Aspirations peer
with memories as Styx
swallows all who peer
haiku by Jonathan Robin (24 October 2006)
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Pharsalia - Book VI: The Fight Near Dyrhachium. Scaeva's Exploits. The Witch Of Thessalia.
Now that the chiefs with minds intent on fight
Had drawn their armies near upon the hills
And all the gods beheld their chosen pair,
Caesar, the Grecian towns despising, scorned
To reap the glory of successful war
Save at his kinsman's cost. In all his prayers
He seeks that moment, fatal to the world,
When shall be cast the die, to win or lose,
And all his fortune hang upon the throw.
Thrice he drew out his troops, his eagles thrice,
Demanding battle; thus to increase the woe
Of Latium, prompt as ever: but his foes,
Proof against every art, refused to leave
The rampart of their camp. Then marching swift
By hidden path between the wooded fields
He seeks, and hopes to seize, Dyrrhachium's fort;
But Magnus, speeding by the ocean marge,
First camped on Petra's slopes, a rocky hill
Thus by the natives named. From thence he keeps
Watch o'er the fortress of Corinthian birth
Which by its towers alone without a guard
Was safe against a siege. No hand of man
In ancient days built up her lofty wall,
No hammer rang upon her massive stones:
Not all the works of war, nor Time himself
Shall undermine her. Nature's hand has raised
Her adamantine rocks and hedged her in
With bulwarks girded by the foamy main:
And but for one short bridge of narrow earth
Dyrrhachium were an island. Steep and fierce,
Dreaded of sailors, are the cliffs that bear
Her walls; and tempests, howling from the west,
Toss up the raging main upon the roofs;
And homes and temples tremble at the shock.
Thirsting for battle and with hopes inflamed
Here Caesar hastes, with distant rampart lines
Seeking unseen to coop his foe within,
Though spread in spacious camp upon the hills.
With eagle eye he measures out the land
Meet to be compassed, nor content with turf
Fit for a hasty mound, he bids his troops
Tear from the quarries many a giant rock:
And spoils the dwellings of the Greeks, and drags
Their walls asunder for his own. Thus rose
A mighty barrier which no ram could burst
Nor any ponderous machine of war.
Mountains are cleft, and level through the hills
The work of Caesar strides: wide yawns the moat,
Forts show their towers rising on the heights,
[...] Read more
poem by Marcus Annaeus Lucanus
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Memories
Memories of good times
Memories of bad times
Memories of our love
So many memories
Memories of us crying
Memories of us laughing
Memories of our commitment
So many memories
Memories of us hugging
Memories of us kissing
Memories of those late nights
So many memories
Memories of how we met
Memories of how you left
Memories of what you said
So many memories
Why did you leave me
with so many memories
Did you ever realize
that my memories are yours
Everything we did together
stays within our memories
I remember getting hurt
Do you hurt too
Let's make a new memory
that we can both share
Let's love again
in our memories
poem by Adam McKim
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Sed Non Satiata (Unslakeable Lust)
Bizarre déité, brune comme les nuits,
Au parfum mélangé de musc et de havane,
Oeuvre de quelque obi, le Faust de la savane,
Sorcière au flanc d'ébène, enfant des noirs minuits,
Je préfère au constance, à l'opium, au nuits,
L'élixir de ta bouche où l'amour se pavane;
Quand vers toi mes désirs partent en caravane,
Tes yeux sont la citerne où boivent mes ennuis.
Par ces deux grands yeux noirs, soupiraux de ton âme,
Ô démon sans pitié! verse-moi moins de flamme;
Je ne suis pas le Styx pour t'embrasser neuf fois,
Hélas! et je ne puis, Mégère libertine,
Pour briser ton courage et te mettre aux abois,
Dans l'enfer de ton lit devenir Proserpine!
Unslakeable Lust
Singular deity, brown as the nights,
Scented with the perfume of Havana and musk,
Work of some obeah, Faust of the savanna,
Witch with ebony flanks, child of the black midnight,
I prefer to constance, to opium, to nuits,
The nectar of your mouth upon which love parades;
When toward you my desires set out in caravan,
Your eyes are the cistern that gives drink to my cares.
