Deemed it a symbol of his reign to come.
XXI
It may be that, if man’s presumptuous tongue
Dare pierce the mystery of celestial things,
A guardian angel from Heaven’s choir had flung
Round him the sheen of his seraphic wings.
While thus the pious Christian cavalier
The Franks addressed, and issued his commands,
Not backward was Prince Emiren to cheer,
And orders give to the Egyptian bands.
XXII
His numerous troops he ranged in order, soon
As he caught sight of the approaching Franks,
And likewise formed his force in a half-moon,
Foot in the centre, horse upon the flanks.
The right in person he resolved to head;
Charge of the left on Altamore bestowed;
The foot, between them, Muleasses led,
And in the centre fair Armida rode.
XXIII
The Indian monarch and the imperial train
With Tisapherne were on the captain’s right;
But, where the left wing o’er the spacious plain
Could in more free and open order fight,
With Altamoro, Libya’s, Persia’s kings,
And the two chieftains of the desert were;
And cross-bowmen, with those that whirled the slings,
And shafts discharged, were concentrated there.
XXIV
Thus marshalled, Emireno dashed his spurs
Into his steed, and galloped down the ranks;
Now spoke himself, now thro’ interpreters,
Mingling rewards with threats, rebukes with thanks.
To some he said: ‘ Why such dejection show?
What, soldiers, you, and yet betray such fright?
Why, what can one against a hundred do?
Your shouts, your shadows should put them to flight.’
XXV
To others: ‘Go, belie not your bold look,
And from the foe their lawless plunder wrest.’
In some, the harrowing imagery woke,
And in their minds it moulded and impressed,
Of their imploring country, and the dread
Felt by their suppliant and affrighted young.
‘Fancy your country now unfolds,’ he said,
‘These plaints, these supplications, thro’ my tongue:
XXVI
‘My laws preserve, and in this fatal hour
Let not my blood our sacred temples lave;
Our virgins from pollution of the Giaour,
The tombs and ashes of our fathers, save.
To you, lamenting happy times, now fled,
The afflicted elders show their silver hair;
Matrons to you their babes and marriage bed,
Their little cradles, and their bosoms bare.
XXVII
‘Asia,’ to many he exclaimed, ‘selects
You as the champions of her fame; from you
On you barbaric robbers she expects
Vengeance most bitter, but most justly due.’
Thus varied natures to his point he gained,
By varied speeches, and by varied mien;
But now the captains ceased, for there remained
But little space the rival hosts between.
XXVIII
Oh! ’twas a grand and wondrous sight to see,
How, with their ranks deployed, the camps at last
Fronted each other in dread rivalry,
Ready to move at the first signal blast
Spread to the breeze, the banners waved on high,
Plumes gaily danced the towering helms upon;
And arms, crests, colours, and embroidery,
All steel and gold, flashed brightly in the sun.
XXIX
Appearance of a thick-set wood suggest
The two great camps — so thick the spears abound.
Bent are the bows, the lances placed in rest,
The arrows vibrate, and the slings whirl round;
The destriers, too, beneath their riders bound,
And seem to second their infuriate ire;
They stamp, snort, neigh, and restless paw the ground,
And their swoln nostrils breathe forth smoke and fire.
XXX
Fair is ev’n horror in so fair a sight,
And from the midst of fear enjoyment springs;
Inspiring no less terror than delight,
The horrible, harmonious trumpet rings.
Still, the Frank camp, tho’ less in number, seems
More splendid to the eye and to the ear:
With greater brilliancy its armour gleams,
Its trumpets’ notes more warlike are and clear.
XXXI
The Christian clarions the first challenge gave,
The Pagans’ answer and defiance sound;
The Franks kneel down, no less devout than brave,
And, rapt with reverence, kiss the hallowed ground.
The space between decreases, disappears;
The foe on each side charge their charging foes;
Upon the wings engage the cavaliers;
The line advances, cross and crescent close.
XXXII
But who, of all the Christians in that fight,
Gave the first blow, and worthy honour gained?
’Twas thou, Gildippe, wast the first to smite
The great Hyrcanus that in Ormus reigned;
And (for such glory to a woman’s blow
The heavens conceded) pierced his brawny breast;
Transfixed, he fell, and, falling, heard the foe
With cheers her more than woman’s skill attest.
XXXIII
The warrior woman having snapt her spear,
With virile arm her trusty sabre drew,
And ‘gainst the Persians urged her destrier,
And charged and broke their densest columns thro’;
Zopirus, where man girds himself, she smote,
(Almost asunder by her sword-cut hewed),
Then clave, Alarco striking in the throat,
The double passage of the voice and food.
