Books: Orlando Furioso

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CL
There changes back; and thence in haste he goes
Bound towards Lampedosa's island-shore,
That place of combat chosen by the foes,
And where they had encountered Frank and Moor.
Rinaldo grants his boatmen no repose;
That do what can be done by sail and oar.
But with ill wind and strong the warrior strives;
And, though by little, there too late arrives.

CLI
Thither he came what time Anglante's peer
The useful and the glorious deed had done;
Had slain those paynim kings in the career,
But had a hard and bloody conquest won:
Dead was Sir Brandimart; and Olivier,
Dangerously hurt and sore, sate woe-begone,
Somedeal apart, upon the sandy ground,
Martyred and crippled by his cruel wound.

CLII
From tears could not the mournful Count refrain,
When brave Rinaldo he embraced, and said,
How in the battle Brandimart was slain.
Such love, such faith endeared the warrior dead.
Nor less Rinaldo's tears his visage stain
When he so cleft beholds their comrade's head.
Thence to embrace bold Oliviero, where
He sits with wounded foot, he makes repair.

CLIII
All comfort that he could he gave; though none
Could good Rinaldo to himself afford;
Because he came but when the feast was done;
Yea after the removal of the board.
The servants wend to the demolished town,
There hide the bones of either paynim lord
Beneath Biserta's ruined domes, and nigh
And far, the fearful tidings certify.

CLIV
At the fair conquest won by Roland's blade,
Sansonet and Astolpho make great cheer;
Yet other mirth whose warriors would have made
Had Brandimart not perished; when they hear
That he is dead, their joy is so allayed
They can no more the troubled visage clear.
Which of them now the tidings of such woe
To the unhappy Flordelice shall show?

CLV
The night preceding that ill-omened day
Flordelice dreamed the vest of sable grain
That she had made, her husband to array,
And woven with her hand and worked with pain,
Before her eyes all sprinkled-over lay
With ruddy drops, in guise of pattering rain.
That she had worked it so the lady thought;
And then was grieved at seeing what was wrought.

CLVI
And seemed to say, "Yet from my lord have I
Command to make it all of sable hue;
Now wherefore it is stained with other dye
Against his will, in mode so strange to view?"
She from that dream draws evil augury;
And thither on that eve the tidings flew:
But these concealed Astolpho from the dame
Till he to her with Sansonetto came.

CLVII
When they are entered, and she sees no show
Of joyful triumphs, she, without a word,
Without a hint to indicate that woe,
Knows that no longer living is her lord.
With that her gentle heart was riven so,
And so her harassed eyes the light abhorred,
And so was every other sense astound,
That, like one dead, she sank upon the ground.

CLVIII
She in her hair, when life returns again,
Fastens her hand; and on her lovely cheeks,
Repeating the beloved name in vain,
With all her force her scorn and fury wreaks;
Uproots and tears, her locks, and in her pain
Like woman, smit by evil demon, shrieks,
Or, as Bacchante at the horn's rude sound,
Erewhile was seen to run her restless round.

CLIX
Now to the one, to the other now her prayer
She made for knife, wherewith her heart to smite;
Now she aboard the pinnace would repair
That brought the corse of either paynim knight,
And would on either, lifeless as they were,
Do cruel scathe, and vent her fierce despite.
Now would she seek her lord, till at his side
She rested from her weary search, and died.

CLX
"Ah! wherefore, Brandimart, did I let thee
Without me wend on such a dire emprize?
She ne'er before did thy departure see,
But Flordelice aye followed thee," she cries:
"Well aided mightest thou have been by me;
For I on thee should still have kept my eyes;
And when Gradasso came behind thee, I
Thee might have succoured with a single cry;

CLXI
"And haply I so nimbly might have made
Between you, that the stroke I might have caught,
And with my head, as with a buckler, stayed:
For little ill my dying would have wrought.
Anyhow I shall die; and -- that debt paid --
My melancholy death will profit nought:
When, had I died, defending thee in strife,
I could not better have bestowed my life.