Through those two great black eyes, the outlets of your soul,
O pitiless demon! pour upon me less flame;
I'm not the River Styx to embrace you nine times,
Alas! and I cannot, licentious Megaera,
To break your spirit and bring you to bay
In the hell of your bed turn into Proserpine!
— Translated by William Aggeler
Sed non Satiata
Strange goddess, brown as evening to the sight,
Whose scent is half of musk, half of havanah,
Work of some obi, Faust of the Savanah,
Ebony witch, and daughter of the night.
By far preferred to troth, or drugs, or sleep,
Love vaunts the red elixir of your mouth.
[...] Read more
poem by Charles Baudelaire
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Orlando Furioso Canto 15
ARGUMENT
Round about Paris every where are spread
The assailing hosts of Africa and Spain.
Astolpho home by Logistilla sped,
Binds first Caligorantes with his chain;
Next from Orrilo's trunk divides the head;
With whom Sir Aquilant had warred in vain,
And Gryphon bold: next Sansonet discerns,
Ill tidings of his lady Gryphon learns.
I
Though Conquest fruit of skill or fortune be,
To conquer always is a glorious thing.
'Tis true, indeed, a bloody victory
Is to a chief less honour wont to bring;
And that fair field is famed eternally,
And he who wins it merits worshipping,
Who, saving from all harm his own, without
Loss to his followers, puts the foe to rout.
II
You, sir, earned worthy praise, when you o'erbore
The lion of such might by sea, and so
Did by him, where he guarded either shore
From Francolino to the mouth of Po,
That I, though yet again I heard him roar,
If you were present, should my fear forego.
How fields are fitly won was then made plain;
For we were rescued, and your foemen slain.
III
This was the Paynim little skilled to do,
Who was but daring to his proper loss;
And to the moat impelled his meiny, who
One and all perished in the burning fosse.
The mighty gulf had not contained the crew,
But that, devouring those who sought to cross,
Them into dust the flame reduced, that room
Might be for all within the crowded tomb.
IV
Of twenty thousand warriors thither sent,
Died nineteen thousand in the fiery pit;
Who to the fosse descended, ill content;
But so their leader willed, of little wit:
Extinguished amid such a blaze, and spent
By the devouring flame the Christians lit.
And Rodomont, occasion of their woes,
Exempted from the mighty mischief goes:
[...] Read more
poem by Ludovico Ariosto
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Memories
Memories
All I have is memories
All I have is memories
Memories of you
Now youre gone
They linger on, these memories
All these precious memories
Memories of you
How they linger in the twilight
In the morning in the small hours
Just before dawn
Memories
Of summer days so long ago
People in the places
That we used to know
Oh those memories
How they linger in the twilight
And in the wee small hours
Sometime just before the dawn
Oh those memories
Oh happy times those memories
All I have now is memories
Memories of you
Oh memories
All those precious memories
All I have is memories
Memories of you
song performed by Van Morrison
Added by Lucian Velea
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Memories in the mind
Memories are made in the mind,
and there if you search, you will find.
There in the mind, so many things,
so many memories it brings.
So many years have passed,
of our youth, away we have cast
some memories happy, some memories sad,
memories have I, when I was a lad.
Memories have I, of a dog named shep,
memories of him, when he kept in step.
Memories of my friends, when we played,
of those days, for ever memories relayed.
Memories of family and fun,
when we talked until the setting of sun.
Memories of washing our fifty-seven Ford,
and wanting things we couldn't afford.
Memories are made in the mind,
long lost, search and you will find,
memories of days gone by,
searching memories, oh how you try.
Memories will fade out,
you have forgotton, what it's about,
memories lost in the mind,
dig them out and you will find.
poem by Jim Foulk
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Orlando Furioso Canto 18
ARGUMENT
Gryphon is venged. Sir Mandricardo goes
In search of Argier's king. Charles wins the fight.
Marphisa Norandino's men o'erthrows.
Due pains Martano's cowardice requite.
A favouring wind Marphisa's gallery blows,
For France with Gryphon bound and many a knight.
The field Medoro and Cloridano tread,
And find their monarch Dardinello dead.
