PART V.--Rinaldo disenchants the forest, and has the chief hand in the

taking of Jerusalem. He meets and reconciles Armida. RINALDO AND ARMIDA,

ETC.

Part the First

ARMIDA IN THE CHRISTIAN CAMP.

The Christians had now commenced their attack on Jerusalem, and brought a

great rolling tower against the walls, built from the wood of a forest in

the neigbbourhood; when the Malignant Spirit, who has never ceased his

war with Heaven, cast in his mind how he might best defeat their purpose.

It was necessary to divide their forces; to destroy their tower; to

hinder them from building another; and to make one final triumphant

effort against the whole progress of their arms.

Forgetting how the right arm of God could launch its thunderbolts, the

Fiend accordingly seated himself on his throne, and ordered his powers to

be brought together. The Tartarean trumpet, with its hoarse voice, called

up the dwellers in everlasting darkness. The huge black caverns trembled

to their depths, and the blind air rebellowed with the thunder. The bolt

does not break forth so horribly when it comes bursting after the flash

out of the heavens; nor had the world before ever trembled with such an

earthquake.[1]

The gods of the abyss came thronging up on all sides through the

gates;--terrible-looking beings with unaccountable aspects, dispensers of

death and horror with their eyes;--some stamping with hoofs, some rolling

on enormous spires,--their faces human, their hair serpents. There were

thousands of shameless Harpies, of pallid Gorgons, of barking Scyllas,

of Chimeras that vomited ashes, and of monsters never before heard or

thought of, with perverse aspects all mixed up in one.

The Power of Evil sat looking down upon them, huger than a rock in the

sea, or an alp with forked summits. A certain horrible majesty augmented

the terrors of his aspect. His eyes reddened; his poisonous look hung in

the air like a comet; the mouth, as it opened in the midst of clouds of

beard, seemed an abyss of darkness and blood; and out of it, as from a

volcano, issued fires, and vapours, and disgust.

Satan laid forth to his dreadful hearers his old quarrel with Heaven,

and its new threats of an extension of its empire. Christendom was to be

brought into Asia; their worshippers were to perish; souls were to be

rescued from their devices, and Satan's kingdom on earth put an end to.

He exhorted them therefore to issue forth once for all and prevent this

fatal consummation by the destruction of the Christian forces. Some of

the leaders he bade them do their best to disperse, others to slay,

others to draw into effeminate pleasures, into rebellion, into the ruin

of the whole camp, so that not a vestige might remain of its existence.

The assembly broke up with the noise of hurricanes. They issued forth

to look once more upon the stars, and to sow seeds every where of

destruction to the Christians. Satan himself followed them, and entered

the heart of Hydraotes, king of Damascus.

Hydraotes was a wizard as well as a king, and held the Christians in

abhorrence. But he was wise enough to respect their valour; and with

Satan's help he discerned the likeliest way to counteract it. He had a

niece, who was the greatest beauty of the age. He had taught her his art:

and he concluded, that the enchantments of beauty and magic united would

prove irresistible. He therefore disclosed to her his object. He told her

that every artifice was lawful, when the intention was to serve one's

country and one's faith; and he conjured her to do her utmost to separate

Godfrey himself from his army, or in the event of that not being

possible, to bring away as many as she could of his noblest captains.

Armida (for that was her name), proud of her beauty, and of the unusual

arts that she had acquired, took her way the same evening, alone, and by

the most sequestered paths,--a female in gown and tresses issuing forth

to conquer an army.[2]

She had not travelled many days ere she came in sight of the Christian

camp, the outskirts of which she entered immediately. The Frenchmen all

flocked to see her, wondering who she was, and who could have sent them

so lovely a messenger. Armida passed onwards, not with a misgiving air,

not with an unalluring, and yet not with an immodest one. Her golden

tresses she suffered at one moment to escape from under her veil, and

at another she gathered them again within it. Her rosy mouth breathed

simplicity as well as voluptuousness. Her bosom was so artfully draped,

as to let itself be discerned without seeming to intend it. And thus she

passed along, surprising and transporting every body. Coming at length

among the tents of the officers, she requested to be shewn that of the

leader; and Eustace eagerly stepped forward to conduct her.

Eustace was the younger brother of Godfrey. He had all the ardour of his

time of life, and the gallantry, in every respect, of a Frenchman. After

paying her a profusion of compliments, and learning that she was a

fugitive in distress, he promised her every thing which his brother's

authority and his own sword could do for her; and so led her into

Godfrey's presence.

The pretended fugitive made a lowly obeisance, and then stood mute and

blushing, till the general re-assured her. She then told him, that she

was the rightful queen of Damascus, whose throne was usurped by an uncle;

that her uncle sought her death, from which she had been saved by the man

who was bribed to inflict it; and that although her creed was Mahometan,

she had brought her mind to conclude, that so noble an enemy as Godfrey

would take pity on her condition, and permit some of his captains to aid

the secret wishes of her people, and seat her on the throne. Ten selected

chiefs would overcome, she said, all opposition; and she promised in

return to become his grateful and faithful vassal.

The leader of the Christian army sat a while in deliberation. His heart

was inclined to befriend the lady, but his prudence was afraid of a Pagan

artifice. He thought also that it did not become his piety to turn aside

from the enterprise which God had favoured. He therefore gave her a

gentle refusal; but added, that should success attend him, and Jerusalem

be taken, he would instantly do what she required.

Armida looked down, and wept. A mixture of indignation and despair

appeared to seize her; and exclaiming that she had no longer a wish to

live, she accused, she said, not a heart so renowned for generosity as

his, but Heaven itself which had steeled it against her. What was she to

do? She could not remain in his camp. Virgin modesty forbade that. She

was not safe out of its bounds. Her enemies tracked her steps. It was fit

that she should die by her own hand.

An indignant pity took possession of the French officers. They wondered

how Godfrey could resist the prayers of a creature so beautiful; and

Eustace openly, though respectfully, remonstrated. He said, that if ten

of the best of his captains could not be spared, ten others might;

that it especially became the Christians to redress the wrongs of the

innocent; that the death of a tyrant, instead of being a deviation from

the service of God, was one of the directest means of performing it; and

that France would never endure to hear, that a lady had applied to her

knights for assistance, and found her suit refused.

A murmur of approbation followed the words of Eustace. His companions

pressed nearer to the general, and warmly urged his request.

Godfrey assented to a wish expressed by so many, but not with perfect

goodwill. He bade them remember, that the measure was the result of their

own opinion, not his; and concluded by requesting them at all events, for

his sake, to moderate the excess of their confidence. The transported

warriors had scarcely any answer to make but that of congratulations to

the lady. She, on her side, while mischief was rejoicing in her heart,

first expressed her gratitude to all in words intermixed with smiles and

tears, and then carried herself towards every one in particular in the

manner which she thought most fitted to ensnare. She behaved to this

person with cordiality, to that with comparative reserve; to one with

phrases only, to another with looks besides, and intimations of secret

preference. The ardour of some she repressed, but still in a manner to

rekindle it. To others she was all gaiety and attraction; and when others

again had their eyes upon her, she would fall into fits of absence, and

shed tears, as if in secret, and then look up suddenly and laugh, and put

on a cheerful patience. And thus she drew them all into her net.

Yet none of all these men confessed that passion impelled them; every

body laid his enthusiasm to the account of honour--Eustace particularly,

because he was most in love. He was also very jealous, especially of the

heroical Rinaldo, Prince of Este; and as the squadron of horse to which

they both belonged--the greatest in the army--had lately been deprived of

its chief, Eustace cast in his mind how he might keep Rinaldo from going

with Armida, and at the same time secure his own attendance on her, by

advancing him to the vacant post. He offered his services to Rinaldo for

the purpose, not without such emotion as let the hero into his secret;

but as the latter had no desire to wait on the lady, he smilingly

assented, agreeing at the same time to assist the wishes of the lover.

The emissaries of Satan, however, were at work in all quarters. If

Eustace was jealous of Rinaldo as a rival in love, Gernando, Prince of

Norway, another of the squadron that had lost its chief, was no less

so of his gallantry in war, and of his qualifications for being his

commander. Gernando was a haughty barbarian, who thought that every sort

of pre-eminence was confined to princes of blood royal. He heard of

the proposal of Eustace with a disgust that broke into the unworthiest

expressions. He even vented it in public, in the open part of the camp,

when Rinaldo was standing at no great distance; and the words coming to

the hero's ears, and breaking down the tranquillity of his contempt,

the latter darted towards him, sword in hand, and defied him to single

combat. Gernando beheld death before him, but made a show of valour, and

stood on his defence. A thousand swords leaped forth to back him, mixed

with as many voices; and half the camp of Godfrey tried to withhold the

impetuous youth who was for deciding his quarrel without the general's

leave. But the hero's transport was not to be stopped; he dashed through

them all, forced the Norwegian to encounter him, and after a storm of

blows that dazzled the man's eyes and took away his senses, ran his sword

thrice through the prince's body. He then sent the blade into its sheath

reeking as it was, and, taking his way back to his tent, reposed in the

calmness of his triumph.

The victor had scarcely gone, when the general arrived on the ground. He

beheld the slain Prince of Norway with acute feelings of regret. What was

to become of his army, if the leaders thus quarrelled among themselves,

and his authority was set at nought? The friends of the slain man

increased his anger against Rinaldo, by charging him with all the blame

of the catastrophe. The hero's friend, Tancred, assuaged it somewhat by

disclosing the truth, and then ventured to ask pardon for the outbreak.

But the wise commander skewed so many reasons why such an offence could

not be overlooked, and his countenance expressed such a determination to

resent it, that the gallant youth hastened secretly to his friend, and

urged him to quit the camp till his services should be needed. Rinaldo at

first called for his arms, and was bent on resisting every body who came

to seize him, had it been even Godfrey himself; but Tancred shewing

him how unjust that would be, and how fatal to the Christian cause, he

consented with an ill grace to depart. He would take nobody with him but

two squires; and he went away raging with a sense of ill requital for

his achievements, but resolving to prove their value by destroying every

infidel prince that he could encounter.

Armida now tried in vain to make an impression on the heart of Godfrey.

He was insensible to all her devices; but she succeeded in quitting the

camp with her ten champions. Lots were drawn to determine who should go;

and all who failed to be in the list--Eustace among them--were so jealous

of the rest, that at night-time, after the others had been long on

the road, they set out to overtake them, each by himself, and all in

violation of their soldierly words. The ten opposed them as they came up,

but to no purpose. Armida reconciled them all in appearance, by feigning

to be devoted to each in secret; and thus she rode on with them many a

mile, till she came to a castle on the Dead Sea, where she was accustomed

to practise her unfriendliest arts.

Meanwhile news came to Godfrey that his Egyptian enemies were at hand

with a great fleet, and that his caravan of provisions had been taken by

the robbers of the desert. His army was thus threatened with ruin from

desertion, starvation, and the sword. He maintained a calm and even a

cheerful countenance; but in his thoughts he had great anxiety.

Part the Second.

ARMIDA'S HATE AND LOVE.

The castle to which Armida took her prisoners occupied an island close to

the shore in the loathsome Dead Sea. They entered it by means of a narrow

bridge; but if their pity had been great at seeing her forced to take

refuge in a spot so desolate and repulsive, how pleasingly was it changed

into as great a surprise at finding a totally different region within the

walls! The gardens were extensive and lovely; the rivulets and fountains

as sweet as the flowery thickets they watered; the breezes refreshing,

the skies of a sapphire blue, and the birds were singing round about them

in the trees. Her riches astonished them no less. The side of the castle

that looked on the gardens was all marble and gold; a banquet awaited

them beside a water on a shady lawn, consisting of the exquisitest viands

on the costliest plate; and a hundred beautiful maidens attended them

while they feasted. The enchantress was all smiles and delight; and such

was her art, that although she bestowed no favour on any body beyond his

banquet and his hopes, every body thought himself the favoured lover.

But no sooner was the feast over, than the greatest and worst of their

astonishments ensued. The lady quitted them, saying she should return

presently. She did so with a troubled and unfriendly countenance, having

a book in one hand, and a little wand in the other. She read in the book

in a low voice, and while she was reading shook the little wand; and the

guests, altering in every part of their being, and shrinking into minute

bodies, felt an inclination, which they obeyed, to plunge into the water

beside them. They were fish. In a little while they were again men,

looking her in the face with dread and amazement. She had restored them

to their humanity. She regarded them with a severe countenance, and said

"You have tasted my power; I can exercise it far more terribly--can put

you in dungeons for ever--can turn you to roots in the ground--to flints

within the rock. Beware of my wrath, and please me; quit your faiths for

mine, and fight against the blasphemer Godfrey."

Every Christian but one rejected her alternative with abhorrence. Him she

made one of her champions; the rest were tied and bound, and after being

kept a while in a dungeon were sent off as a present to the King of

Egypt, with an escort that came from Damascus to fetch them.

Exulting was left the fair and bigoted magician; but she little guessed

what a new fortune awaited them on the road. The discord with which the

powers of evil had seconded her endeavours to weaken the Christian camp,

had turned in this instance against herself. It had made Rinaldo a

wanderer; it had brought his wanderings into this very path; and he now

met the prisoners, and bade defiance to the escort. A battle ensued, in

which the hero won his accustomed victory. The Christians, receiving the

armour of their foes, joyfully took their way back to the camp; and one

of the escort, who escaped the slaughter, returned to Armida with news of

the deliverance of her captives.

