Jersusalem Delivered

by Torquato Tasso

  And published it through all the lodgings broad,

  That against the morn each should himself provide;

  Meanwhile they might their hearts of cares unload,

  And rest their tired limbs that eveningtide;

  Thus faréd they till night their eyes did close,

  Night friend to gentle rest and sweet repose.

  With little sign as yet of springing day

  Out peeped, not well appeared the rising morn,

  The plough yet tore not up the fertile lay,

  Nor to their feed the sheep from folds return,

  The birds sate silent on the greenwood spray

  Amid the groves unheard was hound and horn,

  When trumpets shrill, true signs of hardy fights,

  Called up to arms the soldiers, called the knights:

  "Arm, arm at once!" an hundred squadrons cried,

  And with their cry to arm them all begin.

  Godfrey arose, that day he laid aside

  His hauberk strong he wonts to combat in,

  And donned a breastplate fair, of proof untried,

  Such one as footmen use, light, easy, thin.

  Scantly their lord thus clothéd had his gromes

  When agéd Raymond to his presence comes.

  And furnished thus when he the man beheld,

  By his attire his secret thought he guessed,

  "Where is," quoth he, "your sure and trusty shield?

  Your helm, your hauberk strong? where all the rest?

  Why be you half disarmed? why to the field

  Approach you in these weak defences dressed?

  I see this day you mean a course to run,

  Wherein may peril much, small praise be won.

  "Alas, do you that idle praise expect,

  To set first foot this conquered wall above?

  Of less account some knight thereto object

  Whose loss so great and harmful cannot prove;

  My lord, your life with greater care protect,

  And love yourself because all us you love,

  Your happy life is spirit, soul, and breath

  Of all this camp, preserve it then from death."

  To this he answered thus, "You know," he said,

  "In Clarimont by mighty Urban's hand

  When I was girded with this noble blade,

  For Christ's true faith to fight in every land,

  To God even then a secret vow I made,

  Not as a captain here this day to stand

  And give directions, but with shield and sword

  To fight, to win, or die for Christ my Lord.

  "When all this camp in battle strong shall be

  Ordained and ordered, well disposéd all,

  And all things done which to the high degree

  And sacred place I hold belongen shall;

  Then reason is it, nor dissuade thou me,

  That I likewise assault this sacred wall,

  Lest from my vow to God late made I swerve:

  He shall this life defend, keep and preserve."

  Thus he concludes, and every hardy knight

  His sample followed, and his brethren twain,

  The other princes put on harness light,

  As footmen use: but all the Pagan train

  Toward that side bent their defensive might

  Which lies exposed to view of Charles's wain

  And Zephyrus' sweet blasts, for on that part

  The town was weakest, both by site and art.

  On all parts else the fort was strong by site,

  With mighty hills defenced from foreign rage,

  And to this part the tyrant gan unite

  His subjects born and bands that serve for wage,

  From this exploit he spared nor great nor lite,

  The agéd men, and boys of tender age,

  To fire of angry war still brought new fuel,

  Stones, darts, lime, brimstone and bitumen cruel.

  All full of arms and weapons was the wall,

  Under whose basis that fair plain doth run,

  There stood the Soldan like a giant tall,

  So stood at Rhodes the Coloss of the sun,

  Waist high, Argantes showed himself withal,

  At whose stern looks the French to quake begun,

  Clorinda on the corner tower alone,

  In silver arms like rising Cynthia shone.

  Her rattling quiver at her shoulders hung,

  Therein a flash of arrows feathered weel.

  In her left hand her bow was bended strong,

  Therein a shaft headed with mortal steel,

  So fit to shoot she singled forth among

  Her foes who first her quarries' strength should feel,

  So fit to shoot Latona's daughter stood

  When Niobe she killed and all her brood.

  The agéd tyrant tottered on his feet

  From gate to gate, from wall to wall he flew,

  He comforts all his bands with speeches sweet,

  And every fort and bastion doth review,

  For every need prepared in every street

  New regiments he placed and weapons new.

  The matrons grave within their temples high

  To idols false for succors call and cry,

  "O Macon, break in twain the steeléd lance

  Of wicked Godfrey with thy righteous hands,

  Against thy name he doth his arm advance,

  His rebel blood pour out upon these sands;"

  These cries within his ears no entrance

  Could find, for naught he hears, naught understands.

  While thus the town for her defence ordains,

  His armies Godfrey ordereth on the plains;

  His forces first on foot he forward brought,

  With goodly order, providence and art,

  And against these towers which to assail he thought,

  In battles twain his strength he doth depart,

  Between them crossbows stood, and engines wrought

  To cast a stone, a quarry, or a dart,

  From whence like thunder's dint or lightning new

  Against the bulwark stones and lances flew

  His men at arms did back his bands on foot,

  The light horse ride far off and serve for wings,

  He gave the sign, so mighty was the rout

  Of those that shot with bows and cast with slings,

  Such storms of shafts and stones flew all about,

  That many a Pagan proud to death it brings,

  Some died, some at their loops durst scant outpeep,

  Some fled and left the place they took to keep.

