VIII

Him likewise they invoke, called the Rock

Whereon the Lord, they say, his Church did rear,

Whose true successors close or else unlock

The blessed gates of grace and mercy dear;

And all the elected twelve the chosen flock,

Of his triumphant death who witness bear;

And them by torment, slaughter, fire and sword

Who martyrs died to confirm his word;

IX

And them also whose books and writings tell

What certain path to heavenly bliss us leads;

And hermits good, and ancresses that dwell

Mewed up in walls, and mumble on their beads,

And virgin nuns in close and private cell,

Where, but shrift fathers, never mankind treads:

On these they called, and on all the rout

Of angels, martyrs, and of saints devout.

X

Singing and saying thus, the camp devout

Spread forth her zealous squadrons broad and wide’;

Toward mount Olivet went all this route,

So called of olive trees the hills which hide,

A mountain known by fame the world throughout,

Which riseth on the city’s eastern side,

From it divided by the valley green

Of Josaphat, that fills the space between.

XI

Hither the armies went, and chanted shrill,

That all the deep and hollow dales resound;

From hollow mounts and caves in every hill,

A thousand echoes also sung around,

It seemed some clever, that sung with art and skill,

Dwelt in those savage dens and shady ground,

For oft resounds from the banks they hear,

The name of Christ and of his mother dear.

XII

Upon the walls the Pagans old and young

Stood hushed and still, amated and amazed,

At their grave order and their humble song,

At their strange pomp and customs new they gazed:

But when the show they had beholden long,

An hideous yell the wicked miscreants raised,

That with vile blasphemies the mountain hoar,

The woods, the waters, and the valleys roar.

XIII

But yet with sacred notes the hosts proceed,

Though blasphemies they hear and cursed things;

So with Apollo’s harp Pan tunes his reed,

So adders hiss where Philomela sings;

Nor flying darts nor stones the Christians dreed,

Nor arrows shot, nor quarries cast from slings;

But with assured faith, as dreading naught,

The holy work begun to end they brought.

XIV

A table set they on the mountain’s height

To minister thereon the sacrament,

In golden candlesticks a hallowed light

At either end of virgin wax there brent;

In costly vestments sacred William dight,

With fear and trembling to the altar went,

And prayer there and service loud begins,

Both for his own and all the army’s sins.

XV

Humbly they heard his words that stood him nigh,

The rest far off upon him bent their eyes,

But when he ended had the service high,

“You servants of the Lord depart,” he cries:

His hands he lifted then up to the sky,

And blessed all those warlike companies;

And they dismissed returned the way they came,

Their order as before, their pomp the same.

XVI

Within their camp arrived, this voyage ended,

Toward his tent the duke himself withdrew,

Upon their guide by heaps the bands attended,

Till his pavilion’s stately door they view,

There to the Lord his welfare they commended,

And with him left the worthies of the crew,

Whom at a costly and rich feast he placed,

And with the highest room old Raymond graced.

XVII

Now when the hungry knights sufficed are

With meat, with drink, with spices of the best,

Quoth he, “When next you see the morning star,

To assault the town be ready all and prest:

To-morrow is a day of pains and war,

This of repose, of quiet, peace, and rest;

Go, take your ease this evening, and this night,

And make you strong against to-morrow’s fight.”

XVIII

They took their leave, and Godfrey’s heralds rode

To intimate his will on every side,

And published it through all the lodgings broad,

That gainst the morn each should himself provide;

Meanwhile they might their hearts of cares unload,

And rest their tired limbs that eveningtide;

Thus fared they till night their eyes did close,

Night friend to gentle rest and sweet repose.

XIX

With little sign as yet of springing day

Out peeped, not well appeared the rising morn,

The plough yet tore not up the fertile lay,

Nor to their feed the sheep from folds return,

The birds sate silent on the greenwood spray

Amid the groves unheard was hound and horn,

When trumpets shrill, true signs of hardy fights,

Called up to arms the soldiers, called the knights:

XX

“Arm, arm at once!” an hundred squadrons cried,

And with their cry to arm them all begin.

Godfrey arose, that day he laid aside

His hauberk strong he wonts to combat in,

And donned a breastplate fair, of proof untried,

Such one as footmen use, light, easy, thin.

Scantly the warlord thus clothed had his gromes,

When aged Raymond to his presence comes.

XXI

And furnished to us when he the man beheld,

By his attire his secret thought he guessed,

“Where is,” quoth he, “your sure and trusty shield?

Your helm, your hauberk strong? where all the rest?

Why be you half disarmed? why to the field

Approach you in these weak defences dressed?

I see this day you mean a course to run,

Wherein may peril much, small praise be won.

XXII

“Alas, do you that idle prise expect,

To set first foot this conquered wall above?

Of less account some knight thereto object

Whose loss so great and harmful cannot prove;

My lord, your life with greater care protect,

And love yourself because all us you love,

Your happy life is spirit, soul, and breath

Of all this camp, preserve it then from death.”

XXIII

To this he answered thus, “You know,” he said,

“In Clarimont by mighty Urban’s hand

When I was girded with this noble blade,

For Christ’s true faith to fight in every land,

To God even then a secret vow I made,

Not as a captain here this day to stand

And give directions, but with shield and sword

To fight, to win, or die for Christ my Lord.

XXIV

“When all this camp in battle strong shall be

Ordained and ordered, well disposed all,

And all things done which to the high degree

And sacred place I hold belongen shall;

Then reason is it, nor dissuade thou me,

That I likewise assault this sacred wall,

Lest from my vow to God late made I swerve:

He shall this life defend, keep and preserve.”

XXV

Thus he concludes, and every hardy knight

His sample followed, and his brethren twain,

The other princes put on harness light,

As footmen use: but all the Pagan train

Toward that side bent their defensive might

Which lies exposed to view of Charles’s wain

And Zephyrus’ sweet blasts, for on that part

The town was weakest, both by side and art.

XXVI

On all parts else the fort was strong by site,

With mighty hills defenced from foreign rage,

And to this part the tyrant gan unite

His subjects born and bands that serve for wage,

From this exploit he spared nor great nor lite,

The aged men, and boys of tender age,

To fire of angry war still brought new fuel,

Stones, darts, lime, brimstone and bitumen cruel.

XXVII

All full of arms and weapons was the wall,

Under whose basis that fair plain doth run,

There stood the Soldan like a giant tall,

So stood at Rhodes the Coloss of the sun,

Waist high, Argantes showed himself withal,

At whose stern looks the French to quake begun,

Clorinda on the corner tower alone,

In silver arms like rising Cynthia shone.

XXVIII

Her rattling quiver at her shoulders hung,

Therein a flash of arrows feathered weel.

In her left hand her bow was bended strong,

Therein a shaft headed with mortal steel,

So fit to shoot she singled forth among

Her foes who first her quarries’ strength should feel,

So fit to shoot Latona’s daughter stood

When Niobe she killed and all her brood.

XXIX

The aged tyrant tottered on his feet

From gate to gate, from wall to wall he flew,

He comforts all his bands with speeches sweet,

And every fort and bastion doth review,

For every need prepared in every street

New regiments he placed and weapons new.

The matrons grave within their temples high

To idols false for succors call and cry,

XXX

“O Macon, break in twain the steeled lance

On wicked Godfrey with thy righteous hands,

Against thy name he doth his arm advance,

His rebel blood pour out upon these sands;”

These cries within his ears no enterance

Could find, for naught he hears, naught understands.

While thus the town for her defence ordains,

His armies Godfrey ordereth on the plains;

XXXI

His forces first on foot he forward brought,

With goodly order, providence and art,

And gainst these towers which to assail he thought,

In battles twain his strength he doth depart,

Between them crossbows stood, and engines wrought

To cast a stone, a quarry, or a dart,

From whence like thunder’s dint or lightnings new

Against the bulwark stones and lances flew.

XXXII

His men at arms did back his bands on foot,

The light horse ride far off and serve for wings,

He gave the sign, so mighty was the rout

Of those that shot with bows and cast with slings,

Such storms of shafts and stones flew all about,

That many a Pagan proud to death it brings,

Some died, some at their loops durst scant outpeep,

Some fled and left the place they took to keep.

XXXIII

The hardy Frenchmen, full of heat and haste,

Ran boldly forward to the ditches large,

And o’er their heads an iron pentice vast

They built, by joining many a shield and targe,

Some with their engines ceaseless shot and cast,

And volleys huge of arrows sharp discharge,

Upon the ditches some employed their pain

To fill the moat and even it with the plain.

XXXIV

With slime or mud the ditches were not soft,

But dry and sandy, void of waters clear,

Though large and deep the Christians fill them oft,

With rubbish, fagots, stones, and trees they bear:

Adrastus first advanced his crest aloft,

And boldly gan a strong scalado rear,

And through the falling storm did upward climb

Of stones, darts, arrows, fire, pitch and lime:

XXXV

The hardy Switzer now so far was gone

That half way up with mickle pain he got,

A thousand weapons he sustained alone,

And his audacious climbing ceased not;

At last upon him fell a mighty stone,

As from some engine great it had been shot,

It broke his helm, he tumbled from the height,

The strong Circassian cast that wondrous weight;

XXXVI

Not mortal was the blow, yet with the fall

On earth sore bruised the man lay in a swoon.

Argantes gan with boasting words to call,

“Who cometh next? this first is tumbled down,

Come, hardy soldiers, come, assault this wall,

I will not shrink, nor fly, nor hide my crown,

If in your trench yourselves for dread you hold,

There shall you die like sheep killed in their fold.”

XXXVII

Thus boasted he; but in their trenches deep,

The hidden squadrons kept themselves from scath,

The curtain made of shields did well off keep

Both darts and shot, and scorned all their wrath.

But now the ram upon the rampiers steep,

On mighty beams his head advanced hath,

With dreadful horns of iron tough tree great,

The walls and bulwarks trembled at his threat.

XXXVIII

An hundred able men meanwhile let fall

The weights behind, the engine tumbled down

And battered flat the battlements and wall:

So fell Taigetus hill on Sparta town,

It crushed the steeled shield in pieces small,

And beat the helmet to the wearers’ crown,

And on the ruins of the walls and stones,

Dispersed left their blood their brains and bones.

XXXIX

The fierce assailants kept no longer close

Undcr the shelter of their target fine,

But their bold fronts to chance of war expose,

And gainst those towers let their virtue shine,

The scaling ladders up to skies arose,

The ground-works deep some closely undermine,

The walls before the Frenchmen shrink and shake,

And gaping sign of headlong falling make:

XL

And fallen they had, so far the strength extends

Of that fierce ram and his redoubted stroke,

But that the Pagan’s care the place defends

And saved by warlike skill the wall nigh broke:

For to what part soe’er the engine bends,

Their sacks of wool they place the blow to choke,

Whose yielding breaks the strokes thereon which light,

So weakness oft subdues the greatest might.

XLI

While thus the worthies of the western crew

Maintained their brave assault and skirmish hot,

Her mighty bow Clorinda often drew,

And many a sharp and deadly arrow shot;

And from her bow no steeled shaft there flew

But that some blood the cursed engine got,

Blood of some valiant knight or man of fame,

For that proud shootress scorned weaker game.

XLII

The first she hit among the Christian peers

Was the bold son of England’s noble king,

Above the trench himself he scantly rears,

But she an arrow loosed from the string,

The wicked steel his gauntlet breaks and tears,

And through his right hand thrust the piercing sting;

Disabled thus from fight, he gan retire,

Groaning for pain, but fretting more for ire.

XLIII

Lord Stephen of Amboise on the ditch’s brim,

And on a ladder high, Clotharius died,

From back to breast an arrow pierced him,

The other was shot through from side to side:

Then as he managed brave his courser trim,

On his left arm he hit the Flemings’ guide,

He stopped, and from the wound the reed out-twined,

But left the iron in his flesh behind.

XLIV

As Ademare stood to behold the fight

High on the bank, withdrawn to breathe a space,

A fatal shaft upon his forehead light,

His hand he lifted up to feel the place,

Whereon a second arrow chanced right,

And nailed his hand unto his wounded face,

He fell, and with his blood distained the land,

His holy blood shed by a virgin’s hand.

XLV

While Palamede stood near the battlement,

Despising perils all, and all mishap,

And upward still his hardy footings bent,

On his right eye he caught a deadly clap,

Through his right eye Clorinda’s seventh shaft went,

And in his neck broke forth a bloody gap;

He underneath that bulwark dying fell,

Which late to scale and win he trusted well.

XLVI

Thus shot the maid: the duke with hard assay

And sharp assault, meanwhile the town oppressed,

Against that part which to his campward lay

An engine huge and wondrous he addressed,

A tower of wood built for the town’s decay

As high as were the walls and bulwarks best,

A turret full of men and weapons pent,

And yet on wheels it rolled, moved, and went.

XLVII

This rolling fort his nigh approaches made,

And darts and arrows spit against his foes,

As ships are wont in fight, so it assayed

With the strong wall to grapple and to close,

The Pagans on each side the piece invade,

And all their force against this mass oppose,

Sometimes the wheels, sometimes the battlement

With timber, logs and stones, they broke and rent,

XLVIII

So thick flew stones and darts, that no man sees

The azure heavens, the sun his brightness lost,

The clouds of weapons, like to swarms of bees,

Move the air, and there each other crossed:

And look how falling leaves drop down from trees,

When the moist sap is nipped with timely frost,

Or apples in strong winds from branches fall;

The Saracens so tumbled from the wall.

