Stories from the Italian Poets: with Lives of the Writers, Volume 2

by Leigh Hunt

RINALDO AND ARMIDA:

WITH THE

ADVENTURES OF THE ENCHANTED FOREST.

Argument.

PART I.—Satan assembles the fiends in council to consider the best means of opposing the Christians. Armida, the niece of the wizard king of Damascus, is incited to go to their camp under false pretences, and endeavour to weaken it; which she does by seducing away many of the knights, and sowing a discord which ends in the flight of Rinaldo.

PART II.—Armida, after making the knights feel the power of her magic, dismisses them bound prisoners for Damascus. They are rescued on their way by Rinaldo. Armida pursues him in wrath, but falls in love with him.

PART III.—The magician Ismeno succeeds in frightening the Christians in their attempt to cut wood from the Enchanted Forest. Rinaldo is sent for, as the person fated to undo the enchantment.

PART IV.—Rinaldo and Armida, in love with each other, pass their time in a bower of bliss. He is fetched away by two knights, and leaves her in despair.

PART V.—Rinaldo disenchants the forest, and has the chief hand in the taking of Jerusalem. He meets and reconciles Armida. RINALDO AND ARMIDA, ETC.

Part the First

ARMIDA IN THE CHRISTIAN CAMP.

The Christians had now commenced their attack on Jerusalem, and brought a great rolling tower against the walls, built from the wood of a forest in the neigbbourhood; when the Malignant Spirit, who has never ceased his war with Heaven, cast in his mind how he might best defeat their purpose. It was necessary to divide their forces; to destroy their tower; to hinder them from building another; and to make one final triumphant effort against the whole progress of their arms.

Forgetting how the right arm of God could launch its thunderbolts, the Fiend accordingly seated himself on his throne, and ordered his powers to be brought together. The Tartarean trumpet, with its hoarse voice, called up the dwellers in everlasting darkness. The huge black caverns trembled to their depths, and the blind air rebellowed with the thunder. The bolt does not break forth so horribly when it comes bursting after the flash out of the heavens; nor had the world before ever trembled with such an earthquake.[1]

The gods of the abyss came thronging up on all sides through the gates;—terrible-looking beings with unaccountable aspects, dispensers of death and horror with their eyes;—some stamping with hoofs, some rolling on enormous spires,—their faces human, their hair serpents. There were thousands of shameless Harpies, of pallid Gorgons, of barking Scyllas, of Chimeras that vomited ashes, and of monsters never before heard or thought of, with perverse aspects all mixed up in one.

The Power of Evil sat looking down upon them, huger than a rock in the sea, or an alp with forked summits. A certain horrible majesty augmented the terrors of his aspect. His eyes reddened; his poisonous look hung in the air like a comet; the mouth, as it opened in the midst of clouds of beard, seemed an abyss of darkness and blood; and out of it, as from a volcano, issued fires, and vapours, and disgust.

Satan laid forth to his dreadful hearers his old quarrel with Heaven, and its new threats of an extension of its empire. Christendom was to be brought into Asia; their worshippers were to perish; souls were to be rescued from their devices, and Satan's kingdom on earth put an end to. He exhorted them therefore to issue forth once for all and prevent this fatal consummation by the destruction of the Christian forces. Some of the leaders he bade them do their best to disperse, others to slay, others to draw into effeminate pleasures, into rebellion, into the ruin of the whole camp, so that not a vestige might remain of its existence.

The assembly broke up with the noise of hurricanes. They issued forth to look once more upon the stars, and to sow seeds every where of destruction to the Christians. Satan himself followed them, and entered the heart of Hydraotes, king of Damascus.

Hydraotes was a wizard as well as a king, and held the Christians in abhorrence. But he was wise enough to respect their valour; and with Satan's help he discerned the likeliest way to counteract it. He had a niece, who was the greatest beauty of the age. He had taught her his art: and he concluded, that the enchantments of beauty and magic united would prove irresistible. He therefore disclosed to her his object. He told her that every artifice was lawful, when the intention was to serve one's country and one's faith; and he conjured her to do her utmost to separate Godfrey himself from his army, or in the event of that not being possible, to bring away as many as she could of his noblest captains.

Armida (for that was her name), proud of her beauty, and of the unusual arts that she had acquired, took her way the same evening, alone, and by the most sequestered paths,—a female in gown and tresses issuing forth to conquer an army.[2]

She had not travelled many days ere she came in sight of the Christian camp, the outskirts of which she entered immediately. The Frenchmen all flocked to see her, wondering who she was, and who could have sent them so lovely a messenger. Armida passed onwards, not with a misgiving air, not with an unalluring, and yet not with an immodest one. Her golden tresses she suffered at one moment to escape from under her veil, and at another she gathered them again within it. Her rosy mouth breathed simplicity as well as voluptuousness. Her bosom was so artfully draped, as to let itself be discerned without seeming to intend it. And thus she passed along, surprising and transporting every body. Coming at length among the tents of the officers, she requested to be shewn that of the leader; and Eustace eagerly stepped forward to conduct her.

Eustace was the younger brother of Godfrey. He had all the ardour of his time of life, and the gallantry, in every respect, of a Frenchman. After paying her a profusion of compliments, and learning that she was a fugitive in distress, he promised her every thing which his brother's authority and his own sword could do for her; and so led her into Godfrey's presence.

The pretended fugitive made a lowly obeisance, and then stood mute and blushing, till the general re-assured her. She then told him, that she was the rightful queen of Damascus, whose throne was usurped by an uncle; that her uncle sought her death, from which she had been saved by the man who was bribed to inflict it; and that although her creed was Mahometan, she had brought her mind to conclude, that so noble an enemy as Godfrey would take pity on her condition, and permit some of his captains to aid the secret wishes of her people, and seat her on the throne. Ten selected chiefs would overcome, she said, all opposition; and she promised in return to become his grateful and faithful vassal.

The leader of the Christian army sat a while in deliberation. His heart was inclined to befriend the lady, but his prudence was afraid of a Pagan artifice. He thought also that it did not become his piety to turn aside from the enterprise which God had favoured. He therefore gave her a gentle refusal; but added, that should success attend him, and Jerusalem be taken, he would instantly do what she required.

Armida looked down, and wept. A mixture of indignation and despair appeared to seize her; and exclaiming that she had no longer a wish to live, she accused, she said, not a heart so renowned for generosity as his, but Heaven itself which had steeled it against her. What was she to do? She could not remain in his camp. Virgin modesty forbade that. She was not safe out of its bounds. Her enemies tracked her steps. It was fit that she should die by her own hand.

An indignant pity took possession of the French officers. They wondered how Godfrey could resist the prayers of a creature so beautiful; and Eustace openly, though respectfully, remonstrated. He said, that if ten of the best of his captains could not be spared, ten others might; that it especially became the Christians to redress the wrongs of the innocent; that the death of a tyrant, instead of being a deviation from the service of God, was one of the directest means of performing it; and that France would never endure to hear, that a lady had applied to her knights for assistance, and found her suit refused.

