Chapter XLVI: Canto 43 (2)

CXL
"The wife Argia, that is hid fast by,
When in such sin her husband she descries,
Of doctor, that was deemed so passing wise,
Springs forth and saith: `Ah! worthy deed! which I
Found in such foul and filthy work, espy!'
Bethink thee, if his kindling blushes rise;
If he stands mute! why opens not thy hollow
And central womb, O earth, the wretch to swallow?

CXLI
"To clear herself and shame him, doth she stun
Anselmo, never ceasing to upbraid.
`What pain should by thyself be undergone
For this so filthy deed, (Argia said)
If thou would'st take my life for having done
What Nature prompted and a lover prayed;
One that was fair and gentle, and who brought
A gift, compared wherewith, this dome is nought?

CXLII
" `If worthy of one death thou deemest me,
Worthy art thou a hundred deaths to die:
And, though my pleasure might I do on thee,
So passing puissant in this place am I,
No other or worse vengeance done shall be
Upon my side, on thy delinquency.
The give against the take, O husband, place;
And, as 'twas granted thee, so grant me grace:

CXLIII
" `And be there peace between us, and accord
That all be to forgetfulness consigned;
Nor thee I of thy fault by deed or word,
Nor me of mine, henceforward thou remind!'
This seemed a goodly bargain to her lord;
Nor to such pardon was he disinclined.
Thus peace and concord they at home restore,
And love each other dearly evermore."

CXLIV
So said the mariner, and some brief fit
Of laughter in Montalban's master stirred;
And made his visage burn, as if 'twas lit
With fire, when of Anselmo's shame he heard.
Rinaldo greatly praised Argia's wit,
Who by such quaint device had trapped that bird;
Who fell into the net wherein the dame
Herself erewhile had fallen, but with less shame.

CXLV
When the sun climbed a steeper road, the knight
Ordered the board with food to be supplied,
Which the good Mantuan landlord overnight
Took care with largest plenty to provide;
While the fair town, upon the left, from sight
Retired, and on the right that marish wide.
Argenta is come and gone, with circling walls
And stream into whose bed Santerno falls.

CXLVI
Then was not fair Bastia built, deem I,
Which little cause of boast affords to Spain
(That there her banner has been raised on high),
And causes deeper sorrow to Romagne.
Thence in strait line their bark, that seems to fly,
To the right shore the boatmen drive amain:
Next through a stagnant channel make, that near
Ravenna brings by noon the cavalier.

CXLVII
Though oft of money he had small supply,
Then was the knight so well bested, he made
The weary rowers, in his courtesy,
A parting present, ere farewell was said.
Here changing horse and guide, to Rimini
Rinaldo rode that very eye, nor stayed
In Montefiore till the night was done;
And well nigh reached Urbino with the sun.

CXLVIII
Then Frederick was not there of gentle lore,
Nor was Elizabeth nor Guido good;
Francis Maria nor sage Leonore;
Who would in courteous, not in haughty mood,
Have forced so famed a paladin for more
Than one short eye, with them to make abode;
As they long did, and do unto this day,
By dames and cavaliers who pass that way.

CXLIX
Since here none takes his rein, Rinaldo bends
His course an-end to Cagli; o'er the height,
Rifted by Gaurus and Metaurus, wends
Past Apennine, no longer on his right,
Umbri and Tuscans; and at Rome descends.
From Rome to Ostia goes Montalban's knight:
Thence to the city sails; wherein a grave
His pious son to old Anchises gave.

CL
There changes back; and thence in haste he goes
Bound towards Lampedosa's island-shore,
That place of combat chosen by the foes,
And where they had encountered Frank and Moor.
Rinaldo grants his boatmen no repose;
That do what can be done by sail and oar.
But with ill wind and strong the warrior strives;
And, though by little, there too late arrives.

CLI
Thither he came what time Anglante's peer
The useful and the glorious deed had done;
Had slain those paynim kings in the career,
But had a hard and bloody conquest won:
Dead was Sir Brandimart; and Olivier,
Dangerously hurt and sore, sate woe-begone,
Somedeal apart, upon the sandy ground,
Martyred and crippled by his cruel wound.