XLIX

For on their part the greatest slaughter light,

They had no shelter gainst so sharp a shower,

Some left on live betook themselves to flight,

So feared they this deadly thundering tower:

But Solyman stayed like a valiant knight,

And some with him, that trusted in his power,

Argantes with a long beech tree in hand,

Ran thither, this huge engine to withstand:

L

With this he pushed the tower, and back it drives

The length of all his tree, a wondrous way,

The hardy virgin by his side arrives,

To help Argantes in this hard assay:

The band that used the ram, this season strives

To cut the cords, wherein the woolpacks lay,

Which done, the sacks down in the trenches fall,

And to the battery naked left the wall.

LI

The tower above, the ram beneath doth thunder,

What lime and stone such puissance could abide?

The wall began, new bruised and crushed asunder,

Her wounded lap to open broad and wide,

Godfrey himself and his brought safely under

The shattered wall, where greatest breach he spied,

Himself he saves behind his mighty targe,

A shield not used but in some desperate charge.

LII

From hence he sees where Solyman descends,

Down to the threshold of the gaping breach,

And there it seems the mighty prince intends

Godfredo’s hoped entrance to impeach:

Argantes, and with him the maid, defends

The walls above, to which the tower doth reach,

His noble heart, when Godfrey this beheld,

With courage new with wrath and valor swelled.

LIII

He turned about and to good Sigiere spake,

Who bare his greatest shield and mighty bow,

“That sure and trusty target let me take,

Impenetrable is that shield I know,

Over these ruins will I passage make,

And enter first, the way is eath and low,

And time requires that by some noble feat

I should make known my strength and puissance great.”

LIV

He scant had spoken, scant received the charge,

When on his leg a sudden shaft him hit,

And through that part a hole made wide and large,

Where his strong sinews fastened were and knit.

Clorinda, thou this arrow didst discharge,

And let the Pagans bless thy hand for it,

For by that shot thou savedst them that day

From bondage vile, from death and sure decay.

LV

The wounded duke, as though he felt no pain,

Still forward went, and mounted up the breach

His high attempt at first he nould refrain,

And after called his lords with cheerful speech;

But when his leg could not his weight sustain,

He saw his will did far his power outreach,

And more he strove his grief increased the more,

The bold assault he left at length therefore:

LVI

And with his hand he beckoned Guelpho near,

And said, “I must withdraw me to my tent,

My place and person in mine absence bear,

Supply my want, let not the fight relent,

I go, and will ere long again be here;

I go and straight return:” this said, he went,

On a light steed he leaped, and o’er the green

He rode, but rode not, as he thought, unseen.

LVII

When Godfrey parted, parted eke the heart,

The strength and fortune of the Christian bands,

Courage increased in their adverse part,

Wrath in their hearts, and vigor in their hands:

Valor, success, strength, hardiness and art,

Failed in the princes of the western lands,

Their swords were blunt, faint was their trumpet’s blast,

Their sun was set, or else with clouds o’ercast.

LVIII

Upon the bulwarks now appeared bold

That fearful band that late for dread was fled!

The women that Clorinda’s strength behold,

Their country’s love to war encouraged,

They weapons got, and fight like men they would,

Their gowns tucked up, their locks were loose and spread,

Sharp darts they cast, and without dread or fear,

Exposed their breasts to save their fortress dear.

LIX

But that which most dismayed the Christian knights,

And added courage to the Pagans most,

Was Guelpho’s sudden fall in all men’s sights,

Who tumbled headlong down, his footing lost,

A mighty stone upon the worthy lights,

But whence it came none wist, nor from what coast;

And with like blow, which more their hearts dismayed,

Beside him low in dust old Raymond laid:

LX

And Eustace eke within the ditches large,

To narrow shifts and last extremes they drive,

Upon their foes so fierce the Pagans charge,

And with good-fortune so their blows they give,

That whom they hit, in spite of helm or targe,

They deeply wound, or else of life deprive.

At this their good success Argantes proud,

Waxing more fell, thus roared and cried aloud:

LXI

“This is not Antioch, nor the evening dark

Can help your privy sleights with friendly shade,

The sun yet shines, your falsehood can we mark,

In other wise this bold assault is made;

Of praise and glory quenched is the spark

That made you first these eastern lands invade,

Why cease you now? why take you not this fort?

What! are you weary for a charge so short?”

LXII

Thus raged he, and in such hellish sort

Increased the fury in the brain-sick knight,

That he esteemed that large and ample fort

Too strait a field, wherein to prove his might,

There where the breach had framed a new-made port,

Himself he placed, with nimble skips and light,

He cleared the passage out, and thus he cried

To Solyman, that fought close by his side:

LXIII

“Come, Solyman, the time and place behold,

That of our valors well may judge the doubt,

What sayest thou? amongst these Christians bold,

First leap he forth that holds himself most stout:”

While thus his will the mighty champion told,

Both Solyman and he at once leaped out,

Fury the first provoked, disdain the last,

Who scorned the challenge ere his lips it passed.

LXIV

Upon their foes unlooked-for they flew,

Each spited other for his virtue’s sake,

So many soldiers this fierce couple slew,

So many shields they cleft and helms they break,

So many ladders to the earth they threw,

That well they seemed a mount thereof to make,

Or else some vamure fit to save the town,

Instead of that the Christians late beat down.

LXV

The folk that strove with rage and haste before

Who first the wall and rampire should ascend,

Retire, and for that honor strive no more,

Scantly they could their limbs and lives defend,

They fled, their engines lost the Pagans tore

In pieces small, their rams to naught they rend,

And all unfit for further service make

With so great force and rage their beams they brake.

LXVI

The Pagans ran transported with their ire,

Now here, now there, and woful slaughters wrought,

At last they called for devouring fire,

Two burning pines against the tower they brought,

So from the palace of their hellish sire,

When all this world they would consume to naught,

The fury sisters come with fire in hands,

Shaking their snaky locks and sparkling brands:

LXVII

But noble Tancred, who this while applied

Grave exhortations to his bold Latines,

When of these knights the wondrous acts he spied,

And saw the champions with their burning pines,

He left his talk, and thither forthwith hied,

To stop the rage of those fell Saracines.

And with such force the fight he there renewed,

That now they fled and lost who late pursued.

LXVIII

Thus changed the state and fortune of the fray,

Meanwhile the wounded duke, in grief and teen,

Within his great pavilion rich and gay,

Good Sigiere and Baldwin stood between;

His other friends whom his mishap dismay,

With grief and tears about assembled been:

He strove in haste the weapon out to wind,

And broke the reed, but left the head behind.

LXIX

He bade them take the speediest way they might,

Of that unlucky hurt to make him sound,

And to lay ope the depth thereof to sight,

He willed them open, search and lance the wound,

“Send me again,” quoth he, “to end this fight,

Before the sun be sunken under ground;”

And leaning on a broken spear, he thrust

His leg straight out, to him that cure it must.

LXX

Erotimus, born on the banks of Po,

Was he that undertook to cure the knight,

All what green herbs or waters pure could do,

He knew their power, their virtue, and their might,

A noble poet was the man also,

But in this science had a more delight,

He could restore to health death-wounded men,

And make their names immortal with his pen.

LXXI

The mighty duke yet never changed cheer,

But grieved to see his friends lamenting stand;

The leech prepared his cloths and cleansing gear,

And with a belt his gown about him band,

Now with his herbs the steely head to tear

Out of the flesh he proved, now with his hand,

Now with his hand, now with his instrument

He shaked and plucked it, yet not forth it went.

LXXII

His labor vain, his art prevailed naught,

His luck was ill, although his skill were good,

To such extremes the wounded prince he brought,

That with fell pain he swooned as he stood:

But the angel pure, that kept him, went and sought

Divine dictamnum, out of Ida wood,

This herb is rough, and bears a purple flower,

And in his budding leaves lies all his power.

LXXIII

Kind nature first upon the craggy clift

Bewrayed this herb unto the mountain goat,

That when her sides a cruel shaft hath rift,

With it she shakes the reed out of her coat;

This in a moment fetched the angel swift,

And brought from Ida hill, though far remote,

The juice whereof in a prepared bath

Unseen the blessed spirit poured hath.

LXXIV

Pure nectar from that spring of Lydia than,

And panaces divine therein he threw,

The cunning leech to bathe the wound began,

And of itself the steely head outflew;

The bleeding stanched, no vermile drop outran,

The leg again waxed strong with vigor new:

Erotimus cried out, “This hurt and wound

No human art or hand so soon makes sound:

LXXV

“Some angel good I think come down from skies

Thy surgeon is, for here plain tokens are

Of grace divine which to thy help applies,

Thy weapon take and haste again to war.”

In precious cloths his leg the chieftain ties,

Naught could the man from blood and fight debar;

A sturdy lance in his right hand he braced,

His shield he took, and on his helmet laced:

LXXVI

And with a thousand knights and barons bold,

Toward the town he hasted from his camp,

In clouds of dust was Titan’s face enrolled,

Trembled the earth whereon the worthies stamp,

His foes far off his dreadful looks behold,

Which in their hearts of courage quenched the lamp,

A chilling fear ran cold through every vein,

Lord Godfrey shouted thrice and all his train:

LXXVII

Their sovereign’s voice his hardy people knew,

And his loud cries that cheered each fearful heart;

Thereat new strength they took and courage new,

And to the fierce assault again they start.

The Pagans twain this while themselves withdrew

Within the breach to save that battered part,

And with great loss a skirmish hot they hold

Against Tancredi and his squadron bold.

LXXVIII

Thither came Godfrey armed round about

In trusty plate, with fierce and dreadful look;

At first approach against Argantes stout

Headed with poignant steel a lance he shook,

No casting engine with such force throws out

A knotty spear, and as the way it took,

It whistled in the air, the fearless knight

Opposed his shield against that weapon’s might.

LXXIX

The dreadful blow quite through his target drove,

And bored through his breastplate strong and thick,

The tender skin it in his bosom rove,

The purple-blood out-streamed from the quick;

To wrest it out the wounded Pagan strove

And little leisure gave it there to stick;

At Godfrey’s head the lance again he cast,

And said, “Lo, there again thy dart thou hast.”

LXXX

The spear flew back the way it lately came,

And would revenge the harm itself had done,

But missed the mark whereat the man did aim,

He stepped aside the furious blow to shun:

But Sigiere in his throat received the same,

The murdering weapon at his neck out-run,

Nor aught it grieved the man to lose his breath,

Since in his prince’s stead he suffered death.

LXXXI

Even then the Soldan struck with monstrous main

The noble leader of the Norman band,

He reeled awhile and staggered with the pain,

And wheeling round fell grovelling on the sand:

Godfrey no longer could the grief sustain

Of these displeasures, but with flaming brand,

Up to the breach in heat and haste he goes,

And hand to hand there combats with his foes;

LXXXII

And there great wonders surely wrought he had,

Mortal the fight, and fierce had been the fray,

But that dark night, from her pavilion sad,

Her cloudy wings did on the earth display,

Her quiet shades she interposed glad

To cause the knights their arms aside to lay;

Godfrey withdrew, and to their tents they wend,

And thus this bloody day was brought to end.

LXXXIII

The weak and wounded ere he left the field,

The godly duke to safety thence conveyed,

Nor to his foes his engines would he yield,

In them his hope to win the fortress laid;

Then to the tower he went, and it beheeld,

The tower that late the Pagan lords dismayed

But now stood bruised, broken, cracked and shivered,

From some sharp storm as it were late delivered.

LXXXIV

From dangers great escaped, but late it was,

And now to safety brought well-nigh it seems,

But as a ship that under sail doth pass

The roaring billows and the raging streams,

And drawing nigh the wished port, alas,

Breaks on some hidden rocks her ribs and beams;

Or as a steed rough ways that well hath passed,

Before his inn stumbleth and falls at last:

LXXXV

Such hap befell that tower, for on that side

Gainst which the Pagans’ force and battery bend,

Two wheels were broke whereon the piece should ride,

The maimed engine could no further wend,

The troop that guarded it that part provide

To underprop with posts, and it defend

Till carpenters and cunning workmen came

Whose skill should help and rear again the same.

LXXXVI

Thus Godfrey bids, and that ere springing-day,

The cracks and bruises all amend they should,

Each open passage, and each privy way

About the piece, he kept with soldiers bold:

But the loud rumor, both of that they say,

And that they do, is heard within the hold,

A thousand lights about the tower they view,

And what they wrought all night both saw and knew.

TWELFTH BOOK

THE ARGUMENT.

Clorinda hears her eunuch old report

Her birth, her offspring, and her native land;

Disguised she fireth Godfrey’s rolling fort.

The burned piece falls smoking on the sand:

With Tancred long unknown in desperate sort

She fights, and falls through pierced with his brand:

Christened she dies; with sighs, with plaints and tears.

He wails her death; Argant revengement swears.

I

Now in dark night was all the world embarred;

But yet the tired armies took no rest,

The careful French kept heedful watch and ward,

While their high tower the workmen newly dressed,

The Pagan crew to reinforce prepared

The weakened bulwarks, late to earth down kest,

Their rampiers broke and bruised walls to mend,

Lastly their hurts the wounded knights attend.

II

Their wounds were dressed, part of the work was brought

To wished end, part left to other days,

A dull desire to rest deep midnight wrought,

His heavy rod sleep on their eyelids lays:

Yet rested not Clorinda’s working thought,

Which thirsted still for fame and warlike praise,

Argantes eke accompanied the maid

From place to place, which to herself thus said:

III

“This day Argantes strong, and Solyman,

Strange things have done, and purchased great renown,

Among our foes out of the walls they ran,

Their rams they broke and rent their engines down:

I used my bow, of naught else boast I can,

My self stood safe meanwhile within this town,

And happy was my shot, and prosperous too,

But that was all a woman’s hand could do.

