Classic Poem

Now toward the Apennines our way we bent,
Leaving the Lombards in tranquility,
Unto Spoletum, whither we were sent,
And Beneventum where the war flamed high
Through the long forests, fens, dells, crags, and caves
Of that long back which bends through Italy,
Where old Clitumnus drives his sacred waves,
Our journey lay: thence might our eyes survey
The sea, each shore of Italy that laves
But everywhere the land around us lay
Prostrate, and trampled by outlandish feet;
For, so in that, as now 't is in this day
The warring nations in those limits meet:
In gallies proud the Greek and Saracen
Upon the sea's broad back their strokes repeat,
And join their war against the Lombard men,
In aid of whom the German marches slow
In heavy ranks: yea, e'en as now, so then.
Against the Greek their solid force they throw,
But little boasts the German sword success
Against the walls and engines of that foe:
For Greek and Saracen together press
The Latin empire from Apulia,
The Lombard limits growing daily less
But not yet, Bari, strength of Adria,
Hadst thou devoured those principalities,
Salernum, Beneventum, Capua.
Thither our course: to join them as allies,
Adding the Norman to the Lombard power,
And make to cease by war war's miseries.
Which as we sought, Mano from hour to hour
Like to himself appeared a leader great,
Whatever storm of peril nigh might lower.
And in that time, touching those evils late
He spoke with me, who gave him full reply,
Admonishing of deeds unfortunate.
Albeit I feared him somewhat, yet was I
Faithful in that, the duty which I owed;
And won of him honour the more thereby.
Then, looking on me; presently he showed
A curious riddle song that he had made
Concerning those strange chances on our road:
Where in a doubtful manner was displayed,
And sadly told indeed a story true:
For this the song that he before me laid.
" I had a sister whom I never knew,
Because I saw her not, when I could know,
Albeit we shared the mother whom we slew.
I saw her not enough to know her so:
Nor, though she lived to be as old as I,
I saw her not in maiden garments low
And yet unto my presence she drew nigh,
My hand was laid upon her golden hair,
But hand was granted not in hand to lie
Ah, and my touch has pressed her unaware:
No foe was she, yet her I overthrew:
I spoiled her not, and yet her spoils I wear.
" And that poor sister, whom I never knew,
She had a brother who no brother was:
Which false-called brother into husband grew
And both by one who caused me shame, alas,
That husband brother and herself were slain.
" I had a mother, who from me did pass:
A father, who no father was, certain.
One not my father father was to me,
My mother was not mine by mother's pain.
" A father then had I, third in degree:
A brother, and another, and another:
And brothers to my sister there were three; —
Two, with the one that husband grew from brother:
But of them all not one that then we had
To us by blood was father, brother, mother.
" Next, of those two that were by fortune sad
Left brothers of my sister, one I slew,
The other passed from me in menace clad
Now, when these chances I in thought pursue,
Thinking of what I had yet never had,
Dolour and pity bid my mind to rue,
But wrong is scarcely mixed with thinking sad. "