LXIII.
The beauty, by Circassian Sacripant
Preferred before his honor and his crown,
The beauty which made Roland, Brava’s vaunt,
Sully his wholesome judgment and renown,
The beauty which had moved the wide Levant,
And awed, and turned its kingdoms upside down,
Now has not (thus deserted and unheard)
One to assist it even with a word.
LXIV.
Oppressed with heavy sleep upon the shore,
The lovely virgin, ere awake, they chain:
With her, the enchanter friar the pirates bore
On board their ship, a sad, afflicted train.
This done, they hoisted up their sail once more,
And the bark made the fatal isle again.
Where, till the lot shall of their prey dispose,
Her prisoned in a castle they enclose.
LXV.
But such her matchless beauty’s power, the maid
Was able that fierce crew to mollify,
Who many days her cruel death delayed,
Preserved until their last necessity;
And while they damsels from without purveyed,
Spared such angelic beauty: finally,
The damsel to the monstrous ore they bring,
The people all behind her sorrowing.
