Pure degradation, to have looked so low.
"Such arrogance," said Cupid, "must be checked."
The little God betook him with his bow,
To where Medoro lay, and standing by,
Held the shaft ready with a lurking eye.
Now when the princess saw the youth all pale,
And found him grieving, with his bitter wound,
Not for what one so young might well bewail,
But that his king should not be laid in ground,
She felt a something, strange and gentle, steal
Into her heart by some new way it found,
Which touched its hardness, and turned all to grace;
And more so, when he told her all his case.
And calling to her mind the little arts
Of healing, which she learnt in India,
(For 'twas a study valued in those parts,
Even for those who were in sovereign sway,
And yet so easy too, that like the heart's,
'Twas more inherited than learnt, they say)
She cast about, with herbs and balmy juices,
To save so fair a life for all its uses.
And thinking of an herb that caught her eye
As she was coming, in a pleasant plain,
(Whether 'twas panacea, dittany,
Or some such herb accounted sovereign,
For staunching blood, quickly and tenderly,
And winning out all spasm and bad pain)
She found it not far off, and gathering some,
Returned with it to save Medoro's bloom.
In coming back she met upon the way
A shepherd, who was riding through the wood
To find a heifer, that had gone astray,
And been two days about the solitude.
She took him with her where Medoro lay,
Still feebler than he was, with loss of blood:
So much he lost, and drew so hard a breath,
That he was now fast fading to his death.
Angelica got off her horse in haste,
And made the shepherd get as fast from his;
She ground the herbs with stones, and then expressed
With her white hands the balmy milkiness;
Then dropped it in the wound, and bathed his breast,
His stomach, feet, and all that was amiss:
And of such virtue was it, that at length
The blood was stopped, and he looked round with strength.
At last he got upon the shepherd's horse,
But would not quit the place till he had seen
Laid in the ground his lord and master's corse;
And Cloridan lay with it, who had been
Smitten so fatally with sweet remorse.
He then obeys the will of the fair queen;
And she, for very pity of his lot,
Goes and stays with him at the shepherd's cot.
Nor would she leave him, she esteem'd him so,
Till she had seen him well with her own eye;
So full of pity did her bosom grow,
Since first she saw him faint and like to die.
Seeing his manners now, and beauty too,
She felt her heart yearn somehow inwardly; She felt her heart yearn somehow, till at last 'Twas all on fire, and burning warm and fast.
The shepherd's house was good enough, and neat,
A little shady cottage in a dell:
The man had just rebuilt it all complete,
With room to spare, in case more births befell.
There with such knowledge did the lady treat
Her handsome patient, that he soon grew well;
But not before she had, on her own part,
A secret wound much greater in her heart.
Much greater was the wound, and deeper far,
The invisible arrow made in her heart-strings;
"Twas from Medoro's lovely eyes and hair;
'Twas from the naked archer with the wings.
She feels it now; she feels, and yet can bear
Another's less than her own sufferings.
She thinks not of herself: she thinks alone
How to cure him, by whom she is undone.
The more his wound recovers and gets ease,
Her own grows worse, and widens day by day.
The youth gets well; the lady languishes,
Now warm, now cold, as fitful fevers play.
His beauty heightens like the flowering trees;
She, miserable creature, melts away
Like the weak snow, which some warm sun has found
Fall'n, out of season, on a rising ground.
And must she speak at last, rather than die?
And must she plead, without another's aid?
She must, she must;the vital moments fly-
She lives she dies, a passion-wasted maid.
At length she bursts all ties of modesty;
Her tongue explains her eyes; the words are said
And she asks pity underneath that blow,
Which he perhaps that gave it did not know.
O County Orlando! O King Sacripant!
That fame of yours, say, what avails it ye?
That lofty honour, those great deeds ye vaunt,
Say, what's their value with the lovely she?
Shew me-recal to memory (for I can't)→
Shew me, I beg, one single courtesy
That ever she vouchsafed ye, far or near,
For all you've done and have endured for her.
And you, if you could come to life again,
O Agrican, how hard 'twould seem to you,
Whose love was met by nothing but disdain,
And vile repulses, shocking to go through!
O Ferragus! O thousands, who in vain
Did all that loving and great hearts could do,
How would ye feel, to see, with all her charms,
This thankless creature in a stripling's arms!
The young Medoro had the gathering
Of the world's rose, the rose untouched before;
For never, since that garden blush'd with spring,
Had human being dared to touch the door.
To sanction it, to honestize the thing,*
The priest was called to read the service o'er,
(For without marriage what can come but strife?)
And the bride-mother was the shepherd's wife.
All was performed, in short, that could be so
In such a place, to make the nuptials good;
Nor did the happy pair think fit to go,
But spent the month and more, within the wood.
The lady to the stripling seemed to grow.
His step her step, his eyes her eyes pursued;
Nor did her love lose any of its zest,
Though she was always hanging on his breast.
In doors and out of doors, by night, by day,
She had the charmer by her side for ever:
Morning and evening they would stroll away,
Now by some field, or little tufted river;
They chose a cave in middle of the day,
Perhaps not less agreeable or clever
Than Dido and Æneas found to screen them,
When they had secrets to discuss between them.
And all this while there was not a smooth tree,
That stood by stream or fountain with glad breath,
Nor stone less hard than stones are apt to be,
But they would find a knife to carve it with;
And in a thousand places you might see,
And on the walls about you and beneath,
ANGELICA AND MEDORO, tied in one,
As many ways as lovers' knots can run.
And when they thought they had out-spent their time, Angelica the royal took her way,
She and Medoro, to the Indian clime,
To crown him king of her fair realm, Cathay.
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