XXXIV
A thrust Argeo, and a downright blow,
Prince Artaxerxes felled, one stunned, one slain;
She next, the left wrist of Ismael cut thro’,
Close to the pliant joint, so that the rein
Dropped from his severed hand; the trenchant stroke
Then falling hissed upon his charger’s ears,
Who, curbed no longer, galloped off and broke
The compact order of the Persian spears.
XXXV
All these, and others, whom the lapse of years
Dooms to oblivion, fair Gildippe slew,
When, thirsting for her spoils, the cavaliers
Of Persia ‘gainst her in a body flew;
At this, her husband’s fears awakened were,
Who thither spurred, his darling wife to aid,
Whence linked together the devoted pair,
In faithful union, double force displayed.
XXXVI
The loyal husband, the magnanimous wife,
Used arts of fence unheard-of and unknown:
They only sought to save each other’s life
With loving care, forgetful of their own.
The unblenching Amazon beat back the blows,
That hard and heavy ‘gainst her dear were sped;
Strokes aimed at her he failed not to oppose
With shield, nay would, if needed, with his head.
XXXVII
Each makes the other’s vengeance and defence
His own sole care; audacious Artaban
He killed with sudden savage violence —
By him was ruled the isle of Boëcan;
By the same arm was laid Alvante low,
Who rashly ventured to att
ack his love,
While Arimont, who gave her lord a blow,
His front from eye to eye Gildippe clove.
XXXVIII
Thus fell the Persians, but more havoc made
The King of Samarcand among the Franks;
Where’er he turned his horse or trenchant blade,
Down fell like levelled com the adverse ranks;
Those blest that did not the first stroke survive,
Nor underneath his ponderous charger got;
Since those that from his sword escaped alive,
His destrier bit and trampled under foot.
XXXIX
By Altamoro’s arm were thus laid low,
Ardon the great, and Brunellon the strong,
The head and helm of one were severed so,
That on his back they in two pieces hung;
Pierced was the other in that cruel fight,
Where heart-expanding laughter takes its rise,
So that (most horrid and unnatural sight),
Constrained he laughs, and wildly laughing dies.
XL
Nor did his homicidal scimetar,
Alone drive those from the attractive world,
But with them into fell destruction were
Gentonio, Guasco, Rosmond, Guido, hurled.
Who can recount how many Altamore
Slew, or were crushed his charger’s weight beneath?
Who tell the names his slaughtered victims bore,
The manner of their wounds or of their death?
XLI
There was not one his fury dared confront,
Or ev’n to assail him from a distance feigned;
‘Gainst him alone Gildippe turned her front,
Nor from the questionable test refrained.
On Thermodonte’s banks ne’er Amazon
Brandished the shield or two-edged falchion so
Boldly, as she now boldly galloped on
To meet her furious formidable foe.
XLII
She struck where golden and enamelled glowed,
Upon his helmet the barbaric crown,
Which she so shivered, that the Persian bowed,
Forced by the stroke, his haughty forehead down.
Well judged the Pagan king, that from some strong
And stalwart arm that vigorous onslaught came,
Whence shamed, despiteful, he revenged the wrong;
Revenge was simultaneous with his shame.
XLIII
For the same moment, with such violence
He struck Gildippe’s forehead, that she fell,
Reft of all vigour and of every sense,
But her dear spouse sustained her in the selle.
Enough for him, the king struck not again;
Was it their fortune or his chivalry?
So a magnanimous lion with disdain
A sleeper leaves, and looks and passes by.
XLIV
Meanwhile Ormondo, to whose ruthless hands
The inhuman office was entrusted, got
Beneath false colours ‘mong the Christian bands
With his co-partners in the hellish plot.
Thus skulking wolves that counterfeit the mien
Of shepherds’ dogs, concealed by darkness, sneak
(Their doubtful tails their stealthy legs between),
Around the folds, and there admission seek.
XLV
Nearer they came, and now the Pagan knight
Had almost reached the pious Godfred’s side,
Who, when he saw, forewarned, the gold and white
Of the suspected uniforms, outcried:
‘Behold you traitor, who in copied guise,
Seeks for a Frank to pass himself, and lo!
Moving against me his accomplices,’
This said, he sprang on his perfidious foe,
XLVI
Whom he maimed mortally; the villain, dazed,
Nor strikes, nor ev’n defends himself, nor flies;
Once daring, he, as tho’ Medusa gazed,
From terror freezes now and petrifies.
By myriad swords they were at once attacked,
‘Gainst them alone was every quiver drained,
Till in such bits were chief and followers hacked,
That of their corpses scarce a trace remained.
XLVII
When Godfred found himself bedabbled o’er
With hostile blood, he to the combat flew,
Where near him he beheld Prince Altamore
Open and charge his closest columns through,
So that they scattered were like Libyan sands
Before the south; towards him he swiftly sped;
With shouts and threats rebuked his flying bands,
Assailed the assailant, and checked those that fled.
