Orlando Furioso Part 19

XLVIII A pocket at the ancient's side was dight, Where he a cruise of virtuous liquor wore; And at those puissant eyes, whence flashed the light Of the most radiant torch Love ever bore, Threw from the flask a little drop, of might To make her sleep: upon the sandy sh.o.r.e Already the rec.u.mbent damsel lay, The greedy elder's unresisting prey.

XLIX (Stanza XLIX untranslated by Rose)

L (Lines 1-2 untranslated by Rose) Hopeless, at length upon the beach he lies, And by the maid, exhausted, falls asleep.

When to torment him new misfortunes rise: Fortune does seldom any measure keep; Unused to cut her cruel pastime short, If she with mortal man is pleased to sport.

LI It here behoves me, from the path I pressed, To turn awhile, ere I this case relate: In the great northern sea, towards the west, Green Ireland past, an isle is situate.

Ebuda is its name, whose sh.o.r.es infest, (Its people wasted through the G.o.dhead's hate) The hideous orc, and Proteus' other herd, By him against that race in vengeance stirred.

LII Old stories, speak they falsely or aright, Tell how a puissant king this country swayed; Who had a daughter fair, so pa.s.sing bright And lovely, 'twas no wonder if the maid, When on the beach she stood in Proteus' sight, Left him to burn amid the waves: surveyed, One day alone, upon that sh.o.r.e in-isled, Her he compressed, and quitted great with child.

LIII This was sore torment to the sire, severe And impious more than all mankind; nor he, Such is the force of wrath, was moved to spare The maid, for reason or for piety.

Nor, though he saw her pregnant, would forbear To execute his sentence suddenly; But bade together with the mother kill, Ere born, his grandchild, who had done no ill.

LIV Sea-Proteus to his flocks' wide charge preferred By Neptune, of all ocean's rule possessed, Inflamed with ire, his lady's torment heard, And, against law and usage, to molest The land (no sluggard in his anger) stirred His monsters, orc and sea-calf, with the rest; Who waste not only herds, but human haunts, Farm-house and town, with their inhabitants:

LV And girding them on every side, the rout Will often siege to walled cities lay; Where in long weariness and fearful doubt, The townsmen keep their watch by night and day.

The fields they have abandoned all about, And for a remedy, their last a.s.say, To the oracle, demanding counsel, fly, Which to the suppliant's prayer made this reply:

LVI 'That it behoved them find a damsel, who A form as beauteous as that other wore, To be to Proteus offered up, in lieu Of the fair lady, slain upon the sh.o.r.e: He, if he deems her an atonement due, Will keep the damsel, not disturb them more: If not, another they must still present, And so, till they the deity content.'

LVII And this it was the cruel usage bred; That of the damsels held most fair of face, To Proteus every day should one be led.

Till one should in the G.o.dhead's sight find grace.

The first and all those others slain, who fed, All a devouring orc, that kept his place Beside the port, what time into the main The remnant of the herd retired again.

LVIII Were the old tale of Proteus' false or true, (For this, in sooth, I know not who can read) With such a clause was kept by that foul crew The savage, ancient statute, which decreed That woman's flesh the ravening monster, who For this came every day to land, should feed.

Though to be woman is a crying ill In every place, 'tis here a greater still.

LIX O wretched maids! whom 'mid that barbarous rout Ill-fortune on that wretched sh.o.r.e has tost!

Who for the stranger damsel prowl about, Of her to make an impious holocaust; In that the more they slaughter from without, They less the number of their own exhaust.

But since not always wind and waves convey Like plunder, upon every strand they prey.

LX With frigate and with galley wont to roam, And other sort of barks they range the sea, And, as a solace to their martyrdom, From far, or from their isle's vicinity, Bear women off; with open rapine some, These bought by gold, and those by flattery: And, plundered from the different lands they scower, Crowd with their captives dungeon-cell and tower.

LXI Keeping that region close aboard, to explore The island's lonely bank, a gallery creeps; Where, amid stubs upon the gra.s.sy sh.o.r.e, Angelica, unhappy damsel, sleeps.

To wood and water there the sailor's moor, And from the bark, for this, a party leaps; And there that matchless flower of earthly charms Discovers in the holy father's arms.

LXII Oh! prize too dear, oh! too ill.u.s.trious prey!

To glut so barbarous and so base a foe!

Oh! cruel Fortune! who believed thy sway Was of such pa.s.sing power in things below?

That thou shouldst make a hideous monster's prey The beauty, for which Agrican did glow, Brought with half Scythia's people from the gates Of Caucasus, in Ind, to find their fates.

LXIII The beauty, by Circa.s.sian Sacripant Preferred before his honour and his crown, The beauty which made Roland, Brava's vaunt, Sully his wholesome judgment and renown, The beauty which had moved the wide Levant, And awed, and turned its kingdom upside down, Now has not (thus deserted and unheard) One to a.s.sist it even with a word.

LXIV Oppressed with heavy sleep upon the sh.o.r.e, The lovely virgin, ere awake, they chain: With her, the enchanter friar the pirates bore On board their s.h.i.+p, a sad, afflicted train.

This done, they hoisted up their sail once more, And the bark made the fatal isle again, Where, till the lot shall of their prey dispose, Her prisoned in a castle they enclose.

LXV But such her matchless beauty's power, the maid Was able that fierce crew to mollify, Who many days her cruel death delayed, Preserved until their last necessity; And while they damsels from without purveyed, Spared such angelic beauty: finally, The damsel to the monstrous orc they bring, The people all behind her sorrowing.

