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- Herausgeber: Booksell-Verlag
- Kategorie: Poesie und Drama
- Sprache: Englisch
Torquato Tasso's epic poem "Jerusalem Delivered" intricately weaves themes of faith, heroism, and the quest for redemption within the framework of the First Crusade. Written in the late 16th century, Tasso employs a refined and lyrical style, characterized by rich imagery and sophisticated allegory. The poem captures the tension between the sacred and the temporal as it chronicles the Christian knights' endeavor to reclaim Jerusalem, offering profound commentary on the human experience in the pursuit of divine will. The tension between personal ambition and divine predestination lies at the heart of Tasso's narrative, enriching its literary and historical significance within the context of Renaissance humanism and the Counter-Reformation. Tasso, a prominent figure in the Italian literary canon, faced personal struggles, including imprisonment and the tumult of his time, which deeply influenced his writing. His own experiences with faith, love, and conflict mirror the trials of his characters, lending an emotional depth to his narrative. Tasso's exploration of the moral complexities of war reflects not only his literary genius but also the broader cultural and religious upheavals of his era, as he sought to reconcile the ideals of chivalry with the harsh realities of human conflict. "Jerusalem Delivered" is a seminal work that transcends its historical context, making it a compelling read for scholars and enthusiasts of epic poetry alike. Tasso'Äôs masterful command of verse invites readers to ponder issues of morality, heroism, and spiritual struggle, ensuring its enduring relevance. It is an essential addition to any literary collection for those interested in the confluence of faith and literature in the Renaissance. In this enriched edition, we have carefully created added value for your reading experience: - A succinct Introduction situates the work's timeless appeal and themes. - The Synopsis outlines the central plot, highlighting key developments without spoiling critical twists. - A detailed Historical Context immerses you in the era's events and influences that shaped the writing. - An Author Biography reveals milestones in the author's life, illuminating the personal insights behind the text. - A thorough Analysis dissects symbols, motifs, and character arcs to unearth underlying meanings. - Reflection questions prompt you to engage personally with the work's messages, connecting them to modern life. - Hand‐picked Memorable Quotes shine a spotlight on moments of literary brilliance. - Interactive footnotes clarify unusual references, historical allusions, and archaic phrases for an effortless, more informed read.
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Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2019
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Jerusalem Delivered
Table of Contents
Introduction
Steel and prayer meet on the same ground as competing visions of duty, love, and faith press human courage to its limits.
Jerusalem Delivered endures as a classic because it shaped the European imagination of epic poetry at a moment when Renaissance art was rethinking what heroism could mean. Torquato Tasso’s poem fuses martial action with inward struggle, treating spiritual aspiration and personal desire as forces as consequential as armies. Its lasting stature rests not only on its dramatic momentum and elevated style, but on its ability to give ethical and emotional weight to the costs of victory. Readers return to it for its seriousness of purpose, its variety of tone, and its sustained intensity.
The work belongs to the Italian late Renaissance, composed in the sixteenth century, when poets sought to reconcile classical epic models with Christian subject matter. Tasso, an Italian poet celebrated in his own lifetime, aimed to craft an epic that could stand beside ancient precedents while speaking to the religious and cultural sensibilities of his age. The poem’s historical horizon is the First Crusade, treated as an arena where collective ideals and individual passions collide. In choosing this subject, Tasso set himself the challenge of narrating grand public events without sacrificing psychological depth.
English readers most often encounter the poem through the translation by Edward Fairfax, an early modern English poet who rendered Tasso’s Italian into vigorous, stately verse. Fairfax’s version, traditionally dated to the early seventeenth century, helped carry Tasso’s reputation across linguistic borders and made the epic available to English literary culture in a form that felt at home beside the great narrative poems of the period. His translation is not simply a conduit of information; it is a crafted poem that seeks to preserve the original’s momentum, clarity, and musical architecture.
At its core, Jerusalem Delivered presents the campaign of Christian knights toward the recovery of Jerusalem during the First Crusade, framed as a large-scale endeavor shaped by leadership, morale, and competing loyalties. The narrative follows a host of warriors as they confront obstacles that are as much internal as external, including discord, temptation, and wavering purpose. The poem’s setup establishes a world in which strategy and valor matter, yet outcomes also depend on discipline, persuasion, and the ability to govern the self. From the beginning, the stakes are both communal and personal.
One reason the poem has remained influential is its balance of public epic action with the intimate drama of individuals. Tasso gives prominence to the dilemmas of conscience, the pull of affection, and the friction between aspiration and appetite. In doing so, he extends the epic tradition beyond triumphal chronicle into a field of moral testing, where the hero is measured not only by feats but by restraint, loyalty, and steadiness of mind. That expanded sense of heroism helped later writers imagine epic and romance as forms capable of probing the heart without abandoning grandeur.
The poem’s classic status also rests on the sophistication with which it organizes a vast narrative. Episodes interlock, contrasts sharpen one another, and moments of reflection punctuate the forward drive of the campaign. Its method shows the Renaissance ambition to achieve order and proportion in a story crowded with war councils, duels, journeys, and entanglements of feeling. Even readers new to the text can sense the deliberate shaping at work: scenes are arranged to heighten tension, broaden sympathy, and test the stability of ideals under pressure. The result is a coherent epic world with many human faces.
Fairfax’s translation played a notable role in sustaining that world for English readers, because it offered an idiom that could carry both ceremony and speed. Translation here becomes an act of literary transmission, showing how a Renaissance epic could be refashioned within another poetic tradition while remaining recognizably itself. Fairfax’s English verse presents the poem as a work of high art rather than a mere historical tale, inviting comparison with other major narratives in the language. Through him, Tasso’s themes and narrative strategies entered the wider conversation of early modern literature.
Jerusalem Delivered has long been read for its enduring themes: devotion and doubt, discipline and desire, the ethics of conflict, and the difficult work of unity amid faction. The poem treats collective purpose as fragile, requiring leadership and mutual trust, yet it also acknowledges how readily private feeling can disrupt public aims. Without reducing characters to symbols, it explores how ideals are tested by fatigue, fear, rivalry, and longing. The lasting power of these themes lies in their universality: any community pursuing a demanding goal must contend with the same pressures of temptation and division.
The epic also stands at a crossroads of traditions—classical forms, chivalric romance, and Christian moral seriousness—without collapsing into a simple mixture. Tasso adapts inherited conventions to a new ethical framework, crafting a poem that aims for both magnificence and instruction, both delight and gravity. That ambition, characteristic of its period, helps explain its long afterlife: it became a reference point for thinking about what an epic should accomplish. Later writers could respond to it by imitation, debate, or revision, but rarely without acknowledging its scale and intensity.
