In which Armida sat in warlike pride;
A noble guard of vassal barons were
And lovers guarding her on every side.
Him by a thousand well-known signs she knew,
And trembled ‘twixt resentment and desire;
Rinaldo’s features changed a little, too:
But she first ice became, and then all fire.
LXII
Like one engaged on something else, the knight
Avoids her car, and passes; but the mass
Of her sworn champions would not, without fight,
Allow their rival cavalier to pass.
Some couched the spear, others unsheathed the brand
Herself an arrow fixed upon the bow;
Resentment hardened and impelled her hand.
But Love appeased her and restrained the blow.
LXIII
Love rose ‘gainst ire, and showed, beyond all doubt,
What living fire, tho’ hid, her heart contained;
Three times her hand to shoot him she stretched out;
Three times withdrew it downwards, and refrained.
Anger at last prevailed; the bow she bent,
And made the feathers of the quarrel fly.
The arrow flew; but with the arrow went
A prayer that it might pass him idly by.
LXIV
She would have rather that the piercing dart
Back had returned and pierced her breast: if thus
Such power has Love, tho’ losing, o’er the heart,
How irresistible — victorious!
But she began her lenience to revoke,
As in her wayward breast fresh furies rise;
Thus now she dreaded, now desired the stroke
Might tell, and followed it with eager eyes.
LXV
But not in vain directed was the stroke,
Which struck the cavalier’s cuirass, and there,
Instead of piercing it, the quarrel broke:
His arms too hard for blow of woman were.
He turned away; she, burning ‘neath the slight
Of his supposed affront, another dart
Shot, then a thousand, nor impinged the knight:
But while she arrowed, Cupid pierced her heart.
LXVI
‘What — is he so invulnerable,’ she said,
‘That’ hostile force he cares not for, nor feels?
Or is it that his limbs are habited
In the adamant that his hard bosom steels?
On him no power has mortal hand or eye;
Such stern unyielding rigour he doth show.
Armed and unarmed, defeated still am I,
Despised alike as lover and as foe.
LXVII
‘What new devices yet remain to try?
What other form can I now take on me?
Alas! I cannot on my knights rely,
Since thro’ my blinding tears I seem to see,
Nay, plainly see, that, paragoned with his,
Their arms are useless, and their efforts vain.’
For now she saw that of her votaries
Some were struck down, and some already slain.
LXVIII
Alone she felt not able for defence,
And seemed already prisoner and a slave;
To her no assurance (she had bow and lance)
The arms of Cynthia or Minerva gave;
And as a timorous cygnet, o’er whom towers
Fierce taloned eagle with exultant air,
Down to the ground with folded pinion cowers;
Resembling such her timid movements were.
LXIX
But Altamore, who to this moment had
Rallied his Persian followers when thrown
Into confusion, and who would have fled,
But were prevented by his means alone,
Now, seeing his idol brought to such a strait,
Ran not, but flew there, by her charms enslaved;
Troops, honour, all he abandoned to their fate:
Let the world perish, so his love be saved.
LXX
Escorting then her ill-protected car,
A path he opened with his sword for it;
But at that moment his battalions were
By Godfred and Rinaldo put to flight
Their desperate plight the wretched prince discerned
And better lover than commander made;
When, having saved Armida, he returned,
With, to his beaten troops, untimely aid.
LXXI
Since upon that side from their fierce attack
The Turks were routed irretrievably;
But, on the other, the Franks turned their back,
The field abandoning to the enemy.
Maimed in the face and in the bosom struck,
One Robert scarce effected a retreat;
The other prisoner Prince Adrastus took:
Thus equally was balanced the defeat
LXXII
Then Godfred seized the opportunity,
Re-formed his line, and, without waiting, dashed
Back to the fight in that emergency;
Thus the two wings entire together clashed.
Each was adorned with glorious spoils, each dyed
With the bright crimson of his foeman’s blood;
Victory and honour shone on either side,
‘Twixt whom, still doubtful, Mars and Fortune stood.
LXXIII
While in such manner raged the bloody fight
Between the Christian and the Pagan host,
Up to a terrace on the turret’s height
The soldan went, and from that distant post
Beheld, as on a stage or lists beneath,
The tragic drama of the human state,
The assault, the foul unsightliness of death,
And the great game of accident and fate.
LXXIV
Somewhat surprised and stupefied he stood,
When that dread sight first shocked upon his eyes;
But, as he gazed upon that field of blood,
He burned to share the perils of the emprise;
Nor curbed his impulse, but without delay
Braced on his helmet, else armed cap-à-pie,
‘Up, up!’ he cried; ‘no shrinking — for to-day
Our doom is sealed — or death or victory.’
