"
The reader will note the allegory or not, as he pleases.
The reader will note the allegory or not, as he pleases.
Stories from the Italian Poets
528.
]
[Footnote 7: A late amiable man of wit, Mr. Stewart Rose, has given
a prose abstract of Berni's _Orlando Innamorato_, with occasional
versification; but it is hardly more than a dry outline, and was, indeed,
intended only as an introduction to his version of the _Furioso_. A good
idea, however, of one of the phases of Berni's humour may be obtained
from the same gentleman's abridgment of the _Animali Parlanti_ of Casti,
in which he has introduced a translation of the Tuscan's description of
himself and of his way of life, out of his additions to Boiardo's poem.
The verses in the prohibited edition of Berni's _Orlando_, in which he
denounced the corruptions of the clergy, have been published, for the
first time in this country, in the notes to the twentieth canto of Mr.
Panizzi's Boiardo. They have all his peculiar wit, together with a
_Lutheran_ earnestness; and shew him, as that critic observes, to have
been "Protestant at his heart. "
Since writing this note I have called to mind that a translation of
Berni's account of himself is to be found in Mr. Rose's prose abstract of
the _Innamorato. _]
THE ADVENTURES OF ANGELICA.
Argument.
Angelica, daughter of Galafron, king of Cathay, the most beautiful of
womankind, and a possessor of the art of magic, comes, with her brother
Argalia, to the court of Charlemagne under false pretences, in order
to carry away his knights to the country of her father. Her immediate
purpose is defeated, and her brother slain; but all the knights, Orlando
in particular, fall in love with her; and she herself, in consequence of
drinking at an enchanted fountain, becomes in love with Rinaldo. On the
other hand, Rinaldo, from drinking a neighbouring fountain of a reverse
quality, finds his own love converted to loathing. Various adventures
arise out of these circumstances; and the fountains are again drunk, with
a mutual reversal of their effects.
THE ADVENTURES OF ANGELICA
It was the month of May and the feast of Pentecost, and Charlemagne had
ordained a great jousting, which brought into Paris an infinite number of
people, baptised and infidel; for there was truce proclaimed, in order
that every knight might come. There was King Grandonio from Spain, with
his serpent's face; and Ferragus, with his eyes like an eagle; and
Balugante, the emperor's kinsman; and Orlando, and Rinaldo, and Duke
Namo; and Astolfo of England, the handsomest of mankind; and the
enchanter Malagigi; and Isoliero and Salamone; and the traitor Gan, with
his scoundrel followers; and, in short, the whole flower of the chivalry
of the age, the greatest in the world. The tables at which they feasted
were on three sides of the hall, with the emperor's canopy midway at the
top; and at that first table sat crowned heads; and down the table on the
right sat dukes and marquises; and down the table on the left, counts and
cavaliers. But the Saracen nobles, after their doggish fashion, looked
neither for chair nor bench, but preferred a carpet on the floor, which
was accordingly spread for them in the midst.
High sat Charlemagne at the head of his vassals and his Paladins,
rejoicing in the thought of all the great men of which they consisted,
and holding the infidels cheap as the sands which are scattered by the
tempest. To each of his lords, as they drank, he sent round, by his
pages, gifts of enamelled cups of exquisite workmanship; and to every
body some mark of his princely distinction; and so they were all sitting
and hearing music, and feasting off dishes of gold, and talking of lovely
things with low voices,[1] when suddenly there came into the hall four
enormous giants, in the midst of whom was a lady, and behind the lady
there followed a cavalier. She was a very lily of the field, and a rose
of the garden, and a morning-star; in short, so beautiful that the like
had never been seen. There was Galerana in the hall; there was Alda,
the wife of Orlando; and Clarice, and Armellina the kind-hearted, and
abundance of other ladies, all beautiful till she made her appearance;
but after that they seemed nothing. Every Christian knight turned his
face that way; and not a Pagan remained on the floor, but arose and got
as near to her as he could; while she, with a cheerful sweetness, and
a smile fit to enamour a heart of stone, began speaking the following
words:
"High-minded lord, the renown of your worthiness, and the valour of these
your knights, which echoes from sea to sea, encourages me to hope, that
two pilgrims who have come from the ends of the world to behold you, will
not have encountered their fatigue in vain. And to the end that I may not
hold your attention too long with speaking, let me briefly say, that
this knight here, Uberto of the Lion, a prince renowned also for his
achievements, has been wrongfully driven from out his dominions; and that
I, who was driven out with him, am his sister, whose name is Angelica.
Fame has told us of the jousting this day appointed, and of the noble
press of knights here assembled, and how your generous natures care not
to win prizes of gold or jewels, or gifts of cities, but only a wreath of
roses; and so the prince my brother has come to prove his own valour, and
to say, that if any or all of your guests, whether baptised or infidel,
choose to meet him in the joust, he will encounter them one by one, in
the green meadow without the walls, near the place called the Horseblock
of Merlin, by the Fountain of the Pine. And his conditions are
these,--that no knight who chances to be thrown shall have license to
renew the combat in any way whatsoever, but remain a submissive prisoner
in his hands; he, on the other hand, if himself be thrown, agreeing to
take his departure out of the country with his giants, and to leave his
sister, for prize, in the hands of the conqueror. "
Kneeling at the close of these words, the lady awaited the answer of
Charlemagne, and every body gazed on her with astonishment. Orlando
especially, more than all the rest, felt irresistibly drawn towards her,
so that his heart trembled, and he changed countenance. But he felt
ashamed at the same time; and casting his eyes down, he said to himself,
"Ah, mad and unworthy Orlando! whither is thy soul being hurried? I am
drawn, and cannot say nay to what draws me. I reckoned the whole world as
nothing, and now I am conquered by a girl. I cannot get her sweet look
out of my heart. My soul seems to die within me, at the thought of being
without her. It is love that has seized me, and I feel that nothing will
set me free;--not strength, nor courage, nor my own wisdom, nor that of
any adviser. I see the better part, and cleave to the worse. "[2]
Thus secretly in his heart did the frank and noble Orlando lament over
his new feelings; and no wonder; for every knight in the hall was
enamoured of the beautiful stranger, not excepting even old white-headed
Duke Namo. Charlemagne himself did not escape.
All stood for awhile in silence, lost in the delight of looking at
her. The fiery youth Ferragus was the first to exhibit symptoms in his
countenance of uncontrollable passion. He refrained with difficulty from
going up to the giants, and tearing her out of their keeping. Rinaldo
also turned as red as fire; while his cousin Malagigi the enchanter, who
had discovered that the stranger was not speaking truth, muttered softly,
as he looked at her, "Exquisite false creature! I will play thee such a
trick for this, as will leave thee no cause to boast of thy visit. "
Charlemagne, to detain her as long as possible before him, made a speech
in answer, in which he talked and looked, and looked and talked, till
there seemed no end of it. At length, however, the challenge was accepted
in all its forms; and the lady quitted the hall with her brother and the
giants.
She had not yet passed the gates, when Malagigi the enchanter consulted
his books; and that no means might be wanting to complete the
counteraction of what he suspected, he summoned to his aid three spirits
out of the lower regions. But how serious his look turned, how his very
soul within him was shaken, when he discovered that the most dreadful
disasters hung over Charles and his court, and that the sister of the
pretended Uberto was daughter of King Galafron of Cathay, a beauty
accomplished in every species of enchantment, and sent there by her
father on purpose to betray them all! Her brother's name was not Uberto,
but Argalia. Galafron had given him a horse swifter than the wind, an
enchanted sword, a golden lance, also enchanted, which overthrew all whom
it touched,[3] and a ring of a virtue so extraordinary, that if put into
the mouth, it rendered the person invisible, and if worn on the finger,
nullified every enchantment. But beyond even all this, he gave him his
sister for a companion; rightly judging, that every body that saw her
would fall into the proposal of the joust; and trusting that, at the
close of it, she would bring him the whole court of France into Cathay,
prisoners in her hands.
Such, Malagigi discovered, was the plot of the accursed infidel hound,
King Galafron. [4]
Meantime the pretended Uberto had returned to his station at the
Horseblock of Merlin. He had had a beautiful pavilion pitched there; and
under this pavilion he lay down awhile to refresh himself with sleep. His
sister Angelica lay down also, but in the open air, under the great pine
by the fountain. The four giants kept watch: and as she lay thus asleep,
with her fair head on the grass, she appeared like an angel come down
from heaven.
By this time Malagigi, borne by one of his demons, had arrived in the
same place. He saw the beauty asleep by the flowery water, and the four
giants all wide awake; and he said within his teeth,--" Brute scoundrels,
I will take every one of you into my net without a blow. "
Malagigi took his book, and cast a spell out of it; and in an instant
the whole four giants were buried in sleep. Then, drawing his sword, he
softly approached the young lady, intending to despatch her as quickly:
but seeing her look so lovely as she slept, he paused, and considered
within himself, and resolved to detain her in the same state by
enchantment, so long as it should please him. Laying down the naked sword
in the grass, he again took his book, and read and read on, and still
read on, and fancied he was locking up her senses all the while in a
sleep unwakeable. But the ring of which I have spoken was on her finger.
She had borrowed it of her brother; and a superior power rendered all
other magic of no avail. A touch from Malagigi to prove the force of his
spell awoke her, to the magician's consternation, with a great cry. She
fled into the arms of her brother, whom it aroused; and, by the help of
his sister's knowledge of enchantment, Argalia mastered and bound the
magician. The book was then turned against him, and the place was
suddenly filled with a crowd of his own demons, every one of them crying
out to Angelica, "What commandest thou? "
"Take this man," said Angelica, "and bear him prisoner to the great city
between Tartary and India, where my father Galafron is lord. Present him
to him in my name, and say it was I that took him; and add, that having
so taken the master of the book, I care not for all the other lords of
the court of Charlemagne. "
At the end of these words, and at one and the same instant, the magician
was conveyed to the feet of Galafron in Cathay, and locked up in a rock
under the sea.
In due time the enamoured knights, according to agreement, came to the
spot, for the purpose of jousting with the supposed Uberto, each anxious
to have the first encounter, particularly Orlando, in order that he might
not see the beauty carried off by another. But they were obliged to draw
lots; and thirty other names appeared before his, the first of which was
that of Astolfo the Englishman.
Now Astolfo was son of the king of England; and as I said before, he was
the handsomest man in the world. He was also very rich and well bred, and
loved to dress well, and was as brave as he was handsome; but his success
was not always equal to his bravery. He had a trick of being thrown from
his horse, a failing which he was accustomed to attribute to accident;
and then he would mount again, and be again thrown from the saddle, in
the boldest manner conceivable.
This gallant prince was habited, on the present occasion, in arms worth a
whole treasury. His shield had a border of large pearls; his mail was of
gold; on his helmet was a ruby as big as a chestnut; and his horse was
covered with a cloth all over golden leopards. [5] He issued to the
combat, looking at nobody and fearing nothing; and on his sounding
the horn to battle, Argalia came forth to meet him. After courteous
salutations, the two combatants rushed together; but the moment the
Englishman was touched with the golden lance, his legs flew over his
head.
