XLIII Lord Stephen of Amboise on the ditch’s brim, And on a ladder high, Clotharius died, From back to breast an arrow pierced him, The other was shot through from side to side: Then as he managed brave his courser trim, On his left arm he hit the Flemings’ guide, He stopped, and from the wound the reed out-twined, But left the iron in his flesh behind.
XLIV As Ademare stood to behold the fight High on the bank, withdrawn to breathe a space, A fatal shaft upon his forehead light, His hand he lifted up to feel the place, Whereon a second arrow chanced right, And nailed his hand unto his wounded face, He fell, and with his blood distained the land, His holy blood shed by a virgin’s hand.
XLV While Palamede stood near the battlement, Despising perils all, and all mishap, And upward still his hardy footings bent, On his right eye he caught a deadly clap, Through his right eye Clorinda’s seventh shaft went, And in his neck broke forth a bloody gap; He underneath that bulwark dying fell, Which late to scale and win he trusted well.
XLVI Thus shot the maid: the duke with hard assay And sharp assault, meanwhile the town oppressed, Against that part which to his campward lay An engine huge and wondrous he addressed, A tower of wood built for the town’s decay As high as were the walls and bulwarks best, A turret full of men and weapons pent, And yet on wheels it rolled, moved, and went.
XLVII This rolling fort his nigh approaches made, And darts and arrows spit against his foes, As ships are wont in fight, so it assayed With the strong wall to grapple and to close, The Pagans on each side the piece invade, And all their force against this mass oppose, Sometimes the wheels, sometimes the battlement With timber, logs and stones, they broke and rent,
XLVIII So thick flew stones and darts, that no man sees The azure heavens, the sun his brightness lost, The clouds of weapons, like to swarms of bees, Move the air, and there each other crossed: And look how falling leaves drop down from trees, When the moist sap is nipped with timely frost, Or apples in strong winds from branches fall; The Saracens so tumbled from the wall.
XLIX For on their part the greatest slaughter light, They had no shelter gainst so sharp a shower, Some left on live betook themselves to flight, So feared they this deadly thundering tower: But Solyman stayed like a valiant knight, And some with him, that trusted in his power, Argantes with a long beech tree in hand, Ran thither, this huge engine to withstand: