Stories from the Italian Poets: With Lives of the Writers, Vol. 2 - Leigh Hunt
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PART III.--When the lovers had quitted their abode in the wood, Orlando,
by chance, arrived there, and saw every where, all round him, in-doors
and out-of-doors, inscriptions of "Angelica and Medoro." He tries in vain
to disbelieve his eyes; finally, learns the whole story from the owner of
the cottage, and loses his senses. What he did in that state, both in the
neighbourhood and afar off, where he runs naked through the country. His
arrival among his brother Paladins; and the result.
THE
ADVENTURES OF ANGELICA.
(CONTINUED BY ARIOSTO FROM BOIARDO[1].)
Part the First.
ANGELICA AND HER SUITORS.
Angelica, not at all approving her consignment to the care of Namo by
Charlemagne, for the purpose of being made the prize of the conqueror,
resolved to escape before the battle with the Pagans. She accordingly
mounted her palfrey at once, and fled with all her might till she found
herself in a wood.
Scarcely had she congratulated herself on being in a place of refuge,
when she met a warrior full armed, whom with terror she recognised to be
the once-loved but now detested Rinaldo. He had lost his horse, and was
looking for it. Angelica turned her palfrey aside instantly, and galloped
whithersoever it chose to carry her, till she came to a river-side, where
she found another of her suitors, Ferragus. She called loudly upon him
for help. Rinaldo had recognised her in turn; and though he was on foot,
she knew he would be coming after her.
Come after her he did. A fight between the rivals ensued; and the beauty,
taking advantage of it, again fled away--fled like the fawn, that, having
seen its mother's throat seized by a wild beast, scours through the
woods, and fancies herself every instant in the jaws of the monster.
Every sweep of the wind in the trees--every shadow across her path--drove
her with sudden starts into the wildest cross-roads; for it made her feel
as if Rinaldo was at her shoulders.[2]
Slackening her speed by degrees, she wandered afterwards she knew not
whither, till she came, next day, to a pleasant wood that was gently
stirring with the breeze. There were two streams in it, which kept the
grass always green; and when you listened, you heard them softly running
among the pebbles with a broken murmur.
Thinking herself secure at last, and indeed feeling as if she were now a
thousand miles off from Rinaldo--tired also with her long journey, and
with the heat of the summer sun--she here determined to rest herself.
She dismounted; and having relieved her horse of his bridle, and let him
wander away in the fresh pasture, she cast her eyes upon a lovely natural
bower, formed of wild roses, which made a sort of little room by the
water's side. The bower beheld itself in the water; trees enclosed it
overhead, on the three other sides; and in the middle was room enough to
lie down on the sward; while the whole was so thickly trellised with the
leaves and branches, that the sunbeams themselves could not enter, much
less any prying sight. The place invited her to rest; and accordingly the
beautiful creature laid herself down, and so gathering herself, as it
were, together, went fast asleep[3].
She had not slept long when she was awakened by the trampling of a horse;
and getting up, and looking cautiously through the trees, she perceived
a cavalier, who dismounted from his steed, and sat himself down by the
water in a melancholy posture. It was Sacripant, king of Circassia, one
of her lovers, wretched at the thought of having missed her in the camp
of King Charles. Angelica loved Sacripant no more than the rest; but,
considering him a man of great conscientiousness, she thought he would
make her a good protector while on her journey home. She therefore
suddenly appeared before him out of the bower, like a goddess of the
woods, or Venus herself, and claimed his protection.
Never did a mother bathe the eyes of her son with tears of such exquisite
joy, when he came home after news of his death in battle, as the Saracen
king beheld this sudden apparition with
Cosi voto nel mezo, the concede
Fresca stanza fra l'ombre piu nascose:
E la foglie coi rami in modo e mista,
Che 'l Sol non v' entra, non che minor vista.
Dentro letto vi fan tener' erbette,
Ch'invitano a posar chi s' appresenta.
La bella donna in mezo a quel si mette;
Ivi si scorca, et ivi s' addormenta."
St.37.]
