An answer brief that told the whole event
Amazed she heard it, and at once believed
That each of them alike was innocent;
And having purposed to avert their fate,
Far as her arms could force or prayers persuade,
Rushed forward, and with haste precipitate
Removed the flames, and to the attendants said:
XLV
I Let none of you that Aladine obey
Dare further in this hateful service stir
Until I speak with him; for this delay,
Rest well assured, no blame you will incur.’
The’ officers obeyed the maiden’s threat,
Awed by her princely and commanding air:
Then towards the king she hastened. Him she met
As he advanced to greet and honour her.
XLVI
II — am Clorinda,’ she exclaimed. ‘Perchance
To thee, O king, my name is not unknown.
Here have I come to guard with sword and lance
Our common faith, and thy imperilled crown.
Some task impose: ‘gainst every toil I am steeled,
Nor fear the great, nor yet disdain the small,
Wilt thou I serve thee in the open field,
Or in the limits of the rampired wall.’
XLVII
She ceased, and thus the king: ‘O maiden rare,
What land from Asia’s so removed, what zone
So distant lies from the sun’s cycle, where
Thy fame has not arrived, thy glory flown?
If now thy sabre be with mine conjoined,
All fear departs and brighter prospects ope;
Not if united armies had combined,
For my deliverance had I surer hope.
XLVIII
‘Now, then, Prince Godfrey, it appears to me,
Delays his march too long; and dost thou ask
Employment for thy arm? None’s worthy thee
But the most difficult and daring task.
I give thee rule over all grades, all ranks;
And that shall be the law thou dost ordain.’
Thus spake, and she returned him courteous thanks
For his eulogium, and resumed again:
XLIX
‘Tho’ it for certain were great novelty
That recompense should services precede,
Still I feel sure thou’lt grant this pair to me,
For future services as present meed.
Nay, if there’s any doubt of their offence,
Most harsh the law to inflict such punishment;
This I pass over, and the evidence
From which I judge they both are innocent;
L
‘And will but add that the opinion here
Is that the Christians did the image take,
In this from you I differ, nor appear
Without good cause this utterance to make;
That was irreverence of our laws which ye,
Urged by Ismeno, deemed had power to save:
Since in our temples ’twas not fitting we
Should idols, least of all another’s, have.
LI
‘Wherefore I rather think the Prophet might
Have wrought this miracle to demonstrate
That his immaculate temples ’twas not right
With new religion to contaminate.
Let then Ismeno weave his mystic rites,
He to whom witchcraft stands in place of arms:
But let us draw the sword like gallant knights,
These be our hopes, our arts, our magic charms.’
LII
She ceased. The king, although his iron breast
But seldom bent or was by pity swayed,
Yet fain would yield assent to her request
Her reasons move him, and her prayers persuade:
‘Let this be grace or justice which I give,
To such a pleader I can nought deny;
Guiltless I free them, guilty I forgive.
Let them have life,’ he said, ‘and liberty.’
LIII
Thus were they loosed. Olindo’s fate how blest
By such an act his earnestness to prove!
Since in her generous sympathetic breast
Love had at length awakened mutual love.
Erst lover, now beloved, the criminal goes
From pyre to marriage, while the blushing bride
Won by his sacrifice no shyness shows
To live with him who for her sake had died.
LIV
But the suspicious king would not consent
To have them near, in whom such virtues shine;
Whence, as he willed, both into exile went,
Beyond the boundaries of Palestine;
And following up his most inhuman plan,
Some of the Faithful banished, some confined.
Ah, with what heavy hearts they heard his ban,
And left their sons, their sires, their wives behind!
LV
Cruel division! He drove out alone
Those of strong minds, and those robust in limb;
But the soft sex, and those not fully grown,
In pledge retained as hostages with him.
Many turned rovers, rebels some; his threat
Made anger triumph o’er their terror. Thus
They joined the Christian army, which they met
The day on which it entered Emmaus.
LVI
A city Emmaus is, that a short way
From royal Salem separates, and one
Who journeys slowly for his pleasure may,
By starting early, Salem reach at noon.
Oh, how this hearing doth the Christians cheer!
Oh, how their zeal it quickens and foments!
But since the sun was fast declining, here
The captain orders them to pitch their tents.
LVII
They were already pitched, and the sun’s light
Was not far distant from the ocean’s breast,
When, lo! two mighty barons loomed in sight,
Of foreign port, and in strange costume dressed;
Their every act and peaceful bearing showed,
They came as friends, perhaps some news to bring;
Escorted by a numerous train they rode,
And were the envoys of the Egyptian king.