"Cursed fortune! " cried he, as he lay on the grass; "this is out of all
calculation. But it was entirely owing to the saddle. You can't but
acknowledge, that if I had kept my seat, the beautiful lady would have
been mine. But thus it is when Fortune chooses to befriend infidels! "[6]
The four giants, who had by this time been disenchanted out of their
sleep by Angelica, took up the English prince, and put him in the
pavilion. But when he was stripped of his armour, he looked so handsome,
that the lovely stranger secretly took pity on him, and bade them shew
him all the courtesies that captivity allowed. He was permitted to walk
outside by the fountain; and Angelica, from a dark corner, looked at him
with admiration, as he walked up and down in the moonlight. [7]
The violent Ferragus had the next chance in the encounter, and was thrown
no less speedily than Astolfo; but he did not so easily put up with the
mischance. Crying out, "What are the emperor's engagements to me? " he
rushed with his sword against Argalia, who, being forced to defend himself
unexpectedly, dismounted and set aside his lance, and got so much the
worse of the fight, that he listened to proposals of marriage from
Ferragus to his sister. The beauty, however, not feeling an inclination
to match with so rough and savage-looking a person, was so dismayed at
the offer, that, hastily bidding her brother meet her in the forest of
Arden, she vanished from the sight of both, by means of the enchanted
ring. Argalia, seeing this, took to his horse of swiftness, and dashed
away in the same direction; Ferragus, in distraction, pursued Argalia;
and Astolfo, thus left to himself, took possession of the golden lance,
and again issued forth--not, indeed, with quite his usual confidence of
the result, but determined to run all risks, in any thing that might
ensue, for the sake of the emperor. In fine, to cut this part of the
history short, Charlemagne, finding the lady and her brother gone,
ordered the joust to be restored to its first intention; and Astolfo,
who was as ignorant as the others of the treasure he possessed in the
enchanted lance, unhorsed all comers against him like so many children,
equally to their astonishment and his own.
The Paladin Rinaldo now learnt the issue of the fight between Ferragus
and the stranger, and galloped in a loving agony of pursuit after
the fair fugitive. Orlando learnt the disappearance of Rinaldo, and,
distracted with jealousy, pushed forth in like manner; and at length all
three are in the forest of Arden, hunting about for her who is invisible.
Now in this forest were two enchanted waters, the one a running stream,
and the other a built fountain; the first caused every body who tasted it
to fall in love, and the other (so to speak) to fall _out_ of love; say,
rather, to feel the love turned into hate. To the latter of these two
waters Rinaldo happened to come; and being flushed with heat and anxiety,
he dismounted from his horse, and quenched, in one cold draught, both his
thirst and his passion. So far from loving Angelica as before, or holding
her beauty of any account, he became disgusted with its pursuit, nay,
hated her from the bottom of his heart; and so, in this new state of
mind, and with feelings of lofty contempt, he remounted and rode away,
and happened to come on the bank of the running stream. There, enticed by
the beauty of the place, which was all sweet meadow-ground and bowers of
trees, he again quitted his saddle, and, throwing himself on the ground,
fell fast asleep. Unfortunately for the proud beauty Angelica, or rather
in just punishment for her contempt, her palfrey conducted her to this
very place. The water tempted her to drink, and, dismounting and tying
the animal to one of the trees, she did so, and then cast her eyes on the
sleeping Rinaldo. Love instantly seized her, and she stood rooted to the
spot.
The meadow round about was all full of lilies of the valley and wild
roses. Angelica, not knowing what to do, at length plucked a quantity
of these, and with her white hand she dropped them on the face of the
sleeper. He woke up; and seeing who it was, not only received her
salutations with a change of countenance, but remounting his horse,
galloped away through the thickest part of the forest. In vain the
beautiful creature followed and called after him; in vain asked him what
she had done to be so despised, and entreated him, at any rate, to take
care how he went so fast. Rinaldo disappeared, leaving her to wring her
hands in despair; and she returned in tears to the spot on which she had
found him sleeping. There, in her turn, she herself lay down, pressing
the spot of earth on which he had lain; and so, weeping and lamenting,
yet blessing every flower and bit of grass that he had touched, fell
asleep out of fatigue and sorrow.
As Angelica thus lay, the good or bad fortune of Orlando conducted him to
the same place. The attitude in which she was sleeping was so lovely
that it is not even to be conceived, much less expressed. The very grass
seemed to flower on all sides of her for joy; and the stream, as it
murmured along, to go talking of love. [8] Orlando stood gazing like a man
who had been transported to another sphere. "Am I on earth," thought he,
"or am I in paradise? Surely it is I myself that am sleeping, and this is
my dream. "
But his dream was proved to be none, in a manner which he little desired.
Ferragus, who had slain Argalia, came up raging with jealousy, and a
combat ensued which awoke the sleeper. Terrified at what she beheld, she
rushed to her palfrey; and while the fighters were occupied with one
another, fled away through the forest.
Fast fled the beauty in the direction taken by Rinaldo; nor did she
cease travelling, by one conveyance or another, till she reached her own
country, whither she had sent Malagigi. Him she freed from his prison,
on condition that he would employ his art for the purpose of bringing
Rinaldo to a palace of hers, which she possessed in an island; and
accordingly Rinaldo was inveigled by a spirit into an enchanted barque,
which he found on a sea-shore, and which conveyed him, without any
visible pilot, into Joyous Palace (for so the island was called).
The whole island was a garden, fifteen miles in extent. It was full of
trees and lawns; and on the western side, close to the sea, was the
palace, built of a marble so clear and polished, that it reflected the
landscape round about. Rinaldo, not knowing what to think of his strange
conveyance, lost no time in leaping to shore; upon which a lady made her
appearance, who invited him within. The house was a most beautiful house,
full of rooms adorned with azure and gold, and with noble paintings;
and within as well as without it were the loveliest flowers, the purest
fountains, and a fragrance fit to turn sorrow to joy. The lady led the
knight into an apartment painted with stories, and opening to the garden
through pillars of crystal with golden capitals. Here he found a bevy of
ladies, three of whom were singing in concert, while another played on
some foreign instrument of exquisite accord, and the rest were dancing
round about them. When the ladies beheld him coming, they turned the
dance into a circuit round about himself; and then one of them, in the
sweetest manner, said, "Sir knight, the tables are set, and the hour
for the banquet is come:" and with these words they all drew him, still
dancing, across the lawn in front of the apartment, to a table that was
spread with cloth of gold and fine linen, under a bower of damask roses,
by the side of a fountain. [9]
Four ladies were already seated there, who rose and placed Rinaldo
at their head, in a chair set with pearls. And truly indeed was he
astonished. A repast ensued, consisting of viands the most delicate, and
wines as fragrant as they were fine, drunk out of jewelled cups; and
when it drew towards its conclusion, harps and lutes were heard in the
distance, and one of the ladies said in the knight's ear, "This house,
and all that you see in it, are yours. For you alone was it built, and
the builder is a queen; and happy indeed must you think yourself, for
she loves you, and she is the greatest beauty in the world. Her name is
Angelica. "
The moment Rinaldo heard the name he so detested, disgust and
wretchedness fell upon his heart, notwithstanding the joys around him. He
started up with a changed countenance, and, in spite of all that the lady
could say, broke off across the garden, and never ceased hastening till
he reached the place where he landed. He would have thrown himself into
the sea, rather than stay any longer in that island; but the enchanted
barque was still on the shore. He sprang into it, and attempted instantly
to push off, for he still saw nobody in it but himself; but the barque
for a while resisted his efforts; till, on his feeling a wish to drown
himself, or to do any thing rather than return to that detested house, it
suddenly loosed itself from its moorings, and dashed away with him over
the sea, as if in a fury.
All night did the pilotless barque dash on, till it reached, in the
morning, a distant shore covered with a gloomy forest. Here Rinaldo,
surrounded by enchantments of a very different sort from those which he
had lately resisted, was entrapped into a pit. The pit belonged to a
castle which was hung with human heads, and painted red with blood; and
as the Paladin was calling upon God to help him, a hideous white-headed
old woman, of a spiteful countenance, made her appearance on the edge of
the pit, and told him that he must fight with a monster born of Death and
Desire.
"Be it so," said the Paladin. "Let me but remain armed as I am, and I
fear nothing. " For Rinaldo had with him his renowned sword Fusberta. [10]
The old woman laughed in derision. Rinaldo remained in the den all night,
and next day was taken to a place where a portcullis was lifted up, and
the monster rushed forth. He was a mixture of hog and serpent, larger
than an ox, and not to be looked at without horror. He had eyes like a
traitor, the hands of a man, but clawed, a beard dabbled with blood, a
skin of coarse variegated colours, too hard to be cut through, and two
horns on his temples, which he could turn on all sides of him at his
pleasure, and which were so sharp that they cut like a sword.
Rising on his hind-legs, and opening a mouth six palms in width, this
horrible beast fell heavily on Rinaldo, who was nevertheless quick enough
to give it a blow on the snout which increased its fury. Returning the
knight a tremendous cuff, it seized his coat of mail between breast and
shoulder, and tore away a great strip of it down to the girdle,
leaving the skin bare. Every successive rent and blow was of the like
irresistible violence; and though the Paladin himself never fought with
more force and fury, he lost blood every instant. The monster at length
tearing his sword out of his hand, the Paladin surely began to think that
his last hour was arrived.
Looking about to see what might possibly help him, he observed overhead
a beam sticking out of a wall at the height of some ten feet. He took a
leap more than human; and reaching the beam with his hand, succeeded in
flinging himself up across it. Here he sat for hours, the furious brute
continually trying to reach him. Night-time then came on with a clear
starry sky and moonlight, and the Paladin could discern no way of
escaping, when he heard a sound of something, he knew not what, coming
through the air like a bird. Suddenly a female figure stood on the end of
the beam, holding something in her hand towards him, and speaking in a
loving voice.
It was Angelica, come with means for destroying the monster, and carrying
the knight away.
But the moment Rinaldo saw her, desperate as seemed to be his condition,
he renounced all offers of her assistance; and at length became so
exasperated with her good offices, especially when she opened her arms
and offered to bear him away in them, that he threatened to cast himself
down to the monster if she did not go away. [11]
Angelica, saying that she would lose her life rather than displease him,
descended from the beam; and having given the monster a cake of wax which
fastened up his teeth, and then caught and fixed him in a set of nooses
she had brought for that purpose, took her miserable departure. Rinaldo
upon this got down from the beam himself; and having succeeded, though
with the greatest difficulty, in beating and squeezing the life out of
the monster, dealt such havoc among the people of the castle who
assailed him, that the horrible old woman, whose crimes had made her the
creature's housekeeper, and led her to take delight in its cruelty, threw
herself headlong from a tower. The Paladin then took his way forth,
turning his back on the castle and the sea-shore.
Angelica returned to the capital of her father's dominion, Albracca; and
the pertinacity of others in seeking her love being as great as that of
hers for Rinaldo, she found King Galafron, in a short time, besieged
there for her sake, by the fierce Agrican, king of Tartary.
In a short time a jealous feud sprang up between the loving friends
Rinaldo and Orlando; and Angelica, torn with conflicting emotions, from
her dread on her father's account as well as her own, and her aversion
to every knight but her detester, was at one time compelled to apply to
Orlando for assistance, and at another, being afraid that he would have
the better of Rinaldo in combat, to send him away on a perilous adventure
elsewhere, with a promise of accepting his love should he succeed. [12]
Orlando went, but not before he had slain Agrican and delivered Albracca.
Circumstances, however, again took him with her to a distance, as the
reader will see, ere he could bring her to perform her promise; and the
Paladins in general having again been scattered abroad, it happened that
Rinaldo a second time found himself in the forest of Arden; and here,
without expecting it, he became an altered man; for he now tasted a very
different stream from that which had given him his hate for Angelica;
namely, the one which had made her fall in love with himself. He was led
to do this by a very extraordinary adventure.
In the thick of the forest he had come upon a mead full of flowers, in
which there was a naked youth, singing in the midst of three damsels, who
were naked also, and who were dancing round about him. They had bunches
of flowers in their hands, and garlands on their heads; and as they
were thus delighting themselves, with faces full of love and joy, they
suddenly changed countenance on seeing Rinaldo. "Behold," cried they, "the
traitor! Behold him, villain that he is, and the scorner of all delights!