CLXII
"Even is averse had been hard Destiny,
And all heaven's host, when thee I sought to aid,
At least my tears had bathed thy visage, I
Should the last kiss thereon, at least, have laid;
And, ere amid the blessed hierarchy
Thy spirit mixt, `Depart' -- I should have said --
`In peace, and wait me in thy rest; for there,
Where'er thou art, I swiftly shall repair.'

CLXIII
"Is this, O Brandimart, is this the reign,
Whose honoured sceptre thou wast now to take?
With thee to Dommogire, thy fair domain,
Thus went I; me thus welcome dost thou make?
Alas! what hope to-day thou renderest vain!
Ah! what designs, fell Fortune, dost thou break!
Ah! wherefore fear I, since a lot so blest,
Is lost, to lose as well the worthless rest?"

CLXIV
Repeating this and other plaint, so spite
And fury waxed, that she in her despair
Made new assault upon her tresses bright,
As if the fault was wholly in her hair:
Wildly her hands together doth she smite,
And gnaw; with nails her lip and bosom tear.
But I return to Roland and his peers;
While she bemoans herself and melts in tears.

CLXV
Roland with Olivier, who much requires
Such leech's care, his anguish to allay;
And who, himself, some worthy place desires
As much, wherein Sir Brandimart to lay,
Steers for the lofty mountain, that with fires
Brightens the night, with smoke obscures the day.
The wind blows fair, and on the starboard hand,
Not widely distant from them, lies that land.

CLXVI
With a fresh wind, that in their favour blows,
They loose their hawser at the close of day:
In heaven above the silent goddess shows
Her shining horn, to guide them on their way;
And on the following morn before them rose
The pleasant shores that round Girgenti lay.
Here Roland orders for the ensuing night
All that is needful for the funeral rite.

CLXVII
He, when he saw his order duly done,
And now the westering sun's fair light was spent.
With many nobles, who from neighbouring town,
At his invital, to Girgenti went,
-- The shore with torches blazing up and down,
And sounding wide with cries and loud lament, --
Thither returned where late, of life bereft,
His friends, beloved in life and death, was left.

CLXVIII
There stands Bardino, weeping o'er the bier,
Who under Age's heavy burden bows;
Who, in the tears on shipboard shed whilere.
Might well have wept away his eyes and brows:
Upbraiding skies and stars, the cavalier,
Like lion, in whose veins a fever glows,
Roars as he wreathes his wayward hands within
His hoary hair, and rends his wrinkled skin.

CLXIX
Upon the paladin's return the cry
Redoubled, and the mourning louder grew
Orlando to the corse approached more nigh,
And speechless stood awhile, his friends to view,
Pale, as at eve is the acanthus' dye
Or lily's, which were plucked at morn: he drew
A heavy sigh, and on the warrior dead
Fixing his stedfast eyes, the County said:

CLXX
"O comrade bold and true, there here liest slain,
And who dost live in heaven above, I know,
Rewarded with a life, thy glorious gain,
Which neither heat nor cold can take, my woe
Forgive, if thou beholdest me complain:
Because I sorrow to remain below,
And not to share in such delights with thee;
Not that thou art not left behind with me.

CLXXI
"Alone, without thee, there is nought I may
Ever possess, without thee, that can please.
If still with thee in tempest and affray,
Ah wherefore not with thee in calm and ease?
Right sore must be my trespass, since this clay
Will not to follow thee my soul release.
If in thy troubles still I bore a burden,
Why am I not a partner of thy guerdon?

CLXXII
"Thine is the guerdon; mine the loss; thy gain
Is single; but not single is my woe:
Partners with me in sorrow are Almayne,
And grieving France and Italy; and oh!
How will my lord and uncle, Charlemagne,
How will his paladins lament the blow!
How will the Christian church and empire moan,
Whose best defence in thee is overthrown!

