Part 47

XXXIV As on the Rhene, when winter’s freezing cold Congeals the streams to thick and hardened glass, The beauties fair of shepherds’ daughters bold With wanton windlays run, turn, play and pass; So on this river passed the wizard old, Although unfrozen soft and swift it was, And thither stalked where the warriors stayed, To whom, their greetings done, he spoke and said:

XXXV “Great pains, great travel, lords, you have begun, And of a cunning guide great need you stand, Far off, alas! is great Bertoldo’s son, Imprisoned in a waste and desert land, What soil remains by which you must not run, What promontory, rock, sea, shore or sand Your search must stretch before the prince be found, Beyond our world, beyond our half of ground!

XXXVI But yet vouchsafe to see my cell I pray, In hidden caves and vaults though builded low, Great wonders there, strange things I will bewray, Things good for you to hear, and fit to know:” This said, he bids the river make them way, The flood retired, backward gan to flow, And here and there two crystal mountains rise, So fled the Red Sea once, and Jordan thrice.

XXXVII He took their hands, and led them headlong down Under the flood, through vast and hollow deeps, Such light they had as when through shadows brown Of thickest deserts feeble Cynthia peeps, Their spacious caves they saw all overflown, There all his waters pure great Neptune keeps, And thence to moisten all the earth he brings Seas, rivers, floods, lakes, fountains, wells and springs:

XXXVIII Whence Ganges, Indus, Volga, Ister, Po, Whence Euphrates, whence Tigris’ spring they view, Whence Tanais, whence Nilus comes also, Although his head till then no creature knew, But under these a wealthy stream doth go, That sulphur yields and ore, rich, quick and new, Which the sunbeams doth polish, purge and fine, And makes it silver pure, and gold divine.

XXXIX And all his banks the rich and wealthy stream Hath fair beset with pearl and precious stone Like stars in sky or lamps on stage that seem, The darkness there was day, the night was gone, There sparkled, clothed in his azure-beam, The heavenly sapphire, there the jacinth shone, The carbuncle there flamed, the diamond sheen, There glistered bright, there smiled the emerald green.

XL Amazed the knights amid these wonders passed, And fixed so deep the marvels in their thought, That not one word they uttered, till at last Ubaldo spake, and thus his guide besought: “O father, tell me by what skill thou hast These wonders done? and to what place us brought? For well I know not if I wake or sleep, My heart is drowned in such amazement deep.”

XLI “You are within the hollow womb,” quoth he, “Of fertile earth, the nurse of all things made, And but you brought and guided are by me, Her sacred entrails could no wight invade; My palace shortly shall you splendent see, With glorious light, though built in night and shade. A Pagan was I born, but yet the Lord To grace, by baptism, hath my soul restored.

XLII “Nor yet by help of devil, or aid from hell, I do this uncouth work and wondrous feat, The Lord forbid I use or charm or spell To raise foul Dis from his infernal seat: But of all herbs, of every spring and well, The hidden power I know and virtue great, And all that kind hath hid from mortal sight, And all the stars, their motions, and their might.

XLIII “For in these caves I dwell not buried still From sight of Heaven, but often I resort To tops of Lebanon or Carmel hill, And there in liquid air myself disport, There Mars and Venus I behold at will! As bare as erst when Vulcan took them short, And how the rest roll, glide and move, I see, How their aspects benign or froward be.”

XLIV “And underneath my feet the clouds I view, Now thick, now thin, now bright with Iris’ bow, The frost and snow, the rain, the hail, the dew, The winds, from whence they come and whence they blow, How Jove his thunder makes and lightning new, How with the bolt he strikes the earth below, How comate, crinite, caudate stars are framed I knew; my skill with pride my heart inflamed.

XLV “So learned, cunning, wise, myself I thought, That I supposed my wit so high might climb To know all things that God had framed or wrought, Fire, air, sea, earth, man, beast, sprite, place and time; But when your hermit me to baptism brought, And from my soul had washed the sin and crime, Then I perceived my sight was blindness still, My wit was folly, ignorance my skill.

XLVI “Then saw I, that like owls in shining sun, So gainst the beams of truth our souls are blind, And at myself to smile I then begun, And at my heart, puffed up with folly’s wind, Yet still these arts, as I before had done, I practised, such was the hermit’s mind: Thus hath he changed my thoughts, my heart, my will, And rules mine art, my knowledge, and my skill.

XLVII “In him I rest, on him my thoughts depend, My lord, my teacher, and my guide is he, This noble work he strives to bring to end, He is the architect, the workmen we, The hardy youth home to this camp to send From prison strong, my care, my charge shall be; So He commands, and me ere this foretold Your coming oft, to seek the champion bold.”

