XXXIX.
“Nay he Bologna rescues from his sway;
“Whither the Bentivogli them betake.
“You next see Lewis siege to Brescia lay,
“And the close-straitened city storm and take;
“Felsina almost at the same time stay
“With succour, and the papal army break;
“And next, ’twould seem, that either hostile band
“Lies tented upon Chassis’ level strand.
XL.
“On this side France, upon the other Spain,
“Extend their files, and battle rages high;
“Fast fall the men at arms in either train,
“And the green earth is tinged with crimson dye.
“Flooded with human gore seems every drain;
“Mars doubts to whom to give the victory;
“When through Alphonso’s worth[25] the Spaniards yield,
“And the victorious Franks maintain the field;
XLI.
“And, for Ravenna sacked and ravaged lies,
“The Roman pastor bites his lips through woe;
“Called by him, from the hills, in tempest’s guise,
“Swoop the fierce Germans on the fields below.
“It seems each Frenchman unresisting flies,
“Chased by their bands beyond the mountain snow,
“And that they set the mulberry’s thriving shoot
“There, whence they plucked the golden lily’s root.
