So fiercely, when these knights had breathed once,
They to the fight return; increasing more
Their mighty force and cruel rage at once,
And heaped strokes more hugely than before;
That, with their dreary wounds and bloody gore,
So much deformed, they scarcely could be known.
By this, sad UNA, fraught with anguish sore,

Led with their noise which through the air was thrown, Arrived where they on earth their fruitless blood had sown.

Whom, all as soon as that proud Saracen
Espied, having revived the memory

Of his lewd lusts and late attempted sin,
He left the doubtful battle hastily,

To catch her, newly offered to his eye:

But SATYRANE, with strokes him turning, stayed,
And sternly bade him other business ply,
Nor hunt the steps of pure unspotted maid;

Wherewith he all enraged those bitter speeches said;

'O foolish satyr's son, what fury mad

'Hath thee incensed to haste thy doleful fate? 'Were it not better I that lady had

'Than that thou should'st repent of it too late : 'Most senseless man is he who self doth hate, 'To love another: lo, then, for thine aid, 'Here take thy lover's token on thy pate.' So they to fight; while that the royal maid Fled far away, of that proud Pagan sore afraid. But that false pilgrim, which the leasing told, Being indeed old ARCHIMAGO, did stay In secret shadow, all this to behold, And much rejoiced in their bloody fray; But when he saw the damsel pass away, He left his stand, and her pursued apace, In hope to bring her to her last decay. But for to tell her lamentable case,

And this fell battle's end, will need another place.

CANTO VII.

The Redcross knight is captive made,
By giant proud opprest;

Prince Arthur meets with Una great

ly with these news distrest.

What man so wise, what earthly wit so ware,
As to descry the crafty cunning train, [wile]
By which Deceit doth mask in visor fair,
And make her colours, dyed deep in grain,
To seem like Truth, whose shape she well can feign,
And fitting gestures to her purpose frame,
The guiltless man with guile to entertain?
Great mistress of her art was that false dame,
The false DUESSA, cloked with FIDESSA's name.

Who when, returning from the dreary Night,
She found not in that perilous house of PRIDE,
Where she had left, the noble REDCROSS knight,
Her hoped prey, she would no longer bide,
But forth she went to seek him far and wide.
Ere long she found where he had weary sat
To rest himself, close by a fountain side,
Disarmed all of iron-coated plate;

And by his side his steed the grassy forage ate.

He feeds upon the cooling shade, and bays [bathes]
His sweaty forehead in the breathing wind,

Which through the trembling leaves full gently plays,
Wherein the cheerful birds of sundry kind
Do chant sweet music to delight his mind:
The witch approaching did him fairly greet,
And with reproach of carelessness unkind
Upbraid, for leaving her in place unmeet,

With foul words tempering fair, sour gall with honey sweet.
Unkindness past, they did of solace treat,
And bathe in pleasures of the joyous shade,
Which shielded them against the boiling heat,
And with green boughs decking a gloomy shade,
About the fountain like a garland made;
Whose bubbling wave did ever freshly well,
Nor ever would through fervent summer fade:
The sacred nymph who there was wont to dwell,
Was out of Dian's favour, as it then befell.

The cause was this: one day when Phoebe fair,
With all her band, was following the chase,
This nymph, quite tired with heat of scorching air,
Sat down to rest in middest of the race:
The goddess wroth did foully her disgrace,
And bade the waters, which from her did flow,
Be such as she herself was then in place.
Thenceforth the waters waxed dull and slow,
And all who drink thereof do faint and feeble grow,

Hereof this gentle knight unknowing was;
And lying dowu upon the sandy grail, [gravel]
Drunk of the stream, as clear as crystal glass;
Forthwith his manly force began to fail,
And mighty strong was turned to feeble frail.
His changed powers at first themselves not felt;
Till curdling cold his courage did assail,

And cheerful blood in fainting chill did melt,

Which like an ague fit through all his body swelt. [sweltered]

Yet goodly court he made still to his dame,

Stretched in laziness upon the ground,
Careless alike of health and of his fame:

Till at the last he heard a dreadful sound,

Which through the wood loud bellowing did rebound,

That all the earth for terror seemed to shake,

And trees did tremble. The knight, therewith astound, Upstarting lightly from his looser make,

Did his unready weapons begin in hand to take.

