Canto XLIII

The funeral of Brandimarte. His lover, Fiordiligi, entombs herself with him.

               165
Roland with Olivier, who much requires
Such leech's care, his anguish to allay;
And who, himself, some worthy place desires
As much, wherein Sir Brandimart to lay,
Steers for the lofty mountain, that with fires
Brightens the night, with smoke obscures the day.
The wind blows fair, and on the starboard hand,
Not widely distant from them, lies that land.

               166
With a fresh wind, that in their favour blows,
They loose their hawser at the close of day:
In heaven above the silent goddess shows
Her shining horn, to guide them on their way;
And on the following morn before them rose
The pleasant shores that round Girgenti lay.
Here Roland orders for the ensuing night
All that is needful for the funeral rite.

               167
He, when he saw his order duly done,
And now the westering sun's fair light was spent.
With many nobles, who from neighbouring town,
At his invital, to Girgenti went,
-- The shore with torches blazing up and down,
And sounding wide with cries and loud lament, --
Thither returned where late, of life bereft,
His friends, beloved in life and death, was left.

               168
There stands Bardino, weeping o'er the bier,
Who under Age's heavy burden bows;
Who, in the tears on shipboard shed whilere.
Might well have wept away his eyes and brows:
Upbraiding skies and stars, the cavalier,
Like lion, in whose veins a fever glows,
Roars as he wreathes his wayward hands within
His hoary hair, and rends his wrinkled skin.

               169
Upon the paladin's return the cry
Redoubled, and the mourning louder grew
Orlando to the corse approached more nigh,
And speechless stood awhile, his friends to view,
Pale, as at eve is the acanthus' dye
Or lily's, which were plucked at morn: he drew
A heavy sigh, and on the warrior dead
Fixing his stedfast eyes, the County said:

               170
"O comrade bold and true, there here liest slain,
And who dost live in heaven above, I know,
Rewarded with a life, thy glorious gain,
Which neither heat nor cold can take, my woe
Forgive, if thou beholdest me complain:
Because I sorrow to remain below,
And not to share in such delights with thee;
Not that thou art not left behind with me.

               171
"Alone, without thee, there is nought I may
Ever possess, without thee, that can please.
If still with thee in tempest and affray,
Ah wherefore not with thee in calm and ease?
Right sore must be my trespass, since this clay
Will not to follow thee my soul release.
If in thy troubles still I bore a burden,
Why am I not a partner of thy guerdon?

               172
"Thine is the guerdon; mine the loss; thy gain
Is single; but not single is my woe:
Partners with me in sorrow are Almayne,
And grieving France and Italy; and oh!
How will my lord and uncle, Charlemagne,
How will his paladins lament the blow!
How will the Christian church and empire moan,
Whose best defence in thee is overthrown!

               173
"Oh!  how thy foes will by the death of thee
Be freed henceforward from alarm and fear!
Alas!  how strengthened paynimry will be!
What hardiment will now be theirs!  what cheer!
What of thy consort will become?  I see
Even here her mourning, and her outcries hear.
Me she accuses, haply hates, I know;
In that, through me, her every hope lies low.

               174
"Yet by one comfort, Flordelice, is followed
His loss, for us that reft of him remain:
His death, with such surpassing glory hallowed,
To die all living warriors should be fain.
Those Decii; Curtius, in Rome's forum swallowed;
Cordus, so vaunted by the Grecian train;
Not with more honour to themselves, with more
Profit to others, went to death of yore."

               175
These sad laments and more Orlando made;
And all this while white friars, and black, and gray,
With other clerks, by two and two arrayed,
Behind in long procession took their way;
And they to God for the departed prayed,
That he would to his rest his soul convey.
Before and all about were torches reared,
And changed to day the sable night appeared.