The mortified enchantress took horse and went in pursuit of Rinaldo, with

wrath and vengeance in her heart. She tracked him from place to place,

till she knew he must arrive on the banks of the Orontes; and there,

making a stealthy circuit, she cast a spell, and lay in wait for him in a

little island which divided the stream in two.[3]

Rinaldo came up with his squires; he beheld on the bank a pillar of white

marble, and beside it on the water a little boat. The pillar presented

an inscription, inviting travellers to cross to the island and behold a

wonder of the world. The hero accepted the invitation; but as the boat

was too small to hold more than one person, and the circumstance probably

an appeal to his courage, he bade his squires wait for him, and proceeded

by himself.

On reaching the island and casting his eyes eagerly round about, the

adventurer could discern nothing but trees and grottos, flowers and

grass, and water. He thought himself trifled with; but as the spot was

beautiful and refreshing, he took off his helmet, resolving to stay a

little and repose. He crossed to the farther side of the island, and lay

down on the river-side. On a sudden he observed the water bubble and

gurgle in a manner that was very strange; and presently the top of a head

arose with beautiful hair, then the face of a damsel, then the bosom.

The fair creature stood half out of the stream, and warbled a song so

luxurious and so lulling, that the little wind there was seemed to

fall in order to listen; and the young warrior was so drowsed with the

sweetness, that languor crept through all his senses, and he slept.

Armida came from out a thicket and looked on him. She had resolved that

he should perish. But when she saw how placidly he breathed, and what an

intimation of beautiful eyes there was in his very eyelids, she hung over

him, still looking.

In a little while she sat down by his side, always looking. She hung over

him as Narcissus did over the water, and indignation melted out of her

heart. She cooled his face with her veil; she made a fan of it; she gave

herself up to the worship of those hidden eyes. Of an enemy she became a

lover.[4]

Armida gathered trails of roses and lilies from the thickets around her,

and cast a spell on them, and made bands with which she fettered his

sleeping limbs; and then she called her nymphs, and they put him into her

ear, and she went away with him through the air far off, even to one of

the Fortunate Islands in the great ocean, where her jealousy, assisted by

her art, would be in dread of no visitors, no discovery. She bore him to

the top of a mountain, and cast a spell about the mountain, to make the

top lovely and the sides inaccessible. She put shapes of wild beasts

and monsters in the woods of the lowest region, and heaps of ice in the

second, and alluring and betraying shapes and enchantments towards the

summit; and round the summit she put walls and labyrinths of inextricable

error; and in the heart of these was a palace by a lake, and the

loveliest of gardens.

Mere Rinaldo was awaked by love and beauty; and here for the present he

is left.

Part the Third.

THE TERRORS OF THE ENCHANTED FOREST.

Meantime the siege of the Holy City had gone on, with various success on

either side, but chiefly to the loss of the Christians. The machinations

of Satan were prevailing. Rinaldo, in his absence, was thought to have

been slain by the contrivance of Godfrey, which nearly produced a revolt

of the forces. Godfrey was himself wounded in battle by Clorinda: and now

the great wooden tower was burnt, and Clorinda slain in consequence (as

you have heard in another place), which oppressed the courage of Tancred

with melancholy.

On the other hand, the Powers of Evil were far from being as prosperous

as they wished. They had lost the soul of Clorinda. They had seen Godfrey

healed by a secret messenger from Heaven, who dropt celestial balsam

into his wound. They had seen the return of Armida's prisoners, who had

arrived just in time to change the fortune of a battle, and drive the

Pagans back within their walls. And worse than all, they had again felt

the arm of St. Michael, who had threatened them with worse consequences

if they reappeared in the contest.

The fiends, however, had colleagues on earth, who plotted for them

meanwhile. The Christians had set about making another tower; but in

this proceeding they were thwarted by the enchanter Ismeno, who cast his

spells to better purpose this time than he had done in the affair of the

stolen image. The forest in which the Christians obtained wood for these

engines lay in a solitary valley, not far from the camp. It was very old,

dark, and intricate; and had already an evil fame as the haunt of impure

spirits. No shepherd ever took his flock there; no Pagan would cut a

bough from it; no traveller approached it, unless he had lost his way:

he made a large circuit to avoid it, and pointed it out anxiously to his

companions.

The necessity of the Christians compelled them to defy this evil repute

of the forest; and Ismeno hastened to oppose them. He drew his line, and

uttered his incantations, and called on the spirits whom St. Michael had

rebuked, bidding them come and take charge of the forest--every one of

his tree, as a soul of its body. The spirits delayed at first, not only

for dread of the great angel, but because they resented the biddings of

mortality, even in their own cause. The magician, however, persisted; and

his spells becoming too powerful to be withstood, presently they came

pouring in by myriads, occupying the whole place, and rendering the very

approach to it a task of fear and labour. The first party of men that

came to cut wood were unable to advance when they beheld the trees, but

turned like children, and became the mockery of the camp. Godfrey sent

them back, with a chosen squadron to animate them to the work; but the

squadron themselves, however boldly they affected to proceed, lead no

sooner approached the spot, than they found reason to forgive the fears

of the woodcutters. The earth shook; a great wind began rising, with a

sound of waters; and presently, every dreadful noise ever heard by man

seemed mingled into one, and advancing to meet them--roarings of lions,

hissings of serpents, pealings and rolls of thunder. The squadron went

back to Godfrey, and plainly confessed that it had not courage enough to

enter such a place.

A leader, of the name of Alcasto, shook his head at this candour with a

contemptuous smile. He was a man of the stupider sort of courage, without

mind enough to conceive danger. "Pretty soldiers," exclaimed he, "to be

afraid of noises and sights! Give the duty to me. Nothing shall stop

Alcasto, though the place be the mouth of hell."

Alcasto went; and he went farther than the rest, and the trembling

woodcutters once more prepared their axes; but, on a sudden, there sprang

up between them and the trees a wall of fire which girded the whole

forest. It had glowing battlements and towers; and on these there

appeared armed spirits, with the strangest and most bewildering aspects.

Alcasto retired--slowly indeed, but with shame and terror; nor had he the

courage to re-appear before his commander. Godfrey had him brought, but

could hardly get a word from his lips. The man talked like one in a

dream.

At last Tancred went. He would have, gone before; but he had neither

thought the task so difficult, nor did he care for any thing that was

going forward. His mind was occupied with the dead Clorinda. He had now

work that aroused him; and he set out in good earnest for the forest, not

unmoved in his imagination, but resolved to defy all appearances.

Arrived at the wall of fire, Tancred halted a moment, and looked up at

the visages on its battlements, not without alarm. Many reflections

passed swiftly through his mind, some urging him forward, others

withholding; but he concluded with stepping right through the fire. It

did not resist him: he did not feel it.

The fire vanished; and, in its stead, there poured down a storm of hail

and rain, black as midnight. This vanished also.

Tancred stood amazed for an instant, and then passed on. He was soon in

the thick of the wood, and for some time made his way with difficulty. On

a sudden, he issued forth into a large open glade, like an amphitheatre,

in which there was nothing but a cypress-tree that stood in the middle.

The cypress was marked with hieroglyphical characters, mixed with some

words in the Syrian tongue which he could read; and these words requested

the stranger to spare the fated place, nor trouble the departed souls who

were there shut up in the trees. Meantime the wind was constantly moaning

around it; and in the moaning was a sound of human sighs and tears.

Tancred's heart, for a moment, was overcome with awe and pity; but

recollecting himself, and resolving to make amends for his credulity,

he smote with all his might at the cypress. The blow, wonderful to see,

produced an effusion of blood, which dyed the grass about the root.

Tancred's hair stood on end. He smote, however, again, with double

violence, resolving to see the end of the marvel; and then he heard a

woful voice issuing as from a tomb.

"Hast thou not hurt me," it said, "Tancred, enough already? Hast thou

slain the human body which I once joyfully inhabited; and now must thou

cut and rend me, even in this wretched enclosure? My name was Clorinda.

Every tree which thou beholdest is the habitation of some Christian or

Pagan soul; for all come hither that are slain beneath the walls of the

city, compelled by I know not what power, or for what reason. Every bough

in the forest is alive; and when thou cuttest down a tree, thou slayest a

soul."

As a sick man in a dream thinks, and yet thinks not, that he sees some

dreadful monster, and, notwithstanding his doubt, wishes to fly from the

horrible perplexity; so the trembling lover, though suspecting what he

beheld, had so frightful an image before his thoughts of Clorinda weeping

and wailing after death, and bleeding in her very soul, that he had

not the heart to do more, or to remain in the place. He returned in

bewildered sorrow to Godfrey, and told him all. "It is not in my power,"

he said, "to touch another bough of that forest."[5]

The astonished leader of the Christians now made up his mind to go

himself; and so, with prayer and valour united, bring this appalling

adventure to some conclusion. But the hermit Peter dissuaded him. The

holy man, in an ecstacy of foreknowledge, beheld the coming of the only

champion fated to conclude it; and Godfrey himself the same night had a

vision from heaven, bidding him grant the petition of those who should

sue him next day for the recall of Rinaldo from exile--Rinaldo, the right

hand of the army, as Godfrey was its head.

The petition was made as soon as daylight appeared; and two knights,

Carlo and Ubaldo, were despatched in search of the fated hero.

Part the Fourth

THE LOVES OF RINALDO AND ARMIDA.

The knights, with information procured on the road from a good wizard,

struck off for the sea-coast, and embarking in a pinnace which

miraculously awaited them, sailed along the shores of the Mediterranean

for the retreat of Armida. They saw the Egyptian army assembled at Gaza,

but hoped to return with Rinaldo before it could effect anything at

Jerusalem. They passed the mouths of the Nile, and Alexandria, and

Cyrene, and Ptolemais, and the cities of the Moors, and the dangers of

the Greater and Lesser Whirlpools, and their pilot showed them the spot

where Carthage stood,--Carthage, now a dead city, whose grave is scarcely

discernible. For cities die; kingdoms die;--a little sand and grass

covers all that was once lofty in them and glorious. And yet man,

forsooth, disdains that he is mortal! Oh, mind of ours, inordinate and

proud![6]

After looking towards the site of Carthage, they passed Algiers, and

Oran, and Tingitana, and beheld the opposite coast of Spain, and

then they cleared the narrow sea of Gibraltar, and came out into the

immeasurable ocean, leaving all sight of land behind them; and so

speeding ever onward in the billows, they beheld at last a cluster of

mountainous and beautiful islands; the larger ones inhabited by a simple

people, the smaller quite wild and desolate. So at least they appeared.

But in one of these smaller islands was the mountain, on the top of

which, in the indulgence of every lawless pleasure, lay the champion of

the Christian faith. This the pilot shewed to the two knights, and then

steered the pinnace into its bay; and here, after a voyage of four days

and nights, it dropped its sails without need of anchor, so mild and

sheltered was the port, with natural moles curving towards the entrance,

and evergreen woods overhead.

It was evening, with a beautiful sunset. The knights took leave of the

pilot, and setting out instantly on their journey, well furnished with

all advices how to proceed, slept that night at the foot of the mountain;

for they were not to begin to scale it till sunrise. With the first beams

of the sun they arose and ascended. They had not climbed far, when a

serpent rushed out upon the path, entirely stopping it, but fled at the

sound of a slender rod, which Ubaldo whisked as he advanced. A lion, for

all his cavernous jaws, did the same; nor was greater resistance made by

a whole herd of monsters. They now mounted with great labour the region

of ice and snow; but, at the top of it, emerged from winter-time into

summer. The air was full of sweet odours, yet fresh; they sauntered (for

they could not walk fast) over a velvet sward, under trees, by the side

of a shady river; and a bewitching pleasure began to invite their senses.

But they knew the river, and bore in mind their duty. It was called the

River of Laughter.[7] A little way on, increasing in beauty as it went,

it formed a lucid pool in a dell; and by the side of this pool was a

table spread with every delicacy, and in the midst of it two bathing

damsels, talking and laughing. Sometimes they sprinkled one another, then

dived, then partly came up without spewing their faces, then played a

hundred tricks, pretending all the while not to see the travellers. Then

they became quiet, and sunk gently; and, as they reappeared, one of them

rose half into sight, sweetly as the morning star when it issues from the

water, dewy and dropping, or as Venus herself arose out of the froth of

the sea. Such looked this damsel, and so did the crystal moisture

go dropping from her tresses. Then she turned her eyes towards the

travellers, and feigning to behold them for the first time, shrunk within

herself. She hastened to undo the knot in which her tresses were tied up,

and shook them round about her, and down they fell to the water thick and

long, enclosing that beautiful sight; and yet the enclosure itself was

not less beautiful. So, hid in the pool below, and in her tresses above,

she glanced at the knights through her hair, with a blushing gladness.

She blushed and she laughed at the same time; and the blushing was more

beautiful for the laughter, and the laughter for the blushing; and then

she said, in a voice which would alone have conquered any other hearers,

"You are very happy to be allowed to come to this place. Nothing but

delight is here. Our queen must have chosen you from a great number. But

be pleased first to rid you of the dust of your journey, and to refresh

yourselves at this table."

So spake the one; and the other accompanied her speech with accordant

looks and gestures, as the dance accompanies the music.

Nor was the allurement unfelt.