An exquisite picture! Its divine face and beautiful manners.[4] He could
not help clasping her in his arms; and very different intentions were
coming into his head than those for which she had given him credit, when
the noise of a second warrior thundering through the woods made him
remount his horse and prepare for an encounter. The stranger speedily
made his appearance, a personage of a gallant and fiery bearing, clad in
a surcoat white as snow, with a white streamer for a crest. He seemed
more bent on having the way cleared before him than anxious about the
manner of it; so couching his lance as he came, while Sacripant did the
like with his, he dashed upon the Circassian with such violence as to
cast him on the ground; and though his own horse slipped at the same
time, he had it up again in an instant with his spurs; and so,
continuing his way, was a mile off before the Saracen recovered from his
astonishment.
As the stunned and stupid ploughman, who has been stretched by a
thunderbolt beside his slain oxen, raises himself from the ground after
the lofty crash, and looks with astonishment at the old pine-tree near
him which has been stripped from head to foot, with just such amazement
the Circassian got up from his downfall, and stood in the presence of
Angelica, who had witnessed it. Never in his life had he blushed so red
as at that moment.
Angelica comforted him in sorry fashion, attributing the disaster to his
tired and ill-fed horse, and observing that his enemy had chosen to risk
no second encounter; but, while she was talking, a messenger, with an
appearance of great fatigue and anxiety, came riding up, who asked
Sacripant if he had seen a knight in a white surcoat and crest.
"He has this instant," answered the king, "overthrown me, and galloped
away. Who is he?"
"It is no _he_," replied the messenger. "The rider who has overthrown
you, and thus taken possession of whatever glory you may have acquired,
is a damsel; and she is still more beautiful than brave. Bradalnante is
her illustrious name." And with these words the horseman set spurs to
his horse, and left the Saracen more miserable than before. He mounted
Angelica's horse without a word, his own having been disabled; and so,
taking her up behind him, proceeded on the road in continued silence.[5]
They had just gone a couple of miles, when they again heard a noise, as
of some powerful body in haste; and in a little while, a horse without a
rider came rushing towards them, in golden trappings. It was Rinaldo's
horse, Bayardo.[6] The Circassian, dismounting, thought to seize it,
but was welcomed with a curvet, which made him beware how he hazarded
something worse. The horse then went straight to Angelica in a way as
caressing as a dog; for he remembered how she fed him in Albracca at the
time when she was in love with his ungracious master: and the beauty
recollected Bayardo with equal pleasure, for she had need of him.
Sacripant, however, watched his opportunity, and mounted the horse; so
that now the two companions had each a separate steed. They were about
to proceed more at their ease, when again a great noise was heard, and
Rinaldo himself was seen coming after them on foot, threatening the
Saracen with furious gestures, for he saw that he had got his horse; and
he recognised, above all, in a rage of jealousy, the lovely face beside
him. Angelica in vain implored the Circassian to fly with her. He asked
if she had forgotten the wars of Albracca, and all which he had done to
serve her, that thus she supposed him afraid of another battle.
Sacripant endeavoured to push Bayardo against Rinaldo; but the horse
refusing to fight his master, he dismounted, and the two rivals
encountered each other with their swords. At first they went through
the whole sword-exercise to no effect; but Rinaldo, tired of the delay,
raised the terrible Fusberta,[7] and at one blow cut through the other's
twofold buckler of bone and steel, and benumbed his arm. Angelica turned
as pale as a criminal going to execution; and, without farther waiting,
galloped off through the forest, looking round every instant to see if
Rinaldo was upon her.
She had not gone far when she met an old man who seemed to be a hermit,
but was in reality a magician, coming along upon an ass. He was of
venerable aspect, and seemed worn out with age and mortifications; yet,
when he beheld the exquisite face before him, and heard the lady explain
how it was she needed his assistance, even he, old as he really was,
began to fancy himself a lover, and determined to use his art for the
purpose of keeping his two rivals at a distance. Taking out a book, and
reading a little in it, there issued from the air a spirit in likeness
of a servant, whom he sent to the two combatants with directions to
give them a false account of Orlando's having gone off to France with
Angelica. The spirit disappeared; and the magician journeying with his
companion to the sea-coast, raised another, who entered Angelica's horse,
and carried her, to her astonishment and terror, out to sea, and so round
to some lonely rocks. There, to her great comfort at first, the old man
rejoined her; but his proceedings becoming very mysterious, and exciting
her indignation, he cast her into a deep sleep.
