Orlando Furioso, XLIX

(Lines 1-2 untranslated by Rose) Hopeless, at length upon the beach he lies, And by the maid, exhausted, falls asleep. When to torment him new misfortunes rise: Fortune does seldom any measure keep; Unused to cut her cruel pastime short, If she with mortal man is pleased to sport.

It here behoves me, from the path I pressed, To turn awhile, ere I this case relate: In the great northern sea, towards the west, Green Ireland past, an isle is situate. Ebuda is its name, whose shores infest, (Its people wasted through the Godhead's hate) The hideous orc, and Proteus' other herd, By him against that race in vengeance stirred.

Old stories, speak they falsely or aright, Tell how a puissant king this country swayed; Who had a daughter fair, so passing bright And lovely, 'twas no wonder if the maid, When on the beach she stood in Proteus' sight, Left him to burn amid the waves: surveyed, One day alone, upon that shore in-isled, Her he compressed, and quitted great with child.

This was sore torment to the sire, severe And impious more than all mankind; nor he, Such is the force of wrath, was moved to spare The maid, for reason or for piety. Nor, though he saw her pregnant, would forbear To execute his sentence suddenly; But bade together with the mother kill, Ere born, his grandchild, who had done no ill.

Sea-Proteus to his flocks' wide charge preferred By Neptune, of all ocean's rule possessed, Inflamed with ire, his lady's torment heard, And, against law and usage, to molest The land (no sluggard in his anger) stirred His monsters, orc and sea-calf, with the rest; Who waste not only herds, but human haunts, Farm-house and town, with their inhabitants:

And girding them on every side, the rout Will often siege to walled cities lay; Where in long weariness and fearful doubt, The townsmen keep their watch by night and day. The fields they have abandoned all about, And for a remedy, their last assay, To the oracle, demanding counsel, fly, Which to the suppliant's prayer made this reply:

`That it behoved them find a damsel, who A form as beauteous as that other wore, To be to Proteus offered up, in lieu Of the fair lady, slain upon the shore: He, if he deems her an atonement due, Will keep the damsel, not disturb them more: If not, another they must still present, And so, till they the deity content.'

And this it was the cruel usage bred; That of the damsels held most fair of face, To Proteus every day should one be led. Till one should in the Godhead's sight find grace. The first and all those others slain, who fed, All a devouring orc, that kept his place Beside the port, what time into the main The remnant of the herd retired again.

Were the old tale of Proteus' false or true, (For this, in sooth, I know not who can read) With such a clause was kept by that foul crew The savage, ancient statute, which decreed That woman's flesh the ravening monster, who For this came every day to land, should feed. Though to be woman is a crying ill In every place, 'tis here a greater still.

O wretched maids! whom 'mid that barbarous rout Ill-fortune on that wretched shore has tost! Who for the stranger damsel prowl about, Of her to make an impious holocaust; In that the more they slaughter from without, They less the number of their own exhaust. But since not always wind and waves convey Like plunder, upon every strand they prey.

With frigate and with galley wont to roam, And other sort of barks they range the sea, And, as a solace to their martyrdom, From far, or from their isle's vicinity, Bear women off; with open rapine some, These bought by gold, and those by flattery: And, plundered from the different lands they scower, Crowd with their captives dungeon-cell and tower.

Keeping that region close aboard, to explore The island's lonely bank, a gallery creeps; Where, amid stubs upon the grassy shore, Angelica, unhappy damsel, sleeps. To wood and water there the sailor's moor, And from the bark, for this, a party leaps; And there that matchless flower of earthly charms Discovers in the holy father's arms.

Oh! prize too dear, oh! too illustrious prey! To glut so barbarous and so base a foe! Oh! cruel Fortune! who believed thy sway Was of such passing power in things below? That thou shouldst make a hideous monster's prey The beauty, for which Agrican did glow, Brought with half Scythia's people from the gates Of Caucasus, in Ind, to find their fates.

The beauty, by Circassian Sacripant Preferred before his honour and his crown, The beauty which made Roland, Brava's vaunt, Sully his wholesome judgment and renown, The beauty which had moved the wide Levant, And awed, and turned its kingdom upside down, Now has not (thus deserted and unheard) One to assist it even with a word.

