In canto XXVI., Rinaldo, Ricciardetto, and Ruggiero, assisted by Marphisa (whom, in her martial accoutrements, they do not perceive to be a woman of war), massacre, without let or hindrance, two bodies of Moors and Magauzes, whom they surprise at market together. This, in plain prose, is the style in which the butchery is described:--"Marphisa, as she fought by their side, often turned her eyes towards her companions in arms; and witnessing with wonder their rival achievements, she extolled them all in turn: but the stupendous prowess of Ruggiero, especially, appeared to her without example in the world; so that she was ready to imagine him Mars, who had descended from the fifth heaven to that quarter. She beheld his terrible strokes; she beheld them falling never in vain: it seemed as though, against Balisarda (his sword), iron was paper, and not hard metal; for it split helmets and strong cuirasses; it cleft riders down to their saddles, throwing one half of the man on the right hand, the other on the left; and not stopping there, the same blow slew the horse with his lord. Heads from their shoulders it hurled into the air, and often cut sheer the trunk from the loins; five, and even more, with one motion it sometimes despatched; and if I did not fear that truth would not find credit, but be taken for a lie, I could tell greater things: it is, therefore, expedient rather to tell less than I might. The good archbishop Turpin, who knows very well that he speaks the truth, and leaves every one to believe it or not as he pleases, relates such marvellous feats of Ruggiero, that, hearing them repeated, you would say they were falsehoods. Before Marphisa, every warrior seemed to be ice, and she consuming flame: nor did she less attract the eyes of Ruggiero towards herself, than he had won hers to him; and if she deemed him to be Mars, he might have thought her to be Bellona, had he as well known her to be a lady as her appearance indicated the contrary. Perhaps the emulation then begotten between them, was no good thing for those miserable people, on whose flesh, blood, bones, and sinews, proof was made how much each could do."