Books: Orlando Furioso

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LXXXI
He therefore never thrust in that affray,
And rarely smote an edge on plate and chain.
Now warding off the mace, now giving way,
Before the fall of that descending bane.
Turpin believes it in Rogero lay
Sir Dudon in few sword-strokes to have slain.
Yet never when the Dane his guard foregoes,
Save on the faulchion's flat descend the blows.

LXXXII
The flat as featly as the edge he plies,
Of that good faulchion forged of stubborn grain;
And, at strange blindman's bluff, in weary wise,
Hammers on Dudon with such might and main,
He often dazzles so the warrior's eyes,
That hardly he his saddle can maintain.
But to win better audience for my rhyme,
My canto I defer to other time.

CANTO 41

ARGUMENT
His prisoners to the Child the Danish peer
Consigns, who, homeward bound, are wrecked at sea;
By swimming he escapes, and a sincere
And faithful servant now of Christ is he.
Meanwhile bold Brandimart, and Olivier,
And Roland fiercely charge the hostile three.
Sobrino is left wounded in the strife;
Gradasso and Agramant deprived of life.

I
The odour which well-fashioned bear or hair,
Of that which find and dainty raiment steeps
Of gentle stripling, or of damsel fair,
-- Who often love awakens, as she weeps --
If it ooze forth and scent the ambient air,
And which for many a day its virtue keeps,
Well shows, by manifest effects and sure,
How perfect was its first perfume and pure.

II
The drink that to his cost good Icarus drew
Of yore his sun-burned sicklemen to cheer,
And which ('tis said) lured Celts and Boi through
Our Alpine hills, untouched by toil whilere,
Well shows that cordial was the draught, when new;
Since it preserves its virtue through the year.
The tree to which its wintry foliage cleaves,
Well shows that verdant were its spring tide leaves.

III
The famous lineage, for so many years
Of courtesy the great and lasting light,
Which ever, brightening as it burns, appears
To shine and flame more clearly to the sight,
Well proves the sire of Este's noble peers
Must, amid mortals, have shone forth as bright
In all fair gifts which raise men to the sky,
As the glad sun mid glittering orbs on high.

IV
As in his every other feat exprest,
Rogero's valiant mind and courteous lore
Were showed by tokens clear and manifest,
And his high mindedness shone more and more;
-- So toward the Dane those virtues stood confest,
With whom (as I rehearsed to you before)
He had belied his mighty strength and breath;
For pity loth to put that lord to death.

V
The Danish warrior was well certified,
No wish to slay him had the youthful knight,
Who spared him now, when open was his side;
Now, when so wearied he no more could smite.
When finally he knew, and plain descried
Rogero scrupled to put forth his might,
If with less vigour and less prowess steeled,
At least in courtesy he would not yield.

VI
"Pardi, sir, make we peace;" (he said) "success
In this contention cannot fall to me --
Cannot be mine; for I myself confess
Conquered and captive to thy courtesy."
To him Rogero answered, "And no less
I covet peace, than 'tis desired by thee.
But this upon condition, that those seven
Are freed from bondage, and to me are given."

VII
With that he showed those seven whereof I spake,
Bound and with drooping heads, a sad array;
Adding, he must to him no hindrance make,
Who would those kings to Africa convey.
And Dudon thus allowed the Child to take
Those seven, and him allowed to bear away
A bark as well; what likes him best he chooses,
Amid those vessels, and for Africk looses.

VIII
He looses bark and sail; and in bold wise
Trusting the fickle wind, to seaward stood.
At first on her due course the vessel flies,
And fills the pilot full of hardihood.
The beach retreats, and from the sailors' eyes
So fades, the sea appears a shoreless flood.
Upon the darkening of the day, the wind
Displays its fickle and perfidious kind.

IX
It shifts from poop to beam, from beam to prow,
And even there short season doth remain:
The reeling ship confounds the pilot; now
Struck fore, now aft, now on her beam again.
Threatening the billows rise, with haughty brow,
And Neptune's white herd lows above the main.
As many deaths appear to daunt that rout,
As waves which beat their troubled bark about.

