A saplin pine he wrenched from out the ground,
The readiest weapon that his fury found.
Thus furnished for offence, he crossed the way
Betwixt the graceless villain and his
prey.
The knight came thundering on, but, from afar,
Thus in imperious tone forbade the war:
Cease, Theodore, to proffer vain relief,
Nor stop the vengeance of so just a grief;
But give me leave to seize my destined prey,
And let eternal justice take the way:
I but revenge my fate, disdained, betrayed,
And suffering death for this ungrateful maid.—
He said, at once dismounting from the steed;
For now the hell-hounds with superior speed
Had reached the dame, and fastening on her side,
The ground with issuing streams of purple dyed.
Stood Theodore surprised in deadly fright,
With chattering teeth, and bristling hair upright;
Yet armed with inborn worth,-Whate'er, said he,
Thou art, who know'st me better than I thee,
Or prove thy rightful cause, or be defied.-
The spectre, fiercely staring, thus replied:
Know, Theodore, thy ancestry I claim,
And Guido Cavalcanti was my name.
One common sire our fathers did beget,
My name and story some remember yet:
Thee, then a boy, within my arms I laid,
When for my sins I loved this haughty maid;
Not less adored in life, nor served by me,
Than proud Honoria now is loved by thee.
What did I not, her stubborn heart to gain?
But all my vows were answered with disdain;
She scorned my sorrows, and despised my pain.
Long time I dragged my days in fruitless care;
Then loathing life, and plunged in deep despair,
To finish my unhappy life, I fell
On this sharp sword, and now am damned in hell.
Short was her joy; for soon the insulting maid By heaven's decree in the cold grave was laid; And as in unrepented sin she died,
Doomed to the same bad place, is punished for her pride,
Because she deemed I well deserved to die,
And made a merit of her cruelty.
There, then, we met; both tried, and both were cast,
And this irrevocable sentence passed;
That she, whom I so long pursued in vain,
Should suffer from my hands a lingering pain:
Renewed to life, that she might daily die,
I daily doomed to follow, she to fly;
No more a lover, but a mortal foe,
I seek her life (for love is none below ;)
As often as my dogs with better speed
Arrest her flight, is she to death decreed:
Then with this fatal sword, on which I died,
I pierce her open back, or tender side,
And tear that hardened heart from out her breast, Which, with her entrails, makes my hungry hounds a feast.
Nor lies she long, but as her fates ordain,
Springs up to life, and, fresh to second pain,
Is saved to-day, to-morrow to be slain.-
This, versed in death, the infernal knight relates,
And then for proof fulfilled their common fates;
Her heart and bowels through her back he drew,
And fed the hounds that helped him to pursue.
Stern looked the fiend, as frustrate of his will,
Not half sufficed, and greedy yet to kill.
And now the soul expiring through the wound,
Had left the body breathless on the ground,
When thus the grisly spectre spoke again :-
Behold the fruit of ill-rewarded pain!
As many months as I sustained her hate,
So many years is she condemned by fate
To daily death; and every several place,
Conscious of her disdain, and my disgrace,
Must witness her just punishment; and be
A scene of triumph and revenge to me.
As in this grove I took my last farewell,
As on this very spot of earth I fell,
As Friday saw me die, so she my prey
Becomes even here, on this revolving day.-
Thus while he spoke, the virgin from the ground Upstarted fresh, already closed the wound, And, unconcerned for all she felt before, Precipitates her flight along the shore:
The hell-hounds, as ungorged with flesh and blood, Pursue their prey, and seek their wonted food: The fiend remounts his courser, mends his pace, And all the vision vanished from the place.
Long stood the noble youth oppressed with awe, And stupid at the wondrous things he saw, Surpassing common faith, transgressing nature's law:
He would have been asleep, and wished to wake,
But dreams, he knew, no long impression make,
Though strong at first; if vision, to what end,
But such as must his future state portend?
His love the damsel, and himself the fiend.
But yet reflecting that it could not be
From heaven, which cannot impious acts decree,
Resolved within himself to shun the snare,
Which hell for his destruction did prepare;
And as his better genius should direct,
From an ill cause to draw a good effect.
Inspired from heaven, he homeward took his way, Nor palled his new design with long delay; But of his train a trusty servant sent, To call his friends together at his tent. They came, and usual salutations paid, With words premeditated thus he said:—
What you have often counselled, to remove
My vain pursuit of unregarded love,
By thrift my sinking fortune to repair,
Though late, yet is at last become my care:
My heart shall be my own; my vast expence
Reduced to bounds, by timely providence:
This only I require; invite for me
Honoria, with her father's family,
Her friends, and mine, (the cause I shall display,)
On Friday next; for that's the appointed day.
Well pleased were all his friends; the task was light,
The father, mother, daughter, they invite;
Hardly the dame was drawn to this repast,
But yet resolved, because it was the last.
The day was come, the guests invited came,
And, with the rest, the inexorable dame:
A feast prepared with riotous expence,
Much cost, more care, and more magnificence.
The place ordained was in that haunted grove,
Where the revenging ghost pursued his love:
The tables in a proud pavilion spread,
With flowers below, and tissue overhead:
The rest in rank, Honoria, chief in place,
Was artfully contrived to set her face
To front the thicket, and behold the chace.
The feast was served, the time so well forecast,
That just when the desert and fruits were placed,
The fiend's alarm began; the hollow sound
Sung in the leaves, the forest shook around,
Air blackened, rolled the thunder, groaned the
ground.
Nor long before the loud laments arise,
Of one distressed, and mastiffs' mingled cries; And first the dame came rushing through the wood, And next the famished hounds that sought their
And griped her flanks, and oft essayed their jaws in blood,
Last came the felon, on the sable steed,
Armed with his naked sword, and urged his dogs to
She ran, and cried, her flight directly bent,
(A guest unbidden) to the fatal tent,
The scene of death, and place ordained for punish
Loud was the noise, aghast was every guest,
The women shrieked, the men forsook the feast;
The hounds at nearer distance hoarsely bayed;
The hunter close pursued the visionary maid,
She rent the heaven with loud laments, imploring
aid.
The gallants to protect the lady's right,
Their faulchions brandished at the grisly sprite;
High on his stirrups he provoked the fight.
Then on the crowd he cast a furious look,
And withered all their strength before he strook :—*
Back, on your lives! let be, said he, my prey,
And let my vengeance take the destined way:
Vain are your arms, and vainer your defence,
Against the eternal doom of Providence:
Mine is the ungrateful maid by heaven designed;
Mercy she would not give, nor mercy shall she find.—
At this the former tale again he told
With thundering tone, and dreadful to behold:
Sunk were their hearts with horror of the crime,
Nor needed to be warned a second time,
But bore each other back; some knew the face,
And all had heard the much-lamented case
Of him who fell for love, and this the fatal place,
And now the infernal minister advanced,
Seized the due victim, and with fury lanced
* Derrick, spoke. The reading of the folio, besides furnishing an accurate rhyme, is in itself far more picturesque. The spectre is described in the very attitude of assault.
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