It happened, at this moment, that a ship was passing by the rocks, bound
upon a tragical commission from the island of Ebuda. It was the custom of
that place to consign a female daily to the jaws of a sea-monster, for
the purpose of averting the wrath of one of their gods; and as it was
thought that the god would be appeased if they brought him one of
singular beauty, the mariners of the ship seized with avidity on the
sleeping Angelica, and carried her off, together with the old man.
The people of Ebuda, out of love and pity, kept her, unexposed to the
sea-monster, for some days; but at length she was bound to the rock where
it was accustomed to seek its food; and thus, in tears and horror, with
not a friend to look to, the delight of the world expected her fate. East
and west she looked in vain; to the heavens she looked in vain; every
where she looked in vain. That beauty which had made King Agrican come
from the Caspian gates, with half Scythia, to find his death from the
hands of Orlando; that beauty which had made King Sacripant forget both
his country and his honour; that beauty which had tarnished the renown
and the wisdom of the great Orlando himself, and turned the whole East
upside down, and laid it at the feet of loveliness, has now not a soul
near it to give it the comfort of a word.
Leaving our heroine awhile in this condition, I must now tell you that
Ruggiero, the greatest of all the infidel warriors, had been presented by
his guardian, the magician Atlantes, with two wonderful gifts; the one
a shield of dazzling metal, which blinded and overthrew every one that
looked at it; and the other an animal which combined the bird with the
quadruped, and was called the Hippogriff, or griffin-horse. It had the
plumage, the wings, head, beak, and front-legs of a griffin, and the rest
like a horse. It was not made by enchantment, but was a creature of a
natural kind found but very rarely in the Riphaean mountains, far on the
other side of the Frozen Sea.[8]
With these gifts, high mounted in the air, the young ward of Atlantes
was now making the grandest of grand tours. He had for some time been
confined by the magician in a castle, in order to save him from the
dangers threatened in his horoscope. From this he had been set free by
the lady with whom he was destined to fall in love; he had then been
inveigled by a wicked fairy into her tower, and set free by a good one;
and now he was on his travels through the world, to seek his mistress and
pursue knightly adventures.
Casting his eyes on the coast of Ebuda, the rider of the hippogriff
beheld the amazing spectacle of the lady tied to the rock; and struck
with a beauty which reminded him of her whom he loved, he
resolved to deliver her from a peril which soon became too manifest.
A noise was heard in the sea; and the huge monster, the Orc, appeared
half in the water and half out of it, like a ship which drags its way
into port after a long and tempestuous voyage.[9] It seemed a huge mass
without form except the head, which had eyes sticking out, and bristles
like a boar. Ruggiero, who had dashed down to the side of Angelica, and
attempted to encourage her in vain, now rose in the air; and the monster,
whose attention was diverted by a shadow on the water of a couple of
great wings dashing round and above him, presently felt a spear on his
Deck; but only to irritate him, for it could not pierce the skin. In vain
Ruggiero tried to do so a hundred times. The combat was of no more effect
than that of the fly with the mastiff, when it dashes against his eyes
and mouth, and at last comes once too often within the gape of his
snapping teeth. The orc raised such a foam and tempest in the waters with
the flapping of his tail, that the knight of the hippogriff hardly knew
whether he was in air or sea. He began to fear that the monster would
disable the creature's wings; and where would its rider be then? He
therefore had recourse to a weapon which he never used but at the last
moment, when skill and courage became of no service: he unveiled the
magic shield. But first he flew to Angelica, and put on her finger the
ring which neutralised its effect. The shield blazed on the water
like another sun. The orc, beholding it, felt it smite its eyes like
lightning; and rolling over its unwieldy body in the foam which it had
raised, lay turned up, like a dead fish, insensible. But it was not dead;
and Ruggiero was so long in making ineffectual efforts to pierce it, that
Angelica cried out to him for God's sake to release her while he had the
opportunity, lest the monster should revive. "Take Ime with you," she
said; "drown me; any thing, rather than let me be food for this horror."
The knight released her instantly. He set her behind him on the winged
horse, and in a few minutes was in the air, transported with having
deprived the brute of his delicate supper. Then, turning as he went, he
imprinted on her a thousand kisses. He had intended to make a tour of
Spain, which was not far off; but he now altered his mind, and descended
with his prize into a lovely spot, on the coast of Brittany, encircled
with oaks full of nightingales, with here and there a solitary mountain.