But the companions passed on, taking no notice; and the bathers went

sullenly under the water.[8]

The knights passed through the gates of the park of Armida, and entered a

labyrinth made with contrivance the most intricate. Here their path would

have been lost, but for a map traced by one who knew the secret. By

the help of this they threaded it in safety, and issued upon a garden

beautiful beyond conception. Every thing that could be desired in

gardens was presented to their eyes in one landscape, and yet without

contradiction or confusion,--flowers, fruits, water, sunny hills,

descending woods, retreats into corners and grottos: and what put the

last loveliness upon the scene was, that the art which did it all was no

where discernible.[9] You might have supposed (so exquisitely was the

wild and the cultivated united) that all had somehow happened, not been

contrived. It seemed to be the art of Nature herself; as though, in a fit

of playfulness, she had imitated her imitator. But the temperature of the

place, if nothing else, was plainly the work of magic, for blossoms and

fruit abounded at the same time. The ripe and the budding fig grew on the

same bough; green apples were clustered upon those with red cheeks; the

vines in one place had small leaves and hard little grapes, and in the

next they laid forth their richest tapestry in the sun, heavy with

bunches full of wine. At one time you listened to the warbling of birds;

and a minute after, as if they had stopped on purpose, nothing was heard

but the whispering of winds and the fall of waters. It seemed as if every

thing in the place contributed to the harmony and the sweetness. The

notes of the turtle-dove were deeper here than any where else; the hard

oak, and the chaste laurel, and the whole exuberant family of trees,

the earth, the water, every element of creation, seemed to have been

compounded but for one object, and to breathe forth the fulness of its

bliss.[10]

The two messengers, hardening their souls with all their might against

the enchanting impression, moved forward silently among the trees; till,

looking through the branches into a little opening which formed a bower,

they saw--or did they but think they saw?--no, they saw indeed the hero

and his Armida reclining on the grass.[11] Her dress was careless,

her hair loose in the summer-wind. His head lay in her bosom; a smile

trembled on her lips and in her eyes, like a sunbeam in water; and as she

thus looked on him with passionate love, he looked up at her, face to

face, and returned it with all his soul.

Now she kissed his lips, now his eyes; and then they looked again at one

another with their ever-hungry looks; and then she kissed him again, and

he gave a sigh so deep you would have thought his soul had gone out of

him, and passed into hers. The two warriors from their covert gazed on

the loving scene.

At the lover's side there hung a strange accoutrement for a warrior,

namely, a crystal mirror. He rose a little on his elbow, and gave it into

Armida's hands: and in two different objects each beheld but one emotion,

she hers in the glass, and he his own in her eyes. But he would not

suffer her to look long at any thing but himself; and then they spake

loving and adoring words; and after a while Armida bound up her hair, and

put some flowers into it, as jewels might be put upon gold, and added a

rose or two to the lilies of her bosom, and adjusted her veil. And never

did peacock look so proudly beautiful when he displays the pomp of his

eyed plumes; nor was ever the rainbow so sweetly coloured when it curves

forth its dewy bosom against the light.[12] But lovely above all was the

effect of a magic girdle which the enchantress had made with her whole

art, and which she never laid aside day or night. Spirit in it had taken

substance; the subtlest emotions of the soul a shape and palpability.

Tender disdains were in it, and repulses that attracted, and levities

that endeared, and contentments full of joy, and smiles, and little

words, and drops of delicious tears, and short-coming sighs, and soft

kisses. All these she had mingled together, and made one delight out

of many, and wound it about her heart, and wore it for a charm

irresistible.[13]

And now she kissed him once more, and begged leave of a little absence

(for love is courteous ever), and so went as usual to her books and her

magic arts. Rinaldo remained where he was, for he had no power to wish

himself out of the sweet spot; only he would stray a while among the

trees, and amuse himself with the birds and squirrels, and so be a loving

hermit till she returned. And at night they retired under one roof, still

in the midst of the garden.

But no sooner had Armida gone, than the two warriors issued from their

hiding-place, and stood before the lover, glittering in their noble arms.

As a war-horse, that has been taken from the wars, and become the

luxurious husband of the stud, wanders among the drove in the meadows in

vile enjoyment; should by chance a trumpet be heard in the place, or a

dazzling battle-axe become visible, he turns towards it on the instant,

and neighs, and longs to be in the lists, and vehemently desires the

rider on his back who is to dash and be dashed at in the encounter;--even

so turned the young hero when the light of the armour flashed upon him,

even so longed for the war, even so shook himself up out of his bed of

pleasure, with all his great qualities awaked and eager.

Ubaldo saw the movement in his heart, and held right in his face the

shield of adamant, which had been brought for the purpose. It was a

mirror that shewed to the eyes of every one who looked into it the very

man as he was.

But when Rinaldo beheld himself indeed,--when he read his transformation,

not in the flattering glass of the enchantress, but by the light of

this true, and simple, and severe reflector,--his hair tricked out with

flowers and unguents, his soft mantle of exquisitest dye, and his very

sword rendered undistinguishable for what it was by a garland,--shame and

remorse fell upon him. He felt indeed like a dreamer come to himself. He

looked down. He could not speak. He wished to hide himself in the bottom

of the sea.

Ubaldo raised his voice and spoke. "All Europe and Asia," said he, "are

in arms. Whoever desires fame, or is a worshipper of his Saviour, is a

fighter in the land of Syria. Thou only, O son of Bertoldo, remainest

out of the high way of renown--in luxury--in a little corner; thou only,

unmoved with the movement of the world, the champion of a girl. What

dream, what lethargy can have drowned a valour like thine? What vileness

have had attraction for thee? Up, up, and with us. The camp, the

commander himself calls for thee; fortune and victory await thee. Come,

fated warrior, and finish thy work; see the false creed which thou hast

shaken, laid low beneath thy inevitable sword."

On hearing these words the noble youth remained for a time without

speaking, without moving. At length shame gave way to a passionate sense

of his duty. With a new fire in his cheeks, he tore away the effeminate

ornaments of his servitude, and quitted the spot without a word. In a few

moments he had threaded the labyrinth: he was outside the gate. Ere long

he was descending the mountain.

But meantime Armida had received news of the two visitors; and coming to

look for them, and casting her eyes down the steep, she beheld--with his

face, alas, turned no longer towards her own--the hasty steps of her hero

between his companions. She wished to cry aloud, but was unable. She

might have resorted to some of her magic devices, but her heart forbade

her. She ran, however--for what cared she for dignity?--she ran down

the mountain, hoping still by her beauty and her tears to arrest the

fugitive; but his feet were too strong, even for love: she did not reach

him till he had arrived on the sea-shore. Where was her pride now? where

the scorn she had exhibited to so many suitors? where her coquetry and

her self-sufficiency--her love of being loved, with the power to hate the

lover? The enchantress was now taught what the passion was, in all its

despair as well as delight. She cried aloud. She cared not for the

presence of the messengers. "Oh, go not, Rinaldo," she cried; "go not, or

take me with thee. My heart is torn to pieces. Take me, or turn and kill

me. Stop, at least, and be cruel to me here. If thou hast the heart to

fly me, it will not be hard to thee to stay and be unkind."

Even the messengers were moved at this, or seemed to be moved. Ubaldo

told the fugitive that it would be heroical in him to wait and hear what

the lady had to say, with gentleness and firmness.

His conquest over himself would then be complete.

Rinaldo stopped, and Armida came up breathless and in tears--lovelier

than ever. She looked earnestly at him at first, without a word. He gave

her but a glance, and looked aside.

As a fine singer, before he lets loose his tongue in the lofty utterance

of his emotion, prepares the minds of his hearers with some sweet

prelude, exquisitely modulating in a lower tone,--so the enchantress,

whose anguish had not deprived her of all sense of her art, breathed a

few sighs to dispose the soul of her idol to listen, and then said: "I

do not beg thee to hear me as one that loves me. We both loved once; but

that is over. I beg thee to hear, even though as one that loves me not.

It will cost thy disdain nothing to grant me that. Perhaps thou hast

discovered a pleasure in hating me. Do so. I come not to deprive thee of

it. If it seem just to thee, just let it be. I too once hated. I hated

the Christians--hated even thyself. I thought it right to do so: I was

bred up to think it. I pursued thee to do thee mischief; I overtook thee;

I bore thee away; and worse than all--for now perhaps thou loathest me

for it--I loved thee. I loved thee, for the first time that I loved any

one; nay, I made thee love me in turn; and, alas, I gave myself into

thine arms. It was wrong. I was foolish; I was wicked. I grant that I

have deserved thou shouldst think ill of me, that thou shouldst punish

me, and quit me, and hate to have any remembrance of this place which I

had filled with delights. Go; pass over the seas; make war against my

friends and my country; destroy us all, and the religion we believe in.

Alas! _'we'_ do I say? The religion is mine no longer--O thou, the cruel

idol of my soul. Oh, let me go with thee, if it be but as thy servant,

thy slave. Let the conqueror take with him his captive; let her be

mocked; let her be pointed at; only let her be with thee. I will cut off

these tresses, which no longer please thee: I will clothe myself in other

attire, and go with thee into the battle. I have courage and strength

enough to bear thy lance, to lead thy spare-horse, to be, above all,

thy shield-bearer--thy shield. Nothing shall touch thee but through

me--through this bosom, Rinaldo. Perhaps mischance may spare thee for

its sake. Not a word? not a little word? Do I dare to boast of what thou

hadst once a kind word for, though now thou wilt neither look upon me nor

speak to me?"

She could say no more: her words were suffocated by a torrent of tears.

But she sought to take his hand, to arrest him by his mantle--in vain.

He could scarcely, it is true, restrain his tears: but he did. He looked

sorrowful, but composed; and at length he said: "Armida, would I could do

as thou wishest; but I cannot. I would relieve thee instantly of all this

tumult of emotion. No hate is there in him that must quit thee; no such

disdain as thou fanciest; nothing but the melancholy and impetuous sense

of his duty. Thou hast erred, it is true--erred both in love and hate;

but have I not erred with thee? and can I find excuse which is not found

for thyself? Dear and honoured ever wilt thou be with Rinaldo, whether in

joy or sorrow. Count me, if it please thee, thy champion still, as far as

my country and my faith permit; but here, in this spot, must be buried

all else--buried, not for my sake only, but for that of thy beauty, thy

worthiness, thy royal blood. Consent to disparage thyself no longer.

Peace be with thee. I go where I have no permission to take thee with me.

Be happy; be wise." While Rinaldo was speaking in this manner, Armida

changed colour; her bosom heaved; her eyes took a new kind of fire; scorn

rose upon her lip. When he finished, she looked at him with a bitterness

that rejected every word he had said; and then she exclaimed: "Thou hast

no such blood in thine own veins as thou canst fear to degrade. Thy

boasted descent is a fiction: base, and brutish, and insensible was thy

stock. What being of gentle blood could quit a love like mine without

even a tear--a sigh? What but the mockery of a man could call me his, and

yet leave me? vouchsafe me his pardon, as if I had offended him? excuse

my guilt and my tenderness; he, the sage of virtue, and me, the wretch! O

God! and these are the men that take upon them to slaughter the innocent,

and dictate faiths to the world! Go, hard heart, with such peace as thou

leavest in this bosom. Begone; take thine injustice from my sight for

ever. My spirit will follow thee, not as a help, but as a retribution.

I shall die first, and thou wilt die speedily: thou wilt perish in the

battle. Thou wilt lie expiring among the dead and bleeding, and wilt call

on Armida in thy last moments, and I shall hear it--yes, I shall hear it;

I shall look for that."

Down fell Armida on the ground, senseless; and Rinaldo stood over her,

weeping at last. Open thine eyes, poor wretch, and see him. Alas, the

heavens deny thee the consolation! What will he do? Will he leave thee

lying there betwixt dead and alive? Or will he go--pitying thee, but

still going? He goes; he is gone; he is in the bark, and the wind is in

the sail; and he looks back--ever back; but still goes: the shore begins

to be out of sight.

Armida woke, and was alone. She raved again, but it was for vengeance.

In a few days she was with the Egyptian army, a queen at the head of her

vassals, going against the Christians at Jerusalem.

Part the Fifth.

THE DISENCHANTMENT OF THE FOREST, AND THE TAKING OF JERUSALEM, &c.

Rinaldo arrived without loss of time in the Christian camp before

Jerusalem. Every body rejoiced to see the right hand of the army. Godfrey

gladly pardoned him; the hermit Peter blessed him; he himself retired to

beg the forgiveness and favour of Heaven; and then he went straight to

the Enchanted Forest.

It was a beautiful morning, and the forest, instead of presenting its

usual terrors, appeared to him singularly tranquil and pleasing. On

entering it he heard, not dreadful thunder-claps, but harmonies made

up of all sorts of gentle and lovely sounds--brooks, whispering winds,

nightingales, organs, harps, human voices. He went slowly and cautiously,

and soon came to a beautiful river which encircled the heart of the wood.

A bridge of gold carried him over. He had no sooner crossed it, than the

river higher up suddenly swelled and rushed like a torrent, sweeping

the bridge away. The harmony meanwhile had become silent. Admiring, but

nothing daunted, the hero went on.

Every thing as he advanced appeared to start into fresh beauty. His steps

produced lilies and roses; here leaped up a fountain, and there came

falling a cascade; the wood itself seemed to grow young as with sudden

spring; and he again heard the music and the human voices, though he

could see no one.

Passing through the trees, he came into a glade in the heart of the wood,

in the centre of which he beheld a myrtle-tree, the largest and most

beautiful ever seen: it was taller than a cypress or palm, and seemed the

queen of the forest. Looking around him, he observed to his astonishment

an oak suddenly cleave itself open, and out of it there came a nymph. A

hundred other trees did the same, giving birth to as many nymphs. They

were all habited as we see them in theatres; only, instead of bows and

arrows, each held a lute or guitar. Coming towards the hero with joyful

eyes, they formed a circle about him, and danced; and in their dancing

they sang, and bade him welcome to the haunt of their mistress, their

loving mistress, of whom he was the only hope and joy. Looking as they

spoke towards the myrtle, Rinaldo looked also, and beheld, issuing out of

it--Armida.