CLII
From tears could not the mournful Count refrain,
When brave Rinaldo he embraced, and said,
How in the battle Brandimart was slain.
Such love, such faith endeared the warrior dead.
Nor less Rinaldo's tears his visage stain
When he so cleft beholds their comrade's head.
Thence to embrace bold Oliviero, where
He sits with wounded foot, he makes repair.

CLIII
All comfort that he could he gave; though none
Could good Rinaldo to himself afford;
Because he came but when the feast was done;
Yea after the removal of the board.
The servants wend to the demolished town,
There hide the bones of either paynim lord
Beneath Biserta's ruined domes, and nigh
And far, the fearful tidings certify.

CLIV
At the fair conquest won by Roland's blade,
Sansonet and Astolpho make great cheer;
Yet other mirth those warriors would have made
Had Brandimart not perished; when they hear
That he is dead, their joy is so allayed
They can no more the troubled visage clear.
Which of them now the tidings of such woe
To the unhappy Flordelice shall show?

CLV
The night preceding that ill-omened day
Flordelice dreamed the vest of sable grain
That she had made, her husband to array,
And woven with her hand and worked with pain,
Before her eyes all sprinkled-over lay
With ruddy drops, in guise of pattering rain.
That she had worked it so the lady thought;
And then was grieved at seeing what was wrought.

CLVI
And seemed to say, "Yet from my lord have I
Command to make it all of sable hue;
Now wherefore it is stained with other dye
Against his will, in mode so strange to view?"
She from that dream draws evil augury;
And thither on that eve the tidings flew:
But these concealed Astolpho from the dame
Till he to her with Sansonetto came.

CLVII
When they are entered, and she sees no show
Of joyful triumphs, she, without a word,
Without a hint to indicate that woe,
Knows that no longer living is her lord.
With that her gentle heart was riven so,
And so her harassed eyes the light abhorred,
And so was every other sense astound,
That, like one dead, she sank upon the ground.

CLVIII
She in her hair, when life returns again,
Fastens her hand; and on her lovely cheeks,
Repeating the beloved name in vain,
With all her force her scorn and fury wreaks;
Uproots and tears, her locks, and in her pain
Like woman, smit by evil demon, shrieks,
Or, as Bacchante at the horn's rude sound,
Erewhile was seen to run her restless round.

CLIX
Now to the one, to the other now her prayer
She made for knife, wherewith her heart to smite;
Now she aboard the pinnace would repair
That brought the corse of either paynim knight,
And would on either, lifeless as they were,
Do cruel scathe, and vent her fierce despite.
Now would she seek her lord, till at his side
She rested from her weary search, and died.

CLX
"Ah! wherefore, Brandimart, did I let thee
Without me wend on such a dire emprize?
She ne'er before did thy departure see,
But Flordelice aye followed thee," she cries:
"Well aided mightest thou have been by me;
For I on thee should still have kept my eyes;
And when Gradasso came behind thee, I
Thee might have succoured with a single cry;

CLXI
"And haply I so nimbly might have made
Between you, that the stroke I might have caught,
And with my head, as with a buckler, stayed:
For little ill my dying would have wrought.
Anyhow I shall die; and -- that debt paid --
My melancholy death will profit nought:
When, had I died, defending thee in strife,
I could not better have bestowed my life.

CLXII
"Even is averse had been hard Destiny,
And all heaven's host, when thee I sought to aid,
At least my tears had bathed thy visage, I
Should the last kiss thereon, at least, have laid;
And, ere amid the blessed hierarchy
Thy spirit mixt, `Depart' -- I should have said --
`In peace, and wait me in thy rest; for there,
Where'er thou art, I swiftly shall repair.'

CLXIII
"Is this, O Brandimart, is this the reign,
Whose honoured sceptre thou wast now to take?
With thee to Dommogire, thy fair domain,
Thus went I; me thus welcome dost thou make?
Alas! what hope to-day thou renderest vain!
Ah! what designs, fell Fortune, dost thou break!
Ah! wherefore fear I, since a lot so blest,
Is lost, to lose as well the worthless rest?"