He has fallen into the net at last. " With these words they fell upon him
with the flowers like so many furies; and tender as such scourges might
be thought, every blow which the roses and violets gave him, every fresh
stroke of the lilies and the hyacinths, smote him to the very heart, and
filled his veins with fire. The flowers in the bands of the nymphs
being exhausted, the youth gave him a blow on the helmet with a tall
garden-lily, which felled him to the earth; and so, taking him by the
legs, and dragging him over the grass, his conqueror went the whole
circuit of the mead with him, the nymphs taking the very garlands off
their heads, and again scourging him with their white and red roses. [13]
At the close of this discipline, which left him more exhausted than
twenty battles, his enemies suddenly developed wings from their
shoulders, the feathers of which were of white and gold and vermilion,
every feather having an eye in it, not like those in the peacock's
feathers, but one full of life and motion, being a female eye, lovely and
gracious. And with these wings they poised themselves a little, and so
sprung up to heaven. [14]
The Paladin, more dead than alive, lay helpless among the flowers, when a
fourth nymph came up to him, of inexpressible beauty. She told him that
he had grievously offended the naked youth, who was no other than Love
himself; and added, that his only remedy was to be penitent, and to drink
of the waters of a stream hard by, which he would find running from the
roots of an olive-tree and a pine. With these words, she vanished in her
turn like the rest; and Rinaldo, dragging himself as well as he could to
the olive and pine, stooped down, and greedily drank of the water. Again
and again he drank, and wished still to be drinking, for it took not only
all pain out of his limbs, but all hate and bitterness out of his soul,
and produced such a remorseful and doating memory of Angelica, that he
would fain have galloped that instant to Cathay, and prostrated himself
at her feet. By degrees he knew the place; and looking round about him,
and preparing to remount his horse, he discerned a knight and a lady in
the distance. The knight was in a coat of armour unknown to him, and the
lady kneeling and drinking at a fountain, which was the one that had
formerly quenched his own thirst; to wit, the Fountain of Disdain.
Alas! it was Angelica herself; and the knight was Orlando. She had
allowed him to bring her into France, ostensibly for the purpose of
wedding him at the court of Charlemagne, whither the hero's assistance
had been called against Agramant king of the Moors, but secretly with the
object of discovering Rinaldo. Rinaldo, behold! is discovered; but the
fatal averse water has been drunk, and Angelica now hates him in turn, as
cordially as he detested her. In vain he accosted her in the humblest and
most repentant manner, calling himself the unworthiest of mankind, and
entreating to be allowed to love her. Orlando, disclosing himself,
fiercely interrupted him; and a combat so terrific ensued, that Angelica
fled away on her palfrey till she came to a large plain, in which she
beheld an army encamped.
The army was Charlemagne's, who had come to meet Rodamonte, one of the
vassals of Agramant. Angelica, in a tremble, related how she had left the
two Paladins fighting in the wood; and Charlemagne, who was delighted to
find Orlando so near him, proceeded thither with his lords, and parting
the combatants by his royal authority, suppressed the dispute between
them for the present, by consigning the object of their contention to the
care of Namo duke of Bavaria, with the understanding that she was to be
the prize of the warrior who should best deserve her in the approaching
battle with the infidels.
[This is the last we hear of Angelica in the unfinished poem of Boiardo.
For the close of her history see its continuation by Ariosto in the
present volume. ]
[Footnote 1: "Con parlar basso e bei ragionamenti. "]
[Footnote 2: _Video meliora, proboque, &c. _ Writers were now beginning
to pride themselves on their classical reading. The present occasion,
it must be owned, was a very good one for introducing the passage from
Horace. The previous words have an affecting ingenuousness; and, indeed,
the whole stanza is beautiful:
"Io non mi posso dal cor dipartire
La dolce vista del viso sereno,
Perch'io mi sento senza lei morire,
E 'l spirto a poco a poco venir meno.
Or non mi vale forza, nè l'ardire
Contra d' amor, the m' ha già posto il freno;
Nè mi giova saper, ne altrui consiglio:
Il meglio veggio, ed al peggior m'appiglio. "
Alas! I cannot, though I shut mine eyes,
Lose the sweet look of that delightful face;
The very soul within me droops and dies,
To think that I may fail to gain her grace.
No strong limbs now, no valour, will suffice
To burst the spell that roots me to the place:
No, nor reflection, nor advice, nor force;
I see the better part, and clasp the worse. ]
[Footnote 3:
[Greek: Argureais logchaisi machou, kai panta krataeseis. ]
"Make war with silver spears, and you'll beat all.
"
The reader will note the allegory or not, as he pleases. It is a very
good allegory; but allegory, by the due process of enchantment, becomes
matter of fact; and it is pleasant to take it as such. ]
[Footnote 4: "Rè Galagron, il maledetto cane"]
[Footnote 5: The lions in the shield of England were leopards in the
"olden time," and it is understood, I believe, ought still to be so,--as
Napoleon, with an invidious pedantry, once permitted himself to be angry
enough to inform us. ]
[Footnote 6: The character of Astolfo, the germ of which is in our own
ancient British romances, appears to have been completed by the lively
invention of Boiardo, and is a curious epitome of almost all which has
been discerned in the travelled Englishmen by the envy of poorer and the
wit of livelier foreigners. He has the handsomeness and ostentation of a
Buckingham, the wealth of a Beckford, the generosity of a Carlisle, the
invincible pretensions of a Crichton, the self-commitals and bravery of
a Digby, the lucklessness of a Stuart, and the _nonchalance_ "under
difficulties" of "_Milord What-then_" in Voltaire's _Princess of
Babylon_, where the noble traveller is discovered philosophically reading
the news-paper in his carriage after it was overturned. English beauty,
ever since the days of Pope Gregory, with his pun about Angles and
Angels, has been greatly admired in the south of Europe--not a little,
perhaps, on account of the general fairness of its complexion. I once
heard a fair-faced English gentleman, who would have been thought rather
effeminate looking at home, called an "Angel" by a lady in Genoa. ]
[Footnote 7:
"Stava disciolto, senza guardia alcuna,
Ed intorno a la fonte sollazzava;
Angelica nel lume de la luna,
Quanto potea nascosa, lo mirava. "
There is something wonderfully soft and _lunar_ in the liquid monotony of
the third line. ]
[Footnote 8:
"La qual dormiva in atto tanto adorno,
Che pensar non si può, non ch'io lo scriva
Parea che l'erba a lei fiorisse intorno,
E d'amor ragionasse quella riva. "
Her posture, as she lay, was exquisite
Above all words--nay, thought itself above:
The grass seemed flowering round her in delight,
And the soft river murmuring of love. ]
[Footnote 9: Supremely elegant all this appears to me. ]
[Footnote 10: Sometimes called in the romances _Frusberta_ (query, from
_fourbir_, to burnish; or, _froisser_, to crush? ). The meaning does not
seem to be known. I ought to have observed, in the notes to Pulci, that
the name of Orlando's sword, _Durlindana_ (called also _Durindana,
Durandal_, &c. ), is understood to mean _Hardhitter_. ]
[Footnote 11: The force of aversion was surely never better imagined than
in this scene of the opened arms of beauty, and the knight's preference
of the most odious death. ]
[Footnote 12: Legalised, I presume, by a divorce from the hero's wife,
the fair Alda; who, though she is generally designated by that epithet,
seems never to have had much of his attention. ]
[Footnote 13: This violent effect of weapons so extremely gentle is
beautifully conceived. ]
[Footnote 14: The "female eye, lovely and gracious," is charmingly
painted _per se_, but of this otherwise thoroughly beautiful description
I must venture to doubt, whether _living_ eyes of any sort, instead of
those in the peacock's feathers, are in good taste. The imagination
revolts from life misplaced. ]
THE
DEATH OF AGRICAN
Argument.
Agrican king of Tartary, in love with Angelica, and baffled by the
prowess of the unknown Orlando in his attempts to bring the siege of
Albracca to a favourable conclusion, entices him apart from the battle
into a wood, in the hope of killing him in single combat. The combat is
suspended by the arrival of night-time; and a conversation ensues between
the warriors, which is furiously interrupted by Agrican's discovery of
his rival, and the latter's refusal to renounce his love. Agrican is
slain; and in his dying moments requests baptism at the hand of his
conqueror, who, with great tenderness, bestows it.
THE
DEATH OF AGRICAN.
The siege of Albracca was going on formidably under the command of
Agrican, and the city of Galafron was threatened with the loss of the
monarch's daughter, Angelica, when Orlando, at his earnest prayer, came
to assist him, and changing at once the whole course of the war, threw
the enemy in his turn into transports of anxiety. Wherever the great
Paladin came, pennon and standard fell before him. Men were cut up and
cloven down, at every stroke of his sword; and whereas the Indians had
been in full rout but a moment before, and the Tartars ever on their
flanks, Galafron himself being the swiftest among the spurrers away, it
was now the Tartars that fled for their lives; for Orlando was there, and
a band of fresh knights were about him, and Agrican in vain attempted to
rally his troops. The Paladin kept him constantly in his front, forcing
him to attend to nobody else. The Tartar king, who cared not a button for
Galafron and all his army,[1] provided he could but rid himself of this
terrible knight (whom he guessed at, but did not know), bethought him of
a stratagem. He turned his horse, and made a show of flying in despair.
Orlando dashed after him, as he desired; and Agrican fled till he reached
a green place in a wood, with a fountain in it.
The place was beautiful, and the Tartar dismounted to refresh himself at
the fountain, but without taking off his helmet, or laying aside any of
his armour. Orlando was quickly at his back, crying out, "So bold, and
yet such a fugitive! How could you fly from a single arm, and yet think
to escape? When a man can die with honour, he should be glad to die; for
he may live and fare worse. He may get death and infamy together. "
The Tartar king had leaped on his saddle the moment he saw his enemy; and
when the Paladin had done speaking, he said in a mild voice, "Without
doubt you are the best knight I ever encountered; and fain would I leave
you untouched for your own sake, if you would cease to hinder me from
rallying my people. I pretended to fly, in order to bring you out of the
field. If you insist upon fighting, I must needs fight and slay you; but
I call the sun in the heavens to witness, that I would rather not. I
should be very sorry for your death. "
The County Orlando felt pity for so much gallantry; and he said," The
nobler you shew yourself, the more it grieves me to think, that in dying
without a knowledge of the true faith, you will be lost in the other
world. Let me advise you to save body and soul at once. Receive baptism,
and go your way in peace. "
Agrican looked him in the face, and replied, "I suspect you to be the
Paladin Orlando. If you are, I would not lose this opportunity of
fighting with you, to be king of Paradise. Talk to me no more about your
things of the other world; for you will preach in vain. Each of us for
himself, and let the sword be umpire. "
No sooner said than done. The Tartar drew his sword, boldly advancing
upon Orlando; and a cut and thrust fight began, so long and so terrible,
each warrior being a miracle of prowess, that the story says it lasted
from noon till night. Orlando then, seeing the stars come out, was the
first to propose a respite. "What are we to do," said he, "now that
daylight has left us? "
Agrican answered readily enough, "Let us repose in this meadow, and renew
the combat at dawn. "
The repose was taken accordingly. Each tied up his horse, and reclined
himself on the grass, not far from one another, just as if they had been
friends,--Orlando by the fountain, Agrican beneath a pine. It was a
beautiful clear night; and as they talked together, before addressing
themselves to sleep, the champion of Christendom, looking up at the
firmament, said, "That is a fine piece of workmanship, that starry
spectacle. God made it all,--that moon of silver, and those stars of
gold, and the light of day and the sun,--all for the sake of human kind. "
"You wish, I see, to talk of matters of faith," said the Tartar. "Now
I may as well tell you at once, that I have no sort of skill in such
matters, nor learning of any kind. I never could learn anything when
I was a boy. I hated it so, that I broke the man's head who was
commissioned to teach me; and it produced such an effect on others, that
nobody ever afterwards dared so much as shew me a book. My boyhood was
therefore passed as it should be, in horsemanship, and hunting, and
learning to fight. What is the good of a gentleman's poring all day over
a book? Prowess to the knight, and prattle to the clergyman. That is my
motto. "
"I acknowledge," returned Orlando, "that arms are the first consideration
of a gentleman; but not at all that he does himself dishonour by
knowledge. On the contrary, knowledge is as great an embellishment of the
rest of his attainments, as the flowers are to the meadow before us; and
as to the knowledge of his Maker, the man that is without it is no better
than a stock or a stone, or a brute beast. Neither, without study, can
he reach anything like a due sense of the depth and divineness of the
contemplation. "
"Learned or not learned," said Agrican, "you might skew yourself better
bred than by endeavouring to make me talk on a subject on which you have
me at a disadvantage. I have frankly told you what sort of person I am;
and I dare say, that you for your part are very learned and wise. You
will therefore permit me, if you say anything more of such things, to
make you no answer. If you choose to sleep, I wish you good night; but
if you prefer talking, I recommend you to talk of fighting, or of fair
ladies. And, by the way, pray tell me-are you, or are you not, may I ask,
that Orlando who makes such a noise in the world? And what is it, pray,
brings you into these parts? Were you ever in love? I suppose you must
have been; for to be a knight, and never to have been in love, would be
like being a man with no heart in his breast. "
The County replied, "Orlando I am, and in love I am. [2] Love has made me
abandon every thing, and brought me into these distant regions; and to
tell you all in one word, my heart is in the hands of the daughter of
King Galafron. You have come against him with fire and sword, to get
possession of his castles and his dominions; and I have come to help
him, for no object in the world but to please his daughter, and win her
beautiful hand. I care for nothing else in existence. "
Now when the Tartar king Agrican heard his antagonist speak in this
manner, and knew him to be indeed Orlando, and to be in love with
Angelica, his face changed colour for grief and jealousy, though it could
not be seen for the darkness. His heart began beating with such violence,
that he felt as if he should have died. "Well," said he to Orlando, "we
are to fight when it is daylight, and one or the other is to be left
here, dead on the ground. I have a proposal to make to you; nay, an
entreaty. My love is so excessive for the same lady, that I beg you to
leave her to me. I will owe you my thanks, and give up the fight myself.
