Oh, Love! thou sternly dost thy power maintain, And wilt not bear a rival in thy reign; Tyrants and thou all fellowship disdain! This was in Arcite proved, and Palamon, Both in despair, yet each would love alone. 170 Arcite return'd, and, as in honour tied, His foe with bedding, and with food supplied; Then, ere the day, two suits of armour sought, Which, borne before him on his steed, he brought: Both were of shining steel, and wrought so pure, As might the strokes of two such arms endure. Now, at the time, and in the appointed place, The challenger and challenged, face to face, Approach; each other from afar they knew, And from afar their hatred changed their hue. 180 So stands the Thracian herdsman with his spear, Pull in the gap, and hopes the hunted bear, And hears him rustling in the wood, and sees His course at distance by the bending trees; And thinks, Here comes my mortal enemy, And either he must fall in fight, or I: This while he thinks, he lifts aloft his dart; A generous chilness seizes every part: The veins pour back the blood, and fortify the heart. Thus pale they meet; their eyes with fury burn; 190 None greets; for none the greeting will return: But in dumb surliness, each arm'd with care His foe profess'd, as brother of the war: Then both, no moment lost, at once advance Against each other, arm'd with sword and lance: They lash, they foin, they pass, they strive to bore Their corslets and the thinnest parts explore. Thus two long hours in equal arms they stood, And wounded, wound, till both were bathed in blood; And not a foot of ground had either got, 200 As if the world depended on the spot. Fell Arcite like an angry tiger fared, And like a lion Palamon appear'd: Or, as two boars, whom love to battle draws, With rising bristles, and with frothy jaws, Their adverse breasts with tusks oblique they wound; With grunts and groans the forest rings around. So fought the knights, and fighting must abide, Till fate an umpire sends their difference to decide.