LXXV
Or that, perhaps, ’twas Providence divine,
That did him with such furious spirit fire,
That, to its very ashes, Palestine
Might on that day, that fatal day, expire;
Or that an impulse to confront his fate
Constrained him, since he felt it was not far;
Downwards he rushed, unlocked the steel-barred gate,
And bore impetuous, unexpected war;
LXXVI
Nor waited till his comrades had complied
With his fierce call, but sallied forth alone;
Alone, a thousand foemen he defied,
Alone, through thousands he pushed boldly on;
But, as if by his spirit rapt, the rest,
Ev’n Aladino, caught his martial air;
The vile, the timid, no more fears exprest;
’Twas less the work of hope than of despair.
LXXVII
Beneath his dreadful rapid strokes fell thick
Those the fierce Turk first met; he was so skilled
In dealing death around him, and so quick,
That him you saw not killing, but them killed.
From tongue to tongue, from front to rear, there ran
A sudden panic as the tidings spread,
So that the Syrian Christians, to a man,
Thrown into dire disorder, almost fled.
LXXVIII
But with less terror and less disarray,
Their ground the Gascons held, and order kept,
Altho’, as n
earest to the danger, they
The foremost were o’er whom the tempest swept.
No fang, no claw of beast or bird of prey
Was e’er so crimsoned with the blood outpoured
From lamb or dove, as in that bloody fray
Among the Franks was Solymano’s sword.
LXXIX
Athirst and hungry, it appeared almost
To feed upon their limbs and drink their blood.
With him the king, with him the vassal host,
Their sabres in the assailant’s gore imbrued;
But Raymond rushed where Solymano broke
His squadron’s ranks; disdaining he to fly,
Tho’ well he recognised that arm whose stroke
Had caused him erst such mortal agony.
LXXX
Again his foe he fronted, again fell,
Re-stricken where he stricken was before;
’Twas age excessive now began to tell,
For which excessive were the blows he bore.
For him at once a hundred falchions gleamed,
Him hundred shields defended; but away
The fiery soldan strode, or that he deemed
Him dead outright, or a too easy prey,
LXXXI
And hewed and hacked and massacred the rest,
And in small compass mighty wonders wrought;
And as fresh fury urged his savage breast,
Material elsewhere for fresh carnage sought
As, pinched with hunger, one leaves frugal fare
For a rich banquet of abundant food,
So rushed he to more ample battle, where
To sate his maddened appetite for blood.
LXXXII
And down descended thro’ the shattered wall
To the great battle with intolerant haste,
His troops their rage retain, his foemen all
The fears that had them from his fury chased.
The Turks would fain the imperfect victory close,
And, by success emboldened, madly fight;
The Franks resist; but their resistance shows
Less symptoms of resistance than of flight.
LXXXIII
Still showing front, the Gascon troops give way,
But, scattered o’er the field, the Syrians fled,
Not far from where the gallant Tancred lay,
Who heard their cries within, and from his bed
His maimed and still enfeebled body raised,
Mounted the roof, and saw in full retreat
Some of the Franks, and, as around he gazed,
The count struck down, and some in route complete.
LXXXIV
But valour, which the valorous never fails
Nor droops, altho’ the exhausted body should,
The wounded warrior’s languid members mails,
As if in place of spirit and of blood.
His ponderous shield, as ‘twere a burden light,
He on his weak and bloodless left arm bore;
Snatched up a naked sabre in his right
(Tis all the brave require), nor waited more,
LXXXV
But rushed down, shouting: ‘Whither do ye fly,
Your leader leaving to you hordes a prey?
What! let the temples of the enemy
The trophied armour of your lord display?
Gascons, go back to Gascony, and tell
The son, you fled from where his father died.’
His unarmed breast, while making this appeal,
Defence to armed, all-powerful hosts supplied.
LXXXVI
And ‘neath his heavy buckler, which was made
Of seven well-seasoned and unyielding hides,
Upon whose back there was a covering laid
Of the most finely-tempered steel besides,
From sword, from shaft, from every weapon kept
Raimondo covered, while his trenchant blade
The space around him so completely swept
That the count lay secure, as if in shade;
LXXXVII
Who, sheltered ‘neath such faithful shelter, came
To himself, and, breathing, rose refreshed once more,
Feeling within a double fire inflame
His cheeks with shame, with rage his inmost core;
And on all sides his flashing eyeballs turned
In quest of him that struck with such despite;
And seeing him not, with bitter vengeance burned
The outrage on his followers to requite.
LXXXVIII
Back then returned the Gascon cavaliers,
And, bent on vengeance, with their chief unite;
The Pagan’s courage is now changed to fears,
And boldness enters where before was fright.