X
Now blows the wind in front, and now in rear,
And drives this wave an-end, that other back;
Others the reeling vessel's side o'erpeer;
And every billow threatens equal wrack.
The pilot sighs, confused and pale with fear;
Vainly he calls aloud to shift the tack,
To strike or jibe the yard; and with his hand,
Signs to the crew the thing he would command.

XI
But sound or signal little boots; the eye
Sees not amid the dim and rainy night;
The voice unheard ascends into the sky, --
The sky, which with a louder larum smite
The troubled sailors' universal cry,
And roar of waters, which together fight.
Unheard is every hest, above, below,
Starboard or larboard, upon poop or prow.

XII
In the strained tackle sounds a hollow roar,
Wherein the struggling wind its fury breaks;
The forked lightning flashes evermore,
With fearful thunder heaven's wide concave shakes.
One to the rudder runs, one grasps an oar;
Each to his several office him betakes.
One will make fast, another will let go;
Water into the water others throw.

XIII
Lo! howling horribly, the sounding blast,
Which Boreas in his sudden fury blows,
Scourges with tattered sail the reeling mast:
Almost as high as heaven the water flows:
The oars are broken; and so fell and fast
That tempest pelts, the prow to leeward goes;
And the ungoverned vessel's battered side
Is undefended from the foaming tide.

XIV
Fallen on her starboard side, on her beam ends,
About to turn keel uppermost, she lies.
Meanwhile, his soul to Heaven each recommends,
Surer than sure to sink, with piteous cries.
Scathe upon scathe malicious Fortune sends,
And when one woe is weathered, others rise.
O'erstrained, the vessel splits; and through her seams
In many a part the hostile water streams.

XV
A fierce assault and cruel coil doth keep
Upon all sides that wintry tempest fell.
Now to their sight so high the billows leap,
It seems that these to heaven above would swell;
Now, plunging with the wave, they sink so deep,
That they appear to spy the gulfs of hell.
Small hope there is or none: with faultering breath
They gaze upon inevitable death.

XVI
On a despiteous sea, that livelong night,
They drifted, as the wind in fury blew.
The furious wind that with the dawning light
Should have abated, gathered force anew.
Lo! a bare rock, ahead, appears in sight,
Which vainly would the wretched band eschew;
Whom towards that cliff, in their despite, impel
The raging tempest and the roaring swell.

XVII
Three times and four the pale-faced pilot wrought
The tiller with a vigorous push to sway;
And for the bark a surer passage sought:
But the waves snapt and bore the helm away.
To lower, or ease the bellying canvas aught
The sailors had no power; nor time had they
To mend that ill, or counsel what was best;
For them too hard the mortal peril prest.

XVIII
Perceiving now that nothing can defend
Their bark from wreck on that rude rock and bare,
All to their private aims alone attend,
And only to preserve their life have care.
Who quickest can, into the skiff descend;
But in a thought so overcrowded are,
Through those so many who invade the boat,
That, gunwale-deep, she scarce remains afloat.

XIX
Rogero, on beholding master, mate,
And men abandoning the ship with speed,
In doublet, as he is, sans mail and plate,
Hopes in the skiff, a refuge in that need:
But finds her overcharged with such a weight,
And afterwards so many more succeed,
That the o'erwhelming wave the pinnace drown,
And she with all her wretched freight goes down;

XX
Goes down, and, foundering, drags with her whoe'er
Leaving the larger bark, on her relies.
Then doleful shrieks are heard, 'mid sob and tear,
Calling for succour on unpitying skies:
But for short space that shrilling cry they rear;
For, swoln with rage and scorn, the waters rise,
And in a moment wholly stop the vent
Whence issues that sad clamour and lament.

XXI
One sinks outright, no more to reappear;
Some rise, and bounding with the billows go:
Their course, with head uplifted, others steer;
An arm, an unshod leg, those others show:
Rogero, who the tempest will not fear,
Springs upward to the surface from below;
And little distant sees that rock, in vain
Eschewed by him and his attendant train.

