I shall to you impart.

VII.— CONCERNING VILGARDUS, SURNAMED GRAMMATICUS.

This aged man, this old heresiarch,
Would in his pleasant parlour often sit,
Until the setting light made gentler dark;
And with Sir Mano talk with pleasant wit:
Or with me also, if it happened so;
For he to conference would all admit.
And he would bid his Rhetian wine to flow,
Which he, from Virgil, boasted not to vie
With the Falernian, more than he outgo
That divine master in philosophy.
For of the ancients still he made his song,
Whose books to hold in fear and enmity,
Their store of fables full of lust and wrong,
I have been still instructed by my rule,
Nor ever were they suffered us among:
Though Gerbert, it is certain, and the school
Of men less strict, in favour held the same,
Till some said that in love their hearts were cool.
But that old sophister put off all shame,
Teaching what seemed against our holy faith,
To turn the world back from the Christian name.
“Behold,” said he, “this age so full of death!
This age is full of woe; this age is sick,
Discoloured, as a fish that gasps for breath
“Beside the waters, where it darted quick.
It cannot breathe the air of heaven fine;
But cast it back into the water thick,
“And it revives 'mid the delicious brine.—
So ye, who live this age of woe and fear,
Too high are lifted on the shore divine.
“Ye wait the coming of the thousandth year,
And fly from nature's sea to gasp of heaven,
Believing that the end of all is near.
“Would ye breathe heaven, and be with angels even,
Being yet men? Or think ye that your eyes
Can leave that strife to which ye all are given,
“And see the true heaven-colours in yon skies,
Unmixed with bloody fire, black specks and motes,
And what else in true sight are maladies?
“Not so: the shoal that in the ocean floats
Sees better the fair sky through waters grey,
With lazy eyes set in their shagreen coats.
“Plunge down again: back to your deep, away!
Find life within the succourable wave,
Nor struggle thence, where nature bids you stay.
“So in the glimmering vastness shall ye have
Heaven's pictures, or of cloud or vacancy,
Moving above you in their pageant brave.
“Ye, who can think for all, hearken to me.
This age is writ in woe, in horror sealed,
Because true bounds no more observed be,—
“Those chancels of the universal field
Of thought and action, which the old sages raised
And left, of man for ever to be held.
“A thousand years the Grecian sages gazed
On happiness, on virtue, on the best,
On all those actions for which men are praised.
“Then one arose, the master of the rest,
Grave Aristotle, whom ye too revere,
And to all questions laid his searching test.
“He meted limits with his line severe;
By reason studying both the soul and things:
And sweet the fields he fenced with knowledge clear:
“The soul may enter there, and fold her wings
In peace. What know ye more, that ye should dare
Mix his firm thoughts with vain imaginings?
“Uproot the landmarks, which he planted there,
With theologic reasons, and insert
Cognitions, sanctions of religion, where
“Only those seeds of Truth grow without hurt
Which man in his own being still may find,
And which by being known to good convert,
“And need no other force? Why make all blind
By mixing these with what religion gives
As to a being not to earth confined?”
But what he said of Him who ever lives,—
That God being known the highest entity,
Whom science for her utmost term receives,
No further than that word needs man to pry,
Since more than that to science cannot be;—
Frustrating therefore all theology;—
Of this no more shall be set forth by me,
But that the man forgot in arguing so
That man's best study out of reach set he,
And all the other sciences laid low:—
If the infinite perfection severed be
From man's pursuit, nought profits man to know.
No more, I say, shall be set forth by me:
But rather toward the human arts I turn,
Where I of his discourse may be more free.—
“Poetry sighs from out her buried urn,
With her fair sisters, who were once alive.—
Dig in this soil; the streets ye tread upturn,
“A thousand things from burial ye shall rive,—
Long broken marbles large and mild and sweet;
Old walls, whereon the colours yet survive:
“A world of death is trodden by your feet.
Seek in the homes of books—fear not to seek—
And wondrous are the things that ye shall meet:
“The Roman Muses telling of the Greek
With native voice, in measures fair and full,
Ere that the last return themselves to speak.
“Then shall ye know in ways how wonderful
The tracts of all the arts of old were laid,
Which change can alter not, nor time annul.
“They are the best: they, like the hills, were made
At once with mighty sweep, ever to last,
By those who first to shape their forms essayed.
“Walk therefore in the footsteps of the past,
As they once walked, who only added more
To fill the spaces of those outlines vast
“Left by their fathers, who did first explore:
Ere on the world came that great change of mind,
Altering the face of things that was before,
“Dipping the world in ruin, making blind
