Amadis Quarrels with Lisuarte
But Fate and the counsels of wicked men are often stronger than the nobility of kings. His advisers urged Lisuarte to attempt the siege of the Island of Mongaza, the last stronghold of the giants, and held only by their womenkind. Amadis and his company conceived this proposal as unchivalrous, and when Lisuarte heard of their opinion he grew wroth and sent his defiance to Amadis in the Firm Island. Amadis replied that Madasima, the daughter of Famongomadan, having wed with Galvanes, a friend of both Lisuarte and himself, the island could not be held as sheltering the enemies of Lisuarte any longer, and that he would defend it with his whole force. And he set sail for the island with a large and well-equipped army. There they found a garrison which had taken possession in the name of Lisuarte, and which they dispossessed.
Leaving a suitable force in the island, Amadis, who was becoming anxious regarding Oriana, set sail for his own land of Gaul, and, putting in at an island for supplies, chanced then to rescue his brother Galaor and King Cildadan from the clutches of a tyrannous giant, who had entrapped them. Arrived in Gaul, Amadis greeted his parents, whom he had not seen for some years. In the meantime Lisuarte had himself landed in the Isle of Mongaza, and had defeated the troops of Galvanes, its rightful lord, but he dealt reasonably and kindly with his vanquished foes and contented himself with making Galvanes, and Madasima, his wife, do homage to him.
For some time Amadis led a life of ease, hunting and feasting, and contenting himself with such news of his lady as he could obtain. We are told that by these means his great renown became obscured, although the unbiased reader might think that he had already achieved sufficient fame to last a lifetime. “Damsels who went to him to seek revenge for their wrongs cursed him for forsaking arms in the best of his life.”
But Amadis had strong reasons for acting as he did, for a letter from Oriana had informed him that she had borne him a little son, and she beseeched him not to leave Gaul until such time as he heard further from her. She did not acquaint him with the circumstance that the infant had been lost, but of this we shall hear more anon. Later Oriana wrote desiring Amadis not to take arms against her father, and not to quit Gaul, unless it were to take his part. So Amadis resolved to assist Lisuarte against the Kings of the Isles, with whom he was about to do battle, and who had invaded his kingdom.
Now the Damsel of Denmark had taken the little son of Amadis and Oriana and had carried him by night through a gloomy forest, in order that her mistress might not be disgraced. Left alone for a moment, the child had been carried off by a lioness, from which it had been rescued by a hermit, Nasciano, who had called him Esplandian, and educated him along with his own nephew. The good man brought the lads up as hunters, and not the least strange thing about this remarkable child was the circumstance that a lioness had affectionately attached herself to him, refusing to leave him, either when at home or in the chase.
Meanwhile Amadis, calling himself ‘Knight of the Green Sword,’ had resolved to do away with the ill reports of his unchivalrous sloth. Taking only Ardian the dwarf with him, he entered Germany, where he passed four years in adventure without word or message from Oriana. Passing into Bohemia, he remained at its Court for a space.
One day Lisuarte, going to the chase with the Queen and his daughters, came to the mountain where the hermit Nasciano dwelt, and encountering Esplandian, resolved to adopt him, and the hermit showed him a letter, written by Urganda, which had been tied to Esplandian’s neck when Nasciano found him. The letter was addressed to King Lisuarte himself, and advised him to cherish the boy, who one day would deliver him from the greatest danger. So Lisuarte resolved to attach Esplandian, and Sargil, his foster-brother, to his service. And when the hermit told how he had rescued Esplandian from the lioness Oriana knew him to be none other than her own son, for she had heard that the infant left on the threshold of the nunnery had been seized by a wild beast and carried off.
In the course of his adventures, which were numerous and stirring, Amadis was sorely wounded by a monster which he had slain, and was cured of his hurt by a certain lady called Grasinda, to whom he was grateful for her kindness and assistance, and he promised to do her will in any adventure she might choose for him.
About the same time El Patin, Emperor of Rome, resolved to ask King Lisuarte for the hand of Oriana. Hearing this, Queen Sardamira of Sardinia, who loved El Patin, came to Britain along with the ambassadors of the Roman Emperor, and, meeting Oriana, gave her some account of Amadis, telling her how on one occasion he had conquered El Patin in battle and how that emperor owed him a mortal grudge.
Galaor, who suspected the love of Amadis and Oriana, went to Lisuarte, strongly advising him not to give Oriana in marriage to the Emperor, and set out for Gaul, hoping to receive some news of Amadis. At the same time Florestan betook himself to the Firm Island, to acquaint Agrayes of the troubles besetting Oriana, and to carry him news of his lady Mabilia, who longed to see him once more.