Readers approaching the poem today may be struck by how it combines spectacle with scrutiny. Battles and journeys are present, yet the poem repeatedly turns to the costs of decision and the strain of maintaining purpose. Its interest in persuasion, in the management of emotion, and in the tension between personal fulfillment and communal obligation gives it a distinct modern resonance. The work does not ask for a single kind of response; it invites admiration, unease, and reflection in quick succession. That complexity is part of what keeps it alive beyond its historical setting.
In an age still marked by ideological conflict, contested sacred spaces, and the challenge of holding communities together, Jerusalem Delivered remains compelling not as a manual of history but as a study of how human beings pursue exalted ends amid imperfect motives. Through Tasso’s Renaissance vision and Fairfax’s English poetic craft, the book continues to speak about leadership, conscience, and the volatility of desire. Its classic status is sustained by its artistry and by its refusal to separate public action from private struggle. That union of grandeur and inward truth helps ensure its lasting appeal.
Synopsis
Torquato Tasso’s epic poem Jerusalem Delivered, in Edward Fairfax’s influential English translation, recounts a stylized version of the First Crusade focused on the Christian campaign to take Jerusalem. The narrative opens with the crusading host gathered in the Holy Land under the leadership of Godfrey of Bouillon, whose task is framed as both military and providential. The poem immediately establishes its double register: battles and councils unfold alongside supernatural interventions, as divine and infernal powers contend over the fate of the expedition. From the outset, the crusaders’ unity and discipline are presented as fragile, tested by fear, ambition, and desire.
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The central action proceeds through plans to besiege Jerusalem and the obstacles that delay or divert the effort. Strategy meetings, scouting, and early engagements sketch the opposing forces and the complex terrain of war. Tasso emphasizes that the crusade is not a simple march toward victory but a protracted undertaking threatened by internal dissension as much as by the enemy’s resistance. Command decisions become pivotal, as leaders must balance zeal with prudence and keep diverse contingents aligned. The poem’s martial episodes are interwoven with episodes of doubt and rivalry, showing how personal motivations can unsettle collective purpose even in a sacred cause.
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Alongside the military narrative, Jerusalem Delivered introduces romantic and chivalric storylines that complicate the crusaders’ mission. Several warriors are drawn into love, fascination, or enchantment, and the poem treats these attachments as sources of both inspiration and dangerous distraction. Encounters between Christian knights and figures from the opposing side, as well as with intermediaries who move between camps, provide opportunities for negotiations, challenges, and tests of honor. Tasso’s approach stresses the tension between duty and passion: private feelings press against public obligations, and the crusade’s moral framing does not prevent characters from being torn by conflicting loyalties.
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The poem also develops a sustained supernatural conflict. Infernal forces seek to frustrate the crusaders by sowing discord and by setting traps that prey on human weakness. Countervailing divine assistance appears through signs, visions, and timely guidance, reinforcing the idea that the campaign has cosmic significance. These interventions do not erase human agency; rather, they heighten the stakes of each decision and misstep. The crusaders must interpret omens and counsel, and they face trials that are as much spiritual as tactical. In this way the narrative links the siege’s progress to inner struggles over faith, perseverance, and self-command.
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As the siege effort intensifies, the poem shifts between large-scale clashes and smaller exploits that highlight individual prowess. Duels, daring sorties, and rescues showcase the ideals of knighthood, yet Tasso consistently frames heroism as incomplete without obedience to the larger cause. Episodes of capture and release, and moments of clemency or cruelty, underline the human cost of religious war. The enemy is portrayed with capable leaders and brave fighters, making the conflict more than a one-sided contest. Through these scenes the poem examines how valor can be admirable while still entangled in a violent enterprise driven by competing convictions and claims to justice.
Historical Context
Jerusalem Delivered is set during the First Crusade, chiefly the siege and capture of Jerusalem in 1099, and imagines a coalition of western European warriors operating in the eastern Mediterranean. The narrative presumes a world ordered by Latin Christianity, crusading vows, and chivalric hierarchy, confronting polities associated with Islam in Syria and Palestine. The dominant institutions shaping the story are the medieval papacy and feudal lordship, alongside military-religious ideals that defined legitimate war as a penitential act. Tasso’s epic thus adopts a medieval setting while filtering it through early modern Catholic Europe’s concerns about faith, authority, and collective discipline.
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Historically, the First Crusade began after Pope Urban II called for an armed pilgrimage at the Council of Clermont in 1095, amid Byzantine appeals for help against the Seljuk Turks and wider Latin interest in the Holy Land. Crusading combined spiritual incentives—especially indulgences—with practical motives including lordly ambition and the chance for land and status. Crusader armies moved through the Balkans and Anatolia and established footholds in the Levant. Tasso echoes this framework through a providential narrative in which religious purpose, internal rivalry, and the need for unity determine success or failure, reflecting how medieval chroniclers framed the expedition.
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The crusaders’ victory in 1099 was followed by the establishment of Latin Christian states in the eastern Mediterranean, including the Kingdom of Jerusalem. These polities depended on fortifications, alliances with local groups, and continued immigration and military support from Europe. They also existed amid persistent conflict with neighboring powers and shifting regional politics. Jerusalem Delivered draws on the crusade as a foundational moment, representing the siege as both a military undertaking and a test of moral and spiritual order. The epic’s emphasis on strategy, leadership, and cohesion echoes the historical fragility of Latin rule and its reliance on organized force.
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Tasso’s principal source tradition was the Latin and vernacular historiography of crusading, including widely circulated medieval chronicles and later compilations available in Renaissance Italy. Early modern writers often treated crusading history as exemplary material for moral instruction, dynastic glorification, and confessional identity. By the sixteenth century, the crusade had become less an immediate program than a reservoir of symbols—holy war, pilgrimage, and heroic sacrifice—adaptable to contemporary conflicts. Tasso’s poem transforms disparate historical materials into a unified epic plot, in keeping with Renaissance literary ideals, while still relying on recognizable episodes and personalities connected to the 1099 siege.
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The poem’s immediate historical context is late sixteenth-century Italy, shaped by the Counter-Reformation and the Catholic Church’s efforts to reform doctrine, discipline, and culture after the Protestant Reformation. The Council of Trent (1545–1563) reaffirmed Catholic teachings and encouraged tighter oversight of preaching, education, and the arts. Writers working in Catholic courts had to navigate expectations about orthodoxy and moral utility. Jerusalem Delivered, first published in 1581 after years of revision, reflects this environment by combining a Christian heroic narrative with a moralizing tone and an interest in spiritual conflict, even as it engages Renaissance tastes for romance and marvels.
