LXVI.
“If like desire, and if an equal flame
“Move one and the other sex, who warmly press
“To that soft end of love (their goal the same)
“Which to the witless crowd seems rank excess;
“Say why shall woman merit scathe or blame,
“Though lovers, one or more, she may caress;
“While man to sin with whom he will is free,
“And meets with praise, not mere impunity?
LXVII.
“By this injurious law, unequal still,
“On woman is inflicted open wrong;
“And to demonstrate it a grievous ill,
“I trust in God, which has been born too long.”
To good Rinaldo’s sentence, with one will,
Deeming their sires unjust, assents the throng,
Their sires who such outrageous statute penned,
And king, who might, but does not, this amend.
LXVIII.
When the new dawn, with streaks of red and white,
Broke in the east, and cleared the hemisphere,
Rinaldo took his steed and armour bright:
A squire that abbey furnished to the peer.
With him, for many leagues and miles, the knight
Pricked through the dismal forest dark and drear;
While they towards the Scottish city ride,
Where the poor damsel’s cause is to be tried.
