Leigh Hunt

“ Where was her pride now? where the scorn she had exhibited to so many suitors? where her coquetry and her self-sufficiency—her love of being loved, with the power to hate the lover? The enchantress was now taught what the passion was, in all its despair as well as delight. She cried aloud. She cared not for the presence of the messengers. "Oh, go not, Rinaldo," she cried; "go not, or take me with thee. My heart is torn to pieces. Take me, or turn and kill me. Stop, at least, and be cruel to me here. If thou hast the heart to fly me, it will not be hard to thee to stay and be unkind." ”

“ With these words, turning pale with his own mortal resolution, Prasildo drew his sword, and pronouncing the name of Tisbina more than once with a loving voice, as though its very sound would be sufficient to waft him to Paradise, was about to plunge the steel into his bosom, when the lady herself, by leave of her husband, whose manly visage was all in tears for pity, stood suddenly before him.
"Prasildo," said she, "if you love me, listen to me. You have often told me that you do so. Now prove it. I happen to be threatened with nothing less than the loss of life and honour. ”

“ Admiring, but nothing daunted, the hero went on.
Every thing as he advanced appeared to start into fresh beauty. His steps produced lilies and roses; here leaped up a fountain, and there came falling a cascade; the wood itself seemed to grow young as with sudden spring; and he again heard the music and the human voices, though he could see no one.
Passing through the trees, he came into a glade in the heart of the wood, in the centre of which he beheld a myrtle-tree, the largest and most beautiful ever seen: it was taller than a cypress or palm, and seemed the queen of the forest. ”

“ East and west she looked in vain; to the heavens she looked in vain; every where she looked in vain. That beauty which had made King Agrican come from the Caspian gates, with half Scythia, to find his death from the hands of Orlando; that beauty which had made King Sacripant forget both his country and his honour; that beauty which had tarnished the renown and the wisdom of the great Orlando himself, and turned the whole East upside down, and laid it at the feet of loveliness, has now not a soul near it to give it the comfort of a word. ”

“ From shoulder to hip was Agrican cut through his weary soul, and he turned as white as ashes, and felt death upon him. He called Orlando to come close to him with a gentle voice, and said, as well as he could, "I believe in Him who died on the Cross. Baptise me, I pray thee, with the fountain, before my senses are gone. I have lived an evil life, but need not be rebellious to God in death also. May He who came to save all the rest of the world, save me! He is a God of great mercy." ”

“ Orlando dashed after him, as he desired; and Agrican fled till he reached a green place in a wood, with a fountain in it.
The place was beautiful, and the Tartar dismounted to refresh himself at the fountain, but without taking off his helmet, or laying aside any of his armour. Orlando was quickly at his back, crying out, "So bold, and yet such a fugitive! How could you fly from a single arm, and yet think to escape? When a man can die with honour, he should be glad to die; for he may live and fare worse. He may get death and infamy together." ”

“ But yet she felt all the time the arm that was round her.
"Armida," said Rinaldo, in a voice full of tenderness, "be calm, and know me for what I am—no enemy, no conqueror, nothing that intends thee shame or dishonour; but thy champion, thy restorer—he that will preserve thy kingdom for thee, and seat thee in house and home. Look at me—look in these eyes, and see if they speak false. And oh, would to Heaven thou wouldst indeed be as I am in faith. There isn't a queen in all the East should equal thee in glory." ”

“ Every bough in the forest is alive; and when thou cuttest down a tree, thou slayest a soul."
As a sick man in a dream thinks, and yet thinks not, that he sees some dreadful monster, and, notwithstanding his doubt, wishes to fly from the horrible perplexity; so the trembling lover, though suspecting what he beheld, had so frightful an image before his thoughts of Clorinda weeping and wailing after death, and bleeding in her very soul, that he had not the heart to do more, or to remain in the place. He returned in bewildered sorrow to Godfrey, and told him all. ”