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Torquato Tasso (1544–1595) spent significant portions of his career in the orbit of Italian courts, notably the Este court in Ferrara, where court patronage and cultural competition were intense. Courtly life offered resources and audience but also demanded conformity to political and religious expectations. Tasso’s desire to craft a Christian epic that could rival classical models suited courtly ambitions to display learning and piety. The poem’s concern with leadership, counsel, and the discipline of an army parallels early modern court concerns with order and governance, projecting onto crusading armies the values of princely administration and confessional unity.
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Renaissance debates about epic poetry also shaped the work. Italian critics and poets argued about how to reconcile Aristotle’s ideas about unity and probability with the inherited appeal of chivalric romance, which favored multiple plots, enchantment, and love adventures. Tasso aimed to produce an epic that was both classically ordered and emotionally compelling, refining his narrative to emphasize unity of action while retaining episodes familiar from romance traditions. This literary context matters historically because it was intertwined with religious and political culture: the ideal epic was expected to teach virtue, support legitimate authority, and present a coherent moral world.
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The Mediterranean politics of the sixteenth century gave crusading imagery renewed urgency. The Ottoman Empire’s expansion into southeastern Europe and its naval power in the Mediterranean provoked recurring conflicts with the Habsburgs, Venice, and other Christian powers. The Holy League’s victory at Lepanto in 1571, celebrated across Catholic Europe, reinforced the rhetoric of a united Christendom resisting Islamic power. Tasso wrote in the aftermath of these struggles, and his choice of crusading subject resonated with contemporary fears and hopes. The poem can thus be read as participating in a broader culture that framed war against the Ottomans in crusading terms.
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At the same time, European states were increasingly centralized, and warfare was changing through gunpowder technology, professionalization, and the growth of fiscal-military institutions. Although the poem is set in 1099 and depicts pre-gunpowder siegecraft and chivalric combat, Tasso’s audience lived in an era of large, bureaucratically supplied armies and fortified cities adapted to artillery. The poem’s detailed attention to siege operations and command decisions speaks to early modern interest in military science and governance. By presenting the siege as a disciplined enterprise, Tasso aligns medieval heroism with contemporary expectations of organized war under legitimate leadership.
Author Biography
Torquato Tasso (1544–1595) was an Italian poet of the late Renaissance whose work helped define the epic and lyric ambitions of the Counter-Reformation era. Celebrated in his lifetime and contested by critics, he became best known for an epic poem that shaped European ideas of heroic narrative, religious conflict, and chivalric romance. His career unfolded within the courtly culture of northern and central Italy, where literary prestige depended on patronage as well as mastery of classical models and modern Italian style. Tasso’s achievements and personal difficulties together contributed to a powerful posthumous image of the suffering, inspired poet.
Tasso was educated in the humanist tradition and trained in rhetoric, classical literature, and philosophy, studying at major Italian centers of learning. His formation drew on the prestige of Virgil and other ancient poets, while also responding to Italian predecessors such as Ludovico Ariosto and the broader Petrarchan lyric tradition. He wrote in an environment shaped by debates over poetic decorum, moral purpose, and the proper structure of epic. These discussions mattered intensely in an age attentive to doctrinal and cultural discipline, and Tasso’s work often shows a deliberate effort to reconcile imaginative narrative with religious and ethical seriousness.
Early in his career, Tasso gained attention for poetry that displayed both technical control and an elevated, musical Italian. He wrote in multiple forms, developing a reputation that led him into the orbit of courts where poets served as writers, entertainers, and intellectual ornaments. Court life provided opportunities for performance and circulation of verse, but it also brought exposure to factional pressures and to scrutiny by critics and advisers. Tasso’s developing style combined classical order with romance vitality, seeking grandeur without abandoning emotional immediacy. This balancing act would become central to his most influential writing.
His masterpiece, the epic poem commonly known in English as “Jerusalem Delivered” (Italian: “Gerusalemme liberata”), was published in the early 1580s after years of composition and revision. The poem treats the First Crusade as a stage for martial heroism, religious aspiration, and conflicted desire, weaving together serious epic purpose with episodes of romance and enchantment. It became one of the most widely read and imitated works of early modern Europe, inspiring later poetry, painting, and opera. Admiration for its style and invention coexisted with controversy over its moral and structural choices, making it a touchstone for literary debate.
Alongside the epic, Tasso wrote significant lyric poetry and drama, including the pastoral play “Aminta,” which helped shape the European pastoral tradition. His shorter poems show a refined command of sound and feeling, often blending courtly elegance with a more inward, reflective voice. His drama and pastoral writing influenced later conceptions of idealized rural life as a literary space for ethical and emotional exploration. Across genres, Tasso pursued a heightened, resonant language aimed at moving readers while maintaining an elevated moral and aesthetic register. His work thus linked Renaissance artistry to emerging early modern concerns about discipline, conscience, and public meaning.
Tasso’s later career was marked by periods of instability and confinement, as well as continued writing and revision. He produced a revised epic, “Jerusalem Conquered” (“Gerusalemme conquistata”), reflecting his desire to align the poem more closely with contemporary standards of piety and decorum, though it has generally been regarded as less artistically compelling than the earlier version. The tensions between imaginative freedom and cultural constraint that shaped his life also shaped his reputation: he was praised as a supreme stylist and faulted as an anxious reviser. These circumstances contributed to the enduring narrative of Tasso as both a court poet and a figure at odds with the demands surrounding him.
Tasso died in Rome in 1595, and his posthumous influence quickly expanded beyond Italy. In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries his epic circulated widely in translation and imitation, feeding debates about epic form, Christian heroism, and the place of romance within serious poetry. In the Romantic period, he became emblematic of the inspired poet struggling against social pressures, a legend that sometimes overshadowed the complexity of his craft. Today he remains central to the study of Renaissance literature, genre theory, and the cultural politics of early modern Europe, with “Jerusalem Delivered” and “Aminta” continuing to attract readers for their formal beauty and imaginative power.
Jerusalem Delivered
FIRST BOOK
THE ARGUMENT. God sends his angel to Tortosa[1] down, Godfrey unites the Christian Peers and Knights; And all the Lords and Princes of renown Choose him their Duke, to rule the wares and fights. He mustereth all his host, whose number known, He sends them to the fort that Sion[2] hights; The aged tyrant Juda's land that guides, In fear and trouble, to resist provides.
I The sacred armies, and the godly knight, That the great sepulchre of Christ did free, I sing; much wrought his valor and foresight, And in that glorious war much suffered he; In vain 'gainst him did Hell oppose her might, In vain the Turks and Morians armed be: His soldiers wild, to brawls and mutinies prest, Reduced he to peace, so Heaven him blest.
