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

by Leigh Hunt

Argument.

PART I.—Angelica flies from the camp of Charlemagne into a wood, where she meets with a number of her suitors. Description of a beautiful natural bower. She claims the protection of Sacripant, who is overthrown, in passing, by an unknown warrior that turns out to be a damsel. Rinaldo comes up, and Angelica flies from both. She meets a pretended hermit, who takes her to some rocks in the sea, and casts her asleep by magic. They are seized and carried off by some mariners from the isle of Ebuda, where she is exposed to be devoured by an orc, but is rescued by a knight on a winged horse. He descends with her into a beautiful spot on the coast of Brittany, but suddenly misses both horse and lady. He is lured, with the other knights, into an enchanted palace, whither Angelica comes too. She quits it, and again eludes her suitors.

PART II.—Cloridan and Medoro, two Moorish youths, after a battle with the Christians, resolve to find the dead body of their master, King Dardinel, and bury it. They kill many sleepers as they pass through the enemy's camp, and then discover the body; but are surprised, and left for dead themselves. Medoro, however, survives his friend, and is cured of his wounds by Angelica, who happens to come up. She falls in love with and marries him. Account of their honeymoon in the woods. They quit them to set out for Cathay, and see a madman on the road.

PART III.—When the lovers had quitted their abode in the wood, Orlando, by chance, arrived there, and saw every where, all round him, in-doors and out-of-doors, inscriptions of "Angelica and Medoro." He tries in vain to disbelieve his eyes; finally, learns the whole story from the owner of the cottage, and loses his senses. What he did in that state, both in the neighbourhood and afar off, where he runs naked through the country. His arrival among his brother Paladins; and the result.

THE

ADVENTURES OF ANGELICA.

(CONTINUED BY ARIOSTO FROM BOIARDO[1].)

Part the First.

ANGELICA AND HER SUITORS.

Angelica, not at all approving her consignment to the care of Namo by Charlemagne, for the purpose of being made the prize of the conqueror, resolved to escape before the battle with the Pagans. She accordingly mounted her palfrey at once, and fled with all her might till she found herself in a wood.