XLVIII While this he said, he brought the champions twain Down to a vault, wherein he dwells and lies, It was a cave, high, wide, large, ample, plain, With goodly rooms, halls, chambers, galleries, All what is bred in rich and precious vein Of wealthy earth, and hid from mortal eyes, There shines, and fair adorned was every part With riches grown by kind, not framed by art:

XLIX An hundred grooms, quick, diligent and neat, Attendance gave about these strangers bold, Against the wall there stood a cupboard great Of massive plate, of silver, crystal, gold. But when with precious wines and costly meat They filled were, thus spake the wizard old: “Now fits the time, sir knights, I tell and show What you desire to hear, and long to know.

L “Armida’s craft, her sleight and hidden guile You partly wot, her acts and arts untrue, How to your camp she came, and by what wile The greatest lords and princes thence she drew; You know she turned them first to monsters vile, And kept them since closed up in secret mew, Lastly, to Gaza-ward in bonds them sent, Whom young Rinaldo rescued as they went.

LI “What chanced since I will at large declare, To you unknown, a story strange and true. When first her prey, got with such pain and care, Escaped and gone the witch perceived and knew, Her hands she wrung for grief, her clothes she tare, And full of woe these heavy words outthrew: ‘Alas! my knights are slain, my prisoners free, Yet of that conquest never boast shall he,

LII “‘He in their place shall serve me, and sustain Their plagues, their torments suffer, sorrows bear, And they his absence shall lament in vain, And wail his loss and theirs with many a tear:’ Thus talking to herself she did ordain A false and wicked guile, as you shall hear; Thither she hasted where the valiant knight Had overcome and slain her men in fight.

LIII “Rinaldo there had dolt and left his own, And on his back a Pagan’s harness tied, Perchance he deemed so to pass unknown, And in those arms less noted false to ride. A headless corse in fight late overthrown, The witch in his forsaken arms did hide, And by a brook exposed it on the sand Whither she wished would come a Christian band:

LIV “Their coming might the dame foreknow right well, For secret spies she sent forth thousand ways, Which every day news from the camp might tell, Who parted thence, booties to search or preys: Beside, the sprites conjured by sacred spell, All what she asks or doubts, reveals and says, The body therefore placed she in that part That furthered best her sleight, her craft and art;

LV “And near the corpse a varlet false and sly She left, attired in shepherd’s homely weed, And taught him how to counterfeit and lie As time required, and he performed the deed; With him your soldiers spoke, of jealousy And false suspect mongst them he strewed the seed, That since brought forth the fruit of strife and jar, Of civil brawls, contention, discord, war.

LVI “And as she wished so the soldiers thought By Godfrey’s practice that the prince was slain, Yet vanished that suspicion false to naught When truth spread forth her silver wings again Her false devices thus Armida wrought, This was her first deceit, her foremost train; What next she practised, shall you hear me tell, Against our knight, and what thereof befell.

LVII “Armida hunted him through wood and plain, Till on Orontes’ flowery banks he stayed, There, where the stream did part and meet again And in the midst a gentle island made, A pillar fair was pight beside the main, Near which a little frigate floating laid, The marble white the prince did long behold, And this inscription read, there writ in gold:

LVIII “‘Whoso thou art whom will or chance doth bring With happy steps to flood Orontes’ sides, Know that the world hath not so strange a thing, Twixt east and west, as this small island hides, Then pass and see, without more tarrying.’ The hasty youth to pass the stream provides, And for the cogs was narrow, small and strait, Alone he rowed, and bade his squires there wait;

LIX “Landed he stalks about, yet naught he sees But verdant groves, sweet shades, and mossy rocks With caves and fountains, flowers, herbs and trees, So that the words he read he takes for mocks: But that green isle was sweet at all degrees, Wherewith enticed down sits he and unlocks His closed helm, and bares his visage fair, To take sweet breath from cool and gentle air.

LX “A rumbling sound amid the waters deep Meanwhile he heard, and thither turned his sight, And tumbling in the troubled stream took keep How the strong waves together rush and fight, Whence first he saw, with golden tresses, peep The rising visage of a virgin bright, And then her neck, her breasts, and all, as low As he for shame could see, or she could show.

LXI “So in the twilight does sometimes appear A nymph, a goddess, or a fairy queen, And though no siren but a sprite this were Yet by her beauty seemed it she had been One of those sisters false which haunted near The Tyrrhene shores and kept those waters sheen, Like theirs her face, her voice was, and her sound, And thus she sung, and pleased both skies and ground: