Too often had he
dwelt upon it, and made himself familiar with every turn of the letters.
dwelt upon it, and made himself familiar with every turn of the letters.
Stories from the Italian Poets
At first they went through
the whole sword-exercise to no effect; but Rinaldo, tired of the delay,
raised the terrible Fusberta,[7] and at one blow cut through the other's
twofold buckler of bone and steel, and benumbed his arm. Angelica turned
as pale as a criminal going to execution; and, without farther waiting,
galloped off through the forest, looking round every instant to see if
Rinaldo was upon her.
She had not gone far when she met an old man who seemed to be a hermit,
but was in reality a magician, coming along upon an ass. He was of
venerable aspect, and seemed worn out with age and mortifications; yet,
when he beheld the exquisite face before him, and heard the lady explain
how it was she needed his assistance, even he, old as he really was,
began to fancy himself a lover, and determined to use his art for the
purpose of keeping his two rivals at a distance. Taking out a book, and
reading a little in it, there issued from the air a spirit in likeness
of a servant, whom he sent to the two combatants with directions to
give them a false account of Orlando's having gone off to France with
Angelica. The spirit disappeared; and the magician journeying with his
companion to the sea-coast, raised another, who entered Angelica's horse,
and carried her, to her astonishment and terror, out to sea, and so round
to some lonely rocks. There, to her great comfort at first, the old man
rejoined her; but his proceedings becoming very mysterious, and exciting
her indignation, he cast her into a deep sleep.
It happened, at this moment, that a ship was passing by the rocks, bound
upon a tragical commission from the island of Ebuda. It was the custom of
that place to consign a female daily to the jaws of a sea-monster, for
the purpose of averting the wrath of one of their gods; and as it was
thought that the god would be appeased if they brought him one of
singular beauty, the mariners of the ship seized with avidity on the
sleeping Angelica, and carried her off, together with the old man.
The people of Ebuda, out of love and pity, kept her, unexposed to the
sea-monster, for some days; but at length she was bound to the rock where
it was accustomed to seek its food; and thus, in tears and horror, with
not a friend to look to, the delight of the world expected her fate. East
and west she looked in vain; to the heavens she looked in vain; every
where she looked in vain. That beauty which had made King Agrican come
from the Caspian gates, with half Scythia, to find his death from the
hands of Orlando; that beauty which had made King Sacripant forget both
his country and his honour; that beauty which had tarnished the renown
and the wisdom of the great Orlando himself, and turned the whole East
upside down, and laid it at the feet of loveliness, has now not a soul
near it to give it the comfort of a word.
Leaving our heroine awhile in this condition, I must now tell you that
Ruggiero, the greatest of all the infidel warriors, had been presented by
his guardian, the magician Atlantes, with two wonderful gifts; the one
a shield of dazzling metal, which blinded and overthrew every one that
looked at it; and the other an animal which combined the bird with the
quadruped, and was called the Hippogriff, or griffin-horse. It had the
plumage, the wings, head, beak, and front-legs of a griffin, and the rest
like a horse. It was not made by enchantment, but was a creature of a
natural kind found but very rarely in the Riphæan mountains, far on the
other side of the Frozen Sea. [8]
With these gifts, high mounted in the air, the young ward of Atlantes
was now making the grandest of grand tours. He had for some time been
confined by the magician in a castle, in order to save him from the
dangers threatened in his horoscope. From this he had been set free by
the lady with whom he was destined to fall in love; he had then been
inveigled by a wicked fairy into her tower, and set free by a good one;
and now he was on his travels through the world, to seek his mistress and
pursue knightly adventures.
Casting his eyes on the coast of Ebuda, the rider of the hippogriff
beheld the amazing spectacle of the lady tied to the rock; and struck
with a beauty which reminded him of her whom he loved, he
resolved to deliver her from a peril which soon became too manifest.
A noise was heard in the sea; and the huge monster, the Orc, appeared
half in the water and half out of it, like a ship which drags its way
into port after a long and tempestuous voyage. [9] It seemed a huge mass
without form except the head, which had eyes sticking out, and bristles
like a boar. Ruggiero, who had dashed down to the side of Angelica, and
attempted to encourage her in vain, now rose in the air; and the monster,
whose attention was diverted by a shadow on the water of a couple of
great wings dashing round and above him, presently felt a spear on his
Deck; but only to irritate him, for it could not pierce the skin. In vain
Ruggiero tried to do so a hundred times. The combat was of no more effect
than that of the fly with the mastiff, when it dashes against his eyes
and mouth, and at last comes once too often within the gape of his
snapping teeth. The orc raised such a foam and tempest in the waters with
the flapping of his tail, that the knight of the hippogriff hardly knew
whether he was in air or sea. He began to fear that the monster would
disable the creature's wings; and where would its rider be then? He
therefore had recourse to a weapon which he never used but at the last
moment, when skill and courage became of no service: he unveiled the
magic shield. But first he flew to Angelica, and put on her finger the
ring which neutralised its effect. The shield blazed on the water
like another sun. The orc, beholding it, felt it smite its eyes like
lightning; and rolling over its unwieldy body in the foam which it had
raised, lay turned up, like a dead fish, insensible. But it was not dead;
and Ruggiero was so long in making ineffectual efforts to pierce it, that
Angelica cried out to him for God's sake to release her while he had the
opportunity, lest the monster should revive. "Take Ime with you," she
said; "drown me; any thing, rather than let me be food for this horror. "
The knight released her instantly. He set her behind him on the winged
horse, and in a few minutes was in the air, transported with having
deprived the brute of his delicate supper. Then, turning as he went, he
imprinted on her a thousand kisses. He had intended to make a tour of
Spain, which was not far off; but he now altered his mind, and descended
with his prize into a lovely spot, on the coast of Brittany, encircled
with oaks full of nightingales, with here and there a solitary mountain.
It was a little green meadow with a brook. [10]
Ruggiero looked about him with transport, and was preparing to
disencumber himself of his hot armour, when the blushing beauty, casting
her eyes downwards, beheld on her finger the identical magic ring which
her father had given her when she first entered Christendom, and which
had delivered her out of so many dangers. If put on the finger only, it
neutralised all enchantment; but put into the mouth, it rendered the
wearer invisible. It had been stolen from her, and came into the hands of
a good fairy, who gave it to Ruggiero, in order to deliver him from
the wiles of a bad one. Falsehood to the good fairy's friend, his own
mistress Bradamante, now rendered him unworthy of its possession; and
at the moment when he thought Angelica his own beyond redemption, she
vanished out of his sight. In vain he knew the secret of the ring, and
the possibility of her being still present--the certainty, at all events,
of her not being very far off. He ran hither and thither like a madman,
hoping to clasp her in his arms, and embracing nothing but the air. In a
little while she was distant far enough; and Ruggiero, stamping about to
no purpose in a rage of disappointment, and at length resolving to
take horse, perceived he had been deprived, in the mean time, of his
hippogriff. It had loosened itself from the tree to which he had tied
it, and taken its own course over the mountains. Thus he had lost horse,
ring, and lady, all at once. [11]
Pursuing his way, with contending emotions, through a valley between
lofty woods, he heard a great noise in the thick of them. He rushed to
see what it was; and found a giant combating with a young knight. The
giant got the better of the knight; and having cast him on the ground,
unloosed his helmet for the purpose of slaying him, when Ruggiero, to
his horror, beheld in the youth's face that of his unworthily-treated
mistress Bradamante. He rushed to assault her enemy; but the giant,
seizing her in his arms, took to his heels; and the penitent lover
followed him with all his might, but in vain. The wretch was hidden from
his eyes by the trees. At length Ruggiero, incessantly pursuing him,
issued forth into a great meadow, containing a noble mansion; and here he
beheld the giant in the act of dashing through the gate of it with his
prize.
The mansion was an enchanted one, raised by the anxious old guardian of
Ruggiero for the purpose of enticing into it both the youth himself, and
all from whom he could experience danger in the course of his adventures.
Orlando had just been brought there by a similar device, that of the
apparition of a knight carrying off Angelica; for the supposed Bradamante
was equally a deception, and the giant no other than the magician
himself. There also were the knights Ferragus, and Brandimart, and
Grandonio, and King Sacripant, all searching for something they had
missed. They wandered about the house to no purpose; and sometimes
Ruggiero heard Bradamante calling him; and sometimes Orlando beheld
Angelica's face at a window. [12]
At length the beauty arrived in her own veritable person. She was again
on horseback, and once more on the look-out for a knight who should
conduct her safely home--whether Orlando or Sacripant she had not
determined. The same road which had brought Ruggiero to the enchanted
house having done as much for her, she now entered it invisibly by means
of the ring.
Finding both the knights in the place, and feeling under the necessity of
coming to a determination respecting one or the other, Angelica made up
her mind in favour of King Sacripant, whom she reckoned to be more at her
disposal. Contriving therefore to meet him by himself, she took the
ring out of her mouth, and suddenly appeared before him. He had hardly
recovered from his amazement, when Ferragus and Orlando himself came up;
and as Angelica now was visible to all, she took occasion to deliver them
from the enchanted house by hastening before them into a wood. They all
followed of course, in a frenzy of anxiety and delight; but the lady
being perplexed with the presence of the whole three, and recollecting
that she had again obtained possession of her ring, resolved to trust her
safe conduct to invisibility alone; so, in the old fashion, she left
them to new quarrels by suddenly vanishing from their eyes. She stopped,
nevertheless, a while to laugh at them, as they all turned their
stupefied faces hither and thither; then suffered them to pass her in a
blind thunder of pursuit; and so, gently following at her leisure on the
same road, took her way towards the East.
It was a long journey, and she saw many places and people, and was now
hidden and now seen, like the moon, till she calve one day into a forest
near the walls of Paris, where she beheld a youth lying wounded on the
grass, between two companions that were dead.
Part the Second.
ANGELICA AND MEDORO.
Now, in order to understand who the youth was that Angelica found lying
on the grass between the two dead companions, and how he came to be so
lying, you must know that a great battle had been fought there between
Charlemagne and the Saracens, in which the latter were defeated, and that
these three people belonged to the Saracens. The two that were slain were
Dardinel, king of Zumara, and Cloridan, one of his followers; and the
wounded survivor was another, whose name was Medoro. Cloridan and Medoro
had been loving and grateful servants of Dardinel, and very fast friends
of one another; such friends, indeed, that on their own account, as well
as in honour of what they did for their master, their history deserves a
particular mention.
They were of a lowly stock on the coast of Syria, and in all the various
fortunes of their lord had shewn him a special attachment. Cloridan had
been bred a huntsman, and was the robuster person of the two. Medoro was
in the first bloom of youth, with a complexion rosy and fair, and a most
pleasant as well as beautiful countenance. He had black eyes, and hair
that ran into curls of gold; in short, looked like a very angel from
heaven.
These two were keeping anxious watch upon the trenches of the defeated
army, when Medoro, unable to cease thinking of the master who had been
left dead on the field, told his friend that he could no longer delay to
go and look for his dead body, and bury it. "You," said he, "will remain,
and so be able to do justice to my memory, in case I fail. "
Cloridan, though he delighted in this proof of his friend's
noble-heartedness, did all he could to dissuade him from so perilous an
enterprise; but Medoro, in the fervour of his gratitude for benefits
conferred on him by his lord, was immovable in his determination to die
or to succeed; and Cloridan, seeing this, determined to go with him.
They took their way accordingly out of the Saracen camp, and in a short
time found themselves in that of the enemy. The Christians had been
drinking over-night for joy at their victory, and were buried in wine and
sleep. Cloridan halted a moment, and said in a whisper to his friend,
"Do you see this? Ought I to lose such an opportunity of revenging our
beloved master? Keep watch, and I will do it. Look about you, and listen
on every side, while I make a passage for us among these sleepers with my
sword. "
Without waiting an answer, the vigorous huntsman pushed into the first
tent before him. It contained, among other occupants, a certain Alpheus,
a physician and caster of nativities, who had prophesied to himself a
long life, and a death in the bosom of his family. Cloridan cautiously
put the sword's point in his throat, and there was an end of his dreams.