I
High minded lord! your actions evermore
I have with reason lauded, and still laud;
Though I with style inapt, and rustic lore,
You of large portion of your praise defraud:
But, of your many virtues, one before
All others I with heart and tongue applaud,
- That, if each man a gracious audience finds,
No easy faith your equal judgment blinds.
II
Often, to shield the absent one from blame,
I hear you this, or other, thing adduce;
Or him you let, at least, an audience claim,
Where still one ear is open to excuse:
And before dooming men to scaith and shame,
To see and hear them ever is your use;
And ere you judge another, many a day,
And month, and year, your sentence to delay.
III
Had Norandine been with your care endued,
What he by Gryphon did, he had not done.
Profit and fame have from your rule accrued:
A stain more black than pitch he cast upon
His name: through him, his people were pursued
And put to death by Olivero's son;
Who at ten cuts or thrusts, in fury made,
Some thirty dead about the waggon laid.
IV
Whither fear drives, in rout, the others all,
Some scattered here, some there, on every side,
Fill road and field; to gain the city-wall
Some strive, and smothered in the mighty tide,
One on another, in the gateway fall.
Gryphon, all thought of pity laid aside,
Threats not nor speaks, but whirls his sword about,
Well venging on the crowd their every flout.
[...] Read more
poem by Ludovico Ariosto
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Bat
At evening, sitting on this terrace,
When the sun from the west, beyond Pisa, beyond the mountains of Carrara
Departs, and the world is taken by surprise ...
When the tired flower of Florence is in gloom beneath the glowing
Brown hills surrounding ...
When under the arches of the Ponte Vecchio
A green light enters against stream, flush from the west,
Against the current of obscure Arno ...
Look up, and you see things flying
Between the day and the night;
Swallows with spools of dark thread sewing the shadows together.
A circle swoop, and a quick parabola under the bridge arches
Where light pushes through;
A sudden turning upon itself of a thing in the air.
A dip to the water.
And you think:
'The swallows are flying so late!'
Swallows?
Dark air-life looping
Yet missing the pure loop ...
A twitch, a twitter, an elastic shudder in flight
And serrated wings against the sky,
Like a glove, a black glove thrown up at the light,
And falling back.
Never swallows!
Bats!
The swallows are gone.
At a wavering instant the swallows gave way to bats
By the Ponte Vecchio ...
Changing guard.
Bats, and an uneasy creeping in one's scalp
As the bats swoop overhead!
Flying madly.
Pipistrello!
Black piper on an infinitesimal pipe.
Little lumps that fly in air and have voices indefinite, wildly vindictive;
Wings like bits of umbrella.
[...] Read more
poem by David Herbert Lawrence
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The Spring Song
The cuckoos and the swallows sing the spring song.
They just remind us of spring season.
The cuckoos and the swallows sing the spring song.
They just remind us of spring season.
One more time, I am on cloud nine!
One more time, I am on cloud nine!
To dance Bihu this season…
The cuckoos and the swallows sing the spring song.
They just remind us of spring season.
The spring breeze acts as my heart stirrer
The Red flowers redden my heart’s colour.
The beats of the Dhol cast its rhythmic flavour..
It rightly awakens some sleeping lover.
“O’ brothers, O’ boys! O’ come O’ girls! ! ”
“O’ brothers, O’ boys! O’O’O’ come O’ girls! ! ”
“Lets dance Bihu holding our hands together”
“Lets dance Bihu holding our hands together”.
The cuckoos and the swallows sing the spring song.
They just remind us of spring season.
Different castes and community…
It’s a hallmark of Assam’s beauty.
Keeping aside conflicts of ethnicity..
W’ll give Assam, golden identity..
“O’ spring lovers! O’ O’ O’ country lovers! ”
“O’ spring lovers! O’ O’ O’ country lovers! ”
“In this spring, let us pledge together! ”
“In this spring, let us pledge together! ”
The cuckoos and the swallows sing the spring song.
They just remind us of spring season.
The cuckoos and the swallows sing the spring song.
They just remind us of spring season.
One more time, I am on cloud nine! !
One more time, I am on cloud nine! !