A murmur of approbation followed the words of Eustace. His companions pressed nearer to the general, and warmly urged his request.

Godfrey assented to a wish expressed by so many, but not with perfect goodwill. He bade them remember, that the measure was the result of their own opinion, not his; and concluded by requesting them at all events, for his sake, to moderate the excess of their confidence. The transported warriors had scarcely any answer to make but that of congratulations to the lady. She, on her side, while mischief was rejoicing in her heart, first expressed her gratitude to all in words intermixed with smiles and tears, and then carried herself towards every one in particular in the manner which she thought most fitted to ensnare. She behaved to this person with cordiality, to that with comparative reserve; to one with phrases only, to another with looks besides, and intimations of secret preference. The ardour of some she repressed, but still in a manner to rekindle it. To others she was all gaiety and attraction; and when others again had their eyes upon her, she would fall into fits of absence, and shed tears, as if in secret, and then look up suddenly and laugh, and put on a cheerful patience. And thus she drew them all into her net.

Yet none of all these men confessed that passion impelled them; every body laid his enthusiasm to the account of honour—Eustace particularly, because he was most in love. He was also very jealous, especially of the heroical Rinaldo, Prince of Este; and as the squadron of horse to which they both belonged—the greatest in the army—had lately been deprived of its chief, Eustace cast in his mind how he might keep Rinaldo from going with Armida, and at the same time secure his own attendance on her, by advancing him to the vacant post. He offered his services to Rinaldo for the purpose, not without such emotion as let the hero into his secret; but as the latter had no desire to wait on the lady, he smilingly assented, agreeing at the same time to assist the wishes of the lover. The emissaries of Satan, however, were at work in all quarters. If Eustace was jealous of Rinaldo as a rival in love, Gernando, Prince of Norway, another of the squadron that had lost its chief, was no less so of his gallantry in war, and of his qualifications for being his commander. Gernando was a haughty barbarian, who thought that every sort of pre-eminence was confined to princes of blood royal. He heard of the proposal of Eustace with a disgust that broke into the unworthiest expressions. He even vented it in public, in the open part of the camp, when Rinaldo was standing at no great distance; and the words coming to the hero's ears, and breaking down the tranquillity of his contempt, the latter darted towards him, sword in hand, and defied him to single combat. Gernando beheld death before him, but made a show of valour, and stood on his defence. A thousand swords leaped forth to back him, mixed with as many voices; and half the camp of Godfrey tried to withhold the impetuous youth who was for deciding his quarrel without the general's leave. But the hero's transport was not to be stopped; he dashed through them all, forced the Norwegian to encounter him, and after a storm of blows that dazzled the man's eyes and took away his senses, ran his sword thrice through the prince's body. He then sent the blade into its sheath reeking as it was, and, taking his way back to his tent, reposed in the calmness of his triumph.

The victor had scarcely gone, when the general arrived on the ground. He beheld the slain Prince of Norway with acute feelings of regret. What was to become of his army, if the leaders thus quarrelled among themselves, and his authority was set at nought? The friends of the slain man increased his anger against Rinaldo, by charging him with all the blame of the catastrophe. The hero's friend, Tancred, assuaged it somewhat by disclosing the truth, and then ventured to ask pardon for the outbreak. But the wise commander skewed so many reasons why such an offence could not be overlooked, and his countenance expressed such a determination to resent it, that the gallant youth hastened secretly to his friend, and urged him to quit the camp till his services should be needed. Rinaldo at first called for his arms, and was bent on resisting every body who came to seize him, had it been even Godfrey himself; but Tancred shewing him how unjust that would be, and how fatal to the Christian cause, he consented with an ill grace to depart. He would take nobody with him but two squires; and he went away raging with a sense of ill requital for his achievements, but resolving to prove their value by destroying every infidel prince that he could encounter.

Armida now tried in vain to make an impression on the heart of Godfrey. He was insensible to all her devices; but she succeeded in quitting the camp with her ten champions. Lots were drawn to determine who should go; and all who failed to be in the list—Eustace among them—were so jealous of the rest, that at night-time, after the others had been long on the road, they set out to overtake them, each by himself, and all in violation of their soldierly words. The ten opposed them as they came up, but to no purpose. Armida reconciled them all in appearance, by feigning to be devoted to each in secret; and thus she rode on with them many a mile, till she came to a castle on the Dead Sea, where she was accustomed to practise her unfriendliest arts.

Meanwhile news came to Godfrey that his Egyptian enemies were at hand with a great fleet, and that his caravan of provisions had been taken by the robbers of the desert. His army was thus threatened with ruin from desertion, starvation, and the sword. He maintained a calm and even a cheerful countenance; but in his thoughts he had great anxiety.

Part the Second.

ARMIDA'S HATE AND LOVE.

The castle to which Armida took her prisoners occupied an island close to the shore in the loathsome Dead Sea. They entered it by means of a narrow bridge; but if their pity had been great at seeing her forced to take refuge in a spot so desolate and repulsive, how pleasingly was it changed into as great a surprise at finding a totally different region within the walls! The gardens were extensive and lovely; the rivulets and fountains as sweet as the flowery thickets they watered; the breezes refreshing, the skies of a sapphire blue, and the birds were singing round about them in the trees. Her riches astonished them no less. The side of the castle that looked on the gardens was all marble and gold; a banquet awaited them beside a water on a shady lawn, consisting of the exquisitest viands on the costliest plate; and a hundred beautiful maidens attended them while they feasted. The enchantress was all smiles and delight; and such was her art, that although she bestowed no favour on any body beyond his banquet and his hopes, every body thought himself the favoured lover.

But no sooner was the feast over, than the greatest and worst of their astonishments ensued. The lady quitted them, saying she should return presently. She did so with a troubled and unfriendly countenance, having a book in one hand, and a little wand in the other. She read in the book in a low voice, and while she was reading shook the little wand; and the guests, altering in every part of their being, and shrinking into minute bodies, felt an inclination, which they obeyed, to plunge into the water beside them. They were fish. In a little while they were again men, looking her in the face with dread and amazement. She had restored them to their humanity. She regarded them with a severe countenance, and said "You have tasted my power; I can exercise it far more terribly—can put you in dungeons for ever—can turn you to roots in the ground—to flints within the rock. Beware of my wrath, and please me; quit your faiths for mine, and fight against the blasphemer Godfrey."

Every Christian but one rejected her alternative with abhorrence. Him she made one of her champions; the rest were tied and bound, and after being kept a while in a dungeon were sent off as a present to the King of Egypt, with an escort that came from Damascus to fetch them.

Exulting was left the fair and bigoted magician; but she little guessed what a new fortune awaited them on the road. The discord with which the powers of evil had seconded her endeavours to weaken the Christian camp, had turned in this instance against herself. It had made Rinaldo a wanderer; it had brought his wanderings into this very path; and he now met the prisoners, and bade defiance to the escort. A battle ensued, in which the hero won his accustomed victory. The Christians, receiving the armour of their foes, joyfully took their way back to the camp; and one of the escort, who escaped the slaughter, returned to Armida with news of the deliverance of her captives.