I cannot bear that any one else should love her, and I live to see it.
Why, therefore, should either of us perish? Give her up. Not a soul shall
know it. "[3]
"I never yet," answered Orlando, "made a promise which I did not keep;
and, nevertheless, I own to you, that were I to make a promise like that,
and even swear to keep it, I should not. You might as well ask me to tear
away the limbs from my body, and the eyes out of my head. I could as soon
live without breath itself, as cease loving Angelica. "
Agrican bad scarcely patience enough to let the speaker finish, ere he
leaped furiously on horseback, though it was midnight. "Quit her," said
he, "or die! "
Orlando, seeing the infidel getting up, and not being sure that he would
not add treachery to fierceness, had been hardly less quick in mounting
for the combat. "Never! " exclaimed he. "I never could have quitted her if
I would; and now I wouldn't if I could. You must seek her by other
means than these. "
Fiercely dashed their horses together, in the night-time, on the green
mead. Despiteful and terrible were the blows they gave and took by the
moonlight. There was no need of their looking out for one another,
night-time though it was. Their business was to take as sharp heed of
every movement, as if it had been noon-day. [4]
Agrican fought in a rage: Orlando was cooler. And now the struggle had
lasted more than five hours, and dawn began to be visible, when the
Tartar king, furious to find so much trouble given him, dealt his enemy a
blow sharp and violent beyond conception. It cut the shield in two, as
if it had been a cheesecake; and though blood could not be drawn from
Orlando, because he was fated, it shook and bruised him, as if it had
started every joint in his body.
His body only, however; not a particle of his soul. So dreadful was the
blow which the Paladin gave in return, that not only shield, but every
bit of mail on the body of Agrican, was broken in pieces, and three of
his left ribs cut asunder.
The Tartar, roaring like a lion, raised his sword with still greater
vehemence than before, and dealt a blow on the Paladin's helmet, such as
he had never yet received from mortal man. For a moment it took away his
senses. His sight failed; his ears tinkled; his frightened horse turned
about to fly; and he was falling from the saddle, when the very action
of falling jerked his head upwards, and with the jerk he regained his
recollection.
"O my God! " thought he, "what a shame is this! how shall I ever again
dare to face Angelica! I have been fighting, hour after hour, with this
man, and he is but one, and I call myself Orlando. If the combat last
any longer, I will bury myself in a monastery, and never look on sword
again. "
Orlando muttered with his lips closed and his teeth ground together; and
you might have thought that fire instead of breath came out of his nose
and mouth. He raised his sword Durindana with both his hands, and sent
it down so tremendously on Agrican's left shoulder, that it cut through
breast-plate and belly-piece down to the very haunch; nay, crushed the
saddle-bow, though it was made of bone and iron, and felled man and horse
to the earth. From shoulder to hip was Agrican cut through his weary
soul, and he turned as white as ashes, and felt death upon him. He called
Orlando to come close to him with a gentle voice, and said, as well as he
could, "I believe in Him who died on the Cross. Baptise me, I pray thee,
with the fountain, before my senses are gone. I have lived an evil life,
but need not be rebellious to God in death also. May He who came to save
all the rest of the world, save me! He is a God of great mercy. "
And he shed tears, did that king, though he had been so lofty and fierce.
Orlando dismounted quickly, with his own face in tears. He gathered the
king tenderly in his arms, and took and laid him by the fountain, on
a marble cirque which it had; and then he wept in concert with him
heartily, and asked his pardon, and so baptised him in the water of the
fountain, and knelt and prayed to God for him with joined hands.
He then paused and looked at him; and when he perceived his countenance
changed, and that his whole person was cold, he left him there on the
marble cirque by the fountain, all armed as he was, with the sword by his
side, and the crown upon his head.
* * * * *
I think I may anticipate the warm admiration of the reader for the whole
of this beautiful episode, particularly its close. "I think," says
Panizzi, "that Tasso had this passage particularly in view when he wrote
the duel of Clorinda and Tancredi, and her conversion and baptism before
dying. The whole passage, from stanza xii. (where Agrican receives his
mortal blow) to this, is beautiful; and the delicate proceeding of
Orlando in leaving Agrican's body armed, even with the sword in his hand,
is in the noblest spirit of chivalry. "--Edition of _Boiardo and Ariosto_,
vol. iii. page 357.
The reader will find the original in the Appendix No. I.
In the course of the poem (canto xix. stanza xxvi. ) a knight, with the
same noble delicacy, who is in distress for a set of arms, borrows those
belonging to the dead body, with many excuses, and a kiss on its face.
[Footnote 1:
"Che tutti insieme, e 'l suo Rè Galafrone,
Non li stimava quanto un vil bottone. "]
[Footnote 2: Berni has here introduced the touching words, "Would I were
not so! " (Così non foss'io! )]
[Footnote 3: This proposal is in the highest ingenuous spirit of the
absurd wilfulness of passion, thinking that every thing is to give way
before it, not excepting the same identical wishes in other people. ]
[Footnote 4: Very fine all this, I think. ]
THE SARACEN FRIENDS.
A FAIRY LOVE-TALE
Argument.
Prasildo, a nobleman of Babylon, to his great anguish, falls in love with
his friend's wife, Tisbina; and being overheard by her and her husband
threatening to kill himself, the lady, hoping to divert him from his
passion by time and absence, promises to return it on condition of his
performing a distant and perilous adventure. He performs the adventure;
and the husband and wife, supposing that there is no other way of her
escaping the consequences, resolve to take poison; after which the lady
goes to Prasildo's house, and informs him of their having done so.
Prasildo resolves to die with them; but hearing, in the mean time, that
the apothecary had given them a drink that was harmless, he goes and
tells them of their good fortune; upon which the husband is so struck
with his generosity, that he voluntarily quits Babylon for life and the
lady marries the lover. The new husband subsequently hears that his
friend's life is in danger, and quits the wife to go and deliver him from
it at the risk of his own, which he does.
This story, which has resemblances to it in Boccaccio and Chaucer, is
told to Rinaldo while riding through a wood in Asia, with a damsel behind
him on the same horse. He has engaged to combat in her behalf with a band
of knights; and the lady relates it to beguile the way.
The reader is to bear in mind, that the age of chivalry took delight in
mooting points of love and friendship, such as in after-times would
have been out of the question; and that the parties in this story are
Mahometans, with whom divorce was an easy thing, and caused no scandal.
THE SARACEN FRIENDS.
Iroldo, a knight of Babylon, had to wife a lady of the name of Tisbina,
whom he loved with a passion equal to that of Tristan for Iseult;[1] and
she returned his love with such fondness, that her thoughts were occupied
with him from morning till night. Among other pleasant circumstances
of their position, they had a neighbour who was accounted the greatest
nobleman in the city; and he deserved his credit, for he spent his great
riches in doing nothing but honour to his rank. He was pleasant in
company, formidable in battle, full of grace in love; an open-hearted,
accomplished gentleman.
This personage, whose name was Prasildo, happened to be of a party one
day with Tisbina, who were amusing themselves in a garden, with a game in
which the players knelt down with their faces bent on one another's laps,
and guessed who it was that struck them. The turn came to himself, and
he knelt down to the lap of Tisbina; but no sooner was he there, than he
experienced feelings he had never dreamt of; and instead of trying to
guess correctly, took all the pains he could to remain in the same
position.
These feelings pursued him all the rest of the day, and still more
closely at night. He did nothing but think and sigh, and find the soft
feathers harder than any stone. Nor did he get better as time advanced.
His once favourite pastime of hunting now ceased to afford him any
delight. Nothing pleased him but to be giving dinners and balls, to make
verses and sing them to his lute, and to joust and tournay in the eyes of
his love, dressed in the most sumptuous apparel. But above all, gentle
and graceful as he had been before, he now became still more gentle and
graceful--for good qualities are always increased when a man is in
love. Never in my life did I know them turn to ill in that case. So, in
Prasildo's, you may guess what a super-excellent person he became.
The passion which had thus taken possession of this gentleman was not
lost upon the lady for want of her knowing it. A mutual acquaintance
was always talking to her on the subject, but to no purpose; she never
relaxed her pride and dignity for a moment. The lover at last fell ill;
he fairly wasted away; and was so unhappy, that he gave up all his
feastings and entertainments. The only pleasure he took was in a solitary
wood, in which he used to plunge himself in order to give way to his
grief and lamentations.
It happened one day, early in the morning, while he was thus occupied,
that Iroldo came into the wood to amuse himself with bird-catching. He
had Tisbina with him; and as they were coming along, they overheard their
neighbour during one of his paroxysms, and stopped to listen to what he
said.
"Hear me," exclaimed he, "ye flowers and ye woods. Hear to what a pass of
wretchedness I am come, since that cruel one will hear me not. Hear, O
sun that hast taken away the night from the heavens, and you, ye stars,
and thou the departing moon, hear the voice of my grief for the last
time, for exist I can no longer; my death is the only way left me to
gratify that proud beauty, to whom it has pleased Heaven to give a
cruel heart with a merciful countenance. Fain would I have died in her
presence. It would have comforted me to see her pleased even with that
proof of my love. But I pray, nevertheless, that she may never know it;
since, cruel as she is, she might blame herself for having shewn a scorn
so extreme; and I love her so, I would not have her pained for all her
cruelty. Surely I shall love her even in my grave. "
With these words, turning pale with his own mortal resolution, Prasildo
drew his sword, and pronouncing the name of Tisbina more than once with a
loving voice, as though its very sound would be sufficient to waft him
to Paradise, was about to plunge the steel into his bosom, when the lady
herself, by leave of her husband, whose manly visage was all in tears for
pity, stood suddenly before him.
"Prasildo," said she, "if you love me, listen to me. You have often told
me that you do so. Now prove it. I happen to be threatened with nothing
less than the loss of life and honour. Nothing short of such a calamity
could have induced me to beg of you the service I am going to request;
since there is no greater shame in the world than to ask favours from
those to whom we have refused them. But I now promise you, that if you do
what I desire, your love shall be returned. I give you my word for it. I
give you my honour. On the other side of the wilds of Barbary is a garden
which has a wall of iron. It has four gates. Life itself keeps one; Death
another; Poverty the third; the fairy of Riches the fourth. He who goes
in at one gate must go out at the other opposite; and in the midst of the
garden is a tree, tall as the reach of an arrow, which produces pearls
for blossoms. It is called the Tree of Wealth, and has fruit of emeralds
and boughs of gold. I must have a bough of that tree, or suffer the most
painful consequences. Now, then, if you love me, I say, prove it. Prove
it, and most assuredly I shall love you in turn, better than ever you
loved myself.