To dance Bihu this season…
(Originally sung in Assamese as ‘Kuli Ketekiye Eenaley Beenaley’ by Dr. Bhupen Hazarika)
(Set to original tune)
poem by Kamal Jyoti Borah
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Orlando Furioso Canto 21
ARGUMENT
Zerbino for Gabrina, who a heart
Of asp appears to bear, contends. O'erthrown,
The Fleming falls upon the other part,
Through cause of that despised and odious crone,
He wounded sore, and writhing with the smart,
The beldam's treason to the prince makes known,
Whose scorn and hatred hence derive new force.
Towards loud cries Zerbino spurs his horse.
I
No cord I well believe is wound so tight
Round chest, nor nails the plank so fastly hold,
As Faith enwraps an honourable sprite
In its secure, inextricable, fold;
Nor holy Faith, it seems, except in white
Was mantled over in the days of old;
So by the ancient limner ever painted,
As by one speck, one single blemish tainted.
II
Faith should be kept unbroken evermore,
With one or with a thousand men united;
As well if given in grot or forest hoar,
Remote from town and hamlet, as if plighted
Amid a crowd of witnesses, before
Tribunal, and in act and deed recited:
Nor needs the solemn sanction of an oath:
It is sufficient that we pledge our troth.
III
And this maintains as it maintained should be,
In each emprize the Scottish cavalier,
And gives good proof of his fidelity,
Quitting his road with that old crone to steer;
Although this breeds the youth such misery,
As 'twould to have Disease itself as near,
Or even Death; but with him heavier weighed
That his desire the promise he had made.
IV
Of him I told who felt at heart such load,
Reflecting she beneath his charge must go,
He spake no word; and thus in silent mode
Both fared: so sullen was Zerbino's woe.
I said how vexed their silence, as they rode,
Was broke, when Sol his hindmost wheels did show,
By an adventurous errant cavalier,
Who in mid pathway met the crone and peer.
[...] Read more
poem by Ludovico Ariosto
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The Iliad: Book 2
Now the other gods and the armed warriors on the plain slept
soundly, but Jove was wakeful, for he was thinking how to do honour to
Achilles, and destroyed much people at the ships of the Achaeans. In
the end he deemed it would be best to send a lying dream to King
Agamemnon; so he called one to him and said to it, "Lying Dream, go to
the ships of the Achaeans, into the tent of Agamemnon, and say to
him word to word as I now bid you. Tell him to get the Achaeans
instantly under arms, for he shall take Troy. There are no longer
divided counsels among the gods; Juno has brought them to her own
mind, and woe betides the Trojans."
The dream went when it had heard its message, and soon reached the
ships of the Achaeans. It sought Agamemnon son of Atreus and found him
in his tent, wrapped in a profound slumber. It hovered over his head
in the likeness of Nestor, son of Neleus, whom Agamemnon honoured
above all his councillors, and said:-
"You are sleeping, son of Atreus; one who has the welfare of his
host and so much other care upon his shoulders should dock his
sleep. Hear me at once, for I come as a messenger from Jove, who,
though he be not near, yet takes thought for you and pities you. He
bids you get the Achaeans instantly under arms, for you shall take
Troy. There are no longer divided counsels among the gods; Juno has
brought them over to her own mind, and woe betides the Trojans at
the hands of Jove. Remember this, and when you wake see that it does
not escape you."
The dream then left him, and he thought of things that were,
surely not to be accomplished. He thought that on that same day he was
to take the city of Priam, but he little knew what was in the mind
of Jove, who had many another hard-fought fight in store alike for
Danaans and Trojans. Then presently he woke, with the divine message
still ringing in his ears; so he sat upright, and put on his soft
shirt so fair and new, and over this his heavy cloak. He bound his
sandals on to his comely feet, and slung his silver-studded sword
about his shoulders; then he took the imperishable staff of his
father, and sallied forth to the ships of the Achaeans.
The goddess Dawn now wended her way to vast Olympus that she might
herald day to Jove and to the other immortals, and Agamemnon sent
the criers round to call the people in assembly; so they called them
and the people gathered thereon. But first he summoned a meeting of
the elders at the ship of Nestor king of Pylos, and when they were
assembled he laid a cunning counsel before them.