The mortified enchantress took horse and went in pursuit of Rinaldo, with wrath and vengeance in her heart. She tracked him from place to place, till she knew he must arrive on the banks of the Orontes; and there, making a stealthy circuit, she cast a spell, and lay in wait for him in a little island which divided the stream in two.[3]

Rinaldo came up with his squires; he beheld on the bank a pillar of white marble, and beside it on the water a little boat. The pillar presented an inscription, inviting travellers to cross to the island and behold a wonder of the world. The hero accepted the invitation; but as the boat was too small to hold more than one person, and the circumstance probably an appeal to his courage, he bade his squires wait for him, and proceeded by himself.

On reaching the island and casting his eyes eagerly round about, the adventurer could discern nothing but trees and grottos, flowers and grass, and water. He thought himself trifled with; but as the spot was beautiful and refreshing, he took off his helmet, resolving to stay a little and repose. He crossed to the farther side of the island, and lay down on the river-side. On a sudden he observed the water bubble and gurgle in a manner that was very strange; and presently the top of a head arose with beautiful hair, then the face of a damsel, then the bosom. The fair creature stood half out of the stream, and warbled a song so luxurious and so lulling, that the little wind there was seemed to fall in order to listen; and the young warrior was so drowsed with the sweetness, that languor crept through all his senses, and he slept. Armida came from out a thicket and looked on him. She had resolved that he should perish. But when she saw how placidly he breathed, and what an intimation of beautiful eyes there was in his very eyelids, she hung over him, still looking.

In a little while she sat down by his side, always looking. She hung over him as Narcissus did over the water, and indignation melted out of her heart. She cooled his face with her veil; she made a fan of it; she gave herself up to the worship of those hidden eyes. Of an enemy she became a lover.[4]

Armida gathered trails of roses and lilies from the thickets around her, and cast a spell on them, and made bands with which she fettered his sleeping limbs; and then she called her nymphs, and they put him into her ear, and she went away with him through the air far off, even to one of the Fortunate Islands in the great ocean, where her jealousy, assisted by her art, would be in dread of no visitors, no discovery. She bore him to the top of a mountain, and cast a spell about the mountain, to make the top lovely and the sides inaccessible. She put shapes of wild beasts and monsters in the woods of the lowest region, and heaps of ice in the second, and alluring and betraying shapes and enchantments towards the summit; and round the summit she put walls and labyrinths of inextricable error; and in the heart of these was a palace by a lake, and the loveliest of gardens.

Mere Rinaldo was awaked by love and beauty; and here for the present he is left.

Part the Third.

THE TERRORS OF THE ENCHANTED FOREST.

Meantime the siege of the Holy City had gone on, with various success on either side, but chiefly to the loss of the Christians. The machinations of Satan were prevailing. Rinaldo, in his absence, was thought to have been slain by the contrivance of Godfrey, which nearly produced a revolt of the forces. Godfrey was himself wounded in battle by Clorinda: and now the great wooden tower was burnt, and Clorinda slain in consequence (as you have heard in another place), which oppressed the courage of Tancred with melancholy.

On the other hand, the Powers of Evil were far from being as prosperous as they wished. They had lost the soul of Clorinda. They had seen Godfrey healed by a secret messenger from Heaven, who dropt celestial balsam into his wound. They had seen the return of Armida's prisoners, who had arrived just in time to change the fortune of a battle, and drive the Pagans back within their walls. And worse than all, they had again felt the arm of St. Michael, who had threatened them with worse consequences if they reappeared in the contest.

The fiends, however, had colleagues on earth, who plotted for them meanwhile. The Christians had set about making another tower; but in this proceeding they were thwarted by the enchanter Ismeno, who cast his spells to better purpose this time than he had done in the affair of the stolen image. The forest in which the Christians obtained wood for these engines lay in a solitary valley, not far from the camp. It was very old, dark, and intricate; and had already an evil fame as the haunt of impure spirits. No shepherd ever took his flock there; no Pagan would cut a bough from it; no traveller approached it, unless he had lost his way: he made a large circuit to avoid it, and pointed it out anxiously to his companions.

The necessity of the Christians compelled them to defy this evil repute of the forest; and Ismeno hastened to oppose them. He drew his line, and uttered his incantations, and called on the spirits whom St. Michael had rebuked, bidding them come and take charge of the forest—every one of his tree, as a soul of its body. The spirits delayed at first, not only for dread of the great angel, but because they resented the biddings of mortality, even in their own cause. The magician, however, persisted; and his spells becoming too powerful to be withstood, presently they came pouring in by myriads, occupying the whole place, and rendering the very approach to it a task of fear and labour. The first party of men that came to cut wood were unable to advance when they beheld the trees, but turned like children, and became the mockery of the camp. Godfrey sent them back, with a chosen squadron to animate them to the work; but the squadron themselves, however boldly they affected to proceed, lead no sooner approached the spot, than they found reason to forgive the fears of the woodcutters. The earth shook; a great wind began rising, with a sound of waters; and presently, every dreadful noise ever heard by man seemed mingled into one, and advancing to meet them—roarings of lions, hissings of serpents, pealings and rolls of thunder. The squadron went back to Godfrey, and plainly confessed that it had not courage enough to enter such a place.

A leader, of the name of Alcasto, shook his head at this candour with a contemptuous smile. He was a man of the stupider sort of courage, without mind enough to conceive danger. "Pretty soldiers," exclaimed he, "to be afraid of noises and sights! Give the duty to me. Nothing shall stop Alcasto, though the place be the mouth of hell."

Alcasto went; and he went farther than the rest, and the trembling woodcutters once more prepared their axes; but, on a sudden, there sprang up between them and the trees a wall of fire which girded the whole forest. It had glowing battlements and towers; and on these there appeared armed spirits, with the strangest and most bewildering aspects. Alcasto retired—slowly indeed, but with shame and terror; nor had he the courage to re-appear before his commander. Godfrey had him brought, but could hardly get a word from his lips. The man talked like one in a dream.

At last Tancred went. He would have, gone before; but he had neither thought the task so difficult, nor did he care for any thing that was going forward. His mind was occupied with the dead Clorinda. He had now work that aroused him; and he set out in good earnest for the forest, not unmoved in his imagination, but resolved to defy all appearances.

Arrived at the wall of fire, Tancred halted a moment, and looked up at the visages on its battlements, not without alarm. Many reflections passed swiftly through his mind, some urging him forward, others withholding; but he concluded with stepping right through the fire. It did not resist him: he did not feel it.

The fire vanished; and, in its stead, there poured down a storm of hail and rain, black as midnight. This vanished also.