Four other sleepers were despatched in like manner, without time given
them to utter a syllable. After them went another, who had entrenched
himself between two horses; then the luckless Grill, who had made himself
a pillow of a barrel which he had emptied. He was dreaming of opening
a second barrel, but, alas, was tapped himself. A Greek and a German
followed, who had been playing late at dice; fortunate, if they had
continued to do so a little longer; but they never counted a throw like
this among their chances.
By this time the Saracen had grown ferocious with his bloody work, and
went slaughtering along like a wild beast among sheep. Nor could
Medoro keep his own sword unemployed; but he disdained to strike
indiscriminately--he was choice in his victims. Among these was a certain
Duke La Brett, who had his lady fast asleep in his arms. Shall I pity
them? That will I not. Sweet was their fated hour, most happy their
departure; for, embraced as the sword found them, even so, I believe, it
dismissed them into the other world, loving and enfolded.
Two brothers were slain next, sons of the Count of Flanders, and
newly-made valorous knights. Charlemagne had seen them turn red with
slaughter in the field, and had augmented their coat of arms with his
lilies, and promised them lands beside in Friesland. And he would have
bestowed the lands, only Medoro forbade it.
The friends now discovered that they had approached the quarter in
which the Paladins kept guard about their sovereign. They were afraid,
therefore, to continue the slaughter any further; so they put up their
swords, and picked their way cautiously through the rest of the camp into
the field where the battle had taken place. There they experienced so
much difficulty in the search for their master's body, in consequence of
the horrible mixture of the corpses, that they might have searched till
the perilous return of daylight, had not the moon, at the close of a
prayer of Medoro's, sent forth its beams right on the spot where the king
was lying. Medoro knew him by his cognizance, _argent_ and _gules_. The
poor youth burst into tears at the sight, weeping plentifully as he
approached him, only he was obliged to let his tears flow without noise.
Not that he cared for death--at that moment he would gladly have embraced
it, so deep was his affection for his lord; but he was anxious not to be
hindered in his pious office of consigning him to the earth.
The two friends took up the dead king on their shoulders, and were
hasting away with the beloved burden, when the whiteness of dawn began to
appear, and with it, unfortunately, a troop of horsemen in the distance,
right in their path.
It was Zerbino, prince of Scotland, with a party of horse. He was a
warrior of extreme vigilance and activity, and was returning to the camp
after having been occupied all night in pursuing such of the enemy as had
not succeeded in getting into their entrenchments[13].
"My friend," exclaimed the huntsman, "we must e'en take to our heels. Two
living people must not be sacrificed to one who is dead. "
With these words he let go his share of the burden, taking for granted
that the friend, whose life as well as his own he was thinking to secure,
would do as he himself did. But attached as Cloridan had been to his
master, Medoro was far more so. He accordingly received the whole burden
on his shoulders. Cloridan meantime scoured away, as fast as feet could
carry him, thinking his companion was at his side: otherwise he would
sooner have died a hundred times over than have left him.
In the interim, the party of the Scottish prince had dispersed themselves
about the plain, for the purpose of intercepting the two fugitives,
whichever way they went; for they saw plainly they were enemies, by the
alarm they shewed.
There was an old forest at hand in those days, which, besides being thick
and dark, was full of the most intricate cross-paths, and inhabited only
by game. Into this Cloridan had plunged. Medoro, as well as he could,
hastened after him; but hampered as he was with his burden, the more he
sought the darkest and most intricate paths, the less advanced he found
himself, especially as he had no acquaintance with the place.
On a sudden, Cloridan having arrived at a spot so quiet that he became
aware of the silence, missed his beloved friend. "Great God! " he
exclaimed, "what have I done? Left him I know not where, or how! " The
swift runner instantly turned about, and, retracing his steps, came
voluntarily back on the road to his own death. As he approached the scene
where it was to take place, he began to hear the noise of men and horses;
then he discerned voices threatening; then the voice of his unhappy
friend; and at length he saw him, still bearing his load, in the midst of
the whole troop of horsemen. The prince was commanding them to seize him.
The poor youth, however, burdened as he was, rendered it no such easy
matter; for he turned himself about like a wheel, and entrenched himself,
now behind this tree and now behind that. Finding this would not do,
he laid his beloved burden on the ground, and then strode hither and
thither, over and round about it, parrying the horsemen's endeavours
to take him prisoner. Never did poor hunted bear feel more conflicting
emotions, when, surprised in her den, she stands over her offspring with
uncertain heart, groaning with a mingled sound of tenderness and rage.
Wrath bids her rush forward, and bury her nails in the flesh of their
enemy; love melts her, and holds her back in the middle of her fury, to
look upon those whom she bore. [14]
Cloridan was in an agony of perplexity what to do. He longed to rush
forth and die with his friend; he longed also still to do what he could,
and not to let him die unavenged. He therefore halted awhile before
he issued from the trees, and, putting an arrow to his bow, sent it
well-aimed among the horsemen. A Scotsman fell dead from his saddle. The
troop all turned to see whence the arrow came; and as they were raging
and crying out, a second stuck in the throat of the loudest.
"This is not to be borne," cried the prince, pushing his horse towards
Medoro; "you shall suffer for this. " And so speaking, he thrust his hand
into the golden locks of the youth, and dragged him violently backwards,
intending to kill him; but when he looked on his beautiful face, he
couldn't do it.
The youth betook himself to entreaty. "For God's sake, sir knight! " cried
he, "be not so cruel as to deny me leave to bury my lord and master. He
was a king. I ask nothing for myself--not even my life. I do not care for
my life. I care for nothing but to bury my lord and master. "
These words were spoken in a manner so earnest, that the good prince
could feel nothing but pity; but a ruffian among the troop, losing sight
even of respect for his lord, thrust his lance into the poor youth's
bosom right over the prince's hand. Zerbino turned with indignation to
smite him, but the villain, seeing what was coming, galloped off; and
meanwhile Cloridan, thinking that his friend was slain, came leaping full
of rage out of the wood, and laid about him with his sword in mortal
desperation. Twenty swords were upon him in a moment; and perceiving
life flowing out of him, he let himself fall down by the side of his
friend. [15]
The Scotsmen, supposing both the friends to be dead, now took their
departure; and Medoro indeed would have been dead before long, he bled so
profusely. But assistance of a very unusual sort was at hand.
A lady on a palfrey happened to be coming by, who observed signs of life
in him, and was struck with his youth and beauty. She was attired with
great simplicity, but her air was that of a person of high rank, and her
beauty inexpressible. In short, it was the proud daughter of the lord of
Cathay, Angelica herself. Finding that she could travel in safety and
independence by means of the magic ring, her self-estimation had risen to
such a height, that she disdained to stoop to the companionship of the
greatest man living. She could not even call to mind that such lovers as
the County Orlando or King Sacripant existed and it mortified her beyond
measure to think of the affection she had entertained for Rinaldo.
"Such arrogance," thought Love, "is not to be endured. " The little archer
with the wings put an arrow to his bow, and stood waiting for her by the
spot where Medoro lay.
Now, when the beauty beheld the youth lying half dead with his wounds,
and yet, on accosting him, found that he lamented less for himself than
for the unburied body of the king his master, she felt a tenderness
unknown before creep into every particle of her being; and as the
greatest ladies of India were accustomed to dress the wounds of their
knights, she bethought her of a balsam which she had observed in coming
along; and so, looking about for it, brought it back with her to the
spot, together with a herdsman whom she had met on horseback in search
of one of his stray cattle. The blood was ebbing so fast, that the poor
youth was on the point of expiring; but Angelica bruised the plant
between stones, and gathered the juice into her delicate hands, and
restored his strength with infusing it into the wounds; so that, in a
little while, he was able to get on the horse belonging to the herdsman,
and be carried away to the man's cottage. He would not quit his lord's
body, however, nor that of his friend, till he had seen them laid in the
ground. He then went with the lady, and she took up her abode with him in
the cottage, and attended him till he recovered, loving him more and more
day by day; so that at length she fairly told him as much, and he loved
her in turn; and the king's daughter married the lowly-born soldier.
O County Orlando! O King Sacripant! That renowned valour of yours, say,
what has it availed you? That lofty honour, tell us, at what price is it
rated? What is the reward ye have obtained for all your services? Shew us
a single courtesy which the lady ever vouchsafed, late or early, for all
that you ever suffered in her behalf.
O King Agrican! if you could return to life, how hard would you think it
to call to mind all the repulses she gave you--all the pride and aversion
and contempt with which she received your advances! O Ferragus! O
thousands of others too numerous to speak of, who performed thousands of
exploits for this ungrateful one, what would you all think at beholding
her in the arms of the courted boy!
Yes, Medoro had the first gathering of the kiss off the lips of
Angelica--those lips never touched before--that garden of roses on
the threshold of which nobody ever yet dared to venture. The love was
headlong and irresistible; but the priest was called in to sanctify
it; and the brideswoman of the daughter of Cathay was the wife of the
cottager. The lovers remained upwards of a month in the cottage. Angelica
could not bear her young husband out of her sight. She was for ever
gazing on him, and hanging on his neck. In-doors and out-of-doors, day as
well as night, she had him at her side. In the morning or evening they
wandered forth along the banks of some stream, or by the hedge-rows of
some verdant meadow. In the middle of the day they took refuge from the
heat in a grotto that seemed made for lovers; and wherever, in their
wanderings, they found a tree fit to carve and write on, by the side of
fount or river, or even a slab of rock soft enough for the purpose, there
they were sure to leave their names on the bark or marble; so that, what
with the inscriptions in-doors and out-of-doors (for the walls of the
cottage displayed them also), a visitor of the place could not have
turned his eye in any direction without seeing the words
"ANGELICA AND MEDORO"
written in as many different ways as true-lovers' knots could run. [16]
Having thus awhile enjoyed themselves in the rustic solitude, the Queen
of Cathay (for in the course of her adventures in Christendom she had
succeeded to her father's crown) thought it time to return to her
beautiful empire, and complete the triumph of love by crowning Medoro
king of it.
She took leave of the cottagers with a princely gift. The islanders of
Ebuda had deprived her of every thing valuable but a rich bracelet,
which, for some strange, perhaps superstitious, reason, they left on her
arm. This she took off, and made a present of it to the good couple for
their hospitality; and so bade them farewell.
The bracelet was of inimitable workmanship, adorned with gems, and had
been given by the enchantress Morgana to a favourite youth, who was
rescued from her wiles by Orlando. The youth, in gratitude, bestowed it
on his preserver; and the hero had humbly presented it to Angelica, who
vouchsafed to accept it, not because of the giver, but for the rarity of
the gift.
The happy bride and bridegroom, bidding farewell to France, proceeded by
easy journeys, and crossed the mountains into Spain, where it was their
intention to take ship for the Levant. Descending the Pyrenees, they
discerned the ocean in the distance, and had now reached the coast, and
were proceeding by the water-side along the high road to Barcelona, when
they beheld a miserable-looking creature, a madman, all over mud and
dirt, lying naked in the sands. He had buried himself half inside them
for shelter from the sun; but having observed the lovers as they came
along, he leaped out of his hole like a dog, and came raging against
them.
But, before I proceed to relate who this madman was, I must return to the
cottage which the two lovers had occupied, and recount what passed in it
during the interval between their bidding it adieu and their arrival in
this place.
PART THE THIRD
THE JEALOUSY OF ORLANDO.