II O heavenly Muse, that not with fading bays Deckest thy brow by the Heliconian spring, But sittest crowned with stars' immortal rays In Heaven, where legions of bright angels sing; Inspire life in my wit, my thoughts upraise, My verse ennoble, and forgive the thing, If fictions light I mix with truth divine, And fill these lines with other praise than thine.
III Thither thou know'st the world is best inclined Where luring Parnass[3] most his sweet imparts, And truth conveyed in verse of gentle kind To read perhaps will move the dullest hearts: So we, if children young diseased we find, Anoint with sweets the vessel's foremost parts To make them taste the potions sharp we give; They drink deceived, and so deceived, they live.
IV Ye noble Princes, that protect and save The Pilgrim Muses, and their ship defend From rock of Ignorance and Error's wave, Your gracious eyes upon this labor bend: To you these tales of love and conquest brave I dedicate, to you this work I send: My Muse hereafter shall perhaps unfold Your fights, your battles, and your combats bold.
V For if the Christian Princes ever strive To win fair Greece out of the tyrants' hands, And those usurping Ismaelites deprive Of woful Thrace, which now captived stands, You must from realms and seas the Turks forth drive, As Godfrey chased them from Juda's lands, And in this legend, all that glorious deed, Read, whilst you arm you; arm you, whilst you read.
VI Six years were run since first in martial guise The Christian Lords warraid the eastern land; Nice by assault, and Antioch by surprise, Both fair, both rich, both won, both conquered stand, And this defended they in noblest wise 'Gainst Persian knights and many a valiant band; Tortosa won, lest winter might them shend, They drew to holds, and coming spring attend.
VII The sullen season now was come and gone, That forced them late cease from their noble war, When God Almighty form his lofty throne, Set in those parts of Heaven that purest are (As far above the clear stars every one, As it is hence up to the highest star), Looked down, and all at once this world beheld, Each land, each city, country, town and field.
VIII All things he viewed, at last in Syria stayed Upon the Christian Lords his gracious eye, That wondrous look wherewith he oft surveyed Men's secret thoughts that most concealed lie He cast on puissant Godfrey, that assayed To drive the Turks from Sion's bulwarks high, And, full of zeal and faith, esteemed light All worldly honor, empire, treasure, might:
IX In Baldwin next he spied another thought, Whom spirits proud to vain ambition move: Tancred he saw his life's joy set at naught, So woe-begone was he with pains of love: Boemond the conquered folk of Antioch brought, The gentle yoke of Christian rule to prove: He taught them laws, statutes and customs new, Arts, crafts, obedience, and religion true;
X And with such care his busy work he plied, That to naught else his acting thoughts he bent: In young Rinaldo fierce desires he spied, And noble heart of rest impatient; To wealth or sovereign power he naught applied His wits, but all to virtue excellent; Patterns and rules of skill, and courage bold, He took from Guelpho, and his fathers old.
XI Thus when the Lord discovered had, and seen The hidden secrets of each worthy's breast, Out of the hierarchies of angels sheen The gentle Gabriel called he from the rest, 'Twixt God and souls of men that righteous been Ambassador is he, forever blest, The just commands of Heaven's Eternal King, 'Twixt skies and earth, he up and down doth bring.
XII To whom the Lord thus spake: "Godfredo find, And in my name ask him, why doth he rest? Why be his arms to ease and peace resigned? Why frees he not Jerusalem distrest? His peers to counsel call, each baser mind Let him stir up; for, chieftain of the rest I choose him here, the earth shall him allow, His fellows late shall be his subjects now."
XIII This said, the angel swift himself prepared To execute the charge imposed aright, In form of airy members fair imbared, His spirits pure were subject to our sight, Like to a man in show and shape he fared, But full of heavenly majesty and might, A stripling seemed he thrive five winters old, And radiant beams adorned his locks of gold.
XIV Of silver wings he took a shining pair, Fringed with gold, unwearied, nimble, swift; With these he parts the winds, the clouds, the air, And over seas and earth himself doth lift, Thus clad he cut the spheres and circles fair, And the pure skies with sacred feathers clift; On Libanon at first his foot he set, And shook his wings with rory May dews wet.
XV Then to Tortosa's confines swiftly sped The sacred messenger, with headlong flight; Above the eastern wave appeared red The rising sun, yet scantly half in sight; Godfrey e'en then his morn-devotions said, As was his custom, when with Titan bright Appeared the angel in his shape divine, Whose glory far obscured Phoebus' shine.
XVI "Godfrey," quoth he, "behold the season fit To war, for which thou waited hast so long, Now serves the time, if thou o'erslip not it, To free Jerusalem from thrall and wrong: Thou with thy Lords in council quickly sit; Comfort the feeble, and confirm the strong, The Lord of Hosts their general doth make thee[1q], And for their chieftain they shall gladly take thee.
XVII "I, messenger from everlasting Jove, In his great name thus his behests do tell; Oh, what sure hope of conquest ought thee move, What zeal, what love should in thy bosom dwell!" This said, he vanished to those seats above, In height and clearness which the rest excel, Down fell the Duke, his joints dissolved asunder, Blind with the light, and strucken dead with wonder.
XVIII But when recovered, he considered more, The man, his manner, and his message said; If erst he wished, now he longed sore To end that war, whereof he Lord was made; Nor swelled his breast with uncouth pride therefore, That Heaven on him above this charge had laid, But, for his great Creator would the same, His will increased: so fire augmenteth flame.
XIX The captains called forthwith from every tent, Unto the rendezvous he them invites; Letter on letter, post on post he sent, Entreatance fair with counsel he unites, All, what a noble courage could augment, The sleeping spark of valor what incites, He used, that all their thoughts to honor raised, Some praised, some paid, some counselled, all pleased.
XX The captains, soldiers, all, save Boemond, came, And pitched their tents, some in the fields without, Some of green boughs their slender cabins frame, Some lodged were Tortosa's streets about, Of all the host the chief of worth and name Assembled been, a senate grave and stout; Then Godfrey, after silence kept a space, Lift up his voice, and spake with princely grace:
XXI "Warriors, whom God himself elected hath His worship true in Sion to restore, And still preserved from danger, harm and scath, By many a sea and many an unknown shore, You have subjected lately to his faith Some provinces rebellious long before: And after conquests great, have in the same Erected trophies to his cross and name.
XXII "But not for this our homes we first forsook, And from our native soil have marched so far: Nor us to dangerous seas have we betook, Exposed to hazard of so far sought war, Of glory vain to gain an idle smook, And lands possess that wild and barbarous are: That for our conquests were too mean a prey, To shed our bloods, to work our souls' decay.