Armida came sweetly towards him, with a countenance at once grieving and

rejoicing, but expressing above all infinite affection. "And do I indeed

see thee again?" she said; "and wilt thou not fly me a second time? am

I visited to be consoled, or to be treated again as an enemy? is poor

Armida so formidable, that thou must needs close up thine helmet when

thou beholdest her? Thou mightest surely have vouchsafed her once more a

sight of thine eyes. Let us be friends, at least, if we may be nothing

more. Wilt thou not take her hand?"

Rinaldo's answer was, to turn away as from a cheat, to look towards the

myrtle-tree, to draw his sword, and proceed with manifest intentions of

assailing it. She ran before him shrieking, and hugged it round. "Nay,

thou wilt not," she said, "thou wilt not hurt my tree--not cut and slay

what is bound up with the life of Armida? Thy sword must pass first

through her bosom."

Armida writhed and wailed; Rinaldo nevertheless raised his sword, and it

was coming against the tree, when her shape, like a thing in a dream,

was metamorphosed as quick as lightning. It became a giant, a Briareus,

wielding a hundred swords, and speaking in a voice of thunder. Every

one of the nymphs at the same instant became a Cyclops; tempest and

earthquake ensued, and the air was full of ghastly spectres.

Rinaldo again raised his arm with a more vehement will; he struck, and

at the same instant every horror disappeared. The sky was cloudless; the

forest was neither terrible nor beautiful, but heavy and sombre as of

old--a natural gloomy wood, but no prodigy.

Rinaldo returned to the camp, his aspect that of a conqueror; the silver

wings of his crest, the white eagle, glittering in the sun. The hermit

Peter came forward to greet him; a shout was sent up by the whole camp;

Godfrey gave him high reception; nobody envied him. Workmen, no longer

trembling, were sent to the forest to cut wood for the machines of war;

and the tower was rebuilt, together with battering-rams and balistas, and

catapults, most of them an addition to what they had before. The tower

also was now clothed with bulls-hides, as a security against being set on

fire; and a bridge was added to the tower, from which the besiegers could

at once step on the city-walls.

With these long-desired invigorations of his strength, the commander of

the army lost no time in making a general assault on Jerusalem; for

a dove, supernaturally pursued by a falcon, had brought him letters

intended for the besieged, informing them, that if they could only hold

out four days longer, their Egyptian allies would be at hand. The Pagans

beheld with dismay the resuscitated tower, and all the new engines coming

against them. They fought valiantly; but Rinaldo and Godfrey prevailed.

The former was the first to scale the walls, the latter to plant his

standard from the bridge. The city was entered on all sides, and the

enemy driven, first into Solomon's Temple, and then into the Citadel, or

Tower of David. Before the assault, Godfrey had been vouchsafed a sight

of armies of angels in the air, accompanied by the souls of those who had

fallen before Jerusalem; the latter still fighting, the former rejoicing;

so that there was no longer doubt of triumph; only it still pleased

Heaven that human virtue should be tried.

And now, after farther exploits on both sides, the last day of the war,

and the last hope of the Infidels, arrived at the same time; for the

Egyptian army came up to give battle with the Christians, and to restore

Jerusalem, if possible, to its late owners, now cramped up in one corner

of it--the citadel. The besiegers in their narrow hold raised a shout of

joy at the sight; and Godfrey, leaving them to be detained in it by an

experienced captain, went forth to meet his new opponents. Crowns of

Africa and of Persia were there, and the king of the Indies; and in the

midst of all, in a chariot surrounded by her knights and suitors, was

Armida.

The battle joined, and great was the bravery and the slaughter on both

sides. It seemed at first all glitter and gaiety--its streamers flying,

its arms flashing, drums and trumpets rejoicing, and horses rushing with

their horsemen as to the tournament. Horror looked beautiful in the

spectacle. Out of the midst of the dread itself there issued a delight.

But soon it was a bloody, and a turbulent, and a raging, and a groaning

thing:--pennons down, horses and men rolling over, foes heaped upon one

another, bright armour exchanged for blood and dirt, flesh trampled, and

spirit fatigued. Brave were the Pagans; but how could they stand against

Heaven? Godfrey ordered every thing calmly, like a divine mind; Rinaldo

swept down the fiercest multitudes, like an arm of God. The besieged in

the citadel broke forth, only to let the conquerors in. Jerusalem was won

before the battle was over. King after king fell, and yet the vanquished

did not fly. Rinaldo went every where to hasten the rout; and still had

to fight and slay on. Armida beheld him coming where she sat in the midst

of her knights; he saw her, and blushed a little: she turned as cold as

ice, then as hot as fire. Her anger was doubled by the slaughter of her

friends; and with her woman's hand she sent an arrow out of her bow,

hoping, and yet even then hoping not, to slay or to hurt him. The arrow

fell on him like a toy; and he turned aside, as she thought, in disdain.

Yet he disdained not to smite down her champions. Hope of every kind

deserted her. Resolving to die by herself in some lonely spot, she got

down from her chariot to horse, and fled out of the field. Rinaldo saw

the flight; and though one of the knights that remained to her struck him

such a blow as made him reel in his saddle, he despatched the man with

another like a thunderbolt, and then galloped after the fugitive.

Armida was in the act of putting a shaft to her bosom, in order to die

upon it, when her arm was arrested by a mighty grasp; and turning round,

she beheld with a shriek the beloved face of him who had caused the ruin

of her and hers. She closed her disdainful eyes and fainted away. Rinaldo

supported her; he loosened her girdle; he bathed her bosom and her

eyelids with his tears. Coming at length to herself, still she would

not look at him. She would fain not have been supported by him. She

endeavoured with her weak fingers to undo the strong ones that clasped

her; she wept bitterly, and at length spoke, but still without meeting

his eyes.

"And may I not," she said, "even die? must I be followed and tormented

even in my last moments? What mockery of a wish to save me is this! I

will not be watched; I believe not a syllable of such pity; and I will

not be made a sight of, and a by-word. I ask my life of thee no longer;

I want nothing but death; and death itself I would not receive at such

hands; they would render even that felicity hateful. Leave me. I could

not be hindered long from putting an end to my miseries, whatever

barbarous restraint might be put upon me. There are a thousand ways of

dying; and I will be neither hindered, nor deceived, nor flattered--oh,

never more!"

Weeping she spoke--weeping always, and sobbing, and full of wilful words.

But yet she felt all the time the arm that was round her.

"Armida," said Rinaldo, in a voice full of tenderness, "be calm, and know

me for what I am--no enemy, no conqueror, nothing that intends thee shame

or dishonour; but thy champion, thy restorer--he that will preserve thy

kingdom for thee, and seat thee in house and home. Look at me--look in

these eyes, and see if they speak false. And oh, would to Heaven thou

wouldst indeed be as I am in faith. There isn't a queen in all the East

should equal thee in glory."

His tears fell on her eyelids as he spoke--scalding tears; and she looked

at him, and her heart re-opened to its lord, all love and worship; and

Armida said, "Behold thy handmaid; dispose of her even as thou wilt."

And that same day Godfrey of Boulogne was lord of Jerusalem, and paid his

vows on the sepulchre of his Master.

[Footnote 1:

"Chiama gli abitator' de l'ombre eterne

Il rauco suon de la tartarea tromba.

Treman le spaziose atre caverne,

E l'aer cieco a quel romor rimbomba.

Nè sì stridendo mai da le superne

Regioni del cielo il folgor piomba:

Nè sì scossa già mai trema la terra,

Quando i vapori in sen gravida serra."

Canto iv. st. 3.

The trump of Tartarus, with iron roar,

Called to the dwellers the black regions under:

Hell through its caverns trembled to the core,

And the blind air rebellowed to the thunder:

Never yet fiery bolt more fiercely tore

The crashing firmament, like rocks, asunder;

Nor with so huge a shudder earth's foundations

Shook to their mighty heart, lifting the nations.

The tone of this stanza (suggested otherwise by Vida) was caught from a

fine one in Politian, the passage in which about the Nile I ought to have

called to mind at page 168.

"Con tal romor, qualor l'aer discorda,

Di Giove il foco d'alta nube piomba:

Con tal tumulto, onde la gente assorda,

Da l'alte cataratte il Nil rimbomba:

Con tal orror del Latin sangue ingorda

Sonò Megera la tartarea tromba."

_Fragment on the Jousting of Giuliano de' Medici_.

Such is the noise, when through his cloudy floor

The bolt of Jove falls on the pale world under;

So shakes the land, where Nile with deafening roar

Plunges his clattering cataracts in thunder;

Horribly so, through Latium's realm of yore,

The trump of Tartarus blew ghastly wonder.]

[Footnote 2:

"La bella Armida, di sua forma altiera,

E de' doni del sesso e de l'etate,

L' impresa prende: e in su la prima sera

Parte, e tiene sol vie chiuse e celate:

E 'n treccia e 'n gonna femminile spera

Vincer popoli invitti e schiere armate."

Canto iv. st. 27.]

[Footnote 3:

"That sweet grove

Of Daphne by Orontes."

_Parad. Lost_, b. iv.

It was famous for the most luxurious worship of antiquity. Vide Gibbon,

vol. iii. p. 198.]

[Footnote 4: I omit a point about "fires" of love, and "ices" of the

heart; and I will here observe, once for all, that I omit many such in

these versions of Tasso, for the reason given in the Preface.]

[Footnote 5: In the original, an impetuous gust of wind carries away the

sword of Tancred; a circumstance which I mention because Collins admired

it (see his Ode on the Superstitions of the Highlands). I confess I

cannot do so. It seems to me quite superfluous; and when the reader

finds the sword conveniently lying for the hero outside the wood, as he

returns, the effect is childish and pantomimic. If the magician wished

him not to fight any more, why should he give him the sword back? And if

it was meant as a present to him from Clorinda, what gave her the

power to make the present? Tasso retained both the particulars in the

_Gerusalemme Conquistata_.]

[Footnote 6:

"Giace l'alta Cartago: appena i segni

De l'alte sue ruine il lido serba.

Muoiono le città: muoiono i regni:

Copre i fasti e le pompe arena ed erba:

E l'uom d'esser mortal par che si sdegni.

Oh nostra mente cupida e superba!"

Canto xv. st. 20.

Great Carthage is laid low. Scarcely can eye

Trace where she stood with all her mighty crowd

For cities die; kingdoms and nations die;

A little sand and grass is all their shroud;

Yet mortal man disdains mortality!

O mind of ours, inordinate and proud!

Very fine is this stanza of Tasso; and yet, like some of the finest

writing of Gray, it is scarcely more than a cento. The commentators call

it a "beautiful imitation" of a passage in Sannazzaro; and it is; but the

passage in Sannazzaro is also beautiful. It contains not only the "Giace

Cartago," and the "appena i segni," &c., but the contrast of the pride

with the mortality of man, and, above all, the "dying" of the cities,

which is the finest thing in the stanza of its imitator.

"Qua devictae Carthaginis arces

Procubuere, jacentque infausto in littore turres

Eversae; quantum ille metus, quantum illa laborum

Urbs dedit insultans Latio et Laurentibus arvis!

Nunc passim vix reliquias, vix nomina servans,

Obruitur propriis non agnoscenda ruinis.

Et querimur genus infelix, humana labare

Membra aevo, cum regna palam moriantur et urbes."

_De Partu Virginis_, lib. ii.

The commentators trace the conclusion of this passage to Dante, where he

says that it is no wonder families perish, when cities themselves "have

their terminations" (termin hanuo): but though there is a like germ of

thought in Dante, the mournful flower of it, the word "death," is not

there. It was evidently suggested by a passage (also pointed out by the

commentators) in the consolatory letter of Sulpicius to Cicero, on the

death of his daughter Tullia;--"Heu nos homunculi indignamur, si quis

nostrum interiit, aut occisus est, quorum vita brevior esse debet, cum

uno loco tot oppidorum cadavera projecta jaceant." (Alas! we poor human

creatures are indignant if any one of us dies or is slain, frail as are

the materials of which we are constituted; and yet we can see, lying

together in one place, the dead bodies of I know not how many cities!)

The music of Tasso's line was indebted to one in Petrarch's _Trionfo del

Tempo, v. 112

_" Passan le signorie, passano i regni;"

and the fine concluding verse, "Oh nostra mente," to another perhaps

in his _Trionfo della Divinità, v. 61_, not without a recollection of

Lucretius, lib. ii. v. 14:

"O miseras hominum menteis! o pectora caeca!"]

[Footnote 7: A fountain which caused laughter that killed people is in

Pomponius Mela's account of the Fortunate Islands; and was the origin of

that of Boiardo; as I ought to have noticed in the place.]

[Footnote 8: All this description of the females bathing is in the

highest taste of the voluptuous; particularly the latter part:

"Qual mattutina stella esce de l'onde

Rugiadosa e stillante: o come fuore

Spuntò nascendo già da le feconde

Spume de l'ocean la Dea d'Amore:

Tale apparve costei: tal le sue bionde

Chiome stillavan cristallino umore.

Poi girò gli occhi, e pur allor s'infinse

Que' duo vedere, e in se tutta si strinse:

E 'l crin the 'n cima al capo avea raccolto

In un sol nodo, immantinente sciolse;

Che lunghissimo in giù cadendo, e folto,

D'un aureo manto i molli avori involse.

Oh che vago spettacolo è lor tolto!

Ma mon men vago fu chi loro il tolse.

Così da l'acque e da capelli ascosa,

A lor si volse, lieta e vergognosa.

