Chivalry -- Fiction; Knights and knighthood -- Fiction; Romances, Spanish -- Translations into English
The noise of this lamentation was so great that it reached the ship
wherein was Oriana; but so soon as Queen Sardamira heard that it was
for Salustanquidio's death, forgetting all her former grief, she wrung
her hands and threw herself upon the ground, and began to exclaim, O
generous prince and of high lineage, the light and the mirror of the
whole Roman Empire, what a grief and a calamity will it be to all
who love thee when they shall hear the tidings of thy unhappy and
disastrous end, and what grief wilt thou feel O Emperor when thou shalt
learn the death of this thy cousin, who was the strong shield of thine
empire, and the destruction of thy fleet, and the disgraceful loss of
thy Knights. Either thou must tamely submit to this loss and remain the
most dishonoured Prince in the world, or else prepare to avenge it,
putting thy state and person to great peril and doubtful issue, for
by all that I have seen since my entering Great Britain in an unhappy
hour, sure am I that there is no Prince or Power however great against
whom these Knights would fear to wage war. Alas, my afflicted heart
grieveth more for the living who will suffer in this quarrel, than for
these dead whose share of the evil is past! But then Oriana and Mabilia
raised her up and comforted her the best they could.
_CHAPTER 2._
Amadis and his Knights now assembled on board Florestan's vessel,
and there resolved that they should forthwith make sail for the Firm
Island, according to their own opinion and the pleasure of Oriana;
they then placed all the prisoners in one ship and appointed Gavarte
of the Perilous Valley, and Landin the Nephew of Don Quadragante with
a body of Knights to guard them: and the spoils they placed in another
ship under the care of Don Gandales the foster-father of Amadis, and
Sadamon, who were two prudent and trusty Knights; their own force they
divided among the other vessels in the manner that they had first
embarked, and then they deputed Don Bruneo of Bonamar and Angriote of
Estravaus to inform Oriana that they were ready to obey her and to
request her commands. These two Knights went on board her ship and
kneeling before her said, good Lady all these Knights who are here
assembled at your rescue, inform you that the fleet is now ready for
your service, and desire to know your will that they may fulfill it. My
true friends, replied Oriana, I should not desire to live if I thought
that it would never be in my power to requite the love ye have all
shown me, but I trust in God that as I have the will, so will he one
day give me the power to show my gratefulness. Say to the Knights that
what has been before determined should now be put in practice, that is,
to go to the Firm Island, there we can take farther counsel, and there
I hope that these difficult and painful beginnings will come to a good
end.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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