XXIII "But this the scope was of our former thought,— Of Sion's fort to scale the noble wall, The Christian folk from bondage to have brought, Wherein, alas, they long have lived thrall, In Palestine an empire to have wrought, Where godliness might reign perpetual, And none be left, that pilgrims might denay To see Christ's tomb, and promised vows to pay.
XXIV "What to this hour successively is done Was full of peril, to our honor small, Naught to our first designment, if we shun The purposed end, or here lie fixed all. What boots it us there wares to have begun, Or Europe raised to make proud Asia thrall, If our beginnings have this ending known, Not kingdoms raised, but armies overthrown?
XXV "Not as we list erect we empires new On frail foundations laid in earthly mould, Where of our faith and country be but few Among the thousands stout of Pagans bold, Where naught behoves us trust to Greece untrue, And Western aid we far removed behold: Who buildeth thus, methinks, so buildeth he, As if his work should his sepulchre be.
XXVI "Turks, Persians conquered, Antiochia won, Be glorious acts, and full of glorious praise, By Heaven's mere grace, not by our prowess done: Those conquests were achieved by wondrous ways, If now from that directed course we run The God of Battles thus before us lays, His loving kindness shall we lose, I doubt, And be a byword to the lands about.
XXVII "Let not these blessings then sent from above Abused be, or split in profane wise, But let the issue correspondent prove To good beginnings of each enterprise; The gentle season might our courage move, Now every passage plain and open lies: What lets us then the great Jerusalem With valiant squadrons round about to hem?
XXVIII "Lords, I protest, and hearken all to it, Ye times and ages, future, present, past, Hear all ye blessed in the heavens that sit, The time for this achievement hasteneth fast: The longer rest worse will the season fit, Our sureties shall with doubt be overcast. If we forslow the siege I well foresee From Egypt will the Pagans succored be."
XXIX This said, the hermit Peter rose and spake, Who sate in counsel those great Lords among: "At my request this war was undertake, In private cell, who erst lived closed long, What Godfrey wills, of that no question make, There cast no doubts where truth is plain and strong, Your acts, I trust, will correspond his speech, Yet one thing more I would you gladly teach.
XXX "These strifes, unless I far mistake the thing, And discords raised oft in disordered sort, Your disobedience and ill managing Of actions lost, for want of due support, Refer I justly to a further spring, Spring of sedition, strife, oppression, tort, I mean commanding power to sundry given, In thought, opinion, worth, estate, uneven.
XXXI "Where divers Lords divided empire hold, Where causes be by gifts, not justice tried, Where offices be falsely bought and sold, Needs must the lordship there from virtue slide. Of friendly parts one body then uphold, Create one head, the rest to rule and guide: To one the regal power and sceptre give, That henceforth may your King and Sovereign live."
XXXII And therewith stayed his speech. O gracious Muse, What kindling motions in their breasts do fry? With grace divine the hermit's talk infuse, That in their hearts his words may fructify; By this a virtuous concord they did choose, And all contentions then began to die; The Princes with the multitude agree, That Godfrey ruler of those wars should be.
XXXIII This power they gave him, by his princely right, All to command, to judge all, good and ill, Laws to impose to lands subdued by might, To maken war both when and where he will, To hold in due subjection every wight, Their valors to be guided by his skill; This done, Report displays her tell-tale wings, And to each ear the news and tidings brings.
XXXIV She told the soldiers, who allowed him meet And well deserving of that sovereign place. Their first salutes and acclamations sweet Received he, with love and gentle grace; After their reverence done with kind regreet Requited was, with mild and cheerful face, He bids his armies should the following day On those fair plains their standards proud display.
XXXV The golden sun rose from the silver wave, And with his beams enamelled every green, When up arose each warrior bold and brave, Glistering in filed steel and armor sheen, With jolly plumes their crests adorned they have, And all tofore their chieftain mustered been: He from a mountain cast his curious sight On every footman and on every knight.
XXXVI My mind, Time's enemy, Oblivion's foe, Disposer true of each noteworthy thing, Oh, let thy virtuous might avail me so, That I each troop and captain great may sing, That in this glorious war did famous grow, Forgot till now by Time's evil handling: This work, derived from my treasures dear, Let all times hearken, never age outwear.
XXXVII The French came foremost battailous and bold, Late led by Hugo, brother to their King, From France the isle that rivers four infold With rolling streams descending from their spring, But Hugo dead, the lily fair of gold, Their wonted ensign they tofore them bring, Under Clotharius great, a captain good, And hardy knight ysprong of princes' blood.
XXXVIII A thousand were they in strong armors clad, Next whom there marched forth another band, That number, nature, and instruction had, Like them to fight far off or charge at hand, All valiant Normans by Lord Robert lad, The native Duke of that renowned land, Two bishops next their standards proud upbare, Called Reverend William, and Good Ademare.
XXXIX Their jolly notes they chanted loud and clear On merry mornings at the mass divine, And horrid helms high on their heads they bear When their fierce courage they to war incline: The first four hundred horsemen gathered near To Orange town, and lands that it confine: But Ademare the Poggian youth brought out, In number like, in hard assays as stout.
XL Baldwin, his ensign fair, did next dispread Among his Bulloigners of noble fame, His brother gave him all his troops to lead, When he commander of the field became; The Count Carinto did him straight succeed, Grave in advice, well skilled in Mars his game, Four hundred brought he, but so many thrice Led Baldwin, clad in gilden arms of price.
XLI Guelpho next them the land and place possest, Whose fortunes good with his great acts agree, By his Italian sire, fro the house of Est, Well could he bring his noble pedigree, A German born with rich possessions blest, A worthy branch sprung from the Guelphian tree. 'Twixt Rhene and Danubie the land contained He ruled, where Swaves and Rhetians whilom reigned.
XLII His mother's heritage was this and right, To which he added more by conquest got, From thence approved men of passing might He brought, that death or danger feared not: It was their wont in feasts to spend the night, And pass cold days in baths and houses hot. Five thousand late, of which now scantly are The third part left, such is the chance of war.
XLIII The nation then with crisped locks and fair, That dwell between the seas and Arden Wood, Where Mosel streams and Rhene the meadows wear, A battel soil for grain, for pasture good, Their islanders with them, who oft repair Their earthen bulwarks 'gainst the ocean flood, The flood, elsewhere that ships and barks devours, But there drowns cities, countries, towns and towers;
XLIV Both in one troop, and but a thousand all, Under another Robert fierce they run. Then the English squadron, soldiers stout and tall, By William led, their sovereign's younger son, These archers be, and with them come withal, A people near the Northern Pole that wone, Whom Ireland sent from loughs and forests hoar, Divided far by sea from Europe's shore.
