Page:Hudibras - Volume 1 (Butler, Nash, Bohn; 1859).djvu/149

The gun recoil'd, as well it might,
Not us'd to such a kind of fight,790
And shrunk from its great master's gripe,
Knock'd down, and stunn'd, with mortal stripe:
Then Hudibras, with furious haste,
Drew out his sword; yet not so fast,
But Talgol first, with hardy thwack,795
Twice bruis'd his head, and twice his back;
But when his nut-brown^[1] sword was out,
Courageously he laid about,
Imprinting many a wound upon
His mortal foe, the truncheon.800
The trusty cudgel did oppose
Itself against dead-doing blows,
To guard its leader from fell bane,
And then reveng'd itself again:
And though the sword, some understood,805
In force had much the odds of wood,
'Twas nothing so; both sides were balanc't
So equal, none knew which was valian'st.
For wood with honour b'ing engag'd,
Is so implacably enrag'd,810
Though iron hew and mangle sore,
Wood wounds and bruises honour more.
And now both knights were out of breath,
Tir'd in the hot pursuit of death;
Whilst all the rest, amaz'd, stood still,815
Expecting which should take,^[2] or kill.
This Hudibras observ'd, and fretting
Conquest should be so long a-getting,
He drew up all his force into
One body, and that into one blow.820
But Talgol wisely avoided it
By cunning sleight; for had it hit
The upper part of him, the blow
Had slit, as sure as that below.

1. "Rugged," in the first two editions; changed perhaps because the term is just previously applied to a truncheon. The description of the combat is a ludicrous imitation of the conflicts recorded in the old romances.
2. Take, that is, take prisoner, as in line 905.