In royal lists, to fight before the king; 410 And then the knight, whom fate or happy chance

Shall with his friends to victory advance,
And grace his arms so far in equal fight,
From out the bars to force his opposite,
Or kill, or make him recreant on the plain,
The prize of valor and of love shall gain;
The vanquish'd party shall their claim
release,

And the long jars conclude in lasting peace. The charge be mine t' adorn the chosen ground,

The theater of war, for champions so renown'd;

And take the patron's place of either

knight,

With eyes impartial to behold the fight; And Heav'n of me so judge as I shall judge aright.

420

If both are satisfied with this accord, Swear by the laws of knighthood on my sword."

Who now but Palamon exults with joy? And ravish'd Arcite seems to touch the sky: The whole assembled troop was pleas'd as

It might be deem'd, on our historian's part,

Or too much negligence, or want of art,
If he forgot the vast magnificence
Of royal Theseus, and his large expense.
He first enclos'd for lists a level ground,
The whole circumference a mile around:
: 441
The form was circular; and all without
A trench was sunk, to moat the place about.
Within an amphitheater appear'd,
Rais'd in degrees; to sixty paces rear'd:
That when a man was plac'd in one de-
gree,

Height was allow'd for him above to see.
Eastward was built a gate of marble
white;
The like adorn'd the western opposite.
A nobler object than this fabric was,
Rome never saw; nor of so vast a space:
For, rich with spoils of many a conquer'd
land,

450

And Sorceries to raise th' infernal pow'rs, And Sigils fram'd in planetary hours; Expense, and Afterthought, and idle Care, And Doubts of motley hue, and dark Despair;

Suspicions, and fantastical Surmise, And Jealousy suffus'd, with jaundice in her eyes,

490

Discoloring all she view'd, in tawny dress'd,
Down-look'd, and with a cuckow on her fist.
Oppos'd to her, on t'other side, advance
The costly feast, the carol, and the dance,
Minstrels, and music, poetry, and play,
And balls by night, and turnaments by day.
All these were painted on the wall, and
more,

With acts and monuments of times before,
And others added by prophetic doom,
And lovers yet unborn, and loves to come:
For there th' Idalian mount, and Citheron,
The court of Venus, was in colors drawn.
Before the palace gate, in careless dress, 500
And loose array, sat portress Idleness;
There, by the fount, Narcissus pin'd

His hands a bow, his back a quiver bore, Supplied with arrows bright and keen, a deadly store.

But in the dome of mighty Mars the red With diff'rent figures all the sides were spread;

This temple, less in form, with equal grace,
Was imitative of the first in Thrace:
For that cold region was the lov'd abode
And sov'reign mansion of the warrior god.
The landscape was a forest wide and bare,
Where neither beast nor humankind repair;
The fowl that scent afar the borders fly,
And shun the bitter blast, and wheel about
the sky.

ད་ལྟའུ

A cake of scurf lies baking on the ground, And prickly stubs, instead of trees, are found;

Or woods with knots and knares deform'd and old;

Headless the most, and hideous to behold: A rattling tempest thro' the branches went, That stripp'd 'em bare, and one sole way they bent.

Heav'n froze above, severe; the clouds congeal,

540

And thro' the crystal vault appear'd the standing hail.

Such was the face without: a mountain stood

Threat'ning from high, and overlook'd the wood;

Beneath the low'ring brow, and on a bent,
The temple stood of Mars armipotent:
The frame of burnish'd steel, that cast a
glare

From far, and seem'd to thaw the freezing air.

A strait, long entry to the temple led, Blind with high walls, and horror over head:

Thence issued such a blast and hollow roar, As threaten'd from the hinge to heave the

In midst of all the dome Misfortune sat, And gloomy Discontent, and fell Debate, And Madness laughing in his ireful mood, And arm'd complaint on theft, and cries of blood.

There was the murder'd corpse, in covert laid, And violent death in thousand shapes display'd;

The city to the soldier's rage resign'd;
Successless wars, and poverty behind;
Ships burnt in fight, or forc'd on rocky shores,
And the rash hunter strangled by the boars;
The newborn babe by nurses overlaid;
And the cook caught within the raging fire
he made.

590

All ills of Mars his nature, flame, and steel; The gasping charioteer, beneath the wheel Of his own car; the ruin'd house that falls And intercepts her lord betwixt the walls; The whole division that to Mars pertains,

All trades of death that deal in steel for gains,

Were there: the butcher, armorer, and smith,

Who forges sharpen'd fauchions, or the scythe.

599

The scarlet conquest on a tow'r was plac'd, With shouts and soldiers' acclamations grac'd;

A pointed sword hung threat'ning o'er his head,

Sustain'd but by a slender twine of thread. There saw I Mars his ides, the Capitol, The seer in vain foretelling Cæsar's fall; The last triumvirs, and the wars they move, And Antony, who lost the world for love. These, and a thousand more, the fane adorn; Their fates were painted ere the men were born,

All copied from the heav'ns, and ruling force

610