1
Ceres, who hastened from her mother’s haunts,
Returning to that lonely valley where
Etna o’er stricken Enceladus vaunts,
Crushing his heaving shoulders buried there,
Finding her daughter gone by evil chance,
Ravaged her eyes, her cheeks, her breast, her hair;
And, failing by these means to gain relief,
Two pines at last uprooted in her grief.
2
At Vulcan’s furnace setting them ablaze,
To light her path in either hand she takes
A flame which inextinguishable stays,
And in her chariot, drawn by two snakes,
All woods and fields and plains and hidden ways,
All mountains, valleys, streams and ponds she rakes.
Then, having searched the surface of the globe,
The Tartarean depths descends to probe.
3
If in his power he were equal to
The goddess, as in his desire he is,
To find Angelica, Orlando too
Would search the world, the heaven and the seas,
In every secret corner, through and through,
Descending then to plumb Hell’s mysteries;
But as no snakes he has, nor chariot,
He manages as best he can without.
4
He’s looked for her in France; now he prepares
To search Italian shores and Germany;
Next, new and old Castile; from Spain, when there’s
A ship, to Libya he will cross the sea.
Then, as he ponders on his plans, he hears
A plaintive voice lamenting piteously,
And, pressing forward, he beholds a knight
Advancing on a charger of great height.
5
Upon his saddle-bow, clasped in one arm,
This knight a damsel holds against her will.
Weeping and struggling and in great alarm,
To valorous Orlando in appeal
She calls; to rescue her at once from harm
Is his intent, for, drawing closer still,
He takes her for the one whom night and day
He’s sought throughout all France in such dismay.
6
I do not say myself that it was she,
But that she seemed to be the one he loved;
So when his lady and his goddess he
Beheld, as he believed, Orlando, moved
By violent and frenzied agony
Of mind, in a loud voice, as it behoved,
Meaning them as no idle promises,
Challenged the knight with fearful menaces.
7
The villain did not wait, nor answer make,
Upon his priceless booty being intent,
But galloped off through every briar and brake;
Orlando followed but the other went
So fast, the wind he seemed to overtake.
The woods re-echoed with the maid’s lament.
Towards a meadow finally they rode,
Where, in its midst, a costly mansion stood.
8
Of inlaid marble, as in days of yore,
The palace walls appeared to be constructed.
The knight drew rein beside a golden door
And entered with the maid he had abducted;
Running not far behind him, Brigliador
His master, fierce and menacing, conducted.
Orlando looked about him when inside,
But neither cavalier nor damsel spied.
9
He straight away dismounts and in a flash
He penetrates the dwelling-rooms within.
Now here, now there, his mighty footsteps crash
Till not a single nook is left unseen.
He takes the curving staircase at a dash,
In every ground-floor chamber having been,
And so upstairs begins his search again,
But all his time and trouble spends in vain.
10
A coverlet of silk or gold adorns
Each bed, and not an inch of wall is bare.
Now this way and now that his steps he turns.
Soft draperies and carpets everywhere
Regale his gaze, but not the sight he burns
To see, the longed-for presence of the fair
Angelica; nor can he find the thief
Within whose grasp he saw her, to his grief.
11
And while in every room he looks in vain,
Cast down with care, not knowing what to do,
In similar bewilderment and pain,
Gradasso, Brandimarte, Ferraù,
And Sacripante the Circassian,
With other cavaliers, go wandering through
The palace as they bitterly reproach
Its owner for evading their approach.
12
They wander looking for him, and each one
A private battle with him seeks to wage:
This knight laments because his horse is gone;
Loss of his lady makes another rage;
Some injury or wrong they all bemoan,
Fixed in their vain regrets as in a cage;
And many who persist in their delusion
For weeks and months remain thus in confusion.
13
When he had searched the palace high and low,
Orlando to himself began to say:
‘It will be time and labour lost, I know,
If longer in these premises I stay.
The thief some secret door has not been slow
To find and may by now be far away.’
Thus thinking, to the meadow he went out
Which ringed with green the palace round about.