CLXXIII
"Oh! how thy foes will by the death of thee
Be freed henceforward from alarm and fear!
Alas! how strengthened paynimry will be!
What hardiment will now be theirs! what cheer!
What of thy consort will become? I see
Even here her mourning, and her outcries hear.
Me she accuses, haply hates, I know;
In that, through me, her every hope lies low.

CLXXIV
"Yet by one comfort, Flordelice, is followed
His loss, for us that reft of him remain:
His death, with such surpassing glory hallowed,
To die all living warriors should be fain.
Those Decii; Curtius, in Rome's forum swallowed;
Cordus, so vaunted by the Grecian train;
Not with more honour to themselves, with more
Profit to others, went to death of yore."

CLXXV
These sad laments and more Orlando made;
And all this while white friars, and black, and gray,
With other clerks, by two and two arrayed,
Behind in long procession took their way;
And they to God for the departed prayed,
That he would to his rest his soul convey.
Before and all about were torches reared,
And changed to day the sable night appeared.

CLXXVI
They raise the warrior's bier, and ranged to bear
By turns that honoured weight were earl and knight.
The pall was purple silk, with broidery rare
Of gold, and pearls in costly circles dight.
Thereon, of lordly work and no less fair,
Cushions were laid, with jewels shining bright.
On which was stretched the lifeless knight in view,
Arrayed in vest of like device and hue.

CLXXVII
A hundred men had past before the rest,
All taken from the poorest of the town;
And in one fashion equally were drest
Those beadsmen all, in black and trailing gown.
A hundred pages followed them, who prest
A hundred puissant steeds, for warfare bown;
And by those pages backed, the portly steeds
Went, sweeping wide the ground with sable weeds.

CLXXVIII
Banners in front and banners borne in rear,
Whose fields with diverse ensignry is stained,
Unfurled accompany the funeral bier;
Which from a thousand vanquished bands were gained,
For Caesar and for Peter's church whilere,
By that rare force, which now extinct remained.
Bucklers by other followers carried are,
Won from good warriors, whose device they bear.

CLXXIX
By hundreds and by hundreds followed more,
Ordained for different tasks, the steps of those;
Who burning torches like those others bore.
Mantled, say rather closely muffled, goes
Roland in sables next, and evermore
His eyes suffused and red with weeping shows.
Nor wears a gladder face Montalban's peer.
At home his wound detains Sir Olivier.

CLXXX
The ceremonies would be long to say
In verse, wherewith Sir Brandimart was mourned;
The mantles, black or purple, given away;
The many torches which that eve were burned.
Wending to the cathedral, where the array
Past on its road, were no dry eyes discerned:
All sexes, ages, ranks, in pitying mood
Gazed upon him so youthful, fair, and good.

CLXXXI
He in the church was placed; and, when with vain
Lament the women had bemoaned the dead,
And Kyrie Eleison, by the priestly train,
And other holy orisons were said,
In a fair ark, upraised on columns twain,
Was reared, with sumptuous cloth of gold o'erspread.
So willed Orlando; till he could be laid
In sepulchre of costlier matter made:

CLXXXII
Nor out of Sicily the Count departs,
Till porphyries he procures and alabasters,
And fair designs; and in their several arts
Has with large hire engaged the primest masters.
Next Flordelice, arriving in those parts,
Raises the quarried slabs and rich pilasters;
Who, good Orlando being gone before,
Is hither wafted from the Africk shore.

CLXXXIII
She, seeing that her tears unceasing flow,
And that of long lament she never tires;
Nor she, for mass or service said, her woe
Can ease, or satisfy her sad desires,
Vows in her heart she thence will never go
Till from the wearied corse her soul expires;
And builds in that fair sepulchre a cell;
There shuts herself; therein for life will dwell.

CLXXXIV
Thither in person, having courier sent
And letter, Roland goes, her thence to take;
Her, would she wend to France, with goodly rent
Would gift, and Galerana's inmate make;
As far as Lizza convoy her, if bent
On journeying to her father; for her sake
If wholly she to serve her God was willed,
A monastery would the warrior build.

