Stories from the Italian Poets: With Lives of the Writers, Vol. 2 - Leigh Hunt
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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.