Rideva insieme, e insieme ella arrossia;

Ed era nel rossor più bello il riso,

E nel riso il rossor, the le copria

Insino al mento il delicato viso."

Canto xv. st. 60.

Spenser, among the other obligations which it delighted him to owe to

this part of Tasso's poem, has translated these last twelve lines:

"With that the other likewise up arose,

And her fair locks, which formerly were bound

Up in one knot, she low adown did loose,

Which, flowing long and thick, her cloth'd around,

And th' ivory in golden mantle gown'd:

So that fair spectacle from him was reft;

Yet that which reft it, no less fair was found.

So hid in locks and waves from looker's theft,

Nought but her lovely face she for his looking left.

Withal she laughèd, and she blush'd withal;

That blushing to her laughter gave more grace,

And laughter to her blushing."

Fairy Queen, book ii. canto 12, St. 67.

Tasso's translator, Fairfax, worthy both of his original and of Spenser,

has had the latter before him in his version of the passage, not without

a charming addition of his own at the close of the first stanza:

"And her fair locks, that in a knot were tied

High on her crown, she 'gan at large unfold;

Which falling long and thick, and spreading wide,

The ivory soft and white mantled in gold:

Thus her fair skin the dame would clothe and hide;

And that which hid it, no less fair was hold.

Thus clad in waves and locks, her eyes divine

From them ashamed would she turn and twine.

Withal she smilèd, and she blush'd withal;

Her blush her smiling, smiles her blushing graced."]

[Footnote 9:

"E quel che 'l bello e 'l caro accresce a l'opre,

L'arte, the tutto fa, nulla si scopre.

Stimi (si misto il culto è col negletto)

Sol naturali e gli ornamenti e i siti.

Di natura arte par, the per diletto

L'imitatrice sua scherzando imiti."

The idea of Nature imitating Art, and playfully imitating her, is in

Ovid; but that of a mixture of cultivation and wildness is, as far as I

am aware, Tasso's own. It gives him the honour of having been the first

to suggest the picturesque principle of modern gardening; as I ought

to have remembered, when assigning it to Spenser in a late publication

(_Imagination and Fancy, p. 109_). I should have noticed also, in the

same work, the obligations of Spenser to the Italian poet for the passage

before quoted about the nymph in the water.]

[Footnote 10:

"Par che la dura quercia e 'l casto alloro,

E tutta la frondosa ampia famiglia,

Par the la terra e l'acqua e formi e spiri

Dolcissimi d'amor sensi e sospiri."

St. 16.

Fairfax in this passage is very graceful and happy (in the first part of

his stanza he is speaking of a bird that sings with a human voice--which

I have omitted):

"She ceased: and as approving all she spoke,

The choir of birds their heavenly tunes renew;

The turtles sigh'd, and sighs with kisses broke;

The fowls to shades unseen by pairs withdrew;

It seem'd the laurel chaste and stubborn oak,

And all the gentle trees on earth that grew,

It seem'd the land, the sea, and heaven above,

All breath'd out fancy sweet, and sigh'd out love."]

[Footnote 11:

"Ecco tra fronde e fronde il guardo avante

Penetra, e vede, o pargli di vedere,

Vede per certo," &c.

St. 17.]

[Footnote 12: The line about the peacock,

"Spiega la pompa de l'occhiute piume,"

Opens wide the pomp of his eyed plumes,

was such a favourite with Tasso, that he has repeated it from the

_Aminta_, and (I think) in some other place, but I cannot call it to

mind.]

[Footnote 13:

"Teneri sdegni, e placide e tranquille

Repulse, e cari vezzi, e liete paci,

Sorrisi, e parolette, e dolci stille

Di pianto, e sospir' tronchi, e molli baci." St. 5

This is the cestus in Homer, which Venus lends to Juno for the purpose of

enchanting Jupiter

Greek: N kai apo staethesphin elusato keston himanta

Poikilon' entha de ohi thelktaeria panta tetukto'

Enth' heni men philotaes, en d' himeras, en d' oaristus,

Parphasis, hae t' eklepse noon puka per phroneonton.]

Iliad, lib. xiv. 214.

She said; and from her balmy bosom loosed

The girdle that contained all temptinguess--

Love, and desire, and sweet and secret talk

Lavish, which robs the wisest of their wits.]

APPENDIX

* * * * *

No. I.

THE DEATH OF AGRICAN.

BOIARDO.

Orlando ed Agricane un' altra fiata

Ripreso insieme avean crudel battaglia,

La più terribil mai non fu mirata,

L'arme l'un l'altro a pezzo a pezzo taglia.

Vede Agrican sua gente sbarattata,

Nè le può dar aiuto, che le vaglia.

Però che Orlando tanto stretto il tiene,

Che star con seco a fronte gli conviene.

Nel suo segreto fè questo pensiero,

Trar fuor di schiera quel Conte gagliardo;

E poi Che ucciso l'abbia in su 'l sentiero,

Tornare a la battaglia senza tardo;

Però che a lui par facile e leggiero

Cacciar soletto quel popol codardo;

Chè tutti insieme, e 'l suo Re Galafrone,

Non li stimava quanto un vil bottone.

Con tal proposto si pone a fuggire,

Forte correndo sopra la pianura;

Il Conte nulla pensa a quel fallire,

Anzi crede che 'l faccia per paura.

Senz' altro dubbio se 'l pone a seguire,

E già son giunti ad una selva scura

Appunto in mezzo a quella selva piana,

Era un bel prato intorno a una fontana.

Fermossi ivi Agricane a quella fonte,

E smontò de l'arcion per riposare,

Ma non si tolse l'elmo da la fronte,

Nè piastra, o scudo si volse levare;

E poco dimorò, che giunse 'l Conte,

E come il vide a la fonte aspettare,

Dissegli: Cavalier, tu sei fuggito,

E sì forte mostravi e tanto ardito!

Come tanta vergogna puoi soffrire,

A dar le spalle ad un sol cavaliero!

Forse credesti la morte fuggire,

Or vedi che fallito hai il pensiero;

Chi morir può onorato dee morire;

Che spesse volte avviene e di leggiero,

Che, per durar in questa vita trista,

Morte e vergogna ad un tratto s'acquista.

Agrican prima rimontò in arcione,

Poi con voce soave rispondia

Tu sei per certo il più franco Barone,

Ch'io mai trovassi ne la vita mia,

E però del tuo scampo fia cagione

La tua prodezza e quella cortesia,

Che oggi sì grande al campo usato m'hai,

Quando soccorso a mia gente donai.

Però ti voglio la vita lasciare,

Ma non tornasti più per darmi inciampo.

Questo la fuga mi fè simulare,

Nè v'ebbi altro partito a darti scampo.

Se pur ti piace meco battagliare,

Morto ne rimarrai su questo campo;

Ma siami testimonio il cielo e 'l sole,

Che darti morte mi dispiace e duole.

Il Conte gli rispose molto umano,

Perchè avea preso già di lui pietate;

Quanto sei, disse, più franco e soprano,

Più di te mi rincresce in veritate,

Che sarai morto, e non sei Cristiano,

Ed anderai tra l'anime dannate;

Ma se vuoi il corpo e l'anima salvare,

Piglia battesmo, e lascierotti andare.

Disse Agricane, e riguardollo in viso:

Se tu sei Cristiano, Orlando sei.

Chi mi facesse Re del Paradiso,

Con tal ventura non la cangierei;

Ma sin or ti ricordo e dotti avviso,

Che non mi parli de' fatti de' Dei,

Perchè potresti predicar invano;

Difenda it suo ciascun co 'l brando in mano.

Nè più parole; ma trasse Tranchera,

E verso Orlando con ardir s'affronta.

Or si comincia la battaglia fiera,

Con aspri colpi, di taglio e di ponta;

Ciascun è di prodezza una lumiera,

E sterno insieme, com'il libro conta,

Da mezzo giorno insino a notte scura,

Sempre più franchi a la battaglia dura.

Ma poi che 'l sol avea passato il monte

E cominciossi a far il ciel stellato,

Prima verso del Re parlava it Conte;

Che farem, disse, the 'l giorno n'è andato?

Disse Agricane, con parole pronte:

Ambi ci poseremo in questo prato,

E domattina, come il giorno appare,

Ritorneremo insieme a battagliare.

Così d'accordo il partito si prese;

Lega il destrier ciascun come gli piace,

Poi sopra a l'erba verde si distese:

Come fosse tra loro antica pace,

L'uno a l'altro vicino era e palese.

Orlando presso al fonte isteso giace,

Ed Agricane al bosco più vicino

Stassi colcato, a l'ombra d'un gran pino.

E ragionando insieme tutta via

Di cose degne e condecenti a loro,

Guardava il Conte il ciel, poscia dicia:

Questo the ora veggiamo, è un bel lavoro,

Che fece la divina Monarchia,

La luna d'argento e le stelle d'oro,

E la luce del giorno e 'l sol lucente,

Dio tutto ha fatto per l'umana gente.

Disse Agricane: Io comprendo per certo,

Che to vuoi de la fede ragionare;

Io di nulla scienza son esperto,

Nè mai sendo fanciul, volsi imparare;

E ruppi il capo al maestro mio per merto;

Poi non si potè un altro ritrovare,

Che mi mostrasse libro, nè scrittura,

Tanto ciascun avea di me paura.

E così spesi la mia fanciullezza,

In caccie, in giochi d'arme e in cavalcare;

Nè mi par che convenga a gentilezza,

Star tutto il giorno ne' libri a pensare;

Ma la forza del corpo e la destrezza

Conviensi al cavaliero esercitare;

Dottrina al prete, ed al dottor sta bene;

Io tanto saccio quanto mi conviene.

Rispose Orlando: Io tiro teco a un seguo,

Che l'armi son del'uomo il primo onore;

Ma non già che 'l saper faccia un men degno,

Anzi l'adorna com' un prato il fiore;

Ed è simile a un bove, a un sasso, a un legno,

Che non pensa a l'eterno Creatore;

Nè ben si puo pensar, senza dottrina,

La somma maestade, alta e divina.

Disse Agricane: Egli è gran scortesia

A voler contrastar con avvantaggio.

Io t' ho scoperto la natura mia,

E to conosco, the sei dotto e saggio;

Se più parlassi, io non risponderia;

Piacendoti dormir, dormiti ad aggio;

E se meco parlar hai pur diletto,

D'arme o d' amor a ragionar t' aspetto.

Ora ti prego, che a quel ch' io domando

Risponda il vero, a fè d' uomo pregiato;

Se in se' veramente quell' Orlando,

Che vien tanto nel mondo nominato;

E perchè qui sei giunto, e come, e quando;

E se mai fosti ancora innamorato;

Perche ogni cavalier, ch'è senza amore,

Se in vista è vivo, vivo senza core.

Rispose il Conte: Quell' Orlando sono,

Che uccise Almonte e'l suo fratel Troiano;

Amor m' ha posto tutto in abbandono,

E venir fammi in questo luogo strano.

E perchè teco piu largo ragiono,

Voglio the sappi che 'l mio cor è in mano

De la figliuola del Re Galafrone,

Che ad Albracca dimora nel girone.

Tu fai co 'l padre guerra a gran furore,

Per prender suo paese e sua castella;

Ed io quà son condotto per amore,

E per piacer a quella damisella;

Molte fiate son stato per onore

E per la fede mia sopra la sella;

Or sol per acquistar la bella dama

Faccio battaglia, e d'altro non ho brama.

Quando Agrican ha nel parlare accolto,

Che questo è Orlando, ed Angelica amava,

Fuor di misura si turbò nel volto,

Ma per la notte non lo dimostrava;

Piangeva sospirando come un stolto,

L'anima e 'l petto e 'l spirto gli avvampava,

E tanto gelosia gli batte il core,

Che non è vivo, e di doglia non more.

Poi disse a Orlando: Tu debbi pensare,

Che come il giorno sarà dimostrato,

Debbiamo insieme la battaglia fare,

E l'uno o l'altro rimarrà su 'l prato.

Or d'una cosa ti voglio pregare,

Che, prima che vegnamo e cotal piato,

Quella donzella, che 'l tuo cor disia,

Tu l'abbandoni e lascila per mia.

Io non potria patire, essendo vivo,

Che altri con meco amasse il viso adorno:

O l'uno o l'altro al tutto sarà privo

Del spirto e de la dama al novo giorno;

Altri mai non saprà, che questo rivo

E questo bosco, ch'è quivi d'intorno,

Che l'abbi rifiutata in cotal loco

E in cotal tempo, che sarà sì poco.

Diceva Orlando al Re: Le mie promesse

Tutte ho servate, quante mai ne fei;

Ma se quel che or mi chiedi io promettesse

E s'io il giurassi, io non l'attenderei;

Così poria spiccar mie membra istesse

E levarmi di fronte gli occhi miei,

E viver senza spirto e senza core,

Come lasciar d' Angelica l'amore.

Il Re Agrican, che ardeva oltre misura,

Non puote tal risposta comportare;

Benchè sia 'l mezzo de la notte scura,

Prese Bajardo e su v' ebbe a montare,

Ed orgoglioso, con vista sicura,

Isgrida al Conte, ed ebbel a sfidare,

Dicendo: Cavalier, la dama gaglia

Lasciar convienti, o far meco battaglia.

Era già il Conte in su l' arcion salito,

Perchè, come si mosse il Re possente,

Temendo dal Pagan esser tradito,

Saltò sopra 'l destrier subitamente;

Onde rispose con animo ardito:

Lasciar colei non posso per niente;

E s'io potess, ancora io non vorria;

Avertela convien per altra via.

