LXXVIII.
Scarcely a day in Ireland’s realm he spends:
And for no prayers his purposed end forbore:
Love, that in quest of his liege-lady sends
The knight upon this track, permits no more.
Departing, he Olympia recommends
To the Irish monarch, who to serve her swore:
Although this needed not; since he was bent
More than behoved, her wishes to content:
LXXIX.
So levied in few days his warlike band,
And (league with England’s king and Scotland’s made)
In Holland and in Friesland left no land
To the false duke, so rapid was the raid.
And to rebel against that lord’s command
His Zealand stirred; nor he the war delayed,
Until by him Bireno’s blood was spilt:
A punishment that ill atoned his guilt.
LXXX.
Oberto takes to wife Olympia fair,
And her of countess makes a puissant queen[15].
But be the Paladin again our care,
Who furrows, night and day, the billows green,
And strikes his sails in the same harbour, where
They to the wind erewhile unfurled had been.
All armed, he on his Brigliadoro leaps,
And leaves behind him winds and briny deeps.