"My friends," said he, "I have had a dream from heaven in the dead
of night, and its face and figure resembled none but Nestor's. It
hovered over my head and said, 'You are sleeping, son of Atreus; one
who has the welfare of his host and so much other care upon his
shoulders should dock his sleep. Hear me at once, for I am a messenger
from Jove, who, though he be not near, yet takes thought for you and
pities you. He bids you get the Achaeans instantly under arms, for you
shall take Troy. There are no longer divided counsels among the
gods; Juno has brought them over to her own mind, and woe betides
the Trojans at the hands of Jove. Remember this.' The dream then
[...] Read more
poem by Homer, translated by Samuel Butler
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Thanks for the Memories by Fall Out Boy
[Intro]
I'm gonna make it bend and break
(It sent you to me without wait)
Say a prayer, but let the good times roll
In case God doesn't show...
(Let the good times roll)
(Let the good times roll)
[Verse 1]
And I want these words to make things right
But it's the wrongs that make the words come to life,
'Who does he think he is? '
If that's the worst you got
Better put your fingers back to the keys
[Chorus]
One night and one more time
Thanks for the memories
Even though they weren't so great;
'He tastes like you, only sweeter'!
One night, yeah, and one more time
Thanks for the memories, thanks for the memories;
'See, he tastes like you only sweeter'!
Oh Oh Oh Oh Oh
[Verse 2]
Been looking forward to the future
But my eyesight is going bad
And this crystal ball
It's always cloudy except for
(Except for)
When you look into the past
(Look into the past)
One night stand...
(One night stand, oh)
[Chorus]
One night and one more time
Thanks for the memories
Even though they weren't so great;
'He tastes like you only sweeter'!
One night, yeah, and one more time
Thanks for the memories, thanks for the memories;
'See, he tastes like you only sweeter'!
Oh Oh Oh Oh Oh
[Interlude]
They say
I only think in the form of crunching numbers
In hotel rooms collecting page-six lovers
[...] Read more
poem by Shi Yelami
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The Swallows
AH! swallows, is it so?
Did loving lingering summer, whose slow pace
Tarried among late blossoms, loth to go,
Gather the darkening cloud-wraps round her face
And weep herself away in last week's rain?
Can no new sunlight waken her again?
'Yes,' one pale rose a-blow
Has answered from the trellised lane;
The flickering swallows answer 'No.'
From out the dim grey sky
The arrowy swarm breaks forth and specks the air,
While, one by one, birds wheel and float and fly,
And now are gone, then suddenly are there;
Till lo, the heavens are empty of them all.
Oh, fly, fly south, from leaves that fade and fall,
From shivering flowers that die;
Free swallows, fly from winter's thrall,
Ye who can give the gloom good-bye.
But what for us who stay
To hear the winds and watch the boughs grow black,
And in the soddened mornings, day by day,
Count what lost sweets bestrew the nightly track
Of frost-foot winter trampling towards his throne?
Swallows, who have the sunlight for your own,
Fly on your sunward way;
For you has January buds new blown,
For us the snows and gloom and grey.
On, on, beyond our reach,
Swallows, with but your longing for a guide:
Let the hills rise, let the waves tear the beach,
Ye will not balk your course nor turn aside,
But find the palms and twitter in the sun.
And well for them whose eager wings have won
The longed for goal of flight;
But what of them in twilights dun
Who long, but have no wings for flight?
poem by Augusta Davies Webster
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A Duty Done - 1935
The swallows are back, and I'm tuning my lyre,
For today 'tis my duty to sing
A melodious lay that is graciously gay
To welcome - officially - spring
Ting-a-ling
So let's have a song with a swing.
Bing!
High cockalorum and fal-de-rah, whack!
Young Spring's in the offing! The swallows are back!
To put sense in the song matters little so long
As the lift and the lilt of it ring.
And a mention be made of the wattle-hung glade
Where the blithering birds are a-wing
Ting-a-ling
And the clamorous honey-bees cling.
Z-z-z-ing!
Tho' I'm scarce in the humor, alas and alack!
Ho, merry-down-derry! The swallows are back!
So - officially - Hi! Oh, salubrious sky!
What a dear and delectable thing
To behold such a blue as old Arcady knew
When - er - Strephan or someone was king
Ting-a-ling
And life held nor arrow nor sling.