CLXIV
Repeating this and other plaint, so spite
And fury waxed, that she in her despair
Made new assault upon her tresses bright,
As if the fault was wholly in her hair:
Wildly her hands together doth she smite,
And gnaw; with nails her lip and bosom tear.
But I return to Roland and his peers;
While she bemoans herself and melts in tears.

CLXV
Roland with Olivier, who much requires
Such leech's care, his anguish to allay;
And who, himself, some worthy place desires
As much, wherein Sir Brandimart to lay,
Steers for the lofty mountain, that with fires
Brightens the night, with smoke obscures the day.
The wind blows fair, and on the starboard hand,
Not widely distant from them, lies that land.

CLXVI
With a fresh wind, that in their favour blows,
They loose their hawser at the close of day:
In heaven above the silent goddess shows
Her shining horn, to guide them on their way;
And on the following morn before them rose
The pleasant shores that round Girgenti lay.
Here Roland orders for the ensuing night
All that is needful for the funeral rite.

CLXVII
He, when he saw his order duly done,
And now the westering sun's fair light was spent.
With many nobles, who from neighbouring town,
At his invital, to Girgenti went,
-- The shore with torches blazing up and down,
And sounding wide with cries and loud lament, --
Thither returned where late, of life bereft,
His friends, beloved in life and death, was left.

CLXVIII
There stands Bardino, weeping o'er the bier,
Who under Age's heavy burden bows;
Who, in the tears on shipboard shed whilere.
Might well have wept away his eyes and brows:
Upbraiding skies and stars, the cavalier,
Like lion, in whose veins a fever glows,
Roars as he wreathes his wayward hands within
His hoary hair, and rends his wrinkled skin.

CLXIX
Upon the paladin's return the cry
Redoubled, and the mourning louder grew
Orlando to the corse approached more nigh,
And speechless stood awhile, his friends to view,
Pale, as at eve is the acanthus' dye
Or lily's, which were plucked at morn: he drew
A heavy sigh, and on the warrior dead
Fixing his stedfast eyes, the County said:

CLXX
"O comrade bold and true, there here liest slain,
And who dost live in heaven above, I know,
Rewarded with a life, thy glorious gain,
Which neither heat nor cold can take, my woe
Forgive, if thou beholdest me complain:
Because I sorrow to remain below,
And not to share in such delights with thee;
Not that thou art not left behind with me.

CLXXI
"Alone, without thee, there is nought I may
Ever possess, without thee, that can please.
If still with thee in tempest and affray,
Ah wherefore not with thee in calm and ease?
Right sore must be my trespass, since this clay
Will not to follow thee my soul release.
If in thy troubles still I bore a burden,
Why am I not a partner of thy guerdon?

CLXXII
"Thine is the guerdon; mine the loss; thy gain
Is single; but not single is my woe:
Partners with me in sorrow are Almayne,
And grieving France and Italy; and oh!
How will my lord and uncle, Charlemagne,
How will his paladins lament the blow!
How will the Christian church and empire moan,
Whose best defence in thee is overthrown!

CLXXIII
"Oh! how thy foes will by the death of thee
Be freed henceforward from alarm and fear!
Alas! how strengthened paynimry will be!
What hardiment will now be theirs! what cheer!
What of thy consort will become? I see
Even here her mourning, and her outcries hear.
Me she accuses, haply hates, I know;
In that, through me, her every hope lies low.

CLXXIV
"Yet by one comfort, Flordelice, is followed
His loss, for us that reft of him remain:
His death, with such surpassing glory hallowed,
To die all living warriors should be fain.
Those Decii; Curtius, in Rome's forum swallowed;
Cordus, so vaunted by the Grecian train;
Not with more honour to themselves, with more
Profit to others, went to death of yore."