“ The poet takes a universal, an acute, and, upon the whole, a cheerful view, like the sun itself, of all which the sun looks on; and readers are charmed to see a knowledge at once so keen and so happy. Herein lies the secret of Ariosto's greatness; which is great, not because it has the intensity of Dante, or the incessant thought and passion of Shakspeare, or the dignified imagination of Milton, to all of whom he is far inferior in sustained excellence,—but because he is like very Nature herself. ”

“ The County Orlando felt pity for so much gallantry; and he said," The nobler you shew yourself, the more it grieves me to think, that in dying without a knowledge of the true faith, you will be lost in the other world. Let me advise you to save body and soul at once. Receive baptism, and go your way in peace."
Agrican looked him in the face, and replied, "I suspect you to be the Paladin Orlando. If you are, I would not lose this opportunity of fighting with you, to be king of Paradise. Talk to me no more about your things of the other world; for you will preach in vain. ”

“ At length turning her eyes upon him, she said, "And do you believe I could make my poor sorry case out in this world without Iroldo? Can he bear, himself, to think of leaving his Tisbina? he who has so often said, that if he possessed heaven itself, he should not think it heaven without her? O dearest husband, there is a way to make death not bitter to either of us. It is to die together. I must only exist long enough to see Prasildo! Death, alas! is in that thought; but the same death will release us. It need not even be a hard death, saving our misery. ”

“ Then thou knowest, sir, one who is desirous to defend the good faith and the king of Jerusalem. I am ready for any duty that may be assigned me. I fear not the greatest, nor do I disdain the least. Open field or walled city, no post will come amiss to the king's servant."
"Illustrious maiden," answered the king, "who knoweth not Clorinda? What region is there so distant from Asia, or so far away out of the paths of the sun, to which the sound of thy achievements has not arrived? Joined by thee and by thy sword I fear nothing. Godfrey, methinks, is too slow to attack me. ”

“ Poor, illustrious Tasso! weak enough to warrant pity from his inferiors—great enough to overshadow in death his once-fancied superiors. He has been a by-word for the misfortunes of genius: but genius was not his misfortune; it was his only good, and might have brought him all happiness. It is the want of genius, as far as it goes, and apart from martyrdoms for conscience' sake, which produces misfortunes even to genius itself—the want of as much wit and balance on the common side of things, as genius is supposed to confine to the uncommon. ”

“ My soul seems to die within me, at the thought of being without her. It is love that has seized me, and I feel that nothing will set me free;—not strength, nor courage, nor my own wisdom, nor that of any adviser. I see the better part, and cleave to the worse." [2]
Thus secretly in his heart did the frank and noble Orlando lament over his new feelings; and no wonder; for every knight in the hall was enamoured of the beautiful stranger, not excepting even old white-headed Duke Namo. Charlemagne himself did not escape. ”

“ She was attired with great simplicity, but her air was that of a person of high rank, and her beauty inexpressible. In short, it was the proud daughter of the lord of Cathay, Angelica herself. Finding that she could travel in safety and independence by means of the magic ring, her self-estimation had risen to such a height, that she disdained to stoop to the companionship of the greatest man living. She could not even call to mind that such lovers as the County Orlando or King Sacripant existed and it mortified her beyond measure to think of the affection she had entertained for Rinaldo. ”

“ Ariosto makes them literally flights—flights on a hippogriff, and to the moon. The moon, it has been said, makes lunatics; he accordingly puts a man's wits into that planet. Vice deforms beauty; therefore his beautiful enchantress turns out to be an old hag. Ancient defeated empires are sounds and emptiness; therefore the Assyrian and Persian monarchies become, in his limbo of vanities, a heap of positive bladders. Youth is headstrong, and kissing goes by favour; so Angelica, queen of Cathay, and beauty of the world, jilts warriors and kings, and marries a common soldier. ”