Oppressed with heavy sleep upon the shore, The lovely virgin, ere awake, they chain: With her, the enchanter friar the pirates bore On board their ship, a sad, afflicted train. This done, they hoisted up their sail once more, And the bark made the fatal isle again, Where, till the lot shall of their prey dispose, Her prisoned in a castle they enclose.

But such her matchless beauty's power, the maid Was able that fierce crew to mollify, Who many days her cruel death delayed, Preserved until their last necessity; And while they damsels from without purveyed, Spared such angelic beauty: finally, The damsel to the monstrous orc they bring, The people all behind her sorrowing.

Who shall relate the anguish, the lament And outcry which against the welkin knock? I marvel that the sea-shore was not rent, When she was placed upon the rugged block, Where, chained and void of help, the punishment Of loathsome death awaits her on the rock. This will not I, so sorrow moves me, say, Which makes me turn my rhymes another way;

To find a verse of less lugubrious strain, Till I my wearied spirit shall restore: For not the squalid snake of mottled stain, Nor wild and whelpless tiger, angered more, Nor what of venomous, on burning plain, Creeps 'twixt the Red and the Atlantic shore, Could see the grisly sight, and choose but moan The damsel bound upon the naked stone.

Oh! if this chance to her Orlando, who Was gone to Paris-town to seek the maid, Had been reported! or those other two, Duped by a post, dispatched from Stygian shade, They would have tracked her heavenly footsteps through A thousand deaths, to bear the damsel aid. But had the warriors of her peril known. So far removed, for what would that have done?

This while round Paris-walls the leaguer lay Of famed Troyano's son's besieging band, Reduced to such extremity one day, That it nigh fell into the foeman's hand; And, but that vows had virtue to allay The wrath of Heaven, whose waters drenched the land, That day had perished by the Moorish lance The holy empire and great name of France.

To the just plaint of aged Charlemagne The great Creator turned his eyes, and stayed The conflagration with a sudden rain, Which haply human art had not allayed. Wise whosoever seeketh, not in vain, His help, than whose there is no better aid! Well the religious king, to whom 'twas given, Knew that the saving succour was from Heaven.

All night long counsel of his weary bed, Vexed with a ceaseless care, Orlando sought; Now here, now there, the restless fancy sped, Now turned, now seized, but never held the thought: As when, from sun or nightly planet shed, Clear water has the quivering radiance caught, The flashes through the spacious mansion fly, With reaching leap, right, left, and low, and high.

To memory now returned his lady gay, She rather ne'er was banished from his breast; And fanned the secret fire, which through the day (Now kindled into flame) had seemed at rest; That in his escort even from Catay Or farthest Ind, had journeyed to the west; There lost: Of whom he had discerned no token Since Charles's power near Bordeaux-town was broken.

This in Orlando moved great grief, and he Lay thinking on his folly past in vain: "My heart," he said, "oh! how unworthily I bore myself! and out, alas! what pain, (When night and day I might have dwelt with thee, Since this thou didst not in thy grace disdain.) To have let them place thee in old Namus' hand! Witless a wrong so crying to withstand.

"Might I not have excused myself?—The king Had not perchance gainsaid my better right— Of if he had gainsaid my reasoning, Who would have taken thee in my despite? Why not have armed, and rather let them wring My heart out of my breast? But not the might Of Charles or all his host, had they been tried, Could have availed to tear thee from my side.

"Oh! had he placed her but in strong repair, Guarded in some good fort, or Paris-town! —Since he would trust her to Duke Namus' care, That he should lose her in this way, alone Sorts with my wish.—Who would have kept the fair Like me, that would for her to death have gone? Have kept her better than my heart or sight: Who should and could, yet did not what I might.

"Without me, my sweet life, beshrew me, where Art thou bestowed, so beautiful and young! As some lost lamb, what time the daylight fair Shuts in, remains the wildering woods among, And goes about lamenting here and there, Hoping to warn the shepherd with her tongue; Till the wolf hear from far the mournful strain, And the sad shepherd weep for her in vain.

"My hope, where are thou, where? In doleful wise Dost thou, perchance, yet rove thy lonely round? Art thou, indeed, to ravening wolf a prize, Without thy faithful Roland's succour found? And is the flower, which, with the deities, Me, in mid heaven had placed, which, not to wound, (So reverent was my love) thy feelings chaste, I kept untouched, alas! now plucked and waste?