Tancred stood amazed for an instant, and then passed on. He was soon in the thick of the wood, and for some time made his way with difficulty. On a sudden, he issued forth into a large open glade, like an amphitheatre, in which there was nothing but a cypress-tree that stood in the middle. The cypress was marked with hieroglyphical characters, mixed with some words in the Syrian tongue which he could read; and these words requested the stranger to spare the fated place, nor trouble the departed souls who were there shut up in the trees. Meantime the wind was constantly moaning around it; and in the moaning was a sound of human sighs and tears.

Tancred's heart, for a moment, was overcome with awe and pity; but recollecting himself, and resolving to make amends for his credulity, he smote with all his might at the cypress. The blow, wonderful to see, produced an effusion of blood, which dyed the grass about the root. Tancred's hair stood on end. He smote, however, again, with double violence, resolving to see the end of the marvel; and then he heard a woful voice issuing as from a tomb.

"Hast thou not hurt me," it said, "Tancred, enough already? Hast thou slain the human body which I once joyfully inhabited; and now must thou cut and rend me, even in this wretched enclosure? My name was Clorinda. Every tree which thou beholdest is the habitation of some Christian or Pagan soul; for all come hither that are slain beneath the walls of the city, compelled by I know not what power, or for what reason. 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. "It is not in my power," he said, "to touch another bough of that forest."[5]

The astonished leader of the Christians now made up his mind to go himself; and so, with prayer and valour united, bring this appalling adventure to some conclusion. But the hermit Peter dissuaded him. The holy man, in an ecstacy of foreknowledge, beheld the coming of the only champion fated to conclude it; and Godfrey himself the same night had a vision from heaven, bidding him grant the petition of those who should sue him next day for the recall of Rinaldo from exile—Rinaldo, the right hand of the army, as Godfrey was its head.

The petition was made as soon as daylight appeared; and two knights,
Carlo and Ubaldo, were despatched in search of the fated hero.

Part the Fourth

THE LOVES OF RINALDO AND ARMIDA.

The knights, with information procured on the road from a good wizard, struck off for the sea-coast, and embarking in a pinnace which miraculously awaited them, sailed along the shores of the Mediterranean for the retreat of Armida. They saw the Egyptian army assembled at Gaza, but hoped to return with Rinaldo before it could effect anything at Jerusalem. They passed the mouths of the Nile, and Alexandria, and Cyrene, and Ptolemais, and the cities of the Moors, and the dangers of the Greater and Lesser Whirlpools, and their pilot showed them the spot where Carthage stood,—Carthage, now a dead city, whose grave is scarcely discernible. For cities die; kingdoms die;—a little sand and grass covers all that was once lofty in them and glorious. And yet man, forsooth, disdains that he is mortal! Oh, mind of ours, inordinate and proud![6]

After looking towards the site of Carthage, they passed Algiers, and Oran, and Tingitana, and beheld the opposite coast of Spain, and then they cleared the narrow sea of Gibraltar, and came out into the immeasurable ocean, leaving all sight of land behind them; and so speeding ever onward in the billows, they beheld at last a cluster of mountainous and beautiful islands; the larger ones inhabited by a simple people, the smaller quite wild and desolate. So at least they appeared. But in one of these smaller islands was the mountain, on the top of which, in the indulgence of every lawless pleasure, lay the champion of the Christian faith. This the pilot shewed to the two knights, and then steered the pinnace into its bay; and here, after a voyage of four days and nights, it dropped its sails without need of anchor, so mild and sheltered was the port, with natural moles curving towards the entrance, and evergreen woods overhead.

It was evening, with a beautiful sunset. The knights took leave of the pilot, and setting out instantly on their journey, well furnished with all advices how to proceed, slept that night at the foot of the mountain; for they were not to begin to scale it till sunrise. With the first beams of the sun they arose and ascended. They had not climbed far, when a serpent rushed out upon the path, entirely stopping it, but fled at the sound of a slender rod, which Ubaldo whisked as he advanced. A lion, for all his cavernous jaws, did the same; nor was greater resistance made by a whole herd of monsters. They now mounted with great labour the region of ice and snow; but, at the top of it, emerged from winter-time into summer. The air was full of sweet odours, yet fresh; they sauntered (for they could not walk fast) over a velvet sward, under trees, by the side of a shady river; and a bewitching pleasure began to invite their senses. But they knew the river, and bore in mind their duty. It was called the River of Laughter.[7] A little way on, increasing in beauty as it went, it formed a lucid pool in a dell; and by the side of this pool was a table spread with every delicacy, and in the midst of it two bathing damsels, talking and laughing. Sometimes they sprinkled one another, then dived, then partly came up without spewing their faces, then played a hundred tricks, pretending all the while not to see the travellers. Then they became quiet, and sunk gently; and, as they reappeared, one of them rose half into sight, sweetly as the morning star when it issues from the water, dewy and dropping, or as Venus herself arose out of the froth of the sea. Such looked this damsel, and so did the crystal moisture go dropping from her tresses. Then she turned her eyes towards the travellers, and feigning to behold them for the first time, shrunk within herself. She hastened to undo the knot in which her tresses were tied up, and shook them round about her, and down they fell to the water thick and long, enclosing that beautiful sight; and yet the enclosure itself was not less beautiful. So, hid in the pool below, and in her tresses above, she glanced at the knights through her hair, with a blushing gladness. She blushed and she laughed at the same time; and the blushing was more beautiful for the laughter, and the laughter for the blushing; and then she said, in a voice which would alone have conquered any other hearers, "You are very happy to be allowed to come to this place. Nothing but delight is here. Our queen must have chosen you from a great number. But be pleased first to rid you of the dust of your journey, and to refresh yourselves at this table."

So spake the one; and the other accompanied her speech with accordant looks and gestures, as the dance accompanies the music.

Nor was the allurement unfelt.

But the companions passed on, taking no notice; and the bathers went sullenly under the water.[8]

The knights passed through the gates of the park of Armida, and entered a labyrinth made with contrivance the most intricate. Here their path would have been lost, but for a map traced by one who knew the secret. By the help of this they threaded it in safety, and issued upon a garden beautiful beyond conception. Every thing that could be desired in gardens was presented to their eyes in one landscape, and yet without contradiction or confusion,—flowers, fruits, water, sunny hills, descending woods, retreats into corners and grottos: and what put the last loveliness upon the scene was, that the art which did it all was no where discernible.[9] You might have supposed (so exquisitely was the wild and the cultivated united) that all had somehow happened, not been contrived. It seemed to be the art of Nature herself; as though, in a fit of playfulness, she had imitated her imitator. But the temperature of the place, if nothing else, was plainly the work of magic, for blossoms and fruit abounded at the same time. The ripe and the budding fig grew on the same bough; green apples were clustered upon those with red cheeks; the vines in one place had small leaves and hard little grapes, and in the next they laid forth their richest tapestry in the sun, heavy with bunches full of wine. At one time you listened to the warbling of birds; and a minute after, as if they had stopped on purpose, nothing was heard but the whispering of winds and the fall of waters. It seemed as if every thing in the place contributed to the harmony and the sweetness. The notes of the turtle-dove were deeper here than any where else; the hard oak, and the chaste laurel, and the whole exuberant family of trees, the earth, the water, every element of creation, seemed to have been compounded but for one object, and to breathe forth the fulness of its bliss.[10]

The two messengers, hardening their souls with all their might against the enchanting impression, moved forward silently among the trees; till, looking through the branches into a little opening which formed a bower, they saw—or did they but think they saw?—no, they saw indeed the hero and his Armida reclining on the grass.[11] Her dress was careless, her hair loose in the summer-wind. His head lay in her bosom; a smile trembled on her lips and in her eyes, like a sunbeam in water; and as she thus looked on him with passionate love, he looked up at her, face to face, and returned it with all his soul.