“ I should take Boiardo to have been the healthier man, though of a less determined will than Ariosto, and perhaps, on the whole, less robust. You find in Boiardo almost which Ariosto perfected,—chivalry, battles, combats, loves and graces, passions, enchantments, classical and romantic fable, eulogy, satire, mirth, pathos, philosophy. It is like the first sketch of a great picture, not the worse in some respects for being a sketch; free and light, though not so grandly coloured. It is the morning before the sun is up, and when the dew is on the grass. ”

“ Great poet, and good man, Ariosto! your terrors are better than Dante's; for they warn, as far as warning can do good, and they neither afflict humanity nor degrade God.
Spenser has imitated this sublime piece of pleasantry; for, by a curious intermixture of all which the mind can experience from such a fiction, pleasant it is in the midst of its sublimity,—laughable with satirical archness, as well as grand and terrible in the climax. The transformation in Spenser is from a jealous man into Jealousy. His wife has gone to live with the Satyrs, and a villain has stolen his money. ”

“ He is Shakspearian in going all lengths with Nature as he found her, not blinking the fact of evil, yet finding a "soul of goodness" in it, and, at the same time, never compromising the worth of noble and generous qualities. His young and handsome Medoro is a pitiless slayer of his enemies; but they were his master's enemies, and he would have lost his life, even to preserve his dead body. His Orlando, for all his wisdom and greatness, runs mad for love of a coquette, who triumphs over warriors and kings, only to fall in love herself with an obscure lad. ”

“ Prowess to the knight, and prattle to the clergyman. That is my motto."
"I acknowledge," returned Orlando, "that arms are the first consideration of a gentleman; but not at all that he does himself dishonour by knowledge. On the contrary, knowledge is as great an embellishment of the rest of his attainments, as the flowers are to the meadow before us; and as to the knowledge of his Maker, the man that is without it is no better than a stock or a stone, or a brute beast. Neither, without study, can he reach anything like a due sense of the depth and divineness of the contemplation." ”

“ Beauty itself is thy shield no longer.
The glorious maiden is taken and bound. The cruel king has condemned her to the stake. Her veil, and the mantle that concealed her chaste bosom, are torn away, and her soft arms tied with a hard knot behind her. She said nothing; she was not terrified; but yet she was not unmoved. Her bosom heaved in spite of its courage. Her lovely colour was lost in a pure white.
The news spread in an instant, and the city crowded to the sight, Christians and all, Olindo among them. He had thought within himself, "What if it should be Sophronia!" ”

“ Love is its all in all, even to the design of the religious war which is to rescue the sepulchre of the God of Charity from the hands of the unloving. His heroes are all in love, at least those on the right side; his leader, Godfrey, notwithstanding his prudence, narrowly escapes the passion, and is full of a loving consideration; his amazon, Clorinda, inspires the truest passion, and dies taking her lover's hand; his Erminia is all love for an enemy; his enchantress Armida falls from pretended love into real, and forsakes her religion for its sake. ”

“ Be happy; be wise." While Rinaldo was speaking in this manner, Armida changed colour; her bosom heaved; her eyes took a new kind of fire; scorn rose upon her lip. When he finished, she looked at him with a bitterness that rejected every word he had said; and then she exclaimed: "Thou hast no such blood in thine own veins as thou canst fear to degrade. Thy boasted descent is a fiction: base, and brutish, and insensible was thy stock. What being of gentle blood could quit a love like mine without even a tear—a sigh? What but the mockery of a man could call me his, and yet leave me? ”

“ They are life itself, the fountains of vitality; and I am weeping and dying both. These are no sighs that I thus eternally exhale. Nature could not supply them. They are Love himself storming in my heart, and at once consuming me and keeping me alive with his miraculous fires. No more—no more am I the man I seem. He that was Orlando is dead and buried. His ungrateful mistress has slain him. I am but the soul divided from his body—doomed to wander here in this misery, an example to those that put their trust in love. ”