Canto XXX

Orlando continues to plunder, sack, ravage, and burn every town he comes across. On the coast of Spain, at Malaga, he sacks one third of the port city. His destruction is so severe that it takes the city a full year to repair the damage. He swims across the Strait of Gibraltar to the African coast. The narrator informs us that Angelica has left Europe and returned to Cathay, where she will be Queen with Medoro as her King.

               1
When Reason, giving way to heat of blood,
Herself from hasty choler ill defends,
And, hurried on by blind and furious mood,
We with the tongue or hand molest our friends,
Though the offence is, after, wept and rued,
The penance which we pay is poor amends.
Alas!  I sorrow and lament in vain
For what I said in other angry strain.

               2
But like sick man am I, who, sore bested,
Suffering with patience many and many a day,
When against pain he can no more make head,
Yields to his rage, and curses; pain give way,
And with it the impetuous wrath is fled,
Which moved his ready tongue such ill to say;
And he is left his willful rage to rue,
But cannot that which he has done undo.

               3
Well hope I, from your sovereign courtesy,
Your pardon, since I crave it, ladies bright;
You will excuse, if moved by madness, I
Rave in my passion; let your censure light
On foe, who treats me so despiteously,
I could not be reduced to worser plight;
Who prompts what sore repents me: Heaven above
Knows how she wrongs me, knows how well I love.

               4
No less beside myself than Brava's peer
And I, nor less my pardon should obtain;
He, who by mead or mountain, far or near,
Had scowered large portion of the land of Spain,
Dragging that jennet in his wild career,
Dead as she was, behind him by the rein;
But, where a river joined the sea, parforce
Abandoned on the bank her mangled corse.

               5
And he, who could like any otter swim,
Leapt in and rose upon the further side.
Behold!  a mounted shepherd at the brim
Arrived, his horse to water in the tide;
Nor when he saw Orlando coming, him
Eschewed, whom naked and alone he spied.
-- "My jennet for thy hackney were I fain
To barter," cried the madman to the swain:

               6
"Her will I show thee, if thou wilt; who dead
Upon the river's other margin fell;
At leisure may'st thou have her cured," (he said)
"And of no other fault have I to tell.
Give me thy hackney, with some boot instead:
Prythee, dismount thee, for he likes me well."
The peasant, laughing, answered not a word,
But left the fool and pricked towards the ford.

               7
"Hearest thou not?  hola!  I want thy steed,"
(Cried Roland) and advanced with wrathful cheer.
A solid staff and knotted, for his need,
That shepherd had, wherewith he smote the peer;
Whose violence and ire all bounds exceed,
Who seems withal to wax more fierce than e'er:
A cuff he levels at that rustic's head,
And splits the solid bone, and lays him dead.

               8
Then leaping on his horse, by different way
The country scowers, to make more spoil and wrack:
That palfrey never more tastes corn or hay;
So that few days exhaust the famished hack.
But not afoot does fierce Orlando stray,
Who will not, while he lives, conveyance lack.
As many as he finds, so many steeds
-- Their masters slain -- he presses for his needs.

               9
He came at last to Malaga, and here
Did mightier scathe than he had done elsewhere;
For now -- besides that the infuriate peer
Of all its people left the country bare,
Nor (such the ravage) could another year
The desperate havoc of the fool repair --
So many houses burnt he, or cast down,
Sacked was a third of that unhappy town.

               10
Departing thence, insane Orlando flees
To Zizera, a seaward town, whose site
Is in Gibraltar's bay, or (if you please)
Say Gibletar's; for either way 'tis hight;
Here, loosening from the land, a boat he sees
Filled with a party, and for pleasure dight:
Which, for their solace, to the morning gale,
Upon that summer sea, had spread their sail.

               11
"Hoah!  the boat!  put back!" the count 'gan cry,
Who was in mind to go aboard their barge:
But vainly on their ears his clamours die:
For of such freight none willingly take charge.
As swiftly as a swallow cleaves the sky,
Furrowing the foamy wave the boat goes large.
Orlando urges on, with straightening knee,
And whip and spur, his horse towards the sea.

               12
He plunged into the waves, at last, parforce;
For vainly would he shun the waters green.
Bathed are knees, paunch, and croup, till of that horse
Scarcely the head above the wave is seen:
Let him not hope to measure back his course,
While smitten with the whip his ears between.
Woe worth him!  he must founder by the way,
Or into Africa his load convey.

               13
Nor poops nor prows does Roland more descry,
For all have launched their shallops, which are wide
Of that dry shore; while from his level eye
Their hulls the tall and shifting surges hide.
He spurs his horse amid the billows high,
Wholly resolved to reach the farther side.
The courser ends his swim and life in fine,
Drained of his strength, and drenched brimfull of brine.

               14
He sinks, and would with him draw down his load;
But that himself the madman's arms upbear:
With sinewy arms and either palm he rowed,
And puffed and blew the brine before; the air
Breathed softly, and the water gently flowed;
And well was needed weather more than fair:
For if the waters yet a little rise,
Whelmed by the waxing tide Orlando dies.

               15
But Fortune, that of madmen is the guide,
Him from the water drew near Ceuta's shore,
Upon that beach, and of those walls as wide
As twice an archer's hand could shoot at score.
For many days along the bank he hied,
At hazard, ever westward hurrying sore,
Until he came where on the sea-beat strand
Encamped a host of blacks, a countless band.



               16
Leave we the paladin at will to stray!
To speak of him occasion will come round.
-- Sir, what befel the lady of Catay,
Who scaped, in time, from him of wit unsound,
And afterwards, upon her homeward way,
Was with good bark and better weather bound;
And how she made Medoro, India's king;
Perchance some voice in happier verse may sing.