IV

“On birds and beasts in forests wild that feed

It were more fit mine arrows to bestow,

Than for a feeble maid in warlike deed

With strong and hardy knights herself to show.

Why take I not again my virgin’s weed,

And spend my days in secret cell unknow?”

Thus thought, thus mused, thus devised the maid,

And turning to the knight, at last thus said:

V

“My thoughts are full, my lord, of strange desire

Some high attempt of war to undertake,

Whether high God my mind therewith inspire

Or of his will his God mankind doth make,

Among our foes behold the light and fire,

I will among them wend, and burn or break

The tower, God grant therein I have my will

And that performed, betide me good or ill.

VI

“But if it fortune such my chance should be,

That to this town I never turn again,

Mine eunuch, whom I dearly love, with thee

I leave my faithful maids, and all my train,

To Egypt then conducted safely see

Those woful damsels and that aged swain,

Help them, my lord, in that distressed case,

Their feeble sex, his age, deserveth grace.”

VII

Argantes wondering stood, and felt the effect

Of true renown pierce through his glorious mind,

“And wilt thou go,” quoth he, “and me neglect,

Disgraced, despised, leave in this fort behind?

Shall I while these strong walls my life protect

Behold thy flames and fires tossed in the wind,

No, no, thy fellow have I been in arms,

And will be still, in praise, in death, in harms.

VIII

“This heart of mine death’s bitter stroke despiseth,

For praise this life, for glory take this breath.”

“My soul and more,” quoth she, “thy friendship prizeth,

For this thy proffered aid required uneath,

I but a woman am, no loss ariseth

To this besieged city by my death,

But if, as God forbid, this night thou fall,

Ah! who shall then, who can, defend this wall!”

IX

“Too late these ’scuses vain,” the knight replied,

“You bring; my will is firm, my mind is set,

I follow you whereso you list me guide,

Or go before if you my purpose let.”

This said, they hasted to the palace wide

About their prince where all his lords were met,

Clorinda spoke for both, and said, “Sir king,

Attend my words, hear, and allow the thing:

X

“Argantes here, this bold and hardy knight,

Will undertake to burn the wondrous tower,

And I with him, only we stay till night

Bury in sleep our foes at deadest hour.”

The king with that cast up his hands on height,

The tears for joy upon his cheeks down pour.

“Praised,” quoth he, “be Macon whom we serve,

This land I see he keeps and will preserve:

XI

“Nor shall so soon this shaken kingdom fall,

While such unconquered hearts my state defend:

But for this act what praise or guerdon shall

I give your virtues, which so far extend?

Let fame your praises sound through nations all,

And fill the world therewith to either end,

Take half my wealth and kingdom for your meed?

You are rewarded half even with the deed.”

XII

Thus spake the prince, and gently ’gan distrain,

Now him, now her, between his friendly arms:

The Soldan by, no longer could refrain

That noble envy which his bosom warms,

“Nor I,” quoth he, “bear this broad sword in vain,

Nor yet am unexpert in night alarms,

Take me with you: ah.” Quoth Clorinda, “no!

Whom leave we here of prowess if you go?”

XIII

This spoken, ready with a proud refuse

Argantes was his proffered aid to scorn,

Whom Aladine prevents, and with excuse

To Solyman thus gan his speeches torn:

“Right noble prince, as aye hath been your use

Your self so still you bear and long have borne,

Bold in all acts, no danger can affright

Your heart, nor tired is your strength with fight.

XIV

“If you went forth great things perform you would,

In my conceit yet far unfit it seems

That you, who most excel in courage bold,

At once should leave this town in these extremes,

Nor would I that these twain should leave this hold,

My heart their noble lives far worthier deems,

If this attempt of less importance were,

Or weaker posts so great a weight could bear.

XV

“But for well-guarded is the mighty tower

With hardy troops and squadrons round about,

And cannot harmed be with little power,

Nor fit the time to send whole armies out,

This pair who passed have many a dreadful stowre,

And proffer now to prove this venture stout,

Alone to this attempt let them go forth,

Alone than thousands of more price and worth.

XVI

“Thou, as it best beseems a mighty king,

With ready bands besides the gate attend,

That when this couple have performed the thing,

And shall again their footsteps homeward bend,

From their strong foes upon them following

Thou may’st them keep, preserve, save and defend:”

Thus said the king, “The Soldan must consent,”

Silent remained the Turk, and discontent.

XVII

Then Ismen said, “You twain that undertake

This hard attempt, awhile I pray you stay,

Till I a wildfire of fine temper make,

That this great engine burn to ashes may;

Haply the guard that now doth watch and wake,

Will then lie tumbled sleeping on the lay;”

Thus they conclude, and in their chambers sit,

To wait the time for this adventure fit.

XVIII

Clorinda there her silver arms off rent,

Her helm, her shield, her hauberk shining bright,

An armor black as jet or coal she hent,

Wherein withouten plume herself she dight;

For thus disguised amid her foes she meant

To pass unseen, by help of friendly night,

To whom her eunuch, old Arsetes, came,

That from her cradle nursed and kept the dame.

XIX

This aged sire had followed far and near,

Through lands and seas, the strong and hardy maid,

He saw her leave her arms and wonted gear,

Her danger nigh that sudden change foresaid:

By his white locks from black that changed were

In following her, the woful man her prayed,

By all his service and his taken pain,

To leave that fond attempt, but prayed in vain.

XX

“At last,” quoth he, “since hardened to thine ill,

Thy cruel heart is to thy loss prepared,

That my weak age, nor tears that down distil,

Not humble suit, nor plaint, thou list regard;

Attend awhile, strange things unfold I will,

Hear both thy birth and high estate declared;

Follow my counsel, or thy will that done,”

She sat to hear, the eunuch thus begun:

XXI

“Senapus ruled, and yet perchance doth reign

In mighty Ethiop, and her deserts waste,

The lore of Christ both he and all his train

Of people black, hath kept and long embraced,

To him a Pagan was I sold for gain,

And with his queen, as her chief eunuch, placed;

Black was this queen as jet, yet on her eyes

Sweet loveliness, in black attired, lies.

XXII

“The fire of love and frost of jealousy,

Her husband’s troubled soul alike torment,

The tide of fond suspicion flowed high,

The foe to love and plague to sweet content,

He mewed her up from sight of mortal eye,

Nor day he would his beams on her had bent:

She, wise and lowly, by her husband’s pleasure,

Her joy, her peace, her will, her wish did measure.

XXIII

“Her prison was a chamber, painted round

With goodly portraits and with stories old,

As white as snow there stood a virgin bound,

Besides a dragon fierce, a champion bold

The monster did with poignant spear through wound,

The gored beast lay dead upon the mould;

The gentle queen before this image laid.

She plained, she mourned, she wept, she sighed, she prayed:

XXIV

“At last with child she proved, and forth she brought,

And thou art she, a daughter fair and bright,

In her thy color white new terror wrought,

She wondered on thy face with strange affright,

But yet she purposed in her fearful thought

To hide thee from the king, thy father’s sight,

Lest thy bright hue should his suspect approve,

For seld a crow begets a silver dove.

XXV

“And to her spouse to show she was disposed

A negro’s babe late born, in room of thee,

And for the tower wherein she lay enclosed,

Was with her damsels only wond and me,

To me, on whose true faith she most reposed,

She gave thee, ere thou couldest christened be,

Nor could I since find means thee to baptize,

In Pagan lands thou knowest it’s not the guise.

XXVI

“To me she gave thee, and she wept withal,

To foster thee in some far distant place.

Who can her griefs and plaints to reckoning call,

How oft she swooned at the last embrace:

Her streaming tears amid her kisses fall,

Her sighs, her dire complaints did interlace?

And looking up at last, ‘O God,’ quoth she,

‘Who dost my heart and inward mourning see,

XXVII

“‘If mind and body spotless to this day,

If I have kept my bed still undefiled,

Not for myself a sinful wretch I pray,

That in thy presence am an abject vilde,

Preserve this babe, whose mother must denay

To nourish it, preserve this harmless child,

Oh let it live, and chaste like me it make,

But for good fortune elsewhere sample take.

XXVIII

“‘Thou heavenly soldier which delivered hast

That sacred virgin from the serpent old,

If on thine altars I have offerings placed,

And sacrificed myrrh, frankincense and gold,

On this poor child thy heavenly looks down cast,

With gracious eye this silly babe behold;’

This said, her strength and living sprite was fled,

She sighed, she groaned, she swooned in her bed.

XXIX

“Weeping I took thee, in a little chest,

Covered with herbs and leaves, I brought thee out

So secretly, that none of all the rest

Of such an act suspicion had or doubt,

To wilderness my steps I first addressed,

Where horrid shades enclosed me round about,

A tigress there I met, in whose fierce eyes

Fury and wrath, rage, death and terror lies:

XXX

“Up to a tree I leaped, and on the grass,

Such was my sudden fear, I left thee lying,

To thee the beast with furious course did pass,

With curious looks upon thy visage prying,

All suddenly both meek and mild she was,

With friendly cheer thy tender body eying:

At last she licked thee, and with gesture mild

About thee played, and thou upon her smiled.

XXXI

“Her fearful muzzle full of dreadful threat,

In thy weak hand thou took’st withouten dread;

The gentle beast with milk-outstretched teat,

As nurses’ custom, proffered thee to feed.

As one that wondereth on some marvel great,

I stood this while amazed at the deed.

When thee she saw well filled and satisfied,

Unto the woods again the tigress hied.

XXXII

“She gone, down from the tree I came in haste,

And took thee up, and on my journey wend,

Within a little thorp I stayed at last,

And to a nurse the charge of thee commend,

And sporting with thee there long time I passed,

Till term of sixteen months were brought to end,

And thou begun, as little children do,

With half clipped words to prattle, and to go.

XXXIII

“But having passed the August of mine age,

When more than half my tap of life was run,

Rich by rewards given by your mother sage,

For merits past, and service yet undone,

I longed to leave this wandering pilgrimage,

And in my native soil again to won,

To get some seely home I had desire,

Loth still to warm me at another’s fire.

XXXIV

“To Egypt-ward, where I was born, I went,

And bore thee with me, by a rolling flood,

Till I with savage thieves well-nigh was hent;

Before the brook, the thieves behind me stood:

Thee to forsake I never could consent,

And gladly would I ’scape those outlaws wood,

Into the flood I leaped far from the brim,

My left hand bore thee, with the right I swim.

XXXV

“Swift was the current, in the middle stream

A whirlpool gaped with devouring jaws,

The gulf, on such mishap ere I could dream,

Into his deep abyss my carcass draws,

There I forsook thee, the wild waters seem

To pity thee, a gentle wind there blows

Whose friendly puffs safe to the shore thee drive,

Where wet and weary I at last arrive:

XXXVI

“I took thee up, and in my dream that night,

When buried was the world in sleep and shade,

I saw a champion clad in armor bright

That o’er my head shaked a flaming blade,

He said, ‘I charge thee execute aright,

That charge this infant’s mother on thee laid,

Baptize the child, high Heaven esteems her dear,

And I her keeper will attend her near:

XXXVII

“‘I will her keep, defend, save and protect,

I made the waters mild, the tigress tame,

O wretch that heavenly warnings dost reject!’

The warrior vanished having said the same.

I rose and journeyed on my way direct

When blushing morn from Tithon’s bed forth came,

But for my faith is true and sure I ween,

And dreams are false, you still unchristened been.

XXXVIII

“A Pagan therefore thee I fostered have,

Nor of thy birth the truth did ever tell,

Since you increased are in courage brave,

Your sex and nature’s-self you both excel,

Full many a realm have you made bond and slave,

Your fortunes last yourself remember well,

And how in peace and war, in joy and teen,

I have your servant, and your tutor been.

XXXIX

“Last morn, from skies ere stars exiled were,

In deep and deathlike sleep my senses drowned,

The self-same vision did again appear,

With stormy wrathful looks, and thundering sound,

‘Villain,’ quoth he, ‘within short while thy dear

Must change her life, and leave this sinful ground,

Thine be the loss, the torment, and the care,’

This said, he fled through skies, through clouds and air.

XL

“Hear then my joy, my hope, my darling, hear,

High Heaven some dire misfortune threatened hath,

Displeased pardie, because I did thee lere

A lore repugnant to thy parents’ faith;

Ah, for my sake, this bold attempt forbear;

Put off these sable arms, appease thy wrath.”

This said, he wept, she pensive stood and sad,

Because like dream herself but lately had.

XLI

With cheerful smile she answered him at last,

“I will this faith observe, it seems me true,

Which from my cradle age thou taught me hast;

I will not change it for religion new,

Nor with vain shows of fear and dread aghast

This enterprise forbear I to pursue,

No, not if death in his most dreadful face

Wherewith he scareth mankind, kept the place.”

XLII

Approachen gan the time, while thus she spake,

Wherein they ought that dreadful hazard try;

She to Argantes went, who should partake

Of her renown and praise, or with her die.

Ismen with words more hasty still did make

Their virtue great, which by itself did fly,

Two balls he gave them made of hollow brass,

Wherein enclosed fire, pitch, and brimstone was.

XLIII

And forth they went, and over dale and hill

They hasted forward with a speedy pace,

Unseen, unmarked, undescried, until

Beside the engine close themselves they place,

New courage there their swelling hearts did fill,

Rage in their breasts, fury shown in their face,

They yearned to blow the fire, and draw the sword.

The watch descried them both, and gave the word.

