Jerusalem Delivered

by Torquato Tasso

“Lastly, together went the reverend pair

  Of prelates sage, William and Ademare,

  VI

  The mighty duke came next, as princes do,

  Without companion, marching all alone,

  The lords and captains then came two and two,

  With easy pace thus ordered, passing through

  The trench and rampire, to the fields they gone,

  No thundering drum, no trumpet shrill they hear,

  Their godly music psalms and prayers were.

  VII

  To thee, O Father, Son, and sacred Sprite,

  One true, eternal, everlasting King;

  To Christ’s dear mother, Mary, vlrgin bright,

  Psalms of thanksgiving and of praise they sing;

  To them that angels down from heaven to fight

  Gainst the blasphemous beast and dragon bring;

  To him also that of our Saviour good,

  Washed the sacred font in Jordan’s flood.

  VIII

  Him likewise they invoke, called the Rock

  Whereon the Lord, they say, his Church did rear,

  Whose true successors close or else unlock

  The blessed gates of grace and mercy dear;

  And all the elected twelve the chosen flock,

  Of his triumphant death who witness bear;

  And them by torment, slaughter, fire and sword

  Who martyrs died to confirm his word;

  IX

  And them also whose books and writings tell

  What certain path to heavenly bliss us leads;

  And hermits good, and ancresses that dwell

  Mewed up in walls, and mumble on their beads,

  And virgin nuns in close and private cell,

  Where, but shrift fathers, never mankind treads:

  On these they called, and on all the rout

  Of angels, martyrs, and of saints devout.

  X

  Singing and saying thus, the camp devout

  Spread forth her zealous squadrons broad and wide’;

  Toward mount Olivet went all this route,

  So called of olive trees the hills which hide,

  A mountain known by fame the world throughout,

  Which riseth on the city’s eastern side,

  From it divided by the valley green

  Of Josaphat, that fills the space between.

  XI

  Hither the armies went, and chanted shrill,

  That all the deep and hollow dales resound;

  From hollow mounts and caves in every hill,

  A thousand echoes also sung around,

  It seemed some clever, that sung with art and skill,

  Dwelt in those savage dens and shady ground,

  For oft resounds from the banks they hear,

  The name of Christ and of his mother dear.

  XII

  Upon the walls the Pagans old and young

  Stood hushed and still, amated and amazed,

  At their grave order and their humble song,

  At their strange pomp and customs new they gazed:

  But when the show they had beholden long,

  An hideous yell the wicked miscreants raised,

  That with vile blasphemies the mountain hoar,

  The woods, the waters, and the valleys roar.

  XIII

  But yet with sacred notes the hosts proceed,

  Though blasphemies they hear and cursed things;

  So with Apollo’s harp Pan tunes his reed,

  So adders hiss where Philomela sings;

  Nor flying darts nor stones the Christians dreed,

  Nor arrows shot, nor quarries cast from slings;

  But with assured faith, as dreading naught,

  The holy work begun to end they brought.

  XIV

  A table set they on the mountain’s height

  To minister thereon the sacrament,

  In golden candlesticks a hallowed light

  At either end of virgin wax there brent;

  In costly vestments sacred William dight,

  With fear and trembling to the altar went,

  And prayer there and service loud begins,

  Both for his own and all the army’s sins.

  XV

  Humbly they heard his words that stood him nigh,

  The rest far off upon him bent their eyes,

  But when he ended had the service high,

  “You servants of the Lord depart,” he cries:

  His hands he lifted then up to the sky,

  And blessed all those warlike companies;

  And they dismissed returned the way they came,

  Their order as before, their pomp the same.

  XVI

  Within their camp arrived, this voyage ended,

  Toward his tent the duke himself withdrew,

  Upon their guide by heaps the bands attended,

  Till his pavilion’s stately door they view,

  There to the Lord his welfare they commended,

  And with him left the worthies of the crew,

  Whom at a costly and rich feast he placed,

  And with the highest room old Raymond graced.

  XVII

  Now when the hungry knights sufficed are

  With meat, with drink, with spices of the best,

  Quoth he, “When next you see the morning star,

  To assault the town be ready all and prest:

  To-morrow is a day of pains and war,

  This of repose, of quiet, peace, and rest;

  Go, take your ease this evening, and this night,

  And make you strong against to-morrow’s fight.”

  XVIII

  They took their leave, and Godfrey’s heralds rode

  To intimate his will on every side,

  And published it through all the lodgings broad,

  That gainst the morn each should himself provide;

  Meanwhile they might their hearts of cares unload,

  And rest their tired limbs that eveningtide;

  Thus fared they till night their eyes did close,

  Night friend to gentle rest and sweet repose.