               176
They raise the warrior's bier, and ranged to bear
By turns that honoured weight were earl and knight.
The pall was purple silk, with broidery rare
Of gold, and pearls in costly circles dight.
Thereon, of lordly work and no less fair,
Cushions were laid, with jewels shining bright.
On which was stretched the lifeless knight in view,
Arrayed in vest of like device and hue.

               177
A hundred men had past before the rest,
All taken from the poorest of the town;
And in one fashion equally were drest
Those beadsmen all, in black and trailing gown.
A hundred pages followed them, who prest
A hundred puissant steeds, for warfare bown;
And by those pages backed, the portly steeds
Went, sweeping wide the ground with sable weeds.

               178
Banners in front and banners borne in rear,
Whose fields with diverse ensignry is stained,
Unfurled accompany the funeral bier;
Which from a thousand vanquished bands were gained,
For Caesar and for Peter's church whilere,
By that rare force, which now extinct remained.
Bucklers by other followers carried are,
Won from good warriors, whose device they bear.

               179
By hundreds and by hundreds followed more,
Ordained for different tasks, the steps of those;
Who burning torches like those others bore.
Mantled, say rather closely muffled, goes
Roland in sables next, and evermore
His eyes suffused and red with weeping shows.
Nor wears a gladder face Montalban's peer.
At home his wound detains Sir Olivier.

               180
The ceremonies would be long to say
In verse, wherewith Sir Brandimart was mourned;
The mantles, black or purple, given away;
The many torches which that eve were burned.
Wending to the cathedral, where the array
Past on its road, were no dry eyes discerned:
All sexes, ages, ranks, in pitying mood
Gazed upon him so youthful, fair, and good.

               181
He in the church was placed; and, when with vain
Lament the women had bemoaned the dead,
And Kyrie Eleison, by the priestly train,
And other holy orisons were said,
In a fair ark, upraised on columns twain,
Was reared, with sumptuous cloth of gold o'erspread.
So willed Orlando; till he could be laid
In sepulchre of costlier matter made:

               182
Nor out of Sicily the Count departs,
Till porphyries he procures and alabasters,
And fair designs; and in their several arts
Has with large hire engaged the primest masters.
Next Flordelice, arriving in those parts,
Raises the quarried slabs and rich pilasters;
Who, good Orlando being gone before,
Is hither wafted from the Africk shore.

               183
She, seeing that her tears unceasing flow,
And that of long lament she never tires;
Nor she, for mass or service said, her woe
Can ease, or satisfy her sad desires,
Vows in her heart she thence will never go
Till from the wearied corse her soul expires;
And builds in that fair sepulchre a cell;
There shuts herself; therein for life will dwell.

               184
Thither in person, having courier sent
And letter, Roland goes, her thence to take;
Her, would she wend to France, with goodly rent
Would gift, and Galerana's inmate make;
As far as Lizza convoy her, if bent
On journeying to her father; for her sake
If wholly she to serve her God was willed,
A monastery would the warrior build.

               185
Still in that sepulchre she dwelt, and worn
By weary penance, praying night and day,
It was not long, ere by the Parcae shorn
Was her life's thread: already on their way
Were the three Christian warriors, homeward borne,
Sorrowing and afflicted sore in mind
For their fourth comrade who remained behind.

The knights go in search of a hermit, who heals Oliver's wounds. Sobrino is so amazed at the holy man's skill in healing that he converts to Christianity. Orlando meets Ruggiero, who swam ashore on the hermit's isle after his ship was wrecked at sea.

               186
They would not go without a leech, whose skill
Might ease the wound of warlike Olivier;
Which, as in the beginning it could ill
Be salved, is hard to heal.  Meanwhile they hear
The champion so complain, his outcries fill
Orlando and all that company with fear.
While they discoursed thereon, the skipper, moved
By a new notion, said what all approved.

