But scarcely was on earth extended, ere
She rose and shook her snakes in volumed spire.
The knight no more assails her with the spear;
But is resolved to plague the foe with fire:
He gripes the mace and thunders in her rear
With frequent blows, like tempest in its ire;
Nor leaves a moment to that monster fell
To strike one stroke in answer, ill or well;
And, while he chases her or holds at bay,
Smites her and venges many a foul affront,
Counsels the paladin, without delay,
To take the road which scales the neighbouring mount:
He took that proffered counsel and that way,
And without stop, or turning back his front,
Pricked furiously till he was out of sight;
Though hard to clamber was the rugged height.
The stranger, when he to her dark retreat
Had driven from upper light that beast of hell
(Where she herself doth ever gnaw and eat,
While from her thousand eyes tears ceaseless well)
Followed the knight, to guide his wandering feet;
And overtook him on the highest swell;
Then placed himself beside the cavalier
Him from those dark and gloomy parts to steer.
When him returned beheld Montalban’s knight,
“That countless thanks were due to him,” he said,
“And that at all times, as a debt of right,
His life should be for his advantage paid.
Of him he next demands, how he is hight,
That he may know and tell who brought him aid;
And among worthy warriors, and before
King Charles, exalt his prowess evermore.
The stranger answered; “Let it irk not thee
That I not now my name to thee display;
Ere longer by a yard the shadows be,
This will I signify; a short delay.”
Wending together, they a river see
Whose murmurs woo the traveller from his way,
And shepherd-swain, by whiles, to their green brink;
There an oblivion of their love to drink.
My lord, that fountain’s chilling stream and clear
Extinguished love; Angelica of yore
Drinking thereof, for good Montalban’s peer
Conceived that hate she nourished evermore;
And if she once displeased the cavalier,
And he to her such passing hatred bore,
For this no other cause occasion gave,
My lord, save drinking of this chilly wave.
Arriving at that limpid river’s side,
The cavalier that with Rinaldo goes,
Reined-in his courser, how with toil, and cried,
“Here ’twere not ill, meseemeth, to repose.”
—“It cannot but be well” (the peer replied),
“Because, beside that mid-day fiercely glows,
I have so suffered from that hideous Pest,
As sweet and needful shall I welcome rest.”
Upon the green sward lit the martial two,
While their loose horses through the forest fed;
And from their brows the burnished helmets threw
On that flowered herbage, yellow, green, and red.
Rinaldo to the liquid crystal flew,
By heat and thirst unto the river sped;
And with one draught of that cold liquor drove
Out of his burning bosom thirst and love.
Whenas Rinaldo, sated with the draught,
Raising his head the stranger knight espied,
And saw that he, repentant, every thought
Of that so frantic love had put aside,
He reared himself, and said with semblance haught
That which he would not say before, and cried:
“Rinaldo, know that I am hight Disdain,
Bound hither but to break thy worthless chain.”
So saying, suddenly he passed from sight;
With him his horse: this in Rinaldo bred
Much wonderment; and the astonished knight,
“Where is he?” gazing round about him, said.
He cannot guess if ’twere a magic sprite,
A fiend by Malagigi thither sped,
From those his ministers, to break the chain,
Fettered whereby he lived so long in pain;
Of if an angel from the heavenly sphere
In his ineffable goodness by the Lord,
Dispatched, as to Tobias’s aid whilere,
A medicine for his blindness to afford.
But good or evil angel—whatsoe’er
He was that him to liberty restored—
Him thanked and praised Rinaldo, for a heart
Healed only by his help of amorous smart.
Old hate revived upon Rinaldo’s side;
Nor he alone unworthy to be wooed,
The damsel deemed by pilgrimage so wide
Her half a league he would not have pursued.
Nathless anew Bayardo to bestride
To Sericane would go that warrior good:
As well because his honour him compelled,
As for the talk which he with Charles had held.
He pricked to Basle upon the following day,
Whither the tidings had arrived before:
“That Count Orlando was, in martial fray,
To meet Gradasso and the royal Moor:”
Nor through Orlando was divulged that say:
But one, who crost from the Sicilian shore,
And thither had, in haste, the journey made,
As certain news, the tidings had conveyed.
Rinaldo had gladly been at Roland’s side,
And from that battle far himself doth see:
Every ten miles he changes horse and guide,
And whips and spurs, and makes his courser flee.
He crost the Rhine at Constance, forward hied,
He traversed Alp, arrived in Italy,
He left Verona, Mantua, in his rear,
And reached and past the Po, with swift career.
Much towards eve already sloped the sun,
And the first star was glimmering in the sky,
When, doubting on the bank if he shall run
Another course, or in some hostel lie
Until the shades of night and vapours dun
Before Aurora’s beauteous visage fly,
A cavalier approaching him he viewed,
Who courtesy in face and semblance shewed.
He, after greeting him, “if he were tied
In wedlock,” made in gentle wise demand.
Rinaldo, wondering what the quest implied,
Made answer; “I am bound in nuptial band.”
—“I joy thereat,” the cavalier replied;
Then, that he might this saying understand,
Added, “I pray that you, sir knight, within
My mansion will this eve be pleased to inn.
“For I will make you see what must please
A wight” (pursued the stranger) “that is wed.”
Rinaldo, as well that he would take his ease,
—But this, with so long posting sore bested—
As that to see and hear strange novelties
By natural desire he still was