LVIII
Alethes one, who from most low estate,
Ev’n from the refuse of the people sprung,
Had reached the highest honours of the state,
By subtle, eloquent, obsequious tongue.
In manner pliant, versatile in wit,
Prompt to dissemble, to deception used;
Slanders he forged, but still so apposite,
That when they seemed to praise, they most accused.
LIX
Arganté, from Circassia, the other. He
To Egypt came a stranger, and was made
One of the satraps of the monarchy,
And in the army reached the highest grade.
Intolerant, inexorable, fierce,
In arms unmatched, unwearied; he adored
No god, but scorned, and was to all averse,
Owning no law, no reason, but his sword.
LX
They craved an audience, and admitted were
To Godfrey’s presence. That illustrious knight
They found reposing on a lowly chair
Among his dukes, in simple garb bedight
But real worth, though carelessly arrayed,
Is to itself its own bright ornament
Small sign of honour him Arganté paid,
Like one too grand and too indifferent.
LXI
But on his breast Alethes placed his hand,
Bowed down his head, and bent on earth his eyes,
And, in the fashion of his native land,
His deep respect and reverence testifies.
He then began, and from his lips outsprung
In honeyed streams of eloquence a flood;
And as the Franks had learned the Syrian tongue,
That which he said was fully understood.
LXII
‘O worthy only thou, that this famed band
Of heroes deign obedience unto thee;
Who through thy counsel and thy powerful hand,
Have kingdoms gained in many a victory;
Ev’n that which scorned Alcides’ bounds, thy name,
Has to our distant territory sped,
And in all parts of Egypt’s realm has Fame
Most brilliant tidings of thy valour spread.
LXIII
‘Nor ‘mid so many of us is there one
Hears it, but as he greatest wonders might;
But my king hears thy exploits not alone
With deep amazement, but extreme delight;
Well pleased he is thy prowess to record,
Praising in thee what were to others cause
Of envious fear; and of his own accord
A league now seeks of love, if not of laws.
LXIV
‘ — Urged then by such praiseworthy motives, he
Demandeth peace and friendship on thy side,
And if faith cannot, then let valour be
The means by which ye may become allied.
But having heard that thou hadst armed, to drive
From his dominions Aladine, his friend,
He wished, ere further evils should arrive,
His mind to thee through us, his envoys, send.
LXV
‘ — His mind is this: That thou contented rest
With what thou hast gained already in the war;
Nor Judah, nor the other parts molest,
That by his sovran grace protected are:
He, on the other hand, will guarantee
Thy own not firm position: if ye two
Should in alliance thus united be,
What can the Turk or Persian hope to do?
LXVI
‘Important things in a short space thou hast done,
Which time can never in oblivion hide;
Razed rampired cities, famous battles won,
Surmounted hardships, unknown tracks defied.
So that or frightened or confounded, sire,
At the mere news, those far and near remain;
And though thou mayst new provinces acquire,
To acquire fresh glory thou must hope in vain.
LXVII
‘Thy fame has reached its zenith, and ‘twere right
That thou henceforth all dubious wars forswore;
If conqueror, conquest would increase thy might,
But could not, sire, increase thy glory more:
But should reverses happen, thou wouldst lose
Honour, to mention not each captured state;
And he is mad at Fortune’s game who throws
Sure stakes ‘gainst doubtful, against small ones great
LXVIII
‘But the advice of one who, perhaps, grieves
That others keep for long what they have gained,
In each emprise to have won fresh laurel leaves,
And that innate desire which is ingrained,
And glows most strongly in the strongest core,
To have kings subjected, provinces o’errun,
Will make thee peace avoid, it may be, more
Than others would war’s deadliest perils shun.
LXIX
‘Thee such will urge to follow to its close
That path now largely opened by the Fates,
And ne’er that celebrated sword depose,
Upon whose valour certain victory waits,
Until a desert Asia’s made by thee,
And Mahmoud’s crescent sinks before the Cross.
Delusions sweet: still, pleasant though they be,
They often end in most disastrous loss.
LXX
‘But should blind passion not obscure thine eyes,
And cause the light of Truth to disappear,
Thou’lt find in any future enterprise
No cause at all for hope, but much for fear;
Since Fortune changes — clouded now, now bright —
Varying by turns; and they who madly soar
In too ambitious and too high a flight,
Are apt to haste their ruinous downfall more.
LXXI
‘To move ‘gainst thee if Egypt once begun,
Powerful in council, arms, and riches; or
Should it e’er happen that Cassano’s son,
With Turks and Persians leagued, renewed the war;
What force against their fury canst thou bring,
Or where asylum for thyself provide?