CLXXXV
Still in that sepulchre she dwelt, and worn
By weary penance, praying night and day,
It was not long, ere by the Parcae shorn
Was her life's thread: already on their way
Were the three Christian warriors, homeward borne,
Sorrowing and afflicted sore in mind
For their fourth comrade who remained behind.

CLXXXVI
They would not go without a leech, whose skill
Might ease the wound of warlike Olivier;
Which, as in the beginning it could ill
Be salved, is hard to heal. Meanwhile they hear
The champion so complain, his outcries fill
Orlando and all that company with fear.
While they discoursed thereon, the skipper, moved
By a new notion, said what all approved.

CLXXXVII
A hermit not far distance hence, he said
A lonely rock inhabits in this sea;
Whose isle none, seeking succour, vainly tread,
Whether for counsel or for aid it be:
Who hath done superhuman deeds; the dead
Restores to life; and makes the blind to see;
Hushes the winds; and with a sign o' the cross
Lulls the loud billows when they highest toss;

CLXXXVIII
And adds they need not doubt, if they will go
To seek that holy man to God so dear,
But he on Olivier will health bestow;
Having his virtue proved by signs more clear.
This counsel pleases good Orlando so,
That for the holy place he bids him steer;
Who never swerving from his course, espies
The lonely rock, upon Aurora's rise.

CLXXXIX
Worked by good mariners, the bark was laid
Safely beside the rugged rock and fell:
The marquis there, with crew and servants' aid,
They lowered into their boat; and through the swell
And foaming waters in that shallop made
For the rude isle; thence sought the holy cell;
The holy cell of that same hermit hoar,
By whom Rogero was baptized before.

CXC
The servant of the Lord of Paradise
Receives Orlando and the rest on land;
Blesses the company in cheerful wise;
And after of their errand makes demand;
Though he already had received advice
From angels of the coming of that band.
That they were thither bound in search of aid
For Oliviero's hurt, Orlando said;

CXCI
Who, warring for the Christian faith, in fight
To perilous pass was brought by evil wound.
All dismal fear relieved that eremite,
And promised he would make him wholly sound.
In that no unguents hath the holy wight,
Nor is in other human medicine found,
His church he seeks, his knee to Jesus bows,
And issues from the fane with cheerful brows;

CXCII
And in the name of those eternal Three,
The Father, and the Son, and Holy Ghost,
On Oliviero bade his blessing be.
Oh! grace vouchsafed to faith! his sainted host
From every pain the paladin did free;
And to his foot restored its vigour lost.
He moved more nimble than before, and sure;
And present was Sobrino at the cure.

CXCIII
Sobrino, so diseased that he described
How worse with each succeeding day he grew,
As soon as he that holy monk espied
The manifest and mighty marvel do,
Disposed himself to cast Mahound aside,
And own in Christ a living God and true.
He, full of faith, with contrite heart demands
Our holy rite of baptism at his hands.

CXCIV
So him baptized the hermit; and as well
That monarch made as vigorous as whilere.
At this conversion no less gladness fell
On Roland and each Christian cavalier,
Than when, restored from deadly wound, and well
The friendly troop beheld Sir Olivier.
Rogero more rejoiced than all that crew;
And still in faith and grace the warrior grew.

CXCV
Rogero from the day he swam ashore
Upon that islet, there had ever been.
That band is counselled by the hermit hoar,
Who stands, benign, those warlike knights between,
Eschewing in their passage mire and moor,
To wade withal through that dead water, clean,
Which men call life; wherein so fools delight;
And evermore on heaven to fix their sight.

CXCVI
Roland on shipboard sends one from his throng,
Who fetches hence good wine, hams, cheese, and bread;
And makes the sage, who had forgotten long
All taste of partridge since on fruits he fed,
Even do for love, what others did, among
Those social guests for whom the board was spread.
They, when their strength by food was reinforced,
Of many things amid themselves discoursed;

CXCVII
And as in talk it often doth befall
That one thing from another takes its rise,
Roland and Olivier Rogero call
To mind for that Rogero, in such wise
Renowned in arms; whose valour is of all
Lauded and echoed with accordant cries.
Not even had Rinaldo known the knight
For him whose prowess he had proved in fight.

