With gantlet blue, and bases white,
And round blunt truncheon by his side, 770
So great a man at arms defy’d
With words far bitterer than wormwood,
That would in Job or Grizel stir mood. 
Dogs with their tongues their wounds do heal;
But men with hands, as thou shalt feel. 775

This said, with hasty rage he snatch’d
His gun-shot, that in holsters watch’d;
And bending cock, he levell’d full
Against th’ outside of TALGOL’S skull;
Vowing that he shou’d ne’er stir further, 780
Nor henceforth cow nor bullock murther. 
But Pallas came in shape of rust,
And ’twixt the spring and hammerthrust
Her Gorgon shield, which made the cock
Stand stiff, as t’were transform’d to stock. 785
Mean while fierce Talgol, gath’ring might,
With rugged truncheon charg’d the Knight;
But he with petronel upheav’d,
Instead of shield, the blow receiv’d. 
The gun recoil’d, as well it might, 790
Not us’d to such a kind of fight,
And shrunk from its great master’s gripe,
Knock’d down and stunn’d by mortal stripe. 
Then Hudibras, with furious haste,
Drew out his sword; yet not so fast, 795
But Talgol first, with hardy thwack,
Twice bruis’d his head, and twice his back. 
But when his nut-brown sword was out,
With stomach huge he laid about,
Imprinting many a wound upon 800
His mortal foe, the truncheon. 
The trusty cudgel did oppose
Itself against dead-doing blows,
To guard its leader from fell bane,
And then reveng’d itself again. 805
And though the sword (some understood)
In force had much the odds of wood,
’Twas nothing so; both sides were ballanc’t
So equal, none knew which was valiant’st: 
For wood with Honour b’ing engag’d, 810
Is so implacably enrag’d,
Though iron hew and mangle sore,
Wood wounds and bruises Honour more. 
And now both Knights were out of breath,
Tir’d in the hot pursuit of death; 815
While all the rest amaz’d stood still,
Expecting which should take or kill. 
This Hudibras observ’d; and fretting
Conquest should be so long a getting,
He drew up all his force into 820
One body, and that into one blow. 
But Talgol wisely avoided it
By cunning sleight; for had it hit,
The upper part of him the blow
Had slit as sure as that below. 825