Come in mar la tempesta a gran fortuna,

Cominciarno l' assalto i cavalieri

Nel verde prato, per la notte bruna,

Con sproni urtarno addosso i buon destrieri;

E si scorgeano al lume de la luna,

Dandosi colpi dispietati e fieri,

Ch' era ciascun difor forte ed ardito

Ma più non dico; il Canto è quì finito.

ARIOSTO.

Seguon gli Scotti ove la guida loro

Per l'alta selva alto disdegno mena,

Poi che lasciato ha l'uno e l'altro Moro,

L'un morto in tutto, e l'altro vivo a pena.

Giacque gran pezzo il giovine Medoro,

Spicciando il sangue da sì larga vena,

Che di sua vita al fin saria venuto,

Se non sopravenia chi gli diè aiuto.

Gli sopravenne a caso una donzella,

Avvolta in pastorale et umil veste,

Ma di real presenzia, e in viso bella,

D'alte maniere e accortamente oneste.

Tanto è ch'io non ne dissi più novella,

Ch'a pena riconoscer la dovreste;

Questa, se non sapete, Angelica era,

Del gran Can del Catai la figlia altiera.

Poi che 'l suo annello Angelica riebbe,

Di the Brunel l'avea tenuta priva,

In tanto fasto, in tanto orgoglio crebbe,

Ch'esser parea di tutto 'l mondo schiva:

Se ne va sola, e non si degnerebbe

Compagno aver qual più famoso viva;

Si sdegna a rimembrar the già suo amante

Abbia Orlando nomato, o Sacripante.

E, sopra ogn'altro error, via più pentita

Era del ben che già a Rinaldo volse.

Troppo parendole essersi avvilita,

Ch'a riguardar sì basso gli occhi volse.

Tant'arroganzia avendo Amor sentita,

Più lungamente comportar non volse.

Dove giacea Medor, si pose al varco,

E l'aspettò, posto lo strale all'arco.

Quando Angelica vide il giovinetto

Languir ferito, assai vicino a morte,

Che del suo Re che giacea senza tetto,

Più che del proprio mal, si dolea forte,

Insolita pietade in mezo al petto

Si sentì entrar per disusate porte,

Che le fe' il duro cor tenero e molle;

E più quando il suo caso egli narrolle.

E rivocando alla memoria l'arte

Ch'in India imparò già chirurgia,

(Chè par che questo studio in quella parte

Nobile e degno e di gran laude sia;

E, senza molto rivoltar di carte,

Che 'l patre a i figli ereditario il dia)

Si dispose operar con succo d'erbe,

Ch'a più matura vita lo riserbe.

E ricordossi che passando avea

Veduta un'erba in una piaggia amena;

Fosse dittamo, o fosse panacea,

O non so qual di tal effetto piena,

Che stagna il sangue, e de la piaga rea

Leva ogni spasmo e perigliosa pena,

La trovò non lontana, e, quella côlta,

Dove lasciato avea Medor, diè volta.

Nel ritornar s'incontra in un pastore,

Ch'a cavallo pel bosco ne veniva

Cercando una iuvenca, che gli fuore

Duo dì di mandra e senza guardia giva.

Seco lo trasse ove perdea il vigore

Medor col sangue che del petto usciva;

E già n'avea di tanto il terren tinto,

Ch'era omai presso a rimanere estinto.

Del palafreno Angelica giù scese,

E scendere il pastor seco fece anche.

Pestò con sassi l'erba, indi la presse,

E succo ne cavò fra le man bianche:

Ne la piaga n'infuse, e ne distese

E pel petto e pel ventre e fin a l'anche;

E fu di tal virtù questo liquore,

Che stagnò il sangue e gli tornò il vigore:

E gli diè forza, che poté salire

Sopra il cavallo the 'l pastor condusse.

Non però volse indi Medor partire

Prima ch'in terra il suo signor non fosse,

E Cloridan col Re fe' sepelire;

E poi dove a lei piacque si ridusse;

Et ella per pietà ne l'umil case

Del cortese pastor seco rimase.

Nè, fin che nol tornasse in sanitade,

Volea partir: così di lui fe' stima:

Tanto sè intenerì de la pietade

Che n'ebbe, come in terra il vide prima.

Poi, vistone i costumi e la beltade,

Roder si sentì il cor d'ascosa lima;

Roder si sentì il core, e a poco a poco

Tutto infiammato d'amoroso fuoco.

Stava il pastore in assai buona e bella

Stanza, nel bosco infra duo monti piatta,

Con la moglie e co i figli; et avea quella

Tutta di nuovo e poco inanzi fatta.

Quivi a Medoro fu per la donzella

La piaga in breve a sanità ritratta;

Ma in minor tempo si sentì maggiore

Piaga di questa avere ella nel core.

Assai più larga piaga e più profonda

Nel cor senti da non veduto strale,

Che da' begli occhi e da la testa bionda

Di Medoro avventè l'arcier c'ha l'ale.

Arder si sente, e sempre il fuoco abonda,

E più cura l'altrui che 'l proprio male.

Di sè non cura; e non è ad altro intenta,

Ch'a risanar chi lei fere e tormenta.

La sua piaga più s'apre e più incrudisce,

Quanto piu l' altra si restringe e salda.

Il giovine si sana: ella languisce

Di nuova febbre, or agghiacciata or calda.

Di giorno in giorno in lui beltà fiorisce:

La mísera si strugge, come falda

Strugger di nieve intempestiva suole,

Ch'in loco aprico abbia scoperta il sole.

Se di disio non vuol morir, bisogna

Che senza indugio ella sè stessa aïti:

E ben le par che, di quel ch' essa agogna,

Non sia tempo aspettar ch' altri la 'nviti.

Dunque, rotto ogni freno di vergogna,

La lingua ebbe non men che gli occhi arditi;

E di quel colpo domandò mercede,

Che, forse non sapendo, esso le diede.

O Conte Orlando, o Re di Circassia,

Vestra inclita virtù, dite, che giova?

Vostro alto onor, dite, in che prezzo sia?

O che merce vostro servir ritruova?

Mostratemi una sola cortesia,

Che mai costei v'usasse, o vecchia o nuova,

Per ricompensa e guidardone e merto

Di quanto avete già per lei sofferto.

Oh, se potessi ritornar mai vivo,

Quanto ti parria duro, o Re Agricane!

Che già mostrò costei sì averti a schivo

Con repulse crudeli et inumane.

O Ferraù, o mille altri ch'io non scrivo,

Ch'avete fatto mille pruove vane

Per questa ingrata, quanto aspro vi fora

S'a costu' in braccio voi la vedesse ora!

Angelica a Medor la prima rôsa

Coglier lasciò, non ancor tocca inante;

Nè persona fu mai si avventurosa,

Ch'in quel giardin potesse por le piante.

Per adombrar, per onestar la cosa,

Si celebrò con cerimonie sante

Il matrimonio, ch'auspice ebbe Amore,

E pronuba la moglie del pastore.

Fêrsi le nozze sotto all'umil tetto

Le più solenni che vi potean farsi;

E più d'un mese poi stero a diletto

I duo tranquilli amanti a ricrearsi.

Più lunge non vedea del giovinetto

La donna, nè di lui potea saziarsi:

Nè, per mai sempre pendegli dal cello,

Il suo disir sentìa di lui satollo.

Se stava all'ombra, o se del tetto usciva,

Avea dì e notte il bel giovine a lato:

Matino e sera or questa or quella riva

Cercando andava, o qualche verde prato:

Nel mezo giorno un antro li copriva,

Forse non men di quel commodo e grato

Ch'ebber, fuggendo l'acque, Enea e Dido,

De' lor secreti testimonio fido.

Fra piacer tanti, ovunque un arbor dritto

Vedesse ombrare o fonte o rivo puro,

V'avea spillo o coltel subito fitto;

Così, se v'era alcun sasso men duro.

Et era fuori in mille luoghi scritto,

E così in casa in altri tanti il muro,

Angelica e Medoro, in varii modi

Legati insieme di diversi nodi.

Poi che le parve aver fatto soggiorno

Quivi più ch'a bastanza, fe' disegno

Di fare in India del Catai ritorno,

E Medor coronar del suo bel regno.

Portava al braccio un cerchio d'oro, adorno

Di ricche gemme, in testimonio e segno

Del ben che 'l Conte Orlando le volea;

E portato gran tempo ve l'avea.

Quel dono già Morgana a Ziliante,

Nel tempo the nel lago ascoso il tenne;

Et esso, poi ch'al padre Monodante

Per opra e per virtù d'Orlando venne,

Lo diede a Orlando: Orlando ch'era amante,

Di porsi al braccio it cerchio d'or sostenne,

Avendo disegnato di donarlo

Alla Regina sua di ch'io vi parlo.

Non per amor del Paladino, quanto

Perch'era ricco e d'artificio egregio,

Caro avuto l'avea la donna tanto

Che più non si può aver cosa di pregio.

Sè lo serbò ne l'Isola del pianto,

Non so già dirvi con the privilegio,

Là dove esposta al marin mostro nuda

Fu da la gente inospitale e cruda.

Quivi non si trovando altra mercede,

Ch'al buon pastore et alla moglie dessi,

Che serviti gli avea con sì gran fede

Dal dì che nel suo albergo si fur messi;

Levò dal braccio il cerchio, e gli lo diede,

E volse per suo amor che lo tenessi;

Indi saliron verso la montagna

Che divide la Francia da la Spagna.

Dentro a Valenza o dentro a Barcellona

Per qualche giorno avean pensato porsi,

Fin che accadesse alcuna nave buona,

Che per Levante apparecchiasse a sciorsi.

Videro il mar scoprir sotto a Girona

Ne lo smontar giù de i montani dorsi;

E, costeggiando a man sinistra il lito,

A Barcellona andâr pel camin trito.

Ma non vi giunser prima ch'un uom pazzo

Giacer trovaro in su l'estreme arene,

Che, come porco, di loto e di guazzo

Tutto era brutto, e volto e petto e schene.

Costui si scagliò lor, come cagnazzo

Ch' assalir forestier subito viene;

E diè for noia e fu per far lor scorno.

* * * * *

The troop then follow'd where their chief had gone,

Pursuing his stern chase among the trees,

And leave the two companions there alone,

One surely dead, the other scarcely less.

Long time Medoro lay without a groan,

Losing his blood in such large quantities,

That life would surely have gone out at last,

Had not a helping hand been coming past.

There came, by chance, a damsel passing there,

Dress'd like a shepherdess in lowly wise,

But of a royal presence, and an air

Noble as handsome, with clear maiden eyes.

'Tis so long since I told you news of her,

Perhaps you know her not in this disguise.

This, you must know then, was Angelica,

Proud daughter of the Khan of great Cathay.

You know the magic ring and her distress?

Well, when she had recover'd this same ring,

It so increas'd her pride and haughtiness,

She seem'd too high for any living thing.

She goes alone, desiring nothing less

Than a companion, even though a king

She even scorns to recollect the flame

Of one Orlando, or his very name.

But, above all, she hates to recollect

That she had taken to Rinaldo so;

She thinks it the last want of self-respect,

Pure degradation, to have look'd so low.

"Such arrogance," said Cupid, "must be check'd."

The little god betook him with his bow

To where Medoro lay; and, standing by,

Held the shaft ready with a lurking eye.

Now when the princess saw the youth all pale,

And found him grieving with his bitter wound,

Not for what one so young might well bewail,

But that his king should not be laid in ground,--

She felt a something strange and gentle steal

Into her heart by some new way it found,

Which touch'd its hardness, and turn'd all to grace;

And more so, when he told her all his case.

And calling to her mind the little arts

Of healing, which she learnt in India,

(For 'twas a study valued in those parts

Even by those who were in sovereign sway,

And yet so easy too, that, like the heart's,

'Twas more inherited than learnt, they say),

She cast about, with herbs and balmy juices,

To save so fair a life for all its uses.

And thinking of an herb that caught her eye

As she was coming, in a pleasant plain

(Whether 'twas panacea, dittany,

Or some such herb accounted sovereign

For stanching blood quickly and tenderly,

And winning out all spasm and bad pain),

She found it not far off, and gathering some,

Returned with it to save Medoro's bloom.

In coming back she met upon the way

A shepherd, who was riding through the wood

To find a heifer that had gone astray,

And been two days about the solitude.

She took him with her where Medoro lay,

Still feebler than he was with loss of blood;

So much he lost, and drew so hard a breath,

That he was now fast fading to his death.

Angelica got off her horse in haste,

And made the shepherd get as fast from his;

She ground the herbs with stones, and then express'd

With her white hands the balmy milkiness;

Then dropp'd it in the wound, and bath'd his breast,

His stomach, feet, and all that was amiss

And of such virtue was it, that at length

The blood was stopp'd, and he look'd round with strength.

At last he got upon the shepherd's horse,

But would not quit the place till he had seen

Laid in the ground his lord and master's corse;

And Cloridan lay with it, who had been

Smitten so fatally with sweet remorse.

He then obey'd the will of the fair queen;

And she, for very pity of his lot,

Went and stay'd with him at the shepherd's cot.

Nor would she leave him, she esteem'd him so,

Till she had seen him well with her own eye;

So full of pity did her bosom grow,

Since first she saw him faint and like to die.

Seeing his manners now, and beauty too,

She felt her heart yearn somehow inwardly;

She felt her heart yearn somehow, till at last

'Twas all on fire, and burning warm and fast.

The shepherd's home was good enough and neat,

A little shady cottage in a dell

The man had just rebuilt it all complete,

With room to spare, in case more births befell.

There with such knowledge did the lady treat

Her handsome patient, that he soon grew well;

But not before she had, on her own part,

A secret wound much greater in her heart.

