"
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.
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.
Stories from the Italian Poets
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. "
What need of saying that Prasildo, with haste and joy, undertook to do
all that she required? If she had asked the sun and stars, and the whole
universe, he would have promised them. Quitting her in spite of his love,
he set out on the journey without delay, only dressing himself before he
left the city in the habit of a pilgrim.
Now you must know, that Iroldo and his lady had set Prasildo on that
adventure, in the hope that the great distance which he would have to
travel, and the change which it might assist time to produce, would
deliver him from his passion. At all events, in case this good end was
not effected before he arrived at the garden, they counted to a certainty
on his getting rid of it when he did; because the fairy of that garden,
which was called the Garden of Medusa, was of such a nature, that
whosoever did but look on her countenance forgot the reason for his going
thither; and whoever saluted, touched, and sat down to converse by her
side, forgot all that had ever occurred in his lifetime.
Away, however, on his steed went our bold lover; all alone, or rather
with Love for his companion; and so, riding hard till he came to the Red
Sea, he took ship, and journeyed through Egypt, and came to the mountains
of Barca, where he overtook an old grey-headed palmer.
Prasildo told the palmer the reason of his coming, and the palmer told
him what the reader has heard about the garden; adding, that he must
enter by the gate of Poverty, and take no arms or armour with him,
excepting a looking-glass for a shield, in which the fairy might behold
her beauty. The old man gave him other directions necessary for his
passing out of the gate of Riches; and Prasildo, thanking him, went on,
and in thirty days found himself entering the garden with the greatest
ease, by the gate of Poverty.
The garden looked like a Paradise, it was so full of beautiful trees, and
flowers, and fresh grass. Prasildo took care to hold the shield over his
eyes, that he might avoid seeing the fairy Medusa; and in this manner,
guarding his approach, he arrived at the Golden Tree. The fairy, who was
reclining against the trunk of it, looked up, and saw herself in the
glass. Wonderful was the effect on her. Instead of her own white-and-red
blooming face, she beheld that of a dreadful serpent. The spectacle made
her take to flight in terror; and the lover, finding his object so far
gained, looked freely at the tree, and climbed it, and bore away a
bough[2].
With this he proceeded to the gate of Riches. It was all of loadstone,
and opened with a great noise. But he passed through it happily, for he
made the fairy who kept it a present of half the bough; and so he issued
forth out of the garden, with indescribable joy.
Behold our loving adventurer now on his road home. Every step of the way
appeared to him a thousand. He took the road of Nubia to shorten the
journey; crossed the Arabian Gulf with a breeze in his favour; and
travelling by night as well as by day, arrived one fine morning in
Babylon.
No sooner was he there, than he sent to tell the object of his passion
how fortunate he had been. He begged her to name her own place and time
for receiving the bough at his hands, taking care to remind her of her
promise; and he could not help adding, that he should die if she broke it.
Terrible was the grief of Tisbina at this unlooked-for news. She threw
herself on her couch in despair, and bewailed the hour she was born.
"What on earth am I to do? " cried the wretched lady; "death itself is no
remedy for a case like this, since it is only another mode of breaking my
word. To think that Prasildo should return from the garden of Medusa! who
could have supposed it possible? And yet, in truth, what a fool I was to
suppose any thing impossible to love! O my husband! little didst thou
think what thou thyself advisedst me to promise! "
The husband was coming that moment towards the room; and overhearing his
wife grieving in this distracted manner, he entered and clasped her in
his arms. On learning the cause of her affliction, he felt as though he
should have died with her on the spot.
"Alas! " cried he, "that it should be possible for me to be miserable
while I am so dear to your heart. But you know, O my soul! that when love
and jealousy come together, the torment is the greatest in the world.
Myself--myself, alas! caused the mischief, and myself alone ought to
suffer for it. You must keep your promise. You must abide by the word you
have given, especially to one who has undergone so much to perform what
you asked him. Sweet face, you must. But oh! see him not till after I am
dead. Let Fortune do with me what she pleases, so that I be saved from a
disgrace like that. It will be a comfort to me in death to think that
I alone, while I was on earth, enjoyed the fond looking of that lovely
face. Nay," concluded the wretched husband, "I feel as though I should
die over again, if I could call to mind in my grave how you were taken
from me. "
Iroldo became dumb for anguish. It seemed to him as if his very heart had
been taken out of his breast. Nor was Tisbina less miserable. She was as
pale as death, and could hardly speak to him, or bear to look at him. At
length turning her eyes upon him, she said, "And do you believe I could
make my poor sorry case out in this world without Iroldo? Can he bear,
himself, to think of leaving his Tisbina? he who has so often said, that
if he possessed heaven itself, he should not think it heaven without her?