The attackers yield; who yielded, now attack.
Thus in a moment all things changed became:
Such Raymond’s vengeance, whose bold arm paid back,
By death of hundreds, his one single shame.
LXXXIX
While Raymond thus his wounded pride to sate
Upon the most illustrious Pagans tried,
He saw the usurper of the noble state
Fight in the van, and galloped to his side,
And struck him, and restruck him ‘twixt the eyes
On the same spot, nor from his strokes refrained;
Whence fell the king, who, venting horrid sighs,
Expiring, bit the ground o’er which he reigned.
XC
One chief being absent and the other slain,
Diverse emotions the survivors feel;
Some, like infuriate animals, amain
Rush in despair upon the hostile steel;
Others, affrighted, deem it best to flee
Where erst they met with a secure retreat;
But, mingling with the flying enemy,
The victors enter and their work complete.
XCI
The keep is won. Upon the sill and stairs
The fugitive Pagans fall with heavy loss;
And Raymond, mounting to its summit, bears
Aloft the glorious ensign of the Cross,
And in the presence of both camps unrolled
The haughty symbol of their victory.
It fiery Solyman did not behold,
Since absent at the greater fight was he.
XCII
He reached the field, which reeking was and red,
And every moment, from fresh slaughter, streamed,
So that now like the city of the Dead,
Where Death his trophies shows and stalks, it seemed.
There he a destrier saw, with dangling rein,
Fly, riderless, in terror from the ranks,
Whom, caught, he mounted, and across the plain,
To reach the battle, pressed its heaving flanks.
XCII
Great but brief succour. Solymano brought
To the disheartened Saracens — you’d say,
Lightening he was that, with destruction fraught.
Flashed unexpectedly, and passed away;
but marks eterne, in many a blasted stone.
Leaves of its transient momentary flight.
Hundreds he slew: but of one pair alone
Will I, to snatch from Time their memory, write.
XCIV
Edward and fair Gildippe! your hard fate
And honourable actions I would link
With and ‘mid noblest spirits consecrate,
If such be granted to my Tuscan ink;
So that your names as miracles appear
Of Love and Virtue stamped upon all time,
And lovers honour with a pitying tear
Your noble deaths and my unworthy rhyme
XCV
The heroic woman turned her steed to oppose
The Turk, who spread such havoc o’er the field,
And caught him full with two gr
eat slashing blows;
One struck his flank, one clave in twain his shield.
He who the heroine by her armour knew,
‘Behold the strumpet and her minion!’ cried;
‘Better defence the needle were for you.
Than lover’s arm or broadsword by your side.’
XCVI
He ceased, and, with more rage than e’er possessed,
A fierce and desperate blow against her drove,
Which, her arms riving, dared impinge her breast —
Butt worthy only of the shafts of love.
She, dropping suddenly the bridle rein,
Appeared to droop — to perish; her sad fate
Her Edward saw, and spurring on amain,
Not tardy was, but most unfortunate.
XCVII
What in that dire dilemma should he do?
As rage and pity urge him different ways;
That, to revenge himself on him who slew,
This, his dear falling treasure to upraise;
But Love, impartial, showed him how he might
Neither compassion nor revenge neglect:
To vent his anger he employed his right,
And his left arm Gildippe to protect.
XCVIII
But power and will divided thus in twain,
Powerless against the stalwart Pagan proved,
Since her he could not in the selle sustain,
Nor slay the homicide of his beloved;
Nay, it so happened that the soldan lopped
His left arm off, which had Gildippe stayed,
Disabled whence his precious charge he dropped,
And on her own, his limbs at full length laid.
XCIX
Like elm, to whom die married vine’s frail form
Clings for support, and twines enamoured round,
If felled by axe or rooted up by storm,
Drags with himself his consort to the ground,
Stripping the leaves, and crushing ‘neath his weight
The grapes and green apparel of his bride;
He seems to grieve far more than for his fate,
For her who falls unmurmuring at his side.
C
Thus Edward fell, for her alone he grieved,
Whom heaven had made his partner unto death;
They tried to speak, but could not, they but heaved
Sighs indistinct, as failed their waning breath;
Each gazed on each, each pressed the other, loth
To part, while ebbing life within them lay,
When in a moment darkness shrouded both,
And their pure souls together passed away.
CI
Fame then unloosed her tongues, and spread for flight
Her airy pinions, and their fate affirmed;
Nor from Fame only heard Rinaldo it,
Its truth a special messenger confirmed:
Within him grief, benevolence, and wrath,
Combined with duty, for deep vengeance cried,
When the fierce king, Adrastus, crossed his path,
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