Much greater was the wound, and deeper far,

Which the sweet arrow made in her heart's strings;

'Twas from Medoro's lovely eyes and hair;

'Twas from the naked archer with the wings.

She feels it now; she feels, and yet can bear

Another's less than her own sufferings.

She thinks not of herself: she thinks alone

How to cure him by whom she is undone.

The more his wound recovers and gets ease,

Her own grows worse, and widens day by day.

The youth gets well; the lady languishes,

Now warm, now cold, as fitful fevers play.

His beauty heightens, like the flowering trees;

She, miserable creature, melts away

Like the weak snow, which some warm sun has found

Fall'n, out of season, on a rising ground.

And must she speak at last, rather than die?

And must she plead, without another's aid?

She must, she must: the vital moments fly

She lives--she dies, a passion-wasted maid.

At length she bursts all ties of modesty:

Her tongue explains her eyes; the words are said

And she asks pity, underneath that blow

Which he, perhaps, that gave it did not know.

O County Orlando! O King Sacripant!

That fame of yours, say, what avails it ye?

That lofty honour, those great deeds ye vaunt,--

Say, what's their value with the lovely she

Shew me--recall to memory (for I can't)--

Shew me, I beg, one single courtesy

That ever she vouchsafed ye, far or near,

For all you've done and have endured for her.

And you, if you could come to life again,

O Agrican, how hard 'twould seem to you,

Whose love was met by nothing but disdain,

And vile repulses, shocking to go through!

O Ferragus! O thousands, who, in vain,

Did all that loving and great hearts could do,

How would ye feel, to see, with all her charms,

This thankless creature in a stripling's arms?

The young Medoro had the gathering

Of the world's rose, the rose untouch'd before;

For never, since that garden blush'd with spring,

Had human being dared to touch the door.

To sanction it--to consecrate the thing--

The priest was called to read the service o'er,

(For without marriage what can come but strife?)

And the bride-mother was the shepherd's wife.

All was perform'd, in short, that could be so

In such a place, to make the nuptials good;

Nor did the happy pair think fit to go,

But spent the month and more within the wood.

The lady to the stripling seemed to grow.

His step her step, his eyes her eyes pursued;

Nor did her love lose any of its zest,

Though she was always hanging on his breast.

In doors and out of doors, by night, by day,

She had the charmer by her side for ever;

Morning and evening they would stroll away,

Now by some field or little tufted river;

They chose a cave in middle of the day,

Perhaps not less agreeable or clever

Than Dido and Æneas found to screen them,

When they had secrets to discuss between them.

And all this while there was not a smooth tree,

That stood by stream or fountain with glad breath,

Nor stone less hard than stones are apt to be,

But they would find a knife to carve it with;

And in a thousand places you might see,

And on the walls about you and beneath,

ANGELICA AND MEDORO, tied in one,

As many ways as lovers' knots can run.

And when they thought they had outspent their time,

Angelica the royal took her way,

She and Medoro, to the Indian clime,

To crown him king of her great realm, Cathay.[1]

[Footnote 1: This version of the present episode has appeared in print

before. So has a portion of the _Monks and the Giants_, in the first

volume.]

* * * * *

No. III.

THE JEALOUSY OF ORLANDO.

THE SAME.

Feron camin diverso i cavallieri,

Di quà Zerbino, e di là il Conte Orlando.

Prima che pigli il Conte altri sentieri,

All'arbor tolse, e a sè ripose il brando;

E, dove meglio col Pagan pensosse

Di potersi incontrare, il destrier mosse.

Lo strano corso the tenne il cavallo

Del Saracin pel bosco senza via,

Fece ch'Orlando andò duo giorni in fallo,

Nè lo trovò, nè potè averne spia.

Giunse ad un rivo, che parea cristallo,

Ne le cui sponde un bel pratel fioria,

Di nativo color vago e dipinto,

E di molti e belli arbori distinto.

Il merigge facea grato l'orezo

Al duro armento et al pastore ignudo;

Si che nè Orlando sentia alcun ribrezo,

Che la corazza avea, l'elmo e lo scudo.

Quivi egli entrò, per riposarsi, in mezo;

E v'ebbe travaglioso albergo e crudo,

E, più che dir si possa, empio soggiorno,

Quell'infelice e sfortunato giorno.

Volgendosi ivi intorno, vidi scritti

Molti arbuscelli in su l'ombrosa riva.

Tosto the fermi v'ebbe gli occhi e fitti,

Fu certo esser di man de la sua Diva.

Questo era un di quei lochi già descritti,

Ove sovente con Medor veniva

Da casa del pastore indi vicina

La bella donna del Catai Regina.

Angelica e Medor con cento nodi

Legati insieme, e in cento lochi vede.

Quante lettere son, tanti son chiodi

Co i quali Amore il cor gli punge e fiede.

Va col pensier cercando in mille modi

Non creder quel ch'al suo dispetto crede:

Ch'altra Angelica sia, creder si sforza,

Ch'abbia scritto il suo nome in quella scorza.

Poi dice: Conosco io pur queste note;

Di tal io n'he tante e vedute e lette.

Finger questo Medoro ella si puote;

Forse ch'a me questo cognome mette.

Con tali opinion dal ver remote

Usando fraude a sè medesmo, stette

Ne la speranza il mal contento Orlando,

Che si seppe a sè stesso ir procacciando.

Ma sempre più raccende e più rinuova,

Quanto spenger più cerca, il rio sospetto;

Come l'incauto augel che si ritrova

In ragna o in visco aver dato di petto,

Quanto più batte l'ale e più si prova

Di disbrigar, più vi si lega stretto.

Orlando viene ove s'incurva il monte

A guisa d'arco in su la chiara fonte.

Aveano in su l'entrata il luogo adorno

Coi piedi storti edere e viti erranti.

Quivi soleano al più cocente giorno

Stare abbracciati i duo felici amanti.

V'aveano i nomi lor dentro e d'intorno

Più che in altro de i luoghi circonstanti,

Scritti, qual con carbone e qual con gesso,

E qual con punte di coltelli impresso.

Il mesto Conte a piè quivi discese;

E vide in su l'entrata de la grotta

Parole assai, che di sua man distese

Medoro avea, che parean scritte allotta.

Del gran piacer che ne la grotta prese,

Questa sentenzia in versi avea ridotta:

Che fosse culta in suo linguaggio io penso;

Et era ne la nostra tale in senso:

Liete piante, verdi erbe, limpide acque,

Spelunca opaca e di fredde ombre grata,

Dove la bella Angelica, che nacque

Di Galafron, da molti in vano amata,

Spesso ne le mie braccia nuda giacque;

De la commodità che qui m'è data,

Io povero Medor ricompensarvi

D'altro non posso, che d'ognior lodarvi:

E di pregare ogni signore amante

E cavallieri e damigelle, e ognuna

Persona o paësana o viandante,

Che quì sua volontà meni o Fortuna,

Ch'all'erbe, all'ombra, all'antro, al rio, alle piante

Dica: Benigno abbiate e sole e luna,

E de le nimfe il coro che provveggia,

Che non conduca a voi pastor mai greggia.

Era scritta in Arabico, che 'l Conte

Intendea così ben, come Latino.

Fra molte lingue e molte ch'avea pronte

Prontissima avea quella il Paladino

E gli schivò più volte e danni et onte,

Che si trovò tra il popul Saracino.

Ma non si vanti, se già n'ebbe frutto;

Ch'un danno or n'ha, che può scontargli il tutto.

Tre volte, e quattro, e sei, lesse lo scritto

Quello infelice, e pur cercando in vano

Che non vi fosse quel che v'era scritto;

E sempre lo vedea più chiaro e piano;

Et ogni volta in mezo il petto afflitto

Stringersi il cor sentia con fredda mano.

Rimase il fin con gli occhi e con la mente

Fissi nel sasso, al sasso indifferente.

Fu allora per uscir del sentimento;

Sì tutto in preda del dolor si lassa.

Credete a chi n'ha fatto esperimento,

Che questo è 'l duol che tutti gli altri passa.

Caduto gli era sopra il petto il mento,

La fronte priva di baldanza, e bassa;

Nè potè aver (che 'l duol l'occupò tanto)

Alle querele voce, o umore al pianto.

L'impetuosa doglia entro rimase,

Che volea tutta uscir con troppa fretta.

Così veggian restar l'acqua nel vase,

Che largo il ventre e la bocca abbia stretta;

Chè, nel voltar che si fa in su la base,

L'umor, che vorria uscir, tanto s'affretta,

E ne l'angusta via tanto s'intrica,

Ch'a goccia a goccia fuore esce a fatica.

Poi ritorna in sè alquanto, e pensa come

Possa esser che non sia la cosa vera:

Che voglia alcun così infamare il nome

De la sua donna e crede e brama e spera,

O gravar lui d'insopportabil some

Tanto di gelosia, che sè ne pera;

Et abbia quel, sia chi si voglia stato,

Molto la man di lei bene imitato.

In così poca, in così debol speme

Sveglia gli spirti, e gli rifranca un poco;

Indi al suo Brigliadoro il dosso preme,

Dando già il sole alla sorella loco.

Non molto va, che da le vie supreme

De i tetti uscir vede il vapor del fuoco,

Sente cani abbaiar, muggiare armento;

Viene alla villa, e piglia alloggiamento.

Languido smonta, e lascia Brigliadoro

A un discreto garzon che n'abbia cura.

Altri il disarma, altri gli sproni d'oro

Gli leva, altri a forbir va l'armatura.

Era questa la casa ove Medoro

Giacque ferito, e v'ebbe alta avventura.

Corcarsi Orlando e non cenar domanda,

Di dolor sazio e non d'altra vivanda.

Quanto più cerca ritrovar quiete,

Tanto ritrova più travaglio e pene;

Che de l'odiato scritto ogni parete,

Ogni uscio, ogni finestra vede piena.

Chieder ne vuol: poi tien le labra chete;

Chè teme non si far troppo serena,

Troppo chiara la cosa, che di nebbia

Cerca offuscar, perchè men nuocer debbia.

Poco gli giova usar fraude a sè stesso;

Chè senza domandarne è chi ne parla.

Il pastor, che lo vede così oppresso

Da sua tristrizia, e che vorria levarla,

L'istoria nota a sè the dicea spesso

Di quei duo amanti a chi volea ascoltarla,

Ch'a molti dilettevole fu a udire,

Gl'incominciò senza rispetto a dire:

Come esso a prieghi d'Angelica bella,

Portato avea Medoro alla sua villa;

Ch'era ferito gravemente, e ch'ella

Curò la piaga, e in pochi dì guarilla;

Ma che nel cor d'una maggior di quella

Lei ferì amor: e di poca scintilla

L'accese tanto e sì cocente fuoco,

Che n'ardea tutta, e non trovava loco.

E, sanza aver rispetto ch'ella fosse

Figlia del maggior Re ch'abbia il Levante,

Da troppo amor constretta si condusse

A farsi moglie d'un povero fante.

All'ultimo l'istoria si ridusse,

Che 'l pastor fe' portar la gemma inante,

Ch'alla sua dipartenza, per mercede

Del buono albergo, Angelica gli diede.

Questa conclusion fu la secure

Che 'l capo a un colpo gli levò dal collo,

Poi che d'innumerabil battiture

Si vide il manigoldo Amor satollo.

Celar si studia Orlando il duolo; e pure

Quel gli fa forza, e male asconder puollo;

Per lacrime e suspir da bocca e d'occhi

Convien, voglia o non voglia, al fin che scocchi.

Poi ch'allagare il freno al dolor puote

(Che resta solo, e senza altrui rispetto),

Giù da gli occhi rigando per le gote

Sparge un fiume di lacrime su 'l petto:

Sospira e geme, e va con spesse ruote

Di qua di là tutto cercando il letto;

E più duro ch'un sasso, e più pungente

Che se fosse d'urtica, sè lo sente.

In tanto aspro travaglio gli soccorre,

Che nel medesmo letto in che giaceva

L'ingrata donna venutasi a porre

Col suo drudo più volte esser doveva.

Non altrimenti or quella piuma abborre

Nè con minor prestezza sè ne leva,

Che de l'erba il villan, che s'era messo

Per chiuder gli occhi, e vegga il serpe appresso.

Quel letto, quella casa, quel pastore

Immantinente in tant'odio gli casca,

Che senza aspettar luna, o che l'albore

Che va dinanzi al nuovo giorno, nasca,

Piglia l'arme e il destriero, et esce fuore

Per mezo il bosco alla più oscura frasca;

E quando poi gli è avviso d'esser solo,

Con gridi et urli apre le porte al duolo.

Di pianger mai, mai di gridar non resta;

Nè la notte nè 'l dì si dà mai pace;

Fugge cittadi e borghi, e alla foresta

Su 'l terren duro al discoperto giace.

Di sè si maraviglia ch'abbia in testa

Una fontana d'acqua sì vivace,

E come sospirar possa mai tanto;

E spesso dice a sè così nel pianto:

Queste non son più lacrime, che fuore

Stillo da gli occhi con sì larga vena.

Non suppliron le lacrime al dolore;

Finîr, ch'a mezo era il dolore a pena.

Dal fuoco spinto ora il vitale umore

Fugge per quella via ch'a gli occhi mena;

Et è quel che si versa, e trarrà insieme

E 'l dolore e la vita all'ore estreme.

Questi, ch'indizio fan del mio tormento,

Sospir non sono; nè i sospir son tali.

Quelli han triegua talora; io mai non sento

Che 'l petto mio men la sua pena esali.

Amor, che m'arde il cor, fa questo vento,

Mentre dibatte intorno al fuoco l'ali.