During the course of his search for Angelica, the County Orlando had just
restored two lovers to one another, and was pursuing a Pagan enemy to no
purpose through a wild and tangled wood, when he came into a beautiful
spot by a river's side, which tempted him to rest himself from the heat.
It was a small meadow, full of daisies and butter-cups, and surrounded
with trees. There was an air abroad, notwithstanding the heat, which made
the shepherds glad to sit without their jerkins, and receive the coolness
on their naked bodies: even the hard-skinned cattle were glad of it; and
Orlando, who was armed _cap-a-pie_, was delighted to take off his helmet,
and lay aside his buckler, and repose awhile in the midst of a scene so
refreshing. Alas! it was the unhappiest moment of his life.
Casting his eyes around him, while about to get off his horse, he
observed a handwriting on many of the trees which he thought he knew.
Riding up to the trees, and looking more closely, he was sure he knew it;
and in truth it was no other than that of his adored mistress Angelica,
and the inscription one of those numerous inscriptions of which I have
spoken. The spot was one of the haunts of the lovers while they abode in
the shepherd's cottage. Wherever the County turned his eyes, he beheld,
tied together in true-lovers' knots, nothing but the words
"ANGELICA AND MEDORO. "
All the trees had them--his eyes could see nothing else; and every letter
was a dagger that pierced his heart.
The unhappy lover tried in vain to disbelieve what he saw. He endeavoured
to compel himself to think that it was some other Angelica who had
written the words; but he knew the handwriting too well.
Too often had he
dwelt upon it, and made himself familiar with every turn of the letters.
He then strove to fancy that "Medoro" was a feigned name, intended for
himself; but he felt that he was trying to delude himself, and that the
more he tried, the bitterer was his conviction of the truth. He was like
a bird fixing itself only the more deeply in the lime in which it is
caught, by struggling and beating its wings.
Orlando turned his horse away in his anguish, and paced it towards a
grotto covered with vine and ivy, which he looked into. The grotto, both
outside and in, was full of the like inscriptions. It was the retreat the
lovers were so fond of at noon. Their names were written on all sides of
it, some in chalk and coal,[17] others carved with a knife.
The wretched beholder got off his horse and entered the grotto. The first
thing that met his eyes was a larger inscription in the Saracen lover's
own handwriting and tongue--a language which the slayer of the infidels
was too well acquainted with. The words were in verse, and expressed the
gratitude of the "poor Medoro," the writer, for having had in his arms,
in that grotto, the beautiful Angelica, daughter of King Galafron, whom
so many had loved in vain. The writer invoked a blessing on every part
of it, its shades, its waters, its flowers, its creeping plants; and
entreated every person, high and low, who should chance to visit it,
particularly lovers, that they would bless the place likewise, and take
care that it was never polluted by foot of herd.
Thrice, and four times, did the unhappy Orlando read these words, trying
always, but in vain, to disbelieve what he saw. Every time he read, they
appeared plainer and plainer; and every time did a cold hand seem to be
wringing the heart in his bosom. At length he remained with his eyes
fixed on the stone, seeing nothing more, not even the stone itself. He
felt as if his wits were leaving him, so abandoned did he seem of all
comfort. Let those imagine what he felt who have experienced the same
emotions--who know, by their own sufferings, that this is the grief which
surpasses all other griefs. His head had fallen on his bosom; his look
was deprived of all confidence; he could not even speak or shed a
tear. His impetuous grief remained within him by reason of his
impetuosity--like water which attempts to rush out of the narrow-necked
bottle, but which is so compressed as it comes, that it scarcely issues
drop by drop.
Again he endeavoured to disbelieve his eyes--to conclude that somebody
had wished to calumniate his mistress, and drive her lover mad, and so
had done his best to imitate her handwriting. With these sorry attempts
at consolation, he again took horse, the sun having now given way to the
moon, and so rode a little onward, till he beheld smoke rising out of
the tops of the trees, and heard the barking of dogs and the lowing of
cattle. By these signs he knew that he was approaching a village. He
entered it, and going into the first house he came to, gave his horse to
the care of a youth, and was disarmed, and had his spurs of gold taken
off, and so went into a room that was shewn him without demanding either
meat or drink, so entirely was he filled with his sorrow.
Now it happened that this was the very cottage into which Medoro had been
carried out of the wood by the loving Angelica. There he had been cured
of his wounds--there he had been loved and made happy--and there,
wherever the County Orlando turned his eyes, he beheld the detested
writing on the walls, the windows, the doors. He made no inquiries about
it of the people of the house: he still dreaded to render the certainty
clearer than he would fain suppose it.
But the cowardice availed him nothing; for the host seeing him unhappy,
and thinking to cheer him, came in as he was getting into bed, and opened
on the subject of his own accord. It was a story be told to every body
who came, and he was accustomed to have it admired; so with little
preface he related all the particulars to his new guest--how the youth
had been left for dead on the field, and how the lady had found him, and
had him brought to the cottage--and how she fell in love with him as he
grew well--and how she could be content with nothing but marrying him,
though she was daughter of the greatest king of the East, and a queen
herself. At the conclusion of his narrative, the good man produced the
bracelet which had been given him by Angelica, as evidence of the truth
of all that he had been saying.
This was the final stroke, the last fatal blow, given to the poor hopes
of Orlando by the executioner, Love. He tried to conceal his misery, but
it was no longer to be repressed; so finding the tears rush into his
eyes, he desired to be alone. As soon as the man had retired, he let them
flow in passion and agony. In vain he attempted to rest, much less to
sleep. Every part of the bed appeared to be made of stones and thorns.
At length it occurred to him, that most likely they had slept in that
very bed. He rose instantly, as if he had been lying on a serpent. The
bed, the house, the herdsman, every thing about the place, gave him such
horror and detestation, that, without waiting for dawn, or the light of
moon, he dressed himself, and went forth and took his horse from the
stable, and galloped onwards into the middle of the woods. There, as soon
as he found himself in the solitude, he opened all the flood-gates of his
grief, and gave way to cries and outcries.
But he still rode on. Day and night did Orlando ride on, weeping and
lamenting. He avoided towns and cities, and made his bed on the hard
earth, and wondered at himself that he could weep so long.
"These," thought he, "are no tears that are thus poured forth. They are
life itself, the fountains of vitality; and I am weeping and dying both.
These are no sighs that I thus eternally exhale. Nature could not supply
them. They are Love himself storming in my heart, and at once consuming
me and keeping me alive with his miraculous fires. No more--no more am I
the man I seem. He that was Orlando is dead and buried. His ungrateful
mistress has slain him. I am but the soul divided from his body--doomed
to wander here in this misery, an example to those that put their trust
in love. "
For the wits of the County Orlando were going; and he wandered all night
round and round in the wood, till he came back to the grotto where Medoro
had written his triumphant verses. Madness then indeed fell upon him.
Every particle of his being seemed torn up with rage and fury; and he
drew his mighty sword, and hewed the grotto and the writing, till the
words flew in pieces to the heavens. Woe to every spot in the place in
which were written the names of "Angelica and Medoro. " Woe to the place
itself: never again did it afford refuge from the heat of day to sheep or
shepherd; for not a particle of it remained as it was. With arm and sword
Orlando defaced it all, the clear and gentle fountain included. He hacked
and hewed it inside and out, and cut down the branches of the trees that
hung over it, and tore away the ivy and the vine, and rooted up great
bits of earth and stone, and filled the sweet water with the rubbish, so
that it was never clear and sweet again; and at the end of his toil, not
having satisfied or being able to satisfy his soul with the excess of
his violence, he cast himself on the ground in rage and disdain, and lay
groaning towards the heavens.
On the ground Orlando threw himself, and on the ground he remained, his
eyes fixed on heaven, his lips closed in dumbness; and thus he continued
for the space of three days and three nights, till his frenzy had mounted
to such a pitch that it turned against himself. He then arose in fury,
and tore off mail and breastplate, and every particle of clothing from
his body, till humanity was degraded in his heroical person, and he
became naked as the beasts of the field. In this condition, and his wits
quite gone, sword was forgotten as well as shield and helm; and he tore
up fir-tree and ash, and began running through the woods. The shepherds
hearing the cries of the strong man, and the crashing of the boughs, came
hastening from all quarters to know what it was; but when he saw them he
gave them chase, and smote to death those whom he reached, till the whole
country was up in arms, though to no purpose; for they were seized with
such terror, that while they threatened and closed after him, they
avoided him. He entered cottages, and tore away the food from the tables;
and ran up the craggy hills and down into the valleys; and chased beasts
as well as men, tearing the fawn and the goat to pieces, and stuffing
their flesh into his stomach with fierce will.
Raging and scouring onwards in this manner, he arrived one day at a
bridge over a torrent, on which the fierce Rodomont had fixed himself for
the purpose of throwing any one that attempted to pass it into the water.
It was a very narrow bridge, with scarcely room for two horses. But
Orlando took no heed of its narrowness. He dashed right forwards against
man and steed, and forced the champion to wrestle with him on foot; and,
winding himself about him with hideous strength, he leaped backwards with
him into the torrent, where he left him, and so mounted the opposite
bank, and again rushed over the country. A more terrible bridge than
this was in his way--even a precipitous pass of frightful height over
a valley; but still he scoured onwards, throwing over it the agonised
passengers that dared, in their ignorance of his strength, to oppose
him; and so always rushing and raging, he came down the mountains by the
sea-side to Barcelona, where he cast his eyes on the sands, and thought,
in his idiot mind, to make himself a house in them for coolness and
repose; and so he grubbed up the sand, and laid himself down in it: and
this was the terrible madman whom Angelica and Medoro saw looking at them
as they were approaching the city.
Neither of them knew him, nor did he know Angelica; but, with an idiot
laugh, he looked at her beauty, and liked her, and came horribly towards
her to carry her away. Shrieking, she put spurs to her horse and fled;
and Medoro, in a fury, came after the pursuer and smote him, but to no
purpose. The great madman turned round and smote the other's horse to the
ground, and so renewed his chase after Angelica, who suddenly regained
enough of her wits to recollect the enchanted ring. Instantly she put
it into her lips and disappeared; but in her hurry she fell from her
palfrey, and Orlando forgot her in the instant, and, mounting the poor
beast, dashed off with it over the country till it died; and so at last,
after many dreadful adventures by flood and field, he came running into
a camp full of his brother Paladins, who recognised him with tears; and,
all joining their forces, succeeded in pulling him down and binding him,
though not without many wounds: and by the help of these friends, and the
special grace of the apostle St. John (as will be told in another place),
the wits of the champion of the church were restored, and he became
ashamed of that passion for an infidel beauty which the heavenly powers
had thus resolved to punish.
But Angelica and Medoro pursued the rest of their journey in peace, and
took ship on the coast of Spain for India; and there she crowned her
bridegroom King of Cathay. The description of Orlando's jealousy and
growing madness is reckoned one of the finest things in Italian poetry;
and very fine it surely is--as strong as the hero's strength, and
sensitive as the heart of man. The circumstances are heightened, one
after the other, with the utmost art as well as nature. There is a
scriptural awfulness in the account of the hero's becoming naked; and the
violent result is tremendous. I have not followed Orlando into his feats
of ultra-supernatural strength. The reader requires to be prepared
for them by the whole poem. Nor are they necessary, I think, to
the production of the best effect; perhaps would hurt it in an age
unaccustomed to the old romances.
* * * * *
[Footnote 1: See p. 58 of the present volume. ]
[Footnote 2:
"Fugge tra selve spaventose e scure,
Per lochi inabitati, ermi e selvaggi.
Il mover de le frondi e di verzure
Che di cerri sentia, d' olmi e di faggi,
Fatto le avea con subite paure
Trovar di quà e di là strani viaggi;
Ch' ad ogni ombra veduta o in monte o in valle
Temea Rinaldo aver sempre alle spalle. "
Canto i. st. 33. ]
[Footnote 3:
"Ecco non lungi un bel cespuglio vede
Di spin fioriti e di vermiglic rôse,
Che de le liquide onde al specchio siede,
Chiuso dal Sol fra l' alte quercie ombrose; ]
[Footnote 4: And how lovely is this!