XLIV

Silent they passed on, the watch begun

To rear a huge alarm with hideous cries,

Therewith the hardy couple forward run

To execute their valiant enterprise:

So from a cannon or a roaring gun

At once the noise, the flame, and bullet flies,

They run, they give the charge, begin the fray,

And all at once their foes break, spoil and slay.

XLV

They passed first through thousand thousand blows,

And then performed their designment bold,

A fiery ball each on the engine throws,

The stuff was dry, the fire took quickly hold,

Furious upon the timber-work it grows,

How it increased cannot well be told,

How it crept up the piece, and how to skies

The burning sparks and towering smoke upflies.

XLVI

A mass of solid fire burning bright

Rolled up in smouldering fumes, there bursteth out,

And there the blustering winds add strength and might

And gather close the sparsed flames about:

The Frenchmen trembled at the dreadful light,

To arms in haste and fear ran all the rout,

Down fell the piece dreaded so much in war,

Thus what long days do make one hour doth mar.

XLVII

Two Christian bands this while came to the place

With speedy haste, where they beheld the fire,

Argantes to them cried with scornful grace,

“Your blood shall quench these flames, and quench mine ire:”

This said, the maid and he with sober pace

Drew back, and to the banks themselves retire,

Faster than brooks which falling showers increase

Their foes augment, and faster on them press.

XLVIII

The gilden port was opened, and forth stepped

With all his soldiers bold, the Turkish king,

Ready to aid the two his force he kept,

When fortune should them home with conquest bring,

Over the bars the hardy couple leapt

And after them a band of Christians fling,

Whom Solyman drove back with courage stout,

And shut the gate, but shut Clorinda out.

XLIX

Alone was she shut forth, for in that hour

Wherein they closed the port, the virgin went,

And full of heat and wrath, her strength and power

Gainst Arimon, that struck her erst, she bent,

She slew the knight, nor Argant in that stowre

Wist of her parting, or her fierce intent,

The fight, the press, the night, and darksome skies

Care from his heart had ta’en, sight from his eyes.

L

But when appeased was her angry mood,

Her fury calmed, and settled was her head,

She saw the gates were shut, and how she stood

Amid her foes, she held herself for dead;

While none her marked at last she thought it good,

To save her life, some other path to tread,

She feigned her one of them, and close her drew

Amid the press that none her saw or knew:

LI

Then as a wolf guilty of some misdeed

Flies to some grove to hide himself from view,

So favored with the night, with secret speed

Dissevered from the press the damsel flew:

Tancred alone of her escape took heed,

He on that quarter was arrived new,

When Arimon she killed he thither came,

He saw it, marked it, and pursued the dame.

LII

He deemed she was some man of mickle might,

And on her person would he worship win,

Over the hills the nymph her journey dight

Toward another port, there to get in:

With hideous noise fast after spurred the knight,

She heard and stayed, and thus her words begin,

“What haste hast thou? ride softly, take thy breath,

What bringest thou?” He answered, “War and death.”

LIII

“And war and death,” quoth she, “here mayest thou get

If thou for battle come,” with that she stayed:

Tancred to ground his foot in haste down set,

And left his steed, on foot he saw the maid,

Their courage hot, their ire and wrath they whet,

And either champion drew a trenchant blade,

Together ran they, and together stroke,

Like two fierce bulls whom rage and love provoke.

LIV

Worthy of royal lists and brightest day,

Worthy a golden trump and laurel crown,

The actions were and wonders of that fray

Which sable knight did in dark bosom drown:

Yet night, consent that I their acts display

And make their deeds to future ages known,

And in records of long enduring story

Enrol their praise, their fame, their worth and glory.

LV

They neither shrunk, nor vantage sought of ground,

They traverse not, nor skipped from part to part,

Their blows were neither false nor feigned found,

The night, their rage would let them use no art,

Their swords together clash with dreadful sound,

Their feet stand fast, and neither stir nor start,

They move their hands, steadfast their feet remain,

Nor blow nor loin they struck, or thrust in vain.

LVI

Shame bred desire a sharp revenge to take,

And vengeance taken gave new cause of shame:

So that with haste and little heed they strake,

Fuel enough they had to feed the flame;

At last so close their battle fierce they make,

They could not wield their swords, so nigh they came,

They used the hilts, and each on other rushed,

And helm to helm, and shield to shield they crushed.

LVII

Thrice his strong arms he folds about her waist,

And thrice was forced to let the virgin go,

For she disdained to be so embraced,

No lover would have strained his mistress so:

They took their swords again, and each enchased

Deep wounds in the soft flesh of his strong foe,

Till weak and weary, faint, alive uneath,

They both retired at once, at once took breath.

LVIII

Each other long beheld, and leaning stood

Upon their swords, whose points in earth were pight,

When day-break, rising from the eastern flood,

Put forth the thousand eyes of blindfold night;

Tancred beheld his foe’s out-streaming blood,

And gaping wounds, and waxed proud with the sight,

Oh vanity of man’s unstable mind,

Puffed up with every blast of friendly wind!

LIX

Why joy’st thou, wretch? Oh, what shall be thy gain?

What trophy for this conquest is’t thou rears?

Thine eyes shall shed, in case thou be not slain,

For every drop of blood a sea of tears:

The bleeding warriors leaning thus remain,

Each one to speak one word long time forbears,

Tancred the silence broke at last, and said,

For he would know with whom this fight he made:

LX

“Evil is our chance and hard our fortune is

Who here in silence, and in shade debate,

Where light of sun and witness all we miss

That should our prowess and our praise dilate:

If words in arms find place, yet grant me this,

Tell me thy name, thy country, and estate;

That I may know, this dangerous combat done,

Whom I have conquered, or who hath me won.”

LXI

“What I nill tell, you ask,” quoth she, “in vain,

Nor moved by prayer, nor constrained by power,

But thus much know, I am one of those twain

Which late with kindled fire destroyed the tower.”

Tancred at her proud words swelled with disdain,

“That hast thou said,” quoth he, “in evil hour;

Thy vaunting speeches, and thy silence both,

Uncivil wretch, hath made my heart more wroth.”

LXII

Ire in their chafed breasts renewed the fray,

Fierce was the fight, though feeble were their might,

Their strength was gone, their cunning was away,

And fury in their stead maintained the fight,

Their swords both points and edges sharp embay

In purple blood, whereso they hit or light,

And if weak life yet in their bosoms lie,

They lived because they both disdained to die.

LXIII

As Aegean seas when storms be calmed again

That rolled their tumbling waves with troublous blasts,

Do yet of tempests past some shows retain,

And here and there their swelling billows casts;

So, though their strength were gone and might were vain,

Of their first fierceness still the fury lasts,

Wherewith sustained, they to their tackling stood,

And heaped wound on wound, and blood on blood.

LXIV

But now, alas, the fatal hour arrives

That her sweet life must leave that tender hold,

His sword into her bosom deep he drives,

And bathed in lukewarm blood his iron cold,

Between her breasts the cruel weapon rives

Her curious square, embossed with swelling gold,

Her knees grow weak, the pains of death she feels,

And like a falling cedar bends and reels.

LXV

The prince his hand upon her shield doth stretch,

And low on earth the wounded damsel layeth,

And while she fell, with weak and woful speech,

Her prayers last and last complaints she sayeth,

A spirit new did her those prayers teach,

Spirit of hope, of charity, and faith;

And though her life to Christ rebellious were,

Yet died she His child and handmaid dear.

LXVI

“Friend, thou hast won, I pardon thee, nor save

This body, that all torments can endure,

But save my soul, baptism I dying crave,

Come wash away my sins with waters pure:”

His heart relenting nigh in sunder rave,

With woful speech of that sweet creature,

So that his rage, his wrath, and anger died,

And on his cheeks salt tears for ruth down slide.

LXVII

With murmur loud down from the mountain’s side

A little runnel tumbled near the place,

Thither he ran and filled his helmet wide,

And quick returned to do that work of grace,

With trembling hands her beaver he untied,

Which done he saw, and seeing, knew her face,

And lost therewith his speech and moving quite,

Oh woful knowledge, ah unhappy sight!

LXVIII

He died not, but all his strength unites,

And to his virtues gave his heart in guard,

Bridling his grief, with water he requites

The life that he bereft with iron hard,

And while the sacred words the knight recites,

The nymph to heaven with joy herself prepared;

And as her life decays her joys increase,

She smiled and said, “Farewell, I die in peace.”

LXIX

As violets blue mongst lilies pure men throw,

So paleness midst her native white begun;

Her looks to heaven she cast, their eyes I trow

Downward for pity bent both heaven and sun,

Her naked hand she gave the knight, in show

Of love and peace, her speech, alas, was done,

And thus the virgin fell on endless sleep,—

Love, Beauty, Virtue, for your darling weep!

LXX

But when he saw her gentle soul was went,

His manly courage to relent began,

Grief, sorrow, anguish, sadness, discontent,

Free empire got and lordship on the man,

His life within his heart they close up pent,

Death through his senses and his visage ran:

Like his dead lady, dead seemed Tancred good,

In paleness, stillness, wounds and streams of blood.

LXXI

And his weak sprite, to be unbodied

From fleshly prison free that ceaseless strived,

Had followed her fair soul but lately fled

Had not a Christian squadron there arrived,

To seek fresh water thither haply led,

And found the princess dead, and him deprived

Of signs of life; yet did the knight remain

On live, nigh dead, for her himself had slain.

LXXII

Their guide far off the prince knew by his shield,

And thither hasted full of grief and fear,

Her dead, him seeming so, he there beheld,

And for that strange mishap shed many a tear;

He would not leave the corpses fair in field

For food to wolves, though she a Pagan were,

But in their arms the soldiers both uphent,

And both lamenting brought to Tancred’s tent.

LXXIII

With those dear burdens to their camp they pass,

Yet would not that dead seeming knight awake,

At last he deeply groaned, which token was

His feeble soul had not her flight yet take:

The other lay a still and heavy mass,

Her spirit had that earthen cage forsake;

Thus were they brought, and thus they placed were

In sundry rooms, yet both adjoining near.

LXXIV

All skill and art his careful servants used

To life again their dying lord to bring,

At last his eyes unclosed, with tears suffused,

He felt their hands and heard their whispering,

But how he thither came long time he mused,

His mind astonished was with everything;

He gazed about, his squires in fine he knew,

Then weak and woful thus his plaints out threw:

LXXV

“What, live I yet? and do I breathe and see

Of this accursed day the hateful light?

This spiteful ray which still upbraideth me

With that accursed deed I did this night,

Ah, coward hand, afraid why should’st thou be;

Thou instrument of death, shame and despite,

Why should’st thou fear, with sharp and trenchant knife,

To cut the thread of this blood-guilty life?

LXXVI

“Pierce through this bosom, and my cruel heart

In pieces cleave, break every string and vein;

But thou to slaughters vile which used art,

Think’st it were pity so to ease my pain:

Of luckless love therefore in torments’ smart

A sad example must I still remain,

A woful monster of unhappy love,

Who still must live, lest death his comfort prove:

LXXVII

“Still must I live in anguish, grief, and care;

Furies my guilty conscience that torment,

The ugly shades, dark night, and troubled air

In grisly forms her slaughter still present,

Madness and death about my bed repair,

Hell gapeth wide to swallow up this tent;

Swift from myself I run, myself I fear,

Yet still my hell within myself I bear.

LXXVIII

“But where, alas, where be those relics sweet,

Wherein dwelt late all love, all joy, all good?

My fury left them cast in open street,

Some beast hath torn her flesh and licked her blood,

Ah noble prey! for savage beast unmeet,

Ah sweet! too sweet, and far too precious food,

Ah, seely nymph! whom night and darksome shade

To beasts, and me, far worse than beasts, betrayed.

LXXIX

“But where you be, if still you be, I wend

To gather up those relics dear at least,

But if some beast hath from the hills descend,

And on her tender bowels made his feast,

Let that fell monster me in pieces rend,

And deep entomb me in his hollow chest:

For where she buried is, there shall I have

A stately tomb, a rich and costly grave.”

LXXX

Thus mourned the knight, his squires him told at last,

They had her there for whom those tears he shed;

A beam of comfort his dim eyes outcast,

Like lightning through thick clouds of darkness spread,

The heavy burden of his limbs in haste,

With mickle pain, he drew forth of his bed,

And scant of strength to stand, to move or go,

Thither he staggered, reeling to and fro.

LXXXI

When he came there, and in her breast espied

His handiwork, that deep and cruel wound,

And her sweet face with leaden paleness dyed,

Where beauty late spread forth her beams around,

He trembled so, that nere his squires beside

To hold him up, he had sunk down to ground,

And said, “O face in death still sweet and fair!

Thou canst not sweeten yet my grief and care:

LXXXII

“O fair right hand, the pledge of faith and love?

Given me but late, too late, in sign of peace,

How haps it now thou canst not stir nor move?

And you, dear limbs, now laid in rest and ease,

Through which my cruel blade this flood-gate rove,

Your pains have end, my torments never cease,

O hands, O cruel eyes, accursed alike!

You gave the wound, you gave them light to strike.

LXXXIII

“But thither now run forth my guilty blood,

Whither my plaints, my sorrows cannot wend.”

He said no more, but, as his passion wood

Inforced him, he gan to tear and rend

His hair, his face, his wounds, a purple flood

Did from each side in rolling streams descend,

He had been slain, but that his pain and woe

Bereft his senses, and preserved him so.

