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

by Leigh Hunt

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.