It was a little green meadow with a brook.[10]
Ruggiero looked about him with transport, and was preparing to
disencumber himself of his hot armour, when the blushing beauty, casting
her eyes downwards, beheld on her finger the identical magic ring which
her father had given her when she first entered Christendom, and which
had delivered her out of so many dangers. If put on the finger only, it
neutralised all enchantment; but put into the mouth, it rendered the
wearer invisible. It had been stolen from her, and came into the hands of
a good fairy, who gave it to Ruggiero, in order to deliver him from
the wiles of a bad one. Falsehood to the good fairy's friend, his own
mistress Bradamante, now rendered him unworthy of its possession; and
at the moment when he thought Angelica his own beyond redemption, she
vanished out of his sight. In vain he knew the secret of the ring, and
the possibility of her being still present--the certainty, at all events,
of her not being very far off. He ran hither and thither like a madman,
hoping to clasp her in his arms, and embracing nothing but the air. In a
little while she was distant far enough; and Ruggiero, stamping about to
no purpose in a rage of disappointment, and at length resolving to
take horse, perceived he had been deprived, in the mean time, of his
hippogriff. It had loosened itself from the tree to which he had tied
it, and taken its own course over the mountains. Thus he had lost horse,
ring, and lady, all at once.[11]
Pursuing his way, with contending emotions, through a valley between
lofty woods, he heard a great noise in the thick of them. He rushed to
see what it was; and found a giant combating with a young knight. The
giant got the better of the knight; and having cast him on the ground,
unloosed his helmet for the purpose of slaying him, when Ruggiero, to
his horror, beheld in the youth's face that of his unworthily-treated
mistress Bradamante. He rushed to assault her enemy; but the giant,
seizing her in his arms, took to his heels; and the penitent lover
followed him with all his might, but in vain. The wretch was hidden from
his eyes by the trees. At length Ruggiero, incessantly pursuing him,
issued forth into a great meadow, containing a noble mansion; and here he
beheld the giant in the act of dashing through the gate of it with his
prize.
The mansion was an enchanted one, raised by the anxious old guardian of
Ruggiero for the purpose of enticing into it both the youth himself, and
all from whom he could experience danger in the course of his adventures.
Orlando had just been brought there by a similar device, that of the
apparition of a knight carrying off Angelica; for the supposed Bradamante
was equally a deception, and the giant no other than the magician
himself. There also were the knights Ferragus, and Brandimart, and
Grandonio, and King Sacripant, all searching for something they had
missed. They wandered about the house to no purpose; and sometimes
Ruggiero heard Bradamante calling him; and sometimes Orlando beheld
Angelica's face at a window.[12]
At length the beauty arrived in her own veritable person. She was again
on horseback, and once more on the look-out for a knight who should
conduct her safely home--whether Orlando or Sacripant she had not
determined. The same road which had brought Ruggiero to the enchanted
house having done as much for her, she now entered it invisibly by means
of the ring.
Finding both the knights in the place, and feeling under the necessity of
coming to a determination respecting one or the other, Angelica made up
her mind in favour of King Sacripant, whom she reckoned to be more at her
disposal. Contriving therefore to meet him by himself, she took the
ring out of her mouth, and suddenly appeared before him. He had hardly
recovered from his amazement, when Ferragus and Orlando himself came up;
and as Angelica now was visible to all, she took occasion to deliver them
from the enchanted house by hastening before them into a wood. They all
followed of course, in a frenzy of anxiety and delight; but the lady
being perplexed with the presence of the whole three, and recollecting
that she had again obtained possession of her ring, resolved to trust her
safe conduct to invisibility alone; so, in the old fashion, she left
them to new quarrels by suddenly vanishing from their eyes. She stopped,
nevertheless, a while to laugh at them, as they all turned their
stupefied faces hither and thither; then suffered them to pass her in a
blind thunder of pursuit; and so, gently following at her leisure on the
same road, took her way towards the East.
It was a long journey, and she saw many places and people, and was now
hidden and now seen, like the moon, till she calve one day into a forest
near the walls of Paris, where she beheld a youth lying wounded on the
grass, between two companions that were dead.
Part the Second.
ANGELICA AND MEDORO.