[Footnote 7: A late amiable man of wit, Mr. Stewart Rose, has given
a prose abstract of Berni's _Orlando Innamorato_, with occasional
versification; but it is hardly more than a dry outline, and was, indeed,
intended only as an introduction to his version of the _Furioso_. A good
idea, however, of one of the phases of Berni's humour may be obtained
from the same gentleman's abridgment of the _Animali Parlanti_ of Casti,
in which he has introduced a translation of the Tuscan's description of
himself and of his way of life, out of his additions to Boiardo's poem.
The verses in the prohibited edition of Berni's _Orlando_, in which he
denounced the corruptions of the clergy, have been published, for the
first time in this country, in the notes to the twentieth canto of Mr.
Panizzi's Boiardo. They have all his peculiar wit, together with a
_Lutheran_ earnestness; and shew him, as that critic observes, to have
been "Protestant at his heart. "
Since writing this note I have called to mind that a translation of
Berni's account of himself is to be found in Mr. Rose's prose abstract of
the _Innamorato. _]
THE ADVENTURES OF ANGELICA.
Argument.
Angelica, daughter of Galafron, king of Cathay, the most beautiful of
womankind, and a possessor of the art of magic, comes, with her brother
Argalia, to the court of Charlemagne under false pretences, in order
to carry away his knights to the country of her father. Her immediate
purpose is defeated, and her brother slain; but all the knights, Orlando
in particular, fall in love with her; and she herself, in consequence of
drinking at an enchanted fountain, becomes in love with Rinaldo. On the
other hand, Rinaldo, from drinking a neighbouring fountain of a reverse
quality, finds his own love converted to loathing. Various adventures
arise out of these circumstances; and the fountains are again drunk, with
a mutual reversal of their effects.
THE ADVENTURES OF ANGELICA
It was the month of May and the feast of Pentecost, and Charlemagne had
ordained a great jousting, which brought into Paris an infinite number of
people, baptised and infidel; for there was truce proclaimed, in order
that every knight might come. There was King Grandonio from Spain, with
his serpent's face; and Ferragus, with his eyes like an eagle; and
Balugante, the emperor's kinsman; and Orlando, and Rinaldo, and Duke
Namo; and Astolfo of England, the handsomest of mankind; and the
enchanter Malagigi; and Isoliero and Salamone; and the traitor Gan, with
his scoundrel followers; and, in short, the whole flower of the chivalry
of the age, the greatest in the world. The tables at which they feasted
were on three sides of the hall, with the emperor's canopy midway at the
top; and at that first table sat crowned heads; and down the table on the
right sat dukes and marquises; and down the table on the left, counts and
cavaliers. But the Saracen nobles, after their doggish fashion, looked
neither for chair nor bench, but preferred a carpet on the floor, which
was accordingly spread for them in the midst.
High sat Charlemagne at the head of his vassals and his Paladins,
rejoicing in the thought of all the great men of which they consisted,
and holding the infidels cheap as the sands which are scattered by the
tempest. To each of his lords, as they drank, he sent round, by his
pages, gifts of enamelled cups of exquisite workmanship; and to every
body some mark of his princely distinction; and so they were all sitting
and hearing music, and feasting off dishes of gold, and talking of lovely
things with low voices,[1] when suddenly there came into the hall four
enormous giants, in the midst of whom was a lady, and behind the lady
there followed a cavalier. She was a very lily of the field, and a rose
of the garden, and a morning-star; in short, so beautiful that the like
had never been seen. There was Galerana in the hall; there was Alda,
the wife of Orlando; and Clarice, and Armellina the kind-hearted, and
abundance of other ladies, all beautiful till she made her appearance;
but after that they seemed nothing. Every Christian knight turned his
face that way; and not a Pagan remained on the floor, but arose and got
as near to her as he could; while she, with a cheerful sweetness, and
a smile fit to enamour a heart of stone, began speaking the following
words:
"High-minded lord, the renown of your worthiness, and the valour of these
your knights, which echoes from sea to sea, encourages me to hope, that
two pilgrims who have come from the ends of the world to behold you, will
not have encountered their fatigue in vain. And to the end that I may not
hold your attention too long with speaking, let me briefly say, that
this knight here, Uberto of the Lion, a prince renowned also for his
achievements, has been wrongfully driven from out his dominions; and that
I, who was driven out with him, am his sister, whose name is Angelica.
Fame has told us of the jousting this day appointed, and of the noble
press of knights here assembled, and how your generous natures care not
to win prizes of gold or jewels, or gifts of cities, but only a wreath of
roses; and so the prince my brother has come to prove his own valour, and
to say, that if any or all of your guests, whether baptised or infidel,
choose to meet him in the joust, he will encounter them one by one, in
the green meadow without the walls, near the place called the Horseblock
of Merlin, by the Fountain of the Pine. And his conditions are
these,--that no knight who chances to be thrown shall have license to
renew the combat in any way whatsoever, but remain a submissive prisoner
in his hands; he, on the other hand, if himself be thrown, agreeing to
take his departure out of the country with his giants, and to leave his
sister, for prize, in the hands of the conqueror. "
Kneeling at the close of these words, the lady awaited the answer of
Charlemagne, and every body gazed on her with astonishment. Orlando
especially, more than all the rest, felt irresistibly drawn towards her,
so that his heart trembled, and he changed countenance. But he felt
ashamed at the same time; and casting his eyes down, he said to himself,
"Ah, mad and unworthy Orlando! whither is thy soul being hurried? I am
drawn, and cannot say nay to what draws me. I reckoned the whole world as
nothing, and now I am conquered by a girl. I cannot get her sweet look
out of my heart. My soul seems to die within me, at the thought of being
without her. It is love that has seized me, and I feel that nothing will
set me free;--not strength, nor courage, nor my own wisdom, nor that of
any adviser. I see the better part, and cleave to the worse. "[2]
Thus secretly in his heart did the frank and noble Orlando lament over
his new feelings; and no wonder; for every knight in the hall was
enamoured of the beautiful stranger, not excepting even old white-headed
Duke Namo. Charlemagne himself did not escape.
All stood for awhile in silence, lost in the delight of looking at
her. The fiery youth Ferragus was the first to exhibit symptoms in his
countenance of uncontrollable passion. He refrained with difficulty from
going up to the giants, and tearing her out of their keeping. Rinaldo
also turned as red as fire; while his cousin Malagigi the enchanter, who
had discovered that the stranger was not speaking truth, muttered softly,
as he looked at her, "Exquisite false creature! I will play thee such a
trick for this, as will leave thee no cause to boast of thy visit. "
Charlemagne, to detain her as long as possible before him, made a speech
in answer, in which he talked and looked, and looked and talked, till
there seemed no end of it. At length, however, the challenge was accepted
in all its forms; and the lady quitted the hall with her brother and the
giants.
She had not yet passed the gates, when Malagigi the enchanter consulted
his books; and that no means might be wanting to complete the
counteraction of what he suspected, he summoned to his aid three spirits
out of the lower regions. But how serious his look turned, how his very
soul within him was shaken, when he discovered that the most dreadful
disasters hung over Charles and his court, and that the sister of the
pretended Uberto was daughter of King Galafron of Cathay, a beauty
accomplished in every species of enchantment, and sent there by her
father on purpose to betray them all! Her brother's name was not Uberto,
but Argalia. Galafron had given him a horse swifter than the wind, an
enchanted sword, a golden lance, also enchanted, which overthrew all whom
it touched,[3] and a ring of a virtue so extraordinary, that if put into
the mouth, it rendered the person invisible, and if worn on the finger,
nullified every enchantment. But beyond even all this, he gave him his
sister for a companion; rightly judging, that every body that saw her
would fall into the proposal of the joust; and trusting that, at the
close of it, she would bring him the whole court of France into Cathay,
prisoners in her hands.
Such, Malagigi discovered, was the plot of the accursed infidel hound,
King Galafron. [4]
Meantime the pretended Uberto had returned to his station at the
Horseblock of Merlin. He had had a beautiful pavilion pitched there; and
under this pavilion he lay down awhile to refresh himself with sleep. His
sister Angelica lay down also, but in the open air, under the great pine
by the fountain. The four giants kept watch: and as she lay thus asleep,
with her fair head on the grass, she appeared like an angel come down
from heaven.
By this time Malagigi, borne by one of his demons, had arrived in the
same place. He saw the beauty asleep by the flowery water, and the four
giants all wide awake; and he said within his teeth,--" Brute scoundrels,
I will take every one of you into my net without a blow. "
Malagigi took his book, and cast a spell out of it; and in an instant
the whole four giants were buried in sleep. Then, drawing his sword, he
softly approached the young lady, intending to despatch her as quickly:
but seeing her look so lovely as she slept, he paused, and considered
within himself, and resolved to detain her in the same state by
enchantment, so long as it should please him. Laying down the naked sword
in the grass, he again took his book, and read and read on, and still
read on, and fancied he was locking up her senses all the while in a
sleep unwakeable. But the ring of which I have spoken was on her finger.
She had borrowed it of her brother; and a superior power rendered all
other magic of no avail. A touch from Malagigi to prove the force of his
spell awoke her, to the magician's consternation, with a great cry. She
fled into the arms of her brother, whom it aroused; and, by the help of
his sister's knowledge of enchantment, Argalia mastered and bound the
magician. The book was then turned against him, and the place was
suddenly filled with a crowd of his own demons, every one of them crying
out to Angelica, "What commandest thou? "
"Take this man," said Angelica, "and bear him prisoner to the great city
between Tartary and India, where my father Galafron is lord. Present him
to him in my name, and say it was I that took him; and add, that having
so taken the master of the book, I care not for all the other lords of
the court of Charlemagne. "
At the end of these words, and at one and the same instant, the magician
was conveyed to the feet of Galafron in Cathay, and locked up in a rock
under the sea.
In due time the enamoured knights, according to agreement, came to the
spot, for the purpose of jousting with the supposed Uberto, each anxious
to have the first encounter, particularly Orlando, in order that he might
not see the beauty carried off by another. But they were obliged to draw
lots; and thirty other names appeared before his, the first of which was
that of Astolfo the Englishman.
Now Astolfo was son of the king of England; and as I said before, he was
the handsomest man in the world. He was also very rich and well bred, and
loved to dress well, and was as brave as he was handsome; but his success
was not always equal to his bravery. He had a trick of being thrown from
his horse, a failing which he was accustomed to attribute to accident;
and then he would mount again, and be again thrown from the saddle, in
the boldest manner conceivable.
This gallant prince was habited, on the present occasion, in arms worth a
whole treasury. His shield had a border of large pearls; his mail was of
gold; on his helmet was a ruby as big as a chestnut; and his horse was
covered with a cloth all over golden leopards. [5] He issued to the
combat, looking at nobody and fearing nothing; and on his sounding
the horn to battle, Argalia came forth to meet him. After courteous
salutations, the two combatants rushed together; but the moment the
Englishman was touched with the golden lance, his legs flew over his
head.
"Cursed fortune! " cried he, as he lay on the grass; "this is out of all
calculation. But it was entirely owing to the saddle. You can't but
acknowledge, that if I had kept my seat, the beautiful lady would have
been mine. But thus it is when Fortune chooses to befriend infidels! "[6]
The four giants, who had by this time been disenchanted out of their
sleep by Angelica, took up the English prince, and put him in the
pavilion. But when he was stripped of his armour, he looked so handsome,
that the lovely stranger secretly took pity on him, and bade them shew
him all the courtesies that captivity allowed. He was permitted to walk
outside by the fountain; and Angelica, from a dark corner, looked at him
with admiration, as he walked up and down in the moonlight. [7]
The violent Ferragus had the next chance in the encounter, and was thrown
no less speedily than Astolfo; but he did not so easily put up with the
mischance. Crying out, "What are the emperor's engagements to me? " he
rushed with his sword against Argalia, who, being forced to defend himself
unexpectedly, dismounted and set aside his lance, and got so much the
worse of the fight, that he listened to proposals of marriage from
Ferragus to his sister. The beauty, however, not feeling an inclination
to match with so rough and savage-looking a person, was so dismayed at
the offer, that, hastily bidding her brother meet her in the forest of
Arden, she vanished from the sight of both, by means of the enchanted
ring. Argalia, seeing this, took to his horse of swiftness, and dashed
away in the same direction; Ferragus, in distraction, pursued Argalia;
and Astolfo, thus left to himself, took possession of the golden lance,
and again issued forth--not, indeed, with quite his usual confidence of
the result, but determined to run all risks, in any thing that might
ensue, for the sake of the emperor. In fine, to cut this part of the
history short, Charlemagne, finding the lady and her brother gone,
ordered the joust to be restored to its first intention; and Astolfo,
who was as ignorant as the others of the treasure he possessed in the
enchanted lance, unhorsed all comers against him like so many children,
equally to their astonishment and his own.