Thou trust’st perhaps the wicked Grecian king,
Who is to thee by sacred bonds allied?
LXXII
‘But who in Grecian faith would credence place?
From one sole treachery thou may’st gather all;
Nay, from a thousand: since that faithless race
A thousand schemes has plotted for thy fall.
Think’st thou that he for thee will risk his life —
He who with arms thy host’s advance withstood?
Will he who barred the roads — which ere the strife
Were free to all — present thee with his blood?
LXXIII
‘ — But all thy hopes thou hast, it may be, set
On these brave squadrons that environ thee,
And think’st perhaps o’er foes combined to get,
As when detached, as easy victory,
Although thy ranks much thinned and weakened are
By hardships and by fighting, as thou know’st;
Though a new foe has swoln the tide of war,
And Egypt joined the Turk and Persian host
LXXIV
‘ — Still granting that it be thy destiny
Ne’er to be conquered by the hostile sword;
And granting too that such is Heaven’s decree
As thou presumest it, — still, mighty lord,
Famine will conquer thee: against that ill
What refuge, what protection wilt thou find?
‘Gainst her gaunt form thy broad sword wave, and still
Thy eager hopes with fancied victory blind.
LXXV
‘But know, the provident inhabitants
With sword and fire have laid the country waste,
And many days before thy host’s advance
In walls impregnable the harvest placed.
Whence, then, dost hope thy horse and foot to feed,
Thou who hast never to this hour repined?
Thou’lt say, our ships will give us help in need;
Depends then thy subsistence on the wind?
LXXVI
‘Perhaps thy fortune may the winds command,
And at thy pleasure rouse or keep them still?
The sea, though deaf to others’ prayers, trapanned
By Godfrey’s voice, may bow to Godfrey’s will?
Cannot our ships, then, on the ocean meet,
And with the Persians and the Turks combine,
And form in one so powerful a fleet
As well may match that armament of thine?
LXXVII
‘Thoult need, O prince! a double victory,
Success in this emprise to consummate;
One sole disaster would occasion thee
Disgrace profound, and losses still more great:
Since, should our fleet a signal victory gain,
And rout thine own, thy camp would famished be;
And should’st thou lose on land, thy ships in vain, —
In vain would ride triumphant o’er the sea’
LXXVIII
‘Now if in such condition you refuse
Peace and alliance with our sovran lord
(Pardon the truth), but thy mistaken views
Ill with thy other excellence accord.
But would to Heaven thou would’st thy sabre sheathe,
And change thy mind, that all may changèd be;
That Asia may, her troubles over, breathe,
And thou enjoy the fruits of victory.
LXXIX
‘And ye, who in each strange vicissitude
Of fame and peril his companions are, —
Let not the smiles of Fortune so delude
As to induce you to provoke fresh war;
But like the sailors, who from treacherous gales
Bring back their vessels to the welcome shore,
Ye should collect your widely scattered sails,
Nor tempt the dangers of the ocean more.’
LXXX
Here ceased Alethes, and those valiant knights
Followed with muttered murmuring his speech,
And by their scornful attitudes and slights
Showed how his overtures offended each.
Thrice — aye, four times — the captain turned his eye,
To see how his bold dukes the message took;
Then upon him who waited his reply
Fixed his full glance, and thus unruffled spoke:
LXXXI
‘Thou hast delivered in most sweet-toned phrase
A message — friendly now, now menacing:
If thy liege love me, and my actions praise,
Pleased I accept the approval of the king;
But to that part where thou denouncest war
To us from Pagandom’s united swords,
I will reply as wont, ambassador,
Clothing frank sentiments in simple words.
LXXXII
‘Know that so much we have till now endured
By land and sea, in light and darkness all —
But that we might have our great end assured,
And win our way to Salem’s sacred wall,
And thus in God’s rewards participate,
His flock releasing from the oppressor’s hand;
Nor do we deem it hard, for end so great
To risk our worldly honour, life, and land.
LXXXIII
‘Since no ambitious or unworthy love
Did us to this great enterprise impel;
May from our breasts the God of heaven remove
A plague so foul, if such in any dwell,
Nor suffer that it moisten or infect
Us with its poison, which, in pleasing, kills;
But ’tis His hand which gently doth correct
Hard hearts, and in them tenderness instills.
LXXXIV
‘This has impelled us, this has led us here;
Relieved us from all danger and delay;
This makes floods dry, this mountains disappear;
Takes summer’s heat and winter’s frost away;
Holds fast or loosens this the blustering squads;
Appeases this the billows of the main;
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