"E fuor di quel cespuglio oscuro e cieco
Fa di se bella et improvvisa mostra,
Come di selva o fuor d'ombroso speco
Diana in scena, o Citerea si mostra," &c.
St. 52. ]
[Footnote 5: How admirable is the suddenness, brevity, and force of this
scene! And it is as artful and dramatic as off-hand; for this Amazon,
Bradamante, is the future heroine of the warlike part of the poem, and
the beauty from whose marriage with Ruggiero is to spring the house of
Este. Nor without her appearance at this moment, as Panizzi has shewn
(vol. i. p. cvi. ), could a variety of subsequent events have taken place
necessary to the greatest interests of the story. All the previous
passages in romance about Amazons are nothing compared with this flash of
a thunderbolt. ]
[Footnote 6: From _bayard_, old French; _bay-colour. _]
Footnote 7: His famous sword, vide p. 48. ]
[Footnote 8: To richness and rarity, how much is added by remoteness! It
adds distance to the other difficulties of procuring it. ]
[Footnote 9:
"Ecco apparir lo smisurato mostro
Mezo ascoso ne l'onda, e mezo sorto.
Come sospinto suol da Borca o d'Ostro
Venir lungo navilio a pigliar porto,"
Canto x. st. 100.
Improved from Ovid, _Metamorph_. lib. iv. 706
"Ecce velut navis præfixo concita rostro
Sulcat aquas, juvenum sudantibus acta lacertis;
Sic fera," &c.
As when a galley with sharp beak comes fierce,
Ploughing the waves with many a sweating oar.
Ovid is brisker and more obviously to the purpose; but Ariosto gives the
ponderousness and dreary triumph of the monster. The comparison of the
fly and the mastiff is in the same higher and more epic taste. The
classical reader need not be told that the whole ensuing passage, as far
as the combat is concerned, is imitated from Ovid's story of Perseus and
Andromeda. ]
[Footnote 10:
"Sul lito un bosco era di querce ombrose,
Dove ogn' or par che Filomena piagna;
Ch'in mezo avea un pratel con una fonte,
E quinci e quindi un solitario monte.
Quivi il bramoso cavalier ritenne
L'audace corso, e nel pratel discese. "
St. 113.
What a landscape! and what a charm beyond painting he has put into it
with his nightingales! and then what figures besides! A knight on a
winged steed descending with a naked beauty into a meadow in the thick of
woods, with "here and there a solitary mountain. " The mountains make no
formal circle; they keep their separate distances, with their various
intervals of light and shade. And what a heart of solitude is given to
the meadow by the loneliness of these its waiters aloof! ]
[Footnote 11: Nothing can be more perfectly wrought up than this sudden
change of circumstances. ]
[Footnote 12: To feel the complete force of this picture, a reader should
have been in the South, and beheld the like sudden apparitions, at open
windows, of ladies looking forth in dresses of beautiful colours, and
with faces the most interesting. I remember a vision of this sort at
Carrara, on a bright but not too hot day (I fancied that the marble
mountains there cooled it). It resembled one of Titian's women, with its
broad shoulders, and boddice and sleeves differently coloured from the
petticoat; and seemed literally framed in the unsashed window. But I am
digressing. ]
[Footnote 13: Ariosto elsewhere represents him as the handsomest man in
the world; saying of him, in a line that has become famous,
"Natura il fece, e poi roppe la stampa. "
Canto x. st. 84.
--Nature made him, and then broke the mould.
(The word is generally printed _ruppe_; but I use the primitive text
of Mr. Pannizi's edition. ) Boiardo's handsomest man, Astolfo, was an
Englishman; Ariosto's is a Scotchman. See, in the present volume, the
note on the character of Astolfo, p. 41. ]
[Footnote 14:
"Come orsa, che l'alpestre cacciatore
Ne la pietrosa tana assalita abbia,
Sta sopra i figli con incerto core,
E freme in suono di pieta e di rabbia:
Ira la 'nvita e natural furore
A spiegar l'ugne, e a insanguinar le labbia;
Amor la 'ntenerisce, e la ritira
A riguardare a i figli in mezo l'ira. "
Like as a bear, whom men in mountains start
In her old stony den, and dare, and goad,
Stands o'er her children with uncertain heart,
And roars for rage and sorrow in one mood;
Anger impels her, and her natural part,
To use her nails, and bathe her lips in blood;
Love melts her, and, for all her angry roar,
Holds back her eyes to look on those she bore.
This stanza in Ariosto has become famous as a beautiful transcript of a
beautiful passage in Statius, which, indeed, it surpasses in style, but
not in feeling, especially when we consider with whom the comparison
originates:
"Ut lea, quam saevo foetam pressere cubili
Venantes Numidae, natos erecta superstat
Mente sub incerta, torvum ac miserabile frendens
Illa quidem turbare globes, et frangere morsu
Tela queat; sed prolis amor crudelia vincit
Pectora, et in media catulos circumspicit ira. "
_Thebais_, x. 414. ]
[Footnote 15: This adventure of Cloridan and Medoro is imitated from the
Nisus and Euryalus of Virgil. An Italian critic, quoted by Panizzi, says,
that the way in which Cloridan exposes himself to the enemy is inferior
to the Latin poet's famous
"Me, me (adsum qui feci), in me convertite ferrum. "
Me, me ('tis I who did the deed), slay me.
And the reader will agree with Panizzi, that he is right. The
circumstance, also, of Euryalus's bequeathing his aged mother to the care
of his prince, in case he fails in his enterprise, is very touching;
and the main honour, both of the invention of the whole episode and its
particulars, remains with Virgil. On the other hand, the enterprise of
the friends in the Italian poet, which is that of burying their dead
master, and not merely of communicating with an absent general, is more
affecting, though it may be less patriotic; the inability of Zerbino to
kill him, when he looked on his face, is extremely so; and, as Panizzi
has shewn, the adventure is made of importance to the whole story of the
poem, and is not simply an episode, like that in the Æneid. It serves,
too, in a very particular manner to introduce Medoro worthily to the
affection of Angelica; for, mere female though she be, we should hardly
have gone along with her passion as we do, in a poem of any seriousness,
had it been founded merely on his beauty. ]
[Footnote 16: Canto xix. st. 34, &c. All the world have felt this to be
a true picture of first love. The inscription may be said to be that of
every other pair of lovers that ever existed, who knew how to write their
names. How musical, too, are the words "Angelica and Medoro! " Boiardo
invented the one; Ariosto found the match for it. One has no end to the
pleasure of repeating them. All hail to the moment when I first became
aware of their existence, more than fifty years ago, in the house of
the gentle artist Benjamin West! (Let the reader indulge me with this
recollection. ) I sighed with pleasure to look on them at that time; I
sigh now, with far more pleasure than pain, to look back on them, for
they never come across me but with delight; and poetry is a world in
which nothing beautiful ever thoroughly forsakes us. ]
[Footnote 17:
"Scritti, qual con carbone e qual con gesso. "
Canto xxiii. st. 106.
Ariosto did not mind soiling the beautiful fingers of Angelica with coal
and chalk. He knew that Love did not mind it.
* * * * *
ASTOLFO'S JOURNEY TO THE MOON.
Argument.
The Paladin Astolfo ascends on the hippogriff to the top of one of the
mountains at the source of the Nile, called the Mountains of the Moon,
where he discovers the Terrestrial Paradise, and is welcomed by St. John
the Evangelist. The Evangelist then conveys him to the Moon itself, where
he is shewn all the things that have been lost on earth, among which is
the Reason of Orlando, who had been deprived of it for loving a Pagan
beauty. Astolfo is favoured with a singular discourse by the Apostle, and
is then presented with a vial containing the Reason of his great brother
Paladin, which he conveys to earth.
ASTOLFO'S
JOURNEY TO THE MOON
When the hippogriff loosened itself from the tree to which Ruggiero had
tied it in the beautiful spot to which he descended with Angelica,[1] it
soared away, like the faithful creature it was, to the house of its own
master, Atlantes the magician. But not long did it remain there--no, nor
the house itself, nor the magician; for the Paladin Astolfo came with a
mighty horn given him by a greater magician, the sound of which overthrew
all such abodes, and put to flight whoever heard it; and so the house
of Atlantes vanished, and the enchanter fled; and the Paladin took
possession of the griffin-horse, and rode away with it on farther
adventures.
One of these was the deliverance of Senapus, king of Ethiopia, from the
visitation of the dreadful harpies of old, who came infesting his table
as they did those of Æneas and Phineus. Astolfo drove them with his horse
towards the sources of the river Nile, in the Mountains of the Moon, and
pursued them with the hippogriff till they entered a great cavern, which,
by the dreadful cries and lamentings that issued from the depths within
it, the Paladin discovered to be the entrance from earth to Hell.
The daring Englishman, whose curiosity was excited, resolved to penetrate
to the regions of darkness. "What have I to fear? " thought he; "the horn
will assist me, if I want it. I'll drive the triple-mouthed dog out of
the way, and put Pluto and Satan to flight. "[2]
Astolfo tied the hippogriff to a tree, and pushed forward in spite of a
smoke that grew thicker and thicker, offending his eyes and nostrils. It
became, however, so exceedingly heavy and noisome, that he found it would
be impossible to complete his enterprise. Still he pushed forward as far
as he could, especially as he began to discern in the darkness something
that appeared to stir with an involuntary motion. It looked like a dead
body which has hung up many days in the rain and sun, and is waved
unsteadily by the wind. It turned out to be a condemned spirit in this
first threshold of Hell, sentenced there, with thousands of others, for
having been cruel and false in love. Her name was Lydia, and she had been
princess of the country so called. [3] Anaxarete was among them, who, for
her hard-heartedness, became a stone; and Daphne, who now discovered how
she had erred in making Apollo "run so much;" and multitudes of other
women; but a far greater number of men--men being worthier of punishment
in offences of love, because women are proner to believe. Theseus and
Jason were among them; and Amnon, the abuser of Tamar; and he that
disturbed the old kingdom of Latinus. [4]
Astolfo would fain have gone deeper into the jaws of Hell, but the smoke
grew so thick and palpable, it was impossible to move a step farther.
Turning about, therefore, he regained the entrance; and having refreshed
himself in a fountain hard by, and re-mounted the hippogriff, felt an
inclination to ascend as high as he possibly could in the air. The
excessive loftiness of the mountain above the cavern made him think that
its top could be at no great distance from the region of the Moon; and
accordingly he pushed his horse upwards, and rose and rose, till at
length he found himself on its table-land. It exhibited a region of
celestial beauty. The flowers were like beds of precious stones for
colour and brightness; the grass, if you could have brought any to earth,
would have been found to surpass emeralds; and the trees, whose leaves
were no less beautiful, were in fruit and flower at once. Birds of as
many colours were singing in the branches; the murmuring rivulets and
dumb lakes were more limpid than crystal: a sweet air was for ever
stirring, which reduced the warmth to a gentle temperature; and every
breath of it brought an odour from flowers, fruit-trees, and herbage all
at once, which nourished the soul with sweetness. [5]
In the middle of this lonely plain was a palace radiant as fire. Astolfo
rode his horse round about it, constantly admiring all he saw, and filled
with increasing astonishment; for he found that the dwelling was thirty
miles in circuit, and composed of one entire carbuncle, lucid and
vermilion. What became of the boasted wonders of the world before this?