O dearest husband, there is a way to make death not bitter to either of
us. It is to die together. I must only exist long enough to see Prasildo!
Death, alas! is in that thought; but the same death will release us. It
need not even be a hard death, saving our misery. There are poisons so
gentle in their deadliness, that we need but faint away into sleep, and
so, in the course of a few hours, be delivered. Our misery and our folly
will then alike be ended. "
Iroldo assenting, clasped his wife in distraction; and for a long time
they remained in the same posture, half stifled with grief, and bathing
one another's cheeks with their tears. Afterwards they sent quietly for
the poison; and the apothecary made up a preparation in a cup, without
asking any questions; and so the husband and wife took it. Iroldo drank
first, and then endeavoured to give the cup to his wife, uttering not a
word, and trembling in every limb; not because he was afraid of death,
but because he could not bear to ask her to share it. At length, turning
away his face and looking down, he held the cup towards her, and she took
it with a chilled heart and trembling hand, and drank the remainder to
the dregs. Iroldo then covered his face and head, not daring to see her
depart for the house of Prasildo; and Tisbina, with pangs bitterer than
death, left him in solitude.
Tisbina, accompanied by a servant, went to Prasildo, who could scarcely
believe his ears when he heard that she was at the door requesting to
speak with him. He hastened down to shew her all honour, leading her
from the door into a room by themselves; and when he found her in tears,
addressed her in the most considerate and subdued, yet still not unhappy
manner, taking her confusion for bashfulness, and never dreaming what a
tragedy had been meditated.
Finding at length that her grief was not to be done away, he conjured
her by what she held dearest on earth to let him know the cause of it;
adding, that he could still die for her sake, if his death would do her
any service. Tisbina spoke at these words; and Prasildo then heard what
he did not wish to hear. "I am in your hands," answered she, "while I
am yet alive. I am bound to my word, but I cannot survive the dishonour
which it costs me, nor, above all, the loss of the husband of my heart.
You also, to whose eyes I have been so welcome, must be prepared for my
disappearance from the earth. Had my affections not belonged to another,
ungentle would have been my heart not to have loved yourself, who are so
capable of loving; but (as you must well know) to love two at once is
neither fitting nor in one's power. It was for that reason I never loved
you, baron; I was only touched with compassion for you; and hence the
miseries of us all. Before this day closes, I shall have learnt the taste
of death. " And without further preface she disclosed to him how she and
her husband had taken poison.
Prasildo was struck dumb with horror. He had thought his felicity at
hand, and was at the same instant to behold it gone for ever. She who was
rooted in his heart, she who carried his life in her sweet looks, even
she was sitting there before him, already, so to speak, dead.
"It has pleased neither Heaven nor you, Tisbina," exclaimed the unhappy
young man, "to put my best feelings to the proof. Often have two lovers
perished for love; the world will now behold a sacrifice of three. Oh,
why did you not make a request to me in your turn, and ask me to free you
from your promise? You say you took pity on me! Alas, cruel one, confess
that you have killed yourself, in order to kill me. Yet why? Never did I
think of giving you displeasure; and I now do what I would have done at
any time to prevent it, I absolve you from your oath. Stay, or go this
instant, as it seems best to you. "
A stronger feeling than compassion moved the heart of Tisbina at these
words. "This indeed," replied she, "I feel to be noble; and truly could
I also now die to save you. But life is flitting; and how may I prove my
regard? "
Prasildo, who had in good earnest resolved that three instead of two
should perish, experienced such anguish at the extraordinary position in
which he found all three, that even her sweet words came but dimly to his
ears. He stood like a man stupified; then begged of her to give him but
one kiss, and so took his leave without further ado, only intimating that
her way out of the house lay before her. As he spake, he removed himself
from her sight.