LXVI Who shall relate the anguish, the lament And outcry which against the welkin knock?

I marvel that the sea-sh.o.r.e was not rent, When she was placed upon the rugged block, Where, chained and void of help, the punishment Of loathsome death awaits her on the rock.

This will not I, so sorrow moves me, say, Which makes me turn my rhymes another way;

LXVII To find a verse of less lugubrious strain, Till I my wearied spirit shall restore: For not the squalid snake of mottled stain, Nor wild and whelpless tiger, angered more, Nor what of venomous, on burning plain, Creeps 'twixt the Red and the Atlantic sh.o.r.e, Could see the grisly sight, and choose but moan The damsel bound upon the naked stone.

LXVIII Oh! if this chance to her Orlando, who Was gone to Paris-town to seek the maid, Had been reported! or those other two, Duped by a post, dispatched from Stygian shade, They would have tracked her heavenly footsteps through A thousand deaths, to bear the damsel aid.

But had the warriors of her peril known.

So far removed, for what would that have done?

LXIX This while round Paris-walls the leaguer lay Of famed Troyano's son's besieging band, Reduced to such extremity one day, That it nigh fell into the foeman's hand; And, but that vows had virtue to allay The wrath of Heaven, whose waters drenched the land, That day had perished by the Moorish lance The holy empire and great name of France.

LXX To the just plaint of aged Charlemagne The great Creator turned his eyes, and stayed The conflagration with a sudden rain, Which haply human art had not allayed.

Wise whosoever seeketh, not in vain, His help, than whose there is no better aid!

Well the religious king, to whom 'twas given, Knew that the saving succour was from Heaven.

LXXI All night long counsel of his weary bed, Vexed with a ceaseless care, Orlando sought; Now here, now there, the restless fancy sped, Now turned, now seized, but never held the thought: As when, from sun or nightly planet shed, Clear water has the quivering radiance caught, The flashes through the s.p.a.cious mansion fly, With reaching leap, right, left, and low, and high.

LXXII To memory now returned his lady gay, She rather ne'er was banished from his breast; And fanned the secret fire, which through the day (Now kindled into flame) had seemed at rest; That in his escort even from Catay Or farthest Ind, had journeyed to the west; There lost: Of whom he had discerned no token Since Charles's power near Bordeaux-town was broken.

LXXIII This in Orlando moved great grief, and he Lay thinking on his folly past in vain: "My heart," he said, "oh! how unworthily I bore myself! and out, alas! what pain, (When night and day I might have dwelt with thee, Since this thou didst not in thy grace disdain.) To have let them place thee in old Namus' hand!

Witless a wrong so crying to withstand.

LXXIV "Might I not have excused myself? -- The king Had not perchance gainsaid my better right -- Of if he had gainsaid my reasoning, Who would have taken thee in my despite?

Why not have armed, and rather let them wring My heart out of my breast? But not the might Of Charles or all his host, had they been tried, Could have availed to tear thee from my side.

LXXV "Oh! had he placed her but in strong repair, Guarded in some good fort, or Paris-town!

-- Since he would trust her to Duke Namus' care, That he should lose her in this way, alone Sorts with my wish. -- Who would have kept the fair Like me, that would for her to death have gone?

Have kept her better than my heart or sight: Who should and could, yet did not what I might.

LXXVI "Without me, my sweet life, beshrew me, where Art thou bestowed, so beautiful and young!

As some lost lamb, what time the daylight fair Shuts in, remains the wildering woods among, And goes about lamenting here and there, Hoping to warn the shepherd with her tongue; Till the wolf hear from far the mournful strain, And the sad shepherd weep for her in vain.

LXXVII "My hope, where are thou, where? In doleful wise Dost thou, perchance, yet rove thy lonely round?

Art thou, indeed, to ravening wolf a prize, Without thy faithful Roland's succour found?

And is the flower, which, with the deities, Me, in mid heaven had placed, which, not to wound, (So reverent was my love) thy feelings chaste, I kept untouched, alas! now plucked and waste?

LXXVIII "If this fair flower be plucked, oh, misery! oh, Despair! what more is left me but to die?

Almighty G.o.d, with every other woe Rather than this, thy wretched suppliant try.

If this be true, these hands the fatal blow Shall deal, and doom me to eternity."

Mixing his plaint with bitter tears and sighs, So to himself the grieved Orlando cries.

LXXIX Already every where, with due repose, Creatures restored their weary spirits; laid These upon stones and upon feathers those, Or greensward, in the beech or myrtle's shade: But scarcely did thine eyes, Orlando close, So on thy mind tormenting fancies preyed.

Nor would the vexing thoughts which bred annoy, Let thee in peace that fleeting sleep enjoy.

Lx.x.x To good Orlando it appeared as he, Mid odorous flowers, upon a gra.s.sy bed, Were gazing on that beauteous ivory, Which Love's own hand had tinged with native red; And those two stars of pure transparency, With which he in Love's toils his fancy fed: Of those bright eyes, and that bright face, I say, Which from his breast had torn his heart away.

Lx.x.xI He with the fullest pleasure overflows, That ever happy lover did content: But, lo! this time a mighty tempest rose, And wasted flowers, and trees uptore and rent.

Not with the rage with which this whirlwind blows, Joust warring winds, north, south, and east, unpent.

It seemed, as if in search of covering shade, He, vainly wandering, through a desert strayed.