Amor, con che miracolo lo fai,

Che 'n fuoco il tenghi, e nol consumi mai?

Non son, non sono io quel che paio in viso;

Quel, ch'era Orlando, è morto, et è sotterra;

La sua donna ingratissima l'ha ucciso;

Si, mancando di fe, gli ha fatto guerra.

Io son lo spirito suo da lui diviso,

Ch'in questo inferno tormentandosi erra,

Acciò con l'ombra sia, che sola avanza,

Esempio a chi in amor pone speranza.

Pel bosco errò tutta la notte il Conte;

E allo spuntar della diurna fiamma

Lo tornò il suo destin sopra la fonte,

Dove Medoro insculse l'epigramma.

Veder l'ingiuria sua scritta nel monte

L'accese sì, ch'in lui non restò dramma

Che non fosse odio, rabbia, ira e furore;

Né più indugiò, che trasse il brando fuore.

Tagliò lo scritto e 'l sasso, e sin al cielo

A volo alzar fe'le minute schegge.

Infelice quell'antro, et ogni stelo

In cui Medoro e Angelica si legge!

Così restâr quel dì, ch'ombra nè gielo

A pastor mai non daran più, nè a gregge:

E quella fonte già si chiara e pura,

Da cotanta ira fu poco sicura:

Che rami, e ceppi, e tronchi, e sassi, e zolle

Non cessò di gittar ne le bell'onde,

Fin che da sommo ad imo si turbolle

Che non furo mai più chiare nè monde;

E stanco al fin, e, al fin di sudor molle,

Poi che la lena vinta non risponde

Allo sdegno, al grave odio, all'ardente ira,

Cade sul prato, e verso il ciel sospira.

Afflitto e stanco al fin cade ne l'erba,

E ficca gli occhi al cielo, e non fa motto;

Senza cibo e dormir così si serba,

Che 'l sole esce tre volte, e torna sotto.

Di crescer non cessò la pena acerba,

Che fuor del senno al fin l'ebbe condotto.

Il quarto dì, da gran furor commosso,

E maglic e piastre si straccio di dosso.

Quì riman l'elmo, e là riman lo scudo;

Lontan gli arnesi, e più lontan l'usbergo

L'arme sue tutte, in somma vi concludo,

Avean pel bosco differente albergo.

E poi si squarciò i panni, e mostrò ignudo

L'ispido ventre, e tutto 'l petto e 'l tergo;

E cominciò la gran follia, sì orrenda,

Che de la più non sarà mai ch'intenda.

In tanta rabbia, in tanto furor venne,

Che rimase offuscato in ogni senso.

Di tor la spada in man non gli sovvenne,

Che fatte avria mirabil cose, penso.

Ma nè quella nè scure nè bipenne

Era bisogno al suo vigore immenso.

Quivi fe' ben de le sue prove eccelse;

Ch'un alto pine al primo crollo svelse;

E svelse dopo il primo altri parecchi,

Come tosser finocchi, ebuli o aneti;

E fe' il simil di querce e d'olmi vecchi,

Di faggi e d' orni e d' illici a d' abeti;

Quel ch'un uccellator, the s'apparecchi

Il campo mondo, fa, per por le reti,

De i giunchi e de le stoppie e de l'urtiche,

Facchi de cerri e d' altre piante antiche.

I pastor, che sentito hanno il fracasso,

Lasciando il gregge sparso alla foresta,

Chi di quà, chi di là, tutti a gran passo

Vi vengono a veder che cosa è questa.

* * * * *

The poet breaks off here, and enters afterwards at large into the

consequences of the madness of Orlando; omitted in this work, for the

reasons mentioned at page 224.

* * * * *

No. IV.

THE DEATH OF CLORINDA.

TASSO.

Ma, ecco omai l'ora fatale è giunta

Che 'l viver di Clorinda al suo fin deve.

Spinge egli il ferro nel bel sen di punta,

Che vi s'immerge, e 'l sangue avido beve;

E la veste che d'or vago trapunta

Le mammelle stringea tenera e leve

L'empie d'un caldo fiume. Ella già sente

Morirsi, e 'l piè le manea egro e languente.

Quel segue la vittoria, e la trafitta

Vergine minacciando incalza e preme:

Ella, mentre cadea, la voce afitta

Movendo, disse le parole estreme:

Parole ch'a lei novo on spirto ditta,

Spirto di fè, di carità, di speme:

Virtù ch'or Dio le infonde; e se rubella

In vita fu, la vuole in morte ancella:

Amico, hai vinto; io ti perdon: perdona

Tu ancora, al corpo no, che nulla pave,

All'alma sì: deh! per lei prega: e dona

Battesmo a me ch'ogni mia colpe lave.

In queste voci languide risuona

Un non so che di flebile e soave,

Che al cor gli serpe, ed ogni sdegno ammorza,

E gli occhi a lagrimar gl' invoglia e sforza.

Poco quindi lontan nel sen del monte

Scaturía mormorando an picciol rio:

Egli v'accorse, e l'elmo empiè nel fonte,

E tornò mesto al grande ufficio e pio.

Tremar sentì la man, mentre la fronte,

Non conosciuta ancor, sciolse e scoprio.

La vide, e la conobbe; e restò senza

E voce, e moto. Ahi vista! ahi cognoscenza!

Non morì già; che sue virtuti accolse

Tutte in quel punto, e in guardia al cor le mise;

E, premendo il suo affanno, a dar si volse

Vita coll'acqua a chi col ferro uccise.

Mentre egli il suon de' sacri detti sciolse,

Colei di gioia trasmutossi, e rise:

E in atto di morir lieto e vivace,

Dir parea; S'apre il cielo; io vado in pace.

D'un bel pallore ha il bianco volto asperso,

Come a gigli sarian miste viole;

E gli occhi al cielo affisa, e in lei converso

Sembra per la pietate il cielo e 'l sole;

E la man nuda e fredda alzando verso

Il cavaliero, in vece di parole,

Gli dà pegno di pace. In questa forma

Passa la bella donna, e par che dorma.

Come l'alma gentile uscita ei vede,

Rallenta quel vigor ch'avea raccolto,

E l'imperio di sè libero cede

Al duol già fatto impetuoso e stolto,

Ch' al cor si stringe, e chiusa in breve sede

La vita, empie di morte i sensi e 'l volto.

Già simile all' estinto il vivo langue

Al colore, al silenzio, agli atti, al sangue.

E ben la vita sua sdegnosa e schiva,

Spezzando a sforza il suo ritegno frale,

La bell'anima sciolta alfin seguiva,

Che poco innanzi a lei spiegava l'ale;

Ma quivi stuol de' Franchi a caso arriva,

Cui trae bisogno d' acqua, o d'altro tale;

E con la donna il cavalier ne porta,

In sè mal vivo, e morto in lei ch'è morta.

* * * * *

No V.

TANCRED IN THE ENCHANTED FOREST.

THE SAME.

Era in prence Tancredi intanto sorto

A seppellir la sua diletta amica;

E, benchè in volto sia languido e smorto,

E mal atto a portar elmo e lorica,

Nulladimen, poi che 'l bisogno ha scorto,

Ei non ricusa il rischio o la fatica;

Che 'l cor vivace il suo vigor trasfonde

Al corpo sì, che par ch'esso n'abbonde.

Vassene il valoroso in sè ristretto,

E tacito e guardingo al rischio ignoto

E sostien della selva il fero aspetto,

E 'l gran romor del tuono e del tremoto;

E nulla sbigottisce; e sol nel petto

Sente, ma tosto il seda, un picciol moto.

Trapassa; ed ecco in quel silvestre loco

Sorge improvvisa la città del foco.

Allor s' arretra, e dubbio alquanto resta,

Fra sè dicendo: Or qui che vaglion l'armi?

Nelle fauci de' mostri, e 'n gola a questa

Divoratrice fiamma andrò a gettarmi?

Non mai la vita, ove cagione onesta

Del comun pro la chieda, altri risparmi;

Ma nè prodigo sia d' anima grande

Uom denso; e tale è ben chi qui la spande.

Pur l'oste che dirà, s'indarno io riedo?

Qual altra selva ha di troncar speranza?

Nè intentato lasciar vorrà Goffredo

Mai questo varco. Or, s'oltre alcun s'avanza,

Forse l'incendio, che qui sorto i' vedo,

Fia d'effetto minor che sembianza;

Ma seguane che puote. E in questo dire

Dentro saltovvi: oh memorando ardire!

Nè sotto l'arme già sentir gli parve

Caldo o fervor come di foco intenso;

Ma pur, se fosser vere fiamme o larve,

Mal potè giudicar sì tosto il senso:

Perchè repente, appena tocco, sparve

Quel simulacro, e giunse un nuvol denso,

Che portò notte e verno; e 'l verno ancora

E l'ombra dileguossi in picciol'ora.

Stupido sì, ma intrepido rimane

Tancredi; e poichè vede il tutto cheto,

Mette securo il piè nelle profane

Soglie, e spia della selva ogni secreto.

Nè più apparenze inusitate e strane,

Nè trova alcun per via scontro o divieto,

Se non quanto per sè ritarda il bosco

La vista e i passi, inviluppato e fosco.

Alfine un largo spazio in forma scorge

D'anfiteatro, e non è pianta in esso,

Salvo che nel suo mezzo altero sorge,

Quasi eccelsa piramide, un cipresso.

Colà si drizza, e nel mirar s' accorge

Ch' era di varj segni il tronco impresso,

Simil a quei, chè in vece usò di scritto

L'antico già misterioso Egitto.

Fra i segni ignoti alcune note ha scorte

Del sermon di Soria, ch'ei ben possiede:

O tu, che dentro ai chiostri della morte

Osasti por, guerriero audace, il piede,

Deh! se non sei crudel, quanto sei forte,

Deh! non turbar questa secreta sede.

Perdona all'alme omai di luce prive:

Non dee guerra co' morti aver chi vive.

Così dicea quel motto. Egli era intento

Delle brevi parole ai segni occulti.

Fremere intanto udia continuo il vento

Tra le frondi del bosco e tra i virgulti;

E trarne un suon che flebile concento

Par d'umani sospiri e di singulti;

E un non so che confuso instilla al core

Di pietà, di spavento e di dolore.

Pur tragge alfin la spada, e con gran forza

Percote l'alta pianta. Oh maraviglia!

Manda fuor sangue la recisa scorza,

E fa la terra intorno a sè vermiglia.

Tutto si raccapriccia; e pur rinforza

Il colpo, e 'l fin vederne ei si consiglia.

Allor, quasi di tomba, uscir ne sente

Un indistinto gemito dolente;

Che poi distinto in voci: Ahi troppo, disse,

M' hai tu, Tancredi, offesso: or tanto basti:

Tu dal corpo, che meco e per me visse,

Felice albergo gia, mi discacciasti.

Perchè il misero tronco, a cui m'affisse

Il mio duro destino, ancor mi guasti?

Dopo la morte gli avversarj tuoi,

Crudel, ne' lor sepolcri offender vuoi?

Clorinda fui: nè sol qui spirto umano

Albergo in questa pianta rozza e dura;

Ma ciascun altro ancor, Franco o Pagano,

Che lassi i membri a piè dell'alte mura,

Astretto è qui da novo incanto e strano,

Non so s' io dica in corpo o in sepoltura.

Son di sensi animati i rami e i tronchi;

E micidial sei tu, se legno tronchi.

Qual infermo talor, ch'in sogno scorge

Drago, o cinta di fiamme alta Chimera,

Sebben sospetta, o in parte anco s'accorge

Che simulacro sia non forma vera,

Pur desia di fuggir, tanto gli porge

Spavento la sembianza orrida e fera:

Tale il timido amante appien non crede

Ai falsi inganni: e pur ne teme, e cede:

E dentro il cor gli è in modo tal conquiso

Da varj affetti, che s' agghiaccia e trema;

E nel moto potente ed improvviso

Gli cade il ferro: e 'l manco e in lui la tema.

Va fuor di sè. Presente aver gli è avviso

L' offesa donna sua, che plori e gema:

Nè può soffrir di rimirar quel sangue,

Nè quei gemiti udir d'egro che langue.

Così quel contra morte audace core

Nulla forma turbò d' alto spavento;

Ma lui, che solo è fievole in amore,

Falsa imago deluse e van lamento.

Il suo caduto ferro instanto fuore

Portò del bosco impetuoso vento,

Sicchè vinto partissi; e in sulla strada

Ritrovò poscia, e ripigliò la spada.

Pur non tornò, né ritentando ardio

Spiar di novo le cagioni ascose;

E poi che, giunto al sommo Duce, unio

Gli spirti alquanto, e l'animo compose,

Incominciò: Signor, nunzio son io

Di non credute e non credibil cose.

Ciò che dicean dello spettacol fero,

E del suon paventoso, è tutto vero.

Maraviglioso foco indi m'apparse,

Senza materia in un istante appreso;

Che sorse, e, dilatando un muro farse

Parve, e d' armati mostri esser difeso.

Pur vi passai; che ne l'incendio m' arse,

Nè dal ferro mi fu l'andar conteso:

Vernò in quel punto, ed annottò: fe' il giorno

E la serenità poscia ritorno.

Di più dirò; ch'agli alberi dà vita

Spirito uman, che sente e che ragiona.

Per prova sollo: io n'ho la voce udita,

Che nel cor flebilmente anco mi suona.

Stilla sangue de' tronchi ogni ferita,

Quasi di molle carne abbian persona.

No, no, più non potrei (vinto mi chiamo)

Nè corteccia scorzar, nè sveller ramo.