XXXI
On him a sad and smiling look she cast,
Which twenty passions strange at once bewrays:
“And art thou come,” quoth she, “returned at last
To her from whom but late thou ran’st thy ways?
Com’st thou to comfort me for sorrows past?
To ease my widow nights and careful days?
Or comest thou to work me grief and harm?
Why nilt thou speak?—why not thy face disarm?
XXXII
“Com’st thou a friend or foe? I did not frame
That golden bridge to entertain my foe,
Nor opened flowers and fountains as you came,
To welcome him with joy that brings me woe:
Put off thy helm, rejoice me with the flame
Of thy bright eyes, whence first my fires did grow.
Kiss me, embrace me, if you further venture,
Love keeps the gate, the fort is eath to enter.”
XXXIII
Thus as she woos she rolls her rueful eyes
With piteous look, and changeth oft her cheer,
An hundred sighs from her false heart upflies,
She sobs, she mourns, it is great ruth to hear;
The hardest breast sweet pity mollifies,
What stony heart resists a woman’s tear?
But yet the knight, wise, wary, not unkind,
Drew forth his sword and from her careless twined.
XXXIV
Toward the tree he marched, she thither start,
Before him stepped, embraced the plant and cried,
“Ah, never do me such a spiteful part,
To cut my tree, this forest’s joy and pride,
Put up thy sword, else pierce therewith the heart
Of thy forsaken and despised Armide;
For through this breast, and through this heart unkind
To this fair tree thy sword shall passage find.”
XXXV
He lift his brand, nor cared though oft she prayed,
And she her form to other shape did change;
Such monsters huge when men in dreams are laid
Oft in their idle fancies roam and range:
Her body swelled, her face obscure was made,
Vanished her garments, her face and vestures strange,
A giantess before him high she stands,
Like Briareus armed with an hundred hands.
XXXVI
With fifty swords, and fifty targets bright,
She threatened death, she roared, cried and fought,
Each other nymph in armor likewise dight,
A Cyclops great became: he feared them naught,
But on the myrtle smote with all his might,
That groaned like living souls to death nigh brought,
The sky seemed Pluto’s court, the air seemed hell,
Therein such monsters roar, such spirits yell.
XXXVII
Lightened the heavens above, the earth below
Roared loud, that thundered, and this shook;
Blustered the tempests strong, the whirlwinds blow,
The bitter storm drove hailstones in his look;
But yet his arm grew neither weak nor slow,
Nor of that fury heed or care he took,
Till low to earth the wounded tree down bended;
Then fled the spirits all, the charms all ended.
XXXVIII
The heavens grew clear, the air waxed calm and still,
The wood returned to his wonted state,
Of withcrafts free, quite void of spirits ill;
Of horror full, but horror there innate;
He further proved if aught withstood his will
To cut those trees as did the charms of late,
And finding naught to stop him, smiled, and said,
“O shadows vain! O fools, of shades afraid!”
XXXIX
From thence home to the campward turned the knight,
The hermit cried, upstarting from his seat,
“Now of the wood the charms have lost their might,
The sprites are conquered, ended is the feat,
See where he comes!” In glistering white all dight
Appeared the man, bold, stately, high and great,
His eagle’s silver wings to shine begun
With wondrous splendor gainst the golden sun.
XL
The camp received him with a joyful cry,
A cry the dales and hills about that flied;
Then Godfrey welcomed him with honors high,
His glory quenched all spite, all envy killed:
“To yonder dreadful grove,” quoth he, “went I,
And from the fearful wood, as me you willed,
Have driven the sprites away, thither let be
Your people sent, the way is safe and free.”