Ping!
Ah, the fervor is forced; but I mustn't get slack,
Tho' the rhymes may run low, for the swallows are back!
But - privily - oh, my vitality's low,
And a sneer at the season I fling
For I gasp and I wheeze in the weary unease
Of the plagues that the pollen days bring
Ting-a-ling
I'm insipid as second-hand string.
Ring.
Ah, ring down the curtain! I've gone to the pack!
But, a last word in closing: the swallows are back.
poem by Clarence Michael James Stanislaus Dennis
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The Blue Swallows
Across the millstream below the bridge
Seven blue swallows divide the air
In shapes invisible and evanescent,
Kaleidoscopic beyond the mind’s
Or memory’s power to keep them there.
“History is where tensions were,”
“Form is the diagram of forces.”
Thus, helplessly, there on the bridge,
While gazing down upon those birds—
How strange, to be above the birds!—
Thus helplessly the mind in its brain
Weaves up relation’s spindrift web,
Seeing the swallows’ tails as nibs
Dipped in invisible ink, writing…
Poor mind, what would you have them write?
Some cabalistic history
Whose authorship you might ascribe
To God? to Nature? Ah, poor ghost,
You’ve capitalized your Self enough.
That villainous William of Occam
Cut out the feet from under that dream
Some seven centuries ago.
It’s taken that long for the mind
To waken, yawn and stretch, to see
With opened eyes emptied of speech
The real world where the spelling mind
Imposes with its grammar book
Unreal relations on the blue
Swallows. Perhaps when you will have
Fully awakened, I shall show you
A new thing: even the water
Flowing away beneath those birds
Will fail to reflect their flying forms,
And the eyes that see become as stones
Whence never tears shall fall again.
O swallows, swallows, poems are not
The point. Finding again the world,
That is the point, where loveliness
Adorns intelligible things
Because the mind’s eye lit the sun.
poem by Howard Nemerov
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Swallows in the summertime
Swallows in the summertime
The swallows have returned again,
Reminding me of those halcyon days of my youth,
Many years have passed since those blissful days,
I would spend many happy evenings watch them dart around.
The swallows always return each summer,
Spreading their joyful wings over England's green and pleasant land,
Every summer I wonder how many more times will I see the return,
Although it's summer again, I ‘am approaching the winter of my life.
When the swallows return again next year again,
I wonder if I will still be here to see them again,
Flying on the wing under the clear blue skies of summer,
If I ‘am, I will sit by the babbling brook and watch their dance once more.
If I see the swallows return once more,
I will remember those summer days of long ago,
When I was a lad and the countryside seemed to go on forever,
And in my mind I will be young again.
By Christopher Tye
poem by Christopher Tye
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Memories
I have nothing but memories of you and I,
I once cried out for you, once shed blood for you,
It didn’t bother or cared enough for you to see how much I truly cared for you,
When I go to the mall I have memories of how we first met,
When I enter the movies I have memories of you and I hold hands and watching a movie,
When I go to a certain spot I have memories of how you and I first kissed,
But this is nothing but memories of you,
When I sit out in the cold,
I told myself I won’t fall for you,
Yet I did,
I have fallen,
Fallen for you,
Everywhere I go I have fond memories of you,
Memories that just won’t fade away,
Memories that can not be erased,
Memories I shall forever keep,
The memories of you will help me out,
Memories of you will teach me a lesson,
A lesson I won’t forget,
The memories that you and I once shared will forever be locked away.
poem by Jennifer Rondeau
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Carrolling II-Parody Lewis CARROLL–The Mad Gardener’s Song
Carolling II
He Thought He Saw
He thought he saw new Internet
exchanging peer to peer,
he looked again and found it was
a mirage for each year
sees more control, “what rôle, ” he said,
“for values once held dear?
Some track to trace attack and get
convictions based on fear.'
He dreamt he saw spam disappear,
all consultations free,
he looked again and found it was
a spybot lottery.
“Is net neutrality”, he said,
“from rash risks viral clear? ”
He dreamt that Microsoft would steer
all trash deleted fast,
then woke to find world insincere
where independence past
was sacrificed throughout the year
to biometrics ghast.