The Paladin Rinaldo now learnt the issue of the fight between Ferragus
and the stranger, and galloped in a loving agony of pursuit after
the fair fugitive. Orlando learnt the disappearance of Rinaldo, and,
distracted with jealousy, pushed forth in like manner; and at length all
three are in the forest of Arden, hunting about for her who is invisible.
Now in this forest were two enchanted waters, the one a running stream,
and the other a built fountain; the first caused every body who tasted it
to fall in love, and the other (so to speak) to fall _out_ of love; say,
rather, to feel the love turned into hate. To the latter of these two
waters Rinaldo happened to come; and being flushed with heat and anxiety,
he dismounted from his horse, and quenched, in one cold draught, both his
thirst and his passion. So far from loving Angelica as before, or holding
her beauty of any account, he became disgusted with its pursuit, nay,
hated her from the bottom of his heart; and so, in this new state of
mind, and with feelings of lofty contempt, he remounted and rode away,
and happened to come on the bank of the running stream. There, enticed by
the beauty of the place, which was all sweet meadow-ground and bowers of
trees, he again quitted his saddle, and, throwing himself on the ground,
fell fast asleep. Unfortunately for the proud beauty Angelica, or rather
in just punishment for her contempt, her palfrey conducted her to this
very place. The water tempted her to drink, and, dismounting and tying
the animal to one of the trees, she did so, and then cast her eyes on the
sleeping Rinaldo. Love instantly seized her, and she stood rooted to the
spot.
The meadow round about was all full of lilies of the valley and wild
roses. Angelica, not knowing what to do, at length plucked a quantity
of these, and with her white hand she dropped them on the face of the
sleeper. He woke up; and seeing who it was, not only received her
salutations with a change of countenance, but remounting his horse,
galloped away through the thickest part of the forest. In vain the
beautiful creature followed and called after him; in vain asked him what
she had done to be so despised, and entreated him, at any rate, to take
care how he went so fast. Rinaldo disappeared, leaving her to wring her
hands in despair; and she returned in tears to the spot on which she had
found him sleeping. There, in her turn, she herself lay down, pressing
the spot of earth on which he had lain; and so, weeping and lamenting,
yet blessing every flower and bit of grass that he had touched, fell
asleep out of fatigue and sorrow.
As Angelica thus lay, the good or bad fortune of Orlando conducted him to
the same place. The attitude in which she was sleeping was so lovely
that it is not even to be conceived, much less expressed. The very grass
seemed to flower on all sides of her for joy; and the stream, as it
murmured along, to go talking of love. [8] Orlando stood gazing like a man
who had been transported to another sphere. "Am I on earth," thought he,
"or am I in paradise? Surely it is I myself that am sleeping, and this is
my dream. "
But his dream was proved to be none, in a manner which he little desired.
Ferragus, who had slain Argalia, came up raging with jealousy, and a
combat ensued which awoke the sleeper. Terrified at what she beheld, she
rushed to her palfrey; and while the fighters were occupied with one
another, fled away through the forest.
Fast fled the beauty in the direction taken by Rinaldo; nor did she
cease travelling, by one conveyance or another, till she reached her own
country, whither she had sent Malagigi. Him she freed from his prison,
on condition that he would employ his art for the purpose of bringing
Rinaldo to a palace of hers, which she possessed in an island; and
accordingly Rinaldo was inveigled by a spirit into an enchanted barque,
which he found on a sea-shore, and which conveyed him, without any
visible pilot, into Joyous Palace (for so the island was called).
The whole island was a garden, fifteen miles in extent. It was full of
trees and lawns; and on the western side, close to the sea, was the
palace, built of a marble so clear and polished, that it reflected the
landscape round about. Rinaldo, not knowing what to think of his strange
conveyance, lost no time in leaping to shore; upon which a lady made her
appearance, who invited him within. The house was a most beautiful house,
full of rooms adorned with azure and gold, and with noble paintings;
and within as well as without it were the loveliest flowers, the purest
fountains, and a fragrance fit to turn sorrow to joy. The lady led the
knight into an apartment painted with stories, and opening to the garden
through pillars of crystal with golden capitals. Here he found a bevy of
ladies, three of whom were singing in concert, while another played on
some foreign instrument of exquisite accord, and the rest were dancing
round about them. When the ladies beheld him coming, they turned the
dance into a circuit round about himself; and then one of them, in the
sweetest manner, said, "Sir knight, the tables are set, and the hour
for the banquet is come:" and with these words they all drew him, still
dancing, across the lawn in front of the apartment, to a table that was
spread with cloth of gold and fine linen, under a bower of damask roses,
by the side of a fountain. [9]
Four ladies were already seated there, who rose and placed Rinaldo
at their head, in a chair set with pearls. And truly indeed was he
astonished. A repast ensued, consisting of viands the most delicate, and
wines as fragrant as they were fine, drunk out of jewelled cups; and
when it drew towards its conclusion, harps and lutes were heard in the
distance, and one of the ladies said in the knight's ear, "This house,
and all that you see in it, are yours. For you alone was it built, and
the builder is a queen; and happy indeed must you think yourself, for
she loves you, and she is the greatest beauty in the world. Her name is
Angelica. "
The moment Rinaldo heard the name he so detested, disgust and
wretchedness fell upon his heart, notwithstanding the joys around him. He
started up with a changed countenance, and, in spite of all that the lady
could say, broke off across the garden, and never ceased hastening till
he reached the place where he landed. He would have thrown himself into
the sea, rather than stay any longer in that island; but the enchanted
barque was still on the shore. He sprang into it, and attempted instantly
to push off, for he still saw nobody in it but himself; but the barque
for a while resisted his efforts; till, on his feeling a wish to drown
himself, or to do any thing rather than return to that detested house, it
suddenly loosed itself from its moorings, and dashed away with him over
the sea, as if in a fury.
All night did the pilotless barque dash on, till it reached, in the
morning, a distant shore covered with a gloomy forest. Here Rinaldo,
surrounded by enchantments of a very different sort from those which he
had lately resisted, was entrapped into a pit. The pit belonged to a
castle which was hung with human heads, and painted red with blood; and
as the Paladin was calling upon God to help him, a hideous white-headed
old woman, of a spiteful countenance, made her appearance on the edge of
the pit, and told him that he must fight with a monster born of Death and
Desire.
"Be it so," said the Paladin. "Let me but remain armed as I am, and I
fear nothing. " For Rinaldo had with him his renowned sword Fusberta. [10]
The old woman laughed in derision. Rinaldo remained in the den all night,
and next day was taken to a place where a portcullis was lifted up, and
the monster rushed forth. He was a mixture of hog and serpent, larger
than an ox, and not to be looked at without horror. He had eyes like a
traitor, the hands of a man, but clawed, a beard dabbled with blood, a
skin of coarse variegated colours, too hard to be cut through, and two
horns on his temples, which he could turn on all sides of him at his
pleasure, and which were so sharp that they cut like a sword.
Rising on his hind-legs, and opening a mouth six palms in width, this
horrible beast fell heavily on Rinaldo, who was nevertheless quick enough
to give it a blow on the snout which increased its fury. Returning the
knight a tremendous cuff, it seized his coat of mail between breast and
shoulder, and tore away a great strip of it down to the girdle,
leaving the skin bare. Every successive rent and blow was of the like
irresistible violence; and though the Paladin himself never fought with
more force and fury, he lost blood every instant. The monster at length
tearing his sword out of his hand, the Paladin surely began to think that
his last hour was arrived.
Looking about to see what might possibly help him, he observed overhead
a beam sticking out of a wall at the height of some ten feet. He took a
leap more than human; and reaching the beam with his hand, succeeded in
flinging himself up across it. Here he sat for hours, the furious brute
continually trying to reach him. Night-time then came on with a clear
starry sky and moonlight, and the Paladin could discern no way of
escaping, when he heard a sound of something, he knew not what, coming
through the air like a bird. Suddenly a female figure stood on the end of
the beam, holding something in her hand towards him, and speaking in a
loving voice.
It was Angelica, come with means for destroying the monster, and carrying
the knight away.
But the moment Rinaldo saw her, desperate as seemed to be his condition,
he renounced all offers of her assistance; and at length became so
exasperated with her good offices, especially when she opened her arms
and offered to bear him away in them, that he threatened to cast himself
down to the monster if she did not go away. [11]
Angelica, saying that she would lose her life rather than displease him,
descended from the beam; and having given the monster a cake of wax which
fastened up his teeth, and then caught and fixed him in a set of nooses
she had brought for that purpose, took her miserable departure. Rinaldo
upon this got down from the beam himself; and having succeeded, though
with the greatest difficulty, in beating and squeezing the life out of
the monster, dealt such havoc among the people of the castle who
assailed him, that the horrible old woman, whose crimes had made her the
creature's housekeeper, and led her to take delight in its cruelty, threw
herself headlong from a tower. The Paladin then took his way forth,
turning his back on the castle and the sea-shore.
Angelica returned to the capital of her father's dominion, Albracca; and
the pertinacity of others in seeking her love being as great as that of
hers for Rinaldo, she found King Galafron, in a short time, besieged
there for her sake, by the fierce Agrican, king of Tartary.
In a short time a jealous feud sprang up between the loving friends
Rinaldo and Orlando; and Angelica, torn with conflicting emotions, from
her dread on her father's account as well as her own, and her aversion
to every knight but her detester, was at one time compelled to apply to
Orlando for assistance, and at another, being afraid that he would have
the better of Rinaldo in combat, to send him away on a perilous adventure
elsewhere, with a promise of accepting his love should he succeed. [12]
Orlando went, but not before he had slain Agrican and delivered Albracca.
Circumstances, however, again took him with her to a distance, as the
reader will see, ere he could bring her to perform her promise; and the
Paladins in general having again been scattered abroad, it happened that
Rinaldo a second time found himself in the forest of Arden; and here,
without expecting it, he became an altered man; for he now tasted a very
different stream from that which had given him his hate for Angelica;
namely, the one which had made her fall in love with himself. He was led
to do this by a very extraordinary adventure.
In the thick of the forest he had come upon a mead full of flowers, in
which there was a naked youth, singing in the midst of three damsels, who
were naked also, and who were dancing round about him. They had bunches
of flowers in their hands, and garlands on their heads; and as they
were thus delighting themselves, with faces full of love and joy, they
suddenly changed countenance on seeing Rinaldo. "Behold," cried they, "the
traitor! Behold him, villain that he is, and the scorner of all delights!
