The queen ascends a turret's height.
The clerks and canons on her wait,
Of that false law God holds in hate.
Order or tonsure have they none.
And when she thus beheld undone
The Arab power, all disarrayed,
Aloud she cried, "Mahound us aid!
My king! defeated is our race,
The Emir slain in foul disgrace."
King Marsil turns him to the wall,
And weeps--his visage darkened all.
He dies for grief--in sin he dies,
His wretched soul the demon's prize.


CCXXII

Dead lay the heathens, or turned to flight,
And Karl was victor in the fight.
Down Saragossa's wall he brake--
Defence he knew was none to make.
And as the city lay subdued,
The hoary king all proudly stood,
There rested his victorious powers.
The queen hath yielded up the towers--
Ten great towers and fifty small.
Well strives he whom God aids withal.


CCXXIII