LXXVIII "If this fair flower be plucked, oh, misery! oh, Despair! what more is left me but to die? Almighty God, with every other woe Rather than this, thy wretched suppliant try. If this be true, these hands the fatal blow Shall deal, and doom me to eternity." Mixing his plaint with bitter tears and sighs, So to himself the grieved Orlando cries.

Already every where, with due repose, Creatures restored their weary spirits; laid These upon stones and upon feathers those, Or greensward, in the beech or myrtle's shade: But scarcely did thine eyes, Orlando close, So on thy mind tormenting fancies preyed. Nor would the vexing thoughts which bred annoy, Let thee in peace that fleeting sleep enjoy.

To good Orlando it appeared as he, Mid odorous flowers, upon a grassy bed, Were gazing on that beauteous ivory, Which Love's own hand had tinged with native red; And those two stars of pure transparency, With which he in Love's toils his fancy fed: Of those bright eyes, and that bright face, I say, Which from his breast had torn his heart away.

He with the fullest pleasure overflows, That ever happy lover did content: But, lo! this time a mighty tempest rose, And wasted flowers, and trees uptore and rent. Not with the rage with which this whirlwind blows, Joust warring winds, north, south, and east, unpent. It seemed, as if in search of covering shade, He, vainly wandering, through a desert strayed.

Meanwhile the unhappy lover lost the dame In that dim air, nor how he lost her, weets; And, roving far and near, her beauteous name Through every sounding wood and plain repeats. And while, "Oh wretched me!" is his exclaim, "Who has to poison changed my promised sweets?" He of his sovereign lady who with tears Demands his aid, the lamentation hears.

LXXXIII Thither, whence comes the sound, he swiftly hies, And toils, now here, now there, with labour sore: Oh! what tormenting grief, to think his eyes Cannot again the lovely rays explore! —Lo! other voice from other quarter cries— "Hope not on earth to enjoy the blessing more." At that alarming cry he woke, and found Himself in tears of bitter sorrow drowned.

Not thinking that like images are vain, When fear, or when desire disturbs our rest, The thought of her, exposed to shame and pain, In such a mode upon his fancy pressed, He, thundering, leaped from bed, and with what chain And plate behoved, his limbs all over dressed; Took Brigliadoro from the stall he filled, Nor any squire attendant's service willed.

And to pass every where, yet not expose By this his dignity to stain or slight, The old and honoured ensign he foregoes, His ancient bearing, quartered red and white. And in its place a sable ensign shows, Perhaps as suited to his mournful plight, That erst he from an Amostantes bore, Whom he had slain in fight some time before.

At midnight he departed silently, Not to his uncle spake, not to his true And faithful comrade Brandimart, whom he So dearly cherished, even bade adieu; But when, with golden tresses streaming-free, The sun from rich Tithonus' inn withdrew, And chased the shades, and cleared the humid air, The king perceived Orlando was not there.

LXXXVII To Charles, to his displeasure, were conveyed News that his nephew had withdrawn at night, When most he lacked his presence and his aid; Nor could he curb his choler at the flight, But that with foul reproach he overlaid, And sorely threatened the departed knight, By him so foul a fault should be repented, Save he, returning home, his wrath prevented.

LXXXVIII Nor would Orlando's faithful Brandimart, Who loved him as himself, behind him stay; Whether to bring him back he in his heart Hoped, or of him ill brooked injurious say: And scarce, in his impatience to depart, Till fall of eve his sally would delay. Lest she should hinder his design, of this He nought imparted to his Flordelis:

To him this was a lady passing dear, And from whose side he unwont to stray; Endowed with manners, grace, and beauteous cheer, Wisdom and wit: if now he went away And took no leave, it was because the peer Hoped to revisit her that very day. But that befel him after, as he strayed, Which him beyond his own intent delayed.

She when she has expected him in vain Well nigh a month, and nought of him discerns, Sallies without a guide or faithful train, So with desire of him her bosom yearns: And many a country seeks for him in vain; To whom the story in due place returns. No more I now shall tell you of these two, More bent Anglantes' champion to pursue;

Who having old Almontes' blazonry So changed, drew nigh the gate; and there the peer Approached a captain of the guard, when he; "I am the County," whispered in his ear, And (the bridge quickly lowered, and passage free At his commandment) by the way most near Went straight towards the foe: but what befell Him next, the canto which ensues shall tell.