14
And as he slowly paces the estate,
Fixing his watchful gaze upon the ground,
In case, to left, or right, of the ingrate
The print of recent footsteps may be found,
He seems to hear a voice disconsolate
And recognizes that angelic sound,
Sees that belovèd face which has so changed him,
And from his former self so far estranged him.
15
It is her very voice he seems to hear,
Angelica he hears who calls in grief:
‘Help me! My virtue, which I hold more dear
Than life, is threatened; come to my relief!
Ah! While my dear Orlando is so near,
Must it be taken from me by this thief?
Sooner by your own hand would I be killed
Than to such outrage unprotected yield! ’
16
These words compel Orlando to return
And search through every chamber once again,
And even twice, for now within him burn
Such hope and passion that he spares no pain.
Her voice sometimes he thinks he can discern
And then he stops and listens, but in vain;
Her voice is heard wherever he is not,
For ever moving as he moves about.
17
Returning to Ruggiero, you recall
He’d followed from a dark and gloomy wood
A giant brutal and immensely tall,
Carrying his lady; now to this abode
(If I can recognize the place at all)
The giant came and through the portals strode;
Ruggiero likewise hurried through the gate,
Pursuing at an undiminished rate.
18
No sooner has Ruggiero stepped inside
The courtyard than he searches for the pair,
And every loggia he inspects beside.
In vain pursuit, he turns now here, now there,
And wanders up and down; each room is tried
For any traces of that Maid so fair:
Without success; he cannot understand
How they can both have vanished out of hand.
19
Four and five times he visits all the rooms,
And every nook and cranny in the place;
Under the stairs he searches, where the brooms
Are kept, and every single inch of space;
Hoping to save her from the fate which looms,
He hurries forth; as in Orlando’s case,
A voice recalls him from a near-by grove
And he returns inside to seek his love.
20
The self-same voice, the same phenomenon,
Which for Orlando was Angelica,
Is now Ruggiero’s lady of Dordogne
And keeps him of himself a prisoner.
If to Gradasso or to anyone
It calls of those who in the palace are,
He takes it for the thing he most desires,
And longingly, in vain, for it aspires.
21
By this enchantment, hitherto untried,
Atlante of Carena sought to lure
Ruggiero, for he hoped to keep him tied
To that sweet pain and longing, to ensure
His mad ambition he would put aside,
And early death in combat thus abjure.
Alcina and the castle both had failed him,
So now of this new method he availed him.
22
And many others he intended, too,
Of those whose prowess was renowned in France,
Lest they his dear, his loved Ruggiero slew,
To hold for ever in this magic trance.
First one and then another knight he drew
By various means; and for their sustenance
He’d furnished and equipped the place so well
His noble guests with pleasure there might dwell.
23
But let us find Angelica once more.
She has the magic ring, you will recall,
Which on her finger renders her secure
And in her mouth makes her invisible.
Within a mountain cave she’s found a store
Of food, a mare, some clothing: in fact, all
She needs; to gain the East is now her plan
And claim once more her kingdom, if she can.
24
She longs to have Orlando’s company,
Or Sacripante’s; either one would do;
She has no preference, and equally
Their sighs and pleas she is resistant to.
Since on her journey, of necessity,
Towns, cities, garrisons she will pass through,
She needs an escort and a trusty guide,
And well might she in either knight confide.
25
She wandered, looking first for one and then
The other, and through many cities passed,
And regions uninhabited by men;
No sign of them she saw; but, led at last
By Fate, she came where the Circassian,
Orlando, Ferraù, Ruggiero, fast
In strange involvement by Atlante bound,
With many other cavaliers are found.
26
She enters, by the sorcerer unseen,
From all his magic by the ring protected,
And, searching for them both through the demesne,
She finds them vainly seeking her, dejected.
She understands that victims they have been
Of images deceptively projected.
Which of these cavaliers to choose as guide,
She ponders long, unable to decide.
27
She cannot judge which of the two she wants:
The Count Orlando or Circassia’s king.
Orlando would the greater valiance
And skill in arms to her protection bring;
But if she chooses him in preference
His very worth may prove embarrassing;
For how will she, when need of him is lacking,
Dismiss so great a knight and send him packing?
28
The other she can manage as she pleases –
Exalt him to the skies, or cast him low.