Tisbina reached home. She found her husband with his head covered up as
she left him; but when she recounted what had passed, and the courtesy of
Prasildo, and how he had exacted from her but a single kiss, Iroldo got
up, and removed the covering from his face, and then clasping his hands,
and raising it to heaven, he knelt with grateful humility, and prayed God
to give pardon to himself, and reward to his neighbour. But before he had
ended, Tisbina sunk on the floor in a swoon. Her weaker frame was the
first to undergo the effects of what she had taken. Iroldo felt icy chill
to see her, albeit she seemed to sleep sweetly. Her aspect was not at all
like death. He taxed Heaven with cruelty for treating two loving hearts
so hardly, and cried out against Fortune, and life, and Love itself.
Nor was Prasildo happier in his chamber. He also exclaimed against the
bitter tyrant "whom men call Love;" and protested, that he would gladly
encounter any fate, to be delivered from the worse evils of his false and
cruel ascendency.
But his lamentations were interrupted. The apothecary who sold the potion
to the husband and wife was at the door below, requesting to speak with
him. The servants at first had refused to carry the message; but the old
man persisting, and saying it was a matter of life and death, entrance
for him into his master's chamber was obtained. "Noble sir," said the
apothecary, "I have always held you in love and reverence. I have
unfortunately reason to fear that somebody is desiring your death. This
morning a handmaiden of the lady Tisbina applied to me for a secret
poison; and just now it was told me, that the lady herself had been at
this house. I am old, sir, and you are young; and I warn you against the
violence and jealousies of womankind. Talk of their flames of love! Satan
himself burn them, say I, for they are fit for nothing better. Do not be
too much alarmed, however, this time: for in truth I gave the young woman
nothing of the sort that she asked for, but only a draught so innocent,
that if you have taken it, it will cost you but four or five hours'
sleep. So, in God's name, give up the whole foolish sex; for you may
depend on it, that in this city of ours there are ninety-nine wicked ones
among them to one good. "
You may guess how Prasildo's heart revived at these words. Truly might he
be compared to flowers in sunshine after rain; he rejoiced through all
his being, and displayed again a cheerful countenance. Hastily thanking
the old man, he lost no time in repairing to the house of his neighbours,
and telling them of their safety: and you may guess how the like joy was
theirs. But behold a wonder!
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. "
What need of saying that Prasildo, with haste and joy, undertook to do
all that she required? If she had asked the sun and stars, and the whole
universe, he would have promised them. Quitting her in spite of his love,
he set out on the journey without delay, only dressing himself before he
left the city in the habit of a pilgrim.
Now you must know, that Iroldo and his lady had set Prasildo on that
adventure, in the hope that the great distance which he would have to
travel, and the change which it might assist time to produce, would
deliver him from his passion. At all events, in case this good end was
not effected before he arrived at the garden, they counted to a certainty
on his getting rid of it when he did; because the fairy of that garden,
which was called the Garden of Medusa, was of such a nature, that
whosoever did but look on her countenance forgot the reason for his going
thither; and whoever saluted, touched, and sat down to converse by her
side, forgot all that had ever occurred in his lifetime.
Away, however, on his steed went our bold lover; all alone, or rather
with Love for his companion; and so, riding hard till he came to the Red
Sea, he took ship, and journeyed through Egypt, and came to the mountains
of Barca, where he overtook an old grey-headed palmer.
Prasildo told the palmer the reason of his coming, and the palmer told
him what the reader has heard about the garden; adding, that he must
enter by the gate of Poverty, and take no arms or armour with him,
excepting a looking-glass for a shield, in which the fairy might behold
her beauty. The old man gave him other directions necessary for his
passing out of the gate of Riches; and Prasildo, thanking him, went on,
and in thirty days found himself entering the garden with the greatest
ease, by the gate of Poverty.
The garden looked like a Paradise, it was so full of beautiful trees, and
flowers, and fresh grass. Prasildo took care to hold the shield over his
eyes, that he might avoid seeing the fairy Medusa; and in this manner,
guarding his approach, he arrived at the Golden Tree. The fairy, who was
reclining against the trunk of it, looked up, and saw herself in the
glass. Wonderful was the effect on her. Instead of her own white-and-red
blooming face, she beheld that of a dreadful serpent. The spectacle made
her take to flight in terror; and the lover, finding his object so far
gained, looked freely at the tree, and climbed it, and bore away a
bough[2].