LXXXIV

Cast on his bed his squires recalled his sprite

To execute again her hateful charge,

But tattling fame the sorrows of the knight

And hard mischance had told this while at large:

Godfrey and all his lords of worth and might,

Ran thither, and the duty would discharge

Of friendship true, and with sweet words the rage

Of bitter grief and woe they would assuage.

LXXXV

But as a mortal wound the more doth smart

The more it searched is, handled or sought;

So their sweet words to his afflicted heart

More grief, more anguish, pain and torment brought

But reverend Peter that would set apart

Care of his sheep, as a good shepherd ought,

His vanity with grave advice reproved

And told what mourning Christian knights behoved:

LXXXVI

“O Tancred, Tancred, how far different

From thy beginnings good these follies be?

What makes thee deaf? what hath thy eyesight blent?

What mist, what cloud thus overshadeth thee?

This is a warning good from heaven down sent,

Yet His advice thou canst not hear nor see

Who calleth and conducts thee to the way

From which thou willing dost and witting stray:

LXXXVII

“To worthy actions and achievements fit

For Christian knights He would thee home recall;

But thou hast left that course and changed it,

To make thyself a heathen damsel’s thrall;

But see, thy grief and sorrow’s painful fit

Is made the rod to scourge thy sins withal,

Of thine own good thyself the means He makes,

But thou His mercy, goodness, grace forsakes.

LXXXVIII

“Thou dost refuse of heaven the proffered

And gainst it still rebel with sinful ire,

Oh wretch! Oh whither doth thy rage thee chase?

Refrain thy grief, bridle thy fond desire,

At hell’s wide gate vain sorrow doth thee place,

Sorrow, misfortune’s son, despair’s foul fire:

Oh see thine evil, thy plaint and woe refrain,

The guides to death, to hell, and endless pain.”

LXXXIX

This said, his will to die the patient

Abandoned, that second death he feared,

These words of comfort to his heart down went,

And that dark night of sorrow somewhat cleared;

Yet now and then his grief deep sighs forth sent,

His voice shrill plaints and sad laments oft reared,

Now to himself, now to his murdered love,

He spoke, who heard perchance from heaven above.

XC

Till Phoebus’ rising from his evening fall

To her, for her, he mourns, he calls, he cries;

The nightingale so when her children small

Some churl takes before their parents’ eyes,

Alone, dismayed, quite bare of comforts all,

Tires with complaints the seas, the shores, the skies,

Till in sweet sleep against the morning bright

She fall at last; so mourned, so slept the knight.

XCI

And clad in starry veil, amid his dream,

For whose sweet sake he mourned, appeared the maid,

Fairer than erst, yet with that heavenly beam.

Not out of knowledge was her lovely shade,

With looks of ruth her eyes celestial seem

To pity his sad plight, and thus she said,

“Behold how fair, how glad thy love appears,

And for my sake, my dear, forbear these tears.

XCII

“Thine be the thanks, my soul thou madest flit

At unawares out of her earthly nest,

Thine be the thanks, thou hast advanced it

In Abraham’s dear bosom long to rest,

There still I love thee, there for Tancred fit

A seat prepared is among the blest;

There in eternal joy, eternal light,

Thou shalt thy love enjoy, and she her knight;

XCIII

“Unless thyself, thyself heaven’s joys envy,

And thy vain sorrow thee of bliss deprive,

Live, know I love thee, that I nill deny,

As angels, men: as saints may wights on live:”

This said, of zeal and love forth of her eye

An hundred glorious beams bright shining drive,

Amid which rays herself she closed from sigh,

And with new joy, new comfort left her knight.

XCIV

Thus comforted he waked, and men discreet

In surgery to cure his wounds were sought,

Meanwhile of his dear love the relics sweet,

As best he could, to grave with pomp he brought:

Her tomb was not of varied Spartan greet,

Nor yet by cunning hand of Scopas wrought,

But built of polished stone, and thereon laid

The lively shape and portrait of the maid.

XCV

With sacred burning lamps in order long

And mournful pomp the corpse was brought to ground

Her arms upon a leafless pine were hung,

The hearse, with cypress; arms, with laurel crowned:

Next day the prince, whose love and courage strong

Drew forth his limbs, weak, feeble, and unsound,

To visit went, with care and reverence meet,

The buried ashes of his mistress sweet:

XCVI

Before her new-made tomb at last arrived,

The woful prison of his living sprite,

Pale, cold, sad, comfortless, of sense deprived,

Upon the marble gray he fixed his sight,

Two streams of tears were from his eyes derived:

Thus with a sad “Alas!” began the knight,

“O marble dear on my dear mistress placed!

My flames within, without my tears thou hast.

XCVII

“Not of dead bones art thou the mournful grave,

But of quick love the fortress and the hold,

Still in my heart thy wonted brands I have

More bitter far, alas! but not more cold;

Receive these sighs, these kisses sweet receive,

In liquid drops of melting tears enrolled,

And give them to that body pure and chaste,

Which in thy bosom cold entombed thou hast.

XCVIII

“For if her happy soul her eye doth bend

On that sweet body which it lately dressed,

My love, thy pity cannot her offend,

Anger and wrath is not in angels blessed,

She pardon will the trespass of her friend,

That hope relieves me with these griefs oppressed,

This hand she knows hath only sinned, not I,

Who living loved her, and for love now die:

XCIX

“And loving will I die, oh happy day

Whene’er it chanceth! but oh far more blessed

If as about thy polished sides I stray,

My bones within thy hollow grave might rest,

Together should in heaven our spirits stay,

Together should our bodies lie in chest;

So happy death should join what life doth sever,

O Death, O Life! sweet both, both blessed ever.”

C

Meanwhile the news in that besieged town

Of this mishap was whispered here and there,

Forthwith it spread, and for too true was known,

Her woful loss was talked everywhere,

Mingled with cries and plaints to heaven upthrown,

As if the city’s self new taken were

With conquering foes, or as if flame and fire,

Nor house, nor church, nor street had left entire.

CI

But all men’s eyes were on Arsetes bent,

His sighs were deep, his looks full of despair,

Out of his woful eyes no tear there went,

His heart was hardened with his too much care,

His silver locks with dust he foul besprent,

He knocked his breast, his face he rent and tare,

And while the press flocked to the eunuch old,

Thus to the people spake Argantes bold:

CII

“I would, when first I knew the hardy maid

Excluded was among her Christian foes,

Have followed her to give her timely aid,

Or by her side this breath and life to lose,

What did I not, or what left I unsaid

To make the king the gates again unclose?

But he denied, his power did aye restrain

My will, my suit was waste, my speech was vain:

CIII

“Ah, had I gone, I would from danger free

Have brought to Sion that sweet nymph again,

Or in the bloody fight, where killed was she,

In her defence there nobly have been slain:

But what could I do more? the counsels be

Of God and man gainst my designments plain,

Dead is Clorinda fair, laid in cold grave,

Let me revenge her whom I could not save.

CIV

“Jerusalem, hear what Argantes saith,

Hear Heaven, and if he break his oath and word,

Upon this head cast thunder in thy wrath:

I will destroy and kill that Christian lord

Who this fair dame by night thus murdered hath,

Nor from my side I will ungird this sword

Till Tancred’s heart it cleave, and shed his blood,

And leave his corpse to wolves and crows for food.”

CV

This said, the people with a joyful shout

Applaud his speeches and his words approve,

And calmed their grief in hope the boaster stout

Would kill the prince, who late had slain his love.

O promise vain! it otherwise fell out:

Men purpose, but high gods dispose above,

For underneath his sword this boaster died

Whom thus he scorned and threatened in his pride.

THIRTEENTH BOOK

THE ARGUMENT.

Ismeno sets to guard the forest old

The wicked sprites, whose ugly shapes affray

And put to flight the men, whose labor would

To their dark shades let in heaven’s golden ray:

Thither goes Tancred hardy, faithful, bold,

But foolish pity lets him not assay

His strength and courage: heat the Christian power

Annoys, whom to refresh God sends a shower.

I

But scant, dissolved into ashes cold,

The smoking tower fell on the scorched grass,

When new device found out the enchanter old

By which the town besieged secured was,

Of timber fit his foes deprive he would,

Such terror bred that late consumed mass:

So that the strength of Sion’s walls to shake,

They should no turrets, rams, nor engines make.

II

From Godfrey’s camp a grove a little way

Amid the valleys deep grows out of sight,

Thick with old trees whose horrid arms display

An ugly shade, like everlasting night;

There when the sun spreads forth his clearest ray,

Dim, thick, uncertain, gloomy seems the light;

As when in evening, day and darkness strive

Which should his foe from our horizon drive.

III

But when the sun his chair in seas doth steep,

Night, horror, darkness thick the place invade,

Which veil the mortal eyes with blindness deep

And with sad terror make weak hearts afraid,

Thither no groom drives forth his tender sheep

To browse, or ease their faint in cooling shade,

Nor traveller nor pilgrim there to enter,

So awful seems that forest old, dare venture.

IV

United there the ghosts and goblins meet

To frolic with their mates in silent night,

With dragons’ wings some cleave the welkin fleet,

Some nimbly run o’er hills and valleys light,

A wicked troop, that with allurements sweet

Draws sinful man from that is good and right,

And there with hellish pomp their banquets brought

They solemnize, thus the vain Parians thought.

V

No twist, no twig, no bough nor branch, therefore,

The Saracens cut from that sacred spring;

But yet the Christians spared ne’er the more

The trees to earth with cutting steel to bring:

Thither went Ismen old with tresses hoar,

When night on all this earth spread forth her wing,

And there in silence deaf and mirksome shade

His characters and circles vain he made:

VI

He in the circle set one foot unshod,

And whispered dreadful charms in ghastly wise,

Three times, for witchcraft loveth numbers odd,

Toward the east he gaped, westward thrice,

He struck the earth thrice with his charmed rod

Wherewith dead bones he makes from grave to rise,

And thrice the ground with naked foot he smote,

And thus he cried loud, with thundering note:

VII

“Hear, hear, you spirits all that whilom fell,

Cast down from heaven with dint of roaring thunder;

Hear, you amid the empty air that dwell

And storms and showers pour on these kingdoms under;

Hear, all you devils that lie in deepest hell

And rend with torments damned ghosts asunder,

And of those lands of death, of pain and fear,

Thou monarch great, great Dis, great Pluto, hear!

VIII

“Keep you this forest well, keep every tree,

Numbered I give you them and truly told;

As souls of men in bodies clothed be

So every plant a sprite shall hide and hold,

With trembling fear make all the Christians flee,

When they presume to cut these cedars old:”

This said, his charms he gan again repeat,

Which none can say but they that use like feat.

IX

At those strange speeches, still night’s splendent fires

Quenched their lights, and shrunk away for doubt,

The feeble moon her silver beams retires,

And wrapt her horns with folding clouds about,

Ismen his sprites to come with speed requires,

“Why come you not, you ever damned rout?

Why tarry you so long? pardie you stay

Till stronger charms and greater words I say.

X

“I have not yet forgot for want of use,

What dreadful terms belong this sacred feat,

My tongue, if still your stubborn hearts refuse,

That so much dreaded name can well repeat,

Which heard, great Dis cannot himself excuse,

But hither run from his eternal seat,

O great and fearful!”—More he would have said,

But that he saw the sturdy sprites obeyed.

XI

Legions of devils by thousands thither come,

Such as in sparsed air their biding make,

And thousands also which by Heavenly doom

Condemned lie in deep Avernus lake,

But slow they came, displeased all and some

Because those woods they should in keeping take,

Yet they obeyed and took the charge in hand,

And under every branch and leaf they stand.

XII

When thus his cursed work performed was,

The wizard to his king declared the feat,

“My lord, let fear, let doubt and sorrow pass,

Henceforth in safety stands your regal seat,

Your foe, as he supposed, no mean now has

To build again his rams and engines great:”

And then he told at large from part to part,

All what he late performed by wondrous art.

XIII

“Besides this help, another hap,” quoth he,

“Will shortly chance that brings not profit small.

Within few days Mars and the Sun I see

Their fiery beams unite in Leo shall;

And then extreme the scorching heat will be,

Which neither rain can quench nor dews that fall,

So placed are the planets high and low,

That heat, fire, burning all the heavens foreshow:

XIV

“So great with us will be the warmth therefore,

As with the Garamants or those of Inde;

Yet nill it grieve us in this town so sore,

We have sweet shade and waters cold by kind:

Our foes abroad will be tormented more,

What shield can they or what refreshing find?

Heaven will them vanquish first, then Egypt’s crew

Destroy them quite, weak, weary, faint and few:

XV

“Thou shalt sit still and conquer; prove no more

The doubtful hazard of uncertain fight.

But if Argantes bold, that hates so sore

All cause of quiet peace, though just and right,

Provoke thee forth to battle, as before,

Find means to calm the rage of that fierce knight,

For shortly Heaven will send thee ease and peace,

And war and trouble mongst thy foes increase.”

XVI

The king assured by these speeches fair,

Held Godfrey’s power, his might and strength in scorn,

And now the walls he gan in part repair,

Which late the ram had bruised with iron horn,

With wise foresight and well advised care

He fortified each breach and bulwark torn,

And all his folk, men, women, children small,

With endless toil again repaired the wall.

XVII

But Godfrey nould this while bring forth his power

To give assault against that fort in vain,

Till he had builded new his dreadful tower,

And reared high his down-fallen rams again:

His workmen therefore he despatched that hour

To hew the trees out of the forest main,

They went, and scant the wood appeared in sight

When wonders new their fearful hearts affright:

XVIII

As silly children dare not bend their eye

Where they are told strange bugbears haunt the place,

Or as new monsters, while in bed they lie,

Their fearful thoughts present before their face;

So feared they, and fled, yet wist not why,

Nor what pursued them in that fearful chase.