Now she kissed his lips, now his eyes; and then they looked again at one another with their ever-hungry looks; and then she kissed him again, and he gave a sigh so deep you would have thought his soul had gone out of him, and passed into hers. The two warriors from their covert gazed on the loving scene.

At the lover's side there hung a strange accoutrement for a warrior, namely, a crystal mirror. He rose a little on his elbow, and gave it into Armida's hands: and in two different objects each beheld but one emotion, she hers in the glass, and he his own in her eyes. But he would not suffer her to look long at any thing but himself; and then they spake loving and adoring words; and after a while Armida bound up her hair, and put some flowers into it, as jewels might be put upon gold, and added a rose or two to the lilies of her bosom, and adjusted her veil. And never did peacock look so proudly beautiful when he displays the pomp of his eyed plumes; nor was ever the rainbow so sweetly coloured when it curves forth its dewy bosom against the light.[12] But lovely above all was the effect of a magic girdle which the enchantress had made with her whole art, and which she never laid aside day or night. Spirit in it had taken substance; the subtlest emotions of the soul a shape and palpability. Tender disdains were in it, and repulses that attracted, and levities that endeared, and contentments full of joy, and smiles, and little words, and drops of delicious tears, and short-coming sighs, and soft kisses. All these she had mingled together, and made one delight out of many, and wound it about her heart, and wore it for a charm irresistible.[13]

And now she kissed him once more, and begged leave of a little absence (for love is courteous ever), and so went as usual to her books and her magic arts. Rinaldo remained where he was, for he had no power to wish himself out of the sweet spot; only he would stray a while among the trees, and amuse himself with the birds and squirrels, and so be a loving hermit till she returned. And at night they retired under one roof, still in the midst of the garden.

But no sooner had Armida gone, than the two warriors issued from their hiding-place, and stood before the lover, glittering in their noble arms.

As a war-horse, that has been taken from the wars, and become the luxurious husband of the stud, wanders among the drove in the meadows in vile enjoyment; should by chance a trumpet be heard in the place, or a dazzling battle-axe become visible, he turns towards it on the instant, and neighs, and longs to be in the lists, and vehemently desires the rider on his back who is to dash and be dashed at in the encounter;—even so turned the young hero when the light of the armour flashed upon him, even so longed for the war, even so shook himself up out of his bed of pleasure, with all his great qualities awaked and eager.

Ubaldo saw the movement in his heart, and held right in his face the shield of adamant, which had been brought for the purpose. It was a mirror that shewed to the eyes of every one who looked into it the very man as he was.

But when Rinaldo beheld himself indeed,—when he read his transformation, not in the flattering glass of the enchantress, but by the light of this true, and simple, and severe reflector,—his hair tricked out with flowers and unguents, his soft mantle of exquisitest dye, and his very sword rendered undistinguishable for what it was by a garland,—shame and remorse fell upon him. He felt indeed like a dreamer come to himself. He looked down. He could not speak. He wished to hide himself in the bottom of the sea.

Ubaldo raised his voice and spoke. "All Europe and Asia," said he, "are in arms. Whoever desires fame, or is a worshipper of his Saviour, is a fighter in the land of Syria. Thou only, O son of Bertoldo, remainest out of the high way of renown—in luxury—in a little corner; thou only, unmoved with the movement of the world, the champion of a girl. What dream, what lethargy can have drowned a valour like thine? What vileness have had attraction for thee? Up, up, and with us. The camp, the commander himself calls for thee; fortune and victory await thee. Come, fated warrior, and finish thy work; see the false creed which thou hast shaken, laid low beneath thy inevitable sword."

On hearing these words the noble youth remained for a time without speaking, without moving. At length shame gave way to a passionate sense of his duty. With a new fire in his cheeks, he tore away the effeminate ornaments of his servitude, and quitted the spot without a word. In a few moments he had threaded the labyrinth: he was outside the gate. Ere long he was descending the mountain.

But meantime Armida had received news of the two visitors; and coming to look for them, and casting her eyes down the steep, she beheld—with his face, alas, turned no longer towards her own—the hasty steps of her hero between his companions. She wished to cry aloud, but was unable. She might have resorted to some of her magic devices, but her heart forbade her. She ran, however—for what cared she for dignity?—she ran down the mountain, hoping still by her beauty and her tears to arrest the fugitive; but his feet were too strong, even for love: she did not reach him till he had arrived on the sea-shore. 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."

Even the messengers were moved at this, or seemed to be moved. Ubaldo told the fugitive that it would be heroical in him to wait and hear what the lady had to say, with gentleness and firmness.

His conquest over himself would then be complete.

Rinaldo stopped, and Armida came up breathless and in tears—lovelier than ever. She looked earnestly at him at first, without a word. He gave her but a glance, and looked aside.

As a fine singer, before he lets loose his tongue in the lofty utterance of his emotion, prepares the minds of his hearers with some sweet prelude, exquisitely modulating in a lower tone,—so the enchantress, whose anguish had not deprived her of all sense of her art, breathed a few sighs to dispose the soul of her idol to listen, and then said: "I do not beg thee to hear me as one that loves me. We both loved once; but that is over. I beg thee to hear, even though as one that loves me not. It will cost thy disdain nothing to grant me that. Perhaps thou hast discovered a pleasure in hating me. Do so. I come not to deprive thee of it. If it seem just to thee, just let it be. I too once hated. I hated the Christians—hated even thyself. I thought it right to do so: I was bred up to think it. I pursued thee to do thee mischief; I overtook thee; I bore thee away; and worse than all—for now perhaps thou loathest me for it—I loved thee. I loved thee, for the first time that I loved any one; nay, I made thee love me in turn; and, alas, I gave myself into thine arms. It was wrong. I was foolish; I was wicked. I grant that I have deserved thou shouldst think ill of me, that thou shouldst punish me, and quit me, and hate to have any remembrance of this place which I had filled with delights. Go; pass over the seas; make war against my friends and my country; destroy us all, and the religion we believe in. Alas! 'we' do I say? The religion is mine no longer—O thou, the cruel idol of my soul. Oh, let me go with thee, if it be but as thy servant, thy slave. Let the conqueror take with him his captive; let her be mocked; let her be pointed at; only let her be with thee. I will cut off these tresses, which no longer please thee: I will clothe myself in other attire, and go with thee into the battle. I have courage and strength enough to bear thy lance, to lead thy spare-horse, to be, above all, thy shield-bearer—thy shield. Nothing shall touch thee but through me—through this bosom, Rinaldo. Perhaps mischance may spare thee for its sake. Not a word? not a little word? Do I dare to boast of what thou hadst once a kind word for, though now thou wilt neither look upon me nor speak to me?"