Of all the pros and cons she ponders, this is
The reason which most weighs with her; and so
The king from his delusion she releases,
And, unintentionally, Ferraù,
Likewise Orlando; thus she is surrounded
By three at once, who gaze at her dumbfounded.
29
And so, by all three cavaliers confronted,
The beautiful Angelica now see.
Through the whole palace, high and low, they’ve hunted,
Searching in vain for their divinity.
And all around her, too, behold, uncounted,
From their enchantment by the ring set free,
A miscellaneous group of cavaliers
Who bustle, clamouring, about her ears.
30
Two of the cavaliers I now must say
Were clad in armour and were helmeted.
Since entering that palace, night and day
No part of their accoutrement they’d shed.
Each was accustomed to such full array
And scarcely felt the helmet on his head.
But Ferraù, the third, no headpiece wore:
He sought Orlando’s, as I said before.
31
He vowed to wear no other till he won
The helmet which the brave Orlando gained
From King Troiano’s brother; for the one
Which Ferraù had formerly obtained
Was at the bottom of a stream; unknown
To him, Orlando also was detained
In this enchanted palace, but the spell
Had kept them each to each invisible.
32
Such was the magic of that strange abode,
Of one another they were unaware,
As day and night in full cuirass they strode
With sword and buckler, searching everywhere.
Released from bit and bridle, horses stood,
Still saddled, waiting in a stable where
The mangers were replenished every day
With adequate supplies of oats and hay.
33
Atlante had no power to prevent
The knights from leaping on their saddles once
Again; to follow her was their intent,
Drawn by that rose-and-lily countenance,
That golden hair, and the enravishment
Of those dark eyes. Urging her mare, she runs
O’er hill and dale; she’d take the help of any
One with pleasure: but three are two too many.
34
When long enough she judged the space between
Them and the palace, and no longer feared
Atlante’s spell, by which the knights had been
Entranced in a bewitchment strange and weird,
The ring, which had so often helped her, in
Her rosebud mouth she placed, and disappeared,
Quite suddenly, before their very eyes,
To their bewilderment and great surprise.
35
Although at first her plan had been to take
Orlando for her escort, or the king,
When she set out upon her homeward track,
Seeing them thus pursue her in a string,
Such hostile feelings in her breast awake,
To ask their help she finds she cannot bring
Herself, for now to either she is loath
To be obliged: better the ring than both.
36
They turn about the wood, now here, now there,
Their stupefaction written in their faces,
As when a hunting-dog pursues a hare
Or fox, and being close upon its traces,
Loses it suddenly when to its lair
It goes to earth or in the densest places
Of the forest. She sits and watches, mocking,
As helplessly they wander, vainly looking.
37
Because there is one path and only one
Which through the forest leads, so along this
The cavaliers believe her to have gone.
Where else indeed, if only one there is?
Orlando spurs, his rivals follow on,
Their pulses racing equally with his.
She lets them gallop past and does not mind them,
Riding more slowly then, some way behind them.
38
The knights ride on, as far as they can ride,
Until all traces of the path are lost.
They peer among the grass, on every side
And every possibility exhaust.
Then Ferraù, who would surpass in pride
The proudest heart that any age might boast,
Called to the other two in mighty wrath:
‘With you I will consent to share no path!
39
‘Turn back or take another way instead,
Or else prepare to die here by my hand.
No rivalry in love – be not misled –
I warn you – and all other men – I’ll stand.’
Orlando to Circassia’s monarch said:
‘He scarce could be more bold in his demand
If he’d mistaken us for common riff-raff,
Or timid maidens sitting at their distaff.’
40
And then to Ferraù he said: ‘You fool!
But that no helmet I perceive you wear,
And for that reason I am merciful,
How rash you are, I’d make you soon aware.’
The Saracen replied, as cool as cool:
‘And if I heed it not, why should you care?
Against you both, no helmet on my head,
I will make good the words which I have said.’
41
‘Pray’, said the Count to the Circassian,
‘Lend him your helmet, to oblige me, while
I castigate the madness in this man,
For such I’ve never seen’; and in this style
The king replied: ‘What greater madness can
There be? But, no offence intended, I’ll
Show you that I am just as good a tool:
Lend him your helmet; I’ll chastise the fool!’