Now, in order to understand who the youth was that Angelica found lying
on the grass between the two dead companions, and how he came to be so
lying, you must know that a great battle had been fought there between
Charlemagne and the Saracens, in which the latter were defeated, and that
these three people belonged to the Saracens. The two that were slain were
Dardinel, king of Zumara, and Cloridan, one of his followers; and the
wounded survivor was another, whose name was Medoro. Cloridan and Medoro
had been loving and grateful servants of Dardinel, and very fast friends
of one another; such friends, indeed, that on their own account, as well
as in honour of what they did for their master, their history deserves a
particular mention.
They were of a lowly stock on the coast of Syria, and in all the various
fortunes of their lord had shewn him a special attachment. Cloridan had
been bred a huntsman, and was the robuster person of the two. Medoro was
in the first bloom of youth, with a complexion rosy and fair, and a most
pleasant as well as beautiful countenance. He had black eyes, and hair
that ran into curls of gold; in short, looked like a very angel from
heaven.
These two were keeping anxious watch upon the trenches of the defeated
army, when Medoro, unable to cease thinking of the master who had been
left dead on the field, told his friend that he could no longer delay to
go and look for his dead body, and bury it. "You," said he, "will remain,
and so be able to do justice to my memory, in case I fail."
Cloridan, though he delighted in this proof of his friend's
noble-heartedness, did all he could to dissuade him from so perilous an
enterprise; but Medoro, in the fervour of his gratitude for benefits
conferred on him by his lord, was immovable in his determination to die
or to succeed; and Cloridan, seeing this, determined to go with him.
They took their way accordingly out of the Saracen camp, and in a short
time found themselves in that of the enemy. The Christians had been
drinking over-night for joy at their victory, and were buried in wine and
sleep. Cloridan halted a moment, and said in a whisper to his friend,
"Do you see this? Ought I to lose such an opportunity of revenging our
beloved master? Keep watch, and I will do it. Look about you, and listen
on every side, while I make a passage for us among these sleepers with my
sword."
Without waiting an answer, the vigorous huntsman pushed into the first
tent before him. It contained, among other occupants, a certain Alpheus,
a physician and caster of nativities, who had prophesied to himself a
long life, and a death in the bosom of his family. Cloridan cautiously
put the sword's point in his throat, and there was an end of his dreams.
Four other sleepers were despatched in like manner, without time given
them to utter a syllable. After them went another, who had entrenched
himself between two horses; then the luckless Grill, who had made himself
a pillow of a barrel which he had emptied. He was dreaming of opening
a second barrel, but, alas, was tapped himself. A Greek and a German
followed, who had been playing late at dice; fortunate, if they had
continued to do so a little longer; but they never counted a throw like
this among their chances.
By this time the Saracen had grown ferocious with his bloody work, and
went slaughtering along like a wild beast among sheep. Nor could
Medoro keep his own sword unemployed; but he disdained to strike
indiscriminately--he was choice in his victims. Among these was a certain
Duke La Brett, who had his lady fast asleep in his arms. Shall I pity
them? That will I not. Sweet was their fated hour, most happy their
departure; for, embraced as the sword found them, even so, I believe, it
dismissed them into the other world, loving and enfolded.
Two brothers were slain next, sons of the Count of Flanders, and
newly-made valorous knights. Charlemagne had seen them turn red with
slaughter in the field, and had augmented their coat of arms with his
lilies, and promised them lands beside in Friesland. And he would have
bestowed the lands, only Medoro forbade it.
The friends now discovered that they had approached the quarter in
which the Paladins kept guard about their sovereign. They were afraid,
therefore, to continue the slaughter any further; so they put up their
swords, and picked their way cautiously through the rest of the camp into
the field where the battle had taken place. There they experienced so
much difficulty in the search for their master's body, in consequence of
the horrible mixture of the corpses, that they might have searched till
the perilous return of daylight, had not the moon, at the close of a
prayer of Medoro's, sent forth its beams right on the spot where the king
was lying. Medoro knew him by his cognizance, _argent_ and _gules_.The
poor youth burst into tears at the sight, weeping plentifully as he
approached him, only he was obliged to let his tears flow without noise.
Not that he cared for death--at that moment he would gladly have embraced
it, so deep was his affection for his lord; but he was anxious not to be
hindered in his pious office of consigning him to the earth.