CLXXV
These sad laments and more Orlando made;
And all this while white friars, and black, and gray,
With other clerks, by two and two arrayed,
Behind in long procession took their way;
And they to God for the departed prayed,
That he would to his rest his soul convey.
Before and all about were torches reared,
And changed to day the sable night appeared.

CLXXVI
They raise the warrior's bier, and ranged to bear
By turns that honoured weight were earl and knight.
The pall was purple silk, with broidery rare
Of gold, and pearls in costly circles dight.
Thereon, of lordly work and no less fair,
Cushions were laid, with jewels shining bright.
On which was stretched the lifeless knight in view,
Arrayed in vest of like device and hue.

CLXXVII
A hundred men had past before the rest,
All taken from the poorest of the town;
And in one fashion equally were drest
Those beadsmen all, in black and trailing gown.
A hundred pages followed them, who prest
A hundred puissant steeds, for warfare bown;
And by those pages backed, the portly steeds
Went, sweeping wide the ground with sable weeds.

CLXXVIII
Banners in front and banners borne in rear,
Whose fields with diverse ensignry is stained,
Unfurled accompany the funeral bier;
Which from a thousand vanquished bands were gained,
For Caesar and for Peter's church whilere,
By that rare force, which now extinct remained.
Bucklers by other followers carried are,
Won from good warriors, whose device they bear.

CLXXIX
By hundreds and by hundreds followed more,
Ordained for different tasks, the steps of those;
Who burning torches like those others bore.
Mantled, say rather closely muffled, goes
Roland in sables next, and evermore
His eyes suffused and red with weeping shows.
Nor wears a gladder face Montalban's peer.
At home his wound detains Sir Olivier.

CLXXX
The ceremonies would be long to say
In verse, wherewith Sir Brandimart was mourned;
The mantles, black or purple, given away;
The many torches which that eve were burned.
Wending to the cathedral, where the array
Past on its road, were no dry eyes discerned:
All sexes, ages, ranks, in pitying mood
Gazed upon him so youthful, fair, and good.

CLXXXI
He in the church was placed; and, when with vain
Lament the women had bemoaned the dead,
And Kyrie Eleison, by the priestly train,
And other holy orisons were said,
In a fair ark, upraised on columns twain,
Was reared, with sumptuous cloth of gold o'erspread.
So willed Orlando; till he could be laid
In sepulchre of costlier matter made:

CLXXXII
Nor out of Sicily the Count departs,
Till porphyries he procures and alabasters,
And fair designs; and in their several arts
Has with large hire engaged the primest masters.
Next Flordelice, arriving in those parts,
Raises the quarried slabs and rich pilasters;
Who, good Orlando being gone before,
Is hither wafted from the Africk shore.

CLXXXIII
She, seeing that her tears unceasing flow,
And that of long lament she never tires;
Nor she, for mass or service said, her woe
Can ease, or satisfy her sad desires,
Vows in her heart she thence will never go
Till from the wearied corse her soul expires;
And builds in that fair sepulchre a cell;
There shuts herself; therein for life will dwell.

CLXXXIV
Thither in person, having courier sent
And letter, Roland goes, her thence to take;
Her, would she wend to France, with goodly rent
Would gift, and Galerana's inmate make;
As far as Lizza convoy her, if bent
On journeying to her father; for her sake
If wholly she to serve her God was willed,
A monastery would the warrior build.

CLXXXV
Still in that sepulchre she dwelt, and worn
By weary penance, praying night and day,
It was not long, ere by the Parcae shorn
Was her life's thread: already on their way
Were the three Christian warriors, homeward borne,
Sorrowing and afflicted sore in mind
For their fourth comrade who remained behind.

CLXXXVI
They would not go without a leech, whose skill
Might ease the wound of warlike Olivier;
Which, as in the beginning it could ill
Be salved, is hard to heal. Meanwhile they hear
The champion so complain, his outcries fill
Orlando and all that company with fear.
While they discoursed thereon, the skipper, moved
By a new notion, said what all approved.