XLVIII
Never did Ida, ne’er did Zanthus see
Such combat as those two fierce champions waged.
Meanwhile Prince Baldwin and his infantry,
With Muleasses sharply were engaged;
Nor was the equestrian battle near the hill
On the extreme left, with less excitement fraught,
Where the commander of the Infidel,
With the two powerful chiefs in person fought.
XLIX
One of the Roberts with the chief that guides
The hordes, in fierce and well-matched strife contends;
But the Indian prince his namesake’s helm divides,
And into shivers his chain armour rends.
No foeman to compare with him as knight
Throughout the field fierce Tisaphernes found;
O’er it he scoured, where thickest seemed the fight,
And much and varied slaughter spread around.
L
Thus warred the rival hosts, whose hopes and fears
Now rose, now fell, in doubtful balance hung;
Shields shattered, fractured armour, splintered spears,
Were o’er the field in wild confusion flung.
In breasts and bellies disembowelled, here
Sabres were stuck — there lying on the plain;
Here lay supine — there prone a cavalier,
Who bit the ground in agony of pain.
LI
The steed lay stretched his lifeless master near,
Comrades beside their bleeding comrades bled;
Foe lay on foe — upon his vanquished peer
The victor lay — the dying on the dead.
No sound distinct — yet was no silence there,
But a strange something that vague fears inspired;
The curse of rage, the gnashing of despair,
The groans of those that languished and expired.
LII
The arms that were so brilliant to behold,
Squalid and sad, no more delight the eye;
Lost hath the steel its flash, its rays the gold,
The colours erst so bright, their brilliancy.
All that of gaudy and becoming smiled
In plume and broidery, under foot was pressed,
And what blood stained not, filthy dust defiled:
Such changed appearance the two camps possessed.
LIII
The Arab now, the Æthiop and the Moor,
Who held the extreme left, deploy their ranks,
And, pushing forward in half-circle, pour
Down on the Christians and surround their flanks.
The slingers, too, and archers from afar
Keep on the Franks a galling fire, when, lo!
Rinaldo and his squadron joined the war;
Less shock were earthquake, lightning’s flash more slow.
LIV
Asmir of Meroë among the adust
Æthiops, was of their brave the most renowned;
Him, where the neck is knitted to the bust,
Rinaldo caught, and stretched upon the ground.
But when the
taste of victory had warmed
His thirst for slaughter of the Infidel,
Actions the excited conqueror performed
Prodigious, horrible, incredible.
LV
More deaths than blows he gave, and yet there rung
Of these a storm; but as so rapidly
A furious dragon lashes forth one tongue,
That all bystanders think he vibrates three;
Ev’n so, the panic-stricken people thought
His rapid hand three falchions whirled, and the eye
Believed the false, by the swift motion caught,
And terror stamped it as reality.
LVI
The Libyan tyrants and the Negro kings
He slew, and crimsoned with each other’s blood;
And as on other arms his falchion rings,
His troops the example of their chief pursued.
With horrible contempt and frantic glee
The unresisting Infidel they smote;
Not fight it was, but simple butchery:
Here was the steel, and there the victim’s throat!
LVII
But not for long their foes the Pagans faced,
Or wounds received in noble parts; away
The masses fled, by panic fear so chased
That all were thrown in wildest disarray.
Still the Franks followed on the Pagans’ trace,
Till at all points they were discomfited;
The impetuous victor then relaxed his pace;
Less fierce he was ‘gainst those that fastest fled.
LVIII
As the north wind, which hills and woods oppose,
Its force redoubles and its ire unchains,
But with a breath more soft and gentle blows,
When unresisted, o’er the level plains.
Or as, ‘mid rocks, the billows foam and fret,
But lose their fury in the open sea,
So the less opposition that he met,
Decreased Rinaldo’s animosity.
LIX
But when, ashamed his noble rage to waste
Ignobly ‘gainst the flying foeman’s back,
‘Gainst the infantry, that had the Arabs placed
To flank it, he directed his attack.
There ’twas exposed, those absent being or dead
Who at that juncture should have rendered aid;
He came athwart it, charging, at the head
Of his bold men at arms, the foot brigade,
LX
And burst thro’ all defence, and ‘mid their ranks
Was by sheer force of the momentum borne;
Down, down they fell before the impetuous Franks:
Whirlwind less quickly lays the pliant corn.
With blood of mangled limbs, with swords and spears,
Paved was the reeking field, and under foot
The Turks were trampled by the cavaliers,
Who o’er them swept, nor paused in their pursuit.
LXI
Rinaldo reached at last the golden car
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