Except their fear perchance while thus they fled,

New chimeras, sphinxes, or like monsters bred:

XIX

Swift to the camp they turned back dismayed,

With words confused uncertain tales they told,

That all which heard them scorned what they said

And those reports for lies and fables hold.

A chosen crew in shining arms arrayed

Duke Godfrey thither sent of soldiers bold,

To guard the men and their faint arms provoke

To cut the dreadful trees with hardy stroke:

XX

These drawing near the wood where close ypent

The wicked sprites in sylvan pinfolds were,

Their eyes upon those shades no sooner bent

But frozen dread pierced through their entrails dear;

Yet on they stalked still, and on they went,

Under bold semblance hiding coward fear,

And so far wandered forth with trembling pace,

Till they approached nigh that enchanted place:

XXI

When from the grove a fearful sound outbreaks,

As if some earthquake hill and mountain tore,

Wherein the southern wind a rumbling makes,

Or like sea waves against the scraggy shore;

There lions grumble, there hiss scaly snakes,

There howl the wolves, the rugged bears there roar,

There trumpets shrill are heard and thunders fell,

And all these sounds one sound expressed well.

XXII

Upon their faces pale well might you note

A thousand signs of heart-amating fear,

Their reason gone, by no device they wot

How to press nigh, or stay still where they were,

Against that sudden dread their breasts which smote,

Their courage weak no shield of proof could bear,

At last they fled, and one than all more bold,

Excused their flight, and thus the wonders told:

XXIII

“My lord, not one of us there is, I grant,

That dares cut down one branch in yonder spring,

I think there dwells a sprite in every plant,

There keeps his court great Dis infernal king,

He hath a heart of hardened adamant

That without trembling dares attempt the thing,

And sense he wanteth who so hardy is

To hear the forest thunder, roar and hiss.”

XXIV

This said, Alcasto to his words gave heed,

Alcasto leader of the Switzers grim,

A man both void of wit and void of dreed,

Who feared not loss of life nor loss of limb.

No savage beasts in deserts wild that feed

Nor ugly monster could dishearten him,

Nor whirlwind, thunder, earthquake, storm, or aught

That in this world is strange or fearful thought.

XXV

He shook his head, and smiling thus gan say,

“The hardiness have I that wood to fell,

And those proud trees low in the dust to lay

Wherein such grisly fiends and monsters dwell;

No roaring ghost my courage can dismay,

No shriek of birds, beast’s roar, or dragon’s yell;

But through and through that forest will I wend,

Although to deepest hell the paths descend.”

XXVI

Thus boasted he, and leave to go desired,

And forward went with joyful cheer and will,

He viewed the wood and those thick shades admired,

He heard the wondrous noise and rumbling shrill;

Yet not one foot the audacious man retired,

He scorned the peril, pressing forward still,

Till on the forest’s outmost marge he stepped,

A flaming fire from entrance there him kept.

XXVII

The fire increased, and built a stately wall

Of burning coals, quick sparks, and embers hot,

And with bright flames the wood environed all,

That there no tree nor twist Alcasto got;

The higher stretched the flames seemed bulwarks tall,

Castles and turrets full of fiery shot,

With slings and engines strong of every sort;—

What mortal wight durst scale so strange a fort?

XXVIII

Oh what strange monsters on the battlement

In loathsome forms stood to defend the place?

Their frowning looks upon the knight they bent,

And threatened death with shot, with sword and mace:

At last he fled, and though but slow he went,

As lions do whom jolly hunters chase;

Yet fled the man and with sad fear withdrew,

Though fear till then he never felt nor knew.

XXIX

That he had fled long time he never wist,

But when far run he had discoverd it,

Himself for wonder with his hand he blist,

A bitter sorrow by the heart him bit,

Amazed, ashamed, disgraced, sad, silent, trist,

Alone he would all day in darkness sit,

Nor durst he look on man of worth or fame,

His pride late great, now greater made his shame.

XXX

Godfredo called him, but he found delays

And causes why he should his cabin keep,

At length perforce he comes, but naught he says,

Or talks like those that babble in their sleep.

His shamefacedness to Godfrey plain bewrays

His flight, so does his sighs and sadness deep:

Whereat amazed, “What chance is this?” quoth he.

“These witchcrafts strange or nature’s wonders be.

XXXI

“But if his courage any champion move

To try the hazard of this dreadful spring,

I give him leave the adventure great to prove,

Some news he may report us of the thing:”

This said, his lords attempt the charmed grove,

Yet nothing back but fear and flight they bring,

For them inforced with trembling to retire,

The sight, the sound, the monsters and the fire.

XXXII

This happed when woful Tancred left his bed

To lay in marble cold his mistress dear,

The lively color from his cheek was fled,

His limbs were weak his helm or targe to bear;

Nathless when need to high attempts him led,

No labor would he shun, no danger fear,

His valor, boldness, heart and courage brave,

To his faint body strength and vigor gave.

XXXIII

To this exploit forth went the venturous knight,

Fearless, yet heedful; silent, well advised,

The terrors of that forest’s dreadful sight,

Storms, earthquakes, thunders, cries, he all despised:

He feared nothing, yet a motion light,

That quickly vanished, in his heart arised

When lo, between him and the charmed wood,

A fiery city high as heaven up stood.

XXXIV

The knight stepped back and took a sudden pause,

And to himself, “What help these arms?” quoth he,

“If in this fire, or monster’s gaping jaws

I headlong cast myself, what boots it me?

For common profit, or my country’s cause,

To hazard life before me none should be:

But this exploit of no such weight I hold,

For it to lose a prince or champion bold.

XXXV

But if I fly, what will the Pagans say?

If I retire, who shall cut down this spring?

Godfredo will attempt it every day.

What if some other knight perform the thing?

These flames uprisen to forestall my way

Perchance more terror far than danger bring.

But hap what shall;” this said, he forward stepped,

And through the fire, oh wondrous boldness, leapt!

XXXVI

He bolted through, but neither warmth nor heat!

He felt, nor sign of fire or scorching flame;

Yet wist he not in his dismayed conceit,

If that were fire or no through which he came;

For at first touch vanished those monsters great,

And in their stead the clouds black night did frame

And hideous storms and showers of hail and rain;

Yet storms and tempests vanished straight again.

XXXVII

Amazed but not afraid the champion good

Stood still, but when the tempest passed he spied,

He entered boldly that forbidden wood,

And of the forest all the secrets eyed,

In all his walk no sprite or phantasm stood

That stopped his way or passage free denied,

Save that the growing trees so thick were set,

That oft his sight, and passage oft they let.

XXXVIII

At length a fair and spacious green he spied,

Like calmest waters, plain, like velvet, soft,

Wherein a cypress clad in summer’s pride,

Pyramid-wise, lift up his tops aloft;

In whose smooth bark upon the evenest side,

Strange characters he found, and viewed them oft,

Like those which priests of Egypt erst instead

Of letters used, which none but they could read.

XXXIX

Mongst them he picked out these words at last,

Writ in the Syriac tongue, which well he could,

“Oh hardy knight, who through these woods hast passed:

Where Death his palace and his court doth hold!

Oh trouble not these souls in quiet placed,

Oh be not cruel as thy heart is bold,

Pardon these ghosts deprived of heavenly light,

With spirits dead why should men living fight?”

XL

This found he graven in the tender rind,

And while he mused on this uncouth writ,

Him thought he heard the softly whistling wind

His blasts amid the leaves and branches knit

And frame a sound like speech of human kind,

But full of sorrow grief and woe was it,

Whereby his gentle thoughts all filled were

With pity, sadness, grief, compassion, fear.

XLI

He drew his sword at last, and gave the tree

A mighty blow, that made a gaping wound,

Out of the rift red streams he trickling see

That all bebled the verdant plain around,

His hair start up, yet once again stroke he,

He nould give over till the end he found

Of this adventure, when with plaint and moan,

As from some hollow grave, he heard one groan.

XLII

“Enough, enough!” the voice lamenting said,

“Tancred, thou hast me hurt, thou didst me drive

Out of the body of a noble maid

Who with me lived, whom late I kept on live,

And now within this woful cypress laid,

My tender rind thy weapon sharp doth rive,

Cruel, is’t not enough thy foes to kill,

But in their graves wilt thou torment them still?

XLIII

“I was Clorinda, now imprisoned here,

Yet not alone within this plant I dwell,

For every Pagan lord and Christian peer,

Before the city’s walls last day that fell,

In bodies new or graves I wot not clear,

But here they are confined by magic’s spell,

So that each tree hath life, and sense each bough,

A murderer if thou cut one twist art thou.”

XLIV

As the sick man that in his sleep doth see

Some ugly dragon, or some chimera new,

Though he suspect, or half persuaded be,

It is an idle dream, no monster true,

Yet still he fears, he quakes, and strives to flee,

So fearful is that wondrous form to view;

So feared the knight, yet he both knew and thought

All were illusions false by witchcraft wrought:

XLV

But cold and trembling waxed his frozen heart,

Such strange effects, such passions it torment,

Out of his feeble hand his weapon start,

Himself out of his wits nigh, after went:

Wounded he saw, he thought, for pain and smart,

His lady weep, complain, mourn, and lament,

Nor could he suffer her dear blood to see,

Or hear her sighs that deep far fetched be.

XLVI

Thus his fierce heart which death had scorned oft,

Whom no strange shape or monster could dismay,

With feigned shows of tender love made soft,

A spirit false did with vain plaints betray;

A whirling wind his sword heaved up aloft,

And through the forest bare it quite away.

O’ercome retired the prince, and as he came,

His sword he found, and repossessed the same,

XLVII

Yet nould return, he had no mind to try

His courage further in those forests green;

But when to Godfrey’s tent he proached nigh,

His spirits waked, his thoughts composed been,

“My Lord.” quoth he, “a witness true am I

Of wonders strange, believe it scant though seen,

What of the fire, the shades, the dreadful sound

You heard, all true by proof myself have found;

XLVIII

“A burning fire, so are those deserts charmed,

Built like a battled wall to heaven was reared;

Whereon with darts and dreadful weapons armed,

Of monsters foul mis-shaped whole bands appeared;

But through them all I passed, unhurt, unharmed,

No flame or threatened blow I felt or feared,

Then rain and night I found, but straight again

To day, the night, to sunshine turned the rain.

XLIX

“What would you more? each tree through all that wood

Hath sense, hath life, hath speech, like human kind,

I heard their words as in that grove I stood,

That mournful voice still, still I bear in mind:

And, as they were of flesh, the purple blood

At every blow streams from the wounded rind;

No, no, not I, nor any else, I trow,

Hath power to cut one leaf, one branch, one bough.”

L

While thus he said, the Christian’s noble guide

Felt uncouth strife in his contentious thought,

He thought, what if himself in perzon tried

Those witchcrafts strange, and bring those charms to naught,

For such he deemed them, or elsewhere provide

For timber easier got though further sought,

But from his study he at last abraid,

Called by the hermit old that to him said:

LI

“Leave off thy hardy thought, another’s hands

Of these her plants the wood dispoilen shall,

Now, now the fatal ship of conquest lands,

Her sails are struck, her silver anchors fall,

Our champion broken hath his worthless bands,

And looseth from the soil which held him thrall,

The time draws nigh when our proud foes in field

Shall slaughtered lie, and Sion’s fort shall yield.”

LII

This said, his visage shone with beams divine,

And more than mortal was his voice’s sound,

Godfredo’s thought to other acts incline,

His working brain was never idle found.

But in the Crab now did bright Titan shine,

And scorched with scalding beams the parched ground,

And made unfit for toil or warlike feat

His soldiers, weak with labor, faint with sweat:

LIII

The planets mild their lamps benign quenched out,

And cruel stars in heaven did signorize,

Whose influence cast fiery flames about

And hot impressions through the earth and skies,

The growing heat still gathered deeper rout,

The noisome warmth through lands and kingdoms flies,

A harmful night a hurtful day succeeds,

And worse than both next morn her light outspreads.

LIV

When Phoebus rose he left his golden weed,

And donned a gite in deepest purple dyed,

His sanguine beams about his forehead spread,

A sad presage of ill that should betide,

With vermeil drops at even his tresses bleed,

Foreshows of future heat, from the ocean wide

When next he rose, and thus increased still

Their present harms with dread of future ill,

LV

While thus he bent gainst earth his scorching rays,

He burnt the flowers, burnt his Clytie dear,

The leaves grew wan upon the withered sprays,

The grass and growing herbs all parched were,

Earth cleft in rifts, in floods their streams decays,

The barren clouds with lightning bright appear,

And mankind feared lest Climenes’ child again

Had driven awry his sire’s ill-guided wain.

LVI

As from a furnace flew the smoke to skies,

Such smoke as that when damned Sodom brent,

Within his caves sweet Zephyr silent lies,

Still was the air, the rack nor came nor went,

But o’er the lands with lukewarm breathing flies

The southern wind, from sunburnt Afric sent,

Which thick and warm his interrupted blasts

Upon their bosoms, throats, and faces casts.

LVII

Nor yet more comfort brought the gloomy night,

In her thick shades was burning heat uprolled,

Her sable mantle was embroidered bright

With blazing stars and gliding fires for gold,

Nor to refresh, sad earth, thy thirsty sprite,

The niggard moon let fall her May dews cold,

And dried up the vital moisture was,

In trees, in plants, in herbs, in flowers, in grass.

