IV.

When I prepared my bark first to obey,
As it should still obey, the helm, my mind,
And carry prose or rhyme, and this my lay

Of Charles the Emperor, whom you will find
By several pens already praised; but they
Who to diffuse his glory were inclined,

For all that I can see in prose or verse,

Have understood Charles badly-and wrote worse.

V.

Leonardo Aretino said already,

That if, like Pepin, Charles had had a writer

Of genius quick, and diligently steady,

No hero would in history look brighter;

He in the cabinet being always ready,

And in the field a most victorious fighter,

Who for the church and Christian faith had wrought, Certes far more than yet is said or thought.

VI.

You still may see at Saint Liberatore,
The abbey no great way from Manopell,
Erected in the Abruzzi to his glory,

Because of the great battle in which fell
A Pagan King, according to the story,

And felon people whom Charles sent to hell: And there are bones so many, and so many, Near them Giusaffa's would seem few, if any.

VII.

But the world, blind and ignorant, don't prize
His virtues as I wish to see them: thou,

Florence, by his great bounty don't arise,
And hast, and may have, if thou wilt allow,
All

proper customs and true courtesies :

Whate'er thou hast acquired from then till now,

With knightly courage, treasure, or the lance,

Is

sprung from out the noble blood of France.

VIII.

Twelve Paladins had Charles in court, of whom
The wisest and most famous was Orlando ;
Him traitor Gan conducted to the tomb

In Roncesvalles, as the villain plann'd too,
While the horn rang so loud, and knell'd the doom
Of their sad rout, though he did all knight can do,
And Dante in his comedy has given

To him a happy seat with Charles in heaven.

IX.

'Twas Christmas-day; in Paris all his court

Charles held; the chief, I say, Orlando was,

The Dane; Astolfo there too did resort,

Also Ansuigi, the gay time to pass

In festival and in triumphal sport,

The much renown'd St. Dennis being the cause;

Angiolin of Bayonne, and Oliver,

And gentle Belinghieri too came there:

1

X.

Avolio, and Arino, and Othone

Of Normandy, and Richard Paladin,
Wise Hamo, and the ancient Salemone,

Walter of Lion's Mount and Baldovin,
Who was the son of the sad Ganellone,

Were there, exciting too much gladness in
The son of Pepin:-when his knights came hither,
He groaned with joy to see them altogether.

XI.

But watchful Fortune lurking, takes good heed
Ever some bar 'gainst our intents to bring.
While Charles reposed him thus, in word and deed,
Orlando ruled court, Charles, and every thing;

Curst Gan, with envy bursting, had such need

To vent his spite, that thus with Charles the king,

One day he openly began to say,

"Orlando must we always then obey?

XII.

"A thousand times I've been about to say, "Orlando too presumptuously goes on;

"Here are we, counts, kings, dukes, to own thy sway, "Hamo, and Otho, Ogier, Solomon,

"Each have to honour thee and to obey;

"But he has too much credit near the throne, "Which we won't suffer, but are quite decided

"By such a boy to be no longer guided.

XIII.

"And even at Aspramont thou didst begin

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"To let him know he was a gallant knight, "And by the fount did much the day to win; "But I know who that day had won the fight "If it had not for good Gherardo been :

"The victory was Almonte's else; his sight "He kept upon the standard, and the laurels "In fact and fairness are his earning, Charles.