Ariosto Orlando Furioso Canto X 91 99

A poem by Alan Seeger (1888-1916)

Ruggiero, to amaze the British host,

And wake more wonder in their wondering ranks,

The bridle of his winged courser loosed,

And clapped his spurs into the creature’s flanks;

High in the air, even to the topmost banks

Of crudded cloud, uprose the flying horse,

And now above the Welsh, and now the Manx,

And now across the sea he shaped his course,

Till gleaming far below lay Erin’s emerald shores.

There round Hibernia’s fabled realm he coasted,

Where the old saint had left the holy cave,

Sought for the famous virtue that it boasted

To purge the sinful visitor and save.

Thence back returning over land and wave,

Ruggiero came where the blue currents flow,

The shores of Lesser Brittany to lave,

And, looking down while sailing to and fro,

He saw Angelica chained to the rock below.

‘Twas on the Island of Complaint — well named,

For there to that inhospitable shore,

A savage people, cruel and untamed,

Brought the rich prize of many a hateful war.

To feed a monster that bestead them sore,

They of fair ladies those that loveliest shone,

Of tender maidens they the tenderest bore,

And, drowned in tears and making piteous moan,

Left for that ravening beast, chained on the rocks alone.

Thither transported by enchanter’s art,

Angelica from dreams most innocent

(As the tale mentioned in another part)

Awoke, the victim for that sad event.

Beauty so rare, nor birth so excellent,

Nor tears that make sweet Beauty lovelier still,

Could turn that people from their harsh intent.

Alas, what temper is conceived so ill

But, Pity moving not, Love’s soft enthralment will?

On the cold granite at the ocean’s rim

These folk had chained her fast and gone their way;

Fresh in the softness of each delicate limb

The pity of their bruising violence lay.

Over her beauty, from the eye of day

To hide its pleading charms, no veil was thrown.

Only the fragments of the salt sea-spray

Rose from the churning of the waves, wind-blown,

To dash upon a whiteness creamier than their own.

Carved out of candid marble without flaw,

Or alabaster blemishless and rare,

Ruggiero might have fancied what he saw,

For statue-like it seemed, and fastened there

By craft of cunningest artificer;

Save in the wistful eyes Ruggiero thought

A teardrop gleamed, and with the rippling hair

The ocean breezes played as if they sought

In its loose depths to hide that which her hand might not.

Pity and wonder and awakening love

Strove in the bosom of the Moorish Knight.

Down from his soaring in the skies above

He urged the tenor of his courser’s flight.

Fairer with every foot of lessening height

Shone the sweet prisoner. With tightening reins

He drew more nigh, and gently as he might:

“O lady, worthy only of the chains

With which his bounden slaves the God of Love constrains,

“And least for this or any ill designed,

Oh, what unnatural and perverted race

Could the sweet flesh with flushing stricture bind,

And leave to suffer in this cold embrace

That the warm arms so hunger to replace?”

Into the damsel’s cheeks such color flew

As by the alchemy of ancient days

If whitest ivory should take the hue

Of coral where it blooms deep in the liquid blue.

Nor yet so tightly drawn the cruel chains

Clasped the slim ankles and the wounded hands,

But with soft, cringing attitudes in vain

She strove to shield her from that ardent glance.

So, clinging to the walls of some old manse,

The rose-vine strives to shield her tender flowers,

When the rude wind, as autumn weeks advance,

Beats on the walls and whirls about the towers

And spills at every blast her pride in piteous showers.

And first for choking sobs she might not speak,

And then, “Alas!” she cried, “ah, woe is me!”

And more had said in accents faint and weak,

Pleading for succor and sweet liberty.

But hark! across the wide ways of the sea

Rose of a sudden such a fierce affray

That any but the brave had turned to flee.

Ruggiero, turning, looked. To his dismay,

Lo, where the monster came to claim his quivering prey!

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