She could say no more: her words were suffocated by a torrent of tears. But she sought to take his hand, to arrest him by his mantle—in vain. He could scarcely, it is true, restrain his tears: but he did. He looked sorrowful, but composed; and at length he said: "Armida, would I could do as thou wishest; but I cannot. I would relieve thee instantly of all this tumult of emotion. No hate is there in him that must quit thee; no such disdain as thou fanciest; nothing but the melancholy and impetuous sense of his duty. Thou hast erred, it is true—erred both in love and hate; but have I not erred with thee? and can I find excuse which is not found for thyself? Dear and honoured ever wilt thou be with Rinaldo, whether in joy or sorrow. Count me, if it please thee, thy champion still, as far as my country and my faith permit; but here, in this spot, must be buried all else—buried, not for my sake only, but for that of thy beauty, thy worthiness, thy royal blood. Consent to disparage thyself no longer. Peace be with thee. I go where I have no permission to take thee with me. 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? vouchsafe me his pardon, as if I had offended him? excuse my guilt and my tenderness; he, the sage of virtue, and me, the wretch! O God! and these are the men that take upon them to slaughter the innocent, and dictate faiths to the world! Go, hard heart, with such peace as thou leavest in this bosom. Begone; take thine injustice from my sight for ever. My spirit will follow thee, not as a help, but as a retribution. I shall die first, and thou wilt die speedily: thou wilt perish in the battle. Thou wilt lie expiring among the dead and bleeding, and wilt call on Armida in thy last moments, and I shall hear it—yes, I shall hear it; I shall look for that."

Down fell Armida on the ground, senseless; and Rinaldo stood over her, weeping at last. Open thine eyes, poor wretch, and see him. Alas, the heavens deny thee the consolation! What will he do? Will he leave thee lying there betwixt dead and alive? Or will he go—pitying thee, but still going? He goes; he is gone; he is in the bark, and the wind is in the sail; and he looks back—ever back; but still goes: the shore begins to be out of sight.

Armida woke, and was alone. She raved again, but it was for vengeance. In a few days she was with the Egyptian army, a queen at the head of her vassals, going against the Christians at Jerusalem.

Part the Fifth.

THE DISENCHANTMENT OF THE FOREST, AND THE TAKING OF JERUSALEM, &c.

Rinaldo arrived without loss of time in the Christian camp before Jerusalem. Every body rejoiced to see the right hand of the army. Godfrey gladly pardoned him; the hermit Peter blessed him; he himself retired to beg the forgiveness and favour of Heaven; and then he went straight to the Enchanted Forest.

It was a beautiful morning, and the forest, instead of presenting its usual terrors, appeared to him singularly tranquil and pleasing. On entering it he heard, not dreadful thunder-claps, but harmonies made up of all sorts of gentle and lovely sounds—brooks, whispering winds, nightingales, organs, harps, human voices. He went slowly and cautiously, and soon came to a beautiful river which encircled the heart of the wood. A bridge of gold carried him over. He had no sooner crossed it, than the river higher up suddenly swelled and rushed like a torrent, sweeping the bridge away. The harmony meanwhile had become silent. 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. Looking around him, he observed to his astonishment an oak suddenly cleave itself open, and out of it there came a nymph. A hundred other trees did the same, giving birth to as many nymphs. They were all habited as we see them in theatres; only, instead of bows and arrows, each held a lute or guitar. Coming towards the hero with joyful eyes, they formed a circle about him, and danced; and in their dancing they sang, and bade him welcome to the haunt of their mistress, their loving mistress, of whom he was the only hope and joy. Looking as they spoke towards the myrtle, Rinaldo looked also, and beheld, issuing out of it—Armida.

Armida came sweetly towards him, with a countenance at once grieving and rejoicing, but expressing above all infinite affection. "And do I indeed see thee again?" she said; "and wilt thou not fly me a second time? am I visited to be consoled, or to be treated again as an enemy? is poor Armida so formidable, that thou must needs close up thine helmet when thou beholdest her? Thou mightest surely have vouchsafed her once more a sight of thine eyes. Let us be friends, at least, if we may be nothing more. Wilt thou not take her hand?"

Rinaldo's answer was, to turn away as from a cheat, to look towards the myrtle-tree, to draw his sword, and proceed with manifest intentions of assailing it. She ran before him shrieking, and hugged it round. "Nay, thou wilt not," she said, "thou wilt not hurt my tree—not cut and slay what is bound up with the life of Armida? Thy sword must pass first through her bosom."

Armida writhed and wailed; Rinaldo nevertheless raised his sword, and it was coming against the tree, when her shape, like a thing in a dream, was metamorphosed as quick as lightning. It became a giant, a Briareus, wielding a hundred swords, and speaking in a voice of thunder. Every one of the nymphs at the same instant became a Cyclops; tempest and earthquake ensued, and the air was full of ghastly spectres.

Rinaldo again raised his arm with a more vehement will; he struck, and at the same instant every horror disappeared. The sky was cloudless; the forest was neither terrible nor beautiful, but heavy and sombre as of old—a natural gloomy wood, but no prodigy.

Rinaldo returned to the camp, his aspect that of a conqueror; the silver wings of his crest, the white eagle, glittering in the sun. The hermit Peter came forward to greet him; a shout was sent up by the whole camp; Godfrey gave him high reception; nobody envied him. Workmen, no longer trembling, were sent to the forest to cut wood for the machines of war; and the tower was rebuilt, together with battering-rams and balistas, and catapults, most of them an addition to what they had before. The tower also was now clothed with bulls-hides, as a security against being set on fire; and a bridge was added to the tower, from which the besiegers could at once step on the city-walls.

With these long-desired invigorations of his strength, the commander of the army lost no time in making a general assault on Jerusalem; for a dove, supernaturally pursued by a falcon, had brought him letters intended for the besieged, informing them, that if they could only hold out four days longer, their Egyptian allies would be at hand. The Pagans beheld with dismay the resuscitated tower, and all the new engines coming against them. They fought valiantly; but Rinaldo and Godfrey prevailed. The former was the first to scale the walls, the latter to plant his standard from the bridge. The city was entered on all sides, and the enemy driven, first into Solomon's Temple, and then into the Citadel, or Tower of David. Before the assault, Godfrey had been vouchsafed a sight of armies of angels in the air, accompanied by the souls of those who had fallen before Jerusalem; the latter still fighting, the former rejoicing; so that there was no longer doubt of triumph; only it still pleased Heaven that human virtue should be tried.

