Ah, little does she think, while thus she dreams,
What is prepared for her by Fortune's spite!
She is so placed, that the moon's placid beams
In line direct upon her armor light;
So far remote into the shades of night
The silver splendor is conveyed, and she
Surrounded is with brilliancy so bright,
That whosoe'er might chance her crest to see,
Would of a truth conclude it must Clorinda be.
Two sentinels see her, and believing her to be Clorinda, pursue her. She flies and is carried by her horse many miles away, finally reaching a shepherd's cottage on the banks of the Jordan, where for some time she takes up her abode far from war's alarms and the "pangs of despised love." The description of Erminia's life here is much admired for its delineations of the charm of rural life.
She slept, till in her dreaming ear, the bowers
Whispered, the gay birds warbled of the dawn;
The river roared; the winds to the young flowers
Made love; the blithe bee wound its dulcet horn:
Roused by the mirth and melodies of morn,
Her languid eyes she opens, and perceives
The huts of shepherds on the lonely lawn;
Whilst seeming voices, 'twixt the waves and leaves
Call back her scattered thoughts,—again she sighs and grieves.
Her plaints were silenced by soft music, sent
As from a rural pipe, such sounds as cheer
The Syrian shepherd in his summer tent,
And mixed with pastoral accents, rude but clear
She rose and gently, guided by her ear,
Came where an old man on a rising ground
In the fresh shade, his white flocks feeding near,
Twig baskets wove, and listened to the sound
Trilled by three blooming boys, who sate disporting round.
The shepherd, pitying Erminia's distress, takes her to his wife, and she thus becomes a member of the humble but happy household.
In the meantime many events are taking place between the Christians and pagans, sorties, single combats, and attacks on the walls of the city. Godfrey has caused powerful engines of war to be built, especially a mighty movable tower, so high that it overtops the walls of the city. Clorinda, eager for glory, undertakes one night to destroy the tower, in spite of the warning of her old servant Arsetes, who tells her the story of her birth, and reveals the fact that she is of Christian parentage. She issues forth, succeeds in setting fire to the tower, but not being able to reënter the city, flies, followed by Tancred, who not recognizing her, fights with her and to his own eternal sorrow, slays her. This passage is regarded as the most beautiful of the whole poem:
As the deep Euxine, though the wind no more
Blows, that late tossed its billows to the stars,
Stills not at once its rolling and its roar,
But with its coasts long time conflicting jars;
Thus, though their quickly-ebbing blood debars
Force from their blades as vigor from their arms,
Still lasts the frenzy of the flame which Mars
Blew in their breasts; sustained by whose strong charms,
Yet heap they strokes on strokes, yet harms inflict on harms.
But now, alas! the fatal hour arrives
That must shut up Clorinda's life in shade;
In her fair bosom deep his sword he drives;
'Tis done—life's purple fountain bathes the blade;
The golden flowered cymar of light brocade,
That swathed so tenderly her breasts of snow,
Is steeped in the warm stream: the hapless maid
Feels her end nigh; her knees their strength forego,
And her enfeebled frame droops languishing and low.
He, following up the thrust with taunting cries,
Lays the pierced Virgin at his careless feet;
She as she falls, in mournful tones outsighs,
Her last faint words, pathetically sweet;
Which a new spirit prompts, a spirit replete
With charity, and faith, and hope serene,
Sent dove-like down from God's pure mercy-seat;
Who, though through life his rebel she had been,
Would have her die a fond, repentant Magdalene.