LVIII

Sleep to his quiet dales exiled fled

From these unquiet nights, and oft in vain

The soldiers restless sought the god in bed,

But most for thirst they mourned and most complain;

For Juda’s tyrant had strong poison shed,

Poison that breeds more woe and deadly pain,

Than Acheron or Stygian waters bring,

In every fountain, cistern, well and spring:

LIX

And little Siloe that his store bestows

Of purest crystal on the Christian bands,

The pebbles naked in his channel shows

And scantly glides above the scorched sands,

Nor Po in May when o’er his banks he flows,

Nor Ganges, waterer of the Indian lands,

Nor seven-mouthed Nile that yields all Egypt drink,

To quench their thirst the men sufficient think.

LX

He that the gliding rivers erst had seen

Adown their verdant channels gently rolled,

Or falling streams which to the valleys green

Distilled from tops of Alpine mountains cold,

Those he desired in vain, new torments been,

Augmented thus with wish of comforts old,

Those waters cool he drank in vain conceit,

Which more increased his thirst, increased his heat.

LXI

The sturdy bodies of the warriors strong,

Whom neither marching far, nor tedious way,

Nor weighty arms which on their shoulders hung,

Could weary make, nor death itself dismay;

Now weak and feeble cast their limbs along,

Unwieldly burdens, on the burned clay,

And in each vein a smouldering fire there dwelt,

Which dried their flesh and solid bones did melt.

LXII

Languished the steed late fierce, and proffered grass,

His fodder erst, despised and from him cast,

Each step he stumbled, and which lofty was

And high advanced before now fell his crest,

His conquests gotten all forgotten pass,

Nor with desire of glory swelled his breast,

The spoils won from his foe, his late rewards,

He now neglects, despiseth, naught regards.

LXIII

Languished the faithful dog, and wonted care

Of his dear lord and cabin both forgot,

Panting he laid, and gathered fresher air

To cool the burning in his entrails hot:

But breathing, which wise nature did prepare

To suage the stomach’s heat, now booted not,

For little ease, alas, small help, they win

That breathe forth air and scalding fire suck in.

LXIV

Thus languished the earth, in this estate

Lay woful thousands of the Christians stout,

The faithful people grew nigh desperate

Of hoped conquest, shameful death they doubt,

Of their distress they talk and oft debate,

These sad complaints were heard the camp throughout:

“What hope hath Godfrey? shall we still here lie

Till all his soldiers, all our armies die?

LXV

“Alas, with what device, what strength, thinks he

To scale these walls, or this strong fort to get?

Whence hath he engines new? doth he not see,

How wrathful Heaven gainst us his sword doth whet?

These tokens shown true signs and witness be

Our angry God our proud attempts doth let,

And scorching sun so hot his beams outspreads,

That not more cooling Inde nor Aethiop needs.

LXVI

“Or thinks he it an eath or little thing

That us despised, neglected, and disdained,

Like abjects vile, to death he thus should bring,

That so his empire may be still maintained?

Is it so great a bliss to be a king,

When he that wears the crown with blood is stained

And buys his sceptre with his people’s lives?

See whither glory vain, fond mankind drives.

LXVII

“See, see the man, called holy, just, and good,

That courteous, meek, and humble would be thought,

Yet never cared in what distress we stood

If his vain honor were diminished naught,

When dried up from us his spring and flood

His water must from Jordan streams be brought,

And how he sits at feasts and banquets sweet

And mingleth waters fresh with wines of Crete.”

LXVIII

The French thus murmured, but the Greekish knight

Tatine, that of this war was weary grown:

“Why die we here,” quoth he, “slain without fight,

Killed, not subdued, murdered, not overthrown?

Upon the Frenchmen let the penance light

Of Godfrey’s folly, let me save mine own,”

And as he said, without farewell, the knight

And all his comet stole away by night.

LXIX

His bad example many a troop prepares

To imitate, when his escape they know,

Clotharius his band, and Ademare’s,

And all whose guides in dust were buried low,

Discharged of duty’s chains and bondage snares,

Free from their oath, to none they service owe,

But now concluded all on secret flight,

And shrunk away by thousands every night.

LXX

Godfredo this both heard, and saw, and knew,

Yet nould with death them chastise though he mought,

But with that faith wherewith he could renew

The steadfast hills and seas dry up to naught

He prayed the Lord upon his flock to rue,

To ope the springs of grace and ease this drought,

Out of his looks shone zeal, devotion, faith,

His hands and eyes to heaven he heaves, and saith:

LXXI

“Father and Lord, if in the deserts waste

Thou hadst compassion on thy children dear,

The craggy rock when Moses cleft and brast,

And drew forth flowing streams of waters clear,

Like mercy, Lord, like grace on us down cast;

And though our merits less than theirs appear,

Thy grace supply that want, for though they be

Thy first-born son, thy children yet are we.”

LXXII

These prayers just, from humble hearts forth sent,

Were nothing slow to climb the starry sky,

But swift as winged bird themselves present

Before the Father of the heavens high:

The Lord accepted them, and gently bent

Upon the faithful host His gracious eye,

And in what pain and what distress it laid,

He saw, and grieved to see, and thus He said:

LXXIII

“Mine armies dear till now have suffered woe,

Distress and danger, hell’s infernal power

Their enemy hath been, the world their foe,

But happy be their actions from this hour:

What they begin to blessed end shall go,

I will refresh them with a gentle shower;

Rinaldo shall return, the Egyptian crew

They shall encounter, conquer, and subdue.”

LXXIV

At these high words great heaven began to shake,

The fixed stars, the planets wandering still,

Trembled the air, the earth and ocean quake,

Spring, fountain, river, forest, dale and hill;

From north to east, a lightning flash outbrake,

And coming drops presaged with thunders shrill:

With joyful shouts the soldiers on the plain,

These tokens bless of long-desired rain.

LXXV

A sudden cloud, as when Helias prayed,

Not from dry earth exhaled by Phoebus’ beams,

Arose, moist heaven his windows open laid,

Whence clouds by heaps out rush, and watery streams,

The world o’erspread was with a gloomy shade,

That like a dark mirksome even it seems;

The crashing rain from molten skies down fell,

And o’er their banks the brooks and fountains swell.

LXXVI

In summer season, when the cloudy sky

Upon the parched ground doth rain down send,

As duck and mallard in the furrows dry

With merry noise the promised showers attend,

And spreading broad their wings displayed lie

To keep the drops that on their plumes descend,

And where the streams swell to a gathered lake,

Therein they dive, and sweet refreshing take:

LXXVII

So they the streaming showers with shouts and cries

Salute, which heaven shed on the thirsty lands,

The falling liquor from the dropping skies

He catcheth in his lap, he barehead stands,

And his bright helm to drink therein unties,

In the fresh streams he dives his sweaty hands,

Their faces some, and some their temples wet,

And some to keep the drops large vessels set.

LXXVIII

Nor man alone to ease his burning sore,

Herein doth dive and wash, and hereof drinks,

But earth itself weak, feeble, faint before,

Whose solid limbs were cleft with rifts and chinks,

Received the falling showers and gathered store

Of liquor sweet, that through her veins down sinks,

And moisture new infused largely was

In trees, in plants, in herbs, in flowers, in grass.

LXXIX

Earth, like the patient was, whose lively blood

Hath overcome at last some sickness strong,

Whose feeble limbs had been the bait and food

Whereon this strange disease depastured long,

But now restored, in health and welfare stood,

As sound as erst, as fresh, as fair, as young;

So that forgetting all his grief and pain,

His pleasant robes and crowns he takes again.

LXXX

Ceased the rain, the sun began to shine,

With fruitful, sweet, benign, and gentle ray,

Full of strong power and vigor masculine,

As be his beams in April or in May.

O happy zeal! who trusts in help divine

The world’s afflictions thus can drive away,

Can storms appease, and times and seasons change,

And conquer fortune, fate, and destiny strange.

FOURTEENTH BOOK

THE ARGUMENT.

The Lord to Godfrey in a dream doth show

His will; Rinaldo must return at last;

They have their asking who for pardon sue:

Two knights to find the prince are sent in haste,

But Peter, who by vision all foreknew,

Sendeth the searchers to a wizard, placed

Deep in a vault, who first at large declares

Armida’s trains, then how to shun those snares.

I

Now from the fresh, the soft and tender bed

Of her still mother, gentle night out flew,

The fleeting balm on hills and dales she shed,

With honey drops of pure and precious dew,

And on the verdure of green forests spread

The virgin primrose and the violet blue,

And sweet-breathed Zephyr on his spreading wings,

Sleep, ease, repose, rest, peace and quiet brings.

II

The thoughts and troubles of broad-waking day,

They softly dipped in mild Oblivion’s lake;

But he whose Godhead heaven and earth doth sway,

In his eternal light did watch and wake,

And bent on Godfrey down the gracious ray

Of his bright eye, still ope for Godfrey’s sake,

To whom a silent dream the Lord down sent.

Which told his will, his pleasure and intent.

III

Far in the east, the golden gate beside

Whence Phoebus comes, a crystal port there is,

And ere the sun his broad doors open wide

The beam of springing day uncloseth this,

Hence comes the dreams, by which heaven’s sacred guide

Reveals to man those high degrees of his,

Hence toward Godfrey ere he left his bed

A vision strange his golden plumes bespread.

IV

Such semblances, such shapes, such portraits fair,

Did never yet in dream or sleep appear,

For all the forms in sea, in earth or air,

The signs in heaven, the stars in every sphere

All that was wondrous, uncouth, strange and rare,

All in that vision well presented were.

His dream had placed him in a crystal wide,

Beset with golden fires, top, bottom, side,

V

There while he wondereth on the circles vast,

The stars, their motions, course and harmony,

A knight, with shining rays and fire embraced,

Presents himself unwares before his eye,

Who with a voice that far for sweetness passed

All human speech, thus said, approaching nigh:

“What, Godfrey, knowest thou not thy Hugo here?

Come and embrace thy friend and fellow dear!”

VI

He answered him, “Thy glorious shining light

Which in thine eyes his glistering beams doth place,

Estranged hath from my foreknowledge quite

Thy countenance, thy favor, and thy face:”

This said, three times he stretched his hands outright

And would in friendly arms the knight embrace,

And thrice the spirit fled, that thrice he twined

Naught in his folded arms but air and wind.

VII

Lord Hugo smiled, “Not as you think,” quoth he,

“I clothed am in flesh and earthly mould,

My spirit pure, and naked soul, you see,

A citizen of this celestial hold:

This place is heaven, and here a room for thee

Prepared is among Christ’s champions bold:”

“Ah when,” quoth he, “these mortal bonds unknit,

Shall I in peace, in ease and rest there sit?”

VIII

Hugo replied, “Ere many years shall run,

Amid the saints in bliss here shalt thou reign;

But first great wars must by thy hand be done,

Much blood be shed, and many Pagans slain,

The holy city by assault be won,

The land set free from servile yoke again,

Wherein thou shalt a Christian empire frame,

And after thee shall Baldwin rule the same.

IX

“But to increase thy love and great desire

To heavenward, this blessed place behold,

These shining lamps, these globes of living fire,

How they are turned, guided, moved and rolled;

The angels’ singing hear, and all their choir;

Then bend thine eyes on yonder earth and mould,

All in that mass, that globe and compass see,

Land, sea, spring, fountain, man, beast, grass and tree.

X

“How vile, how small, and of how slender price,

Is their reward of goodness, virtue’s gain!

A narrow room our glory vain upties,

A little circle doth our pride contain,

Earth like an isle amid the water lies,

Which sea sometime is called, sometime the main,

Yet naught therein responds a name so great,

It’s but a lake, a pond, a marish strait.”

XI

Thus said the one, the other bended down

His looks to ground, and half in scorn he smiled,

He saw at once earth, sea, flood, castle, town,

Strangely divided, strangely all compiled,

And wondered folly man so far should drown,

To set his heart on things so base and vild,

That servile empire searcheth and dumb fame,

And scorns heaven’s bliss, yet proffereth heaven the same.

XII

Wherefore he answered, “Since the Lord not yet

Will free my spirit from this cage of clay,

Lest worldly error vain my voyage let,

Teach me to heaven the best and surest way:”

Hugo replied, “Thy happy foot is set

In the true path, nor from this passage stray,

Only from exile young Rinaldo call,

This give I thee in charge, else naught at all.

XIII

“For as the Lord of hosts, the King of bliss,

Hath chosen thee to rule the faithful band;

So he thy stratagems appointed is

To execute, so both shall win this land:

The first is thine, the second place is his,

Thou art this army’s head, and he the hand,

No other champion can his place supply,

And that thou do it doth thy state deny.

XIV

“The enchanted forest, and her charmed treen,

With cutting steel shall he to earth down hew,

And thy weak armies which too feeble been

To scale again these walls reinforced new,

And fainting lie dispersed on the green,

Shall take new strength new courage at his view,

The high-built towers, the eastern squadrons all,

Shall conquered be, shall fly, shall die, shall fall.”

XV

He held his peace; and Godfrey answered so:

“Oh, how his presence would recomfort me!

You that man’s hidden thoughts perceive and know:

If I say truth, or if I love him, see.

But say, what messengers shall for him go?

What shall their speeches, what their errand be?

Shall I entreat, or else command the man?

With credit neither well perform I can.”

XVI

“The eternal Lord,” the other knight replied,

“That with so many graces hath thee blest,

Will, that among the troops thou hast to guide,

Thou honored be and feared of most and least:

Then speak not thou lest blemish some betide

Thy sacred empire if thou make request;

But when by suit thou moved art to ruth,

Then yield, forgive, and home recall the youth.