He has fallen into the net at last. " With these words they fell upon him
with the flowers like so many furies; and tender as such scourges might
be thought, every blow which the roses and violets gave him, every fresh
stroke of the lilies and the hyacinths, smote him to the very heart, and
filled his veins with fire. The flowers in the bands of the nymphs
being exhausted, the youth gave him a blow on the helmet with a tall
garden-lily, which felled him to the earth; and so, taking him by the
legs, and dragging him over the grass, his conqueror went the whole
circuit of the mead with him, the nymphs taking the very garlands off
their heads, and again scourging him with their white and red roses. [13]
At the close of this discipline, which left him more exhausted than
twenty battles, his enemies suddenly developed wings from their
shoulders, the feathers of which were of white and gold and vermilion,
every feather having an eye in it, not like those in the peacock's
feathers, but one full of life and motion, being a female eye, lovely and
gracious. And with these wings they poised themselves a little, and so
sprung up to heaven. [14]
The Paladin, more dead than alive, lay helpless among the flowers, when a
fourth nymph came up to him, of inexpressible beauty. She told him that
he had grievously offended the naked youth, who was no other than Love
himself; and added, that his only remedy was to be penitent, and to drink
of the waters of a stream hard by, which he would find running from the
roots of an olive-tree and a pine. With these words, she vanished in her
turn like the rest; and Rinaldo, dragging himself as well as he could to
the olive and pine, stooped down, and greedily drank of the water. Again
and again he drank, and wished still to be drinking, for it took not only
all pain out of his limbs, but all hate and bitterness out of his soul,
and produced such a remorseful and doating memory of Angelica, that he
would fain have galloped that instant to Cathay, and prostrated himself
at her feet. By degrees he knew the place; and looking round about him,
and preparing to remount his horse, he discerned a knight and a lady in
the distance. The knight was in a coat of armour unknown to him, and the
lady kneeling and drinking at a fountain, which was the one that had
formerly quenched his own thirst; to wit, the Fountain of Disdain.
Alas! it was Angelica herself; and the knight was Orlando. She had
allowed him to bring her into France, ostensibly for the purpose of
wedding him at the court of Charlemagne, whither the hero's assistance
had been called against Agramant king of the Moors, but secretly with the
object of discovering Rinaldo. Rinaldo, behold! is discovered; but the
fatal averse water has been drunk, and Angelica now hates him in turn, as
cordially as he detested her. In vain he accosted her in the humblest and
most repentant manner, calling himself the unworthiest of mankind, and
entreating to be allowed to love her. Orlando, disclosing himself,
fiercely interrupted him; and a combat so terrific ensued, that Angelica
fled away on her palfrey till she came to a large plain, in which she
beheld an army encamped.
The army was Charlemagne's, who had come to meet Rodamonte, one of the
vassals of Agramant. Angelica, in a tremble, related how she had left the
two Paladins fighting in the wood; and Charlemagne, who was delighted to
find Orlando so near him, proceeded thither with his lords, and parting
the combatants by his royal authority, suppressed the dispute between
them for the present, by consigning the object of their contention to the
care of Namo duke of Bavaria, with the understanding that she was to be
the prize of the warrior who should best deserve her in the approaching
battle with the infidels.
[This is the last we hear of Angelica in the unfinished poem of Boiardo.
For the close of her history see its continuation by Ariosto in the
present volume. ]
[Footnote 1: "Con parlar basso e bei ragionamenti. "]
[Footnote 2: _Video meliora, proboque, &c. _ Writers were now beginning
to pride themselves on their classical reading. The present occasion,
it must be owned, was a very good one for introducing the passage from
Horace. The previous words have an affecting ingenuousness; and, indeed,
the whole stanza is beautiful:
"Io non mi posso dal cor dipartire
La dolce vista del viso sereno,
Perch'io mi sento senza lei morire,
E 'l spirto a poco a poco venir meno.
Or non mi vale forza, nè l'ardire
Contra d' amor, the m' ha già posto il freno;
Nè mi giova saper, ne altrui consiglio:
Il meglio veggio, ed al peggior m'appiglio. "
Alas! I cannot, though I shut mine eyes,
Lose the sweet look of that delightful face;
The very soul within me droops and dies,
To think that I may fail to gain her grace.
No strong limbs now, no valour, will suffice
To burst the spell that roots me to the place:
No, nor reflection, nor advice, nor force;
I see the better part, and clasp the worse. ]
[Footnote 3:
[Greek: Argureais logchaisi machou, kai panta krataeseis. ]
"Make war with silver spears, and you'll beat all.
"
The reader will note the allegory or not, as he pleases. It is a very
good allegory; but allegory, by the due process of enchantment, becomes
matter of fact; and it is pleasant to take it as such. ]
[Footnote 4: "Rè Galagron, il maledetto cane"]
[Footnote 5: The lions in the shield of England were leopards in the
"olden time," and it is understood, I believe, ought still to be so,--as
Napoleon, with an invidious pedantry, once permitted himself to be angry
enough to inform us. ]
[Footnote 6: The character of Astolfo, the germ of which is in our own
ancient British romances, appears to have been completed by the lively
invention of Boiardo, and is a curious epitome of almost all which has
been discerned in the travelled Englishmen by the envy of poorer and the
wit of livelier foreigners. He has the handsomeness and ostentation of a
Buckingham, the wealth of a Beckford, the generosity of a Carlisle, the
invincible pretensions of a Crichton, the self-commitals and bravery of
a Digby, the lucklessness of a Stuart, and the _nonchalance_ "under
difficulties" of "_Milord What-then_" in Voltaire's _Princess of
Babylon_, where the noble traveller is discovered philosophically reading
the news-paper in his carriage after it was overturned. English beauty,
ever since the days of Pope Gregory, with his pun about Angles and
Angels, has been greatly admired in the south of Europe--not a little,
perhaps, on account of the general fairness of its complexion. I once
heard a fair-faced English gentleman, who would have been thought rather
effeminate looking at home, called an "Angel" by a lady in Genoa. ]
[Footnote 7:
"Stava disciolto, senza guardia alcuna,
Ed intorno a la fonte sollazzava;
Angelica nel lume de la luna,
Quanto potea nascosa, lo mirava. "
There is something wonderfully soft and _lunar_ in the liquid monotony of
the third line. ]
[Footnote 8:
"La qual dormiva in atto tanto adorno,
Che pensar non si può, non ch'io lo scriva
Parea che l'erba a lei fiorisse intorno,
E d'amor ragionasse quella riva. "
Her posture, as she lay, was exquisite
Above all words--nay, thought itself above:
The grass seemed flowering round her in delight,
And the soft river murmuring of love. ]
[Footnote 9: Supremely elegant all this appears to me. ]
[Footnote 10: Sometimes called in the romances _Frusberta_ (query, from
_fourbir_, to burnish; or, _froisser_, to crush? ). The meaning does not
seem to be known. I ought to have observed, in the notes to Pulci, that
the name of Orlando's sword, _Durlindana_ (called also _Durindana,
Durandal_, &c. ), is understood to mean _Hardhitter_. ]
[Footnote 11: The force of aversion was surely never better imagined than
in this scene of the opened arms of beauty, and the knight's preference
of the most odious death. ]
[Footnote 12: Legalised, I presume, by a divorce from the hero's wife,
the fair Alda; who, though she is generally designated by that epithet,
seems never to have had much of his attention. ]
[Footnote 13: This violent effect of weapons so extremely gentle is
beautifully conceived. ]
[Footnote 14: The "female eye, lovely and gracious," is charmingly
painted _per se_, but of this otherwise thoroughly beautiful description
I must venture to doubt, whether _living_ eyes of any sort, instead of
those in the peacock's feathers, are in good taste. The imagination
revolts from life misplaced. ]
THE
DEATH OF AGRICAN
Argument.
Agrican king of Tartary, in love with Angelica, and baffled by the
prowess of the unknown Orlando in his attempts to bring the siege of
Albracca to a favourable conclusion, entices him apart from the battle
into a wood, in the hope of killing him in single combat. The combat is
suspended by the arrival of night-time; and a conversation ensues between
the warriors, which is furiously interrupted by Agrican's discovery of
his rival, and the latter's refusal to renounce his love. Agrican is
slain; and in his dying moments requests baptism at the hand of his
conqueror, who, with great tenderness, bestows it.
THE
DEATH OF AGRICAN.
The siege of Albracca was going on formidably under the command of
Agrican, and the city of Galafron was threatened with the loss of the
monarch's daughter, Angelica, when Orlando, at his earnest prayer, came
to assist him, and changing at once the whole course of the war, threw
the enemy in his turn into transports of anxiety. Wherever the great
Paladin came, pennon and standard fell before him. Men were cut up and
cloven down, at every stroke of his sword; and whereas the Indians had
been in full rout but a moment before, and the Tartars ever on their
flanks, Galafron himself being the swiftest among the spurrers away, it
was now the Tartars that fled for their lives; for Orlando was there, and
a band of fresh knights were about him, and Agrican in vain attempted to
rally his troops. The Paladin kept him constantly in his front, forcing
him to attend to nobody else. The Tartar king, who cared not a button for
Galafron and all his army,[1] provided he could but rid himself of this
terrible knight (whom he guessed at, but did not know), bethought him of
a stratagem. He turned his horse, and made a show of flying in despair.
Orlando dashed after him, as he desired; and Agrican fled till he reached
a green place in a wood, with a fountain in it.
The place was beautiful, and the Tartar dismounted to refresh himself at
the fountain, but without taking off his helmet, or laying aside any of
his armour. Orlando was quickly at his back, crying out, "So bold, and
yet such a fugitive! How could you fly from a single arm, and yet think
to escape? When a man can die with honour, he should be glad to die; for
he may live and fare worse. He may get death and infamy together. "
The Tartar king had leaped on his saddle the moment he saw his enemy; and
when the Paladin had done speaking, he said in a mild voice, "Without
doubt you are the best knight I ever encountered; and fain would I leave
you untouched for your own sake, if you would cease to hinder me from
rallying my people. I pretended to fly, in order to bring you out of the
field. If you insist upon fighting, I must needs fight and slay you; but
I call the sun in the heavens to witness, that I would rather not. I
should be very sorry for your death. "
The County Orlando felt pity for so much gallantry; and he said," The
nobler you shew yourself, the more it grieves me to think, that in dying
without a knowledge of the true faith, you will be lost in the other
world. Let me advise you to save body and soul at once. Receive baptism,
and go your way in peace. "
Agrican looked him in the face, and replied, "I suspect you to be the
Paladin Orlando. If you are, I would not lose this opportunity of
fighting with you, to be king of Paradise. Talk to me no more about your
things of the other world; for you will preach in vain. Each of us for
himself, and let the sword be umpire. "
No sooner said than done. The Tartar drew his sword, boldly advancing
upon Orlando; and a cut and thrust fight began, so long and so terrible,
each warrior being a miracle of prowess, that the story says it lasted
from noon till night. Orlando then, seeing the stars come out, was the
first to propose a respite. "What are we to do," said he, "now that
daylight has left us? "
Agrican answered readily enough, "Let us repose in this meadow, and renew
the combat at dawn. "
The repose was taken accordingly. Each tied up his horse, and reclined
himself on the grass, not far from one another, just as if they had been
friends,--Orlando by the fountain, Agrican beneath a pine. It was a
beautiful clear night; and as they talked together, before addressing
themselves to sleep, the champion of Christendom, looking up at the
firmament, said, "That is a fine piece of workmanship, that starry
spectacle. God made it all,--that moon of silver, and those stars of
gold, and the light of day and the sun,--all for the sake of human kind. "
"You wish, I see, to talk of matters of faith," said the Tartar. "Now
I may as well tell you at once, that I have no sort of skill in such
matters, nor learning of any kind. I never could learn anything when
I was a boy. I hated it so, that I broke the man's head who was
commissioned to teach me; and it produced such an effect on others, that
nobody ever afterwards dared so much as shew me a book. My boyhood was
therefore passed as it should be, in horsemanship, and hunting, and
learning to fight. What is the good of a gentleman's poring all day over
a book? Prowess to the knight, and prattle to the clergyman. That is my
motto. "
"I acknowledge," returned Orlando, "that arms are the first consideration
of a gentleman; but not at all that he does himself dishonour by
knowledge. On the contrary, knowledge is as great an embellishment of the
rest of his attainments, as the flowers are to the meadow before us; and
as to the knowledge of his Maker, the man that is without it is no better
than a stock or a stone, or a brute beast. Neither, without study, can
he reach anything like a due sense of the depth and divineness of the
contemplation. "
"Learned or not learned," said Agrican, "you might skew yourself better
bred than by endeavouring to make me talk on a subject on which you have
me at a disadvantage. I have frankly told you what sort of person I am;
and I dare say, that you for your part are very learned and wise. You
will therefore permit me, if you say anything more of such things, to
make you no answer. If you choose to sleep, I wish you good night; but
if you prefer talking, I recommend you to talk of fighting, or of fair
ladies. And, by the way, pray tell me-are you, or are you not, may I ask,
that Orlando who makes such a noise in the world? And what is it, pray,
brings you into these parts? Were you ever in love? I suppose you must
have been; for to be a knight, and never to have been in love, would be
like being a man with no heart in his breast. "
The County replied, "Orlando I am, and in love I am. [2] Love has made me
abandon every thing, and brought me into these distant regions; and to
tell you all in one word, my heart is in the hands of the daughter of
King Galafron. You have come against him with fire and sword, to get
possession of his castles and his dominions; and I have come to help
him, for no object in the world but to please his daughter, and win her
beautiful hand. I care for nothing else in existence. "
Now when the Tartar king Agrican heard his antagonist speak in this
manner, and knew him to be indeed Orlando, and to be in love with
Angelica, his face changed colour for grief and jealousy, though it could
not be seen for the darkness. His heart began beating with such violence,
that he felt as if he should have died. "Well," said he to Orlando, "we
are to fight when it is daylight, and one or the other is to be left
here, dead on the ground. I have a proposal to make to you; nay, an
entreaty. My love is so excessive for the same lady, that I beg you to
leave her to me. I will owe you my thanks, and give up the fight myself.