CXCVIII
Him well Sobrino recognized whilere,
As soon as with that aged man espied;
But he at first kept silence; for in fear
Of some mistake the monarch's tongue was tied.
But when those others knew the cavalier
For that Rogero, famous far and wide,
Whose courtesy, whose might and daring through
The universal world loud Rumor blew,

CXCIX
All, for they know he is a Christian, stand
About him with serene and joyful face:
All press upon the knight; one grasps his hand;
Another locks him fast in his embrace:
Yet more than all the others of that band
Him would Montalban's lord caress and grace:
Why more than all the others will appear
In other strain, if you that strain will hear.

CANTO 44

ARGUMENT
Rinaldo his sister to the Child hath plight,
And to Marseilles is with the warrior gone:
And having crimsoned wide the field in fight,
Therein arrives King Otho's valiant son.
To Paris thence: where to that squadron bright
Is mighty grace and wonderous honour done.
The Child departs, resolved on Leo's slaughter,
To whom Duke Aymon had betrothed his daughter.

I
In poor abode, mid paltry walls and bare,
Amid discomforts and calamities,
Often in friendship heart united are,
Better than under roof of lordly guise,
Or in some royal court, beset with snare,
Mid envious wealth, and ease, and luxuries;
Where charity is spent on every side,
Nor friendship, unless counterfeit, is spied.

II
Hence it ensues that peace and pact between
Princes and peers are of such short-lived wear.
To-day king, pope, and emperor leagued are seen,
And on the marrow deadly foemen are.
Because such is not as their outward mien
The heart, the spirit, that those sovereigns bear.
Since, wholly careless as to right or wrong,
But to their profit look the faithless throng.

III
Though little prone to friendship is that sort,
Because with those she loveth not to dwell,
Who, be their talk in earnest or in sport,
Speak not, except some cozening tale to tell;
Yet if together in some poor resort
They prisoned are by Fortune false and fell,
What friendship is they speedily discern;
Though years had past, and this was yet to learn.

IV
In his retreat that ancient eremite
Could bind his inmates with a faster noose,
And in true love more firmly them unite,
Than other could in domes where courtiers use;
And so enduring was the knot and tight,
That nothing short of death the tie could loose.
Benignant all the hermit found that crew;
Whiter at heart than swans in outward hue.

V
All kind he found them, and of courteous lore;
Untainted with iniquity, in wise
Of them I painted, and who nevermore
Go forth, unless concealed in some disguise.
Of injuries among them done before
All memory, by those comrades buried lies:
Nor could they better love, if from one womb
And from one seed that warlike band had come.

VI
Rinaldo more than all that lordly train
Rogero graced and lovingly caressed;
As well because be on the listed plain
Had proved the peer so strong in martial gest,
As that he was more courteous and humane
Than any knight that e'er laid lance in rest:
But much more; that to him on many a ground
By mighty obligation was he bound.

VII
The fearful risk by Richardetto run
He knew, and how Rogero him bested;
What time the Spanish monarch's hest was done,
And with his daughter he was seized in bed;
And how he had delivered either son
Of good Duke Buovo (as erewhile was said)
From Bertolagi of Maganza's hand,
His evil followers, and the paynim band.

VIII
To honour and to hold Rogero dear,
Him, Sir Rinaldo thought, this debt constrained;
And that he could not so have done whilere,
The warlike lord was sorely grieved and pained;
When one for Africk's monarch couched the spear,
And one the cause of royal Charles maintained:
Now he Rogero for a Christian knew,
What could not then be done he now would do.

IX
Welcome, with endless proffers, on his side,
And honour he to good Rogero paid.
The prudent sire that in such kindness spied
An opening made for more, the pass assayed:
"And nothing else remains," that hermit cried,
"Nor will, I trust, my counsel be gainsaid)
But that, conjoined by friendship, you shall be
Yet faster coupled by affinity.