But ere he could his armour on him dight, [put]
Or get his shield, his monstrous enemy,

With sturdy steps, came stalking in his sight;

A hideous giant, horrible and high,

Who with his tallness seemed to threat the sky;
The ground did groan beneath his feet for dread :
His living like saw never living eye,

Nor durst behold: his stature did exceed

The height of three the tallest sons of mortal seed.

The greatest Earth his uncouth mother was,

And blustering olus his boasted sire,

Who with his breath, which through the world doth pass,
Her hollow womb did secretly inspire,

And filled her hidden caves with stormy ire;
So she conceived; and trebling the due time
In which the birth of mortals doth transpire,

Brought forth this monstrous mass of earthly slime,
Puff'd up with empty wind, and filled with sinful crime.

So growing great, through arrogant delight
Of the high parentage whence he was born,
And through presumption of his matchless might,
All other powers and knighthood he did scorn.
Such now he marcheth to this man forlorn,
And left to loss; his stalking steps are stayed
Upon a snaggy oak, which he had torn

Out of his mother's bowels, and of it made
A mortal mace, wherewith his foeman he dismayed.
And when the knight he saw, he did advance
With striding steps along and force amain,
And towards him with dreadful fury prance;
Who hapless and all hopeless, did in vain
To him approach, sad battle to darrayne, [hazard]
Disarmed, disgraced, aud inwardly dismayed:
So faint he was in every joint and vein,

Through that false fountain which him feeble made,
That scarcely could he wield his bootless single blade.

The giant aimed a stroke so merciless,

That could have overthrown a stony tower;
And, but for heavenly grace which did him bless,
He had been powdered all as thin as flour;
But he was wary of that deadly stour, [crash]
And lightly leaped from underneath the blow:
Yet so prodigious was the villian's power,
That with the wind it did him overthrow,
And all his senses stunned, that there he lay full low :
As when that devilish iron engine, wrought
In deepest hell, and framed by furies' skill,
With windy nitre and quick sulphur fraught,
And ramm'd with bullet round, ordained to kill,
Conceiveth fire, the heavens it doth fill

With thundering noise, and all the air doth choke,

That none can breathe nor see nor hear at will,

Through smouldering cloud of duskish stinking smoke,

The breath of which him daunts, who hath escaped the stroke.

So daunted when the giant saw the knight,

His heavy hand he heaved up on high,

And him to dust thought to have battered quite;

Until DUESSA loud to him did cry,

"O great ORGOGLIO, greatest under sky,

'Oh! hold thy mortal hand for lady's sake; 'Hold for my sake, and do him not to die,

'But, vanquished, thine eternal bondslave make, 'And me, thy worthy meed, unto thy bosom take.'

E

He hearkened, and did stay from further harms,
To gain so goodly guerdon as she spake ;
So willingly she came into his arms,

Who her as willingly to grace did take,
Much pleased to possess his new-found mate.
Then up he took the slumbering senseless corse,
And, ere he could out of his swoon awake,
Him to his castle brought with hasty force,
And in a dungeon deep him threw without remorse.
From that day forth DUESSA was his dear,
And highly honoured in his haughty eye.
He gave her gold, and purple pall to wear,
And triple crown set on her head full high,
And her endowed with royal majesty :
Then, for to make her dreaded more of men,
And peoples' hearts with awful terror tie,
A monstrous beast, first bred in filthy fen,
He chose, which he had kept long time in darksome den.
Such one it was as that renowned snake,
Which great Alcides in Stermona slew,
Long fostered iu the filth of Lerna lake;
Whose many heads, out-budding ever new,
Did breed him endless labour to subdue.
But this same monster much more ugly was,
For seven great heads out of his body grew:
An iron beast, and back of scaly brass,

And, all embrued with blood, his eyes did shine as glass.

His tail was stretched out in wondrous length,
That to the house of heavenly gods it raught; [reached]
And, with extorted power and borrowed strength,
The ever-burning lamps from thence it brought,
And proudly threw to ground as things of naught;
And underneath his filthy feet did tread

The sacred things, nor for God's laws cared aught.
Upon this dreadful beast, with sevenfold head,
He set the false DUESSA, for more awe and dread.
The woeful dwarf, who saw his master fall,
While he had keeping of his grazing steed,
The valiant knight become a captive thrall,
When all was past, took up his forlorn weed;
His mighty armour, missing most in need;
His silver shield, now idle, masterless;
His poignant spear, that many made to bleed :
The rueful monuments of heaviness,

And with them all departs, to tell his great distress.