And now, after farther exploits on both sides, the last day of the war, and the last hope of the Infidels, arrived at the same time; for the Egyptian army came up to give battle with the Christians, and to restore Jerusalem, if possible, to its late owners, now cramped up in one corner of it—the citadel. The besiegers in their narrow hold raised a shout of joy at the sight; and Godfrey, leaving them to be detained in it by an experienced captain, went forth to meet his new opponents. Crowns of Africa and of Persia were there, and the king of the Indies; and in the midst of all, in a chariot surrounded by her knights and suitors, was Armida.

The battle joined, and great was the bravery and the slaughter on both sides. It seemed at first all glitter and gaiety—its streamers flying, its arms flashing, drums and trumpets rejoicing, and horses rushing with their horsemen as to the tournament. Horror looked beautiful in the spectacle. Out of the midst of the dread itself there issued a delight. But soon it was a bloody, and a turbulent, and a raging, and a groaning thing:—pennons down, horses and men rolling over, foes heaped upon one another, bright armour exchanged for blood and dirt, flesh trampled, and spirit fatigued. Brave were the Pagans; but how could they stand against Heaven? Godfrey ordered every thing calmly, like a divine mind; Rinaldo swept down the fiercest multitudes, like an arm of God. The besieged in the citadel broke forth, only to let the conquerors in. Jerusalem was won before the battle was over. King after king fell, and yet the vanquished did not fly. Rinaldo went every where to hasten the rout; and still had to fight and slay on. Armida beheld him coming where she sat in the midst of her knights; he saw her, and blushed a little: she turned as cold as ice, then as hot as fire. Her anger was doubled by the slaughter of her friends; and with her woman's hand she sent an arrow out of her bow, hoping, and yet even then hoping not, to slay or to hurt him. The arrow fell on him like a toy; and he turned aside, as she thought, in disdain. Yet he disdained not to smite down her champions. Hope of every kind deserted her. Resolving to die by herself in some lonely spot, she got down from her chariot to horse, and fled out of the field. Rinaldo saw the flight; and though one of the knights that remained to her struck him such a blow as made him reel in his saddle, he despatched the man with another like a thunderbolt, and then galloped after the fugitive.

Armida was in the act of putting a shaft to her bosom, in order to die upon it, when her arm was arrested by a mighty grasp; and turning round, she beheld with a shriek the beloved face of him who had caused the ruin of her and hers. She closed her disdainful eyes and fainted away. Rinaldo supported her; he loosened her girdle; he bathed her bosom and her eyelids with his tears. Coming at length to herself, still she would not look at him. She would fain not have been supported by him. She endeavoured with her weak fingers to undo the strong ones that clasped her; she wept bitterly, and at length spoke, but still without meeting his eyes.

"And may I not," she said, "even die? must I be followed and tormented even in my last moments? What mockery of a wish to save me is this! I will not be watched; I believe not a syllable of such pity; and I will not be made a sight of, and a by-word. I ask my life of thee no longer; I want nothing but death; and death itself I would not receive at such hands; they would render even that felicity hateful. Leave me. I could not be hindered long from putting an end to my miseries, whatever barbarous restraint might be put upon me. There are a thousand ways of dying; and I will be neither hindered, nor deceived, nor flattered—oh, never more!"

Weeping she spoke—weeping always, and sobbing, and full of wilful words.
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."

His tears fell on her eyelids as he spoke—scalding tears; and she looked at him, and her heart re-opened to its lord, all love and worship; and Armida said, "Behold thy handmaid; dispose of her even as thou wilt."

And that same day Godfrey of Boulogne was lord of Jerusalem, and paid his vows on the sepulchre of his Master.

[Footnote 1:

"Chiama gli abitator' de l'ombre eterne
Il rauco suon de la tartarea tromba.
Treman le spaziose atre caverne,
E l'aer cieco a quel romor rimbomba.
Nè sì stridendo mai da le superne
Regioni del cielo il folgor piomba:
Nè sì scossa già mai trema la terra,
Quando i vapori in sen gravida serra."
Canto iv. st. 3.

The trump of Tartarus, with iron roar,
Called to the dwellers the black regions under:
Hell through its caverns trembled to the core,
And the blind air rebellowed to the thunder:
Never yet fiery bolt more fiercely tore
The crashing firmament, like rocks, asunder;
Nor with so huge a shudder earth's foundations
Shook to their mighty heart, lifting the nations.

The tone of this stanza (suggested otherwise by Vida) was caught from a fine one in Politian, the passage in which about the Nile I ought to have called to mind at page 168.

"Con tal romor, qualor l'aer discorda,
Di Giove il foco d'alta nube piomba:
Con tal tumulto, onde la gente assorda,
Da l'alte cataratte il Nil rimbomba:
Con tal orror del Latin sangue ingorda
Sonò Megera la tartarea tromba."

Fragment on the Jousting of Giuliano de' Medici.

Such is the noise, when through his cloudy floor
The bolt of Jove falls on the pale world under;
So shakes the land, where Nile with deafening roar
Plunges his clattering cataracts in thunder;
Horribly so, through Latium's realm of yore,
The trump of Tartarus blew ghastly wonder.]

[Footnote 2:

"La bella Armida, di sua forma altiera,
E de' doni del sesso e de l'etate,
L' impresa prende: e in su la prima sera
Parte, e tiene sol vie chiuse e celate:
E 'n treccia e 'n gonna femminile spera
Vincer popoli invitti e schiere armate."
Canto iv. st. 27.]

[Footnote 3:

"That sweet grove
Of Daphne by Orontes."
Parad. Lost, b. iv.

It was famous for the most luxurious worship of antiquity. Vide Gibbon, vol. iii. p. 198.]

[Footnote 4: I omit a point about "fires" of love, and "ices" of the heart; and I will here observe, once for all, that I omit many such in these versions of Tasso, for the reason given in the Preface.]

[Footnote 5: In the original, an impetuous gust of wind carries away the sword of Tancred; a circumstance which I mention because Collins admired it (see his Ode on the Superstitions of the Highlands). I confess I cannot do so. It seems to me quite superfluous; and when the reader finds the sword conveniently lying for the hero outside the wood, as he returns, the effect is childish and pantomimic. If the magician wished him not to fight any more, why should he give him the sword back? And if it was meant as a present to him from Clorinda, what gave her the power to make the present? Tasso retained both the particulars in the Gerusalemme Conquistata.]

[Footnote 6:

"Giace l'alta Cartago: appena i segni
De l'alte sue ruine il lido serba.

Muoiono le città: muoiono i regni:
Copre i fasti e le pompe arena ed erba:
E l'uom d'esser mortal par che si sdegni.
Oh nostra mente cupida e superba!"

Canto xv. st. 20.

Great Carthage is laid low. Scarcely can eye
Trace where she stood with all her mighty crowd
For cities die; kingdoms and nations die;
A little sand and grass is all their shroud;
Yet mortal man disdains mortality!
O mind of ours, inordinate and proud!

Very fine is this stanza of Tasso; and yet, like some of the finest writing of Gray, it is scarcely more than a cento. The commentators call it a "beautiful imitation" of a passage in Sannazzaro; and it is; but the passage in Sannazzaro is also beautiful. It contains not only the "Giace Cartago," and the "appena i segni," &c., but the contrast of the pride with the mortality of man, and, above all, the "dying" of the cities, which is the finest thing in the stanza of its imitator.