               187
A hermit not far distance hence, he said
A lonely rock inhabits in this sea;
Whose isle none, seeking succour, vainly tread,
Whether for counsel or for aid it be:
Who hath done superhuman deeds; the dead
Restores to life; and makes the blind to see;
Hushes the winds; and with a sign o' the cross
Lulls the loud billows when they highest toss;

               188
And adds they need not doubt, if they will go
To seek that holy man to God so dear,
But he on Olivier will health bestow;
Having his virtue proved by signs more clear.
This counsel pleases good Orlando so,
That for the holy place he bids him steer;
Who never swerving from his course, espies
The lonely rock, upon Aurora's rise.

               189
Worked by good mariners, the bark was laid
Safely beside the rugged rock and fell:
The marquis there, with crew and servants' aid,
They lowered into their boat; and through the swell
And foaming waters in that shallop made
For the rude isle; thence sought the holy cell;
The holy cell of that same hermit hoar,
By whom Rogero was baptized before.



               190
The servant of the Lord of Paradise
Receives Orlando and the rest on land;
Blesses the company in cheerful wise;
And after of their errand makes demand;
Though he already had received advice
From angels of the coming of that band.
That they were thither bound in search of aid
For Oliviero's hurt, Orlando said;

               191
Who, warring for the Christian faith, in fight
To perilous pass was brought by evil wound.
All dismal fear relieved that eremite,
And promised he would make him wholly sound.
In that no unguents hath the holy wight,
Nor is in other human medicine found,
His church he seeks, his knee to Jesus bows,
And issues from the fane with cheerful brows;

               192
And in the name of those eternal Three,
The Father, and the Son, and Holy Ghost,
On Oliviero bade his blessing be.
Oh!  grace vouchsafed to faith!  his sainted host
From every pain the paladin did free;
And to his foot restored its vigour lost.
He moved more nimble than before, and sure;
And present was Sobrino at the cure.

               193
Sobrino, so diseased that he described
How worse with each succeeding day he grew,
As soon as he that holy monk espied
The manifest and mighty marvel do,
Disposed himself to cast Mahound aside,
And own in Christ a living God and true.
He, full of faith, with contrite heart demands
Our holy rite of baptism at his hands.

               194
So him baptized the hermit; and as well
That monarch made as vigorous as whilere.
At this conversion no less gladness fell
On Roland and each Christian cavalier,
Than when, restored from deadly wound, and well
The friendly troop beheld Sir Olivier.
Rogero more rejoiced than all that crew;
And still in faith and grace the warrior grew.

               195
Rogero from the day he swam ashore
Upon that islet, there had ever been.
That band is counselled by the hermit hoar,
Who stands, benign, those warlike knights between,
Eschewing in their passage mire and moor,
To wade withal through that dead water, clean,
Which men call life; wherein so fools delight;
And evermore on heaven to fix their sight.

               196
Roland on shipboard sends one from his throng,
Who fetches hence good wine, hams, cheese, and bread;
And makes the sage, who had forgotten long
All taste of partridge since on fruits he fed,
Even do for love, what others did, among
Those social guests for whom the board was spread.
They, when their strength by food was reinforced,
Of many things amid themselves discoursed;

               197
And as in talk it often doth befall
That one thing from another takes its rise,
Roland and Olivier Rogero call
To mind for that Rogero, in such wise
Renowned in arms; whose valour is of all
Lauded and echoed with accordant cries.
Not even had Rinaldo known the knight
For him whose prowess he had proved in fight.

               198
Him well Sobrino recognized whilere,
As soon as with that aged man espied;
But he at first kept silence; for in fear
Of some mistake the monarch's tongue was tied.
But when those others knew the cavalier
For that Rogero, famous far and wide,
Whose courtesy, whose might and daring through
The universal world loud Rumor blew,

               199
All, for they know he is a Christian, stand
About him with serene and joyful face:
All press upon the knight; one grasps his hand;
Another locks him fast in his embrace:
Yet more than all the others of that band
Him would Montalban's lord caress and grace:
Why more than all the others will appear
In other strain, if you that strain will hear.