  The hardy Frenchmen, full of heat and haste,

  Ran boldly forward to the ditches large,

  And o'er their heads an iron pentice vast

  They built, by joining many a shield and targe,

  Some with their engines ceaseless shot and cast,

  And volleys huge of arrows sharp discharge,

  Upon the ditches some employed their pain

  To fill the moat and even it with the plain.

  With slime or mud the ditches were not soft,

  But dry and sandy, void of waters clear,

  Though large and deep the Christians fill them oft,

  With rubbish, fagots, stones, and trees they bear:

  Adrastus first advanced his crest aloft,

  And boldly gan a strong scalado rear,

  And through the falling storm did upward climb

  Of stones, darts, arrows, fire, pitch and lime:

  The hardy Switzer now so far was gone

  That half way up with mickle pain he got,

  A thousand weapons he sustained alone,

  And his audacious climbing ceaséd not;

  At last upon him fell a mighty stone,

  As from some engine great it had been shot,

  It broke his helm, he tumbled from the height,

  The strong Circassian cast that wondrous
weight;

  Not mortal was the blow, yet with the fall

  On earth sore bruised the man lay in a swoon.

  Argantes gan with boasting words to call,

  "Who cometh next? this first is tumbled down,

  Come, hardy soldiers, come, assault this wall,

  I will not shrink, nor fly, nor hide my crown,

  If in your trench yourselves for dread you hold,

  There shall you die like sheep killed in their fold."

  Thus boasted he; but in their trenches deep,

  The hidden squadrons kept themselves from scath,

  The curtain made of shields did well off keep

  Both darts and shot, and scornéd all their wrath.

  But now the ram upon the rampiers steep,

  On mighty beams his head advancéd hath,

  With dreadful horns of iron tough tree great,

  The walls and bulwarks trembled at his threat.

  An hundred able men meanwhile let fall

  The weights behind, the engine tumbled down

  And battered flat the battlements and wall:

  So fell Taigetus hill on Sparta town,

  It crushed the steeléd shield in pieces small,

  And beat the helmet to the wearers' crown,

  And on the ruins of the walls and stones,

  Disperséd left their blood their brains and bones.

  The fierce assailants kept no longer close

  Under the shelter of their target fine,

  But their bold fronts to chance of war expose,

  And against those towers let their virtue shine,

  The scaling ladders up to skies arose,

  The ground-works deep some closely undermine,

  The walls before the Frenchmen shrink and shake,

  And gaping sign of headlong falling make:

  And fallen they had, so far the strength extends

  Of that fierce ram and his redoubted stroke,

  But that the Pagan's care the place defends

  And saved by warlike skill the wall nigh broke:

  For to what part soe'er the engine bends,

  Their sacks of wool they place the blow to choke,

  Whose yielding breaks the strokes thereon which light,

  So weakness oft subdues the greatest might.

  While thus the worthies of the western crew

  Maintained their brave assault and skirmish hot,

  Her mighty bow Clorinda often drew,

  And many a sharp and deadly arrow shot;

  And from her bow no steeléd shaft there flew

  But that some blood the curséd engine got,

  Blood of some valiant knight or man of fame,

  For that proud shootress scornéd weaker game.

  The first she hit among the Christian peers

  Was the bold son of England's noble king,

  Above the trench himself he scantly rears,

  But she an arrow looséd from the string,

  The wicked steel his gauntlet breaks and tears,

  And through his right hand thrust the piercing sting;

  Disabled thus from fight, he gan retire,

  Groaning for pain, but fretting more for ire.

  Lord Stephen of Amboise on the ditch's brim,

  And on a ladder high, Clotharius died,

  From back to breast an arrow piercéd him,

  The other was shot through from side to side:

  Then as he managed brave his courser trim,

  On his left arm he hit the Flemings' guide,

  He stopped, and from the wound the reed out-twined,

  But left the iron in his flesh behind.

  As Ademare stood to behold the fight

  High on the bank, withdrawn to breathe a space,

  A fatal shaft upon his forehead light,

  His hand he lifted up to feel the place,

  Whereon a second arrow chancéd right,

  And nailed his hand unto his wounded face,

  He fell, and with his blood distained the land,

  His holy blood shed by a virgin's hand.

  While Palamede stood near the battlement,

  Despising perils all, and all mishap,

  And upward still his hardy footings bent,

  On his right eye he caught a deadly clap,

  Through his right eye Clorinda's seventh shaft went,

  And in his neck broke forth a bloody gap;

  He underneath that bulwark dying fell,

  Which late to scale and win he trusted well.