XXII
Himself with hands and feet the warrior rows,
Hoping by force thereof to win the shore;
Breast boldly the importunate flood, and blows
With his unwearied breath the foam before.
Waxing meanwhile, the troubled water rose,
And from the rock the abandoned vessel bore;
Quitted of those unhappy men, who die
(So curst their lot) the death from which they fly.

XXIII
Alas! for man's deceitful thoughts and blind!
The ship escaped from wreck, where hope was none;
When master and when men their charge resigned,
And let the vessel without guidance run.
It would appear the wind has changed its mind,
On seeing all that sailed in her are gone;
And blows the vessel from those shallows free,
Through better course, into a safer sea.

XXIV
She, having drifted wildly with her guide,
Without him, made directly Africk's strand,
Two or three miles of waste Biserta wide,
Upon the quarter facing Egypt's land;
And, as the sea went down and the wind died,
Stood bedded in that weary waste of sand.
Now thither Roland roved, who paced the shore;
As I in other strain rehearsed before;

XXV
And willing to discover if alone,
Laden, or light, the stranded vessel were,
He, Olivier, and Monodantes' son,
Aboard her in a shallow bark repair:
Beneath the hatchways they descend, but none
Of human kind they see; and only there
Find good Frontino, with the trenchant sword
And gallant armour of his youthful lord;

XXVI
Who was so hurried in his hasty flight
He had not even time to take his sword;
To Orlando known; which, Balisardo hight,
Was his erewhile; the tale's upon record,
And ye have read it all, as well I wite;
How Falerina lost it to that lord,
When waste as well her beauteous bowers he laid;
And how from him Brunello stole the blade;

XXVII
And how beneath Carena, on the plain
Brunello on Rogero this bestowed.
How matchless was that faulchion's edge and grain,
To him experience had already showed;
I say, Orlando; who was therefore fain,
And to heaven's king with grateful thanks o'erflowed;
And deemed, and often afterwards so said,
Heaven for such pressing need had sent the blade:

XXVIII
Such pressing need, in that he had to fight
With the redoubted king of Sericane;
And knew that he, besides his fearful might,
Was lord of Bayard and of Durindane.
Not knowing them, Anglantes' valiant knight
So highly rated not the plate and chain
As he that these had proved: they valour were,
But valued less as good than rich and fair;

XXIX
And, for of harness he had little need,
Charmed, and against all weapons fortified,
To Olivier he left the warlike weed:
Not so the sword; which to his waist he tied:
To Brandimart Orlando gave the steed:
Thus equally that spoil would he divide
With his companions twain, in equal share,
Who partners in that rich discovery were.

XXX
Against the day of fight, in goodly gear
And new, those warriors seek their limbs to deck.
Blazoned upon Orlando's shield appear
The burning bold and lofty Babel's wreck.
A lyme-dog argent bears Sir Olivier,
Couchant, and with the leash upon his neck:
The motto; TILL HE COMES: In gilded vest
And worthy of himself he will be drest.

XXXI
Bold Brandimart designed upon the day
Of battle, for his royal father's sake,
And his own honour, no device more gay
Than a dim surcoat to the field to take.
By gentle Flordelice for that dark array,
Was wrought the fairest facing she could make.
With costly jewels was the border sown;
Sable the vest, and of one piece alone.

XXXII
With her own hand the lady wrought that vest,
Becoming well the finest plate and chain,
Wherein the valiant warrior should be drest,
And cloak his courser's croup and chest and mane:
But, from that day when she herself addrest
Unto this task, till ended was her pain,
She showed no sign of gladness; nor this while,
Nor after, was she ever seen to smile.

XXXIII
The heartfelt fear, the torment evermore
Of losing Brandimart the dame pursued.
She him whilere a hundred times and more
Engaged in fierce and fearful fight had viewed;
Nor ever suchlike terror heretofore
Had blanched her cheek and froze her youthful blood;
And this new sense of fear increased her trouble,
And made the trembling lady's heart beat double.