The eyes that saw so clear, in miseries
Drowning the long-stored gatherings of mankind.
“This eateth up all health with strange disease:
And now, behold, this iron age doth wait
To see the end! Truly the end it sees:
“For all is gone that blesses mortal state;
This age of dark religion, in whose frown
Man sees on earth the heaven he fears to hate:
“Man, shuddering at the clouds that thicken down,
Might yet be happy, wretched though he be,
And bid those floods, his seedling hopes that drown,
“Roll back into the illimitable sea,
Nor have with their dark storm his sky bewept,
If but religion kept her own degree.
—“Her own degree if but religion kept,
Usurping not the arts and sciences,
Which she by aidance false hath overstepped.
“She hath her own domain, and great she is,
Which to diminish, that be far from me:
Nay, rather I establish her, I wis,
“More than the others who cry heresy;
And what she is, perchance, know more than they.
Yea, rather would I name her Piety,
“And to be most divine of all would say,
And teach the things to her which appertain:
Nor was she known, how great, before Christ's day.
“Then heaven to earth descending made her plain:
And truth it is that not by any sage
That wrote of duty, neither by the strain
“Of poet carried through the Muse's rage,
Was pity shown to misery and pain.
Their work was not to alleviate nor assuage.
“And Moral Virtue, neither may she deign
To mortal griefs, being raised on rectitude,
To point how man may happiness obtain.
“Well she instructs the already wise and good:
But if this man or that incurably
Fail of her mark, being ignorant and lewd,
“Or otherwise in mind or bodily
Unfit for duties, pity shows she none,
Nor bears the load of imbecility:
“But out of hope she setteth such an one.
So be it: she herself is justified
By her own laws in her conclusion.
“Let her alone; be it her part to guide
To her own mark the capable and strong:
Nor let Religion touch her proper pride.
“The arts, and all Apollo's learned throng
Teach life to man; and their own use they have:
But they accept unhappiness and wrong
“The half of their domain: without the grave
And mournful part of life what were they all?
'Tis theirs to paint, not punish: show, not save.
“And Contemplation, which doth man recal
To high beginnings, and is man's last force
To apprehend the things celestial,
“Must her own ladder bring, nor have recourse
To aught of outward or supernal aid:
For what is in the stream was in the source.
“What man his own by his own thought hath made
That only in his science he may know;
And by that instrument new realms invade.
“Man's own wings bear him whither he would go:
His arts, his thought, to strict conclusions bent,
Only take heed of weakness, pain, and woe,
“As what is either to them aliment,
Or else what hostile in the world is found,
Their perfect operation to prevent.
“But, lo, Religion from beyond the bound
Of art and thought enters our mortal state,
Piteous of man, and takes her special ground.
“What man in man sees but with awe or hate
She makes her own by right; the wretch she sees
Not to destroy, but to compassionate:
“Not for the spectacle of tragedies,
But for the hand of help: weakness and pain
Her province are; her art to succour these.
“If ye knew this, such godliness were gain:
Nor would ye mix her with the functions right
Of the arts and sciences, to make all vain;
“Nor would it be too simple and too trite
To call her mercy and humanity,
Since she was only seen by heaven's own light;
“Neither by science was it given to see,
Nor by man's art, how main this principle,
How lofty piteousness and charity.
“The arts and sciences their fields kept well,
Defenced with the walls that round them rose,
Of old time, high and indestructible.
“But, as a door new opened in a close,
Showing a garden fair beyond the wall
Which customarily the scene doth close,
“Delights the gazer, till more usual
The view becomes; and, mingled with the rest,
Alone no longer doth the eye enthral:
“Even so Religion seen at first was best,
And from all else was counted separate,
And her especial function manifest:
“But long confounded since her primal date,
Zealots and bigots with contentious rage
Into her speech their ignorance translate:
“These blot with tears and blood her lovely page;
So that her name is sorrow now and fear:
Nor doth she now man's highest thoughts engage:
“For they must worship less, who would revere.”
Thus mixing half truths in faith's mysteries
(As others since) spake that old sophister:
And whoso hearkened to his subtleties
Found them most sweet; and, in delusion wound,
The vulgar framed of them worse blasphemies.
He let the water out, which ran around.
For in all lands, whither his words had course,
Perverters vile did presently abound:
Robbers, who seized church goods without remorse:
New lights, who still were crying charity,
And took the poor men's dues by fraud or force:
Wretches, who called religion piety,
And into every vilest trespass ran:
These through his words their crimes did multiply.
Such only good Vilgardus did to man.

VIII.— HOW THE UNGRIANS BESIEGING THE TOWN WERE BEATEN OFF.

As in the mountain region even storms
Seem part of a great peacefulness that spreads
From hill to hill o'er all the heavy forms
Of rocks, that lift to heaven their rugged heads:
So in that old man's speech, while we could hear
The dropping honey which persuasion sheds,
And his enthusiastic eyes were near,
With their strange glances fixed on each in turn,
Less visible his errors did appear.
But though the poisoned shafts did inly burn,
Yet some there were who to the truth were true,
Among our holy band, who whispered stern.
Then cold looks passed, which soon to danger grew:
Whereat Sir Mano rising on his feet,
His heavy sword upon the table threw,
Bidding all leave their threatenings to repeat
Against that aged man whose guests they were:
Whereon the murmurs rose to clamour great,
And soon a quarrel raged, as ye shall hear,
Which afterwards came near calamity,
And wrought us at the time to troublous fear.
A knight, who late had joined in Italy,
Waxed loud against both Mano and Vilgard:
And at the last their fury ran so high,
That he with all his following prepared
To leave our quest, and rather join the foe,
Or stay behind, the city's walls to guard.
Which Mano scorning, bade him stay or go:
And forthwith went he out, nor more was seen;
But soon 'twas heard (a loss of little woe)
That he had stolen away the gallant quean,
With whom Sir Mano dallied in that day:
And with his following was escaped clean.
When the next morning spread on earth her ray,
The plain stood thick with the wild Ungrian clan;
Who with the night came up their siege to lay:
They round the city, when the day began,
Uplifted to the sky their horrid shout,
And shot their cruel arrows as one man.
Above the walls they searched the woodwork stout
Which the townsmen atop with beams made shift to shore:
Then with all speed their horses wheeled about,
And from the walls their riders safely bore,
Preventing aim: wherefore in little space
The town in this game made the losing score.
Then through the streets the priests and monks gan pace
In their procession, chanting litanies,
And mounting to the walls took there their place.
“Ab Ungerorum nos tu jaculis
Defendas, Domine,” loudly did they cry;
“Et libera nos ab his miseriis.”
These ethnicks are the world's calamity:
In turms they shoot their arrows with strange speed,
And still upon their nimbleness rely:
All other nations they in this exceed.
And, in their sieges, first the walls they clear,
With darts, then in a trice fresh troops succeed,
Who to the vacant height their ladders rear,
And climb before the rally; in meanwhile
Against surprise fresh horsemen close the rear.
And with their open arms was joined this guile,
That with their camp they carried conjuror Jews,
Who used by night this incantation vile:
For they believe those spots, which whoso views
The changeful moon may mark in her pale sphere,
The old Shechinah which their race did lose:
And from what look they wear, cloudy or clear,
They read the future, and by dull or bright,
And by the stars that nearest them appear.
The devil gives them knowledge of this sleight;
And they instruct the heathen the best hours
Against the Christians to prevail in fight.
And these had taken now this city's towers
Save but for fortune, which by God's decree
Within the sweep of Fate's all-dragging powers
Reserves in earth's events contingency,
And this or that, with heart prudential
Against the set of things drives diversely:
As now was seen, in that it did befall
That in those threatened towers the Normans lay;
Who, when the ladders hung upon the wall,
Disdaining to be brought like beasts to bay,
Neither took part nor heed of danger near,
But issued from the gates in thick array.
Upon the foe they set in hot career,
And drove away in clouds the Ungrian horse,
For all went down before the Norman spear.
They hold the field: and, traversing in course,
The gathering squadrons break with slaughter great.
Then those upon the wall, put in fresh force,
The ladders and the climbers overset
With mighty noise: when, as their wont it is
Suddenly to prevail or else retreat,
The Ungrians broke, and left their enterprise.
Thus stood the victory in all parts sure,
And far the Normans drove their enemies;
But when their burdened horses might endure
No more, they with small loss repassed the gate.
And so by them the town was made secure
Against the nigh approach of evil fate.