CLXXXVII
A hermit not far distance hence, he said
A lonely rock inhabits in this sea;
Whose isle none, seeking succour, vainly tread,
Whether for counsel or for aid it be:
Who hath done superhuman deeds; the dead
Restores to life; and makes the blind to see;
Hushes the winds; and with a sign o' the cross
Lulls the loud billows when they highest toss;

CLXXXVIII
And adds they need not doubt, if they will go
To seek that holy man to God so dear,
But he on Olivier will health bestow;
Having his virtue proved by signs more clear.
This counsel pleases good Orlando so,
That for the holy place he bids him steer;
Who never swerving from his course, espies
The lonely rock, upon Aurora's rise.

CLXXXIX
Worked by good mariners, the bark was laid
Safely beside the rugged rock and fell:
The marquis there, with crew and servants' aid,
They lowered into their boat; and through the swell
And foaming waters in that shallop made
For the rude isle; thence sought the holy cell;
The holy cell of that same hermit hoar,
By whom Rogero was baptized before.

CXC
The servant of the Lord of Paradise
Receives Orlando and the rest on land;
Blesses the company in cheerful wise;
And after of their errand makes demand;
Though he already had received advice
From angels of the coming of that band.
That they were thither bound in search of aid
For Oliviero's hurt, Orlando said;

CXCI
Who, warring for the Christian faith, in fight
To perilous pass was brought by evil wound.
All dismal fear relieved that eremite,
And promised he would make him wholly sound.
In that no unguents hath the holy wight,
Nor is in other human medicine found,
His church he seeks, his knee to Jesus bows,
And issues from the fane with cheerful brows;

CXCII
And in the name of those eternal Three,
The Father, and the Son, and Holy Ghost,
On Oliviero bade his blessing be.
Oh! grace vouchsafed to faith! his sainted host
From every pain the paladin did free;
And to his foot restored its vigour lost.
He moved more nimble than before, and sure;
And present was Sobrino at the cure.

CXCIII
Sobrino, so diseased that he described
How worse with each succeeding day he grew,
As soon as he that holy monk espied
The manifest and mighty marvel do,
Disposed himself to cast Mahound aside,
And own in Christ a living God and true.
He, full of faith, with contrite heart demands
Our holy rite of baptism at his hands.

CXCIV
So him baptized the hermit; and as well
That monarch made as vigorous as whilere.
At this conversion no less gladness fell
On Roland and each Christian cavalier,
Than when, restored from deadly wound, and well
The friendly troop beheld Sir Olivier.
Rogero more rejoiced than all that crew;
And still in faith and grace the warrior grew.

CXCV
Rogero from the day he swam ashore
Upon that islet, there had ever been.
That band is counselled by the hermit hoar,
Who stands, benign, those warlike knights between,
Eschewing in their passage mire and moor,
To wade withal through that dead water, clean,
Which men call life; wherein so fools delight;
And evermore on heaven to fix their sight.

CXCVI
Roland on shipboard sends one from his throng,
Who fetches hence good wine, hams, cheese, and bread;
And makes the sage, who had forgotten long
All taste of partridge since on fruits he fed,
Even do for love, what others did, among
Those social guests for whom the board was spread.
They, when their strength by food was reinforced,
Of many things amid themselves discoursed;

CXCVII
And as in talk it often doth befall
That one thing from another takes its rise,
Roland and Olivier Rogero call
To mind for that Rogero, in such wise
Renowned in arms; whose valour is of all
Lauded and echoed with accordant cries.
Not even had Rinaldo known the knight
For him whose prowess he had proved in fight.

CXCVIII
Him well Sobrino recognized whilere,
As soon as with that aged man espied;
But he at first kept silence; for in fear
Of some mistake the monarch's tongue was tied.
But when those others knew the cavalier
For that Rogero, famous far and wide,
Whose courtesy, whose might and daring through
The universal world loud Rumor blew,

CXCIX
All, for they know he is a Christian, stand
About him with serene and joyful face:
All press upon the knight; one grasps his hand;
Another locks him fast in his embrace:
Yet more than all the others of that band
Him would Montalban's lord caress and grace:
Why more than all the others will appear
In other strain, if you that strain will hear.