CANTO II.

THE ARGUMENT.

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The catalogue and character
Of th’ enemies best men of war;
Whom, in bold harangue, the Knight
Defies, and challenges to fight. 
H’ encounters Talgol, routs the Bear,
And takes the Fiddler prisoner,
Conveys him to enchanted castle;
There shuts him fast in wooden bastile.
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There was an ancient sage philosopher,
That had read Alexander Ross over,
And swore the world, as he cou’d prove,
Was made of fighting and of love: 
Just so romances are; for what else 5
Is in them all, but love and battels? 
O’ th’ first of these we’ve no great matter
To treat of, but a world o’ th’ latter;
In which to do the injur’d right
We mean, in what concerns just fight. 10
Certes our authors are to blame,
For to make some well-sounding name
A pattern fit for modern Knights
To copy out in frays and fights;
Like those that a whole street do raze 15
To build a palace in the place. 
They never care how many others
They kill, without regard of mothers,
Or wives, or children, so they can
Make up some fierce, dead-doing man, 20
Compos’d of many ingredient valors,
Just like the manhood of nine taylors. 
So a Wild Tartar, when he spies
A man that’s handsome, valiant, wise,
If he can kill him, thinks t’ inherit 25
His wit, his beauty, and his spirit
As if just so much he enjoy’d
As in another is destroy’d
For when a giant’s slain in fight,
And mow’d o’erthwart, or cleft down right, 30
It is a heavy case, no doubt;
A man should have his brains beat out
Because he’s tall, and has large bones;
As men kill beavers for their stones. 
But as for our part, we shall tell 35
The naked truth of what befel;
And as an equal friend to both
The Knight and Bear, but more to troth,
With neither faction shall take part,
But give to each his due desert; 40
And never coin a formal lie on’t,
To make the Knight o’ercome the giant. 
This b’ing profest, we’ve hopes enough,
And now go on where we left off.

They rode; but authors having not 45
Determin’d whether pace or trot,
(That is to say, whether tollutation,
As they do term’t, or succussation,)
We leave it, and go on, as now
Suppose they did, no matter how; 50
Yet some from subtle hints have got
Mysterious light, it was a trot: 
But let that pass:  they now begun
To spur their living-engines on. 
For as whipp’d tops, and bandy’d balls, 55