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
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:
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
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,
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.
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.

X.— THE CONTINUATION OF OUR JOURNEY.

Now toward the Apennines our way we bent,
Leaving the Lombards in tranquillity,
Unto Spoletum, whither we were sent,
And Beneventum, where the war flamed high.
Through the long forests, fens, dells, crags, and caves
Of that long back which bends through Italy,
Where old Clitumnus drives his sacred waves,
Our journey lay: thence might our eyes survey
The sea, each shore of Italy that laves.
But everywhere the land around us lay
Prostrate, and trampled by outlandish feet;
For, so in that, as now 't is in this day.
The warring nations in those limits meet:
In gallies proud the Greek and Saracen
Upon the sea's broad back their strokes repeat,
And join their war against the Lombard men,
In aid of whom the German marches slow
In heavy ranks: yea, e'en as now, so then.
Against the Greek their solid force they throw,
But little boasts the German sword success
Against the walls and engines of that foe:
For Greek and Saracen together press
The Latin empire from Apulia,
The Lombard limits growing daily less.
But not yet, Bari, strength of Adria,
Hadst thou devoured those principalities,
Salernum, Beneventum, Capua.
Thither our course: to join them as allies,
Adding the Norman to the Lombard power,
And make to cease by war war's miseries.
Which as we sought, Mano from hour to hour
Like to himself appeared a leader great,
Whatever storm of peril nigh might lower.
And in that time, touching those evils late
He spoke with me, who gave him full reply,
Admonishing of deeds unfortunate.
Albeit I feared him somewhat, yet was I
Faithful in that, the duty which I owed;
And won of him honour the more thereby.
Then, looking on me, presently he showed
A curious riddle song that he had made
Concerning those strange chances on our road:
Where in a doubtful manner was displayed,
And sadly told indeed a story true:
For this the song that he before me laid.
“I had a sister whom I never knew,
Because I saw her not, when I could know,
Albeit we shared the mother whom we slew.
I saw her not enough to know her so:
Nor, though she lived to be as old as I,
I saw her not in maiden garments low.
And yet unto my presence she drew nigh,
My hand was laid upon her golden hair,
But hand was granted not in hand to lie.
Ah, and my touch has pressed her unaware:
No foe was she, yet her I overthrew:
I spoiled her not, and yet her spoils I wear.
“And that poor sister, whom I never knew,
She had a brother who no brother was:
Which false-called brother into husband grew.
And both by one who caused me shame, alas,
That husband brother and herself were slain.
“I had a mother, who from me did pass:
A father, who no father was, certain.
One not my father father was to me,
My mother was not mine by mother's pain.
“A father then had I, third in degree:
A brother, and another, and another:
And brothers to my sister there were three;—
Two, with the one that husband grew from brother:
But of them all not one that then we had
To us by blood was father, brother, mother.
“Next, of those two that were by fortune sad
Left brothers of my sister, one I slew,
The other passed from me in menace clad.
Now, when these chances I in thought pursue,
Thinking of what I had yet never had,
Dolour and pity bid my mind to rue,
But wrong is scarcely mixed with thinking sad.”