He thought he saw a friend’s hello,
with an attachment piece,
he looked again and found it was
the porno scanning police.
“Politically correct”, he said,
“can’t guarantee release.”
He opened it, discovered though,
a trojan horse to fleece –
he looked again as data flow
declined, - mind not at peace -
and whispered with voice hoarse and low:
'when will our worries cease? ”
He thought he saw a hierophant,
who’d deal successful life,
he looked again and found it was
subpoena from ex-wife
demanding child support, he said,
“cards are cut by Time’s knife.”
He looked once more with rage and rant
and swore like a fishwife
[...] Read more
poem by Jonathan Robin
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Orlando Furioso Canto 12
ARGUMENT
Orlando, full of rage, pursues a knight
Who bears by force his lady-love away,
And comes where old Atlantes, by his sleight
Had raised a dome, Rogero there to stay.
Here too Rogero comes; where getting sight
Of his lost love, the County strives in fray
With fierce Ferrau, and, after slaughter fell
Amid the paynim host, finds Isabel.
I
Ceres, when from the Idaean dame in haste
Returning to the lonely valley, where
Enceladus the Aetnaean mountain placed
On his bolt-smitten flanks, is doomed to bear,
Her girl she found not, on that pathless waste,
By her late quitted, having rent her hair,
And marked cheeks, eyes, and breast, with livid signs,
At the end of her lament tore up two pines,
II
And lit at Vulcan's fire the double brand,
And gave them virtue never to be spent;
And, afterwards, with one in either hand,
Drawn by two dragons, in her chariot went,
Searching the forest, hill, and level land,
Field, valley, running stream, or water pent,
The land and sea; and having searched the shell
Of earth above, descended into hell.
III
Had Roland of Eleusis' deity
The sovereign power possessed no less than will,
He for Angelica had land and sea
Ransacked, and wood and field, and pool and rill,
Heaven, and Oblivion's bottom: but since he
Had not, his pressing purpose to fulfil,
Her dragon and her car, the unwearied knight
Pursued the missing maid as best he might.
IV
Through France he sought her, and will seek her through
The realms of Italy and of Almayn,
And thence through the Castiles, both old and new,
So passing into Libya out of Spain.
While bold Orlando has this plan in view,
He hears, or thinks he hears, a voice complain:
He forward spurs, and sees on mighty steed
A warrior trot before him on the mead;
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poem by Ludovico Ariosto
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Orlando Furioso Canto 17
ARGUMENT
Charles goes, with his, against King Rodomont.
Gryphon in Norandino's tournament
Does mighty deeds; Martano turns his front,
Showing how recreant is his natural bent;
And next, on Gryphon to bring down affront,
Stole from the knight the arms in which he went;
Hence by the kindly monarch much esteemed,
And Gryphon scorned, whom he Martano deemed.
I
God, outraged by our rank iniquity,
Whenever crimes have past remission's bound,
That mercy may with justice mingled be,
Has monstrous and destructive tyrants crowned;
And gifted them with force and subtlety,
A sinful world to punish and confound.
Marius and Sylla to this end were nursed,
Rome with two Neros and a Caius cursed;
II
Domitian and the latter Antonine;
And, lifted from the lowest rabble's lees,
To imperial place and puissance, Maximine:
Hence Thebes to cruel Creon bent her knees,
Mezentius ruled the subject Agiline,
Fattening his fields with blood. To pests like these
Our Italy was given in later day,
To Lombard, Goth, and Hun a bleeding prey.
III
What shall I of fierce Attila, what say
Of wicked Ezzeline, and hundreds more?
Whom, because men still trod the crooked way,
God sent them for their pain and torment sore.
Of this ourselves have made a clear assay,
As well as those who lived in days of yore;
Consigned to ravening wolves, ordained to keep
Us, his ill-nurturing and unuseful sheep;
IV
Who, as if having more than served to fill
Their hungry maw, invite from foreign wood
Beyond the mountain, wolves of greedier will,
With them to be partakers of their food.
The bones which Thrasymene and Trebbia fill,
And Cannae, seem but few to what are strewed
On fattened field and bank, where on their way
Adda and Mella, Ronco and Tarro stray.
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poem by Ludovico Ariosto
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