LXVI To see if he could break the thread which tied The felon's life, upon his way the knight Set forward, and to Damietta hied, To find Orrilo, so the thief was hight; Thence to the river's outlet past, and spied The sturdy castle on the margin dight; Harboured in which the enchanted demon lay, The fruit of a hobgoblin and a fay. LXVII He here Orrilo and two knights in mail Found at fierce strife: the two ill held their own Against him; so Orrilo did assail The warlike pair, although himself alone; And how much either might in arms avail, Fame through the universal world had blown. Of Oliviero's seed was either plant; Gryphon the white, and sable Aquilant. LXVIII The necromancer had this while (to say The truth) with vantage on his side, begun The fight, who brought a monster to the fray, Found only in those parts, and wont to won Ashore or under water, and to prey, For food, on human bodies; feeding on Poor mariners and travelling men, who fare, Of the impending danger, unaware. LXIX The monster, slaughtered by the brethren two, Upon the sand beside the haven lies; And hence no wrong they to Orrilo do, Assailing him together in this guise. Him they dismembered often and not slew: Now he, -- because dismembered, -- ever dies; For he replaces leg or hand like wax, Which the good faulchion from his body hacks. LXX Gryphon and Aquilant by turns divide, Now to the teeth, now breast, the enchanted wight. The fruitless blow Orrilo does deride, While the two baffled warriors rage for spite. Let him who falling silver has espied (Which mercury by alchymists is hight) Scatter, and reunite each broken member, Hearing my tale, what he has seen remember. LXXI If the thief's head be severed by the pair, He lights and staggers till he finds it; now Uptaken by the nose or by the hair, And fastened to the neck, I know not how. This sometimes Gryphon takes, and whirled through air, Whelms in the stream; but bootless is the throw: For like a fish can fierce Orrilo swim; And safely, with the head, regains the brim. LXXII Two ladies, meetly clad in fair array, One damsel was in black and one in white, And who had been the occasion of that fray, Stood by to gaze upon the cruel fight: Either of these was a benignant fay, Whose care had nourished one and the other knight, Oliver's children; when the babes forlorn They from the claws of two huge birds had torn. LXXIII Since, from Gismonda they had these conveyed, Borne to a distance from their native sky. But more to say were needless, since displaid To the whole world has been their history. Though the author has the father's name mis-said; One for another (how I know not, I) Mistaking. Now this fearful strife the pair Of warriors waged at both the ladies' prayer.