42
And Ferraù retorted: ‘You are mad.
If I had cared about a helm, in truth
From one or other of your heads I had
By now snatched one or other helm, or both;
And for your information I will add:
To go without a helm I’ve sworn an oath
And thus I’ll go, until the day I win
The helmet of Orlando, paladin.’
43
‘So,’ said Orlando, smiling, in response,
‘You think that with no helmet on your head,
You’ll take that which in Aspromonte once
Orlando from Almonte took? Instead,
I think that when in combat he confronts
You, you will tremble; so, be not misled:
No helmet you will gain, but in dismay
Your arms surrender to him straight away.’
44
The braggart said: ‘I’ve many times before
Orlando pressed so hard that easily
I could have taken all the arms he wore;
If I did not, it was that clemency
Arose within my breast and I forbore.
Now such resolve I feel arise in me
That from all hesitation I am freed.
Next time I have no doubt that I’ll succeed.’
45
Orlando lost his patience with him then
And shouted: ‘Liar, ugly miscreant!
Where did you fight Orlando? Where and when
Did you perform those exploits which you vaunt?
Anglante’s Count, Orlando, paladin,
Stands here before you while you rave and rant,
Thinking him miles away; for I am he.
So, of your boast, the outcome we shall see.
46
‘This slight advantage, furthermore, I scorn.’
And with these words his helmet he removed
And hung it on the branches of a thorn;
Then drew his blade, in many a combat proved.
Next, undeterred, the Spaniard, in his turn,
Drew his and stood en garde, as it behoved.
Prepared and resolute, his shield held high,
Orlando’s blows to parry he would try.
47
Thus the two warriors begin to fight,
Their horses turning, twisting, every way;
And where their armour does not fasten quite,
Or where the steel is thin, there they essay
To drive their pointed swords with all their might.
In all the world, no other pair, I’d say,
Are so well matched in daring and in strength,
And long they keep each other at arm’s length.
48
I think, my lord, that you already know
That Ferraù invulnerable was,
Save in that place where, as our bodies show,
The infant in the womb its nurture draws.
Till he was buried in the earth below,
His armour, all his life, where he had cause
For doubt, was reinforced with plates of steel,
In layers seven-fold, and tempered well.
49
Orlando was invulnerable too,
Save in one portion of his mighty frame.
He could be wounded, as perhaps you knew,
In both soles of his feet and rendered lame.
As strong elsewhere as iron, through and through
(If truth is reconcilable with fame),
Like Ferraù, in arms he chose to be
For ornament more than necessity.
50
The battle grows more gruesome at each bout.
The sight of it alarms and terrifies.
The Saracen with every thrust and cut
Strikes home, and all Orlando’s blows likewise
The metal plates, or coat of mail, without
Exception, break, unhinge, destroy or slice.
Angelica, invisible, alone,
Considering the combatants, looks on.
51
King Sacripant, meanwhile, in the belief
That the fair maid was riding on ahead,
And since he saw the others locked as if
For many hours, in that direction sped
In which the knights assumed, to their great grief,
The beautiful Angelica had fled
When she had vanished from their view; and thus
The damsel of the fight sole witness was.
52
When she had watched some little time and seen
How horrible and fierce the battle grew,
She judged the danger to both knights was keen.
At last, desiring to see something new,
She planned to take Orlando’s helmet then
And watch what the two cavaliers would do,
When they saw gone the bone of their contention;
But not to keep it long was her intention.
53
She means to give it to Orlando soon,
But first intends this trick on him to play.
Plucking the helmet from the branch it’s on,
She puts it in her lap and leaves the fray.
Before the knights have noticed it is gone,
She has already ridden far away;
Such is the frenzied rage with which they burn,
To nothing else can they attention turn.
54
But Ferraù, who first perceived the theft,
From battle disengaged himself and said:
‘It seems to me that knight who has just left
Has treated us like blockheads, born and bred.
Whichever of us wins will get short shrift,
For we shall both be now unhelmeted.’
Orlando to the thorn-bush turns his eyes
And sees the helmet gone, to his surprise.