X
"That from the two bright progenies, which none
Will equal in illustrious blood below,
A race may spring, that brighter than the sun
Will shine, wherever that bright sun may glow;
And which, when years and ages will have run
Their course, will yet endure and fairer show,
While in their orbits burn the heavenly fires:
So me, for your instruction, God inspires."

XI
And his discourse pursuing still, the seer
So spake, he moves Rinaldo by his rede
To give his sister to the cavalier;
Albeit with either small entreaties need.
Together with Orlando, Olivier
The counsel lauds, and would that union speed:
King Charles and Aymon will, he hopes, approve,
And France will welcome wide their wedded love.

XII
So spake together peer and paladine:
Nor knew that Aymon, with King Charles' consent,
Unto the Grecian emperor Constantine
To give his gentle daughter had intent;
Who for young Leo, of his lofty line
The heir and hope, to crave the maid had sent.
Such warmth the praises of her worth inspired,
With love of her unseen was Leo fired.

XIII
To him hath Aymon answered: he, alone,
Cannot conclude thereon in other sort,
Until he first hath spoken with his son,
Rinaldo, absent then from Charles's court;
Who with winged haste, he deems, will thither run,
And joy in kinsman of such high report;
But from the high regard he bears his heir,
Can nought resolve till thither he repair.

XIV
Now good Rinaldo, of his father wide,
And of the imperial practice knowing nought,
Promised his beauteous sister as a bride,
Upon his own, as well as Roland's thought
And the others, harboured in that cell beside;
But most of all on him the hermit wrought;
And by such marriage, 'twas the peer's belief,
He could not choose but pleasure Clermont's chief.

XV
That day and night, and of the following day
Great part, with that sage monk the warriors spent;
Scarce mindful that the crew their coming stay,
Albeit the wind blew fair for their intent,
But these, impatient at their long delay,
More than one message to the warriors sent;
And to return those barons urged so sore,
Parforce they parted from the hermit hoar.

XVI
The Child who, so long banished, had not stayed
From the lone rock, whereon the waters roared,
His farewell to that holy master made,
Who taught him the true faith: anew with sword
Orlando girt his side, and with the blade,
Frontino and martial Hector's arms restored;
As knowing horse and arms were his whilere,
As well as out of kindness to the peer;

XVII
And, though the enchanted sword with better right
Would have been worn by good Anglantes' chief,
Who from the fearful garden by his might
Had won the blade with mickle toil and grief,
Than by Rogero, who that faulchion bright
Received with good Frontino, from the thief,
He willingly thereof, as with the rest,
As soon as asked, the warrior repossest.

XVIII
The hermit blessings on the band implores:
They to their bark in fine return; their sails
Give to the winds, and to the waves their oars;
And such clear skies they have and gentle gales,
Nor vow nor prayer the patron makes; and moors
His pinnace in the haven of Marseilles.
There, safely harboured, let the chiefs remain,
Till I conduct Astolpho to that train.

XIX
When of that bloody, dear-brought victory
The scarcely joyful tale Astolpho knew,
He, seeing evermore fair France would be
Secure from mischief from the Moorish crew,
Homeward to send the king of Aethiopy
Devised, together with his army, through
The sandy desert, by the self-same track,
Through which he led them to Biserta's sack.

XX
Erewhile restored, in Afric waters ride
Sir Dudon's ships which did the paynims rout;
Whose prows (new miracle!) and poop, and side,
As soon as all their sable crews are out,
Are changed anew to leaves; which far and wide,
Raised by a sudden breeze, are blown about;
And scattered in mid-air, like such light gear,
Go eddying with the wind, and disappear.

XXI
Home, horse and foot, the Nubian host arraid
By squadrons, all, from wasted Africk go;
But to their king, first, thanks Astolpho paid,
And said, he an eternal debt should owe;
In that he had in person given him aid
With all his might and main against the foe.
The skins Astolpho gave them, which confined
The turbid and tempestuous southern wind.