Orlando Furioso | Page 5

sore,
Arriving, quickly to the warrior's eyes
(Though many
days no news of her had shown)
The beautiful Angelica is known.
XVI
Courteous, and haply gifted with a breast
As warm as either of
the cousins two;
As bold, as if his brows in steel were dressed,
The
succour which she sought he lent, and drew
His faulchion, and
against Rinaldo pressed,
Who saw with little fear the champion true.

Not only each to each was known by sight,
But each had proved in
arms his foeman's might.
XVII
Thus, as they are, on foot the warriors vie
In cruel strife, and

blade to blade oppose;
No marvel plate or brittle mail should fly,

When anvils had not stood the deafening blows.
It now behoves the
palfrey swift to ply
His feet; for while the knights in combat close,

Him vexed to utmost speed, with goading spurs,
By waste or wood
the frighted damsel stirs.
XVIII
After the two had struggled long to throw
Each other in the
strife, and vainly still;
Since neither valiant warrior was below
His
opposite in force and knightly skill:
The first to parley with his
Spanish foe
Was the good master of Albano's hill
(As one within
whose raging breast was pent
A reckless fire which struggled for a
vent).
XIX
"Thou think'st," he said, "to injure me alone,
But know thou
wilt thyself as much molest:
For if we fight because yon rising sun

This raging heat has kindled in thy breast.
What were thy gain, and
what the guerdon won,
Though I should yield my life, or stoop my
crest;
If she shall never be thy glorious meed,
Who flies, while
vainly we in battle bleed?
XX
"Then how much better, since our stake's the same,
Thou,
loving like myself, should'st mount and stay
To wait this battle's end,
the lovely dame,
Before she fly yet further on her way.
The lady
taken, we repeat our claim
With naked faulchion to that peerless prey:

Else by long toil I see not what we gain
But simple loss and
unrequited pain."
XXI
The peer's proposal pleased the paynim well.
And so their hot
contention was foregone;
And such fair truce replaced that discord
fell,
So mutual wrongs forgot and mischief done;
That for departure
seated in his sell,
On foot the Spaniard left not Aymon's son;
But
him to mount his courser's crupper prayed;
And both united chased
the royal maid.

XXII
Oh! goodly truth in cavaliers of old!
Rivals they were, to
different faith were bred.
Not yet the weary warriors' wounds were
cold --
Still smarting from those strokes so fell and dread.
Yet they
together ride by waste and wold,
And, unsuspecting, devious dingle
thread.
Them, while four spurs infest his foaming sides,
Their
courser brings to where the way divides.
XXIII
And now the warlike pair at fault, for they
Knew not by
which she might her palfrey goad,
(Since both, without distinction,
there survey
The recent print of hoofs on either road),
Commit the
chase to fortune. By this way
The paynim pricked, by that Rinaldo
strode.
But fierce Ferrau, bewildered in the wood,
Found himself
once again where late he stood.
XXIV
Beside the water, where he stoop'd to drink,
And dropt the
knightly helmet, -- to his cost,
Sunk in the stream; and since he could
not think
Her to retrieve, who late his hopes had crossed.
He, where
the treasure fell, descends the brink
Of that swift stream, and seeks
the morion lost.
But the casque lies so bedded in the sands,
'Twill
ask no light endeavour at his hands.
XXV
A bough he severs from a neighbouring tree,
And shreds and
shapes the branch into a pole:
With this he sounds the stream, and
anxiously
Fathoms, and rakes, and ransacks shelf and hole.
While
angered sore at heart, and restless, he
So lingered, where the troubled
waters roll,
Breast-high, from the mid river rose upright,
The
apparition of an angry knight.
XXVI
Armed at all points he was, except his head,
And in his
better hand a helmet bore:
The very casque, which in the river's bed

Ferrau sought vainly, toiling long and sore.
Upon the Spanish
knight he frowned, and said:

"Thou traitor to thy word, thou perjured
Moor,
Why grieve the goodly helmet to resign,
Which, due to me
long since, is justly mine?

XXVII
"Remember, pagan, when thine arm laid low
The brother of
Angelica. That knight
Am I; -- thy word was plighted then to throw

After my other arms his helmet bright.
If Fortune now compel thee to
forego
The prize, and do my will in thy despite,
Grieve not at this,
but rather grieve that thou
Art found a perjured traitor to thy vow.
XXVIII
"But if thou seek'st a helmet, be thy task
To win and wear
it more to thy renown.
A noble prize were good Orlando's casque;

Rinaldo's such, or yet a fairer crown;
Almontes', or Mambrino's iron
masque:
Make one of these, by force of arms, thine own.
And this
good helm will fitly be bestowed
Where (such thy promise) it has
long been owed."
XXIX
Bristled the paynim's every hair at view
Of that grim shade,
uprising from the tide,
And vanished was his fresh and healthful hue,

While on his lips the half-formed accents died.
Next hearing
Argalia, whom he slew,
(So was the warrior hight) that stream beside,

Thus his unknightly breach of promise blame,
He burned all over,