For, as our modern wits behold,
Mounted a pick-back on the old,[1]
Much further off; much further he
Rais'd on his aged beast, could see;
Yet not sufficient to descry 75
All postures of the enemy;
Wherefore he bids the squire ride further.
T' observe their numbers, and their order;
That when their motions he had known,
He might know how to fit his own. 80
Meanwhile he stopp'd his willing steed,
To fit himself for martial deed:
Both kinds of metal he prepared,
Either to give blows, or to ward;
Courage and steel, both of great force, 85
Prepared for better, or for worse.[2]
His death-charged pistols he did fit well,
Drawn out from life-preserving vittle;[3]
These being primed, with force he labour'd
To free's blade from retentive scabbard; 90
And after many a painful pluck,
From rusty durance he bail'd tuck:[4]
Then shook himself, to see that prowess
In scabbard of his arms sat loose;
And, raised upon his desp'rate foot, 95
On stirrup-side he gazed about,[5]
Portending blood, like blazing star,
The beacon of approaching war.[6]
- ↑ Ridiculing the disputes formerly subsisting between the advocates for ancient and modern learning. Sir William Temple observes: that as to knowledge, the moderns must have more than the ancients, because they have the advantage both of theirs and their own: which is commonly illustrated by a dwarf standing upon a giant's shoulders, and therefore seeing more and further than the giant.
- ↑ These two lines, 85 and 86, were in the later editions altered to—Courage within and steel without,
To give and to receive a rout. - ↑ The reader will remember how the holsters were furnished. See note at p. 19.
- ↑ Altered in later editions to—He cleared at length the rugged tuck.
- ↑ It will be seen at Canto i. line 407, that he had but one stirrup.
- ↑ Comets and Meteors were held to be portentous. See Spenser on Prodigies, 1658.