XI.— HOW MANO MET WITH COUNT THUROLD, DIANTHA'S FATHER.

High-towered Spoletum made we thus in march,
That spreads along the hills her gleaming wall:
And through that gate we entered, on whose arch
Is written the defeat of Hannibal,
The town's old glory and enduring pride:
And there dwelt Thurold and his knights withal.
Great was the joy that was on either side,
When there we met whom we to seek were come
Auxiliars in their fortune's wavering tide.
A high man seemed the count, keen and blithesome,
And, as an old knight, straight and light of port,
Gay as an eagle in his mountain home.
He made us welcome in a fitting sort;
The father of the false Diantha he
Whom Mano carried to the Norman court.
“Fair son, for son indeed art thou to me,”
Thus he to Mano, “from an older day,
Not failing scion of a bending tree,
“I who first taught thee arms, and see thee pay
My quittance in the sword that thou dost bear
Against mine enemies, what shall I say?
“Joy bringest thou for woe, hope for despair
By thy return; and my brave family
By many noble sons dost thou repair,
“All who to join my banner come with thee:
Thou art my first-born of the sword; and these
Thy younger brethren: for one house are we,
“Whom warlike danger binds more fast than peace.
Now, lifted by this aid above dismay,
Soon shall we cause the Greekish foe to cease,
“And drive him hence from these fair realms away,
Though thick in every field his armed bands,
And far the cruel spoiler hunt his prey.”
Thus nobly spake he: and with joined hands,
Bade welcome to us all, and kindly cheer,
And into hall we came by his commands.
That night was held a feast in high manner;
Where, as we sat, Sir Thurold presently
After Diantha asked, his daughter dear;
To whom full sadly Mano made reply,
—“Sir, both to carry out and not fulfil
A purposed thing, into that case came I,
“Who bore your noble daughter by your will
To her old home, and there delivered her:
Whence either she by waywardness did steal,
“Or was conveyed by wicked ravisher:
Nor found again, though sought both far and wide.”
Then sad that old knight grew with altered cheer:
And in that hour seemed hurt amidst his pride:
But with high bearing still no word he threw
Of grievousness in all that he replied:
Nay rather it appeared as if he grew
More gentle toward Sir Mano, knowing well
That to his power he faithful was and true:
The more, that he to extenuate nought did mell
Of that ill luck, nor of the time delayed
By him in Normandy beneath love's spell:
When he his musters slowly drew to aid,
And now was come but late with laggard powers:
All this the old man to oblivion bade.
Man's love of man all other loves devours;
But the love of age to youth is wonderful:
The withered tree looks on the tree that flowers,
Age from the eyes of youth fresh life doth pull.
For memory wakes therein the marvel owed
By age to youth, when age by time made null
Beholds strong youth still under life's huge load.

XII.— OF A VISION OF HELL, WHICH A MONK HAD.