XXXIV
The warriors to the wind their canvas rear,
When point device the three accoutred are.
Bold Sansonet is left, with England's peer,
Intrusted with the faithful army's care.
Flordelice, pricked at heart with cruel fear,
Filling the heavens with vow, lament and prayer,
As far as they by sight can followed be,
Follows their sails upon the foaming sea.

XXXV
Scarce, with much labour, the two captains led
Her, gazing on the waters, from the shore,
And to the palace drew, where on her bed
They left the lady, grieved and trembling sore.
Meanwhile upon their quest those others sped,
Whom mercy wind and weather seaward bore.
Their vessel made that island on the right;
The field appointed for so fell a fight.

XXXVI
Orlando disembarks, with his array,
His kinsman Olivier and Brandimart;
Who on the side which fronts the eastern ray,
Encamp them, and not haply without art.
King Agramant arrives that very day,
And tents him on the contrary part.
But for the sun is sinking fast, forborne
Is their encounter till the following morn.

XXXVII
Until the skies the dawning light receive,
Armed servants keep their watch both there and here.
The valiant Brandimart resorts that eve
Thitherward, where their tents the paynims rear;
And parleys, by this noble leader's leave,
With Agramant; for they were friends whilere;
And, underneath the banner of the Moor,
He into France had passed from Africk's shore.

XXXVIII
After salutes, and joining hand with hand,
Fair reasons, as a friend, the faithful knight
Pressed on the leader of the paynim band
Why he should not the appointed battle fight;
And every town -- restored to his command --
Laying 'twixt Nile and Calpe's rocky height,
Vowed he, with Roland's license, should receive,
If upon Mary's Son he would believe.

XXXIX
He said: "For loved you were, and are by me,
This counsel give I; that I deem it sane,
Since I pursue it, you assured must be:
Mahound I hold but as an idol vain;
In Jesus Christ, the living God I see,
And to conduct you in my way were fain;
I' the way of safety fain would have you move
With me and all those others that I love.

XL
"In this consists your welfare; counsel none
Save this, in your disaster, can avail;
And, of all counsels least, good Milo's son
To meet in combat, clad in plate and mail;
In that the profit, if the field be won,
Weighs not against the loss, in equal scale.
If you be conqueror, little gain ensues,
Yet little loss results not, if you lose.

XLI
"Were good Orlando and we others slain,
Banded with him to conquer or to die;
Wherefore, through this, ye should your lost domain
Acquire anew, forsooth, I see not, I;
Nor is there reason hope to entertain
That, if we lifeless on the champaigne lie,
Men should be wanting in King Charles's host
To guard in Africa his paltriest post."

XLII
Thus Brandimart to Afick's cavalier;
And much would have subjoined; but, on his side,
That knight, with angry voice and haughty cheer,
The pagan interrupted, and replied:
" `Tis sure temerity and madness sheer
Moves you and whatsoever wight beside,
That counsels matter, be it good or ill,
Uncalled a counsellor's duty to fulfil;

XLIII
"And how to think, from love those counsels flow
Which once you bore and bear me, as you say,
(To speak the very truth) I do not know,
Who with Orlando see you here, this day.
I ween that, knowing you are doomed to woe,
And marked for the devouring dragon's prey,
Ye all mankind would drag to nether hell,
In your eternity of pains to dwell.

XLIV
"If I shall win or lose, remount my throne,
Or pass my future days in exile drear,
God only knows, whose purpose is unknown
To me, in turn, or to Anglantes' peer.
Befall what may, by me shall nought be done
Unworthy of a king, through shameful fear.
If death must be my certain portion, I,
Rather than wrong my princely blood, will die.

XLV
"Ye may depart, who, save ye better play
The warrior, in to-morrow's listed fight,
Then ye have plaid the embassador to-day,
In arms will second ill Anglantes' knight."
Agramant ended so his furious say;
-- His angry bosom boiling with despite.
So said -- the warriors parted, to repose,
Till from the neighbouring sea the day arose.