55
With Ferraù’s opinion he concurred:
The other knight had stolen it; and so
He turned, enraged; his Brigliadoro, spurred,
To leave the place of combat was not slow.
And Ferraù who saw him leave preferred
To follow; thus in single file they go
Till in the grass they see the prints just made
By the Circassian monarch and the maid.
56
Orlando took the left-hand track, the same
The king had chosen, leading to a valley.
The other chose the hillside path and came
Where he desired to be eventually.
Meanwhile the damsel, tiring of her game,
Beside a fountain was disposed to dally,
Where cooling water and the shade of trees
Invite the passer-by to take his ease.
57
The damsel tarries by the crystal stream.
By virtue of the magic ring she wears
She feels secure, and little does she dream
(For she relies on it) that danger nears.
She’s hung the helmet on a handy limb
And now she leads her mount to see if there’s
A sturdy shrub or tree where she can tie
The animal and let it graze near by.
58
The cavalier of Spain, having pursued
The print of hoofs, now at the fount arrives.
No sooner does she glimpse him from the wood
Than once again to vanish she contrives.
The helmet she must now renounce for good;
She cannot reach it howsoe’er she strives.
The pagan, who had seen her from the fount,
Approached her, full of joy, upon his mount.
59
She vanished (as I said) before his eyes,
As phantoms of our dreams depart with sleep.
To find her in the wood in vain he tries,
Growing more melancholy with each step.
Against Mahound and Termagant he cries,
And all the Prophet’s vile discipleship.
Then near the fountain, as it comes to pass,
He sees the helmet fallen on the grass.
60
No sooner has he seen it than he knows,
From lettering inscribed upon the rim,
This is the very helm for which he goes
In search, for it records Orlando’s grim
Encounter with Almonte, of all foes
The one who the most sorely tested him.
For all his sorrow that the maid has fled,
He picks it up and puts it on his head.
61
And when the helm is buckled and done up,
He thinks that one thing only lacking is,
Ere filled to overflowing is his cup,
Or he can reach the apogee of bliss:
That is, Angelica; but soon all hope
Of finding the fair maid he must dismiss.
So, wondering what the progress of the war is,
He turns his thoughts towards the camp near Paris.
62
The grief which burned and raged within his breast
For his desire thus left unsatisfied
Was tempered by the pleasure that his quest
Was now fulfilled; nor could it be denied
That Ferraù had done his very best
To keep the oath he’d sworn that day beside
The stream; nor did he go unhelmeted
Until the day Orlando struck him dead.
63
Angelica, invisible, alone,
Went riding on her way with furrowed brow.
Most bitterly she rued what she had done,
For by her haste Orlando’s helmet now,
Which she had left behind, was lost and gone.
‘I took the helm,’ she said, ‘but this, I vow,
Was only meant as recompense to him
To whom I am obliged for life and limb.
64
‘I only did it for the best, God knows,
Although results have sadly gone amiss.
I took the helmet in the hope that those
Two combatants would call a halt, and this
My only purpose was; now I suppose
That ugly Spaniard wearer of it is.’
Thus she reproached herself in her lament
About Orlando’s loss, as on she went.
65
So she continued, angry and distressed.
With careful choice of roads, she made her way
In the desired direction of the East,
Deciding to be visible one day,
Invisible the next, as she thought best.
Then in a wood she saw a youth who lay
Between two dead companions; with a blow
(Unjust) his breast was wounded by a foe.
66
But now about her I will say no more,
Since many things I have to tell you first;
Nor will I speak of Sacripante, nor
Of Ferraù until I have rehearsed
The sorrows which the brave Orlando bore,
Those pains of love by which the Count is cursed,
Those trials and those never-ending woes
Which will torment him wheresoe’er he goes.
67
As soon as he can find a garrison,
Desiring to remain anonymous,
He puts an undistinguished helmet on,
Whether of tempered steel he does not know,
Nor does he care, for he relies upon
His charmed resistance to each thrust and blow.
By day, by night, come sun, come rain, no rest
He takes, as he pursues his endless quest.