The world itself, in the comparison, appeared but a lump of brute and
fetid matter. [6]
As the Paladin approached the vestibule, he was met by a venerable old
man, clad in a white gown and red mantle, whose beard descended on his
bosom, and whose aspect announced him as one of the elect of Paradise.
the whole sword-exercise to no effect; but Rinaldo, tired of the delay,
raised the terrible Fusberta,[7] and at one blow cut through the other's
twofold buckler of bone and steel, and benumbed his arm. Angelica turned
as pale as a criminal going to execution; and, without farther waiting,
galloped off through the forest, looking round every instant to see if
Rinaldo was upon her.
She had not gone far when she met an old man who seemed to be a hermit,
but was in reality a magician, coming along upon an ass. He was of
venerable aspect, and seemed worn out with age and mortifications; yet,
when he beheld the exquisite face before him, and heard the lady explain
how it was she needed his assistance, even he, old as he really was,
began to fancy himself a lover, and determined to use his art for the
purpose of keeping his two rivals at a distance. Taking out a book, and
reading a little in it, there issued from the air a spirit in likeness
of a servant, whom he sent to the two combatants with directions to
give them a false account of Orlando's having gone off to France with
Angelica. The spirit disappeared; and the magician journeying with his
companion to the sea-coast, raised another, who entered Angelica's horse,
and carried her, to her astonishment and terror, out to sea, and so round
to some lonely rocks. There, to her great comfort at first, the old man
rejoined her; but his proceedings becoming very mysterious, and exciting
her indignation, he cast her into a deep sleep.
It happened, at this moment, that a ship was passing by the rocks, bound
upon a tragical commission from the island of Ebuda. It was the custom of
that place to consign a female daily to the jaws of a sea-monster, for
the purpose of averting the wrath of one of their gods; and as it was
thought that the god would be appeased if they brought him one of
singular beauty, the mariners of the ship seized with avidity on the
sleeping Angelica, and carried her off, together with the old man.
The people of Ebuda, out of love and pity, kept her, unexposed to the
sea-monster, for some days; but at length she was bound to the rock where
it was accustomed to seek its food; and thus, in tears and horror, with
not a friend to look to, the delight of the world expected her fate. East
and west she looked in vain; to the heavens she looked in vain; every
where she looked in vain. That beauty which had made King Agrican come
from the Caspian gates, with half Scythia, to find his death from the
hands of Orlando; that beauty which had made King Sacripant forget both
his country and his honour; that beauty which had tarnished the renown
and the wisdom of the great Orlando himself, and turned the whole East
upside down, and laid it at the feet of loveliness, has now not a soul
near it to give it the comfort of a word.
Leaving our heroine awhile in this condition, I must now tell you that
Ruggiero, the greatest of all the infidel warriors, had been presented by
his guardian, the magician Atlantes, with two wonderful gifts; the one
a shield of dazzling metal, which blinded and overthrew every one that
looked at it; and the other an animal which combined the bird with the
quadruped, and was called the Hippogriff, or griffin-horse. It had the
plumage, the wings, head, beak, and front-legs of a griffin, and the rest
like a horse. It was not made by enchantment, but was a creature of a
natural kind found but very rarely in the Riphæan mountains, far on the
other side of the Frozen Sea. [8]
With these gifts, high mounted in the air, the young ward of Atlantes
was now making the grandest of grand tours. He had for some time been
confined by the magician in a castle, in order to save him from the
dangers threatened in his horoscope. From this he had been set free by
the lady with whom he was destined to fall in love; he had then been
inveigled by a wicked fairy into her tower, and set free by a good one;
and now he was on his travels through the world, to seek his mistress and
pursue knightly adventures.
Casting his eyes on the coast of Ebuda, the rider of the hippogriff
beheld the amazing spectacle of the lady tied to the rock; and struck
with a beauty which reminded him of her whom he loved, he
resolved to deliver her from a peril which soon became too manifest.
A noise was heard in the sea; and the huge monster, the Orc, appeared
half in the water and half out of it, like a ship which drags its way
into port after a long and tempestuous voyage. [9] It seemed a huge mass
without form except the head, which had eyes sticking out, and bristles
like a boar. Ruggiero, who had dashed down to the side of Angelica, and
attempted to encourage her in vain, now rose in the air; and the monster,
whose attention was diverted by a shadow on the water of a couple of
great wings dashing round and above him, presently felt a spear on his
Deck; but only to irritate him, for it could not pierce the skin. In vain
Ruggiero tried to do so a hundred times. The combat was of no more effect
than that of the fly with the mastiff, when it dashes against his eyes
and mouth, and at last comes once too often within the gape of his
snapping teeth. The orc raised such a foam and tempest in the waters with
the flapping of his tail, that the knight of the hippogriff hardly knew
whether he was in air or sea. He began to fear that the monster would
disable the creature's wings; and where would its rider be then? He
therefore had recourse to a weapon which he never used but at the last
moment, when skill and courage became of no service: he unveiled the
magic shield. But first he flew to Angelica, and put on her finger the
ring which neutralised its effect. The shield blazed on the water
like another sun. The orc, beholding it, felt it smite its eyes like
lightning; and rolling over its unwieldy body in the foam which it had
raised, lay turned up, like a dead fish, insensible. But it was not dead;
and Ruggiero was so long in making ineffectual efforts to pierce it, that
Angelica cried out to him for God's sake to release her while he had the
opportunity, lest the monster should revive. "Take Ime with you," she
said; "drown me; any thing, rather than let me be food for this horror. "
The knight released her instantly. He set her behind him on the winged
horse, and in a few minutes was in the air, transported with having
deprived the brute of his delicate supper. Then, turning as he went, he
imprinted on her a thousand kisses. He had intended to make a tour of
Spain, which was not far off; but he now altered his mind, and descended
with his prize into a lovely spot, on the coast of Brittany, encircled
with oaks full of nightingales, with here and there a solitary mountain.
It was a little green meadow with a brook. [10]
Ruggiero looked about him with transport, and was preparing to
disencumber himself of his hot armour, when the blushing beauty, casting
her eyes downwards, beheld on her finger the identical magic ring which
her father had given her when she first entered Christendom, and which
had delivered her out of so many dangers. If put on the finger only, it
neutralised all enchantment; but put into the mouth, it rendered the
wearer invisible. It had been stolen from her, and came into the hands of
a good fairy, who gave it to Ruggiero, in order to deliver him from
the wiles of a bad one. Falsehood to the good fairy's friend, his own
mistress Bradamante, now rendered him unworthy of its possession; and
at the moment when he thought Angelica his own beyond redemption, she
vanished out of his sight. In vain he knew the secret of the ring, and
the possibility of her being still present--the certainty, at all events,
of her not being very far off. He ran hither and thither like a madman,
hoping to clasp her in his arms, and embracing nothing but the air. In a
little while she was distant far enough; and Ruggiero, stamping about to
no purpose in a rage of disappointment, and at length resolving to
take horse, perceived he had been deprived, in the mean time, of his
hippogriff. It had loosened itself from the tree to which he had tied
it, and taken its own course over the mountains. Thus he had lost horse,
ring, and lady, all at once. [11]
Pursuing his way, with contending emotions, through a valley between
lofty woods, he heard a great noise in the thick of them. He rushed to
see what it was; and found a giant combating with a young knight. The
giant got the better of the knight; and having cast him on the ground,
unloosed his helmet for the purpose of slaying him, when Ruggiero, to
his horror, beheld in the youth's face that of his unworthily-treated
mistress Bradamante. He rushed to assault her enemy; but the giant,
seizing her in his arms, took to his heels; and the penitent lover
followed him with all his might, but in vain. The wretch was hidden from
his eyes by the trees. At length Ruggiero, incessantly pursuing him,
issued forth into a great meadow, containing a noble mansion; and here he
beheld the giant in the act of dashing through the gate of it with his
prize.
The mansion was an enchanted one, raised by the anxious old guardian of
Ruggiero for the purpose of enticing into it both the youth himself, and
all from whom he could experience danger in the course of his adventures.
Orlando had just been brought there by a similar device, that of the
apparition of a knight carrying off Angelica; for the supposed Bradamante
was equally a deception, and the giant no other than the magician
himself. There also were the knights Ferragus, and Brandimart, and
Grandonio, and King Sacripant, all searching for something they had
missed. They wandered about the house to no purpose; and sometimes
Ruggiero heard Bradamante calling him; and sometimes Orlando beheld
Angelica's face at a window. [12]
At length the beauty arrived in her own veritable person. She was again
on horseback, and once more on the look-out for a knight who should
conduct her safely home--whether Orlando or Sacripant she had not
determined. The same road which had brought Ruggiero to the enchanted
house having done as much for her, she now entered it invisibly by means
of the ring.
Finding both the knights in the place, and feeling under the necessity of
coming to a determination respecting one or the other, Angelica made up
her mind in favour of King Sacripant, whom she reckoned to be more at her
disposal. Contriving therefore to meet him by himself, she took the
ring out of her mouth, and suddenly appeared before him. He had hardly
recovered from his amazement, when Ferragus and Orlando himself came up;
and as Angelica now was visible to all, she took occasion to deliver them
from the enchanted house by hastening before them into a wood. They all
followed of course, in a frenzy of anxiety and delight; but the lady
being perplexed with the presence of the whole three, and recollecting
that she had again obtained possession of her ring, resolved to trust her
safe conduct to invisibility alone; so, in the old fashion, she left
them to new quarrels by suddenly vanishing from their eyes. She stopped,
nevertheless, a while to laugh at them, as they all turned their
stupefied faces hither and thither; then suffered them to pass her in a
blind thunder of pursuit; and so, gently following at her leisure on the
same road, took her way towards the East.
It was a long journey, and she saw many places and people, and was now
hidden and now seen, like the moon, till she calve one day into a forest
near the walls of Paris, where she beheld a youth lying wounded on the
grass, between two companions that were dead.
Part the Second.
ANGELICA AND MEDORO.
Now, in order to understand who the youth was that Angelica found lying
on the grass between the two dead companions, and how he came to be so
lying, you must know that a great battle had been fought there between
Charlemagne and the Saracens, in which the latter were defeated, and that
these three people belonged to the Saracens. The two that were slain were
Dardinel, king of Zumara, and Cloridan, one of his followers; and the
wounded survivor was another, whose name was Medoro. Cloridan and Medoro
had been loving and grateful servants of Dardinel, and very fast friends
of one another; such friends, indeed, that on their own account, as well
as in honour of what they did for their master, their history deserves a
particular mention.
They were of a lowly stock on the coast of Syria, and in all the various
fortunes of their lord had shewn him a special attachment. Cloridan had
been bred a huntsman, and was the robuster person of the two. Medoro was
in the first bloom of youth, with a complexion rosy and fair, and a most
pleasant as well as beautiful countenance. He had black eyes, and hair
that ran into curls of gold; in short, looked like a very angel from
heaven.
These two were keeping anxious watch upon the trenches of the defeated
army, when Medoro, unable to cease thinking of the master who had been
left dead on the field, told his friend that he could no longer delay to
go and look for his dead body, and bury it. "You," said he, "will remain,
and so be able to do justice to my memory, in case I fail. "
Cloridan, though he delighted in this proof of his friend's
noble-heartedness, did all he could to dissuade him from so perilous an
enterprise; but Medoro, in the fervour of his gratitude for benefits
conferred on him by his lord, was immovable in his determination to die
or to succeed; and Cloridan, seeing this, determined to go with him.
They took their way accordingly out of the Saracen camp, and in a short
time found themselves in that of the enemy. The Christians had been
drinking over-night for joy at their victory, and were buried in wine and
sleep. Cloridan halted a moment, and said in a whisper to his friend,
"Do you see this? Ought I to lose such an opportunity of revenging our
beloved master? Keep watch, and I will do it. Look about you, and listen
on every side, while I make a passage for us among these sleepers with my
sword. "
Without waiting an answer, the vigorous huntsman pushed into the first
tent before him. It contained, among other occupants, a certain Alpheus,
a physician and caster of nativities, who had prophesied to himself a
long life, and a death in the bosom of his family. Cloridan cautiously
put the sword's point in his throat, and there was an end of his dreams.