  Thus shot the maid: the duke with hard assay

  And sharp assault, meanwhile the town oppressed,

  Against that part which to his campward lay

  An engine huge and wondrous he addressed,

  A tower of wood built for the town's decay

  As high as were the walls and bulwarks best,

  A turret full of men and weapons pent,

  And yet on wheels it rolléd, moved, and went.

  This rolling fort his nigh approaches made,

  And darts and arrows spit against his foes,

  As ships are wont in fight, so it assayed

  With the strong wall to grapple and to close,

  The Pagans on each side the piece invade,

  And all their force against this mass oppose,

  Sometimes the wheels, sometimes the battlement

  With timber, logs and stones, they broke and rent,

  So thick flew stones and darts, that no man sees

  The azure heavens, the sun his brightness lost,

  The clouds of weapons, like to swarms of bees,

  Met in the air, and there each other crossed:

  And look how falling leaves drop down from trees,

  When the moist sap is nipped with timely frost,

  Or apples in strong winds from branches fall;

  The Saracens so tumbled from the wall.

  For on their part the greatest slaughter light,

  They had no shelter against so sharp a shower,

  Some left on live betook themselves to flight,

  So fearéd they this deadly thundering tower:

  But Solyman stayed like a valiant knight,

  And some with him, that trusted in his power,

  Argantes with a long beech tree in hand,

  Ran thither, this huge engine to withstand:

  With this he pushed the tower, and back it drives

  The length of all his tree, a wondrous way,

  The hardy virgin by his side arrives,

  To help Argantes in this hard assay:

  The band that used the ram, this season strives

  To cut the cords, wherein the woolpacks lay,

  Which done, the sacks down in the trenches fall,

  And to the battery naked left the wall.

  The tower above, the ram beneath doth thunder,

  What lime and stone such puissance could abide?

  The wall began, new bruised and crushed asunder,

  Her wounded lap to open broad and wide,

  Godfrey himself and his brought safely under

  The shattered wall, where greatest breach he spied,

  Himself he saves behind his mighty targe,

  A shield not used but in some desperate charge.

  From hence he sees where Solyman descends,

  Down to the threshold of the gaping breach,

  And there it seems the mighty prince intends

  Godfredo's hopéd entrance to impeach:

  Argantes, and with him the maid, defends

  The walls above, to which the tower doth reach,

  His noble heart, when Godfrey this beheld,

  With courage new with wrath and valor swelled.

  He turned about and to good Sigiere spake,

  Who bare his greatest shield and mighty bow,

  "That sure and trusty target let me take,

  Impenetrable is that shield I know,

  Over these ruins will I passage make,

  And e
nter first, the way is eath and low,

  And time requires that by some noble feat

  I should make known my strength and puissance great."

  He scant had spoken, scant received the charge,

  When on his leg a sudden shaft him hit,

  And through that part a hole made wide and large,

  Where his strong sinews fastened were and knit.

  Clorinda, thou this arrow didst discharge,

  And let the Pagans bless thy hand for it,

  For by that shot thou savedst them that day

  From bondage vile, from death and sure decay.

  The wounded duke, as though he felt no pain,

  Still forward went, and mounted up the breach

  His high attempt at first he nould refrain,

  And after called his lords with cheerful speech;

  But when his leg could not his weight sustain,

  He saw his will did far his power outreach,

  And more he strove his grief increased the more,

  The bold assault he left at length therefore:

  And with his hand he beckoned Guelpho near,

  And said, "I must withdraw me to my tent,

  My place and person in mine absence bear,

  Supply my want, let not the fight relent,

  I go, and will ere long again be here;

  I go and straight return:" this said, he went,

  On a light steed he leaped, and o'er the green

  He rode, but rode not, as he thought, unseen.

  When Godfrey parted, parted eke the heart,

  The strength and fortune of the Christian bands,

  Courage increaséd in their adverse part,

  Wrath in their hearts, and vigor in their hands:

  Valor, success, strength, hardiness and art,

  Failed in the princes of the western lands,

  Their swords were blunt, faint was their trumpet's blast,

  Their sun was set, or else with clouds o'ercast.

  Upon the bulwarks now appearéd bold

  That fearful band that late for dread was fled!

  The women that Clorinda's strength behold,

  Their country's love to war encouragéd,

  They weapons got, and fight like men they would,

  Their gowns tucked up, their locks were loose and spread,

  Sharp darts they cast, and without dread or fear,

  Exposed their breasts to save their fortress dear.

  But that which most dismayed the Christian knights,

  And added courage to the Pagans most,

  Was Guelpho's sudden fall in all men's sights,

  Who tumbled headlong down, his footing lost,

  A mighty stone upon the worthy lights,

  But whence it came none wist, nor from what coast;

  And with like blow, which more their hearts dismayed,

  Beside him low in dust old Raymond laid:

  And Eustace eke within the ditches large,