Thus ranged, the herald for the last proclaims
  A silence, while they answer’d to their names: 
  For so the king decreed, to shun the care,
  The fraud of musters false, the common bane of war. 
  The tale was just, and then the gates were closed;
  And chief to chief, and troop to troop opposed. 
  The heralds last retired, and loudly cried—­
  The fortune of the field be fairly tried!

    At this, the challenger with fierce defy 580
  His trumpet sounds; the challenged makes reply;
  With clangour rings the field, resounds the vaulted sky. 
  Their vizors closed, their lances in the rest,
  Or at the helmet pointed, or the crest,
  They vanish from the barrier, speed the race,
  And spurring see decrease the middle space. 
  A cloud of smoke envelops either host,
  And all at once the combatants are lost: 
  Darkling they join adverse, and shock unseen,
  Coursers with coursers jostling, men with men:  590
  As labouring in eclipse, a while they stay,
  Till the next blast of wind restores the day. 
  They look anew:  the beauteous form of fight
  Is changed, and war appears a grisly sight. 
  Two troops in fair array one moment show’d,
  The next, a field with fallen bodies strow’d: 
  Not half the number in their seats are found;
  But men and steeds lie grovelling on the ground. 
  The points of spears are stuck within the shield,
  The steeds without their riders scour the field. 600
  The knights, unhorsed, on foot renew the fight;
  The glittering falchions cast a gleaming light: 
  Hauberks and helms are hew’d with many a wound,
  Out spins the streaming blood and dyes the ground. 
  The mighty maces with such haste descend,
  They break the bones, and make the solid armour bend. 
  This thrusts amid the throng with furious force;
  Down goes, at once, the horseman and the horse: 
  That courser stumbles on the fallen steed,
  And floundering throws the rider o’er his head. 610
  One rolls along, a foot-ball to his foes;
  One with a broken truncheon deals his blows. 
  This halting, this disabled with his wound,
  In triumph led, is to the pillar bound,
  Where by the king’s award he must abide: 
  There goes a captive led on the other side. 
  By fits they cease; and leaning on the lance,
  Take breath a while, and to new fight advance.

    Full oft the rivals met, and neither spared
  His utmost force, and each forgot to ward. 620
  The head of this was to the saddle bent,
  The other backward to the crupper sent: 
  Both were by turns unhorsed; the jealous blows
  Fall thick and heavy, when on foot they close. 
  So deep their falchions bite, that every stroke
  Pierced to the quick; and equal wounds they gave and took. 
  Borne far asunder by the tides of men,
  Like adamant and steel they meet again.