XXIX The Pagans fled before their valiant foes, For dread or craft, it skills not that we know, A soldier wild, careless to win or lose, Saw where her locks about the damsel flew, And at her back he proffereth as he goes To strike where her he did disarmed view: But Tancred cried, “Oh stay thy cursed hand,” And for to ward the blow lift up his brand.
XXX But yet the cutting steel arrived there, Where her fair neck adjoined her noble head, Light was the wound, but through her amber hair The purple drops down railed bloody red, So rubies set in flaming gold appear: But Lord Tancredi, pale with rage as lead, Flew on the villain, who to flight him bound; The smart was his, though she received the wound.
XXXI The villain flies, he, full of rage and ire, Pursues, she stood and wondered on them both, But yet to follow them showed no desire, To stray so far she would perchance be loth, But quickly turned her, fierce as flaming fire, And on her foes wreaked her anger wroth, On every side she kills them down amain, And now she flies, and now she turns again.
XXXII As the swift ure by Volga’s rolling flood Chased through the plains the mastiff curs toforn, Flies to the succor of some neighbor wood, And often turns again his dreadful horn Against the dogs imbrued in sweat and blood, That bite not, till the beast to flight return; Or as the Moors at their strange tennice run, Defenced, the flying balls unhurt to shun:
XXXIII So ran Clorinda, so her foes pursued, Until they both approached the city’s wall, When lo! the Pagans their fierce wrath renewed, Cast in a ring about they wheeled all, And ’gainst the Christians’ backs and sides they showed Their courage fierce, and to new combat fall, When down the hill Argantes came to fight, Like angry Mars to aid the Trojan knight.
XXXIV Furious, tofore the foremost of his rank, In sturdy steel forth stept the warrior bold, The first he smote down from his saddle sank, The next under his steel lay on the mould, Under the Saracen’s spear the worthies shrank, No breastplate could that cursed tree outhold, When that was broke his precious sword he drew, And whom he hit, he felled, hurt, or slew.
XXXV Clorinda slew Ardelio; aged knight, Whose graver years would for no labor yield, His age was full of puissance and might Two sons he had to guard his noble eild, The first, far from his father’s care and sight, Called Alicandro wounded lay in field, And Poliphern the younger, by his side, Had he not nobly fought had surely died.