She news which sorely grieve the warrior shows;
And thus begin; “My lord, your cousin dear,
To whom its safety Church and Empire owes,
Roland, erewhile so honoured and so sage,
Now roves the world, possest with frantic rage.
“Whence woe, so direful and so strange, ensued
Cannot by me to you be signified:
I saw on earth his sword and armour strewed,
Doffed by that peer, and scattered far and wide;
And I a pious knight and courteous viewed
Those arms collecting upon every side,
Who, in the guise of trophy, to a tree
Fastened that fair and pompous canoply.
“But from the trophied stem the sword withdrew
The son of Agrican that very day.
Thou mayst conceive what mischief may ensue
To Charles and to the christened host’s array,
From loss of Durindana, if anew
The infidels that goodly blade should sway.
Good Brigliador as well, who roved, forsaken,
About those arms, was by the paynim taken.
“Few days are past, since I in shameful wise
Saw Roland, running naked in his mood,
Sending forth piteous shrieks and fearful cries.
In fine, that he is frantic I conclude;
Nor this had I believed, save with these eyes
That strange and cruel wonder I had viewed.”
She added next, how from the bridge’s top,
Embraced by Rodomont, she saw him drop.
“To whosoe’er I deem not Roland’s foe
I tell my tale,” (pursued the dame again,)
“That, of the crowd who hear this cruel woe,
Some one, in pity to his cruel pain,
May strive the peer in Paris to bestow,
Or other friendly place, to purge his brain.
Well wot I, if such tidings he receive,
Nought unattempted Brandimart will leave.”
Fair Flordelice was she, the stranger dame;
That his own self to Brandimart more dear:
Who in pursuit of him to Paris came.
That damsel, after, tells the cavalier,
“How hate and strife were blown into a flame
Between Gradasso and the Tartar peer,
For Roland’s faulchion; fierce Gradasso’s prey
When slain in combat Mandricardo lay.”
By accident, so strange and sad, distrust,
Rinaldo is distraught with ceaseless woe:
He feels his heart dissolve within his breast,
As in the sun dissolves the flake of snow;
And, with unchanged resolve, upon the quest
Of good Orlando, every where will go;
In hopes, if he discover him, to find
Some means of cure for his distempered mind.
But since his band already had he dight,
(Did him the hand of Heaven or Fortune sway)
He first to put the Saracens to flight,
And raised the siege of Paris, will assay.
But (for it promised vantage) he till night
The assault of their cantonments will delay,
Till the third watch or fourth, when heavy sleep
Their senses shall in Lethe’s water steep.
His squadron in the wood he placed, and there,
Ambushed, he made them lie the daylight through;
But when the sun, leaving this nether air
In darkness, to his ancient nurse withdrew;
And fangless serpent now, and goat, and bear,
With other beasts, adorned the heavens anew,
Which by the greater blaze had been concealed,
Rinaldo moved his silent troop afield.
A mile an-end with Aquilant he prest,
Gryphon, Alardo, and Vivian of his race,
Guido and Sansonetto, and the rest,
Without word spoken, and with stealthy pace.
The Moorish guard they find with sleep opprest:
They slaughter all, nor grant one paynim grace;
And, ere they were by others seen or heard,
Into their midmost camp the squadron spurred.
At the first charge on that unchristened band,
Their guard and sentries, taken by surprise,
So broken are by good Rinaldo’s brand,
No wight is left, save he who slaughtered lies.
Their first post forced, the paynims understand
No laughing matter is the lord’s emprize;
For, sleeping and dismayed, their naked swarms
Make small resistance to such warriors’ arms.
To strike more dread into the Moorish foe,
Mount Alban’s champion, leading the assault,
Bade beat his drums and bade his bugles blow,
And with loud echoing cries his name exalt.
He spurs Bayardo, that is nothing slow;
He clears the lofty barriers at a vault,
Trampling down foot, o’erturning cavalier,
And scatters booth and tent in his career.
Is none so bold of all that paynimry
But what his stiffened hair stands up on end,
Hearing Mount Alban’s and Rinaldo’s cry
From earth into the starry vault ascend.
Him the twin hosts of Spain and Afric fly,
Nor time in loading baggage idly spend;
Who will not wait that deadly fury more,
Which to have proved so deeply irks them sore.
Guido succeeds; no less their foe pursue,
The valiant sons of warlike Olivier,
Alardo, Richardet, and the other two;
Sansonet’s sword and horse a pathway clear;
And well is proved upon that paynim crew
The force of Vivian and of Aldigier.
Thus each bestirs himself like valorous knight,
Who follows Clermont’s banner to the fight.
Seven hundred men with good Rinaldo speed,
Drawn from Mount Alban and the townships nigh
—No fiercer erst obeyed Achilles’ lead—
Enured to summer and to winter sky:
So stout each warrior is, so good at need,
A hundred would not from a thousand fly;
And, better than some famous cavaliers,
Many amid that squadron couch their spears.
If good Rinaldo gathers small supplies
From rents or cities, which his rule obey,
So these he bound by words and courtesies,
And sharing what he had with his array,
Is none that ever from his service buys
Deserter by the bribe of better pay.
Of Montalbano these are left in care,
Save pressing need demands their aid elsewhere.
Them now in succour of King Charles he stirred,
And left with little guard his citadel.
Among the Africans that squadron spurred,
That squadron, of whose doughty feats I tell,
Doing by them what wolf on woolly herd
Does where Galesus’ limpid waters well,
Or lion by the bearded goat and rank,
That feeds on Cinyphus’s barbarous bank.376
Tidings to Charles Rinaldo had conveyed,
“That he for Paris with his squadron steers,
To assail, by night,
