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As torch to torch gives fire, and lights increase,
Until the flame is spread the country through,
Even so from heart to heart the fury spread,
Which in the waves would doom Orlando dead.

XLVIII
These, armed with sling or bow, upon the shore,
And these supplied with spear or sword descend;
And on each side, behind him and before,
Distant and near, as best they can, offend.
At such a brutal insult wonders sore
The peer, who sees that mischief they intend,
In vengeance for the cruel monster slain,
Whence he had glory hoped, and praise to gain.

XLIX
But as the usage is of surly bear,
By sturdy Russ or Lithuanian led,
Little to heed the dogs in crowded fair,
Nor even at their yelps to turn his head,
The clamour of the churls assembled there
Orlando witnessed with as little dread;
Who knew that he the rout which threatened death,
Had power to scatter at a single breath:

L
And speedily he made them yield him place,
When turned on them, he grasped his trenchant blade.
Misjudging of his worth, the foolish race
Deemed that he would have short resistance made;
Since him they saw no covering buckler brace,
Uncuirassed, nor in other arms arrayed;
But knew not that, from head to foot, a skin
More hard than diamond cased the Paladin.

LI
What by Orlando others cannot do,
The knight by others can; at half a score
Of blows in all he thirty killed; by few
He passed that measure, if the strokes were more:
And had already turned him to undo
The naked lady, having cleared the shore,
When other larum sounds, and other cries
From a new quarter of the island rise.

LII
While so the Paladin had kept in play
The barbarous islanders, upon that hand,
The men of Ireland, without let or fray,
Had poured from many quarters on the strand:
And now, without remorse or pity, slay
The inhabitants, through all the wasted land;
And, was it justice moved, or cruel rage,
Slaughter without regard to sex or age.

LIII
Little or no defender the island-crew
Attempt; in part as taken unaware,
In part that in the little place are few,
And that those few without a purpose are.
'Mid sack and fire, the wasted country through,
The islanders are slain, and everwhere
The walls are upon earth in ruin spread,
Nor in the land is left a living head.

LIV
As if the mighty tumult which he hears,
And shriek and ruin had concerned him nought,
The naked rock the bold Orlando nears,
Where she was placed, to feed the monster brought.
He looks, and known to him the dame appears,
And more appears, when nigher her he sought:
Olympia she appears, and is indeed
Olympia, whose faith reaped so ill a meed.

LV
Wretched Olympia; whom, beside the scorn
Which Love put on her, Fortune too pursued,
Who sent the corsairs fell, which her had born
That very day to the island of Ebude.
She Roland recollects on his return
Landward; but, for the damsel naked stood,
Not only nought she to the warrior said,
But dared not raise her eyes, and dropt her head.

LVI
Orlando asks what evil destiny
Her to that cruel island had conveyed
From where she in as much felicity
Was with her consort left as could be said:
"I know not (cried the weeping dame) if I
Have thanks to render thee for death delayed,
Or should lament me that, through means of thee,
This day did not my woes concluded see.

LVII
"I have to thank thee that from death, too dread
And monstrous, thy good arm deliverance gave;
Which would have been too monstrous, had I fed
The beast, and in his belly found a grave:
But cannot thank thee that I am not dead,
Since death alone can me from misery save,
Well shall I thank thee for that wished relief,
Which can deliver me from every grief.
"

LVIII
Next she related, with loud sobs and sighs,
How her false spouse betrayed her as she lay
Asleep, and how of pirates made the prize,
They bore her from the desert isle away.
And, as she spake, she turned her in the guise
Of Dian, framed by artists, who pourtray
Her carved or painted, as in liquid font
She threw the water in Actaeon's front.

LIX
For, as she can, her waist she hides, and breast,
More liberal of flowing flank and reins.
Roland desires his ship, to find a vest
To cover her, delivered from her chains:
While he is all intent upon this quest,
Oberto comes; Oberto, he that reigns
O'er Ireland's people, who had understood
How lifeless lay the monster of the flood;

LX
And, swimming, how, amid the watery roar,
A knight a weighty anchor in his throat
Had fix'd, and so had dragged him to the shore,
As men against the current track a boat.
This while Oberto comes; who, if his lore,
Who told the tale, were true, desires to note;
While his invading army, far and wide,
Ebuda burn and waste on every side.

LXI
Oberto, though the Paladin to sight
Was dripping, and with water foul and gore;
With gore, that from the orc, emerged to light,
Whom he had entered bodily, he bore,
He for the country knew the stranger knight
As he perused his face; so much the more,
That he had thought when told the tidings, none
Save Roland could such mighty fear have done;

LXII
Knew him, because a page of honour he
Had been in France, and for the crown, his right
Upon his father's death, had crossed the sea
The year before. So often he the knight
Had seen, and had with him held colloquy,
Their times of meeting had been infinite.
He doffed his casque, with festive welcome pressed
Towards the count, and clasped him to the breast.

LXIII
Orlando is no less rejoined to see
The king, than is the king that champion true.
After with friendly cheer and equal glee
Had once or twice embraced the noble two,
To Oberto Roland told the treachery
Which had been done the youthful dame, and who
Had done it, -- false Bireno -- that among
All men should least have sought to do her wrong.

LXIV
To him he told the many proofs and clear
By which the dame's affection had been tried;
And how she for Bireno kin and geer
Had lost, and would in fine for him have died.
And how he this could warrant, and appear
To vouch for much, as witness on her side.
While thus to him her griefs Orlando showed,
The lady's shining eyes with tears o'erflowed.

LXV
Her face was such as sometimes in the spring
We see a doubtful sky, when on the plain
A shower descends, and the sun, opening
His cloudy veil, looks out amid the rain.
And as the nightingale then loves to sing
From branch of verdant stem her dulcet strain,
So in her beauteous tears his pinions bright
Love bathes, rejoicing in the chrystal light.

LXVI
The stripling heats his golden arrow's head
At her bright eyes, then slacks the weapon's glow
In streams, which falls between white flowers and red;
And, the shaft tempered, strongly draws his bow,
And roves at him, o'er whom no shield is spread,
Nor iron rind, nor double mail below;
Who, gazing on her tresses, eyes, and brow,
Feels that his heart is pierced, he knows not how.