Oriana’s Cruelty
At the time Amadis had left Britain and had said farewell to Oriana he dispatched his dwarf, Ardian, back to the palace for the pieces of a sword which a lady had given him in all good faith, asking him to avenge her father’s death on a cowardly murderer. Amadis, like a good knight, had promised to keep the broken blade until he had avenged the dead man. Oriana, seeing the dwarf return, asked him the reason, and Ardian told her that Amadis had promised a lady ever to keep a certain sword, for which he had been sent back. Then he fetched the blade and galloped off. Oriana, putting a wrong construction upon the dwarf’s words, and suspecting Amadis of unfaithfulness to her, wrote him a cruel letter, which she entrusted to a page with instructions to find him at all costs. After much journeying he traced Amadis to the Firm Island, and delivered the letter into his hands.
When Amadis had perused the cold and bitter words of his lady he seemed to the messenger as a man distraught. The page told him that he was forbidden to carry any reply to Oriana. Amadis in terrible grief called for Ysanjo, the governor of the island, and requested him as a loyal knight to keep secret all that he might see till after his brothers had heard Mass on the morrow. Then he commanded Ysanjo to open the gate of the palace privily so that he might withdraw his horse and arms therefrom without being observed by anyone. Accompanied by the honest Ysanjo, for whom he had formed a high esteem, he betook himself to a chapel of the Virgin hard by. He prayed fervently that she would intercede with her Divine Son to have mercy upon him, as he felt that his days would be few. Then he rose and, taking an affectionate leave of the Governor, mounted his horse and, without shield, spear, or helmet, rode off.
Now Gandalin, squire to Amadis, and son of the Scottish knight Gandales, who throughout all these adventures had never left his master, took counsel with Durin, the messenger who had brought Oriana’s cruel letter to the Firm Island, and resolved to follow the distraught knight, lest he should come to harm. They soon found him sleeping beside a fountain, worn out with the violence of his sorrow, and mercifully allowed him to slumber on. But when night had fallen Amadis awoke and, remembering his wretchedness, broke into pitiful lamentations for his evil fate. The youths concealed themselves, for they did not wish him to know of their presence. But Amadis, catching sight of Gandalin, was angry with him for having followed him. To arouse him from his lethargy Gandalin told him that a knight, like himself abandoned by his lady, was in the neighbourhood, threatening vengeance upon any whom he might encounter. Amadis, minded to throw away his life, leapt on his horse at hearing this, and accompanied Gandalin in search of the crazy challenger. They soon came up with the unknown, and Amadis hurled a fierce defiance at him. A stubborn combat ensued, and Amadis, by a desperate blow, struck his opponent senseless. Leaving the wounded knight with Durin, Amadis rode on, still followed by the faithful Gandalin.
Galaor, Florestan, and Agrayes, hearing of Amadis’s plight and his hurried departure, resolved to follow him. Meanwhile the object of their search rode onward, allowing his horse to choose its own path, and given over to weeping and lamentation. While the anxious Gandalin slept, the crazed lover eluded him, and traversed the wildest parts of the savage country which they had penetrated. Ere long he came to a plain at the foot of a mountain, where he encountered a hermit, and begged the holy man for leave to remain with him. The hermit greeted him kindly, and Amadis confided his history to the good old man, who told him that he dwelt on a high rock full seven leagues out at sea. And the hermit gave him the name Beltenebros, or ‘the Fair Forlorn,’ as he was at once so comely and so sore distracted.
The Poor Rock
In due time they reached the sea-shore, and, giving his horse to the mariners, Amadis accompanied the hermit on board a vessel and sailed to the Poor Rock, as the holy man had named his place of hermitage. And here Amadis partook of the austerities of the hermit, “not for devotion but for despair, forgetting his great renown in arms and hoping and expecting death—all for the anger of a woman!”
Durin, Oriana’s messenger, journeyed back to the British Court and told his mistress how Amadis had received her letter, and of the manner in which her knight had achieved the adventure of the Firm Island. Then Oriana knew that Amadis must have remained true to her. When she learned that he had gone into the desert to die, her shame and anguish knew no bounds, and she wrote a letter of deep contrition to her lover, and dispatched it to him by one of her women called ‘the Damsel of Denmark,’ a sister of Durin.