Four other sleepers were despatched in like manner, without time given
them to utter a syllable. After them went another, who had entrenched
himself between two horses; then the luckless Grill, who had made himself
a pillow of a barrel which he had emptied. He was dreaming of opening
a second barrel, but, alas, was tapped himself. A Greek and a German
followed, who had been playing late at dice; fortunate, if they had
continued to do so a little longer; but they never counted a throw like
this among their chances.
By this time the Saracen had grown ferocious with his bloody work, and
went slaughtering along like a wild beast among sheep. Nor could
Medoro keep his own sword unemployed; but he disdained to strike
indiscriminately--he was choice in his victims. Among these was a certain
Duke La Brett, who had his lady fast asleep in his arms. Shall I pity
them? That will I not. Sweet was their fated hour, most happy their
departure; for, embraced as the sword found them, even so, I believe, it
dismissed them into the other world, loving and enfolded.
Two brothers were slain next, sons of the Count of Flanders, and
newly-made valorous knights. Charlemagne had seen them turn red with
slaughter in the field, and had augmented their coat of arms with his
lilies, and promised them lands beside in Friesland. And he would have
bestowed the lands, only Medoro forbade it.
The friends now discovered that they had approached the quarter in
which the Paladins kept guard about their sovereign. They were afraid,
therefore, to continue the slaughter any further; so they put up their
swords, and picked their way cautiously through the rest of the camp into
the field where the battle had taken place. There they experienced so
much difficulty in the search for their master's body, in consequence of
the horrible mixture of the corpses, that they might have searched till
the perilous return of daylight, had not the moon, at the close of a
prayer of Medoro's, sent forth its beams right on the spot where the king
was lying. Medoro knew him by his cognizance, _argent_ and _gules_. The
poor youth burst into tears at the sight, weeping plentifully as he
approached him, only he was obliged to let his tears flow without noise.
Not that he cared for death--at that moment he would gladly have embraced
it, so deep was his affection for his lord; but he was anxious not to be
hindered in his pious office of consigning him to the earth.
The two friends took up the dead king on their shoulders, and were
hasting away with the beloved burden, when the whiteness of dawn began to
appear, and with it, unfortunately, a troop of horsemen in the distance,
right in their path.
It was Zerbino, prince of Scotland, with a party of horse. He was a
warrior of extreme vigilance and activity, and was returning to the camp
after having been occupied all night in pursuing such of the enemy as had
not succeeded in getting into their entrenchments[13].
"My friend," exclaimed the huntsman, "we must e'en take to our heels. Two
living people must not be sacrificed to one who is dead. "
With these words he let go his share of the burden, taking for granted
that the friend, whose life as well as his own he was thinking to secure,
would do as he himself did. But attached as Cloridan had been to his
master, Medoro was far more so. He accordingly received the whole burden
on his shoulders. Cloridan meantime scoured away, as fast as feet could
carry him, thinking his companion was at his side: otherwise he would
sooner have died a hundred times over than have left him.
In the interim, the party of the Scottish prince had dispersed themselves
about the plain, for the purpose of intercepting the two fugitives,
whichever way they went; for they saw plainly they were enemies, by the
alarm they shewed.
There was an old forest at hand in those days, which, besides being thick
and dark, was full of the most intricate cross-paths, and inhabited only
by game. Into this Cloridan had plunged. Medoro, as well as he could,
hastened after him; but hampered as he was with his burden, the more he
sought the darkest and most intricate paths, the less advanced he found
himself, especially as he had no acquaintance with the place.
On a sudden, Cloridan having arrived at a spot so quiet that he became
aware of the silence, missed his beloved friend. "Great God! " he
exclaimed, "what have I done? Left him I know not where, or how! " The
swift runner instantly turned about, and, retracing his steps, came
voluntarily back on the road to his own death. As he approached the scene
where it was to take place, he began to hear the noise of men and horses;
then he discerned voices threatening; then the voice of his unhappy
friend; and at length he saw him, still bearing his load, in the midst of
the whole troop of horsemen. The prince was commanding them to seize him.
The poor youth, however, burdened as he was, rendered it no such easy
matter; for he turned himself about like a wheel, and entrenched himself,
now behind this tree and now behind that. Finding this would not do,
he laid his beloved burden on the ground, and then strode hither and
thither, over and round about it, parrying the horsemen's endeavours
to take him prisoner. Never did poor hunted bear feel more conflicting
emotions, when, surprised in her den, she stands over her offspring with
uncertain heart, groaning with a mingled sound of tenderness and rage.
Wrath bids her rush forward, and bury her nails in the flesh of their
enemy; love melts her, and holds her back in the middle of her fury, to
look upon those whom she bore. [14]
Cloridan was in an agony of perplexity what to do. He longed to rush
forth and die with his friend; he longed also still to do what he could,
and not to let him die unavenged. He therefore halted awhile before
he issued from the trees, and, putting an arrow to his bow, sent it
well-aimed among the horsemen. A Scotsman fell dead from his saddle. The
troop all turned to see whence the arrow came; and as they were raging
and crying out, a second stuck in the throat of the loudest.
"This is not to be borne," cried the prince, pushing his horse towards
Medoro; "you shall suffer for this. " And so speaking, he thrust his hand
into the golden locks of the youth, and dragged him violently backwards,
intending to kill him; but when he looked on his beautiful face, he
couldn't do it.
The youth betook himself to entreaty. "For God's sake, sir knight! " cried
he, "be not so cruel as to deny me leave to bury my lord and master. He
was a king. I ask nothing for myself--not even my life. I do not care for
my life. I care for nothing but to bury my lord and master. "
These words were spoken in a manner so earnest, that the good prince
could feel nothing but pity; but a ruffian among the troop, losing sight
even of respect for his lord, thrust his lance into the poor youth's
bosom right over the prince's hand. Zerbino turned with indignation to
smite him, but the villain, seeing what was coming, galloped off; and
meanwhile Cloridan, thinking that his friend was slain, came leaping full
of rage out of the wood, and laid about him with his sword in mortal
desperation. Twenty swords were upon him in a moment; and perceiving
life flowing out of him, he let himself fall down by the side of his
friend. [15]
The Scotsmen, supposing both the friends to be dead, now took their
departure; and Medoro indeed would have been dead before long, he bled so
profusely. But assistance of a very unusual sort was at hand.
A lady on a palfrey happened to be coming by, who observed signs of life
in him, and was struck with his youth and beauty. She was attired with
great simplicity, but her air was that of a person of high rank, and her
beauty inexpressible. In short, it was the proud daughter of the lord of
Cathay, Angelica herself. Finding that she could travel in safety and
independence by means of the magic ring, her self-estimation had risen to
such a height, that she disdained to stoop to the companionship of the
greatest man living. She could not even call to mind that such lovers as
the County Orlando or King Sacripant existed and it mortified her beyond
measure to think of the affection she had entertained for Rinaldo.
"Such arrogance," thought Love, "is not to be endured. " The little archer
with the wings put an arrow to his bow, and stood waiting for her by the
spot where Medoro lay.
Now, when the beauty beheld the youth lying half dead with his wounds,
and yet, on accosting him, found that he lamented less for himself than
for the unburied body of the king his master, she felt a tenderness
unknown before creep into every particle of her being; and as the
greatest ladies of India were accustomed to dress the wounds of their
knights, she bethought her of a balsam which she had observed in coming
along; and so, looking about for it, brought it back with her to the
spot, together with a herdsman whom she had met on horseback in search
of one of his stray cattle. The blood was ebbing so fast, that the poor
youth was on the point of expiring; but Angelica bruised the plant
between stones, and gathered the juice into her delicate hands, and
restored his strength with infusing it into the wounds; so that, in a
little while, he was able to get on the horse belonging to the herdsman,
and be carried away to the man's cottage. He would not quit his lord's
body, however, nor that of his friend, till he had seen them laid in the
ground. He then went with the lady, and she took up her abode with him in
the cottage, and attended him till he recovered, loving him more and more
day by day; so that at length she fairly told him as much, and he loved
her in turn; and the king's daughter married the lowly-born soldier.
O County Orlando! O King Sacripant! That renowned valour of yours, say,
what has it availed you? That lofty honour, tell us, at what price is it
rated? What is the reward ye have obtained for all your services? Shew us
a single courtesy which the lady ever vouchsafed, late or early, for all
that you ever suffered in her behalf.
O King Agrican! if you could return to life, how hard would you think it
to call to mind all the repulses she gave you--all the pride and aversion
and contempt with which she received your advances! O Ferragus! O
thousands of others too numerous to speak of, who performed thousands of
exploits for this ungrateful one, what would you all think at beholding
her in the arms of the courted boy!
Yes, Medoro had the first gathering of the kiss off the lips of
Angelica--those lips never touched before--that garden of roses on
the threshold of which nobody ever yet dared to venture. The love was
headlong and irresistible; but the priest was called in to sanctify
it; and the brideswoman of the daughter of Cathay was the wife of the
cottager. The lovers remained upwards of a month in the cottage. Angelica
could not bear her young husband out of her sight. She was for ever
gazing on him, and hanging on his neck. In-doors and out-of-doors, day as
well as night, she had him at her side. In the morning or evening they
wandered forth along the banks of some stream, or by the hedge-rows of
some verdant meadow. In the middle of the day they took refuge from the
heat in a grotto that seemed made for lovers; and wherever, in their
wanderings, they found a tree fit to carve and write on, by the side of
fount or river, or even a slab of rock soft enough for the purpose, there
they were sure to leave their names on the bark or marble; so that, what
with the inscriptions in-doors and out-of-doors (for the walls of the
cottage displayed them also), a visitor of the place could not have
turned his eye in any direction without seeing the words
"ANGELICA AND MEDORO"
written in as many different ways as true-lovers' knots could run. [16]
Having thus awhile enjoyed themselves in the rustic solitude, the Queen
of Cathay (for in the course of her adventures in Christendom she had
succeeded to her father's crown) thought it time to return to her
beautiful empire, and complete the triumph of love by crowning Medoro
king of it.
She took leave of the cottagers with a princely gift. The islanders of
Ebuda had deprived her of every thing valuable but a rich bracelet,
which, for some strange, perhaps superstitious, reason, they left on her
arm. This she took off, and made a present of it to the good couple for
their hospitality; and so bade them farewell.
The bracelet was of inimitable workmanship, adorned with gems, and had
been given by the enchantress Morgana to a favourite youth, who was
rescued from her wiles by Orlando. The youth, in gratitude, bestowed it
on his preserver; and the hero had humbly presented it to Angelica, who
vouchsafed to accept it, not because of the giver, but for the rarity of
the gift.
The happy bride and bridegroom, bidding farewell to France, proceeded by
easy journeys, and crossed the mountains into Spain, where it was their
intention to take ship for the Levant. Descending the Pyrenees, they
discerned the ocean in the distance, and had now reached the coast, and
were proceeding by the water-side along the high road to Barcelona, when
they beheld a miserable-looking creature, a madman, all over mud and
dirt, lying naked in the sands. He had buried himself half inside them
for shelter from the sun; but having observed the lovers as they came
along, he leaped out of his hole like a dog, and came raging against
them.
But, before I proceed to relate who this madman was, I must return to the
cottage which the two lovers had occupied, and recount what passed in it
during the interval between their bidding it adieu and their arrival in
this place.
PART THE THIRD
THE JEALOUSY OF ORLANDO.
During the course of his search for Angelica, the County Orlando had just
restored two lovers to one another, and was pursuing a Pagan enemy to no
purpose through a wild and tangled wood, when he came into a beautiful
spot by a river's side, which tempted him to rest himself from the heat.
