No love which to the paladin she bears, But that it costly is and wrought with care, This to Angelica so much endears, That never more esteemed was matter rare; This she was suffered, in the isle of tears, I know not by what privilege, to wear, When, naked, to the whale exposed for food By that inhospitable race and rude. She, not possessing wherewithal to pay The kindly couple's hospitality,-- Served by them in their cabin, from the day She there was lodged, with such fidelity,-- Unfastened from her arm the bracelet gay, And bade them keep it for her memory. Departing hence, the lovers climb the side Of hills, which fertile France from Spain divide. THE MADNESS OF ORLANDO From 'Orlando Furioso,' Canto 23 The course in pathless woods, which without rein The Tartar's charger had pursued astray, Made Roland for two days, with fruitless pain, Follow him, without tidings of his way. Orlando reached a rill of crystal vein, On either bank of which a meadow lay; Which, stained with native hues and rich, he sees, And dotted o'er with fair and many trees. The mid-day fervor made the shelter sweet To hardy herd as well as naked swain: So that Orlando well beneath the heat Some deal might wince, opprest with plate and chain. He entered for repose the cool retreat, And found it the abode of grief and pain; And place of sojourn more accursed and fell On that unhappy day, than tongue can tell. Turning him round, he there on many a tree Beheld engraved, upon the woody shore, What as the writing of his deity He knew, as soon as he had marked the lore. This was a place of those described by me, Whither oft-times, attended by Medore, From the near shepherd's cot had wont to stray The beauteous lady, sovereign of Catay. In a hundred knots, amid these green abodes, In a hundred parts, their ciphered names are dight; Whose many letters are so many goads, Which Love has in his bleeding heart-core pight. He would discredit in a thousand modes, That which he credits in his own despite; And would perforce persuade himself, _that_ rind Other Angelica than his had signed. "And yet I know these characters," he cried, "Of which I have so many read and seen; By her may this Medoro be belied, And me, she, figured in the name, may mean." Feeding on such like phantasies, beside The real truth, did sad Orlando lean Upon the empty hope, though ill contented, Which he by self-illusions had fomented.