I cannot bear that any one else should love her, and I live to see it.
Why, therefore, should either of us perish? Give her up. Not a soul shall
know it. "[3]
"I never yet," answered Orlando, "made a promise which I did not keep;
and, nevertheless, I own to you, that were I to make a promise like that,
and even swear to keep it, I should not. You might as well ask me to tear
away the limbs from my body, and the eyes out of my head. I could as soon
live without breath itself, as cease loving Angelica. "
Agrican bad scarcely patience enough to let the speaker finish, ere he
leaped furiously on horseback, though it was midnight. "Quit her," said
he, "or die! "
Orlando, seeing the infidel getting up, and not being sure that he would
not add treachery to fierceness, had been hardly less quick in mounting
for the combat. "Never! " exclaimed he. "I never could have quitted her if
I would; and now I wouldn't if I could. You must seek her by other
means than these. "
Fiercely dashed their horses together, in the night-time, on the green
mead. Despiteful and terrible were the blows they gave and took by the
moonlight. There was no need of their looking out for one another,
night-time though it was. Their business was to take as sharp heed of
every movement, as if it had been noon-day. [4]
Agrican fought in a rage: Orlando was cooler. And now the struggle had
lasted more than five hours, and dawn began to be visible, when the
Tartar king, furious to find so much trouble given him, dealt his enemy a
blow sharp and violent beyond conception. It cut the shield in two, as
if it had been a cheesecake; and though blood could not be drawn from
Orlando, because he was fated, it shook and bruised him, as if it had
started every joint in his body.
His body only, however; not a particle of his soul. So dreadful was the
blow which the Paladin gave in return, that not only shield, but every
bit of mail on the body of Agrican, was broken in pieces, and three of
his left ribs cut asunder.
The Tartar, roaring like a lion, raised his sword with still greater
vehemence than before, and dealt a blow on the Paladin's helmet, such as
he had never yet received from mortal man. For a moment it took away his
senses. His sight failed; his ears tinkled; his frightened horse turned
about to fly; and he was falling from the saddle, when the very action
of falling jerked his head upwards, and with the jerk he regained his
recollection.
"O my God! " thought he, "what a shame is this! how shall I ever again
dare to face Angelica! I have been fighting, hour after hour, with this
man, and he is but one, and I call myself Orlando. If the combat last
any longer, I will bury myself in a monastery, and never look on sword
again. "
Orlando muttered with his lips closed and his teeth ground together; and
you might have thought that fire instead of breath came out of his nose
and mouth. He raised his sword Durindana with both his hands, and sent
it down so tremendously on Agrican's left shoulder, that it cut through
breast-plate and belly-piece down to the very haunch; nay, crushed the
saddle-bow, though it was made of bone and iron, and felled man and horse
to the earth. From shoulder to hip was Agrican cut through his weary
soul, and he turned as white as ashes, and felt death upon him. He called
Orlando to come close to him with a gentle voice, and said, as well as he
could, "I believe in Him who died on the Cross. Baptise me, I pray thee,
with the fountain, before my senses are gone. I have lived an evil life,
but need not be rebellious to God in death also. May He who came to save
all the rest of the world, save me! He is a God of great mercy. "
And he shed tears, did that king, though he had been so lofty and fierce.
Orlando dismounted quickly, with his own face in tears. He gathered the
king tenderly in his arms, and took and laid him by the fountain, on
a marble cirque which it had; and then he wept in concert with him
heartily, and asked his pardon, and so baptised him in the water of the
fountain, and knelt and prayed to God for him with joined hands.
He then paused and looked at him; and when he perceived his countenance
changed, and that his whole person was cold, he left him there on the
marble cirque by the fountain, all armed as he was, with the sword by his
side, and the crown upon his head.
* * * * *
I think I may anticipate the warm admiration of the reader for the whole
of this beautiful episode, particularly its close. "I think," says
Panizzi, "that Tasso had this passage particularly in view when he wrote
the duel of Clorinda and Tancredi, and her conversion and baptism before
dying. The whole passage, from stanza xii. (where Agrican receives his
mortal blow) to this, is beautiful; and the delicate proceeding of
Orlando in leaving Agrican's body armed, even with the sword in his hand,
is in the noblest spirit of chivalry. "--Edition of _Boiardo and Ariosto_,
vol. iii. page 357.
The reader will find the original in the Appendix No. I.
In the course of the poem (canto xix. stanza xxvi. ) a knight, with the
same noble delicacy, who is in distress for a set of arms, borrows those
belonging to the dead body, with many excuses, and a kiss on its face.
[Footnote 1:
"Che tutti insieme, e 'l suo Rè Galafrone,
Non li stimava quanto un vil bottone. "]
[Footnote 2: Berni has here introduced the touching words, "Would I were
not so! " (Così non foss'io! )]
[Footnote 3: This proposal is in the highest ingenuous spirit of the
absurd wilfulness of passion, thinking that every thing is to give way
before it, not excepting the same identical wishes in other people. ]
[Footnote 4: Very fine all this, I think. ]
THE SARACEN FRIENDS.
A FAIRY LOVE-TALE
Argument.
Prasildo, a nobleman of Babylon, to his great anguish, falls in love with
his friend's wife, Tisbina; and being overheard by her and her husband
threatening to kill himself, the lady, hoping to divert him from his
passion by time and absence, promises to return it on condition of his
performing a distant and perilous adventure. He performs the adventure;
and the husband and wife, supposing that there is no other way of her
escaping the consequences, resolve to take poison; after which the lady
goes to Prasildo's house, and informs him of their having done so.
Prasildo resolves to die with them; but hearing, in the mean time, that
the apothecary had given them a drink that was harmless, he goes and
tells them of their good fortune; upon which the husband is so struck
with his generosity, that he voluntarily quits Babylon for life and the
lady marries the lover. The new husband subsequently hears that his
friend's life is in danger, and quits the wife to go and deliver him from
it at the risk of his own, which he does.
This story, which has resemblances to it in Boccaccio and Chaucer, is
told to Rinaldo while riding through a wood in Asia, with a damsel behind
him on the same horse. He has engaged to combat in her behalf with a band
of knights; and the lady relates it to beguile the way.
The reader is to bear in mind, that the age of chivalry took delight in
mooting points of love and friendship, such as in after-times would
have been out of the question; and that the parties in this story are
Mahometans, with whom divorce was an easy thing, and caused no scandal.
THE SARACEN FRIENDS.
Iroldo, a knight of Babylon, had to wife a lady of the name of Tisbina,
whom he loved with a passion equal to that of Tristan for Iseult;[1] and
she returned his love with such fondness, that her thoughts were occupied
with him from morning till night. Among other pleasant circumstances
of their position, they had a neighbour who was accounted the greatest
nobleman in the city; and he deserved his credit, for he spent his great
riches in doing nothing but honour to his rank. He was pleasant in
company, formidable in battle, full of grace in love; an open-hearted,
accomplished gentleman.
This personage, whose name was Prasildo, happened to be of a party one
day with Tisbina, who were amusing themselves in a garden, with a game in
which the players knelt down with their faces bent on one another's laps,
and guessed who it was that struck them. The turn came to himself, and
he knelt down to the lap of Tisbina; but no sooner was he there, than he
experienced feelings he had never dreamt of; and instead of trying to
guess correctly, took all the pains he could to remain in the same
position.
These feelings pursued him all the rest of the day, and still more
closely at night. He did nothing but think and sigh, and find the soft
feathers harder than any stone. Nor did he get better as time advanced.
His once favourite pastime of hunting now ceased to afford him any
delight. Nothing pleased him but to be giving dinners and balls, to make
verses and sing them to his lute, and to joust and tournay in the eyes of
his love, dressed in the most sumptuous apparel. But above all, gentle
and graceful as he had been before, he now became still more gentle and
graceful--for good qualities are always increased when a man is in
love. Never in my life did I know them turn to ill in that case. So, in
Prasildo's, you may guess what a super-excellent person he became.
The passion which had thus taken possession of this gentleman was not
lost upon the lady for want of her knowing it. A mutual acquaintance
was always talking to her on the subject, but to no purpose; she never
relaxed her pride and dignity for a moment. The lover at last fell ill;
he fairly wasted away; and was so unhappy, that he gave up all his
feastings and entertainments. The only pleasure he took was in a solitary
wood, in which he used to plunge himself in order to give way to his
grief and lamentations.
It happened one day, early in the morning, while he was thus occupied,
that Iroldo came into the wood to amuse himself with bird-catching. He
had Tisbina with him; and as they were coming along, they overheard their
neighbour during one of his paroxysms, and stopped to listen to what he
said.
"Hear me," exclaimed he, "ye flowers and ye woods. Hear to what a pass of
wretchedness I am come, since that cruel one will hear me not. Hear, O
sun that hast taken away the night from the heavens, and you, ye stars,
and thou the departing moon, hear the voice of my grief for the last
time, for exist I can no longer; my death is the only way left me to
gratify that proud beauty, to whom it has pleased Heaven to give a
cruel heart with a merciful countenance. Fain would I have died in her
presence. It would have comforted me to see her pleased even with that
proof of my love. But I pray, nevertheless, that she may never know it;
since, cruel as she is, she might blame herself for having shewn a scorn
so extreme; and I love her so, I would not have her pained for all her
cruelty. Surely I shall love her even in my grave. "
With these words, turning pale with his own mortal resolution, Prasildo
drew his sword, and pronouncing the name of Tisbina more than once with a
loving voice, as though its very sound would be sufficient to waft him
to Paradise, was about to plunge the steel into his bosom, when the lady
herself, by leave of her husband, whose manly visage was all in tears for
pity, stood suddenly before him.
"Prasildo," said she, "if you love me, listen to me. You have often told
me that you do so. Now prove it. I happen to be threatened with nothing
less than the loss of life and honour. Nothing short of such a calamity
could have induced me to beg of you the service I am going to request;
since there is no greater shame in the world than to ask favours from
those to whom we have refused them. But I now promise you, that if you do
what I desire, your love shall be returned. I give you my word for it. I
give you my honour. On the other side of the wilds of Barbary is a garden
which has a wall of iron. It has four gates. Life itself keeps one; Death
another; Poverty the third; the fairy of Riches the fourth. He who goes
in at one gate must go out at the other opposite; and in the midst of the
garden is a tree, tall as the reach of an arrow, which produces pearls
for blossoms. It is called the Tree of Wealth, and has fruit of emeralds
and boughs of gold. I must have a bough of that tree, or suffer the most
painful consequences. Now, then, if you love me, I say, prove it. Prove
it, and most assuredly I shall love you in turn, better than ever you
loved myself.
