Romans

VOL. II.

THE ARGUMENT.

ORLANDO seeking Angelica, hears of the cruel custom of the peo ple of Ebuda, who every day sacrificed a virgin to a sea-monster. He resolves to go against those Islanders, but, in his way, being cast ashore by a tempest, meets with Olympia, who relates to him a melancholy tale of her misfortunes and expulsion from her hereditary dominions. Orlando undertakes to restore her to her possessions, and revenge her on her enemy.

THE

NINTH BOOK

OF

ORLANDO FURIOSO.

To what will cruel treacherous love constrain
A heart once taken captive in his chain,
Since he can thus Orlando's breast divide,
And turn his duty from his lord aside?
He, who once with deepest wisdom stor❜d,
The holy church defending with his sword,
Ere since in Love's bewildering path he trod,
Forgets himself, his sovereign, and his God!

Yet would I gladly here acquit his fame,
O'erjoy'd, with mine, to find so great a name:
For still with eyes averse the right I view,
But with a ready will the wrong pursue.

Now, cloth'd in sable arms, his course he took,
Without remorse his dearest friends forsook,
And saw the troops of Africa and Spain
Encamp'd unnumber'd o'er the spacious plain:

10

In shelters from the storm dispers'd they lay;

Some distant far, and some a nearer way:

Deep sunk in sleep was every weary band,

These stretch'd on earth, those leaning on the hand. 20
Then might the earl have slain a numerous crew,
Nor yet his Durindana once he drew.

Too noble was Orlando's soul, to show
Inglorious hatred on a slumbering foe!

Through every part he sought the royal maid,
While those, he waking found, he gently pray'd
(Her form describing and her garb) to tell,
What chance the virgin, whom he lov'd, befel.
The next returning morn the knight again
Explor❜d the camp of Agramant in vain:
Where in th' Arabian dress from all conceal'd,

And in the language of the country skill'd,
Three days he rov'd secure from place to place,
And seem'd a native of the Moorish race.

25

30

Ver. 17. In shelters from the storm-] See General View of Boyardo's Story.

Ver. 22.-Durindana-] Durindana, or Durlindana, the name of Orlando's sword, so called in Pulci and Boyardo; this sword was made by enchantment, and would penetrate every kind of armour. See Note to Book I. ver. 202.

"Durinda is the name of Roland's sword in Turpin's romance, which Ariosto and Boyardo copy so faithfully. As a specimen of that historian's style and manner, I shall present the reader with Roland's soliloquy addressed to his sword, when he was mortally wounded by a Saracen giant. "O! ensis pulcherrime! sed semper "lucidissime, capulo eburneo candidissime, cruce aurea splendissime, superficie deaurate, pomo beryllino deaurate, maguo nomine Dei "insculpte, acumine legitime, virtute omni prædite, quis amplius "virtute tua utetur? Quis. &c." Turpini Hist. de Gestis Caroli Mag. cap, xxii.

Warton's Observ. on Spenser.