  XIX

  With little sign as yet of springing day

  Out peeped, not well appeared the rising morn,

  The plough yet tore not up the fertile lay,

  Nor to their feed the sheep from folds return,

  The birds sate silent on the greenwood spray

  Amid the groves unheard was hound and horn,

  When trumpets shrill, true signs of hardy fights,

  Called up to arms the soldiers, called the knights:

  XX

  “Arm, arm at once!” an hundred squadrons cried,

  And with their cry to arm them all begin.

  Godfrey arose, that day he laid aside

  His hauberk strong he wonts to combat in,

  And donned a breastplate fair, of proof untried,

  Such one as footmen use, light, easy, thin.

  Scantly the warlord thus clothed had his gromes,

  When aged Raymond to his presence comes.

  XXI

  And furnished to us when he the man beheld,

  By his attire his secret thought he guessed,

  “Where is,” quoth he, “your sure and trusty shield?

  Your helm, your hauberk strong? where all the rest?

  Why be you half disarmed? why to the field

  Approach you in these weak defences dressed?

  I see this day you mean a course to run,

  Wherein may peril much, small praise be won.

  XXII

  “Alas, do you that idle prise expect,

  To set first foot this conquered wall above?

  Of less account some knight thereto object

  Whose loss so great and harmful cannot prove;

  My lord, your life with greater care protect,

  And love yourself because all us you love,

  Your happy life is spirit, so
ul, and breath

  Of all this camp, preserve it then from death.”

  XXIII

  To this he answered thus, “You know,” he said,

  “In Clarimont by mighty Urban’s hand

  When I was girded with this noble blade,

  For Christ’s true faith to fight in every land,

  To God even then a secret vow I made,

  Not as a captain here this day to stand

  And give directions, but with shield and sword

  To fight, to win, or die for Christ my Lord.

  XXIV

  “When all this camp in battle strong shall be

  Ordained and ordered, well disposed all,

  And all things done which to the high degree

  And sacred place I hold belongen shall;

  Then reason is it, nor dissuade thou me,

  That I likewise assault this sacred wall,

  Lest from my vow to God late made I swerve:

  He shall this life defend, keep and preserve.”

  XXV

  Thus he concludes, and every hardy knight

  His sample followed, and his brethren twain,

  The other princes put on harness light,

  As footmen use: but all the Pagan train

  Toward that side bent their defensive might

  Which lies exposed to view of Charles’s wain

  And Zephyrus’ sweet blasts, for on that part

  The town was weakest, both by side and art.

  XXVI

  On all parts else the fort was strong by site,

  With mighty hills defenced from foreign rage,

  And to this part the tyrant gan unite

  His subjects born and bands that serve for wage,

  From this exploit he spared nor great nor lite,

  The aged men, and boys of tender age,

  To fire of angry war still brought new fuel,

  Stones, darts, lime, brimstone and bitumen cruel.

  XXVII

  All full of arms and weapons was the wall,

  Under whose basis that fair plain doth run,

  There stood the Soldan like a giant tall,

  So stood at Rhodes the Coloss of the sun,

  Waist high, Argantes showed himself withal,

  At whose stern looks the French to quake begun,

  Clorinda on the corner tower alone,

  In silver arms like rising Cynthia shone.

  XXVIII

  Her rattling quiver at her shoulders hung,

  Therein a flash of arrows feathered weel.

  In her left hand her bow was bended strong,

  Therein a shaft headed with mortal steel,

  So fit to shoot she singled forth among

  Her foes who first her quarries’ strength should feel,

  So fit to shoot Latona’s daughter stood

  When Niobe she killed and all her brood.

  XXIX

  The aged tyrant tottered on his feet

  From gate to gate, from wall to wall he flew,

  He comforts all his bands with speeches sweet,

  And every fort and bastion doth review,

  For every need prepared in every street

  New regiments he placed and weapons new.

  The matrons grave within their temples high

  To idols false for succors call and cry,

  XXX

  “O Macon, break in twain the steeled lance

  On wicked Godfrey with thy righteous hands,

  Against thy name he doth his arm advance,

  His rebel blood pour out upon these sands;”

  These cries within his ears no enterance

  Could find, for naught he hears, naught understands.

  While thus the town for her defence ordains,

  His armies Godfrey ordereth on the plains;

  XXXI

  His forces first on foot he forward brought,

  With goodly order, providence and art,

  And gainst these towers which to assail he thought,

  In battles twain his strength he doth depart,

  Between them crossbows stood, and engines wrought

  To cast a stone, a quarry, or a dart,

  From whence like thunder’s dint or lightnings new

  Against the bulwark stones and lances flew.

  XXXII

  His men at arms did back his bands on foot,

  The light horse ride far off and serve for wings,

  He gave the sign, so mighty was the rout

  Of those that shot with bows and cast with slings,

  Such storms of shafts and stones flew all about,

  That many a Pagan proud to death it brings,

  Some died, some at their loops durst scant outpeep,

  Some fled and left the place they took to keep.