It was a small meadow, full of daisies and butter-cups, and surrounded
with trees. There was an air abroad, notwithstanding the heat, which made
the shepherds glad to sit without their jerkins, and receive the coolness
on their naked bodies: even the hard-skinned cattle were glad of it; and
Orlando, who was armed _cap-a-pie_, was delighted to take off his helmet,
and lay aside his buckler, and repose awhile in the midst of a scene so
refreshing. Alas! it was the unhappiest moment of his life.
Casting his eyes around him, while about to get off his horse, he
observed a handwriting on many of the trees which he thought he knew.
Riding up to the trees, and looking more closely, he was sure he knew it;
and in truth it was no other than that of his adored mistress Angelica,
and the inscription one of those numerous inscriptions of which I have
spoken. The spot was one of the haunts of the lovers while they abode in
the shepherd's cottage. Wherever the County turned his eyes, he beheld,
tied together in true-lovers' knots, nothing but the words
"ANGELICA AND MEDORO. "
All the trees had them--his eyes could see nothing else; and every letter
was a dagger that pierced his heart.
The unhappy lover tried in vain to disbelieve what he saw. He endeavoured
to compel himself to think that it was some other Angelica who had
written the words; but he knew the handwriting too well.
Too often had he
dwelt upon it, and made himself familiar with every turn of the letters.
He then strove to fancy that "Medoro" was a feigned name, intended for
himself; but he felt that he was trying to delude himself, and that the
more he tried, the bitterer was his conviction of the truth. He was like
a bird fixing itself only the more deeply in the lime in which it is
caught, by struggling and beating its wings.
Orlando turned his horse away in his anguish, and paced it towards a
grotto covered with vine and ivy, which he looked into. The grotto, both
outside and in, was full of the like inscriptions. It was the retreat the
lovers were so fond of at noon. Their names were written on all sides of
it, some in chalk and coal,[17] others carved with a knife.
The wretched beholder got off his horse and entered the grotto. The first
thing that met his eyes was a larger inscription in the Saracen lover's
own handwriting and tongue--a language which the slayer of the infidels
was too well acquainted with. The words were in verse, and expressed the
gratitude of the "poor Medoro," the writer, for having had in his arms,
in that grotto, the beautiful Angelica, daughter of King Galafron, whom
so many had loved in vain. The writer invoked a blessing on every part
of it, its shades, its waters, its flowers, its creeping plants; and
entreated every person, high and low, who should chance to visit it,
particularly lovers, that they would bless the place likewise, and take
care that it was never polluted by foot of herd.
Thrice, and four times, did the unhappy Orlando read these words, trying
always, but in vain, to disbelieve what he saw. Every time he read, they
appeared plainer and plainer; and every time did a cold hand seem to be
wringing the heart in his bosom. At length he remained with his eyes
fixed on the stone, seeing nothing more, not even the stone itself. He
felt as if his wits were leaving him, so abandoned did he seem of all
comfort. Let those imagine what he felt who have experienced the same
emotions--who know, by their own sufferings, that this is the grief which
surpasses all other griefs. His head had fallen on his bosom; his look
was deprived of all confidence; he could not even speak or shed a
tear. His impetuous grief remained within him by reason of his
impetuosity--like water which attempts to rush out of the narrow-necked
bottle, but which is so compressed as it comes, that it scarcely issues
drop by drop.
Again he endeavoured to disbelieve his eyes--to conclude that somebody
had wished to calumniate his mistress, and drive her lover mad, and so
had done his best to imitate her handwriting. With these sorry attempts
at consolation, he again took horse, the sun having now given way to the
moon, and so rode a little onward, till he beheld smoke rising out of
the tops of the trees, and heard the barking of dogs and the lowing of
cattle. By these signs he knew that he was approaching a village. He
entered it, and going into the first house he came to, gave his horse to
the care of a youth, and was disarmed, and had his spurs of gold taken
off, and so went into a room that was shewn him without demanding either
meat or drink, so entirely was he filled with his sorrow.
Now it happened that this was the very cottage into which Medoro had been
carried out of the wood by the loving Angelica. There he had been cured
of his wounds--there he had been loved and made happy--and there,
wherever the County Orlando turned his eyes, he beheld the detested
writing on the walls, the windows, the doors. He made no inquiries about
it of the people of the house: he still dreaded to render the certainty
clearer than he would fain suppose it.
But the cowardice availed him nothing; for the host seeing him unhappy,
and thinking to cheer him, came in as he was getting into bed, and opened
on the subject of his own accord. It was a story be told to every body
who came, and he was accustomed to have it admired; so with little
preface he related all the particulars to his new guest--how the youth
had been left for dead on the field, and how the lady had found him, and
had him brought to the cottage--and how she fell in love with him as he
grew well--and how she could be content with nothing but marrying him,
though she was daughter of the greatest king of the East, and a queen
herself. At the conclusion of his narrative, the good man produced the
bracelet which had been given him by Angelica, as evidence of the truth
of all that he had been saying.
This was the final stroke, the last fatal blow, given to the poor hopes
of Orlando by the executioner, Love. He tried to conceal his misery, but
it was no longer to be repressed; so finding the tears rush into his
eyes, he desired to be alone. As soon as the man had retired, he let them
flow in passion and agony. In vain he attempted to rest, much less to
sleep. Every part of the bed appeared to be made of stones and thorns.
At length it occurred to him, that most likely they had slept in that
very bed. He rose instantly, as if he had been lying on a serpent. The
bed, the house, the herdsman, every thing about the place, gave him such
horror and detestation, that, without waiting for dawn, or the light of
moon, he dressed himself, and went forth and took his horse from the
stable, and galloped onwards into the middle of the woods. There, as soon
as he found himself in the solitude, he opened all the flood-gates of his
grief, and gave way to cries and outcries.
But he still rode on. Day and night did Orlando ride on, weeping and
lamenting. He avoided towns and cities, and made his bed on the hard
earth, and wondered at himself that he could weep so long.
"These," thought he, "are no tears that are thus poured forth. They are
life itself, the fountains of vitality; and I am weeping and dying both.
These are no sighs that I thus eternally exhale. Nature could not supply
them. They are Love himself storming in my heart, and at once consuming
me and keeping me alive with his miraculous fires. No more--no more am I
the man I seem. He that was Orlando is dead and buried. His ungrateful
mistress has slain him. I am but the soul divided from his body--doomed
to wander here in this misery, an example to those that put their trust
in love. "
For the wits of the County Orlando were going; and he wandered all night
round and round in the wood, till he came back to the grotto where Medoro
had written his triumphant verses. Madness then indeed fell upon him.
Every particle of his being seemed torn up with rage and fury; and he
drew his mighty sword, and hewed the grotto and the writing, till the
words flew in pieces to the heavens. Woe to every spot in the place in
which were written the names of "Angelica and Medoro. " Woe to the place
itself: never again did it afford refuge from the heat of day to sheep or
shepherd; for not a particle of it remained as it was. With arm and sword
Orlando defaced it all, the clear and gentle fountain included. He hacked
and hewed it inside and out, and cut down the branches of the trees that
hung over it, and tore away the ivy and the vine, and rooted up great
bits of earth and stone, and filled the sweet water with the rubbish, so
that it was never clear and sweet again; and at the end of his toil, not
having satisfied or being able to satisfy his soul with the excess of
his violence, he cast himself on the ground in rage and disdain, and lay
groaning towards the heavens.
On the ground Orlando threw himself, and on the ground he remained, his
eyes fixed on heaven, his lips closed in dumbness; and thus he continued
for the space of three days and three nights, till his frenzy had mounted
to such a pitch that it turned against himself. He then arose in fury,
and tore off mail and breastplate, and every particle of clothing from
his body, till humanity was degraded in his heroical person, and he
became naked as the beasts of the field. In this condition, and his wits
quite gone, sword was forgotten as well as shield and helm; and he tore
up fir-tree and ash, and began running through the woods. The shepherds
hearing the cries of the strong man, and the crashing of the boughs, came
hastening from all quarters to know what it was; but when he saw them he
gave them chase, and smote to death those whom he reached, till the whole
country was up in arms, though to no purpose; for they were seized with
such terror, that while they threatened and closed after him, they
avoided him. He entered cottages, and tore away the food from the tables;
and ran up the craggy hills and down into the valleys; and chased beasts
as well as men, tearing the fawn and the goat to pieces, and stuffing
their flesh into his stomach with fierce will.
Raging and scouring onwards in this manner, he arrived one day at a
bridge over a torrent, on which the fierce Rodomont had fixed himself for
the purpose of throwing any one that attempted to pass it into the water.
It was a very narrow bridge, with scarcely room for two horses. But
Orlando took no heed of its narrowness. He dashed right forwards against
man and steed, and forced the champion to wrestle with him on foot; and,
winding himself about him with hideous strength, he leaped backwards with
him into the torrent, where he left him, and so mounted the opposite
bank, and again rushed over the country. A more terrible bridge than
this was in his way--even a precipitous pass of frightful height over
a valley; but still he scoured onwards, throwing over it the agonised
passengers that dared, in their ignorance of his strength, to oppose
him; and so always rushing and raging, he came down the mountains by the
sea-side to Barcelona, where he cast his eyes on the sands, and thought,
in his idiot mind, to make himself a house in them for coolness and
repose; and so he grubbed up the sand, and laid himself down in it: and
this was the terrible madman whom Angelica and Medoro saw looking at them
as they were approaching the city.
Neither of them knew him, nor did he know Angelica; but, with an idiot
laugh, he looked at her beauty, and liked her, and came horribly towards
her to carry her away. Shrieking, she put spurs to her horse and fled;
and Medoro, in a fury, came after the pursuer and smote him, but to no
purpose. The great madman turned round and smote the other's horse to the
ground, and so renewed his chase after Angelica, who suddenly regained
enough of her wits to recollect the enchanted ring. Instantly she put
it into her lips and disappeared; but in her hurry she fell from her
palfrey, and Orlando forgot her in the instant, and, mounting the poor
beast, dashed off with it over the country till it died; and so at last,
after many dreadful adventures by flood and field, he came running into
a camp full of his brother Paladins, who recognised him with tears; and,
all joining their forces, succeeded in pulling him down and binding him,
though not without many wounds: and by the help of these friends, and the
special grace of the apostle St. John (as will be told in another place),
the wits of the champion of the church were restored, and he became
ashamed of that passion for an infidel beauty which the heavenly powers
had thus resolved to punish.
But Angelica and Medoro pursued the rest of their journey in peace, and
took ship on the coast of Spain for India; and there she crowned her
bridegroom King of Cathay. The description of Orlando's jealousy and
growing madness is reckoned one of the finest things in Italian poetry;
and very fine it surely is--as strong as the hero's strength, and
sensitive as the heart of man. The circumstances are heightened, one
after the other, with the utmost art as well as nature. There is a
scriptural awfulness in the account of the hero's becoming naked; and the
violent result is tremendous. I have not followed Orlando into his feats
of ultra-supernatural strength. The reader requires to be prepared
for them by the whole poem. Nor are they necessary, I think, to
the production of the best effect; perhaps would hurt it in an age
unaccustomed to the old romances.
* * * * *
[Footnote 1: See p. 58 of the present volume. ]
[Footnote 2:
"Fugge tra selve spaventose e scure,
Per lochi inabitati, ermi e selvaggi.
Il mover de le frondi e di verzure
Che di cerri sentia, d' olmi e di faggi,
Fatto le avea con subite paure
Trovar di quà e di là strani viaggi;
Ch' ad ogni ombra veduta o in monte o in valle
Temea Rinaldo aver sempre alle spalle. "
Canto i. st. 33. ]
[Footnote 3:
"Ecco non lungi un bel cespuglio vede
Di spin fioriti e di vermiglic rôse,
Che de le liquide onde al specchio siede,
Chiuso dal Sol fra l' alte quercie ombrose; ]
[Footnote 4: And how lovely is this!