With this he proceeded to the gate of Riches. It was all of loadstone,
and opened with a great noise. But he passed through it happily, for he
made the fairy who kept it a present of half the bough; and so he issued
forth out of the garden, with indescribable joy.
Behold our loving adventurer now on his road home. Every step of the way
appeared to him a thousand. He took the road of Nubia to shorten the
journey; crossed the Arabian Gulf with a breeze in his favour; and
travelling by night as well as by day, arrived one fine morning in
Babylon.
No sooner was he there, than he sent to tell the object of his passion
how fortunate he had been. He begged her to name her own place and time
for receiving the bough at his hands, taking care to remind her of her
promise; and he could not help adding, that he should die if she broke it.
Terrible was the grief of Tisbina at this unlooked-for news. She threw
herself on her couch in despair, and bewailed the hour she was born.
"What on earth am I to do? " cried the wretched lady; "death itself is no
remedy for a case like this, since it is only another mode of breaking my
word. To think that Prasildo should return from the garden of Medusa! who
could have supposed it possible? And yet, in truth, what a fool I was to
suppose any thing impossible to love! O my husband! little didst thou
think what thou thyself advisedst me to promise! "
The husband was coming that moment towards the room; and overhearing his
wife grieving in this distracted manner, he entered and clasped her in
his arms. On learning the cause of her affliction, he felt as though he
should have died with her on the spot.
"Alas! " cried he, "that it should be possible for me to be miserable
while I am so dear to your heart. But you know, O my soul! that when love
and jealousy come together, the torment is the greatest in the world.
Myself--myself, alas! caused the mischief, and myself alone ought to
suffer for it. You must keep your promise. You must abide by the word you
have given, especially to one who has undergone so much to perform what
you asked him. Sweet face, you must. But oh! see him not till after I am
dead. Let Fortune do with me what she pleases, so that I be saved from a
disgrace like that. It will be a comfort to me in death to think that
I alone, while I was on earth, enjoyed the fond looking of that lovely
face. Nay," concluded the wretched husband, "I feel as though I should
die over again, if I could call to mind in my grave how you were taken
from me. "
Iroldo became dumb for anguish. It seemed to him as if his very heart had
been taken out of his breast. Nor was Tisbina less miserable. She was as
pale as death, and could hardly speak to him, or bear to look at him. At
length turning her eyes upon him, she said, "And do you believe I could
make my poor sorry case out in this world without Iroldo? Can he bear,
himself, to think of leaving his Tisbina? he who has so often said, that
if he possessed heaven itself, he should not think it heaven without her?
O dearest husband, there is a way to make death not bitter to either of
us. It is to die together. I must only exist long enough to see Prasildo!
Death, alas! is in that thought; but the same death will release us. It
need not even be a hard death, saving our misery. There are poisons so
gentle in their deadliness, that we need but faint away into sleep, and
so, in the course of a few hours, be delivered. Our misery and our folly
will then alike be ended. "
Iroldo assenting, clasped his wife in distraction; and for a long time
they remained in the same posture, half stifled with grief, and bathing
one another's cheeks with their tears. Afterwards they sent quietly for
the poison; and the apothecary made up a preparation in a cup, without
asking any questions; and so the husband and wife took it. Iroldo drank
first, and then endeavoured to give the cup to his wife, uttering not a
word, and trembling in every limb; not because he was afraid of death,
but because he could not bear to ask her to share it. At length, turning
away his face and looking down, he held the cup towards her, and she took
it with a chilled heart and trembling hand, and drank the remainder to
the dregs. Iroldo then covered his face and head, not daring to see her
depart for the house of Prasildo; and Tisbina, with pangs bitterer than
death, left him in solitude.
Tisbina, accompanied by a servant, went to Prasildo, who could scarcely
believe his ears when he heard that she was at the door requesting to
speak with him. He hastened down to shew her all honour, leading her
from the door into a room by themselves; and when he found her in tears,
addressed her in the most considerate and subdued, yet still not unhappy
manner, taking her confusion for bashfulness, and never dreaming what a
tragedy had been meditated.
Finding at length that her grief was not to be done away, he conjured
her by what she held dearest on earth to let him know the cause of it;
adding, that he could still die for her sake, if his death would do her
any service. Tisbina spoke at these words; and Prasildo then heard what
he did not wish to hear. "I am in your hands," answered she, "while I
am yet alive. I am bound to my word, but I cannot survive the dishonour
which it costs me, nor, above all, the loss of the husband of my heart.