"Qua devictae Carthaginis arces
Procubuere, jacentque infausto in littore turres
Eversae; quantum ille metus, quantum illa laborum
Urbs dedit insultans Latio et Laurentibus arvis!
Nunc passim vix reliquias, vix nomina servans,
Obruitur propriis non agnoscenda ruinis.
Et querimur genus infelix, humana labare
Membra aevo, cum regna palam moriantur et urbes."

De Partu Virginis, lib. ii.

The commentators trace the conclusion of this passage to Dante, where he says that it is no wonder families perish, when cities themselves "have their terminations" (termin hanuo): but though there is a like germ of thought in Dante, the mournful flower of it, the word "death," is not there. It was evidently suggested by a passage (also pointed out by the commentators) in the consolatory letter of Sulpicius to Cicero, on the death of his daughter Tullia;—"Heu nos homunculi indignamur, si quis nostrum interiit, aut occisus est, quorum vita brevior esse debet, cum uno loco tot oppidorum cadavera projecta jaceant." (Alas! we poor human creatures are indignant if any one of us dies or is slain, frail as are the materials of which we are constituted; and yet we can see, lying together in one place, the dead bodies of I know not how many cities!) The music of Tasso's line was indebted to one in Petrarch's _Trionfo del Tempo, v. 112

_" Passan le signorie, passano i regni;"

and the fine concluding verse, "Oh nostra mente," to another perhaps in his Trionfo della Divinità, v. 61, not without a recollection of Lucretius, lib. ii. v. 14:

"O miseras hominum menteis! o pectora caeca!">[

[Footnote 7: A fountain which caused laughter that killed people is in Pomponius Mela's account of the Fortunate Islands; and was the origin of that of Boiardo; as I ought to have noticed in the place.]

[Footnote 8: All this description of the females bathing is in the highest taste of the voluptuous; particularly the latter part:

"Qual mattutina stella esce de l'onde
Rugiadosa e stillante: o come fuore
Spuntò nascendo già da le feconde
Spume de l'ocean la Dea d'Amore:
Tale apparve costei: tal le sue bionde
Chiome stillavan cristallino umore.
Poi girò gli occhi, e pur allor s'infinse
Que' duo vedere, e in se tutta si strinse:

E 'l crin the 'n cima al capo avea raccolto
In un sol nodo, immantinente sciolse;
Che lunghissimo in giù cadendo, e folto,
D'un aureo manto i molli avori involse.
Oh che vago spettacolo è lor tolto!
Ma mon men vago fu chi loro il tolse.
Così da l'acque e da capelli ascosa,
A lor si volse, lieta e vergognosa.

Rideva insieme, e insieme ella arrossia;
Ed era nel rossor più bello il riso,
E nel riso il rossor, the le copria
Insino al mento il delicato viso."
Canto xv. st. 60.

Spenser, among the other obligations which it delighted him to owe to this part of Tasso's poem, has translated these last twelve lines:

"With that the other likewise up arose,
And her fair locks, which formerly were bound
Up in one knot, she low adown did loose,
Which, flowing long and thick, her cloth'd around,
And th' ivory in golden mantle gown'd:
So that fair spectacle from him was reft;
Yet that which reft it, no less fair was found.
So hid in locks and waves from looker's theft,
Nought but her lovely face she for his looking left.

Withal she laughèd, and she blush'd withal;
That blushing to her laughter gave more grace,
And laughter to her blushing."
Fairy Queen, book ii. canto 12, St. 67.

Tasso's translator, Fairfax, worthy both of his original and of Spenser, has had the latter before him in his version of the passage, not without a charming addition of his own at the close of the first stanza:

"And her fair locks, that in a knot were tied
High on her crown, she 'gan at large unfold;
Which falling long and thick, and spreading wide,
The ivory soft and white mantled in gold:
Thus her fair skin the dame would clothe and hide;
And that which hid it, no less fair was hold.
Thus clad in waves and locks, her eyes divine
From them ashamed would she turn and twine.

Withal she smilèd, and she blush'd withal;
Her blush her smiling, smiles her blushing graced.">[

[Footnote 9:

"E quel che 'l bello e 'l caro accresce a l'opre,
L'arte, the tutto fa, nulla si scopre.

Stimi (si misto il culto è col negletto)
Sol naturali e gli ornamenti e i siti.
Di natura arte par, the per diletto
L'imitatrice sua scherzando imiti."

The idea of Nature imitating Art, and playfully imitating her, is in Ovid; but that of a mixture of cultivation and wildness is, as far as I am aware, Tasso's own. It gives him the honour of having been the first to suggest the picturesque principle of modern gardening; as I ought to have remembered, when assigning it to Spenser in a late publication (Imagination and Fancy, p. 109). I should have noticed also, in the same work, the obligations of Spenser to the Italian poet for the passage before quoted about the nymph in the water.]

[Footnote 10:

"Par che la dura quercia e 'l casto alloro,
E tutta la frondosa ampia famiglia,
Par the la terra e l'acqua e formi e spiri
Dolcissimi d'amor sensi e sospiri."
St. 16.

Fairfax in this passage is very graceful and happy (in the first part of his stanza he is speaking of a bird that sings with a human voice—which I have omitted):

"She ceased: and as approving all she spoke,
The choir of birds their heavenly tunes renew;
The turtles sigh'd, and sighs with kisses broke;
The fowls to shades unseen by pairs withdrew;
It seem'd the laurel chaste and stubborn oak,
And all the gentle trees on earth that grew,
It seem'd the land, the sea, and heaven above,
All breath'd out fancy sweet, and sigh'd out love.">[

[Footnote 11:

"Ecco tra fronde e fronde il guardo avante
Penetra, e vede, o pargli di vedere,
Vede per certo," &c.
St. 17.]

[Footnote 12: The line about the peacock,

"Spiega la pompa de l'occhiute piume,"
Opens wide the pomp of his eyed plumes,

was such a favourite with Tasso, that he has repeated it from the Aminta, and (I think) in some other place, but I cannot call it to mind.]

[Footnote 13:

"Teneri sdegni, e placide e tranquille
Repulse, e cari vezzi, e liete paci,
Sorrisi, e parolette, e dolci stille
Di pianto, e sospir' tronchi, e molli baci." St. 5

This is the cestus in Homer, which Venus lends to Juno for the purpose of enchanting Jupiter

Greek: N kai apo staethesphin elusato keston himanta
Poikilon' entha de ohi thelktaeria panta tetukto'
Enth' heni men philotaes, en d' himeras, en d' oaristus,
Parphasis, hae t' eklepse noon puka per phroneonton.]

Iliad, lib. xiv. 214.

She said; and from her balmy bosom loosed
The girdle that contained all temptinguess—
Love, and desire, and sweet and secret talk
Lavish, which robs the wisest of their wits.]