  XXXIII

  The hardy Frenchmen, full of heat and haste,

  Ran boldly forward to the ditches large,

  And o’er their heads an iron pentice vast

  They built, by joining many a shield and targe,

  Some with their engines ceaseless shot and cast,

  And volleys huge of arrows sharp discharge,

  Upon the ditches some employed their pain

  To fill the moat and even it with the plain.

  XXXIV

  With slime or mud the ditches were not soft,

  But dry and sandy, void of waters clear,

  Though large and deep the Christians fill them oft,

  With rubbish, fagots, stones, and trees they bear:

  Adrastus first advanced his crest aloft,

  And boldly gan a strong scalado rear,

  And through the falling storm did upward climb

  Of stones, darts, arrows, fire, pitch and lime:

  XXXV

  The hardy Switzer now so far was gone

  That half way up with mickle pain he got,

  A thousand weapons he sustained alone,

  And his audacious climbing ceased not;

  At last upon him fell a mighty stone,

  As from some engine great it had been shot,

  It broke his helm, he tumbled from the height,

  The strong Circassian cast that wondrous weight;

  XXXVI

  Not mortal was the blow, yet with the fall

  On earth sore bruised the man lay in a swoon.

  Argantes gan with boasting words to call,

  “Who cometh next? this first is tumbled down,

  Come, hardy soldiers, come, assault this wall,

  I will not shrink, nor fly, nor hide my crown,

  If in your trench yourselves for dread you hold,

  There shall you die like sheep killed in their fold.”

  XXXVII

  Thus boasted he; but in their trenches deep,

  The hidden squadrons kept themselves from scath,

  The curtain made of shields did well off keep

  Both darts and shot, and scorned all their wrath.

  But now the ram upon the rampiers steep,

  On mighty beams his head advanced hath,

  With dreadful horns of iron tough tree great,

  The walls and bulwarks trembled at his threat.

  XXXVIII

  An hundred able men meanwhile let fall

  The weights behind, the engine tumbled down

  And battered flat the battlements and wall:

  So fell Taigetus hill on Sparta town,

  It crushed the steeled shield in pieces small,

  And beat the helmet to the wearers’ crown,

  And on the ruins of the walls and stones,

  Dispersed left their blood their brains and bones.

  XXXIX

  The fierce assailants kept no longer close

  Undcr the shelter of their target fine,

  But their bold fronts to chance of war expose,

  And gainst those towers let their virtue shine,

  The scaling ladders up to skies arose,

  The ground-works deep some closely und
ermine,

  The walls before the Frenchmen shrink and shake,

  And gaping sign of headlong falling make:

  XL

  And fallen they had, so far the strength extends

  Of that fierce ram and his redoubted stroke,

  But that the Pagan’s care the place defends

  And saved by warlike skill the wall nigh broke:

  For to what part soe’er the engine bends,

  Their sacks of wool they place the blow to choke,

  Whose yielding breaks the strokes thereon which light,

  So weakness oft subdues the greatest might.

  XLI

  While thus the worthies of the western crew

  Maintained their brave assault and skirmish hot,

  Her mighty bow Clorinda often drew,

  And many a sharp and deadly arrow shot;

  And from her bow no steeled shaft there flew

  But that some blood the cursed engine got,

  Blood of some valiant knight or man of fame,

  For that proud shootress scorned weaker game.

  XLII

  The first she hit among the Christian peers

  Was the bold son of England’s noble king,

  Above the trench himself he scantly rears,

  But she an arrow loosed from the string,

  The wicked steel his gauntlet breaks and tears,

  And through his right hand thrust the piercing sting;

  Disabled thus from fight, he gan retire,

  Groaning for pain, but fretting more for ire.

  XLIII

  Lord Stephen of Amboise on the ditch’s brim,

  And on a ladder high, Clotharius died,

  From back to breast an arrow pierced him,

  The other was shot through from side to side:

  Then as he managed brave his courser trim,

  On his left arm he hit the Flemings’ guide,

  He stopped, and from the wound the reed out-twined,

  But left the iron in his flesh behind.

  XLIV

  As Ademare stood to behold the fight

  High on the bank, withdrawn to breathe a space,

  A fatal shaft upon his forehead light,

  His hand he lifted up to feel the place,

  Whereon a second arrow chanced right,

  And nailed his hand unto his wounded face,

  He fell, and with his blood distained the land,

  His holy blood shed by a virgin’s hand.

  XLV

  While Palamede stood near the battlement,

  Despising perils all, and all mishap,

  And upward still his hardy footings bent,

  On his right eye he caught a deadly clap,

  Through his right eye Clorinda’s seventh shaft went,

  And in his neck broke forth a bloody gap;

  He underneath that bulwark dying fell,

  Which late to scale and win he trusted well.

  XLVI

  Thus shot the maid: the duke with hard assay

  And sharp assault, meanwhile the town oppressed,