XLV Tancredi next, nor 'mongst them all was one, Rinald except, a prince of greater might, With majesty his noble countenance shone, High were his thoughts, his heart was bold in fight, No shameful vice his worth had overgone, His fault was love, by unadvised sight, Bred in the dangers of adventurous arms, And nursed with griefs, with sorrows, woes, and harms.
XLVI Fame tells, that on that ever-blessed day, When Christian swords with Persian blood were dyed, The furious Prince Tancredi from that fray His coward foes chased through forests wide, Till tired with the fight, the heat, the way, He sought some place to rest his wearied side, And drew him near a silver stream that played Among wild herbs under the greenwood shade.
XLVII A Pagan damsel there unwares he met, In shining steel, all save her visage fair, Her hair unbound she made a wanton net, To catch sweet breathing from the cooling air. On her at gaze his longing looks he set, Sight, wonder; wonder, love; love bred his care; O love, o wonder; love new born, new bred, Now groan, now armed, this champion captive led.
XLVIII Her helm the virgin donned, and but some wight She feared might come to aid him as they fought, Her courage earned to have assailed the knight; Yet thence she fled, uncompanied, unsought, And left her image in his heart ypight; Her sweet idea wandered through his thought, Her shape, her gesture, and her place in mind He kept, and blew love's fire with that wind.
XLIX Well might you read his sickness in his eyes, Their banks were full, their tide was at the flow, His help far off, his hurt within him lies, His hopes unstrung, his cares were fit to mow; Eight hundred horse (from Champain came) he guies, Champain a land where wealth, ease, pleasure, grow, Rich Nature's pomp and pride, the Tirrhene main There woos the hills, hills woo the valleys plain.
L Two hundred Greeks came next, in fight well tried, Not surely armed in steel or iron strong, But each a glaive had pendant by his side, Their bows and quivers at their shoulders hung, Their horses well inured to chase and ride, In diet spare, untired with labor long; Ready to charge, and to retire at will, Though broken, scattered, fled, they skirmish still;
LI Tatine their guide, and except Tatine, none Of all the Greeks went with the Christian host; O sin, O shame, O Greece accurst alone! Did not this fatal war affront thy coast? Yet safest thou an idle looker-on, And glad attendest which side won or lost: Now if thou be a bondslave vile become, No wrong is that, but God's most righteous doom.
LII In order last, but first in worth and fame, Unfeared in fight, untired with hurt or wound, The noble squadron of adventurers came, Terrors to all that tread on Asian ground: Cease Orpheus of thy Minois, Arthur shame To boast of Lancelot, or thy table round: For these whom antique times with laurel drest, These far exceed them, thee, and all the rest.
LIII Dudon of Consa was their guide and lord, And for of worth and birth alike they been, They chose him captain, by their free accord, For he most acts had done, most battles seen; Grave was the man in years, in looks, in word, His locks were gray, yet was his courage green, Of worth and might the noble badge he bore, Old scars of grievous wounds received of yore. LIV After came Eustace, well esteemed man For Godfrey's sake his brother, and his own; The King of Norway's heir Gernando than, Proud of his father's title, sceptre, crown; Roger of Balnavill, and Engerlan, For hardy knights approved were and known; Besides were numbered in that warlike train Rambald, Gentonio, and the Gerrards twain.
LV Ubaldo then, and puissant Rosimond, Of Lancaster the heir, in rank succeed; Let none forget Obizo of Tuscain land, Well worthy praise for many a worthy deed; Nor those three brethren, Lombards fierce and yond, Achilles, Sforza, and stern Palamede; Nor Otton's shield he conquered in those stowres, In which a snake a naked child devours.
LVI Guascher and Raiphe in valor like there was. The one and other Guido, famous both, Germer and Eberard to overpass, In foul oblivion would my Muse be loth, With his Gildippes dear, Edward alas, A loving pair, to war among them go'th In bond of virtuous love together tied, Together served they, and together died.
LVII In school of love are all things taught we see, There learned this maid of arms the ireful guise, Still by his side a faithful guard went she, One true-love knot their lives together ties, No would to one alone could dangerous be, But each the smart of other's anguish tries, If one were hurt, the other felt the sore, She lost her blood, he spent his life therefore.
LVIII But these and all, Rinaldo far exceeds, Star of his sphere, the diamond of this ring, The nest where courage with sweet mercy breeds: A comet worthy each eye's wondering, His years are fewer than his noble deeds, His fruit is ripe soon as his blossoms spring, Armed, a Mars, might coyest Venus move, And if disarmed, then God himself of Love.
LIX Sophia by Adige's flowery bank him bore, Sophia the fair, spouse to Bertoldo great, Fit mother for that pearl, and before The tender imp was weaned from the teat, The Princess Maud him took, in Virtue's lore She brought him up fit for each worthy feat, Till of these wares the golden trump he hears, That soundeth glory, fame, praise in his ears.
LX And then, though scantly three times five years old, He fled alone, by many an unknown coast, O'er Aegean Seas by many a Greekish hold, Till he arrived at the Christian host; A noble flight, adventurous, brave, and bold, Whereon a valiant prince might justly boast, Three years he served in field, when scant begin Few golden hairs to deck his ivory chin.
LXI The horsemen past, their void-left stations fill The bands on foot, and Reymond them beforn, Of Tholouse lord, from lands near Piraene Hill By Garound streams and salt sea billows worn, Four thousand foot he brought, well armed, and skill Had they all pains and travels to have borne, Stout men of arms and with their guide of power Like Troy's old town defenced with Ilion's tower.
LXII Next Stephen of Amboise did five thousand lead, The men he prest from Tours and Blois but late, To hard assays unfit, unsure at need, Yet armed to point in well-attempted plate, The land did like itself the people breed, The soil is gentle, smooth, soft, delicate; Boldly they charge, but soon retire for doubt, Like fire of straw, soon kindled, soon burnt out.
LXIII The third Alcasto marched, and with him The boaster brought six thousand Switzers bold, Audacious were their looks, their faces grim, Strong castles on the Alpine clifts they hold, Their shares and coulters broke, to armors trim They change that metal, cast in warlike mould, And with this band late herds and flocks that guide, Now kings and realms he threatened and defied.
LXIV The glorious standard last to Heaven they sprad, With Peter's keys[5] ennobled and his crown, With it seven thousand stout Camillo had, Embattailed in walls of iron brown: In this adventure and occasion, glad So to revive the Romans' old renown, Or prove at least to all of wiser thought, Their hearts were fertile land although unwrought.
