At length it occurred to him, that most likely they had slept in that very bed. He rose instantly, as if he had been lying on a serpent. The bed, the house, the herdsman, every thing about the place, gave him such horror and detestation, that, without waiting for dawn, or the light of moon, he dressed himself, and went forth and took his horse from the stable, and galloped onwards into the middle of the woods. There, as soon as he found himself in the solitude, he opened all the flood-gates of his grief, and gave way to cries and outcries.
But he still rode on. Day and night did Orlando ride on, weeping and lamenting. He avoided towns and cities, and made his bed on the hard earth, and wondered at himself that he could weep so long.
"These," thought he, "are no tears that are thus poured forth. 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."
For the wits of the County Orlando were going; and he wandered all night round and round in the wood, till he came back to the grotto where Medoro had written his triumphant verses. Madness then indeed fell upon him. Every particle of his being seemed torn up with rage and fury; and he drew his mighty sword, and hewed the grotto and the writing, till the words flew in pieces to the heavens. Woe to every spot in the place in which were written the names of "Angelica and Medoro." Woe to the place itself: never again did it afford refuge from the heat of day to sheep or shepherd; for not a particle of it remained as it was. With arm and sword Orlando defaced it all, the clear and gentle fountain included. He hacked and hewed it inside and out, and cut down the branches of the trees that hung over it, and tore away the ivy and the vine, and rooted up great bits of earth and stone, and filled the sweet water with the rubbish, so that it was never clear and sweet again; and at the end of his toil, not having satisfied or being able to satisfy his soul with the excess of his violence, he cast himself on the ground in rage and disdain, and lay groaning towards the heavens.
On the ground Orlando threw himself, and on the ground he remained, his eyes fixed on heaven, his lips closed in dumbness; and thus he continued for the space of three days and three nights, till his frenzy had mounted to such a pitch that it turned against himself. He then arose in fury, and tore off mail and breastplate, and every particle of clothing from his body, till humanity was degraded in his heroical person, and he became naked as the beasts of the field. In this condition, and his wits quite gone, sword was forgotten as well as shield and helm; and he tore up fir-tree and ash, and began running through the woods. The shepherds hearing the cries of the strong man, and the crashing of the boughs, came hastening from all quarters to know what it was; but when he saw them he gave them chase, and smote to death those whom he reached, till the whole country was up in arms, though to no purpose; for they were seized with such terror, that while they threatened and closed after him, they avoided him. He entered cottages, and tore away the food from the tables; and ran up the craggy hills and down into the valleys; and chased beasts as well as men, tearing the fawn and the goat to pieces, and stuffing their flesh into his stomach with fierce will.
Raging and scouring onwards in this manner, he arrived one day at a bridge over a torrent, on which the fierce Rodomont had fixed himself for the purpose of throwing any one that attempted to pass it into the water. It was a very narrow bridge, with scarcely room for two horses. But Orlando took no heed of its narrowness. He dashed right forwards against man and steed, and forced the champion to wrestle with him on foot; and, winding himself about him with hideous strength, he leaped backwards with him into the torrent, where he left him, and so mounted the opposite bank, and again rushed over the country. A more terrible bridge than this was in his way—even a precipitous pass of frightful height over a valley; but still he scoured onwards, throwing over it the agonised passengers that dared, in their ignorance of his strength, to oppose him; and so always rushing and raging, he came down the mountains by the sea-side to Barcelona, where he cast his eyes on the sands, and thought, in his idiot mind, to make himself a house in them for coolness and repose; and so he grubbed up the sand, and laid himself down in it: and this was the terrible madman whom Angelica and Medoro saw looking at them as they were approaching the city.
Neither of them knew him, nor did he know Angelica; but, with an idiot laugh, he looked at her beauty, and liked her, and came horribly towards her to carry her away. Shrieking, she put spurs to her horse and fled; and Medoro, in a fury, came after the pursuer and smote him, but to no purpose. The great madman turned round and smote the other's horse to the ground, and so renewed his chase after Angelica, who suddenly regained enough of her wits to recollect the enchanted ring. Instantly she put it into her lips and disappeared; but in her hurry she fell from her palfrey, and Orlando forgot her in the instant, and, mounting the poor beast, dashed off with it over the country till it died; and so at last, after many dreadful adventures by flood and field, he came running into a camp full of his brother Paladins, who recognised him with tears; and, all joining their forces, succeeded in pulling him down and binding him, though not without many wounds: and by the help of these friends, and the special grace of the apostle St. John (as will be told in another place), the wits of the champion of the church were restored, and he became ashamed of that passion for an infidel beauty which the heavenly powers had thus resolved to punish.
But Angelica and Medoro pursued the rest of their journey in peace, and took ship on the coast of Spain for India; and there she crowned her bridegroom King of Cathay. The description of Orlando's jealousy and growing madness is reckoned one of the finest things in Italian poetry; and very fine it surely is—as strong as the hero's strength, and sensitive as the heart of man. The circumstances are heightened, one after the other, with the utmost art as well as nature. There is a scriptural awfulness in the account of the hero's becoming naked; and the violent result is tremendous. I have not followed Orlando into his feats of ultra-supernatural strength. The reader requires to be prepared for them by the whole poem. Nor are they necessary, I think, to the production of the best effect; perhaps would hurt it in an age unaccustomed to the old romances.
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[Footnote 1: See p. 58 of the present volume.]