Out of this town there riseth a high hill,
About whose sides live many anchorites
In cells cut in the rock with curious skill,
And laid in terraces along the heights;
This holy hill with that where stands the town
The ancient Roman aqueduct unites;
And passing o'er the vale her chain of stone,
Cuts it in two with line indelible;
A work right marvellous to gaze upon.
To one of those grave hermits there befell
A curious thing, whereof the fame was new
In our sojourn; the which I here will tell.
He found himself, when night had shed her dew,
In a long valley, narrow, deep, and straight,
Like that which lay all day beneath his view.
On each hand mountains rose precipitate,
Whose tops for darkness he could nowise see,
Though wistful that high gloom to penetrate;
And through this hollow, one, who seemed to be
Of calm and quiet mien, was leading him
In friendly converse and society:
But whom he wist not: neither could he trim
Memory's spent torch to know what things were said,
Nor about what, in that long way and dim.
But as the valley still before him spread,
He saw a line, that did the same divide
Across in halves: which made him feel great dread.
For he beheld fire burning on one side
Unto the mountains from the midmost vale;
On the other, ice the empire did discide,
Fed from the opposing hill with snow and hail.
So dreary was that haunt of fire and cold,
That nought on earth to equal might avail.
Fire ended where began the frozen mould,
Both in extreme at their conjunction:
So close were they, no severance might be told:
No thinnest line of separation,
Like that which is by painter drawn to part
One colour in his piece from other one,
So fine as that which held these realms apart.
And through the vale the souls of men in pain
From one to the other side did leap and dart,
From heat to cold, from cold to heat again:
And not an instant through their anguish great
In either element might they remain.
So great the multitude thus tossed by fate,
That as a mist they seemed in the dark air.
No shrimper, who at half-tide takes his freight,
When high his pole-net seaward he doth bear,
Ever beheld so thick a swarm to leap
Out of the brine on evening still and fair,
Waking a mist mile-long 'twixt shore and deep.
Now while his mind was filled with ruth and fear,
And with great horror stood his eyeballs steep,
Deeming that hell before him did appear,
And souls in torment tossed from brink to brink:
Upon him looked the one who set him there,
And said: “This is not hell, as thou dost think,
Neither those torments of the cold and heat
Are those wherewith the damned wail and shrink.”
And therewith from that place he turned his feet;
And sometime on they walked, the while this man
In aguish shuddering did the effect repeat:
Such spasms of horror through his body ran,
Walking with stumbling, and with glazed eyes
Whither he knew not led, ghastly and wan.
Then said the other: “In those agonies
No more than hell's beginning know: behold,
The doom of hell itself is otherwise.”
Therewith he drew aside his vesture's fold,
And showed his heart: than fire more hot it burned
One half: the rest was ice than ice more cold.
A moment showed he this: and then he turned,
And in his going all the vision went:
And he, who in his mind these things discerned,
Came to himself with long astonishment.

XIII.— OF THE WAR.

Till summer's drought had laid the streams all low,
Shrunken beneath their channel stones that lay,
Their white beds vainly thirsting for the flow
Which washed them in the spring with foaming play,
Clothing with water what they stripped to the bone
Of earth, and now uncovered did betray,
Lurking beneath their strewage, scarcely shown,
Like bodies deep in graves, whose bones remain,
And which survive in skeletons alone:
Till bitter winter came with clouds and rain,
Spreading his grim wing o'er the faint-laid earth,
And filled again with life each secret vein
That suffered drouth lest man should suffer dearth,
And with pure blood fed summer at the root:—
Till time's great march had so far issued forth,
The Normans held the forest-hidden foot
Of ancient Apennine, whence sulphurous Nar
Westward his white and furious stream doth shoot.
They in fierce battles drove their foemen far
Along the Apulian lands, across those streams
Which meet the Adrian waves with ceaseless war.
Thurold and Mano shone with equal beams,
And in those wintry battles sowed the corn
Of plenteous peace in summer's golden gleams.
Ah, but the wretched soil, which should have borne
That blessed harvest, by the heavy rain
Of conflict from the very rocks was torn.
Too thin the soil such harrowing to sustain.
But for a time was respite: and the foe
Most part in Bari did himself contain,
Warned from the field by constant overthrow.
But all that war in other histories
Is written, where its fame all men may know;
Wherefore I leave it now: for mine it is
To follow Mano to his destined end,
More than of storied glory that was his
In a redoubled roll to comprehend.