LXV But now was passed every regiment, Each band, each troop, each person worth regard When Godfrey with his lords to counsel went, And thus the Duke his princely will declared: "I will when day next clears the firmament, Our ready host in haste be all prepared, Closely to march to Sion's noble wall, Unseen, unheard, or undescried at all.
LXVI "Prepare you then for travel strong and light, Fierce to the combat, glad to victory." And with that word and warning soon was dight, Each soldier, longing for near coming glory, Impatient be they of the morning bright, Of honor so them pricked the memory: But yet their chieftain had conceived a fear Within his heart, but kept it secret there.
LXVII For he by faithful spial was assured, That Egypt's King was forward on his way, And to arrive at Gaza old procured, A fort that on the Syrian frontiers lay, Nor thinks he that a man to wars inured Will aught forslow, or in his journey stay, For well he knew him for a dangerous foe: An herald called he then, and spake him so:
LXVIII "A pinnace take thee swift as shaft from bow, And speed thee, Henry, to the Greekish main, There should arrive, as I by letters know From one that never aught reports in vain, A valiant youth in whom all virtues flow, To help us this great conquest to obtain, The Prince of Danes he is, and brings to war A troop with him from under the Arctic star.
LXIX "And for I doubt the Greekish monarch sly Will use with him some of his wonted craft, To stay his passage, or divert awry Elsewhere his forces, his first journey laft, My herald good and messenger well try, See that these succors be not us beraft, But send him thence with such convenient speed As with his honor stands and with our need.
LXX "Return not thou, but Legier stay behind, And move the Greekish Prince to send us aid, Tell him his kingly promise doth him bind To give us succors, by his covenant made." This said, and thus instruct, his letters signed The trusty herald took, nor longer stayed, But sped him thence to done his Lord's behest, And thus the Duke reduced his thoughts to rest.
LXXI Aurora bright her crystal gates unbarred, And bridegroom-like forth stept the glorious sun, When trumpets loud and clarions shrill were heard, And every one to rouse him fierce begun, Sweet music to each heart for war prepared, The soldiers glad by heaps to harness run; So if with drought endangered be their grain, Poor ploughmen joy when thunders promise rain.
LXXII Some shirts of mail, some coats of plate put on, Some donned a cuirass, some a corslet bright, And halbert some, and some a habergeon, So every one in arms was quickly dight, His wonted guide each soldier tends upon, Loose in the wind waved their banners light, Their standard royal toward Heaven they spread, The cross triumphant on the Pagans dead.
LXXIII Meanwhile the car that bears the lightning brand Upon the eastern hill was mounted high, And smote the glistering armies as they stand, With quivering beams which dazed the wondering eye, That Phaeton-like it fired sea and land, The sparkles seemed up to the skies to fly, The horses' neigh and clattering armors' sound Pursue the echo over dale and down.
LXXIV Their general did with due care provide To save his men from ambush and from train, Some troops of horse that lightly armed ride He sent to scour the woods and forests main, His pioneers their busy work applied To even the paths and make the highways plain, They filled the pits, and smoothed the rougher ground, And opened every strait they closed found.
LXXV They meet no forces gathered by their foe, No towers defenced with rampire, moat, or wall, No stream, no wood, no mountain could forslow Their hasty pace, or stop their march at all; So when his banks the prince of rivers, Po, Doth overswell, he breaks with hideous fall The mossy rocks and trees o'ergrown with age, Nor aught withstands his fury and his rage.
LXXVI The King of Tripoli in every hold Shut up his men, munition and his treasure, The straggling troops sometimes assail he would, Save that he durst not move them to displeasure; He stayed their rage with presents, gifts and gold, And led them through his land at ease and leisure, To keep his realm in peace and rest he chose, With what conditions Godfrey list impose.
LXXVII Those of Mount Seir, that neighboreth by east The Holy City, faithful folk each one, Down from the hill descended most and least, And to the Christian Duke by heaps they gone, And welcome him and his with joy and feast; On him they smile, on him they gaze alone, And were his guides, as faithful from that day As Hesperus, that leads the sun his way.
LXXVIII Along the sands his armies safe they guide By ways secure, to them well known before, Upon the tumbling billows fraughted ride The armed ships, coasting along the shore, Which for the camp might every day provide To bring munition good and victuals store: The isles of Greece sent in provision meet, And store of wine from Scios came and Crete.
LXXIX Great Neptune grieved underneath the load Of ships, hulks, galleys, barks and brigantines, In all the mid-earth seas was left no road Wherein the Pagan his bold sails untwines, Spread was the huge Armado, wide and broad, From Venice, Genes, and towns which them confines, From Holland, England, France and Sicil sent, And all for Juda ready bound and bent.
LXXX All these together were combined, and knit With surest bonds of love and friendship strong, Together sailed they fraught with all things fit To service done by land that might belong, And when occasion served disbarked it, Then sailed the Asian coasts and isles along; Thither with speed their hasty course they plied, Where Christ the Lord for our offences died.
LXXXI The brazen trump of iron-winged fame, That mingleth faithful troth with forged lies, Foretold the heathen how the Christians came, How thitherward the conquering army hies, Of every knight it sounds the worth and name, Each troop, each band, each squadron it descries, And threat'neth death to those, fire, sword and slaughter, Who held captived Israel's fairest daughter.
LXXXII The fear of ill exceeds the evil we fear, For so our present harms still most annoy us, Each mind is prest and open every ear To hear new tidings though they no way joy us, This secret rumor whispered everywhere About the town, these Christians will destroy us, The aged king his coming evil that knew, Did cursed thoughts in his false heart renew.
LXXXIII This aged prince ycleped Aladine, Ruled in care, new sovereign of this state, A tyrant erst, but now his fell engine His graver are did somewhat mitigate, He heard the western lords would undermine His city's wall, and lay his towers prostrate, To former fear he adds a new-come doubt, Treason he fears within, and force without.
LXXXIV For nations twain inhabit there and dwell Of sundry faith together in that town, The lesser part on Christ believed well, On Termagent the more and on Mahown[4], But when this king had made this conquest fell, And brought that region subject to his crown, Of burdens all he set the Paynims large, And on poor Christians laid the double charge.
LXXXV His native wrath revived with this new thought, With age and years that weakened was of yore, Such madness in his cruel bosom wrought, That now than ever blood he thirsteth more? So stings a snake that to the fire is brought, Which harmless lay benumbed with cold before, A lion so his rage renewed hath, Though fame before, if he be moved to wrath.