XVII

“Guelpho shall pray thee, God shall him inspire,

To pardon this offence, this fault commit

By hasty wrath, by rash and headstrong ire,

To call the knight again; yield thou to it:

And though the youth, enwrapped in fond desire,

Far hence in love and looseness idle sit,

Year fear it not, he shall return with speed,

When most you wish him and when most you need.

XVIII

“Your hermit Peter, to whose sapient heart

High Heaven his secrets opens, tells and shews,

Your messengers direct can to that part,

Where of the prince they shall hear certain news,

And learn the way, the manner, and the art

To bring him back to these thy warlike crews,

That all thy soldiers, wandered and misgone,

Heaven may unite again and join in one.

XIX

“But this conclusion shall my speeches end:

Know that his blood shall mixed be with thine,

Whence barons bold and worthies shall descend,

That many great exploits shall bring to fine.”

This said, he vanished from his sleeping friend,

Like smoke in wind, or mist in Titan’s shine;

Sleep fled likewise, and in his troubled thought,

With wonder, pleasure; joy, with marvel fought.

XX

The duke looked up, and saw the azure sky

With argent beams of silver morning spread,

And started up, for praise axed virtue lie

In toil and travel, sin and shame in bed:

His arms he took, his sword girt to his thigh,

To his pavilion all his lords them sped,

And there in council grave the princes sit,

For strength by wisdom, war is ruled by wit.

XXI

Lord Guelpho there, within whose gentle breast

Heaven had infused that new and sudden thought,

His pleasing words thus to the duke addressed:

“Good prince, mild, though unasked, kind, unbesought,

Oh let thy mercy grant my just request,

Pardon this fault by rage not malice wrought;

For great offence, I grant, so late commit,

My suit too hasty is, perchance unfit.

XXII

But since to Godfrey meek benign and kind,

For Prince Rinaldo bold, I humbly sue,

And that the suitor’s self is not behind

Thy greatest friends in state or friendship true;

I trust I shall thy grace and mercy find

Acceptable to me and all this crew;

Oh call him home, this trespass to amend,

He shall his blood in Godfrey’s service spend.

XXIII

“And if not he, who else dares undertake

Of this enchanted wood to cut one tree?

Gainst death and danger who dares battle make,

With so bold face, so fearless heart as he?

Beat down these walls, these gates in pieces break,

Leap o’er these rampires high, thou shalt him see,

Restore therefore to this desirous band

Their wish, their hope, their strength, their shield, their hand;

XXIV

“To me my nephew, to thyself restore

A trusty help, when strength of hand thou needs,

In idleness let him consume no more,

Recall him to his noble acts and deeds!

Known be his worth as was his strength of yore

Wher’er thy standard broad her cross outspreads,

Oh, let his fame and praise spread far and wide,

Be thou his lord, his teacher and his guidel”

XXV

Thus he entreated, and the rest approve

His words, with friendly murmurs whispered low.

Godfrey as though their suit his mind did move

To that whereon he never thought tell now,

“How can my heart,” quoth he, “if you I love,

To your request and suit but bend and bow?

Let rigor go, that right and justice be

Wherein you all consent and all agree.

XXVI

“Rinaldo shall return; let him restrain

Henceforth his headstrong wrath and hasty ire,

And with his hardy deeds let him take pain

To correspond your hope and my desire:

Guelpho, thou must call home the knight again,

See that with speed he to these tents retire,

The messengers appoint as likes thy mind,

And teach them where they should the young man find.”

XXVII

Up start the Dane that bare Prince Sweno’s brand,

“I will,” quoth he, “that message undertake,

I will refuse no pains by sea or land,

To give the knight this sword, kept for his sake.”

This man was bold of courage, strong of hand,

Guelpho was glad he did the proffer make:

“Thou shalt,” quoth he, “Ubaldo shalt thou have

To go with thee, a knight, stout, wise, and grave.”

XXVIII

Ubaldo in his youth had known and seen

The fashions strange of many an uncouth land,

And travelled over all the realms between

The Arctic circle and hot Meroe’s strand,

And as a man whose wit his guide had been,

Their customs use he could, tongues understand,

Forthy when spent his youthful seasons were

Lord Guelpho entertained and held him dear.

XXIX

To these committed was the charge and care

To find and bring again the champion bold,

Guelpho commands them to the fort repair,

Where Boemond doth his seat and sceptre hold,

For public fame said that Bertoldo’s heir

There lived, there dwelt, there stayed; the hermit old,

That knew they were misled by false report,

Among them came, and parleyed in this sort:

XXX

“Sir knights,” quoth he, “if you intend to ride,

And follow each report fond people say,

You follow but a rash and truthless guide

That leads vain men amiss and makes them stray;

Near Ascalon go to the salt seaside,

Where a swift brook fails in with hideous sway,

An aged sire, our friend, there shall you find,

All what he saith, that do, that keep in mind.

XXXI

“Of this great voyage which you undertake,

Much by his skill, and much by mine advise

Hath he foreknown, and welcome for my sake

You both shall be, the man is kind and wise.”

Instructed thus no further question make

The twain elected for this enterprise,

But humbly yielded to obey his word,

For what the hermit said, that said the Lord.

XXXII

They took their leave, and on their journey went,

Their will could brook no stay, their zeal, no let;

To Ascalon their voyage straight they bent,

Whose broken shores with brackish waves are wet,

And there they heard how gainst the cliffs, besprent

With bitter foam, the roaring surges bet,

A tumbling brook their passage stopped and stayed,

Which late-fall’n rain had proud and puissant made,

XXXIII

So proud that over all his banks he grew,

And through the fields ran swift as shaft from bow,

While here they stopped and stood, before them drew

An aged sire, grave and benign in show,

Crowned with a beechen garland gathered new,

Clad in a linen robe that raught down low,

In his right hand a rod, and on the flood

Against the stream he marched, and dry shod yode.

XXXIV

As on the Rhene, when winter’s freezing cold

Congeals the streams to thick and hardened glass,

The beauties fair of shepherds’ daughters bold

With wanton windlays run, turn, play and pass;

So on this river passed the wizard old,

Although unfrozen soft and swift it was,

And thither stalked where the warriors stayed,

To whom, their greetings done, he spoke and said:

XXXV

“Great pains, great travel, lords, you have begun,

And of a cunning guide great need you stand,

Far off, alas! is great Bertoldo’s son,

Imprisoned in a waste and desert land,

What soil remains by which you must not run,

What promontory, rock, sea, shore or sand

Your search must stretch before the prince be found,

Beyond our world, beyond our half of ground!

XXXVI

But yet vouchsafe to see my cell I pray,

In hidden caves and vaults though builded low,

Great wonders there, strange things I will bewray,

Things good for you to hear, and fit to know:”

This said, he bids the river make them way,

The flood retired, backward gan to flow,

And here and there two crystal mountains rise,

So fled the Red Sea once, and Jordan thrice.

XXXVII

He took their hands, and led them headlong down

Under the flood, through vast and hollow deeps,

Such light they had as when through shadows brown

Of thickest deserts feeble Cynthia peeps,

Their spacious caves they saw all overflown,

There all his waters pure great Neptune keeps,

And thence to moisten all the earth he brings

Seas, rivers, floods, lakes, fountains, wells and springs:

XXXVIII

Whence Ganges, Indus, Volga, Ister, Po,

Whence Euphrates, whence Tigris’ spring they view,

Whence Tanais, whence Nilus comes also,

Although his head till then no creature knew,

But under these a wealthy stream doth go,

That sulphur yields and ore, rich, quick and new,

Which the sunbeams doth polish, purge and fine,

And makes it silver pure, and gold divine.

XXXIX

And all his banks the rich and wealthy stream

Hath fair beset with pearl and precious stone

Like stars in sky or lamps on stage that seem,

The darkness there was day, the night was gone,

There sparkled, clothed in his azure-beam,

The heavenly sapphire, there the jacinth shone,

The carbuncle there flamed, the diamond sheen,

There glistered bright, there smiled the emerald green.

XL

Amazed the knights amid these wonders passed,

And fixed so deep the marvels in their thought,

That not one word they uttered, till at last

Ubaldo spake, and thus his guide besought:

“O father, tell me by what skill thou hast

These wonders done? and to what place us brought?

For well I know not if I wake or sleep,

My heart is drowned in such amazement deep.”

XLI

“You are within the hollow womb,” quoth he,

“Of fertile earth, the nurse of all things made,

And but you brought and guided are by me,

Her sacred entrails could no wight invade;

My palace shortly shall you splendent see,

With glorious light, though built in night and shade.

A Pagan was I born, but yet the Lord

To grace, by baptism, hath my soul restored.

XLII

“Nor yet by help of devil, or aid from hell,

I do this uncouth work and wondrous feat,

The Lord forbid I use or charm or spell

To raise foul Dis from his infernal seat:

But of all herbs, of every spring and well,

The hidden power I know and virtue great,

And all that kind hath hid from mortal sight,

And all the stars, their motions, and their might.

XLIII

“For in these caves I dwell not buried still

From sight of Heaven, but often I resort

To tops of Lebanon or Carmel hill,

And there in liquid air myself disport,

There Mars and Venus I behold at will!

As bare as erst when Vulcan took them short,

And how the rest roll, glide and move, I see,

How their aspects benign or froward be.”

XLIV

“And underneath my feet the clouds I view,

Now thick, now thin, now bright with Iris’ bow,

The frost and snow, the rain, the hail, the dew,

The winds, from whence they come and whence they blow,

How Jove his thunder makes and lightning new,

How with the bolt he strikes the earth below,

How comate, crinite, caudate stars are framed

I knew; my skill with pride my heart inflamed.

XLV

“So learned, cunning, wise, myself I thought,

That I supposed my wit so high might climb

To know all things that God had framed or wrought,

Fire, air, sea, earth, man, beast, sprite, place and time;

But when your hermit me to baptism brought,

And from my soul had washed the sin and crime,

Then I perceived my sight was blindness still,

My wit was folly, ignorance my skill.

XLVI

“Then saw I, that like owls in shining sun,

So gainst the beams of truth our souls are blind,

And at myself to smile I then begun,

And at my heart, puffed up with folly’s wind,

Yet still these arts, as I before had done,

I practised, such was the hermit’s mind:

Thus hath he changed my thoughts, my heart, my will,

And rules mine art, my knowledge, and my skill.

XLVII

“In him I rest, on him my thoughts depend,

My lord, my teacher, and my guide is he,

This noble work he strives to bring to end,

He is the architect, the workmen we,

The hardy youth home to this camp to send

From prison strong, my care, my charge shall be;

So He commands, and me ere this foretold

Your coming oft, to seek the champion bold.”

XLVIII

While this he said, he brought the champions twain

Down to a vault, wherein he dwells and lies,

It was a cave, high, wide, large, ample, plain,

With goodly rooms, halls, chambers, galleries,

All what is bred in rich and precious vein

Of wealthy earth, and hid from mortal eyes,

There shines, and fair adorned was every part

With riches grown by kind, not framed by art:

XLIX

An hundred grooms, quick, diligent and neat,

Attendance gave about these strangers bold,

Against the wall there stood a cupboard great

Of massive plate, of silver, crystal, gold.

But when with precious wines and costly meat

They filled were, thus spake the wizard old:

“Now fits the time, sir knights, I tell and show

What you desire to hear, and long to know.

L

“Armida’s craft, her sleight and hidden guile

You partly wot, her acts and arts untrue,

How to your camp she came, and by what wile

The greatest lords and princes thence she drew;

You know she turned them first to monsters vile,

And kept them since closed up in secret mew,

Lastly, to Gaza-ward in bonds them sent,

Whom young Rinaldo rescued as they went.

LI

“What chanced since I will at large declare,

To you unknown, a story strange and true.

When first her prey, got with such pain and care,

Escaped and gone the witch perceived and knew,

Her hands she wrung for grief, her clothes she tare,

And full of woe these heavy words outthrew:

‘Alas! my knights are slain, my prisoners free,

Yet of that conquest never boast shall he,

LII

“‘He in their place shall serve me, and sustain

Their plagues, their torments suffer, sorrows bear,

And they his absence shall lament in vain,

And wail his loss and theirs with many a tear:’

Thus talking to herself she did ordain

A false and wicked guile, as you shall hear;

Thither she hasted where the valiant knight

Had overcome and slain her men in fight.

LIII

“Rinaldo there had dolt and left his own,

And on his back a Pagan’s harness tied,

Perchance he deemed so to pass unknown,

And in those arms less noted false to ride.

A headless corse in fight late overthrown,

The witch in his forsaken arms did hide,

And by a brook exposed it on the sand

Whither she wished would come a Christian band:

LIV

“Their coming might the dame foreknow right well,

For secret spies she sent forth thousand ways,

Which every day news from the camp might tell,

Who parted thence, booties to search or preys:

Beside, the sprites conjured by sacred spell,

All what she asks or doubts, reveals and says,

The body therefore placed she in that part

That furthered best her sleight, her craft and art;

LV

“And near the corpse a varlet false and sly

She left, attired in shepherd’s homely weed,

And taught him how to counterfeit and lie

As time required, and he performed the deed;

With him your soldiers spoke, of jealousy

And false suspect mongst them he strewed the seed,

That since brought forth the fruit of strife and jar,

Of civil brawls, contention, discord, war.

LVI

“And as she wished so the soldiers thought

By Godfrey’s practice that the prince was slain,

Yet vanished that suspicion false to naught

When truth spread forth her silver wings again

Her false devices thus Armida wrought,

This was her first deceit, her foremost train;

What next she practised, shall you hear me tell,

Against our knight, and what thereof befell.