XLVI
When the first whitening of the dawn was seen,
Armed, in a moment leapt on horseback all;
Short parley past the puissant foes between.
There was no stop; there was no interval;
For they have laid in rest their lances keen:
But I into too foul a fault should fall
Meseems, my lord, if, while their deeds I tell
I let Rogero perish in the swell.

XLVII
Cleaving the flood with nimble hands and feet
He swims, amid the horrid surges' roar,
On him the threatening wind and tempest beat,
But him his harassed conscience vexes more.
Christ's wrath he fears; and, since in waters sweet
(When time and fair occasion served of yore)
He, in his folly, baptism little prized,
Fears in these bitter waves to be baptized.

XLVIII
Those many promises remembered are
Whereby he to his lady-love was tied,
Those oaths which sworn to good Rinaldo were,
And were in nought fulfilled upon his side.
To God, in hope that he would hear and spare,
That he repented, oftentimes he cried,
And, should he land, and scape that mortal scaith,
To be a Christian, vowed in heart and faith;

XLIX
And ne'er, in succour of the Moorish train,
With sword or lance, the faithful to offend;
And into France, where he to Charlemagne
Would render honour due, forthwith to wend;
Nor Bradamant with idle words again
To cheat, but bring his love to honest end.
A miracle it is that, as he vows,
He swims more lightly and his vigour grows.

L
His vigour grows; unwearied is his mind;
And still his arms from him the billow throw,
This billow followed fast by that behind;
Whereof one lifts him high, one sinks him low.
Rising and falling, vext by wave and wind,
So gains the Child that shore with labour slow;
And where the rocky hill slopes seaward most,
All drenched and dropping, climbs the rugged coast.

LI
All the others that had plunged into the flood
In the end, o'erwhelmed by those wild waters died.
Rogero, as to Providence seemed good,
Mounted the solitary islet's side.
When safe upon the barren rock he stood,
A new alarm the stripling terrified;
To be within those narrow bounds confined,
And die, with hardship and with hunger pined.

LII
Yet he with an unconquered heart, intent
To suffer what the heavens for him ordained,
O'er those hard stones, against that steep ascent,
Towards the top with feet intrepid strained;
And not a hundred yards had gone, when, bent
With years, and with long fast and vigil stained,
He worthy of much worship one espied,
In hermit's weed, descend the mountain's side;

LIII
Who cries, on his approaching him, "Saul, Saul,
Why persecutest thou my faithful seed?"
As whilom said the Saviour to Saint Paul,
When (blessed stroke!) he smote him from his steed.
"Thou thought'st to pass the sea, nor pay withal;
Thought'st to defraud the pilot of his meed.
Thou seest that God has arms to reach and smite,
When farthest off thou deem'st that God of might."

LIV
And he, that holiest anchoret, pursued,
To whom the night foregoing God did send
A vision, as he slumbered, and foreshewed
How, thither by his aid the Child should wend;
Wherein his past and future life, reviewed,
Were seen, as well as his unhappy end;
And sons, and grandsons, and his every heir,
Fully revealed to that good hermit were.

LV
That anchoret pursues, and does upbraid
Rogero first, and comforts finally:
Upbraideth him, because he had delaid
Beneath that easy yoke to bend the knee;
And what he should have done, when whilom prayed
And called of Christ -- then uncompelled and free --
Had done with little grace; nor turned to God
Until he saw him threatening with the rod.

LVI
Then comforts him -- that Christ aye heaven allows
To them, that late or early heaven desire;
And all those labourers of the Gospel shows,
Paid by the vineyard's lord with equal hire.
With charity and warm devotion glows,
And him instructs the venerable sire,
As toward the rocky cell where he resides
He with weak steps and slow Rogero guides.

LVII
Above that hallowed cell, on the hill's brow,
A little church receives the rising day;
Commodious is the fane and fair enow;
Thence to the beach descends a thicket gray,
Where fertile and fruit-bearing palm-trees blow,
Myrtle, and lowly juniper, and bay,
Evermore threaded by a limpid fountain,
Which falls with ceaseless murmur from the mountain.

