THE

THIRD BOOK

OF

ORLANDO FURIOSO.

F 3

THE ARGUMENT.

BRADAMANT, deceived by Pinabello, finds herself in Merlin's cave, where she meets with Meliffa, who fhews to her, in vifion, all her defcendants that were to make a figure in hiftory. In this paffage the poet pays a compliment to the most illuftrious Italian families. Meliffa then inftructs Bradamant how to deliver Rogero from the caftle in which he was confined by Atlantes, and difmiffes her.

THE

THIRD BOOK

OF

ORLANDO FURIOSO.

WH

HAT power will teach me lofty words to find

For the great fubject that inflames my mind?

What power will lend my venturous muse a wing

In tuneful lays my high conceits to fing?

A vigour mightier far muft here be fhown

5

Than e'er my fwelling bofom yet has known:

This

Ver. 1. What power will teach-] This invocation of Ariofto,

is apparently tranflated by Spenfer in his Fairy Queen:

Who now fhall give unto me words and found

Equal unto this haughty enterprize?

Or who shall lend me wings, with which from ground
My lowly verfe may loftily arife,

And lift itself unto the highest skies?

This verse my patron claims, which dares to trace
The fountain whence he draws his glorious race!

Amidft th' illuftrious chiefs by fate defign'd With righteous government to bless mankind, O Phœbus! you, whofe eye the world furveys, Ne'er view'd a line like this, whose deathless praise, and war, fhall fill the lips of fame;

In peace

Whose blooming honours fhall endure the fame,

(Or vain the light prophetic in my foul)

15

While Heaven, unchanging, whirls around the pole.

To blazon all their virtues would require

Not my weak lute, but that immortal lyre,
On which, the giants quell'd, you fung above

The grateful praises of eternal Jove!

More ample spirit than hitherto was wont
Here needs me, whiles the famous ancestries
Of my moft dreaded fovereign I recount,
By which all earthly princes fhe doth far furmount.

Again

Argument worthy of Moonian quill,
Or rather worthy of great Phoebus' rote,
Whereon the ruins of great Offa hill,
And triumphs of Phlegræan Jove he wrote.

20

B. ii. C. x.

O! should

O! should you here the wifh'd-for aid impart,
And to the fubject raise the sculptor's art;
Each noble image fhall my fancy fill,
To challenge all my genius, all my skill;
Then what at first I may but roughly trace,
By flow degrees fhall ripen into grace;
Till crown'd by you, I fee with joyful eyes
Each labour'd form to full perfection rise.

25

But let the muse to him the story bend
Whose breast, nor shield, nor cuirafs could defend; 30
The treacherous Pinabel, who hop'd in vain

With murderous guile the damfel to have flain.
The traitor deem'd her in the cavern dead,
And, with a visage pale through guilty dread,
The place, polluted by his crime, forfook,
Then instant speeding back, his courfer took:
That every action might his foul betray,
He with him bears the virgin's fteed away.
But leave we him, who while his craft is shown
To feek another's fall, procures his own;
And turn to her, who nearly fcap'd the doom,
In one fad hour to find her death and tomb.

35

40

Ver. 39. But leave we him,] The ftory of Pinabello is continued, B. xx. ver. 803.

Soon