68
It was the hour when over Ocean’s rim
Apollo drives his horses, wet with dew,
Along the sky where Dawn, ahead of him,
Has sprinkled gold and crimson flowers anew,
And stars, their nightly dance now ended, seem,
Wrapped in their veils, about to bid adieu,
That close to Paris as one day he passed
Orlando proved his prowess unsurpassed.
69
He met two squadrons; leading one of them
Was Manilard, a white-haired veteran,
Norizia’s king; when sound in wind and limb,
He was a formidable foe; a man
More suited now for counsel, he may seem,
Than action. Next, of all the African
Commanders, King Alzirdo’s held to be
The very paragon of chivalry.
70
He led the second troop; and both had passed
The winter harassing King Charlemagne,
Some of them close to Paris, others fast
By citadels and strongholds in the plain.
When Agramante was convinced at last
All his assaults on Paris were in vain,
He had resolved a siege to authorize,
Finding he could not take it otherwise.
71
And to accomplish this he had a host
Of great proportions and variety:
Not only those he’d rallied by his boast
And those of Spain who’d followed loyally
Their king, Marsilio, but from the coast
Near Arles to Paris and from Gascony
(Except for a few strongholds), he’d subdued
The French and thus his army had renewed.
72
When timid streams begin once more to flow,
By gentle warmth released from icy bonds,
When grasses greener in the meadows grow
And bushes clothe themselves in tender fronds,
King Agramante, who desires to know
How far his present army corresponds
To present needs, has summoned an array
Of all his troops; and so, without delay,
73
The king of Tremisen (Alzirdo) and
Norizia’s monarch journeyed towards the place
Where every squadron, regiment or band
Would be inspected; thus it came to pass,
As I have given you to understand,
The two of them encountered face to face
The Count Orlando in his quest for her
Who in Love’s fastness held him prisoner.
74
And when Alzirdo saw that Count draw near
Whose valour has no equal among men,
Whose mighty strength and pride make him appear
A second god of war, whose wrathful mien
And haughty resolution chill with fear,
He was amazed and judged him there and then
To be superlative in skills of war;
But to the king’s intent this proves no bar.
75
For he was young and filled with arrogance,
Strong and courageous, by his peers esteemed.
His mighty charger spurring to advance,
To be at once victorious he deemed;
But, in encounter with Orlando’s lance,
He fell, his heart pierced through; the horse, it seemed,
Was filled with panic as it fled the scene,
No rider on its back to check the rein.
76
A terrifying shout at once arose,
Filling the air for many miles around,
Soon as the youth was seen to fall, of whose
Life-blood a pool was forming on the ground.
Against Orlando rushed a bellicose
Unruly mob: their thrusts and cuts abound,
But from their weapons no such tempest hails
As that by which the Count the horde assails.
77
As when a herd of swine, a savage roar
Emitting, rush stampeding from the plain
Or from the hills, a bear pursuing or
A prowling wolf which left its secret den
To seize a piglet which away it bore,
Its piteous squeals and grunts being all in vain,
So that barbaric rabble set upon him,
Shouting, ‘Have at him I Wreak your vengeance on him!’
78
With arrows, lances, swords, his shield they smite.
More than a thousand blows his hauberk bears.
Some strike him with a club with all their might.
On every side they throng about his ears.
But he, whose soul has never harboured fright,
The horde, with all their arms, as little fears
As, when the shades of night the sky suffuse,
A wolf is frightened by a flock of ewes.
79
Bared of its sheath he held that flashing blade
By which he’d slain so many Saracens.
Thus of the total killed, whoever made
An estimate, would have to count in tens.
Already now through streams of blood they wade,
And, strewn in heaps, the slaughtered lie so dense,
The ground, so it appears, can scarcely carry them.
So deadly are his blows that naught can parry them,
80
No cotton quilting which their armour lined,
No swathes of cloth worn coiled about the head.
Not shrieks alone re-echoed on the wind,
But arms and shoulders, legs and top-knots sped
In all directions. Death in every kind
Of guise, all horrible, stalked by and said:
‘Orlando’s Durindana is more blithe,
A hundred times more useful than my scythe.’
81
Whoever feels one blow finds one enough.
Many remaining scatter through the wood,
Astonished that the combat was so rough;
Because he was alone they thought they could
Soon overpower him; now they make off.
