XXXVI.
Nor he long way had rode, ere he descried
A passing-cruel spectacle and sore;
But which the wonderous feats well testified,
That were recounted Agramant before.
Now on this hand, now that, the dead he eyed,
Measured their wounds, and turned their bodies o’er;
Moved by strange envy of the knight whose hand
Had strown the champaign with the slaughtered band.
XXXVII.
As wolf or mastiff-dog, who comes the last
Where the remains of slaughtered bullock lie,
And finds but horn and bones, where rich repast
Had fed the ravening hound and vulture nigh,
Glares vainly on the scull, unsmacked; so passed
The barbarous Tartar king those bodies by;
And grudged, lamenting, like the hungry beast,
To have come too late for such a sumptuous feast.
XXXVIII.
That day, and half the next, in search he strayed
Of him who wore the sable vest and shield.
When lo! he saw a mead, o’ertopt with shade,
Where a deep river wound about the field,
With narrow space between the turns it made,
Where’er from side to side the water wheeled.
Even such a spot as this with circling waves
Below Otricoli the Tyber laves.