"E fuor di quel cespuglio oscuro e cieco
Fa di se bella et improvvisa mostra,
Come di selva o fuor d'ombroso speco
Diana in scena, o Citerea si mostra," &c.
St. 52. ]
[Footnote 5: How admirable is the suddenness, brevity, and force of this
scene! And it is as artful and dramatic as off-hand; for this Amazon,
Bradamante, is the future heroine of the warlike part of the poem, and
the beauty from whose marriage with Ruggiero is to spring the house of
Este. Nor without her appearance at this moment, as Panizzi has shewn
(vol. i. p. cvi. ), could a variety of subsequent events have taken place
necessary to the greatest interests of the story. All the previous
passages in romance about Amazons are nothing compared with this flash of
a thunderbolt. ]
[Footnote 6: From _bayard_, old French; _bay-colour. _]
Footnote 7: His famous sword, vide p. 48. ]
[Footnote 8: To richness and rarity, how much is added by remoteness! It
adds distance to the other difficulties of procuring it. ]
[Footnote 9:
"Ecco apparir lo smisurato mostro
Mezo ascoso ne l'onda, e mezo sorto.
Come sospinto suol da Borca o d'Ostro
Venir lungo navilio a pigliar porto,"
Canto x. st. 100.
Improved from Ovid, _Metamorph_. lib. iv. 706
"Ecce velut navis præfixo concita rostro
Sulcat aquas, juvenum sudantibus acta lacertis;
Sic fera," &c.
As when a galley with sharp beak comes fierce,
Ploughing the waves with many a sweating oar.
Ovid is brisker and more obviously to the purpose; but Ariosto gives the
ponderousness and dreary triumph of the monster. The comparison of the
fly and the mastiff is in the same higher and more epic taste. The
classical reader need not be told that the whole ensuing passage, as far
as the combat is concerned, is imitated from Ovid's story of Perseus and
Andromeda. ]
[Footnote 10:
"Sul lito un bosco era di querce ombrose,
Dove ogn' or par che Filomena piagna;
Ch'in mezo avea un pratel con una fonte,
E quinci e quindi un solitario monte.
Quivi il bramoso cavalier ritenne
L'audace corso, e nel pratel discese. "
St. 113.
What a landscape! and what a charm beyond painting he has put into it
with his nightingales! and then what figures besides! A knight on a
winged steed descending with a naked beauty into a meadow in the thick of
woods, with "here and there a solitary mountain. " The mountains make no
formal circle; they keep their separate distances, with their various
intervals of light and shade. And what a heart of solitude is given to
the meadow by the loneliness of these its waiters aloof! ]
[Footnote 11: Nothing can be more perfectly wrought up than this sudden
change of circumstances. ]
[Footnote 12: To feel the complete force of this picture, a reader should
have been in the South, and beheld the like sudden apparitions, at open
windows, of ladies looking forth in dresses of beautiful colours, and
with faces the most interesting. I remember a vision of this sort at
Carrara, on a bright but not too hot day (I fancied that the marble
mountains there cooled it). It resembled one of Titian's women, with its
broad shoulders, and boddice and sleeves differently coloured from the
petticoat; and seemed literally framed in the unsashed window. But I am
digressing. ]
[Footnote 13: Ariosto elsewhere represents him as the handsomest man in
the world; saying of him, in a line that has become famous,
"Natura il fece, e poi roppe la stampa. "
Canto x. st. 84.
--Nature made him, and then broke the mould.
(The word is generally printed _ruppe_; but I use the primitive text
of Mr. Pannizi's edition. ) Boiardo's handsomest man, Astolfo, was an
Englishman; Ariosto's is a Scotchman. See, in the present volume, the
note on the character of Astolfo, p. 41. ]
[Footnote 14:
"Come orsa, che l'alpestre cacciatore
Ne la pietrosa tana assalita abbia,
Sta sopra i figli con incerto core,
E freme in suono di pieta e di rabbia:
Ira la 'nvita e natural furore
A spiegar l'ugne, e a insanguinar le labbia;
Amor la 'ntenerisce, e la ritira
A riguardare a i figli in mezo l'ira. "
Like as a bear, whom men in mountains start
In her old stony den, and dare, and goad,
Stands o'er her children with uncertain heart,
And roars for rage and sorrow in one mood;
Anger impels her, and her natural part,
To use her nails, and bathe her lips in blood;
Love melts her, and, for all her angry roar,
Holds back her eyes to look on those she bore.
This stanza in Ariosto has become famous as a beautiful transcript of a
beautiful passage in Statius, which, indeed, it surpasses in style, but
not in feeling, especially when we consider with whom the comparison
originates:
"Ut lea, quam saevo foetam pressere cubili
Venantes Numidae, natos erecta superstat
Mente sub incerta, torvum ac miserabile frendens
Illa quidem turbare globes, et frangere morsu
Tela queat; sed prolis amor crudelia vincit
Pectora, et in media catulos circumspicit ira. "
_Thebais_, x. 414. ]
[Footnote 15: This adventure of Cloridan and Medoro is imitated from the
Nisus and Euryalus of Virgil. An Italian critic, quoted by Panizzi, says,
that the way in which Cloridan exposes himself to the enemy is inferior
to the Latin poet's famous
"Me, me (adsum qui feci), in me convertite ferrum. "
Me, me ('tis I who did the deed), slay me.
And the reader will agree with Panizzi, that he is right. The
circumstance, also, of Euryalus's bequeathing his aged mother to the care
of his prince, in case he fails in his enterprise, is very touching;
and the main honour, both of the invention of the whole episode and its
particulars, remains with Virgil. On the other hand, the enterprise of
the friends in the Italian poet, which is that of burying their dead
master, and not merely of communicating with an absent general, is more
affecting, though it may be less patriotic; the inability of Zerbino to
kill him, when he looked on his face, is extremely so; and, as Panizzi
has shewn, the adventure is made of importance to the whole story of the
poem, and is not simply an episode, like that in the Æneid. It serves,
too, in a very particular manner to introduce Medoro worthily to the
affection of Angelica; for, mere female though she be, we should hardly
have gone along with her passion as we do, in a poem of any seriousness,
had it been founded merely on his beauty. ]
[Footnote 16: Canto xix. st. 34, &c. All the world have felt this to be
a true picture of first love. The inscription may be said to be that of
every other pair of lovers that ever existed, who knew how to write their
names. How musical, too, are the words "Angelica and Medoro! " Boiardo
invented the one; Ariosto found the match for it. One has no end to the
pleasure of repeating them. All hail to the moment when I first became
aware of their existence, more than fifty years ago, in the house of
the gentle artist Benjamin West! (Let the reader indulge me with this
recollection. ) I sighed with pleasure to look on them at that time; I
sigh now, with far more pleasure than pain, to look back on them, for
they never come across me but with delight; and poetry is a world in
which nothing beautiful ever thoroughly forsakes us. ]
[Footnote 17:
"Scritti, qual con carbone e qual con gesso. "
Canto xxiii. st. 106.
Ariosto did not mind soiling the beautiful fingers of Angelica with coal
and chalk. He knew that Love did not mind it.
* * * * *
ASTOLFO'S JOURNEY TO THE MOON.
Argument.
The Paladin Astolfo ascends on the hippogriff to the top of one of the
mountains at the source of the Nile, called the Mountains of the Moon,
where he discovers the Terrestrial Paradise, and is welcomed by St. John
the Evangelist. The Evangelist then conveys him to the Moon itself, where
he is shewn all the things that have been lost on earth, among which is
the Reason of Orlando, who had been deprived of it for loving a Pagan
beauty. Astolfo is favoured with a singular discourse by the Apostle, and
is then presented with a vial containing the Reason of his great brother
Paladin, which he conveys to earth.
ASTOLFO'S
JOURNEY TO THE MOON
When the hippogriff loosened itself from the tree to which Ruggiero had
tied it in the beautiful spot to which he descended with Angelica,[1] it
soared away, like the faithful creature it was, to the house of its own
master, Atlantes the magician. But not long did it remain there--no, nor
the house itself, nor the magician; for the Paladin Astolfo came with a
mighty horn given him by a greater magician, the sound of which overthrew
all such abodes, and put to flight whoever heard it; and so the house
of Atlantes vanished, and the enchanter fled; and the Paladin took
possession of the griffin-horse, and rode away with it on farther
adventures.
One of these was the deliverance of Senapus, king of Ethiopia, from the
visitation of the dreadful harpies of old, who came infesting his table
as they did those of Æneas and Phineus. Astolfo drove them with his horse
towards the sources of the river Nile, in the Mountains of the Moon, and
pursued them with the hippogriff till they entered a great cavern, which,
by the dreadful cries and lamentings that issued from the depths within
it, the Paladin discovered to be the entrance from earth to Hell.
The daring Englishman, whose curiosity was excited, resolved to penetrate
to the regions of darkness. "What have I to fear? " thought he; "the horn
will assist me, if I want it. I'll drive the triple-mouthed dog out of
the way, and put Pluto and Satan to flight. "[2]
Astolfo tied the hippogriff to a tree, and pushed forward in spite of a
smoke that grew thicker and thicker, offending his eyes and nostrils. It
became, however, so exceedingly heavy and noisome, that he found it would
be impossible to complete his enterprise. Still he pushed forward as far
as he could, especially as he began to discern in the darkness something
that appeared to stir with an involuntary motion. It looked like a dead
body which has hung up many days in the rain and sun, and is waved
unsteadily by the wind. It turned out to be a condemned spirit in this
first threshold of Hell, sentenced there, with thousands of others, for
having been cruel and false in love. Her name was Lydia, and she had been
princess of the country so called. [3] Anaxarete was among them, who, for
her hard-heartedness, became a stone; and Daphne, who now discovered how
she had erred in making Apollo "run so much;" and multitudes of other
women; but a far greater number of men--men being worthier of punishment
in offences of love, because women are proner to believe. Theseus and
Jason were among them; and Amnon, the abuser of Tamar; and he that
disturbed the old kingdom of Latinus. [4]
Astolfo would fain have gone deeper into the jaws of Hell, but the smoke
grew so thick and palpable, it was impossible to move a step farther.
Turning about, therefore, he regained the entrance; and having refreshed
himself in a fountain hard by, and re-mounted the hippogriff, felt an
inclination to ascend as high as he possibly could in the air. The
excessive loftiness of the mountain above the cavern made him think that
its top could be at no great distance from the region of the Moon; and
accordingly he pushed his horse upwards, and rose and rose, till at
length he found himself on its table-land. It exhibited a region of
celestial beauty. The flowers were like beds of precious stones for
colour and brightness; the grass, if you could have brought any to earth,
would have been found to surpass emeralds; and the trees, whose leaves
were no less beautiful, were in fruit and flower at once. Birds of as
many colours were singing in the branches; the murmuring rivulets and
dumb lakes were more limpid than crystal: a sweet air was for ever
stirring, which reduced the warmth to a gentle temperature; and every
breath of it brought an odour from flowers, fruit-trees, and herbage all
at once, which nourished the soul with sweetness. [5]
In the middle of this lonely plain was a palace radiant as fire. Astolfo
rode his horse round about it, constantly admiring all he saw, and filled
with increasing astonishment; for he found that the dwelling was thirty
miles in circuit, and composed of one entire carbuncle, lucid and
vermilion. What became of the boasted wonders of the world before this?
The world itself, in the comparison, appeared but a lump of brute and
fetid matter. [6]
As the Paladin approached the vestibule, he was met by a venerable old
man, clad in a white gown and red mantle, whose beard descended on his
bosom, and whose aspect announced him as one of the elect of Paradise.