LVIII
'Twas well nigh forty years, since on that stone
The goodly friar had fixed his quiet seat;
Which, there to live a holy life, alone,
For him the Saviour chose, as harbourage meet.
Pure water was his drink, and, plucked from one,
Or the other plant, wild berries were his meat;
And hearty and robust, of ailments clear,
The holy man had reached his eightieth year.

LIX
That hermit lit a fire, and heaped the board
With different fruits, within his small repair;
Wherewith the Child somedeal his strength restored,
When he had dried his clothes and dripping hair.
After, at better ease, to him God's word
And mysteries of our faith expounded were;
And the day following, in his fountain clear,
That anchoret baptized the cavalier.

LX
There dwells the young Rogero, well content
With what the rugged sojourn does allow;
In that the friar showed shortly his intent
To send him where he fain would turn his prow.
Meanwhile with him he many an argument
Handles and often; of God's kingdom now;
Now of things appertaining to his case;
Now to Rogero's blood, a future race.

LXI
The Lord, that every thing doth see and hear,
Had to that holiest anchoret bewrayed,
How he should not exceed the seventh year,
Dating from when he was a Christian made;
Who for the death of Pinabel whilere,
(His lady's deed, but on Rogero laid)
As well as Bertolagi's, should be slain
By false Maganza's ill and impious train;

LXII
And, how that treason should be smothered so,
No sign thereof should outwardly appear;
For where that evil people dealt the blow,
They should entomb the youthful cavalier.
For this should vengeance follow, albeit slow,
Dealt by his consort and his sister dear;
And how he by his wife should long be sought,
With weary womb, with heavy burden fraught,

LXIII
'Twixt Brenta and Athesis, beneath those hills
(Which erst the good Antenor so contented,
With their sulphureous veins and liquid rills,
And mead, and field, with furrows glad indented,
That he for these left pools which Xanthus fills;
And Ida, and Ascanius long lamented,)
Till she a child should in the forests bear,
Which little distant from Ateste are;

LXIV
And how the Child, in might and beauty grown,
That, like his sire, Rogero shall be hight,
Those Trojans, as of Trojan lineage known,
Shall for their lord elect with solemn rite;
Who next by Charles (in succour of whose crown
Against the Lombards shall the stripling fight)
Of that fair land dominion shall obtain,
And the honoured title of a marquis gain;

LXV
And because Charles shall say in Latin `Este',
(That is -- be lords of the dominion round!)
Entitled in a future season Este
Shall with good omen be that beauteous ground;
And thus its ancient title of Ateste
Shall of its two first letters lose the sound.
God also to his servant had foresaid
The vengeance taken for Rogero's dead;

LXVI
Who shall, in vision, to his consort true
Appear somedeal before the dawn of day;
And shall relate how him the traitor slew,
And where his body lies to her shall say.
She and Marphisa hence, those valiant two,
With fire and sword on earth shall Poictiers lay;
Nor shall his son, when of befitting age,
Less harm Maganza in his mighty rage.

LXVII
On Azos, Alberts, Obysons, did dwell
That hermit hoar, and on their offspring bright;
Or Borso, Nicholas, and Leonel,
Alphonso, Hercules, and Hippolyte,
And. last of those, the gentle Isabel;
Then curbs his tongue and will no more recite.
He to Rogero what is fit reveals,
And what is fitting to conceal, conceals.

LXVIII
Meanwhile Orlando and bold Brandimart,
With that good knight, the Marquis Olivier,
Against the paynim Mars together start;
(Name well befitting Sericana's peer)
And the other two -- that from the adverse part,
At more than a foot-pace their coursers steer;
I say King Agramant and King Sobrine:
The pebbly beach resounds, and rolling brine.

LXIX
When they encounter in mid field, pell-mell,
And to the sky flew every shivered lance,
At that loud noise, the sea was seen to swell,
At that loud noise, which echoed even to France.
Gradasso and Roland met as it befel;
And fairly balanced might appear the chance,
But for the vantage of Rinaldo's horse;
Which made Gradasso seem of greater force.