THE FAERIE QUEENE by Edmund Spenser TO The ... - Planet.ee

www.TaleBooks.comOn foot with him to matchen equall fight:The truncked beast fast bleeding did him fowly dight.V. Sore bruzed with the fall he slow uprose,And all enraged thus him loudly shent;"Disleall Knight, whose coward corage choseTo wreake it selfe on beast all innocent,And shund the marke at which it should be ment;Therby thine armes seem strong, but manhood frayl:So hast thou oft with guile thine honor blent;But litle may such guile thee now avayl,If wonted force and fortune doe me not much fayl."VI. With that he drew his flaming sword, and strookeAt him so fiercely, that the upper margeOf his sevenfolded shield away it tooke,And, glauncing on his helmet, made a largeAnd open gash therein: were not his targeThat broke the violence of his intent,The weary sowle from thence it would discharge;Nathelesse so sore a buff to him it lent,That made him reele, and to his brest his bever bent.VII. Exceeding wroth was Guyon at that blow,And much ashamd that stroke of living armeShould him dismay, and make him stoup so low,Though otherwise it did him litle harme:Tho, hurling high his yron braced arme,He smote so manly on his shoulder plate,That all his left side it did quite disarme;Yet there the steel stayd not, but inly bateDeepe in his flesh, and opened wide a red floodgate.VIII. Deadly dismayd with horror of that dintPyrochles was, and grieved eke entyre;Yet nathemore did it his fury stint,But added flame unto his former fire,That wel nigh molt his hart in raging yre:Ne thenceforth his approved skill, to ward,Or strike, or hurtle rownd in warlike gyre,Remembred he, ne car'd for his saufgard,But rudely rag'd, and like a cruell tygre far'd.IX. He hewd, and lasht, and foynd, and thondred blowes,And every way did seeke into his life;Ne plate, ne male, could ward so mighty throwes,But yielded passage to his cruell knife.But Guyon, in the heat of all his strife,Was wary wise, and closely did awaytAvauntage, whilest his foe did rage most rife:Sometimes athwart, sometimes he strook him strayt,And falsed oft his blowes t' illude him with such bayt.X. Like as a Lyon, whose imperiall powreA prowd rebellious Unicorn defyes,Page 169 , Faerie Queene, The - Edmund Spenser