LXXXVI "I see," quoth he, "some expectation vain, In these false Christians, and some new content, Our common loss they trust will be their gain, They laugh, we weep; they joy while we lament; And more, perchance, by treason or by train, To murder us they secretly consent, Or otherwise to work us harm and woe, To ope the gates, and so let in our foe.
LXXXVII "But lest they should effect their cursed will, Let us destroy this serpent on his nest; Both young and old, let us this people kill, The tender infants at their mothers' breast, Their houses burn, their holy temples fill With bodies slain of those that loved them best, And on that tomb they hold so much in price, Let's offer up their priests in sacrifice."
LXXXVIII Thus thought the tyrant in his traitorous mind, But durst not follow what he had decreed, Yet if the innocents some mercy find, From cowardice, not truth, did that proceed, His noble foes durst not his craven kind Exasperate by such a bloody deed. For if he need, what grace could then be got, If thus of peace he broke or loosed the knot?
LXXXIX His villain heart his cursed rage restrained, To other thoughts he bent his fierce desire, The suburbs first flat with the earth he plained, And burnt their buildings with devouring fire, Loth was the wretch the Frenchman should have gained Or help or ease, by finding aught entire, Cedron, Bethsaida, and each watering else Empoisoned he, both fountains, springs, and wells.
XC So wary wise this child of darkness was; The city's self he strongly fortifies, Three sides by site it well defenced has, That's only weak that to the northward lies; With mighty bars of long enduring brass, The steel-bound doors and iron gates he ties, And, lastly, legions armed well provides Of subjects born, and hired aid besides.
SECOND BOOK
THE ARGUMENT. Ismeno conjures, but his charms are vain; Aladine will kill the Christians in his ire: Sophronia and Olindo would be slain To save the rest, the King grants their desire; Clorinda hears their fact and fortunes plain, Their pardon gets and keeps them from the fire: Argantes, when Aletes' speeches are Despised, defies the Duke to mortal war.
I While thus the tyrant bends his thoughts to arms, Ismeno gan tofore his sight appear, Ismen dead bones laid in cold graves that warms And makes them speak, smell, taste, touch, see, and hear; Ismen with terror of his mighty charms, That makes great Dis in deepest Hell to fear, That binds and looses souls condemned to woe, And sends the devils on errands to and fro.
II A Christian once, Macon he now adores, Nor could he quite his wonted faith forsake, But in his wicked arts both oft implores Help from the Lord, and aid from Pluto black; He, from deep caves by Acheron's dark shores, Where circles vain and spells he used to make, To advise his king in these extremes is come, Achitophel so counselled Absalom.
III "My liege," he says, "the camp fast hither moves, The axe is laid unto this cedar's root, But let us work as valiant men behoves, For boldest hearts good fortune helpeth out; Your princely care your kingly wisdom proves, Well have you labored, well foreseen about; If each perform his charge and duty so, Nought but his grave here conquer shall your foe.
IV "From surest castle of my secret cell I come, partaker of your good and ill, What counsel sage, or magic's sacred spell May profit us, all that perform I will: The sprites impure from bliss that whilom fell Shall to your service bow, constrained by skill; But how we must begin this enterprise, I will your Highness thus in brief advise.
V "Within the Christian's church from light of skies, An hidden alter stands, far out of sight, On which the image consecrated lies Of Christ's dear mother, called a virgin bright, An hundred lamps aye burn before her eyes, She in a slender veil of tinsel dight, On every side great plenty doth behold Of offerings brought, myrrh, frankincense and gold.
VI "This idol would I have removed away From thence, and by your princely hand transport, In Macon's sacred temple safe it lay, Which then I will enchant in wondrous sort, That while the image in that church doth stay, No strength of arms shall win this noble fort, Of shake this puissant wall, such passing might Have spells and charms, if they be said aright."
VII Advised thus, the king impatient Flew in his fury to the house of God, The image took, with words unreverent Abused the prelates, who that deed forbode, Swift with his prey, away the tyrant went, Of God's sharp justice naught he feared the rod, But in his chapel vile the image laid, On which the enchanter charms and witchcraft said.
VIII When Phoebus next unclosed his wakeful eye, Up rose the sexton of that place profane, And missed the image, where it used to lie, Each where he sough in grief, in fear, in vain; Then to the king his loss he gan descry, Who sore enraged killed him for his pain; And straight conceived in his malicious wit, Some Christian bade this great offence commit.
IX But whether this were act of mortal hand, Or else the Prince of Heaven's eternal pleasure, That of his mercy would this wretch withstand, Nor let so vile a chest hold such a treasure, As yet conjecture hath not fully scanned; By godliness let us this action measure, And truth of purest faith will fitly prove That this rare grace came down from Heaven above.
X With busy search the tyrant gan to invade Each house, each hold, each temple and each tent To them the fault or faulty one bewrayed Or hid, he promised gifts or punishment, His idle charms the false enchanter said, But in this maze still wandered and miswent, For Heaven decreed to conceal the same, To make the miscreant more to feel his shame.
XI But when the angry king discovered not What guilty hand this sacrilege had wrought, His ireful courage boiled in vengeance hot Against the Christians, whom he faulters thought; All ruth, compassion, mercy he forgot, A staff to beat that dog he long had sought, "Let them all die," quoth he, "kill great and small, So shall the offender perish sure withal.
XII "To spill the wine with poison mixed with spares? Slay then the righteous with the faulty one, Destroy this field that yieldeth naught but tares, With thorns this vineyard all is over-gone, Among these wretches is not one, that cares For us, our laws, or our religion; Up, up, dear subjects, fire and weapon take, Burn, murder, kill these traitors for my sake."
XIII This Herod thus would Bethlem's infants kill, The Christians soon this direful news receave, The trump of death sounds in their hearing shrill, Their weapon, faith; their fortress, was the grave; They had no courage, time, device, or will, To fight, to fly, excuse, or pardon crave, But stood prepared to die, yet help they find, Whence least they hope, such knots can Heaven unbind.
XIV Among them dwelt, her parents' joy and pleasure, A maid, whose fruit was ripe, not over-yeared, Her beauty was her not esteemed treasure; The field of love with plough of virtue eared, Her labor goodness; godliness her leisure; Her house the heaven by this full moon aye cleared, For there, from lovers' eyes withdrawn, alone With virgin beams this spotless Cynthia shone.
XV But what availed her resolution chaste, Whose soberest looks were whetstones to desire? Nor love consents that beauty's field lie waste, Her visage set Olindo's heart on fire, O subtle love, a thousand wiles thou hast, By humble suit, by service, or by hire, To win a maiden's hold, a thing soon done, For nature framed all women to be won.
XVI Sophronia she, Olindo hight the youth, Both or one town, both in one faith were taught,