You also, to whose eyes I have been so welcome, must be prepared for my
disappearance from the earth. Had my affections not belonged to another,
ungentle would have been my heart not to have loved yourself, who are so
capable of loving; but (as you must well know) to love two at once is
neither fitting nor in one's power. It was for that reason I never loved
you, baron; I was only touched with compassion for you; and hence the
miseries of us all. Before this day closes, I shall have learnt the taste
of death. " And without further preface she disclosed to him how she and
her husband had taken poison.
Prasildo was struck dumb with horror. He had thought his felicity at
hand, and was at the same instant to behold it gone for ever. She who was
rooted in his heart, she who carried his life in her sweet looks, even
she was sitting there before him, already, so to speak, dead.
"It has pleased neither Heaven nor you, Tisbina," exclaimed the unhappy
young man, "to put my best feelings to the proof. Often have two lovers
perished for love; the world will now behold a sacrifice of three. Oh,
why did you not make a request to me in your turn, and ask me to free you
from your promise? You say you took pity on me! Alas, cruel one, confess
that you have killed yourself, in order to kill me. Yet why? Never did I
think of giving you displeasure; and I now do what I would have done at
any time to prevent it, I absolve you from your oath. Stay, or go this
instant, as it seems best to you. "
A stronger feeling than compassion moved the heart of Tisbina at these
words. "This indeed," replied she, "I feel to be noble; and truly could
I also now die to save you. But life is flitting; and how may I prove my
regard? "
Prasildo, who had in good earnest resolved that three instead of two
should perish, experienced such anguish at the extraordinary position in
which he found all three, that even her sweet words came but dimly to his
ears. He stood like a man stupified; then begged of her to give him but
one kiss, and so took his leave without further ado, only intimating that
her way out of the house lay before her. As he spake, he removed himself
from her sight.
Tisbina reached home. She found her husband with his head covered up as
she left him; but when she recounted what had passed, and the courtesy of
Prasildo, and how he had exacted from her but a single kiss, Iroldo got
up, and removed the covering from his face, and then clasping his hands,
and raising it to heaven, he knelt with grateful humility, and prayed God
to give pardon to himself, and reward to his neighbour. But before he had
ended, Tisbina sunk on the floor in a swoon. Her weaker frame was the
first to undergo the effects of what she had taken. Iroldo felt icy chill
to see her, albeit she seemed to sleep sweetly. Her aspect was not at all
like death. He taxed Heaven with cruelty for treating two loving hearts
so hardly, and cried out against Fortune, and life, and Love itself.
Nor was Prasildo happier in his chamber. He also exclaimed against the
bitter tyrant "whom men call Love;" and protested, that he would gladly
encounter any fate, to be delivered from the worse evils of his false and
cruel ascendency.
But his lamentations were interrupted. The apothecary who sold the potion
to the husband and wife was at the door below, requesting to speak with
him. The servants at first had refused to carry the message; but the old
man persisting, and saying it was a matter of life and death, entrance
for him into his master's chamber was obtained. "Noble sir," said the
apothecary, "I have always held you in love and reverence. I have
unfortunately reason to fear that somebody is desiring your death. This
morning a handmaiden of the lady Tisbina applied to me for a secret
poison; and just now it was told me, that the lady herself had been at
this house. I am old, sir, and you are young; and I warn you against the
violence and jealousies of womankind. Talk of their flames of love! Satan
himself burn them, say I, for they are fit for nothing better. Do not be
too much alarmed, however, this time: for in truth I gave the young woman
nothing of the sort that she asked for, but only a draught so innocent,
that if you have taken it, it will cost you but four or five hours'
sleep. So, in God's name, give up the whole foolish sex; for you may
depend on it, that in this city of ours there are ninety-nine wicked ones
among them to one good. "
You may guess how Prasildo's heart revived at these words. Truly might he
be compared to flowers in sunshine after rain; he rejoiced through all
his being, and displayed again a cheerful countenance. Hastily thanking
the old man, he lost no time in repairing to the house of his neighbours,
and telling them of their safety: and you may guess how the like joy was
theirs. But behold a wonder!