It’s sauve qui peut, and, while the going’s good,
They go, some here, some there, without delay,
Nor are they seen to stop and ask the way.
82
They flee from Courage with her looking-glass,
Which every wrinkle in the soul reveals.
One man alone does not evade this pass,
In whom not cowardice, but age, congeals
The blood; he looks on flight as vile and crass,
Preferring death with honour to all else:
I mean Norizia’s king, who put his lance
In rest against the paladin of France.
83
He broke it on the summit of the shield
Borne by the mighty Count, who had not stirred,
But ready stood, his naked sword to wield,
Which to his lance he many times preferred,
And which to stay the onslaught he now held;
But, in his grasp, the sword, descending, veered
So that no cut or thrust was possible.
Fortune thus favouring the king, he fell.
84
Although it is a monarch who lies stunned,
Orlando scorns even to look at him.
Whoever stays, he slashes to the ground,
While all the others flee for life and limb.
As in the air, where space and light abound,
Starlings, a hawk escaping, swerve and stream,
So of that horde, destroyed in a brief hour,
Some gallop off, some fall, and others cower.
85
Nor did Orlando grant his sword repose
Till every living man had fled that day.
And now he hesitates, although he knows
The region well, about the choice of way;
But, whether to the right or left he goes,
His thoughts from where he is are far away.
He fears Angelica, no matter where
He looks for her, is anywhere but there.
86
Enquiring as he went, he chose a route
Sometimes through woods, and sometimes through a plain;
And, as he travelled, wandering in thought,
He wandered from the path and all in vain
Meandered till, arriving at the foot
Of a tall cliff, he saw, as plain as plain,
Pulsating through an opening in the rock
A light, which drew him up at once to look.
87
As in a wood of lowly juniper,
Or in the stubble of an open field,
A hunter will pursue a frightened hare,
And of the paths which intersect the weald
Will make uncertain choice, now here, now there,
Searching whatever bush the prey might yield,
So did Orlando search, in hope to find
The damsel who possessed him, heart and mind.
88
Towards that light which twinkled in the dark
Orlando hastened, and arrived at last
Where through a narrow aperture the spark,
Seeming so distant from the woodland, passed.
Bushes and thorny shrubs the entrance mark,
As round a fortress a defence is cast;
And all who lurk within the cave they hide
From outrage, keeping them secure inside.
89
By day the hiding-place would not be seen.
It was the light which in the dark revealed it.
Orlando thought he knew what it must mean,
And, to discover who it was it shielded,
He tethered Brigliadoro, and between
The thorny branches creeping, which concealed it,
He penetrated to the secret hole
And entered, unannounced, to pay his call.
90
The cavern floor by several steps descended,
Where living people dwelt, as in a tomb.
The roof, rough-hewn, seemed for a vault intended.
Scarce any daylight to the little room
Could pass the thorns by which it was defended,
But fortunately, to relieve the gloom,
There was an aperture towards the right,
A narrow slit which would admit the light.
91
Within, a damsel with a lovely face
The Count observed, seated beside a hearth.
Not more than fifteen years could she retrace
(So judged Orlando) since her day of birth.
So fair she was, she made that savage place
Appear a very paradise on earth,
Although her lovely eyes were filled with tears,
A token of her sorrows and her fears.
92
A grizzled beldam scolded her meanwhile,
As often is the way with womenfolk;
But as he made his way through the defile,
All disputation ceased and neither spoke.
Orlando greeted them in courteous style
(As it behoved) and thus the silence broke.
They rose at once to greet him in reply;
No courteous exchange did they deny.
93
To tell the truth, they turned a little pale
To hear that voice so masterful and strong,
To see that cavalier in coat of mail,
Armed with the weapons which to war belong.
Orlando bade them tell him without fail
What miscreant had done this fearful wrong,
For he must be a cruel, evil knave
Who’d bury thus a damsel in a cave.
94
The maid can scarcely speak, for all she tries.
Her sobs so interrupt her, she is dumb.
Through precious pearls and coral, only sighs
And broken words, in a sweet voice, will come.
Her flower face is watered by her eyes.
Of all those tears she needs must swallow some.
Please hear the rest, my lord, another day.
It is now time to put the book away.