For, till I have acquit your captive knight,
Assure your selfe, I will you not forsake."
His cheerful words reviv'd her chearelesse spright: So forth they went, the dwarfe them guiding ever right.
Faire virgin, to redeeme her deare,
Brings Arthure to the fight:
Who slayes the gyaunt, wounds the beast,
And strips Duessa quight.
Ar me, how many perils doe enfold
The righteous man, to make him daily fall,
Were not that heavenly grace doth him uphold,
And steadfast Truth acquite him out of all!
Her love is firme, her care continuall,
So oft as he, through his own foolish pride
Or weaknes, is to sinfull bands made thrall:
Els should this redcrosse knight in bands have dyde, For whose deliverance she this prince doth thether guyd.
They sadly traveild thus, until they came
Nigh to a castle builded strong and hye :
Then cryde the dwarfe, "Lo! yonder is the same,
In which my lord, my liege, doth lucklesse ly,
Thrall to that gyaunts hatefull tyranny:
Therefore, dear sir, your mightie powres assay."
The noble knight alighted by and by
From loftie steed, and badd the ladie stay,
To see what end of fight should him befall that day.
So with his squire, th' admirer of his might,
He marched forth towardes that castle wall;
Whose gates he fownd fast shutt, ne living wight
To warde the same, nor answere commers call.
Then tooke that squire an horne of bugle small,
Which hong adowne his side in twisted gold
And tasselles gay; wyde wonders over all
Of that same hornes great vertues weren told,
Which had approved bene in uses manifold.
Was never wight that heard that shrilling sownd,
But trembling feare did feel in every vaine :
Three miles it might be easy heard arownd,
And echoes three aunswer'd it selfe againe :
No faulse enchauntment, nor deceiptfull traine,
Might once abide the terror of that blast,
But presently was void and wholly vaine :
No gate so strong, no locke so firme and fast,
But with that percing noise flew open quite, or
The same before the geaunts gate he blew,
That all the castle quaked from the grownd,
And every dore of free-will open flew.
The gyaunt selfe dismaied with that sownd,
Where he with his Duessa dalliaunce fownd,
In hast came rushing forth from inner bowre,
With staring countenance sterne, as one astownd,
And staggering steps, to weet what suddein stowre
Had wrought that horror strange, and dar'd his
dreaded powre.
And after him the proud Duessa came,
High mounted on her many-headed beast;
And every head with fyrie tongue did flame,
And every head was crowned on his crest,
And bloody mouthed with late cruell feast.
That when the knight beheld, his mightie shild
Upon his manly arme he soone addrest,
And at him fiersly flew, with corage fild,
And eger greedinesse through every member thrild.
Therewith the gyaunt buckled him to fight,
Inflamd with scornefull wrath and high disdaine,
And lifting up his dreadfull club on hight,
All armd with ragged snubbes and knottie graine,
Him thought at first encounter to have slaine.
But wise and wary was that noble pere;
And, lightly leaping from so monstrous maine,
Did fayre avoide the violence him nere;
It booted nought to thinke such thunderbolts to beare.
Ne shame he thought to shonne so hideous might:
The ydle stroke, enforcing furious way,
Missing the marke of his misaymed sight,
Did fall to ground, and with his heavy sway
So deeply dinted in the driven clay,
That three yardes deepe a furrow up did throw :
The sad earth, wounded with so sore assay,
Did grone full grievous underneath the blow;
And, trembling with strange feare, did like an erth-
quake show.
As when almightie Iove, in wrathfull mood,
To wreake the guilt of mortall sins is bent,
Hurles forth his thundring dart with deadly food,
Enrold in flames, and smouldring dreriment,
Through riven cloudes and molted firmament;
The fiers threeforked engin, making way,
Both loftie towres and highest trees hath rent,
And all that might his angry passage stay;
And, shooting in the earth, castes up a mount of clay.
His boystrous club, so buried in the grownd,
He could not rearen up againe so light,
But that the knight him at advantage fownd;
And, whiles he strove his combred clubbe to quight
Out of the earth, with blade all burning bright
He smott off his left arme, which like a block
Did fall to ground, depriv'd of native might;
Large streames of blood out of the truncked stock
Forth gushed, like fresh-water streame from riven
rocke.
Dismayed with so desperate deadly wound,
And eke impatient of unwonted payne,
He lowdly brayd with beastly yelling sownd,
That all the fields rebellowed againe :
As great a noyse, as when in Cymbrian plaine
An heard of bulles, whom kindly rage doth sting,
Doe for the milky mothers want complaine,
And fill the fieldes with troublous bellowing:
The neighbor woods arownd with hollow murmur
That when his deare Duessa heard, and saw
The evil stownd that daungerd her estate,
Unto his aide she hastily did draw
Herdreadful beast; who, swolne with blood of late,
Came ramping forth with proud presumpteous gate,
And threatened all his heades like flaming brandes.
But him the squire made quickly to retrate,
Encountring fiers with single sword in hand;
And twixt him and his lord did like a bulwarke stand.
The proud Duessa, full of wrathful spight
And fiers disdaine, to be affronted so,
Enforst her purple beast with all her might,
That stop out of the way to overthroe,
Scorning the let of so unequall foe :
But nathëmore would that corageous swayne
To her yeeld passage, gainst his lord to goe;
But with outrageous strokes did him restraine,
And with his body bard the way atwixt them twaine.
Then took the angry witch her golden cup,
Which still she bore, replete with magick artes;
Death and despeyre did many thereof sup,
And secret poyson through their inner partes;
Th' eternal bale of heavie wounded harts:
Which, after charmes and some enchauntments said,
She lightly sprinkled on his weaker partes:
Therewith his sturdie corage soon was quayd,
And all his sences were with sudden dread dismayd.
So downe he fell before the cruel beast,
Who on his neck his bloody clawes did seize,
That life nigh crusht out of his panting brest:
No powre he had to stirre, nor will to rize.
That when the careful knight gan well avise,
He lightly left the foe with whom he fought,
And to the beast gan turne his enterprize;
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